‘Bred Crumbs

The nonexisitant hordes of visitors to this site may have noticed I haven’t posted in months. If you worried, how kind of you, but there’s no need. Everything here is fine, better than fine. (Maybe even closer to fine.) So, the next reasonable assumption to explain the vacuum is that I’ve just been lazy and uninterested in blogging.

Yeah, that was my first thought too. It’s true, I just haven’t been feeling that urge. Yes, I could complain about entertaiment some more. And, eventually, I will. But in a world where moviegoers and critics agree that what by all appearances is nothing more than some grating, warmed-over Yakov Smirnoff malarkey is the best thing out there — well, I give up. Besides, I’m trying to be less of a complainer in general. (Anyone who knows me may take a moment to scoff.)

Also, when I launched ’Bred Crumbs as "The Entertainment Guide for the Unentertained" not even a year ago, I did so wondering whether the world needs another place to fixate on entertainment. I’ve never really shaken that doubt. The world, in fact, does not.

And so the evidence of simple slackerdom stacked up. Then I realized that, while everyone else is spending his spare time blogging and watching YouTube and trying to collect teenagers on MySpace, I’m not behind the curve; I’m way ahead of it.

Because I know I’m not the first person who no longer hears the call to blog, or much sees the point, who never found use for trackbacks and linkbacks and various other backs. (Running backs, though? Rowwwwwwwr.) I can’t be the only one who has grown to hate e-mail at home because of the deluge of spam and at work because of the endless typed conversations between people in adjoining rooms cc’d to everyone in the building about things that don’t even involve me, for cryin’ out loud. And social networking? It may seem like the go-to trend now, but, face it, a thousand friends is probably 980 more than you really need or have time for. And, for that matter, are they really your friends? Has any of them ever baked you a cake, bought you a drink, or offered to relieve your sexual tension? I didn’t think so.

Soon, everyone else will reach the point of mental exhaustion at which I am perched like an owl who can’t even think of eating one more mouse. (Then again, mice probably are low in trans-fat.) It is my present and your future. It is the shapelessness of things to come.

Let us embrace it. Celebrate it. "Weigh it." ("Weigh it" — Josh Hartnett, The Faculty, 1998. Also starring Jon Stewart.) Love it and pet it and name it … what?

It’s tempting to give this anticipated wave the next logical whole number in the software sequence, but brighter, faster minds than I have already moved on to Web 3.0. Besides, when 3.0 does hit full-force, there will be the inevitable technological avalanche of another overzealous, overhyped bubble dedicated to belittling the previous one. Zillions of companies will help you wipe out the YouTube videos you really don’t want anyone to see. Flickr will devote itself to stick-figure drawings and ASCII art. And websites galore will pop up to help you disconnect your social networks, or form new networks of web enemies. Since that bubble too will burst, we’ll skip right past it, and as we go we’ll give this totally edgeless concept an edgier name. So:

Welcome to Web π.0. Where the pi hits your eye, but the emphasis is really on the "0."

Where we may not blog for months at a time, and that’s OK, because no one’s reading anyway. Besides, if your blog isn’t popular, you don’t have to crap it up with ads to support it. In Web π.0, if you want to contact someone, you’d better flip the phone, because e-mail isn’t necessarily something that gets looked at in a timely manner. And Evite is thoroughly uninvited.

It’s not about being a Luddite. We still want flat screens and portable music players and the existance of the interweb to connect with people in meaningful ways. But make it about using the technology, instead of the way it is in Soviet Russia Kazakhstan, where technology uses you!

And the great thing about Web π.0 is, it doesn’t matter than the blog post doesn’t end any better than that. Hey, maybe you’ll write something better next month.