Author: Viva Ergo Sum

Ah, so you worked out the riddle. You just needed to use dwarfish and the doors to Geek Ergo Sum opened. Or perhaps you just used Google. Either way you are here, on my little corner of the Internet.

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Geek

Finishing a book

There is no better way to motivate me than offering me a badge or trophy for doing something. Being given points for completing tasks or acting in a certain way can control the way I live my live. I am a scorewhore.

This morning I received an email from Goodreads telling me how close I was to reaching this year’s target of reading 12 books, and if I did achieve it then I would get a special badge to place on my profile. This sent me into a frenzy, I mean a badge for reading! Then the two people who view my profile will be able to see that years ago I read an awful lot.

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Thoughts

The fight response

I’m lucky that when it comes to arguments I’m pretty good. I have a competitive streak that skews the flight/fight response to all out war when it comes to a discussion or disagreement that means I go straight for what I want to say right away.

The occasions when I have regrets about things not said are so rare that I don’t even recall if there are any. It’s like asking me to talk about a time I was wrong. It just doesn’t happen. Being a big believer in attack being the best form of defence the idea of a perfect comeback suggests that you were not winning the battle.

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Thoughts

Trying to hold a grudge

They say life is too short to hold a grudge, but it’s also to short to try and maintain an unhappy peace. I’ve had my life’s big fallout and it taught me an important lesson, it is not easy to forgive or forget.

I’m also not sure I want to.

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Thoughts

Wanting to play the piano

Skills are different from abilities, you have to work at them to achieve anything. Someone (Usain Bolt) may be born with the ability to run really fast, but no one ever just sat in front of a keyboard and wrote a critically acclaimed book. To be skilled in something you have to work at your craft until it appears as though it is an ability.

Look at The Beatles, the fact they appeared on the music scene with this amazing ability to write hit after hit ignores the fact that they spent many hard years honing their skills in bars in Hamburg and Liverpool.

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Geek

Addicted to Minecrack

Now that I’ve nearly sorted out all my photos, retagged my music and rewrote a load of posts I find myself with a little free time. I have plenty of life improving tasks I could undertake but instead I am being drawn back to a game I promised I would never get into because I could see it was a time sink.

I already know what games like Football Manager or The Sims can do to a person’s time and did not want to get drawn in again. Not only that, but I still fight against the urge to play one more game or stop a digital avatar from using the toilet.

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Thoughts

You can’t win at breaking up

The worst part of breaking up is thinking of what you could have said, that final comeback that would land the killer blow. to utter it you would need to reconnect and therefore break the number one rule of breakups, being the first to say something.

I’ve been in the situation where a friendship has collapsed and finished with a “have a good life” while being, what I felt, was the injured party. Every so often I wish I’d said what I’d felt or just took a pot shot. It may have made me feel better at the time but would it have sat as well over time?

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Life

Can I do anything dangerous?

I’m going to be doing a parachute jump!

There are fewer phrases I am likely to say than this, with possibly the exception to “I’m going to space”. I’ve been banned from doing cool, I mean stupidly dangerous, stuff in my life because death.

There is every chance that if I do something life limiting or threatening than my major concern will not be broken bones but the disapproval of my family. I have a ban on anything that involves falling.

So to try anything extraordinary I need to be surrounded by strangers.

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Life

Playing by myself

I’m not a good loser, it is why I don’t play multiplayer games all that often and don’t own a Scrabble board. The thought of not winning can make me a bit crabby and not a fun person to play with. I completely understand the greed of the financial system as I like to be the bank in Monopoly and take commission every time some one passes go, plus a finders fee for every land sale.

So as well as being a bad loser I’m obviously not a great winner either. If the aim of a game is to emerge victorious then what honour is there in coming second. Of course there is more honour in coming second honestly than first by cheating, the key is to not get caught. Nobody remembers who came second anyway, but they always remembers those who won and were disgraced.

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Life

Routines with children

The evening routine for our kids seems to be getting longer. As they have got older we are having to introduce new facets to going to sleep to get them to co-operate, and it is starting to reach the breaking point.

Initially the routine was simple:

Feed them dinner, bathe them, dress them, put them down to sleep.

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Life

Rock Band skills

I am, was, maybe still am, a master of the green, red, yellow, blue and orange. I could play almost any song on expert as my fingers flicked across the clinking buttons of my ersatz Gibson Duo Jet. I used to be able to rock out like all the great fake guitarists; I was the British Kill3rzQu33nz or xxx2tasteexxx.

Then I realised that despite my ability nobody really cared and in fact I would get more derision than admiration from my fingering ability. Plus it took up too much time, cost far too much and other interests came along to distract me.

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