Life on the internet can be exasperating.

Like many people, I spend plenty of time on a computer. I spend my entire workday in front of a computer, and in my free time, both my photography pursuits and this pesky little blog compel me to gaze at my monitor as if it holds not just the meaning of life itself (42, I’m told), but also the recipe for McDonald’s Special Sauce (rumored to have something to do with G. Love) within its gleaming rectangular lake of pixels.

As part of that time on the computer, I spend my fair share of time on the internet, because … well, that’s why it exists. The internet, it seems, is much like Mt. Everest: why surf? Because it’s there!

With that justification, exploring the internet is a lifelong pursuit. The content just keeps going, and the extent of one’s exploration is limited only by one’s stamina and force of will; in this sense, the internet is much like graduation ceremonies. Except the internet is constantly updated with additional content, whereas graduation ceremonies are syndicated reruns.

Since the pursuit of the knowledge of the internet is never-ending, there are countless opportunities to find its exasperating qualities. And I don’t mean myspace. No, I’m talking about a less conspicuous exasperation.

While surfi…I mean, engaging in wide-ranging long-term computer-based research, it is common for me to visit several sites at once, because my generation invented and perfected Attention Deficit Disorder and I Have A Short Attention Span For No Good Reason Disorder. And since the world has been slow to awaken to the brilliant and generally life-changing development of tabbed browsing, there are times I am forced to endure multiple browser windows.

Really, running multiple browsers isn’t a serious issue. Just unrefined, like a rotary phone in a touch-tone world. But it lends itself to one of the internet’s exasperations: self-aggrandizing websites. Not so much in content, but in behavior.

I’m sure you know the type — the sites that consider themselves so overwhelmingly important that when they do something truly noteworthy, like, OMG, load a page!, they don’t sound a quiet alarm in the background. Instead, without warning, you’re whisked away from your profound (ESPN.com) research to see what the internet hath wrought. But the urgency of the interruption is needless, as the site only wants to say hey, you remember how you asked for me? I’m here. Check me out. Worship my source code.

Fortunately for both me and the internet, this is not an overwhelming trend. Most sites haven’t developed the look-at-me complex; only a few consider themselves so important that only the long-lost child of Dan Rather and Katie Couric could report the major breaking news that Gmail just fulfilled Burrill Strong’s request to open a new message.

Now I’m just waiting for my TV to change channels when something noteworthy happens on another network. Until that happens, if you need me, I’ll be at the nearest graduation ceremony.