Thursday, February 25, 2010

The Internet: Crack for the 21st Century (Part I)

Need proof? I am beginning to write this at 6am. Now this might not seem noteworthy to those who routinely begin their day at this hour, but I haven’t gone to bed yet. Working at a video store certainly doesn’t help. When I close (which I do often) I don’t get home until about 1am. I typically haven’t eaten dinner yet, since my shift starts around 5 or 6pm. My nightly unwinding need is a bit longer than others, as I rarely fall asleep immediately, though I shouldn’t really have to. If the average American gets home from work around 6pm, I imagine he or she is up for at least another 5-6 hours. Basically, my brain and body are on schedule, it’s just a bad schedule that begins when that of others has ended. And unfortunately there isn’t much cause to fix it, at least not now. I’ve tried to get up daily at a reasonable hour, but what’s the point? If I get up at 9am, have breakfast, shower, etc… now what? I don’t have to be at work for 8 hours! I can fill the gap by watching the thousands of free movies at my disposal (Who needs health insurance when I have this perk?). Or I can return to the good old internet which has in my view claimed the term “idiot box” from the television, though for some reason people are reluctant to admit this fact.

Homer Simpson circa 2002, “The internet! That thing’s still around?”

Honestly, aside from work how often do people use the internet for anything productive? It’s certainly more convenient to make travel arrangements and purchase flight than it was 15 years ago. Paying bills is easier, although most people consider this work anyway and I’m personally tired of the question “Want to go green?” That’s about it though. All the information in the world is stored in this ugly off-color rectangle that doesn’t go with anything in your living room. The internet is basically your drug of choice (as opposed to coffee, alcohol, or cocaine). Like a casino it never closes and possesses the power to stimulate the mind all night long. At 5:30 this morning, T sluggishly walked out from the bed room, saw me staring at the computer screen with the lights on and simply asked “Really?” And this from someone who recently created an impossible-to-remember facebook code for herself because she was spending entirely too much time on it. The net affects us all, and not necessarily for the better. I wonder how often the average person goes out for a walk anymore. I’d bet anything it’s less than 20 years ago, despite an entire industry now designed around advertising weight-loss programs, which pop up almost as frequently as adds to meet singles in “your” area.

The problem with the internet is it’s an addiction for adults. Kids routinely seem no more or less interested in it than they are with older addictions like video games and TV. But the truth is one can only engage in those activities for so long before tiring of them. Even when I was young (8 or 9) and stayed up for hours upon hours trying to beat Contra or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for NES, at some point I needed a break. How many times can anyone beat the same adventure game before needing a new activity? Not even I can stay glued to the couch for more than a single movie at a time. T and I cancelled cable 8 months ago now, a feat that stunned a good friend of mine who firmly believed I’d give up food before cable. As the meat of winter approaches and we begin to get a little stir-crazy we may turn it back on, though we’ve been generally ok with our decision. But neither of us can fathom cancelling the internet and not just because it’s impractical. We’d go insane, a relative term given the hour of my blogging.

I mentioned briefly the value of the ‘net’ for those who depend on it, namely students and adults who need it for work (though this group is a lot smaller than you think). The 1st group that pops into anyone’s head regarding adults who use the internet are office workers, who tend to use document files and excel spreadsheets for anything productive (both existed before and lack a dependence on the net). I laugh at the fact that every time we see Creed on “The Office” he’s playing snood, but just how far from reality is that? Another good friend of mine once had his computer confiscated at work because he wasn’t being productive.

It is true that many use the internet for research, but while certainly more convenient, it is a little sad that libraries (and books by the way) are becoming more and more obsolete. Anything you could ever want or need to read is available online, a killer of thousands of jobs and entire professions. Even a newspaper as reputable as The Boston Globe could fold, dashing the dreams of thousands of young writers who’d prefer to write in that type of atmosphere. There’s also something unnatural about having one’s morning coffee while banging away on your laptop as opposed to having a hard paper to highlight the day’s news. I don’t like it and I feel really bad for anyone above a certain age who’s worked a certain way their entire life and suddenly has to find a job doing work online because their specific line-of-work no longer exists.

And then there’s email, the single most widely used advent of the internet. Email will never leave. It’d be like eliminating cell-phones at this point. We want to reach people easier and faster, for important and irrelevant matters alike. Could there me a more impersonal way of communicating with people? At least we can keep tabs on that guy from our freshman dorm in college, who was sort of a friend/acquaintance. If we didn’t have email how would we find out what he does for work or if he still keeps in touch with that other random acquaintance? I will say this for email though; it does save us the awkward phone transitions when it’s clear to both parties that a conversation is over but neither knows how to sign off. All of a sudden you get an abundance of unnatural pauses and your usage of the word “anyway” increases by a multiple of five.

I suppose it’s a pretty futile exercise to bash the internet in 2010. My grandkids will some day laugh at me for being one of the remaining few thousand people on the planet who once had to write school papers by hand. I’ll have to explain to them what a post-office is, what the letters VCR stand for, and how my home internet connection could be interrupted by someone using the phone. They’ll turn to their siblings and roll they eyes, as if I’m the old man from “Up.” Nope, I’ve got to pick my battles. I’m sure if I think long and hard I can come up with several positive uses of the internet. Only then will I be able to unlock the mystery of how I spend all these insomniac hours.

