The internet. (Star Wars intro music)
Where would any of us be without it? Probably in a forest naked eating a jar of pickles and singing Hey Jude – accapella style. Hippies would be rampant. Remember the 60’s? Neither do I, but because of the internet, I just Goggled it and I saw pictures of their destruction. Without the internet, we’d just be stuck with volumes upon volumes of encyclopedia’s and dictionaries. A life without the internet would give our “Did you know” friends the edge. Who wants to play a board game? And we’d all have six packs – because we’d have to leave our houses to play role playing games. No online Call of Duty or King of the Hill raids on Halo.
While I was barely alive as the internets(s) morphed in 1989 from its 1960’s sci-fi origins, I do remember the day someone on our block had dial-up. All us kids gathered round as our friend waved the pizza sized CD case in the air. On the cover in bold blue letters were the words, “30 days free internet.”
Now, interrupting this blog for the following random train of thought. Can we get that back? Thirty days of free internet? Egats! Now, back to the story.
The cardboard casing to the CD had the weird looking yellow dude on the front running away from 90’s 3D objects. And those objects can be scary looking. After they slide the shiny CD into the seven-foot tower, and after the hourglass stopped spinning on the screen, they’d select the pixelated “Ok” to initiate the free trail. Then, as we leaned in, patiently awaiting for the “connected to the internet” window to appear, the annoying static noise and loud peeps *pre NSA* that sounded like the echoes of 20 anger vampire bats in a mining tunnel, began. This meant the internet was connecting to the server using the ole Grambell (the telephone).
Three weeks later and hours of red light green light (kids, that’s a game you play outside)….
We connected to the AOL chats. Hello pop-up windows and creepy old men in chats they shouldn’t enter. Hotguy89? I saw you in those hippie pictures on the internet. More like Oldfart64.
Now a days in the future, I open my laptop, and log on, like a boss, then bam, internet connects and I get to search for po… science stuff about….the internet…
The invention of double-u, double-u, double-u, dotcom, opened the door for other fantastical inventions. For example, the search engines. They gave me hours of time to waste searching for stuff. Work? Who needs work when I can start my day by looking up Lincoln’s baby voice and end it with Dolphin Sex. The rabbit hole of the internet never makes sense, but that’s what makes it so damn awesome. Pasta Party and baby bird feeding? I wonder what Alice and Wonder Land would’ve been like if she had the internet? Googled it. It’s real weird.
And Google said, let there be Youtube. Bye social life, and hello funny videos and hours of videos about conspiracy theories.
So internet, here’s for turning a quarter of a century, ole gal. Easy on the Malware this year, okay? Because I can see your ports. (Star Wars music ends)
And now I give you the random ADHD moment:
I wonder if Google glass or hologram projection will be the next wave of anti-social technology to come our way? Guys would be able to psychically say, “Aye girl.” And folks could marry the projector ladies they created. I have to admit, it would be really awesome to look like a Borg. *says in robot voice* You will be assimilated. No,… nothing? Not even a smirk? Uh, Okay. Well, if you’d like to learn more about the thing that changed all our lives, the internet, click the link below:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/on-25th-anniversary-of-web-lets-keep-it.html
Napow! 