So I spent most of the day yesterday disconnected from the interwebs — my high-speed line was unsynchronized with the central node, or some such techspeak.

I did sign on through a dial-up connection, but that’s maddening; with a baud rate of about 44.2K, I was tearing out what little hair I have left while waiting for even the simplest pages to load. How did we ever survive this way? How did we live?

Fortunately, Fridays are the one day of the week that I don’t strictly need ‘net access; my major deadlines fall on Thursday, so I’d already filed everything I needed to file, including this fun little piece for Sympatico/MSN about the fortunes of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” cast.

Oh, and speaking of “Pirates” and all things summer-blockbustery, CTV Newsnet is having me on again tomorrow to discuss the current fortunes of the Great Big Movie. So if you happen to be near a television set on Sunday during the 1 pm hour, flip it to channel 62 and watch me explain, once again, why it isn’t really so weird that millions of people go to see the most exhaustively hyped movies.

As it happens, Adam Nayman and Steve Gravestock made essentially the same case yesterday on CBC Radio’s “The Current”; you can listen to them patiently try to explain the difference between film criticism and entertainment journalism to a strangely uncomprehending Jane Hawtin here.

Not recommended for dial-up users, obviously.