Gmail is a pretty sweet tool and even sweeter are the text advertisements that come along with it. I’m blown away that I can be writing someone an email about Ultimate, music, or dogs in hilarious halloween costumes, and the advertisements that come up always seem to hit the mark…well not always, but when they don’t hit the mark, I always seem to say “I see your point text advertisement and I understand why you think I’d like this based on the text in a previous email, but you’re just dead wrong.” And then I take it out for a beer and try to hit on it and makeout with it.
The other cool thing is that it will put headlines up at the top of my messages from magazines or news sites. Again, these headlines are at least loosely related to the general topic of an email. This morning I clicked on a link to Wired online’s site. It was about video games or something but that’s beside the point. I decided I’d go check out Wired’s home page since I often get Wired headlines in Gmail and I figure Gmail knows what I like and I like what Gmail knows I know.
After reading a bit on the homepage I ran across the following article:
Basically some guy who calls himself “The Luddite” named Tony Long is sounding off about the “Blogosphere” and how we suck at writing and often lie and report news that isn’t true and that we’re all self-involved a-holes who are over-privledged, under-educated, and should be shot, every last one of us, and then be fed to robot dinosaurs while we watch our friends and family being roasted over a pyre of our own blog posts, printed out and set ablaze by monkeys dressed up as firemen.
He would also like us to cite sources and use our real names because not using your real name means you’re a coward:
If you’re going to fire a rocket at someone in a blog post, or anywhere else, at least have the class to use your real name and stand behind your vitriol. Anything less makes you a coward and invalidates whatever bile you’ve spewed.
My name is on this, and I’m calling you gutless if you don’t sign yours. What are you going to do about it, blogger boy?1
Oh no! Some old, ugly guy is out to get bloggers! Jeepers Scoob, let’s scram!
You know, you don’t HAVE to read blogs. Nor do you have to believe everything they say.
Just because you were cruising by Perez Hilton and looked like a real turd around all your lady-man friends at your “Tom’s Finally Mine!” tea-party because you misunderstood the headline “Tom Cruise has come out!” doesn’t mean you need to trash all non-professional bloggers.
And Tony, some advice – when you read a blog you should be prepared to do the following:
1) Be incredibly skeptical of anything presented as fact (this goes for all media, not just blogging, but especially blogging).
2) Lower your standard from “literature” to “amateur.” Many people write to keep a journal for THEMSELVES. Not so you can read it and think they’re the next F. Scott Fitzgerald and to get book and movie deals.
3) Try not to be angry that, even though we lie and haven’t taken a writing class, the majority of us are smarter and funnier than you are.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying blogs are awesome. I’m just saying MY blog is awesome. Because it’s here to entertain me. I get to write whatever I want. Stupid, zainy, mindless crap that keeps my creative juices flowing and that makes me laugh out loud and expresses my opinion.
If you don’t like it, don’t read it. If you read it, don’t believe it’s true or that the intentions are good journalism. And for God’s sake, lighten up.
I fire my rocket at you Tony Long. Huff it, chode-star.
1Tony Long, 04.12.07 for Wired Magazine Online, submitted at 2:00 AM while crying and feasting on a tub of Ben&Jerry’s, blaming his slow metabolism for his obesity, and his obesity for his lack of friends. And crying because he looks like this:
