Before you send email about the Dylan quote being not quite accurate, you should know two things: 1) I'm quoting from memory as I can't check the lyrics via Google, and 2) I won't get your mail until the end of next week. This is so embarrassing to report. It wasn't Consolidated Edison (does that even exist anymore?) I forgot to pay, but Qwest, nee US West, a.k.a., The Phone Company. Which forgetfulness resulted not only in the abrupt cessation of my telephone dial tone, but of my DSL service as well.

It wasn't that I didn't have the money this time, though that's been a problem in days (fortunately) past. No, it was mere garden variety irresponsibility. So caught up did I become in the finer points of The Insider/Outsider Problem, esoteric quasi-rational religious studies, and suchlike acrcana, that I couldn't be bothered with minutiae like telephone bills. And for this overweening arrogance I have now paid the predictable price: temporary banishment from the realm of 21st Century Communications Technology. That is to say, I've been ostracized from the ranks of real-time bloggerdom.

It feels so weird to be composing this off-line. Unnatural. I've had to go through my previously downloaded collection of bizarre stock photos and weirdball graphical screen clips and select random pics to illustrate this rambling apologia for why I'm really not here at all -- and won't be until a week from tomorrow Qwest tells me. Which brings to mind another Dylan quote: "Casanova is being punished tonight on... Desolation Row."

I suppose I could turn this into a Public Service Announcement. Kids, don't let this happen to you! "Forgetting" to pay your phone bill on time is a serious crime. Just because some of your "blogger" pals do it, doesn't mean you have to follow suit. Is it really worth jeopardizing your future to post that "one more thing" instead of going to your assigned telecom webpage and dropping a big wad of cash on your long-suffering multinational creditor? No. You don't need this sort of black mark on your Permanent Record. You don't need to ruin your life by spacing out your rightful Obligations As A Citizen. So remember: always fork over "the bread" you owe -- or face the consequences! (This message is brought to you as a public service by the Advertising Council of America.)

To attempt some soupçon of relevance to recent thematic foci here at CBO -- not to mention rationalizing the inclusion of the shot of kids in top-hats and the book-cover graphic, supra -- let me add a few further caveats and bits of helpful advice. Don't forget to be born white and privileged and to keep plenty of money in your VISA-card account so these unfortunate service stoppages don't mess up or slow down your all-important Productivity. Even better, sign up for our convenient -- and Fee! -- Automatic Bill Payment option so you needn't be bothered with the details of when and how much to pay on the thousands of fee-based services required to remain viable in Today's Modern Society. Better still, have your accountant take care of all this crap, as do captains of industry like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. You don't see them getting blown offline for spacing out on a measly four hundred bucks, do you? No. So remember, kids: it's always better to be rich than sorry! Have a nice day.

But this is all just just pointless whining, of course. I had the money. I had every opportunity to relate to the "Important: Open Immediately!" letter from Qwest instead of tossing it on the stack of similarly unopened bills littering my living room floor. I should have picked up the phone while it was still working and "made payment arrangements," as they like to say, so that I wouldn't get to the point I'm at now where I have to write this content-free non-post without benefit of Amazon and Highbeam Research for fact checking and the sort of weirdball "would you look at this!" cultural dynamics that you know we so favor on this blog, and then drive across town in an unregistered vehicle, risking apprehension by the Boulder cops and possibly a month in the slammer for a second offense, just to access the net via Starbucks' horrifically overpriced T-Mobile HotSpot service and thereby upload this pathetic excuse for a blogpost.

In closing, I am moved to append the screen capture I'm most proud of having snagged. It's from one of those draconian warnings the movie industry has produced in its pathological -- if entirely understandable -- paranoia over what I have often called "the technologies of plagiarism" -- one of those annoying PSA spots that DVD makes it so easy to skip over. In my never ceasing efforts to win-place-or-show in the Guinness Book of Records "World's Most Ironic Ripoff" category, I used Graphic Converter Pro X v. 5.6 to boost the following straight off the video disk. I hope you like it. If so, please circulate widely.

steal this grafik