It's 3 a.m. When I take the time to look up from the glowing tube, I can see from the den window that even the traffic on Burrard Street has slowed to the barest of trickles.
Why am I doing this? It's my day off for chrissake! At least it was. Now it is back to the grind in a matter of hours.
I'm not making any money at this. I have to admit to being luckier than most. I glean a few pennies out of a fairly regular column. Even a few expenses are covered and there are some great freebies that come my way.
But it is still 3 a.m., and I have been at this since about noon. It can't be the wit and wisdom of the arguments on Usenet. How many times do I have to see people on can.politics tell each other to abuse their own bodily orifices.
A retreat to bc.general sometimes helps but even that newgroup can be a little troubling. Why am I cheering on David Schreck, a New Democrat MLA? Hell, I'm somewhere to the right of Atilla the Hun and don't even live in his riding.
Could it be it's because he shares my fascination for computer communications?
Ah, yes, it's becoming a litle clearer even through my eyes, clouded as they are by this early morning haze.
Here's a politician willing to face the great unwashed almost daily in my favorite mode. He has even succeeded in lifting the fees on the Queen's Printer BBS making all public documents, laws, etc. available via computer free - even Hansard.
Oops, the mist must be gathering again. Have you ever read Hansard? Gad, what a load of drivel interspersed with "Hear, Hear" and "Oh, oh, - some hon. members." (Roughly translated, that means the speaker was interrupted with shouts of "Good on ya" or, conversely, "Bullshit."
So that still leaves the nagging "why." I'm not a political junkie. The thought of having the various rules and regulations on the disposal of sewage available does not being tears to my eyes. So, why?
Some of the reasons, I suppose, are common to all of us who find ourselves glued to our screen, others are unique. (This is the part where I dissect my own belly-button lint so, if you prefer to contemplate your own, you can skip the rest of this, whip off to alt.sex.dungbeetles and spend your time more profitably.)
I am an introvert - quite possibly the understatement of the year. On meeting somebody new and being faced with a handshake, my nervous system can redefine the term "clammy hands" in nano- seconds.
The concept of oral communication becomes so foreign to my brain and vocal chords that it might as well be Steven Hawkings' "theory of everything." (At least I think that's what he was talking about - damned if I know, though.) At any rate, I end up standing there, a babbling idiot with a severe glandular problem, sweat dripping from my finger tips.
Not so on Usenet. I can fire off flames with the best of them. Napalm should do so well. And if my hands are a little sweaty when I click on the "post" button, only my mouse repairman knows for sure.
On IRC, I'm a veritable font of witty repartee, although it may be a little hard to tell with my typing. My best stuff comes out as "Isamm ddujr so wwhatt dduu yu say." And, even then, it has usually taken me so long the guy I was talking to has long since gone to work and is half-way through his shift.
But for me one of the biggest things is the puzzle. Just how do I make this application work? I can spend untold hours probing a new program trying to make it do whatever was promised. (Reading the documentation is for wimps. By the way, have you ever wondered why on-line manuals are called documentation? It sounds like something you get to prove Fido isn't a Heinz 57.)
Even if the program proves to be totally useless to me, I get satisfaction from solving the puzzle it posed. (Yeah, I know, I should get a life but the wife likes me the way I am. I would probably bore the hell out of her if I emerged from my electronic lair too often.)
And then there is the knowledge that I will never understand it all - the mystery, if you like. I think if I ever fully grasp what I am doing as I click my around the World Wide Web, something will be lost.
I take solace in the fact that such enlightenment, for me, is as unlikely as the Second Coming (of any sort).
Terry Taylorttaylor@wimsey.com
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