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.