How Do You Define Confusificatitude?

...Yeah so anyway, I've been browsing the social bookmarking site Digg in an attempt to spark creativity. When you leave yourself open to someone asking if an article was meant to be funny, you know improvements are needed somewhere.

While checking something in my profile, I noticed somebody(who shall remain nameless because they didn't type anything that justified me remembering their user name anyway) chastised me for using the word "folk" in one of my comments. They typed something along the lines of "You talk like a fudging redneck".

Seeing as I don't condone the use of profanity unless needed to convey sheer outrage and hatred toward Dominos Pizza for getting rid of the Noid...I have chosen to censor one of his quoted words. Let the record show that replacement words in most situations are better to use than actual swears.

I had the greatest idea in the world a few years ago. I watching Duck Tales on Toon Disney and started to mute certain parts of the show. While muted, I recited lines from said episode and added a few well placed replacement words to suggest profanity was being used.

It was a stroke a genius, if I do say so myself. If I had the funding, I would start my own television network and edit kids shows with a bunch of bleeps and fake swear words.

Barney: I love *bleep*/You *bleep* me/ We're *bleep* *bleep* *bleep*!

Potential lawsuits aside, This random Digg junkie accused me of talking like some stupid, backwoods hick with bad posture and a major overbite. I take offense to the insinuation as a whole. A possible overbite has little to do with what words I use while typing. And I could probably stand up straight if i wanted to, so Blah!

after intentionally misspelling a smart Alic response for my own amusement, I started reminiscing about my first few months on the internet. It was late 1999. While most people were freaking out over some stupid grid going down, I was too busy playing Sonic Adventure and Chu Chu Rocket on my SEGA Dreamcast to care about anything else.

Sometime after Thanksgiving of that year, I started using the DC to browse the internet. Those were simpler times then. No Gmail, no Firefox, no Youtube...Looking back on it, I really have no idea why it was so great. Other than posting on message boards, chat rooms and watch images load sssssllllooooooowwwllllyyyy, there isn't anything interesting I could really do via DC.

Much of my online hours were spent communicating with people in a Quake 3 Arena related forum. It didn't take long before I was exposed to that which makes grown men cry, and house pets wet the floor out of fear and confusion. I am (of course) talking about a flame war!

After making a thread about user generated content on console games(DC didn't have a hard drive, thus I couldn't play any mods or use fan made characters), I received more than a few responses that ended in "LOL!" At the time, I had no idea LOL stood for. I don't recall there being a handy dandy book of unnecessarily abused internet acronyms at the time. so I basked the locals what what it meant.

It should also be noted that my reasons for going online were based strictly on having fun. I enjoyed playing Basketball and Football games against random scrubs from different parts of the country. Up until that point, I never thought the internet was serious business.

My simple question brought forth a monsoon of angst, the likes of which no mere mortal would hope to survive. Did I mention that used to be a Highlander? That bit of information has little to no importance in this story, but it explains why I am alive to tell this tale to you, today. If not for the bitterness of some drunk gypsy, I would still be immortal. I'd also still have my wallet and my brothers gold tooth...

Questionable dental hygiene aside, A flood of insults and silly ascii images were directed toward my direction. I read only three responses, lost interest, and proceeded to procrastinate till bedtime. A few days later I checked the forum to see if my question was finally answered. After six pages of non-related gibberish, I got a clear cut, straight to the point answer.

At this point, it would have been wise to just absorb that knowledge and move on. But that didn't happen. There was a phrase used in a few responses that both annoyed and intrigued me. Instead of being just stupid for not knowing a certain acronym, Some users referred to me as a "stupid n00b". Upon reading that, the first thing that came to mind was that Mortal Kombat character, Noob Saibot.

Being new to the internet, I hadn't yet learned the most important rule everyone must follow when unsure about something. That rule: Google it. Google's magnificent powers were the furthest thing from my mind. Dare I ask another question to people who assume the slang they use is common to everyone? Dare insight a beat down that was sure to spill over into the Quake 3 DC servers?

everything is a bit cloudy. Don't remember if I asked what in the blue *bleep* noob meant, or ogled the Dreamcast screen saver. All I know is my grades were slipping. And the last thing I needed was yet another distraction. Skip ahead to Dec. 2008: Still somewhat reluctant to admit the internets seriousness level. I know what a noob is, but have no idea as to where that phrase originated. Associated Content(and pretty much all sites) looks like crap on a DC browser.

What does this have to do with Digg? Not much. Will I ever get around to starting up that revolutionary television network? Maybe. How can a Highlander lose is immortality? Don't know, haven't seen the movies or tv show in a while.