I entitled this blog "giving the Internet too much credit," because honestly, that's what I tend to. I latch onto something and end up attributing everything to it. I expect sometime soon you'll see posts arguing the Internet promotes world peace, ends racial tolerance and opens a wormhole into the place where all your missing socks go.

In reality, there are some things the Internet can't do, but after spending last week remodeling our downstairs bathroom, I'm not sure what. We turned to the 'Net for just about everything. When we needed a refresher course on how to lay tile, we watched YouTube (even though I'm still wondering why the guy in the video we watched didn't drag the slotted end of his trowel through the mortar before laying the tiles.) We found the owner's manual for our water softner online after I soaked the original one. We even found a replacement shower online, even if it was one we had to have my brother, the plumbing firm vice president order for us.

I'm constantly surprised at what I find online. When Santa got me an Xbox 360 that wouldn't read discs for Christmas, I found complete instructions on how to take the sucker apart without voiding the warranty (The trick: Using a hair dryer to dissolve the glue on the warranty sticker.) From Ken Jennings, one of my favorite bloggers, I found a listing of classic Lego set instructions. This was a particularly convenient find because Lincoln dragged a bunch of my old sets out of my closet at my Mom's house and we shipped them home. They're probably in a million pieces now.

All this recent web finding has made me question my title. Can I really give the Internet too much credit or am I not giving it credit enough? Maybe the real question is to whom does the credit belong? Is it really the Internet that makes vast stores of information available to me or is it the people online? Did the Internet contract out the filming of tiling videos? Did it frequent enough garage sales to find thousands of vintage Lego sets and the accompanying instructions?

In other words, the Internet is great and maybe it deserves some credit for making it easy for people to come together, but in the end, it's the users who make all the difference. So thanks to all of you who are willing to share. Here's to another great year together. I promise I'll do more of my part to add something to the storehouse, even if it's insane ramblings on how great everyone else is.