The Internet has been such a blessing. When I think back to that time, I
can't help but place the Internet as my impetus. I found my musical taste
thanks to the generous men and women who'd post 320kbps rips of albums that
I've come to regard as the sound of my youth. I found torrents for movies
that I would never have been exposed to.

And now, I hardly use the Internet; it soaks up your day. Every thing that
you could be doing, just add up the minutes that you spend in front of your
screen, staring into the abyss! There are still worthwhile things if you dig
past the surface...

Perfect Dark, Soulseek, Winnie, chatrooms full of people you don't know,
mailing lists, personal libraries, the boring mystery of the onion network.

The real-world is cooler, though.

If you don't have one, the Internet can be your cool older cousin: he's got
a massive collection of kung-fu films on lightly scratched DVD on a shelf in
his room. He always has friends over. He drives a Honda CRX. He has spot-on
recommendations for music, old movies, and books. The only problem is: he's
not actually your cousin... he's just the Internet.

He can't *physically* lend you a copy of Tamenaga Shunsui's *Shunshoku
Umegoyomi*, and you can't pretend that the friends who come over every
weeknd to watch *Dragon Ball: Z* are real. But even if he's just the
internet, he does have the new Drake album; he's got terabytes of gabber; he
has Slint's basement demo tapes; he has *Shinjuten no Amijima*,
*Shichi Nin no Samurai*, *Konjiki Yasha*; he even has a
respectable amount of *Wagner*, *Brahms*, *Martinu*,
*Stravisnky* stacked on his shelf, only ordered by the frequency he
listens to them. He reads every book he buys, listens to every record he
gets, watches every movie he's picked up. Even more and perhaps most
importantly,  he thoughtfully considers what he reads, listens to, watches:
he can articulate his ideas clearly and understands others opinions, even when
they differ from his.

For him, not everything's great. But it's as good as it gets.

Some day, I want to become the Internet.