I just went roughly two days without the Internet being allowed into my home. Seems I did not have enough money in the bank when the provider tried to take the money out of the bank. A couple times. Like since January. So they cut me off. But it is all taken care of now, so I am back online and I will start making sure that I am keeping more money in my bank account, I think.

It’s weird how if I were to go away for a weekend or something I would not notice the lack of Internet. I mean, it’s only two days. That is really not very long. But when I am in my home and I am having nothing better to do and I have had several days of way-too-long shifts at work this week, when that happens, I notice the lack of Internet. After all. It’s Two Whole Days! That’s forever!

I’m pretty much all caught up on what I missed. I’ve two episodes of each of the Daily Show and Colbert that I am about to watch. And I had to clear about 900 spam comments from the site here. I suppose that could have been worse considering that I’ve had that many turn up in a matter of hours sometimes.

For years now I’ve done the bulk of my watching television at the Comedy Network website. Home to the Daily Show and Colbert (because in Canada we’re not allowed to watch those shows on their actual websites). For years the Comedy Network website has been pretty crappy.

The video system had always been sub-YouTube in quality. I spent as much time with buffering and waiting for the clips to load as I actually did watching. Even if I were to pause the clip and walk away from the computer for a while it would only load up a minute ahead of where I was paused and just stop. If I let it load for an hour while I did other things, I’d would come back to a minute’s worth of a clip and then more waiting. And at least twice a day the clips would just give up and kick me out of the video thing and would not only stop loading the clip, it would also lose the place where it was. Combine this with the problems my computer has anyway, it made watching my stories unnecessarily large.

Well today I woke up to find a new type of clip viewer on the site. And today, no long waits and stuff. I guess I have to thank the Comedy Network. If you’re going to force me to watch the shows on your site instead of those of the actual people whose shows I want to see, I’m glad you seem to actually be making it easier for me.

Okay, so sure, I’ve been like double my already high usual levels of both “self-hatred” and “hating my job” because this month sucks more than typical at work. I’ve beat myself up for not getting a closer look at a cat and I’ve beat myself up for locking myself out of my apartment (see my last two posts) and that’s the just stuff I hate myself for that I remembered to post about. At least the lockout thing I can find funny because it was a way of shaking up dull routine, but it still took several hours of my time. I’ve also been sleeping fitfully at best and getting less reading done at work. So anyway, I’m not spending as much time doing things I’d like to do is what I am trying to use this paragraph to say.

So one day this week I woke up late and watched the Daily Show and Colbert as I am wont to do and then turned on my music and prepared to do whatever it is I do with my days, but then I realized the time and that I needed to get ready for work sharpish. I muttered to myself “No one told me when to run, I missed the starting gun” and people with good taste will recognize that is a line from “Time” by Pink Floyd, an awesome song about the passage of time bringing us all closer to death.

Within ten seconds of my quoting this, the clamorous opening to the song begins on my computer. It was on random, so there was no way I am aware of that I could have subconsciously picked up that it was next. It was a pretty sweet coincidence, but I didn’t think so much of it that I would have bothered to post about it here.

Tonight, at work, during a rather dull moment I got the assistants to watch things while I went into the office to get a head start on the paperwork I had to do at the end of the night. In the office I had a radio playing tuned to a local station. As soon as I sat down I realized Time was playing, which reminded me of the previous occurrence. It was a pretty easy night at work so there were literally a dozen or more times when the operation was smooth enough that I could have gone off to do that and I chose the one time that Time was playing. Pretty neat.

So anyway, ruling out the possibility that I have just developed some sort of unconscious prescience relating only to that one song, I am left with the option that the Song is Following Me. If the universe is using the song in an attempt to cheer me up, I thank it, but couldn’t it maybe choose a song that is not about Exactly What Is Depressing Me? If the universe is trying to mock me… okay then yeah, good choice.

For posterity’s sake I will point out that at the actual end of the night when I was finishing the paperwork they played Wish You Were Here, another Pink Floyd song which, while melancholy, does not cut so deep into specifics with me. And I love that one too. Clearly Q104 is the station to go for for Pink Floyd, I guess. Not that they don’t play plenty of crap in between.

