Coffee heat rising

AUUUGGH!!!

It
Just
NEVER
Freakin’
STOPS!

Now Google won’t let me into my G-mail account. And NO, I didn’t change a password. NO, I didn’t do anything weird.

So presumably that account has been hacked. Ducky.

Dammit. Now, come ten o’clock this morning, I’ve got to schlep across the city to the computer store and beg them to try to get me back into my email.

Either that or…what? Create a whole new G-mail account?

Uh huh…and how do I go about informing all the people and companies that have my current G-mail address?

Well. I guess this is a whop upside the head with a bit of (OBVIOUS!) practical advice: Keep a list of every email address for folks you do business with and folks you socialize with. PRINT IT OUT. Keep burning paper and ink every three or four weeks to print out new updates.

Gaaawwwd how sick AM i of life in the glorious new 21st Century?

Holy Junkmail, Batman!

Just happened to go into the email program’s “junkmail” folder, and…forgodsake!!!! Almost 550 junkmails have poured in since the first of the month! That’s in just two weeks!

DayUM, what a nuisance.

Nuisance because I’ve got to scroll through all that crap looking for any messages that are NOT junk, and nuisance because now I’ve got to delete it all, but can’t do so without checking to be sure I’m not accidentally trashing a message from someone who matters.

Yeah. That’s 548 messages in the junkmail folder, plus a sh!tload more that managed to slither into the in-box and will also have to be deleted.

Here’s one demanding payment for iCloud space. Hm. Senile though I am, I’m pretty sure I’d remember if I were paying for iCloud. And if I were, a monthly hit like that would be set up on auto-pay.

Man! These damn scammers come at you from all directions!

I’ve heard that for phone solicitors, there are lists of phone numbers organized by the marks’ ages. They figure older people are easier targets, so knowing that you’re, say, over 55 or 60 makes it easier to focus on a passel of potential suckers. Maybe they’ve got age-based junkmail pestering lists, too?

Wow! If all this crap were coming directly into my in-box, it would render my email unusable. There’s no way I could sift through hundreds of pestering messages.

Hmmm…. Here’s something about an “iCloud Plus” service. But I don’t think that’s what I have. My system is just the standard come-with iCloud, without any + sign after it. {but…see below for an update…}

Shee-ut. Today is Thursday: M’jito will be working from dawn to dusk, so he can’t tend to this. So I guess I’ll have to schlep this thing to Best Buy, where I have a service contract, and see if I can elicit any clarity there. That entails a trip through gawdawful traffic and a nice, long stand in line. Yay! /eyeroll/

***

Yea verily! It turns out there’s an iCloud Plus scam!  Damn these bastards!

I’ll have to traipse to Best Buy anyway, just to be sure it really is a scam and I don’t find my li’l computer empire knocked off the air.

Just how I wanted to kill half a day….

Adventures in Internet Life

Monday Evening…

All the Internet connections in the neighborhood are down. Down, down, downy-down-down.

This means I can’t use any of the phones in the house, all of which are fake land-lines. Right now the only way I have to call 911 or try to reach any other kind of help is through the accursed iPhone.

Problem with that thing is…well, make that problemS

 Main one: I’ll be damned if I can figure out how to use the dratted thing. It is SO arcane and so contrary and so effin accursed that I just can NOT make it work. Even dialing 911 is highly problematic.

Fortunately, Luz – the Cleaning Lady from Heaven – happened to be here. She was able to call the accursed phone company from her cell, so we got the outage reported. And she called the WonderAccountants, who live across the street: they confirmed that yes, their phones are out, too. And we were able to call my son, who expressed his annoyance at my stupidity.

And now I have no way to call for help if I need it …well, I guess I could run outside and scream HAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLPPP!!!!! at the top of my voice. But that’s about it.

Well. I do have an iPhone, but it’s so complicated I can’t figure out how to use it.

Nor can I get online in Firefox.

Ohhhhh well… tappity tap in Word. Maybe someday the computer will connect to the Internet, get me in to WordPress, and let me post to Funny about Money.

