Every now and then I get an impulse to create something or do something new with computers/technology/the internet, usually in the summer when I don’t have any uni work to keep me occupied. I always think this creative urge could be put towards writing, but it always seems to manifest itself as a desire to learn how to write computer code. I always think it would be really cool if I could write games or applications or other things, but I have no idea where to start, or what I definitely want to do, so  I usually spend a couple of days reading about programming languages then give up, since I don’t have the resources or inclination to follow through.

My general philosophy is that life’s too short to learn how to program, because even learning how to do fairly simple things with code takes ages. Two summers ago I did start this site though, and during short bursts over the next several months I taught myself enough HTML and CSS to make it look and work like it does now. I doubt you have any idea how long it took me to work out how to do a front page that displayed the latest post and a random post in a nice rounded border, but was separate to a page containing my last ten blog posts. It took a long time. Sure, I probably could have done it much more quickly with Dreamweaver or some equivalent, but I did it the old-fashioned step-by-step way so I could learn how it worked. I still know next-to-nothing about web-programming though.

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Outside, the sun beats down, warming and illuminating everything. Probably. It might be raining now for all you know. If not, then children will be out in the streets by this time, cycling, or playing football, or walking, or even just sitting around, talking about nothing. Even if it is raining, they’ll be inside, together, talking and laughing and playing videogames and complaining they’re bored. Perhaps you miss those uncomplicated days, before you had your own computer and the internet. When you were still at school, and not university. Before you had all the time in the world to kill and everyone else had jobs. You open up the internet browser and click through the familiar pages. It’s the summer holiday.

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