Missing in Action

Yes, I should have at least posted some words in all this time. I set things
up so I could email blogs, because I thought that would make it easier. And
yes, it does. I still just don't say anything!
Perhaps it's because when I do sit down in front of the computer I'm so
frustrated by its sluggishness, 400 Mhz and almost zero RAM and a
2.something MB HD.... (Though I've functioned on this as a back up machine
before.) Or maybe it's because our dial up speed has dwindled to tin cans
and string speed.... (No, really. Messages tied to the leg of a snail would
be faster. Except I don't think snails have legs...)

We've harrassed good ol' Ma Bell so much they know us personally now. It
seems very likely there's some fault in the seals of the local junction box,
because ever since spring, it if rains, the service drops off. Sometimes
even quits. Our neighbours have given up on the idea of internet totally.
We're the only poor eejits still perservering! And of course, when the local
on-contract guy pops by to check it out, it's a day or two later, and the
rains are gone, and everything seems fine.
We've tried four different computers; two different styles, Mac and PC;
four different phone outlets; two different phone lines; even two different
ISP's, just for overkill's sake! Nothing helps. The last thing we can try,
which will be time-consuming and awkward so gets put off, is to replace all
the phone cabling in the house and all the jacks.

We don't even have the option of paying the big bucks for high speed - it
simply isn't available. We're in one of those little black holes where
no-one is supplying it. Sigh.

So, that hasn't helped my literary mood.

And when I finally did get a version of my computer back so I could access
my nice little camera again (really mine now, I've worked off the trade!),
it turns out the email problem is still there, and I probably have to load
the OS from scratch, so I'm still running life from the Village Idiot
computer.

And then, my old old computer was having a second chance at life, with a
new motherboard! (Thanks Russ!) Well, I haven't been able to manage to
collect it yet. Won't see if for a month. sigh.....
And with my luck, when I finally do get it home, I'll be up to my eyebrows
in the Christmas play at the Theatre, and not get a chance to really sort it
all out.

Thing is, there are solutions to all of this, and not just the simple but
more expensive one of just buying a new system that works. But a number of
them require me to figure them out, and that probably means doing some
research on the web (cause we got no libraries up here at the end of the
world) and then I'm back to being annoyed at my dial up speed.

Vicious circles.

But here, let's end the techno-whine before it makes Karen grumpy!

v