Connectivity Junkie  I might have mentioned before that I am a connectivity junkie.  For some reason I have to be in touch with other people, somehow.  It was only recently the revelation came that this is the reason I like radio and hate tapes and CD's, besides the fact that you tend to get one or two songs you want and a whole lot you don't.  Anyway, radio is more personal because there is a connection between me and the announcer/deejay.  Look at it this way:  if at a particular point iny our life, something important is going on and then a song comes on the radio that either puts it all into perspective or just blows all perspective away, isn't that a lot more magical, knowing that a live human being chose that song at just that moment, independent of you?  Not that much of an impact if it comes off a CD you own, cuz you have already set yourself up as being receptive to that particular music, but the element of control is not with you in radio.     This is a hallmark by which I know that Spring Dew is indeed back.  The reclusive mourningdove shunned contact, cuz I needed time to heal.  Well I must be there, because the craving for contact is getting so great that I am doing all kinds of silly things.  Now, I still can't turn on my ICQ much, cuz I have tons of stuff that has to get done, and I am so far behind that even if I clone 5 of me, it will take several months to catch up.  So in the effort of getting some manageble forms of contact, which I can tackle in my own time and have control over it, I have joined a couple of mailing lists and started searching for independent newsgroup servers.     The mailing lists I may come to regret; I have gotten 150 emails in one day alone, and that is just with two lists!  One is Sibernet for owners of Siberian Husky dogs, and the other is Nice Jewish Girls, for Jewish lesbian/bi women.     There were two independent newsgroup servers that I could find through search engine research, but one is down.  The other, SFF Net, has lots of interesting sounding groups, but they seem to move at the speed of glaciers.  My favorite group, the one I have belonged to for a very long time now, VRNews, is restructuring to include all virtual realities, to include Palace and Ultima Online and Muds and stuff, and I am eagerly awaiting the chance to see what mingling these communities does for the online community as a whole.  Right now teh one newsgroup on that server is called AWDiscussion, but it will be renamed, and I really encourage any VR'ers out on the net to come in and say hi.