8/13

Am I the only one who thinks that it’s weird you have to pay MORE to NOT be listed in the phone book?

You’re saving the phone company ink and space in the book that they probably have to pay an absolute fortune to print, so the way I see it, you don’t wanna be in there, you’re doing them a favor.

Well anyway, it was 1999 and the Internet was absolutely on fire. Little did we know that all the money apparently being manufactured in cyberspace was nothing but futures speculation and Enron scandals.

But there was a time, it lasted about 5-7 months, when you could get dial-up Internet access for free (so long as you could stomach the ads), and nearly all manner of telecommunication solutions could be found for low- to zero-cost. It was at this time that I was so bold and hopeful that I said to my grandmother, “No Grandma, you don’t have to *pay* for the Internet anymore…”

At 456A High Ave, we also had ad-supported voice mail for a little while. We each had our own mail box, and you could dial in a toll-free number from anywhere to check it. In addition, each message was captured as a .wav on this company’s server, so you could be away from a phone, but near a computer, log-in, and listen to your voice mails on the web.

I really wish I could do that with my cell phone sometimes. It’s not like the tech’s not there. What’s the hold up, y’think?