Plugged in Again

Yay, I have the internet again! 18 weeks without cable or internet has taught me a very important lesson: Always pay your cable bill.

I thought maybe I'd come out of this a "better person" with a "better understanding" of the world around me.

Nope.

I came out of these 18 long weeks vowing to let my car payments slide to keep the internet on next time I'm facing poverty.

So, people of the internet, what have I missed while I was gone? Any great new memes I should know about? A YouTube parody of the season's number one hit single? Another video of the Westborough Baptist Church standing together as douche bags? I have some catching up to do, as well as some writing.

My Days Without The Internet

Having a baby is expensive and taking two months off without pay is not only necessary, but detrimental on one’s financial situations. I like my house, car, electricity, phone and cable a lot. Unfortunately, I had to choose when paying bills and Comcast was at the end of the line. After two months without a payment, my cable box was actually repossessed. Yeah, let that sink in for a moment. I’ll wait…… Yes, repossessed like an unpaid car or an organ transplant I couldn’t afford. My cable box was repossessed!! I didn’t know this was possible and I can’t think of anything more embarrassing for my neighbors to see. Being that I’m surrounded by old white ladies that have nothing better to do than look out their windows, I’m sure everyone saw this guy come take my cable box away. As I write this, I have been without cable or internet for six weeks. (As of press time, it has been over two months!)

I was certain I would break down after being offline for an hour or so. I am addicted to the internet in a bad, bad way. The first day was hard, the second day was a little easier and by the end of week four it wasn’t physically painful anymore. I imagine this is what it feels like to quit smoking, but I have never done that and probably never will. Hey, addiction runs *strong* in my genes.

While offline, there were some necessary online tasks to take care of, as there always are. I have applied for several jobs, and I needed to go online for that. I needed an internet connection when I wanted to check my bank account or upload photos. Other than that, I could get my small fixes through my phone (thank God for my droid). When it was necessary for me to get online, I headed to Starbucks where I decided that America’s somewhat new fascination with over-priced coffee is probably synonymous with WiFi.

So, what have I been doing with my time? Remember, I was also out my 250 cable channels, DVR and OnDemand. That’s right, unplugged. Well, I re-discovered my love of the Sims games and wanted to write a huge blog about being able to create your own world and play “God.” But, I failed to ever get that idea from my head to my laptop and eventually got bored watching my Sim character watch tv and use his computer. (jackass.)

I then turned to the Wii for fun, but I don’t really have money to buy new games and there’s only so many times one can go virtual bowling before the novelty not only wears off but becomes completely annoying, and oddly enough, physically strenuous. I wanted to post a blog about the timeline of video games from my childhood to now. How did we go from Pong to Call of Duty so fast and what the hell kind of games will there be in another 20 years?! Again, I failed to get that idea from my head to my laptop.

I tried reading but there are too many books in my house thanks to my lit-nerd husband and I can’t seem to stay focused on a novel long enough before starting a new book and then I get my story lines crossed and then I get a headache because in this day and age, humans are not meant to read anything more than a blog or magazine article at a time. [Run-on or not, that sentence was fun to write and illustrates my point of rapid thinking and it’s connection to the dumbification of America.] (crap, I did it again)

I did all of those new mom things like changed diapers and folded tiny clothes, and thought about my how-to mommy hood blog that I would write and save lives with somehow. I watched a lot of movies from my Netflix queue and decided I wanted to start a movie review blog dedicated solely to B-Movies (I’m sure that’s never been done before *sarcasm is key*).

So, What have I been doing with my time? Thinking about blogging. How can I get people to read my blog? What is interesting to other people? Why do I even write a blog (three blogs, actually)? When will I finally feel great about a blog that I’m writing? Who reads these blogs anyway? Why does the word “blog” sound so funny after you say it ten times?

I’ve always been a fan of observational stand up comedy and feel like my blog is a good way for me to express that without the risk of rejection, or worse than that, silence. I’m constantly trying to find humor in everything I do just so I can write a long-winded diatribe full of run-on sentences (and too many parentheses [and punctuation marks!!]). Am I succeeding? No, not really. Do I feel good about the things I post? Yeah, mostly. Is there a line between a rant and art? Yes. Have I crossed it? Who knows. Aren’t I awesome at answering my own questions? I sure am.

To quote the timeless classic (and one of my favorite movies of all time) Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back:
“The internet is a place where nerds and geeks go to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another. It has given everyone in America a voice and apparently everyone in America has chosen to use it.”

Ben Affleck was speaking the truth, no doubt. Because everyone in America (and most of the world) has this new voice, it is used by most people; therefore, drowning out one another making every voice tiny and barely recognizable. Does that make the original voice worth having? Every shit head teenager has a webcam and a YouTube channel dedicated to their favorite guy-liner wearing pop-punk band’s deep and meaningful lyrics that totally describe exactly how they’re feeling. And every headstrong 20-something that knows everything has a sarcastic blog, full of run-on sentences, and, of course, too many punctuation marks (and parentheses).


(!?.!?.!?.!?.!?.)

Captain Obvious!

I see funny things on the internet that aren't so obvious, I guess. Either that or I'm just good at noticing the little things. Or maybe, I just have a simple mind that thinks most things are silly. I'm a firm believer that humor can be found in just about anything. (anything but flying spiders - that's just frightening)

Facebook is now recommending things it thinks I will like because the internet is getting way too smart. A lot of these recommendations are based on other pages that I've "liked" and the suggestions look a little bit like this:

No shit? People that like NPR also have a sense of humor? I also got one that said "Tom Waits - Many who like Man Man like this." For those of you that don't know, Tom Waits is a musical genius drunk uncle and Man Man is a band that seemed to copy his songs verbatim and somehow make them a little more hipster-y. (That picture isn't as funny, as it requires a description)

Facebook is also really good at making me feel pretty worthless by reminding me that I have no friends in Jacksonville.

