Nothing Ever Works. That is my new mantra. In the past my daily motifs
have included other pleadings and other whines. I still say “C’Mon!” when
software fails or does nothing. I still say “Work, goddamit, just fucking
WORK!” when hardware or general appliances fail to do what I expect. These
cheers of derision flow from my mouth dozens of times a day, but now they
are joined by the new phrase “Nothing Ever Works” and its variant “Nothing
Ever Fucking Works.” It’s good to expand the vernacular once in a while.
What didn’t work today?
I did the seemingly mandatory upgrade of the Safari web browser. Now the
Safari browser won’t start and trying to run Safari eventually crashes the
machine. Simple solution: uninstall, but there’s a half hour of my day
wasted on something that doesn’t fucking work.
Then I found that the phat new HP PC I ordered 2 weeks ago and which was
supposed to ship today is not going to ship today, and might not ship for
some time! That’s great news, isn’t it, for those who enjoy knowing that
some things just don’t fucking work, in this case a custom build of a PC
which I am already starting to think was a waste of money.
Then I tried to upload a 117mb video to YouTube using Internet Explorer.
After about a half hour the YouTubers barfed, saying that the filename had
invalid characters, which isn’t true, but then forcing me to use the
either Firefox or Chrome, insisting that they’re better (Hmmm, Google’s
YouTube rejecting uploads from Microsoft’s IE with the suggestion (just a
suggestion) that the Google-owned Chrome is a better option. Conspiracy
theories are not my thing but that’s kinda sketchy.
Then what didn’t work? Well, this one worked, but it just didn’t work for
me. I
spotted a web page on a web site which contained an image stolen off one
of my web sites. I wonder how many of these things I would find if I ever
actually looked for them. I shot off a message to the web site using their
mailform widget, but it was rejected because I included URLs of the
offending page and the page from which my image was stolen. On account of
the presence of URLs in the message the insightful software assumed I was
a spammer. As it would be useless to communicate with these thieves
without presenting evidence of the stolen images I had to go through WHOIS
to see if a real e-mail address for the company owners could be found. I
did find an address that seemed real, and I sent my complaint there, but
who knows if the address is real or monitored.
So i went out for a walk and saw one of my favorite urban decay things. An
awning for a bookstore that recently closed was partly torn away, exposing
the sign formerly displayed by the previous business. The old sign looked
awesome. Weathered and hidden for about 15 years by the awnings of the
business that took its place. Unfortunately I had no camera on me. That’s
a rare thing, but I figured I’d go home, get a camera, and come right
back. About 2 hours later I return to the spot and find that the opening
through which I could see the old, old sign had been covered by a “COMING
SOON” banner for the business that was COMING SOON to that space. So the
old sign is now completely obscured, and I probably only missed it by a
few minutes.
And then a bunch of other aggravating shit happened, a bunch of toher
stuff didn’t fucking work, and my life is misery and pain, and that’s all
I have to say about things that don’t fucking work.
…..
