Thursday 11 February 2016

Nervously humming to myself

I need to go to a darkened room and meditate. I cannot tell you about the nightmare I have been having with my new, improved operating system until I have calmed down and it all works again - God knows when that will be. One TINY little problem (compared to the rest) is that it took 3 minutes for this page to load up, but this is not the reason I have not been posting.

I have spent three solid days on this fiasco so far and it is still not resolved. I genuinely think that this is Apple's way of punishing me for not throwing away my 9 year-old iMac and spending another £1200 on a new machine, because I could have earned more than that in the few days it has taken me to try to get this one to work again.

I will bore you about it in the future, but I cannot bring myself to offload right now - it's too fresh and far from over. While I am waiting for my Mac expert to come round and drag me - sobbing - away from the keyboard, I will try and say a few calm words and pretend that I am somewhere close to a state of mental stability.

I was wondering this morning (whilst half listening to a program on Rumi) if young people still drop in on each other unannounced, and decided that - because of mobile phones and social media - that they didn't. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

When I was young, everyone just walked round to their friend's houses no earlier than 11.00am, rang the doorbell, got let in, sat on the carpet expecting tea and biscuits, and quite often stayed there until gone midnight or even the next morning. It was just what you did.

If your friends were watching T.V. then you just sat on the carpet and said nothing - for hours.

As we got older, some of our contemporaries started to have children and showed signs of stress if we arrived unannounced. We were frozen out, but I doubt if we could have put up with the screaming babies anyway, so this was a natural turn of events.

As we got older still - whether or not we had any children - we started to resent people arriving on our doorsteps without an appointment, so would freeze them out anyway. This was just the inevitable tendency toward cosy, insular homeliness that becomes stronger the older you get.

All my social interaction happens in the pub these days, because I have frozen so many adults out who ought to have known better than to 'drop in' on me over the last 20 years or so.

Teenage assignations used to be arranged by meeting each other under the clock tower, but now they don't even bother to actually meet in the flesh, unless it is to get utterly off their tits at a parties, and the atmosphere at parties is not conducive to conversation of any meaningful kind.

I wonder who had the best times in the last three or four generations?

38 comments:

  1. When my youngest was young, his mates would always turn-up just after I'd gone to bed, and play their bass-only music at level 11. I used to get really pissed off.

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    1. Could have been worse. Could have been Level 42 (GEDDITT???????)

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  2. They swap rude pictures on snapchat etc and eliminate the need for leaving the comfort of their own bedrooms. I think I had more fun than they do today. Good luck with the Mac and get it finished soon.

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    1. I wouldn't mind if they swapped them with me too.

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  3. The youth of today apparently don't speak to each other, either. A friend's granddaughter was on a mandated two-day suspension from her mobile phone and was horrified when it was suggested she could use the house phone for a chat with friends. Apparently that's radically uncool, since all communication must happen through texting.

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    1. As an experiment, they put a load of young people in a room and told them that they could not use their phones, but did have the option of electrocuting themselves with an easy to reach button if they got too bored. They ALL electrocuted themselves within 4 minutes. 4 MINUTES.

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  4. Any of us who knew what the outside was and embraced it, rather than shuddering in horror at the thought had a better time... All that bright light makes it so difficult to read one's screen y'know.

    Hope your computer woes are cured soon; if not, take two gin and tonics and call me in the morning.

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  5. You have a 9-year-old Mac? What do you expect???!!!
    You should bite the bullet and get yourself a new one. It will lower your stress level and make you an easier person to live with. Do it for her sake.

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    1. I have a 15 year-old car too, and I expect it to work as well as it does, just so long as I maintain it. I do NOT like throwing perfectly good things away just to keep Apple's coffers stuffed.

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    2. I'm with you on this one. I also like to use things until they are really 'done'. I told my husband that I will be driving my car until one of its wheels falls off and passes me on a downhill.

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    3. That actually used to happen with Morris 1000s. I have seen it twice.

