i was able to fix the email access issue relatively easily, but i had better things to do tonight than troubleshoot google voice.

the last calls i was able to make successfully were the middle of last week. nothing has changed here, as far as i can remember.

well, i did get two calls out this afternoon by creating temporary profiles, so the system seems to work, but that approach isn't working any more. more strangely, i'm able to leave messages on my voice mail, so the problem seems to be data coming in.

i'll repeat: anybody on the other line could hear me, but i can't hear anything coming from the other side. all the audio on my machine seems to work, so there's something redirecting or otherwise breaking the stream.

i've tried creating new firefox profiles (which worked at first), i've tried wiping out cookies, i've tried calling from different email addresses, i've tried reinstalling sound cards and browsers and plugins and i even tried it fresh in a virtual machine - it's the same thing all around.

i'm left with one of three possibilities.

1) google is blocking me because it wants me to buy something. there's a 0% chance of that happening; if i have to, i'll download a softphone and use my did at voip.ms.
2) google updated the technology it uses to stream, and the firefox plugin no longer understands the protocol.
3) i'm getting throttled by somebody that thinks i'm trying to avoid being monitored.

listen.

do you know who i want to call, here? the police. in fact, the only people i've called in months are the police, because i have to deal with a mess created by a thug in uniform.

the reason i don't unblock the number is because i don't have one, and the reason i don't have one is that i have no reason to pay for one. i'm not evading anything, i'm just poor and cheap.

i do suspect that the technology probably switched over without warning and i'm going to have to change approaches. but, i've learned that these people are idiots that are incapable of simple reasoning; i would not put an attempt to jam me above them.

what i'm going to do is disconnect the modem for the night, shut the computer right down and try again in the morning.