Today, I have been hating the invention of high-speed, on-all-the-time-broadband interweb access. This will sound strange coming from me, whose time is spent either on the internet or asking what kind of crazy circumstances led to the situation of me not being on the internet, and how to rectify this problem, but I have REASONS.

 

FIRSTLY: YouTube. Don't get me wrong, the slightly ironically named (from a technological perspective) YouTube is rather good at keeping and showing us useful things, like old episodes of Captain Planet, or adverts for A-Team toys, but to be fair those have been around forever anyway. MY problem with YouTube is that everyone seems that since they now simply have the option to upload videos to the internet, that they should. I argue: they shouldn't. It means that for every episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force we also have to put up with 58,756 videos 'showing off' their mediocum musical/skating/dancing/sexy/gaming/photoshop/woev skills. Sure, we don't have to watch them, but that's not the point. I DISAGREE WITH THEIR EXISTENCE, is all I'm saying.

 

SECONDLY: In THE OLD DAYZ adverts used to be be reasonably unobtrusive. Annoying, yes, but they're adverts, so thats the point. BUT, annoying as a little flashing banner ad used to be at least it STAYED WITHIN THE BANNER. And it didn't play a 2.5 second looping video/audio file that CANNOT BE STOPPED save for clicking on the advert itself. For some reason, the people that actually make these adverts seem to have become a little confused about where exactly the line between 'getting someone's attention' and 'annoying them profusely' lies. It's like they've realised that you're more likely to notice someone if, instead of waving at you they CAME UP AND PUNCHED YOU IN THE FACE, without realising that this would probably mean you wouldn't like them anymore. My first computer was equipped with a snazzy 28.8k modem (actually, my first computer didn't even have a modem and still used 5 1/4" floppy discs, and my second computer didn't either, although it did have a big coax connector on the back for...something. Perhaps I should've said 'first internet computer') and so in the olden, some say golden, days of the net this was never a problem, both because internet advertising was considered a little inconsiquential to things at the time and also because you could read an entire website by the time it took a advert to load and tell you to buy more internet, and also you'd probably be reading this on a geocities webpage which is really unrelated but still true.

 

This also applies to the adverts that they have on messenger sometimes that say 'scroll over' on them, and normally I wouldn't except the advert is at the bottom which is exactly inbetween where my taskbar and the usable part of messenger is, so I don't notice in time and always scroll over BY MISTAKE. Seriously, I don't want to watch whatever it is you think you want to show me. Go away.

 

But even worse then those is the adverts for smileys which makes sounds when you accidentally scroll over them. It probably wouldn't be so bad if they weren't exceptionally irritating, but they happen to be exceptionally irritating. I don't mind smileys of the :) type (PUN!) and they can be useful because sometimes TEXT IS NOT ENOUGH! but there is NO PLACE ON THIS EARTH for a massive animated yellow monstrosity who for some reason is shouting something undiscenrnable at me. What up wiv dat, as it were.

 

THIRDLY: Internet comedy saturation! AN EXAMPLE: In the beginning, the was a song. It was called "The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny" and it was good. Then, a flash video of the said song came along, and despite most of the pop-culture references being aimed at an audience about 10 years older then what it actually had (I'm only just on the tail end of most of them-hands up anyone that actually PLAYED Shaq-Fu?) it was still good. Then, EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THE INTERNET decided that it was very important to share it with EVERYONE ELSE ON THE INTERNET. Thus, it was nearly impossible to visit anywhere (at least personal sites and blogs) without it starting playing. This also happened with Badger Badger Badger, and the Moon Song going back a few more years. Also, making video montages of Mr T and putting them on YouTube. Somethings are funny. Somethings are really funny. But nothing is funny 12,000 times in a row. Again, it probably wasn't so bad in the old days, but then they went and made technology user friendly so you didn't actually need to be able to use a computer to go on the internet and all the Stupid-heads who before had spent their time being all "SPORTS and GURLS HURHURHUR" are now HERE, on the webernet. DAMN YOU COOL KIDS FOR POPULARISING THE INTERNET, YOU KILLED COMEDY, is what I'm saying.

 

FOURTHLY: Wikipedia. What's wrong with wikipedia, you might be asking. And you'd be right, becuase the answer is nothing. I juse love it TOO MUCH. It eats up so much of my time I decided it made the list. Yesterday, the featured article was Star Wars. 97% of all the articles on wikipedia are about Star Wars and unfortunately when I get bored and see for example the words 'Darth Vader' on wikipedia's front page it starts a massive multi-hour clickathon. I was up till half 2 yesterday reading about how some star wars book refers to a bit on one of the models of an X-Wing as the S-Foil servo except its not in line with the S-Foil hinge point so it is unlikely it actually is the servo, and it is more likey an acess panel to the mechanism, which is even more likely when you notice that there is a HANDLE ON IT! and other things like that that NO-ONE WHO IS SANE could possibly care about, and it went on and on and on for a few thousand words. It amazes me that people can spend so much time analysing a small bit of plastic some guy glued onto a model spaceship 30 years ago because it looked cool and try to figure out what it does 'in real life', and then go on to explain why other peoples 'real life' theories are SCIENTIFICALLY INCORRECT.

 

Nerds, you have GONE TOO FAR (although the Star Wars wiki is called Wookieepedia and HOW COOL is that?)

 

Then, THEN, today, the featured article is that of Diplodocus, so, once again there has been hours and hours of endless reading about dinousaurs. Because dinosuars are awesome. If tomorrows featured article is about or features a robot of some kind the holy trinity of COOL STUFF will be complete and there is a fairly good chance that I will EXPLODE.

 

Wikipedia may be good for my brain, but NOTHING ELSE!

 

But thats pretty much it, and apart from that me and the 'net are cool.

 

Also WHOOPS becuase that was not meant to be anywhere near that long and I kind of got carried away! CRAZY STUFF.

 

Still, it covers nicely the fact I have nothing else to write about. Hooray!