Things I didn't buy today

Not a lot really (helped mainly by continuing to spend lots on my project at work). It's interesting to see what's happening around me though. I live in a relatively poor town (I chose to be able to cycle to work over having access to a good social structure: possibly a bad idea), and have watched the locals spending like crazy over the last couple of years; if I'd been blogging here then, there probably would have been a rant sometime about how much the local banks were prepared to lend. And now it's coming home to roost big time: the pubs are almost empty, it's easy to get a taxi because they're all waiting at the station with very few fares each evening (2 in 4 hours for the driver I talked to this week); none of this is happening in the less-poor town nearby. And then there's the supermarkets. The short-dated shelf (what I call the 'dead and dying' shelf and Hwsgo called 'God told me to eat') up to now has been an interesting source of short-dated raw ingredients at stupidly small prices: great if you just want to grab some quails eggs for that evening. Not any more. The shelves are almost empty, the stock there is low-to-mid price and there are always people hovering, waiting for new things to go near them.

The trolleys, however, are still full. Not mine though: this virtue in spending seems to be creeping into the rest of my life too. Tonight, I spent just over £10 on my week's shopping, half of which was to replace my flatmate's shelf in a recent freezer defrosting unhappiness. Not £10 because I bought cheap things, but because I've finally organised my food cupboards. I'm now dealing with the things that have been loitering in these cupboards because I'd rather buy something else than eat them: anything I really don't want to eat has left the cupboards and I'm cooking my way through the rest. So I currently have a freezer full of self-cooked one-person ready meals (courtesy of the defrosting), a shelf full of basic lunch ingredients and a big box of cereal: that's dinner, lunch and breakfast sorted for every day for over a week. I still have ingredients in the cupboards, so today's shop was for things to supplement that: chorizo to add to the white beans, cream and onions, cheese and tomato soup for those evenings when I really can't be bothered to cook (which goes with leaving work at 9pm) and peas because I just happen to like peas and they add vitamins to the ready meals. So that's another set of ready-cooked meals and snacks. Nothing less, nothing more (and certainly none of the tempting ice-cream, even with a £1-off offer). And it feels surprisingly good.

Oh, and I now know the price of fish. Just over £2 for smoked mackerel, £4 for lumps of fish (haddock etc), £10 for the good stuff. Which is quite a bit more than it used to be. I played the £2 game tonight - see how much fresh meat I can buy for around £2 - and the answer now is surprisingly little; quite a difference from playing the same game last year. I do have a small problem with the newspaper though. It's not food or transport, but it is important to know what's happening in the world sometimes. Maybe if I chewed a corner I could re-classify it as food? No, I think the Guardian is too important to put on the banned list, so July 2008 is now a no-buy (except food, travel and newspapers) month. Not magazines though: I went past the girl magazine rack and suddenly realised that the main reason I buy them is to look for interesting clothes and shoes to buy. Duh.

Things I didn't buy today...

Things I didn't buy today:
* Flights to Newquay (for the light and the sand)
* Evening gown (for dinner with S)
* Small desk (for working away from the sofa)
* Solar-powered colour-changing coasters (for the heck of it)

Things I did buy:
*Lots of seriously cool minature electronics components (for work)

The no-buy experiment

Okay, continuing on with the experimenting where other people have experimented before theme, I've started myself on a no-buy month. It's a little like a financial version of a diet, but instead of asking myself "do I really need these calories", I'm asking "do I really need these things". This question was triggered by another pair: "why is there so much unnecessary stuff in my house" and "what exactly am I spending my money on", neither of which I have a polite answer to.

So, for June 2008 (and this started on Monday already), I shall attempt to pay only for food and travel. Nothing else, although I may have to negotiate for essentials (list to go here: prescription medicine, for example). And every time I think about spending money on something, I'll list it here, possibly also with the reason I don't need it... so far, the list of things I didn't buy is:
* 1 book: my life as a quant. Recommended by my currently favourite author and possibly useful for future career. But I have plenty to read right now, and Hwsgo's and the programming books will probably be a lot more useful
* 2 t-shirts from my favourite t-shirt company. Can't remember the name, but they helpfully put their website address in my unicorn t-shirt. I have enough cute t-shirts: I just need to lose a little weight to get into some of them.
* 1 blue book (title as yet undetermined) to fill in a gap on Hwsgo's bookshelves. He has enoguh books, and there are better ways to be sweet (like delivering food parcels to the sick...)
* 1 whiteboard, for listing all the things I have to do at home. I've simplified the freezer and can use the freezer whiteboard for this instead.
* 1 cheap printer, for the 2-3 pages I need to print at home every month. It will only encourage me to print more at home, especially stuff I don't need to keep.
* 1 work top, because I'm currently failing to lose enough weight to get back into my shirts. Just lose the weight: that's what the gym subscription is for.
* 1 pair Foo Fighters concert tickets. I have the cds.
* 1 pair flower show tickets. I'd rather visit the RHS or the national fruit-tree collection.
* 1 pyrex cooking bowl. Very impressed by what Hwsgo can do with chicken. But I have a glass bowl; I just need to check if it's pyrex.

I expect this will hurt, and I'll forget I'm doing this at least once during the month. But it will be an interesting experiment nonetheless. Ah... already a modification: the list of things I did buy:
* 1 ticket for a day's paintballing with work mates. Prior commitment. £15.
* 1 train ticket to Wolverhampton to see little Bro household and the most evil cat in the world. £51.50 (of which £50 was the ticket, £1 the posting fee and 50p the card booking fee, neither of which were optional online).
* 1 ticket to mess ball with Sara £45 (to bring in tomorrow).

