I keep wondering, too. Too many variables, too many possibllities. My hope is that Mr. Computer just stopped working…the hard part of that is, you can’t tell people you can’t communicate, all you can do is figure out what went wrong.
it’s a bit bizarre, like knocking on someone’s door, and there’s no tv blaring, no radio, and the shades are drawn. Car’s in the yard. Someone’s taking the paper in, but still…
Funny, how you get attached to someone you’ve never met, wouldn’t even recognize on the street, and when they go quiet, you miss them.
I did the same search, and found a lot of locked sites too. It’s the most helpless feelling, isn’t it. Anyone who can contact Ark, maybe they should do that.
Did he say sometime back that he was fighting a cold or something … or was that someone else? If it was him, perhaps it developed into something more serious?
I planned to write him today myself but since you already have, I know you’ll share whatever you find out.
Someone else reminded me that JZ mentioned something about having problems posting on Ark’s site (or something to that effect) and that Ark would be looking into it. So I’m thinking perhaps he’s had to do some techno-revamping (?). . . which could explain the ‘radio’ silence. 🙂
I haven’t noticed any problems with his site … ?? I just checked Facebook and his last post is the same date as this one. I left a Facebook “message” … hopefully he’ll see it on his phone. Time will tell.
Yes, JZ. Haven’t heard from her either. I assume they have no power at her shop, either. 😦 I just can’t imagine going without power for this long. . they must be bathing with the koi! (egads)
From my “news” research, it appears they’re still going through “load shedding” —
Eskom has appealed to customers to switch off geysers during the day as well as all non-essential lighting and electricity appliances to assist in reducing demand.
I would assume “non-essential … electricity appliances” would include computers.
Guess I’m getting seriously worried but the way I’ve read the reports these power outages are only affecting certain areas at certain times and they have not had permanent blackouts for the past two weeks. I think Ark could have had a chance to get a message out to someone, unless the pc is kaputt.
I did notice that South Africa was having horrendous weather, and since Im not sure where he is, in relation to that, I guess we can throw that into the stew as well…
I just saw your report, Nan. On JZ’s blog (I don’t know how many here are subscribed) he says they’ve had a major outage. . . so I guess Ark didn’t run away with the circus after all. . . . 😉
Not liking this ‘radio (internet) silence’ Mr A has been off line well before that power cut. I left a message on his facebook page and have heard nothing. I hope he has not been getting too close to them spiders in his shed.
Well, Ark! This will certainly show you how much you are loved and missed by your Blogging pals! Hope it is ‘just’ a power outage and that all of you are just fine. With love, 🙂
I hope you and your family are well Ark! ❤ If it is likely that power-outage, I'm happy about that as long as you guys are safe, well, and making do with plumbing, A/C or heat, refrigeration, etc, etc. I KNOW that has to be an adjustment. 😬
Around here, we used to experience power outages for days at a time because of severe weather conditions. Hubby got a big generator and then went around the neighbourhood sharing it so no one would lose their freezer contents (most people have big freezers full to the brim, as we are 25 minutes away from a grocery store). We must have had an upgrade, because we haven’t lost our power for several years. . .there, I just jinxed myself. . . 🙂
Yeah we did, it was pretty terrible. I am impressed with how our country has reacted to these events though, including the support relatives of the victims have had, and we are reviewing some of our gun laws (a touchy topic for many).
I read that today. We’ve had many opportunities to do something and never have quite enough dead people to push it through. If you don’t do something for fifty dead, you never will. It’s now or never.
What’s the problem with guns there? Is it your political system there, which makes gun laws difficult to change? Or is it that people still want to keep all their guns, because it makes them safer somehow?
It’s both. The faith base and the gun lobby pays big big money to get people elected. Guns are a big part of the culture too. Rebels (they think) NRA has a platform people will die for. Dangerous memes https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_dangerous_memes
Our constitution has a “Second Amendment” that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Those who think they simply MUST have a gun to protect themselves against … what? … use this to justify owning not just -A- gun, but as many guns as they can afford.
An important part of the wording is A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Even though it explicitly refers to “Militia,” gun-owners put a different spin on it and use it for justification.
This has been the primary block against any movement to regulate guns in this country.
Ah yes, you guys love your second amendment. There are many different views on this, but I think one of the main issues people have is with owning certain types of guns, namely military style semi-automatics. These type of weapons never existed when your second amendment came to be, but they enable mass murderers to kill many more people with ease, than if they just used single fire weapons. Even if one still believes in owning a gun, surely banning guns like this has ALL the benefits and no losses, surely? But nope.
longest we ever went powerless was during a vicious ice storm 22 years ago, the outage lasted 7 days (thank god for wood stoves and dug wells), and it took us two days to clear the driveway so the power crew could get in and reattach all 8 power lines. We were lucky, some people went over two weeks.
