How can I be scared of something called "Google?" Let me count the ways...

Actually, I am here to defend Google today. Well, not so much to defend them as to engage their attackers. So, Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Dr. Eric Schmidt and all you suited cronies, you can rest easy! You can call off your attack vector modules and go back to your espresso and your game of ping-pong, or whatever it is you snazzy, jeans-wearing Internet neo-Tycoons do with yourselves when you're not pretending to be Just Folks. The staff here (and by "the staff," I mean "that one jerk") at No One Appreciates Me (and it's true...NO ONE appreciates me, AT ALL) is here to help.

Anyway, the latest firestorm for Google (not including literal firestorms, which may or may not secretly occur every day on the homes and families of their enemies) is Google Print, which is a searchable database currently being built by Google which will apparently include more or less every single book ever printed on paper, scrolling, papyrus, obsidian, sandstone, cave wall or dung heap by the time it is complete. It is daunting in its scope, no question. Anyway, searchers will search for a book, and then a snippet of the text will come up, along with instructions on where the person can buy or find this book. Without going into too many details (click the link for more) writers are now upset and are suing Google to get it stopped.

As a writer, I think I can speak on this. Allow me to be patronizing for a moment, and tell you what it is we writers really think about. Just kidding - I hate it when people do that to me. Anyway, I think this is a good thing for writers. Who the hell goes to the library anymore? Why not put this stuff up for sale on the Internet? And they're only giving away a few snippets...it's not like Napster where you could just download whole songs and albums wholesale. Maybe Google could work with the Authors Guild a little more, but I really don't see the big deal. Hell, maybe I'm wrong. Nah...I'm a writer! And as Albert Camus once said in a book you've never read, "writers are always right. Ya hurd? Now give me some candy."

P.S. It's really creepy when you use Google to get information about Google. All these Google pages pop up first, all eager to tell you all about the greatness of Google. It's like seeing outside the Matrix. I'm scared. I was going to post the Google banner as an image, but I thought maybe they would then erase me from existence, so that when you Googled me, it came back with "this guy is a jerk," and "silly peasant, this person never existed!" and "please stay where you are. That is us knocking on your door and we just want to ask you a few questions," and so forth. I'm not paranoid...this stuff really happens!