Unlucky Signal Syndrome

I somehow woke up very early in the morning and messaged someone. I also had that horrible feeling of gout in my foot again so I asked my sister to buy medicine for me and I bought 4 cartons of skimmed milk to treat it. Some time later, they replied back to me and we got into a conversation. They were working and continued their BFT shift. Since we were just chatting, I tried to tether my phone's mobile data connection to my PC so we could have VHH. I tried on Linux, but it didn't work, so I moved to Windows which also didn't work. I ran a few commands on Linux to disable the non-working Ethernet connection from the router and enabled my phone's connection and it worked. I was able to have Internet albeit at a very unstable and slow speed. I got into VHH and I continued my Family Guy episode while someone was in meetings. We talked about a few things and we just stayed in VHH just talking. Eventually, I felt sleepy and someone was just in meetings so I just decided to sleep and we both disconnected from VHH.

By morning, I was a bit excited since our network provider would say that our connection would come back at 8 a.m., but apparently, it had been 8 and there was still no Internet. Since I still had no Internet and I didn't think my mobile data connection would hold up, I just called in for a leave at work. I had my breakfast and, funny enough, my order was incorrect and I was given an incorrect order for free (which was just 1 large chocolate coffee and 2 hash browns), and I still got my order in the end. Since I was so frustrated with my Internet situation, I decided to just buy one of those 5G pocket modem things where you just stick your SIM card in. We had that before and I thought that having one would work. I decided to buy the Samsung SCR01 and the only one available was a used one that had been dropped before, and it was sold for 7,000 Pesos. I fucking hated that I'd be getting a second-hand item for the price of a brand-new one, but whatever. I had no other options.

While preparing to leave, I just sang along to some songs I had downloaded and also watched videos I had saved on my hard drive. I eventually left to meet with the guy and the scuffs looked bad as they were, but they gave me a free case which I had put on. I wasn't able to test the thing because there was apparently a signal jammer and even my phone couldn't get any signal. So I just bought it in good faith that it works and didn't negotiate with the seller. I walked until I got to a mall, and the walk was grueling since my foot was 100% okay and it was hot as hell. I got to the mall and went home, and on the way, I could just feel the sweltering heat and the amount of heat that rose from the asphalt. It was horrible. I got home and I was still disappointed that we still had no Internet connection. I went out again to buy a new SIM card for the pocket modem and activated it.

Despite using a dedicated modem for my Internet connection, it was still so horrible. Someone also kept chatting me throughout all of this and I felt pressured to reply because I was out and about doing so many things. I never even got an ounce of rest in between all my tasks. I then tried to move around the house, trying to get the best signal while also trying to get it to charge. The whole process just sucked because it would show a 5G signal, then drop to 4G, or that it wouldn't connect to the Internet. I swapped SIM cards, changed locations, and still couldn't get a stable connection.

By evening, I thought my Internet connection was good as-is and invited someone for VHH. We just stayed on call, talking at first, and then I tried to play Cuphead with them. They tried to stream it to me and I just lost connection all of a sudden. I tried connecting again and we just dropped Cuphead because my connection was too bad. We just tried to watch the story of The Bridge Curse Road to Salvation instead by watching a video from Gaming Harry. Then we find out that the game was based on a movie (which itself was based on an urban legend). We decided to watch that instead, but I couldn't stream it properly, so after they had dinner, someone streamed it on their PC. They had a short pause at the start of the movie and I grabbed my dinner by then. We continued to watch the film but I knew someone didn't care and wasn't paying attention. What's worse is that the frames would drop and the video would lag sometimes. There were key parts of the movie where I noticed that someone didn't listen and it just irked the hell out of me because they always do this. We eventually finished the movie and we went straight to finish Gaming Harry's video about the game's lore. We saw that it was very similar to the movie and someone had to explain to me who's who because my brain was having trouble keeping up with the Chinese names. However, I was so scared throughout the whole time because the movie and game were genuinely scary.

But eventually, we finished the video. We watched random things after that like a video review of The Autopsy of Jane Doe, and then I showed them the new trailer for Moana 2, and we watched more episodes from SNARLED. Someone eventually disconnected and, in my free time in the evening, I bought some stuff that I had in my cart that was for sale. I felt unlucky all day because I wasn't able to buy anything hugely discounted, I had unlucky signal positioning, and I also was unlucky enough to only have the dented-up pocket modem, and a bunch of other things after that. I just used the time to clean my room and organize things a bit to feel better and remind myself that I'm doing all these things for my future self.