More Strainer Frustrations

So I blog posted about forgetting about putting in a strainer in the master shower for, like, a month or so.  Now, for the second time this year, as I was letting the washing machine wash my dirty clothes tonight/Monday night, I went downstairs once the machine was done to see the strainer dislodged from the drain.

Maybe I should remind you (I'm thinking I've blog posted about this before) that the drain coming from the washing machine isn't connecting to some drain pipe that automatically feeds down the main line and out of the house.  It's pointed right into the laundry room basin.  It's just pointed in there.  But, as I get occasionally reminded (especially these past two times this year), the force of the water coming out of the washing machine is enough to push the strainer, which is just sitting on top of the drain, off of the drain.

These two times I see the strainer popped out and just laying on the basin.  I also see wetness around the main drain on the floor.  If there is not anything holding back the water in the basin, there's so much water flowing through the pipe leading out of the house that it backs up, and to relieve pressure, it rises up through the cover on the floor's drain.  Hate when that happens.

And the thing is, when I was getting the clothes washed last/Monday night, I thought about checking in the middle of the wash to make sure the drain didn't dislodge like that.  But I was too busy zoning out on my laptop and TV.  If I had gone down there, I might have been able to put the strainer back in its place -- not in time, but possibly with enough time (if that makes any sense) that all the clumps of lint and fuzz wouldn't have gone into the drain and through the pipe.  I now have these unrelenting thoughts that the septic tank is backed up with all the crap that would've been trapped by the strainer, and I hate that I wouldn't pry my eyes from the two screens I had on and go downstairs to prevent that from happening.  Dammit, I hate myself right now.

Only Ten Minutes, Laptop Battery??

My laptop battery is close to kaput now.  I had it completely full when I unplugged it just now so I could listen to AI jazz through YouTube while washing the dishes.  As I was in the middle of my chore, it stopped, it put itself into sleep mode, chimed the sleep chime, then went dormant which, according to this laptop, means it just goes to the lock screen, which is good because before, when it had no energy left, it would just go black.  By the way, I don't know when it went from going completely dark to going to the lock screen, but whatever happened or what prompted that change, good call!

Of course, since this happened about ten minutes after I unplugged my lap, this computer pretty much is a goner.  I'll need to get a new one because this one doesn't have the capacity to get Windows 11, but now I need to make sure this is plugged in if I ever want to be on this for a long period of time.  That shouldn't be a challenge, but it's one I now need to be cognizant of until I am forced to buy a new one, which should be some time in the fall.

On other thing: If I recall correctly, this is the second battery in this laptop.  I had it switched about four years ago because the very first battery simply had no juice.  That second battery had draining issues from the get-go, which leads me to believe that the motherboard or something else on this computer is the real culprit.  Again, whatever it is, I need to replace the whole thing before the year is out.

Man, I think I logged onto VEF for the first time on Google ever.  Don't think I want to do that.  Maybe it's time for the laptop to get a cleaning.

So That's Why The Rear Seat Wouldn't Stay In Place!/Poor Pen/How Angry My Father Gets

I think this happened, I think, shortly after my parents left.

I have my back seats arranged, well, strangely.  The back seat on the driver's side is put all the way down.  That way I can throw a blanket on top of it so that, when I crawl into my car to sleep for lunch at work, I can just get into the passenger seat, reach over and bring it up to the front.  Also because I need to sleep at work, I lift up the bottom of the back seat on the passenger side.  That way I can completely recline the passenger-side front seat so I can rest.  It's a perfect system.

For reasons I now forget, I had to fold down the back seat on the passenger side so that it looks normal.  (I think I did this at work, even though that's immaterial to this story.)  There is a bar on the bottom of the seat that is supposed to latch to an anchor on the floor, and for the life of me I couldn't get it to latch.  Finally, I looked at the floor ... and I saw almost a dozen bits of a pen, just strewn on the floor mat.  It wasn't just snapped in two; it was obliterated.

