02.09.2003 - 12:15 p.m.

I'm often accused of being "on drugs" by my cow-orkers because I'm happy, occasionally bouncy and generally optimistic ( after coffee intake, before then I'm snappy, surly and find everything hard work ) I'm sure they don't read this dairy and therefore know the truth, but they're equally not shy about making wild assumptions about someone according to their narrow standards.

This bouncyness is a physical by-product of my fertile imagination as it hops from one thing to the next ( the trip between desk - photocopier - fax machine is so boring I have to fill the time with something interesting ), I usually have at least six or more 'mind threads' going at any one time, and how many are about work varies through the day.

This incidentally is a ~much harped upon~ difference between men and women, some women claim proudly that while they "can multitask a million different things, not limited to a career, babies, families and the results thereof" men can only focus on a single thought process therefore women are better than men, while the men, bored to tears about hearing how women are better than men are ignoring them and devoting their huge amounts of processing power in a focused beam of concentration to get past level 38 of "DeathMatch 2085" on their playstations, it may not seem very interesting "playing a stupid game" to the gossip crew but it's better than the real world and hearing how lame we are, we'd ask those same women to get us past level 38 but they're so physically uncoordinated its painful to watch.

The women in my office may be able to multitask but I've never seen them do it, and their inate abilities doesn't stop them getting confused when they are trying to do too many things at once and then they default to whining and bitching ( which is the norm for them ) about the person who gave them the work or asked them to complete it or anyone else but themselves.

I can't actually 'do' multitasking, I can do 'packet switching' which looks alot like multitasking but means I only have to concentrate on one thing at a time, albeit for a few minutes, this has allowed me to appear like some kind of multibrained octopus in clearing a broad swathe of work in one go. Go me.

Some of those mind threads are usually a product of my whims and desires, such as yesterday : I wonder what's going on at the north pole ?

Such is the wonder of the age we live in that from my comfy chair and capacious desk I was able to have a look from a webcam at the north pole Here Unfortunately it was snowing at the north pole and the snow had piled up over the webcam window, no polar bears for me then, undeterred this led me to :

Well if the north pole is all snowy how about the south pole ?

So I went Here and it was dark, proper antarctic winter nighttime dark. So penguins are off the list too.

I was on a roll now, I think there is a webcam on the top of Everest but I can't find the address ( I still can't find an address so here is a Picture instead ) So I gave up on earth and had a look at the sun Here, the sun wasn't doing anything special although you can get alerts for really good aurora events if you live far enough north to see them.

Back on earth again, and since the Captain had mentioned the 32.c waters around thailand ( and not finding anything else ) I had a look at live reporting buoys dotted around the deep seas Here, not exactly thrilling like stealing cars or shooting cops, but as brain food it's fairly nourishing.

I like living now, in this day and age; the news was talking how all the 'baby boomers' are now behaving very differently from their parents, they're not so worried about a 'job for life' and the security it brings, they're more likely to take risks and not worry about how they will be doing ten years down the line. I think is due to having soooo many options open to us that we don't feel the need to fill a niche until we die, you can chop and change until you find something you like, ahhh the freedom, doesn't it smell nice ? I can have a look in real(ish)time at the state of the sun or the sea state in the caribbean or hunt for penguins in their own habitat, all from my chair while drinking coffee and making crap double entendres about the office mouth-noise that goes on incessantly here.

Feed your mind.

Cut through the crap.

Direct yourself to a state of happiness, you can't rely on anyone to do it for you.

ps. the first bit isn't a rant at women in general ( before you get all snotty ) it's just pointing out what has been said over and over and over in the eternal ( and pointless ) struggle between the sexes, I don't care either way what is said by either side because it's not going to affect me in the slightest, I'd like to see all the rampant feminists and the equally rampant women-haters ( and anyone else who's annoying me at the time ) locked in an arena type situation and forced to both fight huge robotic tigers with laser-web guns for eyes and atomic powered, rocket death-bats that fire from the tiger's mouths.

Now that's entertainment.