The internet.. its the right thing to do...

The dogs woke me up far too early this morning. The coffee is brewing and people are sleeping. I began my day with a check of email and reading status updates on social networking sites. That, in turn, led me to pondering human interaction as I stared out of the window.

So I decided to ramble while the coffee brews...

I'm a bit of a whore when it comes to facebook. You invite me to something, I will click attend. You want me to become a fan of something, I will click like. You send me a friend request and I will confirm. The only thing I do not do there are the games.

Twitter, I don't really care for that much. I would rather just write something out than try to decipher a hidden code to unlock life's secrets... Besides, I'm southern and long winded.. What self respecting southerner can live at only 140 characters per turn? It takes me that many spaces to just to get warmed up. As I was recently reminded, "It takes a long winded southerner all day to tell you what you already know.."

Myspace? What is that?

The internet as a whole is a great thing, a free flowing platform of ideas ready to be exchanged, discussed and dissected at any time. With a wireless hand held device, any moron can appear intelligent by googling any topic.

In the past few years I have read more while staring at this monitor than I have while holding books. Budgets of every government office have been picked over, blogs on everything from wood carving to how to cook human brains have been read, I've watched shuttle launches and the death of the Gulf of Mexico live as they happened.

I have even been graced by the words of the pastor of the westboro baptist church, a loving little man by all accounts...

Attacking each other on extremely personal levels seems to be alive and well, showing no signs of slowing in the near future. I'm still baffled that decades of technical advances and research went into all of this, and owl gore worked so hard, so that people can insult someone because of what they wore last night when they went out to eat, or that ugly people at walmart can be looked at for sport. Viagra is for sale by everyone and porn seems to be the breakfast of champions.

I have been attacked. My wife, children, home, pets, ideological ideas, appearance, extended family, friends, car, artwork, hobbies, sexual orientation, geographical location, and shoes have all been slandered, made fun of and abused by people. I have had several death threats and promises of pain when I least expect it. Meh, bring it on meth head.

After all of this, my latest favorite thing to do has been interacting with people in Europe. It has been interesting to see the way we, as Americans, are perceived overseas. When debating with people from other countries you learn quickly that the conversations are far more interesting and less abusive than when you are treating with people from the United States. Not that Europeans are more accepting, or intelligent.. They can simply hold out longer than we can before they start hurling insults toward you. French people are a bit strange though...

So what do we do with this ability to gather and share information at the speed of light? How do we utilize it to its full capacity? Do we soapbox our ideas until we fall over, blue in the face from shouting at the screen? Do we attack people we are jealous or afraid of? Do we think nothing more than getting our "brand" out there to further ourselves? Do we try to better the world with common sense ideas about peace and freedom? ( i like this one) or do we simply use this thing to show off an unholy talent for writing? (she makes me laugh)

One day maybe we'll figure all this out...

But right now, the coffee is ready so I'm going to make a cup and then go over to watch midget tossing on youtube...