PASSING OUT

If I look fed up, it's because I know that I have to eventually return
to the dumpster fire known as real life.

While my wife and I were hiking through Iceland last week -- and isn't that a smug way to start a sentence? -- I made sure to hit the Drudge Report every day just to make sure that the world was still hurtling swiftly to its inevitable demise.

Was I disappointed? Not in the least! Attempted assassination of a Congressman. A deadly yet totally preventable high-rise fire in London. An outbreak of Legionnaires Disease in New York's Upper East Side. Further missile shenanigans from North Korea. And there must have been a terrorist attack or two in there somewhere.

But from my vantage point, the creepiest thing happened last night, just 48 hours after arriving home. While perusing my Kindle Fire, I received a pop-up message informing me that someone in Reno, Nevada was trying to log into my email account.

This won't do my defense any good.

A divorce lawyer trolling for damning evidence of an affair to present to my wife, perhaps? Your honor, my client is suing TCM for alienation of her husband's affections by running Wheeler & Woolsey comedies. It's all there, right in their monthly newsletters! 

I prefer to think that I'm more worthy of being a target of people I've slammed on this blog. Obama, Trump, Putin, Mayor de Blasio -- all of them and more have felt the sting of my keyboard,  the slash of my syntax, the bite of my bytes. 

No matter. The pop-up advised me to change not just my email password, but all the others as well -- a daunting and depressing task, because it means trying to remember a half-dozen or so sets of absurd collection of words, numbers, and punctuation marks that are supposedly secure. Because, as the "experts" warn, you shouldn't write them down anywhere. 

I'm glad he's having fun.

Really? I can't even remember today's date. (Quick, can you?) Besides, other "experts" warn that a determined hacker can break any codes. You can download software to store your passwords, which is great -- right up to the moment someone hacks into your computer because they figured out your password.

Most computers offer to remember your passwords as you sign in to protected sites. That's quite handy, and saves you the problem of remembering anything more complicated than the name of your cat. But when your laptop crashes and has to be reset to year zero, there goes your open sesame.

Ready to take flight again.

And so this morning, I went through the unenviable task of changing all my passwords to ridiculous strings of letters and the like, hoping that finally, this time I'll be protected from nefarious bandits who want to do me harm, or at least comb through my emails in search of -- I dunno. More passwords? It makes me want to return to Reykjavik, where I can forget all this nonsense, and kick back with another glass of Iceland's legendary Gull Lager Beer.

Gull Lager Beer... Say, that sounds like a good password!

                                               

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