Love is a gambler's sport. In having faith in another, the reward is great happiness; but the one to whom you give your heart has the power to cause you the most pain. I have bet my heart twice now, and lost. Now I have nothing. When love has dried up, the world is reduced to shades of grey. Life is filled with pain and constant torment. The body aches with the emptiness of feeling. The mind is broken, twisted, irrational. Emotions explode within me: sorrow, anger, jealousy, frustration, bitterness, panic, hopelessness, rejection, worthlessness, self-pity and with it, self-loathing. Heartache is not a metaphor here. I feel a physical pain in my chest. When I find sleep even my dreams are dark. They reflect these negative emotions and bring with them the worst yet: fear. Yes, I am afraid. Afraid of being alone. All the anxiety, uncertainty, and fear that comes with being single comes rushing back and it is crippling. My motivation to succeed has left me. I could push forward, achieve my dreams and make a real life for myself, but my reason for doing it is gone. Who will be there with me to enjoy my success? Not she. No, she abandoned me in my time of need. She took with her my light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel. She took with her my lover and my best friend. I must now make a choice: hold on to hope and waste my life waiting for her to return to me, or let her go and lose another part of myself... what happens when I have no pieces left? What then?

This note is meant as a warning for my future self.
Before you gamble with your heart, know that much more is at stake...

router

I'm fed up with my current router (WRT54G v8). It bogs down to sub-dialup speeds with even a minor load. The interface is crap -- I can't see or edit the firewall rules directly. The logs are unhelpful. Right now I'm running a single torrent; it has 5 http trackers, and 2 udp trackers. My max connected peers per torrent is 50 with 10 upload slots. My global bandwidth is throttled to 400 kbps down and 100 kbps up. I never run more than 2 torrents at a time. These are very lightweight settings for my setup, but right now my instant messengers keep getting disconnected, and I have to refresh a timed out webpage several times before it loads. Keep in mind, this is an ethernet connection, not wireless.

^---- bandwidth with torrent running

So now I am asking the internet for advice-- what is a great router to buy?

Here's what I think I need in a router:
- Fast processor, capable of handling anything I throw at it. In particular I want stable torrent handling, no gaming lag, and I want high quality streaming video (like Skype) to work smoothly.

- Preferably something I could flash 3rd party firmware onto... but I'll settle for just a good interface out of the box. I want to see logs, tables, QoS, etc. as advanced as possible.

- Highly configurable. This is related to the previous point. I want complete control of my router's every function. No "wizards", "EZ Setup", nothing that makes all the decisions for me, especially without asking.

- Good WiFi. I've heard alot of good things about the N routers. People say they have better wall penetration, better distance, stronger signal. So I think I want an N, but I'm not against staying with G.

- External antennae. Preferably the removable kind so I can trade them out with hi-gain or even something with a longer cable for better positioning. I don't like the new trend of internal antennae on routers.

Let me also say this-- I don't want to take cost into account just yet. I will consider all routers based simply on their quality and let price be an issue later.


What say you?... and why? The why is important. I want concrete reasons.