Crazytown

Monday, February 18, 2013

THE VIRTUAL RABBIT HOLE

Ali explores how one simple Google search can become so much more.
By Ali Gordon

I've been doing an awful lot of writing lately. Firstly, I'm writing/filming/editing some sketch comedy and I'm writing a comedic cabaret for a me and a friend to perform. Then there's Crazytown, of course, as well as a company's website that I'm helping them redraft. Sometimes, when I'm feeling particularly stuck for a word or turn of phrase, I like to hang backwards off my bed so I'm mostly upside-down. All it takes is 20 seconds, but the blood rushing to my head (or so I imagined) helps jolt me into mental action.

Recently, I was bored and decided to Google if other people hung upside down to jog their brains.

But instead, I fell into a virtual rabbit hole and learned many other unecessary facts about oh, so many other things. Let's follow that journey with me, shall we?

In response to David Blane's last stunt (hanging upside-down for 3 days... which begs the question... why?) BBC news posted an entire article about the dangers of "hanging around" (my pun not theirs)."Putting yourself the wrong way up means it is harder to get blood to the lower limbs and that blood is not easily returned from the head and upper body, with potentially disastrous effects.
Which leads me to thinking about David Blane. Well, let's get him in the google tool bar. Oh! He has a twitter! Wonder what he tweets about when he's not hanging upside-down. His most recent was a picture of this bizarre fruit.
Well, what the hell is THAT thing?? Better plug the image into a reverse google image search.
Oh, damn. It's Hala Fruit. Go figure.
Better find the Wikipedia page.
Wait, there's a whole wikipedia entry for the word "tree?" That seems a little ridiculous. It must be pretty short.
Woahhhh it is NOT short. It is long. Very long. Guess I better scroll through it, huh?
"In some tree species in temperate climates, a second spurt of growth, a Lammas growth may occur which is believed to be a strategy to compensate for loss of early foliage to insect predators."
(chuckling) Lammas growth makes me think of Lembas bread.
Oh! I wonder when the next Hobbit movie comes out? Better google that.
"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is set to be released worldwide on 13th December, 2013"
Jesus, that feels like an eternity away from now! I'll almost be 24 years old. That's scary.
At least if I need my Martin Freeman fix, I can watch the new season of Sherlock.
Wait, then does THAT come out?
DELAYED UNTIL 2014??? I'll definitely be 24 by then!
Oh, god, look at this list of all these people who died before age 25.
James Dean was 24?
Damn, he was hot.

And there you go. From a harmless search about how to jog your brain to a useless image search of Mr. Dean in surprisingly few steps. And people wonder why we can't get anything done anymore!