Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

From "Shhhh. U.S. appeals USA PATRIOT loss", by Kevin Poulsen (SecurityFocus, 2005-02-04), regarding the US goverment's secret appeal of a court decision overturning one part of the PATRIOT act:

In one of the documents released last year, the Justice Department even blacked out a quote from a 1972 Supreme Court decision, reading in part: "The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect 'domestic security.'"

Did not read LJ much over the past few days; started catching up this morning. I'm up to mid-Saturday on my friends-page now. May or may not attempt the "ten things you probably haven't done" meme later. Probably won't remember who referred various pages currently sitting open waiting for a link-sausage commpilation. Going to crash now in hope of being awake and alert at 3LF tonight. Still need to download tonight's television schedule and program the VCR.

I really wish I had a mild stimulant I could use the way ost other people seem to. That is, one that actually worked as a stimulant on my body and didn't make me feel completely craptastic. (Caffeine fails on the first count; in large or frequent doses it also fails on the second. Psedudoephederine fails rather spectacularly on the second count.) Going to rehearsals feeling well enough to drive but not really quite as awake as I'd like to be, trying to pay attention despite feeling wobbly, wanting that little pick-me-up to cross the mid-afternoon slump, trying to wake up a little faster when I need to go someoplace in the morning ... My only options, as far as I can tell, are to try to stubborn my way through feeling worse and worse, or to give up and go to sleep. I get the impression that many other people can use coffee, tea, or cola to get just enough chemical help to get over such hurdles (and a few wind up completely wired on caffeine). Is it as nice -- or at least as convenient -- as I imagine, to have such a tool at one's disposal?

The closest I've come to being able to do that is using sugar. And that's a pretty short-lived effect, and its effectiveness depends very much on my eating schedule and also the nature of the task I'm trying to accomplish. I can eke out an extra hour or so of long-distance driving by balancing chocolate against orange juice, but it doesn't do as much good for writing, learning new music, coding, etc.