A Real Man With Real Ambitions

It’s the 1st July. We’re half way through the year already and just look how far we’ve come. I need to go back over the list of things that I wanted to achieve this year. It’s important to have goals. Give you something to strive for. Some encouragement to get out of bed every day. Not that I really need encouragement to get me out of bed. All you need is a three year old. That’ll do the trick.

I actually have only one item on my list:

1. Make a list of things I want to achieve this year.

I haven’t ticked it off yet, but it’s early days. I’ve got plenty of time. It’s still in the planning phase. You have to start these things with a plan. It’s a good indicator of how much better your project was going to be compared to how it actually turned out.

You know, I don’t want to set myself up for failure. I could easily make a list of 100 things I want to achieve this year, but then we’re talking maybe only 1% to 2% success rate. And that’s only if I include ‘Fart’ and ‘Scratch My Balls’ as items on the list. It needs to be more realistic. More achievable.

Maybe start small. Well I can put ‘Fart’ and……ok now I can put ‘Scratch My Balls’ on the list. I could definitely put ‘Pick My Nose’ up there. I don’t really have any great desire to achieve ‘Burp’, but it’s a great padder for the list so I will put that on there. I have been gaining weight at a rate of knots, so I could go for the old faithful. The one that everyone puts on their list. My ideal weight is 85Kg so I would need to gain another 900 grams. I can do that.

But you also have to strive. Challenge yourself. So I could put something a little more difficult to achieve on the list. Something I can’t do in my sleep. Now let’s see. I haven’t exercised much this year. I could increase my exercise regime. I could double it. Now I managed to do two work outs with my weights before I had a run in with a snake. So I am sure I could do another two before the end of the year. Let’s see how the list is going so far:

1. Fart
2. Scratch My Balls
3. Pick My Nose
4. Burp
5. Gain Weight
6. Work Out With Weights (x2)

Nice. However I noticed that the increase in exercise will result in a decrease in weight. I need to scratch number 6. Or…instead of lifting weights, I could lift some take away burgers. I will still maintain mobility of my arms and I could gain the weight in the process. I could eat more KFC.

OK now it looks like I am getting somewhere. I am sure I could make a list of 10 achievable goals. What if I was to plan a trip somewhere. It would have to be somewhere not too far away cos I have to be back for work. Close to home and not too expensive……Happy Hour at the pub! That can be number 7 on the list.

I think I want to do something for the environment this year. Living in Central Queensland the biggest environmental issue we’re all faced with is drought. Admittedly the town I live in does not have water restrictions, but does that mean that I shouldn’t be doing my bit for the environment and saving water? I think not. In an effort to improve our life here on earth, I am going to use less water. That’s number 8.

9 and 10 I think are by far the most important goals I will strive for this year. With the way the world is today, more and more relationships are failing. This is for two main reasons. Lack of sleep and an unsatisfactory sex life. My primary goals this year will be to maintain my relationship with my wife. I must place a great deal of focus on both of these blockers if I am going to succeed. Ok so now I have 10 major goals for the year. All of which I think are achievable. Let’s see how it looks.

1. Fart
2. Scratch My Balls
3. Pick My Nose
4. Burp
5. Gain Weight
6. Eat More KFC
7. Get Pissed
8. Shower Only Once A Week
9. Hit The Missus Up For A Quickie
10. Roll Over And Go Straight To Sleep

And there you have it. A very real list of goals that are not too difficult to achieve. A real man’s guide to a happy and successful life.

Not eggs-actly a good start to the morning.

You have to admire the boys ingenuity. Every Friday night I make the same mistake. I think “Oh great it’s the weekend. I can have a bit of a sleep-in tomorrow morning. Might allow myself to stay up a little later tonight.”

Not a great idea. Yeah I had fun last night. The boy fell asleep on the lounge nice and early. The missus was out to all hours of the night (In fact I better go check and see if she’s home yet) so I had the place to myself.

Time to be a Rock God. I turned on the Playstation to have a quick go of some new Guitar Hero songs I downloaded. At 1:30 this morning I finally turned the thing off and went to bed. As I mentioned earlier, the boy fell to sleep nice and early. And as with every action there is an equal and opposite re-action, the boy woke up early.

He’s usually pretty good. As long as we get up and set him up in front of the tele with his bottle he will often let us stay in bed. Sometimes we even get a bit more sleep. But when the time comes that he is ready for us to wake up, then you can pretty much be assured that there will be no more sleep.

This morning he started with one of his noisy toys. Then when that didn’t work he simply jumped up and down on us. Well because I went to bed late last night, it was going to take more than the usual box of tricks to get me up. And unusual it was.

He came into the bedroom to show me an egg carton with two eggs in it. First thought was “I better get those off him before they end up on the floor.” Then the other thought processes kicked in. We only went shopping a couple of days ago and we haven’t had any eggs recently (Except maybe on a McMuffin or two). Anyways as I am walking out to put the two eggs back in the fridge I am trying to retrace the steps of the last few days. "How did we go through so many eggs?"

I am not an overly smart man, but I can count to twelve and there was definitely twelve eggs in that carton last time I looked. And sure enough. By the time I got to the fridge I saw it. A nice pile of (I am hoping 10) eggs splattered on the floor in front of the fridge. Needless to say I spent the next 20 minutes cleaning it up. Eggs are really hard to clean up. They’re gooey and you can’t pick them up cos they just slop everywhere. You can’t soak them up cos they’re a semi permeable liquid. So needless to say it was quite a task at 7:30 in the morning after only 6 hours sleep.

Little bit of Blah-De-Blah in my life...

Wow. So many of my posts start this same way. I feel the urge to blog but the moment I sit down to squeeze one out I get nothing. So I sit here. I procrastinate. I only have one other reader that comments on my blog so I read her blog and try to make a comment that doesn’t start with “Awww” or “You go girl” or something that the other 40 commentators started their posts with. She seems pretty cool. Losin’ It just the right amount to ensure that she’s no more fucked up than the rest of us whilst not losing touch with reality. Actually her life reminds me a bit of our life. She is a business woman just like my wife. Her husband seems to worship her enough to be allowed to still sleep in the master bedroom. Anyways see that for yourself right…here.

As for my blog. Yeah I still got nothin’. I sat down a few nights ago and started to post. I had a massive lot of stuff written before I sat back and realised I was just writing a whole heap of ‘poor me’ crap. So I ditched it and went to bed. Felt much better in the morning even if I did wake up on the very edge of the bed while the boy slept sideways between his Mum and I.

Work still sucks, but until someone knocks on my door and pays me to play playstation eight hours a day my job will always suck. I still haven’t had a single bit of interest from my web design site. I guess it doesn’t help that I haven’t marketed it at all. I don’t really have the time for it at this moment anyways. My wife’s site needs another overhaul. Hasn’t been done since New Years and there’s a heap of old information on there.

On the lighter side I got my dog bathed and my lawn mowed this week. BONUS! It’s another sixty bucks I could have saved by doing it myself, but right now it’s money well spent. The dog bathing chick is pretty good. She rubs this shit on her (the dog that is. I have to pay extra to see her rub stuff on herself) which makes her smell good for days after. And she’s soft and I don’t worry so much about her rubbing up against the boy. (AGAIN I am talking about the DOG…sheesh!).

We got the car by the way. Holden Captiva. I always promised myself I wouldn’t get involved in the whole ‘Holden vs. Ford’ bullshit but my boss drives a Ford so it just happened naturally. I have a dig once in a while. Just not often enough for her to think to have a dig back at me when the opportunity arises. I have never and will never understand peoples’ obsession with cars. As long as it gets me from A to B and I can play my music in it I am happy. Specially if you’re the only one in there and you can crank it up loud.

It’s like that girl on the ad. I think it’s a lottery ad or something where it says “Sing...like nobody’s listening” and it’s got some young chicky bopping away in her little steel chariot. I am that girl. Only a hell of a lot uglier and hairier. When I am in the car I sing and HOPE that nobody’s listening. For their sakes. Cos I can’t sing for shit. Correction. I CAN sing. It just SOUNDS like shit.

You see my wife has never taken any interest in any of my playstation games. But I hired out one of the Singstar ones and she’s rapt. So am I. Problem is after playing it I realised that I sing really…REALLY bad. My wife’s good though. I kinda always knew she was cos I have heard her sing along quietly to her fav songs. So now I find myself sitting back and watching her play my playstation. Quite an amusing role reversal. Next thing you know I will be scrapbooking. Fahgedaboudit!

Seriously though, it’s very cool that I have found a game that we can both enjoy together and even the boy gets in and has a go. He sings better than me too and he can still barely speak English. I don’t have the balls to let the dog in on the act. That would be way too big a blow to the ego. She’d proly end up uploading her stuff online and next thing you know my inbox is swamped with people wanting to meet her. Well unless you’re coming around to take her for a walk you can all get fucked!

As you can see I am not overly perturbed by my lack of vocal talent. Truth is I am devastated. I want to be famous. I want to stand up in front of seventy thousand people and have them at my beck and call. Anyways not gonna happen. Although now I think about it, Chopper Reid couldn’t sing either and he has a massive fan base. If I want my picture took maybe I could rob a bank or mame some poor sod. I would end up on the front page of newspapers and all over the television. Imagine how many teenage followers I would have who all want to be just like me. Fuckin’ losers. Man I fear for the future.

Nah you can forget about that idea too. I am destined to live a very long…very normal life. Not too many ups and not too many downs and when I die and fade away to nothing I won’t have left too dark a stain on society. As long as I have my family and my handful of friends I should be able to leave this world with a smile on my face. And if I suffocate from the smell of my own farts then I KNOW my life will have been worth living right down to my last breath.

Livin' for the weekend

Saturday again. Time flies when you live for the weekends. You spend the whole working week counting down to these couple of days when you get to do whatever you want.

