Suw, referring to her IRC client of choice: “Have you any idea how hard it is not to open Hydra? I mean, I currently live alone, in a village in the arseendofnowhere. Sad or otherwise, my online life is my life. The urge just to pop in and say 'hi!' is almost unbearable. But IRC is interfering with getting work done, so it's got to take a back seat for a while.”

I'd love to say I've been trying to cut down on IRC or online-time as well, but fortuitiously, it has been "just happening" lately. Having a pool in my apartment complex, extra shifts at work, meetings, a trip to Seattle this Thursday, a conference this weekend (I'll be one of very few people taking notes with a pen and paper, as the conference is ultra-geeky and I have no laptop), and the other things I'm neglecting (yes, neglecting, that'll do nicely) to mention. It helps that I live in a city, rather than the village of arseendofnowhere as Suw so eloquently puts it. But I'm sure she understands and is most likely grateful for the fact that the Internet connects people who may not necessarily be currently living in urban centres, or who may be living several time zones from where many of her friends live.

I've met far more people through the Internet than through what is still the mainstream way of meeting people, which is through offline contacts. Increasingly, meeting online first then meeting in the flesh is becoming mainstream, and I couldn't be happier.

I won't be on IM for at least the weekdays of this week. My grumpiness coupled with my ability to exploit said grumpiness on this weblog for your schadenfreude are the reasons for the absence. Email remains an excellent way to get a hold of me. The answer as to why I'm grumpy can be found in the penultimate paragraph of the previous entry.

Update 11:35 PM: Apparently, according to a Reuters report, “[f]lirting with colleagues, scheming against the boss and gossiping about co-workers are among the most common Instant Messenger, or IM, missives circulating around the office”. I don't use IM at work, but some people do, and it's rather funny to hear them complain about their co-workers or their job, almost as if there was something I could do about it.