HarrangueMan

Now that's one Chinese ninja that shan't return

2012-02-01T23:06:00.001+11:00

In Storyverse we tend to have scenarios that spread themselves out over a week or two. At the moment theBoy likes his stories to be craft-themed and that in the story he can re-create his masterpiece of the robot with pasta stuck to it with glue that has seemingly mystical properties. And because he decided to introduce this "magic glue" into Storyverse I decided that the government of China sent their ninjas after him to gain the glue's secrets (1).

At one point theBoy was inside the pasta-covered robot whilst the robot was in race-car mode. The ninjas had surrounded the race-car and were attempting various means of entry. One ninja foolishly tried to drill through the roof. theBoy rose up (I guess through the sunroof) and pushed the roof-drilling ninja off the car.

'And Chinese ninja rolls down the car and into the water and he's eaten by a shark and he's NEVER SEEN AGAIN!' yelled theBoy.

Now that's making sure. So for future stories I will have to remember that the usual gang of seven Chinese ninjas is now in fact just six.

theBoy sometimes tells a story to himself or, if he's with me, I will let him run with extended stretches of action, watching him pace back-and-forth with excitement. And sometimes during that, because he's so excited, he takes shortcuts with his words. In the ninjas' case he sometimes shortens it to "injas".

Aw ... that's adorable.

(1) At one point he said 'But Chinese ninjas, I don't have any glue left! So you have to go away!' I explained that because he knew how to make the glue they were going to take him instead and then make him give up his secrets. At that point he dove into the pasta robot and made for a speedy exit.

Chats in the workplace

2012-02-01T18:33:00.002+11:00

Humans are the most social of creatures. We are, for example, the only animals that can be ostracised electronically. Think about that.

It's my third or so part-day back. So I am still running into people I have not seen since I left to experience The Fucking Catalina Wine Mixer! C--- wanted to see my scar, so I showed him, dakking myself for some side-al near nudity—undies stayed on. They had a goldfish bowl at work but the fish died. I then immediately told one of my favourite high school stories about the time someone chucked a franger into the science teacher's aquarium and the water went cloudy from the spermicide.

Later I was talking to P---. P--- is a dude who just so happens to look like a young, flame-haired Catweazel. For some reason the subject of condoms came up. I launched into another high school story about the mad-as-all-fuck social studies teacher who demonstrated condom rolling by rolling one onto the knobby end of the blind kid's cane. Yes, she got spermicide all over the cane's knob.

What a world we live in. That I can tell two high school stories on the same day to two different people in the same workplace and in both stories, in-context, deliver humorous anecdotes about the inappropriate deployment of spermicide.

Now old enough to play shop games with

2012-02-01T11:30:00.001+11:00

theBoy dug out Connect Four. He's old enough now to grasp the rules. Before he just slotted the disks in as a fun distraction. So we pulled the old blue chair out from his room for the game table—a now backless four-legged with supporting struts paint splattered affair that came from somewhere in my deep childhood and that I have taken from house to house ever since I left home—and I, mounted on the Dr Evil chair faced off against him, he being mounted on his small-sized blue recliner he sits on during end-room Storyverse sessions.

Yes ... he's old enough to play games with. He's also able to take his bat and ball and go home. After I beat him for about the seventh time he calmly said 'No more games!', packed it up, and took it out of the room.

He did actually beat me a couple of times ... and once when I wasn't expecting it.

But still ... it's a start. Let the games begin!

I feel like a Mae West

2012-02-01T01:11:00.010+11:00

No, not a transvestite knock-off of the famously bosomy comedic actress but rather I feel like one of the life preservers nick-named Mae Wests by allied aircrew in her honour. Mae West was known for her double entendres so I think it's synergy that the reason they named it that was not just because they looked like big tits when inflated but because Mae West = Breasts. See? Double meaning; synergy.

Modern vests are typically chemically inflated by triggering a C02 canister. The vests go from slack to taut in seconds.

My insides seemed relatively "slack". As in not the usual state of groaning in acres of intestinally clogging poo. Then ...then I felt what I can only describe as an internal hiss. Suddenly I started to swell up ... just like a life preserver. I am now inflicted with chronic gas bloats and am at pain level nine. Cue SUPERMEDS! and additional meds and charcoal capsules, even though I suspect the latter do sweet fuck-all. Just as I was about to head for the big bed, too.

Can't a beautiful man trapped in an ugly ineffectual body get a break?!

UPDATE: It's an hour later. Had more SUPERMEDS! Probably a mistake. Had too many and am now mildly-super wigged. Ah, mildly-super wigged. The wigged you have when you're just on the right-side of deciding which friend you could call to save you from the party where bad things have happened. No, not dead hooker bad things, regular bad things. Besides I lack the sort of friendship strength with anyone who I feel would be willing to be mutually complicit in the concealment of an unplanned hooker death.

Now I have this weird tightness round the eyes. Like one of those fungi-owl-feathered-around the-eyes walking infected from that Fourth Doctor Who episode where the Doctor went inside his own brain and had a conversation with an intelligent parasite, to whom the walking infected were in thrall, that had stuck its rapacious brain funnel in the Timelord's vast noggin. Yummers for the parasite on that one.

A new low

2012-02-01T00:07:00.005+11:00

Girls think guys have an easier time of it with our junk. In many ways we do. We go faster doing wee wees because we don't usually sit. And while we have strangely vulnerable nut sacks, again, a fail for the Intelligent Design folks (1), we don't have to endure the menstrual cycle on the physiological level. Plus we can scribe characters in urine-friendly surfaces.

However here's something girls will rarely ever do—accidentally piss on the waistband of their pjs then have to walk to the dresser, the wee-soaked elasticised waistband held out well away from the body as if they were a now-thin person showing off their tremendous weight loss by the hilarious wearing of their once-were-fat pants (2), to get changed.

