Certainly we are all much more connected through something like Twitter than we would have been otherwise. It?s quick, painless, and easily lets me direct people to stuff they might be interested in, which they can get to on browsers, applications, phones, etc. Easy, right? Maybe.

I have found that in the last couple of months, I was Twittering things to the point that other things, which I could twitter about later, were not getting done as fast. Add to that all the checking for PM?s, replies, and the posts of those I follow, I started to notice net accumulations of time being burned away slowly enough that the effect was always obvious to me.

What did I do about it? Well, I twitter less…as many of you have noticed. Not a LOT less, but a bit less…enough for me to feel a little more balanced with it all. Funny enough, I now seem to have time to get a Facebook update in here or there, or to update this blog with some uninteresting tripe. Or a million other micro-web things that I usually find I am out of time for.

Thoughts on all this? Bound to be some good opinions out there regarding social networking overload.

Here is how the total listeners over ALL FrogPants shows pan out in terms of percentage.

While it was no shock that The Instance has a huge percentage of total downloads, what took me by surprise a little was how some of the newer stuff has grown in a very short amount of time, particularly, Film Sack, Current Geek, and AppSlappy.

ELR has always been a bit of an acquired taste, so seeing it’s lower turnout still represents a sizable number, but not as compared to everything else. Also, a scrubbing of the IP’s indicates that nearly 90% of those listeners also spread around to the other shows as well.

Diary of a Cartoonist, oddly enough, gives me some of my most frequent email feedback, all while being the lowest on the list. I think ELR and Diary both stand as examples of shows with a smaller overall base of listeners, but a super dedicated base nonetheless.

Anyway, I find stuff like this interesting. Looking at numbers takes all the emotion and assumption out of the equation, and leaves you with the raw truthiness of it all. I hate math, but I love what math tells us.

UPDATE: Some are asking where the Fourcast numbers are…I don’t have access to those. In that particular case, Tom Merritt produces and hosts those files.

I am nearly 100% sure that this notion is nothing new, but I was way too lazy to dig around the web and find out.

The current method of paying to play in MMO games is terrible in my opinion. Most think that playing more than one MMO at a time is a problem simply because it would be an incredible time sink. Certainly this is true to some degree, but I think the larger reason is simply this: people don?t want to pay 100 bucks up front, and 30 bucks a month for two different games, no matter how great the games might be.

A real world example? I?d be happy to still be playing Aion AND WoW at the same time. With Star Trek Online out now, there are now three games I?d like to be playing here and there.

So there?s the problem. Want a solution?

Stay with me…

Do it like cell phone services, with a couple of tweaks. Charge me 15 bucks a month, but only if I?ve used all my time.

For example, lets say they charge my credit card on Monday the 1st of March. That would included unlimited play time up to April 1st, just as it does now. That is roughly .50 cents a day for that month.

Now, lets say I only played 10 days worth of that 30 days paid time. Carry that unused 20 days over to the next month, and don?t charge me again until I use the 20 hours up. A little like carry-over minutes for your cell phone. In effect, I am paying a per our rate, and not being charged for time I am not in the game.

Now, I know there are some holes here. For one, no one plays a total of 720 hours in 30 days time. So there?s no such thing as someone getting 100% of their paid time completed in a month. A huge portion of the player base will end up in the ?casual? bracket, and 15 bucks could potentially last them 6 months or more, thus effectively killing a substantial portion of revenue for the games developer.

Maybe you don?t count hours or days, but rather you are given a ?credit? system that represent time chunks. Say they are 8 hour ?credits?, and you are given 90 ?credits? for the month, and when you use those up, you?ve used your time. That could be adjusted of course.

All that said, my idea is all about getting these games into more hands. 10 million players in WoW seems like a lot, but a plan that made these games less of a financial commitment for players could potentially bring in tens of millions more.

I am well aware that no one is going to change to this system anytime soon, but some of these failing MMO?s might find some new life if they change it up a little, and give us more ways to pay…and then maybe we?ll play.

