I *AM* the Black Cloud

I've seen some shit.
I've been through some shit.
The amount of shit piled up at my place now actually exceeds the interior volume of the house. It's called Quantum Shit.

You've had bad days.
I've had bad days.
This day is unprecedented in all its badness.

Most of my bad days start with computers. This makes perfect sense, as I've been in computers since high school. You know... a long time ago. My main computer was looking a little weird (as opposed to its owner, who is looking very weird), so I figured a redo was in order. Load up the dvd, reboot, and POOF, there were weird characters and it was having trouble reading the drive. The drive is solid state, plus I could see the folders, so all was not lost. I re-redid it. Weird error message. I re-re-redid it. Same weird error message. No suggested fixes worked.

Ok, main computer only has all of my stuff on it... (backed up), but I need a computer to run it on. Wife's laptop: kernel panic. For those of you not familiar, kernel panic is really bad, m'kay? It's what happens when the computer knows I'm overstressed or Just Plain Pissed, so it's terrified of me. So I tried to redo it. It was still panicked. I started to panic. It's not like there's a computer on every step on the stairs.

My phone decided it wasn't going to deal with email. This isn't an unreasonable idea, but it is for a phone. In fact, the relatively new tablet also refused to deal with email, in sympathy with the phone. I, on the other hand, had no sympathy for these devices and my neck was getting sore from shaking my head so much, out of sheer grief and aggravation.

AHA - I have a spare laptop... kinda anemic, but it'll get the mail!
Yes, I located said laptop. Unfortunately I did not locate laptop's power supply. No matter, I have 50 of them; almost one that fit, except it was missing the part that went to the electrical outlet. After digging that up, I plugged it in and it did its best impersonation of a government employee: nothing. In case you're counting at home, this is 3 computers, a phone, and a tablet.

The tears running down my face gave no indication that I would be more comfortable shooting from a tall building or mall.

Ladies and blog readers, this is just about the end of my computer inventory. Somewhere is an ancient pc with an ancient version of Ubuntu on it, but I suspect it had gone on vacation with the 3 laptops that have gone POOF over the last 3 years.

Pulling up the tablet, I ran a virus scan, because I'm like that. Halfway into the scan, POOF. The tablet shut off. I figured it was part of the Random Reboot package I paid extra for, but no, it shut down. Period. I plugged it in, hoping for some stupid reason it would work but NO. THE F&$#ING TABLET WAS HOSED. Bricked. A flat, sporty screen with nothing on it ever again. It was dead. Pushing up daisies. Gone and joined the choir invisible. Bereft of life, it rested in peace. POOF. It just died to spite me- no other reason.

Do ya see what I'm talking about? Once the excrement hits the whirling device, the only thing that happens is more excrement and more whirling devices, until I smell a bit and can't move for shit.

There was a small tablet around somewhere. Somewhere (far away look in his eyes). It disappeared, perhaps on purpose, the day the larger tablet arrived. Maybe it felt inferior. I just can't find it, in spite of the fact it only lived in one of two places, both now empty.

So I was dead in the water. Nothing. No way, no how. I couldn't get my frigging email. You know what that's like. You get the shakes, the bends, your genitals shrink, and you become even less tolerant of anyone sharing your living space.

I got a drink, sat back down, and promptly spilled most of it on my hand and pants.
I made dinner and burned myself, after I couldn't find the last ingredient of anything I wanted to make. The door fell off the pantry. The dog needed to go outside every 10 minutes, which she never does.

This is the part that's killing me: the only communicative device I had left was the work iDevice. With even more tears and a groin pull, I went about seeing if it could handle the tiny amount I needed to throw at it (not that the phone couldn't, but maybe wouldn't). I installed an email account. HALLELEUJAH! I installed a 2nd email account... well, no I didn't.. because I couldn't find the button to install a 2nd email account, including the one that said New Account. After asking my iHole friends, I learned that you don't add accounts to email through the email program - you add it in the Accounts section of the phone. Well how stupid could I be? How didn't I know this?  The only thing that really grinds my gears is that this is the only device in the known universe that has no punctuation on its keyboard. If you want a period, you have to push SPACE twice, or go to a second page of keyboard. What kind of abjectly drunk design is this? Periods are sort of common in most languages, with commas in there too. I checked the Apple Store and there were none to be found.

On the way to celebrate me, I kicked a case of soda. Not on purpose - my size 17 feet kick everything around me, whether I want them to or not. I can mistakenly kick something that's 2 feet away from me, simply because it's there while I walk by. Mostly I trip over stuff. Stuff that really isn't in the way. Every day I go into my computer room and notice the little space heater, and every day my foot hits it on the way by. It's like the device suddenly does the impossible and gets larger for half a second, while I pass by it. Or sticks out its imaginary foot.

Feeling overjoyed at something working, I went to check my mail.
Nope, I can't find the phone.
The phone I just got my email from.
It is missing.
People who don't know me and have never seen my house tell me I look organized.
Of course I look organized - if I don't put something in its place the moment I'm done with it, I will never find it again. So putting things away just looks organized.
Wait... I remember putting it on the sofa arm. Things on the sofa arm generally fall next to the sofa. Nope, not this time.
Hey - just last week I put my phone there. I found it hours later, in between the sofa cushion and the sofa end. Sure enough, this was the second one to do it.
So I put the phone in its place, after which it immediately plummeted to the ground, unassisted.

They tell me, whoever they are, that the universe is an incredibly vast place, with lots of strange real estate and even stranger furniture. Being so vast, the universe couldn't possibly care about me. Screw that - it is actively involved now, monitoring my every move and making sure nothing performs as expected. I just found a speaker I've been looking for (behind the computer desk, where all speakers go to relax). Sometimes I get the feeling that if stuff didn't go wrong for me, the entire universe would stop suddenly and disappear. I am that critical to Operations.

