Gee, the last Journal entry is... over a year ago? I rarely say anything, rarely update, rarely comment on other people's stuff. But there is a reason.

At the moment, I live in an area where I am restricted to dial-up internet access. But not JUST dial-up, no. Dial-up that tops out at about 28 kbps, because my phone company won't allow anything faster through as a means of encouraging people to upgrade to DLS. The DLS that isn't available at my house, but is available about a block away in every direction. So basically, my phone company is screwing me over in their attempt to get my neighbors to upgrade their internet access.

Yeah, I'm not thrilled with this.

What it comes down to, though, is that I'm stuck with a very slow connection to the internet, one I'm usually able to get by with. However, each new fancy upgrade dA makes to its interface makes it less and less friendly to a connection like mine, and I'm at a point now where loading ANY page or doing ANY action from home takes 2-5 full minutes. So, let's say I want to go to my watch list, from my watch list check out a new piece of art that's been posted, comment on that picture, and then +fav it. That entire process can take anywhere between eight and twenty minutes for me.

Dial-up is helping me to relearn internet patience, but I'm not that damned patient.

I'll still poke my head in from time to time if other people link me directly form another source, and who knows? Maybe some day I'll add another new work of my own. But for the most part, I avoid this place anymore. When I do come, and I +fav a piece without commenting on it, PLEASE don't take it personally. It takes 2-5 minutes to +fav something. It takes 4-10 minutes to +fav and comment. Thus, from me a +fav should be read as a comment. It's a comment that says, "I like this piece well enough to spend 2-5 minutes +faving it, and well enough that on the rare occasions that I do mess with dA, I want to be able to find it again."

Most things, though, that pop up on my watch list, though, won't get looked at, and the list will just get mass cleared out from time to time. I don't want to clear the list itself, however, because I still have some hope of eventually returning to the land of high-speed.

For those who have Livejournals, I do post my creative efforts there, where it's not so much of a pain. I try to keep the public portion of my journal casual-viewing friendly. That is, the complaints, memes, bitching, and drama go under lock there. I can be found at [link]