Plus chances are if it does happen then it will have happened to a pair of the primos; that pair of pj bottoms that are the most preferred of the total available units in the pj stable. The sort of pair you change out of another pair for because the dryer just finished and you had remembered inside it was a lovely clean and now wonderfully dry pair of primos you could shimmy into for an enhanced bed wear clothing wearing to bed experience.

Poor literally pissed-on primos.

Anyway, those are my views. That girls have the edge on a junk-match up because they are less likely to spray themselves or clothes with their own piss. Also I heard that prop masters on pornos will allow actresses to use apple juice if they're not up to crafting their own shower fuel. Or did I dream it?

(1) Also lady parts are far more aesthetically pleasing to the eye, I think. All that phallic imagery men thrust into the world seems merely to be over-compensation for feelings of genital-beauty inadequacy.
(2) Jared!

As said in Storyverse

2012-01-31T16:52:00.012+11:00

'And the pasta robot turns into a race-car and he flats a Chinese ninja! flat, flat'(1).

theBoy had created a robot in IRONCRAFT! (2)—not the Robot, who is a regular character—a robot covered in hot pasta. The glue you see, was seemingly magic, and in addition to its superior adhesive properties, it maintained the thermal-nature of any pasta adhered to it.

I decided, like the magic shrinking hat in that fucked-up kids' show (3), the hat owned by a selfish octogenarian, this was magic (or technology) too good to be held in the hands of one.

Since China has a reputation for industrial (and actual) espionage then it was Chinese ninjas that then came calling, seeking the secrets of this special pasta-heat maintaining glue.

So theBoy has experienced now a series of attacks from Chinese ninjas whenever his pasta robot makes an appearance. The ninjas ever seeking that special, special glue.

I bet it's horses hooves or something (4).

UPDATE: It was later. I had a Kinder Surprise-like capsule containing two shoelaces theBoy had challenged me to place into said container, close it up, and whack it with a drumstick. You see I was in the character of Mister Maker, an overly-excited likely-meth-fuelled kids craft show compere that appears on ABC kids. There's a segment where he tries to make a kewl craft item in under a minute. This same challenge was now mine.

So I made the Kinder Surprise-like capsule shoelace container (slash) improvised music device craft item—in record time, no less (5)—all whilst giving myself some backing music of singing the main-riff from 'The Final Countdown'. I then stuck the container in my pocket in my polo shirt—the pocket sitting on my breast. I gave him back the drumstick but feigned loss of the container. theBoy could see the bulge in my pocket and went for it. Still in character—for I can do a passable but heavily exaggerated Mister Maker voice—I yelled over and over 'you're pulling on Maker's Man Booby! You're pulling on Maker's Man Booby!' I then hobble-ran to the big bed and threw myself on my stomach. He ran in, drumstick in hand, and proceeded to whack my lower back, arse, and upper legs with said stick. And as he did it ... he sang along to the main-riff to 'The Final Countdown' (6). And he did it in time, too.

And then I ran in here to blog this. Because that is comedy fucking gold.

My arse stings like fuck, however.

UPDATE: In Storyverse we were playing statues. I was out. theBoy told me to 'sling your hook, Daddy!'

(1) The flat, flat represents the sound effect of the race-car "flatting" the ninja.The doubled use of the word float make it sound like the Robot race-car backed over to make sure.
(2) IRONCRAFT! is a show in Storyverse that is clearly mocking the concept of Iron Chef. In this case the lads gather and have to do craft with a mystery ingredient. In this case the ingredient was pasta. theBoy made a robot out of it.
(3) Fucked up me, to the adult, that's watching it. But I am not the target audience. It's under sixes. For them it's probably as was the original '80s The A-Team TV Series to me. And I fucking thought The-fucking-A-Team was awe-fucking-some. In retrospect, some 30 years from my violence-loving youth, I would say it was probably not awesome. But The A-Team was not designed for now Mikey but then Mikey and then Mikey loved it. But then even then Mikey would probably have thought the shrinking grandpa show was still shit. But the then Mikey was then around ten ... not around six, the target audience. I am sure if six Mikey saw it back then, but then Mikey (that's ten), then six Mikey would have creamed his pants over it. Had six Mikey of course been glandularly active. I was 17 until I thar-she'd-blow'ed because I couldn't work out the mechanics of wanking. Yet in retrospect it seems so simple. I guess it's the cat-flap theory (2a) all over again.
(3a) I was talking to this dude, T---, at work. He's around my age. Smart, funny dude and regarded as a massive oddball by everyone else. To me he's a kindred spirit. He's ex-military and I told him about how in the initial stages of the Iraq occupation that US soldiers had adapted silly string to serve as a quick and effective means to check for snares and assorted booby traps on doorways. The foam is light enough that it won't set off the snare but bright and visible enough to splatter across a near invisible length of fishing line or even cling to it. If there's a snare, the silly string will show it's there. It's just such a simple, easy idea. T--- said it was a cat-flap idea. Doors didn't use to have them. But then they did. It solved an obvious problem, neatly and simply. But the idea still needed to be thought of and then acted upon for the problem to be seen and then seen to be solved. Simple ... yet someone thought of it. I like that concept. I bet that's the problem of clean but abundant energy generation gets solved. It will be a head-slap of a solution and one likely involving the use of magnets.
(4) Casso said that if I am referring to generic horses as opposed to being owned by a specific group of horses that it didn't need an apostrophe. I am trusting she's right.
(5) This fucked-up feathery little puppet pops out of the stop clock to jeer at Mister Maker and tell him he's hopeless and he won't do it and he's fat. And if he just did these 1954 Canadian Royal Air Force Exercises for Men! exercises then he wouldn't be fat and therefore a success in life. Then when Mister Maker beats the clock then Tocky, I think that's his name, cries Mister Maker succeeded only through luck. If I was Mister Maker then by the fourth time that happened my eyes would blaze red with rage and I'd grab that little feathery fucker and pull him out through the clock hole then dash his scrawny head and neck repeatedly against the counter until the world was a haze of blood-mattered feathers. I'm just saying is all.
(6) Oh please. Please do invest the time to watch the clip in all its glorious most-excessive celebration of hair metal that has ever graced man. It even includes one guitarist rubbing his luxuriant hair up against the neck of a fellow band mate. I believe they call that 'Yithing'. Later, during bathtime-based Storyverse action theBoy sang the song to explode a pesky ghost. His busting made me feel good.