Apart from the laundry and the dishes. And tidying up the house. Downstairs is a mess as well. Oh and the fence needs fixing. Probably should wash the car. I need to iron my clothes for work this week. The missus is at work so I have to look after the boy. The garden is starting to become overrun with weeds. There’s a weeks worth of dog crap on the lawn needs picking up. I need to take a run to the dump. I need to take a dump, and we all know how much time that takes up with my hairy arse (if not, here is a run down for you). I must remember to fix that leaky tap as well.

I guess I better go. I have so much to do in so little time.

But before I do, here’s a thought. I read it on a T-shirt:

If a man is alone in the woods, with no women around him, and he says something is he still wrong?

Yo...what it is?

The boss bought an egg timer the other day. By ‘the boss’ I mean my wife. It’s a term of endearment. She’s not really my boss. I wear the pants in this relationship. But only cos she says I have to.

I don’t get it really. Like when we’re going over to a friends for a barbie or something. She tells me I have to put clothes on. But my definition of friends is people you feel comfortable around. How much more comfortable can you get than wearing your underwear to a barbie on a hot summers afternoon. Sheesh!

Anyways I digress. The egg timer is to time the boy as he sits in the naughty corner. We’re adopting the super nanny’s naughty corner in the event of any unasseptable behaviour. It seems to be working. I think his day care must do it.

We took the egg timer out the first time and sat him down to explain the concept. “Right, now every time you’re naughty you have to sit in the naughty corner for three minutes.” The moment we finished saying it, he took himself into the kitchen and sat in the corner. I was dumbfounded. He wasn’t even being naughty at the time. And he sat there the whole three minutes. Stupid piece of shit egg timer doesn’t actually work but we just guesstimate the three minutes.

Usually he is a little angel. Really. I could not hope for a better child, but his poppy has been here for the past week and I think he got a little too spoilt. I can’t hold it against my dad. It’s the grandparents right to spoil them rotten then hand em back to us. But now we’re dealing with the aftermath.

It was great having dad here for the week. He is a different man since the birth of his grandson. More relaxed. I don’t know if it is because of the birth of his grandson, or if it is a coincidence. I can’t even pinpoint exactly how he is different, but it’s in a good way. It’s actually why I haven’t blogged. I don’t really think he needs to be exposed to this. He is still a little old fashioned. Particularly with respect to swearing and drug use. Not that I take drugs anymore. I gave those up when the boy was born. I don’t think I could handle even having a smoke now.

I used to have trouble communicating when I was stoned. I couldn’t speak to people or look them in the eye. It got to the point where I was paranoid even when I wasn’t stoned. Well at least I think I was paranoid. You be the judge.

I had three close friends. One who was my best mate since the first day I moved to Newcastle when I was eight. The other I met years later as he was running the pool hall my best mate and I frequented. The third was my brother. I have no doubt that my best mate liked me. I have no doubt that my brother liked me too. Although since our decision to move to Central Queensland he and my mother have been hate mongering on us. They don’t even want to be a part of their nephew/grandsons life.

Anyways, the other guy who ran the pool hall just one day stopped hanging out with us. Both my brother and I lived with mum at the time, and our place was the drop in for the other two. We hung out and played Playstation and ping-pong pretty much all the time. Oh and of course we smoked drugs. Well my best mate didn’t but he was still happy to hang. After a few months the other guy started to come back around. He had moved into his own house. He started inviting my brother and my best mate around to hang with him. It was easier to smoke drugs when you didn’t have to sneak em by mum. I have never been invited to that guys place. So you do the math. Four green smokers sitting on the wall. If one green smoker should accidently fall. There’ll be three green smokers…

Anyways now I understand that all three of them still hang out and I am quite sure that the hate mongering has extended to them. The only time my best mate has tried to contact me was to send me a message to tell me I was gay. We go back to Newcastle this November to see my wife’s brother married. Naturally the question came up whether or not I would go and see the boys while I am there. I am not sure I want to. I think my biggest concern will be that I will find myself doing exactly the same thing that I was doing four or five years ago and I will realise that none of these guys have evolved… grown up.

I like to think I have grown up. At least for the most part. I still play the Playstation. In fact last time I blogged I was playing GTA IV. I have since got Guitar Hero III. I love it. I didn’t think any game would beat GTA. Guitar Hero is choice. You really feel like you’re playing the guitar. My fingers are absolutely killing me. And it looks like they’re bringing out a drum kit equivalent. I used to play the drums. Not well. But I played them nonetheless.

YAY, I am on holidays

Well sort of. I have to go back in on Monday for training but at least I don’t have to deal with any of the arseholes who keep me in a job. Then I don’t have to go back until the Wednesday over a week later. My eyes are already very, very dry. Trying not to blink too much in case I miss my time off.

They’re also pretty sore at the moment. Just had my reading glasses renewed and I feel like I have been punched fair in my right eyebrow. This happened when I first got my glasses. I guess it’s just the eyes adjusting to the new way of focusing. I am sure it will go away soon enough.

The missus has also got new glasses and she is suffering the same thing. Only it’s her left eye that’s worse. We figure if I give her my left eye then at least she will have two good eyes. And I will have an excuse not to have to go to work at all. I can go onto the Centrelink Disability Support Pension like all the other young fit lazy fuckers in this town.

You would not believe how many men boys in their early twenty’s are on the Disability Pension in this town. Yet they still manage to afford hotted up cars. You see em pull up in their Nissan Skyline or Subaru WRX or whatever the fuck those hot cars are called. They park in the disabled park then get out and briskly walk to wherever it is they need to go with a smile on their face and a spring in their step. You’re not disabled arsehole. You’re just a selfish lazy prick. Fair dinkum. There’s a bunch of savages in this town.

Same as with the ‘parents with prams’ parking. Our boy is still in a pram most of the time. He just can’t be trusted not to run away when we get him into the shopping centre. But do you think there is ever a parents with prams park available for us? We don’t really care, cos we aren’t disabled. We can walk the extra distance. But the principle of the matter is that these same arseholes [maybe the ones who can’t get hold of a disabled parking sticker] park in the spots because they are closest to the door. Yet when you look in the car window there’s no baby seat or booster seat there. Why is that I wonder? Cos there’s no fuckin kids in the car. Ergo no fuckin pram. Ergo you’re just an arsehole.

You see I have to take my aggression out in this blog because if you say anything to them directly the arseholes and six of their mates will take to you with lumps of wood. It’s not good for my complexion.

I propose a conundrum for you. If you are truly disabled, or you truly do have children in your car that you intend to put in a pram, should you take the special parks if they’re available? I guess we have to pretend that this is a perfect world where there are no savages who would take the car parks if they’re not entitled to them. Now, if I have a child with a pram and I do not take the park, then I am taking up a car park that other people could use whilst leaving free a car park that these other people may not use. You know what it’s like when [assuming you’re a normal considerate person who would not take the special parks] you drive up to see that magic free car park only to realise it’s a parents with prams spot and you can’t park there. Yet there’s not a single other available park anywhere in the complex. If only one of the parents who used a normal spot had parked there, then that normal spot might be available to you.

So you see how I might have a morale dilemna every time I go shopping. I have a child who is in a pram. But I am fit (enough) to walk the extra distance. So do I take the parents with prams spot and risk leaving some poor woman who has three kids hanging off her to walk, or do I take a normal park and risk leaving some normal person with absolutely nowhere to park? At the end of the day I don’t really give a rats arse but it’s food for thought.

D Motive 8 Ed

I wanna blog. But I’ll be fucked if I have any thing worth saying. This post will not be funny. It won’t have anything profound in it whatsoever. It is literally just an attempt to break down my blogstipation. The good ol virtual laxative.

This last month has just sucked the big ones in very many ways. I spent three quarters of it with a blocked nose. That was when it wasn’t running all over the place. That usually happened right when I was in the middle of a face-to-face interview with a customer. Out of nowhere my nose would literally drip all over my desk. The customers would look at me like I was some kind of freak. Ironically, this is the same customer who last time had their snotty nosed 3 year old rubbin’ her boogers all over my desk. Chances are that’s where the cold came from, and now they’re lookin at me as if to say “You better not have bits fallin off until my issue is resolved”. I’m sure after that they couldn’t give a flyin rats clacker if I died or not. As long as they got what they needed.

Work just gets busier and busier every day. I have absolutely no intention of telling you where I work, but there’s so much going on that the customers just have a million questions. Half of which I still don’t have the answers to. That’s the beauty of working in rural areas. All the city based offices are in the know but we still haven’t had the appropriate training. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel because there’s no funding for more employees. And finally when there is funding they will look at us and say “Well you guys have been handling it so far so you don’t really need any more staff”. My fucking arse we don’t you stupid prick. We’re not handling it. We’re all burning out here. GET US SOME FUCKING STAFF. Sorry…got a bit excited there….arseholes.

The boy is perfect. Make no mistake about it. But this last few weeks he’s been a right little shit for his mum and that filters down to me. She’s also just taken over full ownership of her scrapbooking business and there’s quite a bit of reorganising required there. So she’s stressed both at work and at home. I am stressed at work and at home and we’re generally not getting along as well as we should be.

Don’t get me wrong. We’re getting on well and the relationship is way stronger than anything life can throw at us, but when we’re both stressed neither of us can be the others’ rock. [out of character moment – I love ya bubby. Lots and lots]

Then there’s the fuckin snake. I haven’t seen it. I am almost convinced that it’s moved on. But only almost, so I can’t go downstairs without the percussion section of a brass band in tow. Bangin and crashing their symbols to scare the fucker away. What pissed me off the most was that I had just got my motivation up to start weights. I did two workouts and then got sick and then saw the snake and haven’t touched em again since. But I am still keen. Just got a little more tidying up to do to be absolutely sure the snake is gone. Yeah I know I sound like a pussy, but it’s a phobia. In fact I looked up the word for snake-o-phobia…Ophidiophobia.

