I love my computer. I really do. Usually a docile friend, it helps me send and retrieve email, pay my bills, write and file letters, process words, play endless games of Spider Solitaire and search the complicated relationships of the Tudor era. I'd be lost without it. And when it stumbles, I fumble along until it rights itself or consult a lady in Bangalore whose accent I can even sometimes penetrate. Computers on the road, however, I find a completely different breed of beast: in a word, "beastly." My struggles with the computer dragons in this hotel have been even more arduous than others I've encountered in my travels. I've tried to enter its home cave three times and failed each time. While on my first try I actually got as far as my email, I only had 30 minutes of time (at 30 Rand, about $4.50) so didn't read nay of it and went right to my blog, which while holding my breath, I got to successfully. Yeah! I also got through a series of passwords that, would you believe, I even remembered. I got to the "new post" section but posting was awkward as I struggled with an unfamiliar keyboard (which would only delete backward, not forward_ and am impossible standing position, which in 30 minutes was sure to give me carpel tunnel syndrome. However, I forged on, regurgitating my stored thoughts from London to Cape Town. When I finally gave up before finishing, and posted my precious words, the computer screen went blank. My time had run out and I wasn't able to get bakc on line to see if the post went through successfully. What a bummer! (Not a BEAMER, but a BUMMER.)
The second time, no one at the desk or in the offices was able to get me to the AOL home page (no wonder they've just announced layoffs of a third of their employees). This morning, killing time before my breakfast - the only decent meal in this dump - the hotel's computers were "down" and the only way to get on line was with my Visa card. I wasn't happy feeding my Visa information to a computer connected to who knows where - Bangladesh? - but I'm falling desperately behind so gave it a shot. I got as far as the AOL home page but my long-used password would not let me through the secret door. I have several passwords so on the theory that I'd used the wrong one, I tried them all but nothing worked. And apparently, after three tries, you're out (as happened to me once in Copenhagen when a machine ate my ATM card, but that's another story for a future dinner party). Anyway, I never could get back to the AOL home page and even Gretchen at the desk - my doe-eyed friend with the fine hairs of an adolescent moustache budding under his nose - was unable to help. Another 30 minutes, and 30 Rand, down the drain. The beast in the hotel lobby has defeated me. I give up. "Uncle," already.
As it turns out, I am now posting this on the ship, on Tuesday, so all of this information is woefully out of date, much like I am finding myself! Stay tuned.
The second time, no one at the desk or in the offices was able to get me to the AOL home page (no wonder they've just announced layoffs of a third of their employees). This morning, killing time before my breakfast - the only decent meal in this dump - the hotel's computers were "down" and the only way to get on line was with my Visa card. I wasn't happy feeding my Visa information to a computer connected to who knows where - Bangladesh? - but I'm falling desperately behind so gave it a shot. I got as far as the AOL home page but my long-used password would not let me through the secret door. I have several passwords so on the theory that I'd used the wrong one, I tried them all but nothing worked. And apparently, after three tries, you're out (as happened to me once in Copenhagen when a machine ate my ATM card, but that's another story for a future dinner party). Anyway, I never could get back to the AOL home page and even Gretchen at the desk - my doe-eyed friend with the fine hairs of an adolescent moustache budding under his nose - was unable to help. Another 30 minutes, and 30 Rand, down the drain. The beast in the hotel lobby has defeated me. I give up. "Uncle," already.
As it turns out, I am now posting this on the ship, on Tuesday, so all of this information is woefully out of date, much like I am finding myself! Stay tuned.
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