No internet at home, not much at least, for as much time and energy I chose to put into figuring it out. Still have phone, and with this monster screen magnifier it’s like a poor man’s laptop. But why would Fios crap out? They had an impressive-seeming series of diagnostics that seemed to be the cavalry on its way to get me back online. But then it got weird. I could only access sites through IP addresses (many of my radio and PBX bookmarks are to IP addresses, not FQDNs) and I could get to anything through the free VPN that for some reason was included with my $2.99 Usenet subscription. I rarely use the VPN but for whatever reason it, on top of a seemingly non-working Fios router, got me onto that WWW internet things. Something about DNS, no doubt, but who has the mental cud to chew on to get to the solution for something like this? The VPN seems to rely on IP addresses only, no domain names, for its fundamental connectivity. To discern where I’m coming from on the VPN I do a WHOIS check on the IP address, which usually reveals I’m coming through a Digital Ocean or Colocrossing data center. I unplugged the router today and don’t know what to expect tonight. I don’t know why Internet access at home matters to me anymore. I should be happy to just sit and watch TV but my mind stays awake, at least I think it does. That was always the early distinction between TV/radio and online. The interactive experience. You can apply yourself, imply yourself, implicate yourself in the content at hand. I remember how my mother gasped and stared when I first showed her Usenet. Walls and walls of text like nothing she’d ever seen. I felt the same way at times, still do, but the oceans have repeatedly, one after another, overwhelmed each other.
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I keep talking to a woman, as much as time permits. Trying to make her like me. How hard could that be? Hah.
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