AudioBlogger Rocks!!

Podcasts and Bipolar

Now it's podcasts. Man, these things are incredible. Just one more reason for me to get that 60gb iPod. Here's why they're so awesome, especially if you're BiPolar:

• My moods aren't scheduled like a radio station. Just cos the DJ is feeling upbeat, or the Talk Host is feeling morbid, doesn't mean I am too. With podcasts I can download a whole bunch of totally different stuff and match my own mood and contents.
• Listening to Podcasts is much more mobile than watching video or tv. Ok so everyone's buzzing about handheld video devices but for me personally IT's ALWAYS BETTER ON THE BIG SCREEN. Handheld video is just totally overrated. Who the fck wants to watch anything on a 4 inch screen??
• I can listen to podcasts while I'm driving and sitting in traffic. No can do with video.
• When you're feeling really blue and not up to reading, TV etc. you can just lie in bed and switch up your podcast. Somehow it just seems less effort than watching TV. Hey, you can even close yr eyes. And if the podcast is related to your industry you can even put it down to a productive day!
• Because it's so dang easy to make a podcast these days, there are 1000s around catering for every little nich you might imagine. Granularity delux. Listen to EXACTLY what interests you.

Hey, I'm even toying with the idea of dovetailing a "BiPolar Weekly" podcast with this blog. Then you'all can listen to my weird South African accent rather than sit reading this text to yrselves from the friggin cmptr screen. Much more cosy don't u think?

In the Dumps

Feel like I actually never woke up 100% today. Round about 55% maybe. Work is just not gonna happen. I hope to fck this latest streak of blues is just a temporary blimp on the otherwise excellent month.

Even my playing around with customizing Google Home Page went all fckn wrong. Great concept I thought and started adding modules and modules and modules. But I ran into trouble early. First was the Stock Chart module which gives a neat little graph of whatever stock it is you're watching. All you have to do is add the 4 letter stock symbol. Fine. Problem is I want to watch the price of Brent Crude. If there is one financial indicator which has the greatest influence on the planet right now it's the oil price. And you don't need to major in economics to work that one out. SO WHAT THE FCK IS THE 4 LETTER CODE FOR BRENT CRUDE???? About 50 google searches later, a cupple yahoo searches and even some MSN searches I had managed to find the 4 letter symbol for every fkcn stock on the NYSE. Oil Price? Not a fck.

Wanna make money? Set up a website selling any damn thing you want and laden it it with these keywords: "STOCK CHART SYMBOL BRENT CRUDE".

Next was the little live weather module. Just enter your city. Cape Town...easy. "Information not available". Probably the guys that designed this little widget have never even heard of Cape Town.

Then there was the del.icio.us module. I just wanted the link to del.icio.us NOT 4 LINES OF GODDAM top del.icio.us tags in the last hour!!!!! And why the fck isn't there a blogger module so I can post striaght from my homepage to Blogger???

OK so the webcam module is really cool. Realtime photos of whatever you want right there on your homepage. Problem is: I don't use a webcam.

And then it dawned on me: I can never switch home pages even if I wanted to. My homepage points at my commercial site (the one that's gonna sell for a million bucks remember). Gotta monitor it all times, no matter how right google gets their one together.

Go Ogle people. Go Ogle. And Live on OD.



Oh yeah, and click on "view this on your mobile" (on the google personalised home page and you get:


Google

Error

Not FoundThe requested URL /mobile/personalized/promo.html was not found on this server.

Sloppy Larry, real sloppy...

Uncertainty

Been a Pretty Shitty weekend so far. Spent most of yesterday horizontal. No energy. Total boredom, everything seeming like a total schlepp. Miss L going to Johannesburg for the weekend didn't help either - a certain vitality missing in the air.

Finally last night the mood started to turn. I was listening to Queen. I've overplayed Queen a bit in my life but there's no denying that these guys were super polished. The week Freddy Mercury died, I was living in London and I remember Queen songs emanating from evey pub, flat and shopfront for an entire week.

