Practicalmadness

Gee, is there really anything to say this morning?

I had better say something, as this computer is costing me $0.14/minute. Our move into a new apartment is going about as smoothly as it should, considering that Jenny's family decided they were so excited to help us that they should show up a full day early necessitating speed-packing, hasty, panicked phone calls to our building manager and leaving roughly half a ton of my possessions behind to bring up later in grocery bags.

And in crunching the numbers for our monthly expenses -- so far including rent, electric, telephone, DSL that won't be installed for another three weeks and Cable TV (all other utilities are included) -- I hear a piercing squeaking sound.

We were going to wait for DSL -- I mean, who needs high-speed net access when you get free dial-up through your school and live one block away from a cybercafe? -- but Ameritech didn't feature that, and were so desperate to sell us a DSL line that they offered us a ludicrous rate. How ludicrous? I don't know how many of you, dear readers, use broadband, or how much you're paying for it. Suffice to say, you probably don't want to know, and Ameritech doesn't want me to tell you. So neener neener neener.

We were also going to wait for cable TV, but, well...here's how cable TV works: the most basic cable TV package costs $40 for all the "expanded" basic channels (CNN, MTV, Nickelodeon, et al) but no premiums or digital channels. A digital package including four channels of HBO and two dozen extra Digital Cable channels (including Sundance, IFC and BBC America) is $50. I used the "honey, we spend more than that on lattes" argument.

This is the sound of me succumbing to the self-absorbed blogger impulse. Squeeeeeeek.