Seeing this, I think I realized how that came to be.  During a time when my parents were still home, I wanted to lift up the rear seat on the passenger side because I wanted to put my computer bag there.  I could have just stood it up against the laid-down seat, but I guess I was going somewhere where I wasn't completely sure my car wouldn't get broken into, so my plan was to fold up the seat, lie my laptop bag flat on the floor, and put my car shades on it so no one could see it.

I distinctly remember laying the computer bag flat with one of its pouches unzipped.  It was a pouch in which I keep my pens.  I also distinctly remember thinking I should zip it up because I don't want anything to roll out of the bag, but I thought nah, it won't happen.  Well, I'm guessing that poor pen did roll out of the bag and onto the floor, and when I grabbed my laptop bag, I didn't notice it got loose.

I don't remember this part, but I have to think that at a later day, without my knowledge, My Father put that back seat down.  That pen must have gotten into the anchor, preventing him from locking the seat in.  The only way he thought he could get it to go down and stay down was through force, so he just pushed down the seat repeatedly and violently, not knowing that the reason the seat wouldn't anchor was because that pen was in the way.  So he basically broke a pen into pieces by smashing it with the bar of a car seat.

I get the frustration.  But I'm hung up on how much force, and really how much violence, you would need to destroy a pen just because a car seat wouldn't secure.  But then again, I could see My Father being so angry to the point of using brute force to get what he wants.  I've seen it.  I've been a victim of it.  Preposterous or not, seeing those pen remnants is a reminder of how vicious My Father could be.

I will zip up the pouches on my computer bag from now on.

My Quest To Find A New Pair Of Glasses Comes To A Surprising End

OK, so I am getting new glasses today/Sunday.  I have an updated prescription for lenses that I haven't changed in, like, four years.  Plus, I think my HSA through my employer is going to change next year.  I could be wrong.  In fact, there's a good chance I'm wrong.  But I don't have time to understand it, so I'm just going to pay for new glasses before the year's out.

The problem, for me, became formal.  Do I want new glasses?  As resistant to change that I am, and as much as my current frames fit my face and personality, I decided I could use a shake-up.  But, I ran a poll where I sent for five pairs of glasses from Warby Parker, and I have decided that I am going to go for the one that finished second in the poll.  (Two of them were far and away the most popular amongst my real and Facebook friends, and I went with the more popular, which had just a few more votes.)

The problem is that I could not find the name of the frame that finished second.  I swore up and down that I made a spreadsheet for it, but I couldn't find it.  So for the past few days I have been looking at the Warby Parker website to compare their frames with the one I wore in my picture which I posted for my friends to look at.  I was looking at every detail to see if what I was looking for was actually the one I was looking for.  I was looking at the what the bridge looked like, how thick the sides of the glasses were, etc.  I was getting a bit obsessed, to be honest.

Finally, I found that Excel spreadsheet.  I did write down the names of the frames that were the most popular on the spreadsheet.  And, it turns out, the two frames are no longer sold by Warby Parker.  That's why the one I was looking for I couldn't quite find on their website; they no longer make them.  Either of them, actually; I was wrong in thinking that the frame that won my Facebook poll is the one that I'm currently wearing.  It isn't.  Should have realized that when I was frantically looking at these photos I posted, I was asking my friends to pick out my glasses ten years ago.  I changed frames since then, maybe twice.

So never mind all that.  There are a couple of frames that I could go for, but I really just wanted to go back to selected that old frame, and since I can't, I'll just get a new pair with the same design that I'm wearing now.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it ... even though I thought about fixing it.

Addendum To: How Long Can My Computer Hold On?

So that weird thing where I start up my computer and can't login in to open it up, so I have to restart it so I can login a second time?  Some time yesterday/Saturday it stopped doing that.  I opened it up and I was able to punch in my password to get into my computer immediately, like it's supposed to.  I don't know what I could have done to "fix" my laptop.

