On mixed blessings...

I finally got another edition of The Swamp out tonight.

After 4 months of neglecting my faithful Swampees, I have finally rewarded their faith with a tale of mixed blessings that constitute the unlikely events which just happen to be the reality I live on a daily basis.

I was going to put it here but thought better of it. If you're already a subscriber, you'll understand why it is better left unadorning of the world wide timetrap, in favour of the discretion of those voluptuous in boxes of those beloved subscribers where it is less likely to come back and bite me on the arse.

:)

The oddest thing about the one I've just put out is that 99% of it is absolutely true.

I feel uber. I feel like I could just keep writing until my fingers explode. What a shame it's half past midnight and I have to get up in 6 hours and go to work.

Is this yet another case of mixed blessings?

It seems that way to me.

http://www.Break.com/articles/holditin2.html

The second funniest thing I've seen in my life. I would dearly love to get the mpeg of this.

In other news, mes amies have been in full flight this weekend, thereby protecting me from the abhorence of Christmas. The day was further enhanced by my putting the old Pretenders song 2000 Miles on repeat and just listening to it over and over.

I'll confess here, I got quite soft and started leaving nice messages around the internet, and I even apologised to someone for sending them a rude reply to an email they sent me in good faith.

But have no doubts on one thing: I'm still the same old Rat you all know and treat with a great deal of suspicion if not actual trepidation.

I haven't managed to do one solitary jot of actual work since September. Aren't you all terribly ashamed? I'm not. I've been busy doing other stuff that doesn't in any way advance my social standing but which still makes me feel pretty good anyway.

I have been working - rather long hours as it happens - just not on anything that is strictly for my own benefit. Slack I know, but let's face it, I'm the one who's going to suffer most because of it. The rest of you have archives and older material which I bet not one of you has bothered exploring yet.

As for the first book, although I haven't finished retyping it (I told you, I've been incredibly slack), I have given it its new dustjacket and last week I gave the beneficiary of the would-be largess to spring therefrom the link to where said largess will emanate.

Still, it's not fair that I just sit on my laurels and expect to be kept afloat by the generosity of strangers. I will get the 2nd book out and put lots of loveliness in it, mixed with some philosophical nuggets which might just give it some credibility with the denizens of stupid little plastic boxes festooning every CBD on the planet. I might actually do some research and out a few of the bigger fuckwits and perhaps land myself in court as a result. (Oh I wish.) Thank God Australian courts have no jurisdiction in California.

I had a very enjoyable and fairly lengthy discourse with RB last week. I can't remember if I gloated about that in my last entry or not, but I'm gloating about it again now anyway. I worship that man.

I have decided I need to make 3 investments: A digital camera, a scanner and a personal voice recorder - and not necessarily in that order. Why?

I'm glad I asked myself that very question on your behalf.

The camera because I want to photograph Melbourne in all its glory because no brochures or spamful websites put up the sorts of pictures that make Melbourne what it is. I wish to remedy that situation so anyone with a lazy few thousand dollars will flock to my hometown and say hi.

I want the scanner because I have photos I want to get on the internet - via Photoshop of course - to make a mockery of all things in print which would otherwise not see the oncoming headlights of the traffic on the information super highway.

I want the voice recorder for purposes of my own devising which I'm not about to divulge here, but I may publish the results from its usage at a later date. Obviously, since I don't have thing to do any transcriptions now, I have time to organise the occasion for best impact. It will involve pleasant company and getting very chemically imbalanced. Hopefully I won't kiss anyone with whom I would still wish to be on good terms the following day. (I do that sort of thing when I've been tipping the scales as it were.)

It's been a long time since I indulged in anything not sold legally to minors. This means my tolerance levels will be pretty well zero. And you know what that means, boys and girls. It's way fast and easy to get the Rat off his face. And when that happens, anything else humanly possible and undesirable is more than likely to happen afterwards. This is why I want a voice recorder thingy - to capture the glory of the moment in full surround sound stereo which can then be transcribed and flung to the ends of the earth for general consumption. It's an occasion not to be missed.

Did I happen to mention the kids again? I know I did, I just disguised with a bit of verbal dexterity more commonly known as French. I think over the course of this weekend, I've spent a cumulative total of 14 hours with them plus however much longer than that with message swapping. What a totally massive bunch of people. They and that song - for the first time in 6 years - actually made Christmas 2005 an enjoyable day for me.

I am so me I can't believe it.

I got an email...



Oh the possibilities!

I'm sometimes drawn on whether I get enough spam or not. Some of it can be fairly entertaining and let's face it, with a few clicks it's all gone. Inboxes are fucking enormous so it's not likely any one of mine will ever fill up unless people start sending me massive attachments, which a lot of the time I won't even bother downloading. I'm on dial-up for two reasons: It's dirt cheap and there is only so much I want to do when I'm on the net and downloading shitloads of other people's stuff isn't one of them.

On the other hand, none of the spam I get is of a questionable sexual nature - none of it is of a sexual nature at all if you don't count viagra spam. Most of it emanates from Russia because of some online wargame thing to which one of the kids got me to sub up. The rest is spamming me about dodgy Rolex watches and other shit.

But as I said, clickery gone, no biggy.

One of the other kids had the most extraordinarily kind thing to say...

Mad props to the Rat. We're lucky to have you around.

Oh my brother. Would that he were here to say the same thing.

I got one of the other kids to admit to something too. It was like drawing teeth but it had to be done for his sake. It's part of dismantling some unhealthy and unhelpful trains of thought. I hope he feels much better for it, but self esteem is a hard bugger to rebuild when it's been dealt so many blows. Then again, I enjoy spending 5 hours in one sitting talking to any and all of them anyway so I guess the privilege was all mine. If you're reading this, Chris, I meant what you said and if it weren't for the bloody time difference between here and Texas, I'd spend more than 5 hours with you.

The one kid about whom I'm most concerned hasn't been around for a couple of weeks. If I had to pick just one of the kids to hug, it would be her. She needs it so desperately. I hope she's ok, but I have a growing idea she may be in hospital and I have no way of finding out. I suppose if I trawled the net long enough I might pick up some clues, but that just feels wrong on too many levels - especially on account of her being unable to trust anyone. She might take it the wrong way. She might also leap to some incorrect conclusions and that would be disastrous.

Tart's got a new picture. God, she's a beautiful woman. She makes me proud to know her. By pure coincidence, she got our relationship worked out just right first go without any prompting from me - and unlike that fuckwit, dopey, she's earned the right to consider me her net-brother and doesn't mind that I consider her my net-sister.

When dopey sent me an email telling me she considered me like her little brother, my gag reflex almost killed me. It was about that time I told her unequivocally to fuck off. It took her weeks to realise I meant it.

She left a message for Bong in Philochat2 this morning too. So I made Bong a manager so he can delete the message or delete the comm - whatever he wants. I can't be bothered talking to him anymore. There's no point when he's not stable, can't make head nor tail of what he's saying when Veil has convinced him not to take his meds, and frankly, I just couldn't be bothered taking the chance. Nor do I give a cusper's about Philochat2 so if he wipes it, too bad.

Some interesting developments in the MB story but I'm bidden not to reveal them by the author. Personally. Woo! The MB is a link by the way and it should have clickage upon it. Failing the interloping of any other book which might happen to pass under my nose and beckon my purchase, MB will be my next book purchase. I can't think of a time I was more excited about the production of a book like this - not even my own. Without exaggerating, to me, it's stand on the chair and cheer like they do in corny B grade college movies material. It's flipping one massive bird at everyone who ever harboured some hokey notions about herbal remedies and ancient recipes for happiness and wealth etc. I love Chris Locke and everything he says. I only wish I could write as well as he does. Maybe some day I'll apply myself to the task of producing something wicked. Until then, I'll just be satisfied pumping the air like an idiot every time I turn the pages of his books.

My playlist is the most inspiring lump of music in the universe. The drumming in the OMD song "Maid of Orleans" is phenomenal. Seriously. If I could fly, that's what I'd listen to while doing it. Maybe I'll come back as a hawk in the next life. I should be so lucky.

No matter, really. When I have those kids on the other side saying things like Mad props to the Rat, I don't even feel like I need to eat to stay alive - which is fortunate really, because eating is a nuisance and I fairly frequently forget to do it until it's too late at night to bother. Speaking of which, it's 1.34am here in beautiful Melbourne and I have to get up and go to work in 5 hours.

Plans are afoot to make some extra dosh between Christmas and New Year though, so we'll just see how it all pans out. After New Year, George has plans of his own which might just make all things more comfortable in Casa Highett. More on that later, but for now, it's bed time.

Toodle pip.

Continuation of that bit I threw up in PA this week, I'm going to kill my subscription to Oxfam. Getting that picture in the mail was the end of it for me. Really.

I don't know how I could have been more specific when I said I don't want to know anything at all about the people I sponsored. I just didn't and don't want to know. I can't explain it, but it's more than I can handle.

Fuckers.

I'm getting very emotional about this. I did NOT want ANYTHING at all to do with anything or anyone to whom I was making this anonymous donation. What do I get instead? A shitload of... shit. It's just shit. Gratitude is shit.

It fucking sucks. Charity sucks. I knew it when I signed on, but to have it come back and bite me on the arse like this - and pay for the damn privilege? Fuck that.