Anyway, the time is gone, the post is over… thought I’d something more to say…

So, I lost my cable channels. I mean, I’ve not been paying for cable for years, but for some reason instead of getting the basic channels one is supposed to get, I was getting an eclectic mix of networks with no rhyme or reason.

I was getting TVTropolis, which was good for getting sitcom reruns, something everybody should enjoy at least now and then. I was getting A&E, and though it was no longer the A&E I remembered from my youth with documentaries and stuff, I watched the occasional crime show or really censored episodes of the Sopranos on occasion. I had Spike, which is a monstrously stupid channel from what I could see, but they had Star Wars on, pretty much nonstop. PBS had some science programs worth watching, but mostly I just watched kids shows like Effing Super Why. Also, there was an informercial channel which could amuse if you were in the right mood and maybe one or two sports channels that I pretty much never watched.

Basically, I was getting enough channels to flip around a little bit before I realized how much television sucked and would move on to something else. But now I only get the three basic Canadian channels or whatever. Now realizing that there is nothing on happens faster than ever before.

I may not watch all that much television, but unlike some I don’t lambast the entire medium. There are things I appreciate about it. In a way even watching it alone seems more like a social activity than watching DVDs or downloading episodes of things. It seems less canned on television somehow. I suppose that is, in part, because of the unfortunate presence of commercials which, though annoying, are at least a sign of companies trying to keep you up to date on their activities. Also, much more positive than commercials, is the fact that you can get breaking news interruptions. If I’m watching a rented movie and the Queen sets herself on fire and then declares war on the Vatican and then has a swordfight with the Pope, I’m gonna miss the whole thing, but if I’m watching most television networks you’d think they’d interrupt programming to say “Holy Shit, check this out!”

When I watch programs online, such as the Daily Show and Colbert, I guess I get the ads (the annoying one of the connections to the outside world) but even then I lack the other thing I like about the medium of television. Sometimes I am definitely in the mood to say “Okay, TV, let’s see what you’ve got for me.” Sometimes I might find something worth watching. An episode of some show I didn’t know existed, or an old one I had forgotten or some movie from the eighties, who knows? As far as I am aware there is no way for me to just “flip around” on the Internet.

I mean, YouTube comes close to that level of flip-aroundedness, but… It has also somehow succeeded in having more garbage than television. Go figure.

So far being not at work is already feelin’ fine. I’ve gotten many errands done quicker than I usually do. And it’s only Saturday morning! Sweet. Let’s see if I can’t do something worthwhile with the time yet to come.

Of course, I’ve also got to waste some time. With that in mind we got Joust for the NES. I can’t say I’m any better at games than I ever was, but at least I’m playing a classic.

The only really pitfall of my time off is that my computer has betrayed me. Well, betrayed me is kind of a strong word. It implies my computer used to be on my side. My computers have always been about rolling their own way. I can hitch a ride and get some benefits from it, but they don’t really care if I’m doing well or not. This particular laptop had been doing strange things such as constantly turning the volume to maximum, making the letter “b” appear for no reason when I hit enter, insert, delete, right shift or the arrow keys and occasionally turns off its own ability to pick up wireless. Troublesome, but I was used to it.

But now it has all changed! Now it is constantly turning the volume to minimum, making the letter “c” appear for no reason when I hit enter, insert, delete, right shift or the arrow keys and occasionally turns off its own ability to pick up wireless. The primary problem with this is that, when my volume is maxed out, I can still listen to it. When it is minimal I can not. I have had music to play me to sleep since listening to the radio as a child and though I can sleep without it, I am convinced that I don’t sleep as well. I wake up feeling bad when I don’t have music as I fall asleep. I don’t know why, but it seems to be backed up. Also, without volume, watching the Daily Show and Colbert becomes pretty hard.

As for the change from letter “b” to letter “c”, that just freaks me out because I can almost imagine reasons why those buttons might accidentally write one letter, but for it to suddenly switch letters it just hurts my brain.

Computers, man. They’re complicated.

Apparently these problems are not uncommon with my particular make of laptop. I’m not about to open my laptop up and pull a plug any time soon as one dude suggests, but man I would like to. I just fear I would kill the computer in the process.

Anyway, later.