There was a time I was pretty cool with whatever went on in the world of computing. I was a mad code monkey that wrote programs in assembly for fun, wrote DOS utilities, batch scripts and some simple database programs (for a library and a hospital.) The Internet came to India and I was on top of things since a geek friend and I hacked into the VSNL server in Bangalore and created accounts for ourselves. (Well, not really, it was simpler than that, but if I tell you how simple, I can’t brag then, can I?) That time has long since passed.
All my friends went on to be computer engineers and I studied biology. I finished a bachelor’s degree in biology and got a master’s too. My metamorphosis from computer geek to biology geek was complete.
Nevertheless, I still played with computers a lot, never did any coding ever though. I surfed and surfed and then surfed some more. I had a million (some would say zillion) accounts wherever they were free and some paid accounts too. I was active on newsgroups, on fledgling social networks, played online games, and chatted with friends across three networks and IRC. Phew. And all this while being a grad student at university.
Today though (and for a few months previously) I can’t be that active anymore. I barely make the time to read and reply to email. I check friends’ blogs for updates maybe once every two days as opposed to several times a day! I rarely ever login to orkut when I used to be on for most of the day earlier. Yahoo! Messenger which would have me logged in even while I was asleep, hardly gets a workout these days. And I login to MSN only to play Minesweeper Flags with friends.
So why am I boring you with all this? Well, it’s just so if I don’t comment on your latest blogpost, don’t read your new 360° page/blog, don’t reply to your email as often, you know why! 😉 (Yes, Yahoo! 360° yet another social network is out and I have a page there…)
The funny thing is, just about this time last year, I was writing this post about how cool (sort of) my online existence was! One year later…
Aww, well, I know this wasn’t your point (well, it was until the last couple sentences), but there is a big difference between m4d computer skillz and those skillz not being a priority or an efficient use of time. Just because you don’t have time to be online anymore doesn’t mean you’re not still a boy genius. 🙂