I Don't Like Change. I Don't Like Change. I DON'T LIKE CHANGE.

In mid-'98 I moved from Metairie, LA to New Jersey and took a job with what would probably be called a dot-com company. Things with the company are rocky right now, and I'm considering leaving. I used to love working with this company, but things changed.

In mid-'98, all things considered, I enjoyed life, I was proud to be an American, and I think we had it pretty good in America. Diebold happened in 2000 & 2004, and things changed.

In mid-'99 I bought a house, and simultaneously signed up for Speakeasy DSL Internet service, which I've had continuously since then. My SE service is slower and more expensive than Comcast cable or Verizon DSL service, but the service/support and liberal Terms of Service are so refreshing and outstanding that I've done nothing but rave about Speakeasy for the 8 years I've been a customer. Last spring I cancelled my Verizon phone service and moved my home phone service over to the Speakeasy DSL line as well. Then, this morning I received an email from Speakeasy informing me that Best Buy has bought SE. According to the email, nothing will change. I don't believe it. I'm willing to give the new, Best Buy-owned Speakeasy a chance, if for no other reason than changing will be a major pain, but I expect things to change for the worse over the next 6 months to a year.

I Don't Like Change. In fact, I'm thinking I ought to make that the name of this blog.

There is a potential upside to this, though. My neighbor recently got Verizon FIOS. For $99/month, he's getting digital TV to 2 different TVs in his home, VOIP, and unprecedently fast Internet service. For a while I've wondered if maybe I should cancel SE and get cable or Verizon, in order to spend less and get faster service, but I always stuck with SE for the less mainstream benefits - liberal TOS, 2 static IPs, competent and friendly tech support, news servers, free national dial-up, etc.... If SE begins to suck and eliminates all of those benefits, I'll simply grab FIOS and save money while surfing at much higher speeds. Things could be worse.