My friend Rae is about to leave on a major road trip as she moves to Chicago. I’m jealous. She’s excited. We shared our respective emotions several times today. We never spoke in person; everything was said via email or voice mail. I’m not sure if this is good or bad.
Bad habits I’ve obtained since I became “wired”:
- File extensions: Being a Mac supremacist, I’ve never really had to deal with them on a regular basis. But since the internet is a Unix environment (despite what Bill Gates may believe), I’ve had to start. Now I add file extensions to anything I’m working on. It’s like a curse.
- Saying “directory” rather than “folder”, even when I’m talking to another person using another Mac.
- Giving out my email address rather than my phone number in bars. This just seems wrong somehow.
- Using my video camera as a glorified still camera and shooting things more with the assumption that they’ll be used on the site rather than watched on an actual TV.
- Expecting printed books and newspapers to have a “search” button.
Good (and somewhat anachronistic) habits I’ve maintained:
- Very rarely, if ever, using the term “wired”.
- Reading newspapers: somehow the physical article still excites me in a major way.
- Driving thousands of miles at a time and staying completely away from email for most of that time.
- Used bookstores: there are still few things I love more.
- KABL and the sounds of Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Astrid Gilberto, and Louis Prima while I work.
- Avoiding chat rooms and IRC like the plague (except for that brief and unfortunate period in 1995).
Healthy balance or not? You be the judge. I really don’t care…
