Thursday, May 05, 2005

Hey! Where's the beef?

As an homage to Spider Jerusalem and from a fear that I might be out of touch, for the past two days I've been sitting at my computer clicking the little next blog in the upper right hand of your screen. Trolling the blogosphere, as I've heard it been called, hoping to find something of interest on which I could report. As the time passed, and as I read the various entries of those blogs written in english, I began to fear I'd have nothing of interest to say, thus not only wasting my time, but the time of the few people who read my blog. In desperation I kept going and going, trolling from blog to blog praying that an epiphany of some sort would strike leading me to an amazingly original observation of not only Blogspot, but human nature as well.

Page after page scrolled down before me, my eyes quickly darting back and forth searching for the answer. And the more I searched the more I was sure an epiphany would come. It was a drug unlike one I've ever expereinced, all the addiction without any pleasant side-affects (not being bulimic, my nausea clearly doesn't count).

In this deluded state I kept moving on from blog to blog, even more convinced that the key to understanding not just humanity but the entire universe was hidden, and each blog was akin to a puzzle piece. All I would have to do is read them in the correct order and I would be like that of a GOD.

Needless to say, it didn't happen. I am not a god (not even in lower case), though some people might tremble before me - that has less to do with any god like powers and more to the point that I should change my deoderant more often. I was bestowed no epiphany, in fact, I can safely say I didn't learn anything at all. After a while all blogs started blending into one big blog which said this:

I HATE MY MOTHER BECAUSE LAST NIGHT AT SCHOOL I FELT SO SAD BECAUSE LIBERALS ARE RACIST AND CONSERVATIVES LOVE GOD. GOD ON THE OTHER HAND LOVES CHRISTIANS AND I SPENT PASSOVER DINNER AT A FRIENDS HOUSE, BUT ONLY BECAUSE BILLY DOESN'T LIKE ME LIKE I LIKE HIM. TONY BLAIR IS A SHOE IN FOR THE ELECTION AND THOUGH HE BENT OVER FOR GEORGE BUSH (WHO IS THE BEST AND WORST PRESIDENT EVER!) HE'S BETTER THAN THE OTHER GUYS, EXCEPT FOR THE OTHER GUY WHO IS BETTER THAN HIM. LIBERALS HATE AMERICA, CONSERVATIVES ARE DESTROYING AMERICAN. I LOVE AMERICAN IDOL. THE NEXT STAR WARS FILM IS GOING TO BE AMAZING; AMAZINGLY BAD. GEORGE LUCAS IS GOD, WHO HATES ABORTIONS. SCHOOL SUCKS. I HAD EGGS FOR BREAKFAST THIS MORNINGit's amazing how many people eat eggs for breakfast on a regular basis and then feel the world should know about it.BUY ALUMINUM SIDING, LOTS OF TECHNOBABBLE, MAC, IBM, NONE OF THE ABOVE, SOFTWARE I'VE NEVER HEARD OF AND A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF ADVERTISEMENTS FOR EVERYTHING FROM HEALTH INSURANCE TO GAMBLING ON THE KENTUCKY DERBY(surprsingly not that different really)

And so forth.

Which isn't to say I didn't come across any Blogs that I liked. I did come across some fun blogs. The good ones in my opinion were the ones not specifically devoted to the news or any political point of view, the ones who used full sentences and full words, the ones who got wrote out their ideas (be it about the going on's of the world or just their personal life) in a well articulated clever fashion. But those were the ones harder to find.

I should probably give links to the ones I felt are worthy of mention, only I'm beat and just like most of my assignments back when I was in school; I didn't take proper notes.

Three that jumped out at me as being different (blogs I visit regularly don't count as those are the ones that jumped out at me in the past) are as follows: Public Transportation, Query letters, and finally, for reasons I still don't understand the first entry of this blog Polemic really got to me (perhaps because it has a smart minimalistic approach I so sorely lack).

I was hoping that, like everything else one expects from the internet, finding the good would be fast and easy. Unfortunately for my lazy ass the world of the blogs is just like any other medium. Most of what's out there is blends together into one long desert of bland (or perhaps a better term would be just a bland dessert, empty calories and all). And just like every other medium you have to take the time to discern the good from the bad. I guess the real lesson learned, and definatly something I can take comfort in is this: access to technology doesn't make us smarter, better writers, more interesting, or more worthy of being read; all those aspects must comes ourselves, not our computers. Thus books are not dead, newspapers won't fade away, the internet isn't taking over as the ultimate form of communication. Just because it's more high tech doesn't mean it's any better than anything else.

Leaving me with the final conclusion that I'm not as out of touch as I thought I was.

Uh... carry on then

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