Month: February 2024

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Internet: An On and Off Relationship

image of a latte heart, seen from above the cup
Mmmmm. Almond milk latte love.

My celebration of the arrival of Internet was premature: two days after it was successfully installed, I came home to find a flattish black cable on the ground in front of my home, with white fibers coming out of it, not attached to the pole or any of its cable friends.

This situation made for an awkward customer support call, as I accidentally called the router people instead of the fiber people. (These should be the same people, but somehow are not.) The customer service rep disregarded my “cable on the ground outside my house” scene-setting in favor of telling me that we were going to plug and unplug the router.

Me (in cheerful tone): “Yes, but since the cable is disconnected outside, how will that help, exactly?”
Customer Service: [confusion / panic over departure from script]

I had to console them by reassuring them that they would have helped me very ably if that had been technically feasible. (This cheered them tangibly.)

The fiber people GOT IT right away, and we didn’t play the power-cycling dance at all!

Life is better with the Internet, operationally. (I can order FOOD! I can check the weather! I can pay my bills! I can respond to work emai- oh, wait, less of that part.)

One of my neighbors passed me on the sidewalk and sought confirmation that I’ve REALLY moved back. I understand her skepticism: construction isn’t completely finished, and the Water Department has been using heavy equipment outside, implying that I haven’t had water, and instead am styling my fabulous hair with shea butter hair products and MAGIC.

But soon. SOON. The final inspections will be complete! The sidewalk will be paved! The house numbers will be located AND on the wall in the correct sequence! All the [things] will work! I will put things “away,” and “away” will not just mean ‘in a slightly different pile!’ Please continue to wish me luck.

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Writing: Fountain Pens (Crimson-Violet Theme)

collage of four views of a red and violet Noodlers Ink fountain pen in "Forbidden City" design atop handwriting in Noodler's Burgundy ink
Views of my new red and violet Noodlers Ink fountain pen in “Forbidden City” design atop handwriting in Noodler’s Burgundy ink

I am continuing to love Goulet’s stub nibs in various pens – the nib lays down so much ink! The verticals are so thick! The nib is smooth, and makes for a pleasant writing experience.

The topic of my writing when I made this first collage was more private than I could show in full, so I’ve waited for muted daylight to photograph a less sensitive writing sample. (Note that it remains very difficult to use an iPhone to show off ink colors unless you get far away: the phone increases contrast automatically, and so most of my close up images appear to be black.)

Three image collage showing Noodler's Burgundy ink samples, written on dot grid paper with a stub nib Noodler's Konrad fountain pen.
Noodler’s Burgundy ink collage of three images in muted lighting on a cloudy day. iPhones increase contrast, making the ink appear darker in close ups. The lower right image writing sample displays the ink color most accurately.

I’ve historically found Noodler’s inks to be too wet for my pens (it drips!), but this one flows so nicely from their own pen on Rhodia paper that I may change my mind.

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Internet: I Haz

I have gone without desktop internet access for about 15 days, and… I know this isn’t a hardship to well-adjusted people, but it was a mild hardship to me.

Also, moving my place of residence is DIFFICULT. I couldn’t find any of the five kinds of coffee I had packed, AND I HAD NO INTERNET. (I remain unworthy of your pity, despite this – these are the least of my problems, but the fun ones to complain about!)

  • The five kinds of coffee I had to move:
    • Peet’s – Yosemite Dos Sierras
    • Peet’s – Major Dickason’s Blend (a.k.a. Major Dick)
    • Hawaiian Paradise – Volcano Roast (a lovely gift of Arabica – I love Hawaiian coffee)
    • Philz Coffee – Philtered Soul (I won this in an Xmas gift exchange, and if I had realized it had artificial hazelnut flavoring in it, I would have tried harder to swap it with something else)
    • Peet’s – Holiday Blend (in lovely packaging, as always).
    • (No, I don’t have Peet’s Ethiopian Supernatural this year. It was too… something two years ago, and it kind of put me off. Also, I have to get down to three types of coffee before I am allowed to buy more!)

Gripe: UNLIMITED CELLULAR INTERNET SHOULD MEAN UNLIMITED CELLULAR INTERNET. If you have ever hit the arbitrary limit for this, you know what I’m griping about: my cellular provider slowed my cellular data to a crawl because I used enough of my data to get their attention for the first time ever. I’ll switch carriers when I get my next [whatever smartphone devices are called by then].

Internet is exciting: getting all of my household devices to talk to the new router is much less exciting. (My garage door opener required persuading, and I upset the spider that lives in the control panel!).

The piles of boxes all around the house have been replaced by piles of things that were in boxes in two particular rooms. I want to reestablish my household in a slightly modified way, but can’t move heavy things on my own, and am very tired after work. Wish me luck.

  • Manga I hope to write about when publishing is complete (or I get to a good stopping point)
    • Tappytoon.com
      • Ashtarte by SOON, Tappytoon Studio (ongoing) – child neglected by corrupt religious influence survives (ongoing)
      • The Broken Ring: This Marriage Will Fail Anyway, by Chacha Kim, Chokam, Cheong-gwa (ongoing) – dark second chance story set in imaginary imperial Spain
      • The Castle: Keeper of the Sacred Eye by Jin Soye, hyeyong, pecan (just started) – contemporary imaginary Korean royalty battle evil spirits trapped in paintings through heterosexuality (this is an incorrect summary, but it is funny, so I am leaving it) (ongoing)
      • How to Clear a Dating Sim as a Side Character by Cherti, DALZO, Metal Kang (ongoing) – one of those waking up in a video game stories, but with system dialogues telling the heroine when she is winning the men over
    • Viz Media
      • The King’s Beast by Rei Toma – a beautifully drawn, Chinese costume drama where a member of the oppressed animal-eared group attempts to avenge her fraternal twin brother – the way the artist draws EYES is just so gorgeous!
      • Mao by Rumiko Takahashi – an exorcist meets a girl who survived a freak accident, who may team up with him to beat evil spirits. (It feels a lot like RIN-NE by the same author.)
      • Yakuza Lover by Nozomi Mino – a college girl falls in with a model-handsome, well-dressed criminal who is good in bed
      • Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon by Takashi Shiina based on characters from Rumiko Takahashi: the next generation of the Inuyasha saga, in which the children of Inuyasha/Kagome and Sesshomaru/Rin team up to rescue the parents who lost them as infants. (I couldn’t cope with the anime preview voices, but the manga isn’t bad!)

I am sorting through my observations, and hope to get back to writing here soonish, but only if it doesn’t slow down my reading!

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