Defend the Indefensible: Spending more than 1 hour per day on ILX

...

hey i stand at a computer with nothing to do for at least 5 hrs/day on work days.

given particular circumstances i think this is perfectly defensible.

Speaking for myself, I have procrastination problems to rival even the laziest of the laziest of the lazy...and plus where I'm living now I don't get enough "real-life" social interaction, which is due to factors like not having made enough friends here... and plus what friends I do have are wrapped up with marriages and kids or hanging out mostly with their significant others and so forth.

It's really, really, easy for me to waste a ton of time here without the legitimate excuses that you (HOOS) have, or other people who are working desk jobs with enormous amounts of goof-off time. What can I say? I think of this being the equivalent of if I ever wind up in some retirement community-- given my current desultory habits I would likely end up hanging out in the rec center, shooting the shit with the random crowd of fellow octogenarians.

It goes without saying that there are myriad ways in which I would like to make better use of my solitudinous (not a real word, but whatever) leisure time, but, again, I have hardcore procrastination issues to overcome. Oh dear.

where I'm living now I don't get enough "real-life" social interaction, which is due to factors like not having made enough friends here

OT ta-dum-da M!

I'm pretty good at getting stuck in patterns which aren't extraordinarily conducive to my overall well-being and whatever else could be making the dell thrive. At least I've learned lots here, though. This is far from the worst of places to congregate, but, regardless, I pride myself on having the ability to soak up at least a little bit of wisdom from even the "worst", most uninspiring-on-the-face-of-it situations in life.

Abbott, at least you have a S.O.

Plus crazy crazy neighbors, or ex-neighbors?

And you're going to school, right? Are the people in your school just plain undealable-with?

given my current desultory habits I would likely end up hanging out in the rec center, shooting the shit with the random crowd of fellow octogenarians.

substitute "bar" for "rec center" and you pretty much have my retirement plan.

ilx lacks booze (apart from those of us who brownbag it), but it meets most of the other requirements.

I think a good question to ask yourself when pondering this thread is: what would you be doing with your current ilx-time if you had NEVER found ilx ?

would you be committing crimes and battering small children? bored sleeping at work? if so then maybe this is worthwhile..but if you say you'd be spending more time with "real life" people you now see less/doing more tae-bo/ engaging in more debauchery/reading more great works of 18th century literature (or etc - whatever is important to you, etc) rather than staring at a screen, then maybe this isn't that cool. you know?

but if ilx prevents evil wicked crimes, then i am all for it

Oh dell, I'm sorry. COunt blessings. buh. oh

It is hard most anywhere to meet people of substance, for me.

If I didn't have ILX or the internet, ever, I would be spending a lot more time playing video games and clothes shopping. All the projects/things that are important to me I still do.

'tsalright. There are very simple steps that I could take to remedy a bunch of whatever complaints I may have about my current life situation...but some of us need to bang our heads against a wall more times than others. I happen to be one of those people. It takes me about two dozen times more than the avg. person to realize that, "oh yeah, this is completely stupid and self-defeating. If I just do simple (and simple in the sense of "much easier", even) thing X, then my life would transform for the better in pretty rapid fashion. But I have a perverse stubborn streak.

I'm a SAHM - who should probably not have stayed home as long as I have. ILX = interaction when I'm stuck at home with the kids (even if it's not face to face, at least it's available). Also ILX often offers funny things to laugh at, and I need to laugh more.

I'm going to nursing school starting next week - and when I'm taking a class, ILX often offers the perfect short break ("I'll just read one thread...")

Finally, it's a means to connect with old friends (Hastings people), even though they are living far from me and to meet new friends - even if I never manage to meet them at all. (I'd love to meet ILXors from other countries, but international travel is kind of out of the question for the moment)

xpost I need to figure out how to make that stubborn perverseness work for me, obv.

It is hard most anywhere to meet people of substance, for me.

Sucks, man. I dunno-- my advice would be to relocate, but, at the same time, from experience I know that we tend to meet cool people in the unlikeliest of situations, and strategizing that sort of thing can even prove counterproductive-- which goes a long way towards explaining why I don't have much problem invoking some idea of "karma" to explain why like-minded people end up finding each other.

i post a lot less than i used to

i post a lot more than i used to

this is a bad thing

i was going go start a thread on this, asking how much time you spend in here. i promised myself to only go on here after work. i get too worked up of someone attacks me and i wanna work more. but otoh i don't see anything wrong with. spending time here. it is great here.

fuck my itouch and replacing "wrong"words.

Actually the nice thing abt only knowing John & the folx I know in town, my two buds (who just bought a house two blocks away but we still talk to each other more on the online than IRL), is they all know ILX. So I can drop it in conversation without being like "this one messageboard I read," to be greeted by HORRIBLE SHAMING which I then attempt to disippate by making an Unreal Tournaments joke.

