31: Computing For Dummies

So, I am alone and at the mercy of the accommodation jungle. If the map show that my destination has multiple big-name hotels, I wait until I arrive to find one. If it looks like a bed for the night is a rare as bacon in a synagogue, I have to call ahead or - if God has smiled upon me and I find myself blessed by the presence of usable computer facilities - use the Internet.

I find it curious how few facilities are provided, even by expensive hotels. I can understand why the Triangle Whorehouse Motel, where rooms are rented by the hour, doesn't stretch to anymore than clean sheets, multiple towels and air freshener, but I was surprised that the Wilmington Hilton saw fit to charge by the minute for a PC and for every sheet of paper printed.

It's surprising how quickly you can run up a bill as large as the national debt of a small country getting carried away on an email, especially when some girl with a silky sweet voice calls you from Verizon in the middle of it and spends ten bloody minutes of valuable computer time on a discussion regarding the relative benefits of an LG Envy Touch over an iPhone. That's assuming little Jimmie or little Suzy haven't found the business centre and glued themselves to Facebook, where they'll remain until their heads rot.

Even when one is there, it's often the cheapest piece of computing faeces to be found in Best Buy. Sometimes it freezes, sometimes it's as slow as a challenged snail and sometimes the keyboard requires the keys to be pressed as just the right angle and to exactly the right depth, otherwise no character appears on the screen and you spend as much time correcting your prose as writing it.

Then, of course, you can't rely on the software - does it have Word, or just a Word reader? Will you be able to build and edit something offline and then cut 'n' paste it to email or a flashdrive, or do those facilities not exist, so anything you create will be a complete waste of mental points and typing time because you can't get it off the damned machine?

In a Red Roof Inn on the outskirts of Wilmington, I was ecstatic to find what appeared to be a fully functional machine. Internet, email, available USB ports, local printer - all there. Did it have Word? Yes. Heaven was mine - temporarily. Each time I tried access to a 'suspicious' web site, the parental block overlaid the screen and I was advised to seek an administrator. Same thing with an email that might contain a bad word. Similarly with my blog, which contains no bad words but, I suppose, whoever set up that parental blog might worry that the youngsters of today's nanny state might have their emotional growth stunted by accidental exposure to profanity in the form of 'butt' or 'tail'.

Three weeks ago I found a motel in New Paltz that had a PC but it was turned off and locked away in the drawer of the desk where it was mounted. To use it, the desk clerk had to unlock the drawer to set it up then lock it away again - for security, he said. No way to plug a flash drive into that one. Oh well - that was also the motel whose breakfast comprised dry toast, dry cereal and see-thru coffee. Someone asked for butter and the desk clerk professed to have run Out. I asked for jam and he said it would be in tomorrow. Someone else asked for milk for the cereal and he shrugged, eyes cast heavenward, as if the answer would come from there. The whole place could have been the inspiration for Faulty Towers.

Someone call John Cleese.