All I wanted was to help a poor Cambodian family, completely anonymously and relieve them of any need to feel gratitude (guilt, basically) for putting up their hands asking for help then actually getting it. The idea is to make the most of what you get with no thought for anything but your own future. That's about the best gift I can give and that's of what I was thinking when I started my subscription.

What the fuck are these people on anyway? Oxfam, I mean. Can you tell I'm a bit fucked off right now? How dare they fuck up my gift. Maybe not for whomever is on the receiving end, but my trust in Oxfam has been royally fucked in the arse. I know it's just a procedural thing to send these stinking updates to keep it all warm and fuzzy and make the donors think what they're doing is so wonderfully worthwhile.

I'm sure it is, but what does that make me? Just another name on some mailing list somewhere.

Now I want to run and hide away from these felching scumbags so they never find me again, never send me their stupid begging letters and load me up with guilt for something I haven't done.

My kids on the other side mean more to me than anyone else right now. I keep going on about them, but only because I love them all so much. Am I grateful for the time they accord me? In a way, yes. I'm probably more proud than grateful. I'm certainly amazed they let me in there. It's a fairly tight little circle but they're so incredibly acceptant and generous with their time and themselves. I consider myself very lucky to have encountered them.

It's what they give me which has the big impact. They give me the opportunity to share myself with them and they allow me the opportunity to share their day to day lives as well. It's extremely selfish of me to even be there, I know that. I have the unfair advantage of 20 years worth of experience which they do not yet have. I'm aware of that - always. On the other hand, because I consider them equals - which is to say, as human beings - and I won't behave condescendingly towards them because condescension is right up there with the most despicable things adults do to kids, that not only can I share with them and they with me, but at times I have the opportunity to share the benefits of the experience I have which they do not.

They actually let me care about them. That's incalculable to me. I know I sound like a broken record for saying it yet again, but how I can I compare anything I have with the gift those kids continue to give me?

Gratitude? Fuck gratitude. How about respect, how about trust, and, for what it's worth, not just a modicum of affection. Yes, that's why I love them all so much.

I did a terrible thing on the train on the way home from work tonight.

Terrible or typical? You be the judge.

Melbourne has a free daily newspaper called MX. In it is a puzzle page which contains a few word game thingies and a crossword - amongst other stuff I tend to ignore.

Anyway, a fat bastard had his backpack on the seat next to him instead of on the floor, thus he was depriving one of those forced to stand of a seat on the train.

Enter the Rat.

Rat spots fat bastard reading the puzzle page. Rat further spots fat bastard having copious quantities of difficulty with the crossword.
Rat is a wordsmith with an enviable vocabulary and usually finishes the crossword in 15 minutes.

Rat also has a copy of MX. Rat stands close to fat bastard, close enough to allow fat bastard to hear Rat's stomach grumble. Rat ostensibly ignores fat bastard.

Rat turns to the puzzle page, pulls his pen from his backpack and reads 3 across: Make eyes at, 4 letters. Except Rat reads aloud, and announces the answer as OGLE, 4 down: Dirt, 5 letters. Hmm, "Grime" says Rat, aloud.

"9 across: Liquid measure, 4 letters. Oh, pint!" says Rat.

Fat bastard gets off train at the next stop and goes to the next carriage down.

Rat and one other person sit.

Rat turns to fellow seated person and says, "Well that was easy!"

God, I love being me.

Teresa is a dangerous woman.

No, seriously!

Well, as you can see, I haven't gone bush - yet. I'm still giving it serious consideration though. The first invoice I submitted for payment came back with 30% less than what I was expecting. I had their payment arrangements explained to me and I listened through clenched teeth and said nothing. I saved them several hundred dollars more today, though I have a sneaking suspicion gratitude will be non-existent on their list of things to say to me tomorrow.

No matter. I got a call from another professional this afternoon who is keen to make my acquaintance. It's 45 minutes closer to home for me too.

I checked in with the office yesterday too. For some stupid reason, they've got me down as inactive. If they didn't submit their claim on my behalf for the $5,000 they should have got, I'm going to have to go in there and have serious words with Lance to find out why the hell not. I don't have to do these little things for them - it's not my money after all, it's theirs. I do it because I can and because it's the right thing to do. I'll fire off a fax tomorrow and see if I can't scrape another few hundred out of it though. :) It's only money after all.

(Don't try to make sense of all that. I don't operate the same way everyone else does. It's complex and I couldn't be bothered explaining it.)

I've got the playlist going and trigger songs are messing with my head. Consequently, I feel like a manic-depressive just now. I experienced a very strong urge to go to Geelong and catch Matt's gig. I'd been meaning to go for weeks but I don't operate the same way everyone else does and besides being complex, it buggers my social life as well. Matt's enormous, not physically, he just means a huge amount to me, even though we didn't get in contact with each other for about 2 or 3 years. I tend to store my friends. They come and they go, but they never quite fade away entirely. Sooner or later, I can pick up the threads of where we left off and carry on like no time had passed at all.

Australia won the test series against the West Indies 3 nil today.

Total match attendance over the 5 days was 69,342.

On Boxing Day, the test between Australia and whoever (South Africa I believe) will begin. The total attendance for the 5 days of the Adelaide test will be surpassed by the 2nd day in Melbourne. It would have been walloped on the first day had the venue been The G, but because The G is being prepared for the Commonwealth Games here next March, they're not playing cricket there. The game will be moved to the Telstra Dome which doesn't even hold 70,000 people. I'm not happy about that, just quietly.

Something else about which I'm not especially happy is the fact it's only 10:20pm and I'm more than ready to head for bed, such is my lack of energy and enthusiasm right now. I miss my all night sessions. I'm not sure I like behaving 'responsibly', going to bed early and getting up early.

*sigh*

I need to write. I need so desperately to write. I've got it all here, I'm not feeling blockage, I'm just overwhelmingly bloody tired.

Why aren't you people all doing something more productive than reading my blurtage? Hmm?

Go on, away with you.

Much has happened since I last set the fingers to the Ratblog.

I'm not sure how much of it is good and how much of it just sucks and the end result as I sit here this Saturday afternoon is that I'm sore and tired.

I've been helping out some people who are shortstaffed - to the tune of 10 hours per day since last Sunday. Sure it's money, but Christ, it's not a labour of love. It amazes me how people can be so focused on their own little worlds they forget others have different perspectives each of which can be just as valuable. I already made one change, after just a week, and that change has borne fruit. My thoughts on that particular matter are why spend a fortune on something that's going to go to waste when you can spend a few pennies and make a 700% return in 2 days? I also made a few other changes which surprised the owners by the magnitude of the success, then I get blamed for not taking care of something that isn't even my responsibility - ie; purchasing. If they know something has to be replaced every two days regardless, replace the fucking thing. Waiting for the interloper to tell you it has to be replaced is absurd. They've been there 17 months, it should just be automatic - every two days, replace what needs to be replaced. Don't wait to be told it needs replacing. I told them this and it went down like a lead balloon. I told them if they want me to take that responsibility in future, I'm happy to do it, but don't blame me for not doing what they should know needs to be done every two days anyway. I'm not having that. I've only been there a week.

I can't see myself sticking out the 6 weeks for which they said they wanted me.

BUT...

The old girl reckons she's going to lose her job over a slip of the tongue at work which just happened to be a breach of confidentiality and it looks like the old bro and I will have to support her until she gets the old age pension. What a joy that will be. I'm not going to work 50 hours a week just so she can have ballroom dancing lessons for $400 a month. Fuck that.

I'm good at disappearing. (Just ask my creditors.)

I know that sounds incredibly callous. She is, after all, my mother. On the other hand, she's been going on round the world cruises on the QEII every year for the last 4 years and spending tens of thousands of dollars on ballroom dancing, so much so that when she croaks, she'll be nearly a hundred thousand dollars in debt which the old bro and will inherit when the bank moves in to repossess everything she owned.

I need to write like a demon and get something published mainstream if I'm to get out of this jam any time soon. Fuck working 50 hours a week for someone else's benefit.

Ozy's post in PA almost brought a tear to my eye. He's going to need a mountain of strength over the next few weeks to see himself through the inevitable - unless some miracle happens along the way, which, because of circumstances, I doubt will be forthcoming. It would be nice if it did though. He's one of the more worthwhile people at PA, even if others don't see that. I feel for him, I really do.

Working these long hours for the whole week just past seems to have taken its toll on one of my young friends too. We used to talk on messenger every day and now I haven't been on for a week. He blogged his dismay that he has no idea where I'm lurking and it cut me like a knife. It's not like I can just get on the phone and talk, he's on the other side of the planet. All I know is this 6 week committment I've made is not just making me tired, it's getting in the way of people.

Just to explain that a little better, there are people who have become accustomed to my being available and suddenly I'm not so available any more. It bothers them and it therefore bothers me. I don't necessarily care about the money, which is 3.1 times what I usually earn, what I care about is those people who get upset when I'm not there for them.

I'm on the very edge of packing up a few belongings and going off interstate somewhere and starting from the bottom and working my way back up the ladder of success. Anonymity has its own rewards. The only people with whom I feel a personal need to maintain contact all live in North America and I can do that just as easily from an internet cafe as I can from here. I don't want all this bullshit money headache from all these different quarters. It's not my problem, nor do I want it to become so.

Finding out new things is always fun. It's even more fun when what you find out will help you solve all sorts of other things going on in your life from one day to the next.

