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Richy's Random Ramblings

Joke: An Idiots Guide To Being Human

January 1, 2003
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[Idiots Guide To Being...]Looking into the New Year with confusion? Then do I have the pamphlet/leaflet for you! When you were born, you did not come with an owner’s manual; this guide will hopefully make your life better:

  • You will receive a body. You may not like it, but it’s the only thing you are sure to keep for life.
  • You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called “Life on Planet Earth”. Every person or incident is the Universal Teacher.
  • Will will also be studying part-time at “The School Of Hard Knocks” and “The University Of Life” – these are long standing schools and universities and hence have many traditions that you may never understand
  • There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of experimentation. “Failures” are as much a part of the process as “success.”
  • A lesson is repeated until it is learnt. It is presented to you in various forms until you learn it – then you can go on to the next lesson.
  • If you don’t learn easy lessons, they get harder. External problems are a precise reflection of your internal state. When you clear inner obstructions, your outside world changes. Pain is how the universe gets your attention.
  • You will know you have learnt a lesson when your actions have changed. Wisdom is practise. A little of something is better than a lot of nothing.
  • “There” is not better than “here”. When your “there” becomes a “here” you will simply obtain another “there.”
  • Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it is only useful before the event.
  • Others are only mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another unless it reflects something you love or hate about in yourself.
  • Never drink more than 2 Pan-Galatic Gargle Blasters, large bottles of Whisky or motor oil
  • Your life is up to you. Life provides the canvas; you do the painting. Take charge of your life – or someone else will.
  • You always get what you want. Your subconscious rightfully determines what energies, experiences, and people you attract – therefore, the only foolproof way to know what you want is to see what you have. There are no victims, only students.
  • There is no right or wrong, but there are consequences. Moralising doesn’t help. Judgements only hold the patterns in place. Just do your best.
  • Try to always act naturally – even if you don’t feel like it.
  • Your answers lie inside you. Children need guidance from others as we mature; we trust our hearts, where the Laws of Spirit are written.
  • You know more than you have heard or been told. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

Personal: Happy New Year!

January 1, 2003
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[London New Year]Happy New Year everyone! Just before the stroke of midnight I called my Mum to wish her Happy New Year (the rest of my family were either out or in bed asleep) – and, whilst doing so, I tried to send an SMS/text message to my GESF.

Silly me! I’ve been taught about the mobile phone/cellphone network system and its operation over many years (I think my first lecture about how the UK mobile phone network operates was given to me over 10 years ago) and my knowledge about the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network: i.e. the “normal landline” system) should have reminded me of something. From 11.45pm to approximately 1.30am on New Years Eve/Day is one of the busiest times for the networks (“Mothers Day” is one of the other ‘big’ days when telephone network congestion is usually at the highest). If you think that the whole network of transceivers that the mobile phone network uses has been based on the assumption that no more than X number of phones will be using each one at any time – and then you get a whole load of people trying to send messages/make calls at the same time period, then the system begins to fail. If I remember correctly during Christmas/New Year 1998 one British mobile phone network nearly completely failed and engineers had to be called out to a few transmitter points to manually bring them up. 2000 resulted in the networks being practically unusable for around 3 hours.

Continue ReadingPersonal: Happy New Year!

Blog: December Stats Time

December 31, 2002
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[Graph showing daily blog stats]Ok, since it’s the end of the month (and, indeed, the end of the year) I may as well do a ‘Statistics Summary’ of my blog again.

During December I had a total of 58,312 hits (up from 12,658 last month) or 7,395 visits (up from 1,838) – that averages out at 1881 hits/238 visits a day (up from 666 hits and 96 visits). This month has seen 651Mb of traffic to the 175 entries and 47 comments (up from 121Mb traffic to 89 entries and 16 comments last month). I was actually hoping to hit the 200th post/entry mark tonight (hence why I’ve been blogging quite a bit the past few days) – but I doubt I’ll be able to think of another 24 decent posts in the next 3.5hours.

Continue ReadingBlog: December Stats Time

Personal: Year In Review

December 31, 2002
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[Year In Review]Neil’s post gave me the idea to do a ‘Year In Review’ summary, so here’s what 2002 presented me with:

  • A year truly living on my own (as my fiancee and I split up in Autumn the previous year therefore I’ve been mainly living on my own)
  • Got a brand new PC (complete with new printer and DVD drive) to replace my ageing StrongArm RISC PC
  • Got really “mentally” messed around by two women
  • Had a lodger, she stole a considerable amount of money from me, then she left without even paying any rent (I’m still trying to pursue this)
  • Been forced to purchase a dedicated server (from Positive Internet) as my other sites were generating too much traffic for a shared server option
  • Met quite a number of ODP editors in Birmingham and (a few weeks later on my birthday) met a few more in London.
  • Met my GESF after around 3 months chatting on the Internet (it was 2 months before we even spoke) and really enjoyed spending those 4 days with her
  • Lost my job and still haven’t managed to find a new one
  • Started a journal over at Slashdot, got fed up of the inflexibility of it and so installed Movable Type and started running my own weblog/blog
  • Received lots of spam (over 1,500 a day at one point)
  • and Sold my first things on Ebay and Amazon marketplace

Not the most exciting or “best” year (especially losing my job bit), but I suppose it could have been worse.

This coming year? Well, I’m still not sure if I’m going to go out and celebrate it or not (I’m still in my pyjamas/PJ’s and I’ve only nipped downstairs once to pick up the post) – hopefully I’ll also get a good local job (I’ve applied to a local company and I think I fit the job description perfectly, but I’ve got to wait to hear back), spend a lot more time with my GESF (if she wants to – see my Monday night ramblings for why I’m a little bit scared/uncertain), get the house and garden tidied up a bit more and just be happy. Well – that’s the plan…