Stouts and Starts

The half-finished stout on my desk is a local brew that doesn't quite match up to the Irish products I've had in the past. For the moment it will do, as it provides a kind of distraction while I mull through this post.

The reason I'm starting this is because of a suggestion that "it builds community where most people are living." I doubt that actually. I live next to a redneck who doesn't care a lick about the Internet, and across the street from a guy who is a year away from retirement and doesn't care about the Internet, and behind a couple that who are never home to use it even if they had the Internet, and I suspect they are all pretty typical of most of the folks within a fair radius of this keyboard. The community I know chit-chats in the evening at the property line about tomatoes and burned out front lawns and the improvements they're making to the kitchen floor.

My dread, of course, is that this will simply be one more thing that takes time and requires regular management.

My computer requires more time of me than I wish to give it. Sadly, it is a useful tool.... so I use it. Tragically, it threatens to control my mind and my time and my life and my finances. Between viruses, spyware, software that gets zapped by static electricity, security filters, firewalls, and who knows whatever else, many of my daily resourses are consumed by this thing. I don't even want to go into how much time it cost me yesterday while I adjusted a database just so I could get an accurate report from it. Just to set this blog up tonite cost me an hour and a half. Tell me ... do you really have that kind of time to throw away? If today was your last day on earth, would you have wanted to waste an hour and a half schmoozing with your computer? This thing is a toaster for heaven's sake. Who in their right mind spends their evening with a toaster?

But since I believe there is some benefit to come from this, then let the games begin....

The stout is finished, its last bitter aftertaste lingering on the tongue. A good end to a good day.