Take Zen Buddhism for example.

No, please take it - the hell away from me.

This peaceful little philosophy come religion to which half of the world's Asiatic populations adhere and which an increasingly diverse chunk of westerners are beginning to embrace is the latest form of moral bankruptcy making its presence felt on the best sellers lists at the expense of genuinely valuable works of fictional art and the odd interesting biography.

The central ethos of Buddhism is paradox. Paradoxes are interesting little intellectual talking points, but as bases for a philosophy or a religion, frankly, they suck. The most basic of paradoxes - which in my mind anyway - completely debunks the God myth, is the God vs Big Rock paradox. It goes like this:

If God is omnipotent, can he build a rock so big even he can't move it? Either way, God loses.

Buddhism is more fundamentally paradoxical than this. Buddhism, for anyone who has seen the Dalai Lama in the Mercedes commercial, tells us that all life is sacred, even the lives of insects. Love your friendly neighbourhood mosquito.

Pardon me, but fuck off.

Mr Locke's latest works have hit that primeval chord with me tonight, inspiring memories I Swamped years ago which irritated me then and irritate me no less today. (Click the Rageboy links over there on the right for more information.) I can't wrap my head around the concept that other bits of living matter on this planet should somehow mean as much or more than the humanity admonished by these charlatans to think exactly that in order to achieve a state of peaceful blissful enlightment.

If I want to achieve a state of peaceful, blissful enlightment, I'll read a volume of the encyclopedia when I'm having a shit.

As far as I'm concerned, humanity itself is the standard by which all values should be judged. Is it good for us? Yes? Then it's a good thing. Is it bad for us? Yes? Then it's a bad thing. Does it make one jot of difference to us one way or the other? No? Good, let's see if it's edible.

Obviously I'm not a fan of all this hokum. More fool you if you've been taken in by it.

I don't mind the idea of yoga insofar as sitting quietly and clearing one's head being a good thing, but any pseudo-scientific philosophical clap-trap that goes with it is what I reject out of hand. A basic concept like "empty your mind" is one thing, behaving like a cherry blossom is just fucked up.

There is a flipside to the Buddhist recipe for internal happiness, and that is to put yourself at the service of others and sacrifice any excess to the fat statue of The Man Who Laughs. (Victor Hugo, now there's an author.)

I don't hold with that bit of bullshit either. What's the point of working for the benefit of others when you should be teaching them to work for their own benefit by producing more than they consume? Don't create a race of co-dependents, create a race of self sufficient efficacious individuals who build bulwarks against the fickle hand of nature. Happiness is a by-product of personal security. Pride is a by-product of achievement.

This pseudo-self esteem built upon a rock of self denial and valuing the lives of insects above that of humans is the second biggest load of shite ever set to print. That sort of happiness is entirely dependent upon circumstances over which you have absolutely no control whatsoever. It's built on the faith that should you come a gutser, someone else will assuredly pick you up and put you back on your sandal shod feet, dust off your saffron robe and give you a hearty meal of boiled rice and lentil soup.

Fuck that. I'll have Whopper Double Beef with cheese, large fries and a Coke. I'll sit in an air conditioned plastic box to eat it then I'll walk out in my child-labor constructed Nikes and I'll do it all, safe in the knowledge that I'd rather live like an environmental vandal and be comfortable and smug than subject myself to the whims of the next tosspot who sets him or herself up as an authority on what's good for the human spirit.

My message to the Buddhists is quite simple, yet profound and conclusive: Fuck off and die.

Since everyone else is doing it...

I watched the most ridiculous movie last night on the idiot box - Supernova. It had Tia Carrera in it which was good, and that tosser from a few years ago all the teenage girls couldn't live without - but now can't remember his name. All I remember about the guy is his face because it reminds me of Richard Gere gone wrong and sucking a lemon.

Oh, Luke Perry. The man whose only claim to fame is being eminently forgetable. In fact pre-eminently forgetable.

Tonight, it's that old Dudley Moore, Julie Andrews and Bo Derek clunker, 10. Besides Bo Derek's tits in that beach scene the only thing remotely memorable about that film is Ravel's Bolero. And Bo Derek's tits. They were nice tits. Shame about the face.

Nice tits though.

One of the kids I've known since about 1988 played cricket against the visiting West Indies cricket team today and yesterday. Brad Hodge smacked 177 runs in 178 deliveries and (just quietly) buried them. He's been named in the Australian team to play the West Indies in Tasmania next week. He's been 12th man 6 times, maybe this time he'll actually get a cap. Go Brad. I'd go and watch the game, but I don't relish the thought of going overseas to do so. If they pick him for the Boxing Day test in Melbourne, I'll be there with bells on.

I did the Nazi thing in PhilosophyAbsurdity yesterday and Liz has been ominously absent and/or quiet since. I booted Labyrinth for being obnoxious enough to make threats to take stuff off the boards and into real life. What a knob. Even if he had no intention of doing anything of the sort, even the threat is too over the top. When I switch the machine off, everyone in it goes away until I switch it back on. Only those with my phone number are the truly privileged ones.

Those fuckers in the other room have the television at an unnaturally high volume. It's encroaching uncomfortably onto my auditorial senses and interfering with my listenage of my playlist. I love my playlist. It's better than yours precisely because it's mine.

If you had my attitude, I wouldn't say that sort of thing. Not because you wouldn't like it, but because your playlist would be identical to mine. You know it's true. Some people would say it's arrogant of me to even think such thoughts, but it's not arrogance at all. Arrogance would be to say that if you had my attitude, you'd still be inferior because you probably wouldn't have the vocabulary to match. See?

Just be glad to have my example to follow. It really is the best anyone can do anyway and that still puts you at least one step ahead of those who haven't encountered me yet.

Finally, I'd like to say a big thank you to Teresa and Veronica for keeping the Ratblog Gripage files alive and kicking on a regular basis but I know there's no need for that either. Just being here, reading my words and making gripes is ample enough reward of its own.

Fuck I'm good!

lol.

I got my own back yesterday and it felt marvellous. The good triumphs over the ignorant again - as it should be.

There have been one or two other devlopments as well but nothing significant in any true sense of that word.

My head cold has migrated down my spine and into all my limbs. Today is Friday and in the last 48 hours, the total of everything I've eaten is one Tim Tam - a chocolate biscuit for you non-Aussies - two Vegemite sandwiches, a fruit mince tart, about a dozen cups of coffee and maybe 20 cigarettes.

I weigh 63 kilograms. 3 kilos less than the most I've ever weighed. I wonder what I weighed last week.

My blood pressure is being kept artificially high by the shit I'm shoving up my nose to stop it dripping like a tap - which is a good thing. Having been averse to eating for the last two days, if I didn't assail my beak with pseudoephedrine inhalants, I'd pass out every time I stood up. (The joys of unbelievably low blood pressure. Don't knock it, it saved my life once. Ok knock it, you know I don't care.)

As long as they keep adrenalin infusions away from me if I land in hospital again I don't care what happens. I hate that shit. It's like having an elephant sit on your chest and they give you morphine straight after so you can actually breathe. WTF! Morphine's more addictive than smack!

I just keep telling myself it's a cold, a couple of Codrals and I'll be right as rain. No drama, no infusions, no worries, mate. She'll be right.

I'm disgruntled again or still, however you all prefer it...

Despite the fact some wonderful things have been said to me or about in PA over the last week, it has still been trumped by that vengeful and vindictive person who should have well and truly kept her fingers off the keyboard. There are people I value fairly highly from whom I am being kept from corresponding because one person doesn't like it. I'm thoroughly narked by it.

In other news, I haven't had any 30 hours days lately which means I'm going to bed before dawn and getting up before lunchtime. I'd say I'm pleased with that but it means certain aspects of my creativity are being stifled. It's just a hunch, but I seem to be able to write more to my own satisfaction when I'm writing at times sensible people are asleep.

Speaking of sleep, I had a dream the other night which ended with a black silhouette of a ghost coming through the window above where I was hiding after having just killed its erstwhile host - and I woke up in time to stifle a yell. How very odd. I don't have dreams like that. I mean EVER. Mind you, it's the second dream in recent months where I've actually offed someone. I'm sure they were very bad people. I'm always on the side of the angels in my dreams so whomever I rub out when I'm dreaming must be really bad. But how do you kill a ghost? Oh yeah... you wake up.

Silly me.

I didn't find out if that kid managed to stay awake for the full 64 hours he was trying for. I have a feeling he didn't - which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

I must email Hank. You should email Hank if you know his addy. Anyone who can use the word cloaca in ordinary parlance is worth emailing. Anyone brave enough or careless enough to use it in reference to me is definitely worth emailing.

Melbourne's weather is up to its usual tricks again. Hot one day, cold the next, cold nights followed by hot days... It means at night time your coffee goes cold too quickly and during the day, your Pepsi goes warm within 34 seconds of pouring.

The upside of it is, during the day, you get to wallow in magnificent sunshine, and at night, when it's much cooler, you get to party all night in shorts and t-shirts and still get some sleep when it's late enough to do so. This is just another reason I love this place. Adore it.

A friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go into the hippy weed industry with him.

Ahhh... getting into that sort of thing isn't that hard. You buy seeds and equipment, you tend the plants, harvest the product and sell it.

Nothing hard about that at all.

