It was a wet Sunday. This is why I wanted to chuck a bottle at my ''smart'' TV, and punch my witless computer.
And I'm not all by my grumpy self. I'm sure that on soggy weekends a third of the nation is at home, staring angrily at stumblebum websites, while trying to connect with the newest wonder - streamed television. It has promised us more programmes than there are tattoos on bikies.
Quickflix, Lightbox, Netflix, and Neon will free us from the yapping inanity of mainstream television. We are a click and a credit card away from freedom - if.
If we have exactly the right TV. If our broadband's fast enough. If we live in a gigatown's right street. If we're not technologically clueless. If we can afford it.
That's too many ''ifs''. I pine for those innocent days when a mouse pad was the place where the better rodent hosted wine and cheese evenings. (After which we spank the cat).
For those easier times when multi tasking was reading comics in the bathroom. Back when we opened doors ourselves, because they didn't know we were coming.
My streaming troubles began with a salesman. I sidled into a store to buy a telly, and a techno geek sold me one at twice the price because the beast was ''smart''. This electronic Einstein would deliver the internet to a 55 inch screen, with gobsmack pictures and thundering sound. Idiot me.
I should know the main difference between a technology salesman and a used car salesman is that the latter knows when he's lying.
The problem with most present New Zealand streaming is that it only talks to Samsung's smart Korean TVs. My brand is Japanese and doesn't speak Korean on principle. In fact, it storms off in high dudgeon should it be so addressed.
Sniffily, it insisted on an interpreter, and I located a $60 one called a Google Chromecast. After much huff and puff, it agreed to toggle fussily between computer and telly. Sometimes, that is - and only when it suited.
My earliest streaming buy had been unfortunate. When Sky Sport cut live golf, I paid $199 for Coliseum to stream events to my computer, because like many Lydia struck Kiwis, I want to watch the Ko journey.
This Spartan golf service is expensive and wobbly - the lower quality pictures often freeze or go to black, and the system is user clumsy. While it doubtless works better where net speeds are highest, I can't recommend it.
Besides, who wants to watch telly on a computer? You can't put your feet up on a pouf and channel hop a laptop. The supermarkets sell us TV dinners for box watching - the Microsoft mince pie isn't invented. Anyway, my wet weekend is over.
Once more I've been taught that all computers wait at the same speed. I managed to set up Quickflix, but while TVNZ on Demand speaks to my computer, it won't have a bar of my television. The Chromecast interpreter is sulking like a teenage girl.
My business friends moan that the town's commerce creaks as its computers chug down to hell in a very slow handcart - apparently because the local net is clogged with Arrowtowners attempting to stream.
Clearly, it's time to sit back with a book.
Talking of which, I'm looking forward to this week's Dunedin Writers' Festival, where speakers include a couple of journalists and two of New Zealand's funniest columnists - Lisa Scott and Steve Braunias. (I'm told the sane will be allowed seats at the back, but only if there's space.
It's something I won't miss).
The magnificent Tom Wolfe once wrote that the world's best writing is found not in the novel, but in the magazines and the feature pages of newspapers.
To be fair, Wolfe, whose genius can be over the top, opined this before he wrote his first novel. But still, it's a nice line with which we hacks may tease the literati.
John Lapsley is an Arrowtown writer.
