woke to no internet

once again brighthouse disappoints as i had to unplug the router, both cable and power cord, let it sit, and then reconnected due to one of it's random failures... to their credit, or blind luck, i don't lose the internet nearly as often as i lose cable tv... but we only moved in here and had everything reinstalled a week ago... after moving in and having the tech reconnect everything, the very next time the tv was turned on we were back to no sound, searching for sound and switching channels didn't work... finally pressing favorites and waiting for the box to reset found sound again... this is why the stats for satisfactory service remain pitiful... i should not have to re-program the box every time i turn it on just to have sound with the picture... still waiting for satisfaction, brighthouse...

so after providing unpaid labor to brighthouse once again, i fixed their crap service... thirty minutes more of my time they did not compensate me for, lowering the satisfaction score still further for this brighthouse customer... most of the next door neighbors here have digital satellite dishes outside of their apartments, so apparently they are ok with it... i'll talk to them as i meet them about their satisfaction and see whether it is time to switch...

hours later

ok, this microsoft update crap has been going on for more than two hours now... it hung twice and i restarted laptop was five times already... i uninstalled spotify because it was starting with the restart and there was no way i found to stop that and spotify was slowing down the computer... there was nothing in my startup folder and no icon for spotify i could find, so beware of any software that installs without access other than logging in at startup, especially when it wants to log in via facebook... i know why companies want to intrude into personal computers, it's all about sales and money, but it is still wrong and should be illegal... the tech is still way too new for the ignorant elected officials to protnct the people, if they ever really wanted to... anyway, this morning has been dominated by microsoft and software and not by my choices... so rather than throw the computer out the window like a sensible person, i will simply walk away and remember how much i hate microsoft for driving me away from the computer and what i wanted to do this morning... I HATE MICROSOFT TODAY... and whomever runs spotify too... facebook is not far behind...

sheesh...

bright house sucks

two weeks into the service and it's gone, connects for a minute or few at ridiculously slow speed (less than 100kbps) and then disconnects... can't even update the virus files and i have to take time out of my life to wait for a cable guy, twice in the first month...

i desperately need sleep anyway... won't put up with this too long... they must get this a lot cuz the tech guy gave me a free month... so i am back on the att aircard... bad news for brighthouse because the aircard is faster than the brighthouse after a two week trial... and they claim up to 50mbps?... that sucks...

and how are you? :)

the continuing suckage of microsoft

seems i am not yet done waking up and venting about the crap microsoft stuffs into a computer... i am finally finding the issues with vista that i never paid attention to because i was hoping that they were fixed by the service packs... when will i learn?... microsoft is right, people are stupid and here i am, dispising the crap on my computer, and still considering buying a netbook and another computer with a microsoft os and more microsoft crap stuffed in under the radar...

what is it this time, ric?...

well, the biggest pain is that vista is starting to hang more and more, especially after the laptop puts itself in sleep mode... at times, the laptop is prevented from going into sleep mode, so the toshiba software is finding issues with vista... and then windows defender is telling me that my virus protection isn't working because there's s glitch in vista... and service pack 2 is 1.6GB which is way too big to download on my connection (because att sucks too), even if i could be sure which vista service pack 2 to download (and windows automatic updates is on, but still it has not downloaded service pack 2, so i still have all the issues with vista because windows update does not work (oh, how surprising, another microsoft product doesn't work?...

karma is a bitch and what goes around comes around, or so it does seem sometimes... all i can say is bill gates better hope that is not true because with the collective frustration of world computer users coping with the bugs and glitches and hangs and freezes and crashes and incompatibilities and time-wasted and simply, crap microsoft software, if a fraction of that came back around on bill and the people who work for microsoft, i would not want to be them...

perhaps this is the newest level of hell, for those who believe people create their own hell, if only by doing the things that get them into the level they get to... beyond the ninth level of hell is a new level, the tenth level of hell is microsoft...

and how was your day? :)

netbooks

in keeping with the recent tech stuff thought process that emerged in the last entry or two, sort of, mostly because microsoft still sucks (and if i had time i'd find and link my other rants about the suckage of microsoft and att and most of the corporations milking people dry in our modern world, but time time time is not on my side, no it isn't, these days, even if it is still telling you a story, with and without acknowledged or not musical references, after all), i am, almost daily of late, pondering the purchase of a netbook...

