“Websites” that Irritate Us

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are officially fed up with politics. As every humanoid with a pulse (and at least a few without a pulse) must know, the midterm elections are approaching apace and the nation is all abuzz about them.

Racist television commercials; homosexual ephebophilic indiscretions; dubious financial transactions—these and kindred political flaps appear, like Martians in bad 1950s sci-fi flicks, to have invaded the country. If it gets any worse, the E! television network might very well eschew its 24-7 coverage of Madonna’s recent foray into celebrity imperialism and start discussing, say, George Allen. Not that that’d be a step up.

Maybe we’re the only ones, but this wall-to-wall political coverage has made us run for the sick bag. At some point soon, perhaps, our political interests will reemerge; for now, however, we’d prefer to talk about, say, testicle removal. Or, on a related note, Clay Aiken.

So, in today’s humble “post,” we have decided to do our level best to avoid political matters altogether. Frankly, given the introduction to this musing, we may have failed already. Regardless (or, as our boorish pals say, “irregardless”), from this point on, dear reader, today’s animadversion is strictly apolitical.

Instead of prattling on about the horrors of Democrats and Republicans, we’ve determined to harp on an entirely unrelated matter, but one that is irksome nonetheless. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, it may not make the list of the World’s Most Enraging Phenomena, like hunger, violence, and Billy Joel. But it’s troublesome all the same.

We refer, dear reader, to a particular kind of “website” that never ceases to bother us. Try as we might, we simply can’t get over how loathsome they are.

These detested “websites” belong to what genre, you ask? Well, the answer is simple: “Websites” that take an obnoxiously long time to load.

Now, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are fully willing to admit that we’re partly to blame for this. Despite generous assistance from our deep-pocketed financial backers, the computer technology at our headquarters would make the average Zimbabwean laugh. In fact, it’d probably make the average Rhodesian smirk.

But just because getting on the Internet at our offices requires access to a butter churner doesn’t mean that we’re entirely at fault. For some reason, the proprietors of some “websites” have made it their life’s work to maximize the amount of a prospective reader’s wasted time. They love e-clutter.

Frankly, dear reader, we can take a gander at anything: Michael Moore’s innerds; a Barbara Boxer lingerie calendar; New Jersey. But for crying out loud, don’t make us wait so long.