Ha, I have some weird internal censor that stops me from bringing this place up to friends who would probably actually enjoy it quite a bit. Part of me suspects (no matter how unlikely and narcissistic it may sound) that they already are familiar with ILX's existence, and furthermore they have identified me based on whatever musical enthusiasms I've expressed here, not to mention whatever other relatively personal information I may have given out here at one time or another.

...Secret Shame school of ILX!

I'd like to clarify that although my work-ILX time may be "defensible," I do spend too much time here otherwise on account of having too few friends in the area. Weird thing happened where I had a huge, great social circle. Then I moved and broke ties with that social circle cold turkey.

With full-time job + the strange life of a commuter student, I don't spend enough time on campus to get involved/make *real* friends and I don't have enough time for a significant 'going out' life.

I am lucky enough to have a wonderful girlfriend and 4 close old friends with whom I've kept in touch since high school.

And I've got ILX.

So there's that.

Me at work = computer on all the time = but of course.

Me at home = computer on all the time = as desired. (This is the first time I've checked it all evening because I spent the evening hanging out with someone.)

Level of guilt or problem I have with all the time spent 'wasted' on ILX = none.

General feeling of 'guys, y'all need to relax' whenever I encounter 'I wish I could quit you' feelings re: ILX from others = frequent.

'I wish I could quit you'

too soon.

HOOS, I'm sorry to hear that you are so young and in school and in some weird situation where the time of your life which usually seems to be characterized by having too many social opportunities, if anything...has turned out to be kinda dry at the moment, relatively speaking. But, nevertheless, it sounds like you have a pretty good thing going on. Cool!

General feeling of 'guys, y'all need to relax' whenever I encounter 'I wish I could quit you' feelings re: ILX from others = frequent.

Ned, please expand on that briefly if you have the chance. Thanks...

dell, turn off the computer and go find that dance club.

Ned, please expand on that briefly if you have the chance. Thanks...

At another time.

dell, srsly

I am a shut-in right now because I have no money to pay for gas to get me anywhere that isn't absolutely essential. And I don't live near anything.

1.01 hours per day hours on ILX

Dudes, I'm on the east coast and it's 2am right now. I didn't wanna go out tonight, anyhow. At the moment I'm fine listening to music and getting unsolicited life-advice from you guys.

;]

Why does Chak think I am some crazy person?

And I don't live near anything.

But but but Anacortes. Oh wait.

Anacortes is very nice, but not within walking distance.

(I don't live anywhere NEAR that far north, anyway.)

Yay, talking about rural Washington towns on two threads at once.

I've given myself a sabbatical lifetime to mess around on the internet, listen to music, and to have no guilt about 'wasting time'.

If there's a next life, I'll get busy then on sorting out my karma and getting off the cycle of life and death.

Wow.

Ha, I remember sitting in a bar and working my way towards getting drunk like nine years ago or so, and thinking (rationalizing?) along the same lines-- I figured, "dell, give yourself a break. Enjoy doing this, if this is what you feel inclined to do for now...and then maybe in the next life you can become more diligent in regards to your "spiritual" aspirations". Seriously, I had this conversation with myself in my head at the time.

I think upthread when I asked Ned what he meant about people being conflicted about spending too much time here, I was hoping for him to answer in a way that would grant some weird absolution to sinners like me who are fucking off and reading/posting here excessively. Catholic conditioning, etc.

And in the last couple of years, I rationalized a lot of my arguably unhealthy habits by thinking, "well, I'm still not 35, and even when I turn 35, in light of the fact that I don't have any family to support or any other heavy-duty obligations, it's probably ok if I smoke and drink a bunch and then set an arbitrary cutoff point of post-35 to really buckle down and get serious about my shit". I turned 35 a couple of months ago, and I'm still fairly comfortable with that model.

Not to mention that life at this point throws me enough curveballs in the way of loved ones dying and so forth that I am drawn into confronting whatever spiritual pretensions I may have had at an unavoidable level.

Which is to say that I think that if you feel that you are not ready to tackle stuff, whatever that "stuff" is or may mean to you, then there's a good chance that you really just aren't ready yet, truly. And life is unpredictable enough that you will most certainly be confronted with stuff, anyhow, and then you'll proceed from there.

I realize this sounds like a lone drunkard talking to himself at the bar, but nonetheless I think it's true... I do.

Hey dell, did you ever use to post under a different name in one of ilx's earlier incarnations? I have enjoyed reading your stuff tonight as I was procrastinating on what I "really" had to do (the main reason I'm ever on here, now for the first time in over two years)

It's good to have you back, Vic.

