Sunday, July 26, 2009

Pringles

Little did I know at the time, busy as I was preparing to go to New Jersey on a flight courtesy of Snowball, but I lost access to the internet connection which I was legitimately using (as opposed to the one I'm now pirating from the deli across the street).

See, I and a few other folks in my building were paying the building manager to maintain an internet connection through Comcast and a wireless network out of her apartment. Comcast came to fix something, but broke the wireless network in the process. Kathy couldn't figure out how to fix it and decided that she has neither the time nor the inclination to continue to maintain the wireless network for the rest of us.

I and another woman were going to go it alone, but she decided she could do without internet at home (the horror!).

I am left either getting a connection of my own (seems silly since there are at least ten network on which my computer picks up) or continuing to pirate the connection of the deli across the street. If I choose the latter, I need to invest in some sort of antennae, as my dear computer, which I just realized is nameless, has an antennae about as useful as... as something that's not useful hardly at all. Presently, I use myself as the antennae, but considering that I haven't decided if I want children in the future, having such radio waves or nuclear energy or whathaveyou coursing through my body is probably not a good idea.

Rob's answer to my dilemma is a Pringles antennae (actually it was a new computer, but I'll choose to ignore that suggestion). Such a device is easily assembled from directions off the interweb with parts that seem readily available... to a roadside bomber. Where does a white, middle class female get an N-connector, a drill, and the know-how to figure the 'back of the can to the drill-point' drill distance? Argh. Isn't there someway to do this with knitting needles, the cat, and a beer bottle?