Have you ever played a sim game where you need to collect resources (i.e. money, food, ore, grain, souls, minions, etc...) and you've currently got the set up so that it works perfectly without intervention and you just need to wait for enough time to pass in order to reach your goal?

Well, that's where I am now. This in itself is not a bad thing. I'm quite happy in the knowledge that in a few months I will have achieved my goal but I wish there was a fast forward button.

I know that I'll miss out on the finer things between now and then etc, etc, etc... but I really don't mind.

If I could fast forward to say February then things would be so much different.

Is that when you’ve built your barracks and can start chrning out foot soldiers?

Yeah a fast forward button would be good sometimes.

What happens in February?

An undo button could be quite handy too.

That's when I'll have gathered enough resources to move on to stage 2 of my plan.



(Stage 2 involves moving into a new flat).

Yup, Faye's got to finish uni and I've got to just keep at this job, then when the money is there we're upping and moving, hopefully with the company I work for...

Erm, isn't it the sim game that's supposed to be emulating life? Hence the use of the term sim.
Jus' sayin'.

Mark

Ooh, what are the other stages? I'm intrigued....

Stage 1. Pay off loan (this is where I am currently and last month I decided to start pouring all of my spar money into it)
Stage 2. Move into new flat. (Whether this is bought or rented I am uncertain)
Stage 3. Start enjoying things a bit more. (At the moment life is very much like student life, shared house, etc...)
Stage 4. Be proud to invite people over to my place. (Have a place I can call my own, a grotty shared house is not somewhere I want to host a party)
Stage 5. Start treating myself to nice things. (It sounds very shallow but I really don't tend to spend much money on nice things before my iPhone my last "shiny" purchase was my MBP, three years ago. This is mainly because I'm living in a shared house and I don't have anywhere to put things)

The long term plan is to generally start living like a young professional rather than a student.

I did think this when I was writing it.

I've been saving mortgage money for years now, might come to fruition in the next couple of years, we'll see...

I'd like to fast-forward to early November for COD: Black Ops* and to be closer to the Xmas break

* As it is I'm looking forward to getting my own copy of MW2 for co-op soon

That sounds like a lovely plan, Oli. What do you do for a living?

Computer programmer.

Currently in a nice job but I'd like to move to a more up-to-date company.

Yes but this is life imitation art imitating life.

Don't just hate the present and want to skip it, enjoy the fact that you're working towards a goal, just because you're waiting for something to happen doesn't mean you can't enjoy your current situation.