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| Name: Ryan Roe Email: prawnrr-rmv@this.com-yahoo.com Position: Movie / Television / Comic Book / Trivia Geek View Ryan's Personal Profile |
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| You may remember this journal post, in which I declared that I was going a week without using the internet. That week is over now, and I’m still alive. I present to you now the follow-up post, in which you will find an account of my seven dot-comless days. Tuesday, March 8, 2005 I didn’t have to be at work until 6:00 PM today, so I knew I would be getting home late. I was hoping maybe I would be finished a bit early so I could get in some last-minute e-mail checking, Muujware browsing and Tough Pigs forum reading. 11:25 PM I leave work. Knowing that it takes about half an hour to drive home I think maybe—just maybe I’ll get home before my internet cutoff time of 12:01 AM. 12:03 AM I arrive home. Cursing, fist-shaking, yelling “Kaaaaaahn!” Wednesday 9:33 PM On the way home from work, I’m listening to “Weird Al” Yankovic’s Pretty Fly for a Rabbi, a parody of Pretty Fly for a White Guy by The Offspring. It occurs to me that I can no longer remember any of the words to White Guy, a song I once had memorized. So far today, I haven’t even had time to miss the internet, because I’ve been at work since 11 in the morning. But now the realization kicks in for the first time. Normally, I would sign on as soon as I got home and look up the song on a website for lyrics, which may or may not have all the words spelled correctly. This week, though, I can’t do that. So if I want to know the words to Pretty Fly for a White Guy, I’ll have to wait until next Wednesday! What have I done?! 9:59 PM When I walk in the door, my sister Erin, whose comment you may have seen in my original journal post, is attempting to download ringtones onto her new phone. She’s having some trouble, and asks if I know how it works. I might be able to figure it out if I messed around with it for a while… but that would require my using the ringtone site. My hands are tied, so Erin will have to make do with annoying ringers for now. 10:47 PM I’m on the phone with Michal, whose comment you may have seen in my original journal post. I mention my Offspring quandary (which is totally what they should call their next tour). We debate the idea of her looking up the lyrics for me. Would it be cheating? Am I allowed to indirectly use the internet? (Firefox by proxy = Fireprox?) I believe it would be acceptable, but Michal ultimately decides not to be an enabler. The matter is sealed—unless I call Dexter Holland, I’ll have to keep waiting for those lyrics. Thursday Morning I begin typing out my notes about the no-internet week.on Microsoft Word. The icon for Word is diagonally adjacent to the one for “Connect to Internet Gateway” on my Windows desktop. It would be so easy… I could do it with a mere double-click… But my resolve is firm, and my will is… um, also firm. My Week Without an Internet is so far, so good. 4:56 PM I deposit a paycheck. “Money!” I say to myself. “I can use some of this to order a thing or two on Amazon.” But no, I can’t do it, or at least not today. Or the next day, or the next day, or the next day, or the next day, or the next day. 10:30-ish PM I’ll often check my e-mail about this time. I check my e-mail frequently, even when I know I won’t have anything new. Today, no can do. But something occurs to me now: What if I get an urgent e-mail during this week? What if a girl I used to have a secret crush on writes to say she’s getting married in two days, and she just realized that she’s really madly in love with me, and if she hears from me before the wedding she’ll call it off, but if not she’ll go through with it and probably end up unhappy for the rest of her life? By the time I checked my inbox, it would be too late! Or what if a Nigerian businessman has $23 million he needs to transfer to an American account and he’s willing to give me 10% if I help him, but he needs an answer immediately? I’ll miss out on a transaction of great magnitudes! Maybe I should check my e-mail right now! Ahhhhhh! I play Super Mario Sunshine instead. 11:37 PM I’m on the phone with Carolyn, whose comment you may have seen in my original journal post. I tell her about the Offspring lyrics plight… and she looks them up for me! Bwa ha ha! With her high-speed connection, it takes a fraction of the time it would have taken me with my 28.8 kbps dial-up. Here’s an idea: What if I never get online again, but just call up people I know with faster connections and ask them to do my searching and surfing for me? Friday The wee small hours of the morning As I sleep, I have a dream in which I break the no-internet rule by reading stuff on a TV website. If anyone asks, I decide, I’ll tell them I “forgot.” Moments into the dream, my dream-self is wracked with guilt: I’m weak! I’m weak!, says the dream-Ryan. I wake up attempting to Open a New Tab on my pillow. 1:00 PM I can’t visit Buffy.nu to see if there’s any new information about David Boreanaz’s cop show, or any new photos of Charisma Carpenter. So I finish reading two Entertainment Weeklys and the book Take the Cannoli by Sarah Vowell. Not once do I have to wait for them to finish loading .jpgs. Then I clean the bathroom. When I’m finished it sparkles and it smells really good. Isn’t this a better, more productive use of my time? I have to admit that it is. Though when the week is over, I’ll still go back and check for those Charisma pictures. 7:12 PM A close call! While messing with Erin’s new phone, I press a button and find that I’m about to be connected to the wireless web. In utter horror I drop the phone, causing it to shatter into a thousand pieces on the floor. Well, not really, but that’s a lot more dramatic than the truth, which is that I went, “Guh!” and turned off the phone. 9:30 PM My mom, whose comment you may have seen on my original journal post, has a question about the e-mail forward she has received. Can plug-in air fresheners really cause fires? I can’t jump up and commandeer the browser, but I can give her directions to Snopes.com, where she finds what she’s looking for. (Status undetermined, by the way. So make sure you have a fire extinguisher in every room where you keep one of those air fresheners.) Click here for the exciting Part Three. Comments on this post are closed. |
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