h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I spend a lot of time on the Internet and the Web... and I do mean a lot. I realise that I don't really contribute that much to it, though. I have a couple of blogs somewhere around here, for different purposes throughout the ages, but I rarely ever feel that I have anything to write in them. The occasions that I do think of something to write, I find I get accused of being inflammatory.

There's a reason that I don't link to those blogs. One of them is a technical blog that I link to from my LinkedIn profile; the other is a LiveJournal that I've had since at least the middle of high school. I've said some pretty ridiculous things, and because I don't like to redact things that I've said in that journal (long story), I feel, for the time being, that I should keep a strong separation between the two.

I've considered dropping that LiveJournal altogether, but I got a pretty good nickname for it that I likely wouldn't be able to duplicate... and, like I said, I wouldn't drop it in terms of burning the entire thing, but rather formally end it. Renounce it, as it were. Admit that these were views I once held, but I'll not be posting in it again, and officially distance myself from the foolish things I said.

The problem with that idea is that I've posted there recently, and if I were to suspend that journal altogether, there isn't much I'd replace it with. I used to write, prolifically, in high school, but back in high school I felt either like I had something to say, or that it was MY LiveJournal, and that I'd write whatever I wanted in it, thank you very much. So I wrote... a lot. Some of it, deeply embarrassing stuff.

But it remains there, because it's nevertheless an accurate picture of the sixteen-/seventeen-/eighteen-year-old that I was, and being able to remember what you were like seven to nine years ago is always important in being able to see what kind of growth you've made as a person. Also, because of a fight I got into with a girlfriend I had in my first year of university that was the formation of my policy "I will not edit my LiveJournal for anyone short of the police". She pretty much forced me to edit it (as I recall, but I'm not known for my excellent recall), based largely on a lie that I later caught her out in (this lie was also the catalyst for my policies of "I won't ask a question to which I can't deal with the answer" and "I'll never get mad at you for being honest, even if the truth hurts").

I subscribe to a number of RSS feeds on my Google Reader account, and I'm continuously marking items for later followup, but I never really follow up on them. There are a limited few that I've used the "Note in Google Reader" bookmarklet, that I actually have used later, but by and large, I mark items that I want to discuss in one blog or another, and/or look into with greater depth because I think it's an important subject, professionally, that I simply never get back to. I'm not sure why.

Perhaps it's because I know, deep down, that actually going back and taking the time to address these items that I want to address, even if I get at it at the time I think, "hey, I should look into this and write about it", would take an hour or two that I really can't spare these days. I haven't had more than a few hours a week since the beginning of August without any obligations, for a wide variety of reasons (though the two major reasons are my return to school to finally finish my degree, and, well, getting married in September), and that isn't likely to change until, well, the end of this coming August when I've finished all my coursework for the degree.

Kind of ridiculous, I know. I guess I'd just feel guilty taking all the time necessary to look into the 5th Underhanded C Contest (an excellent example of why thorough QA and code audits are important in my industry, particularly when you have a large group of developers working on a project, though the example works in kind of a backwards way that deserves better explanation than a parenthetical digression--on my wife's computer!--can afford) to write a coherent piece about it, when I know that I should be studying so that I can actually spent time with my new wife.

I feel like I'm being pulled in several directions at once, and while they're all Important Things that are demanding my attention... there's always that one little thing that's completely selfish that I'd like to be able to take the time to do. After all, I think anybody deserves a completely selfish pursuit that's just for them, right?