I know that feeling all too well…
Electricity is back, but apprarently some enterprising person also stole internet/phone lines, and they have no notice of when everything will be back up running.
aparently this is an ongoing situation there, so people may well be prepared for it. One outage in a five year period makes everyone jumpy; one a month or once a year (and announced beforehand) just means you take pains to have extra stuff on hand.
To all, all’s good. I sent Emily an email and here’s part of the reply:
Dad said to tell you Benji is doing well! And so are the other cats and dogs. Also the chrysalis hatched! Oh and he’s fine too!
Apologies for his silence but we’ve been without phone lines and internet access for over a week now, due to cable theft in the area, several lines are affected. I have had limited access just for work through my cellphone.
We haven’t been given any indication of when it will be repaired, it may be another week or more. Please let everyone know he is just fine and apologies again for the worry.
See, that reply was really from CS acting like Emily. Obviously the truth is CS has kidnapped Ark and his wife and is holding them hostage trying to convert them to evangelical Christianity. Since this is the most logical explanation, it is the true one. $Amen$
For those wondering about Ark, here’s what was posted on Emily’s Cakes this a.m.-
Dear Cake family
For three weeks now we’ve basically been held ransom by Telkom. Here’s the story;
The cables were stolen in our Area, which I know is not their fault, this is SA & these things happen. But what has happened since then is shocking. Obviously we report the fault straight away and they tell us the generic answer that the fault has been put on high priority and a technician will get to it ASAP.
A week later still nothing…We call and only then are told that the cables were stolen, but they are working on it…With Telkom you learn you just have to be patient.
But after 3 weeks we are told by a Telkom agent and I quote…”They need to weigh out their options, before replacing the cable…” Which means no work has been done to solve this problem in three weeks. This is a blatant attempt from Telkom to force people over to their Fibre & LTE services, which is pretty scary when you think about it…That they leave thousands of homes in the dark and just do whatever they want without any repercussions. Just cancel you say…. lol well you can’t because certain business things require a landline and Telkom make it very very difficult to…cut ties.
We are truly sorry to anyone who has tried to call us on our landline and for any delay in our response rate. To top it all off, with all the load-shedding Vodacom goes missing as well, so we left in the dark on all fronts constantly 🥺😢😭😭
Once again our sincerest apologies we are getting this sorted.
Adrian
Hi, Ark
Hope you’re well despite your interwebz troubles. Not sure if you’ve heard, but I’ve started a page on John Branyan’s hate speech: https://johnbranyan.home.blog
I know you’ve had many encounters with him, so if you or anyone else here have some screen shots or records of his hate speech, I’d very much appreciate it if you could send them to me 😀
Good job, Mr. M. I checked out your blog (but was unable to comment for some reason – I’ll try again later) Is it meant to automatically link to one’s blog site? That is, is there an option to erase website when commenting?
Ahhh. . .I didn’t realize it worked that way. Some of the ones I’m on tell you to sign in or you cannot comment. I am not anxious to give some commenters access to my blog. Don’t know if you’ve noticed but some of them aren’t playing with a full deck. .. ahem. ..
Just checked in to find out why there has been silence from you lately, Ark. So glad it is a technical problem and nothing more sinister. Even so, it is pretty bad when your communication lines are down for such a long time. My sympathies to you and your family.
“Yip, still without lines and it’s been a nightmare to resolve, but it’s looking positive!
To shed some light, it isn’t that the line has been taken and someone is using our line, they literally dig up the pavements/roads and pull out the copper cables. How they manage this I have no idea. And it has happened several times. It makes you think that perhaps it’s done on purpose to sabotage Telkom or to force customers to migrate to a different system (wireless or fibre)
After four weeks of hassling them, Telkom have finally told us they wouldn’t be replacing the copper lines. They have offered to change our service to wireless which will take another four weeks. The phone and internet are charged separately, the phone rates will stay the same, the internet is more than double.
So we have decide to go another route with a different company. Applied for fibre lines this morning and should be up and running in the next two weeks, fingers crossed. And the service so far has been fantastic, really on the ball consultants.
Will keep you posted if there is a change but hopefully you’ll be hearing from “The Ark” soon.”