But there is good shit happening in life too. We have finally made a decision on the new car. We’re getting a Holden Captiva. I didn’t like it at first but it has grown on me. As long as it has MP3 and Cup Holders I am cool with it. We’re just waiting on the missus’ accountant (who also happens to be my father) to send us the paperwork to get the finance in order and the car will be ours. Hoping to have it some time next week. Said accountant/father is also coming to visit next week. The boy is looking forward to seeing “poppy coming in da plane in weeks”. Not weeks anymore matey. Only a few sleeps. I also have taken that week off work. Well overdue rest period. So in the scheme of things it’s starting to look up.

We did also have a great night last Saturday night with new friends. My wife has to make my friends for me. Every male that I know socially in this town is because their respective partners are customers/employees of the scrapbooking shop. But the good news is they’re all just as fucked up as me. So in my eyes that makes them pretty cool.

Finished the story line of GTA IV. Anyone who has played it knows that means I am only about a quarter through the whole game. Still plenty of money’s worth in that game.

Saw the Iron Man movie. I wasn’t a fan of the comic. In fact I wasn’t a fan of reading anything unless you call Playstation Game Walkthroughs reading. But I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

Anyways I think I am blogged and unclogged again. Ciao.

Double Fuck...

I'm not a real big man. I'm not an overly tough man. But I am a man. There's not much that scares me. Maybe the thought of losing a loved one, or even my house. But other than that I am pretty cruisy.

Except when it comes to snakes. I am shit scared of 'em. In fact I didn't realise just how scared of 'em I was until today. I have been living in Central Queensland for three years now, and apart from the reptile park and in glass enclosures, I have never seen a snake. In fact I still haven't. But today I went downstairs to put on a load of washing. There's a hornet that nests up in the floor boards under our bath tub and the laundry is in the area directly under the bathroom. You see, even the hornet doesn't worry me too much. I just keep an eye on it and if it's around I give it a wide birth.

Which is what I was doing as I was putting a load of washing on. I was just watching the hornet hover around. He was probably doing the same thing. Making sure I wasn't coming to destroy his home. Anyways a slight breeze comes up and behind him I see this foreign object swaying. Once my focus had switched I realised it was the skin of a five foot long [i think a brown] snake on the slatted area enclosing the under section of our house. So as you see, I have never actually seen the snake. And that scares me even more than if I had seen it. Cos now I am putting the washing on and thinking "where the fuck is it?". That's when a substantially larger breeze picks up. Blows about a dozen small bits of branch and seed pods out of the tree in the corner of the yard. So as I turn around, I am seeing a series of long slender, brown in colour, things moving in the grass.

I walked upstairs to tell my wife. I simply showed her how much my hand was shaking and instantly she knew it was a snake. We rang the 'after hours guy' who comes and gets rid of snakes for you. He refused to come out unless I actually saw the snake. So now I probably have a snake somewhere under my house just hangin' out and the only way i can get rid of it is to go looking for it. Usually in this situation someone always says "You know it's probably more scared of you than you are of it". Well I seriously fucking doubt that! I hate the damn things.

Well Fuck...

It's been a prick of a week. I think in the scheme of things it wasn't that bad, but I've been sick for the last two weeks. Not the whole 'can't get out of bed throwing up your hole' sick. Just stuffed up nose, which leads to a headache and a cough that just won't piss off.

But it means I was still well enough to go to work. Now don't get me wrong. I love my job. It really is a good job. Public service. We're well looked after. Every minute of overtime we do is later redeemed for flex time off. Really couldn't ask for a better job given my [lack of] experience and education.

But lately work has been an absolute prick. We would normally have six staff and a team leader. But with two people off on maternity leave, one person off on unpaid leave and one person off on annual leave, we're down to two people (and the team leader). I've never worked so hard in my life. And this is the fifth week running that we've been doing it like this.

Coupled with the fact that I can't shake this head cold, it's a real recipe for what you might call a prick of a time. Add to the mix this downright arsehole customer I had Friday a week ago, which put me on the defensive for the week just gone, and you have unhappy blogger. I have been coming home from work and just flaking. I literally come home, get the boy in the bath, the missus gets dinner ready (really don't give a rats arse what she cooks this week. Just happy that she's providing me something I can stick in my mouth with minimal effort.) and then sit in front of the tele until Big Borther ends and then straight to bed. It's just lucky for me the pillows are soft cos I don't even have time to lay my head on them before I fall asleep.

Feeling a little better this morning, but I had a few beers last night so I have a headache. Yeah these days I literally only have two or three beers and I get a hangover. Well I had four last night. That's like a regular binge session for me now. Just waiting for the panadols to kick in so I can start the Saturday morning routine of tidying up the house and washing the clothes.

The illness has given me a reason excuse not to get onto the weights, so I am gonna try to get a session in this afternoon and restart the routine. I believe the missus wants to go test driving this morning. Well she better drag her butt out of bed if she wants to have a decent whack of time to do so. Anyways the playstation updates should be installed by now. Think I will go have a look at what new stuff is available at the online store and by then the panadols should have worked their magic. Besides, staring at this screen is not doing me any favours. Catchas.

I have a new toy

It's my new computer...and it's very very pretty. I am now Vista enabled. Not seeing anything overly special about it yet, but I only got it set up last night.

It's nice to have a fresh install. Especially when you don't have to go through the backing up and re-formatting. I was just able to chuck the old drive in and transfer the necessary files across. Gotta love that.

I think the missus is happy too. She got a new monitor out of it and a new computer (my old computer) for her at her shop. Well she hasn't got it yet. sh eis waiting for me to set it up over there. Sure darling I will get it done straight away.

In the meantime I have some bank robbing and car jacking to do. It doesn't matter how many times I play Grand Theft Auto, I just don't get bored of it. There's always so much to do. And if you're bored there's nothing better than stealing a helicopter and wreaking as much havoc as possible.

How to be ASTRAYAN

This is not a lecture. It is not an attempt to demonstrate my extensive knowledge of the English language. This is just a few simple pointers for any Americans that wish to read what I type. The words in capitals are spelled phoenetically to emulate our accent. We don’t actually have an accent though. It’s everyone else in the world that has an accent. Ok so here goes:

1. I come from ASTRAYA.
2. When we greet a friend, we say OWZ ERT GARN?
3. “Excuse me” is pronounced…YA FUCKEN WOT?
4. “No thank you” is pronounced SHUV ERT UP YARARS
5. “Try your luck” is pronounced AVAGO YA MUG
6. In summer, the northern regions of ASTRAYA get FRIGGEN OTT
7. Also in the summer we love to have many BARBACYOOZ
8. Many things cause us to lose our buttocks. For example:
i. Freeze YARARS OFF.
ii. Sweat YARARS OFF.
iii. Talk YARARS OFF. This example can also result in a loss of YAREARS or YUREDD.


Some interesting correlations between ASTRAYA and America:

* In ASTRAYA, a thong is what you wear on your feet to the beach.
* Candy is just referred to as lollies.
* Diapers are called nappies.
* A fanny is a vagina.
* Pie is pastry filled with minced meat and other savoury foods.
* Meds are little cotton buds that one inserts in their vagina to soak up blood.
* ASTRAYAN fashion is governed by what the American homeless are wearing.
* We do like to throw a shrimp on the barbie, but they’re called prawns and they’re very expensive.
* To make fun of a person is to take the piss out of them.
* ASTRAYANS like to watch Americans take the piss out of themselves on American sitcoms.
* ASTRAYANS also like to watch ASTRAYANS take the piss out of Americans on ASTRAYAN sitcoms.
* According to Monty Python, when compared to ASTRAYAN beer American beer is like making love in a canoe. It’s fucking close to water.
* If we had a drug store in ASTRAYA it would not be overtly advertised for fear of a police raid.
* ASTRAYAN footballers do not need to wear armour to play in.
* American basketball teams are full of black men.
* Australian basketball teams of full of American black men.
* In comparison to black men, white men cannot jump.
* ASTRAYAN men wank when they are feeling amorous and have no one to share it with.
* A man who is acting the fool is also referred to as a wanker.
* A homosexual male is a poofter.
* A homosexual female is a carpet muncher.
* Christmas falls in the middle of summer. Therefore there is no such thing as a White Christmas in ASTRAYA, however advertising is still illustrated by snowflakes and snowmen.
* Fall is something we all like to watch little children do over and over again. It is also something you will see leaves do in Autumn.
* Kangaroos and Koalas are not kept as pets. You require a license for them and both animals can be quite vicious. Koalas do not drop on you from trees. If that occurs, it is because the Koala died in which case you would be dead too as they are very heavy creatures.
* The wombat is the national model for the ASTRAYAN man. He eats roots and leaves.
* If the ASTRAYAN language was compared to the dialect of the smurfs, we would all be referred to as creatures called FUCKS.

Promiscuous to a fault.

There is absolutely no denying that my best mate back home in Newcastle was a top notch bloke and quite the stud might I add. You know when you go out to a nightclub and there’s always two friends hanging out together (male or female) and one of them is always way better looking than the other? Well In our duo, I was the other. The interference man. My job was to sit back and watch in case one of his previous conquests ran across his current conquest. Towards the end of our “nightclub lifestyle” it was getting quite difficult as the collection of conquests surmounted quite rapidly.

With this guy everything came back to sex. Funnily enough everything you did was actually an indication of how good you were in bed. If you lost at a game of stick or playstation, it was because you had no dick. If you bought a light beer because you were driving, you had a small penis. I managed to put a flaw in his theory though. I bought a full strength beer. And despite his reasoning my penis remained the same size. Nonetheless he continued to rate myself and everyone around him in terms of our sexual prowess. I often wondered how he knew how good I was in bed when I didn’t even know.

Seriously though don’t get me wrong. He was a good bloke. Why else would I consider him my best mate? It’s just that sex was his obsession. And he was darn good at it too. I don’t know from personal experience, but I saw him treat woman after woman like dirt and then marvel at how every one of them still came back for more. Why? Cos they were getting a dickin they could not resist. And good on him too. Not everyone can say that they are really good at something.

