I surrender, Dorothy

And I finally set up a land line with a WiFi box, to be installed on April 3rd. It's Verizon FiOS and is costing me more than I thought it would but I just can't handle this scrounging for the interweb. I actually bought a gift card from Starbucks so I could sign on and get access to my .mac e-mails. Not cheap but I can live with it for a little while.

I wonder if Brendan did this to shut down my use of the online-able stuff and better focus on his story. Problem with that is, some of the best info I got comes from the NICRA site in Derry -- lots of photos and background info on the actual protests and history of the horror that followed -- and I like to jump onto Google to grab a bit of info when I'm thinking about it; if I wait, I have to dig through my notes and remind myself of what I needed to know.

For example -- I thought Denmark was on the Euro, since it's also part of the EU. But like the UK, Denmark opted out from using the Euro and kept the Krone...and it's apparently helping them during this financial crisis, unlike Greece and Spain, who both adopted the Euro and are now faced with brutal austerity measures to handle their sudden budgetary problems. If they'd still been on the Peseta and Drachma, they'd be better able to handle the problem.

BTW -- did you know Goldman Sachs advised Greece on how to hide their growing national debt, thus setting the stage for their possible default? American financial wizards -- the gift that keeps on giving.