If you want to know how the info-rich live then, let me tell you because, I have DSL, and I can download a 19 MBytes file in 2 minutes and 23 seconds.

I have scoured every single, major, English language Web news and magazine site worth a mention in Wired Magazine . Why? Because, I can. I have DSL . It's been a hell of a ride so far. Okay, so once the initial excitement of being able to call up Web pages in an instant disappears you are stuck with the same old text you got when you were info-poor, but that's not the point, and it is the point. That should tell you something, particularly if you are prone to fits of jealousy when someone mentions they have a computer product that is a microsecond newer than something you might possess.

I got DSL installed by Pacific Bell . In all honesty, I can't tell you what a big boon it's been for me. I am the typical guy who works from home. In my case, I was spending about 80 per cent of my time browsing company reports, financial documents and news online. So, the fact that I am getting 1183 kbps of download speed, as compared to an occasional 44 kbps in the past, is obviously a big, big relief. And here's another thing, having reduced the time it takes to download stuff, I don't waste time surfing, and browsing anymore. Get it, use it, and leave it be. Because, there is nothing as soul destroying, and eye burning as working in front of a computer for eight or twelve hours a day. The less time on screen, the better. That's what I say so, maybe some of my meandering to come can be partly blamed on burn-out. All I know is that I am now info-rich.

However, as far as I can tell, the info-rich are going to be goggle-eyed, geek tube junkies who won't be able to string together a coherent sentence for fear of running out of Internet time . I have no idea what that means, but there's a poignant thought in there somewhere. Perhaps what I am trying to say is that there is no such thing as info-rich other than in the delusional mind of Web sheep, the kind of people who think Jeff Bezos is a northwestern deity, Linux is fun and just so radical, and that selling groceries online is a party in your pants.

I say to the info-poor: relax, you will inherit the earth. More bandwidth equates to more mind-numbing stuff to keep the middle classes busy. In the past, deadweight white collar workers, the stalwart of the middle classes, would do little real work by engaging in office politics and an endless merry-go-round of meetings, leaving the grunt jobs to secretaries and minions. Today, they're much more adept, and fired up, endlessly engaging in re-thinking their Internet strategies because, "The Internet changes everything," or, my personal favorite, "Everything moves so quickly on the Internet." In the meantime, the grunt word is done by college dropouts who are always a few months away from realizing a windfall on their stock options. Word, info-poor, the Internet is a bunch of servers and hard disks that don't go anywhere, and are full of almost the same ratio of good and bad files as you will find on the hard disk of the average Joe's desktop.

Prediction One: If the Web becomes the primary source of information and news I predict that the vast majority of Web journalists and writers will all spend so much time gazing at their technology enriched belly buttons that they'll eventually end up making their way through their alimentary passage and out of the nearest orifice. I shouldn't really blame the writers, after all, they're just paid to pander to the egos of editors. God, I have been waiting to say that for so long. In the meantime, my head is now a whoopee cushion for my butt.