Dear Guru: Burning Down The House
Q.
Your home is on fire. Grab five items (assume all people and animals are safe). What did you grab?
Signed,
–Peeping Pyromaniac
A.
You’re sick, you know that? Seriously. Get some help. I mean, I like a tasty thought experiment as much as the next guy, but come on! My home is on fire? Tell me how you really feel.
OK. I’ll do my best. I’m a professional and I still have a job to do. I have taken the Advice Columnist’s Oath and that means, basically, I have to take it. Each and every time. Very well. Out of respect for the craft I will give this question a serious response.
What do I grab?
First Item: “Screen.”
I grab the screen. Get it? Screen grab? Woo hoo! I crack myself up. I’m a real hoot. My house is on fire and I’m cracking some of my best improv material ever. It’s a win win.
Professionalism be damned.
Uh, what was the question again?
Seriously, though. I’m not kidding. The 42″ flat screen LCD TV is obviously the first thing. I’m not insane. An American is nothing without his TV. And I can carry that puppy under my arm, all by myself. I’m sure it won’t be too heavy because I’ll be all hopped up on adrenaline from the flames.
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Survivor: Abyss Island – Splurge and Reward
Abyss Island: S1E9 – Splurge for Super Bowels Into Reward Darkness
Day 27
Dear Diary: I’m shaken by a vision of a well-protected note safely ensconced in the loving embrace of a pristine bottle and sealed with a cork. A note that contains my innermost thoughts protected against the ravages of time for all humanity to benefit.
Such luxury! Bottle? Pfffft! Cork? Pffft! Note? Pfffft!
For 27 days I have been lampooned marooned on this above-sea-level pile of sharp rocks. I barely have the energy to scratch this message using my own blood with the tip of a seagull quill on the back of a crab shell. Urgency compels me onward even in the face of certain defeat. It’s not like I have anything better to do.
I’m still exhausted from what felt like near rescue at the time. I did the You Can’t Touch This dance on the beach for a passing ship. Hopes quickly dashed to nopes as the ship failed to take notice of my Herculean gyrations. No, I don’t think I can dance.
If I ever get out of this mess I swear to you that I will enact a law that requires all ships on horizons to carefully observe the islands they pass within shouting distance. Seems like only good form.
I just had another vision, this time one of terrible darkness. That reminds me. It’s time to watch the Super Bowel.
Top 10 things to do during a Twitter outage
What? I can't hear you! Something about fail and a whale?
Have you prepared your Twitter Disaster Response Kit yet? Hint: When Twitter is down, that might be a good time to think about it. Suddenly you’re going to have plenty of free time. Not that you’ll be able to microblog the experience.
Okay, first things first. Twitter is down. Maybe you get the legendary “fail whale.” Maybe it just sits there and just sits*. (Trust me. It’s not thinking.) Maybe the little circular “wait” icon keeps spinning and spinning to let you know it’s doing something. I tried to out-wait the icon but gave up after a quarter hour, thus burning any shot I ever had at my 15-minutes of fame.
If you merely get a blank screen, try to refrain from punching your monitor. That won’t help anyone.
Twitter is down. The first thing to remember is: Stay the fuck calm!!!!!! Do not bludgeon the heads of passerby unless absolutely necessary.
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Stand back – you’ve activated Viper!
What that tweet didn’t say – what that tweet couldn’t say – almost as if there was some sort of unseen limitation on content – was this:
Please disregard all communiques issued from the Abyss via social media to date. Effective immediately, the Emergency Positivity System (EPS) has been activated. All Earthings are directed to head to the nearest spaceport for transportation to relocation planets for their own safety in the event Tom blows up. This is not a test.
For those of you unable or unwilling to read the announcement, please listen to the official audio version of the announcement. (This is an MP3 audio file.)
If this had been an actual positive thought, the Attention Signal you just heard would have been followed by official information, news or instructions.
Please stand by.
Life with no internet
Experts recommend becoming paralyzed and staring out a window
I’m not going to lie. Last night was rough.
After spending the whole day at work on the internet, I finally arrived home and was ready to get right back on the internet. That is where the shit hit the fan and my world was suddenly turned inside out.
I walked into my home and the gerbil came up to me and casually said, “The internet has been down for a while.”
It was like getting kicked in the gut. I dropped my shit and sprinted to the office. Yep, the lights on the modem looked all funny and weird. “Lights not look normal,” I gasped.
Just like the world’s biggest idiot, however, I still turned the computer on. Maybe it would somehow work. I mean, it had to. I needed it. Oh the arrogant hubris of a mind in despair.
Of course, just the act of turning on the computer didn’t magically fix anything. I mulled over my options. I could call the magnificent bastards at Charter Communications. But they’d probably ask to record my call to ensure they were screwing me hard and besides, that would take actual effort. Since I only had about an hour before I had to head downtown (which I had originally planned to use to post on my blog) I decided to organize the files on my hard drive instead.
Later that night when we finally got back home after a night on the town, my wife did the unthinkable. She called. She has fierce and amazing powers. She’s not even afraid of the phone. Charter was as concerned as ever that we were unable to use the service that we pay them for. They first tried to sell her the fucking bundle. Um, did we mention that our internet is down? Nurse, we need a lactate drip with ringers, KMG 365 – stat!!! But no, they wanted to chit chat about their bundle. Bastards.
After forcing my wife to jump through a bunch of hoops that didn’t fix anything, the Charter tech finally decided to check things on their end. He rebooted something and the problem was fixed. Heh. They must be running Microsoft Windows over there. Don’t they know that you reboot before attempting anything else?
And there you have it. The trauma and drama of my one-hour without internet. Hollywood, if you want first dibs on the rights for the trilogy – call me!
Shouts from the Abyss 
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