Can you tell I’m slouching toward my annual August hiatus? I never thought there’d be such a thing, but looking at the archives, it seems I tend to disappear for a bit in the late summer. Why should this year be any different?

Actually, it’s important that this year not be different. I need to take some time away from the blog in order to do some internet detox. I’ve always been obessive about reading on the Net, but the long ankle recovery period pushed things over the edge. A couple of weeks ago, it became obvious that I’ve been spending entirely too much time on blog reading. (The increasing tendonitis in my mouse-arm is only one of the symptoms.) Since then, I’ve tightened up the blogroll considerably (from around 200 links to less than 100), switched all but 16 of them to RSS, and instituted personal rules to limit the time I spend on this. Still, I think some extended time away is in order, since I’ve never not read blogs continuously since summer 2002. (Even during the times I wasn’t writing, I was always reading.) There are some various things coming up this month that I know I’ll want to blog, but then I plan to disappear for most of August.