Edward Mills wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 10:08:43 +0900, Scott Reynolds wrote:

>>I suppose I am just lucky with my ISP's news server. There's been nary a
>>hiccup over the past several years. But then again I do have to use a
>>pay server for binaries.
> 
> You do? My IP has a news server that gets about ten million more groups
> than I care to take the time to wade through, and they don't care if it's
> binary or plain text. Never a problem, and it's included with the basic
> price (about 3,000 yen a month). 

My ISP (Jens Spinnet) carries lots of groups, but none of the posts in 
the big binary groups are ever complete. It is fine for text groups, though.

> However, I've been thinking of changing
> because a neighbor works for the local cable company and he can get me
> hooked up with a faster connection for the same price, plus all the perks
> he can hook me up with for just being wonderful me. The guy practically
> insists on buying almost every beer I drink down at the local watering
> hole. I refuse, he refuses to accept my refusal, he refuses to accept my
> refusal of his refusal, I try to turn the tables on him by ordering two
> beers from the bartender, he tells the bartender to put it on his tab... 

I guess he likes you. <g> If you can get a faster connection for the 
same price, why not give it a try? Of course, then you probably will 
have to find another news server, because most of the cable outfits have 
never heard of Usenet or that other thing this group is on.

> Things are a lot different now than when I first subscribed to
> compuserve/niftyserve and they thought I would be happy to pay them 500 yen
> a minute for a 1200 bps connection!

Yup, those were the days. I still have my old 1200 bps in a box 
gathering dust somewhere, or maybe I threw it away.

-- 
_______________________________________________________________
Scott Reynolds                                      sar@gol.com