I’m angry. The internet is down. COVID-19 has struck fear into the hearts and minds of everyone. Public meetings of over 10 people are banned in Washington for the next 2 weeks by order of the governor. No bars, no entertainment, no saturday board games, no church, no school, no library. Only essential stores like grocery stores and hardware stores and restaurants are allowed to stay open.

Time to exercise, I guess.

I walked 20 laps and did some yoga. I then showered and shaved and ate some food. I paid my phone bill. This time I bought extra data because my home internet is so flaky right now. I don’t know if it’s because of covid-19 or it’s just a coincidence, but I don’t think the internet is going to stay up.

God, this phone internet is usually a lot better than this. I’m getting 60 kpbs download, 70 kpbs upload right now. This feels like the 2G internet speed I got downgraded to when I used up all my data. I just re-upped so it should be fast again!

I’m contacting Net10 via chat to see if I can figure out why my speed is so damn slow!

Net10’s website is atrocious. No regard for readability or usability. It’s got way too much custom javascript and sloppy animations for me to take seriously.

I think I’m going to use COVID-19 as an excuse to work on precious-decks today. I don’t know how that’s a valid excuse, because I isolate on my own, regardless of a pandemic.

I suppose my internet is a more valid reason. I can’t list items in a timely manner without strong internet, so I’m instead going to work on my code project.

All in-person Nerds United events for the next 2 weeks are cancelled. San Francisco is shutting down at midnight. People there are urged to shelter in place and not leave their houses except for essential things.

There is a lot of fear and madness going on right now. Meanwhile, I went outside and meditated and spent some time experiencing the feelings I was experiencing in that moment. Everything was fine. Everything is fine. Humans are freaking out, but Earth moves on and it’s just another day.

I don’t think Net10’s chat works in Firefox. I’m having to download chromium. ETA 1h 53min. This connection is worse than the home internet! I didn’t think such a thing would be possible in year 2020.

I need to move. Moving seems to be the only way I have a chance in hell of getting internet of acceptable quality.

Oh yeah, SpaceX. I could get SpaceX in a year or so. So I guess I don’t really need to move. I just have to be patient. 2 hour ETA for chromium. This is really fucking frustrating. I’m fucking pissed that the internet is so shitty. I can’t even look at the routers in the main house because it’s suck a clusterfuck of cables and shit. It needs to all get thrown away, like… 100% of that shit should go in the trashcan. Then start over with a clean slate. New router. New modem. Anything less than that is unacceptable.

Really I don’t want anything to do with it. That’s my parent’s house, and I left shit in there for years. It should default back to their property and they get to do whatever they want with it.

LTE my ass. Net10 what the fuck are you doing?

Oh hey, I could totally call them. They have phone support… It’s either that, or I can wait… ETA 5 hours what the FUCK..

Oop, I got a connection failed error. I guess I gotta call, since chat doesn’t seem to be an option.

I was so angry and frustrated so I just took a nap.

I had a nightmare where I was an actor playing a part of a person stuck in a madhouse. The room was like 3 feet tall and I was stuck in there and I could barely move. There was a monster along the wall with a mouth the shape of a aluminum soda can. I stuck my finger in the hole and the stagecrew pulled the soda can and dragged me. The cameras got the shot and the director called, “cut!” I wanted to complain the director because I didn’t think it was safe to stick my hand in a sharp metal hole and be dragged like that. I could cut my finger at that rate!

Stupid dreams are stupid. I connected to the home internet and I got chromium installed. The Net10 chat works in chromium. Seriously this website is bad and they should feel bad. I open up the console and all I see is dozens of debug console.log messages. It’s a really sad website and sad CSS and sad usability. When you choose your plan on Net10’s website, the different plans load slowly on my internet. I can’t tell which plan is which until they load completely, because the plan descriptions aren’t text, they’re baked into in the images!

So very sad indeed.

Well, I’m just glad that I’m aware of what a bad website looks like, so I know not to make one like that.

I’m on chat with Net10 now. I just hope the home internet hangs in there long enough for me to complete this process.

There was some halt to the stock market the other day. It might be ongoing, I’m not sure. My buddy M. in Vegas is saying the strip got shut down, and shit’s getting kinda crazy. G. in LA said that people are acting really weird.

I think now might be a good time to go dumpster diving. All the cops are probably on patrol between the various grocery stores, keeping order there. That would give me free range to peruse through the dumpsters at various strip malls. Or maybe right now is the worst time to do that. Maybe right now, police are extra vigilant about people sneakin’ around doing abnormal shit. I’m not really sure.

