I moan about the speed of my broadband alot. It’s one of these do everything type packages where by the phone line that permits me to connect to the world wide web also serves as a carrier for the TV signal. It’s an incessant system. It gets clogged up very easily during peak hours and hardly ever reaches it’s advertised potential of 8MB, it’s more like 3; 4 when it’s really sunny outside. In this age of want on demand, life could not be slower. Ironic then, I think of my endearing Tiscali box as I sit here in sunny Brunei, in a vain attempt to write an update to this blog by working with a relic from an age long since passed : the 56k modem. I’m not entirely sure of the model, since it’s an internal PCI (are they even called that?) card which is installed on my dad’s machine, which is also an item lined up to be a future artifact in an Electronics museum (if such a place exists). I remember the day when I first introduced myself to the internet. Oh man it was hard. I held my breath every time I dialed up, hoping for a ringing tone, as if I was calling a potential love interest, but more often than not, I was to be disappointed on many occasions with the familiar engaged tone. My disappointment however, had only served to solidify my resolve, as I soldiered on with the redialing again, and again, and then again. I developed techniques to deal with the soul destroying wait for a ringing tone; I chose to dial during lunchtime when I assumed most people were away from their PCs; I would also superstitiously hang up after the third engaged tone, as it seemed to lead to a ringing tone after…. seemed to. When I got in, there was always, a pause before the ringing began. My pulse quickens, my eyeballs become enlarged. The moment finally upon us ……. and then a whirring and wailing as if the ghost in the machine was issuing an awakening call before calming down to a chattering buzz and the words on the dial-up window changed.
“ You are connected “
Wow… magic. Netscape 3.0, now we wait.
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