 This is the second time we’ve had a neighborhood-wide Internet outage. The last time, actually, it was district-wide. The only way I was able to get online, finally, was to drive down to AJ’s, several miles to the south of here. Buy a cup of coffee and park at one of their tables. Connect to the Web through their system.

Not inclined to do that this evening, because I have no urgent need to access the Internet or send an outgoing message. But it’s infuriating, considering what we pay for this alleged service.

It’s also nervous-making, since I’ve never really learned how to use the iPhone and very much doubt that during an emergency I would be able to reach help on the thing.

*****

Now it will let me in to Funny about Money’s web page, but won’t let me into the dashboard. So I can’t copy this squib out of Word and paste it into WordPress. Tomorrow morning I’ll have to traipse down to the computer store and get one of their guys to persuade this thing to work again.

Well…. At least the electric is on. That’s something, I guess. The streetlights are on – dunno whether the traffic signals are working…and am not about to go driving around to find out.

*****

And…and!!! YAYYYY! Funny’s site is back up! Let’s see if we can get this scribble online…

WTF??????

An afternoon from Hell brought me home, through 40 minutes of cut-throat traffic, to a glass of wine, a wooden rolling chair in front of an uncomfortable desk, and — when I went to sign in to FaM’s dashboard — a frantic warning that Funny’s website has been phished and it was unsafe for me to proceed.

Sumbiche!

Well, here we are anyway, and honi soit qui mal y pense.

What.

A.

Day.

Started out with my son, who has arrogated communications with the Mayo Clinic unto himself, surfacing to emcee an online appointment with my doctor out there. That was actually fairly benign — much more so than I feared. So we chatted with the lovely, brilliant lady doc, mulled over how we can get some legal hoop-jumps done (a task made far more difficult by the recent demise of my beloved lawyer), and generally wasted time.

Speaking of wasting time, a few days ago I was talked into driving way to Hell-and-gone out to the Mayo’s Scottsdale clinic to join a hand-holding group of patients who are coping with the vicissitudes of senility.

Yes. I spent FORTY MINUTES on the road EACH WAY for the privilege of listening to a bunch of duffers reporting that they can’t remember things.

Right.

And yes. That is EIGHTY minutes round-trip, plus an hour of hot-air time. Jayzuz!

***

Meanwhile, my beloved laptop crashed. A service contract with Best Buy, then, landed the contraption in that fine store’s precincts.

This morning, in comes a call from Best Buy telling me the computer is fixed and ready to pick up. So…this afternoon, after some of the other dust has settled, I jump in my car and fight my way through Phoenix’s lovely surface-street traffic, over to Best Buy.

Get parked. Bound into the Store. Get in line. Stand in line stand in line stand in line stand….  Finally get up to the repair desk.

“You called to say my laptop is ready.”

Huh?

The guy denied having any clue that the computer was fixed and ready to pick up.

No…kidding.

So I was only slightly furious. Trudge back out to the car. By that point it’s after 4 p.m. Rush hour is in full, rabid swing.

And now here we are: I’m perched at (horrors!) an actual desk typing on an actual desktop computer and…and…grrrrrrrr…and I’m so tired I can hardly think. As you no doubt can guess from the quality of this copy…

Mean-meanwhile: seeking a lawyer for a lawsuit I may have to pursue. More about that later… It doesn’t look promising.

Here’s a fine drawback to gettin’ old: All the professionals and all the business people you’re used to working with have either RETIRED or DIED. Yes. All of them Sooooo… Now you have to try to find new lawyers, new doctors, new car repairmen, new computer techs, new…god help us all, dammit!

Ups and Downs…or…Downs and Ups?

April 13 (I think)

Cox is down. Therefore the fake landline is down. And therefore (I guess…) for reasons unknown my computer can’t connect to the Internet.

Actually, if my vague understanding of these techno-issues is sorta correct, the “land line” is no longer a real land line, but just another ethereal connection to the wispy Internet. Meaning, therefore, that when the Web goes down, I can’t make a call out of the house for love nor money.

911? Ay señora! Not a faawwckeeng chance!

I could in theory use the iPhone my son gave me to do that…if I could figure out how. Unfortunately, when he gave me the phone, he refused to teach me how to use it. The plague came up right at that time, and so the iPhone classes up at the local senior citizens’ center were closed. And no, they’ve never reinstated those classes.

