Stealing my time...

My friends are generally surprised when they hear for the first time that I don't watch TV, and it's true. I hardly spend time watching TV, I don't chase serials and I hardly know any of the new TCS stars. I don't miss it too, really.

However, I do waste copious amounts of time on the internet through reading blogs. The blogs I read are not those written by my friends, although I do keep abreast of what's happening in their blogs. Those that I really waste my time on can be largely categorized into 2 types: food blogs and Singapore based socio-political blogs. As usual, I have a "friend" to thank for it: Gara, it's all your fault, you know it and I've told you the same thing to your face. Gara was the one who first forayed into the dark world of e-voyeurism via reading the personal life of people whom we don't know--www.evince.net was one of our favourites (and I must confess, I had a mini-crush on him, with his witty writings and nice photos). Then there's Mr Brown's blog, a grand-daddy of Singaporean blogs, if you will. After that, blogs exploded all over the internet and there are so many interesting people out there sharing stories of their lives, even though I don't know who they are!

By chance, I came across Chubby Hubby's blog and that completely swept me away into the world of food blogs. Not being content with just the food he features on his blog, I started visiting the many, many links on his side-bar, only to discover worlds of food unknown. A humourous American baker living the good-food life in Paris? David Lebovitz. A charming Parisian food blogger who writes utterly winsome food articles in perfect English? Chocolate and Zucchini. And then there's Norldjus for her incredible photographs. Every shot featured on her site is perfect.

When the Singapore elections came along, the internet also exploded with opinions about how the campaign was run, what they thought of the whole James Gomez saga (mountain out of molehill, molehill out of mountain?), why didn't the Straits Times show any pictures of the Worker's Party rallies and only had praise for all things PAP... Suddenly, the internet was a very educational place to be. It was fun reading all these other opinions that were never heard as well as participating in discussions that would otherwise not happen--suddenly, I became more interested in the social-political aspect of living in Singapore. There were incidents that happened online that had spillover effects into the offline world, such as the Brown vs Bavani episode as well as the Derek Wee vs Wee Shu Min brouhaha. It also provided a platform for ordinary people like me to express my opinions as well as read other's thoughts regarding the ministerial salary hikes.

However, all these justifications aside, it doesn't detract from the fact that I spend waaaay too much time on the internet...

Guilty as charged. =(