Damn You Internet! Stop Making Everything So Accessible To Me!!

Howdy howdy Internet Land! I trust that you are all well tonight? Brilliant news and a cause for joyous celebration, I'm sure. Just a quick blog post tonight - as I am coming down with a headcold that is putting me out of commission quite badly. Really, it's amazing just how much a soar throat and a bit of a fluffy head can impair my ability to be overly verbose and produce spuriously witty rhetoric. Ugh - Even that didn't make a lot of sense. Jeeze.

This Is Your Brain On Cold-Medication

Anyway, recently I have started (as I have previously posted about) my new assignment at CSU, in the Application Development department of their Division of Information Technology. Pretty much what I do is edit the online forms, subject outlines, webpages, and so forth, ensuring that they all work to the standards of the university, and that they all look pretty (I even get to check grammar and so forth!) This not only means that I'm now no longer answering phone calls informing people of service disruptions (or worse...) but it also means that I got a nice little pay rise - and I was made permanent, so now I get sick leave and so forth (which I may need to take tomorrow...)

Because of this slight...uh...windfall, as far as money is concerned, I have set away a small portion a month to spend on myself. This may come in the form of a massage, or a culinary treat on the weekend, or even something for my friends. More often than not, however, this is going to take the form of a couple of little online packages from The Internet (yes, that's right - the place where you all live!) I'm going to set about $100 aside a month, I think (as well as the money that I'm setting aside for my arcade...) and see what little treats I can get.

Perhaps I Will Buy Puppies!!

Of course, this month I made a little bit of a dent in all amounts I will have to spend each coming months, as I made what I consider to be quite the nifty little purchase. You see, the people over at J-List are capable of shipping things from Japan to me...Right to me!! One of the things that they ship - the thing that caught my eye - the sparkling diamond of my searches recently has been a monthly ongoing subscription to the manga-digest Shounen Ace. This means that, for $8.50 a month (plus shipping, which I understand may vary) I am rewarded with over 500 pages of a variety of Japanese comics (including: Lucky Star, Angelic Layer, Steel Angel Kurumi, and Neon Genesis Evangelion) as well as a nifty little prize for being a subscriber. Go me!

Well...I Guess It's Lucky That I Can Read Japanese...

There are, of course, other things that I want to get from J-List - a bento box, for example, as well as a couple of other nifty little random things. Not to say that J-List is the only place I want to shop from online, oh no no no. Far From It! There are also a couple of really cool books that I want to get from BookDepository (which has free shipping worldwide), and there is a butt-load of merchandise that I want from ThinkGeek. Oh, and clothing from Topatoco/Threadless. And DVDs from the UK. And video games! Food you can't get in Bathurst!! Ah - the choices! I appear to have sent myself into an online frenzy.

These People Are Missing Out On All Of The Real Shopping Deals...

The moral of this story is that webcomics are very dangerous things. Were it not for Randall Munroe and his comic XKCD, I would never have realised just now much I enjoy receiving packages in the mail. I would also not have realised that I could receive packages myself if only I bought things on The Internet. Well...All I have to say to you, Randall, is...I LOVE YOU - PLEASE HAVE MY MATHEMATICAL BABIES!!