Well, how do you use the web?

The usual crew of argument pickers and nay-sayers over on The Register's letter page, poo-pooing the idea that Google's much-discussed web accelerator will mean they end up owning the innernet.

People are claiming they use the internet for certain special purposes which have nothing to do with cached web pages, and more to do with chat, gaming, and home networking.

Well, I guess. Last night Roy and I attempted an iChat, you know, audio chat. A telephone conversation without a telephone basically. Frankly, it was complete bollocks. The night before, he could hear me but I couldn't hear him. Last night, I could hear him but he (mostly) couldn't hear me. We tried taking turns talking ("Over") and we typed-and-talked (ironically, he could hear me best when I was typing the words as I spoke them, like an audio description of a subtitle).

All in all, a total time-waster. Not saying it wasn't a little bit fun, or fascinating, but it struck me as one of those things where the novelty will soon wear off, and you'll go back to emailing.

But how do you use the web? Email, for example? I try to stay in touch with people via email, but it's about as much use as it used to be trying stay in touch with pen and paper - a method I'd still prefer. So email is mostly a business thing for me; I rarely get emails, except from trekkies writing to correct me on a fact or three. I've ended up with way too many email addresses, too, and my address book, as usual, is scattered across several accounts and machines. Sure, you could aggregate them all together, but since people don't actually give a shit about staying in touch, why should I bother?

Shopping I do a lot of. Too much. Buy too many books and CDs; buy shoes; once bought a car; shampoo, supplements, a teapot. I'd buy anything over the innernet, I would. And you'd be doing me a flavour if you took it all away, thanks. Cheers.

Chat I'm not bothered with, because I'm not a teenage girl and I don't really need to discuss the latest episode of Star Trek with my geeky friends. Games I've got no time at all for. I'll play Tetris if you hold a gun to my head, but not a multi-player Tetris over a network.

Listening to the radio? Well, I've got a radio in my car, one in my kitchen, one in the bedroom, and one in the bathroom. Where else do I need one? At work? Having the radio on at work makes me want to kill myself, and anyway, people always complain.

TV? I watch it in the living room at home. I don't want or need one anywhere else. There's not so much on TV that I feel like I need to be able to have it on the 'puter, thanks. There are enough celebs and luvvies and media whores coming at me as it is, so I don't need any more of that. Anyway, time-shifting with the hard disk recorder attached to the TV will suffice.

I grow old, I grow old. What do I use the internet for? Blogging, which is the same as writing, which is something I've always done, ever since I was a nipper. And Flickr, for photos; again, something I've always done.

I use my computer for loads of stuff, but whole evenings will go by without me needing to connect to the innernet. It's a useful information source for work, as it was when I was studying.

Do I care if Google, or whoever, takes it over? Not really. If there turn out to be too many ads, I'll go and do something else.