Jacked
by Scott Hardie on November 20, 2009
It's good to be back online. We lost our Internet connection at home on Tuesday, and it has only come back on for a few minutes sporadically ever since then, just enough time to send a quick email before it vanishes again. Making sure goos got published in time wasn't easy.
It's no fun feeling dumb when you call tech support. The first thing we did when we lost the Internet connection was to turn off the cable modem, wait for it to reset, and try it again, then repeat with the router. No luck after several tries. So of course when I finally get tech support on the line, they tell me to do just that, and I do, and the connection comes right back up, and I get a short educational lecture about how that helps. Five minutes after I hang up, the connection disappears again. Thanks.
The technician today finally determined that the jack in the wall was failing, so we switched to another and it's fine now... just in time for us to spend the evening and all day tomorrow out with friends. I need to spend less time online anyway. I thought Internet addiction was a joke until I had to face it for a few days.
Four Replies to Jacked
Justin Conner | November 21, 2009
I have had the same feeling when disconnected from my video games. I think it is because I use them as an escapism technique to destress myself. After using this escapism for a long time I came to depend on it. It got to the point where I was addicted to video games and didn't know how to destress without them.
Amy Austin | November 21, 2009
Internet addiction... it's no joke!!!
Jackie Mason | November 21, 2009
[hidden by author request]
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
Survivor Guilty
As a longtime Survivor viewer, I've been bothered by its slow decline. Some of the show's problems are apparent on its surface, like Jeff Probst's appalling gender bias and the show's overemphasis on tacky "themes" for the season. But I got to thinking about what's wrong under the surface, on a conceptual level. Go »Modern Music
Sadness is not when one of your favorite bands (Smashing Pumpkins) puts out their final album in MP3 format only and you miss it because you don't want to get into file-sharing. Sadness is five years later, when you happily stumble across a website with the entire thing available for download and you finally learn how heinous and unpublishable the album was all along. Go »When Erik Met Matthew
The spark for the idea came during the pandemic, when we here on Funeratic decided to try some Zoom conversations and games. Two people who I admire for (among other things) their ability to converse quickly and freely with strangers and to get along instantly with seemingly anyone, Erik Bates and Matthew Preston, talked to each other for the first time and of course they hit it off immediately. I knew I wasn't imagining it, because other people on the call remarked on it. Go »Illinois 2013
Ten highlights of my just-concluded road trip to northern Illinois with Kelly, in chronological order: - Seeing lots of friends and family at our engagement party in St. Charles, our old hometown. I was glad to be able to talk to everyone there, and also glad that I now recognize almost everyone in Kelly's large family on sight. Go »White Christmas
We're enjoying our winter vacation in central Illinois so far. Tue 12/22 - When you're hitting the road for your vacation right after work is over, every extra minute feels like an hour, which means I did 45 hours of overtime. The drive was easier than we thought, probably because we had days to prepare this time. Go »
Scott Hardie | November 21, 2009
This ended abruptly. I should explain that Internet withdrawal made me very cranky, very stressed out, unable to relax for days. I didn't feel liberated; I felt like my nerves were frayed and my patience was gone. I need to cultivate more offline hobbies, and by extension I mean hobbies that don't require sitting in front of any kind of screen.