I might read and watch too many mysteries and thrillers. When I was shoveling off our walks and driveway, I flashed to different film and television show scenes where they’re digging to bury a body, recover a body, or looking for evidence. I didn’t find any of those things. Not even treasure.
Also, we survived the storm well. One of the comments my wife and I said to each other was about how dark the bathrooms were due to snow covering the solar tubes and skylights. We are such spoiled first world people.
So, some things were not loading in any browser (Edge, Chrome, Firefox). Not everything; it was an odd mix. Updates had been conducted, diagnosis run, etc. Wasn’t deeply affecting my ability to surf the net so I mostly just ignored it. I figured some update would be installed at some point which would fix it.
That didn’t happen.
Then it grew worse. Suddenly my ‘puter began telling me that I was in Airplane mode all the friggin’ time. Again, not a serious issue but annoying to me and also a concern that there may be deeper issues at work.
So, on a whim today, I ran updates on my drivers. Turned out my WiFi driver wouldn’t update. Ran some stuff to fix that, and all the network stuff just disappeared. Adapter wouldn’t turn on; didn’t even show up. Wireless switch didn’t work. For all intents and purposes (or intensive purposes…chuckle), my laptop’s wireless didn’t exist.
With a deep-throated GRRRRRRRbuilding in my head, I pulled out an ethernet cable and went wired with my laptop to connect to the net. Next I did some brief searches about the problem. Really inane and simplistic solutions were offered. Like, “Check the wireless password and ensure that is right.” That was just red meat to the GRRRRRRR within me. But finally, with patience, I found a site that knew what was up. It directed me to my Services where it was revealed that Windows had turned off my WLAN AutoConfig. WTF, right? Right-clicked that puppy and joy was achieved. I was wireless again and everything loaded.
There’s a disturbance in the force. I mean, the Internet. It doesn’t appear Trump related. Doesn’t seem to be politically connected at all.
The short of it, many games won’t load on my laptop. I’m running Windows. Surfing on Opera, Chrome, Edge. None will load the games in normal or whatever ‘stealth’ offering the browser provides. Started yesterday afternoon. Research on the net about it is useless. Search engines focus on one aspect of the question posed. In this case, they’re all about giving me answers to games. Answers to questions I didn’t ask. Information which I don’t desire.
I’m not talking multi-role games. This is Connections and Wordle at the NYTimes. Sudoku at the Seattle Times and NY Times. Spelling Bee plays fine, as does several other games. Error messages say things like, “Yikes, you’re offline.” Yet I’m not offline.
Actually, I just tried a new, broader variation of the question on DuckDuckGo. ‘can’t play games online’. Answers remain useless but at least it’s focused on my issue. Must be your connection, they tell me. Your browser. Your firewall settings, or security. Nothing that touches the nub that the rest of the net works fine, and no settings were changed and all settings are per usual, and diagnostics show nothing. My wife’s Mac laptop doesn’t share the issue. And yes, the cache has been cleared, of course. Yes, I powered up and down. Yes, everything is updated. No, the sites are not reported as down. No issues are reported on them.
Overall, it’s a small thing. More first world blues. Just annoying to me, personally. I like playing my games and getting a little rush from completing them. The larger question is, is it my machine? Or is it the net? My bet is on the latter but it’ll take time for that to be revealed.
Guess I’ll just read a book instead. Halfway through ‘The Library at Mount Char’ per my wife’s recommendaton. It’s sucking me in. Gotta go out into the gloomy day and write soon anyway.
Gray clouds have returned to win the sky. Really, it seems like one big light-gray cloud. Low relative to the upper elevations, it cuts off the view after two hundred yards, giving an impression that the world ends there.
The wind is sedated to an infrequent breeze. Chillier air has shifted back in. We navigate 39 F with a high of 50 proferred, and more rain sometime.
This is Saturday, November 23, 2024.
My song today is “Good Life” by OneRepublic. I’d been reading news and opinions online late last night. One thing after another led me to new insights and angles. I ended up reflecting on the MAGA GOP’s narrow minded views. Their hypocrisy and lack of principles always flavor my opinion, as well. I’m sure they rationalize everything as the ends justify the means. Such cliches allow them to declare they’re for freedom, equality, and ‘protecting women’ even as they curtail equality and people’s freedom. They’re all about conforming. Two sexes and genders, traditional missionary position, trad wife, that’s them, at least in public. We suspect many dark things happening in private, based on what periodically crawls into the light. See, for example, Donald Trump’s “grab ’em by the pussy” philosophy and his affairs, Matt Gaetz, Jeffrey Epstein, et al.
And, it’s their religion and their God to which we must all bow. That’s how they interpret religious freedom in their ‘Merica. Their pasteurized, homogenized history that must be taught. Anything bad that happened is pushed aside so they can pretend it didn’t happen. Mass shootings are all because of people with mental health problems who are troubled by the liberals’ DEI and woke agenda. All is good in the MAGA world, as long as the wealthy can avoid being taxed, the stock market is going up, and everyone is working, even if it’s at menial jobs for slave wages, even if it’s children working, even if the skies and waters are polluted. That’s their version of a ‘good life’.
As for Democrats, liberals, and progressives, they must be ignored, expunged, or re-educated to accept the MAGA way.
It’s so far from my idea of a good life that I’m nauseated when I contemplate the gulf.
Anyway, after I shifted through these strands of thoughts, The Neurons inserted “Good Life” into the morning mental music stream (Trademark rising) where it shared some time with “It’s My Life” by the Animals and “It’s My Life” by No Doubt. “Good Life”, released in 2010, feels like another of those songs people know mostly through movies and television shows. It’s been used in a few of them.
