Mother has retired.
You're a blogger. How long would you put up with fellow bloggers you barely know demanding you teach them how to format text? And teach them again, and again, because it's "too difficult" and they're "too busy with more important things". Before blaming you when they accidentally post a page of asterisks?
Imagine you're a chef. You get a steady stream of rank amateurs through your kitchen, all wanting you to do their cooking for them, because it's all too complicated. They do this while you're trying to run the kitchen, they can't learn to cook themselves because it's "boring", and besides they've got you to do it for them.
Now imagine you're an expert in computers, and my mother. You've just spent a solid fortnight doing skilled work for which the going rate is at least GBP20 per hour - for the vague promise of a drink sometime. You've spent two weeks patiently listening to things like this:
* "It says 'Enter password'. What does it want me to do?"
* "It came with a book of instructions but I didn't understand it so I threw it away. Why? Is it important?"
* "No it's definitely Windows 96."
* "I've never used passwords, not ever, for anything. You must have put that one in - why can't you remember it?"
* "Why don't you ask the email why you can't make it connect to the web?"
* "Oh you mean those passwords. You should have said so! Why didn't you ask me? Yes, I use them for everything."
Idiots are one thing. Lazy idiots who try to make smart people do their thinking and learning for them...they're something else. And they seem to constitute 98% of humanity.
My mother, god bless her, has after too many years finally told them all to fuck off.
She's spent a happy day fixing up one of her own computers, with my occasional help.
Tonight I did half an hour of aerobics to Star Trek. Followed by an hour of being dizzy and shattered.
The realisation that (a) I'll be 37 in January, (b) my hot date on Wednesday is a lot thinner than me and (c) all my fat friends are losing weight...has prompted action.
Worries about health? They come a poor second to shallow fears of aging and rejection.
Obi Wan Kebobi once asked, "Who is more foolish - the fool or the fool who follows him?".
Three decades later, it's become "Who's the bigger idiot - the inept email scammer or their victim?". Yep, it's the dupe.
I find scams quite entertaining. Here's one I got today:
Failure to authenticate your account may result in account malfunction, slow online experience or even exposure of sensible data.
Oh no! Not my sensible data!
We need to see the Star Trek aerobics.
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