Then Mrs M and I watched the DVD "Quills". All about the infamous Marquis de Sade, the master writer of erotica and perversion from a former century. Good movie and good cast. Michael Caine, River Phoenix and Kate Winslett. Kate really does it for me, the epitomy of voluption, so it was kinda kinky seeing her in an erotica movie.

The big thing that has derailed my incredible progress over the past month has undoubtedly been the possible business sale that has entered my ballpark. With so much unpredicatable change in my BiPolar life, I find that I need routine and a clearly mapped-out future to work towards. Much more so than non-BiPolar folk. So when an event comes along that can completely alter the course of your life, turn all the carefully established routine on it's head and obliterate any cherished roadmaps, it's not surprising my world falls apart. Uncertainty is like poison to me.

Hand-in-hand with uncertainty goes indecision. More poison. The "should I stay or should I go?" theme ricochettes around my head like a manic pingpong ball.

Right now I'm wanting this sale to go ahead. I kept telling myself that this business had a huge invisible premium for me because it is BiPolar friendly (not easy to find). But then I realised that been in so much damn debt as I am also has a huge invisible downside. BiPolars, of all people, should not get themselves into debt.

So I want my million. A buck in the hand is worth ten in the bush. Which is now putting even more stress on me. Kinda like been told that you're in the final 2 for a lottery payout but you'll only get final confirmation some time in the next 3 weeks. "We can't tell you when - it could be tomorrow, it could be in 20 days time".

Not a calm place to be...

Breather

I'm down today. In "Pretty-Shitty" territory. It really shouldn't come as a surprise. The BIG surprise is for how long I've managed to ward the blues off.

Besides the inevitability of hitting downs now and then (I'm BiPolar remember), I think this whole business sale thing has stressed me more than I've shown on the outside. It's starting to open up a whole lot of questions and doubts. Like:

• If I sell, and my next business idea doesn't work - what then?
• It's taken me 5 years to finally find a little niche for myself in the career world. It's a unique business which synchs perfectly with my BiPolar lifestyle. Will I find this again?
• I've got at least another 30 years of work ahead. Is a million bucks worth throwing that away?
• My business is just starting to pay back - why the heck give someone else the benefit now?

The more I think of it, the more I'm wishing that the life-changing phonecall had never happened. Things were getting on just great.

Ah well, weekend coming up. I'm gonna be doing some research for the BiPolar Carnival which I'll be hosting Saturday week. I've gotten pretty out of touch with my fellow BiPolar bloggers. This, I must admit, was by design. I've finally realised that to wake up every day reminding myself that I'm a BiPOlar sufferer (and spending all my reading time immersed in BiPolar) is not a good thing. Kind of like a cancer patient waking up every day and saying "I've got cancer, I've got cancer, I've got cancer".

But I'm looking forward to getting back in touch on the weekend (providing "Pretty Shitty" doesn't stop me).

Half the Picture

A Strong Position

There's been rain aplenty down here in Cape Town, and our little river which only started flowing about a month ago (see here) , is no longer jump-over-able. So on days when it isn't warm enough to go barefoot I've started wearing my rubber boots. I could always just walk the other way, but I only get to the best part of the beach by crossing the stream.

I've been suprisingly steady during all of these biz negotiations. Probably because I'm in such a strong position. They approached me to buy, not me approaching them to sell, which immediately puts me on the front foot. And I don't mind if the sale doesn't go through. OK, so they're a mega corporation and can probably throw a bit of money at press and TV advertising that BPG can't. But that kind of advertising is useless on the Neb. You need live links that take you there OneClick, not "see-the-advert-on-tv" -> "remember the name" -> "go-to-the-cmptr" -> "type-in-the-name" -> FINALLY get there. And when it comes to online advertising I can easily match them.

