Someone sent me a picture message and all I got was this lousy blog.

I got a picture message on my Blackberry today. Now for some unbeknownst (I like that word, don’t think I have ever used it) reason, whether it’s simply my technological inadequacy or my phone’s piece of shit-ness…I can’t view picture mail on my phone. So I have to go to the Verizon website to check the message and blah blah blah. Now this was not that big of a deal several months ago, back when having a Blackberry was considered socially “neat”…and since I only get picture mail maybe once every 7 weeks, I don’t have to go through the pains of this process that often. So I go to the website -- which has completely transformed each of the last two times I have used it -- and I am directed to a login landing page where I seemingly have to disclose my phone number, cup size, SSN, AmEx + expiration, date of last period and current Facebook status. Then I am told that a PIN number has been texted to my phone. That’s cool…sounds official…I’m important. So I wait…

When the PIN number finally comes through to my inbox, I can almost hear Verizon getting 10 cents richer. Tricky monkeys. The cryptic message includes details about how to purchase something for $9.99 a month, which I gracefully dodge…and a PIN number. (I just noticed that I have said PIN NUMBER every time I mention the…PIN NUMBER…and I fear that the N in PIN stands for number, so I am being redundant. Sorry.) Anyway, I enter the PIN NUMBER and at this point I have almost completely forgotten that I even have a picture message. At this point, I am just a Verizon puppet. Verizon: 1. Cassy: 0. The next page looks like it was designed by a third grader whose dad’s ex-girlfriend’s brother in law is a web designer who presented on career day (breath) and it says:

Activation success…if your browser doesn’t automatically redirect, click here.

Clearly it doesn’t redirect…why would it? That would be too easy.

So then after all that, I get another text message…on my phone – because clearly parallel universes communicate with one another and aliens not only exist but have cocktails every Friday with Santa Claus -- that says my handset does not support downloadable content. AWESOME assholes.

Had I even possessed enough patience to continue on with this mystery picture hunt, I probably would have ended up on a page with a laughing black skull/crossbones that said: “Sorry loser, your internet connection has gone fishing. We invite you to start over as soon as you get a new credit card number and a bigger cup size.”

So here I am…still wondering what the picture was and who sent it. With my luck, it was a message from God that includes hints to the winning lottery numbers for the next 87 years. No big whoop.

(If you sent me a picture today, can you maybe email me or poke me on Facebook or call my office line that I don’t answer or send a scanned version overnight via FedEx - but not through their website…don’t go there.)

All I am left with is the warming comfort that someone out there, over the rainbow, saw something that they wanted to share with me. Someone who actually has a camera phone…let’s not go there either. Thanks, whoever you are. I am truly touched.

The internet is taking over the world. Exhibit A: BLOGSPOT. These days you can do just about anything online…but first you have to jump through hoops and snort shards of glass. You can cyber-wink at strangers like a creep, you can chat with people in your underwear, you can shop with other people’s money, you can get a pedicure or even pet a tiger…radical stuff, the internet.

Google, for example, gets something like $4 in advertising revenue for every time you enter a search. FOUR DOLLARS. I search on Google like 9,876 times a day. For STUPID shit. Do I get a commission check? No. Makes me want to retire and pursue a career as a professional Googler. Someday, the richest man in the world is going to have that as a title…a Googler…a titty tickler…a wanker. And he will probably have a picture phone.

So, I guess the moral of my story is…don’t do drugs.

And whoever sent the picture, again, thank you.