When I was in 9th and 10th grade, I loved Instant Messenger so much. Who didn't? It was our window to the world - but it was a very, very slow window. It was the Dial Up Era and oh, how fun it was to get kicked offline or achieve a busy signal while trying to get on AOL.
Then there were those noises. They woke my parents up every night because the computer room is right next to their bedroom. EEEEEE errrrrr chhhhh budum budum CRRRRRR SCHHHHHHH - and with that I was signed on to flirt, gossip and waste countless hours of my life. I'd forgotton what a luxury the internet really was.
But I remembered when I came back to Penn last month. Since I've been back, my housemates and I have experienced a myriad of internet debacles. And my internet functions more slowly now than it did in 1999. Our provider, Urban Cableworks, made possible by Time Warner who is currently selling the service to Comcast, sucks. There's no other way to say it.
Why did there have to be a squirrel living in my cable box, Urban Cable? Why? Why did I wait three weeks to have my cable installed only to be told that I had to wait another three weeks because my cable box was then jammed? I work for a living, damnit. Also, do they even have a customer service line or is it just one angry woman telling me it's not her fault so would I please stop speaking loudly?
If this sounds like a rant, let me correct you, dear readers, because I've heard it from you, quite literally, on the street. When I'm walking home from class, people fly by me in an unconscious cloud of anger yelling into their phones. When I'm walking on Locust, I hear people yelling about how they have to spend hours of their life in the hell of High Rise computer labs and Huntsman study lounges. I don't know about you, but we should probably have an uprising or something. My addiction to Gmail cannot be fueled with this sub-par service.
It's no joking matter; we all pay for a service and should get something good in return. So Phillynet, why don't you give me a holla - we can hook up sometime and hang out and you can give me awesome internet for 20 bucks a month. Then I won't have to sit by the phone for hours waiting for you to call and crying into my pillow.
God, I love good hook-ups.
