I promised myself I would never do it again. I indulged in intricate visions of my new found frugality. I vowed to no longer be seduced by the flashy lights and advertising. Fool that I am, I believed it all. That shiny new gadget was the last: it was the one thing that I had been starving for all this time, and once sated I wouldn't hunger again.
But how wrong I was. I now sit, once again, watching the screen at my local Argos for my order number, having joined the queue to get my ration of capitalist participation. I'm awaiting my next hit. Who cares what it is that I am buying. It's the newness that I feed on: the exhilaration of unwrapping that shiny new time-waster. Plugging it in and exploring its features. Forgetting about everything else because I am focussed on twiddling the knobs and pressing the buttons, the manual preaching from the table next to me. Ten, maybe twenty minutes the excitement lasts. Then, all of a sudden, the trophy begins to seem stale and old, like all the rest of the junk I have collected over the years. I know everything about it; it no longer smells new; it already has a slight scratch on the corner. It has been reduced to a symbol of a single virtue: usefullness. I have no time for useful things.
It sits in the corner where I left it, taunting me. Reminding me of my weak will, my monetary capriciousness. Eventually, unable to bring myself to use my tormentor, I usher it into my cupboard of shame where it joins the existing abandoned detritus. I close the door tightly and vow that it won't happen again, already anticipating my new found frugality...
Guy gets drunk, takes some photos with his camera phone, shares them with friends over the 'net. Then he decides to let others do the same and creates a public site where people can email thier own photographic embarrasements for public display. However, rather than creating a democratic montage of modern life, this is predictably a microcosm of the internet itself: full of opportunities for men to oggle naked ladies. Certain successful women-chasers become heros to the regular commenters who rate each photo on theattractiveness of its participants.
There is, however, always a percentage of submissions which deviate from this theme and provide an interesting giggle or an insight into the author. Personal albums are available by subscription, and all in all the site fulfills its remit with elegance. If its what you're looking for, you'll love it.
The BT engineer came around today, and installed our land-line, so I can now at least use my modem at home. I have bought 30-days unmetered access from MyInternetPass which is pretty cool. It gives you internet access with no commitment, you just pay 10 pounds via your credit card and you are connected for 30 days. The only bad thing about it is that they don't seem to be aware of platforms other than Wintel: the help files are all in Microsoft Word format. However, that's not important because they provide all of the login details, so if you know what you're doing it works pretty well.
I have also ordered my new ADSL connection. This time I have chosen Eclispe Internet because they are about the same price as Pipex, but they provide a static IP address. Hopefully I should be up and running with proper 'net access in a couple of weeks.
Wow, am I excited.... There is a four page, full colour article in the current Guardian all about Esperanto! I had no idea it was going to be there. I feel like a member of a minority society that's finally had governmental recognition. The article is fact-filled and interesting. I'm a happy man.
I am currently using the XML::RSS::Parser module for a Perl project I am working on (more on that later), but BoingBoing is giving me gip! The only major stipulation that this parser makes is that the feed be well formed. However, it complains about the current Boing Boing feed. Passing the feed through a Validator confirms this. It's pretty annoying because the parser dies when it finds a badly formatted feed, so I its causing a number of problems for me.
The final few months of University: the hard slog, riding the wave of pressure and work. Suddenly that wave crashes onto the shore and recedes away, leaving you beached and direction-less. Where do you go from here? How can you become a contributing and self-sufficient member of society? The big questions hang over you as the anticlimactic pre-graduation post-results weeks slither by. Up until now, you had a direction, aims, you were working towards something big, and everyone around you knew that that was what you were doing. Important decisions were few and far between: non-existent in the first year, followed by the odd selection of units or a project title. Now however, it is time to make decisions which will define you as a person, and your ability to be happy and contented with your lifestyle.
There are so many options ahead: further education, a salaried position, soliciting freelance work, starting your own business; the list is endless. Ever-present is the need to be allegiant to those dreams and fantasies by which, as a child, you defined your future self. You must not disappoint: now is the chance to realise those dreams, and failure to do so would be to make a mockery of your childhood self.
Unfortunately, I cannot offer any useful advice about how to proceed from this luckless point, because I am currently sitting with gaumless anticipation on the very same beach. Hopefully in a year or two I will be able to effectively recount my exit strategy.