An Interesting Little Experiment

Anyone that knows me well will have probably heard me talking at some point about my views on instant communication, (which I'll not discuss here, that's an entire post on its own), and I've decided to conduct a little experiment.

Next week, between the 2nd and 6th of December, I shall be going without any form of instant communication technology, and going back to handwritten, posted letters, and phone calls as my only method of communication. I know it's not the longest period of time, but I did choose a rather busy time of year for my little experiment. So, what will I be forgoing?

- E-mail

- SMS

- MSN/IRC

- Twitter

- Facebook

- My mobile phone

While I'm giving up some of these things, it doesn't mean I'll be forgoing all technology, I'll still be watching TV, reading blogs (albeit once a day, like a newspaper), and listening to Podcasts. I'd like to see if life seems to slow down a bit, if I have more free time, and if I feel less compelled to see if anyone has tried to contact me in the past 5 minutes.

I'm planning on spending the week spending a bit more time reading, exercising, playing guitar, and doing things around the house, without my computer to distract me constantly. I'll be posting up my thoughts on this experiment at the end of the week, next Saturday, but for now, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this.

Summer Projects

Summer is now approaching fast, and as such, I have a lot of free time. So I'm looking at summer projects to do. Some bigger than others, and some quite geeky.

So here's what I plan to do over summer:

- Possibly write/draw maybe half a dozen little comics about love and geekiness with Scott

- Configure a Wii Remote to control my MacBook in some fashion

- Build a Hackintosh

- Take more photos

- Get in shape

- Improve my guitar playing

I've got over 3 months to fill, so it's not really very much at the moment. If you have any suggestions for other things I could do, feel free to drop me a comment.

Lessons In Life

I've been spending some quality time with someone who's pretty special to me recently, and looking at lessons I could learn from their life. So, without further ado, here's things about them I think that make them a very happy individual and a good friend.

- They're always happy to see me

- They're always forgiving, no matter what I've done

- They're always around when I just need someone to listen

- They appreciate the joy that a little silliness can bring

- They can see the fun side in almost anything

- They're not afraid to be themselves and do embarrassing or silly things

- They know just when you need them to just be there with you

- They don't waste time feeling sad

- They miss someone when they're away, and welcome them back with unrivaled enthusiasm

As I said, this is someone who is very special to me, and a good friend. Just in case you're wondering who this person is, it's my small, cute, fluffy and ever faithful dog Benje. It's amazing what you can learn from dogs.