It was getting to the point where I would have been so fed up that I would have bought a new lap before the fall, which is when the extension on security for this laptop (it runs on Windows 10 and I cannot upgrade this to Windows 11 because it doesn't have the space for it) that I opted into runs out.  I am getting really frustrated at how much battery life my cellphone is going through, too, so I have thought about replacing that as well.  I was getting scared that both my laptop and cell would lose support in the fall, meaning I would have to replace both in the fall, which would be two big-ticket items I would need to pay for at the same time, and I don't look forward to that.  That made me think that maybe I should take advantage of the deals that might be floating around for a laptop, move up my timeline, and buy a new lap now.  But now, with this thing working "normally" ... yeah, I'll wait.

How Long Can My Computer Hold On?

For the past ... um, I want to see the past several days, my computer has done this thing where it boots up just like normal, but then, when I try to put my password in, it won't move.  I hit the keys but the cursor just sits there, blinking a lot slower than normal.  I have to now restart it; upon its restart, I can put my password in to open up my computer.

My laptop is now old.  It runs on Windows 10.  It does not have the processor or the storage space to be upgraded to Windows 11.  Windows 10 is no longer supported as of last month, but I opted into getting updates for 10 for another year, at no charge, which makes me think then that Microsoft should have just said they won't support Windows 10 next year.  Anyway, I don't want to pay for something so expensive if I don't have nor want to.  But since it's getting older, other issues are starting to crop up.  Could something worse than this weird restart thing happen over the next year?  Possibly, and it might affect me being able to use this laptop at all.  Did I make the right decision to keep using this for another year?

Really tired right now.  Should go to bed, obviously.  But I fear that I'm so tired I won't wake up in time for the Vikings Game.  What I usually do in those cases (but especially for Vikes Games) is keep my laptop open and use it as a second alarm.  I hope I won't be so tired as to sleep through both my cellphone and my laptop.  It's never happened, and I hope it won't happen this time.  Wish me luck.

Can't Type

Weird ... a couple times the past week, the laptop can't type everything I have typed.  I type as fast as I usually do, but it's as if the laptop can't keep up, and so it skips over some of the characters I type.  I think it's a matter of what else is running at the time.  If there's a really heavy website that's also up, I think that affects the typing.  But it also could be this lap's old age.

This computer runs on Windows 10, for which updates end next month.  However, Microsoft is offering an extension of ... updates (?) for another year, which I took them up on.  I wonder if that was a mistake and I should just buy a new laptop that has Windows 11 instead.  I guess I won't have any choice if this can't type problem gets to be an even worse problem.

Can't Face It, Too Painful

From time to time, I am sent into the laboratory to cut open packages and reach into specimens that have leaked urine.  I have spoken from time to time of how those instances of trauma have shaped me to being the cynical, defeated creature I am.  (Seriously, it's not normal to reach into anything and touch piss.)  But there is one saving grace, however indirect it may be, it's that it spares me from listening to The Stephanie Miller Show on SiriusXM.

Don't get me wrong -- if I'm at my desk, I listen to it.  I find it entertaining and, of course, informative.  OK, to be fair, it's informative in the sense that the news is filtered and slanted in a way that I like, and is therefore digestible.  However, since Trump and the Republicans once again cheated to win last year's elections (don't fucking argue with me, they cheated and you MAGAts know it), the news, despite going to media that conveys that news in a way where I don't scream in horror, has been universally infuriating and depressing.  So much so that, in keeping with advice in the wake of evil cheating to win back in November, I have practiced self-care.  And that means that I no longer exclusively tune in three hours every morning to listen to Stephanie Miller.  My blood pressure explodes whenever I hear the next illegal, immoral thing this administration does.  I know I need to keep up with what's going on, but if I do so I will go insane, and my health and sanity will suffer.

So, from time to time, I don't listen to political radio.  I admit that, when I fire up SiriusXM on my work computer, I look to see if there's a song playing on another radio station that I like, and if I do I will listen to that before I eventually mosey on over to SiriusXM Progress.  And, on days where I am cutting, I take some solace in not having the opportunity to listen to Miller and potentially get real pissed off over what I hear over the course of the show.  It may be sad that I have to disengage in order to keep peace in my life.  It kind of feels like the bad guys are winning when I do that.  But I have to.  And besides, there are usually four other mornings during the workweek where I am informed about what deplorable BS Republicans are pulling that day.  I still keep up.

