“The Internet Is A Waste Of Time, And That's Exactly What's Right About It”, William Ford Gibson

If there’s one thing that pushes my buttons it’s this ongoing debate on whether the Internet is isolating or uniting us: are we actually connecting with each or become recluses behind our laptops, posting about the beautiful day rather than being outside enjoying it?This woman at work was bitching about Facebook the other day, on how ghastly it is to pry in other people’s lives and expose your own, how she doesn’t buy or fill out anything online because she daren’t leave her data around for savvy hackers to pinch it and how she never takes her kids to the mall because “nature teaches you everything in life”.
I had to control my impulse of yelling “Whatever, loser. Go back to your Amish farm on your donkey cart and send that pigeon courier when you’ve arrived to your candle lit cottage and are reading Montaigne on papyrus!” Probably wouldn’t go down too well as water-cooler small talk.




 

Turns out, she actually lives in Sh*tville, Suburbia, where there’s nothing but malls around, she makes other people order stuff online for her and she has got a Facebook account: it’s a very sad one, sure, completely open to everyone and unprotected, you can snoop right in, alright, and she’s got, oh, let’s see, 6 friends, two of which are her pre-pubescent kids.
As everything else in life, the key is moderation. I know it sounds wack to all you pseudo-hippy purists out there but get a load of this: you can actually have a healthy, outgoing, social life whilst also being a normal 21st century citizen, i.e. be online, whatever you’re doing there. You don’t even have to be all that smart: with pretty much no thought at all, you’ll realize that you probably shouldn’t sit on your ass and be a couch potato all day and human contact is nice, so you turn off the TV, close your laptop and go out a live a little. Crazy, huh? Well, pretty much EVERYONE I know does this.

I’m as outdoorsy as it gets: a true beach-bunny, I love anything out in the open, being out with my friends, eating out, walking around and doing everything you’re supposed to do when you’re not behind a screen, be it the TV’s, PC’s or mobile’s.

 But, God, do I love being online. I love having Facebook. I love knowing what my friends around the world are up to and love gossiping about it. Besides, unlike my bitter-6-friended-all-access colleague, I have just about enough IQ to grasp that challenging concept of clicking on a privacy option, thus keeping pervs and meddlers out. Mind-blowing! I love Google Reader (old version, of course). I love shopping online: agony of supermarket trips be gone! and, particularly, carrying the grocery bags up 3 flights of stairs to my flat. I love not having to go to the bank and being able to deal with everything I need online. I love reading newspapers and magazines from around the world and not spending a penny. I love Amazon, I can’t imagine my life without it, specially now during the upcoming X-Mas shopping season. I love Youtube, I love it!, from sassy kids to cute dogs, to it being an awesome music playlist… Love it.


And, obviously, I love blogs: mine but mostly those of others. And discovering other bloggers: it’s like meeting your long lost sister, realizing that there are so many people out there just like you, with the same worries, passions and sick, sick mind. Blogging soul-mates, if you will. So, thanks to my modest, unknown and little read Evil Twin, I’ve discovered so many amazing talents, I can only image the impact of widely read blogs and sites.

As a rule these talents are listed in our Evil Siblings and Evil Interests links on your right. Most you’ll follow already or have at least heard of but I’ve updated them lately so as to include a few of my recent blogger friends, all found through my BBFF (blog best friend forever) The Beauty Routine, and all proving that (Portuguese) girls rule, MoFo! Check out recently added So Blushed, a fellow Portuguese living in Richmond, Virginia!, the beautiful A Refinaria and the über cool Glimmer Le Blond.