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  6. Computer problems drive me mad. I simply cannot handle it. When I am at the farm, with no help, sometimes my sister can walk me through the new Mac as I always used Windows. I still don't know how to work this thing. Maybe, kids in the city still drop by. I say, keep them too busy with after school activities to sit around. They probably text at night under the covers instead of reading.

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    1. If they sent me pictures of themselves naked, then I would buy a new Mac.

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  7. I got really, really mad when my old desktop computer died after only 7 or 8 years of light use. And I REALLY got pissed off at the the tech guys at a computer repair store I took it to who were condescending and overcharged me for nothing as I still had to buy a new computer. Apparently it's too much to expect for a device that cost hundreds (or thousands) of dollars to last longer than a year or two. And forget getting ANYTHING repaired these days.

    That all being said, I finally broke down and got a smartphone last year and it's transformed my relationship to the the online world dramatically. In a good way. In fact, I'm using it right now. But the constant texting and online presence of kids and teenagers is different and very worrying. I doubt it's doing them any good.

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    1. I am going to get my Mac expert to delete 'iCloud' from my machine. That is the first thing he is going to do. All the young lot DO NOT UNDERSTAND THAT iCLOUD STORES ALL YOUR PERSONAL STUFF REMOTELY! Not only is it vulnerable to hackers, but bloody Apple (some of whom ARE the hackers) manage to lose thousands of files every week. Why do they want our photos, out emails, our documents? BECAUSE THEY MAKE MONEY FROM THEM. How do they make money - legally? Bt selling sensitive information and retailing trends. 'By using this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies'. How often do you hear that? What happens when you disable cookies? NOTHING WORKS. Who - in their right minds - would opt for Yahoo as a comprehensive browser? Why not? Because Google have the market SOWN UP. End of rant.

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    2. 3.5 days later, and I have finally sorted out the teething problems. Praise be to the Lord.

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  8. I think my mother's generation had the best time. She was born in 1918, and was a teenager and young adult during the depression and was married in 1942. Her "gang" wandered into each other's homes evenings and weekends, and played board games, or a fast paced card game called armbuster, in which the wise removed watches and jewelry before playing. In my mind's eye I can see them playing croquet, the women in light dresses and the men in suits and ties. The men even wore hats and suits to a picnic. It must have been good times.

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    1. I remember the good old days of 1678. We knew how to enjoy ourselves in those days, both day and night - unless you were in the West of the New World, fighting off savages.

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    2. I hope you get this Mac business behind us real soon and a more mellow Mr. Stephenson heads down to the pub. We like you better than this.

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    3. In the pub, I am mellow. Don't think that you have any better understanding of me than I do of you, Rachel. That really would be an insult. As if!

      Joanne, I shall overcome, as usual.

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    4. P.S. - Joanne - I have the perfect gift for you, in place of the pebble which you want, none of which naturally exist on the banks of our river here in Bath.

      It is a thousand year-old, leaden loom weight from the British Dark ages, and I would like to send it to you.

      Trouble is that I have lost - again - your postal address.... Please remind me. Thanks.

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    5. OMG-I still use loom weights. An S hook with a nut on it.

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    6. The end of a great exchange. I cannot find your address, let alone your email address, and worst of all, my ultimate go-to, there is nothing on ebay. Sigh.

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    7. tjstephenson@talktalk.net that's the only one I'm putting up here. It's yours, Joanne.

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    8. That one can live. It's not my real one.

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  9. I love to get unexpected visitors. Two days ago I stood on my balcony and saw my friend Beate cycle in the street. "Cup of coffee?" I shouted when she waved at me - and Whoops! she was coming up the stairs.
    Spontaneity is wonderful!

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    1. That was a spontaneous invitation, not an unexpected visit.

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  10. Great news - Trump will make everything right with America! What on earth were we worried about?

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  11. If anything is going to do my head in its computer issues. Tom I understand your pain.

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    1. I am trying to ignore it all today, and wait for my Mac man to come round over the weekend.

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  12. When I was a child I spent so much time outdoors. And when I read here your post, I understand that my younger sister spends all her time online.

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    1. Please tell me you are not advertising, then I will speak to you again. I get enough bleeding advertising here as it is, and I will not put up with any amateur stuff.

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