Whitman's sampler ... of crap

2012-01-30T23:36:00.006+11:00

I talked to my dad recently. It had been a while. He'd tried calling but I'd been out, or just not gotten back to him. In truth it's hard to talk to him at times because of the spectre that is my mother hovering around us.

She's gone in mind but still here in body. They had a birthday for her, her friends from her final productive adult years and dad, in a side lounge, with wine and cheese. At least that was the plan. But within five minutes she'd would have forgotten it had ever happened.

But would she have had moments of clarity? I wonder if Alzheimer's or dementia, whatever your head-poison, is like being drunk? Where you have those sudden 'woah' crystallised moments of understanding about yourself or something you're doing. It's almost like the game paused so you could think your way through a puzzle. I wonder if she gets those moments where she goes 'oh, fuck, I'm in a home'? Or is it just that she drifts, floating like a feather, though a dry curled leaf is more apt, from moment to moment, either in a zen-like state of abeyance of thought or stuck in a permanent confused loop of 'now, what was I doing?' Forever locked in that moment you have when you're in the kitchen and you've forgotten why you sent yourself there.

I often go to the cupboards in that mind blanked state and then by reflex open them and stand there. I come-to and find I've been standing there for some time subconsciously seeing see if something has tripped my yumdar, my threshold for investing time and effort into grabbing something probably tasty if I put some effort into into preparing it.

In many ways it seems dementia is like the description to the (A)D&D Feeblemind spell. Here's the Second Edition version.

This spell is used solely against people or creatures who use magic spells. The feeblemind causes the subject's intellect to degenerate to that of a moronic child. The subject remains in this state until a heal or wish spell is used to cancel the effects. Magic-using beings are very vulnerable to this spell; thus, their saving throws are made with the following adjustments...

My dad said that lately they've been getting the dementia-afflicted into the communal areas, or "GenPop". There's a nurse—Canadian, dad thinks—that tries to keep the less-bad ones, the ones that can maintain a rough timeline in their decaying noggins, mentally active. So she's been reading them stories which they can then follow along. Lately it's Wind in the Willows.

When we were children, and if mum was able given her time and resource constraints (1), she would read us stories. She'd do voices, too. Dad then said that when she read us Wind in the Willows that her favourite bits to do were Toad's bits. I think because he was so joyous, so marrow-sucking-of-life. A total fucking narcissist, for sure, but fuck me, did Toad love life. Anyway mum loved to do Toad and she loved to yell 'Poot Poot!' for when Toad was careering around in his motor car and scaring sedate country dwellers with his horn and erratic driving.

Dad said he'd like to think that might spark a memory in her. Oh wouldn't it be grand if it did? If she had one of those 'fuck, my mind's gone' moments of clarity but with it was twinned a memory of us, snuggled around, listening to her read Wind in the Willows and in Toad's joyous voice, shouting 'Poot, Poot'? And that she'd get comfort in that?

Damn, Second Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons description of Feeblemind was right ... mum did cast magic spells.

At work, as I was talking to Robot, he announced he didn't like the way my arse-fat was hanging over the sides of my chair. My arse is large, it's actually quite muscular and I am sure would go down like fine crackling down hill-folk way, but it seems to fit in regular chairs okay. But Robot was semi-insistent. Apparently there should be an inch or so either side of the body. I had squeezed along the sides a little on the way in ... and apparently over.

I had been feeling on the up until then. I had my cane on show but barely needed it. I even felt a little trim over when I'd last been at work. Then the Robot comes along and delivers some arse-flab chair overhang truth-telling smack-down and takes your mood right back down.

Again, I win first time those words in that order; the contest!

(1) Sorry, lapsed into public service speak. She was a mother in a household of five, four of them male, three of them child-to-adult. Cooking, cleaning, you name it. On top of that she studied as a mature-age student, re-inventing her career from housewife (she worked before we worn born in the hotel trade) (1a) to teacher. And then from teacher to regional journalist for the ABC (each town in a regional section had a correspondent who worked part-time to file copy, attend council, or talk to notable types. My mum did that!). Then back to teacher then librarian. She did uni face-to-face then by correspondence. Before the MS took her legs, and her mind started to go, she'd even prepared to start first year English. So you know what, she did have time and resource constraints. Mainly it was us.

The return

2012-01-30T15:14:00.006+11:00

I came back to work and met with my new work station. It's got a window, which is kewl, though my PC faces the corridor due to the large pillar that juts out and thus prevents PCs to face windows.

It took around 49 minutes to log on, and two calls to the IT support desk to do it. Later I miss-keyed my password and locked myself out. I had to call for a third time to get it re-reset.

I had to delete (slash) relocate a tranche of emails just so I could send out emails of my own and even then I didn't get much done as Robot, my rehab manager, turned up for the rehab interview. Which meant giving my case history of my 'woe is me' medical crap for a third time to a third party. It makes sense, privacy-wise they just can't hand that info over, but it is annoying to have to do it. Especially when you recall stuff mid-way through like 'oh yeah, I have apnoea apparently. I need to get tests.' Still, he seemed nice. So that's something.

Nothing was done with any of my work while I was away as best I can tell which is a little worrying. And I am worried the uber email address for my job filled up so much so when I was away that it's fallen over (I couldn't access it today) and unrecoverable. Fuck.

Oh well, can't be helped. I was on medical leave. They could not have expected me to do anything while I was away to fix stuff. It was in the hands of others.

Cross fingers the email sort tomorrow won't be hideous.

