I remember before there was such a thing as the internet....back when kids played outside during summer..and fall...and winter. . . ...and spring. I'm not going to say those were better times for a couple reasons. The first reason is because it makes me sound old, The second reason is because they weren't necessarily better, they were just different. So I grew up without the internet, using 'the long way' to do division and 'working it out on paper' whenever algebra wanted me to figure out how fast a truck was going if it traveled 13 times as fast as .36% of the speed of sound while driving in circles on a boat moving at 17 knots.
Then came....THE INTERNET! Sure the internet was pretty weak when it first came out, but back then it was the shit. BBS or Bulletin Board Systems were the social media and it was all formed from characters and choosing Y, N or 1, 2, or 3.
As the years have passed things have changed and as I look at the box on my desk which reads "Microsoft MS-DOS Operating System Version 4.01" I thought it would be fun to list some of the things that have been great and not so great about the internet.
Porn-
I never dreamed while I checked out the porn mags in my parents garage that one day the same kind of smut would be so widespread. Now it can be found in literally every room of the house. The Adult Bookstore down the street used to be like an Egyptian tomb only instead of clumsy drawings of cats people and bugs there were videos of women using every orifice they had to practice sex. And there were some with men doing the same thing! If you wanted to watch some woman get it on with a donkey a midget and a lava lamp (don't ask) you had to drive down to the adult book store and either rent a VHS tape at $8 a day ($10 a day if it was returned late) drive all the way back home and watch a crappy quality tape(it probably had 5000 plays on it) and hope you didn't get herpes from touching the box. Or you could buy the tape for $296.00 These days? You can watch that shit on a laptop in the kitchen while you make hamburger helper dinner for the family !! Not that I would suggest you do so, but you could.
Porn is everywhere on the internet and if you have half a brain you can get all the smut you want for free. you can even watch a person get naked in real time from half-way around the world!
As for the adult book store, now they line the walls with a vast assortment of vibrators, dildos, something called a pocket pussy ( why you would keep a cat in your pocket in beyond me) and blow-up dolls. There are a few DVDs for sale in displays in the center of the store but they have been there a while. NOTE: I don't know about the bookstore from firsthand knowledge, I hardly even know where it is.
Music-
After being ripped off for years by the music industry we finally have our revenge by way of the internet. It is sad that some musicians got caught in the cross fire (not you metallica, you suck and its amazing anyone wants to listen to your music these days, even for free) They reality is, the music industry could have kept most people from stealing music if they had really been interested in what the customer wanted instead of what they wanted from the customer. They didn't so war was declared on them, they lost bad, and the musicians got caught in the cross-fire. Collateral damage...let's take a moment of silence...............ok next!
Knowledge Base-The vast array of information available on any subject you could imagine and a billion others you never could. I'm not even kidding about this one. The knowledge available is mind-boggling. No more will people need too buy those 'World Book Encyclopedia' sets that took up so much space it had to double as a guest bed. Now it's peck, peck, peck, click. The world at your fingertips
Reunions-Getting in touch with old friends. It's been awesome being able to find those people you never would have seen again if it wasn't for the power of the internet. When you think about the number of marriages that have been broken up because of finding an 'old flame' it really gives you an example of the power of the net. And we never would have had the chance to meet with our old buddies for beers and adding them to facebook only to end up blocking them because they were just as annoying/stupid/crazy as ever if it were not for the good old internet.
Email- No more writing letters. I hated writing letters, it sucked. My handwriting looks like somebody's last will and testament that they wrote 15 minutes after they died. It's bad and I have never been able to care enough to improve it. One time I wrote a letter excusing my kid from school and the cops came to my house asking why in my letter I was threatening the principal in french. Now it's peck,peck,peck,peck and click send. Now it's painfully easy to get the cops to come over and ask me questions about valid threats in emails.
Customer Complaints- Have you ever bought a chocolate bar, opened it and found the chocolate to be covered in a white dust powder? I think that happens because the candy has sat around so long that enough dust particles have been able to penetrate the wrapper to make it a dust covered health threat. They have that number on the wrapper to call and complain but most people don't have the balls to make that call. They have the address so you can write and complain but that means getting a reply and maybe a coupon for a free candy bar which will have arrived about 10 years after you reach retirement age.
I bought some Oreos the other day. The quality was for shit (another blog on that coming up) so I went to the website listed on the package and let those Oreo con-artists have a piece of my mind. I got a coupon for free cookies mere weeks later. I bought a California Pizza Kitchen frozen pizza from the store. It tasted like I had drawn a pizza on some old dirty, dusty cardboard put it in the microwave for 4 minutes and put it in my mouth. What did I do? I went to the website. What did I get? A free coupon for the same shitty pizza. Sure, not the best remedy but at least there was a nice letter from the company saying they would look into the concerns I had.
Public Comment- Now everybody and their mother has a facebook page, including companies and even network news programs. The other morning on ABC overnight news one of the anchors said something that I thought was unfair and irresponsible. What did I do? I looked up the facebook page for the show, clicked 'like' and posted a sarcastic yet insightful comment about his statement. The next day he had replied to my comment. His reply was weak so I sent him a private message explaining why what he had said was unfair and explained that even though I found him entertaining I couldn't let that pass. Today a bunch of news vans parked along the freeway caused a traffic back-up. I went to the facebook page for the news program and left a thanks for nothing comment for them. Never in the history of mankind have we been able to bitch and complain directly to the source of our discontent like we can due to the internet.
Radio Broadcasting/Podcasting & Blogging- The number of people I have reached with my big mouth and pecking fingers amazes me. Thanks to the all-knowing internet someone who wouldn't have ever known I existed before can listen to my radio show and send me an email about what they think of it. Just like the last email I got, it said- Your show is far to long Why do you have people on your show when they don't have a radio voice. I have tried to listen to your show several times but you don't stay on the subject. Can't you do a more professional show? Yep, never before could I have had the chance to entertain people like that.
Blogging has given anyone who has a keyboard the perfect way to say any kind of crazy made-up crap they want and put it on display for the world to read and comment on. It has also given some very good writers a way of offering their articles and stories so that those who would never had the chance can read them.
And here is the list of not so good things about the internet
SEE ABOVE & Kiddie Porn
