Virtual Ignorance Is Bliss

I stopped by Apathy’s public library to use their bank of computer and post an update. First, I had to wait for an 83 year old man to complete his research on the migratory habits of the rare Siberian Tree Monkey (http://www.vodkaandbrachiatingdontmix.org/). This could be a challenging method for maintaining my blog, but I just returned after a six month blogging vacation and I’m not ready to allow a little thing like not having a functioning computer stop me from maintaining a computer-based weblog.

There are aspects of being virtually incommunicado that are pleasant. I do not have to read e-mail message after e-mail message from people concerned about my ability to perform. It is rather annoying to be told numerous times each day that bigger is always better and that marathon sessions are the expected norm. There are a couple of basic assumptions behind those messages that are insulting. These e-mails cannot possibly have been written by parents. Is there a parent of small children alive who does not understand saying, “If we do this quickly we can still get eight hours of sleep?”

I do not miss those frequent offers from Abdulah Iwannatakeyourmoney to drain my life savings by telling me that he has “multiple monies on accounts in reputable bank in my native Nigeria.” He usually writes that a lonely, single multi-millionaire died with no heirs, and that on a planet 25,000 miles in circumference populated by 5 billion people, this stay-at-home dad in Kansas (of all places!) is the only person he trusts to help him liquidate the estate. He also wants me to believe that he is only interested in keeping 10% of the eight gazillion dollars on account. If I only send him a valid bank account number he will wire me the remaining 90%. It is disappointing that the poor writing in these e-mails isn’t a tip-off to to every recipient that something is amiss. The complete lack of critical thinking skills on the part of the middle-aged couple in suburban Chicago who did not stop to ask themselves how such an offer could be real before they watched in abject horror as their childrens’ college funds electronically disappeared some Tuesday afternoon, is a complete condemnation of both our educational system and the fallen world that we live in. Greed and avarice rule the day. That reminds me, I need to check my lottery tickets.

I have also noticed that when I read my paper mail my view is not obstructed by an annoying pop-up advertisement that will not go away no matter how many times I click on an “x” that can only be located with the aide of an electron microscope. Advertisers have not yet figured our how to create a paper pop-up ad without causing a heart attack in a sixty-three year old widow in Hartsville, Tennessee, when she thinks she is opening her electric bill and is instead greeted by a spring-loaded Burger King creepy guy who pops up to say, “I like square booty!”

While I persevere through this unwanted electronic hiatus I will continue to record stories and post them when I can. I write better when I write on a computer. My six pages of hand written, double-spaced, heavily redacted rough draft is slowly and laboriously produced. And to think that this is how I got through high school and most of college. Ah, technology…