Stay tuned for Part II.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Super Bowl History - A Mixed Bag

I've never been the world's biggest football fan. I don't watch college at all, and I only sometimes watch non-Patriots games. The Saint's involvement in this year's playoffs has been a major source of interest, both because T hails from Slidell, as well as the human interest in something of this magnitude happening for the city of New Orleans. The presence of the game's premiere talent (Peyton Manning) also carries weight. The NFC title game 2 weeks ago was monumental and if we are lucky, this year's Super Bowl will come close. But the games have always been a mixed bag, not just for the contest itself, but for the commercials, the half-time shows, and venues for watching the big one. For every Rams/Titans nail-biter, there is a Bucs/Raiders massacre that is over by the end of the 1st quarter. For every Springsteen dominated half-time, there is a series of creepy baby ads. A brief history then of some highs and lows from my personal viewing history . . .

1991: Buffalo Bills vs. Washington Redskins - The first Super Bowl I remember watching (at 10), I was excited to join a group of friends going to watch at JH's house. They had pizza and multiple TV's. Unfortunately, our host wasn't always the fairest of children and decided to ask each guest who he was rooting for upon entering his front door. Being behind Washington, those fans would gather downstairs in the basement with more space and the largest TV. The unfortunate handful of friends rooting for Buffalo were instructed to march directly to his mother's bedroom to watch in seclusion. I'm not kidding! Not only did I (along with 3 others) have to suffer the indignity of cheering for the eventual losers, we had to do so sitting on the edge of the bed belonging to our friend's mom. Giving in to this arrangement is not my proudest moment.

1996: Green Bay Packers vs. New England Patriots - Excitement filled the air in Boston, especially since no local team had reached its respective sport's final game in a decade. Along with 3 camp friends we drove to a party hosted by Cedar's owner, but the consensus after 30 minutes was we'd rather be elsewhere. I went home and joined my extended family, only to have the air lifted out of the room as Desmond Howard ran back about 14 balls for touchdowns if memory serves (it felt like that many). Quality pepperoni pies from the eternally underrated Newton Centre establishment "Pizza Man" softened the blow, even as our Bledsoe led troops lost 35-14.

2000: Baltimore Ravens vs. New York Giants - Yah, didn't really make it through this one. A college dorm party featuring 2 kegs and a suspect cooked ham ended my night around the 5 minutes mark of the 2nd quarter. I was literally unconscious when I felt my roommate CK poking my sides to move. I stumbled back to my dorm room with a little help from my friends and passed out fully dressed around 8pm. For what it's worth I picked the right game to miss. The Ravens/Giants debacle is perhaps the most lopsided Super Bowl of my lifetime. The night ended up being most memorable for my mom nervously wondering if I was going to die after my roommate telling her I'd fallen asleep at halftime. Bear in mind this was perhaps 1 of 5 nights total in which I fell asleep before 2AM during college. Needless to say, mom was relieved to hear from me the following afternoon.

2001: St. Louis Rams vs. New England Patriots - A low key year with only a single roommate (one was at the game live), SC and I watched with anticipation as my local boys jumped out to an early lead over the heavily favored Rams offense. We'd decided to chase some leftover codeine pills from my recent wisdom tooth surgery with my favored Coors lite, which did nothing at first, though we were mumbling jibberish after a while. Unfortunately, my dumb-ass also decided to eat an entire carton of chicken lomein, the combined effects of which forced me into the bathroom before U2's exemplary half-time show. I missed the entire 3rd quarter in the deserted Jackson Hall bathroom, returning only to find Kurt Warner and his troops charging back. But Adam Vinateri's dramatic heroics sent me running outside into the snow covered field and cheering triumphantly, soon matched by several Pats fans. It was pretty awesome, and led to a tremendous tee-shirt prize featuring the phrase, "The Silence of the Rams."

2007: New England Patriots vs. New York Giants - Ummm, yeah not much to say. A disastrous end to a brilliant season, in which David Tyree cheated by pouring a bucket of super glue all over the front of his helmet to catch an impossible pass from the Manning who looks slightly retarded. This game received it's own blog, though it was a fun night until the final minute, surrounded by good friends who all contributed to a pot-luck feast. I'm still knocking on wood that our gracious host AM, who took the loss a tad harder than the rest of us, didn't jump off his 10th floor balcony landing on an unsuspecting cab on Causeway St. Given the game result, the highlight of the night surely had to be T's superb baked salami. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

That just about brings us up to speed. The Patriots won 2 more, besting the Panthers & Eagles by a field goal apiece, cementing their status as the team of the decade. The Colts beat the Bears, bucking the trend that great defense always beats great offense. Janet Jackson flashed her goodies in a blink-and-you-miss-it moment prompting approximately 49 DVR rewinds in my parent's basement. And the Steelers bested Arizona in a 2009 contest that may have been the best of all. But this year it's just T and me (I know I'm supposed to use "I," but I like words that rhyme). We're rooting for New Orleans and for a good game. So far the best commercial by far involved a young black kid smacking an adult across the face as a warning not to touch his Doritos. I laughed aloud and know exactly how he feels. Other early winners involved the Lebron James/Dwight Howard update of the famous Larry Bird/Michael Jordan H.O.R.S.E. contest for McDonalds (with a "Legend" cameo), Betty White getting tackled in a Snickers ad, and the "Casual Friday's" ad for careerbuilder.com featuring employees celebrating in their underwear. Time to make some wings and cheer on a group of 75-year old British rock stars, whom my Dad just proclaimed look so old it might as well be him up there on stage.

"Teenage Wasteland!"

Enjoy the 2nd half.

P.S. T just taught me how to properly sing the "Who dat?" chant. I sound like a fool, but am now one with the culture.

Edit: Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints

Edit #2: A lot of people were itching for Manning to win a 2nd bowl, which would've helped justify their assertion that Manning had surpassed Brady as the great quarterback of his era. Funny how I don't hear a word from any of them today :)