How many hours do you "mudcat"?

Subject: How many hours do you
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 07:46 PM

Since we're baring our souls ala professions, gender and age, I thought it might also be interting to tote up the hours/days/weeks/months/years or any other frame of reference to time you'd like to get an average of how much time we all spend mudcattin' around on-line. I'll start by saying I have a hard time not checking my tracers at elast once per day. If I get on and get into a thread, I usually wind up spending a good two hours, depending on the time of day; late at night, wee hours of the mornin' can find me on a lot longer, and I've only been a mudcat for a couple of weeks! Maybe there should be a caution listed at the top:

WARNING: Mudcatting has been shown to be addictive. This addiction may cause a bleariness of eyesight, spousal discord, and other maladies. Going cold turkey may bring on a host of other problems, including but not limited to: deleriums tremens, dry-mouth, plucky fingers, furtive glances and the irressistable urge to break out in song! PROCEED AT YOUR OWN PERIL!

All in fun!

katlaughing

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Allan S.
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 08:03 PM

1 hour each day at least. Is this the KGB searching our minds again {GRIN}

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: John Hindsill
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 08:39 PM

More time than my wife thinks is healthy for a middle-age folkie...or as she calls it, 'no teeth music.'

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Rue
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 08:40 PM

Just started today, but already, it looks dangerous. How I love folk music, and I have looked and looked and looked for folk music sites on the web. Glad I found this one!

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Allan C.
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 08:50 PM

Yes it is addictive. I spend far more time than I should, seeing as how I usually visit while at work!

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 08:52 PM

Katlaughing,

I made my first contact to the Mudcat on April 4, 1998. I was just looking for information on how Lead Belly strung his guitar. I eventually found that information.

Now, I visit nearly every day I am near my computer. Sometime early in the AM before I head to work and usually in the early evening after I return from work.

I suppose I average an hour and one-half a day. Sometimes more, seldom less than 1/2 hour. If there are a number of threads to which I can reply it takes longer. If I decide to do a Web search for someone's request, it can take quite a while longer. I curse Joe Offer every time I do that, for he set the example for me.

My housekeeping has suffered (my house looks like a bad dorm room). I suspect my fiancee has figured out what is going on. Sometimes I prioritize time with the 'Cat over time with her. She remains the first in my life, but she is not always first in the moment.

I only half-jokingly talk about a Mudcat addiction. Certainly I sometimes do more than I intend to do. Sometimes I do it before I do other things I should do. Finally, I think it causes some problems for me.

Yet, I don't think I'll stop anytime soon. I have listened to folk-related music for over 35 years and I have acquired some knowledge. I enjoy sharing that knowledge.

I have met several people I feel I can call friends although I have met very few outside of the 'Cat. Big Mick, Bill D., Bseed, and Joe O. come quickly to mind. In addition to a love of the music, I think we share a certain cock-eyed view of the world and of life.

Keep on 'Cattin', I need somebody else to post threads for me to enjoy myself.

Roger in Baltimore

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 09:50 PM

Hmmm. I don't know how much time, and I'm not sure I want to know. I'm guessing 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Sometimes more. But I multitask....
It seems like a lot, but nobody would question a person who spent a couple of hours a day watching television. Here, I learn stuff and make friends.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Rosie
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 10:18 PM

My name is Rosie and I am a Catter. I cannot turn on my machine without checking here first. I have had this "problem" since coming on-line in August or September of 1996. My family and friends are not aware of this, in spite of my many attempts to "turn them on" to this fabulous site. This site has got to be the absolute best and honest down-to-earth site there is. I am grateful for the good information I can always get here. What more can I say?

Thanks to all, Rosie

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 10:35 PM

Gee, Rosie, maybe your parents have secret addictions, too. My almost-80-yr-old parents just got WEBTV, which I believe also works via a phone line. I've been trying to call them the last two weekends, but their phone is always busy. They wrote what was supposed to be their e-mail address on their Christmas card, but the address didn't work. Will I ever have contact with my parents again?
Wait! I think I see my mom right now, over in that thread about bawdy songs....
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Alice
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 10:38 PM

Less time now than when I first started here... the addiction seems to peak, when you can't leave without checking each new thread, then tapers off to only the minimum time needed to keep in touch.

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: alison
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 11:03 PM

Hi,

Too much....... I check in a few times a day, to see what's new... and catch up with my friends.

I view it as a sanity break from the kids........ well that's my excuse anyway......

Slainte

alison

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: MissMac
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 11:12 PM

not enough lately

I couldn't get the computer for a few days now I am overwelmed at the new threads. I try for half an hour a day. Some weeks I can't get on more than once other weeks I check a few times a day

This site is a great sanity break

MissMac

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 11:41 PM

hey, there, Rue:

Welcome! At first I was taken aback, one doesn't see the name "Rue" very often. I thought my youngest daughter had forgiven me for raising her and come back to the fold, so to speak. Her name is Jerusha, but everyone calls her "Rue"; started when her Aunt called her Pooh Bear, which digressed into "Roo" from Kanga and Roo of Winnie the Pooh, many years ago!