The one thing that really worried me about this guy though was his sexuality. Again…there is absolutely no denying he liked women. He sampled many various specimens. But something tells me he was a little…how do you say it?...’bi-curious’. He never hit me up but I am assuming that is because he knew it was never gonna get him anywhere. My lack of sexual activity was not from a lack of trying. You see, some people play hard to get. I on the other hand am hard to want.

But I digress. When we were still quite young and neither of us had actually managed to pop our cherries, we would spend a great deal of time watching porno videos. No different to any other teenage boy I guess. I still remember this one line from a video we watched. “Bills Big Banana” I think it was called. I remember at one point the guy saying something along the lines of “I don’t know why I have such a big dick. I only get to use half of it.” I always thought that line was pretty funny.

Anyways I never really had any access to new pornos, but my mate seemed to manage to get hold of a new one every few weeks. And every time he got a new one he would call me up or just come over to show it to me. But we never actually sat down to watch the full video. For me they were frustrating. It was very much like dangling the carrot in front of the donkeys face. But I was hangin out with my best mate so it was cool. Problem was, as I said, we never watched the whole video.

He would come over and chuck the tape in the VCR. (Remember those things?) And then I would spend the next fifteen minutes watching as he scanned through to this one bit he wanted to show me. He would always say the same thing. "You’ve gotta see this. It’s unreal". So about 10 minutes later I have managed to see a few different staged scenarios of a guy and a woman fucking. I actually didn’t mind watching it in fast motion. When you’re watching a porno in fast motion the guys cum much quicker. Makes you feel like you don’t have so much of a problem with your staying power. Anyways fifteen minutes later he has found the bit he wants me to see. And EVERY SINGLE TIME, he ends up showing me some guys dick. Here I am thinking I am gonna see some massive tits or a woman with a champagne bottle up her ass…bottom end in first. Nope. Instead I just waited 15 minutes to see some guys penis. "I could have watched the first three minutes, spent my load and be on to my third game of pool by now. But thanks anyways. You've managed to really boost my ego by showing me a penis three times the size of my own. Only a true friend would be so kind."

Feeling proud

I made it to my second work-out tonight. It took me a few days cos I was still just so sore after Saturday night. And with GTA IV sitting there staring at me it would have been very easy to just relax and play that all night tonight. I was starting to worry if I was going to just let the weights slide once again. But I didn't. I got off my (starting to spread) arse and went down there.

It was a little easier tonight. Not sure if it is a result of the first work out or if I am just in a better frame of mind than I was on Saturday night. Either way, I am happy to say that I am in the swing and can see this becoming a valuable part of my routine.

Yay for me. I would give myself a pat on the back but my arms are just too weak to lift up that high right now.

Do you feel lucky punk?

Well do ya? Me?...Well let's see. I always get stuck at red lights. Where I used to live in Newcastle I would have to go through 22 sets of traffic lights to get to work. I went through a period of counting how many red lights I got each morning. 16 out of the 22 were red on average. And this was peak hour on the main strip most of the way.

But on the other hand I never have trouble finding a car park. Even in Sydney on a Saturday night I could still get a park outside whatever pub I was going to. Now...no matter how many traffic lights you get caught at they will always eventually turn green. But potentially you could drive around forever and never find a decent car park. To me that’s pretty lucky.

My 50/50 luck is up the shit. I never win the toss of a coin. If I come to a T-intersection and I am required to guess the right direction I will always go the wrong way first. It’s actually quite funny. If my instinct tells me to turn right then you can guarantee that I should have turned left. If the next time my instinct tells me to turn right, I may choose to ignore it and turn left. In that situation it would appear I should have followed my instincts.

But if I really, really need something, I will get it. For example, the job I had before my current one. I hated it. I have never been more miserable in my whole life than when I was in that job. But I had just moved up here and we were paying our mortgage back home in Newcastle while we waited for the house to sell, and we were paying my rent up here at the same time. My wife was with a young child and was in no position to work. I had no choice but to soldier on. The problem was I was really bad at my job. It’s the only job I have ever gone close to losing due to incompetence which is part of the reason I hated it so much. It was a sales job. I hate, hate, hate sales jobs. I only took the job because it was the only place that would hire me on a telephone interview alone. Anyways I applied for the job I’m in now and basically I was looking at getting fired any day. I was one of 300 applicants. And…well…as you have already worked out. I got it. Because I really, really needed it.

My wife had a failed pregnancy before meeting me. She was told that she would most likely not be able to have children. I had no idea what my little swimmer boys were like. All I knew is I had never gotten a girl pregnant before and I smoked a hell of a lot of drugs, so even if there were some swimmers down there chances are they were not overly motivated to do the trek. Although we were not really planning to fall pregnant we were certainly not real careful about avoiding it and against all odds we fell pregnant and had the most beautiful child anyone could ever hope for (well my wife did really but I had some ‘input’ into the deal).

These are just a few examples of how my luck runs. On the surface the odds may seem to be against me. But when the chips are down (not in the literal sense cos my gambling luck is totally shocking) I generally come up with the goods.

So if you ask me am I lucky, my answer is “I have terrible luck…but I am one of the luckiest people in the world”.

Today I don't have much to say.

Still very sore from my Saturday work out. It's understandable. I haven't done anything that physical in months and I haven't lifted weights in over a decade. I am still rearin to go though. Even if I am still sore tomorrow night I think I will just drop the weights and do more repetitions. Just so I don't lose my momentum before I actually get some sort of momentum.

It's gonna be tough though. GTA IV comes out tomorrow. I think I am gonna have to discipline myself and not turn it on until I have done my thing. To say that I have been anticipating the release of GTA IV is like suggesting that Michael Jackson thought he might like to get some work done.

It's not the whole reason I bought my Playstation, but if I was subjected to the whole deserted island scenario with one object for the rest of my life...PS3 with a copy of GTA IV firmly inserted. In the machine that is. Sheesh I don't like it THAT much...get your mind out of the gutter.

I think the missus is a bit worried. She goes to Brisbane for the week-end and leaves me to look after the boy. I can see her dilemna. She's wondering if she will come home to a completely trashed house with a starving 3 year old wearing a nappy quite literally overflowing with wee-watered down faesces, crying cos 'I dun poohey an my bum hurted me'. Meanwhile Dad's on the couch in the same underwear he put on for work Friday morning.

Well honestly darling, you have nothing to worry about. He will have taken his own nappy off well before it gets to that stage. See...there it is face down on your side of the bed. It's ok though I let the dog in to lick up the mess. She got a bit bored though and she decided to play with the throw pillows. With a bit of luck there might be enough stuffing left to put one or two of them back together. You will have to hand stitch them though, cos unfortunately your son got his hand caught in your sewing machine and I had to cut the needle to get him free. So how was your trip?

Big mean grumpy daddy.

I can’t help but feel sorry for this girl that served us yesterday. We own a 2001 model Magna Sedan. I had so many reservations when we initially purchased it back in 2004. My wife and I had just learned that we were going to have a child and at the time we both owned our own 2 door vehicles. We decided we would need a family car and specifically something with four doors. So we set off one Saturday morning and started the long drawn out task of pricing vehicles, test driving vehicles and of course haggling over prices. I distinctly remember thinking “OK…we’re not going to buy the first thing we look at”.

We bought the first car we looked at. We walked into the car yard. I looked at a few 4WD’s but they don’t count because there was no way I would ever own a 4WD. They’re fuel gusslers and I can’t abide by these people who purchase big 4WD vehicles but don’t ever actually take them off road. All they’re doing is taking up more room on the roads and making it difficult for other drivers to see in front of them.

So this salesman walks up to me after hearing my wife saying something along the lines of “Ooh I like that Magna”. The first thing he says to me is “It’s a long ride home with an angry woman”. And of course he’s right. But it still pissed me off that the only reason he told me this was so that I would buy the car. The guy was a cork head. Needless to say we test drove the Magna, and to ensure that I didn’t have to take that ‘long ride home’ we bought the car.

The salesman practically threw the car at us. He raved about it like it was his own car. I kept wondering why he was trying so hard to get rid of it. Whatever his reasons, he was right. The Magna is a great car. But it’s starting to get to that age now where it will begin to cost us money to keep it on the road. So it’s time to upgrade.

So yesterday we front up at a card yard and look at a Hyundai Santa Fe. Yes…a 4WD. I want one now. Not a Santa Fe as such, but a 4WD. Part of the reason is because I don’t want to be the ‘little boy waiting at the counter of a corner shop’ anymore. I am going to take my rightful place on the road alongside all the other weekend warriors. There's more to it than just that. The thing is we will actually go off road and it will also be a much more practical vehicle for my wife’s line of work. We’re not going to purchase the Santa Fe, so I was very happy we didn’t buy the first thing we saw. I think we’re going with the Mitsubishi Outlander. It’s the second vehicle we looked at. That’s progress. We haven’t actually made a decision yet, but it’s what I have my heart set on. Well actually I have my heart set on a Toyota Hilux, but that's been vetoed. The Outlander is not as rugged as your other 4WD’s but it will still spend most of it’s time on sealed roads so that suits us fine. It's got great features and the one we drove has only 150kms on the clock and is a real nice colour, so we're hoping to get a good deal on it.

Anyways, back to this young chicky who showed us the Santa Fe. She was very nice and in the town we live in friendly customer service is hard to come by. She came with us while we test drove the vehicle. She was telling us how she was very new to the job (only two weeks) and already she has had so many unfriendly customers. She spoke of people putting their hands in her face when she tried to speak. Other people waving cigarette butts at her and even some customers screaming at her because she didn’t know the answer to every question they asked. The thing is it sounded like they were asking stupid questions like “How does it compare in the market?”. Ya fuckin what?!? Who gives a crap? Seriously I can appreciate questions such as “What’s the fuel consumption like?” and “What’s the maximum tow capacity”…blah blah. But “How does it compare in the market?”. How long’s a piece of string? I think at a fish market you might get a few buckets of prawns for it. Maybe at a flea market it's worth a few bob. Just depends how well you barter.

