No Comments

A few days back, when I was starting to feel so unused and oh-so-good (read 'not working'), I decided to revisit my past. No no I am not going to bore you again with details of my defunct and dead and buried and decayed (stretching it too much I guess) lovelife. All I decided to do was to read the old entries on my blog. Went back to the very first entry in this blog. Now that was not very far off in the past when you consider how old our planet is. Okay okay..maybe that was not a very humble comparison. This blog is perhaps about 6 months old. That's it. I had started blogging 2 about 2 months before that I think, and for some reason I named it Everyman's Diary. Now you might think it highly presumptuous of me to call this blog of mine Everyman’s diary and I don’t have the slightest inclination to argue it out. I will call my blog what I like (There! That settles it)

Now, what was it that I wanted to tell you?

Ah yes..so there I was reading through what I had written months back, and I scrolled down to see what others had to say. But my haloscan box was quite curt. “No comments” it said. Now I didn’t remember whether I was popular in those days ( I still am not, but that, again, is another issue) so I reckoned that perhaps my earlier posts didn’t have anybody reading them. But as I kept moving forward in time, I saw, to my utter consternation and all other nations that most of my old posts had no comments. Haloscan had eaten them all up!!! Or perhaps they were holding all my valuable readers’ comments ransom. They would soon follow Doodle-boards example and say “Due to the huge popularity of our service, it is increasingly becoming difficult for us to maintain our high standards of customer satisfaction. Therefore, it has been decided to make Haloscan archives a paid service. For a small sum of ___$, have access to all the precious comments that your readers have left you. The first 1000 of our valuable users get an early bird discount of 5 cents. We look forward to your continuing dependence on us. Now pay up or regret later.”

I was aghast. I was inconsolable. I was writhing in agony (Yeah so I overdid it again. Sue me). But it was true..none of my old posts had any comments left on them. Following close on the heels of doodle-board becoming paid, this had a very sinister touch to it. It still has. I hope haloscan does not go paid.

But this whole trend of sites going paid has made me really scared. Someday, God forbid, Blogspot may go paid. Now that will suck royally! And that move will set me thinking for sure. Should I pay or give my blog up? It’s going to be a very tough choice.

Everyman’s Diary and its Twin have been my escape routes to the world outside. It hasn’t been my escape FROM the world but INTO it. For most of these past 8-9 months I have been working alone. I have had no colleagues, to use the word in its strictest sense, working along with me for any long period of time. And all this while, my blogs have hacked their way through this labyrinthine Net and have found me new friends. I am not worried that it will sound like an Oscar thanksgiving ceremony if I name each one of you by name, but your names are all linked on my blog..and each one of you has been a friend to me, though we may never see each other( one exception is you Jimbo..I have a weird feeling that we will keep seeing each other again and again and again and again..)..And its amazing to look into the lives of people you know but then again you don’t know.

On reading Arjun’s blog I was suddenly reminded of how much I had opened up to just about anybody. There is safety in anonymity. But here was a person who knew me as one kind of a person, and now is seeing another side to me altogether. Of course I repaid the favour and I visited his blog. You should too, if you get the time. Happened to read about how he found my blog and how he told his friends, they too knew me. Apparently they (he apart) didn’t think it was a wise thing to do.. What if people used my blog to blackmail me( Now that would really be interesting!!). I also came to know that someone, apparently, had a crush on me (my usually deflated ego wore a changed look for once)..was flattered..who wouldn’t be?

I don’t know about how you guys feel, but I wouldn’t care for anonymity. Okay so I haven’t really been laying my life threadbare as it exists in flesh and blood, but I have not left much to be revealed either. And goin as I am now, you can be assured of more of revelation as time goes by..

Which takes me back to wondering..such a valuable thing as I have going here, what would I do if blogspot suddenly decided to turn into capitalistic - minded fiends?? I don’t have a back up of all that I have written here..and I may lose sight of it forever..going by what people normally charge for such ‘services’ that ‘may’ will definitely turn into a ‘will’.

Aah..let’s hope that day never comes..till then, LONG LIVE BLOGSPOT!!! And long live Haloscan

(Guys at haloscan, if you’re reading this, could you pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease give me my comments back?????pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?)