Murder most virtual

Adding new meaning to "Get a Life", a Japanese women has murdered her online game husband. Funny, except her virtual crime will probably land her in a real jail.

"She is being investigated on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating data, a crime punishable with up to five years in prison or a fine of up to £3,160."

I'd never heard of Maple Story, so I wiki-ed its marriage rules: Players may participate in in-game marriages at the town of Amoria. Guests may be invited to the wedding, and the marrying couple will receive wedding ring items. The wedding "ceremony" requires the completion of various quests. If a premium wedding ticket from the Cash Shop was purchased, the player is entitled to have a party after the ceremony. In Amoria Dungeon, players can fight exclusive monsters. The KoreaMS version of Amoria has been altered to remove the training grounds and the Chapel area, leaving only the Cathedral. MapleStory currently does not allow same-sex marriage.

Is she the strange one for erasing his avatar, or does he top her by filing charges? The story mentions other internet strangeness:

— A Chinese man was arrested in Japan in 2005 on suspicion of carrying out a virtual mugging spree in the online game Lineage II and exchanging the stolen virtual goods for real cash

— Last year an animated character in Second Life, the popular online fantasy world, “raped” another character

— A Dutch teenager was charged last November with the virtual theft of furniture from rooms in Habbo Hotel, an online social networking site

There are 50 million Maple Stories, this has been one of them.

dipity do

What's your favorite internet fad? Check out Dipity.com. It's got all your favorite memes. Missed one? Add it yourself.

Yeah, I revisited Dancing Baby, Frog in a Blender, the Tourist Guy (ugh), The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Dog Skating... well, I got lost in the fun and had to run through the whole timeline.

But I quickly got hung up on You're The Man Now, Dog (YTMND) and demotivators, then 4chan and Anonymous. I got Serious, thinking about what an 'improved', more secure internet would do to the anarchy I love/hate. All that fun stuff got dropped and I posted The meming of security instead.

Happily, a comment on "the internets" snapped me out of it, and I was back with George Bush using "The Google" for aerial views of his ranch. The link I liked was tossed, but I still have one of my all-time favorites: Sen. Ted Stevens and his "Tubes":

Who reads any more?

Jane Mack's post on my post got me thinking. (And how incestuous is the internet?)

I've been reading dire predictions of the demise of books since I learned to read. Publishers have figures to show it-- I won't Google the stats this time-- and an amazing number of people tell me they don't read books.

A little elitism here. So what? An amazing number do read. Every American can vote, except for President, and about half do. That's about how many read literature. (There's probably a lot of overlap, but no, I don't necessarily think they're the same people.)

The need to be distracted, amused, entertained is deep-rooted in our psyche. I read a Buddhish guru years ago who said Americans even need to read in the bathroom because they don't like to be alone with their thoughts.

Our distractions of choice are television and the internet. It doesn't have to be a bad thing. There are great TV shows and the Librarian of Alexandria would envy what's available on computers. Trashy reality shows and trashy web sites are there because someone expects them to draw people. Que sera, I don't read Romance novels.

OK, the reading decline is steepest for young folk, and that's bothersome. I was reading a biography of Red Smith, and in his foreword New York Times sportswriter Ira Berkow said he hadn't read much of anything in High School. Knowing that, and reading his book, I feel safe in saying he will never match Red Smith. It's difficult for me to imagine a good writer who isn't also a reader.

I would expect a lot of people to return to the book fold for one reason or another, just as (hopefully) their online adventures will progress beyond My Space and World of Warcraft.

Also hopefully, beyond the world-wiki-web. Motto: If it's wrong today someone will correct it tomorrow.

Myself, I'm revving up for Dave Attel's revival of the Gong Show on Comedy Central. I've often said I'd only run a karaoke bar if you could make them stop doing that.

Dirty internet politics

If you get your politics off of the internet, you might want to read this story about security from Kiplinger. Experts at Symantec are expecting email attacks and phony websites this campaign season.

Even legitimate sites aren't safe. Did you read about Al Gore's inconvenient link about six months ago?

But I'm sure you keep up on your security updates, so no worries. Ha, the kids have infected my computers three times in the last month. They don't know whether to say accept or deny to the warnings.

That's just viruses and trojans. I clean trackers every day.