the reason is largely because the writing jones is itching to be scratched more and more once again... and the portability of a netbook would allow for more five minute blurbs scribbled throughout the day than a full 15.6 inch laptop does... or so the theory in my head goes... and that is possible, perhaps probable, but an 8.9 inch or even smaller would, but similar logic, be more effective than a 10.1 inch and all i seem to see lately are the 10.1 inch models, so would the difference make the difference i would like it to make and would the actual difference be worth the ever rising netbook prices, and so goes the almost daily pondering...

a wireless keyboard would help as well, for even a laptop is bulky and quite warm for long term sitting on a lap, so ponder the wireless keyboard more, i say to myself, for that is not a $400-$500 netbook expense and it would make a difference for the babbler itching to scribble more more often more again more, evermore, again...

thereal is fascinating, isn't it?...

well, sarcastic, at least ::)

on the line

there was a time when i would sit by the phone in front of the computer checking email every fifteen seconds as if every second mattered... i felt blessed to have a phone and a computer to check email... i got into email and the whole web world a bit late, unfortunately, as i was preoccupied with writing for snail mail during it's earliest years and simply never explored the medium even though i was at a computer, writing daily, in the eighties... i sometimes ponder the missed opportunities for social and business, but then, except for a few decisions and experiences (and the loss of contacts with my own words, not to mention people), i loved every moment... except those moment when i was sitting at the phone or at the computer and it felt like no one knew (or cared) that i existed... i don't use the phone much these days...

lost entries

and lost rhymes... being used to office 2007 auto-saving, i forgot to save the wordpad file and poof, the words are gone... oh well, lost an entry, and so it goes, and so it goes... yeah... and so it goes...

the appropriate end to a very challenging day (or days) all around, especially for the body, but i really don't feel like going into it all over again, so forget and whatever, in the end, i am alone with my thoughts anyway... the babbling elsewhere surely will be laden with the crap, you'll just miss out on the simple clarity without the poor-me whining that this blog was supposed to provide... seems the lines are blurring, as usual... and it's not as if these will be missed, a few words of agony amidst a series of entries poured out into various web spaces all of a sudden when i finally reconnect with the internet again... it had been a very challenging day...

so now that i am suddenly looking to open word documents again for the first time in many years and my trial copy of word 2007 is at an end of use, i am giving the ms office 2007 disk another try as i uninstalled it all and as it attempts to install in the background, i continue here... the good news is i opened the new usb hub i bought and connected the mybook and the external cd writer and have room for the 250gb portable drive i bought and also for the flash drives so i can move my work around easily... but oh well, word 2007 will not re-install and work, so off it goes and back comes office 2003, i hope, when i remember to bring home the cd and product key from work...

and then... what the hell, both of my teams fell apart, wait, all three of my teams fell apart this week and if i count the scrimmage on Sunday, that's four straight losses... tonight the first team played the best team in the league and only seven players showed up, so we had to borrow two and play one short... it did not help that i hit like crap... i pitched fine but the other team hit well and our fielding was mediocre at best... still we held a team averaging more than 20 runs a game to twelve... jackson, if you remember her as my former officemate from work, played well... we play on a few teams together... we rushed over to the other game to find our team leading 9-2, but they seemed to fall apart and lost 14-13 on a walk-off hit... we did the same thing to them last year... and that's when the phone rang...

wants (top ten)

music... i want to listen to music again... with full rich sound in a room and with good headphones... i want a system that will produce the sound with clarity, enough so that the words of the lyrics of Radiohead's OK Vomputer and similar are clearly discernible to my ears... if that is possible (amused)... shopping with the CD in hand would be wise... and to recall and re-record the tapes lost along the way...

love... a much more challenging find, i would love to fall in love again... for better or worse, i have very specific wants in a partner and most humans do not come close... actualize John Lennon's Imagine, for instance, for real... yes, all of it... let go of all learned fears and rules of conformity to be free to do anything that causes no direct (and as little as possible) harm (there are no absolutes)... leave ego behind except as a court jester always ready to laugh as one's self for the follies of imperfections... be a giver to the point where we each must hold the other back from giving too much (regularly)... share everything completely openly honestly... actualize honesty without harm... be open to learning... sing with me, run with me, be the best we can be... understand the truth in the concept that the more right we think we are, the more wrong we can be... be a best friend... and this is where we begin...