2008 #24 - Shitstorm

Here's a good example of flawed logic from my weekend. If I in fact left you behind and went home, but you saw me arrive home over an hour after you got there believing I was already inside ignoring you, how can you possibly continue to believe that I left you behind. Surely it's clear that in fact, you left me behind. You did it because you thought I'd gone, true, but I have never given you any reason to suspect I'd do that, particularly in a strange (to you) city in the middle of the night.

This was the second part of a two part shitstorm in what was otherwise a very enjoyable night out in Birmingham on Saturday, subtitled "Angry and Emotional Women Won't Listen". Occasionally I don't mind my singularity.

Right, last week I realised too late that I hadn't written my 2008 post and tried to speed through it. That didn't work, and I still wrote plenty about how bad I'd done that week. Thankfully this week was a little better, at least in the areas I'm most focussed on.

1. Much better on the food and drink. Lunch was wrestled back to normal and evening meals continue to be portion controlled.

2. Seven days ago I wrote about my ridiculously bad luck with fake poker. I have admittedly managed to place in a few games since then, but only in games that I definitely should have managed to win given my stack size. In every other game I continue to be beaten by bullshit. It scares me how angry this makes me, because it's so unimportant. I've always had a hard time accepting theory surrounding odds and probability, because frankly on any one occasion the opposite to the expected can easily happen. The theory in poker is that if playing well you should only lose so much of the time. I don't think my play has changed. I've tried loosening and things got worse, but now my tight game is back to delivering me consistent 4th place, which I can't stand. It's so bad that I feel like hitting my laptop when it happens. This is a problem because I have a long history of breaking things out of anger. A lightswitch, countless keyboards from before they were quite so cheap. The remote control for my first little TV hit the wall from 10 feet away. I also punched a hole in a door at my university hall which later cost me £160 to replace. The strange thing is, i've never owned a stress ball! This is all quite irrelevant to the goal, but as you may have noticed I like tangents in these posts. As far as the goal goes, I am still religiously on target.

3. I should have taken my camera out on Saturday night. I could have captured the shitstorm. I also went out on Friday locally with a good group of people, so another opportunity missed, and to be frank, I'm okay with it. I've started to remember some of the things I learned several years ago about how to be a little better in social situations. How I came to forget these things and went back to being the overly shy guy from before those lessons I'm now not sure, but the point here is, the guy constantly snapping photos is annoying people and at the same time not talking to anyone. I don't want to be that guy, so I'm revising this goal yet again. I am now holding myself accountable for taking my camera with me only when I go somewhere I would want to take photos. Whether I'm alone or in a group of any particular size is now irrelevant.

4. Shitstorm. That said, a great weekend. I met loads of people on Friday night all of whom were very welcoming, then saw a lot of existing friends on Saturday. I may have somehow lost one too of course. That remains to be seen. Weeknight activity isn't very likely at the moment as I'm either too tired to suggest going out or wanting to get some exercise. I have to choose and make no apologies for it.

5. Did I actively work for two hours on my music? Hard to say. I did learn I need to keep better track. I definitely spent over one hour trying to become better acquainted with my setup.

6. I asked my manager about work goals. The answer is still no. There are six people directly above me in the company org chart, and I cannot have targets until all of them have targets. I believe we're down to the lower two now so hopefully it won't be too much longer.

7. Still just a potato.

8. As discussed last week, my illness is still wearing off. My throat has not entirely recovered but I do think i'll manage to go for a swim tomorrow. I did cram in a decent ride last week though, which is better than nothing. I'm now gearing up to start doing some longer rides. It's about 12 miles to Hinckley, somewhere I drive regularly for work purposes, so I might try that initially. Must do some work on the bike too though. I doubt once i'm riding on a bare innertube it's going to last very long.

Stupid new goal that I certainly won't be tracking here - Now that Lost is over for 2008, I want to fill the void until it returns. I'm an avid fan of this show. I was surprised to realise that i'd have to watch three episodes a week to get through the show before it returns. More likely i'll spurt and wane, but I think I'll try this. In fact I already started and rewatched part one of the pilot last night. I had completely forgotten how good this first episode was, but at least I can now remember how I got so quickly and deeply hooked. It's kind of hard to accept based on that first 40 minutes that in about 40 days they'll go underground and start typing numbers into a mystical computer.

I had a conversation with somebody who doesn't like the show recently, and his reasoning was that in good sci-fi, boundaries are established. The world may be fictitious, and incredible things may be able to happen, but his assertion seems to be that introducing new rules, quite literally game changers, is not a good thing. I disagree. Whilst I'm nowhere near stupid enough to believe that every idea that crops up was conceived prior to episode one, for me, the story is still weaving together well with these game changers, and I do have some faith that things that we saw two years ago will still be further explained. Polar bear, not so interested in. Swan? Yes. That needs more. I think we're going to get it.

One thing about Freighter survivors though. They were no closer to the island than the chopper which didn't move, and the move clearly didn't take the water (great shot btw), so even if Jin was blown clear of the thing, he sure as shit wasn't any closer to the island when it disappeared 2-3 minutes later, so people's view that he swam back I just can't understand.

That'll do.