Resource centre for ZX Spectrum games
using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
Archive of the
Manic Miner & Jet Set Willy Yahoo! Group
messages
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Message: 6146
Author: andrewbroad
Date: 13/05/2007
Subject: Sacrifices
Since the dawn of time, man has been making terrible sacrifices in
a bid to exchange short-term pleasures for long-term goals, the
earliest examples being burnt offerings to propitiate deities.
Chess-players offer up pieces of higher value to draw their opponents
into blunders which will prove fatal many moves later. Tennis-players
always speak of the hard work and sacrifices it takes to make it to
the top, and sometimes they have even been known to sacrifice a set,
in order to conserve energy for the final set. JSW-players may
sacrifice lives after collecting certain items in order to achieve a
better toilet-time.
On 27th April, I started a new job which means that I have many fewer
hours in which to pursue my hobbies, because five days a week I have
to sacrifice not only seven hours in the office, but also four hours'
travelling.
The first hobby I had to sacrifice was writing my tennis-reports,
which had claimed the lion's share of the previous 11 months of my
life. I still spend my evenings surfing the Internet for tennis and
processing my unread emails (822 at the time of writing).
But it's unclear whether the above changes will leave me with /less/
time for MM/JSW, or /more/. Certainly so far they have meant that I
can stick to my Sunday-afternoon routine of playing three hours of
MM/JSW, since I no longer have the tennis-distractions that were
claiming many of those Sundays.
I'll still be following the six most important weeks of tennis from
27th May to 9th July with the same dedication as before, and I have
also decided to complete my extended US Open 2006 report for Maria
Sharapova before /this/ year's US Open (27th August to 9th September)
by devoting most of each Saturday to that task.
In other words, September 2007 should see a marked increase in my
MM/JSW activities, as I'll then have Saturdays free for MM/JSW.
Also, I should point out that my new job is only a temporary
placement at this stage. There is a good chance - but no guarantee -
that it will lead to a permanent job by the beginning of September at
the latest.
Should I find myself out of work again in September, I'm /not/
planning to reinstate all those tennis-routines that I had before.
As much as I love tennis and the players I support, I feel
strangely liberated from those routines now, and I burn with passion
and longing for MM/JSW.
The early stages of my new job entail learning the C# programming-
language, which I'm really enjoying. For some time now, I've been
searching for a life greater than that of an ordinary
Java-programmer - a life of significance, of conscience.
Only through C# can I achieve a power greater than that of Java.
Don't worry, though: I have no immediate plans to translate
SPECSAISIE to C# and subject its users to the Microsoft .NET
Framework! ;-)
Finally, although I assumed I would remain out of work when I
promised to update my List of MM/JSW Games before 27th May, I will do
my best to keep this promise. I have transferred all the unread
MM/JSW messages to the email-folder in which I keep the next 200
(currently down to 125 - not all MM/JSW) emails I will process.
--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/
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