But, yeah, it’s good to know he’s still out there, chugging away. What a bloody nightmare that must be. It does sound much more positive than the ‘old’ way, which means waiting for the lights to go out–again–…
A Tale Unfolds 
Awwww!
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Adorable
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Babies in all forms are pretty irresistible. ❤
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Looks like he is there to stay.
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Oh, man! Stick a bottle between those paws!
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I’ll see your Benji, and raise you a Pancake
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lotta awww in that face too, John…
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Yeah, she’s a gem.
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Well Ark, I know you are just tickled pink, or rather Reds. How about dem marbles? 😮
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The essence of Cat? 😉
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serious changes in just a few weeks, there. I can hardly wait to see what he grows into…
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WHERE IS ARK?????
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That’s what I was wondering, Nan. . . He’s sure keeping a low profile. …
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I keep wondering, too. Too many variables, too many possibllities. My hope is that Mr. Computer just stopped working…the hard part of that is, you can’t tell people you can’t communicate, all you can do is figure out what went wrong.
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That’s why I have called in too. Missing you Ark and hoping all is well with you and yours. Sending love to all. 🙂
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it’s a bit bizarre, like knocking on someone’s door, and there’s no tv blaring, no radio, and the shades are drawn. Car’s in the yard. Someone’s taking the paper in, but still…
Funny, how you get attached to someone you’ve never met, wouldn’t even recognize on the street, and when they go quiet, you miss them.
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‘Nuffa this, Ark — come on out with your hands up or we toss in a shipload of crucifixes. Crucifices.
Crucifaeces?
(Bugger … them little things with the wee model man wearing just a diaper and some nails on them.)
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I tried a little research and everywhere I went got “Forbidden”.
Has Ark finally managed to upset the wrong person?
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I did the same search, and found a lot of locked sites too. It’s the most helpless feelling, isn’t it. Anyone who can contact Ark, maybe they should do that.
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I did, last night, but he hasn’t written back. . .I’ll let you know as soon as he does, though!
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This is getting really unnerving!
Did he say sometime back that he was fighting a cold or something … or was that someone else? If it was him, perhaps it developed into something more serious?
I planned to write him today myself but since you already have, I know you’ll share whatever you find out.
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Someone else reminded me that JZ mentioned something about having problems posting on Ark’s site (or something to that effect) and that Ark would be looking into it. So I’m thinking perhaps he’s had to do some techno-revamping (?). . . which could explain the ‘radio’ silence. 🙂
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I haven’t noticed any problems with his site … ?? I just checked Facebook and his last post is the same date as this one. I left a Facebook “message” … hopefully he’ll see it on his phone. Time will tell.
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Man, now I’m worried! I hope CS hasn’t beaten him up or anything.
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Anyone tried emailing Emily?
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Yes, JZ. Haven’t heard from her either. I assume they have no power at her shop, either. 😦 I just can’t imagine going without power for this long. . they must be bathing with the koi! (egads)
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Ooops, I just sent her an email. Looks like the blackouts are still going. Stone Age Ark.
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From my “news” research, it appears they’re still going through “load shedding” —
Eskom has appealed to customers to switch off geysers during the day as well as all non-essential lighting and electricity appliances to assist in reducing demand.
I would assume “non-essential … electricity appliances” would include computers.
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Serendipitously, CNN’s Inside Africa (or perhaps it was Africa Business?) had a report on SA’s electricity problems just 2 weeks ago.
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Well Ark’s gonna get a real charge out of that, JZ.
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I saw what you did there. Clever thing.
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Guess I’m getting seriously worried but the way I’ve read the reports these power outages are only affecting certain areas at certain times and they have not had permanent blackouts for the past two weeks. I think Ark could have had a chance to get a message out to someone, unless the pc is kaputt.
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Just posted Emily’s email below. All’s good. They are experiencing ‘technical problems’ with no word on when it’ll be fixed.
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I did notice that South Africa was having horrendous weather, and since Im not sure where he is, in relation to that, I guess we can throw that into the stew as well…
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Are you referring to the cyclone? According to FB, he lives in Johannesburg and I don’t think that area was affected.
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Hrm. I could swear I left a comment…
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I wasn’t sure if he was in Johannesburg, but I do know that weather tends to spead itself around, especially large storms like this one…
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Major power outage in Johannesburg. https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-03-18-major-power-outage-hits-northern-joburg-on-top-of-load-shedding/
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I just saw your report, Nan. On JZ’s blog (I don’t know how many here are subscribed) he says they’ve had a major outage. . . so I guess Ark didn’t run away with the circus after all. . . . 😉
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Thank you Nan for that possible/probable clue! 🙂
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Not liking this ‘radio (internet) silence’ Mr A has been off line well before that power cut. I left a message on his facebook page and have heard nothing. I hope he has not been getting too close to them spiders in his shed.