With nowhere else to go, I hooked up my old desktop. It booted! It did not explode. It did not have kernel panic (or kernel generalized anxiety). It did not shun me. For fun, I checked the last time it was run. Depending on file dates, alcohol, and potent pharmaceuticals, it's about 3-5 years. I remember this box kicking ass. Since I have no real memory, it's incredibly slow. After everything else is done, I have to build a new one. I'm getting too old for this shit.

The version of Xubuntu is very old. Very very old. Pre-Obama old. Depending on the version, you have to upgrade one by one, or every two versions. By next week, I'll be almost up to date!


Shopping List:

1. 2 full size mice
2. 24-ish inch monitor
3. new motherboard, processor, and RAM
4. 1 or 2 solid state drives, 1 laptop
5. a Sawzall for the next time I get mad
6. someone to follow me around and apologize for things I just said
7. Samsung tablet repair
8. sore throat drops from yelling

Not bad for a single day!

Why Do You Think It's Called a Strip Mall?

Two relative strangers met and hooked up in California.  While this no doubt happens all the time, it rarely happens in front of a strip mall.  Hey, when you gotta hump, you gotta hump, right?

Now the NSA is really in your computer.  Our good friends near DC have been caught sneaking malware into the firmware of hard drives, as discovered by Kaspersky.  This also brings up the fact that the drive manufacturers allowed this. These are some evil folks, folks.  Lady Gaga or Beyonce had better do something fast...

A Tinder app is said to enable flings at Carnival in Rio.  And let's face it... if you've gotta go down... {ahem}, Rio isn't such a bad place to do it.

Mystery Mars haze baffles scientists. Well, it's not so much haze as the Martians steam-cleaning the rovers for us.

STUDY: Dogs are smarter than people think.  Not watching tv helps.

Show-winning dog semen sells for $2,000.  Further proof that I'm in the wrong business.

Rowdy women attack man at 50 Shades.  So I'm thinking to myself that this is my golden opportunity: stand outside the theater and clean up!  Right up until we discover that the man in question asked the ladies to lower the volume a bit and got the wrong kind of head.

Woman pulls gun on man after being denied sex. Wow, I didn't know we could DO that!

======================================

It's Snow Time in the old neighborhood. Again. This time the forecasters called for three to six inches. Within hours, it was one to three.  In an extreme slip-up, we got three to six.  What are the odds that a weather forecaster will be correct?

As a result, I worked from the couch, where I am generally headquartered.  I was treated to the somewhat altered-state neighbor shoveling early.  I strongly suspect he has some sort of noise-enhancing attachment built into his shovel. Still, this is better than last year, with the snow blower. Snow blowers, while a great concept, bother me almost as much as lawn mowers.  Let's face it - they require so much care and maintenance that they're unlikely at best to be there for you when you need them (as one could argue about a wife).

After work, I shoveled. It wasn't bad at all (especially as I didn't have to start a snow blower). Then I heard this loud noise, incredibly similar to the neighbor's amplified shovel.  This is largely because it was the neighbor's shovel, this time being powered by the 437 year old being from hell who owns the place.  In the autumn, she has some sort of laser-powered Leaf Alarm to tell her when our leaves hit the ground.  I'll bet you she also has a laser-powered Snow Detector too. As soon as it starts snowing, she forces the tenant into Snow Bondage.  Apparently his snow job was not sufficient, as she was out there again, probably cataloging and cleaning individual flakes from the tarmac.

-------------------------------------------------

I thoroughly ruined someone's day today, or at least I hope I did.  

I don't get out much and I don't have anywhere near enough fun, so I have to get it where I can (kinda like sex).

There's a street on the way to work that has a 25mph speed limit and they're not kidding. I suspect half of the town's revenue comes from speeding tickets. I was warned early to obey and obey I do.

Not everybody obeys and this is where the fun starts.

Sometimes people don't want to do the speed limit, so they pass you in great haste. The only problem here is that it's only a two-lane road, so they cross into the wrong lane to pass you. While I have yet to see anyone ticketed (or beaten) for this, hope springs eternal.  When I drive a higher performance car, I speed up while they're trying to pass: it amuses me.

Today's idiot was a special breed.  He got right up my tailpipe from the start. When this happens, I naturally make sure I'm doing exactly 25mph, if not 24.  This did not impress Sparky, who stayed in close formation. Trick Number Two: brush the brake pedal so the brake lights come on. Sparky backed off a bit but in short order, he was trying to climb into my trunk.  Firing up the brake lights again only pissed Sparky off and he blinked his lights at me.

Imagine - he blinked his lights at me.

A brief glance at the speedometer told me I was doing 1mph over the limit, so I slowed down. Sparky backed off.  Not for long, of course, despite passing several 25mph signs.  By this point, Sparky's face was no doubt starting to turn red and veins were popping out of his head.  In fact, he got more aggressive and would not back up, even with the Brake Light Treatment.  

Finally some sense must have seeped in and he backed off. I suspect he might have seen some speed limit signs.  Oh no, he was back again, this time weaving all over his lane, as if he were going to somehow rocket past me.  I smiled and continued to do the speed limit in a nearly offensive manner.

At this point, Sparky probably had to give the steering wheel to his passenger, as he was having a Coronary Event (formerly heart attack).  He finally got around me because he had to get into the turning lane. He shot me a look.  I smiled.

I won.


And as I close this episode, I have but one wish: that both the cat and the dog stop farting.  I'm going to asphyxiate here.