The Potter Fiasco of '05

Okay, I'mma creep. Not an hour ago I unknowingly did about the most hurtful thing I think I've ever done. All I can do is plead ignorance, but even I wouldn't buy that it could be possible for me to be so stupid. In reality, I am just a ruiner and rather than attempt to feign innocence let me be the first to publicly announce my heinous acts so that I may plead forgiveness from my friends, family, and the general public. I only hope my confession will in some small way help to atone for my atrocities.

After work today, Liz and I decided to search the web together. Do you know how this works? It's the sorta thing where one person sits at the keyboard and types while the other reads the web pages over the shoulder of the first from a "side car" position. Both parties frequently murmur directives such as, "I'm done." and "Scroll back please." to make sure all the page's content is fully digested. We don't do this often. Most of the time we're at our own computers emailing links to each other. I suppose it's more intimate side by side, but it also gets damn annoying. Anyway, after Liz finally relinquished her command of the U.S.S. Browser, I told her I wanted her to check out the Dobieville link of the week... She wanted to go upstairs and read. How I wish I had let her.

But of course not. I had to show her the link Seth sent me that was all quirky and neat: http://ytmnd.com/. I still haven't figured it completely out yet. It's just little pages people are creating with a text line, a background image, and an audio clip. They’re like tiny HTML Haikus. Their refreshingly short 'quick reads' (as my painting professor would say) that loop over and over until you get tired and move on to the next one. They're being rated, and organized, and gabbed about on message boards. A real online community... Fueled by the DARK SIDE!!! So Liz is now side-hacking to my keyboard mastery as I whip up the link, and shoot straight for the Top 15 Viewed list. The number one viewed site, oh please dear God don't click it if you go there, had one word I could read in the interim between my seeing it and my lightning quick reflexes performed a flawless left-click; "Potter". Had I known would I have clicked it? Could I have? I wanted her to like it! The full title of the link I clicked is "Potter spoiler booksite crash". The background picture was a line of kids waiting to buy the latest installment in the most popular publication in the history of the English language. Well, that involves witches anyway. I don't have the foggiest what the text says, but the audio was of some other 'punk' kids running across the line screaming out loud the surprise ending to the novel.

I instantly shut the link and gave a quick look to Liz... 'She didn't just hear that did she?' But it was too late. I can't publish the text of her reaction as this is a family oriented site.. for the most part anyway. Regardless, it became apparent that what I had done was clearly not cool. She ran upstairs, she called her mom. I was in real trouble. She told me how each Harry Potter book has it's own surprises, and written in are leads that make you think you know what's gonna happen, then it totally surprises you.. and I, in my dolt-hood, had completely ruined it. She was planning her whole weekend around reading the book. She was limiting herself to small doses of the thing, to prevent herself from accidentally staying up all night and finishing it. She was 'supping' this novel, and I force fed dessert to her.

What can I say... well... it was all Seth's fault! He was the one who first showed me ytmnd page with the song composed out of Darth Vader’s infamous first James-Earl-Jonsean line "NO!" It was he who sent me the link to the main site via AIM. I am a ruiner only by proxy of Seth's actions... but to be honest, I can't truly stay mad at him. Really, I should never have changed my link of the week from http://spreadtheslack.com, a cleverly written and well performed site extolling the wonders of slacking. Cecil, I gotta wonder if I had slacked a little more could all of this been avoided?