License Renewal, Buying Rope, and missing Ignite Seattle

So I went to Anna at Borseno's because my DL was expiring, and I was planning on going down to the DOL tomorrow to renew it, only to discover today in getting caught up on stacked up mail that the DOL was going to let me renew online. Which I did. Of course, now I wonder, if they are willing to let me renew online every other cycle, why not just charge twice as much for the license and have the period be twice as long?

Monk had put up for auction the last of one of his old exotics, and I bid on it. And got sniped at the last second. The joke is on the sniper tho, while he may have won, I got the true last of that exotic. It's always fun to go down to the Abby to pick something up, or to have someone picked up. This time, as I was walking in, a cute little redhead scurried out past me. I wonder what she got...

Tomorrow is the next Ignite Seattle, after far too many months. I was all excited to go, especially since hvc is presenting "The Most Beautiful Game in the World", and then I got a ping from work, tomorrow night I'm flying to LA for a gig. It never fails, you get in the tub, and there is a rub at the lamp.

I don't trust this... "Sierra Wireless Connect 881U"

I got a piece of blow-in spam from AT&T, they went to sell me a "Sierra Wireless USB Connect 881U" device. On first glance, it looks kinda cool, a USB modem for GSM GPRS/EDGE.

On the other hand, it requires a huge download and install of "special" client software.

Yeah, "special". Short-bus special, I'm sure.

All the software it should need to install is, well, nothing at all. Either provide a network USB interface, and/or a serial USB interface speaking PPP.

That it does not, makes me suspect strongly that they are utterly without clue, and cannot be trusted.


Does anyone reading this use this device? Is my mistrust accurate?