A modest pitch

by: Jay Lassiter

Fri May 11, 2007 at 09:11:00 AM EDT

It was an exciting day in Trenton yesterday as the legislature came back into session.  So far the Statehouse beat has been a lot of fun, but there have been some challenges as well.  Mostly technological ones.

First of all, when the Statehouse was originally built like 200 years ago it was not designed with the internet in mind. Nowadays legislators and staffers certainly have high-speed access on their PCs, but it's on a network the presscorps is not privy to.  Darn it.

No problem I thought, I'll just ask one of the other statehouse types how the heck they wire up and just do whatever they do.  The answers weren't encouraging.

The first person I asked -- a newspaper reporter -- sheepishly admitted that she "rented a phoneline (in a rented office) and uses dial up."

"No way?!"

"Way."

Undaunted, I pressed on.  Reporter number 2 works in TV.  What was their path to the internet I ask.

"Oh we have a direct feed from our satellite truck outfront."

Are you getting the picture?

Maybe someday soon, Trenton will be a "wired city" but until then, everyone is left to cobble together their own connection.  Which is expensive.  Which is why we need your help to pay for it. 

Hey if we didn't need it we wouldn't ask, but we just sank a pretty penny into this shiny new laptop that I use to post all these nuggets from Trenton.

So again, think about showing Blue Jersey some love because we need your help to grow.  Blogging for us comes with a lot of perks. Getting rich is not one of them.

I thought about making a similar pitch a few weeks ago before buying the laptop but decided against it when my co-bloggers pitched in and bought it for me.  They did it because they want me to kick ass in Trenton and have the tools to do a great job.  Which is presumably what the readers of this blog want, as well.

We're not asking for you to buy us a satellite truck.  Rather, a yearlong contract to get highspeed wireless connectivity in Trenton will run us about $600. 

(As an added inducement, anyone who pledges at the $100 level gets a free T-shirt. Thanks everyone!)