I was killing time before going to a meeting the other day at work, and I was looking for a quick read… and I remembered the Straight Dope. I used to be so consumed by this website. Hours a day, everyday. I read Cecil’s latest article, went to my meeting and continued on with my life.
But I started thinking… when was the last time I contributed to the message boards? 2011. Seven years ago. Wow.
I pulled the plug because I had become to obsessed with it. Constantly checking, constantly updating. I was obsessed with my post per day number. (Well, after 7 years of nothing, that’s pretty low now.)
Funny, I think seven years ago I was paying more attention with my post per day number (it was around 1.35 for a while – not sure what it is now since I haven’t looked in a while), but I wanted to keep it low. It was this sort of mental hang-up of feeling like if my count was high it looked like I had nothing better to do than talk to strangers all day, but if I just read what other strangers were saying that wasn’t as embarrassing because no one would know how much time I spent.
Biggest difference between now and seven years ago is that there’s less activity, so it’s harder to waste a lot of time here because you’re waiting for people to reply. It seems a bit less pointlessly silly as well, but I never really got into pointless silliness so I don’t really mind that.
I wanted mine to be super high. I wanted to be one of the elite, super active, everyone-knows-me names on the boards. I was around 4-5 posts per day, maybe higher. I would get up early before work and spend an hour or so on the boards. Then, after work, I would spend another hour or two (or more).
This was, of course, before kids.
Now, the only things I spend more than a couple hours doing each day are working, and sleeping.
7 years? I’m not sure of the exact timeline, but you may hve missed Holly, who would have wished you well and reminded you that James Otto was The Man.
First, it’s not just “lager”, it’s Kokanee, brewed in the heart of Creston, British Columbia! The squid said any of the dark ales I tried tickled too much.
Second, do you have any idea how hard it is to keep a squid still long enough to fill it with beer?
Third, if you’re giving the goat access to the Beer Squid, keep the ice scream in the triple redundant container…or you get the Hopeful Crow Incident all over again. Just sayin’