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One thing about it; he won’t be lost for a blog post topic when he returns! 🙂
(I read an article yesterday that suggested if the power outage continues much longer there’ll be a water shortage – not so good!)
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if there is no power now, and apparently there isn’t, you won’t hear from him anyway. Bar shouting, he’s really got no way to contact anyone.
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Well, Ark! This will certainly show you how much you are loved and missed by your Blogging pals! Hope it is ‘just’ a power outage and that all of you are just fine. With love, 🙂
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I hope you and your family are well Ark! ❤ If it is likely that power-outage, I'm happy about that as long as you guys are safe, well, and making do with plumbing, A/C or heat, refrigeration, etc, etc. I KNOW that has to be an adjustment. 😬
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it also means that when you return there will have to be many many photos of birds, and flowers, and , er, cute. You know.
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Still dark https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-20/south-africa-faces-another-day-of-blackouts-with-no-end-in-sight
Good luck buddy
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I hope they’ve got some board games. . . egads.
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No end in sight. Gotta wonder about food storage/spoilage. Be interested to here a first hand report.
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Around here, we used to experience power outages for days at a time because of severe weather conditions. Hubby got a big generator and then went around the neighbourhood sharing it so no one would lose their freezer contents (most people have big freezers full to the brim, as we are 25 minutes away from a grocery store). We must have had an upgrade, because we haven’t lost our power for several years. . .there, I just jinxed myself. . . 🙂
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At least seven days of power cuts? That has got to suck…
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Well, it could be worse. You guys had a pretty rough week.
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Yeah we did, it was pretty terrible. I am impressed with how our country has reacted to these events though, including the support relatives of the victims have had, and we are reviewing some of our gun laws (a touchy topic for many).
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I read that today. We’ve had many opportunities to do something and never have quite enough dead people to push it through. If you don’t do something for fifty dead, you never will. It’s now or never.
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What’s the problem with guns there? Is it your political system there, which makes gun laws difficult to change? Or is it that people still want to keep all their guns, because it makes them safer somehow?
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It’s both. The faith base and the gun lobby pays big big money to get people elected. Guns are a big part of the culture too. Rebels (they think) NRA has a platform people will die for. Dangerous memes https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_dangerous_memes
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Our constitution has a “Second Amendment” that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Those who think they simply MUST have a gun to protect themselves against … what? … use this to justify owning not just -A- gun, but as many guns as they can afford.
An important part of the wording is A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Even though it explicitly refers to “Militia,” gun-owners put a different spin on it and use it for justification.
This has been the primary block against any movement to regulate guns in this country.
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Ah yes, you guys love your second amendment. There are many different views on this, but I think one of the main issues people have is with owning certain types of guns, namely military style semi-automatics. These type of weapons never existed when your second amendment came to be, but they enable mass murderers to kill many more people with ease, than if they just used single fire weapons. Even if one still believes in owning a gun, surely banning guns like this has ALL the benefits and no losses, surely? But nope.
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longest we ever went powerless was during a vicious ice storm 22 years ago, the outage lasted 7 days (thank god for wood stoves and dug wells), and it took us two days to clear the driveway so the power crew could get in and reattach all 8 power lines. We were lucky, some people went over two weeks.
I know that feeling all too well…
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The longest I’ve been without power at home was for 48 hours as a kid, that was more than enough for me haha. Guess I’ve been pretty fortunate.
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Electricity is back, but apprarently some enterprising person also stole internet/phone lines, and they have no notice of when everything will be back up running.
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Is it still out today?
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I haven’t checked. I’ve been traveling all weekend.
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I emailed him a few days back but no reply.
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Me too, last Friday.
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I think he’s just burned out. Blogging breaks are ok, but a blurb would be nice.
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As of the time you commented, yes. I’m guessing we won’t hear from him for a while, blogging probably isn’t on his mind right now either.
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Seems they had some theft of phone lines, too. No word on when it’ll be fixed.
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aparently this is an ongoing situation there, so people may well be prepared for it. One outage in a five year period makes everyone jumpy; one a month or once a year (and announced beforehand) just means you take pains to have extra stuff on hand.
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Also wondering where you are. Hope everything’s OK.
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Come back, Ark. We miss you.
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To all, all’s good. I sent Emily an email and here’s part of the reply:
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Brilliant news!!!
