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Thursday 25th November 2004

Happy second birthday Warming Up. That's a whole lotta bullshit.
Does that make this the 732nd consecutive entry (allowing for the leap year)? I suppose the next milestone is 1000. Someone keep your eyes peeled for it.

Alas the British Library where I go to escape the distractions of the internet has now gone wi-fi (get with it grandad, it's the wireless internet - no I don't understand how it works either). I couldn't resist testing it out and of course it is just as distracting as at home. I ended up playing poker for money on the internet (having lost my relatively harmless false money computer game). On the plus side I won £220, which isn't a bad day's work. On the downside I lost it all in minutes when I got home, convinced of my poker supremecy. That's the second poker software I've uninstalled from this computer in three days. At least I didn't lose anything. It seemed vaguely scandalous sitting in the reading rooms and gambling with real money - like I was doing something illegal. Which of course just made it all the more thrilling to be getting so far ahead. Once again the thought of becoming a professional gambler crossed my mind, but after the later disaster I think it's probably best to stick to writing.
Wi-fi is an incredible thing though, although the British Library version has the annoying habit of shutting itself down every three minutes of inactivity, even though you pay for it a month at a time, so it is saving you nothing to shut down. Maybe I can get round this by setting my email to send and receive every 2 minutes. Oh dear, two years in and I think the Warming Up magic has gone. I am just captivated by the magic of the internet working anywhere, as was the woman at the next table in the cafe this afternoon who couldn't believe what she was seeing. "Is that the internet?" she asked.
"Yes," I replied trying to pretend that I wasn't equally amazed by this development.
She was flabberghasted. But so was I.
"Does it work in the reading rooms?" she asked.
"Yeah, it does," I nonchalently revealed, "But you need to have a wi-fi machine."
She nodded, but obviously didn't know what wi-fi was. I do. I've known for about three days. I managed to get that thought across in a look and she went on her way advising me to "Have fun," with maybe just a tinge of sarcasm in her voice. But it was a tinge of sarcasm lined with envy and that's always the most satisfying kind.
But I did manage to get some work done as well. I've had two nights off the booze and my head has cleared amazingly quickly. I am also getting much more motivated to get on with it (I had my meeting at the National Theatre this morning, though I wouldn't hold my breath). I've started having a go at writing Hercules up as a book. I think it should work well and as I mentioned before I am going to plough on and if no publisher wants to buy it I might put it on here for a fiver a crack. What do you think? It would be worth it if enough of you would pay that. Well we'll see. Thanks for sticking with me for two years on here, or for joining in somewhere along the way. If this is your first time you have 731 other entries to plough through, some of which are more interesting than this one, but some of which, more amazingly are more dull.
Don't gamble kids. It's for fools. Fools I say!

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