The Pentaquizinoid!

As promised earlier, here are 5 semi-random questions for _sps_ to answer, with no attached meta-obligations.

1. You've done a bit of travelling. What place that you've visited was LEAST like you expected it to be?
2. Future biotechnology promises to, at the very least, cure the world of physical afflictions, and yet people such as Michael J. Fox claim that he never would have been as good a person if he hadn't contracted Parkinson's disease and Stephen Hawking says that without his disease, he never would have amounted to much. Will making everyone be healthy deprive humanity of its greatest assets, and could this have a net negative effect on the world?
3. You watch very little TV these days. Was this always true of you, or was there some defining moment in which you gave up the idiot box?
4. Imagine for a moment that one of your projects were to be wildly successful, so that, while you might still design things, you never had to implement anything again, to ensure it saw the light of day. What would you do?
   
5. On alternative days you tell me how far ahead of Canada the UK is in things like social reform, and how far behind it is in things like privacy and labor laws. So, I must admit to some confusion as to your feelings for the place. Do you think that, on the whole, the UK is becoming a better or a worse place, and would you consider living there, if your salary was such that living expenses aren't a problem.

For bonus points, all answers should be submitted in the form of rhymed couplets, with each couplet using all of the letters of the alphabet. :-)

Usenet usable?

Okay, so there is still spam on usenet, but it seems to have decreased by two orders of magnitude since the last time I visited. Could it be that its demise at the hands of the spammers, and its subsequent fall into obscurity have made it once more a safe place to chat? I'll definitely have to do more research.

I can't DO an LJ poll here, but I do have an open question to anyone who reads this: Once upon a time net news was THE reason to get on the Internet. Now I don't know if anyone even knows what it is. Have you ever read the newsgroups on usenet? Would you know how to if you wanted?

Scientifically Speaking.

Observation: Every time I look at my monitor, it has more grease splotches on it.
Conclusion: I must be spraying grease from my eyes.

Depression.

Ugh. I'm still awake, although I've been dead tired since 4:00 pm this afternoon, and actually tried to go to bed between 7:00 and 9:00 pm, to no avail. I just toss and turn and can't get my mind to slow down enough to sleep. I know what the cause is too. Today I got a letter from EI saying my benefits just ran out. Last Saturday's payment is the last one I'm getting from them. (This means that my count was correct, but that their automated status system wasn't. Why am I not surprised.)  So, from now on, I have zero income.

What with credit cards and a cheque I got today, I can probably survive for another 3 or 4 months before things get truely desperate, but that's small consolation. Happiness, it has been said, its a positive cash flow, and right now mine is pure negative. I'm trying to keep a positive outlook on things; in my current state I at least have the potential for a good job, as opposed to being actually stuck behind a grill at McDonalds and hating it, but somehow that rings hollow, even to me.

I can't even afford any Creme De Cacao so that I could have a stiff drink to help me to sleep. Maybe I'll just play solitaire till I collapse.