I’ve previously resisted any urge to come up with a slogan, or tagline for this website, but over the last couple of days, I came up with that one. What does it mean? Basically I think it’s my philosophy on life. Maybe.

Deep down, I think I have an addictive personality. I find it really easy to become absorbed by something, to the point where I’ll temporarily become so knowledgeable about a topic that 95% of the world would have to come to me for advice. The key though, is that it’s 95%, and not 99%, 99.9% or 99.9999% or whatever. I’ll become a sort-of expert, or sort-of devotee, or whatever, and then lose interest, or back off because the fanaticism starts to impinge on other aspects of life. The internet is a terrible place for people like me. I can have an obsession, and literally find enough information to keep me reading for months. Once I’m done with my fanatacism though, my interest level drops out the bottom, and I either become very out-dated in my knowledge, or just no longer care.

I know this about myself, so I try to keep it in check. I don’t let my obsessions consume me, because I recognize that they very easily could. It’s a delicate balancing act at times. I think more than anything though, I’m addicted to information, and not necessarily what the information is about. Does that make any sense? The thrill of learning which piece of software will do a particular job better than all others, and being able to coherently explain it’s advantages is more important to me than what the software actually does. The power of being able to find the best digital camera for $X is like my anti-drug. Once I’ve done it though, I let the world pass me by. I’m a short term fanatic.

The reason that I mention all of this though, is that the world is full of long-term fanatics. People who find their niche, and happily sit in it until the end of time. There’s probably a guy out there who could tell you the history of digital cameras, and which one was the “best buy” in any given price range for any given time frame over the past 10 years. Not me - I had that information in my head for about a 1 month period. When I was done with my digital camera obsession, I quietly moved on to the next obsession, taking my kickass digital camera with me (for the record, it still takes great pictures when compared to a lot of newer digital cameras with higher resolutions.) I don’t feel the need to stay on the bleeding edge. I get there once, and then slowly let the world pass me by.

The last “new” desktop computer that I bought was top of the line. It cost me something like $4500 at a time when Erin and I were bringing home $12-18000 a year between us. Looking back on it, it was a stupid investment - I should have spent less and got an older computer. At the same time, that very same piece of 10 year old hardware is serving this webpage up to you. I will probably use it until the proverbial wheels fall off of it.

I’ve got memberships on message boards all around the world, each with a dozen or two posts. There are people on them that have literally thousands of posts on the same message boards. The topics are diverse, and when I go back to check on any particular one, I see the same people hanging out there, telling the same stories to a different batch of newcomers. To me, that’s boring, so I move on.

See, today, I was addicted to rambling with no apparent purpose or focus.

Simpson’s quote of the day:
Bart: “So, what’s it like being famous, dad?”
Homer: “People know your name, but you don’t know theirs. It’s great.”