How did we survive the pre-Internet world?

9/3/2009

Welcome to the Blade blog Culture Shock, a three-times-a-week riff by Pop Culture Editor Kirk Baird on pop culture news, events, and trends. The blog will appear Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings here, with the odd night or off-day posting if something is merited.

Please excuse the late Culture Shock posting ... I'm in the throes of moving, which is painful in more ways than one.

Sure, there's the agonizing toll loading and hauling boxes and furniture up and down stairs takes on the body. But even more painful is my loss of the Internet. I am without an ISP for the time being.

The tech guy's comin' out tomorrow morning to get the house wired and activate service, but for the time being I can't surf the Web. I can't even get near the beach, for that matter.

I don't consider myself an Internet addict (my wife may beg to differ), but not being plugged in to the World Wide Web for a few days is disorienting. It's like being at a party and watching everyone share some juicy secret that you're not privy to. I feel left out.

I miss e-mails. I miss quick access to news. I miss Facebook. I miss spending hours mindlessly bouncing from random Web sites. I miss not being to chat with the widow in Nigeria about the large sums of money she has access to, but needs my help in securing.

Anyway, HOPEFULLY, all goes well tomorrow and I'll be up and running again, surfing the Web without a care in the world. (Until I look in the corner of the basement and see a forbidding stack of taped-up boxes that need to be opened and unpacked.)

Until then, I'll have Internet access through work. A SPAM e-mail to my work account never looked so good.

So, I did interview King James. The dude is taller stretched out in a chair than I am sitting upright. Good for him, sucks for me.

The interview with LeBron will run Sunday, Sept. 27. And yes, I did ask him about staying in Cleveland.

Agree or disagree with a posting? Lemme know. Have a topic or suggestion? Lemme know that, too. Send an e-mail to kbaird@theblade.com or call 419-724-6734.