I remember reading recently about how e-mail is actually decreasing the productivity of some people because they’re interrupting their workflow to read and respond to a flurry of messages throughout the day. I laughed at such simpletons who obviously were the same sort of people who couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Fools and halfwits, obviously.

Then I met my match in RSS, and I now realize I’ve got to get rid of it. I’m addicted to the feeds; I can’t resist moving the cursor over to the menu bar whenever I see there’s new items posted. "Oooh, what just got Slashdotted? Will it be cool? What is the Washington Post vomiting forth? What quasi-trend is Wired prattling on about?" So I seem to be thinking. I can’t leave the stupid thing alone. It’s almost a compulsion. No, actually, I think it is a compulsion. I can’t stand not knowing whatever it is the feeds think I should know. Thank God I only rarely watch TV, or I’d probably be swallowing all that crap as well.

Like a lot of people, I like to swim in a sea of realtime data, but these goddamned RSS feeds are killing me. I’ll probably have to take it like a man and go cold turkey, cut off from the warm, steady flow of pap that simultaneously enriches and impoverishes my already flimsy excuse for an intellect. I don’t think just limiting the number of subscribed feeds is going to be effective. It’s like old Horace the Wino down the street "reforming" by cutting down to three bottles of Cisco.

Despite its usefulness, I have to put RSS down into the Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time category, at least for me. I guess I just can’t handle it. It’s crack in XML format, I’m tellin’ ya. Stay off of it if you know what’s good for you! Don’t follow me into the abyss! Save yourselves while there’s time!