Digg, Reddit, Etc
As part of my job, a crucial part of the shift is staying amused between dealing with customers. For a while I cycled through book after book after book until I finished almost every stand-alone novel by Stephen King. I went to the flea market and picked up a GameBoy Colour and Pokémon Crystal for 10$ and beat all 16 gyms(and no, I haven’t caught them all yet; that seems too tedious as of now). About two to three weeks ago I began to frequent sites such as digg or reddit. I’ve always checked them from time to time and used them to help construct an archive of trivial facts and knowledge, and I’ve enjoyed browsing the headlines from time to time. You can get anything from trivial to scientific.
Now, I’m pretty sure you’re thinking “Neato mosquito! I’m going to go check those out right now!” Don’t. These past couple weeks have gone from a variety of pages to, literally, 18/25 of the front page headlines being more on Obama VS McCain, or Russia VS Georgia, or even “TEH UNITED STATES NEED TO DECLARE WAR ON RUSSIA BECAUSE THEY SUCK”. All of these are very important events in the world, but I’d personally enjoy it more if they were only a couple headlines from reputable news corporations. Like, when a number of the ones mentioned refer to the ridiculous stories given by Fox News or are just the typical war-mongering American bully tactics I find it hard to enjoy.
I accept that the upcoming American presidential election will have a HUGE impact on the world, including the NATO involvement in the Middle East and even the way Canada reacts. The upcoming president will have to recover from the largest debt ever faced by the United States, attempt to battle their falling economy, and find a solution to the ongoing ‘War on an idea’. Yet, I want to be updated as something happens. I’m not interested in smear campaigns. And I’m definitely not interested in hearing American comments on stories about the Georgia conflict. To have a seven year war happening already with no definite outcome so far is devastating enough, but to start another war? Didn’t the world recently finish thawing out from the last war with them?
The last problem I’ve had with all these stories (that I’m writing on today) is the comments. Usually I try to ignore them, but more and more the same time have been spreading from opinions and editorials, to comments on official new websites, to even trade chat in WoW. You’ve probably seen similar ones: “The world only hates America because they know we could kick their ass!” or to directly quote Horde player Vidro: “If the Chinese hurt another American tourist… 200 nukes = all of them taught a lesson.” Thank you Vidro, for helping everyone with that educated comment.
My apologies for spinning this into a rant, but isn’t that what blogs are for? In any case, thanks for listening. It’s awfully nice to be able to just “express” myself in a way that shouldn’t result in my flaming too badly. Unless of course this post gets up there on Digg or Reddit, which will give me a little boost to my feeling of self-importance. Until that day, however, I’m just happy some things can get up the those main pages that teach me something, or give me a laugh.
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