Trillian is the “great communicator” of Windows chat applications by using the protocols of MSN, AOSmell and Yahoo. The novelty, however, wore off when I realized two things: I hate all three of those corporations and anyone can reach me.
It’s pretty simple: Chat programs suck.
The people that I need to do business with have no problem calling me. Keeping an instantaneous connection to friends and family is severely over-rated as well as being inconvenient for me more often than not. The three major commercial chat programs are always trying to torpedo Trillian. The Trillian program doesn’t help itself by sucking up significant system resources on my machine.
Since I don’t particularly like chat and chat doesn’t particularly like Trillian and Trillian doesn’t particularly respect my computer, I’m going to call the whole thing off and swallow the Fuckitol pill.
Back in the pre-mainstream Internet days of 1989-90, I didn’t get a 2400 baud modem to make friends. I got it to commit crimes that the government didn’t consider crimes at that time. Software piracy was the game and the Pirate’s Cove was the local computer geek watering hole. Everyone knew everyone else in real life and if you wanted to take software, you had to supply it. As I was a reliable supplier, I didn’t have to tone down my attitude for anybody.
As far as I can tell, I still don’t adjust the attitude for anybody. If I’m not involved in a technical or techno/political discussion, I just don’t see the point in chat. Email is only moderately smoother around the edges. Email, unlike chat, can be handled at my convenience. Long distance telephone is dirt cheap but…
The best way to communicate with human beings is to be in the same physical space with them. Otherwise, it’s 110% bullshit.
My only concern is being available for my friend Melanie whose husband Jay is one of my closest friends. Jay is in Baghdad, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a damn warzone. She can talk to me about anything that might be too much of a risk to discuss in her small military town. Jay wants me to keep her morale up and make sure she laughs–an easy mission. It’s just too difficult to get any kind of decent communication line from the cesspool of Iraq. I’ll keep the chat program nearby for that.
For everybody else, it’s over. You know my email address. You know my phone number. My resume is on this site. It has all pertinent information. I can’t take these stupid chat windows coming on at random or the fact that people can see when I’m online.
That’s why I threw my pager away years ago. Some technology just sucks no matter how you dress it up.
