Tag: phones

#oneaday Day 989: Blackout

I was all set to write something profound tonight, then the Internet died and I’m relegated to blogging from my phone.

All right, I didn’t have anything hugely profound to say and even if I did I could clearly still say it from my phone, but the Internet has gone down, which is, as everyone thoroughly immersed in 21st century living knows, incredibly annoying.

Given its prevalence in our everyday lives, it’s very easy to forget what life without the Internet was like. Something as simple as checking the news or finding out what time something was on TV relied on you having… oh, it’s back. I’ll return when I finish watching this episode of The World God Only Knows. Ja ne!

… … … …

20 minutes later…

There we are, that’s better.

Shit, now there’s pressure on me to write something meaningful. Umm…

Nope, I got nothing. And fuck all that Internet talk. I’ve written that exact same post at least five or six times already in the last 989 days.

I finished watching Welcome to the NHK today. The last few episodes were major-league Feels territory. It was a fascinating show, all-told, that I may write about in more detail at some point in the near future. What I particularly liked was that it wasn’t particularly easy to pigeon-hole into a specific category of genre. It had elements of comedy, drama, romance, surrealism and all manner of other stuff too. On the whole it was quite an emotional experience for me — I’m not sure how much it would resonate with someone who couldn’t relate to some of the issues therein, but I certainly found it to be an excellent, worthwhile, enjoyable and moving watch.

Tonight, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve started watching The World God Only Knows after recommendations from several people. I’ll blog in more detail about this when I’ve watched more than two episodes, but it seems to be highly entertaining so far.

The premise, for the unfamiliar, is that dating sim addict Keima inadvertently enters into a contract with the unfeasibly cute and broom-wielding demon Elsie to help round up “Loose Souls”, runaway spirits that hide themselves inside the hearts of girls. Keima is thus tasked with making said girls fall in love with him, thus releasing the Loose Soul for Elsie to catch. Keima, sadly, is more than a little socially awkward, having spent all his time dating 2D girls rather than interacting with real people. However, since reneging on the contract means that both he and Elsie will be decapitated by the magical collars placed upon them, he has no choice but to go along with the outlandish plan. Consequently, he attempts to use his knowledge of dating sim tropes to figure out girls in the real world and, of course, Hilarity Ensues.

I’ve watched two episodes so far and already I want my own Elsie to hug. Certain characters just nail the whole adorableness factor, and she has this particular characteristic in spades. The show as a whole is rather endearing, too, though, regularly lapsing into heavily-stylized and chibi sequences rather than trying to remain too grounded in reality. The concept is, after all, ridiculous, so rather than trying to take itself too seriously the show appears to very much embrace its silliness. I’m fine with that, and am looking forward to exploring the rest of the episodes.

Anyway, on that note I think it’s probably time I hit the sack. Hopefully tomorrow will see a more coherent entry and less in the way of Internet outages.

#oneaday Day 140: 21st Century Boy

It’s the 21st century. If you grew up in the 20th century like I did, this means that you’re officially In The Future, because saying “21st century” sounded like it was a very long way off and not, as it happened, just around the corner.

Since we’re officially In The Future, I think there’s more than a few pieces of technology that we should probably have mastered by now. And I’m not going to say “hoverboards” because “hoverboards” would be rubbish. I can barely stay upright on a skateboard, and certainly not on rollerskates, so why the fuck would I want to remove the wheels and stand on a sheet of plastic floating in mid-air? No. Fuck hoverboards, and sort this lot out instead:

Pay-and-display machines that don’t give change or accept card payments

Seriously. We’re living in a digital society where you can pay for things by swiping your phone in front of terminals and yet when you park your car you still need exact change to purchase a ticket? Balls. Fix it.

Computers that don’t tell you what the problem is

“An unexpected error has occurred.” As opposed to an expected error? WHAT WENT WRONG? And no, I don’t want to know the hexadecimal address of the piece of memory where something went wrong because I didn’t write the program. I want something in plain English. “Your graphics card is buggered,” for example, or “Your hard drive is too full for this program to work effectively.”

Microwaves that have a power rating somewhere in between the ratings listed on a packet of food

The microwave here is 800W. Food packaging lists cooking times for 650W, 750W and 850W. Is it too much to ask for microwave manufacturers and those who package food to co-operate a little bit?

Clocks that don’t auto-adjust to British Summer Time/Daylight Saving Time/Uzbekistan Testicle Appreciation Time

Changing the clocks is an annoying rigmarole anyway, and when some of the devices in your house do it automatically and others don’t, it’s a pain in the arse to figure out which is which.

Tiny things that you can’t find

Everything should have a phone number or GPS tracking, meaning if you lose your keys, you should be able to phone them and locate them.

Companies who will let you sign up online but require you to phone them to cancel

I’m looking at you, LoveFilm. You were deliciously easy to sign up for, yet cancelling required me to speak to some indecipherable person on a bad line and explain to them that no, I had phoned to cancel so no, I don’t want to extend my service or give them my payment information. Let me cancel online. I don’t want to speak to other human beings on the phone. I hate the phone.

Companies who insist that all correspondence must be done through the mail

And I’m talking about the paper mail that comes through your letterbox. In this digital world, there’s no real excuse for this any more. And while we’re on…

Companies who take a week to respond to an email

“We will get back to you within 7 days.” Probably with the wrong answer. It takes a few seconds to Google the question I had or to ask the person sitting behind you, to type in your response and to hit Send. Even if you have other people to deal with in the queue in front of me, I doubt it takes a week.

Erm. This may have become a bit more ranty than I intended. Oh well. We’re living in the future. These things should be sorted by now. So fix them, world!