The main site (inlawfilms.com) has been updated. (Yes, Timothy, the site does more than just host a bloggh.) The other half of In-Law Films and I had an hour break between filming sections of a woman’s 100th birthday party. We went to McDonald’s for dinner and some web-designing. (We decided that 3 Hot n’ Spicies were worth more than a small frappalattoccinomochagrande from the non-cool Battlestar Galactica “bucker of stars”. (I may be designing on a MacBook, but I’m not THAT pretentious. But I would love to see a coffee shop run by both pilots (old series and new).)
I turned AirPort on, I started Safari, and I opened my Dashboard. J mocked me for my wrestling panda icon from the San Diego Zoo webcam. The fact that the disturbing picture was still there meant that the Internet was running really slowly or was not even connecting. I swished (which you do a lot of in Mac OSX (before Vista)) back to Safari and saw www.inlawfilms.com get replaced in the URL box by a string of intense gibberish. My browser then loaded up a page about Arch Cards and deals on sandwiches.

Ronald McDonald hijacked my MacBook.

As I explored the intruding page, I realized that you had to pay to use the Wi-Fi.
Here’s my hang-up. I stayed at a Comfort Inn this past weekend. They have Wi-Fi. They let you use it whether you are a customer or not (I started sending an e-mail as we drove up to the parking lot). I don’t think that they had a lot of crazy traffic since the speed was still pretty good.

I had purchased food at McDonald’s. I was ready to work. My browser could only access Arch Cards.

I can understand having a password for paying customers. I guess it makes sense that they can charge for their own stuff. It just doesn’t make customer service sense when the Bookman’s across the street had a free, open network.

Here’s the big hang-up:

1. Ronald does not realize how much of a benefit to society he could be. With free online applications like KBdocs , the $100 laptop is even closer to existence. Imagine every McDonald’s location having a free hotspot. Imagine that 802.11g would be everywhere the Arches were, as prolific as those littery straw sleeves are. Poverty could be decreased. Ronald McDonald does not want poor orphans to take online college courses. He wants to hold them down so that they will be content slaughtering rainforest devouring cows.
2. I’m really not down with mega corporations overtly jacking my software, especially something so deep rooted as my Safari home page. At least have the professional courtesy to covertly jack our computers a la Neuromancer/Idoru/Count Zero.
3. Do we have to pay for the water that we use in the bathroom?
4. Do you think this makes Ray Kroc smile?
5. It was raining and we were running out of time so I had to wait until after the second half to upload the site. Woe is me and all that. Faint.

My students asked me today what Firefox was. I said that it was the browser that all of the cool Internet kids use.

The intricate stats for the bloggh agree.

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1. Nuggets-Fries-Chocolate Milk!