The Obligatory Annual Check-In

This is the one day out of the year where I'm guaranteed to show up and make sure everything is still here and still more or less working. I even uploaded all of last year's paintings, and everything I've done in 2024 so far. I spent some time re-reading my old posts and being mildly amused by some of the stuff I'd forgotten. I looked around at other people's pages and was delighted to see how many are still updating, however infrequently.

I'm also aware, though, that every time I write something here, I'm another year more cynical about internet technology's continuing usefulness. Check in with me at any given point, and I'm online less than I was at any given earlier point, and not really any worse off for it. It's not hard to find out what's happening on any of the five remaining websites without actually needing to engage with them. There are countless ways to follow the news without ever going near Reddit or The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter.

In other words, I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere in my years-long process of disconnecting from all the worst parts of the internet. Of course, I've completely failed to articulate what the next step might be. It's unlikely I'll convince anyone to go back to the unmonetized 90s Web, which is kind of all I've got in terms of suggestions.

I do finally have to build a website, though, since I've got a painting in an upcoming show and I need to direct people somewhere.

Online life following the demands of real life! I somehow managed to get back there!

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