While I will post even less during the next 2 weeks.

Yes, yes, I know the old saying that excuses are like — televisions. Everyone has one — or more. I am taking a break from this blog for about two weeks. I haven’t been contributing as much as I did for quite a few years. But I suppose when you get older you have only so much energy to devote to making a living. And as most of you know, I work for Uncle Sugar, only eight hours shy of working full-time. The days seem to get longer. And I think as a second consideration, I’ve been doing this damn thing for more than 10 years, that’s a while. I kind of feel as if I deserve a little time off, don’t you think?

I didn’t come here to rationalize. Not so much, at least. The real reason for a break is that I have reached a point on my data limit with Verizon that necessitates cutting back on my usage. That means when my 20-gigabite limit is reached, and I assume it will happen soon, I will pay overages of $15 per extra gb used. I supposed that is what they still charge. What raises my hackles is that I have raised my data limit several times over the past few years. I keep going over the mark. I now have 20, up from 15 gigabite a month or two ago.

It seems the more data you have available, the more you are hell-bent to go over the limit.

I don’t know if I was doing a little consumer judo or was just duped into a plan that is for everyone. I’d investigate, but it just takes too much energy, mentally speaking.

A while back I added a Ellipsis to my line for $10 a month. I like reading books on it. I haven’t given up reading “real” books, but one can find some remarkable reads for as little as $10 sometimes. The problem is that the tablet had problems freezing upon start up and once started, it would again freeze. I would ship the tablet off to Verizon and it would come back, working, for an hour or a day. This happened about a third time, and I called Verizon, understandably — I think — frustrated.

I told the person at Verizon that I either wanted a new tablet or we would “go ’round and ’round.” I told her that I had already checked into some different companies’ plans, ones that would pay the early out fees. The woman said: “Oh no, we don’t you want to do that!” I told her that I continued to have overages and hoped to stay that by signing up with a liberal plan — whether that really exists in the U.S. is anyone’s guess. So perky Ms. Verizon person offered an increase of 5 gb and would actually pay less. “Yeah, I bet,” I thought to myself.

I realize that I have become somewhat reckless with the data usage. I do download music or music videos. Of course, I mostly read on the internet. I don’t download movies or using much live streaming. I would say the overages are  basically my fault. However, I have difficulties trying to keep the annoying pop-up videos. It seems as soon as I do something that keeps away these pain-in-the-ass commercials, back they come in full force. I’d like to find out how much these ads add to overages.

There you have it. I will probably post something between now and Jan. 8, 2016, when my data account resets. But if I don’t, you can find my rationalization reasons here.

Oh, by the way, Happy New Year!