Coffee heat rising

Still online…

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…for the nonce. Funny has not crashed in flames yet, but it remains to be seen how long we’ll be able to stay aloft.

Over at Best Buy this afternoon, the gurus did their best to fix things. We seem to be online just now, but why, how, and for how long, I do not know. It looks, however, like the problem is with the little MacBook laptop, not with WordPress and not with…much of anything else. This, I’m writing on the big, aged iMac.

The BB dudes recommended that I schlep out to the Apple store, halfway to Yuma, and try to identify the problem with the MacBook.

That was a long, expensive exercise in futility. Consumed a quarter of a tank of gasoline — at almost 5 bucks a gallon hereabouts — and soaked up a good two hours of time. Those people over there had exactly zero clue, nor did they evince the slightest interest in trying to figure it out.

I left, annoyed…as I so often leave the Apple store.

So that’s it with Apple, folks. The plan now is to replace the MacBook with a new PC, hire someone to transfer data from the iMac into the PC, and slowly, gently convert the Blogging Empire and its tools to the PC world.

It’s been awhile since I’ve worked with PC’s — although I did have to use them when I was adjunct at the community college district, so that skill is not completely lost to time.

This subplot, though, was only part of an endless day’s adventures.

Started out at the doctor’s office, hardly my favorite venue. But it was Young Dr. Kildare’s place, so at least the scenery was appealing. As usual, my blood pressure was through the roof — I hate hate HATE being in doctor’s offices and clinical settings, a sentiment that invariably jacks up the BP a good 10 to 15 points. This was not helped by the fact that they’d asked me to show up at 8:00 a.m., at which point the staff informed me that my appointment was actually at 8:30…meaning a half-hour of thumb-twiddling before the show got on the road. So now I have to jump through all those same damn hoops again to prove to him that in real life I don’t exhibit hypertension.

Tomorrow I’ll go back down to Best Buy, buy a new PC-type computer, and try to talk them into sending someone over to the Funny Farm to set up the transfer of data from the iMac and iCloud into the new device.

Also learned that BB has iPhone training sessions. If this is true, there may still be some hope of learning how to use the gadget my son gave me. Apple’s “class” was a joke and another infuriating waste of time. I’d like to be able to use the kewl phone…but must say, I feel just about zero confidence in Apple and Apple devices just now. The present fiasco with the computers has been going on for weeks. And now I can’t remember my password for the damn credit union. I’ll have to pay the bills by snail-mail until I can go downtown — not till Monday — and get someone to help untangle that mess.

I actually WAS out there this morning but didn’t realize the password had passed out of existence in my brain.

LOL! Frankly, these recent experiences — over the past few weeks — suggest that it would be best to stay with Apple than to jump off the bridge into the murky waters of the PC. Over the phone, I’ve talked with several really excellent Apple techs. They haven’t quite saved my bacon…but at least the pork isn’t blackened. And it does have to be said that BB has a new Mac on offer that is to die for.

Probably Kaput this time…

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Jeeemneeee, what a day!!!!

Found this little scrap on Funny’s dashboard, so am adding a scribble. Nooooo idea whether it will post, and if so, why. I’m officially locked out of all my sites, because every secret code I’ve been able to unearth just doesn’t work. Same for any passwords, magical mystery phrases, and miscellaneous bullsh!t Firefox and its various websites “remember.”

Took the laptop over to Best Buy to try to get it online. Spectacular mess. It’s now effectively dead.

Meanwhile, the desktop was online while that antic was underway, so SOME of the sites that it remembers are marginally functional. I think it remembers Funny’s dashboard because that was open in Firefox at the time the Macbook was going down, and it has somehow stayed up.

On the MacBook, I’m now locked out of Macmail, of Gmail, of Firefox, of every other goddamn thing I can think of, largely because the the sites themselves remember the 87 gerjillion passwords that I can’t even faintly begin to recall. Some of these sites have locked me out on the big desktop iMac, too.

Forgodsake, I can’t even remember my freakin’ name, much less scores and scores and scores of goddamn passwords.

No joke!

