Some people worry about what would happen to the Viaduct in a major earthquake. I worry about our public schools.

The district has cut back on maintenance since the late '79s. Half the buildings are more than 60 years old. They are belatedly trying to catch up on seismic retrofits but it's a lot of buildings and a lot of money.

The district has slowed the rate of the backlog but today it stands at nearly $530 MILLION dollars.

Roxy Music is some of the very best music ever made over the last thirty years. Bryan Ferry can make me cry. Thanks for the clip.

We'd better shut down all military bases and turn them into nuclear plants because more people have died on bases in the last forty-eight hours than have died due to problems with nuclear reactors.

I know Crowley made the military look bad for its torture of Bradley Manning, but that's in the past! The administration has to look forward, not backward. So how can they fire him when he hasn't made any flubs in the future, yet?

Lucky me, the first time I heard "Jealous Guy" was when Bryan Ferry sang it to me at the 5th Avenue Theater.

@4, So when are you going to go mine uranium for us and claim it's clean? Go touch some radon rocks, give 'em to your kids to make mud pies out of...it's fine...perfectly safe! Turns out that cancer's not bad after all!

I've got Clearwire service. But it's been good so far and I have not (afaik) had 1990's dial-up speeds. Last time I checked it was around the advertised speed.

Go hackers. Keep up the good work.

Simone, just wait a few weeks. It gets worse. And they will lie to you, and keep you hanging on trying to fix the problems over many calls ("Um, you seem to be between our towers ... walk the modem to the other side of the room ... no, I guess we'll send someone out to help you do that ... call back if it doesn't work after that," et al), until you finally have to quit them ... and then they will not refund your money, and will probably nail you with early termination fees. The people running Clearwire need to be literally tarred and feathered.

Fark, I average 40 kbps from AT&T. Maybe 90 on a good day.

In tenuous relationships/Roxy Music links...if the show "77 Million Paintings by Brian Eno" ever makes it to Seattle, you could find a worse way to spend an afternoon than sitting* in a comfy chair in a dark room at the gallery watching it.

*prerequisite would be cannabis related.

(gus, that's a very sweet story, hopefully the start of a long and satisfying relationship...?)

Canuck, I will keep an eye peeled...in truth, of course, Ferry sang to, among thousands, me and my date, a twink Montana refugee with lovely blue eyes, little gag reflex, and no idea who Bryan Ferry might be.

Thank God nobody was trapped below ground for days while the pumps and air failed due to lack of power and submersion when the Deeply Buried Tunnel was inundated during the earthquake!

Although, I did have trouble with using a new modem Clear had sent me. It took a few minutes of talk to customer service and all was sorted.

Roxy Music is lovely and all, but the best rendition of Jealous Guy I've ever heard is Jimmy Scott's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no_R704Ui…

Simone, I really do wish you the best of luck. The line staff customer service people are great considering what they have to endure. I'm talking about what will eventually happen when all your modems fail. I went through three of them, and multiple calls on each one before realizing that none of them would work. I really hope you're situation is different, though. But be prepared to document every call, and don't be afraid to make as many as you need to. Call them whenever it feels "dial up" -- and note it, and what was said each time. And if they start telling you over and over again to keep moving the modem around the room and nothing changes -- grab a pitchfork with the rest of us heading to their offices.