The System Is Down

I have been having problems with the internet. Not the usual problems, like I can't go to sleep because there's so much on it, or commenters on various blogs make me want to punch holes in the walls, or similar there-is-too-much-internet-and-there-are-too-many-people issues. No, these recent problems have been of a more technical nature.

Exhibit A: Facebook News Feed. Yesterday and today, Facebook decided to recycle a bizarre selection of posts from the last week and tell me that those were the ONLY posts I'd be allowed to see. They were non-chronological, and mostly came from people whose posts I generally ignore.

Exhibit B: Gmail. Yesterday, I couldn't get a secure connection, and so my browser flipped out and kept shouting long strings of letters and numbers at me in the place that usually says "http://mail.google.com/mail/" A few days ago it was down entirely. Today it disconnected me in the middle of writing an email and refused to save a draft or allow me to attach files.

Exhibit C: Pepvan. For those of you who have never had the joy of working with the system that runs basically all left-of-center voter-related campaigns, you won't understand. It's a steaming pile of system errors and buttons that lead nowhere, held together with twine and silly putty. Don't get me wrong; it's far, far better than non-computerized systems, and it's a godsend for keeping track of not just voters but also volunteers, but it's got problems. If any of you are programmers, you could probably do a great deal of good for political leftists by donating your time to fixing it. I hear the Republican version is sleek, smooth, and elegant.

Exhibit D: Safari: sometimes the scroll bar is missing. I don't know why. I just have to quit and reopen or there's no way for me to see anything below the top of a web page.

Exhibit E: Adium: Normally a wonderful instant message program (handling my gchat(s), AIM, Facebook chat, and the like), it has decided of late to stutter. I will receive an "instant" message at 5:17 PM. Then again at 7:08, the same message, no longer instant. 7:42, another reprise. 9:30, a final encore. This all seems to be through Facebook chat, so perhaps it is related to the eternally looping news feed. Irregardless, its iteration is irritation itself!

How's that for some vocalic alliteration? Did it cause you to miss the fact that irregardless isn't a word at all? It sure fooled my spellcheck...