I'm just sittin here wasting time drinking, smoking, trying to free my mind.

Can't think why I used that title. Guess it just sounded good. Can't really even think of much to say. Just typed in that Kid Rock lyric that was playing on the way home from giving Tobias his bath. His is the most narcissistic music I've heard in quite a while. Is it possible for the guy to complete a single song without mentioning his own name (usually multiple times) in the lyrics?

Is it possible for Bitscape to complete an entire rambling without mentioning his own name in the text? Only time will tell.

Pondering the events of life in a generally unfocused haze. I try to figure out where my life is going. Where I want it to go. How much control would I really have even if I did know for certain where I wanted it to go. Or is the act of not knowing a mental way to shirk the responsibility for my own destiny?

If my life goes to shit, I can blame others, or the world, or $DIETY for things not being the way I want them to be. If I never knew what I was aiming for, I can't be blamed when I don't hit the target, right?

Blah blah blah.

On a more concrete note, while continuing to experience the awful sensation of net disconnectivity, I have been realizing what a patheticly dependent fool I have become. Every time I enter my room, without even really consciously thinking about it, something in the back of my brain tells me it's time to sync up. Check email, read the Slashdot headlines, check for new info on the batch of web sites I frequent. Ya know, the daily dose.

When I realize that I can't (something I knew all along consciously, but somehow, not all the regions of my brain have really accepted what's going on), there's just this sense of emotional let down. More than that. It's like a part of me is struggling -- fighting for air... I gotta know what's going on. What the rest of this world is doing. Whether any of my friends have tried to reach me via email. Need to retrieve the latest content. And I can't.

This has been happening repeatedly all day today, to the point where I'm almost loathe to stay in the house. At least if I get out on the road, my mind doesn't think that it should be connected. Hence, no irritation.

It's quite irrational, really. $DEITY knows I've gone days and weeks at various times before without reading Slashdot (or finding what I did read there to be on too mundane to really be worth spending time on). I don't really send or receive that much email. Gone for days and/or weeks without exercising that before too.

If nearly everything I do online consists of non-essential, shootin the breeze sorts of activities, then why this disproportionate level of discomfort right now?

It is odd. All those silly, sensationalist reports a few years ago from the wannabe tabloid tv news magazines about Internet addiction come to mind. Maybe I am addicted. Maybe I need to get out more. Maybe this is my world, to a much larger degree than I realized or wanted to admit to myself.

How the hell did any of us get by back in the old days, when you were lucky if your PC had a modem, and you could maybe dial a local BBS for a few minutes a day. (I won't bother to talk about the days before computers. That's just too disturbing a thought to entertain just before bed.)

Speaking of bed, I am very tired. Having consumed a little biochemical aid a few minutes ago, I shall hit the sack, and not wake up until... some distant future date.