to lose twenty pounds

I've gained twenty pounds before, I've spent twenty pounds, I've eaten twenty pounds, and god knows I've drank twenty pounds. But never, until tonight, have I lost twenty pounds. Perhaps it's my niavity, maybe I'm just too nice, maybe I was just drunk, but he got me.

"Do you have change for a twenty?"
"no"
"Are you sure? I really need to catch that..."
"pretty sure, but lets see... I have fifteen... and seventeen... nineteen... fifty... ninety..."
"Oh that'll do"
I hand him the change, he hands me the "twenty". But just as he handed me the "money" I noticed something. It didn't feel right and I didn't see the sparkle of the security band. Before I could look up he was gone. On closer inpection there was no hollogram, or watermark either. I'd been had.

At first I was mad, but that quickly dissapated. More was that I felt stupid, but still wiser for the experience. The bill will be pinned to my board as a stern reminder of the pitfalls of curtesy and kindness. Possibly I could try to rationalize it that it was surely someone more sorely off then myself that took advantage of my trusting nature and that my money will actually do more good then contribute to my future cerosis(never mind the spelling, I'm too lazy/drunk to care) but really it will probably only contribute to someone elses liver problems. I wish I could promise that it won't happen again, but I refuse to compromise my ideals of humanity. I prefer to remain nieve and be fleeced then to grow calous and lose my humanity/maners.

hitlercats?

http://hitlercats.motime.com I don't even know whether I should comment on this or not... I just think it's rather frightening to think that there are people out there with more time on their hands then me, seriously. I nearly have 1000 words of my dissertation complete!

I now have no one on my floor

I currently have two people sleeping on my floor...

Rome

or not... but anyways. I just got back late lastnight(early this morning) from three days in Rome. It's good times, I recommend it to anyone but I thought it interesting. It's basically this, Rome is a living stereotype. Everything I'd heard or thought it meant to be Italian was in Rome it's kinda strange. We had a nice room(Jason and I) paid too much for it but it was still nice. I guess I'm getting to a point where I like to enjoy some of the basic amenities if I can, even if I have to spend a couple extra bucks, but it was only for two nights. I'm not sure what else to tell you... I saw most of the sights, possibly saw the pope, I'm not really sure. We were at St Peter's which didn't look like what I expected it to, but anyways, there had been some sort of event just before we arrived and at one point there was a little golf cart driving around with a guy in white in the back. He probably wasn't Benidict but I like to think it might have been. It was pretty fast and furious, I have some pictures though nothing incredible. I bought a bottle of Grappa in the airport... I think that's about all I have. It was good times hanging out with Jason, he's currently in Dublin but will be coming to London monday or tuesday. Yep... that's about it. I'm sure I'll come up with something more interesting when there's been a little more distance between Roma and I.

I have come upon an intreaguing coicidence. It turns out that I seem to be most productive with regards to my dissertation when I also need to go to the washroom. It concerns me that my dissertation may just unfold to be almost literally full of shit.

I recently visited a married couple who had recently been blessed with a brand new bouncing baby girl. Despite all the wonder that a newvorn child represents the experience has renewed the sentiment that it will be a long while before I have children, even if you ignore the inherent logistical problems.

just another day

well the weather's been nice for that past couple days. Unfortunately I have enough self-control to be able to keep myself from enjoying it much(limiting my basking in the park to a little while on the walk home from the gym) as punishment for my lack of direction with regards to my dissertation. On the other hand I've also swallowed my guilt(again with regards to my dissertation) and booked a flight to Rome, for a couple days to meet up with the little Bro. Should be a good time, I leave the morning of the 13th and arrive around noon, meet Jason, then hang out until 10pm on the 15th when I head back home to continue hitting my head against the wall in the hopes of striking inspiration.
I've been meeting with various people and discussing the dissertation but I only seem to leave the conversations doubting myself and usually more confused then when I entered. It seems that all my interests seem to have an element of abition, that is that I seem to find interests that like to spiderweb and become unmanageable for a master's dissertation, of would just have to be a really good master's dissertation(citations up the wazzoo, and so densely worded that I'm not sure I could actually understand it). I like to think I could handle it but if I weren't able to do it, it would be a big fall. Which leads back to the question I've been asking constantly for the past three years. Is it better to play it safe and live in mediocraty or to take the big risk and either fail horribly or win gloriously? Another problem and probably a more important problem is the possibility of getting into blackbox science(you have a blackbox that does something... say cookies come out one end of it as you put shoes in the other end. You can't open the box and there's no way of seeing into it. So there's no way of proving what's actually happening, so one could say there are knomes which take the footwear as payment for baking their unusually sweet faeces and it would be as good as any other theory you could come up with.) at the same time though, I'm not sure it would be all that bad to do blackbox science. I think I should ask my supervisor. Damn, I like mustard.
One bright note is that I'll be relying on some Blackbox theories to justify the idea of the "absolute man". Unfortunately for you my paranoia has gotten the best of me and I don't feel comfortable spilling the beans of my thesis to the grand unknown of the internet aether. There's a nice photo of the sunset up at the cottage, I know it's probably nothing you haven't seen before but it's better then nothing. At least it brightens the place up some. I think now I'll contemplate having a shower seeing I just returned from the gym. Hopefully I'll return with good news soon.