In-Digg-nation

Why does this bother me so? 

Is it yet another clue-in that I am on the fast-track to becoming my mom?

Eep.

 

Do you all know about Digg?  When I'm all out of blogs to read (I don't subscribe to all that many, relatively speaking), and the BBC has nothing new to share, and I've seen all the previews on Apple.com, I turn to digg for some edutainment.  If I'm knitting?  I go straight to their video page.

 

However, I really really REALLY have to be careful of what link I click when I'm happily watching inane links to South Park (I am twelve years old sometimes) or stuff that certain post-ers find "cool."  No, I'm not talking about the 13-year-olds who post Brazilians shaking their butt cheeks.  I'm not too easily offended, if the moniker above didn't clue you in.  I'm talking about clicking on the "comments" for posts from the tiny percentage of "digg-ers" who are over the age of consent and have maybe ventured out further out than their parents' basements, or something similar.

 

Case in point?  There was a "quasi" video (more like a slide-show with operatic background music) about the birth of an island in the South Pacific.  The pictures were not taken by National Geographic, or the people behind the Encyclopedia Britannica (one commenter referred us all to watch their version of the new islands being daily created near Iceland--cuz you know, Iceland is in the South Pacific and all....), but by a couple cruisers who were probably on their way to or from the Marquesas.  This was them sailing THROUGH the volcanic ash that precludes the underwater volcano that would be "somewhere" near.  They don't exactly sell charts of such things, you see.  I found the pictures both fascinating and frightening in that "I've been out there" feeling.  Crossing from Mexico to Hawai'i on a 32 foot boat, you feel small.  Tiny speck does not begin to describe the feeling.  Alone is another word that crosses my mind.  I was with my X then, but what with sleeping and watch shifts, you spend DAYS "alone."  Running across an underwater volcano could mean, well, certain death as the water does weird things like not letting your boat float through it and stuff...

 

To be out there, feeling that alone and tiny and then running across an underwater volcano and then SEEING the birth of an island?  I have no words to describe how that would have slammed me down and changed the way I viewed my world.  All that Carl Sagan-y Cosmos-y feeling of place and time and awe-ness was tossed out the window, of course, when I clicked on the wrong link and started reading comment after 13-yr old comment about how "this isn't a video" and "my little sister takes better pictures" and maybe one too many "this music sucks."  People?  Boys?  GET. A. LIFE.

 

I would really love to see what THEY could come up with.  Arm chair travelers and directors (and grammar policemen it seemed), leave your Dungeons & Dragons world for a spell and THEN come back and share what you've been through, so we might all have a chance to tear you apart for just trying.