A Man Unplugged

In an attempt to waylay unsavory habits of borrowing movies, music, and software my household unanimously decided to cut the cord (so to speak) and cancel the internet component of our cable services. Even though I did my best Jeff Winger, I couldn't convince them to kill everything. College football is starting again and they would have none of my just-cancel-the-cable craziness. Apparently they need football at home much more than I need the internet at home. So I lost and won.

Officially I am unplugged; it's a can't-stop-my-hands-from-shaking feeling, like an addict going cold turkey. My brain, suffering from withdraw, started listing all the things I could no longer do without the internet. Team Slayer in Halo Reach, gone. Wait, that means Xbox Live is...gone. And that means the PlayStation Network is also...gone. The shakes come back. Who am I going to lose to in Mortal Kombat? What about all those new features in the next Disgaea game? Screaming now. The lights go out. What have I done? Paying bills online...gone. No more youtube, iTunes, or flickr. All is lost. All is lost.

What have I done? Okay, relax. It's not as bad as I'm making out to sound. The disconnected life does mean that the Xbox and PS3 lose their online multi-player; there will be less idle browsing in flickr, youtube and facebook. Yeah, I'm going to miss this stuff at first, but it won't be a horrible loss. And there's one key word I want everyone to read: TEMPORARY. The plan is to flip the magical internet switch back on at the beginning of September. Think of it as a cache-clearing technodetox.

This is an experiment, in the greatest sense of the word. I want to see if I can do it. Go without the internet at home. I can still read up on things and blog during my mandatory hour lunch break at work. On top of all that, I can use my new phone to check my email and jack into the interwebs (which I won't do too often because I'm not a fan of touch screen interneting). All the bases of necessity are covered and I feel confident I can make it until August 31, 2011 before I call the cable company, half screaming, half crying for them to give us back our internet. I don't know how my roommates will manage, but if worst comes to worst...

...there's always unsecured wireless networks.