I’ve been experiencing a strange sensation over the last 15 years or so that time is speeding up. I have a notion that plenty of people are feeling this effect as they get on in life, and much of what I am saying probably feels cliche and old hat, but the idea never really held much sway in my mind until the last few years.

Time is speeding up. For me, anyway. How do I know this? Unfortunately, I don’t have a good way to quantify this phenomenon in any sort of scientific way, and to someone watching casually from their teens or early 20′s, this sounds like bollocks, if I might borrow a term from our British friends.

I know that time is speeding up for me because I have way less of it than I used to, but more importantly than that, my perception of time is nothing like it was when I was younger.

As a kid, an hour seemed like three. Now, an hour seems like 15 minutes. Week long vacations seemed to last for months. Now they feel like a day and a half.

As a teenager, 2 years sounded like a lifetime. Now it sounds like not enough time.

I provided this simple chart (shown above) to sort of help explain my notion of time. The large labeled lines represent major points on my life, and all the little red ones represent various sub-events. As you can, later in the chart, these sub-events start to go up in volume. I think those are the key.

Would love your feedback as to whether or not I am feeling this way on my own, or if others share my plight.

I could end this blog post there, but that seems a little unfair. I feel compelled to express precisely why I have a hard time with Vegas, and what I think should be done about it.

I should mention here that all this Vegas talk comes from the fact that I was considering heading down there this week for a peak at CES, and perhaps lunch with Tom and Veronica. Clearer heads have prevailed. CES makes Vegas crazy.

On paper, I should love the place: I love the spectacle of it all. I don?t need to be reminded that there is a damn pyramid, a replica of New York City, and an Eiffel Tower in the middle of that desert.

Which reminds me, I love the desert. I live in Utah, which is largely a desert state, despite the tons of snow we get every year. I love southern Utah, where the rock gets red, and the horizon makes you feel like hopping into your land speeder and shopping at Mos?Eisley for the afternoon.

I also only live about 4 or 5 hours away from Las Vegas, so driving there is really not all that hard or time consuming. We often stay in a town called St. George, about an hour north of Vegas, and I LOVE that place. It?s a strange combination of college town and retirement area, with incredible bike trails, hiking, canyons, etc. Lots of hippies and art and music and cool stuff there. A wonderful place that I would not mind living in permanently, truth be told.

Anyway, as you can see there are lots of things to love about the ?idea? of Las Vegas, Nevada. I?m also a big fan of any movie using Vegas as its setting. It makes for the perfect backdrop to just about any genre I can think of: Comedy, mob movies, post-apocalyptic disaster flicks, etc.

I?ll waste no more of your time, and just tell you where my problems lie. Let?s break down why Vegas exists. I mean REALLY exists. I?m going to treat Vegas like a big cake in this blog post: Pushing all that frosting to the side, and see what this thing is really made of.

Vegas is for Gambling:
I don?t gamble. Not for any religious or any other sort of moral reasons. I don?t gamble because it is a quantifiable waste of my money. Any dummy with half a brain knows that the odds are stacked for the house, and you WILL lose…now or later, you always end up losing. Even if you figure out some hollywood-inspired method of counting cards, or hedging the bets, they always figure out what?s up and ?ask you nicely? to leave and never come back. (I?ve seen Rain Man. I know how they roll.) I?d rather spend my quarters on video games.

Vegas is for Sex:
I realize that some of the modern day frosting on the Vegas cake might lead some to think otherwise, but if we are really being honest with ourselves, Vegas is for sex.

For a happily married dude, who desires no extracurricular activity outside of his awesome married life, Vegas holds nothing for me in this regard. I suppose if you?re 22 and are looking for a shiny new STD, then Vegas is just the place yer looking for. But for me, this is a total dead end. It should be stated here that it?s additionally difficult to make my way through vegas with a 9 year old, given that the entire city is plastered with little porny flyers every two inches or so. And that?s just so I can make my way to the M&M store. Classy.

Vegas is for Drinking & Smoking:
I don?t drink. Or smoke. Simple as that. I?m pretty sure that I would need to start drinking to forget about the thick mist of crap they call air in that city, which quickly fills my lungs the minute I set foot on the strip. EVERYONE smokes, and smokes a lot. So much that the smoke no longer smells like smoke, but more like poop smeared hobo pillows. Foul.

