What makes the internet go

The other day I had an idea. It was a goofy thought, the kind I get often. For whatever reason the mash-up of the names "Orlando Bloom" and "Lando Calrissian" popped into my head. So I checked. All that came up for Orlando Calrissian was an IMDB page for a director of adult videos. I had to find two separate pictures and, using the Paint program, transfer Orlando's head onto Calrissian's body, then save it and upload it. It didn't look very good.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156291819921686&set=a.494305051685.262547.501891685&type=3 if you are curious.

Out of all the people in the world, only a porn director and I thought of the same thing. That's troubling enough, but it isn't what I wanted to write about tonight. When I googled the name I didn't find anything else.

Separate story -- I wanted to congratulate my kid on getting accepted to a particular college so I looked for animated gifs of "Congratulations." I found a whole bunch so I swiped one and posted it on her Facebook page. It struck me a couple of days later: somehow, that gif had to come into existence. And there were loads of them, just like there are huge numbers of of stupid mash-up pictures. Some guy had to upload a scene of The Fairly Odd Parents, watch it, isolate a particular 2 second portion, type in a caption and turn it into a gif. These things don't just happen by accident. That holds true for EVERY animated gif, and every silly meme and picture. Someone has to take the time to create it just like someone has to collect, tag and organize these all.

Who is doing this? Whose job is it to make all this stuff? This surely isn't the work of a single person who decided to find a specific scene from an old kids' show and upload it just to take out that snippet. I have done it and it isn't easy (I was obsessed with a song from the Muppet show so I had to find what episode it was on, find that episode, wire the playback device to my computer to catch the video, then record and edit the whole thing). Is it possible that there are computer programs that know what to look for and are scouring all the television that has ever existed to turn content into bite-sized animated gifs, but my sense is that we haven't harnessed artificial intelligence in that way just yet.

The internet is growing at a huge rate. New pages are being created and populated at every second. New videos are being uploaded constantly as more people have events, play music or fall off of skateboards and will never have children. But these aren't the people who are turning my memories into cycling mini-movies or putting funny captions onto crazy pictures with professional quality work. That stuff is appearing by magic, sometimes dark magic.

You have been warned.

A funny thing happened on the way to the funeral

Sadly, I had the opportunity to speak the praises of a good man recently. Another good man about whom all the right (and true) things are said. And while this does put focus on the life of another of God's creations, I can't help but turn the lens on my own eventual demise, mostly because I'm a selfish narcissist.

Along with my Walter Mitty-esque existence during which I envision myself in heroic scenarios one after (if not during) the next, I also have made plenty of plans for my funeral. Long time readers (and I don't know who you are) might have read my death wishes and similar posts. But I also spend time imagining something called guerilla comedy, in which people act and do the most bizarre things, all for the laugh. I am inspired by Roger Rabbit who, as I'm sure you all remember, was handcuffed to Eddie Valiant (the great Bob Hoskins). Hilarity ensued. In one pivotal moment, Eddie is sawing the handcuffs in an effort to extricate himself from Roger's presnece but the angle was made difficult by the rabbit's arm. Roger slipped his hand out of the cuffs and asked "would this help?" Eddie grunted in assent. Pause. Eddie sees what has happened so Roger quickly sticks his hand back into the handcuff. Valiant, fuming, asks "are you telling me that you could have taken your hand out at any time?" (I'm paraphrasing…apologies to the perfectionists). Roger responds, "not at any time -- only when it was funny." That's what I'm going for.

Back to the point -- I picture the scene at my own funeral. Tears, wailing, possibly gnashing of teeth though I hope TMJ will have been cured by then. A man stands up and ascends the podium. He speaks the following speech.

"When one man dies, others begin to consider the frailty of their lives -- they consider their choices and how they have lived their time on this planet. Our thoughts invariably go to our own morality and how it is as subject to the vicissitudes of time and tide as anything. The morality of every person here is at the whim of God and nature and when we stop to think about our morality, it is generally too late to make any important changes. Whom have we touched during our time on earth, and when we lie view of others, what will they think of us? The young man ignores his morality, living life to its fullest unaware of consequence and effect. Only the old man, feeble and decrepit, whose passions no longer burn as his days run out reconsiders his morality and knows that he has little time to mend his ways."

He continues this way for a while until someone climbs to his side, and whispers something in his ear. He stops, turns and says "are you sure?" The second looks at him and nods.

The speaker refocuses on the audience and says clearly, "Ladies and gentlemen, I have just been alerted to the fact that the word I intended was 'mortality'. Mortality. Yes, that sounds better. So, yeah…that."

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and then he sits down in his seat. Fin.