Anyway, you're right. This is a GREAT site. Hope you enjoy it! And, thanks to everyone for adding to this thread.

Katlaughing

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: gargoyle
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 12:00 AM

Once a week...sometimes once in two weeks...or twice in one week and then "once I become weak.." it suddenly explodes like some sort of overwrought volcanic activity and it will be two hour a day for two weeks....(generally during full moon cycles)

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Barry Finn
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 12:23 AM

Like Joe, I don't wanna know, really. Alice it's almost 2 yrs now have I peaked yet? Barry

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Art Thieme
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 12:32 PM

I almost said : I should be here less, but that's wrong. As a friend is fond of saying: "IS NO SHOULD; JUST IS WHAT IS!" And I agree (usually). I do notice I tend to intend to come here when Carol's sleeping. (Like drinking alone I guess.) As far as actual hours per day, I don't think it matters. What's time to a pig? It's like when one sneaks out to samba with grizzlies at the dark of the moon, but our police here have been dressing differently lately and sucking people in (as it were) in a sting operation calling themselves the BRUIN SQAD. They never read us our rights any more. They just sing that hateful song about gallomphing in the moonlight while bare, er, BEAR or "con bruins"--as they say in Me-hi-co. Lordy, we all hate that song around here!!

Art

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 01:23 PM

hours & hours & hours...if Mudcat was ALL I did online, it would be merely a blip, like Roger says about taking it out of TV watching time..but I LIKE the internet/WWW, and my bookmarks file is 400,000 bytes..but the FIRST bookmark...(upper-lefthand corner in Netscape4's personal toolbar folder) IS Mudcat...after all, I watched this whole thing (back when the DT was just some floppy disks)as it was born.

(Oh..and Art, you are NOT alone in your feelings for that 'dancing Bear' song..it was cute about 1½ times...just like "All God's Critters", it wears very thin very fast..)

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Big Mick
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 01:42 PM

I spend just the right amount of time here. It varies, probably 2 hours +/- a half hour. And Roger, I agree with your words. I have made friends here that I cherish every bit as much as those that live around the corner.

Mick

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 04:24 PM

I'd be happy to tell you, but I'm afraid my wife might see my posting! I keep telling her that I'm working up here. I'll confess to keeping up with the Big Mick, above, though it's cutting into my reading time.

Night Owl

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: bbc
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 05:07 PM

I'm usually "on" for 1/2 hr. to an hour every day. Mudcat is the 1st thing I check, after my email! I don't post very often, but I surely do enjoy seeing everyone else's messages!

bbc

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Alice
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 06:12 PM

Barry, it's almost two years for me, too. I feel like I have the addiction under more control... just can't afford to spend the time I used to on lyrics and discussions. Wish I could, but... still paying off the bills on my son's broken leg, now the broken collar bone.... still have that hole in the roof where the rain and melted snow drip through (remember that?).

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 07:46 PM

I avoided the whole net thing like the plague because I knew I'd sooner or later run across someplace like this. Karen knew it too and now her nightmares have come true. I just checked in occasionally til about Christmas and then...... I'm trying to limit myself so I just check in now and then to see what's new. Then I decide I'll limit myself tomorrow...or the next day. catspaw49

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: McMusic
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 09:35 PM

Not nearly enough!!!!! An hour a day as often as I can.

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Frank in the swamps
Date: 11 Jan 99 - 04:11 AM

First place I check after my email, but I'm spared any serious addiction (again) due to a fluke... I really don't like computers. It's a physical thing, sitting at a desk sucks, tippity tapping a mouse & keyboard sucks and especially, I don't like the monitors. When they build one that follows me around the garden & the swamps (R2D2) then I'll be doomed, I'll be an intravenous mudcat junkie. 'Till then, a couple of nights checking in after work is about it. Never go near a computer when I have more than 2 days free.

Frank (squirming in his seat) i.t.s.

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Kris
Date: 11 Jan 99 - 05:45 AM

More than I should. I am connected to the internet at work - so I end up checking the threads periodically throughout the day Monday to Friday. How I ever survived the working day without it.....

Kris

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Sir
Date: 11 Jan 99 - 08:15 AM

Perhaps if we all practiced as much as we Mudcat...

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: Mo
Date: 11 Jan 99 - 04:35 PM

Art, yeah that "dancing with bears" song is too cutesy for words - particularly if like me, you heard Jimmy Buffet's Bear Song first - whole different kind of bear dance.....!! I did think about starting another thread about this - but these were the only two songs I knew! Cheers Mo

Subject: RE: How many hours do you
From: dwditty
Date: 12 Jan 99 - 09:07 AM

Hi, my name is Rich and I am a Mudcat addict.(Hi, Rich) I simply must come to the Cat everyday. Can't eat, can't sleep until I get my fix. What is this addiction? Is it because I learn all kinds of stuff - big and small, earth shattering and completely insignificant, thought provoking and silly? Is it because I feel a connection to many who can be considered nothing less than friends? Whatever it is, I am NOT going to stop. Certainly a much more positive addiction than some of the others I have dealt with over the years. Perhaps this is a replacement for methadone.

DW