I got word of a site called Omegle via waxy.org today.  At first I couldn’t really see the difference between that and any other social IRC chat room or something, but I stuck with it for a couple of minutes and was actually entertained.

You see, the thing about Omegle is that it’s a one-to-one chat with a random stranger.  The stranger is not named, and might quit on you after the first sentence - a privilege you possess yourself too of course.  After a couple of rounds ranging from random key presses to some person claiming to be a 28 year old sikh who had just shaved for the first time, each round ending with me being thrown back to the beginning:

Connecting to server… Looking for someone you can chat with. Hang on. You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

The whole thing started reminding me of Groundhog Day, the Bill Murray movie in which he reexperiences a single day over and over again.  After each round of starting over I found myself feeling more and more experienced, determined to somehow get an upper hand in a sometimes ridiculous and other times just plain surreal conversation.

A great little internet toy.  The window is closed now, lest I waste my whole evening on that site!