It's probably safest to treat the whole thing as a diary related to a higher conciousness.

While I'm in this state of intense navel-contemplation, the uppermost of many thoughts: should I strive for the bleeding edge of intellectual thought? There's a strong temptation to go for the LiveJournal route and glibly immortalise in digital form such horrendous personal ephemera as "I got drunk" or "I should go to the gym" or "Popstars really sucks". While that's all incontrovertably true, I can't help but feel I could be reaching higher - I mean, there's so many desperately intellectual types out there and they're quite often really captivating and insightful, as well as being utterly and completely misguided and wrong.

The problem is... well, it takes a lot to lay yourself bare on the Internet. I can hardly express problems about self-expression without truly expressing myself, and that seems dangerously, well, expressive. People might be looking. Hideous facts may be revealed. There may be gossip. Can I take myself seriously enough? And can I stop asking so many damn fatuous questions to a silent audience... it's like some sort of teenage stereotype. Not that I ever did anything like this as a teenager - of course! I'm a late developer. Suddenly it all falls into place. I'm just nipping out for a couple litres of dreadful sparkling cider and an intense period of analysis and self-loathing. See, I'm expressing myself already. And without question marks, thank carefully-unspecified god(tm)

Oh yeah, Happy New Year. I'm concerned: how can I match the sort of insight offered by Drill-cock? Should I resort to laudanum?

Just about the most significant thing that has sprung forth from my brain recently related to the notion of careers. I was chatting to a marine biologist in the pub, and the subject of careers came up, mostly in the context of I'm-planning-to-get-one-no-really-I-hear-that-x-is-really-what-companies-look-for-these-days, where x is whatever we were doing at the time. Really, tearing up beermats and talking about cars is so employable, honestly. Anyway, it suddenly struck me that the fact that neither of us have the slightest idea what we'll be doing with our lives after the next few years or even the next few drinks was entirely irrelevant. The reason? Well, just about everyone these days agrees that you don't get a job for life. You're lucky to be there long enough to flirt with the receptionist and steal a couple of packets of Post-Its before you're being handed a P45 and a generically-autographed card, and given the sincere assurances of the Acting Deputy Vice President for UK Sales (Administration) that it's due to the recent downturn and the general development of the market and trends in departmental management. Or some such. The thing is, fewer and fewer people stick with the job long enough to reach such a lofty position. A human resources manager I was talking to in the pub the other day confirmed the suspicions of a personnel manager I was talking to in the pub last year (you may be noticing a trend here; trust me, it'll get worse) in saying that a huge number of sub-30-year-olds were jacking in promising careers in [some form of tedious finance work] after two years to go travelling, usually to Australia. Hardly remarkable, but it's suddenly occurred to me that even if they didn't, they'd get bored in a couple of years and move on, or get fired. Why not jump before you're pushed, and spend your savings on a few months Down Under? I mean, it's not like you're ever going to be able to afford a house anyway, so you may as well rack up some experiences you can talk about with the people you'll be sharing accommodation with for the rest of your life - if you're not still living with your parents, that is.

Sudden, pub clarity. No-one's got jobs anyway, and everyone wants to travel. Where will we be in ten year's time? Sat on a beach with the temp agency's microchip implanted into our arm, so they can arrange a couple of years' mortgage administration from the moment we touch down back at Heathrow en route to our minimum-standard council living quarters?

God, has it been an hour yet?

I'm currently searching my beer-addled brain to think of something to post, as my little brother is doing the nasty with his girlfriend. I'm keeping my distance at his request. Am I a good or a weak person for this? Both?

Dear God, the last post hasn't appeared. I forget the subject, but I recall the searing heat of precisely expressed emotion, the all-encompassing blackness of eternal despair, and probably something about computer games. I'm just guessing at that last part, you understand.

Damn it, that was prescient. Still, on a high note, as of just a few seconds ago I can fly a helicopter in a flight sim! You may be thinking that's the ultimate in geekiness, and, well, it is. It's also, however, damn difficult, and I would have given up long since were I not being paid to continue.

Some other stuff happened over the last month or so, but it barely came close to this for spiritual well-being.

Oh, and it now occurs to me I won't have any Internet access at home for about a month now. Work it is, then. I'm sure the fascinating insights my coworkers offer me on an hour-to-hour basis will make for some fascinating stuff. Seems to for the bloke two desks over, anyway, although I don't know what his blog's called.

So, it would appear that having finally created a blog, I have nothing to say. Well there, is one thing: I'm tired. I suffer from an deficiency of sleep and an excess of Gameboy Advance. Oh, and the internet, but I think I'm inured to that now.