I Ain't Afraid of No Daleks

Well, my hillbilly neighbours blew a fuse yesterday afternoon. The building manager said that he'd be down "in the morning," with the key to the cellar, to flip the breaker box. This is the building manager that only lives 45 minutes away, in Schroon Lake. Apparently, he's changed his mind and said he'll "mail them," the key!

Well, once again, they "borrowed" my electrical outlet, and once again, "promised" that it would only be used to run ONE lamp...so, no. They're running a lamp AND the TV set, again.

Grrrr. I'm such a sucker. I HATE it when people take advantage of my charitable nature. I have to get a bit more hard-hearted with people, I suppose.

Anyway, they're threatening to bring in the police and fire department and city hall, due to the crap way the landlords are caring for their building---I mean, the hallway lights have been out since NOVEMBER of 2007, for pity's sake!

The plumbing is shot and the landlord's refused to fix it. I found out that "earth tremor" that shook my desk several months back...wasn't an earthquake, but the plumbing. The sister of my neighbour was sitting on the loo, and when she flushed...basically it blew up and threw her across the floor. My own loo and drippy fawcets remain unfixed, as is my inner door that the landlady allowed the cops to bust down--even tho' I kept yelling I was fine and wasn't answering 'cos I was in bed sick, and in a state of partial undress...so, I've been staring at a splintered door for months.

There's holes in the hallway wall, the smoke detectors don't work--unless I supply the batteries, which is hard, 'cos I can't reach the blasted things. The bricks on my balcony wall are seperated in a jagged line...so,

I'm expecting the city to come in and inspect the place sooner or later, the result of which will be either the owner ordered to fix everything, or this building will be condemned.

In which case, I expect I'll be ordered out...which will be a nightmare, 'cos I've not only am not well enough to move myself (no one else to do it for me), I've just plain not got enough funds, to cover a security deposit. I can manage the first month's rent, no problem, but apartments here expect 2 months rent when you move in, the first months, and 1 month security, in case you mess up the place.

Well, hasn't happened yet, but...shoot. This is one headache I don't need...and with my income, chances are if I do get a place, it will be just as bad as this (cos of my income), and much further away from work---and what about the cats? Do you KNOW how hard it is to find a place that lets you keep pets??? Practically impossible.

Damn, damn, damn.

Just a quick note that I AM reading your comments, but the computer is not allowing me to post replies, but just gets "stuck" waiting for the site to respond, to post my replies...basically, I'm writing you back, but it's not being posted.

...and I'm online, for now. It's a pain in the old backsides though, trying.

Even when I'm not on the internet, my system is being a bear...trying to write some stuff on MS Word earlier this afternoon, and kept getting a popup in the middle of my typing, saying "server is busy" etc...basically every few seconds...it WON'T go away.

I've been trying for 2 days to get into my hotmail account, with no success. I keep getting frozen out. When a check a box to indicate it's junk mail, and go to delete it, hotmail is telling me that I've not checked the box, even tho' it very clearly is checked...stupid computer--that's the "name" of my 'puter by the way, "stupid computer." Little did I know back in 2002, how right I was.

I'm sitting here in my new desk chair, with Boots between me and the chair back, rolling around, of all things...expect he'll fall off soon...just hope he grabs onto the chair back, and not MY back, when he does.

I went downtown to the free model train club open house--WOW. That was really cool! Four layouts, with an N-gauge, HO gauge, O gague...and I forget the other one...but they went from second-biggest models to one of the smallest models. And the detailed layouts! And tons and tons of all different sizes and models of trains and different passenger and freight cars...wow. That's so cool! Grandad--mum's dad, had a layout that took up his entire cellar, for decades (before I was born). Mum bought me an HO train when I was aroun 10 or 11, that I played with for several years, until my teens. I had the start of a big layout in the mid-90's, two plywood sheets set up on sawhorses, that contained a riding stable with a steeplechase course and riding ring, people and horses, a horsebox trailer, hayfield with a tractor and hay bales, pastures with real stone walls and actual wood fences that I made from stuff just lying in and around my front yard, an brook made with different colours of oil paint, layered on thickly, to which I added a homemade rustic bridge. I made and installed, trees and brush, a highway with "traffic,"--plus, the beginnings of a mountain range, which was going to contain a tunnel, and a small town--all scaled for an HO guage railroad.

But then, all my long hours of painstaking work, came up a cropper, and found myself temporarily homeless, and gave sis my layout to safekeep, for when my then 5 year old nephew got older..only she kind of didn't hear that "safekeeping" bit, and inside of 2 weeks, my nephew destroyed a detailed train layout that took me many months and over 150 dollars to build. I was just a wee upset about that.

Well, this does it. I just wrote a post, but when I clicked on a smiley icon, I totally lost the ENTIRE post...but kept the stinking smiley icon.

I'm getting all kinds of warnings and pop-ups...one particularly annoying one, is telling me that my "server is busy"..that one keeps popping up literally ever few seconds. I checked with Time-Warner my IP, and my server is NOT busy, it is in fact, perfectly fine. It even pops up when I'm not even trying to connect to the internet, but using only MS Word.

I'm screwed.

I'm getting Windows security popups all over the place, I can't access parts of my control panel, it's taking hours just to get into the internet.

I will make one effort to be online tomorrow, but...this computer is kaput.

I am going to be a prisoner in my own apartment again.

I'm NOT saying that for sympathy, Okay? Just as a matter of absolute fact. I have about (thanks to a friend) 10 or 12 DVD's that will play on my portable (thanks to a friend) DVD player, I have around 80 fiction books--most of which have been read, but that's okay--and around 8 CD's to listen to. My MS word programme is iffy, but still (sort of) works..when it feels like it. So I CAN mess about with Dr Who fan-fic, plays, poetry, essays and whatnot.

God, my nights are going to be long and dull now, though. Thank goodness I can amuse myself. Can you imagine this happening to some gadget dependent person? Think of it, some guy or gal who is surrounded by laptops, I-Pods, television, loads of DVD's and CD's, video games, family to phone and friends to hang out with, fun places to go, able to go shopping on a whim...suddenly losing ALL of that, and being confined to close quarters, all alone? I guess being alone, and being on my uppers for so long, does have some small advantages, ey?

Gah--I'm disgusted though. My life was just a tiny, itty-bitty little bit, starting to get "normal" again...now this. Nothing good ever, ever lasts long.

I've found the hard way, that pleasure and good things are fleeting, but misery and pain last pretty much forever.

So, unless a miracle happens..and God doesn't seem to be looking my way, lately, this really is kind of "it," the end. I can't deal with spending five or six hours, trying to get online.
That's just...nuts.

For the last two weeks, I've been having nightmares again...now I know why.