The hard part is what do you do with all the equipment and the whole shebang when you've had enough of the idea? It's not just a matter of hoping the neighbours don't smell the product, it's a matter of getting out of the whole scene when it proves more hassle than it's worth.

I told him to buy a computer and learn how to day trade on the internet instead.

I'm full of good ideas like that, but nobody ever asks me what I think any more so I hang around places where doing so is more likely to prove intellectually stimulating. Yep, you guessed it - the other side of the net. I got to "peer review" a 12th grader's earth sciences essay last week. Apparently, it scored 100% - just as it damn well should have if I had anything to do with it.

Sometimes I want the whole world to go and lock its collective self in a lavatory and not to come out again until it has rid itself of all its shit.

If I see one more fucking idiot complaining about their right to freedom of speech on the internet being violated, I'm going to hit something unhealthily hard. It's the internet. How can anyone claim their right to freedom of speech is being violated? How fucking stupid can anyone get?

These dickheads might feel as though they have every right in the world to say whatever they want to say to whomever they want to say it, but are oblivious to the fact others have a right to expect certain standards because of the area in which they're participating.

If I'm posting messages to a football forum, I want to read messages pertinent to football. Not some fucking whack job preaching the fucking gospel at me and decrying football as a devil's creation.

Then there are other arseholes who piss me off because they can't resist spouting their prejudicial crap as well.

Observe a conversation between two people who know each other quite well and understand the intention behind each other's comments. Enter the outsider, destined to be spurned for all eternity for being nothing but a snotty little antisocial twerp who drops an ignorant comment based on nothing but prejudice and first impressions - not paying any mind to what history may have passed between the participants and suddenly the joy is removed from the exchange for everyone. And the ignominious little wretch goes away giggling at an apparent victory.

Add to those sort of sad individuals the likes of dopey and ironbox and I sometimes wonder why I bother logging onto the internet at all sometimes.

If it weren't for the friends I've made who outnumber the fucktards by an order of magnitude, I'd cancel my subscription to my ISP and never log on again. Sometimes I feel like creating a list of people I consider to be irretrievably emotionally, psychologically and socially retarded just to see what sort of an accumulation of dross I have encountered and on the other side of the ledger, those who've made it all worthwhile. If I can name more duds than legends, it might indeed be time to kiss the net goodbye. I don't need it and in the face of these shitheads, I don't even enjoy it.

Then again, maybe I can put a stop to the interaction and just do my own thing and not provide anyone with any sort of means of responding to what I've done. It does sound infinitely more efficient and less troublesome.

Come to think of it, it's like having the headphones on and someone beginning to talk to me. I mean, it's not like I want to listen to music or anything, I just have the headphones on to prevent my head from exploding. For fuck's sake, get a fucking clue.

God, I seriously need to sleep but I'm not remotely sleepy. I'm sitting in the middle of an atmosphere of contained dynamism waiting to have its constraints removed.

I just wish George wouldn't send stupid text messages to my phone. Even if I could, I wouldn't take out a $6,000 loan to buy a car. A far more cost effective solution is only a mouseclick away - eBay.

One of the kids is trying to beat his own sleeplessness record. He wants to go 64 hours without sleep and I'm not happy about it. Primarily, it's physically very dangerous - he could hurt himself doing that. Secondarily, one of the rationalizations he's put forth for why this feat should be achievable is "mind over body". Willpower in other words.

He seems to have forgotten that the mind doesn't exist independently of the body - damage one and you damage the other. (Don't argue the finer points of this statement, you will more than likely lose.)

On the other hand, who am I to stand in his way if that's what he wants to do? It just bugs me more than a little bit that I can't be there in case my fears are realised.

I quite often have 30 hour days. I get going on the internet and Windows Media Player and I just don't stop until I can't see the screen properly any more. But 64 hours is seriously pushing the bounds of neurochemical imbalance. What if, after 58 hours without sleep, he walks out in front of a car?

Oh well. I've made my opinion known, it's now up to his friends and family to take care of him if he's determined to go ahead with this attempt.

Not for me though. It's 3am and I'm going to bed.

Niters all.

Knowing certain things is a curse.

The potential evil of poetry is one of those things.

I'll just explain for the uninitiated why poetry is potentially evil.

Poetry has rhythm and it therefore bypasses the conscious mind and goes straight to the subconscious. That's the reason you get songs stuck in your head all day. You have no control over that unless you know how to get a rein on your subconscious.

Poetry also has its message composed of intelligible words which don't go straight to your subconscious, they lurk right up there in the thinking part of your brain and they stay there thanks to the hooks supplanted into your subconscious. Thus the unrealistic messages of poetry can be used to subvert the thinking mind.

If that rhythm were not so successful, do you really think ad agencies would use jingles to promote their clients' products? Hell, those fuckers even sing the damn phone numbers because they know you'll remember them better if they're sung than if they're just read out. It's an deniable truth that rhythm can be used to subvert thought.

Now why is this a curse to me?

Firstly, because there's something I want someone to understand. At any time, it can be a particular individual or nobody at all - just a general message for anyone who wants to read it. I can trust that whoever reads what I write will understand what it is I'm trying to say, but whether or not the message gets through is another matter.

What better way to get the message across than by wrapping it in poetry.

To me, though, that's tantamount to dishonesty and it's manipulation of the first order and I will not participate in that sort of activity. I'm perfectly capable of writing a poem sufficient unto my needs to get the message across, but it's also a betrayal of the trust that has been placed in me.

Other means I could use to transmit the sentiment without the betrayal of trust is by using the means of music without lyrics. Unreliable and not always clearly understood since people listen to certain types of music according to the moods they are in and the wrong music at the wrong time will - to coin a phrase - fall on deaf ears.

The other means I have at my disposal is to write a narrative and I was exhorted to do just that earlier tonight. "Write a bestseller" I was told. Easier said than done, but moreso because the marketplace seeks out certain stories at particular times. I can write anything that's attractive to a few people at any given time but only as a diversion, not as an offering for posterity. It's a bit of a coward's way out, but under the circumstances, it's probably the best option available to me right now. Of course it also means the immediacy will be lost.

I'm not conceited enough to think that's going to be any great catastrophe, but it still leaves me without the option of adequately saying what I want to say right now.

I would pen more poetry. Only if I didn't know what I know. I can't get my head around the ends justifying the means. Where people are concerned, the ends never justify the means. Time to quit PhilochatX methinks too. Not to sound melodramatic, but evil has taken hold of that place and I can't stay there any more. Why are people so slow to recognise pure evil when they see it? Knowing what they know, how can they tolerate it being in their midst? It makes me despair of humanity when I see ignorant people putting up with that vile woman, knowing what she does and what she's like and letting her continue doing it... Just staggering. No more for me. I'm fed up having my blissful existence elsewhere stained by the memory of that filthy bitch.

Why has it been so long since I've blogged?

Simple, I've been busy elsewhere - doing what I like best.

Gripe if you must, they come to my inbox so I see them pretty well instantly.

Dear Diary,

Today I watched the cricket. Australia is playing the rest of the world in a 6 day game in Sydney, but the game won't go that long. The rest of the world is getting its arse kicked by the Australians. It's at times like this I really love cricket.
It's only gone two days so far and I suspect it will be all over before the close of play on the 4th day with Australia winning by about 200 runs.

I was going to have lunch today, but I forgot. I forgot to eat yesterday too until it was time to go to bed, then I remembered I was hungry. I had sort of about half a dinner tonight because I was experiencing a hypoglycemic crisis and fell over on my way to the kitchen to put the kettle on. If I remember to eat, I don't pass out every time I stand up.

I also got industrious and washed the dishes so whipping up something to eat was one way to relieve that depressing phenomenon known as an empty sink. If there are no dishes in the sink waiting to be washed, it makes me remember I've forgotten to eat. If there are dishes in the sink waiting to be washed, I can ignore them and make coffee instead.

I need to write a dragon story for Lea. Not because she wants me to but because I need to write it. It will be a challenge to make it acceptable to her rather exceptional son who likes piano music. Anything too childish will be an insult to his intelligence - of that I'm only too well aware. Anything not fantastic enough will bore him. I dislike Harry Potter. No, I mean I really dislike Harry Potter. I dislike everything about them except Robbie Coltraine's portrayal of Hagrid. I also disagree with the Vatican's appraisal of the books. Anything that gets kids reading can't be all bad - especially if they're not reading that stinking tome called the bible. (Bugger giving its titular capitals too.)

All that means I'm not remotely interested in writing a Harry Potter style dragon story for Lea's son. The trouble is, I'm agonising over a plot and character names. Thinking up names for the characters is the worst part of story writing. Just ask George Lucas's daughter who named just about everything in the Star Wars books. What kind of poxy names are Tatooine and Naboo. Not to mention Jar Jar Binks. Faaaark off.

I'm more and more engrossed in the blogs of those Canadians. They are fast becoming the centre of my internet activities. I know groups like theirs are out there, I just haven't taken the time to look for them. The other really great thing about them is they're not about to rock up on my doorstep unexpectedly - which is something I hate. I like my front door because I can close it and thereby close the rest of the world out of my mind and I need it to be that way.

Slowly but surely, they've been getting me on messenger too. That's fun. Every couple of days I get the message that so-and-so would like to send me a message, would I like to accept it. Of course I would. These are brilliant people and I don't seem to be able to get enough of them. I feel like a rock band's groupie, only cleaner.