So we had a nice drive and a pleasant chat with this lady and when we got back to the car yard she sat down with my wife and talked prices. Usually in this situation it is my job to entertain the boy but he was so tired that he just wasn’t consolable. I tried to negotiate with him. I promised to buy him a Wiggles DVD if he stayed quiet for just a little while longer. No go. Eventually I stood up and in my most authoritative voice (thanks to Nanny Jo Frost for that word) I said “OK mummy we’re going straight home now!”. I didn't mean it. I just wanted the boy to chill out. Well this chick just about cowered under her desk. It seems that from her point of view I have just snapped from being this nice gentleman out for the day with his wife and child, to this angry frustrated man who was about to put his cigarette out in the nice lady’s eye. I felt bad cos you could almost see the thoughts going through her head…"Fuck…does everyone in this town have ot be such an arsehole?". Well love to be honest, it seems they do. I really wasn’t going to be bothered explaining that I was just trying a little disciplinary tactic on my child.

Anyways I didn’t lose any sleep over it, but I did feel like an arsehole walking out of that car yard.

What About Me?

For the benefit of all those people who are Shannon Noll fans, the song “What About Me?” was first recorded by a band called Moving Pictures in 1982. It stayed at number one on the charts for two months and will always be one of my all time favourite songs. Shannon did a real good job of covering it, but as it is with most songs, you always come back to the version you heard first.

I turned 8 in 1982. I had grown up in Belmont North in New South Wales. We were living in a house on the Pacific Highway and only a few doors down was a newsagent where I would frequent anytime I got a couple of bucks to spend. Remember that this was a time when $2.00 could actually get you something worthwhile. It was usually only lollies or some kind of paint or pencils which I would never end up making use of anyways.

But what I remember most about this shop was standing in line and watching all of the adults getting served while I stood there and waited…and waited…and waited. Looking back, I probably wasn’t being ignored. Chances are I just didn’t have the nous to know how to line up. The half dozen people that were getting served before me were probably already waiting before me. Either way, that song never had more meaning than it did when I was in that shop and now every time I hear it I remember standing in that newsagency. Waiting.

Unfortunately, I didn’t even have the benefit of being able to look at the ‘pretty girl serving at the counter of a corner shop’. It was some old guy who wasn’t nearly as good looking as the girl in Shannon Nolls film clip.

Something else I remember about that newsagency. There was a pinball machine that only cost 5 cents a game. It’s the only time I ever remember a pinball machine costing less than 20 cents per credit.

Sore this morning

I feel like I did go and kick sand in my own face. And now my shadow has ogtten up and knocked the piss out of me. Not really, but I am sore in places. It's definitely a way to find out if you do have muscles in places. Even if it may look like you don't have any, they're there.

But it's a good hurt. And a real step forward for me. I have decided to do Monday, Thursday and Saturday nights. See how that grabs me. See if I stick with it. I am really keen though. If I wasn't so damn sore I would happily go straight down and do some now. But already, it's just another excuse not to.

Frustrating too cos I haven't been able to play Time Crisis. My arms are weary. I would get about 5 minutes out of it until it became not fun anymore. I think today will be an easy day. Not pushing myself into anything. The washing is up to date so my main chore is done and I have clean clothes for work tomorrow.

Man that place takes up way too much of my time. It's just lucky for them that I love gadgets. Otherwise I probably wouldn't hang around. Nah I've been on the dole before when I was late teens early 20's. Never want to do that again. It's a bit of a catch-22 though isn't it? You either have enough money to own your own home and be able to buy the odd Playstation game or whatever, or you have all the time in the world, but no money to keep yourself entertained.

OK there's a little voice in my head saying "Daddy I done Poohey". It was much better when he couldn't talk. I had a legitimate excuse not to have to change his nappy. Plausible deniability. "Sorry dear, no I didn't smell anything, and he didn't tell me he needed his bum changed." Oh well gotta go. Got some shit to do, if you know what I mean.

Well I did it!

I've broken the ice. My first work-out is done and I'm dusted. Was fun having a shower afterwards though. Not for the reason I usually have fun in the shower. My arms were so weak I could barely lift them up to wash my hair. Hence the reason for this post also being so short. Think I just want to lie down somewhere now and not move much.

The clean up begins.

Monday February 25, 2008 was the date of my first post. The significance: It’s also the day that the area under our house went under water. Well contrary to one of my previous posts, I have managed to combine enough time, motivation and physical ability to get under there and start the arduous task of cleaning it up. I am not rushing. It’s been there two months now so it doesn’t really matter how much longer it takes. I am also weary about spending a whole day down there in one big stint in case I am subjecting myself to disease. I’d rather just take my time and not get too immersed in it.

I actually started it yesterday. Gathered up all the big things that needed taking to the dump. Chucked a washing machine, clothes dryer, barbecue and all the timber from the handrail on our front steps. At this point I need to make sure that I publicly thank our friends for the loan of their trailer. I am of the belief that they are one of the very few people who regularly read this blog and therefore this could be a good place to say thanks and also maybe to ask…”ummm…is it ok if I borrow it again?”. I am onto the smaller stuff now. Things such as power tools and a lot of my wife’s craft stuff. When I say smaller, each individual item is not big, but the pile I have already gathered is quite large and growing all the time.

Once I got to the point where I realised I was going to have so much more rubbish and currently no way of getting rid of it, I decided to shift my focus to cleaning up the things I am keeping. I have been wanting to clean up my weight bench for ages, so I started on that. My dad bought me my weight bench when I was 18. I am now 33. When I first got it, I used it 3 or 4 times a week, for a solid year. It didn’t do a thing for my physique. Yeah I got stronger, but I was still as skinny as. I weighed 56 Kilo. Not that I minded being stronger, but my goal was to put on some size and improve my physical appearance. I was wasting my time. I just could not build muscle. I was taking those weight gaining powders and eating plenty of carbs and protein, but I was getting nowhere. So I gave up. Haven’t touched them again since, but I have kept that bench all this time because I knew I would one day fill out and be able to build bulk. Well I filled out quite some time ago and have still yet to get back into the weights. So now is the time.

I am not bothering to tell anyone. Every time I tell someone that I am going to get into weights, they generally look at me and laugh. I am still pretty skinny and weak as water. Heck I’m so weak that I am too scared to kick sand in my own face. I am afraid my shadow will beat the piss out of me. I never really understood why they laughed at me. I mean…what?...do you have to be strong and muscly to do weights? Why would I need to do weights if I was already strong and muscly? And for that matter, how am I going to get strong in the first place? Anyways it doesn’t really matter, there’s no point talking about it. I might as well just get in and do it. Even my wife, who is very encouraging, thinks I am funny when I tell her I want to do weights. But I think that’s because no matter how many times I say it, I never follow through.

And by the way, don’t think that I don’t know how silly it sounds to say “I’m not telling anyone” on a weblog accessible to the entire world. Judging by the number of hits I get, and how many comments I have received so far, I’m technically still not telling anyone.

Anyways, so I have spent the last part of my afternoon cleaning up the bench and getting her ready for her first spin. Just waiting now until I have my dinner then I think I will go down there and get into it. Will let you know how I go. Unless of course I just don’t go at all. In which case you will work it out anyways cos you won’t hear any more about it.

Time Crisis 4 is out...

and it's everything you would expect it to be. I have always considered myself a huge gamer. When I was single, and was earning quite a substantial disposable income, I bought any and every game I thought I might want. These days my income is mostly allocated towards more adult expenses, so I am alot more picky about the games I choose to purchase. However there was never any question as to whether I would buy Time Crisis. Since the late 80's - early 90's when the original first person shooter (Castle Wolfenstein) was made available to the old IBM compatible 33Mhz - 8mb RAM - state of the art PC, I have longed for a free-roaming first person shooter with a light gun. The Playstation 2 managed it with Dyno Stalker, but it just didn't quite cut it. The controls were too difficult, and made the game cumbersome.

Well I made the purchase merely hours ago and it's great. Only problem is, it's been years since I played a "gun game" and after only 3 hours of it, my arm is killing me. I have had to take a break, so I took the opportunity to post my opinion here. I generally don't make much claim to the quality of games. I guess it only matters what I think of them, and I can pass my own opinion onto myself in a conversation within the confines of my head. It's not necessary for me to put it in text.

The echo is a bit annoying, but I never end up in an argument over it...well not one I can't win anyways. You know, someone unimportant once told me that talking to yourself was the first sign of madness. I am not entirely sure about that though. I have shown many more signs before now.

The Lunchroom Dilemna

Nearly every day I eat my lunch by myself in the lunch room at work. It’s not that I don’t like anyone that works there. I don’t think it’s a case that they don’t like me. Perhaps they just think my breath stinks but don’t want to tell me, but that’s another story.

Nah I guess I just like to take the opportunity to chill out and not have to think too hard. Well luckily for me the lunch room is chock full of women’s magazines, where I can just read some mind numbingly boring article about some trashy young adult Hollywood movie star who has either been in and out of love since last months issue, been in and out of re-hab since last months issue, been in and out of court since last months issue or just in and out of consciousness since last months issue.

But here’s my dilemna, and it really strains my brain to understand this one. On every page of every magazine I pick up is a picture of a good looking, semi-clad female. “So what’s the problem?”…I hear you say. Well first of all, I cannot help wondering why so many women all over the world continue to buy magazines full of semi-clad women. You see, I know why so many men of the world continue to buy them…because they intend at some point to have a wank over them. That pretty much goes without saying. But what is it that attracts the women to these magazines?

To be honest I don’t really care about that one. The real problem I have is that I work in an office where it is very important to remain politically correct. Now, I really don’t mind being subjected to pictures of beautiful women. At the very least, it is a sacrifice I am willing to make for the team. But last I heard it is not politically correct to be seen looking at pictures of semi-clad women in the office. So instead I find myself picking up one of these magazines, I turn to the first page and it begins:

“oops can’t be seen looking at this page”…turn to next page…
“oops can’t be seen looking at this page”…turn to next page…
“oops can’t be seen looking at this page”…turn to next page…
“oops can’t be seen looking at this page”…turn to next page…
“oops can’t be seen looking at this page”…turn to next page…

etc, etc, etc until I have finished the magazine.

