A Life Without Internet

I'm living almost entirely without internet and I don't much care for it. And when I say 'I don't much care for it', what I really mean is I have a twitch now. A full on twitch. One that punches people.

I wasn't planning to write about this, as it's soooooooo boring to everyone else, but screw you, it's my blog and you will ruddy well have to sit there and like it.

My broadband, my sweet precious broadband up and died ten days ago. It was being a bit temperamental (bitchy, as the beau and I call it as we take everything personally), but now it is a total no go. Cue calls to Plusnet and a 30min wait while they deal with all the people who are being reeeeal uppity about the floods. 

I can almost touch it

I won't bore you with all the details. Essentially I waited a week for an engineer, found out it wasn't an external wiring problem, set up two laptops and one iPad with various wires to three routers, spoke to Japan (I think), and told technicians about 90 times that it was definitely them not me. It was exactly like my divorce.

Everyday, I get an email from a different member of staff telling me it's fine, and then it's not fine, and then it's all going to be okay, and then that they're sorry they had some wine and felt vulnerable and just wanted to talk.

Here is an excerpt of my correspondence on Twitter:

Damn it to pus-spewing hell, @plusnet! May every vengeful deity in imagination land rain fire upon your routers!!!
— The Demon Gin (@thedemongin) January 19, 2014

Why me? Why must I listen to multiple technicians telling me in a worried tone: "Oh....that really shouldn't happen. The computer SHOULD be talking to the router." Well it isn't! I think we can conclude that whatever sick relationship the two of them had is well and truly over. They are officially on non-speaking terms, the computer has moved into his cousin's flat and the router has signed up to Match.com, and it's time for us all to move on.

The router and the computer, the router and the computer, the router and the computer - I've heard this phrase so many times this weekend that I'm considering pitching it to Penguin as an idea for a children's book. But instead of the router and the computer being best friends, they are minions of the devil that fuck each other repeatedly in a bid to drive their owners so insane that they rip out their own spines. 

Unable to cope with the delays, I purchased a USB dongle from the Carphone Warehouse* thinking it would be better than the pathetic portable signal I get from my mobile. It isn't. I can get signal if I balance on a stool in the middle of my bedroom, while drinking a glass of water. Which is what I am doing now.

Look at these two, enjoying the internet.
 Well maybe this is why daddy left you!!!!

It is poor form, but the lack of internet has made me irritable and grouchy and angry all of the time. I need internet access for this here blog, but also so I can switch off during my down time. I like to use social media (if you couldn't tell already), I like to read other blogs and BBC News, I like to read about the Hindenburg and the JFK assassination at 2am when I can't sleep, I like to watch videos and download movies to my Xbox. I do these things to wind down my brain after work or at the start of the day before I start writing or reading or watching films. I NEED the internet.

Oh blah blah blah all of you who say ' you know, it's crazy but millions of people somehow managed to live without internet for YEARS.'

And you call that living?

I am old enough to remember when the internet was the stuff of a mad man's dreams. It existed, somewhere far away, and people spoke about it in wonderment: "Have you heard of this internet thing? You can send stuff to people around the world, even if you don't want to! I'd like to get me one of those."

In the early 1990s my dad, being a hopeless technophile, got one of the first internets. Hot of the presses, it was. Fit right inside the home, it did. He had various phone lines and modems installed all over his office (a shed in the garden), and his giant desktop computer hummed and chirruped daily with the promise of emails, movie trailers and awful, awful porn. It brought us closer together as a family.

I remember the days of CompuServe and my first forays into the very early world of social networking -  we called them 'chat rooms'. It took all of three minutes before I was stalked by a fat Star Wars fan. Ahh Obi Wan45, I often wonder whatever happened to him. I'm guessing he's dead.

Remember this? Innocent times
Courtesy of Wiki

I remember the day that dad managed to download a clip from Interview With A Vampire for me. I say 'day'. It actually took three weeks, and it cost my mother the use of her legs, for some reason, but it was worth it for that 30 seconds we saw of the film that would come out only a short time later.

Having grown up without internet for at least some of my life, you'd think I'd be able to cope well enough without it now. PAH, I say. PAH. I am the original crack baby, I am the person who can't come off their meds without dying - I got a taste for t'internet at a young age and I LIKED it. Don't act like I haven't suffered; dial-up modems, juddering downloads, BT's repeated lies, Internet cocking Explorer (I love you Firefox). I have crawled, bloodied and haggard, through the dark ages to this golden era of instant fibre optic bliss at every fingertip.

I have earned this. I will not go back to that hell hole. You'll never take me alive.

*I almost wrote Carwarephone there. That's not right. 

Found on www.funnyjunk.com.