What Did You Do Before the Internet?
MUMBAI, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Bad weather has prevented a repair ship from setting off to mend one of three broken undersea cables providing Internet services to parts of the Middle East and Asia, an Indian-owned cable operator said.
Oh how tenuous are our connections.
I was reading some stuff on the Web last weekend on my Macintosh. Had iTunes running, Tom Russell's Hotwalker album. And the mouse froze up and Russell's voice began stuttering like a CD on stuck.
I couldn't get the Force Quit to work. So after a bit, I powered down the computer and powered it back up a few seconds later. The computer came back on, but nothing happened onscreen. I tried it again, then called Scott, my Macguy for the fifteen years I have had a Mac at home – this is my fourth or fifth upgrade -- who heroically got me back up and running on a loaner machine while we awaited the verdict of the MacStore on my G-4. It was pretty much dead, and another one is on the way.
The extra cost of the machine hurts, but that's not what I'm writing about. When the Mac went down, I went into severe withdrawal – from the Internet, from iTunes, from email – that practically turned me into a basket case by Sunday night. I simply didn't know what to do. I'm used to checking the web, my email accounts and my RSS feeds on a more-or-less regular basis. I had to call a friend to cancel an appointment and realized that in more than five years I hadn't talked with him on the phone. Like with many of my friends, we correspond face-to-face or through email.
And I was trying to remember what I did before computers, and especially what I did before I got on the Internet. I honestly don’t have a clue. Read more? I read all the time anyway, whether I’m on a computer, the bus or in bed. Watch TV? Let’s not even go there.
I’ve had a home computer for 25 years, 15 of those on the Internet. Today I can work as easily from home as I can at the office. My life is my computer. My company laptop holds my work; my home computer holds everything I've written in the last decade and access to a world that I have learned to rely upon for everything.
And when I don't have it, I'm a quivering mass of unconnectiveness. Out of sorts doesn’t even come close. The 36 hours between the time the computer went out and Scott got me up and running again was like madness. Billie had to tell me to calm down and stop acting like a child.
And, quite frankly, I don't know what to do about it. Except wait, patiently, like all those people in the Middle East, for the replacement.