Coffee heat rising

Techno-skeptic

AUUUGGH!!!

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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?

Adventures in Internet Life

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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…

Ups and Downs…or…Downs and Ups?

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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!

Wednesday, October 4, 2023…Stop the fukkin world, already….

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De bonne heure  (which is a way of saying “at the crack of dawn”)…

Well, the cop cars have moved on from Tony’s Home for Juvenile Delinquents. 😀

When Ruby and I went out along about 6 or 6:30 this a.m., TWO cop cars were parked over there. Must’ve been quite the little dust-up under way. It’s quiescent now. A car is parked at the curb along my house’s east wall…presumably a vehicle belonging to one of the keepers. The policia were gone when we got back from this morning’s doggy-walk, about an hour later. With any luck, maybe they will have found something new the County can use to bop Tony about the head and shoulders.
hmmmmmm…….  Y’know….if I were a parent and I learned that a school bus my kid was riding — for the Glendale Union High School District(!) — was detouring off its route to pick up one or more urchins from a home for juvenile delinquents in the Phoenix Union High School District, I would NOT be happy.
* Which brings up another little irregularity: We’re in the Sunnyslope High School district, not in the Glendale Union district. Or the Phoenix Union High School District.
So..WTF???
Ever entertaining!
Gorgeous morning…actually COOL out as dawn cracked.
****
time marches on
****
4:00 p.m.
Late Afternoon 
Irrigation Dude is here. Has been all afternoon…speaking of jobs one is happy one does not have. He’s dug up the back side yard, rebuilt the underground irrigation on the west side of the house, got most of it working. Arrgha!
Now his son just showed up, a grown young man evidently intended to inherit the business.
I yam starved, having done without lunchoid. Even though it’s only a little after 4, I’m about to expire. Soooo….
What we have on the menu is shrimp sautéed in garlic, tossed with boxed tomato sauce over pasta.
Yay! Was delighted to find the shrimp in the freezer, and even more delighted to find a box of “canned” tomatoes in the cupboard. To say nothing of a bottle of white wine.
Just watching Irrigation Dude dig and haul and gadgetize all afternoon — in the heat — has left me exhausted.
***
Yea verily: So exhausted I can’t think clearly. As in WHY THE FUCK WON’T THE GODDAMN OVEN TIMER SHUT THE FUCK UP! 
 
Nothing that I do makes it stop. It’s not showing a count-down. As far as I can see, it’s not on. But every five minutes or so, it starts in again with beep…beep…beep…beep…   Damned if I can figure out why, and therefore damned if I can shut it off. Tonight I’ll have to go to bed behind  a closed door… 
 
Oh…now whatever it thinks it’s doing is done: BEEEP BEEEP BEEP BEE…
 
Run over there and shut it off. But don’t see how to shut it completely off once and for all because I don’t see HOW to shut it off, period. Before I go to bed tonight, forgodsake, I’ll have to go outside and shut off the damn breaker switch to the kitchen!
 
Stop the world, Lord. I wanna get offf!
***
5:15 P.M.
Tired. Spectacularly tired.
Moderately hungry, but not very… Read: “too tired to eat.” Pasta is boiling. Unclear what I’m gonna do if I can’t shut off the fuckin oven clock’s dingy-bonger.
BEEEP BEEEEP
Fuckaroonies!!!!. Let’s see if we can shut it off at the breaker box.
Yes. That shut it up.
Dump the raw pasta into the pan of boiling water. (The stove runs on gas, so is exempt from the goddamn breaker box’s present set of antics.)
Walk into the family room. Sit down. Pick up computer, Proceed to…to…
BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP 
God DAMN it. 
Traipse to the kitchen. Glare at the oven. Click off. 
 
 Off, godammit! Off off OFF!
 
Quiescent for the moment,. Dunno how long that will last. And have NO idea how I’m gonna get any sleep tonight if the fucker doesn’t QUIT IT!!!!!
*****
Only Quarter to Six…
Soooo exhausted that all I wanna do is GO TO BED!
But it’s too fiukkin hot to go to bed, despite the air-conditioner pounding away…and pounding away…and pounding away nonstop. Expensively nonstop!
Finally get the goddamned oven timer to shut up.
How???
Noooooo idea!
6:03 p.m.
The fukkin oven timer has stayed shut up. WHY, I cannot imagine. But it this point, I figure discretion is the better part… The fewer questions asked, the better.
Ya know what?
I HATE living in the 21st century! 
It’s seven fukkin’ types of Purgatory….
What a time. 
What a place.
What a people.
And…and…and…
 
Every line in that little graphic I’ve had to do three times. AT LEAST. 
‘
Stop the fukkin world. I wanna get off!

Brave New Annoyance….

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Lordie, am I ever tired of living in the Brave New World! Every which way from Sunday, you’re assaulted by electronic nuisances and hassles.

It’s 3:00 in the morning. I’m sitting here playing with my computer by way of passing time until the current spate of insomnia passes. It’s dark out. It’s dark in, mostly, except here in the bedroom where a nightstand light is glowing.

And what do I get serenaded with?

Low batt’ry!

Low batt’ry!

Low batt’ry!

Aaaahhhh SHEEE-UT! 

Get up and traipse into the office, whence the racket seems to be emanating. Shoof around. Several old cell phones are sitting there…is one them the culprit?

Check each one. Can’t find any way to tell, with some sort of gauge or screen or whatnot, which if any of them has a “low batt’ry!”

Plug in as many of them as I can find a cord for. One of them takes a round connector. None of the cords in there has a round connector. So I can’t attach them all. Nor can I tell which one is making the racket.

I guess if the damn thing keeps yapping, I’ll have to gather up all the portable whatnots and carry them out to the garage.

Why is this better than what we had in, say, 1950?  Is it REALLY so wonderful to have telephones that you can walk around with and distract yourself with while you’re driving that we need to be harassed constantly by the damn things?

Eff Facebook!

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Well, that was charming.

All of a sudden — for no reason that I could discern — Facebook decided I was not allowed in. My password did not work.

THREE TIMES did I jump through hoop after hoop to get their effing machine to send me a new temporary password. THREE TIMES the damn thing didn’t work, or when I did get in and attempted to create a new password for myself, it didn’t work.

So. I guess I’m permanently off of Facebook

That’s probably a good thing, actually. One fewer way to waste time.

And waste time I do: copiously. Mostly on this dayum computer. Really: I’ve blown the entire day sitting here in front of this thing. Watered a few plants, entered some data in Excel, and…and…that was it.

What else could I have done?

  • It’s after 9 p.m. The sidewalks have no doubt cooled enough for Ruby to walk on them. She and I could have gone a mile by now. Or even two.
  • It’s still plenty hot out there, though. I could have jumped in the pool and got this chunk of exercise by swimming.
  • I could have written a blog post. 😀
  • I could have started working on the proposed project to record my father’s family history.

How is this a disaster?

Not exactly a disaster, but a real inconvenience. The neighborhood organization has a Facebook page where they post frequently and cogently. Not being able to see and participate in that puts me on the outside. And that does pi$$ me off royally.

And I use(d) Facebook to plug new posts as they appear here at Funny. Anyone else who would like to do that now is welcome to do so!

So the Hell What?

Good question. I do have another computer and may be able to log in on that. Probably not, after the flap I’ve made trying to get in from the laptop. But it’s worth a try.

Later.