olyclimber

I don't think there is a commitment other than maybe if you use your existing phone number, and you want to go back to POTS, then you might have lag time between the switch over. Also, you've got to put out money to buy the VOIP device(s).

But look at the bright side, you get to burninate things. not everyone gets to do that.

me too in a couple of minutes

Should be able to. If they don't, then dump'em and go with cable. I'm probably going to stick with DSL though. Qwest just owns the line, I use a different ISP for my Internet connection.

I use skype, but I want something to use with my regular phones that I can configure to use local 911, etc.

tell me your troubles Trogdor.

You're looking at it wrong...I thought the same thing initially...but you're just listing the 206 area code. It actually lists Bainbridge.....and Seattle. Look to the right.

this has to be one my all time favorites:

Since it relies on the existance of a working broadband connection, it isn't going be that resiliant in a major disaster...but then perhaps not much will be (maybe a standard, analogue phone line would be more resiliant). Then you'll be glad you got an amateur extra license so you can geek out and CQ CQ. Thinking of the last "event", there was the last earthquake here in Seattle. As I recall, the cellphone networks were effected as everyone tried to call their mom at the same time, not because the network actually went down. The land lines do have an advantage in this respect, because they are more resistant to overloading.

I thought about this, but I have a cellphone and can use that if there is a localized power outage. if that is dead too then there is some major shizzle going on.

Me too. I'm going for it.

I thought it was your new high def plasma.

in 6th grade, after reading the complete Tom Brown survival guide book series, i ventured out into the woods armed only with a pocket knife. the adventure involved killing and eating 4 inch trout minnows, building a lean-to hut, and spending the afternoon unsuccessfully trying to make a fire by rubbing sticks together. i didn't sleep a wink, as it was too cold at night in the lean-to, but some how we survived, thanks to Tom Brown.

anyone using voice over IP as their only land line? I'm thinking about going with Vonage and getting rid of the landline all together (except for the DSL service of course). That way I could call Dru every night without any long distance costs.

I'll do it for $500,000 and a $10,000 signing bonus.

they're in handcuffs

"I trade you two bushels of yak butter, one yurt, and a goat for your coat and your daughters"

"hurry up and take the damn photo so I can get back in the helicopter!"

there will be plenty of time for sleep later. after I go fouling.

Are you sure? Geeks never know that they are.

was it you that went fouling?

"Real" as in she really exists? Plastic is known element, right?

Most people recognize the first Thanksgiving as taking place on an unremembered date, sometime in the autumn of 1621, when the Pilgrims held a three-day feast to celebrate the bountiful harvest they reaped following their first winter in North America. Two American colonists have personal accounts of the 1621 Thanksgiving in Massachusetts: William Bradford, in Of Plymouth Plantation: "They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their house and dwelling against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck of meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned by true reports." Edward Winslow, in Mourt's Relation: "Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty." The Pilgrims did not hold Thanksgiving again until 1623, when it followed a drought, prayers for rain and a subsequent rain shower. Irregular Thanksgivings continued after favorable events and days of fasting after unfavorable ones. Gradually an annual Thanksgiving after the harvest developed in the mid-17th century. This did not occur on any set day or necessarily on the same day in different colonies. Some, including historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., point out that the first time colonists from Europe gave thanks in what would become the United States was on December 4, 1619, in Berkeley, Virginia. That was when the thirty-eight members of The Stanford Company landed there after a three-month voyage in the Margaret. Having been recruited from Gloucestershire to establish a colony in the New World, the men were under orders to give thanks when they arrived, so the first thing they did was to kneel down and do so. from Wikipedia

in short, yes.

If you think that existance is just suffering, then I suppose the it is glamorous to burn out rather than fade away. But if you figure out how to enjoy your time here, then it isn't so bad and you want to stay awhile. I've spent a little time on either side of the fence, but I totally agree with you Lowell. I'm hoping to be here for a while.