All the things Julian Assange is doing now that Ecuador disconnected his internet
With the government of Ecuador cutting off Julian Assange’s internet access this week, the WikiLeaks editor-in-chief suddenly has a lot of free time on his hands. Ecuador has “temporarily restricted“ Assange’s wifi at its embassy in Britain—where Assange has been seeking diplomatic refuge since 2012—after Wikileaks released a series of hacked documents from Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
Ecuador claimed Assange should not be trying to influence the upcoming US presidential election. In a statement, Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry said “The government of Ecuador respects the principles of nonintervention in the affairs of other nations, does not meddle in electoral campaigns nor support any candidate in particular.”
So without scandals to break and elections to mess with, here’s what Assange might be doing with his time:
- Finally finishing Infinite Jest
- Raising the shades of his window for the first time in four years
- Opening the adult coloring book his cousin sent him last Christmas
- Listening to Disc 2 of James Patterson’s Four Blind Mice audiobook
- Using an abacus to count how many countries hate him now
- Taping utensils together to see if he can invent a new utensil
- Puppet show
- Seeing if he can still recite the opening stanzas of Sylvia Plath’s “Lady Lazarus” from memory
- Realizing how strong his Australian accent still is
- Attempting a Scottish accent, and failing
- Attempting a South-African accent, and doing a little better
- Coming up with words that rhyme with “UNWGAD”
- Making a really tasty sandwich
- Licking his hands and trying to climb the walls like Spider-Man
- Wondering what Putin is doing right now
- Making a paperclip chain in the shape of the Cassiopeia constellation
- Suddenly realizing what “snitches get stitches” meant all those years ago in high school
- Mastering the “dab”
- Teaching himself the first eight bars of Goo Goo Dolls’ “Slide” on guitar
- Nailing the double windsor knot
- Writing a spec script for Mr. Robot
- Mentally telepathizing with Elon Musk about his ideas for Mars
- This
- Calling his mom on a landline
- Hanging up
- Arranging his collection of awards in height order
- Writing a postcard to Trump that only says, “Don’t call her ugly on camera”
- Eating just a ton of biscuits
- Trying to decide what everyone was “turning down” for
- Getting a papercut, and watching it bleed
- Lego Millenium Falcon
- Whistling the bridge to “99 Luftballons”
- Crying into his Cry Jar and shutting the lid tight afterward
- Silently considering his own existence
- Hitting his laptop over and over and over again as tears stream down his face