If I spend 10 minutes on the strip, it?s inevitable that I am compelled to go to Fry?s Electronics for the rest of the day, where they don?t let you smoke, get In-&-Out burgers, and go back the hotel.

Let me be clear. I could care less if you wanna smoke and drink, and Vegas is an awesome place for people who want to do more of it. It just isn?t for me.

It probably doesn?t help that two of the worst stomach flu experiences of my life happened while in Vegas, the most recent of which was in 2008. Fresh wounds that won?t heal.

It also doesn?t help that the city looks like a big dead elephant in the daylight. There is nothing attractive about Vegas when you can actually see it. It?s kind of like making out with Ernest Borgnine in the dark. If you can?t see him, it?s not all that different than a swimsuit model, give or take.

I know there are really nice places in North Las Vegas, and surrounding areas, and I have friends that live there that never go near the strip. Your?s is a different Las Vegas. A parallel universe of sorts.

The Vegas tourism tagline says, ?What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.? True. That?s if they are referring to the watch I left in my hotel room a couple years ago. I try and picture Nick Papageorgio walking around the Flamingo pool with it on his left wrist. Way to go, Russ. Way to go.

I was at the half-way point when the hit happened. Here’s how I remember it. I approached the condo exit and noticed that a small grey car was heading out of it, so I slowed down. I noticed that he started slowing down well ahead of the exit, which told me he’d seen me and was ready to let me by. In fact, he came to a near stop, which a jogger can usually take as a green light.

So I sped up, got in front of him, when he suddenly slammed on the gas pedal and lurched forward, whacking me in the right butt-cheek, hurling me into the ice-encrusted snowbank on the other side.

Now comes the part that I can’t really explain. I simply got up, kept running, and listening to “Over The Line”, by The Crystal Method on my iPod, as if nothing had happened…I just kept running. I never looked back, but I heard the driver yell something that sounded like, “Sorry car flinder stern mace!” I can only imagine what he meant by that.

Did he hit gas when he meant to hit the brake? I’ve done that. Did he mean to slam into me? Was his idea of a new years resolution so twisted that I’m simply lucky to be alive?

No idea. Honestly I’m more concerned about why I just kept running. There’s a lesson in this somewhere. I think the lesson is, “Keep running”. Or something.

Well, hello there. What?s this? A blog. Why? Not sure. For whom? Me to write, you to read…that?s ?whom?.

Seriously though, this blog is my attempt, feeble as may ultimately be, to create an online diary of sorts. You might even call it a companion piece to my Diary of a Cartoonist podcast (iTunes), where I kinda let people into my personal life as a father, husband, and American dude on a regular basis. The big difference will be, this site is for READING! Remember reading? Reading is great.

But why now? I figure what better time than New Years Eve, 2009. I?m about to head out into the foggy mist that is 2010, and I?d like to do it with this new blog in tow. I?ve found over the years that the best way for me to be consistently doing something I need to do, my best bet is to put it on the internet, have people expect it regularly, and force me to follow through on my commitment to self, country, and Zeus.

Enough about all that…you know what I?m doing and why you might wanna be here. If you?ve not left yet, then continue on with the point of this post with me, won?t you?

I?ve been giving considerable thought to the upcoming decade. A result of this kind of thinking is having my brain bound and dragged back through the decade that is now ending. (Well, technically it ends in 2011, but you know what I mean.)

The 2000?s had more life markers for me than any of the previous three combined. Yes, that?s how long I?ve been on this rock…4 decades worth, and counting. I?d prefer not to dwell on that fact. So I wont. Back to the point.

Highlights and lowlights for me in the 00?s where as follows:

My son, Nick was born in May of 2000. My third child, and an awesome kid in every measurable respect, Nick?s birth was a wonderful time for all of us, and I honestly don?t remember what life was like with out him.

June 11th of 2001 I started the ExtraLife webcomic and blog…way back when blog wasn?t really much of a word yet. Neither were webcomics I guess, but that was going to change and fast. It marks the start of what would be my future profession, more or less. Had no idea at the time.

