So here’s a quick update on what I’m doing.

New semester starts today and I’ll finally be taking my Cisco classes, which was the whole point of going back to school. Two seven and a half week courses back to back so it’s going to move at a breakneck pace. Plus I get out of class five minutes before I start my shift at work. Which means I’ll be a little late to work, but I usually end up staying past the end of my shift anyway so it all works out in the wash. Boss is OK with it and that’s what matters.

Been sending out resumes like complementary breath mints. My contract at Big Dot.Com company comes to an end at the end of April so I don’t have much time left to find someplace else to work. There’s been a fair amount of postings for IT people, but they’re asking for people with a lot more job skills than I currently have. May have to, once again, consider looking out of state for work. Can’t really afford to be out of work for any length of time.

All of that is what has been keeping my attention which is part of why I’ve not been blogging as much lately. I’ll try to devote some more attention to the blog in the coming weeks, but it’s hard to think of stuff to write about when you’re busy preparing for a looming deadline like the one I’m dealing with.

What have you guys been up to?

I’m going to do something I almost never do: I’m going to not only make some New Year resolutions, but I’m going to post them publicly. I don’t normally bother with resolutions at all because years of experience has taught me that I’m terrible at keeping them. My standard joke was to say that I resolve not to make any resolutions allowing me to both keep and break it all at once.

However, this year I have felt every single one of my 42 years weighing upon my body. From the occasional back spasms to the ongoing rotator cuff issues to my right knee starting to act up to a general lack of energy. All issues that tie into the fact that I am far heavier than I should be. I don’t have a current measurement of my heft, but last time I was checked I was back up to just under 300 pounds. A number that surprises people to hear because I don’t look like someone who is that heavy to a lot of people, which just goes to show how shitty most people are at judging weight. I’m fat and it’s been affecting my health more and more the longer I ignore it and I could probably counter a fair bit of it by just getting off my ass and exercising a bit.

Which brings me to my first resolution: I resolve that I’m going to start exercising regularly in 2010. I will not be setting any weight goals because I honestly would be happy if I can just manage the willpower to do something for 30 minutes three times a week. Anne has been wanting to sign up at the local Rec Center where they have a fitness program with trainers that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg and I think it’s time. Hell, it’s long overdue. Whether it’ll be a treadmill, stationary bike, or whatever I couldn’t say. I’ll probably try several before I settle on something I can handle. The next two resolutions aren’t anything so dramatic, but are things I had fully intended to start doing in 2009 and never managed to get around to it.

I resolve to finally get the SEB Podcast underway. ***Dave and I keep bringing it up to each other and then proceed to go back to doing whatever we were doing and forget about it. The idea of chatting with ***Dave on various topics makes me very excited as the test run we did over Skype awhile back went very well. One of us is going to have to wrangle us together and get it done, though, and seeing as it’s my podcast that means it’s up to me. I’m still open for ideas on formats, topics, and even people to participate if anyone else out there wants to spend some time blathering with me on Skype.

I also resolve to finally try my hand at video blogging. I bought the RCA Small Wonder and a webcam specifically for doing video blogs and, again, I’ve never gotten around to doing one. This one might be even more difficult than the podcast as I have even fewer ideas of what to do with it and there’s considerably more work involved as lighting becomes an issue as well as editing and even a background. I did some live streaming during the Blogathon that was pretty nifty, but it became clear that shots of my basement walls were less than amazing background fodder.

So that’s it. My three resolutions for 2010. The funny thing is I’m less confident of my ability to keep the last two resolutions versus the exercise one as the latter requires less creativity. Still, I’m going to do my best to keep all three. I might only get a single podcast or video blog done this year, but I’m going to do my best to get at least that much done. Wish me luck. Self-discipline is something I’ve always struggled with.

So what resolutions, if any, are you guys making?

So it’s just before 9AM here in Ann Arbor and I’m sitting in my living room watching TV on a very wet Christmas day. This year has been a big change for me and I haven’t always handled it well.

I’m spending most of the day alone for the first time in my life. Courtney has moved to Grand Rapids and Anne is working until 4PM so there was no early morning madness of gift exchanging, tearing into carefully wrapped packages, and gleeful squeeling. It’s been a tight year money -wise so there’s not a lot of gifts under the tree anyway. I wouldn’t even be awake right now except that Courtney called me at 7:15AM to wish me a Merry Christmas, which was a little annoying at first because it was a reminder of what I’m missing out on.