Literally, I can walk into the kitchen and think I need thus-and-such a pan and not be able to remember where it’s stored. It’s stored in the same place where it’s been stored for the past 20 years that i’ve lived here!!!!!!!! But for the life of me, I can NOT conjure up where that might be.

Mind you: this is after I realized what was going on and created lists and maps of where things are stored in the kitchen, and taped those to the inside of the hall closet door!!  I STILL can’t find stuff.

So it’s not surprising that I can’t remember 87 gerjillion different passwords.

Consequently, it appears that my Internet-gallivanting adventures are about at an end.

If you’re innarested in whatever screwball things come this way in the future, maybe we can keep in touch on Facebook. I’m billed as Victoria Hay in that weird garden spot. Not real gifted with the way FB works…but if I’m not distracted with blogsites, maybe I’ll get more skilled at it over time.

🙁 sigh 🙁

Mac-a-Scam

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Wow!  A week or so ago I posted about a phishing letter posing as a message from McAfee, maker of a widely used antivirus program.

Turns out this is a MAJOR gambit. Watch out! If some nitwit emails you to the effect that you must hurry and cancel if you don’t want to be charged for McAfee coverage, FLEE.

Do not respond to these earnest appeals. Report the ba*stards directly to the FTC.

And if you are a witchy bitch, as Funny happens to be, light a fire in the backyard and lay a thousand curses on heads of this scam’s originator and those of all his imitators.

STOP THE WORLD!

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You betcha I wanna get off!

We’re now into the lunch hour, so I can’t go to the credit union and harass them with the latest screaming crazy-making fiascos. What to do, what to do to fend off losing what few marbles remain to me while waiting to drive across the effin’ city to pester those dear people?

Oh! I know! Write a blog post! O’course! Why didn’t I think of that?

Call up Funny on the big iMac and…and…and…oh yeah. You expected a bear? It wants a password. I enter the one I know. WordPress replies f**k you.

So now I have to jump through yet another series of hoops to generate yet another EFFING password.

You understand: I have a list of passwords that is TWENTY-THREE PAGES LONG! And these days, I can barely remember my name, much less 23 single-spaced pages of passwords.

Problem is, the li’l Macbook DID remember each of the passwords in those 23 pages. So I don’t have a hard-copy list of the effing things. Right now I have a bunch of them, typed and neatly cut out of their sheets of paper, taped to the front of the iMac.

The prospect of getting a new computer to emanate these dozens and dozens and dozens of passwords just makes my brain go blank. I can’t even bear to contemplate the hassle involved!

I need to go over to Best Buy today and extract my MacBook and probably buy a Lenovo laptop. Ugh…how can express the ways I don’t wanna???

But FIRST… oh, yes, first I have to drive ten miles (20, round trip) in the OTHER direction to raid the credit union. It appears that a whole bunch of monthly bills that I thought were being autopaid are no longer being autopaid.

Huh?

Why?

Did I cancel the autopays somewhere along the line?

Why?

Truth to tell, now that I can no longer remember my own name, it’s entirely possible that I did cancel the autopays to the utility companies, probably for good reason. But if there was a reason, I don’t recall what it was, any more than I can remember having canceled them.

What’s my name, again?

So this is going to be a jolly trip.

The credit union staff apparently noticed, the last time some of my marbles rolled past the front desk. When I paid the new yard man $180 for a major cleanup job (the good Gerardo not having shown up for three months…), he trotted over to that very CU and asked to cash it. The boss CALLED ME ON THE PHONE and asked did I really wanna pay this character a hundred and eighty bucks?

Yeah. No kidding. He’s a nice-looking, clean-cut man…not the sort you would suspect of larceny. 😀

Y’know…I’m truly all computer-teched out. GODLMIGHTY but I’m tired of this hassle and that hassle and the next hassle, most of them involving passwords that I haven’t a hope of remembering and all of them demanding involved tergiversations to navigate.

