My favourite saying at the moment is this:

"I can either work myself to the bone, and not get everything done that I need to; or I can NOT work myself to the bone, and STILL not get everything done that I need to…. so there is little point in killing myself in the process."

I say this, yet here I am, its half past midnight, my eyes are so blurry I can’t focus on the font before me, my back is screaming in agony, and my tummy is not at its prettiest after too much toast… and STILL I haven’t got everything done that I need to.

As you may have read in a previous post, I recently had an incident with a wayward cup of miso soup, that decided to disastrously waterfall all over my IBM laptop. I should be grateful that due to some quick-thinking drying under a ladies room hairdryer, and a kind boyfriend who spent the next hour dismantling the computer so I could dry each component, the computer remained pretty much intact: no data was lost, and I could still use the laptop.

However, one quite hilarious outcome was the screen lost the ability to render black, and rendered it as red instead… so everything was in shades of pink. You could work on it fine, and I did get used to it, but every now and then someone would pass my desk and laugh at me for being so girlie… I then had to explain that the pink was absolutely not a deliberate choice… After a while, this became more of an issue than I like to admit!

Of course, there were other more sensible reasons to change laptops - my computer had ground to a halt speed-wise, and considering I like to work with about 20 open applications, my little ol’ PC just wasn’t coping. And the final problem was Norton’s anti-virus which managed to render my computer unusable for 30 minutes a few times a day. So, for all these reasons, I decided to buy a new laptop.

I steadfastly refused to buy a Mac for ages, despite my office-mates all using them and singing Apple’s praises constantly. And my reasons, I admit, were a little strange. Firstly, I like the IBM trackpoint (that little red thing you use instead of a trackpad), and only IBM has them. I like how I don’t have to move my hand to do everything I need to do on my computer, and again, due to the manic pace at which I use my laptop, this is a critical factor for me. Secondly, I have little hands, and I liked having a US/Aus keyboard as I could reach the Enter key easily (UK keyboards have a small enter key that is too far away for my little finger to reach while touch-typing). Finally, there was this resistance to going with the crowd - everyone kept praising Macs, it was almost not cool enough to do what everyone else did. Yes, I know, silly reasons.

In the end, I went for it though. And I mitigated my first two complaints by buying an IBM USB keyboard in Australia - so I can still use the IBM trackpoint on an Aussie keyboard, on my new MacBook Pro!! And in the end, I see what the fuss is all about - it really is an utterly superb machine and operating system. I bow gracefully to all those I rebuked for so long, it is a delight and pleasure to use, and considering the amount of time I spend at my computer, a little bit of extra pleasure never goes astray!

The Apple purists around me still moan and laugh when they see me - there with an IBM USB keyboard attached to my Mac, and perhaps this little idiosyncracy helps mitigate my third concern - I certainly am not going with the crowd with THIS ol’ system!

A disaster has befallen Skimbit headquarters. My miso soup at lunch took a sudden tumble over my keyboard, resulting in the instant death of my laptop.

I remained quite calm considering, instantly rushing down to the toilets with my laptop cradled in my arms like an injured child, and sticking it under the hand-dryer in an attempt to evaporate some of the moisture off it. I just hope the heat didn’t cause more damage than it healed.

However, when I tried to turn it back on after the drying process, it remained lifeless and unresponsive. I rang up my male friend who works around the corner, and with the offer of a screwdriver and a roomful of techie men, I rushed over in the hope of salvation.

A half hour later my little laptop lay with its organs ripped out, screws lying like fleshy debris around the table, and me ardently mopping up any moisture I found with a paper napkin. It is now sitting in a coma state in front of a fan, whilst I sit on a spare computer praying and willing it to health.

Did I have a backup? Well, two months ago I did… so it won’t be the end of the world if its lost… and I’m fairly confident I can resurrect the memory and implant it into a new laptop. But it is still a bit of a disaster.

Please - dear readers - send my little laptop some good health vibes, and lets hope it decides to work again despite its bath in miso soup.

It is important when risking so much to find joy in simple things: being able to work when you like (of course, you end up working more than you would otherwise, but still…), being forced to learn restraint (as I have not been able to buy new clothes in longer than I ever have gone without), being glad the weather is so bad because you don’t feel you are missing out on anything when you work long hours… you see where I am going with this.

So in a similar vein, I am excited to say we didn’t do as bad as we could have in the Mashable Social Shopping awards. Considering we are very new, still building up our community, still improving our design and functionality, I didn’t expect to do well in such an established category.

But thanks to everyone that voted, Skimbit has managed to… not come last! I’m quite pleased with that… we still have a long long way to go, but if Skimbit’s current users and my network can push Skimbit up to compete against much more established sites, its a sign of good things to come. Well, that is how I am going to interpret that

However, besides not coming last, there have been several other useful outcomes of this exercise: firstly, it got me in touch with one of my favourite bloggers, Allen from Center Networks who is interested in finding out more about Skimbit. And it also is going to help in my current process of securing Angel funding… as to be TechCrunched and a nominated for top social shopping site of 2007 in my first week of beta launch, is not a bad way to start, is it?

See, it’s useful to find joy in such simple things!