The economy is slow:

1. There is a mortgage crisis
2. Middle-aged people are finding it hard to get work
3. Gas prices are high, which affects the price of production and shipping, therefore it affects almost everything (like food prices)

I don’t need to go into too much detail about how everyone is spending more to maintain the same quality of life or how more people have less money. The bottom line is that many of us need to start tightening our belts.

This means making sacrifices. Eating out costs more than eating at home. Getting coffee at Starbucks costs more than brewing it yourself. Broadband connections cost more than dialup.

I expect more people will be using dial up internet until the economy starts on its upswing again. It's low cost and flexibility certainly lend itself to being a broadband-substitute for a short period of time. It’s not going to save a family from financial ruin, but the savings add up.

Disclaimer before I continue:

I understand the following: You can’t stream video over dial up. You can’t download movies, music, games, etc… Even downloading updates for software will take forever. There will be broadband withdrawal symptoms as you have to wait a few seconds longer for each web page to load. Watching Zero Punctuation will have to be done at work or be planned out 30 minutes in advance. Also, if you eliminated your land line in favor of cell or VOIP, then you are also taking on an additional cost for the phone service.

So why should you switch to dial up?

Dial up is cheap

For about $7.00/month, you get connected to the internet. There usually aren’t any bells or whistles, but you get e-mail, you can read up on blogs (although feed-readers suddenly become even more useful), and most of the normal stuff you do.

Dial up is flexible

Any Dial-Up ISP worth its salt will not have a contract and will give you a 30-day money back guarantee. You can try it for a month and if you absolutely hate it, you can switch back. If you find that your brain hasn’t exploded waiting for pages to load and you can get by for a few months, keep it as long as you need to without a commitment.

American Technical support

Several small dial up companies manage all their technical support in-house. While I appreciate that people in other countries learn a second language to support their families, I also appreciate a company that keeps its tech support in the US. It makes getting through a problem that much easier.

So go ahead and try it for yourself. There’s nothing to lose, except some dollars in the “expense” column of your budget!

The Cardinal Vices of the Internet

1. Lust:

We’ll start this thing out with a slowball, right down the middle of the plate.

Porn

Pornographic sites receive more search engine queries than nearly anything else. To quote the Simpsons:

Carl: You're the Internet's #1 non-porno site.
Lenny: Which makes you ten trillionth overall.

Of course, celebrities tend to get more searches than porn. Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, etc… Nope… no one looking for naked sexscapades there.

2. Gluttony:

Torrents

Seriously. Do I need the entire 90 album Blues Collection? Yes.

Do –YOU- need every episode of Tailspin and David the Gnome? Probably.

These exceptions aside, if you have 4TB of storage space and you are running out of room, you have glutted yourself worse than Old Yeller at an all-you-can-eat lead buffet. Yes folks, I went there.

3. Sloth:

Dial Up Internet

Dialup Internet is the sloth of the sinful animal kingdom. Actually, much like a sloth, dial up is still around and thriving, it’s just that no one can see it or thinks about it.

“Thriving” means it’s a niche market that is doing pretty well for itself considering it’s no longer the primary method of connecting to the internet. Just like sloths are doing pretty well, even though people take them down from the Costa Rican rainforests and charge tourists $5 to take a picture with one.

Really, that’s totally unrelated, but it happened and I have photos. No you can’t see them.

4. Greed:

The RIAA and the MPAA.

Do you honestly think that I would have bought a Mance Lipscomb CD if I hadn't downloaded it first? Or paid to see I Know Who Killed Me with Lindsay Lohan in theaters?

Well, I did see it, but only because my hot girlfriend wanted to, and she later informed me that she was bored and wanted to make out the whole time but didn’t say so. My life sucks.

But Stay Alive or any of the new National Lampoons movies? You’re kidding yourselves. You’re probably losing as much money from punk kids boycotting you because of your anti-consumer attitudes as from their rampant theft of your intellectual property.

5. Wrath:

I’d say viruses, but has anyone actually gotten a virus in the last 3 years? I’m going to go with:

Rick Astley

Here’s the video of him getting drunk and killing a homeless man.

6. Envy:

Newegg, Voodoo Computers, FalconNW, and the like

Why can’t I have a quad-SLI, quad-core, nuclear-powered monstrosity in my home? It’s only $18,000! While we’re at it… let’s add Apple.com to that list.

Don't look at me like that? I’ve got a girlfriend. Honestly. I can want a MacBook Pro without having had any adventurous experiences in college.

7. Pride:

YOU!

Firefox users. There’s nothing worse than an arrogant, acne-covered computer geek telling me I need to download another browser when IE clearly does its job. What the hell is a foxy tune? Why do I want to restart my browser? And what possible use is there for being able to open up a tab from ANOTHER browser in my current one? IE and Firefox in one window!? Pride cometh before the fall. But there’s probably a plugin to prevent that too. Everyone knows that Opera is the way to go anyhow.

Nobody wants it.

I've heard that some uncivilized people still eat it, but I've never met one nor would I associate with people like that.

Can't you afford something better to eat?

You're paying $19.95/month for cow tongue?! Whyt the fudge-nuggets would you do that?!

Just thinking about it makes my stomach turn.

*Warning: This is probably one of the weirdest things I've posted* 

Starting from an ethereal existence in the brain
I flow from the head, through the arm and out through the fingertips
Stroke by stroke I am made real
Never thought before, this is creation, this is the birth of an idea!

I am something electronic that can be seen and experienced by the world
I pass through the gates of the great Go----
I marvel at its speed as I shoot out across the vast expanse of knowledge and human experience
Through wires and over great distances I travel, seeking the answer
I seek my match.

But alas, my journey has already found its end
I am not real.
An idea is just that- and I die, alone, unmourned.