Apr 23, 2010

Great Temptations

Well, as days go by I realize more and more that I just don't seem able to keep up with the entry-a-day rhythm I had once. Not that I wouldn't like to, but Hell, I just don't get there. Another annoying thing that happens to me, maybe it happens to others, is that the best ideas come when I can't write them down, such as when I'm rushing in the morning to get the bus. Others, then, are a bit sensitive issues that I rather don't vent "publicly", so there goes a great topic, awesome, juicy, filled with the matter good gossip is made of, BUT it can't be published. Now, if you've read me long enough I would see that often what people would think means squat to me, BUT then there are cases, sensitive cases that, in the name of the World Peace Illusion and the Greater Good, are better filed away, mayde scribbled in my personal journal and stashed where no one would ever see it.

It is Friday, and that by no chance means that I have less work. If anything I've more work. Yesterday I took a load home to check it over, and to my greatest annoyment discovered that some m.f.s completely disregarded the corrected document I sent them, document I corrected instead of sending them the list of things to be done on it, and yet the maggots gave a flying squat about the whole thing and kept all their outrageous mistakes in. How outrageous? Well, let me give you an example (the topic and matters, of course, are changed to protect the innocent): They have a bakery where they did bread. They bought a machine that would help them to make not only bread but also different types of pastry. The machine never worked, so they can't offer pastry. Never could and never will. So they say in their proposal: "we can't make pastry because the machine doesn't work". A paragraphy later, and then all over the document, at least three times they say "if the buyer want's pastry, we can give them pastry thanks to our new machine". Oh yeah, the machine was bought like seven years ago. Hell, some people are simple stupid.

But lets not talk about stupid people because though we do need to blow some steam out, in the end talking so much about them is just annoying, even if it is often so needed, and almost quite tempting to do so. From time to thime, though, it can be strangely amusing, like when you sit with your friends around some drinks and talk about how stupid this or that person is, or tell stories about abhorrently stupid people you know and they don't,or the other way around. Why do we do that? Because something good must come out of those s.o.b.s, whether they like it or not.

A temptation of a more positive kind came my way Today in the form of an advertizing e-mail from my favorite bookstore. It was Book Day, and for each like $9 you spend in books, they give you one book free. Oh dear, do you know, are you aware of what could that do to my finances? Not to mention to my dear Kari, who was happily celebrating that we had shipped over to Hungary already pretty much all my books!

It is (not) evil, and I must (try to) fight it. Resist temptation! But it is difficult. Though then again comes to my mind the case of the books I've been buying and reading recently, and how they turn out to be a waste of money and time, and a hideous slaying of trees.

This is the point where I find the counter answer to lord Henry Wotton's famous words in Dorian Grey about how the only way to get rid of temptation is yielding to it. Well, if you wish to get rid of temptation (and it works like a charm with some types of temptations - hasn't been proved in all of them) a very effective way is to rationalize it. This basically means that given the fact that I haven't found so far anything to my liking, my real liking, in the volumes I've bought (though I still have to plunge into Solstorm), so going there and rushing into a lot of unknown, un-referenced books would be a silly move. What to do then? Well, though a few extra books to my lot wouldn't hurt (much), truth is that I buy books to enjoy them, and so, in order to avoid bad experiences, if I decide to go, then I should go looking only for certain books, certain "lines", so to say. Now, many of us often do that, but then we allow other books to seduce us. That shall be avoided at all costs. Sure, some of them happen to be good books, but I have been running lately into so many lame ones that I just don't want to get burned again.

So, when Great Temptations strike, hit them back with Great Expectations. You'll see that most of the times these Great Temptations are not up for the challenge.

I guess I'll still stop by, check the supply, see if I find anything fitting, but I won't wolf on the books.

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