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“You should post to your blog”

“What?”

“Oh. Sorry. ‘Hi, I’m your inner guilt complex, you should post to AqCom more often’”

“Does that mean you wear a gold lame suit”.

“That’s a) Lamé, and b) Gilt. Not guilt. There is no point in attempting to joke at me, I’m you. I already know the punchlines.”

“If you think people already knowing the punchlines is a reason not to make the joke, you’re patently not me, I assure you”

“Okay. Anyway. You used to have people read this thing, and now you don’t. Do you know why that is?”

“I blame the over-inflated house market.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Not sure, but it’s easier than accepting that it’s because I stopped posting articles that weren’t, for example, sub-socratic dialogues about my inability to update. Also, the fact that the most popular article on the site is the four-year-old driving failure one occasionally gets me down”

“So write more stuff.”

“About what? The new job. ‘Today I did some work on [redacted], hacking [redacted] and [redacted] to accept authorizations from [redacted] and learning the details of the Prototype library. Golly, something got though.”

“Okay, yes. What about technical stuff in your spare time?”

“City of Heroes”

“What?”

“I don’t do coding outside work anymore. I play City of Heroes instead”.

“Oh. Well. At least it’s better than Warcraft”.

“Yeah, that too.”

“You are a pathetic loser, you realize that?”

“Yes. And, unlike the rest of the world, I am quite able to do this without exposing it to the rest of the world in daily updates.”

“Okay. Point. How about amusing anecdotes about commuting in London”.

“I have yet to gain the ability to set people on fire with the power of my mind.”

“Wha?”

“It’s the only reason the people who ARE UNABLE TO USE THE DAMNED ESCALATOR still exist.”

“How can you fail to use an escalator?”

“It, apparently, involves not knowing that once you get to the top you have to, you know, get off the escalator. And not, as an entirely non-random example, start walking backwards. Possibly to Christmas.”

“See? That could become an amusing anecdote”.

“Commuting in London is spending one twenty-forth of the week with your nose entirely too close to the armpit of an overpaid stockbroker.”

“Not your kink?”

“Not, as you say, my kink.”

“Did you know that this is entry ID 1997?”

“Yes. You’re me, remember. And yes, I know that means it’s the entry that reminds me it’s ten years since I started fucking around with HTML, and where has that got me?”

“Lots of little HTML, crossbred with Aquarions?”

“Thanks for that.”

“No charge”.

“Hang on, which one am I again?”

“I’m the guilt complex. My full-stops go outside the quote marks”.

“Stop doing that, it’s annoying in dialogue form.”

“No. I’m your inner guilt complex, not your inner Chicago style guide”.

“Yes, I do feel guilty about not updating the diary more. Every so often I deal with this guilt by resolving to blog more. Then I realize that I don’t, currently, have anything interesting to say, so I don’t say anything. Apart from Cheese Sandwiching. Incidentally, I’m now the top google match for Cheese Sandwiching, or a reference to me is. This is not a good thing.”

“Hows your match on Frowny Lightbulbs?”

“Still high. How come your question marks go inside the quotation marks?”

“I don’t know. Because they look silly the other way”?

“Good point, well made.”

“You could make a resolution to make at least one entry every day until April.”

“Seems unlikely, doesn’t it?”

“It does. But do it anyway, it’ll make me feel better.”

“And that is, after all, the important thing. Your full stops have changed again.”

“Guilt complex, not consistency, otherwise you’d still feel guilty for everything.”

”…”

”… Oh, yes. Right. Well, then. Update more.”

“Thanks. You have no idea how helpful you’ve been.”

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