I brought up the blog yesterday and discovered that I had I couldn't access any of my graphics, which I store at Photobucket. Well, I figured that maybe Photobucket was down--it's happened before--and that it would get back online the next day.
Today, I discovered that I couldn't access any of the blog's graphics. Something was wrong. As it turns out I, as a Road Runner subscriber, am being victimized by a pricing squabble between two of the companies making up the internet's backbone: Level 3 Communications and Cogent Communications. The short of it is that those people on Level 3's network (such as everyone on Road Runner) either cannot access or will have extremely slow access to Cogent's network (where sites like Photobucket live), and presumably vice-versa. It's not only screwing up web access--some have reported VOIP issues (check the comments).
I wonder if there is a way to get these companies to stop pissing around and do some proper negotiating without resorting to screwing the end user...