And then I pulled up my big boy underpants and adjusted my attitude. I have a very idealized idea of what Christmas is supposed to be like and this year I’m about as far from it as it’s possible to be, but life is about change and in the great scheme of things I have to admit I’m pretty lucky. I have a wonderful marriage to a woman I love greatly, I’m employed in a state with the highest level of unemployment, I have a daughter who appears to be well adjusted despite having me for a father, I have a roof over my head, toys of all manner to play with, a cat that keeps me company, food in my fridge, and an abundance of good friends. Later today we’ll be headed over to Anne’s parents house for Christmas dinner and gift exchange with people who have accepted me as family.

Nope, I’m not rich and probably won’t be anytime soon, but I’ve got a lot to be happy about. Things could definitely be much worse. Sometimes we need to stop and consider how fortunate we are. It can be easy to take things for granted that we really shouldn’t. That’s my Christmas gift to myself today.

So here’s hoping that your Christmas day is a good one and that you and yours are doing well. May you be safe, healthy, and happy. And thanks for making SEB a stop on your daily browsing.

Holy crap! I’ve been so busy with life that I totally forgot that I started this little experiment in egocentric rambling back on December 2nd, 2001. Not that I did a lot with it that month, but that’s when it officially started which means Stupid Evil Bastard is now, officially, 8 years old.

Had you told me at the time that almost a decade later I’d still be finding stuff to write about I probably would’ve laughed. I’m ADD. I have a hard time finishing all the video games I own. Yet here I am still plugging away. Sure, I tend to go in phases where I’m not as active as I am at other times and what I blog about tends to also go in phases, but I’m still banging on the keyboard when something catches my attention.

What’s even more amazing to me is the fact that there are so many people that drop by daily to see what nonsense I’m carrying on about at the time. I’ve heard from a lot of people I’d never have imagined would find my rantings worth following and even been lucky enough to meet a few of you.

I did come close to giving it up a couple of times and there are periods when I haven’t been able to come up with something to write about that I revisit the possibility. Right about then I’ll read something that pisses me off and I am off and running once more. I can’t promise you that I’ll make it to the full 10 year mark, but we’re starting on our ninth year so it’s looking like a good possibility.

Thanks for checking in on me over the last eight years. It wouldn’t have been as much fun without you.

There’s an interesting column over at The Boston Globe about people who have a problem with people who say no problem instead of you’re welcome after being thanked for something. This is an issue close to my heart as I have used the phrase no problem for, quite literally, decades and I can prove it as well. I’m in my early 40’s now and somewhere in my boxes of old memorabilia — I don’t have it handy, but could dig it up if called upon to do so — there lies a caricature someone drew of me back in my early 20’s during my time as a Desktop Publishing Coordinator for the Kinko’s Copies in Auburn Hills. It depicts me in full DTP regalia behind my counter with the Mac I used to do my job and a prominent speech balloon over my head reads, “No problem!” I’m quite sure that wasn’t the start of my usage of the phrase, but it was distinct enough at the time to catch someone’s attention.

Little did I realize that I may have been punching many people’s pet peeve over the years:

The un-welcome – The Boston Globe.

There’s a certain kind of person – you may even be this kind of person – whose good will after receiving a favor and replying with “thank you” is completely wiped out when the response is not the traditional “you’re welcome,” but instead the breezier “no problem.”

As “no problem” has caught on and spread, replacing “you’re welcome” in situations ranging from casual personal encounters to business deals, the number, vigor, and shrillness of the complaints in etiquette columns and Internet forums has spread along with it.

I have, somehow, managed to miss all this bitching and moaning over the phrase as this is the first I’d ever heard that it was something people complained about. Or, for that matter, that the phrase was catching on. Figures I’d be a trend setter in pissing-people-off-without-meaning-to.

The reasons given – or unstated – are varied. Many especially dislike hearing “no problem” in commercial transactions and from folks in customer service jobs, since, as the customer is always right, nothing a customer could ask for could ever be “a problem.” “I assume my business is not a problem,” huffed one complainer on the message boards at the Visual Thesaurus. Others on the Internet have taken the same tack: “Why would it be a problem? It’s her job, isn’t it?” and “It better damn well NOT be a problem, because I just gave you my money.” Some dwell on the counterfactual: “I always wonder if the person would have helped me if they had known it would be a problem.” And from Twitter: “I know it’s no problem. You rang up my orange juice. How could that be a…problem?”