The Bottomless Fungal Spray

This afternoon I used fungal spray on my itchy feet before I left for the MNUFC Match and, later, dinkin' around on my computer at Caffetto.  I have had this spray bottle, which I bought from Target, and I'm not joking, close to a decade ago.  I don't use it daily or anything, but when my feet itch, I use it, and I have used it enough over the years that it should be empty by now.  But it's not.  And it doesn't feel as though I'm anywhere close to using it up.

The bottle is freakin' bottomless, is what I'm sayin'.

Bad Work Avoided

Got some devastating news in the evening, but I will keep that for my next blog post.  This time, though, I want to look towards the light and be grateful.

I was scheduled yesterday/Wednesday at My Main Department at work.  That meant I had to wake up at 5:30 for my start time of 6:30, a full 90 minutes earlier than I usually need to rise.  That sucks in and of itself.  But they're doing some things new in My Main Department, and I was going to be dropped into the middle of these new procedures.  And, well, I wasn't in the mood to figure out what I can't do anymore, where things are now, what I'm responsible for, etc.  Add that I would be tired while I'm figuring this all out because I had farmers' hours, and I was dreading going in to work.

What I did not anticipate, however, was that there would be a storm in the mid-South of the country.  That's where the shipment of forms, also known as our work, comes from.  It apparently blew through late Tuesday and, because they're Southerners who can't overcome winter storms, many of the feeder planes providing the work that would get lumped together into one big shipment that would be flown into MSP were cancelled.  That meant that, by my estimation, a quarter of the work that was expected yesterday didn't come.

The other people in My Main Department told me this just as I was about to turn on my computer.  My supervisor, who I guess started her day earlier, anticipated that there was just no work for all of us (at least to start out the day; what little that did get flown up here was delayed), so she sent out a department-wide e-mail telling me that I would be in filing, at least until the shipment finally came in.

Now, normally I'm not a fan of filing.  But that change actually brightened my mood because I didn't have to do what I feared I was going to do.  And once it became clear that this meager delayed shipment would be the only shipment yesterday, I was in filing for the whole day (at least until I was cut by my boss about a half-hour early), and thus I was spared sludging through whatever new crap I had to learn out in My Main Department.  There were other benefits that I didn't realize.  What I specifically did all day was re-file forms that were taken out of the folder they need to go back into.  That involved a lot of sitting down and getting up -- a lot of energy, in other words, and so I was forced to be alert throughout my day.  That was good; otherwise, I would be battling drowsiness as I typed away (well, whenever I was grumbling under my breath at figuring out what new thing I needed to re-train myself to do), which would have made the day interminable.  Also, all that motion discouraged me from bringing up satellite radio, and lately listening to that pisses me off because I would have naturally gravitated to SiriusXM Progress to learn what new crap President Muskrat has done.  I need to unplug from worrying about democracy once in a while, and this change to filing was an unexpected excuse to break away from it.

So, what was a day at work I expected to hate became one I turned out to like a lot.  You have to find ways to be grateful every day, you know?

Maybe I've Been Phished By Poker All This Time

So I've been trying to do my daily free slot machine spin at Zynga Poker, but my antivirus software, which I have had for the laptop I use for several years now, suddenly is preventing me from playing it.  The software gives me a warning box saying the game is a potential phishing site.  Has it been, all this time?  I don't think nefarious people have been able to get my personal information only because I've been playing online poker ... have they?

I find it odd this has cropped up now, tonight/Wednesday night, after years of playing this.  I think the software has been in use protecting my laptop all this time.  With that said, I got an e-mail earlier yesterday/Wednesday noting that my automatic payment renewing the antivirus software came through.  And now, in the nighttime, I can't play Zynga Poker.  Maybe it's coincidence, maybe it's not, but I am not going to evade my software just to play fake poker.  We'll see how if this continues and whether the antivirus drops its defenses, or something.  But right now, I will trust that it is looking out for me.