When songs are in my head, my mind often focuses on specific sections. In this case, the specific section is a set of lines:
Listen, to my friends in New York, I say hello My friends in L.A., they don’t know Where I’ve been for the past few years or so Paris to China to Colorado Sometimes there’s airplanes you can’t jump out Sometimes bullshit that don’t work now We all got our stories, but please tell me What’s there to complain about?
Well, excuse me, but I have a lot to complain about. Some of it is about aging. Much of my gripping is first world blues, but there’s also a substantial political section to my complaints.
Coffee and I have been re-introduced. We plan to make green chili stew in a little while. The rain has begun dripping down again, clouds have dramatically darkened the day, and the temperature has leveled off at 42 F. Feels like something lower. That stew will go well with this day.
Emails slide into my inbox. Netflix, Amazon — sorry, Prime — Hulu, et al urge me to watch shows I’ve already seen. ‘Based on my history’, they recommend shows nothing at all like the ones that I’ve watched. In fact, looking at their recommendations, they’re throwing everything against the wall to see what clings to my mind. Netflix urges, ‘We think you’ll love these” and shows me “Paul vs. Tyson”. I have never watched boxing, wrestling, or fighting anywhere, so WTF?
They’re so bogus. Little of what any of them from Apple to Amazon offer reflect my watching patterns. If they did, they’d be zeroing in on darkly comedic/quirky British, Australian, and Scandinavian shows. Encountering these weak, pathetic recommendations jars my brain. They’re pretending to be caring and involved with me and my viewing habits when they clearly lack all insights. In fact, when they do this, a deep glower spreads across my mien. They’re wasting my time and mocking my intelligence. A vow to not watch anything they offer begins to burn deep inside my brain.
Not just streaming services doing this to me but they’re the worse. Amazon recommends ‘Picks just for you’. Sounds so sweet. Like they went about picking flowers and arranging them. “Here, a bouquet pour tu.” They show me pots and pans collections. Frying pans. Kate Spade purses. Like, WTF? I’ve never shopped those on Amazon or anywhere online.
They all must have me confused with another Michael.
I don’t know, maybe WP has reached a limit on tags for me. Maybe it’s my ‘puter. Could be a technology curse, I suppose.
When I go to add ‘new tags’, WordPress burps. My cursor is bounced out of the box, and the new tag vanishes. Perplexing. I don’t experience this on other web sites.
Then again, my system was just updated last night. You know how updates sometimes go sideways with small matters.
My work-around was to save the draft, swing over to the iPad mini, and edit the post to add the tags in Jetpack.
I shared one of my posts to Facebook the other day. I often used to do so, inviting friends and family to ‘see what I’m up to’.
Facebook informed me that it had been blocked as spam. It was the second time in as many months that they labeled one of my posts as spam, claiming something like, I was posting it or sharing it just to get likes.
The nerve.
This happened to be a Floofinition, one of my silly pursuits. Of course I was posting it on Facebook for likes. Why does Facebook think people post on their social media accounts? Likes is one of many reasons for sharing things on Facebook, but they used to encourage me to do just that.
I protested their unilateral condemnation of my post, but my protest is limited in scope to their pre-canned reasons for doing so. And those are flawed and incomplete. It assumes a set of paradigms which frankly just displays how fucking lost thy are. And after I completed that, I thought, I never heard anything back from them about that one last month.
No, you never do. They reach out like some hidden Gods, do their thing, and then watch us like we’re ants running around after their anthill is damaged.
That pissed me off.
The clincher came the next day. It was like, “Michael, here’s a memory of something you posted before! Share it to remind others.” So sweet. So friendly.
And yeah, it was one of my floofinitions. Like the one they condemned as spam and removed for being posted to get likes.
Well, fuck you, Facebook. I’m done with you and your capricious two-faced arrogance. They are already a repository of right-wing memes and misinformation, so they were treading on my last nerve before. I know, they’re quivering back at Meta headquarters, wailing that they’ve alienated me and lost my support. “Oh, boo hoo. We lost Michael. Woe is us.”
That’s okay. It makes me feel better. Just as their community used to do. It’s like they say, the more things change, the more they go to shit.
It’s a grip-worthy day for me. We ordered a packaged. 28 August. It was shipped via UPS Mail Innovactions the next day, or maybe the one after that.
UPS said we’d receive it by September 3. That didn’t happen. Package was in Fife, Washington. Transferred to the USPS. Because this is Mail Innovations.
The package arrived at Fife, WA, on September 3. An update said, your package will be delivered on September 6 by 7 PM.
Didn’t happen. I went to the UPS said, tracked the package — still in Fife, WA, on September 3, the shipment that stood still — and used the assistant link they provided me.
It was not useful. Said the tracking number which UPS provided me is not a UPS tracking number. Well, I saw exactly where the gap began. My number is for UPS Mail Interventions, I mean, Mail Innovations. UPS and its virtual assistance is not set up to assist with that innovation.
I logged into my wife’s email account to help her sort an issue.
Correction: I tried to log into her email.
They — Hotmail, or whatever mastermind now behind it — wanted to send me a code to my wife’s second email address to log into the Hotmail.
So I filled in the second email account and went to log into it to receive a code to log into the first email account
Voila. The second email account wanted a code to log into it. They wanted to send it to the first email account.
To summarize: to log into one email account, they wanted to send a security code to a second email account but to log into the second email account, I had to log into the first email account to get a code to get into the second email account.
I always knew this was where tech was heading. It’s pretty FUBAR.
Just more first world blues, but I’m bummed out by those automatic toilets which flush while I’m still doing my business. Then, when I do finish my biz, it doesn’t flush, forcing me to search for the magic button to make it happen.
I mean, what exactly is that thing sensing when it flushes and doesn’t? Or is it just messing with me?
Michael Seidel, writer 