UPDATE: I just had to spend thirty minutes talking to my workplace case manager. This in addition to the call with Robot from the rehab org that's helping me. Only he wasn't calling about my needs or anything but about the letter from a Doctor saying I could be back at work. This wasn't raised initially as a requirement but apparently my returning on half days needs a doctor to say that's okay. And because that may happen therefore I need a Doctor to say I can come back ... at all. It's all very annoying especially after you've given a recitation of fool proof plan of resolving the issue on the morrow and ended it with 'yes, you will have the letter and yes I know I can't come back to work until I have it' and he then reminds you that you cannot legally come back to work without a letter. Why do people feel the need to say the same fucking thing three fucking times when I've shown active listening skills in repeating it back to them along with fucking resolutions? Maybe it's a 'I just need to reiterate this' action. I LOATHE being told the same thing more than once. Loathe it. Makes me go the mega-seethe.

But then the admin for my health assistance has been nothing short of a complete balls-up end-to-fucking-end. So of course such an absurd piece of admin requirement would happen, like Cancer cells re-spawning, waiting to trip me up the moment I walk in the fucking door. It wouldn't be the public service without it.

UPDATE2: Went to check the old white car. It has not been turned on since it arrived, steaming away the last of its water, some months ago. I tried it. It is dead. To the NRMA!

UPDATE3: NRMA been and gone. They turned up in less than an hour, charged up my battery enough the engine could just start it on its own and theWife took the old white car for a charge. Meanwhile I did Storyverse on "The Big Bed"; the name for the king-sized bed that dominates the second non-master bedroom in our house (1). The gang played virtual hide and seek. At one point "I" left the game to go do my cycle, only I got delayed on the computer. As his hiding spot theBoy chose to disguise himself as me and be riding The Purgatory Cart (2) when the "it" came in looking for him. In this case, it was Robot (3). He saw theBoy dressed as hisDad, bleeped "CARRY ON", then left. Cunning theBoy!

(1) Why there and not the master bedroom? Alas, also known as the end room, the master bedroom is instead a combined guest bed (slash) library (slash) study (slash) desktop computer room (slash) the warm place that gets lots of sun and where the cats like to sleep at times (slash) where I also sometimes read my newspaper. theWife bought this kewl spongy carpet thing that I can beach myself on. It makes a hard floor just a little softer. Ideal for men weak of the hip and moral turpitude.
(2) Owned by the already-off-to-a-tricky-start international jewel thieves and travelling mother and child, Casso. Well, the mother bit, at least. I don't think N--- has laid claim to the bike. Though if he saw it I am sure with minimal prompting he could be coached to toddle-run over to it and yell mine, then rub up against it and purr like a cat.
(3) My mental pic of Robot tends to vary but it seems mostly Marvin-esq from the awesome-as-fuck Hitchhiker's TV series. God I miss Douglas Adams. He the man was everything I the Mikey wanted to be—only taller! Though to have that bonus height having forever been a smaller man that would have been fun. Less fun is the dying at 49 after a gym session of all things. What a shitty way to do. Just after you did some fucking allegedly-as-all-fuck-staving-off-death exercise. Like when it rains as you drive out of the car wash. Only far permanent and upsetting. Like when you drive into a car wash and you simply don't come out. That's more like it!

Adios, Summer of George

2012-01-29T20:27:00.001+11:00

Well it was a good run. I did nothing of note apart from simply healing and hanging. Which I suppose was the point. The first three days of work I suspect will be email triage.

At least I am legally allowed to drive again. Which was nothing to do with actual physical capability since it was my left hip operated on and we have automatic transmission in both cars. However, of course, I still needed that time off for healin'.

Can I get an Amen?

Wah!

2012-01-28T09:42:00.002+11:00

It's landing. Being blessed with slow motility, motility being the name given to passage of matter through the intestines, it means material banks up. So when I go then boy do I go. Not in one great glorious brown cascade but in painful sections where it's hard to pass and exhausting but you seem to have passed a normal load. Only there's two more normal loads banked up the chute and the next one off the rank is due for a pain-wracked drop off in half an hour.

I've taken SUPERMEDS! and with theWife up I am back to bed. Cross fingers I can sleep the pain off. theBoy was fun when I did the morning wrangle. We told stories. I tried to introduce a sub-plot where I got cuddles but theBoy yelled 'no sub-plots!' Later he was on a roll and started doing Storyverse himself. I just nodded, grunted, or said 'then what happened?' He can do this solo storytelling for ages, and he moves around all the time during it, prowling back and forth like a Gospel preacher. It's a joy to see.

(lightly clutches tight tummy) Sigh...

UPDATE: I'm in time out on the big bed for having ruined the cinema game. Cheeky daddy!

I got told off...

2012-01-26T12:23:00.003+11:00

theBoy loves telling people off. He often yells 'CHEEKY' at us for having cheeked him when he feels we've somehow mislead him or made fun. For example, after we've told him his sought-after toy was in a particular spot and because he performed a perfunctory search and didn't in fact see it, he may then believe we lied to him. If he does, and he likely will, he may then return to declare cheekiness. Even though, as I said, the toy was actually there and the reason he didn't see it was because of his perfunctoriness.

That's some shizzle to be layin' on ya on Oz Day.

Anyway, we get told off. A lot. All the time. When he was younger he'd even try and send me to time-out. Once it happened in the rocket ride at Questacon where he didn't like my interfering with the controls during the countdown. I had to experience the remainder of the flight at the bench down the back. I felt like a space-Rosa.

If theBoy hurts himself he only wants his mum to comfort him. I once forced him to let me kiss an injured site better before he got to his mum for the comfort kiss only to put him back down and for him to go over and re-inflict the injury for the 'MUMMY KISS IT BETTER'.

He'd been directed to take off his pyjamas and get dressed in order he can hang out with theWife during the BBQ cookin' phase of our compound-secreted Oz day celebrations (1). Only during the disrobing he banged his toe. theWife was outside.