When You Can't Plan Because You Have Too Much Time

So there are three things I want to do tomorrow/Sunday: Finally watch simultaneous EPL Matches at a soccer bar; watch The Warriors at a boutique cinema in South Minneapolis; and get wanked by *****y.  The problem: The EPL Matches end about three hours before the movie begins, and the bar and the boutique theater are about four miles apart.  I do not want to watch soccer, go back home, then go back in the same area of the Twin Cities to watch a film; that's too much.  And I thought of bringing my laptop and just do work somewhere in the area, but no libraries are open before noon in the Twin Cities and I really don't want to sit in a place I have never been to and veg for three hours.

Moreover, I had *****y slotted in the early evening, but she texted today saying she could cum back to the area sooner, so she can get me off sooner.  I asked her to cum in the early evening because I thought I would need to take a nap, but now that she could cum sooner, maybe I can power through and possibly nap later.  See, everything's up in the air because I can do everything, but I don't want to!

I have decided to watch soccer and not watch the movie.  Why?  Uh ... I don't know the next time The Warriors will be screened somewhere, but I've already seen the film, even though I want to see it again.  Also, I hear this cinema is really cool, but I have never been to it, and today I just feel like doing the familiar rather than the new.  Finally, I have been wanting to wake up early one weekend morning to watch soccer and I have had to delay it for months, first because of my football obligations (college and pro), later because an EPL side with a huge local supporters group will be watching one of those Games at a bar I want to go to, and I don't want to deal with a crowd.  Tomorrow finally works: It's two Matches, and the bar I go to isn't the bar any EPL team watches its Matches at.  I think it's time I do this, and I want to do this tomorrow.  And that means *****y can touch my dick way earlier in the day.

My Final Blog Post Of 2024 Is Another Reminder Of Why My Fucking Mother Has Ruined My Life

I was going to neatly tie up 2024 into a bow (well, as well as I can), but My Fucking Mother fucking had to send this shit off the rails with her goddamn anxieties again.

She bugs the fuck out of me while they're here, but it appears as though she bothers me even more when she's in Vegas.  I think that's due to expectations: Since they are so far away from me, I presume that we would talk less.  And I think we do; for example, even though I thought we would talk Christmas Day, we didn't, probably because we talked Christmas Eve.  And that's A-OK with me.

But when she texts me saying she needs help ... goddamn, the thing she needs help with is such a huge energy drain.  It literally takes hours to deal with her issue.  And it's an issue only she believes is an issue.  But I have to help her because that bitch acts so fucking helpless.

She texted me at work yesterday/Monday afternoon: "Need help!"  I get home and call her.  She tells me these real estate forms need to be filled out.  The government wants them, and she's scared as hell that, like, the FBI will arrest her if we don't do it before the end of the year ... even though the stuff she said told her that actually said she had a couple more weeks.  These forms are in English, of course, so she immediately ran to me, only to switch up her tone and just fuckin' saddle me with all this bullshit I need to deal with with an urgency only she has.  So fucking typical of her and her goddamn "issues."

These forms the government wants filled out I didn't even know existed until today.  And I had to waste two motherfucking hours with My Fucking Mother to do them online.  Worse than that, I screwed up one of the forms, and I'm not sure the website on which I did these forms took up the corrected information.  So I think I have to follow up today, some time after work, to see if some AI chatbot can let me know if the "government" has the correct information.  And who knows how long I'll have to fucking waste on that.  It's New Year's Eve, for fuck's sake.  I'm supposed to mark the death of the old year and say hello to the new one.  I don't want to spend it dealing with goddamn forms.