My father died in June of 2000. A horrible moment for me, and far too soon in his still young life. The whole thing forced me to grow up a little. What? A 30 year old that needed to grow up? Shocking.

October of 2004 was not a good time in my life. I was having a really stressful time with a company I was working for at the time, and visited a doctor asking for help with the resulting tension headaches I was experiencing. He gave me pills. I did zero research, no question asking, nothing…I just took three a day like he asked, trusting fully in doctors and western medical practices. That was a mistake.

I?d MAYBE taken a Tylenol once or twice in my life time, and now I was being fed a pill that, among other things, ?can cause seizures, anxiety disorders, fainting spells, sever headaches, disruption in motor function, paranoia, rigidity in muscles and extremities, blurred vision…? The list goes on. I mean it REALLY goes on.

How did it effect me? After 30 days of use, I had ALL those symptoms and more and thought I was dying…literally. I lost 30 pounds in 20 days. I didn?t suspect the medication until another month of use went by, and once I did, I quit cold turkey in anger. That was a bad move too, but there was no other way out for me. I?d been mis-prescribed, badly handled by a family doctor, and extremely naive about what I was taking. I wasn?t about to extend the horror by touching those things one more time. The next 6 months were hell.

Just to put people at ease, things did get better over time, and while I am STILL not out of the woods symptom-wise even today, the experience turned out to a good thing in a very strange way. More on that in a bit. I?d just say this: Never take anything from a doctor at face value and assume he has your very best interests at heart. They don?t. Do your homework. I wish I?d had. -1 to me. (But +20 to awesome supportive wife and kids.)

Speaking of seizures, in early 2005 my then nearly 12 year old daughter started having actual seizures. They started happening at night, and were the kind that woke her up, and she was awake for their duration, which was typically 30 seconds to a minute. We took her in for tests, and they determined that she had a little electrical hiccup in her brian that was causing these, and they wanted to put her on medicine for 2 years.

Having been through what I had just gone through, and was STILL going through with my medical poop sack, I said no. There was a strong theory that she was suffering from what science calls, ?Pubescent Focal Seizures?, which occur to an alarming number of young girls who are about to, or are just entering puberty. The research states that 9 our of 10 people effected see the seizures taper off over time, and leave all together at a point.

So I was presented with a decision: Be a chicken fart and put my daughter on medication that ?often results in sterility, hampered cognitive growth, and muscle ticks.?, or I could manage this as a family, give it the time it needs to either stay or go, and weigh our options then. I wen?t with the latter. She has been seizure-free for 2 years.

I should mention that 2004/2005 were the years that Podcasting happened, and I jumped in with both feet. Some people have noticed, and my web stats reflect this, that there was a HUGE jump in content from me in early 2005. They are correct. I went crazy with this stuff, primarily because I was going through personal hell with my pill crap, and I wanted to prove to the world and myself that I could not only rise above all that, but beat anything I had been capable of before that event. There was no turning back now. It was get busy living time for me.

We also moved to a new house in late 04, which was nuts, but no one cares about that.

The sites grew, the comics grew, the shows grew, the community grew, and my family grew. Did I mention Nerdtacular? No idea what we are gonna do this year, but it?s gonna be epic.

56 Geeks happened, my print business took off, things were good. 2008 turned out to be the biggest year yet for just about everything I was doing. Figured I could only go down from there. I was wrong. 2009 beat 2008 to within an inch of its life.

In June of 2009, I finally made the jump that terrified me: Starting FrogPants, LLC and becoming a full time illustrator and media creator…for myself. I was scared, but it has easily been one of the best decisions I have ever made..ever. At least so far.

I launched Current Geek, Film Sack, The Morning Doodle, 56 Zombies, Shmerp.com, FourCast (with Tom), and a hand full of other major projects since that day in June. I love every second.

So why am I telling you all of this? No idea, but that?s kind of the point of this blog for me. A way to keep a journal, share with you, and hear your stories. My goal for 2010 is to post in here as often as is possible. I hope that a few of you will enjoy the ride. Here?s to a great new year for all of us!