Shelley Howells: Time just flies when you're having fun

People ask what the tarnation I DO online for hours at a time. Roughly 90 hours a month isn't excessive - it's only three hours a day. Knock off half an hour a day for the husband and an hour a week for the child and, really, I'm only online for a couple or so hours a day. Some of the less keyboard-inclined in my life consider that's a lot.

Come to think of it, I'm not an online shopper, or a gamer. I don't voluntarily view porn and I've gone off chat so, apart from email and a fortnightly mad bout of web-trawling for this column, what the tarnation DO I do online for hours at a time?

Time to hit the "history" button on the browser and find out.

SATURDAY

Start the day - every day - checking news sites like the Herald, BBC online and the New York Times while listening to National Radio and checking email. This method of news gathering ensures I retain nothing. Lots of googling for contacts and background reading for work. A quick flick through the Listener's revived online presence proves less satisfying than flicking through the hard copy on the couch, but Gordon Campbell's blog is worth keeping an eye on.

SUNDAY

Usual news and email routine, set to hymns from the radio. Google words to Morning has Broken for sing-along. Looking through Wired news subscription email newsletters leads to an article called, irresistibly, "Are you too Stupid to Surf?". Love these subscription services. They send a site's headlines, so I spend much less time surfing. Which leaves more time for going through those emails.

MONDAY

Back to work, from home, starting with a check of the Yahoo email accounts which I tend to neglect until all the free storage is devoured by spam. A look around demolition websites searching for the perfect french door. More googling for work nets two brilliant contacts.

TUESDAY

Bill-paying results in excessive action on the ASB site. Interesting book review on Nine to Noon on National Radio, leads to the local library network trying to reserve said book.

WEDNESDAY

Clearly, I had some time on my hands because I was able to listen, online, to a very large chunk of an archived episode of Minnesota Public Radio's show A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. Glorious.

Helping Junior with the multiplication tables means lots of time spent at Teaching the Times Tables, a US site which is proving to be a real help.

THURSDAY

The usual news/banking/e-mail/library and googling for work, plus the weekly laugh-n-read of humorist Dave Barry's Miami Herald column. Long-standing favourite is his explanation of newspaper journalism.

FRIDAY

Reflecting the fragile state of my decrepit i-Mac, the first click of the mouse was on an article in the New York Times called, "For a Creaky Mac, Tricks to Jog the Memory".

Back to work, and the regular list of sites for material to inspire column ideas. It's just a happy coincidence that they tend towards the humorous and bizarre.

The b3ta folk have a true appreciation for the oddballs of the net, such as boing boing which point to things like the worrying news that Belgian teens are losing sleep because they keep waking at night for text messages.

Because I'm flying soon, there's a daily met service visit to see if the weather will be kind. Hate flying.

So I also take time to check potential side effects of clonazepam: tiredness, dry mouth, dizziness, unsteadiness, irritability, impaired attention and memory, depression, nausea, light-headedness, loss of appetite, slurred speech, abnormal eye movements, confusion, shortness of breath, aggressive behaviour, agitation, sleep disturbances, weight loss or gain.

Phew. Nothing new there. Odd how they echo the side effects of two or three hours a day online.

* Email Shelley Howells