Internet Addiction Woes

I got up early today. I finished reading the paper, that being the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, in about 5 minutes. It does not take long to read the Tuesday edition of this ever shrinking newspaper.

Today's TV section had fresh goofy Texas connections to people on TV. Apparently some comic named Bill Engvall is on something called Celebrity Family Feud, against somebody called Larry the Cable Guy. We Texans are told we need to root for Engvall because he did his comic act at some point in time in North Texas.

No, I do not make this stuff up.

We are also told there are some Texans on tonight's Big Brother on CBS. I won't further bore you with the towns in Texas the Texans are from or have visited or have a relative living in or would like to visit, because I've not heard of these towns, so I'm sure it'd mean nothing to you either.

Now, when I finished reading the paper, if I'd had an inclination to make fun of this paper, that I continue to buy and complain about, in a similar manner to complaining about Wal-Mart, while I continue to shop there, well, I could not have blogged about it.

Because, apparently my Internet connection stopped working about 10pm last night. Well, actually it was my network router that went into malfunction mode.

When this type thing happens, with either an equipment malfunction or the cable being down, it is quickly appalling to me how dependent and virtually addicted I am to the Internet. My first reaction was to Google for router woe info. Ooops, can't do that, can't connect.

Then I thought, well, til I get to Fry's to buy a new router, I'll just work on a website project I'm in the middle of. Ooops. Can't do that, because I need to access info via the Internet.

Then I thought, maybe I can find a wireless connection. I turned on the wireless connector. There were 3 connections available. All requiring a key. Why are people here so stingy and paranoid? Up in Washington, at my sister's last time I was up north, there were several neighbors I could connect to. Ironically I could not connect to my sister's wireless connection because she did not know the key. Some State of Washington tech guy had set her computer up. My sister assured me she now knows the key, so I won't have to be stealing neighbor's bandwidth.

So, I called my local Miss Puerto Rico to ask her if I could come blog on her computer and get info off the Internet. She said yes, like she always does.

Then, slow-witted dimwit that I am, it dawned on me that I could just plug the router cable that runs to my computer directly into the cable modem.

And that worked. So, I'm not in a rush to get to Fry's now. And my panic attack symptoms have subsided. For now.