Drunk in charge

Once upon a time I thought there was little risk attached to going on-line when drunk.

I've changed my mind a little recently after a couple of sessions on ebay (does anyone need to buy 1000 glow in the dark fiberglass Buddha garden sculptures?) and frosty email exchange with an ex-friend and a great deal of spam from life insurance companies.

And in my new sober state I notice that drunken internetting is alive and well in the blogosphere.

There seem to be two sorts of intoxicated bloggers  - the hip shooter and the obscure Oscar Wilde.

The first one is the more annoying - it's the bloke (they do seem to be men mostly) who dip into a blog, half read it and then post the first thing that comes into their head.  Often the posting agrees with an imaginary point that no one has made or takes violent exception to an entirely fictional argument.

You know when you take a stool at an airport bar only to accosted by the drunk who is still rambling his way through the conversation he was having with the previous occupant of your seat?  That's what it feels like.

You won't catch me naming names or finger pointing but we've all seen it somewhere.  You know the sort of thing - in the middle of discussion about team cascades someone weighs in with a  furious objection to using flash on the front page of an intranet.  Rather reminds you of the ancient uncle who wakes up half way through Christmas afternoon and starts banging on about Michael Cane in Zulu when everyone else was discussing the price of children's shoes. (Micheal Cane is much more fun but you know if join in that conversation is will quickly meander off somewhere even duller than Start-Rite vs Clark's finest)

But the drunken blogger probably swings through a range of emotions - I suspect they either slip over to MyFace to tell their friends that they really really love them.  They might get a little lecherous later on but I wouldn't know where you get to do that on line!

Or they turn a bit nasty (see Sue's previous post) - they go and say stroppy things and launch personal attacks (I learned a new phrase this week - thanks Lele - Blogstorming - when loads of people start beating up on someone or something like Dell's exploding batteries or Kryptonite's dodgy locks).  Sadly - there doesn't seem to be an on-line equivalent of night in the cells for these people.

But we mustn't forget the on-line Oscar Wilde.  They're the people who go to all the trouble of writing a comment, getting past the typepad verification if only to say "Frankly my dear...." or "Sic tansit darling" or something equally obscure. 

Check out most of the treads on the BBC or your local newspaper - there will be at least one of these posts in each thread.

In real life you see them standing harmlessly in the middle of the high street at closing time waving their arms and reciting Catullus' love poems in the original Latin.

They seem nice, but are a real pain when you try to get past on your way home or to the kebab shop.

So I'm starting a campaign for an end to binge postings.  I'm asking my local supermarket to put up the price of booze for anyone who looks likely to own a PC and who might be tempted to start late night blogging. 

It's for their own good.

Liam