Rubenerd

So all you guys have been asking me for about a year now when the next Rubenerd Show is coming out, and I reckon all things considered I've done a pretty good job dodging the question up until now. With this latest flurry of retweeted messages though, I figure I finally owe you all an explanation, so here it is.

MI5 is on to me. There, I said it. I said something about the Queen's hair and they want to take me out quietly before anything can leak out to a tabloid. While I can't tell you much about my huge scoop (say no more), what I can say is she's not naturally that grey. Keep watching WikiLeaks.

Moving on

I kid in jest of course. As opposed to kidding in something other than jest, which I don't think would be kidding then, would it? Does the term kidding imply jest, or can it also refer to something else? Say for example, chess?

I'm very good at talking nonsense when I don't want to answer something. Maybe I should become a politician, or a public serviceman. Serviceperson. Servicehuman. Someone who provides public service. Like, say, chess.

Moving on, again

Okay okay, for real this time! This is the part of the post that contains all the pertinent information, all that other crap above this sentence was entirely pointless and should really have been discarded in favour of starting the post here. In fact, that last sentence was also entirely pointless which isn't helping my case.

I'll tell you why the Rubenerd Show is on another extended hiatus again. Is it because I lost all the equipment in a fire? Is it because I'm lazy or couldn't be bothered doing another one? Is it some technical reason to do with webhosting or post production? Is it because I can't stand to be reminded that open source people can't name applications whenever I compress shows with LAME?

Possibly a little of each of those may be true to some small extent, but there's another reason which is so lame and stupid it's taken me six long and painfully useless paragraphs to reach it. Seven even, because I'll be starting that thought on the next line.

I’m terrified

That was way harder to admit than I thought it was going to be. Hopefully things will get easier now. Forgive this self indulgent nonsense!

Look for most of my life I've been a painfully shy person; I never liked having birthday parties as a kid and working up the guts to approach someone I didn't know was the stuff of nightmares. Perhaps because I was forced to, but by late high school and university I'd started getting a little better. I didn't need detailed plans before I left the house and I didn't feel as though everyone was staring at me.

For a reason that continues to baffle me, since about late 2009 I feel as though I've started to regress again. Whereas a few years ago I'd be a bit jittery and nervous, sometimes now I'm flooded with feelings of anxiousness and fear at the prospect of leaving the house. Once I've made that critical first step I'm mostly okay, but sometimes its just too much. Its impacted relationships with friends, my studies and heaven knows what else in a way that I thought I'd got over in primary school.

Its got to the stage where I'm worrying that I'm worrying, and that can't be a good thing.

What does this have to do with…?

This is where podcasting comes in. It sounds preposterous, but the idea of recording my own voice for other people to listen to scares me in a way it never did before. Literally I look across at my mixer board and I break out in a cold sweat. Jokes about the quality of the Rubenerd Show aside, I can't explain it, but it feels like this deep seated fear that something terrible is about to happen, like that a grand piano will come hurtling through the ceiling as soon as I speak.

For some reason blogging isn't a problem, perhaps its because I feel insulated from the outside world because nobody can see or hear me as I type this. Except maybe the people down the hall, this buckling spring keyboard is as loud as all outdoors.

Anyway I know this is a maddeningly ambiguous conclusion to leave you with, but while I'm pledging the Rubenerd Show hasn't been retired, as much as I would love to produce more episodes, right now I just… can't.

I appreciate all your support and comments, I really hope one day I'm confident enough to do the show again for all of you. In the words of Monty Python, the Rubenerd Show isn't dead, it's just resting.

Thanks :)
Ruben