The Notepad

I'm writing this blog entry in notepad because my internet is down.  It's been on and off since Friday morning, and in that time I've realized how much of my life centers around stable internet.  Obviously, I sort of knew that already because 99% of my income is based on playing poker or coaching clients, both of which are almost always done online.  In a way, I guess I commute via the web.

While the internet has been intermittent the past few days, I'm thankful I haven't been in the middle of a set when it goes down.  It's happened to me several times before; when I first started playing, I even kept track of the disconnections.  I guess it's kind of like how recreational players vividly remember their worst beats -- helpless, deflated, angry.  Now multiply that feeling by 30, plus whichever games I was still registered in.  Oof.

I could have saved myself a lot of money and heartache if I had purchased backup internet, but I was incredibly shortsighted.  These days I *do* have backup because LOL Thailand, although I just found out that the 3G stick is all out of...internet?  Memory?  MBs?  Bandwith?  Juice?  I am such a technology fish.  Unfortunately the back-up is only good for browsing webpages and grinding, but it'll have to do.  After I finish this "post" I'll head over to the store and purchase more of...whatever it is. 

Despite not losing any money in games, my work has undoubtedly been adversely affected.  I'm hesitant to load games, even when the internet appears to be decent and I've missed/had to reschedule several coaching sessions.  I can't even load the Universal Replayer to review HHs or HEM to find leaks, as both require an internet connection.  Thankfully my clients have been incredibly understanding.

But as I said in the beginning, it's more than work.  I not only use the internet to commute, but to communicate.  Now that I live seven thousand miles from most of my friends and family, I keep in touch through Skype, Facebook, and forums.  Without access to those, it's not surprising that I feel isolated.  I even primarily use Skype with the friends of mine I hang out with here -- now I'm trying to use this little crappy burner phone yet everyone else uses smart phones/apps that require, you guessed it, internet.  Argh.

This morning, I sat at my desk and drank coffee, refreshing the page every thirty seconds.  Normally I'd be chatting with friends, checking sports scores, and reading emails.  But not today.  I kept trying  to no avail.  I gave up for a bit, loaded Minesweeper, made some deep runs, ran sick bad during endgame (Lost a bunch of flips), got tilted and quit.  Not sure if I was tilted by Minesweeper, the fact that I was spending time playing Minesweeper, or that I was doing so because I didn't have internet.  Probably all three.  After another few moments of disconnecting/reconnecting random plugs, I pried myself away from the computer and finished my coffee outside, on the balcony.
 

Aforementioned balcony

I'll spare you the play-by-play of the rest of my day, but it's basically:

1) Run errand
2) Check internet
3) Run errand
4) Check internet

Lather, rinse, repeat.