Some of you are thinking you won't fight; 
some, that you can't fight. They all say that until they're out there.
Listen. [crowd - now chanting, now cheering]
Thrust this sword into another man's flesh, and they will applaud and love you for that.
You? You may begin to love them - for that.
Ultimately, we're all dead men. Sadly, we can not choose how. But, we can decide how we meet that end in order that we are remembered as men. (From: Gladiator, 2000)
Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.
- Lance Armstrong
Dear Technical Support:18 months ago, I upgraded to Girlfriend 1.0 from DrinkingMates 4.2, which I had used for years without any trouble. However, there are apparently conflicts between these two products and the only solution was to try and run Girlfriend 1.0 with the sound turned off. To make matters worse, Girlfriend 1.0 is incompatible with several other applications, such as GuysNightOut 3.1, Football 4.5, and Playboy 6.9. Successive versions of GirlFriend proved no better. I tried a shareware program, Slapper 2.1, but it had many bugs and left a virus in my system, forcing me to shut down completely for several weeks. Eventually, I tried to run GirlFriend 1.2 and Girlfriend 1.0 at the same time, only to discover that when these two systems detected each other they caused severe damage to my hardware. I eventually upgraded to Fiance 1.0, only to discover that this product soon had to be upgraded further to Wife 1.0. While Wife 1.0 tends to use up all my available resources, it does come bundled with FreeSexPlus and Cleanhouse2005. Shortly after this upgrade, however, I found that Wife 1.0 could be very unstable and costly to run. Any mistakes I made were automatically stored in Wife 1.0's memory and could not be deleted. They then resurfaced months later when I had forgotten about them. Wife 1.0 also has an automatic Diary, Explorer and E-mail filter, and can, without warning, launch TurboStrop and Multi-Whinge. These latter products have no Help files, and I have to try to guess what the problem is. Additional problems are that Wife 1.0 needs updating regularly, requiring ShoeShop Browser for new attachments and Hairstyle Express which needs to be reinstalled every other week. Also, when Wife 1.0 attaches itself to my Saab 93 Convertible hard drive, it often crashes. Wife 1.0 also comes with an irritating pop-up called MotherInLaw, which can't be turned off. Recently I've been tempted to install Mistress 2005, but there could be problems. A friend of mine has alerted me to the fact that if Wife 1.0 detects Mistress 2005, it tends to delete all of your Money before uninstalling itself.
My Dear Wife, You are still my lovely one. I remember the first time I saw your face, that bright, cheery smile, those long hair, and those sparkling eyes. That fateful afternoon in lecture theatre 8, 2 p.m. on the 20th July 1994. It was all over - I was smitten; I was stunned. I was paralysed by this cutie bun. Maybe I didn't quite know what hit me at first, or maybe I was afraid to admit that it could actually happen to me. But it was indisputable; I was hooked. I'm so thankful I was.I remember the first time we talked. I had difficulty concentrating on your words because it was all I could do to resist reaching out and touching your hair, your cheek, your lips. I remember that little twinkle in your eyes, that teasing smile, as if you knew that it was only a matter of time. I thank God for that day. And I remember...because...Because I Love You, Your Husband.
The time value of money
This is one of my favourite. It boils down to a relatively simple proposition: that the dollar I get today is worth more than a dollar I'm promised sometime in the future. If money has a way of shrinking, this is it. I remember I use to pay 35 cents for a cup of coffee in coffee shops. Now, the same 35 cents gets me only one-third of that cup. Put it simply, that same cup of coffee is now going at 90 cents. That's about 257% over a period of 28 years! Inflation, they call this phenomenon.
There are several reasons for this. One is the "bird in the hand" reality: the dollar I get today is real, but the dollar I'm promised in the future likely will be worth less (because of inflation), or I might not get it at all (you might renege on your promise to give it to me, or die, or cease operations if you're an employer or business). Also, the dollar I get today can be invested to create more dollars in the future.
Turn this around, and you'll see why lenders charge interest for loaning money, and why the interest rate depends on your creditworthiness. Lenders want to be compensated for the erosion in their dollars due to inflation, and for the risk of lending money to you.
The higher the perceived rate of future inflation and the more lenders doubt your promise to pay the money back, the more interest they'll charge to compensate for the risk.