'MUMMY?! MUMMY?!' he shouted.

'Hey, honey,' I said, concerned, 'what's happened?'

He appeared into view, yelling.

'Not you, Daddy! Not you! Mummy!'

Then he turned and shuffled back out of sight ... the shuffling caused by the pyjama pants bundled and wrapped around his feet.

I broke out into great grandiose operatic laughter and caused him to howl in protest at the mockery he felt he was receiving.

We're The Indomitable Trio!

(1) We borrowed against the loan last year and had a patio put in, with beautiful sandstone like pavers, and a strong high wooden fence to screen the side-yard from the street. It turned a basically unused section of our home into an awesome outside lounge. It's just so nice having this almost private park by the side of our house, with theBoy's hiding tree opposite—a large bushy tree that has a hollow between it and the wall where theBoy hides during outside hide and seek and a large mesh-walled trampoline by the entrance to the yard. I love our house! Though the air con died last night so that's going to be annoying. Fortunately for me theWife does all the home finance stuff and I don't have to worry about it. However there are spending restrictions as part of the Ostrich-head-lying in regards to domestic finances. I have to clear purchases of over say $20, or consult on their requirement. I have failed on that before though. The last time was because of a panic attack about getting work done while I was forced to work from home and I then fear-purchased a bunch of IT crap we didn't actually need. theWife is a genius at returning stuff, though, even if outside the date they say you can return things. I just fire her off and walk away from the unpleasantness, then come back to find the nasty problem has all gone away. She's a Mr Wolf!

It's Oz day so we're bunkering on down

2012-01-26T11:12:00.005+11:00

Not for us entering public space and having to experience poorly-spelled patriotic messaging scribed on cardboard box flaps. Flaps that are then flapped and waved at passing cars by novelty-wig wearing, temporary flag-tattoos emblazoned on each cheek, half-cut bogans.

So we're staying in, just us, the Indomitable Trio. Later a BBQ of assorted meat thrust onto skewers and perhaps slices of Halloumi fried on the BBQ plate. With Paul Newman's South-Wester sauce for me as the saucy accompaniment.

Delish!

I discovered a capability increase in theBoy. He can be now asked to go get me a Diet Coke from the fridge. Hooray! So he did that and it came to me and it was awesome.

Then ... then we were doing a session of Storyverse, with various characters having adventures centered, as irony would have it, around a picnic (1). There were robot-empowered picnic baskets—with little legs Pratchett-style for Lamby Lamby Forty and Forty's basket, and two-splayed claw feet and digitigrade legs for theBoy's—a large ocean-dwelling tentacle-packing slime monster that attacked them on the way to the picnic site, and a rabbit that got fed by a hastily assembled automatic carrot dispensing machine and its guts swelled to the size of a bus and it exploded half-digested carrots across a blast radius of several hundred feet.

As the rabbit exploded I asked theBoy what he was doing. He said he was headed for the bus and driving away. After he escaped—having to dodge two tentacle slap strikes from the half-burned away slime monster they'd bested earlier on the way to the picnic, theBoy having previously thrown his ammo-depleted cannon at it and then triggering a self-destruct under it to explode it—I told him he'd left his friends behind and they had in fact been covered in the half-digested carrot from the exploded rabbit.

'No!' shouted theBoy. 'They came with me!'

'But you didn't say that!' I protested. 'So they got covered!'

'NO!' he shouted. 'That didn't happen!'

Then to ensure compliance of a rewind to the story he came and took my half-drunk Diet Coke away.

So ... theBoy can get'uth... and theBoy can take'th away.

UPDATE: It's later. The rest of the trio are abed. I am up watching The Colbert Report. Earlier theWife and I were talking about Oz day. We decided that for us it really means little more than a kind of bonus day. And because it's a single day then it likely means the next day is a work day and thus it feels like a Sunday. An extra Sunday. I don't mind Sundays. Sunday's a fun day. Oh I'm not especially identifying it as my most-fun day of all the days of the week or anything. But, being a day of not-work it is, therefore a day of more fun than actual work would likely be.

Do you see? Anyway, Oz day is, therefore to us now known as an extra Sunday. Oh and I'm not telling tales out of school to say that it was just such a pleasure to spend the day with those that make me worth being me.

(1) Ironic since we avoided going out for a picnic ourselves.

SUPERMEDS!

2012-01-25T23:11:00.001+11:00

(punches air)

I had been without SUPERMEDS! for some time by the time I got more. It was annoying to be without them. Then it got to be more-painful without them because they weren't there to dial back the pain. So I admit I was climbing the walls by the time the new lot arrived. I hoed in, blissing out on their power as they robbed the pain messages of some of their strength. Oh Lord, that's the stuff. Now, I am on the couch and surfing and watching stuff then surfing, blogging, and surfing.

Summer of George!

A phat shout-ot to mah writing bud, Casso, who is winging her way blighty-side along with her little man. I raise a glass to your challenge. I know it will be worth it.

Another Musical Mikey Mnemonic

2012-01-25T16:48:00.007+11:00

My parents' LP collection is, and never was, cool.

In addition to some life-history-picked-up stuff, such as my mother's collection of Fijian mens' choir records whose covers rippled with bare-chested large-haired men beaming brightly from within a palm fringed beach scene, it was mostly the classic operas, classical classical music (as in the ones you'd see listed in ads shown in the early-mid eighties for Demtel records where they'd grabbed assorted composers and jammed them willy-nilly (1) into the same sound-based data matrices unit of encoded-plastic.

That and United Kingdom regional mens' choirs, mostly Welsh or Cornish (2), but also possibly from Devon, Yorkshire or Dunny-on-the-Wold (3). Singing the classic regional themed tunes, such as 'Men of Harlech' or mild inoffensive variants like 'Men of Harlech go on a day trip to Swansea' or 'My coal-black hand grips the edible handle of my potato-infused pasty-wrapped meat-sock'.