I get an absurdly good feeling everytime one of them sends me an email too. I'm getting 8 or 9 a day now. If it weren't for the fact I'm getting more messages back than what I'm sending, I'd feel slightly creepy. And if it weren't for the fact they're adding me to their lists - not the other way round - I'd feel slightly creepy and foolish. As it stands now though, I couldn't be more ecstatic about the whole thing unless I took mind distorting drugs. They all know I think of them fondly, but I doubt they've given any thought to just how much I value them, which happens to be fairly immensely.

My playlist has me caught between heaven and ummm... heaven. I can't make up my mind whether to keep replaying individual songs or just let the 5 and a half hours of it just play itself through. Sometimes I listen to 5 or 6 songs then start from the beginning again because I love all of the tracks so much I sometimes feel like I can't wait another 5 hours to hear particular tracks again. When I decide to share anything from it, it's because there's a song with which I can't live for very long and I feel everyone else should suffer the same sweet agony I suffer. I only know I'm no longer a teenager because I don't listen to the same few songs sitting with my feet higher than my head and with a bag of chips sitting on my chest.

And I don't play online games with anyone either.

That's all you're getting tonight. I need to answer more email from the Canadians.

There was something I was going to do today, but because of circumstances that's not going to be very probable now.

Maybe later.

Isn't it weird how the oddest things make their insidious little connections in our minds. I'm listening to 60s music and I'm reminded of the most insignificant little incident at a nightclub many moons ago...

I was there with half a dozen friends and it was "alternative night" as it was every Wednesday night. That means if you didn't see the participants getting dressed up, you wouldn't know who they were when they'd finished.

There was Patrick - our fearless peer group leader, his sister, Colleen - with whom I was insanely in love, David - Patrick's boyfriend, Darren - the token outsider we let in because we were too cool not to, Patricia - one of our friends and other David - Patricia's boyfriend.

Now Darren just had the name we liked to pick on. Remember Bewitched? Darrin? What did Endora call him? That's right. Dustbin.

Now, on this particular night, Darren and I were sitting around on some bit of improvised furniture when a photographer from Beat Magazine chanced upon us, just as Patrick happened to coming up from the other way. He saw the photographer taking a photo of Darren and I looking sublime in our costumes then come up and ask our names - at which point Patrick lobbed up, pointed at us and said "This is Dusty and this is Polly."

Naturally, and because we were already very drunk, we laughed our arses off. I never bothered to check the mag to see if our pics made it. Given the reputation our group had among the club scene, I'd be surprised if it didn't make it to the mag. For 8 months of 1986 - 87, we never once paid to get into a nightclub and we never once lined up with the little people. I had so many free passes I could have wallpapered the house with them.

So what prompted this memory?

Listening to this old music on my machine, it struck me that "Son of a Preacher Man" is not one of the songs on the machine. Who sung that song? Dusty Springfield.

Instant memory.

And now someone I hold in the highest esteem has just sent me a music file.

What a hoot. The song is Cartoon Hero by Aqua.

LMAO.. just get it and listen to it. It speaks to me, very loudly too just quietly.
Camp as a row of tents but funny as hell.

"What we do is what you just can't do."

I have a friend who is a bit older than I, but for whom I still have a fair bit of respect and I like him because he tells good stories. He also sends me regular emails full of lots of good things like videos of stuff exploding or small furry creatures being mown down by locomotives. You know, just the sort of stuff I find appealing.

Since he’s a fair bit older than I am, I had the idea of telling him about something that has been brewing in my head for about the last oooh 20 minutes but what I wanted was a good story that has a start, middle and a conclusion.

Because my life has been that many years shorter than Don’s, I have lots of starts, quite a few middles – but am lamentably short of conclusions. To put it another way, I haven’t managed get myself into enough situations, the resolution of which would provide a good basis for a plot of some length. All mine are either over inside 5 minutes or (and more likely) I’m still up to my eyeballs looking for the best way to get out of trouble.

I’ve been developing another case of writer’s block over the last two weeks too. I could see it coming, felt it encroaching and getting in the way of all things I consider important and worthwhile. It dawned on me yesterday what was causing the precipitation or perhaps the ascension of a massive head swallowing turd. A Volkswagon sized buffalo killer of a piece of shit enveloping its victim, ie: me, blinding, deafening and suffocating the life out of me and rendering any creativity I might erstwhile have enjoyed completely quashed.

I decided upon a course of action not 5 minutes ago to remove myself from the source of this inexorable drainage upon my sensibilities, but on visiting the hallowed halls of doom (one of the msn groups of which I am a member) I discovered this black hole for intellect was gone and so was all her stuff. I was, not to put too fine a point on it, fucking ecstatic.

It was a good culmination to a pretty substantially lacklustre weekend.

Someone else for whom I have developed a fair bit of affection and empathy left a couple of messages here and thereabouts and I wanted to respond to them but didn’t have the words. (Writer’s block, remember.) Then it suddenly dawned on me. Don’t reply, lead by example. So I did. The upshot of it was that a message was left for me by way of a response to this and I was not a little moved by it. Adherents to my blog know of what it is I am talking though my repeated references to it must be driving a few of the more curious among them insane because I’ve kept its location pretty much to myself.

Now that I have my brain back, I was struck with the idea to which I made reference above (for those who weren’t paying attention, it’s the bit about having lots of starts and middles but not enough conclusions) and I was thinking of emailing my friend, Don to help me come up with a few good examples of scrapes into which he has stumbled and how he got out of them. Don is well traveled and knows just enough about a lot of things, not enough to be a bore about any of them, and that’s more than I can say for many people of his vintage and experience.

On the other hand, he couldn’t write a one word instruction manual and when I’m free from braindead love vultures clogging up the bandwidth, I can. Moreover, when people around me invest so much of themselves in my presence and what I might be inclined to say to them, my natural bent for not wishing to disappoint tends to work fairly efficiently in everyone’s favour, especially mine.

So I’ve given birth to a premise for a story, I haven’t named it yet and it’s second in line to the throne of what I’m intending to make available to the broader public. I’d like to share that premise with you but I’m acutely aware of similarities this idea of mine has to ideas others have been diligent enough to make known to the entire western world, therefore mine needs to get a bit development happening before it’s allowed to be shown off.

Which reminds me, Locke, you did it to me again. You told me about what it was safe for me to write and I gave it careful consideration, couldn’t conjure anything satisfactory enough, thought about other things and even wrote about them – then a week later – so did you. When you finish with my head, it might be nice if you could tell me when you give it back.

This time, I’m cogitating something purely fictional – for a change, and it involves narcolepsy. That has got to be a subject nobody else is even remotely considering, so I’m thinking I’m going to be safe as houses writing it. If any of you reading this knows of any other work of fiction – besides Rat Race – that includes narcolepsy, I don’t want to know.

It includes quite a lot of other things as well, but here’s the dilemma: If I enunciate now what those things are, I run the risk of getting in the way of what I consider to be something of far greater importance than me being a showoff. It’s happened twice now and it has been just a private little thing and all is well and good and right with the world.

Anyway, back to narcolepsy. Although it can be seen all over the world in lecture theatres, church sermons and parliamentary venues, it’s generally not regarded as a problem until it starts happening in places where it could conceivably result in the death of the narcoleptic or someone else for that matter. Anything short of tragedy is comedy anyway so I’m perfectly happy making a definite statement such as that.

What I propose is putting my poor old narcoleptic character into situations no narcoleptic should ever have to face. Naturally, there needs to be more to the story than that and I don’t mean curing the narcoleptic. How could there be a sequel if I did that? Oh no no, I’m not that charitable.

It’s just that I am acutely aware of my oversupply of beginnings and middles and the scarcity of resolutions since I don’t have that sort of experience upon which to draw – but I’m getting there.

In fact, being as close as I am to pretty much every conclusion in which I've ever been involved, it's probably difficult for me to see them properly - sort of like getting up close to a wire fence so you look through the gaps in the wire, rather than look at the wire itself.

Maybe looking at things from a different perspective might enable me to see what it is I'm presently missing. Meh. It's something upon which I shall have to work a little harder and a little later. I am at present pre-occupied with other matters.

Amongst other things, I've let The Pad gather dust.

I've had thoughts about doing this or that with it, but I look at the Dreamweaver icon on my desktop and almost lose the will to live. Almost.

I'm going for the upscalage of the profession, just for those who wanted to know which way the coin came down. I'm switching from the telephone jiggery pokery crap thing to the face to face, I can do more for you from here, it's a bit more of a reality thing option. That's the intention anyway. The 30% pay increase is neither here nor there. And what's more, I like the idea of being able to do more for fewer people than doing nothing worthwhile for a hundred people a day.

I did a worrysome thing yesterday.

I put a message up in one of the msn comms about someone from the other side. I did it because I'm at a loss what to do for this poor kid. The responses were all more positive than I expected, but there was one cloud - and it came in the form of a complimentary remark.

I have to say, you have a very tireless spirit when it comes to young people.

But I don't. That's the problem. I prefer it when they let me come to them, I don't enjoy it very much when they come to me. I must have my space. I'm aware they have their moments when they want their space as well and where I like to believe I have a certain skill it's in picking when and when not to add my two cents worth to what they're doing.

There are exceptions, of course. When I'm on messenger and AIM I'm more than happy to talk to those who've added me to their lists, which is only 4 of them so it's no burden at all.

I'll tell you what did make my day yesterday though...