So herein lies the first problem people have with no problem. The idea that it should be taken, like the Bible, literally. As opposed to something polite to say in response to a thank you that was probably more perfunctory than heartfelt itself.

I don’t know about anyone else, but it’s very rare that I feel the various thank yous I get during the average day are in any way sincere. Every now and then you come across someone who realizes your no problem was a politeness doled out automatically in response to a thank you and they’ll stop and repeat, with emphasis, that they are sincere in their thanks. Which is always a nice thing to happen and will almost always be greeted, by me at least, by a sincere you’re welcome. I guess I reserve my welcomes for when I really mean it.

That said, the idea that the customer is always right is one that just doesn’t fly with me and the quickest way to get me to switch from a no problem to a fuck off is to start acting like the idea is a sacred truth.

Others think the problem of “no problem” is one of self-centeredness. In a comment on the blog for the public radio station WAMC in Albany, N.Y., one person with a no-problem problem wrote: “When you say [no problem], you are describing or assessing how you feel about the favor or task that you are being thanked for instead of acknowledging the social nicety of a ‘thank you’ with a statement that in turn acknowledges what was just said to you in a relational context.” (Whew!) In other, fewer words: If you say “no problem,” you’re talking about yourself. If you say “you’re welcome,” the focus is still on the favoree, where it evidently belongs.

Yeah, that’ll earn you a hearty fuck you if that’s how you feel about it. Perhaps it is a bit self-centered — I’m a blogger, we tend to be self-centered — but interaction is a two-way street and I’m not sure I see how my feelings on the favor being asked of me are irrelevant.

If I am just doing my job then no thanks are expected or required. They’re nice when sincere, but if you’re just engaging in the previously mentioned “social niceties” as opposed to expressing an honest feeling of thanks, then you can keep it to yourself and I’d be just fine with that. I’m not much for social niceties that aren’t sincere. It’s a game I’m not interested in playing.

Others just think “no problem” is unnecessarily negative, dwelling as it does on the problem, and not the just-proffered solution. “You’re welcome,” has two generally positive words, compared with the doubly negative “no problem.”

These folks are thinking about it entirely too fucking much and need to get a hobby. I suppose I could see the argument that the words no problem are both negative terms, but the phase as a whole is a positive when you think about it. And I bet you I can come up with a dozen ways to say you’re welcome that wouldn’t make you feel all that warm and fuzzy.

If you are not a person for whom a cheery “no problem” or “anytime” is an affront, you may think that those who are affronted are overthinking this – or are overly touchy, or, at the very least, are blessed with an abundance of free time. You might even sense that responses like “sure,” “anytime,” or “no problem” – as well as “you’re welcome” itself – are what linguists call phatic communications, words that don’t really convey information so much as they perform a social role. In other words, “you’re welcome” doesn’t mean “you are welcome (to ask me to do this again)” and “no problem” doesn’t mean that there would have been a problem if you weren’t so darn nice. They only mean that the speaker has acknowledged your thanks.

Yes, I would definitely be one of those people. And, yes, that’s pretty much how I view the phrase.

Then again, those who do take offense may be picking up on subtle nuances of the thanker-thankee relationship. Dr. Albert Katz, a professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario, has studied this question and has found that these replies can convey more than mere politeness – they may also be used to show or assert social dominance. In his study, he found that open-ended responses like “anytime” were used less often when the favor performed was difficult – reducing the risk that the hearer would take that “anytime” literally, and come back again. But men, especially, were more likely to use responses like “anytime,” even for high-difficulty favors, when the person receiving the favor was also male. (Women were somewhat less likely to use responses like “anytime” for high-difficulty favors.) Katz speculated that men were displaying dominance behavior – proving that they had the resources to perform costly favors – as a way to assert their alpha-male status.

Right, because I am such an Alpha Male. Hell, it’s all I can do to keep from pissing all over your leg when I’m talking to you as a means of identifying not only my superiority over you, but that I consider you an object that I now own by having left my mark upon you.

My wife would laugh uncontrollably if you were to suggest that idea to her. Not just because of the mental image of my urinating on your leg, but because of the idea of me being an Alpha anything.

