strata

Not that you noticed I was gone, or only spasmo-sporadically updating things, as my ties to thee sputtered off and on, mostly off.

Well, foobar felgercarb snargleblarg. The good news is that we have IntarToobZ again. The bad news is that can only get up to about 1.3 Mbps incoming, and 300ish outgoing. So say we all, including http://helpme.att.net/cgi-bin/speedtest/speedresult.cgi?1293854;321827;1;2.0;speedtest-sntcca.sntcca.sbcglobal.net , who should know.

My suspicion that requesting an upgrade to Premium 6Mbps service was to blame was correct, but in an unexpected way. The nice folks at AT&T had not actually messed up our connection (hush, o you cynics and scoffers). Instead, trying to push a higher rate through the line had revealed a physical line issue that had not manifested at our previous SBCYahoo blazing 768Kbps level of connectivity.

A very pleasant fellow came out here today at about 9:30am and just left a few minutes ago, after 3 hours of outside line work. He got us a fresh pair to what passes for the local infrastructure and did the extremely tedious phone work of contacting both departments needed to roll back the subscription from Premium to Elite (ooh, we's 'leet!).

I think the extra measure of cheer for our visiting AT&T service guy might have come from contemplating the alternative. How unpleasant his time would have been if the phone line hadn't come into our place under the nice, dry carport! He got to avoid the cold, nasty drizzle that's been watering the garden all morning. I offered to get him some hot coffee or tea, and he was surprised-- isn't anyone nice to service folks anymore?

So, welcome back, IntarWebZ, we salute thee. Just not as speedily as we'd hoped.

I usually love the silly links collections, but the ones going around lately about office-party dancing made me sad. Mostly I see ordinary non-glamorous people having a good time, and being mocked for their lack of perfection. I saw some pretty decent dancers and singers who just happened to be old, or balding, or fat.

Who is the bigger sad sack, the drunken office-party dancer, ineptly having fun, or the sneering cynic on the sidelines, capturing the moment and 'sharing' it on YouTube so s/he can feel superior?

There's a well-known set of trite lines that ends with "and dance like nobody's watching." A few months ago I stayed up in SF at the main office to go out with coworkers to see a band that featured one of our colleagues. The opening act was good, and their act was good. People were happy, smiling, nodding, jigging their shoulders a little, but only a couple dozen of the 100ish folks there were actually dancing. There was room, but maybe it just "wasn't cool"? I danced, and had fun, and didn't care.

Whether at an office party or out at a club, if the dancing is only For The Beautiful People or The Talented People, there'd better be signs. Otherwise this old fat chick is gonna be dancin'.

So there.