So now I have just picked up a magazine, and literally flicked through the pages without stopping to read a single article. Apart from the fact that It is now only 5 minutes into my lunch break and I have nothing left to read, I now have a room full of women looking at me disapprovingly because all I have done is flick through this magazine without reading any of the ‘interesting articles’ (I use that term loosely). So if I am not reading the articles what is it then, that I am doing?

“Well isn’t it obvious, he is just perving on all the semi-clad women! Typical male!”

Is that your breath, or did I just step in pooh?

You know, it’s a funny kind of world we live in. People you don’t even know won’t hesitate to judge you. They will pass comment on your appearance, your social skills, your apparent level of education and even your accumulated wealth. And what’s more, they selflessly don’t expect anyone to return the favour.

For example, people will quite happily and even perhaps instinctively rate your driving skills from within their own steel chariots. I am led to believe that there is a status quo when it comes to driving. It has become our social duty to openly rate a persons motoring skills. I guess we should take this as a form of constructive criticism to enable us to better ourselves.

I have come to the conclusion that there is a rating technique whereby other drivers will score you from 1 to 5. This is indicated by a show of fingers. Well it seems that my driving skills could use some fine tuning as I often score only a ‘1’ rating. What I don’t understand is the fact that I score most of my ‘1’s when I am driving along quite comfortably at, or just below, the legal speed limit. That’s when someone, usually in a beat up Holden Commodore, will risk their own life and that of their passengers by exceeding the speed limit so that they can move up along side of me and proceed to award me my score of ‘1’ by raising the relevant quantity of fingers.

What is so confusing is that it is times like this when I think I am driving well. I admit, I am by no means a fantastic driver. I have found myself cutting peoples nose off as I change lanes without properly checking behind me. And at these times, I appreciate that I deserve only a ‘1’ rating, but how can this possibly compare equally to staying wholely within the one traffic lane and maintaining the legal speed limit?

This is just one of the many pro-active methods by which humans will, without prior request, offer each other feedback to help us to become better people. So of all the many reasons we humans feel the need to judge our peers, why is it then, that under no circumstances will anyone ever inform another person that their breath stinks?

Take my brother. I don’t have anything to do with him since I moved from New South Wales to Queensland. It seems he cannot bring himself to forgive us for taking his nephew away from him. But prior to me moving away, we were as good as best mates. We played sports together. We went out drinking together. We both smoked cigarettes and pretty much on a daily basis we smoked marijuana through a hash pipe together. Why am I telling you this? Because with both of us having exactly the same habits, we both must therefore have the same dental hygiene problems. And let me tell you, his breath stunk to high heavens. But naturally I never told him. It literally smelt like pooh and you would think that I could only be doing him a favour by warning him about it before he attempts to flirt with some chick in a night club.

To make things worse, when he had a few drinks under his belt he became one of those touchy-feely people who needed to come right up close to you to tell you how much he loved you. It was like…”Yeah I love you too but get the fuck away from me you’re making me sick”. To this day, it has made me paranoid that my breath stinks too. Although I have completely given up smoking of all substances, how can I be sure that my breath has ceased to stink? My wife assures me that I don’t have smelly breath, but just like everyone else, she could be abiding by the unwritten law that you do not inform another living sole of the odours that waft from within their mouth. My paranoia has also led to other problems. Because I am worried about offending people, I cannot look directly at them when I speak to them. Therefore, as any body language expert will tell you, I must be lying when in actual fact I am telling you the truth. I just don’t want you to think that I eat faesces for breakfast.

So is that where the word ‘faesecious’ comes from? The shit that dribbles out of ones mouth? Feel free to correct me on my spelling of the word but before you do, make sure you are right. And remember that I am in Australia and we spell things differently to you yanks. That’s a big problem I have these days. I used to rely on Microsoft Word to tell me if I was spelling incorrectly until I realised I had it on the US dictionary and I was spelling HEAPS of words wrong.

Anyways, for any of you who know me or get the chance to meet me, if you could all just do me one favour and tell me honestly…does my breath stink? However, before you do tell me you should first ask me if I just farted, cos you might be getting the two smells mixed up.

I simply don't believe it

Hey, I have just heard the most ridiculous thing. Some complete stranger (yeah right…like I’m going to take the word of a complete stranger) suggested to me that the World Wrestling Entertainment isn’t real.

NOT REAL!?! I don’t understand. Are you suggesting that at King Of The Ring in 1998, The Undertaker didn’t really throw Mankind from a 16 foot cage to the floor? Does this mean that Mankind didn’t really dislocate his shoulder and push one of his teeth up through his nose on impact? So would this be the same match that didn’t really see Undertaker chokeslam Mankind through the roof of the cage onto the canvas?

Wow that’s some really good special effects then. So does that mean that in 2001 Shane McMahon didn’t really drop 75ft from the light rigging to drop an elbow on The Big Show and claim the title "The Giant Killer"? Yes…from 75 feet in the air! He didn’t really do that?!

And I suppose the next thing you’re going to tell me is that Triple H didn’t really continue to wrestle in a Tag Team match vs. Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho after tearing his left quadriceps fair away from the bone?

Wow…and they've been fooling me all this time! I suppose Owen Hart is still alive and well and living his life out as a hermit. Away from society in case some unsuspecting fan learns that WWE is not really real.

I was absolutely devastated when I was told. It was almost as heart breaking as the day I learned that Bob The Builder can’t really erect an entire building in a single day.

Crazy Frog, my arse!

Remember that Crazy Frog phad that went around a few years ago? If you don't, I envy you. But for those of you who didn't sleep in that day, and were fortunate enough to see the Crazy Frog phenomena finish as quickly as it started, here is the web site that it all originated from. My mate showed me this web site about two years prior to the surgence of that Darned Fool Frog. Click the link to take the Insanity Test and see where it all began.

5 things I am thankful for.

1. I am thankful that no-one held a gun to my head and demanded I hand over my wallet and the keys to my car.
2. I am thankful that my house was not destroyed in an earthquake or some other natural disaster.
3. I am thankful that some 18 year old punk did not lose control of his vehicle and collide into my own vehicle at twice the speed limit.
4. I am thankful that The Reserve Bank Of Australia did not increase home loan rates by another .25%.
5. I am thankful that my mental lisp is gone.

Love a good game of thtick

You know there'th no bigger teathe than the thound of pool ballth clacking at your necktht door neighbourth houthe. All my life I have wanted to own my own pool table.

Hey if anyone reading thith buildth pool tableth or knowth thomeone who buildth pool tableth. Tell em if they make one for me, I will build them a free webthite and maintain it for them for a negothyiable period of time. Don't want one of thothe cheap Target crappy oneth though. I am talking about the real deal.

Leave me a comment here and I will motht thertainly be in touch.

P.Eth. Pleathe don't tell my wife becauthe at the moment the only plathe we have room for one ith in her dining room. I want to break the newth to her gently if thye ith going to lothe her dining room.

Thtill Thuffering the Thideffecth

Tha’th right. I thtill have thith lithp in my thoughth that won’t go away. Couldn’t have been worth timing either. Ith not very often that my wife and I get the opportunity to…how do you thay it?...”get amourouth”. Well maybe that’th how you thay it. What I am trying to thay ith that with a three year old thleeping in between you, there’th not much opportunity to root.

But latht night wath one of thothe opportuniti’th. While I wath getting ready to go to thleep, I kept thinking to mythelf, “I am gonna hit her up for thome theckth tonight”. But ath luck would have it I couldn’t get into it. I kept hearing mythelf thay “ooh thweety you look thoooo theckthy in that thatin thlip. Thounded like a complete and utter homotheckthual. Now, ath I thaid before, I am not a gay bathyer, but there ith nothing leth theckthy than a fag being theckthy. Turned me right off. Rolled over and went thtraight to thleep.

Thpeech Impedement

My wife inthi'th on plathing our bedthide tabl'th right necktht to our bed, which I apprethiate ith where they are thuppothed to be thituated. Henth the name. However ith a complete pain in the arth when you thyare a queen thithe bed with a three year old. He'th by far the thmalletht yet theemth to require the motht room.

Anywayth, ath a rethult, I find mythelf practically making love with the bedthide table during the night. Well latht night it made love to me. Or thyould I thay, it fucked me good and proper. I wath fathing inward on the bed, which I uthually don't do becauthe my boy alwayth manageth to punch me in the fathe during the night. And thyure enough. Latht night tha'th egthackly what he did. Ath he punched me, my immediate reacthyun wath to jump back. I jumped back and cracked my head on the bedthide table. Real...REAL hard.

At firtht I didn't think much of it. I have copped way harder hith playing thocker and bathketball. I got up. Got ready and headed to work. In my line of work I thpend a portion of time talking to people acroth my dethk, and then I am required to recount the converthathion on their file in the databathe. Everything wath going fine until I had to thtart typing. Ath I began to type I realithed that my brain now hath a lithp. Tho ath I am thinking of what to type, I am unable to create the eth thound in my head.

Ith really quite embarrathing. I thound like a fag to mythelf, and while I with to go on record thtating that there'th nothing wrong with being a homotheckual, I don't want to be one mythelf. To make thingth worth. Ath I am thinking I am finding mythelf thticking my tongue out like real people do when they thpeak with a lithp.

Like that 'Cothi' dude on the biggetht lother. Man am I glad to thee the end of him. Although credit where credith due. He wath a weight loth mathyine. Anywayth I got no idea how long thith will latht. I gueth we'll have to wait and thee.

Tell me why...I don't like Mondays

Here I am again. Trying to think of a good reason to write in my Blog. Have I mentioned before that I don’t even like the things? So what is it that keeps compelling me to come back in here? I come in at least once a day. In fact at the time of this posting I had a mere 77 hits. I would think at least 67 of those are me. Coming in to see if anyone has read my blog and maybe left me a comment.

