Written by Dave the Drummer:
How much of your life do you spend online? Counting things like XBox Live, WoW, so on. Make it easy and break it down to hours per week, in general. I’ve been keeping score, lately. While I was in school, I was averaging around four days total spent on the Internet. Now I’ve finished and I have nothing planned, that’s probably going to go way the fuck up. I fall asleep watching movies on my laptop, after doing hours and hours of screwing about online, then wake up, check e-mails, all that shit and then just post on forums, play flash games, look up random crap and just waste time.
I was away last week, and managed to get online a total of two times. I thought I would go crazy without it. How would I know if a funny thing had been said in a place I go to? What if a new Over Analyzers was up? What if Andy Garcia had given me 48 hours to respond to an e-mail, telling me he desperately wanted to be on CritMo? The possibilities are endless. Really, all that happened was I missed out on a pretty rare pre-order vinyl, which I can probably get from the label instead of the band. Not a whole lot, really. Instead of writing thanks-whoring posts on various boards because it boosts my cheap-crystal-ego, I did stuff, like go to a gallery, walk around Dublin, make things and eat really great soup.
I think the reason I didn’t mind the lack of Interbutts is because of all this stuff, but at the back of my mind is the idea that maybe it’s kind of a novelty. I was never really much of a socialiser. I do like going out to see bands play, but I also really fucking enjoy going home at the end for a coffee, a poop and a movie I’ll probably fall asleep watching. I’m not nearly cool enough for the lone-wolf personality. I’m probably more of a lone-stoat, lone-weevil or something like that. I’m pretty sure I don’t like the vast majority of people, so maybe that’s why I like to go out and go home. Hanging out with the couple of friends I have is great, but it’s nice to be able to walk around with no pants on, do the Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb dance whilst waiting for the kettle to boil. Maybe the novelty would wear off after a while and I’ll prefer the Internet to hanging out with them, as fun as they are. Maybe I’m online too much. Pretty sure I am. How much is too much? I find myself making jokes relevant to particular sites that only a handful of people would get and most would others would hit me for, like telling someone they should blast their problem with piss to make it go away. Maybe a perma-ban from almost all of the Internet would do me good, but taking the steps to avoid sites is difficult. It’s like an addiction or something! Only a really fucking lame one. I recently quit one forum because it stopped being fun, and that was hard. I pretty much lived there, it was almost my entire world for years.
Like usual, I have no real idea where I’m going with this crap. I guess I’m gonna try to spend less time online, but what would I do instead? Watch more movies? I could try walking around, but this is a rough neighbourhood. Sleep more? I like sleeping. I should try to make more of an effort to meet people. Attend open-mic’s again, busk maybe. This Friday, I have a couple of things lined up, mostly a movie I want
to see, and a live band after.
I have no idea how to end this, so here’s a picture of me with my head in a box of cereal.