Yes, I did try taking a class at the Apple store. They plopped a half-dozen little old ladies – myself included – in the middle of the sales floor and set some poor woman in front of us to lecture us on how to work the damn things. You couldn’t hear her talking for love nor money…and no, I do NOT have a hearing problem.

Hmmmm…. Looks like we may be up again. Let’s try copying and pasting this over to a FaM post…

Grrrrrrrrrr!

Nope. It was up for a few minutes – seconds? – and is now nonfunctional again.

Hmmmmmm…. This thing is 95% charged. Let’s try hauling it down to the AJ’s… order up an iced coffee, park in the outdoor café….and try to see if it’ll work down there.

****

Nope. Decided I didn’t wanna drive through the afternoon rush-hour traffic. Ugh!

The back porch, despite its crying need for a clean-up job, is a lot more pleasant than AJ’s front patio. By far.

Ohhhh how I miss The Little Guy. 😀 That’s what SDXB used to call the proprietor of the coffeeshop we used to habituate, across the parking lot from the Walmart up on Gangbanger’s Way.

The backyard is no longer as pleasant for just hangin’ out as it used to be.

The kids — new(ish) inhabitants of my (former) neighbor Sally’s house — either haven’t the money or haven’t the sense to fix their roof-top air conditioner NOW, before it craps out. From the racket it’s making, it sounds like that eventuality will occur sooner than later. Rattle rattle rattle groan GASP.

***

And speaking of rackets (real and metaphorical), there’s the Cop Copter, flying around in circles directly to the south of us. C’mon, guys…kindly don’t chase the boys up in our direction…

Nope: looks like they’re going away.

M’Jiito and I get into an argument every time we try to have a conversation. That’s not helping things.

***

In other sylvan realms, HOLY GOD am I glad I no longer live in Saudi Arabia!

We knew that sooner or later the hatred between the Arabs and the Jews would come to this (and worse: just you watch!). Outside of camp, on the way to Dhahran you’d pass a big billboard that read AMERICANS GO HOME! In Arabic, so much of the dependents didn’t really register it.

What a horrible place for a foreigner to reside. We should, all of us, exit stage right and let the Arabs figure out for themselves how to extract their berjillions of gallons of oil, how to build refineries and turn it into salable stuff, how to build and operate ocean-going tankers to send it off to buyers.

More to the point: We need to free ourselves of dependence on people who hate us.

Solar power, folks. That’s what’s needed.

Far, far more than the average American realizes.

Most people seem to register that a functioning solar power grid would free America from a lot of problems, present and future. What they don’t seem to recognize is how soon we need to get that functioning and how urgently we need it.

Like…right now!

Reporting from the Hubs of Hades…

6:45 p.m. and it’s 109 on the back porch. In the shade. Under a shade structure, inside the canopy of a hefty ficus plant.

****

And now, f’rhevvinsake it’s 7:54 p.m. and…and…what have I done to make an hour and 10 minutes disappear without a trace?

* Unloaded the dishwasher
* Reloaded with the current set of dirties
* Fed the dawg
* Sprayed hose water over all the backyard plants I could reach
* Intercepted a fraudulent-looking email supposedly from a church friend
* Clued church friend that her name and email are being taken in vain
* Heard back from friend: “This was not me.  I’ve even had this one sent to me in the past.  Not sure how they got my address but passwords are changed.  What a pain.”

Wondrous.

******

Fell asleep. It’s now 11:45 p.m. Awoke with a choking fit. Dayum! Thought this effing covid horror was about over! Dunno whether this episode was actually choking, or in fact another covid coughing fit.

Don’t see how that scamming attempt could indicate that the b*stards have any of my passwords. But tomorrow I suppose I should run down to the tech guys and have them help me change the Apple ID password. That really WILL be a PITA…of the first water.

And it’s unclear to me how a fake email purportedly coming from a friend indicates that anyone has any of my passwords.

On the other hand, I assumed the perp got my email from my website, since it uses my FaM address.

Ohhhh well. At midnight, I’m not up for fussing over that fragment of madness.