You understand, I’m not at all annoyed about the CU calling to check on just how loony I was to pay New Yard Dude a large chunk of dough. In fact… One thing that would help to keep the Old Bat out of one of those warehouses for old folks would be someone you could hire to ride herd on what you’re getting up to. Especially what you’re doing financially, what you’re getting talked into buying, what you’re forgetting to pay. I actually would pay somebody — cheerfully — to help out with this stuff and advise. An honest somebody, that is…therein lies the rub…

Oh well. Time to get on the road. And so, awaaayyyyyyyy….

 

{sigh} About to Give Up

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Welp, it’s four in the morning. Can’t sleep. Can’t get anything done. Sometime after dawn, a tech from Best Buy is supposed to come over and try to fix whatever is wrong with my Mac system. But I don’t hold out much hope.

Yesterday evening BB had a very sweet lady with a Filipino accent call and try to coach me on the phone. This futile activity dragged on for two or three hours.

Guys. If I thought I could fix computer stuff myself, I wouldn’t have paid you $200 for a repair contract!

I have two computers: an ancient iMac — a large desktop that I’ve used as a substitute for television ever since they took free TV away from us, and a MacBook laptop that I use to keep myself entertained during most of my other waking hours. These devices work on a system called iCloud. One of the services provided by Apple is an email system called MacMail, which I use in gay abandon.

Week or ten days ago, the email system went berserk. I do not have a clue what is wrong with it…i are a english major, i are not a IT tech!

I’ve gone around and around and around with this thing. Cannot get it fixed — if anything, attempts to do so make the mess worse. The MacBook is now completely disabled. I write this on an ancient iMac desktop, which I use mostly as a television, because sitting in a desk chair for any length of time causes more pain than you wanna know about.

Trying  to at least stay online with email correspondents, I went over to Gmail. That has gone haywire, too, and now Google won’t let me into that account.

Soooo…. It looks like my blogging empire will soon be dead. Apple’s email system, which keeps me in touch with friends and business associates, is already dead. This may be my last Funny about Money post…if it goes online at all.

Arrividerci, then. Be safe. Be well!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Dear-Sir-You-Cur of the day…

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Sprouts Corporate Headquarters
5455 E High St Ste 111
Phoenix, AZ 85054

Dear Sirs and Mesdames:

Here’s a suggestion for you: Why not hire cashiers who possess basic civility and ordinary politeness? Surely these are not SUCH rare commodities that you can’t find any minimum-wage workers who possess them.

This noon I dropped by the Sprouts at Northern & 19tth Avenue, here in lovely uptown Phoenix, hoping to buy some ingredients to make food for my little dog and to make lunch for myself. Found the stuff for the dog food…and found a cashier who…well…I wouldn’t treat a dog the way she treated me. Among the several things I set on her conveyer belt was a package from your deli cabinet department labeled “Penne Pasta NRE Chicken.”

What, I asked — politely enough, I thought — is “NRE” chicken?

She gave me a disgusted glare that suggested she thought I had an IQ in the negative numbers, and grunted “I dunno.”

“Well, EFF you very much, too, dear,” thought I. Because I was pretty nonplussed (to say nothing of hungry!), I bought it anyway — if I’d had my wits about me I would have said “if you don’t know what you’re selling, then don’t sell it — I ain’t buying it.”

I’m sorry that your employees think I’m white trash and that they can treat me accordingly. They’re probably right in their assessment of my roots (though my net worth is something in excess of 1.5 million bucks just now…). But even when you think people are WT, nice folks don’t make that line of thought obvious. Merchants who wish to keep selling to members of the public teach their employees to keep their scorn under control.

Please, please, PLEASE rest assured: I will NEVER go into that Sprouts again. I probably will never shop at the Sprouts at 7th and Osborn, which is an infinitely better store. Nor am I likely ever to shop at the Sprouts at 16th Street & Glendale or the Sprouts at Thunderbird and 43rd, both of which I’m given to patronizing as I drive between destinations.

Done. Finished. Kaput with Sprouts.

oh…the “NRE chicken?” Whatever it is, it’s almost devoid of flavor. Another good reason not to shop there again, hm?

Yrs truly, [Etc.]