I have a lot I want to say, but wanna say it with some friggin' tact (which you probably know is one helluva stretch for me) so I figure i'll just ramble on 'till i get to the point.

typical.

on my mind:

my mother recently told a friend of mine "...what he needs to do is grow up..."

This is not a journal site, but i'm suddenly in the mood to let people in.

this is probably not smart.

i recently came up with a half-rediculous/half-serious idea for a pal to try to make a decision, and they called it very "celestine prophecy", which i guess is some new-age thing that they half-explained with scorn.

of course, this person also does their own tarot readings every morning.

I've been thinking of the whole notion of there being online "communities". This really annoyed me at first, being that the term got immediately jumped on an whored by the media and Corporate America in order to try and make a buck. "Communities" were formed and they turned out to be mostly nothing more than lables for groupings of irritating and poorly-formed webpages by people that thouhgt it would ne kewl to have their URL involve the word "SiliconValley". It went from buzzword to the land of bored Moms, hACK3rZ, and melodramatic teenagers that wished they had enough sack to be drama majors.

Good Riddance. In general, theres no better way to decide which link NOT to follow by seeing if its got geocities, anglefire, or aol as its domain.

I've decided, however, that the online community is not dead.

The buzz has died off and the community survived it. Think about it, i "know" a lot of you and most of you i've never met in person.
Those of you that don't talk to me and read regularly still know me to a point.

That's a commuinity.

You probably have the same sort of arrangement. Folks you've found have a common interest through a newsgroup, friends that live a thousand miles away and haven't contacted in forever untill you got an email address, even people whos pages you like and have emailed you back. Some are casual aquaintences, some you may even consider real friends.

it's more close-knit than you think, because you can always just stop replying.

For the newbie, this typically gets way the fuck out of hand, because they don't know better and thing and online friend is someone you just send 50 "you may be a redneck" forwards to every day. A good bitching out usually takes care of this. They learn, and some of them get to the point where they form something resembling a friendship.

Sometimes it goes a little further and you wind up in a relationship. I'm not just talking the romantic sort, either. i've been accused of doing this too much, and i suppose this is what has been bugging me for the past few...

My answer - fuck that.

What makes it less valid than meeting through a friend or at work or at a goddamn bar? There are a few people i've met online that i'd be glad to buy a beer if they showed up on my doorstep. I've done it before and thanks to it wayward surfers wind up with a big plate of Slap in their face following a random link from buggies page, and i got a pretty punk rock friend in the process.

not a bad deal, if you ask me.

Anyhow, out of prudence this is about as far as I dare take this one. I'm intertested in seeing what the hell y'all think.
hook me up

Slap out.

26 May 99

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