I'm back. Did you miss me?

Yesterday, something went awry, and suddenly, I could no longer access Google, or Google-linked sites. I was reading my e-mail, went to the next one, when, *blink*, the world out there disappeared.

Where's that "Don't Panic" button when you need it?

Of course, I did all the normal things; rebooted, unplugged the modem and set it up again, changed browsers, called the internet uncomplimentary names, ditto for my laptop, did everything again, panicked.

What was strange was that the computer worked fine, and I was connected to my ISP properly, but Google had disappeared. And with it, anything that used Google. Blogger, G-mail, Google Reader, (all you wonderful people out there; gone!) YouTube, Facebook, parts of ScienceBlogs. I couldn't contact my browser people; I'm using Google Chrome. Twitter worked, except that it has deleted a bunch of the people I follow. I could get Wordpress, when I remembered the urls (they're all on Google Reader; inacccessible). BugGuide and Flickr were fine.

I spent half an hour on the phone, trying to get through to my ISP. Hopeless; they were backed up. Other people were panicking, too. That was a relief; it wasn't my problem, maybe.

Two people responded on Twitter to my calls for help. No suggestions that worked, but again, I felt connected. Deep breath.

Finally, at midnight, I got through to the ISP; they were "working on it". Good; it was a SEP. I went to bed.

This morning, everything works.

Long story. There are two things that stand out for me.

1. Half the internet is linked to Google somehow. When Google dies, civilization will follow.
2. I missed all of you, out there. A major part of my world is online. It's awfully lonely here without you.

Hi, y'all!