Ugh. Annoying habit. Or isn't it even a habit? I think it's more of a passion. Something people don't do without actively thinking about it every time.

I have a clear recollection of my history teacher back in high school doing it. He was extremely passionate about history, we got the impression he was up at night reading history books. When he described the Bolshevik revolution to us, he did so in astounding detail, how a bunch of guys traveled across town, what they were wearing, what route they took through St. Petersburg. *That* guy used to refer to countries as 'she'. When he did, his eyes lit up a little.

But that's not all, guys say that all the time. Yeah, *guys*. Imagine a woman ogling over a brand new car, "isn't she beautiful?". No, that doesn't happen. It's always guys, as if they're picturing whatever it is they see as a female form that they worship.

Let's set the record straight here. A car is not a she, it doesn't have a gender. It's an it. A country is an it, a plane is an it, a computer is an it, got it? Enough of this stupid wishful personification of things that aren't people.

What the hell? :wth: Is it a sign that they're not ready or beyond ripe or what? By the color I'd say they're a bit raw, but certainly within the reasonable standards. It's rare to pick up a mango that is *just* right. But even if they aren't quite ready, they can be a bit hard and not as tasty, but I've never had a mealy mango before. :lazy:

For a lot of people, 'normal' seems to be the holy grail. A lot of people want to be normal and don't like to stick out. To me, more often than not, being 'normal' is sort of not good enough. This is certainly not the rule for every aspect of life, but in many ways I just don't find myself on the middle ground. And I don't want to either. I do too much of something or not enough. I do something early or too late. And as far as I remember, I've always been this way. Of course, there are outside pressures, influences. But if I want to be 'true to myself', this is who I am.

When comparing myself to other people, I always want to be better. Feeling 'equal' doesn't really do anything for me, unless it's aspiring to be equal to a group of people I consider beyond my level, in whatever sense. This comes to fore in the most obvious way in a sports context, where direct competition and vindication is clearcut. So I tend to try hard if I think I can be better than someone. On the other hand, if it is obvious that I can't, I don't really try. This doesn't have to be an instant thing, I've often times played sports with people far better and tried to gradually reach their level. But if I don't believe that I can, then I don't see why I should even try. So I don't really apply myself.

There is no way I could articulate this conviction, and as such I don't really think it is a conviction on any logical grounds. It is just an instinct that lies within. And it isn't necessarily to do with competition either. A lot of the time, the pride for doing something well comes from doing more than the norm. More, or better, than what is considered to be sufficient, or 'good'. That doesn't mean I consistently do so, my lazy side counters that instinct and often times I end up doing too little, which feels like failure. On the other hand, doing 'just enough' doesn't seem to have any kind of vindication. The only thing I feel is that 'I've done it' and it's over, because I know it is. But I don't feel happy about it, I don't feel fulfilled. There's a lot of things I've done 'just okay', like getting a driver's license or graduating from high school. But I don't feel any pride about those. It feels like I did what I had to, and had I not done it I would have failed. But I don't deserve credit for doing 'just alright'. Even if it is something that matters a lot. Conversely, I take pride in doing things well, even small things. And I sometimes remember them for a long time.

I suppose it is a passion, coupled with a fairly one tracked mind. When I like something, I immerse myself in it. I remember when I was a kid and I was just beginning to play sports. 'Play sports' doesn't really describe what a four year old, or a six year old, does. But that's where it begins. And every time I played something, like kicking a ball back and forth, the other person would always want to stop before I did. I always wanted to go on. Finally, after about the third time of asking, I would agree to stop. I always wanted to keep playing. And I can trace that right back into the present. I still want to keep playing when others have had enough. And I still want to keep doing something after others have quit. Of course, provided it's going well. I don't blindly do the same thing over and over when I don't feel that I'm getting somewhere. But that just comes right back to the notion that there is no 'just enough'. There's either 'not enough' or 'too much'. In school we used to have 'ski day', the whole school skiing once a year. I loved those days. We would be up there from about 10 to 2 in the afternoon. That was when school ended ordinarily, so ski day would too. I always wanted to stay on. This was tricky, you had to get a note from your parents saying they let you stay longer and take the later bus home. (My parents never minded, but I was never good at remembering these little bureaucratic twists.)

Always wanting to do more. Countered by a strong force of inertia. If I do less, I feel like a failure. If I do just enough, I don't feel any pay off. Then there are things I never really wanted to do, but it's a necessity. Like cooking. I do just enough and I don't even think about it as enjoyment or achievement of any kind. It's just something to get over with.

There is no middle ground.

That's it, I'm never buying that cheapass Euroshopper brown rice again, even if it is dirt cheap. Trying to cook it had me confused about when it was supposed to be done. At no point during cooking did it really taste edible, even though it was soft enough by rice standards.

I'm generally a fan of Euroshopper, they have really cheap stuff and it's generally quite good too. For instance the "English breakfast tea" they produce is very good and incredibly cheap (35c for a pack of 20 tea bags). Most tea products sell for around a buck and aren't nearly as good either. They also have low price soda that's good. But don't buy their pizzas, I did once and was made to regret it.

Yeah, very cool new offering from Amarok this week. Amarok, of course, being THE best music player on the planet the last few years and they have new releases very close to each other with a lot of innovation, this is really fast paced open source development at its finest. In the newly released version 1.4.4, Amarok has added integration with the Magnatune music store.

Why do we care? The thing is, Magnatune is a pretty cool, modern music label that signs a lot of musicians and gives them a much better deal than the established music industry (which is known to sponsor certain marketable artists through the roof while leaving the rest in the gutter). They have also taken the new medium that is the internet for what it is and sell mp3s without DRM. And they cut 50% of the price right to the artists, so you know they are not being paid in peanuts. You can buy an album for a price you set yourself (minimum is $5).

But Magnatune only has music that isn't licensed by other labels, which means none of that stuff I've ever even heard, how do I know what's what? This is where Amarok comes in. On Magnatune's site, you can listen to the music before you buy anything (you could even record it if you wanted to bend the rules a little bit), but with Amarok now integrating the collection, you can just drag and drop albums or tracks right onto your playlist, just as you do with files on disk. Hell, you can queue up all of Magnatune if you wanted to. So essentially, you can listen to all that music for free, just as long as you're online. Of course, if you want it on the mp3 player, you'll have to buy it. (Or if you want to support Magnatune and the artist for offering this.) They sell albums in mp3 format and on cds (remember those plastic things?).

So up until this point Magnatune was there, but with Amarok it's going to be a lot more accessible and a lot more people are going to hear about it. Classic example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.