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I pretty much always write the self-absorbed little dittys in Notepad, then transpose to Macromedia's Dreamweaver. Okay, so Adobe bought them out, but they'll still be Macromedia to me for a while yet. I am unsure why I do this transposition process, it's painful, the line-breaks all go wrong and I have to insert manual returns all through my text. Like my boss, who hits return at the end of every sentence in Word (2007), ending up with a letter with every first letter capitalised, regardless of where in the sentence she is.

Though she talks about "Going like a bonsai tram", and "Those people up their in their Eiffel Towers" so I don't think grammar and word-structure are hobbies.

Anyway, perhaps I am thinking that why I follow this silly process is due to some granules of info in my head about writers. I remember seeing a few docos in the Nineties (unfortunately, the decade that had the most effect upon me. I'm a victim of stats like everyone else I guess) that showed famous writers and their writing methods. And for some reason, I saw the writers I liked the most (Banks, King) using these yellow ruled legal pads for their writing, eschewing e-media formats.

I am sure that's all changed now and they diligently trust Word or similar, but the damage has been done. I told myself that to be a writer takes some kind of process, a methodology. Maybe I was just trying to determine a scientific approach to writing. As though the heart can be distilled through simple processes. My dogged use of Notepad (which has been around since day one of Windows I'd guess, definitely there in 3.1) is my emulation of their yellow legal pads. I used another text editor, called v.i. (not sure if it is written that way, but it's pronounced each letter separately). It's a weirdo Unix editor, and full of archaic commands. I mean, to drop from "text mode" where you type what you want, to "editing mode" where yo affect the format of the typed word, or delete, you hit the Escape key then Colon. (Hey any v.i gurus out there don't flame me, I am not offering a tutorial, just an emotional recollection). Then you do things like type "d3w" to delete three words from the cursor. No kidding. or you go !wq to Write and Quit. Or just !q to quit without saving.

Anyway the funny thing is that I was able to bounce around v.i. quite easily after only a minute or two acclimatisation. The last time I had used it would have been with my glorious tech mentor Doug in 1994. This is not sarcastic. I owe a lot of what I do in IT today to his basic methodology and steady teaching methods. He was the first person I remember who taught me the value of logic in problem solving. At 4ZZZ in those days there was a big element of people being dramatic every time a problem occurred (e.g. transmitter issues) but DOug showed me that this did not help to get Zed back on air. Only by following each link in the "Broadcast Chain" would you determine the problem and start to fix it.

His teachings have held me in good stead to this day. I never thanked him, and I know he was deeply hurt when I turned to the dark side, i.e. became a fully-fledged junkie. He could not understand it I guess and saw it as throwing away all he had taught. That it was my opinion at the time that I had no other choice, that to not use would have led to greater self harm, is something I never could explain to him or very few others.

But hey, thanks Doug.

I meander I know. Writing methods, text editors, drugs. It's all been stirred up with me hunting for a box of Live-To-Air cassettes that is in my tiny flat somewhere. Found lots of old stuff, found my old zzz emails, read a lot of Facebook threading about a great band i was involved on the fringe of. Some are saying you cannot talk of that band without talking of gabo. I don't know. But I think the band members should decide that, not the peripheral boys in dark rooms. But then again, that's an opinion.

I started to write tonight to go into the whole S and I business. A friend stated the other day that S and I were just drug buddies. S is there when we don't use too. Tonight I said to her that she would be more hurt if I shot up with someone else than if I slept with someone else. Something I have felt from time to time - mainly after she has quizzed me endlessly and angrily when she has thought I have spent some beans on gear without her. Then other times I have been out all night and she hasn't seemed that interested, and I thought it was because we both used at the beginning of the night so she didn't care what happened thence.

Okay I am officially still confused about a relationship that I have been in over a decade. I mean, maybe that's the best sort of relationship? One that keeps you constantly questioning it? I don't think she is sleeping around, I don't think she is using me (apart from the junkie part that we all have that leads us to using our friends, a part that only increases our self-hatred.). She accompanied me to wedding of a co-worker the other day. Cooked me egg brekky yester morn. We have a nasty co-dependency thing going on with gear and cash, that's true, but i think we both respect the other's personality. I think if there was a physical dimension to the relationship I would happily marry her. And that makes me feel bad, that I reject her for her physical rejection of me (she would see it differently I know). But being male and testosterone driven, I see relationships very B&W. Rejection or acceptance. Maybe I need to learn grey-shading.

...hmmm. Piulled apart an inkjet printer. I know I can use the 2 motors (cartridge driver and paper advancer) for some cool task, but what? I can easily dream up software duties but never hardware tasks....I guess I'm just a softie....r r r r!

Anyway, went to Caz's wedding on Sat. I know they always say brides look beautiful, but she did. Sim did too. A day that'll be etched in Caz's mind evermore. I hope I don't forget it. But tonight, I waltzed in Mt Gravatt carpark with S, she twirled I then I her, maybe just post gabo nonsense, maybe not. I want to twirl in my dreams tonight.

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