---

This year was bad because I lost my uncle.  I feel bad because I hadn't contacted him much before he died.  I think the last communication I had with him was wishing him a (Western) New Year via text.  He was gone within two months.  He didn't want anyone to talk to him in his decrepit state.  I don't care; I wanted to at least say goodbye to him and tell him I love him.  And I'll be honest (if I haven't stated this here in WAF already): I'm mad at him for not talking to me before he went.

Come to think of it, 2024 brought more signs my body is breaking down.  I saw someone for my knees after work yesterday/Monday.  She said it's probably arthritis, which everyone my age is going through.  Use exercises to get manage it.  I think I heard that before when my physical therapist told me to exercise my back.  I was given a referral for physical therapy for my knees, and there's a chance it's the same person who I met with five years ago.  I don't think the guy likes me, though, so I don't think I'll take up the referral.

Gaining weight, too.  I know I should eat better, but I'm still holding onto the delusion that I can eat what I want and not get too fat.  That's not happening, but I'm not changing my diet.  Oh, and I'm still dealing with trying to do my desk job with bifocals on.  Had a lot of trouble seeing with my eyeglasses in 2024.  My eyes got so strained looking at my computer screen that it began to hurt.  I even take them off and see my screen through blurry eyes.  It beats getting a headache.

Everything else, I guess, is the same, including dealing with My Fucking Mother.  Every fake emergency she makes me deal with reminds me that I got my anxious state of mind from her.  She has grafted every part of her insecurities onto me, and I cannot and will not forgive her for that.

Happy New Year!!!

I Was Late, So I'm Slipping Into Delinquency Again

So there is a new attendance policy that came into effect August 1 -- have I blog posted about this already? -- and everybody was so up in arms about it it felt like this is a big sign that the company would shut down here.  This change frightened and ultimately chastened me, however; beginning August 1, I have never been late.  I have always been able to clock in at the top of the hour when I'm supposed to.  That is something that, at one point at this job, I found impossible to do.

But I broke that streak yesterday/Wednesday morning.  I wanted to get McDonald's on the way to work, but unfortunately I didn't leave the house early like I've managed to since August 1.  Add that I decided to order an egg-and-cheese bagel which I had to take a few minutes to eat, and once I pulled in and had only two minutes before the top of the hour came, I decided to be late so I could somewhat relax while eating my bagel.  Besides, I don't think I would get a demerit if I was five minutes late -- will I?

I finished my bagel (and drank all the orange juice I always bought at Mickey D's).  I left my bookbag and didn't put up the shades to block the sunlight from entering my car because I needed to make sure I wasn't too late.  I clocked in four minutes after I should have.  The first thing I did when I turned on my workstation was to check the tardiness policy again.  Yep -- at least you have five minutes of grace before there is a "point" marked against you.

Good that I don't have a black mark put on my permanent record.  Going back to my car to retrieve the rest of my stuff and put up all my shades later in the morning was the right thing to do.  But now that I have confirmed I have five minutes to work with, you damn right I will use it as often as possible!

I'm a rebel (again)!

25-85%

I have recently heeded some advice many people advise (at least on the Internet) and cut back on the charging of my devices.  I throw my laptop around a lot -- I like laying down with it above me -- so it usually isn't in a position where I can plug it in.  I will if I have to, of course.  That's kind of diametrically different from my cellphone, where I use it all day, plug it in at night, and have a fully-charged cell with which to start the day.

But I had been noticing that my lap was going through my battery at a faster and faster rate.  I finally paid to get it switched out, but the acceleration of the battery draining seems as bad as the first battery.  Meanwhile, one thing I've noticed about the new cellphone (which I had to buy in a panic about a month ago because my old phone no longer would get a phone signal) is that it eats through the battery's energy very, very quickly.  I'm pretty sure I was told I got a new phone, but it doesn't seem like it.

These days my laptop runs really hot, especially when I'm not placing it on a level surface like I'm supposed to.  I was playing Zynga Poker once and the left bottom part of my keyboard was scalding hot, the hottest I had ever felt it.  I half-thought the damn thing would light itself on fire.

