Don’t let the terrorists read this essay

I don’t want to suggest that I can’t live without my computer, but consider this:

Before mine went on the fritz a few days ago, I had a pretty consistent (as in “boring”) daily routine. I’d wake up in the morning and check my email first thing. Then I’d open Facebook to see what I had missed during the night (very little, usually). I might scroll for a while, comment here and there, “like” this and “share” that, and so on.

Next came Twitter. You can’t fall behind on Twitter or you’ll miss some really good shi… I mean, stuff.

Then I’d read two newspapers online. That took anywhere from five minutes to two hours, depending on how many stupid mistakes and typos I could find in the local news. Then it was back to Facebook to see who had gotten on since the last time I looked.

Finally, I’d check a few other web sites – mostly sports – and then start looking for food. It’s not uncommon for me to eat meals at my desk while reading something or playing Hearts, Free Cell, Yahtzee or SimCity 4. When I got tired I’d go watch TV for a while or do something else, but sooner or later I’d be back, repeating the earlier routine… Mail. Facebook. Twitter. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

After that, I’d start writing that day’s shieldWALL essay, if I had one. If not, I’d click around reading the news or whatever. And on and on it went…

When my computer locked up on me, I virtually lost my mind. Here’s a list of the things I did then:

(1) Walk into my office and stare at the empty space where the computer used to be.

(2) Walk away, looking lost.

(3) See (1) and (2) above.

Get my point?

So anyhow, the old Dell is in the shop until at least next Tuesday and when it comes back, I think it will be stripped down to its birthday suit, which means it will take days or weeks to put everything back the way it’s supposed to be. In the meantime, I have other devices I can use to go online, of course, and they have the advantage of being portable and small enough to fit in my pocket.

I’m also commandeering a laptop that we’ve had for some time but rarely used. I had to load a lot of stuff onto it to make a suitable substitute for my Civil War-era desktop, but I think it’s working out pretty well now. Hell, I can even print, copy and fax. What could be better?  (It would be nice if the desktop looked the way it's supposed to and all of the icons were in the right places and the screensaver was.... well, nevermind.)

At least I now have a decent backup for emergencies. I mean, when you do all of your banking and most of your shopping and bill paying on a computer, not to mention all of the other stuff, it’s kind of scary when all of a sudden you don’t have one ready to use.

What’s really scary is this: You can talk all you want about crashing planes and armed assault and dirty bombs and poison gas, but if a terrorist wants to put me out of business, all he has to do is futz up my computers.

You won’t tell any of them about this, will you?

Thanks.