And finally there'd be a bunch of sad Christian music. Sad, both in the quality of the recording and over-all concept. Music that would make me, were I an actual robe-wearing magic sky father, somewhat annoyed. I suspect that, were reincarnation an element of my belief and after-life expectation structure, those behind such theology-ranking-lowering monstrosities of music would then come back as those tiny finned fish in the Amazon whose sole purpose in life is apparently to swim up a man's urethra.

They'd have titles like Songs of Hymnal Love, An Evening at the Back of the Church During Choir Practice or Mrs Herbert's Back's Gone Again, So Deidre Can You Conduct? Like their unread shelves of books, my parents' LPs simply dryly-humped each other in the dark, pressed by time into a daisy-chain irrespective of genre, type or ethnic-origin of musician. Only now and then to be flicked through by my musically-minded older brother, who was probably wondering if there was at all anything of actual interest to him within.

There probably wasn't (4).

So in memory of my parents' unplayed lo these last 40 years LP collection I give you another track from Songs of Sickness and Safety—my personal collection of music mnemonics to help me to remember be both healthy and safe; a chorus-re-mapped magnificence where the song-victim-of-choice is 'Don't you (Forget about me)' (5).

Here be the lyrics; old and new.

The concept suddenly came to me when I attempted an overly fast dismount from The Purgatory Cart (6) upon the strap coming loose on the right pedal. As my journey to the ground continued my testes rolled over each other then were scraped, half-trapped beneath my seat-straddling perineum, across the gel-seat-cover covered seat.

It was somewhat painful. But a genesis for an inspirational warning!

Hey ... we can't all be Van Gogh.

(1) I really want to see Willy Milly, having seen so many previews for it back when we got a VCR and it was the coolest fucking thing we'd gotten as a family since Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Apple IIe. Anyone got a copy? I can do VHS, DVD, or AV(X)FORMAT(HERE).

(2) My dad's family apparently started in Wales but drifted to Cornwall in the 19th century. They are now rigidly-proud ex-pats from Cornwall. My mum used to say, since she doesn't any more as her mind is all but gone (2a), that when Dad was around other Cornishmen he'd happily lapse back into a Cornish brogue. I never heae that happen myself though.

(2a) I hate that the thing she feared most in age; going bat-shit like her mum, actually came to pass. She was one of those women that were an example of what a woman can accomplish in '60s through '80s expatriate woman in Western then Regional NSW Australia. It's absolutely fucked. I just hope science catches up when my genetic bomb triggers.

(3) I confess I am both heavily medicated and enjoying writing this. Backed up as it is with access to a creamy-centres mini- lamington that has a Twinkie-esq half-life of perhaps 900 years and a Diet Coke. However I am sure in the cold cruel light of un-medicated sobriety I will sigh, huff my shoulders, and turn off, head downcast as if I was a member of a Southern US '20s chain-gang, the low rumble of gospel music humming into life as I leave the shot.

(4) I will email him and ask. An update will come. Oh yes, it will come.

(5) First, as you know, there was my Dermeze classic, sung to the chorus of 'Jolene'.
(6) (As sung to 'She's a piss-pot') Belongs to Casso, through and through; the bike's a bastard so they say, and he's being ridden by Mikey even those it's station'ry; It's going down, down, down, down etc.

Where's my pimp cane?!

2012-01-25T15:07:00.004+11:00

theBeve put us unto Mad TV, discovered to be playing around 3 am in the morning by Channel Nine Canberra, one day some years past. Back then, and you kidz wouldn't understand this, you were forced to program a VCR for the correct time when the program was on and use magnetic tape cartridges to record the actual footage (1). I know, it's crazy talk.

One of the recurring characters was a blaxploitation-style 70s piss-take dude who was in the possession of a cane. A pimp cane, in fact. The recurring sketches would normally centre around this device, with the character often forced to seek his beloved walking aid and he would thus bellow loudly 'WHERE'S MY PIMP CANE?!'

I now have a cane. And I got the pimpiest one I could find. Indeed, its pattern looks vaguely like a Harlequin died (2) in order to make it.

When I got home with my pimp cane I then had to talk to my work-provided rehab manager, a different gent to my workplace case worker and personally-selected physiotherapist. The call went for around 40 minutes and he wouldn't get off the fucking phone. I should have feigned the vapours or something. Also, earlier, S---'s no-talent ass clown of a loaner iPhone auto-corrected the rehab provider's name when I texted the provider back. Which is why the text began 'Robot, I got your text the other day...'

Damned auto-correct arseholes!

(1) We spent about $20 a fortnight on tapes because I had OCD about obtaining them holding onto quality TV. Then DVDs were born, box sets became available, and then there was the internet. I gave about twenty cartons away when we moved in 2007 to a odd-little man who was put onto our vast free tape collection via my workplace classifieds. He turned up, in business dress, and loaded them into his car and drove off into time.

(2) Good. And if I see Whiteface ... (shakes cane).

Final Destination: 5

2012-01-25T14:37:00.002+11:00

I see that the fifth movie in the series is available for rent at the near-local shops.

If your destination is so final ... the generation of no-less than four sequels seems to me to undercut somewhat the finality of that destination.

Teasing of theBoy

2012-01-25T14:24:00.002+11:00

Teasing an easily-teased four-year-old is one of life's simple pleasures. You try it and see if it isn't. The instant outrage like they flipped a switch inside because of what you've teased them with is just so satisfyingly expressive that it's totally worth it to do it. But not too much. You don't want to raise a psycho. You can also use light-teasing—light, mind—in an attempt to induce preferred behaviour.

On with the show.

theBoy loves Wiggles-themed medical products. Well not all of them, for example, he's not up to using the Wiggly Wriggly Stopper, ribbed though it is for your lad or lady friend's pleasure (1). He does, however, love the band-aids and, being eczema-afflicted, he often needs their use from when he's scratched until bled.

