4 things you probably shouldn't do on the Internet

Let's face it, the Internet is very much like a post-apocalyptic world at the safety of your own machine. Everyone lives at their own regret, and nobody cares almost about anything except themselves. You know that "friend" who just invited you recently on Facebook? That's just the friendly neighborhood serial pedophile-slash-rapist-slash-Internet predator.

Typical Internet user.

You might go out and say, but the Internet is such as nice place! No, it's not. Perhaps yes, if you limit your activities to playing boring games such as Farmville, but when your activities expands to 4chan, Wikipedia, and MySpace, you and your Internet life can get killed easily in over 9000 ways possible and impossible at the same time by 500-pound nerds-slash-cyberbullies-slash-WoW players who spend their daily and nightly lives in front of their undergraded computers. Certain safety measures are to be observed, and the most crucial of them are here:

4. Posting too much personal information

The Internet is a place where people primarily does not care about stuff about other people. You go to that school? Who cares. You live over there? We don't give a horse's ass. You just read the whole Twilight saga? You have just reached the point that even Jesus doesn't care.

Well who does care? This could be one of your friends (whom you have met and befriended personally in real life of course) and/or your typical friendly neighborhood serial pedophile-slash-rapist-slash-Internet predator.

This guy. Yeah, that's him.

Keep in mind that when you post personal information over at sites like Facebook, it is possible that people (by default is your first-degree friends) can see them clearly. You might ask, "What's wrong with my friends seeing my address and sexual orientation?"

Take a good, hard look at your friends list and count those who you have met personally in real life. The average Facebooker has about 67 in 100. The 67 people might be okay to be viewing your personal information, but what about the other 33 who you just invited to be your friend just for the sake of giving you energy packs in Mafia Wars or as neighbors on Farmville? Can you guarantee that they'll just see your information and say, "What the hell, this is just some common, uninteresting person on the Internet whom nobody cares about"? One of them could see your address, go to your flat, and God knows what would happen.

3. Being overemotional

As a general rule stated earlier, the Internet does NOT care about what you feel about things, provided that they are about your personal life. If your boyfriend dumped you, we don't care. If your mother just committed suicide because your father ate your 3-year old sister and cheated on his wife over 9000 times (and presumably raped you too), you have again reached the point where Jesus does not care.

Your mom just died? Well, okay...Next prayer please!

Of course, there are two forms of emotion in the Internet: emotive and overemotive. Here is an example of an emotive statement.

My girlfriend just dumped me, but I don't really care. No really, no need for tears or anything, there's plenty of other girls out there, I just need to find the right one. Peace out.

Notice the sense of emotion in the statement. It is moderated and controlled, and that's good. Now here's the same statement, only this time, it's gay emo overemotive.

MY GIRLFRIND JUS DUMPEDM E!!!11 That BITCH!!!111!!one! :(( D: THAT SON OF A BITCH NW BOYFRIEND OF HER S IS GON DIE!!!11!! x(( AND WHILE I'M THERE, I'M JUST GONNA GO KILL MYSELF...!!!11!!!1 :(( :(( :( x(

Notice the difference between the two statements. On the first statement, the act of expressing emotion over the subject is moderated and controlled in a very civilized manner. However, on the latter, the emotion flows out like a volcanic eruption, or a shitstorm carried by some tsunami in Indonesia or something. Also, notice how the writer of the second statement loves the Caps Lock and his obsession with exclamation points (while failing to input them correctly) and smileys.

Keep in mind that being overemotional on the Internet does not only lay on the lines of personal conflicts and problems. You can also go overemotional if you, let's say, go on a cybertantrum, AKA repeatedly yelling why Farmville is on maintenance when you really need to harvest those weed you just planted.

2. Discussing serious subjects (religion, race, etc.) on social networking sites

Social networking sites composes primarily of many different kinds of people: the first one being teenage girls while the second being sociopaths pretending to be teenage girls. Both have almost or no grasp of reality and the world's most serious issues. Hell, they don't even know what serious means.

This looks serious enough.

But whatever you do, do NOT post anything serious on Facebook, or any social networking site for that manner, or even Twitter. Try using a forum that welcomes serious debate, such as Pointless Waste of Time, where all remaining real people with real minds and logic reside and discuss about many different topics. No sociopaths and teenage girls to ruin your day.

