Cataract Resin 2
Think for a moment.
Think of the 23rd letter of the alphabet.
Write it down. Not once, not twice, three times. Write it down three times in a row. What do you have? The prefix of the most subversively inaccurate source of information on the planet.
WWW.
The World Wide Web has taken over our lives in a shockingly rapid space of time. Gone are the days when we can make it through without “going online” at some point (well, most of us, anyway). “I just need to check my mail.” “I need to download this file.” “I need to get some information.”
No. You don't need to do anything. You want to. You feel that the world will come to some kind of horrifically grisly end if you don't wire in to your life support machine for a couple of hours every day. So why do we do it?
First up. Checking mail. When you first sign up for e-mail, it's the most incredible thing in the world. You can send a message to anyone, anywhere, and it will reach them in a matter of minutes. No more waiting days, hoping the postal service will come through for you. You can share ideas with your friends in foreign climes. You can have conversations with people halfway round the world that you've never met. Oh, the JOY of e-mail!
Then the REAL deal begins. Within a few weeks of your email address being up and running, the spam starts arriving. It starts as a trickle - you'll get an e-mail telling you of a fantastic new offer from Generic Goods inc. or some way to save on credit card bills. At first it's fine. You read through, hit delete.
At first, the spam is usually loosely based on subjects that interest you, and has been sent because you bought something from this online store, or you signed up for a service from that website. But very soon, the trickle becomes a torrent, and your inbox is inundated with the most emails you've ever seen, on topics that you didn't even know existed. “Save money on pubic hair re-growth formulas!” “Get credit on a used motorized mantis!” No, no, NO! Within a few weeks of your email address being created, the honeymoon is over, and you enter the real world of email. A world where you have 73 emails every day, and 3 of them are
From people you know. A world where someone sends you a “Hilarious program!” which formats your hard disk (although, if you open dodgy file attachments with. VBS extensions, you should be in a straight jacket anyway -- actually, no, if you use Microsoft Outlook you should be shot). A world where you 
Receive a chain letter that states that if you do not send it to 57,342 people in the next 0.34 picoseconds, your bowels will evacuate and your head will fall off, but if you do send it on, you'll get to live in the White House for 34 years. Put simply, you enter a world where the very thought of email turns your stomach.
Next downloading files. If you know what you want, know where to get it, you're usually fine. If not, you are, to put it mildly, in a world of shit. Ask a search engine for this file or that file and you will invariably get a list of a thousand pages offering “Hot free sex” and “Youngest Teens” and “XXX hardcore animal meathook sodomy“. We're not interested in that. If you take a guess at the filename, you're no better off, for the simple reason that the file will undoubtedly have an inexorably long name made out of a jumbled string of characters that mean absolutely nothing. Say for example, you're looking for updated video drivers you could guess “drivers.exe”. You'd be better off guessing “ZV_63^Ł$hsute.exe”. Bloody meaningless. So what do you do? Go to the manufacturer’s website? Ha! If anyone can give me a manufacturer that offers software downloads without taking you on a merry tour of the dingly dell, I will give you a present. Sure, there might be a link on the front page that reads “Drivers“. Click this, and you'll get a thousand pop up windows telling you about the product that you already own, and asking if you want to buy it again. Once you've made it through that quagmire, you're told to go through a mystical journey of hyperlinks to select your operating system and product, before ending up at the same page you reach no matter what options you select. THEN, once you've finally found the fucking file, you have to give your email address, name, age, sodding inside leg measurement and penis weight before you continue. AfterThis, you can expect to receive an email telling you of the benefits of inside leg penis straps and weights. At this point you're ready to cry. Then your computer crashes.
But it can't all be bad, surely? I mean, there's so much information on there, right? True, and the percentage of that information that is true is lower than Tom Cruise's sperm count. You can find reams and reams of utter bollocks on the Internet, made up stuff that people believe because “It's on a .com address”. No. Please. If you're looking for information on a topic, get it directly from a WELL KNOWN source on that subject, or go to a library. Don't do a google search and select the first page that comes up on the list (well, the first page that doesn't feature men being anally raped by elephants, or some such filth).
If, however, you are looking for a cheap laugh and complete mishandling of any given topic, by all means browse the internet for as long as it takes to find it. Usually about 2 minutes. An easy way of telling if a story some guy is telling in the pub is true or not, is to simply ask him where he heard said story. If his response is "On the Internet," (and it invariably is) you know he's talking utter bollocks.
World Wide Wank.
So I implore you all, stay away from the Internet for at least a day this week. God knows it's an integral part of our lives these days, but the world will not stop if you're not wired. Resist the urge to check your mails; they can wait. Leave your computer turned off all day, get outside and appreciate the world. Go the park, fly a kite, ride a bike, drive to the mountains and take in the view. The Internet will still be here tomorrow. Today will not.
DISCLAIMER: I am fully aware of the irony of my situation. My hatred of the Internet does not prevent me from using it as a medium to open your eyes to the world. So don't bother sending me emails pointing out this fatal flaw. They'll get filed with all my spam, and I will laugh at the thought of you being anally raped by an elephant.