Entry 000176; 01.10.04

You know, I've never seen that option before, but the line that reads "close group" when you right click the browser group on the task bar is a HORRIBLE IDEA. Under no circumstances would I want to just close every single browser window I have open without looking at any of them. Even if they were mostly popups, I guarantee you that I would want to look at at least the page that had spawned them. I had about a 5 paragraph entry written, complete with big words that I have never used before, plus another ingenious word that I had just made up, and they were just gone, like that, because I accidentally clicked on a dumb option that was put there without my consent.

Bastards.

Anyway, since this thing is written for personal records and I know myself well, I can just start out where I was last, and rely on my future self to recall the points that I had made as a prelude to the following. Also, I've always found that the accidental deletion of my writing has had nothing but positive effects - the second time around is always cleaner, with more direct statements and quips, and tends to contain more integrity. In fact, never write 'second-drafts' of things, but instead let the first draft sit at the bottom of the page while I completely re-write something with no reference to the first draft. Very rarely do I ever find anything worth copying in the first draft.

So to recap for when I am senile:

1. When it is cold, I cannot imagine being warm.

2. When it is hot, I cannot imagine it being cool.

3. I am evidently pretty forgetful and unimaginative.

4. When I am busy, I wish for boredom.

5. When I am bored, I wish for busyness.

6. I have not been bored for over 10 years.

7. I complain to the point where being a complainer defines my situation in life.

And onward.

So since the point is that I am a whiny, screechy snivlet, and since being so most defintely lessens the quality of my life, the obvious solution is to quit complaining. This thought has occured to me, and I use the term 'occur' strongly, since it has only done so in passing, without any real endurance. The reason for this is that if I want to really make this worth doing, I would have to go all the way. Not only would I have to stop verbally complaining, but I would also have to stop thinking in the negative way that spawns the complaint - and to change the way one things requires a good deal more brain energy than I have had at my disposal as of the latest 10 years, since I have spent all of that time being too busy to be bored.

Therein lies the solution - I can use this brief time of boredom to concentrate my energy not on sleeping and eating, but on realigning my thought processes. This sounds tedious and horrible, yes, but it's not like I have anything less tedious and horrible to do in the meanwhile.

To start, I would have to convince myself that the way I think now is illogical - that is, it is inefficient, untrue, or flawed. To do so I would pick an example, say, my living situation.

I once pointed out to Nathan that we always got so excited right before a move because we were so sure that the next place we were to live would be so much better than the place we were in at the time. I wasn't thinking this completely out, and said it more as an example of us acting like foolish grass-is-greener pack animals than as a remark on ourselves. Whenever we were going was a step towards progress, were we just fooling ourselves? Some places, at the time, seemed much worse than prior arrangements. This was a worry - would we truly never be happy where we were? Would we always be reaching for a different situation? This was a depressing thought.

"No," said Nathan, "I think we've upgraded every time." And with that, the worries were gone. I suppose we had. To illustrate this, I shall make a graph.

Actually, I made three graphs. It was rather fun. Unfortunately I don't know how to make a gif in illustrator, so this is paintshop quality. Onto the information!"

Information #1 . . .

As you can see here, the overall roomate situation, while going downhill for the first 4 years or so, actually does portent a bright and shiny future. The colored bars pertaining to each living situation give a range of the roomates I was forced to interact with in each place. In Sanford Riley, I had to deal with Tomato Ben, but I got a vapid boy-toy for my personal use. At 9 Goulding I got filthy stinky roomates, but Robert was easy to deal with, while Liam made me want to burn things...Mom's house had Tino and...Mom. Dad's house actually deserves a location below the x-axis, but for sake of summary reasons we shall leave him and Kris at "must die." I have no problems with Dan and Sarah, and in fact think Sarah is super-awesome. I wish I was just like her. In the future home, I hope to have Nathan, me, and a baby kitty, which makes it in the "awesome" range, but not too far away since Nathan's stinky friends will be there (and while they themselves are not bad, anyone who finds Nathan a pleasant person to be around does not own a bar of soap or a stick of deoderant). And in our future high-tech flying spacecraft uber-home, It will be me, Nathan, and a load of baby kitties, thereby capping the extended future at al all-time extended high.

Information #2 . . .

In the second super-information visual, we see the commuting situation. While it is true that indeed, it has gotten worse, there is at least the possibility of it getting better. And thinking that the possibilities lean towards the "awesome" side rather than the "must die" side is one step towards thinking in a non-complaintive way. The important thing to realize is that after the move to our first future home, I will have some control over the institutions that I travel between.

Information #3 . . .

Here it is, ladies and gentlemen, the place where it all comes together. The overall livability of a place. This means I have complete control over my surroundings - I don't have to worry about picking up after filthy roomates, or stressing about being too messy for idiot robots. I will have room for all of my stuff, and no longer, in the future, will I have to travel 50+ miles to look for something I need in a box, which is located in an attic, in someone else's home, who likes to periodically leave the door locked. This, as we see, is defintely taking a turn for the better, as we go from "living out of a drawer and a car in sanford riley" to "living in a basement" to "living in a high tech superhome with an excellent darkroom and a robot butler and poolboy with a cute ass."

So as we see here, I have taken the first step towards thinking positively and not complaining. I have proven here that things are going to get better. This positive-thinking gives me little to complain about, if you ignore the fact that we are not, in fact, in the "positive" spectrum part quite yet.