Looking for an Internet café with a bit more . . . ?
When living in Melbourne, I spent a good deal of time finding the perfect Internet café. It wasn't that they were hard to find, but I had never anticipated the difficulty there was in finding one that I actually liked—cheap rates, good location, friendly service, not sketchy, no funky smell (come on, people, I'm really not that picky).
That's why I wish I would have known about Cybercafes.com, an online database of 4,000 Internet cafés in over 140 countries. All you have to do is plug in the city you're visiting, and a list will pop up with numerous Internet cafés around town. Entries include the cafe's address info, website, rates, and even facility information for some (the number of computers, other services, etc.). There are no reviews (which means it's up to you to find out if the establishment has a funky smell), but it'll save you some time wandering the streets of a foreign city looking for any place with Internet connection.
In case you were wondering—my most-frequented Internet café in Melbourne was Global Gossip (440 Elizabeth Street, located just a few blocks away from the Queen Victoria Market), which gave me cheap Internet, cheap calling cards, (nearly) soundproof phone booths, and postal services.
Photo: Lars Kristian Flem via Flickr
This post reminds me of that hilarious Improv Everywhere prank where they sent 3 people lugging huge, ancient, desktop computers into a Starbucks. Watch the reactions of the customers and staff when the agents plug in and power up these behemoths and start surfing the web like they were using laptops. One prankster even balances the gigantic CRT monitor on her lap:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/25/pranksters-invade-starbucks-with-desktop-computers/
Posted by: Marilyn Terrell | March 20, 2008 at 02:28 PM