A Bad Day

Friday started out as a much better day.

I compose may of my TOS posts on an aging Handspring Visor that I have repaired and resurrected many times, but that has recently developed a very inconvenient habit. It powers itself off if it gets a physical shock because the battery (or the battery connections) are disconnected from the unit. If I don't notice and rearrange the two AAA cell batteries it runs on and by doing so restore the power in a relatively short time, the bloody thing forgets everything and I have to restore it from a backup.

Like everyone in real life, I don't backup the Visor anywhere near enough for my usage of it, which means stuff gets lost. If I don't have a paper backup (I do for some of the things I use it for) I am up a certain creek without a paddle.

This morning, wile commuting in to work, I had composed the beginnings of a very nice TOS entry and was planning on working on it on the way home. You can guess what comes next. Sometime during the day the bloody Visor took a hit and forgot the future TOS entry. I had a backup on a so-called springboard module (a forerunner of today's memory sticks) so I could get it back up and running but it was thouroughly annoying.

This evening, the train began moving, and proved to be one of what I call the "Seaview" trains that throw the passengers violently from side-to-side if the track is not arrow-straight, such as in the Flatbush Aenue to Jamaica section of track. The train just crossed a switch and almost threw me from my seat, so this evening's commute looks like being a real doozy.

While I was waiting for the restore to finish, the train smashing me first against my co-commuters and then against the window, my water bottle contrived to upend itself on the seat. This would not have been a problem last year when water bottles typically had a pull-to-drink nipple on them, but these days the bottled water companies fit flip-top nipples and the damned thing leaked all over the seat, me, my coat and my book.

And people wonder why I'm constantly in a foul mood after my commute.