Net connections. Got some spare net connections, mister?

Beneath the din of our everyday life is a silence, a silence that results from the stopping of the hearts of Blackberry owners. Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the Blackberry, on a lower court's injunction in a patent dispute. (RIM is a Canadian company, but most of its business is in the states.) As it stands now, the Blackberry service in U.S. could go dark in February. I don't think that it will happen, though. There's too much money involved and there are too many addicted users. RIM will find a way to settle, although they lost almost all of their bargaining power. The deal that they turned down last fall looks pretty good.

The hotel is having a problem; its network cannot connect to the outside world. I learned this when I called their tech support. It's been a long time since I've talked with someone so bored and so condescending. I can be an idiot about some stuff, but not this.

We had a similar problem in the room where we are meeting with the customer. I began to think that I had the Midas touch - everything I touch turns to mufflers.

With the network connections down, the three-hour meeting was finished in two. The connections were restored in time for the lunch break. I can pretty well guarantee that we'll use all of the allocated time for the afternoon meetings.