Wireless networks -- Work of the devil or heaven sent?

I saw the very funny link that Eileen Cook had on her blog recently asking the question, "What if 24 had debuted in 1994."

Yes, technology moves quickly. So quickly it's often hard to remember we didn't always have the things we use daily. (When I first started articling for a CA firm as a co-op student... most offices didn't have fax machines, so we had a teletype... And yes, all the admin staff had typewriters on their desks.)

When I first started trying to write full time, I very quickly realized that some days, in order to get anything done, I had to get out of the house. So, I go to Starbucks, or Timothy's or various other coffee-type establishments that let you sit all day for the price of a coffee.

Initially, I had an IBM laptop, that was not wireless enabled. In fact, I'm not even sure if many coffee shops were networked at the time. But I decided the weight of the laptop in my backpack was not proportional to the amount of battery life I got... So I bought a keyboard for my Palm and purposefully didn't even look into hooking it up to the web. (Involved bluetooth stuff...)

But last year I treated myself and bought my lovely MacBook, which I am still head over heels in love with. (Seriously, our relationship is a little creepy.)

My only complaint (and it's not really a complaint) is that whereas my old laptop required a special card, not to mention several minutes of struggling through various Windows menus that never worked the first time, in order to hook up to a wireless network.

My Mac, on the other hand, automatically checks for networks every time I turn it on. How handy.

But I'm starting to think it's the devil's work. The point of getting out of my office was to stop obsessively checking my e-mails and spending 45 minutes answering some stupid question (or even smart question) posted to one of my writers' loops. The point was no access to news sites, or entertainment sites, or movie listings, or blogs....

I sat down in a Starbucks just after 9:00 am yesterday morning. Guess what time I started to actually work on my manuscript??? 12:30 pm.

Damn that wireless networking.