Why do I care what people think of me so much? It brings me back to the same dilemna. I want to be famous. I guess it is just that most people’s blogs are recounts of their every day life. If that was my blog, I would probably read back over it and shoot myself. It might actually be a way of getting a comment. People would leave me a message saying: “Please kill me”.

I swear I have the most boring, mundane existence there is. Here’s an example:

Monday: Woke up about an hour earlier than I needed to. When my little boy failed to wake me up by prying my eyelids open, he resorted to simply poking me in the eyes. And now I am wide awake, but strangely compelled to keep my eyes closed.

Went to work. Listened to about 10 people whinge at me about how hard their life is and how they can’t afford to feed their kids and pay the bills. Basically asking…nay…expecting me to solve their problems for them. Ummm…. nahgetfuckeddontlikeyaanddontcare.

Came home. Bathed the boy. Fed the boy. Spent time with the boy. Put the boy to bed. (for the record this is a highlight of my otherwise drab working week). Then I muck around on the computer or watch a bit of tele. Can’t get too involved in anything cos I have to go to work in the morning. Better go to bed early, cos even though I don’t have to get up until 7:00, I will probably be woken around 6:00.

Tuesday: (Please see Monday)

Wednesday: (Please see Monday)

Thursday: (Please see Monday)

Friday: (Please see Monday)

It’s only just now struck me why they call it ‘Monday’. It sounds almost exactly like ‘mundane’.

Saturday: Yay! It’s the week-end! Oh shit I blinked, and now it’s fuckin Monday again.

I look at these dole bludgers and think how wonderful it would be to never have to get up and go to work. My wife rationalises that I would never have any money to spend and would never have the benefit of owning my own home. And she’s right. But what’s the point of having the money and a nice house when I am not around to enjoy it? When I am at home, I am usually cleaning it up or my little boy wants my attention (like right now)….

Well that was an interesting episode. He had just had some cheese and, pedantic as he is, he wanted my help to wash his hands. While we were at the bathroom sink he decides he wants to clean his teeth. Only problem is he used his toothbrush to help his mother clean the toilet the other day. We did buy him a new toothbrush, but do you think I can find it now? Ironically, it resulted in a three year old boy screaming at his dad because his dad has told him he is not allowed to clean his teeth. No wonder the children of today have no respect. Their parents are depriving them of good hygiene.

Where was I?... Oh yeah. So now what should have been a simple preening exercise of about 5 minutes, has turned into a half hour search for a toothbrush. I have that much less time to clean up the house that I am sacrificing so much of my fortnightly pay packet to own. Do you know it was February when I recorded my first post. Since I know you have all so faithfully been following my blog, I don’t have to remind you that we had just that night suffered from a flash flood. Well I still haven’t found the time to clean my yard up after it. I have managed to clean up the stuff that needed cleaning up (i.e. the stuff we needed to salvage), but that’s only because I took the next day off work to do it. I simply lack the time to do so. I look out the window where I sit and I can see my barbecue is still upended.

Meh. Maybe with a bit of luck, most of it will have bio-degraded by the time I get to it.

Well the boy is demanding some more of my time. Only fair I give it to him.

DDD Is The New ADD

Yeah I am not a scientist. I''m not a medical professional. Hell I'm not even a real good parent. In my defense I have only been doing it for three years. But what I do know, is children need attention.

About 10 or 15 years ago this whole Attention Defisite Disorder prognosis became the rage. Every child left right and centre was being diagnosed 'ADD'. Now, I am led to believe that the Attention they're referring to, is that of the child. Apparently the child doesn't have enough of an attention span to sit still for much longer than a few minutes. OK so let's give em some drugs. That'll fix it!

The whole thing bugs me. I can't understand why all of a sudden, so many children are ADD. I can appreciate that there are, and always has been, children with a chemical imbalance that would cause them to act up. But are there really so many children with this chemical imbalance?! Somehow I doubt it. These children are no different to what I was when I was their age. I couldn't sit still either. It was boring. I had energy. I wished to expend some. And you know what? As soon as I started taking drugs I also slowed right down. But I think it's a different kind of drug. Same effect though, funnily enough.

I have been really studying my boy lately. He is starting to act up a little more often than he used to. Yet my boy can sit through a whole movie three times over when he so desires. So what's the difference? I'll tell you. The moment my wife and I relax on our disciplinary tactics, he goes bourke-o. Eventually it get's too much and we start getting a little harder on him, and almost immediately he goes back to being the most well behaved little boy.

It seems to me that it's not the child's Attention span that is lacking in this ADD diagnosis. It's the attention that the parents are giving to the child. Now you don't have to kick the shit out of your child to show it a little discipline. All you need to do is reason with them, perhaps a little bribery at first. "If you don't stop stabbing the dog with those scissors, I am going to take your toys off you!". I think the ADD is the wrong diagnosis. It should be DDD..."Discipline Defisite Disorder". But more importantly, give the child the attention it is so sorely lacking. And be persistent. We all know that if we don't take our dog for a walk every couple of days, it's gonna run amok and start chewing shit up. Well how is that any different to a child? It's friggin bored out of it's brain. Play with it!

So, before you go hocking your child up with drugs, why don't you take it outside for a run first and see if that makes a difference. Works for us. We let the child run around the yard, and the dog gets to chase it. Two birds...one stone. And no-one's getting stoned.

Hey Here's An Idea...

Next time you're on a bus or a train and you have to let out a ripper fart, do it and turn to the nearest female and say..."Don't worry love. They'll think it was me."

All Sooked Out

Man, this blogging thing is hard. I am so hard-up for a reason to blog that I can't even think of something to whinge about. Maybe this is what the doctor ordered. A little bit of public sooking and I am cleared of all things that piss me off.

Like Alanis Morisette with her "Jagged Little Pill" CD. Now that was one angry bitch. And then, after that album shot to number 1 and, like, about 9 out of the 12 songs were hits, she's suddenly a millionaire. And now she's happy. The next thing she writes is a song called "Thank you". Yeah I'd be thankful too if all you people actually paid me heaps of money to write about the things that shit me up the wall.

Look at Guns 'N' Roses. Every song they write sounds like they're really pissed off. What have they got to be pissed off about? "Damn I ran out of black nail polish...that just really gets my goat". I can imagine Axl saying "gets my goat". Be surprised if he remembers the words. I remember watching one of their live videos on the Japan leg of the "Use Your Illusion Tour". He had a tele-prompter with the words to his songs...and it was "Sweet Child O' Mine" of all songs. My 3 year old boy nearly knows the words to that one and the guy who wrote it needs a reminder!?

Anyways I guess now that I'm done whinging I can start to write about happy things...ummm nope. Too much like Home And Away. Every person that comes into that show starts out a bad guy, then by the end of their first season they're good and everyone likes them. About once every three months I find myself watching an episode and saying something along the lines of..."Hang on...the last time I saw this show she was trying to kill that guy, and now they're plotting a bake sale together?!? Cor Blimey!!! And even the simplest bake sale requires this massive organisational structure. The whole town (being the half dozen cast characters required for tonights episode) gathers at the diner to have Colleen delegate duties, which none of them actually carry out anyways. Yet, the very next day they have a bake sale on. And the only people who attend it are the ones who were at the meeting the night before. Why didn't they just bake a cake and take it to the meeting? Better still, buy one fresh from the diner.

Stupid Chain E-Mails

For the life of me, I can’t understand why so many people still think chain e-mails need to be forwarded on. Every time I receive a chain e-mail I am disappointed. Why? Because I load up my Outlook and hit the ‘Send/Receive’ button, and…YAY…I am getting an e-mail.

Even more exciting. It’s from Happy Harry Hardon or some other address I haven’t heard from in months. I wonder what Harry has to say today. And then comes the disappointment. It’s just one of those stupid chain e-mails.

So what was the excitement of hearing from an old friend has quite rapidly turned to disappointment and, to some extent, resentment. My initial feeling of self worth, that someone was actually thinking of me and decided to say hello. The anxious anticipation that there would follow some fantastic news that Harry was getting married or having a baby and, as a result, is getting married.

Instead, not only was I not thought about as Harry copied in all of the 289 addresses in his mailing list. I was used because the friggin e-mail that he got from someone who he hasn’t heard from in months told him to send it to as many people as possible, or else some horrific disaster would occur. Furthermore, I am now stuck with the same dilemna. If I don’t forward this message onto at least 25 people, I am likely to spend the rest of eternity writhing in agony in the pit of damnation. Or worse still, I might have to spend the rest of eternity reading bloody chain e-mails.

Well thank you very fucking much Harry! As it so happens, I only have 24 addresses in my mailing list. So how the crap am I supposed to forward it on now?! I started to panic. I read the e-mail carefully. I was hoping I would stumble on some disclaimer or escape clause that would guarantee me safe passage. Well at least until the next chain e-mail came along. It read:

“Make a wish and forward this e-mail onto 25 people within 15 minutes. Warning – if you do not forward this e-mail on within 15 minutes of making your wish, the opposite of what you wish for will happen”

OK…this is good. I don’t have to forward this e-mail on until I have made a wish. So I will be safe at least until then, and I will have 15 minutes to act. Good…ok. Now think. Damn I just wish I had one more e-mail address. OH FUCK! I just made a wish. Great! Now I have 15 minutes to find a new e-mail address and get rid of this monkey on my back. Ironically, once I do get the new address and forward the message on, I will get one more address as my wish will come true.

What am I gonna do? Hang on. If I don’t forward the e-mail on, the opposite of what I wish for will happen. Interesting. So I sat back and waited.

Sure enough, 15 minutes came and went and I had not forwarded on the message. And you know the scariest thing? It was all true. The opposite of what I wished for had actually happened. I was so pissed off with Happy Harry Hardon, that while I was waiting for my world to come crashing down around me, I deleted his address from my mailing list. And now I have one less e-mail address.

