Sometimes I think we should blow up the internet and just become hermits. In this case, sometimes = when I am baselessly criticized on it.

I don’t mean when someone merely disagrees with me, because I enjoy debating people. But debate does not happen as often as it probably should. This is mostly because the vast majority of what I write falls into black hole, never to be read again. But it’s also in part because the internet does something to people’s brains, where it turns off the filter in their mind and causes them to spew the first dumb reaction that crosses a synapse.

Just within the past week, here’s what I’ve had flung my way:

• A snotty comment on this site about the Inappropriate Walk Up Music series, which didn’t let the fact that s/he entirely missed the point keep them from leaving completely unconstructive criticism
• A response tweet from someone bothered by the amount of “pimping” I’m doing for The Amazin Avenue Annual, because I guess I’m the only person who uses Twitter to promote his work
• Two “dislikes” on a YouTube video I posted from last year’s WFMU Pledge Marathon

That last one really bothered me, because said video features a live Nerd-Off between Patton Oswalt and John Hodgman. Seriously, internet? This video is the kind of thing the internet was created for (well, that and to speed up military communication). If you can’t get down with that, you just hate life.

This is typical of the Internet Bully, who lives to shit all over everything, contribute nothing positive or constructive, and never have to receive reciprocal treatment because they’ve never made anything in their lives.

It’s enough to make you give up on silicon, I tells ya. But just when thought I’d lost faith in the internet altogether, it redeems itself. What could pull me back from the brink of asceticism?

This site, dedicated to the collection of ice cream sundae baseball helmets. At least one example from every team in the majors, plus quite a few minor league squads, with examples going back as far as the early 1970s. Amidst a sea of fetid, rotting cynicism and ignorance, an island of hope and purity.

I am firmly of the belief that ice cream of any make, flavor, or consistency is enhanced by being placed in a miniature plastic baseball helmet. My mom had a collection of such helmets–mostly Mets but some Red Sox from a trip to Boston–and I did not eat ice cream out of any other receptacle until I was in college. Seriously.

We have one in my house now, from a trip to CitiField on a hot summer day last year, when The Baby insisted on getting some Carvel (which promptly turned into sprinkle soup). I have seriously curtailed my ice cream intake lately, because I like seeing my own feet, but when I do eat it, I must do so out of this helmet. To keep the tradition alive, if The Baby gets ice cream, she also gets The Helmet.

Bless you, sir. The internet was never meant for one as beautiful as you.