Facebook is trying to be a good friend here and recommend things I might like, and let me know just how many *potential* friends I could make in Jacksonville. Facebook isn't very good at calming me. Facebook is a bad friend.

But, there's always Google. Google and I have been good friends for a long time. When I have a question about something life-threatening, something of little interest, or even something that will help me win a bet, Google is there for me. Google even tries to fill in the rest of the search bar when I look for something just to keep me from having to type it out. For example, when wondering how my baby was developing when I was 23 weeks pregnant, all I had to type in was "23" and Google finished it with "weeks pregnant." Brilliant! Sometimes, though, Google is either (a) wrong or (b) assuming I'm a sadistic fuck that blacks out in fits of fatal rage.


One of those things is not like the other.

The internet, in general, is in control of a lot more than we think. Do I think computers will take over after somehow gaining artificial intelligence? No.

Well.

At least not in my lifetime, anyway.

Here's a fine example of how the internet was trying to throw the last Presidential election through subliminal messages:

Notice the date there. Just two weeks before the election. Tisk tisk, internet.

I've saved the best one for last. My personal favorite example of how targeting you internet advertising market isn't working.

Social Networking Fashion Trends

Recently I've found that "skinny jeans" are all the rage with young hipsters. The first time I saw a pair was at the Mall of Georgia about five years ago. I couldn't understand how this kid (a guy) could (a) find pants that small or (b) fit into them. I was positive this wouldn't catch on because it looks as completely ridiculous as these guys wearing their belts just above the knee.

Sadly, I was wrong and skinny jeans were flying off shelves everywhere. The Gap even found a way to use old pictures of Audry Hepburn to advertise them.


This advertisement proves two things:
(1) royalty rights will pay off forever
(2) Fashion trends are rarely "new" and tend to cycle through every 30 years or so.

That's why I'm refusing to delete my MySpace profile.

Hear me out.

Back in the 90s, bellbottoms came back into style. Why? Well, that's a question no one can answer seriously, but that's beside the point. When I was an easily influenced teenager in the 90s, I bought a pair of bellbottoms. (Don't hate) I thought I was cool in them. (stop hating)

Well, I thought I was cool in them until my friend Lisa showed up at school rocking her mom's old bellbottoms straight out of the 60s. Damn. I can't compare my lame ass Gap bellbottom jeans to these authentic jeans that still smelled like Woodstock. I was quite jealous of Lisa, who always found a way to bring the rarity of her jeans into every conversation around the lunch table for an entire semester. (bitch)

Anyway, I refuse to delete my MySpace profile for that reason. The same reason Lisa's mom didn't throw those jeans away. Will it make me cool later when people go back to the site and see that I've been a dedicated member since 2005? Will Tom notice I'm the only member left in three years and send me some of his cash for sticking with him all these years? Probably not. But at least I know there's a glimmer of hope for finally getting back at Lisa and feeling like I'm, for once, on top of the fashion game.

Thoughts on being a mom and why that's the only thing on my mind.

Here's a small list of things I promise not to do as a mother:

1. Make a profile for my baby on a social networking site. This is ridiculous. These days, you're born and you get a birth certificate, a social security number, a hat and a social networking site profile. The government and hospital are to blame for the first three, and the lame parents should be shot for the last one.

2. Swear that my child is the cutest ever. I know she'll be beautiful to me, but I also hope to understand that not everyone will agree. I mean, she could look like this:


3. Set my profile picture on any social networking site to a picture of my baby. No. This is my profile, not hers.

4. Swear my baby is smarter than she should be for her age. "OMG, she raised her hand today, she must be a genius!"

5. Only speak to her in "baby talk." I hear they will grow up with a better vocabulary if they are spoken to like normal people rather than a baby. I will offer my daughter a bottle, not a "baba" and she will eat food, not "num nums."

Midgets

My internet is down. Obviously, if you’re reading this, I got it back up, but as of press time I am unable to do any research for my own personal fulfillment. Basically, I’m saying that this blog will be posted with absolutely no research, therefore, my numbers may be a tad off.

Question at hand: Midgets make up what percentage of the World’s population?

Now, before I get into my own theories, let me explain that I am addicted to the internet. Mostly, for social networking and the occasional flash game, but really it’s the abundance of information at my fingertips that brings me to google and wikipedia daily. If I have a problem or a question of any kind, I’ll go to yahoo questions before I phone a friend.

From time to time, I need to know a semi-random fact. In this case, how many midgets there are for every 100 non-midgets. Personally, I’m not sure where I fall in, measuring in at just under 5 feet tall. I think that technically makes me a midget, but again, I’m without internets so I can’t say for sure.

I thought maybe 1%. No, that can’t be right. If you go to a concert with 3,000 people at it, you’re not going to see 30 midgets. Maybe the percentage is higher, though. If you’ve ever seen a certain Judy Garland film, you’ll notice that in the first scene in color there are hundreds of midgets and only three normal sized people, and one of those people is a dog, so I’m not sure that counts. But if you based your numbers on this certain scene, you’d think that non-midgets were the minority.

In my life, I’ve met two. I’ve met a lot of people, and only two of them are of such small stature. Wait, I’m remembering one that a childhood friend had living in her basement, so I guess my total is up to three. TLC would have you believe that the whole world, or at least the whole world of reality TV is made up of nothing but midgets. Shows like “Little People Big World” introduced most of us to the life of a small human, but really, how often do you actually see one?