1. Posting indecent photos of yourself

You probably got drunk one way or another in your lifetime, whether during your angsty teenage years in high school or in your last dying breath and effort to gulp down the last bottle of whisky down your already dying system. Oh, the memories! What did you do after such an ordeal? Was it lay down on the sidewalk trying to sober yourself? Get behind the wheel and perform a nine-car pileup? No? Was it taking photos of yourself and post it somewhere where every dumbass with the Internets can see it? Yes? Well, good job, mate! You just gave yourself the title of "World's Smartest Retard"!

A failed miserable attempt at attaining the title of "World's Smartest Retard".

What's wrong with getting drunk and spreading a visual memory of it around the world? The problem is, once your butt-ugly shot of you wasted on the floor with dick marks all over your face exits your computer's hard drive and into one of Facebook's corrupted photo servers, everyone you considered as your friend on the said social networking site will be able to see it. Oh, you just remembered it was there? Go ahead and delete it, quickly! Whoops! Too late! They already saved it on their respective hard drives and are ready to spread the word (ahem, digitalized photographic memory) to those poor souls who are too illiterate to use the Internet!

A presumed photo of a poor soul who is too illiterate to use the Internet (and to speak English)

Note that being drunk is not the only ground for indecency. Nudity and violence are also grounds for indecency, but if you are a pornstar or a sociopath you're probably fine. Hell, even Photobombs and poorly shopped pictures can attain the tag of being indecent for thine eyes of public.

My eyes! They burn!

What you could do instead:

My personal (unreal) showdown with sudden flu

 WARNING: This is fictional REAL. If you do not know how to understand other people, we at ST urge you to close this webpage now.

Most of you don't know what happened to me recently. If I were to tell, I'd say it's a total mess. The Jee-Man decided to be a douchebag (hey, it's his birthday in the next few days), so with the help of his dad in the sky, they cast a case of "a-quick-flu-as-a-sign-of-God-giving-you-the-finger-itisis", then went on discussing their plans for the Jee man's birthday bash. I'm pretty sure it involves a stable, but I heard rumors about it being held somewhere else.

Anyway, I don't allow myself to fall for some shitty disease immediately. I fought it hard and well like a SPARTAAAAN, I even ran a five kilometer marathon even with the flu in my system. However, my body's immune system couldn't seem to keep up with my will's fighting spirit, and my body succumbed to the disease. I was bedridden for two days.It's probably no big deal, right? Considering it's the holidays?

I happen to have fallen on the day I have been preparing for, which is our final Christmas party. I have spent a lot of cash (read: OVER 9000) to buy presents for everybody, but look what happened to those presents instead. They now serve the purpose of blocking those little holes where mice and cockroaches can get through. I just spent thousands of Philippine currency for pest control.

I didn't even get a present myself. They promised that they will give me my presents next year when classes  resume (and I did the same), but I'm worried that they'll forget after New Year's Eve.

Gee, thanks God. Thanks for making me miss one of the most important days this year. Thanks for trying to lower my self-esteem even lower (but your efforts are futile, thank you very much). Tell your son who is the reason of at least every damn problem I had this year that I said happy birthday.

Merry Christmas everybody. I'm sure the future will be better tomorrow.

Great writing recession

I haven't been writing on Sulatang Tapunan for an alarming long while. Perhaps it could be writer's block, or it could be life dangerously expanding its timeslots against my writing time. I'm seriously running out of good ideas, inspiration and most importantly, time. My writing's gone FUBAR.

Primary reasons why I'm don't feel like writing:

1. Running. I am currently addicted to running various amounts of kilometers every Saturday morning, every weekday afternoon, and on marathons every Sunday.
   
2. Cracked. I'm submitting plenty of pitches (article ideas) to Cracked.com, and I plan to post whatever got rejected by the editors to Sulatang Tapunan. Normally, this shouldn't be hard, but take note that it will take me at least two days to build a decent article, because of responsibilities (see Real Life, above).
3. Relationships. I'm spending more time with friends and girls, and it's affecting the time I alloted for writing, since appointments and meetings can occupy those formerly occupied for pondering and publishing thoughts.

Not only my writing is affected, but other forms of aesthetics as well. I have not made some art with GIMP for a month, and so on. I need to budget my time more often, or my talents could be flushed away in the drain of ignorance forever.

If you want to help me with ideas, you can contact me at mrawesomer34[at@]gmail[dot.][com]. Pardon the symbols, they're meant to keep the spambots away.