Geata Póeg na Déanainn

Let loose to roam teh internets once more May 13, 2008

Our old modem completely collapsed the other day. It’s always been a bit iffy, often refusing to connect, but usually what you have to do is switch it off for a few minutes and then it’s fine. We got fed up with doing this, and angrily phoned our ISP. They talked us through a firmware upgrade, which broke the modem. So we got a new one for free. But I had to wait several days.

I realised, when sitting through this torture, how much I’ve come to rely on the internet. Whenever something goes wrong, I jump on #btts and whine about it to the sraffies, or, if no-one’s around, post about it over at the ‘Pub or on LJ or something. But…broken internet, so how could I go online to complain.

Then I realised that much of my daily OCD-induced routine involves the internet. Every day I check my two email addresses several times. I’ll hang out over at the ‘Pub for quite a bit, and also check my LJ friends page. I’m on Facebook quite a bit, too, and I’ll also tend to check out what’s going on at Obernet. I also read a few blogs such as Boing Boing and Joel’s SMH blog, as well as webcomics such as XKCD, Get Medieval, QC and NAR when moony gets his act together.

Without this daily routine, I felt bound, limited, disconnected…caged. This worried me a lot. If you’d told me two years ago that I’d become an internet addict, I would’ve laughed in your face, and then buried my head in a book. Well, I still bury my head in books, but I also bury it in various outlets for my self-absorption. The degree of my distress at being internet-less worries me. But not enough to give up feeding my addiction.

I was in Melbourne over the weekend at my newest sister’s baptism, and I have a few photos to put up, but I’ll probably do that on LJ and Facebook. If you’re reading this, you know where to find me at either of those places.

/me hugs the whole internet, and in particular the above-mentioned sites
Oh, how I’ve missed you!