Would you believe me if I told you that I promised myself a new (secondhand) MR2 if I could go just four weeks without using? A lush, 4 seater, 2000, Lotus Spyder model for $25,000? Would you believe that this morning was the morning of day 14, and also only my second payday since I promised myself this reward?
Last week I breezed through payday not even thinking about scoring as I was soangry with an old friend who had burnt me the week before for $350. I have realised lately that anger is my prime motivator. if I want to get something done i just have to get angry about it and it'll get done. Sustaining anger is the hard part.
So today I got paid, and I got a bonus for whilst my boss was on holidays, plus I got a cash gift as I had not been given a physical present by the bosses when they came back through duty free. The girls I work with got perfume, so I got a cash cheque today. All up I had a chunk of cash left over even after paying a few bills.
So surprise surprise here I am stoned, making a DVD for mum on Euthanasia and ripping a few of our CDs to S's iPod. And I found some interesting articles on fashion for S - NY stuff, just quick snatches http://www.idiotvox.com/Fashion/PodCast_Review_Fashiontribes.com__10818.html . This podcasting stuff is great, I listen to the ABC's Science Show regularly without even knowing when it's on "air".
All in all things were good. The only major downers in my life are the zero physical intimacy these last seven years and not doing a job that seems meaningful to me. The first will continue to be a problem but the second to me I think age will dilute, plus getting into XML and XSLT will help.
XML is amazing. an open standard for data exchange. Following the old publisher's rule of separating content and presentation. I am writing my first real standalone (not VBA Office stuff) application for work that will take a .csv (comma separated variants) file and convert it to a simple text file of another format. I am using XML in the middle so that I can do all sorts of validation, summing and other reports that will be handy.
Sometimes I think to myself that if I studied XML at a University and perhaps did a Masters on it, i could spend the rest of my life developing applications involving it. Amazing to think that 15 years ago most people didn't know what a "net" was, now the are austere groups of academics forming standards for the use of meta-languages....
Whilst stoned the world seems so brilliant. I have been using a bit of Valium lately also, 5mg a day upon return from work.
I dug out some Excel spreadhseets last night from my last job. I have records of every single shot I had from 1997 to 2002, then a 16 month gap to early 2004, from whence i have arecord up to today. Methinks I'll use XML to somehow present this sad data!