2005-02-21 - 9:50 a.m.

My internet betting over the weekend could not have failed to win me at least a week�s wages, so naturally none of the results came in and I�m left looking like, not to put too fine a point on things, a right prize chump. So this morning, in what should be the glittering dawn of a new week of possibility, I feel a bit bad. But not, like, �Hunter S Thompson with a shotgun� bad. Just your average �still no job yet� bad. And then I turn on the TV to watch my morning ration of dumb sitcoms and it�s a broadcast of an obscure Samuel Beckett play. That�s not helping, let me tell you.

I have to use a night time lubricant, on my stupid, feeble, dry eyes before any of you think anything lewd. There�s nothing like greasing up your corneas of an evening to instil you with a sense of general wellbeing, let me tell you. Everything goes soft focus. I feel like the cameraman on a Cher video shoot. My phantom saliva gland is also playing up a bit, so I now have a lump in my throat but dry eyes, like someone caught in a twisted, pre-crying purgatory where they want to shed so many tears but are held back against their will, perhaps like the sound recordist on a Cher video shoot.

Still, in my new, Howard-Hughes-inspired drive to become a psychotic, physically repulsive, recluse billionaire, I am looking to make this a week of action. I�ll just finish watching this Samuel Beckett play and then start work seriously.