Technology Hell update

I've discovered something really, really annoying: I can't get into my blog to post from either my cell phone (both the old-new one AND the new-new one wouldn't/won't work!) or the touch-screen iPod that (so I believed) would keep me from having to lug my laptop around quite so much. Oh, sure, both devices allow me to access the blog to read it and check comments (presuming anyone gives a rat's ass about what I write); to read a good number of the blogs in my blogroll; to access and send messages via one of my too-many email addys; and to enter a blog post title. Past that? Nein, nada, rein, sifuri, nulla, zip, zilch and diddly-squat.
What makes it even more irritating is that Blogger/Blogspot has a feature that allows blog owners to email posts to directly post, or to save as a draft. Great idea, I could use that. Except for the all-to-rare success, more often than not such emails disappear into a Black Hole and spend subjective-eternity trapped in the Event Horizon, to some day be spat out into another universe. Possibly they turn into wavicles or subparticles and add to the Dark Matter that helps power The Universe As We Know It. Or maybe they just Become One with the Eternal OM and bring spiritual enlightenment to my computer.
Nah, more likely they just add my addy to *yet another* frakking spam list as they vanish, never to be seen again....

So where are we in this circle jerk?
- Oldest cell phone (Motorola Razr): Kept for emergency back-up use. Damn near bullet-proof; even Frau Klutz here couldn't break it despite bouncing it off the pavement more than I care to admit to. I'd still be carrying it around, except web access is awfully nice (it can be damn handy to have radar at your finger tips when the skies turn dark!) and the screen's a little too small for me to read much on. Needless to say, I'm still trying to decide whether I want to get trifocals . . . or just say frak it and train one of the dogs to keep me from walking into walls.
- Old replacement phone (Samsung Delve): Back to the store. The only thing I miss about it is the size of the screen. In some things, size really does matter...but not enough for me to tolerate its design/programming flaws. Browser sucked too. Buh-bye!
- New replacement (Blackberry Curve): Love it! Easy to navigate, no working my way through multiple screens to find out if I have a message or a missed call. And yes, Technogeek, you were right, I should have gotten the 'berry to start with, like you did. You can just bite me, boy.
- Old laptop: Drive is DOA. Would have cost me $450 to fix it. That's with a smaller HD than the one that died and the Bluetooth device, which we would have had to REorder after having canceled the first order. Is it worth $450 to fix a roughly 5-y.o. machine with a screen that occasionally goes out and a mother board that was giving hints of potential catastrophic failure within the next year? I didn't think so either. The new one is supposed to be here today.
- New laptop: Not here yet. Just called my computer dealer (yeah, man, I need a fix real bad; you got some good stuff?) for an update. "I'll have to call you back" does NOT bode well. I suggested she grab the tech guy who handled the sale by the scruff of his neck and make him find out where it is in the delivery process. (I was only joking of course. Maybe.)

That loud scream of anguish you might've just heard in the distance was me. The nice lady at the computer place (who is probably at this very moment calling the authorities to strongly strongly recommend that they outfit me with an "I love me" jacket with the extra-long sleeves) just called back to say my computer is . . . deep breath, Paws, deep breath, try to stay calm . . . NOT ON THE FUCKING TRUCK. It'll be here tomorrow.

Whimper...sob.

The good news, such as it is to this poor dumb sumbitch trying to work with a glitchy keyboard and a browser that gives me fits? The tech guy is going to personally deliver it here to the house since he lives in Duck Puddle* too, to save me the 60 mile round-trip. He's a good kid, graduated high school with my oldest. We give each other friendly shit, although I suspect my sense of humor is a little stranger than his. But he's young yet; give him time and he'll probably be just as crazy as the rest of us.

And speaking of crazy . . . Squidboy called yesterday. It seems one of his shipmates there in submarine school "got sent up" to surface duty. And why? The psych eval said he's TOO NORMAL. If that don't beat all, as my granny used to say. I guess my son explained it best when he said:

We're going to be living underwater, in a steel tube, with 100-plus other guys, for months at a time, looking for people to kill. You HAVE to be crazy to do this job!

Or words to that effect. I guess in those circumstances a person really would have to be crazy to keep from going insane. I just hope the psych people understand that my son prefers to sleep with the windows open....



* Or whatever I called it last time.