Other things that initially seemed strange now seem perfectly normal. For example, you could go into Fry's and get surly service, computer motherboards, and shampoo. It was all any good, red-blooded engineer needed for survival. And yes, you could also get nacho chips and UART chips. It was a cranky sort of bliss. Here's a hint to CompUSA: add snack foods and grooming supplies to your stock. We'd buy more stuff. And to those wierd supermarket places like Shopright and Pathmark: add some computer gear. Then we'd actually go inside.

Here in Central New Jersey, we're not completely devoid of strange. The Stewarts drive-in root beer joint that's the dictionary definition of summer decided to be closed for business on the Fourth of July. Strange. There's a CVS pharmacy in the big shopping center next to where I live. There's another CVS pharmacy at the other end of my condo complex, in the next shopping center. But that doesn't seem to be enough. They're now building a new CVS to go between the two. Strange.

Even the Internet is not devoid of strangeness. And no, I'm not talking about the government's continued attempts to restrict free speech with CDA II. No, I'm talking about customer service. As our readership has grown, our Internet feed has proven to be somewhat inadequate to the task--especially on the first couple of days after we launch the journal. It takes everyone more time to load pages than we'd like. So we've embarked on an effort to add bandwidth, and our goal was getting it online before the August issue. Unfortunately, the ISPs and Web Presence Providers (WPPs) have other ideas. Like never returning phone calls. Like not responding to email. Like not even listing customer service numbers or changing them to unlisted numbers after taking credit-card numbers. So, despite our best efforts to spend money and increase bandwidth, it hasn't happened yet.