I love technology

I get a few podcasts for free, including Best Week Ever and NBC Nightly News. With my mind-numbingly slow (and free!) internet, it would seriously take 8 hours to download the half hour news program. More importantly, my slow internet was preventing me from keeping in touch with people at home as much as I wanted to, so it had to G-O go. (Old internet speed, download @ 8.98 kbps, upload @ 9.48 kbps)

Soooo, I gave in and paid for cable internet, which was of course as complicated as possible and took a total of 3 days. I tried to get the infamous Foreigners' Internet, which I know exists because Paula has it. With Foreigners' Internet, nothing's blocked! I asked someone in the international office who deals with all the foreign teachers and our living arrangements.

"What is the difference?" they asked.
"Well, some pages that I can see in America, I can't see here. I DON'T KNOW WHY THAT WOULD BE, but with Foreigner's Internet, I can view those pages."
"Why do you want to see that kind of web page?"

So now they think I'm trying to watch kiddie porn, not just read the BBC or go to one of the various .gov sites that's blocked [Sidebar: Let's be honest, China. More often than not, the blocked page I want to see is a celebrity gossip blog. If I'm trying to access a page about your juicy secrets, the only reason why I want to view it is because they're blocked, and I want to find out what all the hullabaloo is about so I can decide whether or not to judge you]. Despite the fact that I know it exists, I have seen it with my own eyes, I was told repeatedly that Foreigners' Internet doesn't exist, by various people, including the internet company. A bit pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

So some of the web is still blocked (have I mentioned this? Did you know that some websites are blocked in China?), but now I can get around it much faster.

Other things that I can now do with my faster internet:

• Video Chat, provided your internet is decent, and you have 20 minutes to spare, most of which will be spent typing "Why isn't this working" "I don't know, try again." to eachother.

• Slingbox This thing is amazing!! My dad set it up before I left, but because of my slow internet, I wasn't able to use it. I have software on my computer that connects online to the Slingbox which is sitting at my parent's house, attached to their TiVo, allowing me to watch their tv from my computer! I have a remote on my screen and then a window for the "television," so I can use it almost as easily as using a regular tv at home. I wish: Two people could control the TiVo at the same time, allowing my mom and I to watch different things while using the same system. With the 12 hour time difference, it hasn't been a problem yet. I also wish I could download from TiVo to my computer so I wouldn't have to be connected to the internet to watch. Also, the TiVo is set up for local and movie channels, no Bravo, Vh1, or other cable channels, but that's just because of the plan my parents have. But, Hello!: It's American TV whenever I want! And since it's TiVo, I can set shows to record and watch them later, ie, during Chinese waking hours. Random: It's very weird watching local news while sitting in China. It's also weird to see America money. How strange is that? Someone showed me a US dollar bill that they had in their wallet, and I couldn't stop giggling about how weird it looked, and how weird it is that I thought it looked weird, etc weirdⁿ

• Skype. Skype used to be pretty much the same thing as AIM or MSN Messenger-- you can talk to people online via text, with just audio, or audio/video. But Skype has since become this really amazing thing, mostly because it allows me to call people's phones from my computers for like, 2¢ a minute. And, AND, it allows you to buy a local number, which means people can call that number from their phone at home, just as if they're calling me from down the street, and it calls Skype account. I think I can set up call forwarding to send it to my cell, but that's probably another feature I have to pay for.
  

In other technology related news, my air conditioner manages to make my apartment hotter than it is outside (no exaggeration). It's not like it's SO hot here, but it's hot. I think it got up to 95F or so today, but it doesn't cool off at night. For instance, according to weather.com it's 87F at 11pm, so no, if you were wondering, I'm not sleeping that great these days. I'm considering moving to the floor, where I'd expect it's a bit cooler. Also, my spacebar seems to not be working,which made writing this very irritating.