I’m, like, off the grid, man.

"AHHHHHHHH!! So many electronic devices!!" That's how I felt.

It’s been 12 days since I’ve had TV or Internet. It hasn’t been a terrible time; it’s mainly just been annoying. Yeah, my phone has Internet, but my phone is a POS with a tiny screen and can barely access the most basic form of the World Wide Web.

There was a time over the summer whene I felt so connected to everything. Too connected. One day I was sitting on my floor, and I had my laptop, my cellphone, and my iPad scattered around me. Then someone tweeted something at me, and almost simultaneously I got a text message, a pop-up on the iPad, a notification from my Twitter app on my computer, and an email all telling me that this person had tweeted whatever at me. It was very much overkill.

But now after the last 12 days, I feel so disconnected. Not from insignificant things like Twitter and Facebook, but from the whole world. I mean, I only found out about the London riots a day or two ago. My roommates and I were all sitting around watching a movie, and one of them stumbled across the news while surfing the web on her iPhone. The riots had been going on for several days by then, but none of us had heard anything about it.

And it’s not just global news like that. In the last 11 days, I haven’t been able to check my Google Reader. I’m addicted to my Google Reader. I religiously read sites like Absolute Punk, Alternative Press, and tons of those Austiny blogs. But without Internet, I’ve had none of that. I didn’t know Blessthefall announced the title of their new album. I didn’t know blink 182 released another song. I didn’t know Lydia announced their new tour dates. I found out all of these things much later and from outside sources. It’s like I’m on snail mail.

I also just miss the little things like being able to type emails with my laptop keyboard instead of my phone’s shitty touchscreen keyboard. And being able to pointlessly surf the web. And downloading music, legally of course. And actually seeing a full-sized photo on Facebook instead of the tiny version on my phone. And watching a YouTube video.

But the good news is, tomorrow when I get home from work, I will officially be connected again. Which means I’m going to be unavailable for the next few days catching up on all my Tosh.0, Workaholics, and all the music news I can read.

#WhiteGirlProblems

I know this is like the biggest first world problem, but I really don’t care. This is my blog, and this is what’s been on my mind lately.

With no cable, I'll be missing the insanely funny and insanely cute Daniel Tosh all summer. Photo from http://tdhurst.com/tosh0-daniel-tosh

As you may know, I’m living with my parents this summer out in the boonies of Austin. While that alone is just superfreakincool, it gets better. I’ve pretty much gotten over the fact that the house is located 30 minutes from civilization, but what’s really been grinding my gears lately is the feeling that I’m living like a caveman.

First off, my parents are part of that very small group of people who still use rabbit ears with our TV. That means we have a total of seven channels and two Spanish channels – IF we can pick up a signal of course. Honestly, I’m not a huge TV person, so it’s not that big of a deal, but I do really miss watching Tosh.0 and Workaholics. Why don’t I just stream these shows online? Well that brings me to my second point.

This house has NO internet. Okay, I’m being a little dramatic. But just a little bit. My parents live so far out in the middle of nowhere that no internet provider covers us. Not AT&T, not Time Warner, not Grande, and not Clear. To get anywhere near the world wide web, we have to use satellite internet.

Thanks, Pandora. As if I wasn't already aware that I'm using turtle-grade internet.

Satellite internet is slow. Really slow. It’s about a hair faster than dial up. It takes about 20 minutes to completely buffer a three minute video on YouTube. And today, I couldn’t even listen to a whole song on Pandora. We’re also limited to about 350 MB of data per 24 hours, and if we go one megabyte over, it’s dial up for the rest of the day. With five people living here, a few friends who practically live here, and my parents trying to run a business, we go through those 350 MB pretty easily.

It’s not even like I’m an internet junkie. Besides Facebook and email, the majority of my internet use is doing work for Red River Noise. If I need to download an album or watch a music video, I have to get in the car and go to the nearest Starbucks or HEB. And when the internet is slow so, you can’t even open Google, it’s enough to drive a person insane.

I try not to let petty things like no cable and no internet get to me too much, but that doesn’t mean I’m not counting down the days until I move into my new townhouse (33 days).