hadn't thought about it in awhile...but I guess my major hobby, aside from folk music & woodworking, has become 'absorbing computers, the internet, and ways to make them do tricks'. I do NOT want to learn code or programming or the details of hardware... I just want to know how to get about in cyberspace (safely) and find useful and entertaining programs that will help me do that. (This goes beyond just 'surfing', which often means just following links and looking up stuff in Google... and implies exploring creatively, and using inductive logic to deduce what is, or might be, out there.

I think the internet/WWW has already transformed the way the world interacts with itself, and I'm sure it will become one of the major forces in life for a large part of humanity...and I want to be competent at dealing with it for as many years as I have left.

What can this mean? Well...everything from finding music files to collecting interesting fonts, to having computer games to play, to knowing all the different tricks for displaying/manipulating images, to knowing how to analyze webpages and find their sources & owners...etc..

The practical (IMpractical?) results of this 'hobby by default' is that I have WAY more programs than I 'need' to display images, unzip files, edit files, play music, record music, anaylze my PC, fight spam, search my files, list my files, hide my files, delete my files in several ways, balance my checkbook, check the weather report, make notes, etc...and oh, yes...to communicate with others.... by ICQ, IRC, AOL, chat rooms..and of course, email! I can check my email in about 12 places..and reply from most of them.

All that being said..I find 20-50% of my computer time (depending on what is happening) is spent at Mudcat, just because so much happens here. It is at once a source of friends, news, humor, music, ideas and a window into bits of life I never knew existed.

....and now, I am looking for the 'right' way to get into broadband..*grin*