Trying to kick the IRC habit

by Suw on July 27, 2004

I've spent too much time on IRC lately. Since I upgraded my OS and lost use of my second monitor – a loss that hit me hard because I'd only just got used to it – I have found that my IRC habit has increased to unacceptable levels. It's therefore not a surprise that I rank as #1 for words typed and hours active for both #joiito and #suwcharman (thanks to James and Adam for the stats). In #joiito I have typed nearly 160,000 words over the last four months. That's a whole book's worth. Two, even. Six feature film scripts.
Obviously I have verbose stuck on 'on'.
This isn't the first time I have tried to cut back on my IRC usage, but this time I have a new tactic. Just don't open Hydra!
Have you any idea how hard it is not to open Hydra? I mean, I currently live alone, in a village in the arseendofnowhere. Sad or otherwise, my online life is my life. The urge just to pop in and say 'hi!' is almost unbearable. But IRC is interfering with getting work done, so it's got to take a back seat for a while.
I'll be in lunchtimes and evenings only from now on. If you want me, email me, or AIM me.

Anonymous July 27, 2004 at 11:25 am

Maybe you should treat IRC like a reward: “I've written such-and-such number of words, or have been working for x number of hours, so I can treat myself to half an hour of IRC action”.
Or maybe say no IRC until 8:00pm on school nights.
Discipline! (Ha! Says me…)

Anonymous July 27, 2004 at 11:54 am

Yeah, that's what i'm doing. Ration it, and use it as a reward.
It'll work. I will…

Anonymous July 27, 2004 at 12:15 pm

I've never been hugely attracted to IRC. Instant Messaging programs are fantastic and a god-send, but chatrooms in general leave me very cold. It's all too confusing to figure out who said what to whom, and of course half of them are populated by 18-year-old boys pretending to be sexy nubile 20-year-old female nymphomaniacs.

Anonymous July 27, 2004 at 12:17 pm

Wow, you got me down to a tee.

Anonymous July 27, 2004 at 8:18 pm

aim? aim is worse than IRC! by buckets! because you feel guilty if you cut off conversations.
so, what's your aim name.
eheh.
pat

Anonymous July 27, 2004 at 8:53 pm

Pop into #suwcharman and I'll tell you. 😉

Anonymous August 1, 2004 at 5:00 am

I think blogging might be the talking-to-one's-self of the computer age. Unless you have an audience… which obviously you do… never mind…

Anonymous August 1, 2004 at 8:51 am

Are you saying that there's something wrong with talking to oneself? 😉

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