“SAN FRANCISCO — Internet pioneers Yahoo Inc. and AOL were closing in on a deal late Wednesday that would combine their businesses into an online advertising giant, according to four people familiar with the talks.

If consummated, the deal could let Yahoo wriggle out of a situation that this week had seemed inevitable: succumbing to Microsoft Corp.’s unsolicited $42-billion takeover bid.”[Los Angeles Times]

Oh, the horror! The horror!

Yahoo was my way out of the blight that was AOL. It was my lifeboat, when AOL became becalmed in a vast and chewy sea of dial-up Content. Now Yahoo has been blown into the horse latitudes too, and I’ve moved on to using Google as my Internet sloop. But it’s hard to see my old vessel from Silicon Valley go down by the bow; worse yet, to be towed out by this giant sluggish freighter.

Too much Metaphor? Sorry.