<p>Almost by accident, James and I participated in <a href="http://www.shutdownday.org/" target="_blank">World Shutdown Day</a> last Saturday. I came late to the game on this one, having read on Friday that <a href="http://msbootyhomemaker.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">one of the bloggers I read</a> planned to participate on Saturday. I emailed J. saying, "We should do this." On Saturday morning, when we got up, he asked if I had been serious. I told him that I would do it if he would, and thus began our 24 hours sans computers.*<p>
<p>I can't say I minded terribly doing without my computer&mdash;but then again, I never had trouble filling my time before I had a computer. We both read a lot on Saturday, which is something, I admit, the computer (well, the internet) typically distracts me from. I spend so much time randomly surfing, reading this and that online, that I neglect books. I finished Sara Vowell's <em>The Partly Cloudy Patriot</em> and made some progress on <em>The Country Girls Trilogy</em> by Edna O'Brien. The only time I missed my computer was when I thought of something I'd like to "look up," something about which I wanted additional information not available at home. My tendency to become distracted by looking for "more information" typically makes the computer a distraction from other things I'm doing. </p>
<p>I enjoyed the Sarah Vowell book; I really like her writing. I admire her unabashed "geekiness" (her word) and her admiration of other geeks FOR their geekiness (in <em>The Partly Cloudy Patriot</em>, Al Gore earns this distinction). In our cultural climate of radical anti-intellectualism, it's nice to read about someone proudly out-nerding the nerds in <em>Revenge of the Nerds III</em>. </p>
<p class="note">*In addition to World Shutdown Day, Saturday was a de facto <a href="http://www.tvturnoff.org/" target="_blank">TV Turnoff Day</a>** as well, since our TV/movie viewing is done on a computer. James thought it would be cheating to leave the movie computer on, so we did without video entertainment as well.</p>
<p class="note">**<a href="http://www.tvturnoff.org/" target="_blank">TV Turnoff Week</a> is 23-29 April 2007. <strong>DO IT!!</strong>