Also: they're gonna take at least 3 months to get to market, and you can betcha bottom rupee that I'm not gonna be sleeping during those 3 months. The timing has been very fortuitous for me - I've recently latched onto a longterm up-cycle and I can easily ratchet my productivity up by 30%. They, on the other hand, are gonna have to employ someone to run their show, for a salary. Now who's gonna do better - a guy that's just there for the salary, or a guy who has his whole future invested in this thing? And there's nothing like a little stiff competition to raise BPG's ballgame.

In fact, if they don't decide to buy me now, I wouldn't be surprised if they're forced to buy me out a year down the line at DOUBLE the price!

Listening to Seal right now. Man, this dude is under-rated. Unique voice, great beat.

Have a cool day...

Negotiations

Mrs M and I saw The da Vinci Code last night. Real let down. I really loved the book, especially since I had previous personal interests in Fibonnaci Numbers, gnosticism, symbolism and early church history. (Hey, in my last truly manic episode I even emailed Dan Brown urging him to listen to my discoveries on the Freemasons).

But a book like this cannot be squeezed into a movie. An 8 part mini-series maybe, but not Hollywood format. Having said that, the producers certainly won't lose on their bet - millions who read the book will flock to see the movie for themselves, crap or not-crap.

The negotiations for the sale of my business to this international co. has reached a very interesting point. They need more info to decide a price. I need some definite commitment before divulging valuable info. I mean, shit, these guys have stated up-front that if they don't buy me out they're gonna get into the exact same market themselves. Why the fck should I give them all the info and then they turn round and say thanks, but no thanks, we won't be buying your biz.

A chicken and egg situation. OK, so they offered to sign an NDA. Big fckn deal. An NDA is designed for when you have a unique idea that the other party is unlikely to be privy to. Not for when you're dealing with a direct fckn competitor! They obviously think BPG is green in these matters.

Not a fck. So what I'm doing is giving them some very ball-park details and figures of my operation, enough for them to decide if they want to seriously proceed or not. And I'm gonna give them my price. Then, if they're serious and need more info, they must put 50 000 bucks into my attorney's account. If they buy, the 50k will be used towards the purchase price. If they don't the 50k goes to BPG and they can put it down to fckn R&D.

Don't like it? Lump it!

Hectic

Things are pretty busy down here in Cape Town. This international company has been talking to me again today and they're serious about a purchase of my website business. All that seems to be left is price negotiations.

Which means that for the next week I'm gonna be running around like a blu-arse fly. Number crunching, projections, presentations (paper presentations, not in-person ones, which BPG doesn't do).

My meditation has gone for a ball of shit. I'm still doing it - sitting there for 25 minutes a day, but my mind is just all over the place. I'm not gonna forget what meditation has done for me this year. So I'm sure as hell not going to ditch it. If this sale goes thru I've promised myself to take my arse off to the Buddhist Retreat Centre for 5 days, and get some total focus back.

Spending Spree Justification

OK, so I've been pretty up for a while and yes, with BiPolars, that always gives one an itch to buy stuff. Buy, buy, buy...

But tell me if this isn't a rational justification for purchasing my 30gig iPod:

If I get an ipod this is what happens:

• I don't have to replace my broken old discman - R 500 (prices in SA currency)
• I don't have to get a bigger external hardrive to back up on. It no longer fits everything anymore (especially with the 25 gigs of music I've recently downloaded) - R 800
• I don't have to get another compact flash disk for my digi camera. With a little gadget on the ipod you can download straight onto the ipod - R 800
• I don't have to replace the CD player in my car. Can just plug the iPod in - R 900
• I've got a credit note at the local store which I'll end up spending on something I don't need. Use it for the iPod purchase and I save - R 400
• I don't have to burn all my music to disc - 50 disks - R 100
• I don't have to fiddle every day with which music I'm gonna listen to. 5 minutes a day = 35 minutes a week = 30 hours a year @ R 250 an hour (what my time is worth) = R 8 750
• Having every kind of music at my fingertips is bound to help me with mood management and become a helluva lot more productive - priceless (but we won't add this one to the numbers)

Total money saved = R 12 250
Cost of iPod = R 3000

PROFIT = R 9 250.

