Excellent question! For starters, I don't come in at the Gates, I come in at Newest Nodes; then I hit last hour of cb. Secondly, I have my Nodelet Settings and Display Settings configured such that I see everything else I care about at one glance: any new messages in my inbox, any changes to the various Cabal wikis, any new patches from pmdev... Once I've checked all those, I head into the chatterbox to join in the fray.

I click the 'PM Rat', 'PM Chat' and 'CB hist' bookmarks on my browser's toolbar. That opens a tab for the latest nodes, the current gossip and the context for the current gossip.

"What would you like to see to enhance your pmfix?"

A piped online proper coffee machine / dispenser!

• I first click on the Recently Active Threads link.
• I scan the Nodelets for new emails, "What's New at PM" and Voting Booth".
• Use the browser's search feature to search on my user name, just in case someone replied to one of my nodes.
• Quickly scan for nodes that I have been recently tracking.
• Start reading new nodes whose titles look interesing to me.
• Click the "Nodes to consider" link in my Personal Nodelet and do my part to try to keep the Monastery lookin' good.

All of us seem to use the Recent Threads link. Me too. But besides that, I'm send here by means of IRC. I follow #news and filter on PerlMonks.*CSV to be attended at threads that might be of interrest. Many times I don't have to reply, as ikegami is really fast :)

For the chatterbox, I use #cbstream on IRC, so I can read the log and, again, be signalled when people need me.

I hit Newest Nodes and greet my fellow monks in the Chatterbox, often to a Norm from Cheers like reception. I've said it before and I'll say it again, of all the on line forums, channels or mailing lists I've experienced Perl monks is by far the friendliest and most helpful.

Cheers,

Martin

What marto left out is that he is usually providing the rounds of beer, um, er, tea... much to all of our delight. (He makes good tea).

Best, beth

I open my browser to Recently Active Threads, open any new PerlMonk Discussion nodes in new tabs, then (going to the bottom of the page and working up) check out Polls, Categorized Questions, CUFP, Obfuscation, News, Meditations, and finally Questions.

My "daily" PM Fix has turned into nearly weekly :-(.

I'm more of an IRC fiend nowadays. But I return to my roots to pay respects to that from whence I came.

Not sure if I like Recently Active Threads or not. I think it's a bit too busy for my tastes.

But when I *do* get the opportunity, I pretty much always follow the same ritual:

Step 1: Go do a quick perusal of "The Monestary Gates", dwelling on any that "catch my eye".

Step 2: Check the first few SOPW to see if there is any interesting things that I can learn.

Step 3: Look at the first few "Mediations" and if nothing strikes me then do a quick check of "PerlMonds Discussions" where I often dwell for a while just "catching up."

Step 4: Mellow out with a leizurly look at "Poetry" where I get my main inspiration and mediation for the day...there is almost always really, creative and awe-inspiring (for me) contributions there.

Step 6: Go back and re-read, meditate on, and if inspired contribute to the one or two topics that really "resonate" with me.

Somedays, I just don't get the "quality time" to go all the way through that sequence. When I'm pressed for time I usually just do a bit of Step 1 and a bit of Step 4. That seems to stave off the "shakes and torment" of missing my fix.

But some days I just have to go "cold turkey" and deal with the withdrawl.

I am such a PM "junkie"!