Desperation dialing

Still no internet -- it has popped on for half-hour spurts a couple of times in the past two days, but that's it. I realized, though, that I have a faxmodem attached for the one time a year that I might need to send a fax. So I am now on dial-up at a blazing 49.2 kbps. That wouldn't be too bad for just some quick email checking or posting to the blog, but it is turning out to be painful because my computer is set up for broadband -- as soon as the modem connected, four or five program started grabbing at the limited bandwidth with all their pent-up download demands. Ugh.