It all started on Monday. Monday I had to get a root canal and a temporary crown. Once the novacaine wore off and I could feel the left side of my face again it was sore as hell, and my cheek was all swollen. Suffice it to say I had trouble sleeping and was in no fit mood to be out in public. I figured the internet would keep me amused.
I'm sure it would have done a terrific job of keeping me distracted, but my laptop had other ideas -- ideas like doing its best impression of a rectangular paperweight.
I tried turning it on. Multiple times I tried turning it on and off. I left it charging for hours in case that was the problem, or maybe an update needed time to finish. I was willing to hope for any signs of life.
Nothing had worked. It powers on and I can hear the fan run, but the monitor stays dark and nothing else runs or even attempts to load. I even followed the advice of a random YouTube video on how to clear static charge. No dice. Laptop seems to be done.
Tuesday morning I discovered that my home phone had randomly decided to stop working. I found this out when I tried to call in to work because my cheek was swollen and sore as anything. Fantastic.
I'm still not sure what the problem was. The television and wireless were fine. I tried going to the Verizon website since I have Fios, maybe they would have an answer. I ran the phone line test, and was told it was fine, they couldn't do anything else for me, try back later. WTF. Nice customer service skills. I restarted the router on the advice of a friend. Don't really know if that was the magic trick, but eventually the phone came back a few hours later.
Wednesday brought two problems: the air conditioning in my car appears to only work when it feels like it, and my television went even more insane than usual. I don't have time to get too upset about the car. I'll get that fixed eventually, but the television is becoming a pain in the ass.
The television already has its own ideas of what I should watch. For reasons known only to itself, my television randomly decides that I cannot watch shows due to their parental guidance rating. I have no parental controls set. I have gone rounds with Verizon about this -- hours of my life I will never get back. They claim it must be a control that is set on my television. No way. I have an old standard tv -- old enough that parental controls aren't even an option on the menu.
For example, the other evening it would not let me watch a rerun of The Big Bang Theory because it was rated PG-14. Annoying. I think the television has its own agenda, as not five minutes later it was totally cool with me watching South Park (rated MA). How does that make any sense?
But the current problem was totally new insanity from the television. I went to On Demand to watch an episode of a show I had missed. I queue up the show, hit play, and everything is suddenly in black and white. Not like the show was purposefully in black and white, but even the On Demand intro had suddenly changed. I really thought that might have been a sign that the end was nigh for my poor old television, but when I stopped using On Demand everything was back to glorious color. What is this fresh new hell?
Three times I had to reset the box before I could get On Demand to function in color properly. F$*%ing Fios. I never had so many problems when I had Time-Warner.
Thursday my iPhone decided to get in on the action, as apparently it was feeling left out. I had made absolutely no changes to the phone, and suddenly all of my contacts had disappeared. I fixed it eventually, but it was just one more thing I did not need to deal with.
Yesterday it was the coffee pot. I know I'm not the most functional person in the morning without my coffee, but I swear the coffee pot became possessed this time. I got it all set up, turned it on -- everything was normal so far. Coffee pot chugged away happily, the enticing aroma of fresh coffee filling the air. I decided to hop in the shower while it finished brewing the pot.
Mistake!
Freshly showered and in need of coffee, I returned to the kitchen to find a mess. I don't know how or why, but somehow the coffee maker and managed to only make about a third of a pot, then had popped open the basket containing the coffee grounds and filter, and had created a tepid coffee waterfall that had cascaded down the counter and all across the kitchen floor. I've got nothing for this one. No clue how it could have happened.
All this brings us to today, and why I am currently trying to write all of this on my iPhone. My laptop is still in paperweight mode, so I obviously can't use that. I tried to write this using my Kindle Fire -- at least the keyboard would be a bit bigger on there. Nope. I got as far as the title for this exciting entry. My Kindle totally refused to give me a keyboard to write the actual body of the post.
It's taken me a lot longer than usual to get to this point. I've never posted from my phone before, so I'm really not sure how well this is going to work. I usually proofread, edit and preview multiple times before posting a new entry. I currently see none of those options -- just a box labeled "done", and it scares me.
If you are reading this then it worked successfully! (If this whole thing disappears I may just cry, sitting in the corner and mumbling about why technology has it in for me.)
