I like to play with toys. I always have. When I was very young, toy soldiers were the thing. Plastic green ones about 2 inches tall came in bags of 20, 50, or 100—a unit, platoon, and division. There were other colors, too: red, yellow, gray, and blue ones. But they were *the enemy*—obviously too dumb to blend in with nature’s greenery. The red ones were the red communist Russians, of course. And the yellow ones were the Chinese menace. The grey ones were variously considered Confederates or Nazis or a hybrid of the two. And the blue ones—damn, the blue ones looked like cops. But they had to be aliens of some sort or a Mongol horde from Oceania—or else they would have been green. Oh, the blue ones, damn them, could almost could have been friends. But the green ones alone represented, for me, greenbacks and the U.S. And there were always more of them. So I was partial to the green ones and played almost exclusively with them.
A typical “war” consisted of first digging elaborate and sometimes even very deep defenses for the soldiers in the dirt. Foxholes, tunnels, caves, and pyramids were all constructed with great care and attention. And then the soldiers were put staunchly into fighting position. Then, something amazing happened. I would turn into a traitor. I became the enemy on the attack! Armed with rocks, dirt balls, and/or water balloons, while standing at a distance, I’d sling, pound, and pummel my former comrades relentlessly and without mercy until every one had fallen. And if they resisted? After I’d run out of ammo, I’d run up to them and start jumping up and down collapsing their caves and burying them alive. I lost a lot of my toy soldiers that way. I’m sure many of them are still in situ and, of course, undecayed.
Naturally, I don’t play with toy soldiers anymore. I play with Xanga. “Oh, oh, he quit attacking plastic soldiers, now nfp’s attacking us!” Relax. There’s a couple out here who lost their cool, drew a line, and transformed me in their minds into some sort of arch-enemy. With one, it was an unfortunate mistake. The other one’s a flake.
But, no, I’m not into flaming or personal attacks—even if only as implicit innuendo. Rather, my current “toying” consists of technological innovation and climbing out of the matrix. There was one point about a year ago here on Xanga, where my absorption into the techno-milieu was attaining psychic proportions. Oh yes, I could “feel” things about to happen—and I would blog about them “prophetically” even though I was clearly “notfor”. I was “too into it” but dearly appreciated for precisely that .
“Too into it” is the surest way to become highly popular in Xanga. It is possible that VeryModern was “too into it” before she spun away. Quite likely, James is “too into now”. Over-ebullience for too long becomes a strain. It’s kind of like swallowing the sun and the moon—you’ll shine, shine, shine!!! But unless your belly’s a nuclear furnace—watch out for the hotspot meltdown.
I felt the sun/moon-swallow meltdown coming upon myself, too. But instead of “retiring” or withdrawing, I opted to stay but find a “way out”. Toys! What better way to become light as a feather than to play with toys and feel better. So my “blog within a blog” ( livejournal within Xanga) was one toy and a breach of the matrix. My initial portable webcam was another. Yet another has been my experiment with automated posts—and yes, if you and Xanga are still around in April 2005, look for one of them! And now, I’m toying with my own webserver spliced into the Xanga matrix. This may be the ultimate toy of countless possibilities: streaming video, audio…and me behind yet beyond the scenes.
So I’ve geeked my “way out” of Xanga while remaining intact. Some may lament that I’m now “too out of it”. In response to that, in the words of a great American, Steve Martin, I have but one thing to say: “Well exxcuuuuuuuuuuusssse me!”
"OK" 
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