Hello there, strangers.

Sorry for the lapse in postings, but first there was the chaos up at the Egyptian-Gaza border keeping us busy. Then there was the cutting of two underwater cables near Alexandria that, in a flash, wiped out most Internet use across the Middle East and made long-distance telephone calls even more garbled than usual. It will take days, if not weeks, to patch up the cables but I've realized that if I wake up at 6 a.m. and log on, the Internet will limp along until it gets overloaded by noon.

Hamas' blowing up of the Rafah border with Gaza was pretty dramatic stuff and all the opposition papers trumpeted the news as Palestinians breaking out from Israel's chokehold on the blockaded territory. As of this morning, according to my spotty Internet, the AP was quoting witnesses and Hamas security officials as saying that Egyptian troops had closed the last breach in the border, ending 11 days of free movement for Palestinians from Gaza.

A friend in the States alerted me to this Reuters story today about a Palestinian who tried to sneak a lion and a monkey into Gaza.

The totality of the breach didn't really hit me until Miret, in-house superstar, went up to the border the other day to help out from the Egyptian side. The Palestinian side was covered by our Jerusalem-based colleague and friend Dion Nissenbaum. (Take a look at all his excellent blog postings on the Rafah crisis.) Miret strolled across the dismantled crossing, met Dion in person and the pair snapped a photo to commemorate the occasion. Sounds like those days are over and the border is pretty much sealed back up now. Definitely an issue we'll be watching.

As for the Internet fiasco, I'm not holding my breath that service will be restored anytime soon. Just to recap: a total of three regional cables have been cut due to "weather conditions and maritime traffic." As a result, India's outsourcing industry is struggling with major communications disruptions and many Internet cafes are closed in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and other countries where service was severed. The company that owns the cables says a repair ship was expected off the coast of Alexandria by Tuesday.

Of course, my newshound editors are convinced that it's all some conspiracy to re-route Middle Eastern Web traffic through the United States so intelligence agencies can read and store it all. And the Detroit mayor thought he had some dirt...

"This is a bonanza for the NSA!" one editor told me.

Well, it's been a bonanza for me. No more wasting time on Facebook, Googling recipes or, well, actually researching news. It's all Al Jazeera International, all the time in the office now. Back to TV news, calling my friends instead of IM'ing them, reading magazines whose pages you turn instead of scroll, getting expenses in on time (less late than usual, rather), just unplugging for a moment.