Thursday, January 26, 2012

AOL...Just Too Scary?

My sons don't want me to use AOL anymore.Like Baltic Avenue on the Monopoly Board, they believe it is not a desirable address. 

While it doesn't indicate rats in the cellar, it does indicate that one's techo-skills are in the basement. And, according to the boys, lack of motivation to move up the ladder to Gmail or Hotmail (or Snotmail or G-Spotmail or whatever the heck is out there), makes a person, somehow, less.

They feel I should be embarrassed when I give my email address to someone and it ends in @aol.com.

But I am not embarrassed to be a "retro-techie." Since AOL, like its competitors, is free, I don't understand what the issue is. Is it a big deal that I've had the same email address since 1996?

Comfortable like a pair of worn bedroom slippers, with AOL I am able to navigate the web at a comfortable pace. And yes, I like the format and the color scheme.

It's not all beer and skittles with AOL, however. What I don't like about it is that -- if you have it -- you live in fear.

AOL "news" and the tabloid headlines on their welcome page, inescapable when you sign on, ensnare you like a fly in a spider web.

AOL focuses on a steady stream of missing person cases, mothers brutally killed by their offspring (recently a man offed his mom because she offered him a sandwich when he wasn't in the mood....I sent that one to Tom), husbands who dismember wives in order to facilitate running away with their transsexual lovers (Seth got that one, just in case), seven years olds who drive cars (Charlie) and animals who eat their owners (Buzzy).
Vote no.

There's also a spate of stories about people flinging kittens off bridges, "innocent" symptoms that -- unchecked -- will kill us, yetis invading suburbia, birds taking over small towns, six-legged lambs, two headed frogs, Alec Baldwin running for office and really, really scary pictures of Rihanna.
Why do you think my
hair is always so neat?

Just today I learned that Tim Gunn hasn't had sex in 29 years, how an aftershave has been developed to disguise the fact that your husband has been spending time in a strip club (that one got shot off to Seth, too), a climber is planning to scale Kilimanjaro barefoot (why???) and that someone flicked Mitt Romney's ear from behind and he went ballistic (okay, I made that one up).

All in all, this has made me a nervous wreck (watching for kitten flingers on bridges alone is stressful enough). If I ever decide to leave AOL behind, now you'll know the reason why....
"Did you flick my ear, you  &$#^%**%$!???"

9 comments:

  1. Mitt Romney's ear getting flicked!!!!!!!!!

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  2. Thanks for making me laugh! That was quite funny (especially the ear flicking comment)!

    When I log onto AOL, I immediately delete the page that contains the "news." Then I don't have to deal with everything you mentioned above! And I agree with you about its simplicity, it's quite easy to navigate. No, I don't think I'll be leaving it anytime soon!

    Oh, and I wouldn't care what my kids thought about my love affair with AOL. After all, do they care what we think about their spending endless hours on Facebook and their texting and whatever else they do that prevents them from physically interfacing with friends??

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  3. I keep an eye out for "kitten flingers" too.
    Funny post.

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  4. Don't you think he'd go ballistic, Caroline? I sure do! Thanks for reading.

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  5. Cheryl, thanks so much for the great comment. You are right! The kids don't care at all about what we think of they're compulsive phone behavior!

    I'm so glad you enjoyed the post!

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  6. You ane me both, Jackie. And if I ever see one, I guarantee that I will be in the headlines.

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  7. I still have AOL too. And I don't give a damn what people think of me. Come out of the closet AOL users!

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  8. If your boys snarl at you... send them to me... I will smack them hard XO
    AOL ... sounds exotic and special to me...

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  9. Where did my comment go? Here is loosely what I said:
    "Two headed frogs?!? I'll have to login to my Compuserve account and check it out. The real geeks will find that funny.

    I've heard that Romney is doing an interview about the plight of the kittens being thrown off bridges, it will be suitably titled:

    Mitt on Kittens, they are some of his favorite things.

    Yeah, I had to go there."
    WG
    http://itsmynd.com

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