So in conclusion: If you’re one of the people who gets their panties all in a twist over people like me responding with a chirpy no problem when you toss a thank you my way all you have to do is let me know and I’ll be sure to modify my response to a chirpy fuck you instead. Of course I’ll mean that in the nicest way possible.

Via ***Dave:

1. What time did you get up this morning?
6:00 a.m. That’s standard for the Monday through Friday grind until August 17th when I’ll be switching to afternoon shift. Then it’s a crap shoot.

2. How do you like your steak?
I’m sure I’m going to appall a lot of people with this answer, but I like mine medium-well. Of course when you ask for it to be medium-well there’s only about a 50/50 chance of it actually being medium-well.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

4. What is your favorite TV show?
Currently my favorite is Better Off Ted, but you could also say The Big Bang Theory and Doctor Who. There are very few shows I make a point of watching.

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
Tokyo might be fun for awhile, but I’m pretty happy with Michigan overall. My reluctance to move out of state is probably why I’m not earning as much as I have in the past.

6. What did you have for breakfast?
Haven’t had it yet, but will be grabbing a bowl of Raisin Bran and some orange juice courtesy of my employer in a moment.

7. What is your favorite cuisine?
I don’t really have a favorite. It depends on my mood.

8. What foods do you dislike?
Raw tomatoes, Asparagus, anything overly spicy.

9. Favorite Place to Eat?
I’m a big fan of Red Robin burgers, but there’s also this little Mom and Pop Italian place here in Ann Arbor called Bella Italia which I highly recommend to anyone in the area. I love their Alfredo Chicken.

10. Favorite dressing?
Ranch mostly, though I used to be really fond of Thousand Island. I like a good Italian every now and then too.

11.What kind of vehicle do you drive?
2000 Pontiac Grand Prix or a 2004 Honda Civic.

12. What are your favorite clothes?
Jeans and Hawaiian shirts or t-shirts. I’m not a snappy dresser.

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance?
England, Japan, Hawaii, the Bahamas. All sorts of places. Alas I don’t get vacations very often and don’t have the cash it would take.

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full?
Neither. It’s half a cup.

15. Where would you want to retire?
Hadn’t thought about it. Considering my piss-poor planning I probably won’t be able to retire.

16. Favorite time of day?
Don’t really have one. Or I should say that it varies.

17. Where were you born?
Detroit, Michigan. Which is odd as I’ve never lived in Detroit itself.

18. What is your favorite sport to watch?
Not a sports guy. I was born without the Male Sports Gene.

19. Who do you think will not tag you back?
No one will tag me back because I don’t plan on tagging anyone.

20. Person you expect to tag you back first?
See #19

21. Who are you most curious about their responses to this?
No one in particular.

22. Bird watcher?
Not really.

23. Are you a morning person or a night person?
I’m definitely a night owl. I have a hard time getting to bed before midnight. Which is a pain when you get up at 6AM.

24. Do you have any pets?
Two black cats. Melvin and Beanie. Neither of whom get along with the other.

25. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share?
Nothing I’ve not already blogged about.

26. What did you want to be when you were little?
Santa Claus. Thought it was the coolest job ever. Barring that I wanted to be an actor or a stunt man.

27. What is your best childhood memory?
Most of what I remember from my childhood are fragments and impressions of events. Just about any Christmas morning will do along with any number of moments from summer or winter playing outdoors.

28. Are you a cat or dog person?
**Dave’s response is pretty much what I would say: I enjoy dogs, but don’t want to take pack responsibility. So definitely cats.

29. Are you married?
Yes. Well into our ninth year now.

30. Always wear your seat belt?
Without fail. I’m one of those assholes who insist you do so as well if you’re riding with me.

31. Been in a car accident?
A couple. Broke my neck in one of them (not as bad as it sounds).

32. Any pet peeves?
A few. I tend to do repetitive things by routines and I always get annoyed when the routines are interrupted by something silly. This is mostly something that occurs in my job.

33. Favorite Pizza Toppings?
Pepperoni, mushroom, ham, sausage, pretty much any meat short of anchovies. I’m a fan of Hawaiian and Mediterranean Chicken pizzas.

34. Favorite Flower?
Never thought about it. Not much for flowers myself.

35. Favorite ice cream?
Cookie Dough, Rocky Road, Moose Tracks, though sometimes I’m quite partial to a simple but rich Vanilla.

