Tag: first world blues

Bitter Modern Blues

My dependencies sicken me.

Here I am, deploring the deplorable state of the net as it drifts in and out of connectivity.

The first thing that jumps to mind is, WTF? Then, of course, I ask myself, is it me? Is it my system? Everything is checked and reset.

But problems continue. It started last Friday and has gone on and on. Finally, Monday, I checked downdetector.com and other sites. They verified, yep, we got problems. You can see the spikes.

gmail outages

Yesterday, the same.

More of it today.

Naturally, the Internet corollary to Murphy’s law specifies 1), your net connection will drop at the ideal time to curtail your momentum, and 2), just when you think it’s all fixed, it will leap up and bite you in the ass one more time.

Because of the commerce implications of outages, you probably won’t know what’s going on for a while. Connectivity, latency and response times equal sales and advertising revenue. Amazon owned up to its error last week because it was human error, something that is less likely to scare off customers than hardware and systems failures where they’re scrambling to figure out what the hell has gone wrong.

 

 

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Oh, The Heat

It’s hot and I am compelled by Internet Law to write about this heat.

This heat, what, 105, 107? It’s just ruining things. Look what it’s doing to my electric bill when I run my air-conditioning. And the water bill when I water the lawn and plants. Yikes, you should see, you really should. It’s unbelievable.

It’s too hot to do anything but sit. It even affects my Internet connection, can you believe it? I’m serious, when the heat gets over 97, the Internet connection becomes spotty, don’t ask me why, but it really makes it so hard to post anything or find out who’s doing anything. THANK GOD for my iPhone!

It’s so hot, I can barely move. Even when I don’t move, I’m sweating. Look, I’m sweating now, and this is inside, in the shade. We’ve put up awnings and umbrellas on the porches and patios, and there is the pool for a cool dip but even these reliefs are so momentary because you wouldn’t believe the breeze, it’s like fresh out of a pizza oven. Speaking of which, we wanted to grill pizzas tonight but I told them, it’s just too hot for us to do that. Let’s go to a fun restaurant with air conditioning and spoil ourselves with fine food and drinks.

Otherwise, I’m just going to have to sit inside and read in the air conditioning today, and what fun is that? That’s hardly living. We should go away somewhere until this heat wave ends. Like Vegas! You check for some flights and I’ll look for a room. The Bellagio! I love it there!

Road trip! I am literally so excited. I can’t wait until this heat wave ends.

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The Balance

My cycles ebb and flow, pushing my moods, diluting my motivation, diverting my willpower.

I seek the balance. It’s not sufficient to state what I won’t be. Nor is it great enough to say what I will be. There’s the balance of each, what I won’t be and what I am not, what I am and what I will be. Reassurances, tiny ego strokes.

Sometimes, when seeking the balance, bitterness, weariness, frustration, anger, despair, or many other negative energies, rise up like a revolting population. My fingers grow heavy just typing. Sometimes just thinking of those negative energies lash me with aches and make me tired. I want to curl up and sleep, or go have a drink and forget it all.

I know neither works. If I sleep when such darkness comes, I’ll wake up more tired and sour. Drinking under the influence of darkness leads to obnoxious, sneering drunkeness, shameful and pathetic.

So I seek the balance. White, male, decently intelligent and attractive, living on a military pension, with all the ‘good things’ people want, like a house and a car and no bills, I have enjoyed and still enjoy a comfortable life. Yet there are days when it feels like colossal wheels roll over me. I’m part of the pavement and they just keep coming, crushing me. That’s emotion, and has nothing to do with logic. But I try to treat it logically.

Or I used to. I rarely succumb to that urge any more. I sit and bare it, reminding myself, breath in…release.

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