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Ha! And - finally I have done it; at the restaurant we've hired some new staff and I've wrestled weekends off. Saturday and Sunday, specifically, and if I'm fortunate I'll be able to dovetail my other days into doubles meaning that I'll have 4 1/2 days off per week.
Which would suit me just fine.
The Saturdays off, well, I'll be able to attend the theatre, develop a better (and healthier) social life, get up to all sorts of things...
Starting today. Yayy!
Now - at the library, blogging and having done some maintenance on the database, the back-end, front-end, mentioned my uneventful and rather boring life it's time to read a bit my book of the moment - Richard Hakluyt - "Voyages and Discoveries" - rather abbreviated from it's original million and a half words to a comfortable 150, 000; a sixteenth scholars thorough documenting of all of Britains sea-voyages, often in the first person, descriptions of distant times and lands when the world - to Britain largely - was still a vast and unexplored place.
Anyways, it's great reading...
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And so I ran out of bandwidth the other day on my phone following a drunken downloading of the entire internet.
SO, for the next few days my internet use is restricted to the library.
At home it's too slow. Way too slow.
Facebook - can't even load the shortest inane video. Reddit stalls, even news sites are unreachable - it just shows how bloated with code the internet is; this website is no exception, these things should load on my phone no problem, they're simply text and images, that they don't shows how grotesquely badly the internet it being implemented. Code bloat. What should be done with a few kb worth of files & text now takes mb, even gb; and to no avail. Bandwidth for sale, use up the bandwidth as quickly as possible so we can sell you more...
That said, this is odd to me. I can play YouTube videos no problem. The video quality, not so good, but the audio is fine. Why is YouTube the only optimized website? In any event, listening lately to Sir Roger Penrose - interesting, but he's in decline, and there are these interesting AI narrated videos in the voice and style of the late Richard Feynman "Explaining" gravity, motion, etc, and these I'm finding good background listening, I'm putting together my own theory of Cosmology (much as Karl Pilkington might put together a theory of Anthropology) - still, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one confused by the state of the Cosmos.
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The two days leading up to - NYEE and NYE - both crazy. The restaurant fills on the 30th - people avoiding the NYE rush, instead creating another. Crazy, and I'm more or less on my own, there's back-up, the owner's wife to bartend and a busser, but - nonetheless, the restaurant is crazy.
NYE, same, but less crazy, less all-at-once and more regulated. And by 9:30 it's done and I'm off on my own little party.
The "Dosed" party, location undisclosed, but I've got the email and all suspicions confirmed. It's great. All the usual suspects, spicy outfits, people you know and people I have yet to meet, everyone is there, from the surprisingly bookish bookseller (on a tear), the lawyer, the librarian, the insurance, the .... customers from the restaurant that night, the night before, one - a 50 something man with what I thought was his daughter (oops) - and - well...spicy, spicy. Everyone in town, basically, a proper "Young Goodman Brown" and a good time is had by all.
I'm starting to know a lot of people, but not (or never) nearly enough. Dancing, dancing, until 2:30; the party's starting to fade and never be the last one there.
New Years Day, wake up, go back to bed, wake up, eat, go back to bed, wake up, go back to bed.
I've made my NYE resolution for 2026. More raves, more MDMA. Life is too short to miss out on these events.
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And trying to lower my vibration, the excesses of the Birthday and Xmas have made it unsustainable.
The neighbour is trying remediate the debt is attempting by sending me various links to crypto-trading scams and bogus online casinos; she count's the signing bonuses as credit against the loan...
I can say nothing and just shake my head.
Work, the in-between days Xmas to New Years, I have to work NYE but hope to off early, I have a ticket to somewhere I want to attend.
10 days away from the end of my billing cycle and I discover that I'm out of data. How did this happen? Apparently over Christmas I was bored and downloaded all of the best movies of 2025. A-ha. So - writing now confined to the library.
And last night, looting the fridge, a loaf of bread, some cucumbers, chilis, tomatoes, and I conceive the brilliant idea of putting the vegetables on a slice of bread - and - delicious; I think I'm on to something here. This morning to the Co-op, I'm going to try the same idea with the addition of meat and cheese...I'll let you know how it goes
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Today, a quiet one. Worked the past few days, some long and far too busy, others long and far too quiet. Plans to go to a friends today for dinner & a movie thwarted by my "I'd prefer to be by myself" disposition. I don't know if she'll understand, she's unemployed and would love to hang around people. I'm employed and love my solitude. It's the holidays and I'm "that" friend you can't rely on.
Outside it's raining. This, the new season, replacing winter, "Atmospheric River".
***
Facebook; a posting of a person I recognize, "street-elder", now deceased at 66. I'd see him daily, first on a cane, then on a mobility scooter, this - the scooter, it's the end. When the community - be it church or otherwise - buys you a scooter it's time to throw it in. It's always this way.
It gets me thinking - of the people I haven't seen the past few days, weeks, months. Few out here get an obituary, really, and so what has become of them? It's a long list. Gabe, Sasha, Bee, countless others really, and it's as if the environment around you is deteriorating, being replaced, slowly, surely, without your noticing....
***
L*****, local homeless resident and loon, being gifted an abundance of outdoor-living supplies for Xmas. Sad to say the next night I'd passed him he had none of it - and while it would be easy to suspect it was stolen, it's just as easy to imagine he woke up, looked at it, and then just moved on.
He's like that. He used to try and corner me for a conversation - that's his thing, but after a few false starts I learned the drill and to keep walking. Not to be cruel but he has nothing kind to say, he's unhoused for a reason.
Still, you have to love a town that does this for it's most vulnerable residents.
***
What disappears is replaced. In this instance a pair of - what I'm guessing are - "twins", beautiful women; one blonde, other brunette, that resemble each other in person but also in manner. New arrivals at my morning cafe, to watch them talk is a delight, they mirror each other's every gesture, word, I imagine them to be in their late 30's, early 40's, who knows, but I've run into them a few times, they're in their own world. I can't eavesdrop, and don't for a moment suspect they're discussing anything of intelligence, merely the trifles of the day, but they are so animated and invested that I can't help but being amused...
It's their "rapport". You seldom see that nowadays, people in sync, on the same page, topic, that's what makes it such a delight.
Today they're interviewing a third person - another fit thirty-something woman in exercise gear; together on the same side of the table opposite their friend/prospective employee/client, who knows? But that they are so thoroughly on the same page is amusing and I'm distracted from my book. Not to be too obvious but it's a curious thing.
***
And - so far, this is the news. Nothing new, a quiet day, a load of movies downloaded, a very fine book that I'm close to finishing, a host of Christmas Cards that need drawing and colouring and why do I have all these fine art supplies and not a single Crayola crayon???