Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Haven’t got much to check in with, except to say that downloading a bunch of “Last Chance to See” MP3s (the radio series of the douglas adams book of the same name) has made me realise that listening to music only engages your brain so far. Narratives are what really keep you occupied. Having something entertaining playing in my ears this way can at least double my ability to work, because while not a bad job, what I do can become repetitive towards the end of the day. Once I’ve got something interesting to listen to, I can keep going at full pace for many extra hours. It’s not like it lowers the quality of my work either, in fact today I was correcting the mistakes other people made as I went. I think it just sharpens my thought processes with extra stimulation, which keeps me alert, and ready to do work, whereas if I haven’t got that element of the comedy/humour/novelty value of having a dead man’s voice ring in my ears the sleepiness that I stave off from the moment I wake starts to creep in around the edges and I find myself typing nonsense.

I did listen to Radio 4 a bit last week in an experiment, but as I may have mentioned, I found myself listening to a documentary about the colonisation of Antarctica during WWII and the international tensions caused by it, and suddenly I began to wonder how that was less boring than not having anything to listen to at all. Since I’ve long since dispelled most daytime music radio stations (even XFM) as being too enraging to keep on listening to on any regular basis, I also gave a few radio serials a try, but they’re almost universally horrendous. Smug and self-important, seems to be the way a radio story likes to approach things. I’m going to download HHGTTG and give that a try though, if only because there’s enough of it to keep me going for a few weeks. I also experimented by ripping the audio from episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force and listening to those. It’s still really funny, and I can’t tell if that’s jsut because the show relies heavily on dialogue over animation, or because I’m remembering the animation, but occasionally I’ll be laughing to myself like some kind of nutcase. I’m not sure how well that technique’d work with, say futurama, but maybe I’ll give it a try.

I’m fortunate, really, to be in a job at a workplace where listening to MP3s and radio isn’t forbidden, nor is it considered antisocial. In fact, I do it less than the people sitting around me, becasue I don’t have much material just yet, and I’m wary of becoming bored of the stuff I have got. I can usually last until about 3pm before my brain starts slowing down. As long as what I’m listening to doesn’t start affecting my work negatively, I don’t think it’ll be a problem. Thank christ for being employed in comfort.