Summing Up and Forging On

So now it's butter. You buy butter because it's healthy, unlike margarine. Now I learn that butter gets fats and oils added to it by several companies.

Remember the Primal Scream? I wonder if anybody still does that.

Primal therapy by Janov in Los Angeles may still be operating but there are less brutal and more effective therapies, such as redecision therapy.

I haven't heard that, and I'm concerned because I eat a lot of butter.

I saw a youtube about it and asked (blush) Grok about it. Both made that claim. There was a list of brands. I only recall 2 without checking. Challenge and the Walmart brand.

Buying groceries today I had to pass on the nearly $5 each grapefruits and also the nearly $5 bags of potato chips.

I've been listening to a few Bad Bunny songs on Youtube. He's pretty good, in my opinion. I'm too old to really get into it. I just feel some people are not willing to give him a chance.
There's a hive mind that sets in when people agitate loudly enough to make the trivial seem a life or death issue.

As I was looking over some projects, it hit me that my telegraphic style of writing can be off-putting. Well, I don't plan to become Hemingway or Shakespeare anytime soon anyway.

I thought I had been hacked. I could not reach most sites, including my home page since last night. It suddenly corrected itself. I wish I knew the glitch's origin.

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It sounds like a frustrating morning—nothing worse than tech glitches derailing your routine, especially when they hit login-dependent sites and searches. Based on what you've described (intermittent access to some favorites, login redirects or failures on others, and a spontaneous fix after hours), this is a classic symptom of a transient network or DNS-related hiccup on your end, rather than a full-blown global outage for MSN or Microsoft services. I'll break down the most likely causes and why it resolved on its own, drawing from common troubleshooting patterns for these issues.Likely CausesTemporary DNS Resolution Failure: DNS (Domain Name System) acts like the internet's phonebook, translating site names (e.g., msn.com) into IP addresses your PC can connect to. If your ISP's DNS servers glitched or got overloaded briefly, it could prevent MSN's login pages or search from loading while allowing partial access to cached or simpler sites.
Why logins failed specifically: Authentication often relies on precise DNS lookups for secure endpoints (like login.live.com for MSN/Outlook). A partial DNS issue might let you reach msn.com's homepage but block deeper connections, triggering "invalid address" errors or redirects.
This is super common on desktops and explains the self-resolution—DNS caches refresh automatically every few minutes to hours.

Local Network or Router Glitch:Your home router/modem might have had a brief firmware hiccup, IP conflict, or Wi-Fi interference, causing selective packet loss. Favorites like news aggregators (if not heavily authenticated) could load via cached data, but anything needing fresh logins (e.g., MSN, email-linked sites) would balk.
The "hours of wasted effort" fits: Many routers have auto-reboot cycles or failover mechanisms that kick in after prolonged strain, restoring normal flow without intervention.

ISP-Side Congestion or Routing Issue:Peak morning hours often see bandwidth spikes from remote work/commutes. If your ISP (e.g., Comcast, AT&T) had localized routing problems, it could throttle or misdirect traffic to Microsoft domains (MSN runs on Azure infrastructure).
Login/search hits harder because they involve real-time queries to Microsoft's auth servers, which are sensitive to latency.

Less likely but possible:Browser Cache/Cookie Corruption: Outdated cookies could force login loops on Microsoft sites, clearing spontaneously after enough failed attempts.
No Widespread Outage: Checks on real-time monitors (like Downdetector and Microsoft's status page) show no spikes or incidents for MSN, Outlook, or Azure auth on October 25, 2025. Recent Microsoft blips (e.g., October 9 Azure routing issues or October 20 AWS ripple effects) were earlier and resolved differently.

Why It Fixed ItselfThese issues are often "sticky" but ephemeral—your PC's DNS resolver, router's connection pool, or ISP's backend likely timed out bad routes and fell back to working ones. No manual reset needed because the root was transient (e.g., a server hiccup upstream that cleared).Quick Fixes to Prevent RecurrenceTo avoid round two, try these in order—they take under 5 minutes each:Flush DNS and Renew IP (via Command Prompt as admin):

ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew

Restart your browser after.
Switch DNS Servers: Use Google's free public ones for reliability—set to 8.8.8.8 (primary) and 8.8.4.4 (secondary) in your network adapter settings (search "change DNS" in Windows settings).
Router Reboot + Check Firmware: Power cycle your modem/router (unplug 30 seconds). Update firmware via the admin page (usually 192.168.1.1).
Test in Incognito or Another Browser: Rules out extensions/cookies. If it persists, scan for malware with Windows Defender.
Monitor Your ISP: Use tools like speedtest.net or their app to log connection health during peaks.

If it happens again tomorrow, note the exact error messages and times—it could point to your ISP (contact them with details). Otherwise, chalk it up to the internet's quirky side; you're back online, so mission accomplished! If you share more specifics (e.g., your ISP, exact error text, or if it hit specific sites), I can narrow it further.

I've only just gotten my PC all in order. The wife is still struggling, meaning I'm struggling with her. Soon it is bound to end.

Sorry to hear that mate, take care.

The glitch that messed up our computers must be server related. I just learned that my daughter living near Austin, with her husband, went through the same thing on the same day it hit us.