Houston Boldly Moves Forward with (Porn) Free WiFi
Ready to leap headlong into the 21st Century, we grabbed a laptop this afternoon and tried out several of the city’s access points for free wireless. There’s a handy (Flashy!) map of locations posted online, but it’s so futuristic (Flashy!) that you can’t print it out easily, so here’s hoping you’re already online next time you need to figure out where you can get online.
First up was the Metro Rail’s Bell Station, where we got a big, juicy signal…and couldn’t log on. We were connected. We had bars. But all we got was the lovely “Firefox can’t establish a connection” message. Bummer. We were really hoping to get that “world class city” feeling while waiting for the train.
The same thing happened outside the downtown YMCA, and we lapsed into victim-mentality and started to blame ourselves. Were we doing something wrong?
The handy (Flashy!) map told us there were several access points clumped together near City Hall, so we headed there for another test. We plopped down in front of the library between two homeless dudes and saw another big, juicy signal…but we still couldn’t log on. So we picked up our laptop and started walking towards Texas Avenue, and then, like a Biblical dove carrying a twig from across the sea, up came the City of Houston’s main wifi page. Hallelujah.
After entering an email address and being redirected to our homepage (houstonpress.com, baby!), we decided it was time to test the bandwidth in the best way we knew how. With porn. Sweet, streaming, hardcore porn.
But, alas, the city has blocked all pornographic sites. Freedom, it seems, isn’t always (part of) free (wifi). We couldn’t even get Fleshbot.com. The best we could do was that tired picture of Madonna hitchhiking naked.
We guess not all tales have happy endings. – Keith Plocek
Know how to beat the porn filter? Let us (and the world) know in the comments please…
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