Modemo Bizarro

Maybe in a few more years, I’ll be able to get DSL where I live. I could have local wireless broadband, but I’m not about to fork over $600 for the installation anytime soon.

That means I live with a very old and creaky dialup connection, administered via a sturdy Global Village 56K external modem, one of the old ones that plugs into a — gasp! — modem port. Make that two gasps, because I’m still using a computer that actually HAS a dedicated modem port. Still and all, most of the time it works. Usually I have to try a couple times to connect, because for some reason the system can’t detect a carrier signal the first time around. And when I do get connected, I never test the speed, because the figure is likely to tempt me to disconnect and roll the dice for a higher bps, and that brings me right back where I started.

So here I was earlier this evening, typing a email to my sweetie, when all of a sudden the lights in the room dim to about half their usual brightness and stay there. The computer was unaffected, strangely, but the modem went bananas, clicking and clacking like a demented typist on speed, while all three of the little LEDs in front flashed on and off repeatedly and randomly in colors I’d never seen before. There was a long, extended static-like sizzling noise that scared the hell out of me. The episode most resembled one of those Star Trek scenes where the Enterprise gets hit by a wave of mysterious subspace radiation that causes the instruments to crackle and flash while all the crew members except Data experience identity change and have their DNA spontaneously altered. Needless to say, I switched everything OFF pronto.

The lights stayed dimmed throughout the house for at least 15 minutes (ah, New Mexico), then came back up. I rebooted the PowerMac 8600 and turned on the modem. No smoke, no flashes. A minute later I was online and still am as I sit here typing this report. I was sure the Global Village was fried, but it ain’t.

Damn, they made good stuff.