Tell me a better ivestment!

(ps when my dictaphone breaks down I won't need to buy another one - just get a plug-on for the iPod. Another R 600!)

Some Clarification

BPG's web interests:

• www.theWORDproject.com : going since 2000. Online portfolio of concrete poetry
• 3 X Commercial websites : this is my "career", the work I struggle to do on Pretty-Shitty days.
• BiPolar Daily: daily crap, recently graduating to daily(ISH).

The websites that have been targeted by large potential buyers are the 3 commercials sites. I don't think theWORD project would sell for $100. As for BP Daily...well, I won't even go there.

I've been playing down my interest in selling today. Was meant to send the Bus Dev Manager some details, but decided I wouldn't, as I don't want them to think I'm a pushover. That way I'll get a better price.

Truth is: I'm not that keen to sell. The sites DO have potential and 2 years of hard work (on "In-the-Pink" days anyway) is starting to pay off. Besides, I've sold a business before and although the huge whack of cash is great in the beginning you're left wondering what you're going to do for a career after a year or 2.

The only reason I will consider selling (price depending of course) is because I've got a STUPENDOUS idea for another website. I've already got the domain, sketched out the basic functionality and run it past my developer. And this site will be pure web 2.0, unlike my existing commercial sites which are pretty much web 1.25, a little up from web 1.0, but really zero innovation.

And this new site I reckon I'll be able to sell out for BEEG, BEEG dollars about 18 months down the line. I mean BEEG enough to truly retire.

But I'm not losing sight that the whole thing could backfire. A sale may not materialise, which means that these potential buyers may wind up being direct competitors. Nothing like a large international company VERSUS BiPolar Guy to conjure up some stress.

So here's hoping...

A life-changing phonecall

Potentially anyway.

11h30 am. An incoming business email:

"Hi Chris

Please phone me about business opportunities with regards to your websites"

The sender is a business development manager at the South African office of a large international co. (I mean LARGE).

BPG is fairly excited. Maybe he'll land a good advertising contract. 2 pm he phones the manager.

Manager: "Hi, and thanks for getting back to me. Do you know anything about our co.?"
BPG: "yes blah, blah"
Manager: "Well this is just an exploratory call but I wanted to let you know that our co. is moving into your space. So we're either gonna end up competitors, or maybe come to some kind of collaboration"
BPG: "Blah, Blah"
Manager: "We're gonna be moving quickly all that's left for us to decide is whether to build or buy"

Bottom line: "Are you interested in selling BPG?". Turns out they're pretty keen to buy me out, and from the way the talk went they're talking telephone numbers.

More 2morro. At present I'm running around getting my geese in a row...

It Worked

It was a perfect day today, crisp and clear (unlike yesterday which, as you can see in this pic, was cold, grey and misty) (my photos are usually a day late).

So this morning we had Mother's Day celebrations all round. My Mom. Mrs M's Mom. And of course Mrs M herself (now that we've got Miss L living with us).

By afternoon time it was the perfect day just to chill out, soak up the winter sunshine with some cool lounge music vibing in the background. Not a fck. BPG was in his office working his butt off. And I'm so pleased I did.

I recently realised that the one foolproof surefire way for me to get depressed is to contemplate my dire financial situation and my struggle to get on top of my work. I remember thinking at the time: I wish there was something I could focus on equally and be always guaranteed a lift. Well there is: DO THE FRIGGIN' WORK! Gauranteed High afterwards.

