Hello my name is Maria. And I'm addicted to ebay.
I can't get enough. You can find anything on there. ANYTHING! (Am I just a late bloomer on this one? Has everyone else already gone through their ebay phase?) I guess not, because that place is hoppin'. There is so much good shit on there. I have to be very careful and super selective about what I bid on, but, omigod, I just found the perfect turquoise leather clutch to go with the hand painted turquoise leather sandals that Alexa gave me for my birthday. I'm freakin out. I have been looking, and found not a single purse that would really go, and then, there it was, in all it's glory: butter soft, utterly unmarred, turquoise blue leather. Simple. No hardware except for the zipper. Aaaah. It will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine. I'm having a virtual orgasm at this very moment just thinking about it.
Anyway, this is what I've been doing with myself during my spare time. Spare, not being a huge lot, but still, I feel like I have spent a few hours shopping in a hundred different stores, and I have scarcely had to exert more energy than the occasional leg shift in my seat. So this is how asses get so fat. The internet is a dangerous thing. Aside from the fact that it is irritating how much virtual garbage it produces, you can obtain just about anything via the internet.
Just the other day, Kathleen presented me with a birthday present. A beautiful necklace that her mother brought back from New Zealand, made of stunning pieces of shell that are unique to that region of the world. On the tag, I noticed there was a website address. It was at that moment I realized that nothing is sacred anymore thanks to the worldwide web. You can probably get a necklace just like that on the internet. Used to be that when someone brought you something from the other side of the earth, it was special. Because you couldn't go there and get it yourself. But now you can just log on and punch in your credit card number and get the same mutherfucking thing. And now that this earth has become one giant unstoppable consumer fed machine, things have just become things. That doesn't mean they're not good things that we don't all desire or somehow feel that we need, but it just seems to me that the internet has only increased the advertising/brainwashing effort and effect on human beings as much as it has proved to be a huge advantage and a massive leap for civilization.
We were talking the other day about what our generation and this particular point in time will be remembered as in the future. What will they call us, someone asked. I mean, so much has happened. Since I was a child. The first and second gulf wars, the Bush, Clinton, Bush era, the technological shock and awe phase, September 11th, the (still somewhat concealed) master plan of the U.S. government to conquer the world and allow corporations to rule the earth...will it be called "Media Madness" or "Century of the Cell Phone?" Seems like cell phones have just become an appendage to each person's body. If you don't have one, then what the fuck are you going to do? NOT talk on the phone? That's preposterous. (I had mine shut off and now I use it as an alarm clock.)
Celebrity "news" has become more prominent than real news. People care more about whether Jen and Ben are still together or where they went shopping this week, than the fact that horrible shit is happening all over the place and humanity itself has evolved into a catastrophe. (I won't deny that I'm a perpetrator). If you're "liberal," you're considered to be a quack in this day and age. And would you believe, that George Carlin is just as relevant now as he was in the 80s? One of my alltime faves: "These conservatives are really something aren't they? These pro-lifers... An unborn fetus is a sacred life, but once it's born, if it grows up to be a doctor, you might just have to kill it! Unborn fetuses are sacred, but once you're born they don't want to have another fuckin thing to do with you! No childcare, no health insurance, no nothing. They don't want to have anything to do with you until you're 18 and then they're happy to have you so that you can become a dead soldier!" God that was good. A genius and a half.
Despite all the dreck, I think our time will be remembered as the Dawn of the Internet. The internet phenomenon wins the prize. I love it and I hate it. But mostly, I just love it.
Posted by Maria at October 1, 2003 08:25 PM | TrackBackGood comments Maria, very good, enjoyed this thread alot. Well, I don't own a cell phone and probably never will. I'm more towards being a conservative but believe in abortion and I have never shopped on ebay-don't know why really, just haven't. I've boycotted you might say large department stores and fucking Wal Mart for a couple years now...I try to do all my shopping at markets and locally owned dress shops and what not. I don't give a rats ass about Jen & Ben...I thought it was interesting at first, I mean come on she's been married twice before, yak yak yak, but damn..
I do appreciate the web for a couple things though..I can get online and order peaches from Georgia and have them here in 2days!!!!! When my husband was overseas thanks to the internet we communicated alot more often than had we just relied on snail mail. His handwritten letters were still the best!
Since my daughters math homework is getting too hard for me to always help her, I love Discovery.com. Dude I can punch in her math problem, the site not only solves it, it explains how it was solved in great detail. Free math tutoring what it is and I'm ever so grateful, I'm not the sharpest peanut in the turd when it comes to math.
And damn me to hell, but I DOWNLOAD FREE MUSIC...I'm not stealing from the artists, the record companies do that, they've been fucking musicians over for years..when I was younger a concert would cost 15 bucks..but now you have to have a "video budget" and I'm sorry but MTV was the worst thing to happen to music. My husband loves Tool, so I buy a 15 dollar album,two 65 dollar concert tickets,300 dollars a year in t-shirts, patches, posters, etc..so if I download some free music once in a while than sue me...oh shit they will!!!!
I love George Carlin and yes he remains very relevant today-I still love his stint on filling your house with STUFF than you gotta get a bigger place for more STUFF, so true, so true. I've been downgrading as of late, throwing things out I don't need and this past weekend my daughter went into "shock". We got rid of her tv and the one in my bedroom, we're down to one now. I passed her room one day and she was literally sitting in front of her tv, mouth open, eyes glazed over and it made me sick. She has 5 bookshelves overflowing, a wall full of arts & craft stuff, and she chose to watch a video that I know she's seen 100 times...so bye bye tv, hello imagination....
Well, I'm getting off soap box, hubby is home and gotta make lunch...