The Great eDepression

For a lot of people, the current recession-y thing going on, in combination with the big financial SNAFU with Lehman Bros and Merrill Lynch, is a point of reckoning. I don't claim to know anything about money (because it's not something I usually have a lot of at any given time) so I hope that you're not reading and expecting to glean any useful insight on what now to do with your last 10 years of savings or what job to look for now that you're near completion of your investment banking and wealth management degrees (there are always lots of openings in fringe markets, I hear).

But y'know what? I'm not sweating it... the day that I'll start to worry is the day that THE INTERNET WILL BREAK. No e-mail. No web. No remote desktop access. No VoIP.

Let me break this down again for you... NO MORE FACEBOOK, WoW, OR CASUAL ENCOUNTERS MEETINGS FROM CRAIGSLIST! OMGZGZZZ!!

I predict that the end of this super-connected era, as we know it, will occur on the fourth day of April and shall be known as (ready for it?): "The Great 404" (I also think that "The Fighting 404s" could be a good concept for a Dirty Dozen-type movie with a bunch of computer geeks instead of rapists, thieves and degenerates of other varieties). While the most catastrophic result will be the loss of information and ideas, either disseminated via the web or otherwise archived digitally, there will be some positives:

-cheaper postage and telegrams
-a lot of couples will reconnect with some sweet sexual romance
-people will go back to the TV since their shows are no longer online
-the inevitable comeback of Lincoln Logs
-outside of the grocery store, no more SPAM!

...and some negatives:

-rampant LARPing in the streets
-wayyy tougher to pick up $7 flights
-people will go back to the TV since their shows are no longer online
-no more internet phenomena :(
-the inevitable comeback of tangible chain letters

The children of today will tell the tale to the children of the tomorrow and even 15 years from now, we'll wistfully sit back in our vintage Poäng chairs as we count our cowry and remember exactly where we were when the Internet crashed.

It Just... Popped In There

...will always remind me of this:

If I remember, there's an exact frame where Stay-Puft is looking genuinely more surprised than furious and pained, so until I go and screencap it, you'll just have to enjoy what I could find on the Innernette.