I never liked Maggie Thatcher, silly old bat, but this quote by her rung very true for me today:

"Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s a day when you’ve had everything to do, and you’ve done it." ~ Margaret Thatcher ~

Quips of the Week

Whilst playing darts:
BPG (to Mrs M): "So what are you aiming for?"
Mrs M: "The board"

Teaching Miss L Algebra:
Miss L: "But why can't I just add the Xs and the Ys?"
Mrs M: " Because they're different things. Like apples and oranges. You can't just add apples and oranges"
Miss L: "Why not?"
Mrs M: "Well what would you call them?"
Miss L: "Fruit"

Read on an email:
"When all is said and done -
more is said than done"

New interests

My music splurge continues. Once again the genre has taken a 180 degree flip. Now it's electronica with Thievery Corporation, The Chemical Brothers and Zero 7 leading the charge. I love that deep chilled bass.

Having been cucooned in BiPolar interests for the best part of the year, and now deciding to break out of the cucoon, I was faced with some interesting choices. What am I really interested in? This was all the more difficult to answer when I found myself sitting at Bloglines.com faced with a choice of many million blogs to choose to read. Such a HUGE choice man, every little niche interest in the world catered for. It is pretty disconcerting when you're faced with so much choice. You just don't know where the fck to start until you're left wondering if you actually have anything that you're passionate about at all.

Anyhow I've finally found some things that I am majorly interested in (at the moment anyway):

• Blogging and RSS
• New developments at Google
• Latest gadgets
• Philosophical viewpoints and analysis on the webbed world
• Web 2.0 sites
• Transhumanism (this is the convergence of man and cmptr, when implants are used to enhance abilities and longevity) I'm particularly interested in the ethical and philosophical implications of this.

Of course the old faithfuls are still around: Concrete poetry, Kite flying, Meditation, Hiking, Camping and photography. But they come and go. Like a planetary merry-go-round. They'll always be there, and always come back but none of them are bubbling right now.

So you're probably going to see more stuff about the web and my viewpoints on it. I've added a category in the right bar: "Digital Viewpoints". This is probably gonna grow fast.

I'm sorry to the guys that were enjoying my BiPolar musings. From time to time I will still post thoughts on BiPolar (hey, I'm even hosting the BiPolar Carnival next month). But for now it's just better for my future and health if I don't remind myself every day that I'm a BiPolar sufferer. There is just so much more out there.

Revenge of the Dumb Network

Way back in the 70s when computers weighed half a ton and cost more than your car, a computer network referred to one big central mainframe linked to a whole load of "terminals". The terminals had no stand-alone programs on them - no word processor, no spreadsheet. All they did was give you access to the mainframe. Hence "dumb network". Even today bankteller terminals and airline booking systems are still configured in this structure.

But the PC (personal computer...duh) changed all this, putting all your own programs, apps and files on your own computer. MS Windows was hugely instrumental.

So are dumb networks dead? Not a fck! Everyday in the past month apps and data on my pc have been migrating to the web:

bookmarks - delicious
rss reader - google reader
business newsletter editor and management - Quattro
Personal blog - blogger
Calendar - Google calendar

Even my email these days I don't bother to download - just leave them on the webmail server. I hover from cmptr to cmptr during the day so leaving it on the server I've got permanent access. Once a day I download.

And any day now my photos will migrate to Flickr.

Shit, I recently saw a site that has a fully functional excel worksheet that you can operate from anywhere on the web and store your files there too. How long before Excel on the desktop becomes redundant?

Basically all we need these days is a dumb terminal and internet access (ala Dumb network). Everything has migrated back to the mainframe, except this time the mainframe is The Internet.

The advantages of the new dumb network are huge. We can access our data and apps 24/7 from anywhere in the world. No more synchronisation bullshit. It is NOT advantageous for Billy Gates though. Slowly all his apps are becoming redundant with Google taking over a large slice.

Sunset last night

Music Nostalgia

It was probably triggered by having Miss L living with us for the last few months. At 13 she's into fairly thrashy music. Which got me thinking about the first music I started listening to when I was 13.

