Probably a stupid question

I'm not sure what you mean by "crimbo," but if you mean a university, most of the buildings there probably have wireless. Wireless is all over all my campus, as is data ports all over walls for people to plug their ethernet connections into.

If not, then there's always libraries, coffee shops, McDonald's.... and other businesses that offer wireless to its customers.

Also, you mentioned connecting a phone line to a lab top. You must be using a really old labtop then. I'd be surprised if any of the newer ones even have a dial-up modem in them. Like packrat said, all of the newer ones should have a built in wireless card and an ethernet card. (You plug your ethernet cable into it and the other end into a data port, like the ones on the walls in my university buildings.)

Jam it back in, in the dark.