My sister and I were talking about how Mom sometimes talks to Alexa as if it’s a person. That reminded me of this old SNL skit. Hope you laugh as much as I did.
Cheers
The Comparison: Computer, Trump
It feels like my computer is starting to treat me like it’s Trump. It doesn’t tell me what’s going on or give me a reliable time window.
I’m accustomed to my computer telling me to do things but explaining why it’s doing things. They gave me options: do you want to update and shutdown, or shutdown without updating? Other options were also available.
Along those lines, the computer would inform me about how long it would take — three minutes, two minutes, six.
Yes, they were using computer time. This is not ordinary time. Comparable times are shopping time and waiting time.
“It’ll be just a minute,” I hear. “Maybe two.” Those minutes compound into ten. Fifteen.
Worse, though, are NFL minutes. Especially the last two minutes of a half or game. I did some research and the average final two minutes of an NFL game lasts ten to twenty minutes. Some estimates show that the final two minutes of a four-quarter NFL football game can consume about five to ten percent of the game’s total time, which is wild if you think about it.
The NFL does give us a ‘two-minute warning’. Unfortunately, they’re very terse about it. “This is the two-minute warning.” They should add, “The next two minutes can take anywhere from two and half minutes to eternity. Go use the restroom now, get something to eat and drink, and let your family know where you are.”
Computer time has now overtaken the NFL’s final time minutes as ‘the time that can’t be measured’. My computer doesn’t tell me many times now how long updates or searches will take. It leaves it vague: “This might take a few minutes.”
You think?
I was running a process to check for memory leaks the other night. Yes, on my computer, not for me.
Anyway, the computer warned me, “This might take a few minutes.”
Thirty minutes later, I was still waiting for an update.
And that’s like Trump. Time doesn’t mean anything when he makes promises or projections. Well, neither do facts, for the most part.
For example: Trump was asked when he would come up with his replacement for ACA. Two weeks, he told us, over five years ago.
When will the Iran war end? “When I feel it in my bones.”
Great.
Sounds just like my computer.
When will the search be finished?
“When I feel it in my hardware.”
Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Internetus Interruptus
Our Internet connection was down this weekend. Started Saturday and dragged through Sunday.
We use Ashland Home Net. Owned by the city, we want to support our city. The service has been reliable. Like everything, though, there can sometimes be outages.
The net went down Saturday afternoon. We gave it time to come back up. Didn’t. So — reboot system. Still no connectivity.
I called our service provider and left a message. It’s a small organization and they don’t have someone in the office at night and on weekends. But they check their messages and get back to you.
They did get back to us on Sunday. We were out. I had my cell phone with me. “Private number” it said. I ignored it. Later, I listened to the message, which was Ashland Home Net telling me that they couldn’t find a record of our account.
*grumble grumble*
When we were home after our Easter festivities with friends, I pulled our records to call Ashland Home Net and give them our account number. The folder had notes from previous issues and fixes. This included one from 2023: “Netgear router inadvertently reset (button on side — beware).” I had the Netgear instruction pamphlet attached to the folder.
Aha.
I pulled out the pamphlet, followed the instructions, and got us back online.
I also called Ashland Home Net and gave them our account number, just to close that loop. And they called back, apologized for not being able to find us, baffled by that side of it, confirming that we were online again and weren’t experiencing any more interruptus.
Normal online life resumed.
Ethology
Ethology
Ring
Ping
ChimeHeads turn
Conversations slowFeeding
CommencesDigestion
FinishesAgendas
ResumeWhere were we?
Fridaz Wandering Thoughts
Mom and sis are coping and adjusting, per usual. Mom is an interesting case. When she’s doing well, she’s happy on her own. When she’s doing poorly, she gets crabby and wants visitors. But her crabbiness repels people, so they stay away. Not a good dynamic.
So many things must be tended for Mom. The emptying and cleaning of her house, of course, and then putting it on the market. Those are expected, straightforward, but work. The matters causing the most headaches and frustrations are these modern matters. Changing phone plans because Mom’s phone was on Frank’s plan. Canceling her internet and cable. Those things were done online, through passwords and account numbers and usernames and things like that. Mom has it written down but it’s all been changed so many times because they changed systems or the passwords expired, or it didn’t work for God knows why, as Mom would say.
Then there are the prescription drugs. Sam’s Club is Mom’s pharmacy. Frank was her delivery system. Now sis is her delivery system, but sis doesn’t have the time to make regular runs like Frank did. These things can be delivered but the co-pay must be paid for. Does Mom have a credit card on file? Yes, she does, she says, no, you don’t, the pharmacy replies. Back and forth they go, driving sis insane.
