I've decided to do a media fast again. The first time around I cited spiritual reasons, but this time it's more psychological.

Tuesday night I got back from a busy Christmas vacation full of long car rides, hurried meetings with relatives, and lots and lots of sweets. Whenever I was in the car (which was often) or sitting around or rocking Daniel to sleep I filled my time by reading, listening to podcasts, watching TV shows on my iPod, and checking blogs. By the time I got home last night I was exhausted.

After Daniel went to bed I decided to relax in the bathtub. Normally when I'm soaking in a hot bath I like to read something light and entertaining, like a comic book. I went into my study to pick something, and there was absolutely nothing I felt like reading. In fact, the thought of reading at all made my head hurt.

I realized that just as my body is overloaded by the constant flow of cookies, candy, cinnamon rolls and the like, my mind is hyperstimulated by the constant information I've been feeding it.

So I've decided to physically and mentally purge my body of junk food. As I return to a normal diet of healthy food I'm also going to deprive myself of the podcasts and blogs that have become my daily feed. I'm going to do it for a month.

When I first settled on the idea I wondered if I could really do it for a whole month, considering how much it bothers me to go a single day without the latest news. I'm constantly checking Google Reader for any new updates, reading every headline that comes up so as not to miss anything. It's actually become a task in itself, clicking on each line, getting my count of unread items back down to zero. Could I really stand to let hundreds (maybe thousands) of items go unchecked?

But then I thought of what Thoreau wrote in Walden:

If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, -- we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

Does it really matter if I miss reading what Hillary Clinton's campaign staff said about Barack Obama, or what piece of legislation President Bush vetoed this week? If a truly important event happens I'll hear about it somehow; and if whatever is left is no longer being talked about in February, then it probably didn't matter in the first place.

So I'm cutting myself off. Goodbye for now, blogosphere. You may hear from me (perhaps I'll have more time for writing), but I won't be hearing from you.

'Hearty eater' says buffet banned him - Yahoo! News

A 6-foot-3, 265-pound man says a restaurant overcharged him for his trips to the buffet line, then banned him and a relative because they're hearty eaters. A spokesman for the restaurant denies the claim.

I'm always amused when life imitates The Simpsons.

Sorry I haven't posted the last two parts of the podcast. I didn't forget. There's some sound issues with the tail end where everything goes out of sync and there are some serious echo problems. I think Smiles needs to turn down his mic next time but it was good having him never the less. I'll see if I can do anything more to fix it up and if not I'll go ahead and release it anyway. The second part is fine at least.

A little late but I was at Justin's house and was a tad too busy to post. We had a lot of fun playing SceneIt and Beautiful Katamari on 360, going to Avalon in Newport to ring in the new year, and watching football yesterday afternoon. Good times. So long 2007. I don't think I'll miss you much. Hope you all had a good one.

Undeclared - The Complete Series

An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It by Al Gore

Anthem by Ayn Rand