Didn’t think of that one now did ya Harry…retard!

Get it right people. Come on!

I’m generally not a spelling nazi. The way I see it, unless it’s a formal document, if I can make sense of it I don’t care about the formatting. I’m not sure why there are so many people out there who feel the need to correct people’s mistakes. Particularly in this online existence where almost all forms of communication are in writing. When you’re trying to keep the flow of conversation at a reasonable pace, you don’t need to worry about spelling errors.

If people are smart enough to know there is an error, they should also be smart enough to work out what the person is trying to say by the context of the conversation. I guess if the error is so bad that even the context is lost, then maybe people should take more care, but in that event I still don’t care. I just hope you weren’t asking me to do something. Cos if I don’t understand the request, it ain’t gonna get done.

There’s just two spelling errors that I feel need to be corrected. I never correct them at the time, hence the purpose of this post. I hope that it will serve to educate a few people on the subject, and serve as a blanket correction if you will.

The first is no biggie, but believe me you will look pretty stupid if you make this mistake.
“Voila”: It’s French. It loosely translates to “and there you have it”. Most commonly used, in English, when a magician performs his trick. All too often I see it typed as “wah lah”…or “wala”...or something, let’s say more phoenetic.

Like I said, this is no biggie, but now you can get it right.

The second is a biggie and honestly it shits me up the wall. It’s one that people continually get wrong. The problem with this one is there are three possible ways to correctly spell the word, but each one has a different meaning. I don’t know whether it is a case of me being more sensitive to it, but I think more than half of the population do not know the correct time to use each spelling choice. They seem to treat it like a multiple choice question. And quite often I will see the same person spell it incorrectly twice, by using the other wrong option. Crazy stuff.

I am referring to the word “their” (or “there”; or “they’re”). So here is your lesson. And if your only goal in life is not to piss me off (if it’s not, it should be), then you will take heed:

THEIR – means belonging to them.
THERE – in that place
And THEY’RE – they are.

I hope this has helped. Really I am only helping you to help me.

Brush your hair. You look like an idiot.

I am still hesitant to publicise which town I live in. For one, if I offend any of the locals, it wouldn't take much thinking to work out who I am. Luckily for me, most of the locals don't seem to do much thinking.

Needless to say it was approximately three years ago that I moved here. You all might know it as about the change of era where 'our' youth decided it would be cool to start dressing like those of you who are my age did when we were young. I am referring to the 80's look that has resurfaced. Funny, actually how the music resurfaced about 10 years ago, but only now has the fashion reared it's ugly head.

It's part of the reason I am so disillusioned by it all. You see, when my family and I told our friends and relatives back home, that we were planning to move to [our current locality], we were all told that the town was about 10 years behind the rest of the country. Next thing you know, we have made the big commute and sure enough, people are dressing like they did decades ago. Most shops still don't open on Sundays and probably the most unbelievable of all, there are still a substantial number of businesses that do not offer EFTPOS as a payment option.

Our family were right. This town is 10 years behind everyone else. So naturally I assumed the fashion was too. Well I was wrong. It seems that the youth of today are up with the fashion. But it's not the youth of today who are running the businesses. They're too fuckin lazy. They all have it way too easy. Living at home whilst claiming the Centrelink 'living away from home allowance'. They all drive better cars than me, whilst I bust my arse in the 9-to-5. You figure that out. It wasn't until four or five months later, when my wife had finalised the sale of our house back home and had come up to join me, that I realised the 80's rehash was nation wide. Possibly world wide.

At this point I will admit that I was not unlike these kids. In fact it was my mother-in-law who pointed out to me that the genuine 80's look I tried so hard to achieve 20 odd years ago was, in itself, a rehash of the 60's 'mod' look.

Thing is, the kids of today have put their own spin on it. Instead of the teenage boys spending potentially hours brushing, gelling, blow waving their hair all in the one direction (which was any direction other than down), now they are spending equal amounts of time competing to see who can make their hair the messiest. For crying out loud. Buy these people a brush dag-nabbit!

You wanna know what it is that really pisses me off about this though? Probably not, but I am gonna tell you anyways. No matter how much time I spent trying to get my hair all to go in the same direction, I failed. My hair was a mop of wiry messy, messy bush. This of course cemented the fact that I was never going to be a popular teenager. And now today they're spending a fortune to achieve a look that I could achieve in my sleep. in fact the less time I spent on it then, the more fashionable it would be now.

Ya gotta love it though. Like these 'emo' kids getting around in their black clothes and black lipstick and black nail polish. The 'non-conformists'. Their policy, if you will, is to not confirm to the trends that their peers have deemed so popular. Then why is it then, that they have all adopted the same look? They are essentially conforming to 'non-conformity'. Wow...heavy stuff. Cheer up emo kid.

Damn I am glad I am past defining myself by the way I look. Today I am fatter and balder than I have ever been before, and yet I am happier than I have ever been before. Except when I have to crap. But I have already told you that story.

Did you know.....

A flea can jump up to 165 times it's own height.

Wow. The guy who got 165 fleas to stand on top of each other should be really proud of that discovery.

Man I dislike fleas. I owned cats my whole childhood and the one thing that I hated about cats, was the fleas. I remember once my house got so infested, that I would put my feet on the floor to get out of bed, and instantly about 10 fleas would be on my legs.

Actually that’s not the only thing I hated about owning a cat. They don’t give (you guessed it) a flying rats clacker where they shit and piss.

In fact the whole reason I don’t own a cat today is because of what I experienced with the last cat I ever owned.

Now don’t get me wrong. Well you can if you want, but I am an animal lover. If I donate to charity, it is most often an animal rights type organization. But I really didn’t much enjoy owning this cat.

The poor bastard had a crap life. At about 1 year old it tried to pounce on a moving car. Ended up with it’s bottom jaw split right down the centre. Had to have a plate in it’s hip. But that’s my point. I so didn’t want to see the cat die, that I cost my mother hundreds of dollars to keep it alive. Ironically, only a few years later I got it put down. It wasn’t even sick or dying. I just didn’t want to put up with it’s shit any more.

I mean that literally. Our cats lived inside pretty much all of the time. They came in whenever they wanted. They went out whenever they wanted. They each learned to scratch at the front door and one of us would get up and open it for them. The thing that made me decide to have it put down was the last time it scratched at the front door to come in. At the time I didn’t know it would be the cats last time. Either did it.

Anyways, it scratched, and in accordance with our agreement, I let it in. It then proceeded to crap in the corner of the room and then went straight back outside again. Yep. It came inside to crap. So I had it put down.

Actually, funny thing about that. My best mate came with me to have it put down. Not for moral support. He was just hangin out with me at the time. While we were waiting for the deed to be done, he turned to me and said: “At least we’ll get the chance to find out if there’s enough room to swing one.”

Strange thing about that story is that I always thought cats were so clean. Same cat, and pretty much every cat I owned all acted the same way. What I mean is how well, and how regularly they groomed themselves. As I said before, I owned cats all my childhood. And more often than not, we had two cats at a time. So I had plenty of opportunity to study them.

They have a bathing routine, not unlike humans. I remember sitting there listening to music one afternoon and just watching this cat groom itself. They always start at the same place. The front paws.

They meticulously clean in between each ‘toe’ and scrape the dirt out from under their claws. Makes sense considering it’s the part of their body they’re about to clean their face with.

So next in line is the front legs and particularly under the armpit area. Then the chest. Once that section is done, its onto the head, including the ears. After the head comes the back and shoulders sort of area. And then down the body. Of course all that’s left before the tail is the back legs, and everyone’s favourite part, the genital area. One of my favourite jokes is the one where two guys are sitting there watching a cat ‘clean’ it’s genital area. One guy says to his mate: “I wish I could to that” to which his mate replies: “Ya better pat the cat first”.

Well like I said before; I think it’s funny.

Last, but not least, the cat cleans its tail. Probably the most elegant part of the routine. There’s really something to be said for the grace with which a cat controls it’s tail. So maybe 20 minutes later, this cat has cleaned every inch of it’s body from top to tail. And then you know what it did next? It started again. Went through the whole routine right over again.

I thought: “Well dang. This has got to be the cleanest cat I ever saw”. Then I thought about it some more, and I realised that this cat was not clean at all. It’s just covered itself in cat spit!

What's the worst thing someone has ever called you?

Skin ridden piece of filth.

Very memorable moment. To this day I am not sure why I remember it so well. Was it cos it cut me deep? I don't think so. I laughed it off. But that's just it. It was funny.

I was heading in to a night club with a bloke and saw these two girls sitting down outside. They weren't even real good looking but, as a bloke does, I looked at them and said quite simply..."Ooh". From that I got...."Fuck off ya skin ridden piece of filth!"...told you I was ugly. Apparently I am also skin ridden.

PS: if anyone ever works out what it means I would appreciate if you could let me know.

Do yourself a favour

Listen to Kate Miller-Heidke. Now I want to go on record stating that I do not condone illegal file sharing and software piracy.

For that reason, I am not going to suggest that anyone download, for free, and install a product such as Limewire or Bearshare. I am also going to recommend that you do not search under the music category using the string 'kate miller-heidke'.

And under no circumstances should anyone attempt to use this method to obtain a recording of practically any song ever written. That would be unethical.

So, as I was saying, you should (legally) obtain a copy of Kate Miller-Heidke's new album. 'Little Eve'. It's really quite brilliant. Easy listening. A little quirky.

But also. You should search (not in the search engine sense, of course) for a song entitled 'Career Advice'. It was originally entitled 'Australian Idol', but in the interest of avoiding legal action, she changed it on advice from another well known entity, whose name shall remain anonymous.

I don't really like contemporary music. I think I am verging on that age where modern music sounds like noise. But I am still always searching for a new sound that I want to listen to over and over again. Every now and then I find one. The last one I found was a guy named iOTA. Brilliant musician and you should also obtain his music by any means that does not involve downloading software.

Now it's Kate. Give her a listen. Not for me. Not for her. Do it for you.