I arrived back in #lemmings this morning after my wander to the railway station, and was immediately and unceremoniously kicked. Strange. I'm not sure why. Whilst I'm sometimes a bit cranky in there, and borderline intolerant at times, I hadn't been for some days! Anyway, in post-kick surprise and general befuddlement I crashed xchat, and on logging back in decided to just join irc.gimp.org channels, rather than get involved in anything on #lemmings. It could be nothing, but it might not and I had no energy for that possibility.
This got me thinking about IRC in general however, and something mr_science recently said in that very channel about friendships made there being somehow 'more real' than many real world links are. I now totally agree, but I also think its something rather unique to #lemmings (and to its predecessors, dating back to Ximian's Monkeytalk server).
The inhabitants of #lemmings are a nice, slightly deranged and (I include myself here!) rather older than usual bunch of IRC users. The chat is usually pleasant, and I've never seen such thought go into the sometimes difficult politics of keeping a channel free of abuse or unpleasantness. I know that during many rather tricky times over the past couple of years, when 'real life' friends have either been absent from my life, or have found my sometimes bleak approach to matters hard to take, the #lemmings have generally happily accepted me. Even this week, feeling like crap and stuck indoors, my only human contact has been via #lemmings. Scary, but true.
Strange it took an unexpected kick to make me think about this, and to really start to understand mr_science's view about the place. I'm not sure whether the kick was intentional, a joke I failed to see, or even not meant for me, but the fact I'm dwelling on it speaks volumes about the channel. It also illustrates my tendency to 'minimalise' my life to the point that all my eggs are in one basket. Dropping the basket becomes of course, quite a disaster.
Lost::MikeGTN
I've had a home on the web for more years than I care to remember, and a few kind souls persuade me it's worth persisting with keeping it updated. This current incarnation of the site is centred around the blog posts which began back in 1999 as 'the daylog' and continued through my travels and tribulations during the following years.
I don't get out and about nearly as much these days, but I do try to record significant events and trips for posterity. You may also have arrived here by following the trail to my former music blog Songs Heard On Fast Trains. That content is preserved here too.
