iCat meets iSat

Kitty has taken a liking to the pretty white cord that extends from the satmac to the wall outlet.

I'm tempted to take her to an apple store and watch her go apeshit.


I'm trying out Verizon's Broadband Access wireless service on my mac. EVDO is supposedly arriving in NYC, and I can get 400k/100k speeds when I'm connected to the EVDO towers. I'm doing a hunt and peck around town to see where I can get service.

The advantages:

If I am in the vicinity of a EVDO equipped tower, I can connect at DSLish speeds to the internet. Which potentially may be a far wider area than that of random hotspots I may be around. (If I'm not around such a hotspot, I can always connect at 1XRTT speeds, which connects at about 40k/30k - not fast, but sufficient to use google, ichat, and a couple of browser windows, arguably faster than at some clients' sites.)

The cons:

It is EXPENSIVE, clocking in at $80/month (the same service in Japan, using the same technology is only $40/month). There's also no clear coverage map. Brooklyn (meaning flatbush between atllantic and ocean) for one appears not to have EVDO coverage yet. The card also seems to be fairly finicky with the computer. I can be connected using EVDO, and then suddenly drop to 1XRTT, go back and forth as time goes on. And the signal strength bar seems to widely fluctuate between several bars and no bars. Some of this can be attributed (using my cargo cult knowledge of mobile phone protocols) to the ability of CDMA (the wireless technology used by everybody these days for high speed mobile phone network internet, and regular mobile phone service from Sprint & Verizon) to "breathe" to deal with network congestion. As more people get on the network, the coverage area shrinks.


But come on man. I was sitting a block from Grand Central, on 42nd st.

I have 15 days to decide if I want to keep the service. So we'll see.

Also, Mr. Handler of Lemony Snickett fame has a new indie movie out, directed by the person who did American Psycho. It opens today, and plays at the Angelika. Anybody game?

Anybody game to find me an affordable 2 bedroom apartment in manhattan in a safe neighborhood?

Anybody?

Beuller? Bueller?