Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Hearting the internet

How so many tabs end up open on the computer: I got home yesterday and opened the email on Yahoo.com. I clicked on the email I received telling me about a book I should get from Amazon. It's the new one by David Sedaris but I've already ordered it and will get it next week when we go to the quinquennial family reunion on my father's side. (I had to look up that every-5-year word) Then I remembered from class today that I wanted to know what the difference between an ox and a cow was so I opened up wikipedia. The answer is that an ox is a cow, or more specifically a castrated male cow. I always thought they looked different somehow. I asked myself then, "Would I know an ox if I came across one?" We essentially eat them too I suppose since we eat castrated male cows in hamburger and steaks and whatnot. Hungry? Thinking about the family reunion made me question our flights, see, we have a connection with only 40 minutes so I wanted to look if there would be alternate possibilities should a delay be experienced. Then I wanted to know what airport IAD was and opened another tab to find out. It's Washington Dulles which explains it since I've never passed through that airport. Then I wanted to see how much I could exchange for US dollars so I opened my banking site to check my account. I clicked on another link which opened in a new window for the currency exchange rate. But that's not it, there's more! Then I remembered that on the metro in the morning, they announced a CODE 99 for all the employees. I know they have codes for everything and I wondered if it was injury, suicide, or something else. Then I ended up reading this whole page. I never did find out what code 99 was. After that, I looked for an article that I wanted to send to a colleague, it was this one, a fascinating account of a linguistic oddity in the culture of a small tribe called the Piraha. Since it was raining outside, I decided to check the radar to see if it would stop long enough to bbq up the steaks I had bought. Then I went to my Facebook page and played my turns in Scramble and Lexulous and checked a couple updates. Then I opened my bloglines to check updated blogs and of course each one of those I click on opens in a new window. Then I wanted to go back to Wikipedia to check the Block Universe theory but I couldn't find the tab I already had open because with 13 tabs, you can no longer see all of the tabs at once.

The thing is I love that. It's like a path through my mind in a way, and sometimes even seems like art.

18 comments:

Birdie said...

Your path is more like a bowl of spaghetti, and mine is just the same. (But yes, it is art. It's beautiful.) And it seems like a normal day at the computer to me. Maybe it's why I burn through them so much faster than anyone I know. I'm shopping for a new one today.

CoffeeDog said...

I did the same thing with crocodiles versus alligators, I wanted to know what the difference is. Alligators are only found in the SE US, crocodiles are found in various other locations. Alligators don't attack humans, crocs have been know to attack humans.

Like you, I am all over the place when it comes to the internets

Lemuel said...

I must say that I love the tab features added in the last few years to browsers. I usually restrict myself to far fewer than you, but the ability to be on different sites at the same time and to move quickly between them is a great advantage.

lattégirl said...

I don't know how many games of Lexulous you are currently playing. I am going to start one with you.

wv: cohogism

Greg said...

Sounds like one of those "Family Circus" cartoons where they ask Billy to go check the mailbox.

A Lewis said...

And now, you should see my addiction to the internet. I can't even be in the car, or on the couch, or sitting outside, but what I have to RUN to the laptop to check out something. Click, click, link, link, explore, ....it's so wild. And you can just go to the used bookshop and by the old David S. books...I just bought Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.....for cheap!

Rox said...

OMG Greg is right! I was thinking it was just like a skit in Sesame Street, but no, it's Family Circus! AWESOME!

Mel said...

Code 99 probably means fresh donuts.

And I wish I could have gone to David Sedaris's appearance here on Friday, but seeing as I've gotten to have dinner with him within the year, I suppose I can wait until next time.

GayProf said...

I didn't know that an ox and cow were basically the same (minus the dangling bits).

Anonymous said...

A castrated cow is a Steer. An Ox is a type of large cow used to pull wagons. It's similar to a Capon which is a castrated chicken. They usually only castrate Cornish cross chickens becuse they are large to begin with. I hope this clears it up. ed

Enemy of the Republic said...

Wow--it's almost like running errands!

Sorry I've been AWOL.

I didn't know Cornish Hens were castrated. Ouch.

Frank B said...

Thanks for the links, they were fascinating.

Laverne said...

Definitely Family Circus.

How come those kids never aged?

travelling, but not in love said...

Wow. It's amazing cataloguing a web session like that - lord knows where mine would take me...he he.

I note that you didn't mention clicking on hotguys.com or suchlike.....

Lyvvie said...

It's like an internet pschogeography trip which is nice.

Can 99 be donuts? Because I think that's a great idea!

Patricia said...

Oh I love this! I am constantly opening more tabs and love how much easier it is to switch back and forth between tabs.

I tend to open a tab when I think of something I want to check out, as opposed to writing myself a note about it. Because without one or the other, I'm bound to forget. (Thanks, aging brain cells!) Depending on how many times this happens in a sitting, I can sometimes get to the end of the tabs and wonder, How the hell did I end up here? But then I think that about a lot of things in life.

Mark in DE said...

That's a lot of tabs to have open at once. Don't you close tabs after you've gotten what you needed from the resource?

Anonymous said...

Code 99 is a medical emergency. I think a doughnut emergency is Code 0. ed