I’ve been thinking of taking an internet vacation. Or at least from the sites I spend so much time on. I spend too much time on metafilter. I spent too much time on twitter, and twitter. I was thinking of taking an imposed break from metafilter, probably at least one of my twitter accounts, and putting my jackassletters site on hiatus. The only problem I have with this is these sites may become like macjams to me. I used to spend tons of time there. I haven’t been there in quite some time. I miss it, but I just can’t seem to set aside to get my audio hobby going again. It’s kind of like cable TV. I gave it up a while back, after a season of shows went by I found I didn’t even miss it.

There’s just so many other projects I would like to work on, and I use these sites to procrastinate. I also use twitter to promote my jackassletters site, so I don’t count that as a complete time suck, but if I am honest I have to admit I’m not even certain how much traffic I send my site’s way from there. But I figure, if I put jackassletters on hold I can take a “twittercation.” Same think on meta. Just step away, concentrate on other things.

I’m not talking “time management” here, but I do want to start looking at where my time does go.

I am working on a book project (and I feel funny calling it that), and I have other writing related projects that are languishing. I have several books I would like to get read. And other things that should be taking a higher priority than websurfing. Heck, even updating this site! The internet is a big place, and I reply on metafilter to show me where the good stuff is. I fear that by stepping away from meta for a month or two I will just replace my viewing habits with crappy sites. Who knows.

So I am not sure when/if I will do this. I have a furlough coming up where I work, so doubt I’d really have the will power to stay away then. In August my girlfriend starts University classes again, but that’s too far away to wait for. April is too soon. Ha! See, just doesn’t seem like a good idea. Maybe when I make next Monday’s jackass update I’ll walk away for a month. Less TV, less internet. That’s the goal. We’ll see.

I’ll write more about the whole book thing tomorrow. It’s kinda cool.

You can follow the discussion.

So far people don’t like the ads on the site, or they are actually interfering with the viewing of letters. So I pulled almost all of them.

I like having the ads. Used to be part of the joke. Having “Hooked on Phonics” ads on a writing site tickled me, but they generated no income. Same with the “Letter from Santa” ad.

I was down to only books on Amazon by authors doing a similar thing to what I was doing, and no more than 2 google ads, but some people were saying the ads covered the letters, so I pulled them.

I’ll have to spend more time figuring that part out, or just pull the ads entirely.

I’ve been sick. It’s getting better, but I am sick of being sick. I also managed to get the girlfriend sick. Misery loves company I guess, and does the cold virus.

This has allowed me to watch way too many episodes of NCIS, so it’s not entirely a bad thing.

I threw out an offer (on twitter) to guest post on someone else’s site and was kindly taken up by @weirdenough (Barbara Bailey) and @mindofchester (Anthony Imperioli). Barbara apologized for not updating her site as often as she should, but that just means I get to park on her front page for a longer time! She also tend to write more in depth essays than most sites, so I can see why she has a reduced frequency of updates. Her humor is generally a bit more sophisticated than mine (this alone makes her site worth reading).

Anyway, I provided her with a letter I wrote to Amnesty International where I questioned the efficacy of letter writing. It’s subtle, but please stick with me here, and note the irony, since it was intentional. I hope you read it, hope you enjoy her site, and hope you leave a comment over there as well.

And in case you missed it (and are too lazy to scan the post one down) I did do a guest post on thezimp.mindofchester.com as well.

weirdenough.com

Somehow I’ve managed to acquire a twitter addiction. I can be followed @cjorgensen I am also @jackassletters The first twitter stream is just my personal updates, and since I tend to live the same day over and over again (I’m not complaining) it doesn’t get much updating. The second stream is related to an ongoing project I’ve had going for 253 days now. I send stupid letters to people and companies and see what kind of responses I get. This project can be found at jackassletters.com.

Well, while signed on as @jackassletters I threw out an offer to guest post on other sites, and @mindofchester and @weirdenough took me up on it. My guest post is up on thezimp.mindofchester.com and I will post again when the weirdenough.com article goes live.

Read my letter to The Archbishop of Canterbury. This is how it should be done folks. Dr. Rowan Williams has accounted for himself wonderfully. I am going to order “The Poems of Rowan Williams.” I am also going to send him some chapbooks of my poetry and an autographed photo of me! I don’t rightly expect he’ll care, but I still plan to do it.

My thanks to Anthony Imperioli (the man behind mindofchester.com) for hosting the article for me, and for creating this wonderful graphic:

(You can click it to go to the Archbishop post.)

I hope you enjoy reading the letter. Yes, I do know I am probably going to hell now, and yes, I also know I am dragging Anthony down with me. I see no reason for hell to be a lonely place.