Today he ran in, yelling 'I got blood! I GOT BLOOD!' on the way into the end room, and demanded a band-aid. I looked. There was the tiniest dot of blood on the top part of his heel. Like he'd picked off a light scab (2).

I decided a sarcastic rejoinder to the size of his wound versus the enthusiasm behind his Paul Revere-esq announcements of bleeding ferocity.

'Ahhh!' I screamed, pointing. 'GODZILLA!!!'

And I will do that from now on until his declarations of bleeding strength are more properly aligned to actual strength of flow.

Teasing; an under-rated selection from the parenting tool chest (3)

(1) C---, D--- and I stopped off at a local chemist the other day. The chemist shop girls there were somewhat blonde and beautiful. Like they should be luring sailors to the rocks. One looked like a young Heather Graham. C--- went in to get something to assist his shits to be more regular but D--- and I started loudly saying things like 'he never gets ribbed for my pleasure' or 'and he always forgets to pinch the tip.' C---, who is not easily embarrassed, grinned like a Viking seeing an Easterner bugger a goat for the first time, then turned around and left lest we score more ribald successes upon his hirsute person. Revenge! (1a)

(1a) etc.

(2) Once, in school, to horrify a girl I didn't like, I dug my fingernail into a brewed up scab within my scalp and picked it up. I then held it up, a great ripped out scab with blood and hair stuck to it, and dangled it off the tip of my index finger. The look of horror on her face was particularly satisfying. She wasn't very nice to me. Also, she was a tremendously enthusiastic grade-grubber and after every in-class test would run up the front to proclaim miss-assessment and earn herself a 5-10 per cent mark boost from teachers simply too fucking tired to argue.

(3) When done properly. Not, for example, to jokingly call your child a fat, lazy, shit like perhaps some people may have experienced...

The ego on that toe-gripperer

2012-01-25T03:59:00.002+11:00

I bet in all of human history—back even when we were at the monosyllabic grunt stage of man twixt cave and walking about type behaviour—that's the first time the words in the header have appeared in that combination before. Ain't that somethin'? Everyday we can write somethin' that ain't yet been writ. Life etc.! (1)(2)

I can't sleep due to gut soreness. Well I can now, I took Super Meds! But I took so many I didn't want to waste the buzz on boring old sleep (3) but I needed to grab the headphones. I am lying on the end room floor. The harder surface helps dial back the pain. Plus I am doing this, talking to you (three actually interested, perhaps; the rest here by Google searches and who came here in vain) people reading this (4)), with the beloved and it's easier to type when lying on my tumtum (5). So I didn't want to get up.

The reason I needed my headphones was so I could hear more clearly the rage-filled melodious-yet-smoky-tones of Lewis Black. Alas but they were near my feet behind me. And in addition to the previous reasons proffered Being Always Sore Man which sounds like Peripheral Vision Man from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, I didn't want to getup. So I foot-fished amongst the cables with my toes employed in a rudimentary tactile sense until I found the cord ... I was looking for. On encountering cord two my assessment was that it was the headphones' cord. Having eliminated the other cord as a suspect I actually said out loud (to no one) 'Ergo, the headphones cord!'

I am such a nerdy head-swell. Even in an idle utterance I chuck in pretentious word (6).

UPDATE: Apologies for the slew of typos; hopefully now fixed. I wrote it on the tablet at four in the morning and blogging from the tablet is mostly an exercise in frustration. Trying to get the cursor in the right spot is often a tremendously exciting pain.

(1) Life ... don't talk to me about life (pook-churrr) (1a)

(1a) ibid re: header with the combo of Hitch-hiker's quote meets onomatopoeia.

(2) A shout-out to Casso (2a), who is actually rather busy prepping for a challenging yet thrilling adventure of toddler wrangling meets international travel and likely won't read this for some time, but if a word ends in a period but is also at the end of the sentence, is it one period or two?

(2a) Who is a deeply treasured friend who is not only welcoming and smart, but kind enough to support what little writing I actually do but taking the time to regularly visit here and give me support and encouragement to keep writing even when I feel like a massive turd that is void of redeemable nutrition's return to the eco system.

(3) (Cue the Queen from Blackadder 2 voice) Pooey!

(4) Oddly, likely all women. Though perhaps also gay men who crave an ursine build (4a)?

(4a) ibid, 1a. Or should that be 1a ibid? Ah, what do I care? I finished uni for good back in (cue old time prospector coice) 'ought six.

(5) Look, Hoth-based arctic-like conditions dwelling rebellion fighters. I told you. No frozen comrade storing inside me. Do I look like a man who has a sign outside the front of his stomach that says 'frozen comrade storers'? Do you know WHY you don't see that sign? Cos' storin' frozen comrades ain't my fuckin' business, that's why.

(6) Not to mention that use of 'proffered'.

You said McDonald's

2012-01-25T03:26:00.001+11:00

Years ago Canberra Cabs experimented with a voice-activated automated response to pick-up locations when you rang for a cab. It sucked arse hair. I think within a year they ditched it after being screamed at with abuse for such monumentally fucked-up voice-recognition system. theWife used to be in a position that required a bit of local travel between buildings. Liaison to XYZ sort of stuff. It's no wonder she was chosen. She's skilled at putting people at ease, charming their socks off with winsome occasional child-like behaviour (1), but she's also smart on her feet and has a talent for crafting simple yet satisfying messages. She's a government info dispensing wunderkind.

Anyway the Wife used taxis a fair amount because they didn't have that many cars they could book. They had to experience using the voice-activation system. theWife swore that no matter what you actually said that half the time the response would be 'You said ... McDonald's...'. She does a good impression of the fucked voice it used and everything. Coz of her mad skills, y'all.

Any-hoo, I was reminded of this because instead of typing a word I wasn't sure to spell I decided to try the voice search system on my Beloved. I still can't spell the word I wanted to spell but it derived from redeem. So I decided to try for my word by trying for redeem and seeing if it was in that list of other versions—you know plural, as a verb etc.. It didn't work. The closest it got to redeem was 'rude babe'.

