I can't decide whether this really is about troll hugging (which is what it's about in the beginning and at the end), or a shameless plug about Pugs and himself (which fills the middle of the story).
IMHO, one needs not feel shame at saying one wants to be noticed, understood or remembered; that is what makes us human in the first place, and only by communicating we can "unplug" the inhibitions that prevents useful communication.
I've been out of the blogosphere for two years, and only recently began re-familiarizing myself with the various communities formed by aggregator-forums, so naturally there will be some contextual drifts.
But I do try to form real discussions when I was involved in building the blogosphere, which involves telling part of my life-story, then listening to the other person's life-story so I can understand why they made their comments.
So... jvdh, what is your story that prompted you making that comment? I'd be glad to listen, if you would like to share.
I'll take the Judo/Aikido paragraph as an example, in an attempt to form relations between that self-plugging paragraph and the concept "troll hugging" in your mind.
The Judo meme was first introduced to me by mjd in "Conference Presentation Judo" ( http://perl.plover.com/yak/presentation/ ) -- and because Larry Wall and Damian Conway both practices Aikido, they sometime use those two memes interchangeably.
I was reflecting why I've always refrained from using Judo/Aikido to describe what we've been doing in #perl6.
During writing that blog post, it occurred to me that it's about the destination; Judo/Aikido tries to contain and then throw out incoming attacks by making the attacker lose balance, while what we've been doing is quite the opposite; it aims to restore a conversational, one would even say hermeneutic, balance.
So by writing out that paragraph I feel I understand the "My Hobby" part a bit better, whilst also trying to explain that reflection to people who joined in the aikido/judo meme circle before.
That is how the relation was formed in my mind. Hope it helps!
I missed the reference to the xkcd meme upon first reading (my bad! can't believe I missed that :( ) and upon rereading this does make it a lot more focused.
Just noted that you were new here, or at least, the account was. Enjoy your stay!
Gosh, I felt ancient in internet-time, and it's so nice to be a newbie in various communities again. :-)