My unbelievably overwhelmingly favourite song of the moment is Alex Lloyd's "Amazing". (Yes the song behind the Ford ad - you philistines.)

I can listen to it 20 times in a row and love it more each time. Anyway, one of the kids allowed me to email it to him. Just that simple gift I was able to give. It might not seem much to anyone else, but consider this:

What is it about that one bit of music you can't resist every time you hear it? It evokes something in you so intrinsically enjoyable and makes you feel good for hours after you've heard it and it's something you'd just love to share with everyone you care about even remotely - well Chris gave me the honour of allowing me the opportunity to share that with him. That's why such a tiny gesture on his part gets blown out of all proportion on mine.

There are, of course, circumstances which contribute to that factor none of which I'm going to share here, suffice to say if everyone reading this arcs up their Kazaa or WinMX or whatever you all have and downloads the song, chances are it won't make the slightest bit of difference to me one way or the other. It's the fact I asked and was given permission to send it.

In other news, I went to the office in tracky daks and a tatty old windcheater last Thursday and I remarked to the boss who was in shirt and tie that it was "dress down Friday tomorrow." He just looked at me and laughed. As well he should have. He knows full well what I think of ties. They're the biggest sucky wank bit of bullshit ever invented. They serve absolutely no purpose unless you wish to hang yourself in the toilets on your tea break. I'm going to get this promotion tomorrow - I'm sure of that - and after a suitable honeymoon period, I'm going to ditch the tie in favour of something appropriate. Note I said not "more" appropriate because a tie is not in the least little bit appropriate - to anything. It's just a wank.

And finally, thanks to those who offered their thoughts here over the last week or so. I'll just take this opportunity to point out that there really isn't a need to express sympathy for me when I blog about Christopher. Yes I love him, yes I miss him but it was 5 years ago he died and I'm not losing sleep over it any more. I blog it because every now and then, I allow myself to relax a bit and get maudlin about him and it's nice to remember what I was thinking when I was thinking about him. That's all it is, really.

And finally finally - I wrote another edition of The Swamp last night but Topica apparently wouldn't publish the bloody thing. I'll try again tonight and if you all get it 3 times then the problem is at my end of the I.S.H. and your collective end appears to be just fine.

Now it's time to go away and do something productive.

Time to compose this entry: 72 mins.

Today I remembered my little brother.

It's his birthday tomorrow week. If he were still alive, he would be 25. I still love him and miss him.

My brother Christopher Robert who had so little, who was so much and who lived so briefly. My beautiful little brother Christopher who gave so much, who touched so many and when the last days came was almost all alone. Hundreds knew him, 6 of us were left at the end.

My awesome little brother who taught me so much as he also learned from me, gave me strength as he took strength from me and loved me as unconditionally as I loved him. Fate never blessed anyone as it did me with Christopher, my wonderful, awesome, beautiful little brother.

I love you so much, bro.

Do I go for a new job in the city or upscale my old gig in the fashion capital of Melbourne?

Talk about the agony of choice.

The benefits associated with the former position are not to be sneezed at, though scope and potential are going to be preeeeety limited for a couple of years. Upscaling the old gig in the fashion capital has less actual scope and potential, but gives me the chance to get out of the telephone trap and start getting some face to face contact with people who matter to me.

Do I upsell and cross-sell products for a potential new employer or do I help people to sell themselves in an environment far more conducive to my sanity and integrity and exchange stress on my own part for stress on behalf of others.

The pendulum swingeth to the latter methinks.

In other news, one of the cohorts from the other side is in Melbourne and actually managed to ring me tonight. All things being equal and with a bit of luck happening my way, we're going to catch up on Sunday. I like this idea very much. Very very much. Much na cifra.

We had a good talk on the phone tonight too. Not strained or forced at all - but then I'm like that anyway.

The newest blog is no longer needed. The juvenile over whom I was keeping an attentive protective eye has packed his blog in so there's no need for me to be there anymore either. I liked doing it, but I enjoy abusing stupid people even more so I'd let it slip somewhat.

Veronica has bobbed up and let us know she got out of Rita's way in one piece. Bout friggin' time. People were worried. I was worried. I expressed it in public too. How very unlike me - but I did. Why didn't I just email? Because the thought of not getting a reply was not one I felt comfortable entertaining.

I haven't had a conversation with Chris for a few days either. That bothers me a bit too. The time differential aside, I normally manage to catch him early in the day or late at night, but I've been out doing the schmoozing thing most days this week - hence the dilemma in which I now find myself, going for the safe and somewhat dull option or going for the upscalage of the old profession with the new faces.

I'd ask your opinions on this, dear readers - and I can tell from the hit counter's progress there are quite a few of you - but I already know you'll all tell me whatever I decide will be the right choice for me. Some of you would make excellent psychiatrists if only you could change a fucking light bulb.

Ok, here's a joke with which to finish off...

One day Mrs. Jones went to have a talk with the minister at the
local church. "Reverend," she said, "I have a problem, my
husband keeps falling asleep during your sermons. It's very
embarrassing. What should I do?"

"I have an idea," said the minister. "Take this hatpin with you.
I will be able to tell when Mr. Jones is sleeping, and I will
motion to you at specific times. When I motion, you give him a
good poke in the leg."

In church the following Sunday, Mr. Jones dozed off. Noticing
this, the preacher put his plan to work. "And who made the
ultimate sacrifice for you?" he said, nodding to Mrs. Jones.

"Jesus!", Jones cried as his wife jabbed him the leg with the
hatpin.

"Yes, you are right, Mr. Jones," said the minister. Soon, Mr.
Jones nodded off again. Again, the minister noticed. "Who is
your redeemer?" he asked the congregation, motioning towards
Mrs. Jones.

"God!" Mr. Jones cried out as he was stuck again with the hatpin.

"Right again," said the minister, smiling. Before long, Mr.
Jones again winked off. However, this time the minister did not
notice. As he picked up the tempo of his sermon, he made a few
motions that Mrs. Jones mistook as signals to bayonet her
husband with the hatpin again.

The minister asked, "And what did Eve say to Adam after she bore
him his 99th son?"

Mrs. Jones poked her husband, who yelled, "You stick that
goddamned thing in me one more time and I'll break it in half
and shove it up your ass!"

"Amen," replied the congregation.


Gripe if you must. I read them all, even if I don't reply to all of them.

Tonight I needed my car to work because I needed to go out and be alone in the dark without having to worry that anyone would interrupt my thoughts.

You all know about my brother - my little brother who died in January of 2000. I've seen the diary he kept - which I didn't even know existed until after he died and though Chris and I fought more than we laughed, he was never in any doubt about how much I adored him. I insisted on and got at least 5 hugs every day from him and even when we fought he knew it was about him taking care not to put himself in harm's way and me carrying on like an old boot all the time. Well, he's not reserved about his feelings for me in his diary and that's why something I saw tonight has made me want to go out and be alone.

I was trying to find a friend of mine and in the process, I happened upon a memorial website for someone with the same name and I stopped to look at it. What tore me up was seeing messages written by the little brother of a teenager who died in a car accident. It's a beautiful site but I'm not giving you links because the name of the teenager is familiar to everyone and that's one sleeper best left well alone.

Besides which, it's the messages left by his little brother which bunged me up a right terry anyway.

Sometimes people just blow me away completely.

By now you're probably getting a bit bored with my referring to the people I've met on the other side of the internet. I know it's hard to understand why I'm raving about it because you don't know what's going on. But tonight, I came home, checked the email and found someone had left a message for me.

I've been talking to this kid on and off for about 6 weeks on AIM, sometimes for hours at a time - because that's what I do. Anyway, here's the message he left for me...

You are a good guy and you know it, I can honestly say that I look to you for so much advice, you have made life substantially easier for me and I thank you for that. Brooke may be too far for my saving, but because of you I no longer hate myself at night. My hat is off to you my good friend.

How can I not love these people? Moreover, how can I not abandon myself to giving them as much time as I possibly can when this is what I get in return?

But it's more than that. Without any questions or hesitation, they've accepted me as another of their circle of friends and they value my contributions. Remember, this is not a comm thing like MSN, it's a circle of friends all with their own personal bits of space - like this blog - who all link back to eachothers bits of space and they also link back to mine.

I'll say it again, just to make you sick. I love them all so much.


In less personal news, I've managed to keep my newest blog updated on a daily basis every day since September 4th and that makes me happy too. It's the one I use so I can keep a watchful eye over the youngster I mentioned a couple of weeks ago but the added bonus is I'm actually happy with its progress and it's not too taxing to write.

Another great thing happened today too. A few years ago, I was encouraged by a chap for whom I didn't have a great deal of respect to keep little reminders of all sorts of things about which I may like to write when the opportunity arose. So for a short while I did that and stuck them to a corkboard in the kitchen, then when that corkboard was replaced by a larger one, the smaller one was slotted down the back of cabinet and promptly forgotten. Today I found it and the 40 odd bits of paper with my reminders still pinned to it. Sweeeeeet!


Now, if any of you are feeling in anyway benevolent and charitable, one of those people on the other side of whom I have been making frequent comments has a dream and a passion for architecture. He does, however, need a bit of assistance to realise a particular aspect of this dream and I would like to help out in this respect. But I don't expect anyone to just toss money down the drain and get nothing in return, so what I've done is mark up the price of The Swamp to $5 above the base price and in return for anyone purchasing the book - and getting a copy of the funniest book to be published in 2004 - I'll donate that $5 to this kid's dream of becoming an architect.

