O Where, O Where Has My Usenet Gone?

Oh, crap. My annoying small local mom 'n pop Internet Service Provider— alias Stupid-ISP.com— has just announced that they're dropping Usenet. Yes, in a few weeks Stupid-ISP.com will be abandoning their affiliation with the overall fairly decent newsgroup service which has been available to us poor peon users.

As a substitute, Stupid-ISP.com recommends that we access Usenet via Google Groups. Yeah, right, Google Groups with their utterly sucky user interface. I think not.

Lest anyone think that the Internet is synonymous with the World Wide Web— au contraire, mon frère, there are yet other nooks and crannies of the Internet which Joe and Jane Websurfer may not even be aware of. Such as Gopherspace, which is still around, albeit moribund. Such as Usenet, which dates back to 1980, and which is not at all moribund; though it doesn't make it any easier on us newsgroup users when our one-horse ISPs stop providing us with newsserver access.

What will I do without my regular dose of alt.books.beatgeneration and rec.games.mahjong in my Pan newsreader? Guess I'll just have to go check out alt.free.newsservers.