Uh, well, I never posted on the Greenspun boards or anything...but I did post under a different name on ILX a few years ago, but as fucked-up as this sounds, my posts then embarrass me even more then my current posts such that I'm reluctant to cough up my prior identity. It shouldn't be that way; none of this amounts to anything, but for the immediate time being I'd rather that be buried into obscurity.

But if people are esp. curious or bored and try to figure it out and throw out guesses, then I'm not gonna lie if someone calls me out as the poster "X" that I was at the time.

Bottom line, I shouldn't be uptight about it or be hiding. But I live from a fear-based, shame-based perspective in a lot of ways. I'm partly joking when I say that, but not enough...

Thx tremendoid! Maybe I will see you at the next "FAP" if N3d R4ggett ever includes me in his evites again.

Hm, dell. Now you're just provoking more interest! Does anyone else here know your previous identity? Let me take a random guess - you're a blog-laden rock music critic somewhere in the northeast OR a technologically advanced hipster living in Brooklyn (hipsters are allowed to be 35, right?), OR an ex-Britisher with a jaded, uber-dry "ironic" sense of humor et al ? I suppose these categories don't have to be mutually exclusive...just wild guesses.

If none of the above then I'm sort of lost and have to give up, though

Also, since it's almost 6 am there I suppose you've given up and gone to bed as well. Have a good Saturday, and embrace your shame! It's inevitable

xpost to chakles: I have met dell and can safely say he is not a crazy person. He is an A+ drinking buddy.

lol @ g00g13pr00f1ng Ned Raggett

i admit ILX is a boredom/frustration release for me now and nothing else... especially dealing with family issues after my grandmother died in an accident last month. I rejoined mainly out of boredom, but now it's frustration.

I think Aimless should have renamed the thread "Spending time on ILX". Who cares how much time it is that's spent, barring it getting in the way of basic human care?

the question of 'what would you have been doing if you weren't on ILX' is a good one. i have no idea. i would probably be off the internets because this is basically the only non-work-related site I spend much time at anymore. (in 1999 I had thousands of bookmarks, these days i can't think of a single site to go to)

Let me take a random guess - you're a blog-laden rock music critic somewhere in the northeast

Nah. I lack both the writing chops and desire to be a music critic.

OR a technologically advanced hipster living in Brooklyn (hipsters are allowed to be 35, right?)

I'm still not entirely clear on what a "hipster" is, but nah...and I don't live in Brooklyn.

OR an ex-Britisher with a jaded, uber-dry "ironic" sense of humor et al ?

That sounds vaguely fun, but I don't qualify as far as most of those descriptors go.

Have a good Saturday, and embrace your shame! It's inevitable

Thanks! Shame, yeah, I don't know. I think that depending on one's psychological makeup, a lot of us carry way more "shame" than we should. Additionally I think it's ultimately a counter-productive, unnecessary state of mind. Especially from the perspective of my advanced age, I just wanna be good to myself, and jettison once and for all of those adolescent kinda tendencies to always be looking over my shoulder to see if I warrant approval or disapproval from people (including, or mostly even, myself).

I have met dell and can safely say he is not a crazy person.

Aw, man, thanks, that's really cool of you to throw that in there. But, I comport myself weirdly enough here that whatever gets thrown at me is not terribly surprising, I guess.

I have met Ned Raggett and can safely say he is not a - oh, actually, no.

Ned strikes me as being so unreasonably good-natured that he seems like some sort of Jesus figure or something. (The LJ intro thread notwithstanding...)

I'm waiting to see more of the hardman Ned. Well, not really, but...

Ned nothing but love you know but I wanna point out that you always seem to get defensive when anybody suggests that lots of time on ILX is possibly unhealthy/undesirable

though it's one thing to suggest it and quite another to explain why

comfort imo. Internet time = modern equivalent of staring at the TV, a little more to recommend it I'd say (interactivity/input).

flamewars = yelling at TV, only TV yells back!

I gather that for Ned, though, it fits so seamlessly and healthily into his lifestyle and extracurricular and other constructive activities that it's maybe difficult for him to see how it could be a deleterious habit. But that's obv. my secondhand projection, so I maybe shouldn't have even posted this. Oops.

comfort imo. Internet time = modern equivalent of staring at the TV, a little more to recommend it I'd say (interactivity/input).