I need to find an unlimited plan via eBay. The 1GB limit I have right now is completely inhumane!

I’m running p-data.js rip -a -i -t 3 again. I still haven’t made it through ripping the entire website. I think the code is in a good place right now, to the point where I don’t think it’ll crash due to errors in my code. I do anticipate crashes during network instability, however.

I’m running this through my mobile broadband, so we’ll see how stable that is compared to the shotty home internet.

Nerds United are meeting for video games right now. I think they started at 6PM and go until 10. It’s 8PM now. I feel like my day is just getting started..

I might try to play games with them sometime this week. Not today though. I don’t have half the games they listed.

Game List!
     Apex Legends
     Borderlands (Steam)
     Borderlands 2 (Steam)
     Borderlands 3 (Epic Games)
     Dead by Daylight (Steam)
     Deep Rock Galactic (Steam)
     Diablo 3 (Battle.Net)
     Dota Underlords (Steam, FREE)
     Heroes of the Storm (Battle.Net, FREE)
     League of Legends (League of Legends app, FREE)
     Nom Nom Galaxy (Steam)
     Off World Trader (Epic Games Launcher)
     Overwatch (Battle.Net)
     Starcraft 2 (Battle.Net)
     Stardew Valley (Steam)
     Warhammer: Vermintide 2 (Steam)

I have Borderlands 1 and 2. None of them are downloaded so it’s going to be a no-go for me at this point.

LOL, imagine me downloading a 9GB game via my cell connection. That would literally cost me $90 in data!

LOL, what a stupid internet connection this is. I’m seriously frustrated.

I don’t think I’m going to write 2000 words today. I don’t think it’s realistic to hope for that, given how poorly I can focus on this task. I write a sentence the I become completely distracted. I look at another monitor. I open a new tab and consider clicking something. I open steam and see what my friends are playing. I compare games and realize that I cannot play with them because I don’t have the game in question downloaded. I can’t play with them because I don’t own a copy of that game.

I can’t play with NU because I don’t have Stardew Valley. It’s a $15 game. Even if I shelled out the cash (which I don’t have) then I would not be able to download it via cellular.

p-data.js is chugging along, a half hour after I started it. It’s lookin good, correctly determining cards which it has already downloading and skipping them.

I am lonely and scared. I’m not scared of covid-19, I’m scared of the people who are reacting negatively to it. I’m scared of theft from people who run out of cash. I’m scared of reduced eBay card sales which have been keeping me going.

I’m a little jealous that people are copying my lifestyle. Social reclusivity. That’s my thing!

I’m not even wanting to reach out to people because there’s nothing we could do. We could maybe watch youtube via Kosmi or play cards.. that’s about all that my connection would allow me to do.

I suppose I could park my Discord in the VOCALOID lounge. Seeing the people chat in there makes me a little less lonely. I can relate to those people a lot better than I can the people in Nerds United.

Hmm… I think I’m more scared when I try to be with people in Discord. I read Covid-19 memes or someshit, and I start to feel nervous.

There I go, getting distracted again. WHat the fuck? It’s going to be 10PM before I finish this post. Ok I’m jumping into affirmations and gratefulness and success recognition because my mind is numb and I don’t want to think, apparently.

19. My confidence is beautiful.
48. Today is a new day; I will see what adventure it holds.
53. I have the power to control my reactions to the challenges I will face.

I’m grateful for bulk bags of rice. I’ve been chomping on this 30 lbs bag of rice for what feels like 3 months now. I bought the bag at URM cash & carry, and I will definitely be stopping by there again to purchase another bag when this one runs out. Actually, Since my EBT card has been topped up as of today? tomorrow? I could stop in there sometime this week and get rice or other groceries.

I’m grateful for toilet paper. I have plenty of it, even though it seems that many people during this pandemic do not.

I’m grateful for my health. I am not sick and I have no plans of getting sick. Luckily, I take care of myself enough to where I think my immune system is pretty good at fighting off infection. Very thankful indeed.

I’m grateful for internet. I’m grateful that I can just purchase internet and it gets beamed to my phone.

I’m recognizing my success of working when I’m bored, rather than engaging in mindless, destructive activities such as endless video games without restraint. I’m getting better at doing this.

1.8K words and I’m over it. I’m out!