36. Favorite fast food restaurant?
I love me some Arby’s, but it’s too expensive to eat there often.

37. How many times did you fail your driver’s test?
Passed it on the first try.

38. From whom did you get your last email?
Coworker. It was notes on how her shift went last night.

39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?
Newegg.com, but I don’t have any credit cards.

40. Do anything spontaneous lately?
Freaked out over my daughter’s decision to not come home in the fall. That was pretty spontaneous in that I hadn’t planned on it.

41. Like your job?
It’s OK. Doesn’t pay as well as I’d like (or am used to) and is far less technical than I’d prefer. In this economy, though, it’s better than a lot of stuff I could be doing.

42. Broccoli?
Sure. I particularly like it raw with ranch dressing to dip it in. Though a good steaming with butter is always nice. Maybe some cheddar poured over top.

43. What was your favorite vacation?
Disney World back when I was a teenager. Been meaning to get back there ever since.

44. Last person you went out to dinner with?
My wife, Anne. We ate at Red Robbin.

45. What are you listening to right now?
The gentle woosh of the A/C here at work. Don’t tend to listen to music much outside of the car.

46. What is your favorite color?
Blue.

47. How many tattoos do you have?
None. Not that I haven’t thought about it, but I can’t decide what I’d like to have done.

48. How many are you tagging for this quiz?
None. I don’t tend to tag people with memes.

49. What time did you finish this quiz?
8:29 am

50. Coffee Drinker?
Yes, though not habitually. Mainly on the weekends at this point.

I’ve been thinking I need to buy a new laptop. I have two laptops at home already, but they are so old that they are painfully slow to use with Windows XP. Running Linux on them helps to speed them up a bit so long as I either use a very old distro or one so pared down that finding drivers for the wireless cards is akin to pulling fingernails out with pliers. The battery life on both of them is next to nothing and one of them I loaned out for a bit and the person, who shall not be named, put a boot up password on it which they can no longer recall. Being that it’s a Dell Latitude CPi the only method I’ve found for resetting the damned thing is to rip it apart and short out a particular chip, which is something I’ve just not been motivated to do despite the fact that it’s arguably the faster of the two laptops. I tried calling Dell, but seeing as I’m like the fourth person to own this laptop they’re not willing to give me a master password that would let me in because I am not the original owner. So I’m thinking I need to buy a new laptop. Something with wireless and perhaps a webcam built-in. Ideally I’d like to plunk down the cash for a good gaming laptop, but I don’t really have the cash to plunk down. I have a little money left over from the Pell grant I got for school and school is part of the reason I’m thinking of getting one so I’ve been leaning towards using that, but Anne would prefer I put the left over money in our savings account. I could finance something, but the budget is tight as it is so adding another monthly bill is probably not a good idea.

It’s probably one of the signs that I’ve gotten older and wiser that I’m sitting around debating the issue at all. There’s a certainly level of ‘want’ behind all of this thinking, but there’s also a small level of justifiable ‘need’ to factor in. Or at least there’s a small amount of ‘need’ that I’ve been able to rationalize to myself. It says something that I can recognize the fact that I’m rationalizing at all. The truth is I’ve survived school thus far without a laptop and could probably continue to do so, but it would make life a bit easier if I had one. Not to mention all the other uses I could put it to. That’s not really a ‘need’ in the true sense of the word, though. I don’t really NEED a laptop to do well in school. And then there’s the fact that there are a dozen other things I could use the money for such as car repairs. It all makes for a bit of a mental maelstrom roaring away in my head that’s really kind of pointless because deep down I know I’m not going to buy a laptop anytime soon.

Being older and wiser kind of sucks at times. When I was younger I would’ve impulsively used the money to buy myself a laptop and rationalized it away as being a good idea because I’m in college and, thusly, have a need for it. That’s ignoring the fact that you couldn’t get a laptop for less than a grand back when I was younger; unlike today where you can get them for as little as $300 putting them tantalizingly within reach. Now my older, wiser self will eventually convince my impulsive side that it’s not a good idea and I don’t really need it and eventually the impulses will weaken and die pathetically in the dark recesses of my mind.

