Mefi inserts itself into daily life November 29, 2001 7:18 AM   Subscribe

Trip Note #2 - Metafilter has inserted a new "mental discipline" into offline activities. On this trip to Europe, every time I speak with someone, read the foreign press, watch TV, etc, I often ask myself : how relevant would subject be in Metafilter's context, what would commentary thread look like. It certainly sharpens conversations. (I think Max Weber called it "unintended consequences of routinized social action") Weird symptom, or do others experience the same?
posted by Voyageman to MetaFilter-Related at 7:18 AM (6 comments total)

Similar, but completely unrelated incident:

I was shopping in Saks at the Houston Gallaria a few weeks ago. The have a whole new electronics department (run by CompUSA flunkies, but I digress). Along the wall, there was a line of G4 Mac Laptops.

I started flicking around with them as I often do and casually clicked the Explorer button and-lo and behold-all the laptops were hooked up and capable of browsing.

(as a side note of my side note: I always get pissed when I look at computers in the stores. Since most people use their computers for the web, wouldn't it make sense to show off their capabilities right there in the store?)

So, back to Saks: as soon as I realize that it is alive and kicking, I do two things: I log onto AIM and steer the browser towards MeFi.

Two hours later, I am still standing there. I am still on Metafilter, and I have helped to talk at least two people into buying a Mac.

The ladies I was shopping with had finished their shopping and they came back to find me right where they had left me.

Dammit, I hate to be a typical man, but there I was...

So, to answer your question: Yes. You can take the boy off the Metafilter, but you can't take the Metafilter out of the boy.
posted by ColdChef at 7:51 AM on November 29, 2001


Tell me about it, Voyageman and ColdChef! Let's set up a Metafiltaholics Anonymous before we're all stumbling through department stores in our makeshift cardboard overcoats, a-shiverin' an' a-hoping one of the computers is connected so we can check out what happened to that crucial "what's your favourite stapler gun?" thread where Bunnyfire...and then SDB... when, all of a sudden, Zach...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:25 AM on November 29, 2001


Just stay outa my dumpster!

Bu I do mutter less unintelligibly and drool less now.
posted by y2karl at 10:17 AM on November 29, 2001


Just wait for the neural net edition.
posted by Kafkaesque at 10:18 AM on November 29, 2001


Just don't ask where your original body and mind are, you don't want to know.

Body: I am C. Montgomery Burns' Lower Intestine.

Mind? I don't need no stinkin' mind!
posted by y2karl at 12:05 PM on November 29, 2001


we're all stumbling through department stores

I'm trying to imagine Miguel not on Mefi, and frankly it's too abstract a concept for me to comprehend.
posted by geoff. at 8:52 PM on November 29, 2001


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