That was when I finally Googled "the best way to recharge a battery."  (To be completely honest, I think I may have searched for this once before and promptly forgot what I found.)  And what I saw was that one should not fully recharge a battery, (presumably) for a cell or a lap.  That's because you go through the life of a battery when you recharge it to its fullest, or in a "cycle."  It is recommended instead to keep the battery roughly between 20-85%.  Now, I have seen a maximum of 80% at a couple sites.  Also, generally 20% is when you get those "low power" notices, and both my cellphone and laptop switch to power-saving mode automatically once the level gets that low, and I don't want to do that because it seems as though getting that "low power" message itself expends a lot of energy.  So, once it gets down to around 25% or so, I plug both devices in, and I try to do my best to unplug it once it reaches 85%.  I have yet to be fast enough to unplug it at that point, but I have so far been able to stop charging it before it reaches 100%.

Will it extend the life of my batteries?  Who knows?  I just started.  And, unfortunately, it looks as though both batteries are pretty worn out already.  I might be extending their lives, but it might be too late.  Regardless, keeping it between 25-85% seems like a good idea, and I plan on doing that forever more.

"TPM Device Not Detected" -- Oh, Fuck Off

My laptop was displaying a "TPM device not detected" message upon booting up today.  Freaked me the fuck out, of course.  I tried restarting it, shutting it down and turning it on again, but I still had that message.  Finally, I looked online for answers and, not understanding the fuck they were saying, I took the only advice I could decipher: Shut 'er down, then hold down the power button for 60 seconds to cycle down the computer.  I should've taken out the battery before I did it, but I have no fucking idea how to do that, so I didn't do that part.

I cannot believe that worked because the lap turned on even as I was holding down the power button.  But it booted up just fine without that damn "TPM device not detected" message.  And when I did some thing to confirm that this, uh, device was in fact detected, it was confirmed.  I don't know for sure how it wasn't detected at first and then it was.  But I am thinking that this TPM device is literally not plugged in where and how it's supposed to be.  That's because I don't use my laptop as a laptop.  I usually am lying in bed, and I am looking up as I use it.  I think I have literally shaken the computer to the point where this device got slightly jostled out of position, and I somehow got it back into position just by sitting it down on my bed.

Good fucking God, for a while there I thought I needed to buy a new computer.  Still might have to.

Goddamn Authenticator

I could be wrong, but right now, I think the Authenticator application sucks.  I downloaded the app when it looked as though both of my Hotmail accounts got compromised.  It seemed like a decent, simple and common sense way to protect the security of my e-mail accounts.

I don't know whether it's because I forgot my passwords or what, but I can no longer verify my identity through Authenticator like I could have when I initially started using it.  Right now I am, I guess, "awaiting review," whatever the fuck that means.  Man, I forget one password and I am now in two-step authentication jail.  And the ironic thing to all of this is that these applications I thought would secure my information is now trapping me.  If I stop using this app, do I lose all my info?

I think Authenticator said there is a waiting period of a month before ... uh, I don't know what happens after a month.  At any rate, next week this waiting period is over, at which point I ... fuck, I don't know.

Oh, another irony: I have one of my Hotmail accounts on my phone, and I still access that, no problem.  But when I try signing on through my laptop (which, by the way, I am bringing back to the computer repair shop today/Saturday), I go through the Authenticator hoops.  This type of "security" is so complicated that, at this point, I'm willing to risk getting hacked because it's so much easier to just live with bad security.  I'm serious.

I Think The Goddamn Laptop Is Still Broken

Got my computer back, finally, after work yesterday/Thursday.

Trying it right now.  It is slower than it used to be.  Worse yet, the touch capabilities no longer work.  I tried rooting around and got into settings for Tablet Mode.  The damn laptop says it doesn't have touch capabilities.  Oh, like hell it doesn't!

Yeah, I've become reliant on using the touchscreen.  It had it before, but it doesn't have it now?  Dammit, I have to take this back to the shop again.

Oh, I really need to look into getting a new laptop, don't I?