It seems to me that I was a lot happier back when I was more impulsive. Sure I sometimes got myself into trouble, but there’s a certain joy to be had in convincing yourself you really need that new… thing… and then buying it. Stupid? Probably, but happy. In comparison there’s no joy in being a responsible adult. Yes it’s absolutely the right thing to do to save the money and put it towards things that are more important, but I get no joy out of that. Smart? Yes, but not happy. To make things even worse when I finally do get in a position where I have the money to spend and Anne agrees it’s a good idea to do so I still end up feeling guilty for doing it and thus not as happy as I should be.

Like when I finally got to buy myself a PS3. I really wanted a PS3 for a long time and Anne had been putting a little money aside every month so I could eventually get one and after receiving some birthday money to add to the total I was finally able to buy one. We went to the store and I stood there in front of the box on the shelf and just agonized endlessly over the decision to actually buy it. My brain went nuts listing off all the other shit I should be spending the money on. I should have been happy as hell, but I was wracked with guilt. It confused the hell out of Anne because she expected me to be bouncing off the walls in joy and here I was at points on the verge of tears over it. I almost didn’t buy one. I feel much better about it these days because it’s been useful as more than just a game machine what with the Blu-Ray and the ability to stream media from my PC, but I still feel the occasional pang of guilt when I play it.

I use to love to go window shopping at the mall. As I walked along I’d fantasize about the stuff I saw that I’d like to buy someday and often that would be enough to curb any impulses to spend money I might have had. These days I can’t stand window shopping. It just depresses me because I know there’s about 15 billion other things I’ll have to spend the money on before I can even begin to fantasize about spending money on the stuff that I really want. I’m way more responsible than I used to be, but I’m less happy as a result.

Actually, let me restate that: I’m more responsible than I used to be, but my life has fewer moments of pure unadulterated joy as a result. Perhaps that’s a sign of how shallow I am as a person that I used to take so much pleasure from buying stuff, but I miss those carefree moments. Shopping used to be fun, now it’s just another chore I’d rather not think about.

You’d think that with all the ranting I did about the Bush Administration over the past eight years that I’d be ecstatic that the nightmare is over and a historic new Presidency is about to begin. Rather than jumping for joy I am actually feeling rather apprehensive. I felt the same way during Bush’s first inauguration. It’s not that I don’t think Obama is a move in the right direction or that he won’t be any better than Bush was, but when it comes to politicians of any kind my cynical side tends to kick in more so than my optimistic side.

Bush’s failure as a leader is as much the fault of the people he surrounded himself with as it is his own. On that score I think Obama has put together a better team than Bush did, but it’s not perfect. The challenges facing this new administration are huge, much more so than what Bush faced when he took office, and there’s only so many hours in the day.  On top of all of that there’s the simple fact that Obama is still a human being and not some idealized white knight on a shining horse who can do no wrong.

I have developed over the years a tendency to avoid pinning my hopes on something turning out to be a great thing until I have sufficient evidence to declare it is, in fact, a great thing. I apply this tendency to everything from summer blockbuster movies to meals at new restaurants to Presidents. If you ask me how great the Obama years will be I’ll tell you that I don’t know, but I’m hoping they’ll be at least somewhat decent which shouldn’t be too difficult considering how low the previous President has set the bar. Ask me again in a year and I’ll have the start of an answer. Ask me again in four and I’ll have something more solid to say.

I found myself pondering this question after reading Johann Hari’s article titled My Experiment With Smart Drugs in which he tries out a drug called Provigil normally prescribed to narcoleptics, but which has been described by non-narcoleptics taking it as “Viagra for the brain.” Check it:

A week later, the little white pills arrived in the post. I sat down and took one 200mg tablet with a glass of water. It didn’t seem odd: for years, I took an anti-depressant. Then I pottered about the flat for an hour, listening to music and tidying up, before sitting down on the settee. I picked up a book about quantum physics and super-string theory I have been meaning to read for ages, for a column I’m thinking of writing. It had been hanging over me, daring me to read it. Five hours later, I realised I had hit the last page. I looked up. It was getting dark outside. I was hungry. I hadn’t noticed anything, except the words I was reading, and they came in cool, clear passages; I didn’t stop or stumble once.

