Dust Settled

Okay, all that connectivity bullshit seems to have cleared up.  I won’t go into detail, but the past two days have been somewhat nerve-wracking because I kind of like keeping this here back porch of mine going, and because without an Internet connection in my house, I was going to have to go to places like Sta*buck$ or my apartment complex’s front office to use their free wi-fi.  And the rent had to be paid,yesterday — and there was no guarantee that I would be able to do it online.  (Not that I care that much;  my bank has a branch literally in the next block — actual walking distance, no kidding — so at worst I could get a cashier’s check cut in about five minutes.)

Also, my plagues & poxes episode finally seems to have cleared up — although New Wife is now showing some worrying symptoms of same — but at least I’m no longer hacking up bits of lung or whatever.

The downtime meant I had no time to assemble the Monday Funnies or News Roundup for their respective days, but that’s not important in the grand scheme of things, what with so many others putting out the same type of content anyway.  And to be quite frank, both involve quite a lot of work to put together (“curate”? I hate that fucking word), so I might just make the Roundup a weekly thing.

Anyway, normal service will now be resumed.

Assuming, of course, that in the general mood of whatthefuck that I described last week, that there’s anything I feel like ranting about or even giggling at.

12 comments

  1. I hear you. Right now I’m probably paying way too much for combined internet, cable and phone (landline, still). But the logistics and sheer effort of switching to a different provider is mind-numbing. It’d take at least a week or more of BS, no TV, no internet, before I could get all the bugs worked out. And my lovely wife would be oh-so-understanding about not watching her favorite shows 24/7. Just getting her new phone set up had us half-way to me moving out. I’d rather keep paying too much for the decent service we have now then to switch to a cheaper service and have to reset everyone’s devices.

    1. Grossly overpriced chemically flavored chalk …
      I don’t eat scones very often, but when I do, I go to a real bakery.
      And schnecken .. Praise be unto the Good Lord HaShem .. SCHNECKEN .. Hmmmmm .. schnecken

  2. Don’t forget most cell phone plans today have a hotspot feature. If your plan doesn’t consider switching. Most prepaid plans have hotspot features.

    Android or Apple phones there is one setting to turn on to activate the hotspot and then you connect your laptop to it

    Many cell phone plans today available for under 50 bucks that include hotspot.

    Some excellent prepaid services are

    – US mobile (Runs on Verizon, ATT or T-Mobile)
    – Visible Wireless (Runs on Verizon)
    – Mint Mobile (Runs on T-Mobile)

    A great backup to your home connection in case the home connection goes out. Also if the power is out as long as your phone is charged you can use it.

    1. Those are ok. But if you already have a phone with a hotspot plan , then you have to buy a separate device and plan.

      If you want to get wireless home internet with the router to replace dsl, cable etc that’s great

      For a backup Wi-Fi hotspot the cell phone one works great.

      1. Kim,

        Most every electronic is made in China (Cell Phones, routers, laptops etc)

        That being said, I want to be sure to clarify what I am saying vs what Quentin said.

        – Quentin is talking about Mi Fi routers. Those require a separate plan from your cell phone, and have limited data (10, 20 30, 50 100 or 150 GB are the common plans I have seen). I find these stupid for 2 reasons -1- if you are a heavy internet user even moderate, and rely on this for a sole home connection, you will run out of data and need to buy more 2 – if you use these just once in a while when the main connection is down, I find these beyond stupid in 2024, because most every cell plan, with a few exceptions, comes with a hotspot feature. Yes you might only get 10 or 20 GB on a phone hotspot per month, however, if used as a backup this is fine. NEITHER the cell phone or MiFi is for dedicated home use. Also pricy, mifi plans are something like 50 to 100 dollars usually. and you have to buy another device. You already have your phone.

        So again, if you just need a backup because your home internet connection is down, use your phones hotspot for a few hours here and there. If your cell plan does not have one, check out Visible, US Mobile or Mint. These prepaid companies run on the big 3 (Verizon, Tmobile and ATT) and for 25 to 50 bucks a month, you get unlimited talking and unlimited texting, “Unlimited” data (Meaning like the first 5 to 50 GB is priority high speed, then after that you can still use it but you will just see slower speeds the rest of that month).

        – The home routers I am talking about are something like Verizon Wireless home Internet and Tmobile home internet. –

        If you already have TMobile or Verizon wireless – they usually give you a deal. You get a router like you have in your home for Cable and DSL – not a shitty little mifi that can only do so much like max 5 users for 50 gb, rather – these are full on home routers that are just like cable and dsl – they just run off of wireless. You have to search the “is service avaialble here” because the carriers sell these to people who are near cell towers with good capacity to serve them. These are also “unlimited” and I think both Verizon and Tmobile said that you can use up to 1 TB (NOT GB TERABYTE NOT GIGABYTE) before you see slowdowns or “deprioritization” on purpose from the cell company each month. The only other slowdown would be if many many people used a cell tower at the same time, but most major carriers have good capacity.

        Best part with WIRELESS HOME INTERNET (AGain NOT MiFi) is the cost – if you already have a cell phone from VErizon or TMOBILE they usually charge 35 to 75 a month.

        Best part? No wires other than the power cable from the wall. Setup is EASY. No cable or other employees of the large corporations coming into the home to snoop or fuck shit up.

        And added benefit – cell phones are so popular, that if there is an outage, you bet your ass, ATT , Verizon and Tmobile will fix it fast. YES outages happen, (and I wonder about those outages, but thats another topic), but the powers that be fix those ASAP!

        WIth a wired home connection, the carriers get to you when they get to you.

        SOmething to consider.

        I live just off the beaten path, so I have to have large cable company service. It sucks fucking balls. ANd its expensive.

        If I could get wireless home internet, I would hit that deal in a minute.

        TMobile home internet is 50 a month if you have a line of service with them on a cell phone.

        https://www.t-mobile.com/home-internet?&cmpid=HEIS_PB_P_24HINT40PV_43700072266798368_691794411511&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD79WuWZyIhmv3WhNpwzsJS3diBGN&gclid=Cj0KCQjw3vO3BhCqARIsAEWblcBqRGzbSwAJ19W7SaW7_0j5JMoXLUMCSNwgpD6ij3xY86lx8BuhGTEaArZjEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

        1. We have T-mobile and both the wife and I can use our Android phones as mobile hotspots with a fairly generous plan. Useful for long car trips, RV camping, etc. No additional equipment, just a few options in the settings menu and away we go. It is limited, and 4 or 5 days into a trip and we use most of the month’s allotment, but it’s easy and helpful when needed.

  3. (“curate”? I hate that fucking word)

    Assuming you mean the verb, not the CofE junior cleric, it became annoyingly common in recent years. Looking at “curated” (to focus on the verb, not the cleric), its usage has increased almost 20-fold since 1980 – 5-fold since 2011 (sez Google Ngrams).

    Even worse is “iconic” – over 20-fold increase.

    1. How about the word HISTORIC

      Like it will be HISTORIC when Kamala wins. Cuz we need to have a vagina for president, no other qualifications matter. We just need to elect a literal cunt to be the president.

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