That sounds absolutely wonderful, but have no fear -- I've been on the net ever since I was 9 and haven't bothered taking a break at all. No, I don't have a telephone jack sticking out of my ear -yet-, but I look forward to having one pretty soon.
Certainly I'll add to this feature list when I can.
I think I found something this morning that just makes sense -- having the vBJournal "buddy" feature that I was adding read from the original vBulletin group of "buddies" and if so and so has a recent journal entry, display it.
I think I was somewhere in that vacinity with my stab at coding it last night. :P
I hope to work with you in the future on this -- if you need any templates or anything if I can't help you out on code, please let me know and I won't hesitate to try.