Perplexed, I got up, made a sandwich – and I was overcome with the urge to write an article that had been kicking around my subconscious for months. It rushed out of me in a few hours, and it was better than usual. My mood wasn’t any different; I wasn’t high. My heart wasn’t beating any faster. I was just able to glide into a state of concentration – deep, cool, effortless concentration. It was like I had opened a window in my brain and all the stuffy air had seeped out, to be replaced by a calm breeze.

Once that article was finished, I wanted to do more. I wrote another article, all of it springing out of my mind effortlessly. Then I go to dinner with a few friends, and I decide not to tell them, to see if they notice anything. At the end of the dinner, my mate Jess turns to me and says, “You seem very thoughtful tonight.”

It seems the drug has become very popular on college campuses and has stirred up some debate on whether or not using it constitutes cheating in the same way steroid use by athletes is considering cheating. The drug isn’t a stimulant or an amphetamine and it doesn’t make you high or wired and it has only one known side effect in that it causes weight loss.

To many that may make it sound like the perfect drug. It makes you smarter and thinner? How could that possibly be bad? Hari seemed to be enjoying it:

The next morning I woke up and felt immediately alert. Normally it takes a coffee and an hour to kick-start my brain; today I’m ready to go from the second I rise. And so it continues like this, for five days: I inhale books and exhale articles effortlessly. My friends all say I seem more contemplative, less rushed – which is odd, because I’m doing more than normal. One sixty-something journalist friend says she remembers taking Benzadrine in the sixties to get through marathon articles, but she’d collapse after four or five says and need a long, long sleep. I don’t feel like that. I keep waiting for an exhausted crash, and it doesn’t seem to come.

[...] It’s hard to explain Provigil’s effects beyond that. Normally, one day out of seven I have a day when I’m working at my best – I’ve slept really well, and everything comes easily and fast. Provigil makes every day into that kind of day. It’s like I have been upgraded to a new operating system: Johann 3.0. On discussion boards, I talk to American student doctors taking the drug, who say they feel exactly the same way. “I keep thinking – where’s the catch?” one says. It turns out it is being given to US soldiers too.

It was then that I noticed: I just wasn’t very hungry. I am normally porcine; my ex once seriously considered having a trough made for me. But on Provigil, I was filled up by a bowl of soup and a piece of bread. I would feel stuffed half-way through my normal meals, and push the food away unfinished. One of my friends howled: “Who are you, and what have you done with the real Johann?”

The author goes on to note that we still don’t know what the long-term effects of the drug are. Who knows what toll will be exacted on healthy people using it when they don’t really need to? There’s also some concern that it could be addictive so Hari decides to quit for three days to see what happens:

It was easy. I painlessly sagged back to my former somewhat-depleted state, as though the Provigil had never happened. I worked in my usual stop-start bursts. I ate my usual portions-and-a-half. I stared sadly at the pack of Provigil, and every time I hit a mental stumbling block, I had to discipline myself not to crack out a Provigil.

It sounds like it might be psychologically addictive more so than chemically addictive, but that’s still an addiction. It’s at this point that Hari reflects on the ethics of the drug:

As soon as my three days were up and I started again, my brain revved back into super-speed and my stomach began to shrivel. But this time I began to worry about the ethics of it all. If this drug had been available during my A-Levels or finals, I would have been the first to guzzle it down. But isn’t that cheating? What’s the difference between Provigil for students and steroids for athletes? And if this drug becomes as popular as, say, anti-depressants or Ritalin, won’t there be a social pressure for workers to take it? Many parents feel intensely pressured by schools today to drug away their child’s disobedience; will they feel pressured by their bosses to drug away their natural fatigue?

Professor Anjan Chatterjee says, “This age of cosmetic neurology is coming, and we need to know it’s coming.” The use of Provigil and its progeny will be mainstream and mainlined in just a few years, he argues, and this made me feel excited by the prospect – and anxious. But all this raced through my brain as I worked faster (and ate less) than I ever have: it was hard to dwell on the drawbacks in those circumstances. As the end of my final five days approached, I had to decide what to do. Do I order another pack? Do I try to think all my thoughts at a faster pace from here on in with the power of Provigil?

You’ll have to go read the rest yourself to find out what Hari decided. I found I could relate to his experience quite a bit because I’ve had similar thoughts about my time on prescription drugs to offset my ADD.

