Where-Fi?

I’m sitting here writing this column on Friday night. I will schedule it for publication as soon as I finish it, for Tuesday morning, the 4th of May. Why, you may ask, am I sitting here writing a column on Friday night when I could be out slipping warm ones into garters and Cold Ones down my gullet? Well, like I told you on Friday’s column, I’m in the hospital with my recovering wife. No, that wasn’t a joke. She really did get surgery. No, it wasn’t really a whoopie cushion. But wouldn’t that be bad ass?

She’s doing well, I guess, or as well as well can be after getting gutted like a fish. She just went for her first walk and made it like twenty feet before having to turn around. She’s hurting pretty bad. And I know you guys probably think I’m an asshole for not tying her gown up in the back for her, and – in fact – telling her it was tied in the back. But I just figured I could give a little back to humanity. And that’s a good way to do it. The Hispanic family in the hallway sure appreciated it.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for your prayers and support. She’s got a pretty long road of recovery ahead of her, but she’ll make it. But the reason I’m writing tonight is to talk about a subject that’s near and dear to me: techmology. And a subtitle to that topic: why the hell have some people not caught on yet? For instance, I am here in this hospital, sitting on my cozy couchbed by the window, where I can look down and see my car sitting out there in the parking lot. I’m sitting here on my laptop just moseying around. But I’m not on a wireless network provided by the hospital.

Seriously. Right? Yeah, they have a wifi, but it’s only available on the first floor, like in the cafeteria. I happen to be on call this weekend, so if I have to logon and do some work, I would be pissed if I had to truck it down to the damn cafeteria in the middle of the night. Fortunately I have this here Sprint card that gets me on the Internet just about anywhere. But why is it that there’s just not wifi freaking everywhere now? Every home in America has one now don’t they? So why don’t all businesses? I see the risk in having an open network. But it doesn’t have to be open. You can still secure it. You can still run websense and block people from looking at porn. Whatever. But you need to have wifi available to your customers.

I look forward to the day when Internet is free and available everywhere. I can walk into any Sears or Home Depot or Piggly Wiggly and setup shop, surf the internet, maybe rub one out to a picture of Jessica Simpson, then finish my shopping. Wouldn’t that be great? Well I don’t know why we’re not there yet. It’s like some of these people still think the Internet is a fad that just might not “catch on”. It’s here, people. And as long as there are pictures of Jessica Simpson showing cleavage on it, trust me, it will stay in business.

I still walk into people’s offices occasionally and am surprised – or rather, stupefied – by the lack of technology in their offices. A fifteen-inch CRT monitor and a big ass Dell tower that sounds like a Cessna with a bad motor in it. Seriously, people, computers are cheap now! You can go out and get a whole new setup for like 500 bucks with a printer and a monitor. More powerful than five of those old dusty piece of junks you got sitting under your desk. Let’s move into the new age here! Embrace the coming storm. Behold the power of the microchip! Get some damn wifi!

Maybe I’m off-base here, but I’m not out of line. An example of what the internet can give you.I can’t imagine we’ll go forever without connectivity just blasting from every tower in the city. And maybe you’ll have to buy access to it to activate your chip, but it’s like five bucks a month or something. And that’s fine. That way they can track you by your MAC address. Accountability breeds responsibility. I’m fine with that. But it needs to be available. Just like Jessica Simpson pictures. Or Christina Hendricks. Take your pick.

Well my house is wired. I have several computers and a few laptops running, CAT 5e running through the attic down every wall, a couple of home theater PCs, a wireless broadcast, a kitchen jack and a Synology DS209 NAS hosting all my files for me. So I’m doing my part. What are you doing to wire the world?

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Jeremy

    There pretty much is wi-fi everywhere already you just have to pay for it. I agree there could be more Christina Hendrix though.

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