Vacation Is a Time to Blog
TAC began its summer break yesterday, after sending to print the new issue (Leon Hadar has the cover story, on the failure of nation-building in Afghanistan). While the other editors have had the good sense to disperse far and wide — with literary editor Freddy Gray getting as far as Rwanda — I’ll be lurking around the D.C. area for most of the break, bar an excursion or two north and east.
After seven months, I’ve finally decided to get an internet hookup for my apartment. Until now, I was getting by on my connection at work and on the WiFi available at the mall a few blocks from where I live. Balancing out the inconvenience of not having internet at home was the convenience of not paying Comcast $60 a month. But now I’ve broken down and made a deal with the cable-monopoly devil. The company should have a technician coming by on Tuesday, even though I would have preferred to install the thing myself. (I already have the cable, the modem, and everything else I need, and I absolutely don’t want any of the bloatware the Comcast goons might want to install on my computers. But they’re coming anyway…)
Several projects will keep me busy during the TAC break. On Sunday, I’m giving a talk to the Leadership Institute’s Student Publications School. (I’ll be doing that again on Aug. 4-5, for LI’s Advanced Student Publications School.) Around the same time, I have to send in a review for a forthcoming issue of the University Bookman, and there are a few other essays and reviews I ought to finish by early next week. I have a bigger project or two to work on as well, but mum’s the word on those for now. And if all goes well with my Comcast installation on Tuesday, I may even pick up the pace of blogging. Stay tuned.
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July 20th, 2008 at 5:49 am
In moving to my apartment in Brunswick, Maine, early this month, I had a choice between cable internet and DSL service through a local phone company/ISP, [GWI - Great Works Internet], and chose the latter, the cheaper of the two, made cheaper still by ten dollars monthly if I took, for $9.95 monthly, its basic landline phone service (which I use only residually; I also choose to remain cellphone-free, and keep my gasoline budget to c. $20 monthly).
I also managed to cancel a planned install visit by a tech chap, and save on that chunk of change, by installing the Fedexed cable modem myself, with the instructions enclosed, in about one minute of child’s play.
So, to cheapies like me with the option of cable v DSL - and no desire whatever for cable TV - I’d suggest looking into DSL ASAP, and keep those Jacksons in your wallet.
DSL.
July 20th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Whoops - change “Fedexed cable modem” to “Fedexed DSL modem”: [after Justin Wilson] we’re not lettin’ the cable folks have any of *this*…
DSL.*
*Harrigan, that’s me!
July 20th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
A small, local ISP is the way to go. Here on the outskirts of the imperial capital, though, all we get to choose between are megalithic cable company Comcast and megalithic phone company Verizon. DSL is a bit cheaper, but Verizon wants to tear up your front yard and the adjoining street to lay fiber-optic cable in order to install it. Comcast — mirabile dictu! — seemed like less hassle. But it still wasn’t easy: I tried to sign up over the phone, but the operator wanted to charge me over $60 just for internet (I don’t want phone or cable service). I told him there were better deals on the web, and he told me that those deals are only available on the web, he couldn’t offer them. So there I was, a customer willing to buy a service from a company, but its representative refused to sell it to me over the phone. I went on line and signed up there, but I was using a public WiFi and my connection broke off while I was in the midst of on-line “chatting” with a Comcast “analyst.” I won’t bore anyone with the rest of the story — suffice to say that after going through three “analysts,” not including the dude I spoke to on the phone, I finally found one who gave me a reasonable rate for service and “professional installment,” which I don’t want or need. Anyway, it’s done.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Wow. Bummer indeed. ‘least we stand to get more blogging from the TA, that’s the upside.
July 30th, 2008 at 7:59 am
“Leadership Institute”?? Why aren’t there any “Followship Institutes” (apologies to ‘30 Rock’)