Monday, September 26, 2011

What Do You Mean Pick One?


As we randomly selected our topics for Random Writers, “What’s Your Favorite Website?” is the topic that popped up for week two of our writing project. I immediately feigned excitement and thought to myself, “What the hell am I going to write about?”

As I sit here writing, and grimacing, I still have no *bleeping* clue where to go with this post. I’ve let the question rattle in my brain for several weeks now, and I couldn’t begin to tell you how I plan on answering this question.

I think instead I will borrow some inspiration from my new tribe and just go random. After all, isn’t that what surfing the Net is about for most people?

To me, perusing the pages that make up the interwebs (I can’t believe I just used that word) is a topical activity. No, you don’t rub the www on your skin (unless you’re into that). Rather, what you surf, read, consume, share, bookmark, yell at, smirk over, and yes, blush about, is wholly predicated on the mood you’re in at the time you plop down in front of your browser.

Seriously, how can anyone have a favorite site? Of the gajillions of pages available to us (that’s only 47 for those of you reading this in China), how can anyone pick just one?

You would think as an Hispanic male I would default to the stereotype and select Street Cakes, but buttilliciousness aside, I think it’s crazy to try an narrow down the list of websites I enjoy frequenting to just one.

If it’s a big sports day, I head over to ESPN.com. If I am in the mood to catch up on world events, BBC.com is my news source of choice. Yes, much of my time is spent hitting Facebook, Google+, and Hootsuite, but that’s kinda’ like breathing for me. And I haven’t even mentioned GMail and Google Calendar. Yes, technically they’re web sites, but to me their life-essential tools that help keep the structure my OCD self so desperately requires.

If I need to escape from the mental rigors of work, I allow myself to get lost on FailBlog, FailBook, and other humor sites that make me feel better about myself as a moderately intelligent human being. Then, of course, there’s YouTube; the great black hole from which productive hours never escape.

They say variety is the spice of life, and the same applies to the Internet. Some days I use it to be productive. Other days I use it to be creative. And sometimes I let myself morph into a brainless zombie and just bounce from site to site to site. There’s a great joy to be found in the activity of just random surfing.

Do I have a favorite site? No. Of course not. It’s impossible. But if I *HAD* to choose one, well …. I guess it would have to be this one.

No comments: