Well, it's 12:30am on the last day of January; on the scale of things this one has been quite good. Not too much in the way of birthday presents, but what the hell. Been a good month for the City, as they have a 100% record, 10 goals for and only 2 against, 7 wins in a row and a view for at least another three, possibly going to repeat their 1905 record of 14 in succession. Who knows? maybe they can pull it off; just maybe.

What am I doing right now? watching Scarface, doing this blog, whiling the minutes away before Counterstrike downloads from File Planet. Incredible- there's a 60min+ queue for a download AT HALF-MIDNIGHT? jeez... no way I'm subscribing to their services just for the sake of one lousy file. Oh well, only around 61 to go.

I'd like to tell you guys about a story about two blokes called Richard. They were good at one thing in particular. They did it in vastly different ways, but they had exceptional skill all the same. One Richard went away for a long time, and the other Richard stayed and enjoyed Richard 1's absence. Heck, he became the absolute best at his craft in that time. People admired him, Women adored him but -as much success as Richard 2 had, he couldn't help feel that Richard 1 should be there. Just so that he could prove he was the absolute best out of the two.

Richard went to work one night alongside his friend Barry and a workmate called Eddie. Eddie was having some problems doing something on his own, so he tells Richard 2 and Barry that he's brought someone to help him. Surprise surprise, Richard 1 shows up, fresh as a daisy. Outwardly Richard 2 wasn't best pleased, but inside he felt overjoyed that now he had that opportunity to show who was the best. And so the two agreed to a contest to prove who was the best. And over time they had many small confrontations over their work, just to show off. The time of the contest came, and they went to work in earnest. It was very hard work, enjoyable to watch and it took almost an hour between the two of them. Eventually one of the Richards won out through his own determination. The other Richard complained incessantly that one of the people ruling over the contest had made a mistake over a technicallity. Whilst it may not have been much to everyone else in work -who carried on as normal- the other Richard even threatened to sue his bosses over this contest. It may have been fair in everyone else's eyes that one Richard went over the other through luck or by graft, but not to THIS Richard. He threatened and complained and eventually his bosses got so mad over it they allowed another contest to take place... on condition that if Richard failed, he would lose the right to claim that he was the best at what he did. Come the second contest Richard was prepared. In his own mind there were some mistakes he knew he was going to make, and some that he swore on himself he would never make again- in particular, to underestimate Richard's determination to win.

The second contest was much shorter than the first, but just as gruelling. Eventually - in the face of mounting difficulty- the Richard that had risked not only his pride but his job had won out. He was the best at what he did. But something happened. Another workmate who had been witness to the contest decided he wanted to be the best too. Up until then he had been proud to be good at his job, but then he got that fever too. That fever of rising over everyone else. He asked Richard that he wanted to challenge him too. Richard, who was understandably spent, denied this other person the shot. That enraged the workmate, who then attacked Richard and injured him. Richard would eventually want to get even with this other upstart, but he went back to work soon enough knowing that he was the best, and another challenge would just be another day's work.

Now, it's easy to say that the moral of the story is that it's worth risking everything that you hold proud to get the job done, and in many ways that may be the case. But it's also worth knowing that you should understand that sometimes when you risk everything, even if you win the reward may be something grand as the right to call yourself "the best", or something as inconsequential as the right to carry on doing what you think you do best. Either way, you need to justify to yourself that the risk is worth taking, no matter the reward.

Some of the names in the above story have been abbreviated (or even witheld), but nonetheless it is a true story. If you know of the men who I'm speaking of and what they did, you're more than welcome to write me ;)

This is Seph; signing out.
- posted by Sephjnr @ 12:56 am