Internet and Businesses Articles

Maybe it’s just allergy season again, or I have too much on my mind. For whatever reason, I couldn’t sleep last night. I awoke with a headache and took a few aspirin. But I realized I needed to get up and allow the medicine to kick in. So I tried reading for a minute or so, but that wasn’t such a good idea as my pounding head told me. I tried the TV, but one can only watch just so many “Creatures of the Black Lagoon” on Nick-at-Night so I went on the Internet. In comparison, that was a fairly interesting diversion.

I understand that there are several time zones at work here. So it can be 5AM on the East coast and many people are up or even at work. But the majority of the country isn’t. I first stumbled over to Yahoo Answers where I like to read the questions. It gives me a nice overview of how the country is doing as a whole. It’s a bit scary, even during normal viewing hours. The grammar and spelling would lead one to believe I was back in the 3rd grade. Of course I can’t tell the age of the posers, but I would think they were mostly adults. There were plenty of questions being posed and asked as I watched and refreshed. Obviously, like myself, they had no early-morning life or were some type of Zombies. Ah, another great movie, but I digress.

I also enjoy wandering over to the various chat rooms to see what’s shaking. I used to go to the social club chats but realized that most of them were older men, pretending to be young guys, trawling for very young girls. The talk quickly turned to sex and quite graphic at that. It reminds me of the on-going MSNBC Dateline undercover sting run by Chris Hansen. He tapes various online predators as they come wandering into a trap as they are hoping to meet a 13 year old girl they’ve been chatting with. Chris and company have lured everyone from a company CEO to a Rabbi to military men, mostly married by the way, into their home-like setup. Once confronted and asked about what they intended to do with the minor girls, they all said “nothing.” It was amazing that they caught hundreds of men that came to this young girl’s house, condom in hand, with the intent to do nothing but have a conversation, a drink or a dunk in the spa. That’s the problem. They were caught and their life is now ruined. So I avoid those chat rooms like the plague.

But Ebay is always fun. There is always something being bid on at all hours. Art, coins, tools, books, junk and more junk. It never ends and you can browse around that site for hours. Amazon has lots of good stuff too, but it’s static. At least you can count down to zero on Ebay and see what sells for what. There are also tons of puzzle sites and online games to play against other online insomniacs. There’s plenty of trivia contests and poker. I could do a crossword or jigsaw puzzle to make the time fly. Heck I could even write an online article but what would be the fun of that? Oops.

The point, and I actually have one, is that the Internet is a boon to the “I can’t sleep” sector of society. It’s interactive and provides endless avenues of entertainment. It’s silent and unobtrusive so that it doesn’t have to disturb the other sleeping members of the household. I figured that, with all that time to kill, I might as well make myself useful. After writing a few articles like this one, I relatively bored myself enough to become drowsy and head back to bed. But it wasn’t a total loss. You got to benefit from my sleeplessness and read this article and I got to practice my typing, writing, and reasoning skills while in a semi-coma. How do you think I did? Not bad for a Zombie, huh?

Jeffrey Hauser was a sales consultant for the Bell System Yellow Pages for nearly 25 years. He graduated from Pratt Institute with a BFA in Advertising and has a Master's Degree in teaching. He had his own advertising agency in Scottsdale, Arizona and ran a consulting and design firm, ABC Advertising. He has authored 6 books and a novel, "Pursuit of the Phoenix." His latest book is, "Inside the Yellow Pages" which can be seen at his website, http://www.poweradbook.com Currently, he is the Marketing Director for http://www.thenurseschoice.com a Health Information and Doctor Referral site.