Okay, so my cable modem was out and I was suffering withdrawals due to severe deprivation of juicy gossipy emails, blogging, or shopping for the past few days.

When I talked to this lovely Customer Service Representative, he mentioned that the likely culprit was my malfunctioning cable splitter. We tested this by attaching the cable modem to the main line, sure enough, the lights and the transmission flow was normalized.

Off I go to find a splitter. Turns out that no one in Chinatown carries it and I'm outta luck.

I reconnected the cables to the splitter and the TV immediately came on before I fastened it. Upon realizing this, I attached the television cable to the 'faulty' side and connected the crucial cable modem to the 'good' side.

Lo and behold, it worked. It's the scientist in me, analyze all corners of the situation and then call it quits.

I haven't lost my touch, yet.