My computer has become a sinking ship and this week I started frantically trying to rescue what I could from it before it's totally sunk. The lifeboat in which I'm transferring my bits and bytes: a laptop, my first laptop ever.

I purchased my now-dying desktop in 2004. It's been a good six years, with lots and lots and LOTS of changes, not only in computing but in my life. Those changes are evident in the way I spend my time on the computer, then versus now.

Then

Here's how I spent most of my computer time in 2004:

Reading parenting, entertainment and news articles.
Writing parenting articles ... for print publications.
Keeping tabs on my middle and youngest daughters who were 539 miles away at college, via MySpace, chatting and e-mail.
Regularly accessing the Occupational Outlook Handbook to help my youngest daughter figure out what degree/career to pursue.
Playing computer games: Mahjong, You Don't Know Jack, Wheel of Fortune.

Now

Here's how I now spend most of my time on the computer:

Blogging about my grandson.
Researching ways to improve the blogging about my grandson.
Reading other blogs -- 52 subscriptions in my RSS Reader.
Looking for work, freelance or otherwise.
Wasting timePromoting my blog on Facebook and now Twitter.

Good thing my shiny new laptop has a pretty darn good graphics card because by the looks of this comparison, I've become blog-obsessed, boring and in need of a game or two.

Or maybe, just maybe, what I really need is to step away from the computer and appreciate the aspects of my life not measured in bits, bytes and Google page ranks.

Which I'll definitely do -- after I get my shiny new laptop all set up and ready for blogging.

Today's question:

How do you spend the majority of your time on the computer?