Half way through reading a blog yesterday afternoon, a small red cross appeared in the Windows system tray (yes, I use a desktop computer with Microsoft Windows on it - bite me).
Okay - either Windows, or the router is on the fritz. Hmmm… disconnect and reconnect doesn’t work. Have I kicked a plug out? Nope. Oh shit - all the lights are out on the router.
(It’s worth pointing out to those who do not know, that the “router” is the piece of network hardware that goes between the cable coming into your house, and your computer. It makes the magic that is the internet happen.)
I wiggled wires. I pulled plugs out and pushed them back in. I hit the router several times. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Silence descended.
Slightly shellshocked, I walked into the lounge, where W was playing Lego Starwars 2 on the Playstation (quite possibly the funniest computer game ever created). “The internet connection is dead”. “What do you mean?”. “We have no internet connection - the router is dead.”…. “Hey - look at this bit - you can get Chewbacca to wear a stormtrooper helmet, only it doesn’t fit (lots of giggling)”
I walked back into the kitchen, and wondered what to do with myself. One moment I had been running Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, and Windows Live Messenger. I had been reading blogs, chatting with friends, reading the news, listening to podcasts and watching movies. Suddenly it was all gone.
Imagine standing in the middle of a crowd of all your friends, where you are afloat on the sea of the general hubbub. Then imagine a plug is pulled from somewhere and they are all gone. Everybody you know. Everything you can see. Everything you can hear. You are disconnected from everything.
And so, late yesterday afternoon I became disconnected from the internet. Like a lost sheep I wandered the rooms of the house looking for things to do. Suddenly television seemed like a viable option - even computer games. But they were not interactive. They were not real people. The severance of the internet from our house exposed just how much of a social animal the ‘net has caused me to become. I was lost.
As much as you may laugh (as do I) at the description of my predicament, it was a very real sense of being “cut off” from everybody I know, and everything I am interested in. Going back to “normality” for most people seemed like a strange “second choice”. Watching television that is chosen for you by the channel. Listening to radio where your only choice is to listen or not. Reading a book where you have no recourse for comment.
I survived.
After returning from work today (yes, I worked on the day after boxing day), we went to PC World and became the architects of our own resurrection to the internet. We bought a new router - and a mighty fine one it is too (check out the shiny picture to the side of this entry). It zips along at roughly double the speed the old one used to, so no more waiting for podcasts and videos to buffer anymore…
Anyway - I’ve prattled on enough.
Feel free to email me, message me, comment, or whatever. It’s great to be back. I’m off to listen to some wonderful albums my friend in Oklahoma sent me before Christmas, and to drink wine, eat rubbish, and get fat.
I will of course be back in front of this computer almost immediately to revel in my re-found geekiness.
Oh - by the way - if you didn’t get the joke from the title of this Blog entry, go watch “The Abyss”.