The timing of this event was fairly fortuitous as it coincided with my recent discovery of the website mp3search.ru where you can pick up vitually any album you want for one dollar!! I've been running around this site like the proverbial kid let loose in a candy store. I'm downloading everything I can lay may hands on. Good things don't last long and I remember the sudden end of Napster
only too well.

So I been downloading all the very first music I listened to. AC/DC -Let There be Rock, Uriah heep - Innocent Victim and Led Zeppelin 2. Man this music is still good. Knocks the shit out of a lot of current music. And there's nothing quite like music to stir up old emotions - especially 13 year old emotions.

Although most of these bands have all got "Greatest Hits" compilations I skip those and download the exact albums I had. The actual sequence of the songs has a strong recollection element in addition to the actual songs themselves. I'm loving this shit.


Other albums that shaped my life:

Jethro Tull - Aqualung

Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

Billy Joel - The Stranger

Supertramp - Crisis? What Crisis?

Kate Bush - The Kick Inside

Later:

Neil Young - Rust Never Sleeps

Bob Marley - Exodus

Peter Tosh - Bushdoctor

Joan Armatrading - Walking Under Ladders

There are many, many others too but these ones stick out. And they'll ALWAYS sound good to me because they are intimately linked with my emotional life. My personal discography.

The really schizophrenic thing right now is that I'm dividing my time pretty much evenly between listening to classical on the one foot and hard rock on the other. Ecletic reaches new extremes!

Man, I HAVE to buy that 30gig iPod. Mrs M says (correctly) that we can't afford it right now. But I'm developing some pretty good arguments. Like as a BiPolar I need a HUGE amount of music at my fingertips in order to cover the eventuality of any mood. Like music is one of the few control dials on the personal emotion panel. If I don't convince Mrs M just now, I'll certainly convince myself.

Strange street

Went with Mrs M, Miss L & friend to the monthly holistic fair in Observatory yesterday. My principal motivation in going (besides been the daily chauffuer) was to release my third book into the wild. Which I did.

But on the way there we had to go down Milton Street and about halfway down I took this photo. 2 really strange things. First you can see a pair of sneakers hanging in the sky from a telephone line. Second, if you look in the bottom left corner you will see part of a white sign on the orange colour wall. As you'll see in the close up below this sign belongs to Dr Alan Eatwell the homeopath. No, this is not a joke, I looked him up in the telephone directory and Dr Eatwell really exists. Fkcn weird street huh?




It's a big day down here in South Africa. Our former vice president ( until 2 months ago) has been in a rape trial for the last month. Today the verdict is read. Yes RAPE, you read right - not some little blowjob from an intern who's name begins with M. And even if he's found innocent on this one, in 2 months time he faces a trial for fraud. Scariest part of the whole story - Jacob Zuma (the man in question) is probably the most popular politician in the country at the mo, enjoying vast support from the rural black population and, although he's been suspended from the ANC, he's a leading candidate for next president. Ah, the joys of Africa...

Feeling a bit down today. It's like the long run of "In-the-Pinks" (capped with a "Yeeehaaa!" on Friday) has finally caught up with me. But there's another good reason for the down - I'm strating to get a head cold. Sore throat. Burning nose. So I'm confident this will blow over real soon.

Scenes from the beach

Took a walk on the beach about an hour ago. You'd think that walking everyday on the same beach there was nothing new to see. But that's what I love about the seashore - it's always changing. Different tides, different weather, different sea conditions. Kind of like a BiPolar.

Kite surfing

This little stream only flows in winter after the first rains.

One man and his dog

One man on his own

***

I've come back down to basecamp after yesterday's excursion which is fine, maybe even good, providing I don't carry on down into the valley

I'm Flying Part 2

Things are clicking, thing's are zipping
Insomina the last few nights - should be tired but I'm fucking WIRED
AC/DC blaring, downloading Led Zepplin; music memories...getting back into that 13 yr old mindset. Joining Miss L on her bursting exuberence. Man, I love that girl.
LET THERE BE ROCK . "But it's old dad, sounds like country...."

