Thursday, October 06, 2005

When did I become a web junky?

It’s almost three months since I had to disconnect broadband for my house move. Talk Talk have been awfully slow at getting us reconnected – telling us different things at different times. SO much so that when my obligation to them runs out I will be terminating my contract with them. If they hadn’t have farted around so much and kept blaming it on BT (whom, I’ve discovered, had nothing to do with the problems) we could have been re-connected a month ago.

Anyway that’s not the point. What I want to know is when I became addicted to the internet. The first month offline was fine. I had a PDA to check my email and doing that once every few days was enough. By month two I was starting to miss the forums I post on, the film & sci-fi news sites and even browsing Ebay. But I could cope.

By month three and I really found it a pain that I couldn't get online. Everyday something cropped up that I wouldn’t have minded googling. The history of New Orleans, more info on Lost. Some research for a Halloween Party I’m organising.

It got worse and worse. I think of friends I’ve made on some forums, do they think I’m dead? What about other blogs I read, how are those people? Has Queen of the Skies successfully sued Delta Arlines? Is Diamond Geezer still expertly turning the most trivial East End London trivia into enthralling reading? It’s also quite worrying on how dependant I must be on the internet. For a start my music purchases are became lot more expensive. I’m amazed at how much more expensive the high street is for DVD & CDs than Play, Amazon or i-Tunes.

Back in 1996 when I first connected I never imagined the net would become such a big part of my life. Then it was just a good way of killing time for 10 mins looking up spoilers of the latest DS9 episodes. But now it really has become another community I’m part of. Now that the connection is back I’m going to have to apologise to my girlfriend and immerse myself for a few weeks to catch up. Looks like the kitchen walls will have to wait….

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