I couldn't agree more with that. The internet functions as a comfortable distraction the way teevee once did, except one can interact with people some more and maybe learn more in the process...and also you can listen to music, switch easily back and forth between working on more practical tasks in the process.

actually I should back the fuck up offa Ned, I just checked the stats & he's not even in the top 10 posters for January

OTOH his name appears twice in the top 10 of all time

I think I'll just triple-post here for the fuck of it

heavy days and light days

ca. 2002 i posted something like 3000 in one month, when i was unemployed and drunk

/dell

(both the consecutive triple posting and unemployed/drinking thing)

I'll defend one plus hours on the unoriginal grounds that if I'm going to be in front of a computer both at work and often at home, this is the place I find ideas about music and life that are original, entertaining, maddening, and even sometimes quite affecting. Put that on the sleeve of the next ILX anthology!

Life in front of the internet is unavoidable (for me). It's not a choice of ilx vs a game of squash, or ilx vs charity work.

I have to say that, in addition to the other stuff I like about ILX, I find it does lead me to new music and movies - and then if I want to, it offers discussion of those things. I also like I Love Books, too; I tend to go there and be overwhelmed by the number of books that I have not only not read, but not even heard of.

I gather that for Ned, though, it fits so seamlessly and healthily into his lifestyle and extracurricular and other constructive activities that it's maybe difficult for him to see how it could be a deleterious habit.

(For others! I meant to add; not him...)

ILX certainly has changed since 2000, and I've given it a lot of shit, on or off it, the past few years, but -- you know -- it's still somewhat readable compared to other Forums Of Longevity with comments sections.

OTOH his name appears twice in the top 10 of all time

To be fair, Ned hasn't changed his login name since he first joined. Many longtimers have changed their login name several times.

e.g. "Donut" would have possibly ranked higher than #10 on the Top 10 Starters if all login names were attached to one person.

I have next to no complaints with ILX. I'm not so much of a masochist that I would spend so much time here unless I found it to be rewarding in some sense. By and large, people posting here seem super-smart and funny and well-informed, which is well-worth the price of admission by far. Plus the site design itself is very easy on the eyes and not a headache to navigate, which is not to be underestimated.

dell's persona screams 'beales'

Beales you are sooooo perma-banned.

-- Oink Administrator, Thursday, March 15, 2007 3:05 PM (10 months ago) Bookmark Link

I suppose that was a given going in. Still, hope springs eternal...

*sigh*

-- Pye Poudre, Thursday, March 15, 2007 3:57 PM (10 months ago) Bookmark Link

Most important part about ILX and its look/feel = the boss can't easily spot it as a sign of his/her employee being a fucking slacker

What was "beales" all about? Like, gimme the Cliff's Notes version.

Being my own boss, I put lots of black marks down in my own permanent record every day.

What was "beales" all about? Like, gimme the Cliff's Notes version.

-- dell, Saturday, January 26, 2008 10:29 PM (35 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

ok, but only if you do the same from now on

Beales was not so much about 'self deprecation' as livejournal pity party

also, he thought king of the hill was racist

oh my last boss could spot ilxor.com on my screen from a mile. she called it a CHAT ROOM xxxp

How do you mean? And, I'm sorry, sometimes I don't pick up on text-based sarcasm very well, so...take that as it is

you need to buck up kiddo

http://static.d-addicts.com/da/forum/images/smiles/icon_mrgreen.gifhttp://static.d-addicts.com/da/forum/images/smiles/icon_mrgreen.gifhttp://static.d-addicts.com/da/forum/images/smiles/icon_mrgreen.gif

OH, I get it. Some of my posts are too long? Eh, brevity is not my strong point.

Wull, I don't think that "King of the Hill" is racist...and I am maybe too self-deprecating or whatever, but, I don't think I come across as unbearable for the most part. But, if I do, that's alright.

tmi

I don't think I'm too self-revelatory here, but if it bugs you or others, then I'm sorry? I guess?

Just be yourself, dell! (you see you made a thread about that and now I am noting it as a non-solution bcz it is a vexing little phrase)

{I had some 'splainin' to do.)

Thanks, I'm trying. It's not such a bad job on the whole, the more I fall into it unreservedly.

oh my last boss could spot ilxor.com on my screen from a mile. she called it a CHAT ROOM xxxp

-- wanko ergo sum, Saturday, January 26, 2008 11:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

Haw, me too!

I'm my own boss, but I have three partners and about 10 employees (including associates and staff) to whom we have a tremendous responsibility. So, on the one hand, I have little excuse for dropping in on ILX occasionally throughout the day.

On the other hand, I often turn to ILX when my head is pounding for one work-related reason or another, and in that sense, it helps me. ILX is also sometimes, for me, a very useful tool against legal writer's block. Writing a brief, motion or memo is very different from writing on, say, a spirited politics or music thread. The immediate give-and-take, and sometimes very pointed comments, on these threads gives me a different perspective that I think (again, sometimes, and within limits) helps my legal writing.