Well, I was going to write this on one of the many free wireless spots in the US – one of the things I had been missing living outside of the United States the past years. Sadly, that can’t happen. I’ve been driving around Raleigh this morning and haven’t located a free WiFi hookup yet. Admittedly, I’ve been perusing shopping malls and chain coffee shops, but still. When I left here, WiFi was free. Now, not so much. So, I sit here in a Barnes and Noble, not paying the $3.95 for 2 hours of WiFi. My iPhone tells me that there’s two free WiFi locations in Chapel Hill – both at Cup A Joe’s – and one of them is less than 5 miles from where I started my drive this morning.

That brings me to another gripe. I have an iPhone, and it’s wonderful and all, but… but, I can’t use it to tether my laptop to the internet. In Apple and AT&T’s infinite wisdom, that will be a paid service, later. With bandwidth caps. And it will cost an extra $20 or $30 per month. That’s on top of the $30 per month my wife and I pay for unlimited text messages, and the $30 a month I pay for 3G internet for my iPhone. Now, where I’m moving from – the “backwards” land of the Middle East (which many people here seem to think is camels and tents, not skycrapers) – SMS messages are 15 fils each. That’s less than .04 USD. So, I’d have to send 750 messages to spend the same on text there as I spend to have the ability to not worry about it here. AND. AND. There’s always an AND. AND – the person I send messages to pays for them as well here. Which is possibly the most retarded thing I’ve ever heard of. Anyone can send you a message. And you have to pay for it. I’m covered (with my monthly $30 of filthy lucre), but I’m hesitant to send messages to friends here – unless I know they have an iPhone. Otherwise, I’m costing them money to read my mindless “want to get coffee” messages. It’s actually cheaper here to just call them. Grrr.

Sorry, got a little distracted there. And I’m burning up my battery, as there’s no where to plug my laptop in. I guess my point is that while I love being in the US and all, and yes, it’s better for us to be here, with child coming and all – the US really has a lot of things backwards. No wonder the international community finds us so strange.