It's All That

There was a while back there when I thought that Disney would take over the world. It was part of some new Reich, where the severed head of Walt was not just cryogenically frozen but kept alive specifically to give orders from beyond the grave for global domination. How else to explain the purchase of Star Wars, Marvel, ESPN, ABC, cruise lines, hotels and real estate holdings wherever you may roam? On any given day you could walk out of the house and never set foot on anything that wasn't owned by the Disney Corporation until you tucked yourself under your Mickey Mouse sheets at night. They've got their three fingered hands in just about everything.
This was my thought before I started noticing how much of my life is on Google. I get mail from them. I get pictures. I get videos. It used to be that when I wanted to see baby elephants romping with golden retrievers, I could use a search engine like Ask Jeeves and I would be supplied with a link to click on, a fun little site called "you tubes." People were uploading videos of their favorite cute things and occasionally some things that weren't so cute. Google owns them now. As if that creeping paranoia weren't enough, there's always this: The blog you are reading right now comes to you via the auspices of Google. Blogger was purchased by Google way back in 2003. That's before I got here, so I really don't have anything to complain about. I knew what I was getting myself into: A whole mess o' Google.
I used to be a pretty solid fan of Internet Explorer. The Big Blue E was my gateway to Al Gore's Internet. This was after I had tired of Netscape and the relics from another time. Then for a while I flirted with Firefox, mostly because it seemed so flashy by comparison to its dull Microsoft counterpart. Now is the time for Google Chrome, mostly because everything my school district does these days springs form the font of Google. Mail, documents, cloud drives, calendars: It's all found under that green, yellow, red and blue swirl. At home, I resisted a bit, sticking with my Firefox friends until I realized that it was taking forever to get things to open and then one day I switched and never looked back.
One of us. One of us.
Now I operate almost exclusively from the eye of the Google storm. I teach kids about a variety of search engines, but like so many other infected individuals, I have begun to use the name of the company as a verb. I have become googled. When I watch previews for Disney movies, I watch them through Googly eyes. And if I ever have time to waste, I need look no further than the doodles on the opening page. No more Minesweeper for me. I'll be sitting and clicking at the front page of Google. I surrender.