Finally got connected at the trailer.

As soon as they put the phone lines in last week:  BellSouth DSL.  About 2Mbps at the moment.

Stuck in a wireless router — had to reconfigure the router from its cable setup without the manual or anything (or any instructions from BellSouth, though their tedious installation software seemed to work okay except that it gives the information someone thinks you might be able to understand instead of the information you NEED.  Plus, the first installation guy didn’t get it right — in several different ways that I choose not to recite — and some sort of "bad" card had to be replaced at the "switching center."  Plus, I had to go through the "did you plug in this? did you plug in that?" routine with the online help person until he would actually send someone out to fix the problem.  But the problem was fixed, so, from that point of view, BellSouth wins over FEMA and SBA.)

So I have internet at the trailer.  Not tip-top but decent speed.  And I can use it without all the cords and wires that would make it unable to be used in the trailer.  So that’s good.

Room for nothing but laptops at the trailer, however, which means no decent video cards or processor speeds and, ipso logico, no decent pvp.  All the l33t should realize (and they do, believe me) that equipment makes a big difference, so I am mostly avatar cannon fodder at the moment.  I suspect the appeal of crafting is directly and inversely related to the quality of your hardware.

In Auto Assault beta, but can’t play at the trailer — so barely gotten through tutorial.  Trying to keep up with Hattrick, which, given its glacial pace, is actually possible.  Trying to continue the winning fantasy baseball tradition, but unlikely to be able to compete with the waiver wire junkies.  Playing CoH now and again when I get the chance at the office, but pvp the only fun any more, and, after reaching the highest rep level, can only become increasingly socialized:  unappealing.  And I think I’m supposed to be leveling the WoW character in the TerrorNova thing, but most fun so far are the bat rides.

Meanwhile, I got a decent chair in my office and I can sit down for longer than an hour or so.

SBA loan thing lingers on.  No acceptable housing choices, from my particular point of view, under 250K or so, which we probably (er, definitely) can’t afford.  Looking into modular housing on our old lot now.  Not wonderful, but the next step would just be to move away.

NO writing whatsoever.  Barely keeping up teaching the classes.  Very annoying — but the internet at the trailer should help.  I can use the gotomypc thing.  I can access notes online; I can switch files among computers.  So that’s an improvement.

Could I get an xbox or something in the trailer?  Hmm.  Probably run into a cord/plug-in/fuse box problem.

And no good place to sit at the trailer and do things for long periods of time (no room for the chair I bought in Jackson and just took to my office).  No place for books.  No decent keyboard.  Etc.

Hohum.

Rambling.

Zarathrustra sez.

“Chaos and necessity and spinning stars—that is also the rule in the wisest world.”

See also Love in the ruins.

At Flickr.

Tag :  Trailer_park.

Please, sir, could I have no more?

Ponder:  In literature, which is more admirable, the self-congratulatory, or the self-deprecating?

Gaston (in Beauty and the Beast) or Hamlet?

ALL comedians are (are they not?) self-deprecating.  Those who become self-congratulatory, like (for instance) Lenny Bruce in decline, become increasingly unfunny and, therein it would seem, less admirable.

If the self-deprecating are more admirable, attractive, and pleasurable than the self-congratulatory, then why do we elect politicians who are invariably among the most extreme of the latter?

There is now a gaggle of candidates for mayor of New Orleans.  No Hamlets among them; more of a Claudius and Ophelia crowd.

When is a paradox not a paradox?

I figured out why I like the non-professional coverage of Katrina (during the storm) much better than the professional coverage of Katrina (during, after, and ad infinitum):  the professional coverage uses reporters.

Duh, but that’s it, I think.

I like the news.  I like the news in the blogs of the people who were there during Katrina.  I like it in the data, in the storm tracks, the maps, the spreadsheets, the employment records of the Corps.  But I don’t like the news in the spin.  And, seriously, what else do we get from reporters?

Now, some might say that reporters collect, interpret, and summarize data — and that this is a good thing.  I’m beginning to think not.  It’s not just that summaries are spins, but that summaries are false.  Necessarily false.  Enjoyable and desired and sought after, mind you, but false nevertheless.

The theoretical basis for all these likes and dislikes and curmudgeoness is this:  Common sense is not good sense; in fact, increasingly, common sense is not even neutral sense; it’s bad sense.  Our little monkey-brain intuitions, likes and dislikes, hunches, preferences, voting choices and such are increasingly wrong.  And it is only because they have, so far, mattered so little, that we remain alive today to argue the point.

It is going to take some serious double-thinking in order to translate what humans want and watch on television and vote for in elections into what humans need to survive in the hurricane, or the flood, or the earthquake, or the meteor strike.

Some things about the universe are indelibly true, but they just seem like they’re not.  It’s not the things’ fault — it’s our fault.  What seems and what is are increasingly divergent.  And, since we can’t change what is, I suggest we take a very close look at how and why things seem to be this and seem to be that — including things that seem to be the news.