Here's the link...



You've seen an example of the gratitude these kids are able to show, if this particular kid knew how many people got behind this and supported his dream, how could his quest fail?

It sure beats having $40 disappear from one's bank account promptly on the first of the month to be used by Oxfam in deep and mysterious fashion on people who will never even be able to express their appreciation for the donation. What's more, all of those who do splash out the $16.98 for the book can have a tangible reminder of something nice they've done by proxy for someone they never knew existed.

Time to compose this entry: 67 mins.

For fear it would otherwise go unsaid, I must say it now:

I love those people on the other side of the net. I do. They're all just brilliant and to me they're like an oasis in the middle of a sea of blah.

Lea rang me this afternoon to discuss what I was not able to discuss in Messenger for various reasons and Ms Wod wanted to know why I hadn't let her in on what I've been doing for the last two months. The reason is because I don't want to mix my MSN side of things - which is often fairly fruity and where I have an army of people I've pissed off - with this other side.

It's a place where I can just enjoy what's going on around me without having any idiots start more of the same shit which is all over MSN. And I don't want that because what's on the other side is not a group thing. It's a sharing of people's private thoughts and day to day travails and they're all interlinked. If someone starts shit on my bit of the plot, everyone who has linked to me can see it and I don't want their private meanderings littered with crud. (I love them, that's why.)

It's different in a group because it's a free-for-all. The managers can clean it up if everyone objects to something. But these people take particular care that what's linked on their spaces is what they want on their spaces and that includes those who have linked to me. If I didn't care about them and their space, I'd have announced it to the whole world, but I care about them a great deal, therefore I don't even want to chance any sort of baggage of any variety good or bad leaking over from MSN.

An analogy would be that from this blog, I link to Eff's Rambles. Eff I know from MSN. But imagine if one link from here could give you access not only to Eff's Rambles but however many other blogs I happened to have up there, upon all of which anyone with whom I have differences could post whatever they wanted to post and which not only Eff, but everyone else on the list could then see. That's why it's kept quiet and that's why I'm not telling anyone else where the other side is.

They're just too vital to me to have someone come and mess with their stuff because of a grudge against me. Lea says I'm wrong and that if anyone messed with what I have over there, there would be an army of supporters right behind me to back me up. The thing is, by the time they got into gear, the damage would already have been done. I don't want the spaces of the people on the other side blattered with some vengefulness against me. It just doesn't exist anywhere over there. I'm not about to chance being the reason all that comes crashing down.

The other thing about my supporters is I've been hurt by them all before. Remember the petition? Nobody actually picked how important that was to me. Well, that's not altogether true. Lea and Veronica did, but all those others I've known for years reckoned it was a waste of time. I got shitcanned for it and I was royally offended.

Something so simple as signing an internet petition - whether it would or could ever do any good or not wasn't the issue - it was important to me, it was an issue everyone must have known was one of my core issues - given the chester history, but it was something people I thought were friends refused to even sign. Reasons were: I don't sign petitions. It's useless anyway. I don't trust the site. And a host of other reasons which I considered absolutely pathetic and nothing short of bullshit.

Well, the memory of that looms large. I learned a salient lesson from it, namely that most of the people of whom I thought so highly - when push comes to shove on something that may just actually be important - weren't worth the trust I had placed in them.

So now when I find something else about which I can care greatly, it's hardly likely I'd trust anyone to not fuck it up for me - even by accident, or even with the best of intentions. I'm at the very bottom of the pecking order there. I have to win my own spurs and I'm doing nicely. I'm not asking for anyone else to help me or support me or even have anything to do with what I'm doing over there, except for the sake of people like that lying swat, Sharon Hanover, I have someone to watch over what I'm doing so I'm seen to be as clean as I actually am - not even room for innuendo or finger pointing.

In short it's just a case of what goes around comes around. So many wanted nothing to do with something I cared about then, so they don't get a second invitation. No skin off my nose. I've got everything I want over there with none of what I don't want or need.

So why am I blogging this here rather than there?

Two reasons.

This is my first and main blog. It's read by several people I like and whom I think also like me. It's where I put the stuff that's actually on my mind when I happen to be sitting at a computer. What's here is the real deal. This is what I'm thinking so this is where I spill my guts - as it were.

The second reason is this side of my internet activity is on a completely different level. This sort of diatribe just wouldn't be appropriate over there. On some levels it would be, but in the circles in which I'm moving, it just would not. There are links to here from there, but not vice versa. If someone from over there wishes to dig deeper, they can and that's fine by me. I wouldn't have put up links otherwise. But to chance traffic going the other way? Well, not if I can help it.

So there you have it.

That's what is on my mind at 9:50ish on Friday September 16th. For those think I'm halfway decent, don't take my choice as a slight against you or whatever else. Don't think yourselves shortchanged in anyway. I don't go prying into any of your affairs, so don't presume to come prying into mine.

I specifically don't want any friends, supporters, detractors - nothing at all - from MSN bugging me while I'm over there. I don't want comments on what I do over there, I don't want suggestions, I don't want questions about any of it. That's why I haven't put up links to what's going on.

Just think of it as a bastard's prerogative and you've been warned countless times just what an absolute bastard I am. At least now you know I'm not lying.

Dammit!

One of the kids was in hospital yesterday with kidney stones. Poor thing was in agony but is home again now.

I've been moping about it all morning, wrote a friggin poem for the whole crowd of them and fulfilled a promise to someone else and did a few other bits and pieces and now "He Ain't Heavy" lurks into my headphones again.

I am, at present, and as a result of history old and recent, feeling just a tad sensitive right now.

There are times I feel like reaching out and strangling people with an evil grin on my head. I spied with my little eye today a story in the local newspaper which ran thusly:

Beaumaris residents want to set up a working group to help resolve the skate park debate in their suburb.

More then 90 people held a meeting at the Beaumaris Community Centre to discuss suitable sites for the junior skate ramp.

At this point I blew a gasket.

I'm used to seeing that fucking malapropism on the internet message boards I frequent but to see it in the local newspaper was more than with what my sensibilities could cope.

To make matters worse, there was no by-line. There are no names to whom I can attribute this crime against the language, no identifiable personage against whom I can wreak my terrible revenge for the commission of this atrocity.

It seems no matter how often and in what circumstance I rage and bawl, there is an ever increasing number of fucking bastards intent on getting THEN and THAN confused.

How many times must it be said? These two words are not interchangable. They aren't now and they never will be. If I were the editor of that paper, I would fine the fucker who authored that filth a week's pay. It's inexcusable and if given the authority to ensure it never happened in any publication of mine, I would enforce it ruthlessly. In fact, just to make absolutely certain no other moron made the same mistake, I would summarily dismiss any employee named Ruth just to emphasise how ruthless I would be.

STOP DOING THIS. IT'S EVIL. IT'S UGLY and IT STINKS!

Blah.

Watch out world. They came and took my Saab away today because I rang them up and told them to. It was like having a pet put to sleep by a vet. I didn't want to do it but I knew it was the right thing to do. The Saab I mean, not the pet. The pet is still alive and asleep where I least want him to be.

None of that changes the fact I still didn't want to do it, but there wasn't a viable alternative and now it doesn't matter because there's nothing I can do about it. It's gone. Poor old thing, she's going to be scrapped and used for parts and the rest of her will be melted down and used to build something else. I have no souvenirs of her either, nothing except four flat patches on the grass where her large wheels once rested.

So, I'm going out to get fucking plastered and when I come back, I'm going to hit the internet and annoy the living shit out of everyone I don't like. Well, not all of them, that would take way too long, just the usual suspects. I'll get Miguel to help me because he's too cool for words. English words that is. Miguel says Blaarg quite often and that makes me smile.

Well I'm going. This dalliance with mon blog is eating into my getting spastic time.

I hope I'm still grumbly when I get home, I'm usually very mellow and happy when I'm chemically indisposed. Oh fuck, definitely time to go - He Ain't Heavy just came on into the headphones.

Blatt at you all later.

Anthropomorphism.

It's the turning of everything in the universe into something akin to a human being. It's the reason there is an animal rights movement. Fortunately, some of these dopes realised not everyone gives a toss about panda bears so they changed their focus to the people for whom panda bears exist and pointed out, quite correctly, that ecosystems depend on diversity for survival and we fuck with them to our own detriment and peril.

That much I can handle.

What I can't stand is people getting fretful over the idea someone would make a video of themselves shoving a stick of dynamite up the arse of a teddy bear and literally blowing the stuffing out of it. That sort of anthropomorphist needs their own stick of dynamite shoved up their arse with stern admonitions to behave themselves or else.

It's for this reason I treat those who confuse personality with character when referring to inanimate objects with no small degree of scepticism. (And yes, it's perfectly acceptable to spell it with a c rather than with a k.) Old cars and buildings have character, they do not have personality.

Personality requires recognition and volition.

I read a book today from cover to cover. I couldn't put it down and now I have to put it down because I've finished it. I picked it up in the first place because I'd finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo for the third time. The book I read today is called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

It's a first person narrative and the narrator is a 15 year old autistic boy.

I'm sure if anyone reading this blog picks it up and does with it what I did with it today, they will feel a terrible urge to come and bug the shit out of me with all sorts of sudden revelations they've just had.

