Woe is me. For, without really trying, I have angered the overlords of the Internet and they have determined that I must be punished. In fact, they I have decided to smote me. Truth is, I’ve not been smote by anyone for ages and I am out of practice. Clearly, they have decided to make an example of me. There’s little I can do other than rub ashes into my skin, start dressing in sackcloth and beg for forgiveness. Even then, I suspect it may be too late.
Woe is me. For, without really trying, I have angered the overlords of the Internet and they have determined that I must be punished. In fact, they I have decided to smote me. Truth is, I’ve not been smote by anyone for ages and I am out of practice. Clearly, they have decided to make an example of me. There’s little I can do other than rub ashes into my skin, start dressing in sackcloth and beg for forgiveness. Even then, I suspect it may be too late.
It’s always been an uneasy relationship. Truth be told, I’ve never really trusted the Internet. Right from the beginning when people started to rave about an ‘Information Superhighway’, I made a secret pledge to use public transport instead. But some things are impossible to avoid. I may have succeeded in using a typewriter all the way through University, but at the point I was required to send emails, it was clear that my Remington was no longer up to the task.
But although I mistrust the Internet, like everyone else I am beholden to it. I spend untold hours waiting for it to start up, shut down and load so that I can get on with my day. When the Internet is running slow, I become intensely frustrated. But there’s no one to complain to. For it is as impossible to inflict a wound on the Internet as it is to reason with it. So, it seems, the transformation is now complete. Having initially resisted, I am utterly at its mercy.
When I arrived home on Friday night, the computer blithely informed me that I was no longer connected to the Internet. It did so in sympathetic font and neutral language but the truth was far more savage – I had been banished. There were, of course, buttons to push. These make you feel as if you can fix the problem when, in truth, you have a better chance of building your own orbiting space station than you do fixing your computer. Still, much like Delta Goodrem, I too was born to try and duly clicked the button marked ‘Network Diagnostics.’
Computers are a funny business. Although much of the material is ostensibly in English, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it was in another language altogether. This, naturally enough, is inherently frustrating. There are references to ‘WEPs’, ‘Routers’ and ‘LANs’ and other creatures that may or may not live in Middle Earth. It’s almost as though through the use of a bizarre and infuriating dialect, the Internet is punishing those of us who ever had the nerve to resist the shift to computers and teased those who embraced them. It is, put simply, the revenge of the nerds.
But how to fix it? Luckily, I’d kept the card with my account information. Then I noted that for technical support, they offered an Internet address. Given the nature of my technical needs at that moment, this was about as useful as a three-wheeled sedan. It was obvious – they were toying with me.
It was then that I decided to go ‘old school’. Using a telephone directory, I was placed in a queue. As is the way with these things, they sought to weed out the weak by subjecting them to a horrible musical loop of Spanish flamenco guitar. I’m not sure what the piece in question is called, but if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say ‘The Spanish Inquisition’. It is music so plainly annoying that a life without the Internet suddenly doesn’t seem so bad. Tantalizingly, I am told that I am only six minutes away from having my call answered.
This proves misleading. When my call is answered at an undisclosed location on the sub-continent, it’s clear that they’re expecting an idiot. ‘Sir, have you entered the right password?’ Frankly, the ‘sir’ is superfluous. He then asks whether my computer is plugged in. Having answered ‘yes’ to both these questions, the call centre guy is out of ideas and tells me he’ll have to get someone more senior.
I am then placed back on hold where the flamenco guitar from hell is waiting. After a further eighteen minutes, I am put through to someone else who asks me whether the modem is plugged in. It’s really another variant of ‘what kind of idiot are you?’ He then tells me he’s looking at my account details and that it’s been some time since my connection has been ‘refreshed’. All those years of getting myself a drink from the kitchen and I never once got one for the modem. With great solemnity, he informed me that I should be turning off the modem, if not every night, then at least twice a week. I have never heard anything so stupid in all my life.
I’m not sure what’s worse – that I have waited thirty minutes to be told to turn the modem off and on or that some guy on the other side of the world can monitor my computer use. Best not to think about it. Now our connection is restored but it has left me embittered. That the Internet should so freely play with my emotions has left me angry and hostile. The Web is, I have decided, the work of the Devil. I then test this theory by logging on to ‘www.satan.org’ to find that someone has registered the domain name and that it is for sale. Typical. Even the dark lord of the underworld can’t compete against the turkeys responsible for the Internet.