Can nothing just work?!

Seriously, is there some kind of cosmic law that nothing works for me?

Sorry, this is going to be another rant. And I know, none of these
things that go wrong are really important - everyone I care about is
safe and healthy, and that's what really counts.

But come on! Today I come home planning to do some stuff on the net
that i've been meaning to get done for ages, and my router goes
haywire! So i've spent the whole evening trying to fix it, because I
can't just ignore the fact that I have no internet connection and do
something else instead.

It started that I could use http, but nothing else. Then I couldn't
connect at all. At various points throughout the evening i've not
been able to see my wireless network; been able to see, but not
connect to it; connect to it, but not be able to see the internet at
all; been able to do everything, as long as i'm plugged into the
router via an ethernet cable; pretty much every issue that could come
up has. Randomly. Without any apparent cause. And been replaced by
a different issue, again without any apparent cause.

And it's still not working.

Aaaaaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

I keep giving up, and then going back to it because I can't rest until
I get it working! But I have to get to sleep now. Thank goodness for
gprs, at least.

I'm hoping it'll spontaneously be right tomorrow when I get home from
work. But if anyone has any suggestions, please post a comment - i'll
be eternally grateful if anyone can help me fix this.

Update: Still not working. It's bizarre - it will connect, wirelessly, if the network cable is plugged in. Unplug the network cable, and the wireless card suddenly can't see the wireless network at all.

Then I reset the router, and it connected briefly - wirelessly, without the cable. Now it won't connect wirelessly even with the cable plugged in. The only thing I can think is that the router's wireless component is faulty - I'd expect it not to work wirelessly at all, if that was the case, but it can't be a settings issue if it does sometimes connect. I don't think it's my wireless card either, because I can see other wireless networks (although obviously I can't actually test it, since I can't connect to them). Damn, I guess a support call to Netgear is required. And it's a difficult one to look up on the net, because there isn't even a consistent set of symptoms, nevermind nice easy words to search for.

Update: Kinda working, but not quite. Damn, I hate this! I reset the router to factory defaults, set it up again, it wouldn't work, then it did work, then it didn't work - I reset all the keys, and it seemed to be working. Yay. Went downstairs, and the laptop can't see the network. Come back upstairs, it works. I hate things that work intermittently. And I struggled for months at my place with a router that just wasn't strong enough for me to get a signal in my room, which is why when I moved into this place I bought a super-duper expensive mimo router that should work through walls, floors, ceilings, etc. And it WAS working! So I don't know what's suddenly changed, or how to fix it. But I don't want to go through that again, where I can only use my laptop in one spot in the house. And it was working, so surely it should work now!

Update: Seems to be working now. I changed the channel, and it seems to be working much better now. I guess there was a new source of interference or something.