I think I may have a bit of an answer here already: the money seem to go on seeing my friends. Maybe I should persuade them all to take up cashless hobbies, like, say, long-distance cycling?

Timeshift, yippee

Well it's been a strange time of late; huge passions and hopes and quiet revelations. But enough of that; back with the getting-life-on-track thing. And first with the getting-tv-at-the-right-time thing too. Now I'm not stupid, I know i'm not stupid, but I do have a strange attitude to the flashing box in the corner. If I read the tv schedules I'm either in despair at the rubbish on and the fact I just missed something I'd have liked to watch, or make plans to watch something specially (classic line: "sorry I can't talk but Torchwood is on") and mostly miss it altogether. Hwsgo has a box thingy that records programs easily, of which I'm most jealous... or at least jealous until I can find a workman to come round and point my TV aerial in the right direction for receiving channel 5 without the permanent snowstorm special effect. But there's hope: I've also found bbc iplayer, which wonderfully has just allowed me to watch this week's episode of Dr Who curled up in bed with my laptop (I do like David Tennant as the Doctor but not in *that* way, okay) well after the event. I shall be looking for similar... Oooh, oooh: Five Download. Back issues of CSI *and* pre-screening copies too: heaven! Not so excited about Channel 4 downloads, although Dispatches, Scrapheap Challenge and How to Look Good Naked (any help is very welcome in that department) may have something there. And ITV catchup? What's on ITV again? Oh gawd, I've just re-read the order I put the channels into, and I've finally turned into a Guardian reader...

Oh, and timeshifting. I had this with my video recorder back in the -ahem dark ages before the internet took off- I keep forgetting that I have control of the recording. Do silly things like open up another page whilst it runs in the background. But at least there won't be any advertising breaks for me to run to the bathroom in. Honestly, I sometimes wonder if the brain that can dissect part of the universe and make sense of it is inhabiting the same head as the fool that does that sort of thing...

Slightly better shape for book?

Well, novels have arisen from smaller seeds before... I see a body dangling precariously from that dropped ledge in the foreground, a message fluttering uselessly down towards the sodden dirt; evil lurking within the tower and a crane-driver who keeps finding himself in the middle of trouble. And there should be collar-turned up raincoats and dark dry heat; lurking thugs, shots heard outside in the night, mysterious phonecalls...... a fair description of this trip really...

Old and new?

I think this would make a great book cover... I just need to get round to writing the book! I could write lots of arty nonsense about the Metropolis-style tower rising up out of the 19th-century decay and the apparent mundanity of the rest of the shot. But I won't.

You play with fire...

All the crises are over. I have played with fire, been burnt and since I cannot make amends, all that is left is for me to see if I can learn something from this experience.

First, it is not a bad thing to be single. Single does not mean alone, nor does it necessarily mean "looking for someone to make life complete"; it just means single. Responsible for oneself, and, if one can or must, those around oneself.

Second, if you have a desperately difficult choice to make, then either make it or walk away. If that choice involves hurting other people, then make it quickly with as much information as possible, then have no regrets about it: this applies also and specifically to implicit choices too. If that choice involves hurting yourself, then make it in the acceptance that you are responsible for your own life and you created the paths that led to that choice needing to be made. If you're responsible, you accept consequences. Period.

Third, love comes in many forms at many times in your life. And an overwhelming passion can be just that; something that pushes aside all the quieter loves that you both receive and should give. I have not spent enough time with my friends or my family, not acknowledged the support that they offered or the advice that they quietly tried to give. Although I'm not sure how many of them said "go to Philadelphia" knowing that this would bring everything to a head and into focus, I suspect some of them knew (and I might thank them later. Much later).

And fourth, you never really know someone 'til you've been through the mill with them. And even then you don't. We are the sum of our actions not our gestures, and bluff threat tease promise have no validity on their own except to change the mindstates of others and be played out over time.

And last, I do have moral boundaries. I'm too blind or stupid to see them sometimes, but when pushed, they're there. I have reset my moral compass; I am not proud of my recent behaviour but it has happened, I have learnt from it and the onus on me now is not to forget. That, and to repair whatever damage I can and then never ever forget who I am again.

Test words for a Google AdSearch

Not that I'm silly first thing in the morning, but... well... just typing in "green tea" as suggested seemed a little, well, lame...

The purple pheasant is a hesitant beast.
It stutters and mutters and thinks on its feet.
Be sure when you see it, it's running away.
And no purple prose will entice it to stay.

The standard AdWords keyword set wasn't too sure what to make of this, although "it's running away" did trigger a little bit of response. Astoundingly, the "additional keywords" set did pick up that this was supposed to be funny with "funny thinks" and "funny prose"; the word 'prose' in the above was probably a bit of a clue. I'm not sure where the suggestions "who is", "see out", "my you" and "see up" came from though.

Anniversary

I never wrote for you. Too shy perhaps, or busy living before death. Then after. No words, then too many, all about you not for. Every day telling you that I loved you; nights crying because you could not hear. And no surprises left, no exaggerations, no wild wild stories save those I could raise myself. Your spirit lived; in me, in others, sometimes fainter than soft rain on lilies, sometimes exuberant with colour and life. And now I make my own stories. Live, remember, let go, hold truth and see its own rainbows. I hear you laugh at me, my predicaments, you who lived so much in so little, whose years were forever and only time was now. I have years, decades, choices that last longer than we could dream, but I won't forget. Happy anniversary darling; rest in the wildest afterlife you can find.