Sanity

I have plotted my sanity over time for a typical work week. Is it coincidence that I did this during a mid-morning sanity trough?

Compass time

Esteemed political correspondent Joel has come out of exile to give us some valuable insight into his political leanings. For those of you who had given up hope that he would ever post again, and therefore haven’t seen this post, I have reproduced the results below:

Proof finally that Joel is indeed a militant naysayer.

Out of interest, I also took the test.

Oh no! I’m a militant fence sitter! If only I was more religious, then I could have scraped into the Militant Yes-Man category.

Worst test ever.

Whirly Background Thing

Apparently it’s really easy to create cool whirly fractal backgrounds with the GIMP. So I tried it out.

Cue denigrating comments from Joel…

God 1 - 0 Ukranian “Daniel”

A lion killed a man who climbed into its enclosure in the Ukrainian capital’s zoo, police said today.

The lion attacked the 45-year-old Ukrainian late yesterday after he used a rope to climb down into an enclosure with four lions, said Kiev police spokesman Volodymyr Polishchuk.

He said the man, who was not identified, was acting aggressively and the lion seized him by the throat. The man, an ethnic Azerbaijani, died at the scene.

Ukrainian TV channel NTN broadcast interviews with witnesses who said the man told them that he wanted to test God, believing that God would not allow the lions to hurt him.

Zoo officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Apparently God wasn’t in the lion’s den with this wannabe Daniel. It’s a pity - if he survived he could have gone on to be eaten by a whale, thrown into a furnace and then as a finale, parted the Red Sea and led the Egyptian slaves to freedom!

Dumbarse

Pondering A Presentation

I have finally discovered the problem inherent in trying to prepare for presentations, vis, why I’m never prepared.

When you’ve got a 20 page report due in, say, 10 hours, you can quantify how much work needs to be done. 2 pages an hour, you say to yourself. You can then bash together the work, and by 9am, you’ve got something to hand in. If you didn’t do the work, you’d have nothing to hand in. Simple.

When you’re giving a presentation, you don’t have this impetus. I finished my slides yesterday - they had to be in by 2pm today. My problem now is, I don’t quite know enough of the details to be able to talk about what I’ve written in my headings.

I could do all the preparation in the world tonight, and what would I have to show for it tomorrow? Bupkiss.

If I do absolutely no preparation, I also have nothing to show for it, but at least I get a good night’s sleep.

Herein lies the problem. Without something solid that I need to hand in, I lose all motivation to do any work. Obviously I will go better if I prepare. If I read up about the topic, work out what I’m going to say, even (heaven forbid) rehearse my presentation, I’ll be raring and ready to go.

But…. If I sleep, I’ll wake up the next morning with a fresh mind, a positive attitude, and hey, maybe I’ll just get lucky and spout accurate enough bullshit to convince every who’s there that I know what I’m talking about.

If I stay up all night working, I might sleep in and miss the presentation altogether.

I’m on fifth… So there’s four other presentations during which I can bone up. 45 minutes or so. Easy!

Now you see my dilemma. Basically, I’m stuffed. There’s no way that the “sleep now, work later” theory can help me, but it just sounds so convincing that I’ll at least give it a go. I’m my own worst enemy.

Goodnight.

Knock-Off Time

There comes a stage in the evening when you start to realise that no matter how much you stare at the same report, the next few paragraphs aren’t going to write themselves. At this stage you need to make a choice: try and put your head down, make up some crap, and then plow through for a couple of hours; or simply give up and go to bed. I am taking option 2. Goodnight.

Dynamic Inventor

Do this test and they give you some weird coloured square. Exciting times.