endlessjess
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Totally Absurd Computer Woes
🕑 Added 2021-10-01 04:57:28 +0000 UTCLast month i mentioned that i was having some computer trouble, and i want you all to know that you have my gratitude for sticking around and reading my text posts. So i figured i’d go into more detail about just the kind of cyber-fuckery i’m dealing with here, for your entertainment, and my need to vent i suppose.
A couple years back i had to temporarily put my computer into storage, and when i got it out to hook it up again suddenly it had acquired an unexplainable mouse lag. This was irritating beyond belief and i tried everything. Changing the batteries, unplugging the mouse, unplugging the whole computer, buying a new mouse, messing with the mouse settings, everything.
Nothing worked. The lag remained, and i had no choice but to just put up with it. For about a year i suffered through the pains of editing videos with a mouse that would barely function.
Then i packed up and moved again, when i set up shop at my new location, suddenly the mouse worked fine. I have no idea what fixed it. I had already tried the old unplug everything and plug it back in multiple times to no avail, but for no reason whatsoever this time it was magically fixed. My mouse never lagged again, but now there was a new problem.
Somehow in transport the mouse fixed itself but at the same time my speakers decided to die. Again, i tried everything. Sound would come out, but only at the lowest possible volume, which is even more of a pain in the ass than if there were no sound at all.
If there was NO sound i would have just replaced the stupid speakers, but the fact that it was LOW sound made me feel like something must be wrong in the settings somewhere, or something was in the wrong jack, or any of a dozen other asinine possibilities.
I experimented as much as i could and in the meantime the only way i could hear what i was editing (kind of an important part of the job) was to plug headphones into the tower.
Alright, fine. This is fine. No big deal i guess. I’ll just do my editing with headphones. But this quickly became an insufferable nightmare for one simple reason, the incredibly short length of the headphones wire.
I wish i could explain how cramped for space i was in that place. The whole thing was set up on a very small, round kitchen table, shoved into the corner of a very small kitchen, of a very small extended stay hotel room. Oh hey, i guess i can explain it, because i just did.
This sucked because i was constantly banging my knees on the computer tower which had to be almost directly under me to fit under the table. The area under me was a mess of criss-crossing wires and cords that sucked ass to have to get under and fuck with. It was a nightmare, but back to the subject of my terrible headphones.
I know wireless headphones exist but i don’t trust my computer to understand how to use them. The wired headphones i was using were so short that in order to get them in the tower jack and keep them there i had to hunch over the table real low like a fucking morlock, which was murder on my old man spine.
Because having to sit like this hurt my back so much i was only able to work for like 15 minutes at a time before the pain became so crippling i’d have to take a 3 day break.
But even this wasn’t the worst part. The worst part is that because of the cramped space, and having to assume that wretched posture of torturous contortions, the mic cord would constantly get jerked out.
If i raised my head even slightly, the cord got pulled out. If my knee moved an inch to the right, the cord got pulled out. I would say this was insufferable, but in fact i did suffer it, for about 6 months.
Then i got out of that shithole and moved into a less shitty hole. I set up my computer, and no way in hell was i gonna deal with those speakers again. i took a chance on the cheapest replacement speakers i could find at best buy, and miraculously they worked, which only proved i could have done that at any time, but i thought it was something with the computer. Turns out it was just the shitty speakers after all.
So now the mouse works and the speakers work so everything should be good to go right? No. This is earth, where everything sucks and nothing makes any sense ever.
It was around this time i noticed that my main computer, and only my main computer, can’t seem to detect the wifi here. Oh it detects wifi. It can find every wifi in the building, just not mine.
Well, maybe the router just isn’t close enough to it, i hear you suggesting. Except the hp laptop that’s in the same room, just as far from it, can get online with no problem.
This is not a problem that i believe can be solved by any human ingenuity. It is a nonsense problem. Every device in my house hooks up to the wi-fi, except the one computer that i need to edit on and post my shit.
If it couldn’t find any networks at all, that would be one thing. That would be a problem someone could actually figure out and make sense of. But no. There is a massive list of available networks, and the only one missing from the list is mine. No matter what i do it remains missing on this computer and only this computer.
Obviously i don’t know the password to any of these other networks, so i kind of need it to detect my own. Which it will not do. Not can’t. Won’t. I am convinced this is not an actual glitch, just my computer gaining sentience and acting like a malicious cunt for no reason but to hassle me.
Wow what a bunch of silly stuff. Good thing that’s the end of it. Just kidding. There’s more. My god, it gets so much worse. I will explain, in just a moment...
To Be Continued
Comments
gregarious
It wasn't so much a complaint as it was feedback. I can share with you some of what I've written if you want to see where I'm coming from, or critcise it :)
Endless Jess
If these were shorter somebody would complain about that too. Brevity is the soul of illiteracy.
gregarious
Jess, I love you and I enjoy your work, but please try and edit yourself when you do these posts. If you could refine some of these to about half the length I think you would notice major improvements with your writing. One of the best points about writing I have ever heard is, "My garbage can is my most useful tool." A common exercise editors put new staff writers through is asking a new hire to try and say the same thing in 50% of the word count. A good book on writing exercises is called Simple and Direct by Barzun. Orwell's Politics and the English Language is an amazing essay, and the glossary at the end of 1984 on New Speak is great as well. One last recomendation is On Writing Well by Zinsser. Keep your style just refine your length: - brevity is the soul of wit as the bard said. Just some constructive feedback. Peace and Love.
Boldizar
I was going to ask if you had an Ethernet cord to try running directly to the router (they are pretty cheap, Cat6) but then you said there was more.... (faint screams echo through the air)
