For the second time in two weeks my computer succumbed to a virus. The three days darkness - no Internet access from Thursday/Friday to Sunday. Two weeks in a row.
I'm losing interest in being online.
I checked my emails - I have nothing to say. Oh - except if there are any attachments, links embedded, or I do not know you - your email will not be opened.
I checked the updates of blogs I follow - same old same old.
Haven't checked Catholic news portals yet - not sure if Voris is still under fire.
Not interested.
Seriously, Catholic bloggers are generally a bunch of whiners and complainers and mudslingers. Stay offline for a few days to a week, and then check the main blog-a-rama-bama listings. Predictable, boring, self-promoting gas bags.
I've wasted the past 7 years here.
You turn men back into dust... You sweep men away like a dream... Make us know the shortness of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart... In the morning fill us with your love...
ReplyDeleteToday’s responsorial psalm (23rd Sunday)
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ReplyDelete...my poor old lap-top is 8 years old, ancient in terms of today's technology. I frequently am able to knit a row or two while waiting for a simple page to download, due to something called...compatibility ? I am also frequently just..off...for a week or so at a time, Great Anxiety initially - then...bliss. so much easier to pray...to go for a walk late at night instead of scrolling...but...how shocked people would be to receive a letter instead of e-mail ! I would drop off the face of the-earth-as-we-know-it. Oh ! Hey ! now That sounds Great !
ReplyDeleteisn't it interesting that, truly, the internet is a new, "World, Created by Man". and it Does feel a little sick to log on to such endless-ness.
but Terry ! we would miss you so ! Would you rustle-up a mailing list and put carbon-paper in your type-writer and mail letters ? Or, would you hand-write your thoughts on yellow-legal paper and photo-copy it ? We would, I am sure, subsidize the cost of stamps.
think about it....
if you quit blogging, where would I go for reliable information and dish and spiritual insight and fun pics and cheekiness? you're a one-stop-shop!
ReplyDeleteChurch ladies. They have em at your parish.
DeleteBut Nan - they all speak Tagalog!
ReplyDeleteBut DB, you can learn Tagalog!
DeleteMeanwhile, I learned today of the death, suicide, of a little known blogger whom I first met via my original conversion blog "luminousmiseries" back in 2005. As it happens he was the only other Terry I knew online.
ReplyDeleteHis blog went silent last September and while I contacted him by email in the months following the responses were always short, then silent.
Terry was a devout Catholic who spent a great deal of time before the Blessed Sacrament in Adoration at a little chapel kept by aging nuns. He suffered from depression. He is survived by his wife and three children.
A cousin logged in to inform Terry's (few) readers that he ended his own life on June 20 2013.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
Thanks Owen. I'll devote my stations of the cross tonight for his soul and for his family. God is merciful.
DeleteVery thoughtful of you, Scott. Thank you. God bless.
DeleteExactly why I quit reading 99.999% of the "Catholic" blogs I used to read. Gave it up years ago...
ReplyDeleteTerry - do you have Malwarebytes? Get the pro version, not the free one. It's $24.95 and you pay only once. It is an essential deterrent along with your Microsoft Security Essentials. My computer guru recommended it several years ago. Haven't had a problem since.
Get it at newegg.com, sometimes they go on sale for $14.95 for lifetime (not yearly) protection.
Deletehttp://www.malwarebytes.org/
ReplyDeleteTerry, Adrienne is right about using the paid version of Malwarebytes in combo with MSEssentials...should you, you know, recant like every other time in the past and wish to continue to be online for your throng of dedicated followers.
ReplyDeleteI would miss you and this blog so much. I can't tell you how much you've taught me about my faith, and you make me laugh and visually feed me with your beautiful images. Please don't go. But I would understand.
ReplyDeleteworking on any new art?
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone. I'm staying online - I'm simply frustrated.
ReplyDeleteUh, no. You haven't wasted the last 7 years here.
ReplyDeleteBut it's okay to be a little quieter if you want to. Just don't cut everyone off. Or, if you cut us off, promise to go chat up the church ladies who speak Tagalog. Do they do bingo? Have you considered bingo?
Adrienne is right-- get Malwarebytes. You can even use the free version. Run the full scan.
ReplyDeleteThen download and install Avast (antivirus). It's free, and it is the best I have ever used-- and I have used a lot.
Another testimonial for Malwarebytes-- I use the free version at work on our public computers. It's truly excellent.
Vanity of vanity, all is vanity. I'm reading the Secrets of the Rosary by St. Louis de Montfort. Taking a rosary break always gives me a better perspective on things and helps me be a little less of a whining, mud-slinging Catholic blogger.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more. I'm getting very tired of the Internet, most specifically Catholic sites (this one excepted, of course). I'm tired of the constant infighting and accusing and "holier than thou" attitudes that I see everywhere. We are in the midst of a spiritual hurricane, and all we can do is attack one another. I deeply repent that I was once very much a part of this, and I am trying very hard to distance myself from it as much as I can. I like St. Padre Pio's advice, "Pray, hope and don't worry." Something tells me he wouldn't have anything to do with 99.99% of what we read on the Internet.
DeleteI'm impressed that you moved away from that style of blogging--that's hard to do. It's easier to find readers with a tart style, it's easy to revel in righteous anger, and goodness knows there's plenty to carp about what with the "spiritual hurricane" around us. I enjoyed reading your blog a couple years back, but for all the wrong reasons... God bless you.
DeleteOf course, while we are speaking about malware and e-virus protection [which Terry needs - ahem] the thing that will protect us from malware of the heart and virus of the mind is humility before our God and obedience in his seven catholic virtues. That may mean unplugging more often, praying more often when we do plug in and generally speaking laying down our stones and plucking out our own motes and beams.
ReplyDeleteBut of course, I preacheth to myselfeth.
There but for the grace of God blog I.
Seriously, this reminds me of how little spiritual progress I've made over the past few years.
ReplyDeleteWait, what? You spent 3 days listening to bananarama? Seriously?
ReplyDeleteWhat?
A-men, Terry.
ReplyDeleteAnd I say that as a guilty man, myself.