Googabytes and googabytes of ideas flyin round my head
Like a fucking pinball machine BING, ZAP, BOING, FZZZT, DLINGGG
The Pinball Wizard. "The WHO????"
Pinball Wizard, I told ya. I can see for miles and miles.
Multi-tasking about 50 apps open on my cmptr right now:
playing on-line backgammon
reading my new google rss reader (Screw Newsgator!) Go Ogle people. Go Ogle.
Yeah, they got us - LIVE ON OD. Fckn backwards.
co-oridinating music downloads from MP3search.ru (CHECK THIS SITE DUDES - whole latest albums for a Dollar apiece) (BPG's on 40gigs and going)
Catching every business email as it comes in. Reply in milliseconds. Wins them over everytime
Checking out eventful.com - cool site
Looking for a blog of someone living in Iran. Know anyone good?? Like a "WATCH THIS SPACE"
"Your Turn"
"Are you still there?"
Yeah I'm still here mothersticker, I'll get to you soon

We're all going back to the centre. Who needs goddam applications on their desk/laptops?? It's all migrating out there onto the web - take Miss L - there no boundaries - when she's on the cmptr. What's on the machine, what's off the machine - no fckn difference! Should there be???

Cricket starting just now...
gotta do that mensa short story comp too. "What if..." international competition. That's how dan brown started. Entered a fckn Mensa essay competition. Yeah he's a mnsn too.
Just beat the German expert (BROWN player)
TOO MUCH TO FUCKING SAY

I'll unpack it all soon

Man, if only this could last
and last

Jimi Hendrix. Manic depression.

googabyte.com .Think I gotta register it. It won't be long...



Peter Townsend, stupid! (fondly known as Pete to his more ardent fans)
Ya gotta know who's WHO in da zoo.

Don't even get me started on WHY. Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence, a cigar just a cigar, and Freud....yeah, just Freud. Call a goddam cock a cock.

Hey all you coke shnorters out there: I've got news for you:

THIS IS WAY BETTER

Later.

I'm Flying

Things are clicking, thing's are zipping
Insomina the last few nights - should be tired but I'm fucking WIRED
AC/DC blaring, downloading Led Zepplin; music memories...getting back into that 13 yr old mindset. Joining Miss L on her bursting exuberence. Man, I love that girl.
LET THERE BE ROCK . "But it's old dad, sounds like country...."

Googabytes and googabytes of ideas flyin round my head
Like a fucking pinball machine BING, ZAP, BOING, FZZZT, DLINGGG
The Pinball Wizard. "The WHO????"
Pinball Wizard, I told ya. I can see for miles and miles.
Multi-tasking about 50 apps open on my cmptr right now:
playing on-line backgammon
reading my new google rss reader (Screw Newsgator!) Go Ogle people. Go Ogle.
Yeah, they got us - LIVE ON OD. Fckn backwards.
co-oridinating music downloads from MP3search.ru (CHECK THIS SITE DUDES - whole latest albums for a Dollar apiece) (BPG's on 40gigs and going)
Catching every business email as it comes in. Reply in milliseconds. Wins them over everytime
Checking out eventful.com - cool site
Looking for a blog of someone living in Iran. Know anyone good?? Like a "WATCH THIS SPACE"
"Your Turn"
"Are you still there?"
Yeah I'm still here mothersticker, I'll get to you soon

We're all going back to the centre. Who needs goddam applications on their desk/laptops?? It's all migrating out there onto the web - take Miss L - there no boundaries - when she's on the cmptr. What's on the machine, what's off the machine - no fckn difference! Should there be???

Cricket starting just now...
gotta do that mensa short story comp too. "What if..." international competition. That's how dan brown started. Entered a fckn Mensa essay competition. Yeah he's a mnsn too.
Just beat the German expert (BROWN player)
TOO MUCH TO FUCKING SAY

I'll unpack it all soon

Man, if only this could last
and last

Jimi Hendrix. Manic depression.

googabyte.com .Think I gotta register it. It won't be long...

