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Patrons of approximately 60 Chicago-area McDonald's restaurants will be able to surf the Web or check their email from their wireless-enabled laptops, according to a freedom fries report at Yahoo. The service has already been introduced in New York City and San Francisco, although we have heard little about how it's being received.

When we first heard about McDonald going wireless, we thought that would be a great way for us to update the news while we were on the road. The trouble is, the service isn't that widespread yet, although more and more motels and other establishments are joining in the trend to provide wireless access. We won't ever be "on the road" in the middle of Chicago, anyway -- western Kansas is more like it, and unfortunately that will be the last place to ever get conneced.

We also don't know how helpful this would really be. Paying five dollars for the right to sit for an hour in a McDonald's beside a busy freeway or shopping center with our TiBook in someone else's ketchup doesn't exactly spin our wheels, especially when that hour could more pleasurably be spent in moving another 80 miles down the Interstate. Still, issues of electromagnetic pollution of the biosphere notwithstanding -- can we really afford to do that? -- it would be nice to be able to pull into a parking lot once in a while and post something important to Applelinks. Maybe.