It all makes me think. Mom is but twenty years older than me, and the way my health is trending…LOL. I think, I must be better prepared. Sure, passwords are written down and secured but they must be found by whoever is taking care of me at that point.
Maybe it’ll be AI or a bot assisting me by that point. A Medibot. Watching AI and bots in action at this stage, though, I’m not reassured. Maybe, maybe, they’ll have it worked out in twenty years.
Time will tell. Always does, doesn’t it?
Twozdaz Wandering Thoughts
Enshittification! J’accuse!
Okay, this is a first world rant. Part of the first world blues I’m always singing.
My recurring prescription drugs are supplied through Express Scripts. And it works great. Except when it doesn’t. It didn’t this week.
I received a message from them to give them authorization to start an autofill on one of my prescriptions. I logged in and did as required. Another message came in: you have one item in your cart. Please complete your purchase.
WTAF?
I didn’t ‘complete the purchase’. I gave them feedback. Asked them to call.
Which they did. It was Kelly. She explained why she was calling in a chipper, professional voice edged with a little nervous quiver. I explained why I was annoyed. How I felt the system was telling me to do two different things. She then began explaining to me why my interpretation wasn’t correct. Nothing she was saying aligned with the messages or my experience. Reaching the point of irritation and recognition that nada was getting changed, I thanked Kelly and prepared to hang up.
“Well, do you want me to take care of getting the autofill restarted?” she asked.
Well, I thought I’d done that when I logged in and clicked on a button to start autofill. “Yes, please,” I answered. Kelly talked through the process of what had happened, what she was doing, and…
Her tone faltered. I sensed that she saw exactly what I meant in my complaint. Then, she finally said in a low voice, “Sometimes this system doesn’t make sense.”
Vindication!
I smiled.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Kelly asked.
My smiled stayed. “No, Kelly. You have a great day and a great week.”
“Why, thank you. You, too.”
With that, we said our goodbyes and I basked in my tiny, tiny victory.
Me Against the Machine!
TL/DR: I lost again.
I received a paper check in the mail. After posting it to the wall for action for ten days, I launched myself to the credit union to make a deposit at the ATM. After processing it all, pressing the right buttons, and answering their questions, the machine told me with an exclamation point, “Invalid Transaction!”
“How the fuck is that an invalid transaction,” I muttered at the screen. It didn’t answer.
Well, one failure is a fluke. Two is a coincidence. Three is a trend as a failure. I did it four times. Fed the check into the machine four different ways. Always came back, “Invalid Transaction!”
It’s not me, I consoled myself. Has to be the machine. Still, it did sting to walk away a failure.
1982
I’ve lived without a computer before. It actually wasn’t terrible. Yes, I’m now spoiled. Personal computers have been life changing.
But jump back to 1982. I was in the U.S. Air Force, stationed at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, an island that belongs to Japan. Commodore’s VIC 20 had us abuzz about computers. While we could easily see how it would make many things easier, shopping wasn’t yet on the menu. Nor was getting news updates. It was only toward the end of 1983 that I began learning about the concepts of ‘bulletin boards’, the Internet, and the worldwide web.
So back then, we watched television. Movies were watched via VHS tapes. That was the latest, greatest tech move for us, and such devices were still running close to $1,000. But we had one to help us weather the lack of entertainment inherent in being overseas. Remember, this was before satellite TV, too, for all practical purposes. All that stuff was just coming out, as were microwave ovens. They were also huge, bulky, expensive machines, but we purchased on of those, as well.
It’s hard to believe how fast everything changed. In late 1983, I bought my first CD player. It played one CD at a time. Returning to the U.S. from Japan, we gave our VHS player to my wife’s parents, and bought ourselves a new, smaller one with more features, including a remote control. That was the same year that I bought my first computer, a small but heavy Kaypro. Running at 4.77 megahertz, with a tiny green screen, it ran on CP/M and offered minimal RAM and two floppy drives that used 5 1/4 inch disks. It was a wild scene. We learned how to add RAM, make things faster, and double our floppy disks’ storage. Ten megahertz machines were being touted as possibilities, along with 64K of RAM and a 5-meg hard drive and 16 color monitors! Wow!
