Broadband, America, and my love for trackbacks

I love you, trackbacks. You make me all warm and fuzzy. Lauren brings up a solid point on her fresh looking blog Polyglot Conspiracy (linked to your right), one that has been driving me nuts for a few weeks now -

There are no terminal-based internet cafes in America, and the streets aren't paved with cheese. Well, I'm lying - there are a few inconvenient internet cafes, and cheese is readily available for purchase or sample at many retail outlets, but it would be much more pleasant if some of our sacred WIFI cafes offered up an old desktop for plebians like myself who haven't cobbled themselves together a laptop as yet.

Taken in aggregate form, this is part of a noticeable quality about America- picked up on after living abroad for a while - the expectation of havings 'things' around like a laptop, car, CVS card, etc...

I'm not asking for a South American situation, where 6 computers are thrown into a sweaty room for money-laundering purposes and left open for every 12 year old in town to play gunbound. I'm just saying there should be a "public library-esque" internet terminal option at some of these silly coffee shops. Wouldn't cost anything, and would give normal people the option to check email without carrying around a 1-2 thousand dollar piece of equipment.

The situation Lauren describes, where you have to ask a fellow human to play on their PC, actually happened to me whilst travelling. There I was, on my return trip home, in the super-USAiffied international terminal of Costa Rica's airport. I needed to contact old buddy Jeff, who was meant to pick me up at JFK at the wee-hour of 1am - not a task for which many people would volunteer. I needed to confirm to Jeff that my flight was on time, which it indeed was. Though the entire terminal was a WIFI hotspot, there where no internet terminals to be found among the Schlotsky's Deli's and Church's Chicken restaurants.

I had to beg a fellow man, who as it happens was from the south side of Chicago and wore a T-shirt deragatory to women, to borrow his Ibook to send off a quick email. He was quite hesitant at first, then eventually let me do it, all the while holding his laptop with two hands. Did he think I would bound off on the next flight to Panama with his laptop? Apparently yes.

I should know all about free WIFI with no PC now, I live adjacent to 3 hot beverage establishments. Next door is Ambrosia cafe, which faces the Starbucks that is kitty-corner to Argo Tea. My good friend Joe described my new neighborhood, quite correctly, as the "Belly of the Beast." That is, if the suburbs could be described a one singular person, that person is sitting on my corner right now drinking a skim mocha latte.

That said, I am still a tech-obo, techno-hobo, or just plain moocher - thanks to my location (pictured). I have seven wireless networks available right now from my room, 3 of which are amazingly unsecured and one of which is still incredulously called "LinkSys." How do I know?

I'm borrowing Liz's new laptop!

Viva el internet gratis, y viva EEUU.

Comments

[Mujer]

Interesante el punto de vista que nos dejas por aqui, es realmente interesante y es una cosa que no conocia.

[albert]

plugin that kubrick baby up! i've played around with the sidebar, css, single and index pages for the past week or so. ooh, and made a new header image. pretty cool and not too hard.

still making my way through plugins that will be functional and not get in the way of the experience. the one that i've found most likable so far is one that gets rid of the stupid smart quotes and replaces them with straight quotes.

[polyglot conspiracy]

Re: Albert's comment about wordpress sweetness: Yeah. My only thing is I suck at learning how to do things on my own, so I've stuck to the default template, which is, of course, lame by default. I want snazzzzzz.

[albert]

polygot rocking the sweetness with wordpress. me and lady's foodie blog, powered by wordpress, is almost ready to be unveiled.

[polyglot conspiracy]

Don't trackbacks make it all worthwhile?

Weird that the Schlotzky's didn't have any computers - when I was in Austin (the town in Texas, not the blogger!) my sister and I discovered that the Schlotzky's there (at least the one downtown) was chock full of free computers with internet - like 5 imacs, just sittin' there like pretty maids all in a row. So I figured that's just what Schlotzky's was doing nowadays, since I hadn't been to one in years.

I sympathize with your "no public terminals" problem. I hate that. Also I hate that there's a paucity of water fountains, at least where I live. What is with this country we don't even have public WATER?! Whatevs.

However, this place DOES have a free PC with internet, if you can just get your hands on it in between the dozens of not-just-technohobos-but-actual-hobos (no offense intended) who are usually trying to use it.

Hey, I'm coming to Chicago in October.