Posted by stari_momak on Sat, 04 Jun 2005 18:16 | #

Ugh, I now realize I have an MR addiction. Worse than crack, it is!

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Sat, 04 Jun 2005 18:44 | #

I almost went crazy when I couldn’t pull in the site on my computer this AM.  Began pacing back and forth, getting more and more nerved up by the minute.  “This can’t be happening!,” I kept repeating to myself over and over.  “It’s gotta be some bad dream or something ...”  Didn’t know what to do—couldn’t start my day.  Tea was there, just as it is every morning; two hard boiled eggs—but it was as if they didn’t exist.  I felt disconnected, disembodied even, depersonalized, not real, not on the same planet I used to be on, not even in the same universe.  Didn’t know who I was, suddenly.  “Who am I?  What’s happening to me?”  Scarcely recognized my wife.  She got on the phone, began calling family and talking to them while looking at me.  I knew what that meant and it scared the hell out of me—I was losing my mind and she was calling for help.  Oh, God—straitjackets, powerful sedative injections to keep me quiet while they transported me to my cell.  I kept checking the computer every five minutes to see if I couldn’t pull the site in.  “God, what’s taking Guessedworker so long to get the thing fixed?  I realize it’s Saturday, but still!  Don’t those limes know this is important?”  Didn’t know what else to do with my time, with my emptiness.  What else could I do?  What if there’d been interesting comments or new log entries posted overnight?  How would I know about them?  Fearing I might crack, I checked other sites in an almost desperate effort to take my mind off it—caught up on The Ambler, Steve’s site, VFR, Thrasy’s, Dienekes’, John Hawks’, Mark Richardson’s, Adam Lawson’s ... re-read every new post on Vdare that I’d already read last night before going to bed ... Good as those were, they weren’t what I needed at that point.  I needed MR.com and I knew it—no use pretending.  It got to the point where I started hyperventilating—wife almost called 911, the medical emergency phone line here in the States.  She told me to go look in the mirror.  I said, “Why, honey?  What’s wrong?,” feigning innocent nonchalance as best as I could.  I went and looked.  Beads of sweat kept forming on my forehead and running down my brow.  I didn’t know how long I’d last in that state—didn’t think I’d make it through the morning.  What finally—Thank God!—saved me was Turnabout—somehow I hadn’t been there in weeks—how I could’ve let that site slip for so long I couldn’t fathom as I got back into it, reading every word, breathing it in, oxygen-like, that life-giving, life-saving stuff ... “Turnabout, I LOVE YOU!,” I was repeating to myself ....  Devouring Turnabout’s latest nourishment, breathing its newest supply of soul-replenishing oxygen, gave me the respite I needed ... It restored me, calmed me.  Heart rate slowed, overbreathing began to subside ... thinking became a little more rational ... felt the panic easing a little ... Wife, still not taking her eyes off me an instant, very gently put down the phone.  Then .... then .... (excuse me, the throat tightens, tears well up in the eyes, as I try to type this—just give me a moment, OK?  No, no—I’ll be all right ....)  Then… when I tried to pull MR in ... it began to come ..... I saw it loading .... I didn’t dare to hope, after what I’d been through ... but more and more of it filled up my screen till I saw IT WAS ALL THERE ... IN FRONT OF ME .... I knew .... I knew at that moment, as I dared to touch the mouse .... dared to touch the keys .... I was saved ..... I was a saved man ........

Posted by Guessedworker on Sat, 04 Jun 2005 23:25 | #

Well, as the great Bill Shankly was never given the opportunity to say, “Some people believe blogging is a matter of life and death.  I’m very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.”

Or nearly.  Quite nearly, anyway.  Er ... no, maybe it isn’t really that important.  Or even important at all.  Really.