So now that I have DSL I'm still thinking of getting SkypeOut, but it looks like I missed my chance to get a SkypeIn number in the Brainerd area. By, like, a day?

I was waiting to find out if the 206-**** numbers they were offering would be a local call from B-town (after talking to people at Brainerd's local telephone company, I still don't know) before I purchased the number. But it looks like I waited too long.

The list of available area codes seemed much longer when I looked at it the day before Skype was purchased by eBay. Certainly (218) was still available, and I was able to generate several dozen possible phone numbers while looking for one that appealed to me. And now they're suddenly gone, and I've gotten no response from Skype as to why.

Could that many phone numbers in central Minnesota — not to mention the area codes I had to scroll through to get to 218 (the list now starts on 219) &mdash really have sold so quickly? I doubt it, unless news of the merger generated some sort of unprecedented sales volume.

An unannounced change in policy, then? I can't find any acknowledgement of the change on the Skype website. The best laid plans...