The 1's Are Fine But The 0's Are Droopy

My little part of the web has been moving very slowly tonight. I could not load anything. Email worked. My server worked. However, there seemed to be a "don't talk to Jim" conspiracy out there in the cryptic nooks and crannies of cyberspace. Like most conspiracy theories, mine is worth what I paid for it -- nothing. The ancients looked at the random glory of the stars in the sky and thought they saw lions, bears, and heroes roaming around. We look at the seemingly random and incessant stream of soundbits, anonymous sources, and talking heads that bombard us everyday and see villains lurking behind every unanswered question and ethereal coup-plotters capable of the most malicious deeds. My villains, however, are all machines. Slow servers. Reluctant routers. A superhighway clogged with porn and irrelevancies. In real life, if only we could hit Refresh.