A long time ago in a galaxy far far away there was a thing called Compuserve. (To some of you this will mean a great deal. To others, it will mean nothing at all.) It was simple, text-driven, and easy to use. You sent messages, you received messages. People knew how to spell. The world was good. Then came the more 'sophisticated' Internet, with its growing cancerous mass of bells and whistles and pictures and ads (and ads and ads and ads, ad nauseum). But I was on BellSouth and things were still remarkably good. At least they look so from here, and now.Then, from out of nowhere, and totally uninvited, AT&T descended on BellSouth like vulture on road kill. The next thing I knew, my Bellsouth content had been hijacked by AT&T, drawing the life from it and pasting its own mindless ads all over each page. We were not given a choice -- we were merely assimilated into its Ninth Circle of Hell. AT&T sucked BellSouth like Monica sucked Bill. Before we knew it, it was all over with nothing to show but a small stain of @bellsouth.com as a reminder.
Sadly for those of us who remain in the hair-pulling, mind-numbing slow lane of dial-up -- not by choice but by geographical circumstance or the infantile petulance of the gods or the evil sting of technological Karma -- anything with more than one picture or two colors or 15 lines of text takes an eternity to load. I am 57 years old. I no longer have an eternity to watch as pages load on my computer screen. Nor do I have the eyesight. Nor do I have the patience. Inside I am screaming. Screaming! This is not good for my blood pressure. I get headaches waiting for content (most of which is unadulterated crap) to slowly drip down my computer screen. This slow trickle from The Information Highway causes me to suffer apoplexy.
This slow wait is eerily reminiscent of the early days of television (a few will remember this), when one turned on the tube and left the room to cook dinner or wax the car or birth a litter of puppies while the set "warmed up" for umpteen minutes. But at least when it warmed up there was something moderately interesting to watch. Why, the static discharge from the cathode ray tube alone was entertaining. Zap! Rendered semi-conscious for seconds.
But I digress. Back to the computer.
The nag screens from AT&T began to appear, touting how improved my experience would be when I 'migrated' to the new Yahoo-AT&T pages. My email would load faster, I'd have more options to personalize my web experience, and my home page would be a thing of beauty and a joy forever. How could I say no to such a compelling offer? Well, I managed. On dial-up magic does not happen. On dial-up doing laundry happens or dog-walking happens or watching paint dry happens. So, day after day I kept saying no. I wasn't happy with AT&T but I knew I sure in hell wouldn't be happy if AT&T was sucking on the hind tit of Yahoo.
Then the nag screens began to come more frequently and I knew it was only a matter of time. Instead of going days without the pressure to conform, I was suddenly faced with the choice of being assimilated or exterminated. After weeks of refusing to be absorbed by the bastard child of this unholy union, I held my nose and I took the plunge. I MIGRATED.
And the minute I began the process I realized I was doomed.
Now, the idea of migrating, as far as I can tell, offers with it the option to return to one's home. Birds do it. Bees do it. Even educated fleas do it. Not so with Yahoo-T. No such option is available in their Universe. Once you have gone to the Dark Side, there is no redemption, no going home, no sweet reunion with familiar icons and pleasing colors and shiny radio buttons.
Now, we have this malevolent marriage of AT&T and Yahoo, neither of which has any desire for or ability to meet the interests of its clientele. Additionally, and probably more disturbingly is, it's plainly obvious from the design of this alleged integration that the whole scheme was cooked up by a very large committee with a very small mean intelligence.
For example -- I have two bellsouth email accounts and also belong to several Yahoo Groups, two of which I am responsible for updating on a fairly regular basis. One would think (and this 'thinking' assumption is the biggest mistake) that AT&T and Yahoo would bundle all these services together, making all available on one page with a mere click of the mouse. Not so, Dear Reader, not so. In order for me to read my separate email accounts I have to go through the tedious, hair-pulling, blood-pressure rising process of logging out of one account and logging into another. (Remember, I am already 57 and my time on Earth is limited.) If this isn't bad enough, if I want to work on or upload anything to my Yahoo Groups, I have to log out yet again and log back into the Yahoo Groups site. This is beyond stupid. If one had to come up with a definition of beyond stupid, this has to be it. The whole scheme must have been, could only have been, designed by a bunch of crackbrained, imbecilic, vacuous, asinine people, who are probably either bankers or mortgage brokers or Congressmen.
This signing on and signing off, logging in and logging out would be bad enough if I had high speed. But I have dial-up, which in my area amounts to a little less than two tin cans and a string. As a society we have invented some pretty remarkable and totally useless things: the bullet-proof bed, the diaper harness, the fanny fan, the fish-n-flush toilet, pierced glasses (held to your head by actual piercing), the head napkin, the cricket gun, the extreme comb over, and even something called the Marilyn Manson Exercise Suit. Yet, high speed access totally defies the brainiacs at AT&T who apparently can't string a wire to my house and make DSL happen. Hell, I'm not asking for miracles like WiFi. I'm just asking for a web page to load before I collect social security.
The moral of my story is this ... if you have high speed, DSL, cable, or WiFi, get down on your knees and thank the gods of The Electron for your blessings. And while you are there, say a prayer for those of us languishing back in the 20th century for we know what we miss and are sorely oppressed. If you are an AT&T customer and are asked, cajoled, threatened or seduced, do NOT migrate to the new AT&T-Yahoofornication. Even if you have high speed or WiFi or satellite or can speak to your home planet in 17 different languages including Boolean Algebra and Inuktitut and Mati Ke, do not be provoked into migrating. Take my word for it. Nothing good can come from it and you'll probably end up apoplectic like me. Stay away from The Dark Side. As Nancy Reagan used to preach, "Just Say No!"