Building Routine

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Routine is a MEGA advantage for BiPolars. ESPECIALLY if you don't work a 9 to 5 job like BPG doesn't.

It's a no-brainer when you think about it. Us BiPolars are all over the place from week to week, day to day, hey, sometimes even hour to hour. Ships drifting on rollicking seas without any anchors. So the way I see it, each time you establish a daily routine item (no matter how small) you are throwing out a little anchor. Call it what you like - a familiar point, a handhold on a cliff, a buoy, a flashing beacon.

Probably the best thing I've done for myself this year is establish some daily routine items. So I thought I'd share how I went about it. Not that I'm a Dr. Phil or anything but shit it worked for me.

STEP BY STEP

1. Start off with a little (and easy) thing you want to do every day. If you can set the same time for it every day, well & good, but it's not critical. At present I try do most of my routines the same time, but it's not always possible so I allow fleixiblity providing I stick to the golden rule: DO IT EVERY DAY
2. Like anything, it's the first couple days that are the hardest. But it gets easier and easier as time goes by. Here's why: The longer you keep up your unbroken routine the more sacred it becomes. It's easier to break a routine that's been going for 4 days than one which has been going every day for 4 years. Ever met one of those people that have done something (e.g. walk the dogs, take a morning swim, go to the same coffee shop) every day for 5 or 6 years. I gaurantee ya they'll carry on doing it EVERY darn day unless they're practically comatose. And that acheivement will be one of the proudest in their lives (which is why they probably told you about it in the first place).
3. Once you've got your first little routine item going, i.e. after about 2 months, you can then add another routine item. The second should be a lot easier. But whatever you do don't sabotage the first item if the second one fails. Sometimes our ambitions outstrip practicalities (especially if you came up with the routine idea in a "YeeeHaaa" state), and after a couple days you realise: "My fck, I'm NEVER gonna keep up with this dumb-arse shite". Well that's OK. Drop it, but don't EVER, EVER drop the other ones you have established at the same time. Keep what ya got!

Here's the current routine items I'm doing:

• Get out of bed between 5.00 and 5h30 in the morning and make tea for Mrs M and self.
• Feed the zoo (Socrates, Scallywag and Leroy the cat).
• Meditate. The above 2 I've been doing for about 5 years now but they're no great orgasm - I mean you gotta get out of bed and the pets gotta get fed. The really big VOLUNTARY routine that I established this year was daily meditation. And yes, I haven't skipped a day in 3 months. I try meditate at the same time every day, ideally about 6.15 am, but I'm not a militant about it. The focus, as I've said, is the DOING it on the day, not WHEN on that day.
• Based on my success with daily meditation I started doing a walk on the beach every day too. So far I've gone uninteruppted for 10 days. The beachwalk is a bit more complicated as there are weather conditions thrown in, but I've already had 2 days in the rain and once I've got the new rain pants I'm planning I reckon I'll keep it up. The best time I like beach walking is at about 10 am but I'm also governed by the tides because the beach is much flatter and harder at low tide. (NB: I must add a proviso here - this routine is still young and I haven't had a "Got-a-Gun" day since it started. The acid test will be "Got-a-Gun" on a rainy day. Acid rain?)
• I'm planning on throwing another little routine in from next week: 30 sit-ups a day. I reckon I can do it.

So there you go. Get off your goddam arses and build your routines.

ISH

Yeah, I'm back. Bizzare behaviour huh? Well that's what us mad people do.

Remember that song from the 80s by The Clash - "should I stay, or should I go?". Well that song is the story of my friggin' life.

Seriously though - I've changed this blog from a daily to a dailyISH. (previously this blog was just called BiPolar Daily) It's the best way for me to solve my schizophrenic decision making skills.

So hopefully my zillions of readers out there will check back from time to time. Or better get an RSS reader and add me to your feeds...