{"id":772,"date":"2005-04-13T18:48:11","date_gmt":"2005-04-13T09:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/04\/13\/this-months-new-addiction\/"},"modified":"2005-07-23T16:45:35","modified_gmt":"2005-07-23T07:45:35","slug":"this-months-new-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/04\/13\/this-months-new-addiction\/","title":{"rendered":"This Month&#8217;s New Addiction!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Breaking with that old personal habit of favouring vices over addiction, I decided today that it was high time to resume heavy drug use for a while. And since methamphetamine is so damn expensive round here, I naturally turned to the second best option: Caffeine.<\/p>\n<p>The deal is: I never drink coffee. Or hardly ever. Save for the odd cup or two when meeting people in a coffeeshop (and that&#8217;s only because the local Starbucks employees still refuses to this day to serve me Mojitos, even when I am ready to bring my own bottle of Rum). But coffee in the morning (i.e.: before 8pm) is a rarity. <\/p>\n<p>Because of my complete non-addiction to caffeine, and since I still have my old hardcore coffee drinker habits, dosage-wise, those rare instances where I fix myself a cup usually result in uncontrollable twitching and borderline dizziness for most of the day. <\/p>\n<p><!--more-->But, provided I manage to stay within reasonable quantities (e.g.: the kind of distilled panda piss you get served at the aforementioned ubiquitous coffeehouse chain): What. A. Ride!<\/p>\n<p>We tend to forget too easily how serious a drug caffeine is. Then again, so is tobacco (and so is crack cocaine for that matter, but that one&#8217;s harder to forget): but in terms of enjoyable side-effects vs. pure dependency, nicotine is not such a great deal&#8230; I mean, half-a-pack at once, for a non-smoker, might manage to yield a small high, but I would hardly call that worth the effort. Perhaps injection is a solution there, but I really don&#8217;t like needles. Plus I don&#8217;t really need <em>relaxing<\/em> right now, I need <em>motivating<\/em> and <em>stimulating<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>See, for the past two or three months now, I have been working exclusively from home, with merely the occasional work meeting and, of course, the attendance to diverse drink-oriented social events. But for the most part, I spend all my days sitting in front of a monitor, or over some very depressing sheets of paper covered in undecipherable squiggles (of the mathematic or japanese complexion). This forced immobility puts me in an odd mix of apathy and antsiness: I end up doing much less than I should be doing (work-wise), but get twice more frustrated at the fact I cannot even move around or interact with more of the world than my damn desk or through the freaking internet.<\/p>\n<p>In short: I feel permanently frustrated.<\/p>\n<p>Not that I haven&#8217;t been fighting it, any way I can: Hell, I even resumed my semi-regular morning run last month. And of all physical activities, there&#8217;s not a single one I <em>hate<\/em> more than running. In fact, last time I was found running was probably six years ago. and the five Soho skinheads that raced me for a dozen blocks (ostensibly to ask if I wanted to join for a game of baseball, judging by their equipment, though I didn&#8217;t deem it essential to stop and ask) probably had a lot to do with this sudden bout of enthusiasm for the activity.<\/p>\n<p>Hence, <strong>coffee<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>No plan on keeping this new addiction fad past a month or two, mind you. Once I&#8217;ll have successfully conned my way into some sorts of degree loosely related to my alleged knowledge of mathematics and quantum mechanics, sometime next June, I see no reason to keep with the stimulants. Particularly since I won&#8217;t have much dopamine receptors left by then (that&#8217;s what happen when you start drinking coffee every day, people), which kinds of defeat the purpose of trying to artificially tickle them.<\/p>\n<p>But for the time being, I think that&#8217;s the best way to ensure I ultimately don&#8217;t spend the next two months developing acute cabin fever when I&#8217;m supposed to write the novel of the century (something along that line&#8230; at least if you replace &#8220;storyline&#8221; by &#8220;pseudo-science bullshitting&#8221; and &#8220;character development&#8221; by &#8220;<em>equation<\/em> development&#8221;)&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>And because I have a rather twisted conception of health maintenance, I have decided it was time to go on an alcohol break. Figured that if I was gonna go after my stomach lining, I might as well give a break to the liver. Not to mention that I could certainly use the few extra neurons over these next two months. <\/p>\n<p>Following this announcement, Bombay Gin Distilleries and Kirin Corporation have both downgraded their quarterly earning forecasts, but with a bit of luck, I will be back and ready to help with the liquidation of their surplus, before the end of the Summer. Hang in there folks, I won&#8217;t let you down!<\/p>\n<p>And for my fellow bar-hopping 12-step escapees, fear not: I won&#8217;t abandon you&#8230;<\/p>\n<p> I might have to bring a thermos with me next time we go out, though&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Time to kick an old addiction. And start a new one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-better-living-through-chemistry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unknowngenius.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}