Annoyingly, had that late-paying employer given me my money at the correct time, its impact would have been negligible. That is to say, the rebate I got was so unexpectedly large, the reduction caused by the additional money I was owed would still have left me with an unexpectedly large tax rebate. Unfortunately, due to my change in circumstances, my self assessment for 2014-15 revealed that I owed basically 20% on those late earnings...
In other news, I've had a couple more weird dreams lately. The first, from last week, was basically a Doctor Who story: the Doctor (Capaldi - nice that my dreams are keeping up to date) and companion (not one I recognised) arrived on a space station which, to cut a long story short, was operated by androids who didn't know they were androids. Think Blade Runner-style Replicants. I don't recall what the resolution of this story was, but there seems to have been some grand controlling intelligence running the space station and rebuilding its staff as androids without actually letting them know. Whether they were replaced after their lives ended naturally or through accidents, or whether they were being deliberately killed and replaced, I don't know... But I do recall there was some element of reconstructing some additional characters based on the memories of others so, for example, if someone died and got replaced by an android, that android might suddenly find their childhood pet was aboard, or an old flame, or a child who had died... So there was an element of benevolence to the grand controlling intelligence's machinations, whatever its overall game plan.
However, when the Doctor tried to leave, and found himself in what seemed to be a new location, it was actually just another section of the same space station (or perhaps a newly-built section just for the Doctor). Before this became apparent, however, he ran into River Song, already investigating the location with a companion of her own (or just hanging around with someone who lived in the station). Since the details of this dream have become a little vague - and I'm still not sure whether this bit was a continuation of the same dream on the same night, or whether the previous part happened some other night - all I can really remember is that this River Song somehow revealed herself to be an android built out of the Doctor's memories of her. This evidently upset the Doctor on a number of levels, as he ended up dismantling the River android and throwing the pieces out of the airlock, before announcing to the grand controlling intelligence that he was coming for it... at which point I woke up.
Last night's dream wasn't a Doctor Who story, but it easily could have been. Taking place on a version of Earth that had been conquered by aliens, I was wandering around with a couple of other people, and we happened upon an alien equivalent of frogspawn in a sewer/river overflow pipe. It transpired that one of the greatest strengths of the diminutive alien invaders was that any we killed were immediately replaced... So finding their egg sacs was hugely important, as it meant we could kill off the potential replacements before killing off the mobile aliens, and thus reduce their numbers more effectively. Of course, we needed to determine how best to destroy the eggs - gunshots would only take care of one at a time, and blades or bludgeons would take too long. We eventually determined that fire was the most effective weapon, as it would spread naturally throughout the collection.
Weirdly, we went into a nearby hotel's bar, and I convinced the barmaid to hand over a cigarette lighter. One of my companions revealed that she and the other companion already had cigarette lighters I could have borrowed but, treating the barmaid's disposable lighter with somewhat undue reverance, I told her I'd not only get it back to her, but that I'd try not to use it in the first place, as fire (and lighter fluid, evidently) were going to be critically important to the efforts to reclaim our planet from the invaders. We went back to the egg sac in the pipe and set about preparing to destroy it, only to be discovered by a group of the (surprisingly cute-looking) aliens, and I don't remember anything more before waking up.
2016 is off to an interesting start at work, with my boss now keen to pass on to me a lot of what were her responsibilities. From what we've discussed so far (not much) it almost sounds as though it will soon get to the point where our overall manager is manager in title (and propensity for telling people what to do) alone, while I'm actually doing the day-to-day management. We were supposed to have a meeting about it last week but, following my extended absence, she seems to have decided that she's due some attention/sympathy and, despite sounding and acting fine, is claiming to be very unwell. After skipping the meeting for the three days she was in last week because we were all so busy, she suggested phoning me on Friday to discuss it all... but then didn't. Still, there's plenty for all of us to discuss next week, with a big project fast approaching its deadlines. Somehow, I doubt it's going to go according to plan...
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