Back before that, we read. A lot. Books were checked out from the library, and research was done at the library. I subscribed to multiple magazines, such as Writer’s Digest, Autoweek, and Road & Track. Went for walks, played sports, read newspapers, which were delivered daily. When I lived in San Antonio, Texas, I subscribed to both the San Antonio Light and the Wall Street Journal. Even with the computer and VHS player coming along, and the CD player, and DVD players, most of that didn’t change. We still visited malls to shop, and used Sears and Spiegel catalogues to make orders, calling in to toll free numbers to put the order in. Board games like Risk, Life, and Monopoly were popular with us, along with Trivial Pursuit, and card games like Tripoli and King on the Corner, and Solitaire.
No, the big change came when the Internet finally fired up. My experience with it began in 1991, when I came back from Germany. Slow as hell, to be sure. Connections through modems which had to be hooked up. LOL. That changed fast, too, as built-in modems came along. I was both a Compuserve and AOL subscriber. Email was a new, exciting idea.
Then, suddenly we went to 256 colors and beyond on our monitors. The mouse became popular. 100 megahertz machines were being sold. I remembered buying and installing a 100-meg hard drive, and laughing. How was I ever going to use that much storage? It seemed so excessive. By then, our floppy drives were down to three-inch little colorful things. Now, we’re like, floppy drive? What the heck is that?
Going online was a wild scene back in the mid 1990s. Weren’t many websites in those early days. The games were something else. Research, news, and sports all became much more accessible. Then, boom…social media. That’s when things really flipped.
I’ve gone a few days in 2025 without my computer and without the Internet. Like before, we read, played games, and went for walks.
Just like it was 1982, just forty years ago, when I was younger, and so was the personal computer.
Twosdaz Wandering Thoughts
I should probably buy a new computer. Microsoft has warned me that it won’t be supporting this one much longer. That is a concern. Chrome never makes such dire threats. I don’t know if I can use another OS and other browsers. Probably can but it would be more of an investment in time than I want to do.
The computer is over a decade old. It can’t run Windows 11 without more changes. More importantly, the computer has developed some issues. Its chassis is slightly bent. That causes some control issues. Several keys have been replaced but it hasn’t been a successful fix. The HP Envy’s silver edges are worn black. The tab, q, and x keys often leave their stations. The backspace key broke in half and is held together by cellotape. Several keys, specifically the e, d, c, o, l, and n keys, have lost their identity as my fingernails tapped it away. I often need to consciously press hard on the t, c, and n key to get a response, along with the ctrl key and the delete key. It all slows me down. Every once in a while, the CD drive will pop open on its own, shouting, “Surprise,” like a drunk uncle, just to remind me that it’s there.
So a new computer need can be shown. But, this one still works. I’m just loathe to get rid of things just because they’re not the newest or because it’s less than perfect. Sure, it takes five minutes to fire up. When Chrome is used, five more minutes will pass before that is loaded. It plays pretty well with Windows and Edge, though.
I don’t know. I have the money. It was my birthday and I didn’t get anything else. Maybe it’s time, but I’ll probably let a few more weeks of sleep pass before I look for another. The whole thought train reminds me that I bought my first computer forty years ago.
Seems like it was yesterday.
The 11/22 Dream
Young, I was outside at a gathering surrounded by friends and many other festive souls. I was waiting to begin a trip, but I didn’t know any details. Seated at a small white table with matching chairs, people would come by and say hello or they’d pass and I’d call out greetings. It was all very carefree and relaxed. At one point, I decided to make some of my hair light blue. Then, tiring of it, I’d wiped the blue hair almost completely out, leaving just a streak of light blue.
On the white table were three tall glasses with ice. I knew that these had been Long Island Ice Teas, and I’d consumed them. A fourth glass was 3/4 full with another Long Island Ice Tea, but I’d decided not to drink it. Besides those was a flat white napkin thick with light blue; that had been my hair before I wiped it off.
I’d met a new person, a young man named Robert. We chatted and got along. I started calling him Rob or Robby. Then I heard someone called him Bobby. I asked him about it and he said, “Yes, I prefer Bobby.” I said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Bobby was going away, to the same place where I was going. But Bobby had all of his details about when he was going and how, and he was leaving the next morning. People asked me, “Why does Bobby know but you don’t know. That doesn’t make sense.” I shrugged it off but it began to bother me.
Several things I did know was that I was leaving on 11/22, and that was a week away, and I was flying, and someone else was making my arrangements. I decided to try to find out more. I brought out my laptop and then inserted my hard drive, which I’d removed for safety. But then, I lost interest in knowing, thinking, they will tell me and there’s no hurry.
Dream end.
Michael Seidel, writer 