I love the Internet. I can look up Steve Sax's 1983 stats with the Dodgers while having midget porn playing in another window. If I wanted to learn how to trim my oleanders into giant penises and boobs, type-type-type click poof and there's my info in all its glory. Add some .jpg images, and I'm ready to whack away on my hedges. What the shit a .jpg image is I could care less, just as long as it points out where to circumsize the oleander I'm good to go.
If it weren't for Wife's death grip on the credit card number I'd use the Internet to make enough cash to grow my evil empire. Unfortunately, the woman looms over me with a Catholic nun ruler to rap my fingers if I veer toward any online poker site. I'd be the Doyle Brunson of the Internet Holde'em scene, raking in the cash, watching online suckers left in my wake all the while watching midget porn in another window. Isn't that what the Internet's for, making dough and watching short folks humping on a mini-pool table?
The younguns in my life - that's anyone less than age 30 - tell me there's more to the Web than learning how to get high from whipped cream cans and looking at celebrity mugshots. But when it comes to being with "it" as far as Web thingys I must read, watch, listen too, play with or jerk my junk too I'm a day late and/or a dollar short (I'm always a dollar short because Wife gives me a 50-cent daily per diem, which is just enough to buy a bottle of water at the prison work camp). Friends tell me I have to watch some video on some site because it's "the greatest thing ever!" That claim triggers a response in my head: "Does it include Salma Hayek and an inflatable pool filled with baby oil?" If the answer is no, well, then it ain't "the greatest thing ever" in my book.
That's not to say I haven't followed their advice. If I failed to listen I would have missed out on OK Go's treadmill dance. There's four guys in the band, and with their song playing in the background, they synchronized a dance on treadmills to their tune. I'm not coordinated enough to navigate our sunken shower at 5 in the morning let alone dance on machines where their sole goal is to throw your ass off. This foursome walks, hops and leapfrogs from one treadmill to the other making it look like they're the Gregory Hines of treadmill dancers. Get me on a machine and I'm holding on for dear life, afraid the track will burn my legs to nubs because i'm too damn stubborn to turn the speed down to a leisurely 2-in-the-morning drunk stumble-walk.
Instead of watching donkey shows or listening to crank calls, I found a more intellectual use for the Web. Putting the 8 hours at the prison work camp to better use than actually working, I happened upon the Wikipedia Website. I don't know what a wiki is - I thought maybe it had to do with my winky after drinking too much, kinda like "if you get hammered off a 12-pack of Keystone Light and jello shots your winky gets wiki" - but I know what it does, it kills 8 hours a day Monday through Friday. I'm sure the thing has been around since Al Gore invented the Internet, but with me being so damn hip and on top of the latest Web trends, I'm getting my fill of enough useless information to actually appear like I know some shit when locked in a conversation:
"You're right, Wyoming's law restricting hunters from shooting big game from a public road is a load of crap. But Longbows to be used for antelope, bighorn sheep, black bear, deer, mountain goat or mountain lions must have at least 40 lbs. draw weight or be able to shoot a 400 grain arrow at least 160 yards. How 'bout that to knock your socks off? I read that on the Wikipedia Website. Put that in your pipe and smoke it."
I can only go to the bathroom so muchto waste time at the camp before it looks like I'm a Coke addict needing a fix every 90 minutes, so I have to fill the time somehow. Enter Wikipedia, the perfect work avoider. Earlier this week, I found myself reading about the Pine Barrens in New Jersey. I have no plans to visit the wilderness park, and I'm pretty sure Wife would smack me upside the melon with her Catholic nun ruler if I suggested it as a vacation spot for the Melissa clan. The Barrens were featured in a Sopranos episode a while back and I just needed to know more. My thirst for knowledge about the Pine Barrens hit Defcon 5 and wouldn't be quenched by listening to tales from New Jersey natives like the head boob at the prison work camp. So Wikipedia to the rescue.
After that, I read about Yellowstone park. I always wanted to know why the damn park smelled like overcooked eggs and stale farts. Who doesn't, right? The Yellowstone plateau sits on an active caldera - bet you didn't know that - and it's a matter of time before the place blows and melts the rest of us into black hunks of obsidian. With Yellowstone about to go nuclear, the construction of the Melissa End-of-the-World Yellowstone Volcano Shelter has begun in earnest. I strapped the dogs to the wheel barrow and taught them to dump the dirt I'm shoveling out of the future basement at the Compound. If Wife's attitude doesn't change in regards to this project and start shoveling or picking at Arizona's concrete ground layer she may find herself without a room when Old Faithful spews molton Earth poo across North America. I plan on charging five bucks per head - pretty cheap, wouldn't you say, to save your nuts from the end of the world. Knowledge is power, my friends, and its not always free.
And speaking of desert earth, I read an article that talked about the Sahara Desert. "Who in their right mind would live in a desert that gets hot enough to cook a cornish game hen?" I asked myself. It was a job for Wikipedia. That led me to Death Valley, because dammit, the U.S. has all best stuff and there's no way Africa can beat us in deserts either. Put Death Valley and the Sahara in a Thunderdome death match, our hunk of desolate land would kick that barren stretch of African sand's ass three ways from Sunday. In this case, size doesn't matter. At least that's what the U.S. government's propaganda tells me. I found that on the Web as well. I guess you can't believe everything you read online.
Finally, because I'm paranoid the bean in my skull is shrinking, I looked up the human brain. I needed to know why my brain was chock full of useless tidbits that pushed out usefull tidbits like whether a pair of African swallows could maintain air-speed velocity while carrying a coconut. After reading about mid brains, homonculouses and the medulla oblongata I hit a spot on the page that stated in colored boxes: "The neutrality or factuality of this article or section may be compromised by weasel words," and "The neutrality of this article is disputed." What the hell kind of crap is this? Apparently, evil Web doers in this world spout crap from their mouths that aren't exactly true or are said to further their own personal agendas.
My innocence shattered, I came to terms that not everything I read on the Net is truth. Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Rogers weren't Navy SEALS that held off a Japanese unit during the battle for Wake Island, Mars will not be the closest it's ever been to the Earth, and despite the strongly worded e-mail Microsoft will not send me 10-grand for replying to their message. Truth is sometimes hard to find on the Web, you have to be a human lie detector to comb through the layer of BS.
Unless you read this site, then everything is true.
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