MySpace? More like Oh-My-Fucking-God-You-People-Appall-Me Space

After my umpteenth invitation to view some chick's webcam, it seemed time to delete my MySpace account. I never use it; it's an abscess on the shiny veneer of social networking, particularly my social networking. Even though I heart the internet, I am not one of those people plugged in at every outlet - I do not twitter, or digg, or flickr, and I do not own a mobile device that provides me on-the-go internet access. Blogging, emailing, and perusing the Craigslist casual encounters is as much as I do with the interweb. Oh yeah, and Facebook. And coming back to my former statement, Facebook is a far more superior method for social networking - it looks cleaner, and is, in my opinion, more user-friendly. Though MySpace was Facebook's predecessor, MySpace has quickly become the ugly, half-retarded, spam-loving step child of internet communication.

So like I was saying, I was going to delete my profile. As I logged onto my MySpace account and considered the piss-poor layout I was about to obliterate, I clicked on one of my 50 "friends" - people who I have known at one point or another, but can't really say I'm friends with. This particular "friend" was a girl I knew in elementary school, someone who I can quite literally say I watched grow up from an awkward, be-spectacled little girl, into a beautiful young woman, then into a ghetto-ized drug-dealer with a penchant for accusing females in the vicinity of her boyfriend of trying to"git wit him." Seriously, she went from coke-bottle eyeglasses to coke-caked nostrils. I don't totally judge her for it - she was one of my partners in crime during my drug-addled summer after college - but the image she purports in her MySpace is a fucking parody, or would be a parody if she didn't really aspire to be what she puts forth to the world.

In essence, her profile is a total fetishization of all that is "gangsta,""ghetto," and "slutty," although I bet she's trying to be sexy. But it's not sexy at all. She substitutes "da" for "the," deliberately loses the "g" on all her gerunds, and says things like "holla!" Possibly the best (or most despicable?) part of her profile is when she declares that she has "been workin in the sex industry for a while now, its been fun n all but I'm ready and qualified fo so much more!" (sic all of that, if you couldn't guess)

Um, I could forgive that statement if she actually worked in the sex industry, but she works at Priscilla's, an "adult boutique" that sells tacky stripper shoes and penis-shaped crazy straws. It does not, in any way shape or form, require my "friend" to twirl around a stripper pole, perform sex acts on camera, or hustle her ass on the street. So why is she implying thus? There is something truly pathetic about a person who finds the sex industry glamorous. Please, go talk to a prostitute and ask how he or she feels about selling their bodies, and then come and tell me how glamorous it all seems.

After spending 15 minutes reading her MySpace profile in amazement and horror, I moved onto my other high school classmates - what can I say? None were too bright, none were too...dignified? Part of the reason why their profiles make them look like caricatures of ghettofabulosity is implicit in MySpace (I know animated GIFs are fascinating, but Jesus Christo one can only take so much before the seizures happen!) But you can't blame Tom for that profile picture of you holding a fan of Benjamins, and you really can't blame Tom when you lack any trace of irony when you're holding that fan of Benjamins. That photostream of you and all your boys? Yeah, it could have been classy if you'd left out the snapshots where you're flashing gang signs and nuzzling up to some "hottie's" ass. And may I remind you that you will be 30 years old in two months? As most sane people say, no time like the present to grow up.

In any case, I decided not to delete my MySpace account. Though I rarely go on it, it does provide great comic relief when I'm feeling kind of low. Also - you can't write this shit. The characters that I'm seemingly friends with could not be conjured by Capote, Oates or King. These MySpace profiles are a well of material, a go-to source for those times when writer's block hits me. True, MySpace really only provides me a close-up to a few character traits (ridiculous and fucking ridiculous being the main ones), but my "friends'" profiles are thorough character-studies in and of themselves. Now is the time for you all to start anticipating my debut novel, "Who Knew I Attended High School with Retards?"

An achievement better than earning a college degree, or losing your v-card

Triumph!

Tonight marks the best accomplishment I have achieved in my adult life thus far. Though it has nothing to do with my career aspirations, money, or romantic life, it is a prime example of the rewards given when you are inexorably diligent.

About a week ago, my computer stopped connecting to the wireless network in my apartment. I waited it out, thinking that the networking problems were a glitch that would fix themselves. Wednesday and Thursday came, and still no ability for my computer to connect to the internet, even after I pulled every connection trick I knew out of my back pocket. My adapter showed signs of connecting on Friday, but my ability to access the internet was intermittent. The weekend arrived, and I left my computer alone, hoping that the router's signal would improve by Sunday night.

That never happened, and tonight it became apparent that the router was dead. And there was no fucking way I was going to endure another www-less night.

Purchasing a new router was the first inclination, but after scoping out prices on my roommate's computer (he still had internet access, since his computer is wired into the internet connection), I decided that wasn't happening - there are more colorful and majestic ways to spend $70, like on the rent, or dinner.

An ethernet cord lay in the spare room. Rather than go out and buy more junky computer equipment, I decided to make lemonade with my means; my "means" also included a ladies hammer and a chisel, as well as little care to what damage I did to my bedroom wall.

I endeavored a la Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption - hammer in the right hand, chisel in the left, I pummeled the plaster around the small hole my cable cord was threaded through. After about 20 minutes with little plaster eroded, I ran to a friend's and borrowed her power drill. The drill worked better, but in a strange twist, it turned out the wall wasn't made of just plaster - seemed there was some kind of wood holding the wall up, and this wood had hulk-like strength.

I persisted. I jabbed and sawed away at the wood, which for all I knew was actually copper plumbing or a beam that was supporting the entire apartment building. But none of that mattered; seriously, I was so obsessed with getting a connection to the internet that I would have taken a sledgehammer to the wall. Sweat dripped from my pits and forehead; my legs cramped from sitting on them for so long; my joints screamed at me as I forced my limbs into twisted positions, crouched behind my and my roommate's desks.

An hour of amateur millwork later, the hole seemed big enough from both sides. It took another hour to thread the damn ethernet cord through it, a job that made me feel very MacGuyver like - I actually used manipulated paper clips to hook the cord and pull it through the wall. But finally, after roughly 2.5 hours of drilling and peering through a dusty, jagged hole in the wall, the cord was swiftly plugged into my computer and the router, and after some minor configuring....TA-MOTHERFUCKING-DA! I sit here detailing my experience for you fine folks via the internet.

In a way, connecting to the internet is just icing on the cake. I'm oddly proud of myself for meeting this obstacle with ingenuity and an unwillingness to give up. I could have thrown my hands up at any moment, traipsed up to Circuit City and slammed $70 on the counter for a new router, and lived on Ramen for the next two weeks. I've never been especially proficient at handywork or using powertools, and the notion that I was effectively costing us our security deposit was always in the back of my mind. But lookee here! There are few times in life when you take on a project you are ill-equipped to accomplish, yet your sojourn proves fruitful - as far as I'm concerned, this is one of those times. Will I ever feel this glorious again? All I gotta say is that my firstborn better be pritty special if he/she ever wants to live up to my most awesomest accomplishment yet.

The Perry Bible Fellowship

Am I the last to know about The Perry Bible Fellowship? Slut Machine included a comic strip in a Jezebel post a couple months back, and when I followed the link, I damn near read about every strip. Here are some of my favorites:

I wish I could draw hilarious - yet adorable - comic strips! Ah well, one thing at a time Marcie.