May 12, 2002

the belch heard round the world

More convergence of realworld and online ties today. My family--daughter, husband, and me--spoke for the first time over the net, him in Hong Kong, us here in Georgia, thanks to Yahoo IM's Talk feature. He finally found a cybercafe barely quiet enough to hear us, and my laptop finally cooperated.

The result was an amazing (to me) family dialogue taking place on opposite sides of the world as we lived our lives in our normal abnormal way. Different from the phone? Yeh, it felt different. Some twisted kind of speaker phone is the best analogy. Maybe because I realized that, out of a PC on an Island in Asia, my daugher's belch rang out loud and clear, for all to hear.

"Daddy, did ya hear my burp? Did ya daddy?"

"Yes, sweetie. I heard your burp."

What's not to love about that?