Everything that is today could not be if it were not for that which was before.
I got this quote in the email today and it was supposed to be inspirational, but of course, I took it negatively.
You see, we are 2 and a half years into the Great Recession. For me, it's going on since January, 2008. I've been in and out of work, I collected unemployment, it ran out, I took out a title loan on my car to pay the rent, received eviction notices, and had to pay eviction legal fees, and am currently on a payment plan with the I.R.S.
Yesterday, they pulled the plug on my cable TV.
Not to get all Shakespearean on you, but
Stand not amaz'd, the Prince will doom thee death, If thou art taken. Hence be gone, away!
O, I am fortune's fool!
and, I am even The natural fool of fortune and
You fools of fortune
And, I'm paraphrasing here...
but, it was Friday night, and I sat in front of the TV, staring blankly at the Black Screen of Death.
You see, I thought I could let the exhorbitant cable bill fly and bought one of those digital converter boxes, only I couldn't get an antenna signal and it didn't work. I thought I needed an antenna, but the wierdo at the Walmart said the converter box would suffice and took my $50.
Now, I have to go buy an antenna and hope that works. Only, I'm broke, unemployed, and possibly evicted.
However, being without television is quite an unnerving experience, I assure you. I knew I had an addiction. I would just turn the TV "ON," and putter about. But, I also realized this is my only company during the long hours of joblessness, and freaking out about being jobless.
I thought, well, I can read.
And, I can compute, learn something,
take a computer tutorial or something
read email,
surf the net,
find a job,
You Tube!
Only my Dell Optiplex, refurbished, with Windows XP, does something called 'buffering' when watching videos, and there's even a youtube video about that.
Stop Video buffering!
but as Youtube is a democracy and the best of freemarket capitalism, I didn't download that guy's free software, but moved on to another guys suggestion
Start Video Buffering!
And, discovered, I don't even know what buffering is.
so, I didn't rent any movies for .99 since who wants to watch a video that starts and stops and charges my credit card 99 cents?
And, then my ISP got hacked and my personal email was hacked and I was paying the ISP a boatload of money every month to protect me from this happening. As a result of this hack, my email address book was hijacked and an email went out to God Knows Who, to "make $300 a day by inserting Links online," and I only found out about it, when my brother, a computer illiterate, likewise, jobless, calls me and asks me why this screen is 'buffering' and won't take his credit card. What?
He was about to pay some hacker/hijacker $100 for a job scam.
Oh NO.
Haven't you read my E-book,
"Job Shark, A Quick Start Guide
for the Unemployed?"
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/14441
which I wrote when I was, you know...
and,
then, after spending a lovely hour or two on the phone with unintelligible tech support people, I am back online, but the problem, of course, is not resolved.
The whole system is breaking down!
So, I went to bed early, because there was nothing on the TV.
Maybe I will write the Great American Novel today....
or learn more computer skills so I can get a job....
or clean the house.....
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