December 3rd 2005, 1540B
It’s amazing what you can find hidden away in the dusty corners of your hard disk. I’m busy doing a cleanup at the moment, making sure I’ve got every thing backed up properly before I do a reformat-reinstall, & I came across a collection of “quotes” by “Lazarus Long”, a character from an old Robert Heinlein novel, “Methuselah’s Children”. They’re on all sorts of topics, from sex to religion, via good social conduct, & I’m going to put a few of them down here. If you want the rest, give me a shout & I’ll mail the .doc file to you. Enjoy ;)Always store beer in a dark place.
Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinions about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseam, keep her from drowning them at birth.
Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well.
There is only one way to console a widow. But remember the risk.
When the need arises – and it does – you must be able to shoot your own dog. Don't farm it out – that doesn't make it nicer, it makes it worse.
Sex should be friendly. Otherwise stick to mechanical toys; it's more sanitary.
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.
Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let's play that over again, too. Who decides?
Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the un-traveled, the naive, the unsophisticated, deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, giver orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.
Everybody lies about sex.
You live and learn. Or you don't live long.
Always tell her she is beautiful, especially if she's not.
If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote FOR... but there are certain to be ones you wish to vote AGAINST. In case of doubt, vote AGAINST. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.
If this is too blind for your taste, consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way. This enables you to be a good citizen (if such is your wish) without spending the enormous amount of time on it that truly intelligent exercise of franchise requires.
The greatest productive force is human selfishness.
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors – and miss.
A whore should be judged by the same criteria as other professionals offering services for pay – such as dentists, lawyers, hairdressers, physicians, plumbers, et cetera. Is she professionally competent? Does she give good measure? Is she honest with her clients?
It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And ENORMOUSLY higher than that of professors.
Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfil obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.
But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please – this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up a hundred percent of your time – and squawk for more!
So learn to say No – and to be rude about it when necessary.
Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, nor to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.
(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favour for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be YOURS! Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)
Otherwise, there’s not a whole lot of news from the last few days since I typed something up for this. It’s been a bit rough in that I’ve not been sleeping too well, & for some reason I’ve also been seriously stressed about what happens next if my contract isn’t renewed next year, but I think I’m over the worst of that now. God only knows why I decided to suddenly go into a flat spin about this – I mean, I’ve taken pro-active steps to deal with the situation should it arise, in the short term at least, & frankly they’d be doing me a favour by retrenching me, so what the fuck am I flapping about? I’m not saying there’s no cause for concern, but as far as is possible right now I’m dealing with it, so there’s no point at all in working myself into a lather over this. The human capacity for self flagellation, particularly as it applies to me personally, will never cease to amaze me….
Otherwise, pretty much all else I’ve done the last few days has been work my way through the movies Rob sent up on the external drives for me, though for the most part that was an exercise in killing time rather than something I particularly enjoyed. There’s some very good stuff on the drives – the Firefly episodes for example, which I’m saving for a really shitty day :P – but he also included such gems as Hellboy, which wasn’t an especially fulfilling experience. Still, it helped pass the time, & I’m grateful for that at least lol
I’m also busy working my way through the games he sent up, & finally got around to finishing MOH: Pacific Assault, which wasn’t bad at all. I’m busy – again – with Neverwinter Nights, something which should keep me busy for quite awhile given how many user-mods I’ve downloaded for it, and after that I have Baldurs Gate II to look forward to. Something I’m keen to find out about are the sequels to both titles that I heard rumours about before I came up here, which is another reason I miss having my own net connection – I’m a firm believer in the “Google is your friend” philosophy.
One thing I’ve enjoyed about the last few days has been the greatly improved comms with home, at least by sms. Ash in particular must have spent a bloody fortune on airtime sending text messages to me lately, but I’ve received sms’s from quite a few people lately which I’ve really enjoyed & has also done the sense of humour a lot of good.
Speaking of Ash, unless I’m off with my timing, right now she’s busy with her first paying wedding photography commission. She was a touch nervous about it, but she’s got great talent with a camera, & I gather she put in the preparation and planning time so I’m sure it’s going really well for her. I’d have loved to have been there with her, as I quite enjoyed the “freebies” she did that I tagged along to – even if three weekends of weddings in a row did get a bit much :P – but I guess there’ll be other opportunities for that in the future. My own photography is going through a serious slump phase right now, & I’ve hardly even looked at the camera in over a month now, so I could do with something like helping Ash out at a wedding to get me back into the swing of things. I’m probably just tired of pointing a lens at the Burundians – have I mentioned they’re getting seriously on my tits lately? – but I’m worried that I’m going to get out of the habit completely before too much longer if I don’t start taking photos again. The break in Jan/Feb should provide plenty of opportunities for fun with a camera though, & I hope you’re all prepared for a flash going off in your face on a regular basis while I’m home ;)
I’m going to end this off for now though, so that I can go feed my caffeine addiction. I’ll be heading back to
Cheers for now though ;)
1 comment:
It was great to hear your voice again Ian. I miss you so much. Thank you for the phone call.
Keep safe.
*BEEEEEG HUGS*
xxx
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