Spending Time in the Past with the World Wide Wait

Bonnie's Sbcglobal DSL modem died last week. We're going to experiment with Sonic.net for a year, but things don't get up to speed for another day or so. In the interim we're poking along, from 14K to 44K/second, (whoops, only one computer online at a time, thank you!) just like we did for years before the insidious pleasure of DSL entered our lives, lo, a couple of years ago.

Perhaps everyone should be forced, say once a month, to spend some time on dialup, simply to appreciate the virtue of text and recognize the bandwidth needed for graphics. Pictures are pretty, but only broadband renders them nearly instantly. There's a certain nostalgic charm to watching graphics slowly scroll into existence, but it's a charm that wears thin.

I know we got along fine on dialup when that's all we had. But now even daring to blog on dialup feels like tempting fate. I certainly won't take the time to add any photos.

Coincidentally, as DSL went out, so did my back. I awkwardly lifted my ~70 pound bass speaker one too many times into and out of the back seat of my Echo. Last weekend I watched ace keyboard guy Wayne De La Cruz load his 300 pound B-3 into the back of his van unaided. I now have an idea for a simple wooden insert that would allow me to similarly load my speaker into the car without ever having to lift more than half its weight. Why didn't I think of it sooner?