Remember When It Was Fun?

I feel like an old poop, but I'm remembering back to when the Internet was fun.  It was not that long ago when I really enjoyed my tablet and would often use that rather than get up and come to the desktop.  I occasionally got pop up ads, but now I get an ad that covers 1/3 of the screen and comes right across the middle of it -- it isn't for anything specific, just a generic ad.  Up in the right corner it says "skip" and I click that  Then it changes to "close" and  click that, then the ad goes away and is replaced by a full page ad and THEN you can return to whatever you were doing.  It seems that this happens every 5 minutes or so, so often at least that I am using my tablet less and less.  

 

It was actually a free addition to new phones we got several years ago, so I suppose I can't really complain, but I used it so often and now it makes me angry to use it, so I don't.

Remember how you could Google something you were interested in?  You can still do it, of course, but it brings up a list of sites concerning whatever you are researching.  You choose one that sounds interesting, click on it and it brings up another list of sites based on that choice, narrowing it down you click on another page and ANOTHER list of sites comes up until you finally give up or spend all your time clicking.  Lord help you if the one link you finally choose takes you to a page that isn't exactly what you are looking for and you have to start all over again.

I have used the internet almost exclusively for recipes for a long time, after I gave away most of my cookbooks.  Whatever I want to cook,  can generally find, but when you follow a link to the page of the recipe you want to get, first you get a photo of it, then a long (and I mean LONG) explanation of how the cook came to make that recipe, than a paragraph explaining how to do it and FINALLY, if you stick it out long enough, you get a real recipe.

I have both Firefox and Chrome on my computer.  I have used Chrome for most of my Google searches, but lately I get a big scary full page red warning that my computer has a big virus and I have to call a number to clear it, and if I shut down the page my computer will explode or something.  But that's not even an option because you can't shut it down and you can't click on any of the options the page gives you.  The only thing you can do is close the computer entirely and then reboot when, of course, the scary message has gone.  But it has happened so often that I use Chrome less and less.

Firefox is still ok, though connection speed has slowed significantly, which is why we are going to get Cable when Walt figures out how to get his mail since we will have to leave Davis Community Network.  Some days Firefox is like the old days when you had a dial up connection and could go and make a sandwich while waiting for a page to load...but in those days, we didn't know it was possible that it could be faster.  We were just thrilled that we could connect with something elsewhere.

Since Trump came to office, Facebook is more and more about negative political things (to which I guiltily admit I contribute) and it takes longer to find the "fun" stuff that used to be more prominent.  That plus the fact that the ads have taken over about 1/3 of the content.

I don't see myself giving up the internet, but I certainly am not as happy with it as I have been for so long.

And remember how you used to have the sadistic pleasure of hanging up on a telemarketer?  Now they call just as often (or maybe more often) but they are all recorded, so you can't slam the phone down (I still have a phone with a handset so have that option)

Speaking of phones, Tom and family were here the other day and there is an old fashioned phone upstairs which almost never gets used.  Brianna had never seen one and couldn't figure out how it worked.  She didn't understand why, after you picked up the handset, you had to put it back down to disconnect.

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Ned was here yesterday, with his report on his three weeks in Hawaii, which was not the relaxing vacation that people might think, since he was there to do for Marta's parents what he has essentially been doing for us all these weeks.  He even took her mother to Kaiser once.  Marta joined him on the third week and they had a couple of "vacation" days in Kona, but mostly they were on an old lava flow within sight of (but not access to) the ocean.  But then he didn't go over there for a vacation.

He brought Walt what has to be the quintessential Hawaii souvenir--a can of Spam flavored macadamia nuts.

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I took a trip to Target in the afternoon, trying to buy shoes for my mother.  I didn't want to spend much money because she might lose those too.  I bought a couple of pairs which I'm sure she will hate, but at least they can't say I didn't get her shoes.

Ned is going to come with me for my meeting with the memory care director next week while we try to figure out what to do about my mother and her recent physical combativeness.