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A love-hate-hate relationship

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I have a love-hate-hate relationship with technology.

They (the same nefarious bunch that always promises to build Utopia) told us that technology would make our lives easier. Better. More fulfilling. Simplify things.

What a crock of womanure (trying to be gender-sensitive here).

How about some examples? Glad you bloody asked. Let’s talk email.

Like a lot of people, I maintain a number of different email addresses. Some are for family, some are for team sports, some are for friends, some are for business, some are for quasi-anonymous blog communications, some are for Internet commerce, et cetera, et cetera. I won’t deny the utility and helpfulness of it all. However, lately it has become a huge pain in my gluteus maximus.

I mean, just dealing with my normal, regular and expected email is time consuming. Open it, read it, ponder it, usually respond and act on it. Tiring. And that’s just the stuff you want to read, that’s not counting the stuff you have to wade through and get rid of…

Let’s talk *SPAM* — no matter how elaborate I try to construct my filters and safeguards, I get inundated with a ceaseless stream of junk mail. If every piece of email that managed to sneak past my breastworks actually did what it said, I would have my mortgage paid off, be listed prominently in Who’s Who, be more incredible in the sack, be the proud owner of hundreds of stocks which quadrupled my money, own half of Nigeria, be living without pain of any kind, be thinner, have more energy and hair and whatever ad nauseum ad infinitum. Puke.

I spend WAY too much time highlighting and deleting crap emails. You can block the sender or domain but – guess what – the SPAMMERS rotate those more than the NSA changes passwords. Email addresses are like Chinese products – cheap and plentiful.

Oh, and here’s some more great news – companies want to ramp up automation and AI, which only means you’ll get more of this crap because it’s easier to generate from the sender’s end. Just set a few parameters and let the blasted machines churn and burn.

Enough with SPAM — let me rant on legitimate sites where you actually buy something useful. Now – hidden in the effing fine print, is the fact that by purchasing that “had to freaking have” item, you are automatically subscribed to the site’s newsletter. And, oh by the way, we also sell/give our subscriber lists to other companies with products we just know you’ll love {insert sincere smile here}. Sigh.

I do have a hateful admiration for some of these businesses – they have automated algorithms that are as utterly relentless as a Terminator cyborg. They will not stop until you buy something. Or you die and get removed from the list server.

Of course, you can unsubscribe. Just means they will send you MORE emails, hoping one of them will work. It’s not a shotgun approach, it’s frelling carpet bombing.

Then – even worse – there are hackers who send you things and WANT YOU to click the “unsubscribe” button, which unleashes gawd knows what evil script, key-logger program, or Trojan jackass to invade the sanctity of your system.

Don’t even get me started on Phishing and Scamming deals.

Fug – I’m headed to the Post Office to buy some damn stamps…

–E

P.S. Next post, we go off on text messages! Look for an e-alert. Hah.

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A Hateful and Hideous Task

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I live on the third floor of a three-story condo unit. Nice community. Gated. Not sure how secure it is though. I was visiting with Pat — the maintenance guy — the other day and we started talking about security and somehow he let it slip that the gate code for the maintenance crew was “1234.”

Really?

I’m thinking that if Riff or Raff wanted to get into the complex, well, they wouldn’t have to hack through many code permutations. Fug.

Anyway — yesterday I’m sitting in my somewhat secure third-floor condo living room when I get a call from Mando, one of my best pals. The other being Tom. Both being ex-hackers in the business of helping other companies avoid being hacked. Mando is calling from Vegas. Business, he says. Of the monkey variety is what I’m thinking, but I let it slide in the name of friendship.

A favor. That’s what he says he needs.

You know how favors and friends go. You call a friend when no one else will help. You are not permitted, by the Immutable Law of Friendship, to decline.

What kind of favor, I delicately ask. Like a reluctant snake-handler milking a black mamba.

Mow my grass, Mando informs me.

Now, there are many things Mando could have asked of me as a favor. Check on his mail. Feed his dog. Pick up his mom at the airport. Stalk his ex-girlfriend Lisa who supposedly stole some of his vintage baseball cards. I would gladly do any of those.

Yard work, however, strikes me as pointless, disheartening, depressing, and self-defeating. A blow to the human spirit. A reminder of our sad human condition.

I mean, think about it. Grass is a weed.

It is simply something that makes dirt look acceptable. People only allow it to grow because it is generally stable and grows uniformly. It is orderly and neat, unlike the lives of the people mowing it.

So, not only are you tending to and nurturing a weed that never stops growing, you must continue to cut it — for-freaking-ever.

You NEVER accomplish anything. You cut it; the effing weeds grow back. It’s what they do best.

It’s like the damn mythological hydra — cut one head off and two grow back — you are always mowing the grass. You are always reminded of the sheer and utter pointlessness of life. Gawd, I hate effing yard work. It’s bullsnarf. An affront to human dignity. A bane on existence.

Fine.

I am now sitting at my computer typing this blog entry. I am drenched in sweat and irritation since I have just returned from Mando’s house. Where I tended to his weeds and cut the grass, front and back, and edged and trimmed the front like a crazed grass-infused artisan.

I feel demeaned as a human.

But, damn, that front yard sure looks good.

E

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