I haven’t used ADD drugs since I was laid off the first time in 2005 because I no longer had the insurance to cover the cost. Since starting the current job I could probably afford to get back on them, but I’m not sure I want to. Again the long-term effects of using drugs like Adderall to treat ADD aren’t well known and using the drugs isn’t really a cure for ADD, it just helps a bit. That said the difference in my ability to concentrate while on the drugs and when off them was noticeable and there are days when ADD is really impacting me that using the drugs would be very tempting, but they also changed my personality and made it harder to sleep at times. There’s all sorts of things I’ve been meaning to do that I haven’t done that I probably would have done had I been on the medication.

The idea of a drug that would open up my creativity and productivity with weight loss as a “side-effect” is quite tempting. Think of not only all the work I could accomplish at my job, but all the blog posts I could write! Then I think about how Hari got so caught up in reading a book that he didn’t notice the passage of time. I already do that without the aid of a drug. Books, TV, and particularly video games have all drawn me in to the point that I look up and see it’s 2:30AM and I need to get up for work in the morning. I can only imagine what might happen if I were taking Provigil.

Then there’s also the realization that I’m not sure if I want to be more productive. I will probably never be rich because I goof off too much, but at the same time my stress levels are much lower than a lot of other people I know and that’s probably because I goof off too much. I go into work, do my 40 hours, come home and forget about the fact that I have a job until Monday morning. I put in a solid effort when I’m at work, but I also try to avoid busting my ass anymore than is absolutely necessary. I work because I have to, not because I want to. If I ever manage to win the lotto with an amount that would ensure that I’d never have to work again then chances are I’d never work again. There are enough places in the world I’d enjoy visiting and things I’d enjoy doing that I don’t think I’d ever get to a point where work would seem attractive.

In general I’m pretty happy with who I am. There’s a few details I wouldn’t mind improving, and I’m working on those things, but overall I don’t have a problem with myself that taking a drug that could potentially make me into a different person seems necessary.  Of course the idea that taking the drug might make me productive enough to develop enough wealth that I wouldn’t have to work anymore and, by extension, not take the drug is somewhat attractive, but it’s also a gamble as there’s no guarantee that being more productive wouldn’t mean I’d just put out more crap nobody would really want.

At this point in time I have no desire to go back on my ADD drugs so I’d be unlikely to consider Provigil either. But could I rule it out completely? I’m torn on the idea myself. How about you?

During the 2008 Presidential campaigns, before either candidate has picked a running mate, aliens land in Washington D.C. and I’m one of the only people on the planet that can understand what they’re saying. They look like nothing more than a bad Doctor Who special effect in that they are bright globes of white light, but they start handing out Ancient Wisdom like how to cure the common cold and how to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in a just and fair manner that actually works and everyone is happy with. Because I’m the only American out of the three people who can understand what the aliens are saying I’m drafted by the government to be an official liaison for the United States. After some initial suspicion the aliens are quickly accepted as being almost Oracle-like because of the usefulness of the Ancient Wisdom they are handing out and it’s not long before every pronouncement they make, which is once or twice every other week or so, is a major news event.

The one thing that isn’t clear is what they want from us and it’s a question I’m repeatedly asked to raise. Then one day they finally get around to stating what they’d like to receive in exchange for all these useful bits of knowledge they’ve been handing out. It turns out they’ve been reading my blog for awhile and they want me to be Vice President of the United States. They don’t say why they want me to be Vice President as opposed to President nor do they say why they think I’d be good in the role. It’s not entirely clear that they’re not making the request for the humor potential alone, but Barack Obama quickly decides to announce that he’d be happy to have me as his running mate. This is a pretty bold move on Obama’s part considering I’m openly atheist and have written a lot of stuff on my blog which would, under normal circumstances, pretty much make me unelectable. The Republicans wouldn’t even entertain the idea given my liberal/atheist/heathenism and this doesn’t improve their prospects among any of the populace outside of the paranoid faction that thinks the aliens are planning to cook us all for dinner any day now in spite of the fact that they don’t have any discernible mouths or need to eat.

So in addition to my job as U.S. Liaison to the Glowing Blobs of Light I end up also running for Vice President alongside Barack Obama and, despite my unelectability, we win. The aliens take this as a sign of excellent reasoning on the part of Americans and decide to stick around dispensing more Ancient Wisdom because they get a kick out of watching Whoopi on The View. The only other request the aliens make is for a 105” LCD HDTV and free cable TV. And that’s when I wake up.