Buck Rogers In The 5th Century

You don't realize how much you depend on technology until it doesn't work.

Then, you don't realize how much your skull can contain the pressure of exploding brains until you discover that your head is poised to erupt in fury and frustration...

That was some of the fun I had along with the rest of my recent experience attending an annual conference this past weekend with the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, in Indianapolis. While the balance of the experience was exceptional, losing contact with the outside world was NOT!!

First off, Microsoft Outlook decided that based on my consistent travels at home between Wal-Mart and McDonald's any other day of the week, the fetching of emails in Indiana meant I had been hacked. So, to PROTECT me, they froze every aspect of Hotmail, which meant I had to login and jump through their authentication hoops. Easy-peasy, like threading a cooked sausage through the eye of a needle...

That simple task, meant to cheerily protect me even though THEY COULD USE THE GODDAM SECURITY INFO THEY HAVE ON FILE INSTEAD OF THIS BLANKET PROCESS, took a day, as I was unable to access my codes.  I had chosen not to take a roaming package. The last time I did that, I exceeded it with a text to my wife, where I said "Hi!", exceeding my limit by 400 MB, and costing somewhere around (I kid you not) $600 for the 4 days I was away on that trip. 

At any right, bygones...

Live and learn I say, when I can afford to.

The reason I couldn't get the code was due to that lack of roaming, which prevented iMessage from working. iMessage is a great feature when it works, but it uses data, which is prevented when you have that feature off - so Microsoft staff were patting themselves on the back, assured that they had indeed prevented identity theft with this clown in Indiana who was not receiving the authentication texts. Whose head was swelling to the size of those exposed-brain Martians you saw in 60's movies...

I did eventually sort everything out, and will be exploring new options for an email provider, and likely a cell phone provider while I'm at it.

When I returned to Calgary, I got a call the next day informing me that my flight was "randomly chosen from hundreds that day to win $999" - a classic scam. 

So, I did manage to get exposed to something after all, which has now resulted in opening a fraud file with the RCMP. 

Technology WILL be the death of me...

Later.