What would I do without the internet?

I think I'm pretty young, but I remember life before the internet. I remember writing letters to friends, getting information from the newspaper, and finding out about the weather from the evening news. I remember looking up information in an encyclopedia and going to the library and looking up books using the Dewey Decimal System on cards.

Not that I miss those days when finding information took so much more time. Actually, I think most of the time I just did without getting answers to my wondering.

Now I look up information on all sorts of things I wonder about. (I'm a googler.) What day of the week is my birthday this year? (Friday! Sweet!) Who keeps calling from that 866 number? (5/3) How long does it take to get from Dayton, OH to Logan, OH? (Just over 2 hours.) Can we find a Tommy Bahama leather bomber jacket for Jason for less than $249? (So far, no.)

But I don't just find information online, I keep information online. Jason and I have a google calendar that we both update. It's the only way we keep track of our crazy schedules. I do all my banking online, including paying bills and transferring money between banks. I have face-painting ideas bookmarked, cake recipes bookmarked, and even future vacation locations bookmarked. I store most of my photos online - just in case I ever lose another computer.

I do most of my shopping online. (Jason never knows what's going to show up on our front porch next.) I keep in touch with friends online. I track the weather online. I purchase memberships online. Have I convinced you yet? I'd be completely lost if my internet was suddenly taken away.

I'll confess two things that are a bit unusual. The two searches I do the most online? Google image searches and imdb.com. I guess the image search makes sense - a picture is worth a thousand words. Yesterday's image searches were "trash the dress" and "Arthur Rebecca Sedille." (Why did I search these things? Well, I've got this wedding dress I'm never going to wear again... and I was curious to see what a 50-year-old woman and a 23-year-old man, a married couple, would look like together.)

And what about imdb.com? This is the international movie database. If google is my #1 go-to website, then imdb.com is my #2. Ever start a movie and don't want to watch the end? Look it up on imdb.com and it'll tell you the ending. Wondering who that actress is in that Kevin Bacon movie? imdb.com will not only tell you who she is, but all the other movies she's been in. (Click on those links and you can see all the other actors she's been in movies with. Thus you have the cheat-sheet for Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.)

I combine my two favorite websites when I hear "based on a true story." I look up the movie on imdb.com, find out the background, then google it to get the REAL story. It's amazing I get anything done at home. :)

So back to my original point, what would I do without the internet? I might get a lot more done, but my brain would constantly be wondering things. Great many things that might seem like useless information to others but it's definitely brain candy to me.

(I've decided to add links to many of the things I've referenced, just in case you're now wondering about them. Feel free to click on them and get some brain candy. See, wasn't that fun?) ;)