Author: Peter Tan

The Iraqis are so lucky. They have a guardian angel that is looking over them. He sends an army to liberate them from an oppressive tyrant and also to seek and destroy weapons of mass destruction stashed there. He rains missiles and bombs on their cities with his weapons of mass destruction so that he can rebuild it from the rubbles that he has created.

He has confiscated their country?s assets in the United States and taken over their oil fields and oil terminals and plans to use the proceeds to finance the post-war reconstruction of Iraq with corporations short-listed from his own country. Perhaps he will also introduce to them the democracy that has served the Americans for over three hundred years, to respect human rights and the legal system where no one is guilty until otherwise proven beyond reasonable doubt.

The Iraqis are so lucky. They must really be thankful to this man who has such good foresight to unshackle them in an all out war called Operation Iraqi Freedom and then help rebuild the infrastructure and other whatnots that he has bombed to kingdom come with their own money. Who needs Saddam Hussein when they can have George W. Bush?

Streamyx, the only nationwide broadband service in Malaysia, has practically ground to a halt. It is a joke that dialup users are surfing at much faster speeds. Subscribers have vented their frustrations through the press, newsgroups and forums, castigating TMNet for not being forthcoming with the answers as to the root cause of the problem.

Despite the entire hullabaloo, TMNet is extremely slow in informing its subscribers regarding the status of the problem. First, it was an authentication server problem. Much later, we were informed that Streamyx was under a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. After three weeks, the problem is still not resolved.

To add insult to injury, Streamyx subscribers are tied down by a one-year contract with TMNet and have to continue paying for a service that is not usable. Cyberaddicts like me have no choice but to wait for TMNet to rectify the problem, or connect through dialup which would add more burden to our expenses in a trying time like this.

This lackadaisical attitude by a monopolistic service provider casts a pall to Malaysia?s Multimedia Super Corridor ambition. And yes, I am suffering from another bout of withdrawal symptoms. Now, where is my Valium….

My name is Peter and I am a cyberaddict. I had my first Internet account at the age of 29. I believe I was hooked the first time I logged in. Initially, it was just a couple of hours each day ? one hour in the morning and another in the evening. It was so subtly gradual that I did not realise I was addicted to the Internet until I could not log in for several weeks.

The withdrawal symptoms were awful. I suffered from insomnia, poor appetite, and had a foul temper. I unrestrainedly hammered my computer and modem with the notion that it would get me connected again if I hit them hard enough. That was never successful!

That was five years ago. I am not making any effort cure myself from this addiction. Why! I have even graduated to a broadband connection just to squeeze more digital juice out of my waking hours. Now I can surf all day long for a flat rate of RM88 per month. I still suffer from withdrawal symptoms occasionally when the line goes dead for several hours without any reason. If I was not in a foul mood, I would be wallowing in despair at the dead connection.

I am a cyberaddict and I am enjoying every moment of it. I have no desire to yank myself away from my PC. I have no desire to recover. And I have vowed to get a connection with an even higher bandwidth when it is available and affordable.