Monday, March 27, 2006

It would be unconscionable to ignore you another night, dear reader, and it would be downright criminal to go ghost on a Monday evening, perhaps the last bastion of consistency around these parts. We all know Friday night has been a roaring success the past few months, but we mustn’t let it go to our heads. Moderation is the key.

The jury’s still out on the Internet. Part of me really likes it because, y’know, it pays the rent and even feeds me occasionally. I’m given to the industry. And yet, another part of me knows it’s the worst thing ever to happen to humanity, as if Amazon partnered with Sodom–and Gomorrah, through quality zShop vendors–to bring us the very best, Super Saver Shipping included.

Think about it. Ten years ago, did Bank of Am3rica ever e-mail you, imploring you to “oh gods please verify ur account informations by clicking this genuine link”? Was there such a thing as an encyclopedia actually editable by the public, responsible for actual people getting actually fired? Were you able to view capitalism in its unfiltered glory in post after post about hoarding $30 DVD players at Walmart? Buy your groceries from a website, only to have them delivered straight from your local supermarket? Write crossover fan fiction about Captain Kirk intimately bumping into Janeway in the teleporter room, phazers set to hot, when Ranma 75 ¾ suddenly drops from an air duct and casts Carnal Missile on them both?

If I get a Google hit for that last sentence, Lord have mercy on us all. Wikipedia. Peapod. Fatwallet. Us. Geocities.com/ny/8554763/trekkiesinheat.htm. One of the cogs of the Internet is the idea of instant feedback, where judgment is dispensed on a real-time basis. This means a site’s continued existence is itself a stamp of public approval, which makes you wonder why some of this stuff exists. If we were to start a page today, me and you, reminding people when to wipe their asses, there would be regular visitors. We could implement an autoreminder component via RSS feed and everything, and of course we would offer trial memberships.

This is a lot to process, I know. But tomorrow? I give you the solution.