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Thank the gods … or whoever. 😀
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See, that reply was really from CS acting like Emily. Obviously the truth is CS has kidnapped Ark and his wife and is holding them hostage trying to convert them to evangelical Christianity. Since this is the most logical explanation, it is the true one. $Amen$
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Undoubtedly you’re correct. I must have screwed my dunce cap on wrong this morning.
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Thank you Emily for your reassuring email to John. Love to you all 🙂
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For those wondering about Ark, here’s what was posted on Emily’s Cakes this a.m.-
Dear Cake family
For three weeks now we’ve basically been held ransom by Telkom. Here’s the story;
The cables were stolen in our Area, which I know is not their fault, this is SA & these things happen. But what has happened since then is shocking. Obviously we report the fault straight away and they tell us the generic answer that the fault has been put on high priority and a technician will get to it ASAP.
A week later still nothing…We call and only then are told that the cables were stolen, but they are working on it…With Telkom you learn you just have to be patient.
But after 3 weeks we are told by a Telkom agent and I quote…”They need to weigh out their options, before replacing the cable…” Which means no work has been done to solve this problem in three weeks. This is a blatant attempt from Telkom to force people over to their Fibre & LTE services, which is pretty scary when you think about it…That they leave thousands of homes in the dark and just do whatever they want without any repercussions. Just cancel you say…. lol well you can’t because certain business things require a landline and Telkom make it very very difficult to…cut ties.
We are truly sorry to anyone who has tried to call us on our landline and for any delay in our response rate. To top it all off, with all the load-shedding Vodacom goes missing as well, so we left in the dark on all fronts constantly 🥺😢😭😭
Once again our sincerest apologies we are getting this sorted.
Adrian
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Thanks Carmen. I was actually thinking about sending Emily another email today.
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Glad Ark’s OK. I miss the guy!
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Bummer!
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Damn shame, is what it is. And we thought we had it tough when we lose the power in a blizzard for two days…
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Hi, Ark
Hope you’re well despite your interwebz troubles. Not sure if you’ve heard, but I’ve started a page on John Branyan’s hate speech: https://johnbranyan.home.blog
I know you’ve had many encounters with him, so if you or anyone else here have some screen shots or records of his hate speech, I’d very much appreciate it if you could send them to me 😀
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Good job, Mr. M. I checked out your blog (but was unable to comment for some reason – I’ll try again later) Is it meant to automatically link to one’s blog site? That is, is there an option to erase website when commenting?
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There should be. If you comment while being logged out of WP, your info won’t show.
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Ahhh. . .I didn’t realize it worked that way. Some of the ones I’m on tell you to sign in or you cannot comment. I am not anxious to give some commenters access to my blog. Don’t know if you’ve noticed but some of them aren’t playing with a full deck. .. ahem. ..
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Lol!!! 😂 yes, I’ve noticed. When it tells you to log in, instead just put in an email you never use/check. Then you’re completely sheltered.
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Just checked in to find out why there has been silence from you lately, Ark. So glad it is a technical problem and nothing more sinister. Even so, it is pretty bad when your communication lines are down for such a long time. My sympathies to you and your family.
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Ark Update. Emily sent this email:
“Yip, still without lines and it’s been a nightmare to resolve, but it’s looking positive!
To shed some light, it isn’t that the line has been taken and someone is using our line, they literally dig up the pavements/roads and pull out the copper cables. How they manage this I have no idea. And it has happened several times. It makes you think that perhaps it’s done on purpose to sabotage Telkom or to force customers to migrate to a different system (wireless or fibre)
After four weeks of hassling them, Telkom have finally told us they wouldn’t be replacing the copper lines. They have offered to change our service to wireless which will take another four weeks. The phone and internet are charged separately, the phone rates will stay the same, the internet is more than double.
So we have decide to go another route with a different company. Applied for fibre lines this morning and should be up and running in the next two weeks, fingers crossed. And the service so far has been fantastic, really on the ball consultants.
Will keep you posted if there is a change but hopefully you’ll be hearing from “The Ark” soon.”
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Thanks for this. I really miss ole Ark, the atheistic som’bitch that ‘e is!
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Thank you so much for posting this, John! Looking forward to his posts (even the spider ones … 😈).
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oh, nan, you may regret that last sentence.
But, yeah, it’s good to know he’s still out there, chugging away. What a bloody nightmare that must be. It does sound much more positive than the ‘old’ way, which means waiting for the lights to go out–again–…
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Yeah … I know. After I clicked on the Post Comment, I thought, Oh My! What have I done? 😮
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