Remembering Long Black
“Remember you used to go to Long Black all the time?” deesee asked the other evening when three of us met up for a “beamfest”.
Yes, I remember, and yes, I used to go to Long Black all the time. It was a cafe in SS2 – well, not just a cafe, but a cafe offering free wi-fi to customers. It also offered awesome all-day breakfasts. What more could a “young” wi-fi “warrior” ask for.
Those were the days. Actually not so long ago, maybe just 5 or 6 years back. But Long Black wasn’t open for long, altho I don’t think it was closed out by other wi-fi competition. When it closed, wi-fi was still quite a novelty, not commonly available like how it is now.
I have such fond memories of Long Black. I didn’t even have a laptop then, only a 16MB AlphaSmart Dana wireless, the reason for my being in Long Black a lot. Especially during November, the glorious NaNo month, I would be there, writing away, and then going online to update my word count. Ha! Those were the days.
These days, you can find wi-fi anywhere in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya. Most shopping malls offer free wi-fi, and those that don’t, there’s always a Mcdonald’s or Starbucks, even an Old Town White Coffee shop where you can fire up your netbook or notebook and go online. Most times, you don’t even have to ask for the password to get on.
Ah, those were the days. And here’s a picture of my Dana on the table at Long Black. Trust me, it is Long Black, even tho’ the picture is too close-up to see the rest of the place.
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Oh, that “beamfest”? That’s another relic from the not-too-distant past, when PDA (mostly Palm PDA) owners used to meet up to beam apps to one another’s PDA. This recent one was attended by just three – deesee, tehoais and me – altho’ there were no Palm PDAs in sight and we weren’t beaming anything between us.
