|
|
 |
 |
HOME
Where it all begins!
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
INSIDECOSTARICA.COM
|
COSTA RICA NEWS
BRIEFS |
Wednesday 29
December 2010 |
 |
|
|
|
Have You
Ever
Noticed
How
Important
Internet
and
cable
Television
Are To
Expats?
By John Holtz*
Take it
away for
and
length
of time,
for a
day
perhaps,
and you
feel
isolated
from the
real
world.
That
makes
Costa
Rica a
little
like
Disneyland.
A façade
of truly
nice
things
but we
have not
one idea
what is
going on
behind
the
scenes.
Who
makes
those
$8.00
hamburgers
anyway?
Today is
one of
those
days.
Amnet
cable
has
crashed
and
consequently
Amnet
Internet,
since
about
10:30am,
and it
is now
after
7:00pm.
I am a
prisoner
of
technology
and a
prisoner
of this
country
because
I have
no idea
what is
going on
beyond
our
borders
or what
the
football
scores
are.
Less,
the
weather
in
Denver
which is
the
source
of our
feed.
No Skype
calls,
in or
out, no
Craigslist
to
browse
when all
else is
boring,
not a
clue as
to the
stock
market
today,
no news
about
the US
and
European
snow, no
video
conferencing,
no
diagnosis
of
x-rays
from the
Mayo
Clinic
in
Minnesota,
no
Amazon.com,
Facebook..all
gone.
God!
Emails
also
gone,
payments
to
vendors
have to
wait…..the
list can
go on
and on.
I cannot
believe
that I
will
miss the
third
re-run
of
“NCIS”
with
Abbey
and
McGee?
But I
will.
What to
do?
Beside
pout, I
am going
to
finish
reading
an
Isabel
Allende
book.
(Island
Under
the Sea)
A great
writer
and
always a
good
read.
I will
try not
to
snack,
but that
is not a
promise.
There is
a lot of
unhealthy
but
tasty
stuff in
our
fridge
left
over
from
Christmas.
Rent a
movie! A
great
idea!
After
all we
can get
rentals
before
the
films
actually
hit the
big
screens.
A bonus
for
living
in the
tropics.
We went
to see
Naranja
or
Narnia
or
something
like
that the
other
day and
I liked
it.
(See? I
Cannot
look it
up on
Internet!)
The best
part is
that the
theatre
was
empty.
No
screaming
kids and
no
cellular
phones
with
back
lights
that
catch
your eye
every
ten
seconds.
I asked
Amnet if
we could
deduct
one day
from the
cable
and
Internet
bill.
The
answer
was dead
silence
followed
by a
telephone
disconnect.
Even the
tech
seemed a
little
ashamed
of the
service.
For my
home I
pay
almost
$80 a
month
and have
really
crummy
service
with two
televisions.
Usually
it runs
for the
computer
54Mbps
which is
nothing
to brag
about. I
can live
with
that,
but not
with two
outages
in the
same
week.
I smell
a
conspiracy
because
ICE´s
Acelera
was down
for
500,000
customers
the
other
day. I
did not
know
that
ICE´s
Acelera
has
500,000
customers
for that
matter?
So what
to do?
Nothing
just
read
Isabel
Allende´s
book and
be
shocked
in the
morning
that my
stock is
down and
my 80
year old
brother
is upset
because
I did
not call
and
because
the
Lakers
probably
lost
another
game,
but I do
not have
a clue
by how
much.
Ahhhhh!
Life in
the
Third
World.
Does
anyone
know,
and I
intend
to ask
again,
what is
the
Second
World? I
read the
First
World,
then it
seems to
drop to
the
Third
World
countries.
What´s
in
between?
*John
Holtz is
the
Executive
Director
of the
Center
for the
Studies
of
Modern
Management
www.modernmanagement.org
and can
be
reached
at:
[email protected].
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| |
Costa Rica's Daily English News
Source
Apdo. 2133-1000, San José, Costa
Rica
Tel: (506) 2231 3205 / (506) 8399
9642
Fax: (506) 2232 6337
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Insidecostarica is an independent news media
portal featuring news of Costa Rica, Central
America, Latin America and other wonderful
and weir stuff. External links are
provided for reference purposes.
Insidecostarica.com is not responsible for
the content of the external sites.
If you need more information or to provide
recommendations, write to
[email protected]
|
|
|
|
|
Join
our Facebook page