Word of advice - don't bother. I won't be impressed. By all means read the book, just keep your revelations to yourself or blatt them somewhere I won't see them. That way I won't feel inclined to put my head in the corner of a wall and groan.

In other news, I knew weeks ago I should have put the Saab back up on eBay to sell it. I got scarcely a mile up the road in it yesterday when the cops pulled me over and told me it was out of registration. That much I did know, by how long was a mystery. The upshot of it was I had to leave it parked on the side of the road while the cops took my plates off and told me I couldn't have them back until I got the thing registered - which isn't going to happen any time soon. Fuck it. Now I have to get the Mit fixed because it is, at least, registered and it's only going to cost me $400 to get back on the road. The Saab is going to cost a grand and a half and it's just not worth it for the convenience of having a car AND the nice feeling one gets from owning a Saab. Double fuck it.

Oh well. Time to step up the gears a bit and get in touch with more people who pay for the sorts of skills for which I am currently renowned in too small a circle. Provided nobody passes a platter festooned with vol au vents, I should be fairly safe.

This blog entry has been brought to you by some exceptionally shitty weather - the sort which makes Sydneysiders glad they live in Sydney and which Melbournites wouldn't trade for all the fine weather in Sydney they could ever see.

The strangest memories are provoked by the most amazing circumstances.

I've just been reminded of a pleasant little love affair I had years and years ago when I was hot for the older sister of one of the kids in one of my football teams. She was too young when I first met her so I waited until she was 18 before letting on that I was interested. (I was 23 by then.)

Anyway, one night we were sitting in her lounge room in front of an open fire casting longing gazes at one another wishing for all hell that her mother would piss off and go to bed.

Finally, as midnight came and went, she decided it was time for her to go to bed and she did. It was then I was left in this semi-darkened lounge room with her mother who was wishing for all hell for the preceeding hour that her daughter would go to bed.

Not a happy Rat. No, not one bit happy.

And that reminds me of another time when I was 15 and met a divine apparition at a pool party. I was 15 at the time and thought I was flirting madly with the elder of two sisters, the younger one being 14. Then I spoke to their mother about what a nice daughter she had. Her mother told me she was a great kid - for an 11 year old.

I didn't say much for the rest of the night to anybody. I wasn't in the mood.

Another time when I was 17 I met a girl on the train who was happy to spend half an afternoon talking to me. We were getting on famously. She was a bit shorter than I was, short blonde hair, very pretty face - and 23 and married.

And then there was Patrick's sister, who was the right age, right height, single, we shared common interests, she was cool, classy, fairly quiet and - an amazingly slovenly dirty and selfish peasant. You have to see someone in their natural habitat to get the full appreciation of them. Sometimes it's better to have illusions.

I understand now why some guys think more of their cars than their women.


Now, speaking of transport, Cheri the bike; yes I know you read my blog. The hit counter records all the ISPs and Cincinnati just keeps coming up and you're the only resident of Cincinatti that I know. You're busted!

Cheri, malevolence in the flesh

So the old skank of Ohio has got her leatherlined panties all bunged up over Cheriville and has decided on her means of getting back at yours truly.

How sweet.

True to form she does it like a coward, not naming names but using the collection of terms she reserves solely for me. Others get one or two of these little tags but only I get the full chorus.

Dead giveaway you troll. Anyone who has been around both sides of these comms for more than a year knows instantly your magnum opus of self righteous bullshit is aimed squarely at me.

And since I know you read my blog and other stuff on the net, here’s a challenge for you – though I know you’re too cowardly to take up this challenge: Join me. Become a silent partner in those activities you describe as predatory and see for yourself exactly what I do as I do it. If you still think it’s predatory behaviour then fine, report me. Report me anyway, I don’t care. Here’s the email address I use to do all my reporting:

admin@iwf.org.uk

I’ll tell you now, right off the bat, they’re 100 times faster and more efficient than your poxy little threatened FBI contacts of which you think so highly.

I use this group because they hook into the police forces of 30 odd countries to take down the filth – including your precious FBI.

I notice you didn’t bother to sign the petition I started 2 years ago which was (and still is) available for signing at http://www.petitiononline.com/StopPeds/petition.html
and if memory serves, you scorned it as a cynical attempt to divert attention away from myself.

I also haven’t seen you get personally involved with anything apart from your pathetic excuse of an msn community and thinking that validates your self proclaimed status as a guardian of decency and a crusader against evil.

You are the archetypal example of the legend in your own mind.

It’s just a shame your own envy has reached such a point it pervades every last aspect of your being, so much so that you resort to your cowardly attacks carefully omitting to name me in it but relying on the perspicacity of those around you to recognise at whom the attack was intended.

You pitiful coward, Cheri.

Not only will you not get off your fat pimply arse and do anything about what pisses you off – apart from this sort of pathetic example of innuendo – but you lamely attempt to vilify anyone else who does.

It’s because of sad little fucks like you I had to enlist the help of an independent observer to everything I’m doing on that side of the internet. It’s because sad, cowardly little maggots like you it’s not enough for me to be doing something about online predators – as you call them – but I have to have someone oversee what I do just to make sure everything I do is above board, innocent and that it is in fact what I proclaim it to be.

I had to enlist the help of an independent observer to protect myself from just this sort of lie you in your self righteous ignorance take pleasure in spreading.

It’s your sort who really should be euthanised. You’re happy to spread a lie and not take responsibility for it, hiding behind insinuation and innuendo, but you’re too pathetic, too cowardly and to ignorant to do anything more than lord it over those idiots you call family in your pathetic little community.

Well, I hope you’re happy living in your little world of fear and ignorance. For my part, I’m going to enjoy building Cheriville and turning it not into a monument just to your absolute ludicrousness, but also your abject moral bankruptcy.

I never bothered to hate you before. You weren’t worth it. But you’re not just attacking me with this sort of shit, you have, without knowing it, also attacked those young people with whom I’ve been building bridges and whom, if I were to direct them to what you’ve said would be just as injured by it as all those others who know of my activities would be.

Your attempt to provoke one of your idiotic sycophants to notify the FBI of my activities is an attempt to remove a resource some of these young people draw on when they need someone not to judge them and to whom they turn for help with whatever might be on their minds. In short, you want to remove from them someone who might actually be able to be a factor which prevents them from falling into the clutches of that sort of person you accuse me of being – a pedophile. I can’t wish on you the sort of pain it is I’m devoting half of my online time trying to prevent. I would gladly wish it, but I couldn’t live with myself descending to your level.

You are nothing but a foul minded, malevolent, lying little bitch. Just do the whole world a favour and kill yourself. You’re not worth the price of a bullet to murder.

Teresa dropped by and left me a lovely message.

Actually, she left me a couple of messages hereabouts. I like Teresa. She likes it when I'm mischievous which up until 7 weeks ago was pretty much all the time, but she never got caught up in all the warz I either started, finished or have kept tantalisingly aflame over the last 3 or 4 years.

Teresa is the sort of woman I liked to do this to...



And she always took it so well. Bless her little cotton socks. :)

Gosh, how long has it been since I blogged here - even though I halfway made a commitment to update it far more regularly than once I did?

Truth be known, I have many other places on the e-bog which are also demanding of my time. My other precious blog is, I will confess, quickly becoming more important to me than this one because it involves many other people. Not in the comm sense like PA, but like a group of people who link their individual blogs amongst themselves and I am an increasingly relevant part of that group. I find it difficult tearing myself away from it.

PA is now home to MenckensMan, with whom I've swapped 8 or so emails and I'm proud to call this former adversary a valuable friend and I'm really pleased I made the effort to put the animosity aside. It wasn't hard. The man's a hoot.

I am still wrestling with the story of my soul in The Pad which I was hoping to update on at least a weekly basis but it looks like it will be a bi-weekly thing instead. In a nutshell, it's a salient lesson on life but couched in the most absurd terms in the most absurd situation I can imagine. It's not easy keeping the story faithful and pertinent yet hiding its intent to the extent the moral is absorbed almost by accident. Always the ulterior motive. At least it's a 100% safe bet the motives are pure.

God, at the moment, the frame of mind I'm in, I'd find it difficult to even think of being evil. I haven't been hunting for evil for more than a week either. The last time I went out looking for shit to shut down was when I was totally bored off my skull. I didn't find much. In the previous month I shut down about 20 boards but the same nicks keep springing up again. It gets depressing, but at least one good thing came of it, though for how long is anyone's guess.

Cheriville is demanding attention. I want that to be a showcase of stupidity. Not that the source material needs any help from me, it's stupid enough on its own, but it's not my style to take what I want without mixing it with a bit of Rat observation and turning it into something more than it was.

It's not that this blog isn't important to me anymore, it is. It's just that I'm undisciplined to devote set amounts of time to each project and those of the other circle continue to take my breath away with their joie de vivre. I love them all singularly and collectively. I really do.

My second to last entry was an extravaganza of Australiana which hit the spot just nicely. It gave me the idea of doing a blog for Melbourne. It's on yet another site but it's yet another ChatRat link. If I can't be the best, at least I'll be the most prolific. (Chris Locke is still the best beyond any shadow of doubt. Click the More Rageboy link for all the proof you could ever want of that statement.)

Here's the new link: Melbourne

What a terminally dull url. Oh well. It serves a purpose, and more than you here will ever know.

(24 mins)