I think there's a little something in that for all of us.

(1) A shout out to Craggles. I nearly said chud-like.

Suck it, male half of the former The White Stripes

2012-01-23T12:58:00.005+11:00

I am famously witty. As evidenced by my hairy hagiographer C--- who felt completed to illicitly record my wise ruminations the other night after I broke the emergency glass on Mikey Drunkenness then proceeded to hold court at a costume party, dominating discussions on the couch through the majesty of my intellect, undimmed as it was by the half bottle of Scotch I drank, and through sheer lung power. So much so that Xena, the Warrior Princess herself, apparently came out and told us to shut the fuck up because the birthday boy, The Mummy, had passed out two hours before and we were keeping him up.

That. Happened.

As a recent hip operation survivor—and suck it cancer and / or domestic abuse survivors, us "hipsters" also claim the sobriquet of survivor—I have a wound site on my left thigh that requires sometime attention. As the layers of muscles re-knit the surface of the skin around the wound can feel "tight" or like a light burn. The solution? Rub moisturiser into the site after a shower to help the skin maintain elasticity. Only I often forget to do it.

Like many other people I take inspiration from the movies in how to direct my life. I'm certainly not the only one. Here's a fun fact. When D W Griffith's Birth of a Nation came out in 1915, a technical masterpiece for its day riven as it was with mind-bogglingly pronounced unfettered bigotry, its subject being the rise of the Ku Klux Klan following the Reconstruction period post US Civil War, it inspired moronic cock-spanks to resurrect the Klan Koncept. The movie also introduced the idea of terrifying would-be opponents through the setting on fire of the crucifix. Which, I would argue, would likely have added to Christ's misery, what with the nails and difficulty breathing after being up there for a few hours. But, hey, no one can accuse Klansmen of thinking issues like this through.

So I took a leaf out of Samuel L Jackson's book, the L stands for Logic, and decided that the best way to remember to rub the moisturiser on post-shower was to sing a little song to reinforce it in my head. For lo did Samuel L Jackson's character do the very same thing in the awesome movie The Long Kiss Goodnight, where, to remember the location of two important objects, he sang the ditty 'Putting the keys in my left pocket. Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm. Gun in the right-hand side.'

Like many things Samuel L suggests, such as the importance of a child sleeping through the night or the immediate removal of legless reptiles from airbourne transport, this is wise advice and the singing reminder is indeed a great way to remember things.

But ah, what to sing?

Then it came to me. And the clue lay in the very name of the moisturiser to be used to salve my wound, the same balm (1) we use upon the Chooky, whose skin is prone to eczema and thus each night before bed he must be greased slipperier than a frightened pig in a hill people organised 'catch the greasy pig' contest (2).

The name of this fine balm is Dermeze.

Without thinking too deeply, my tremendous brain rapidly sorted through its contents not unlike Sherlock Holmes in the latest (and most awesome) TV incarnation from Stevan "the Gawd" Moffat and Co set in the modern day, and picked an appropriate backing tune.

So here it is, as sung to the chorus from Dolly Parton's 'Jolene' (3).

'Dermeze, Dermeze, Dermeze, Derm-e-e-eze, don't forget to rub it on your wound'.

So why should the male half of the former The White Stripes suck it? Because he famously did a version of 'Jolene' and it is likely this version that the kidz today are aware of, as opposed to to original classic from Ms Parton. And my cosmetics-infused rendition of the chorus clearly kicks the tan out of his cute little cover.

And I likes to be relevant for the kidz ... because they're so easily distracted ... with their music.

So there you have it, Mikey's massive brain has once more come to the rescue and enabled him to properly treat his wound site with moisturiser through the majesty of song.

Record that on an iPhone, mutha-fukka.

(1) Quick, throw it in the tough!

(2) I once lived outside a town where for their show day they actually had a greasy pig contest. However I was very young and my parents probably said the pig's fate was merely to be eaten. They liked to hide concepts like bestiality by inbred mountain folk from us. Or in this case, plainsfolk, the town being on the flat terrain near Moree.

(3) Another fun fact. 'I will always love you', made most famous by Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard, is another Dolly Parton song. And what movie did it first appear in? The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. God Damn.

It's a kind of magic

2012-01-23T01:21:00.001+11:00

I just used my tablet to voice command search something on Google. Wowsers. Fuck me, technology is amazing. I tested a few text strings, and you have to clearly pronounce the words to get it to work, but while F Murray Abraham was beyond it the voice search was able to score me up some 'How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood' action.

Area man's drunk drought broken

2012-01-22T15:02:00.006+11:00

Before last night I have not been stumbling drink since about June 2008. I generally don't drink anyway, unless I am at a gathering where drinking is happening, as drinking plays merry havoc with my guts. And if I'd stuck to the shandy plan—yes, I drink them, they're delicious; it's basically palatable beer—I would not have gotten so moronically, stupidly drunk. But when the first shandy landed I felt a swell of gas in my tumtum (1) and knew my IBS would flare.

So ... I started drinking neat spirits. At first it was a 30-year-old port in celebration of its owner D--- turning 30, the gathering being a Heroes and Villains themed costume affair for his birthday (2). Then it was Double Black Johnny Walker—it tasted like smoky medicine. Then it was C---'s Red Label Johnny Walker, which, being half-cut at that point, I didn't bother asking I could have (3). I drank the latter out of a small vase I found in D--- and M---'s glasses drawer, though it had a petite handle so it could have actually been a drinking vessel.

At any rate I got shouty loud drunk and pretty much took over the couch area with bizarre Hitler-esq rantings in between boring the tits off one of D---'s lovely colleagues. C---, being a mischievous hairy prick, recorded some of it on his iPhone. He gleefully replayed snatches of it to theWife when he came around this morning to check on me. I was embarrassed and had to hide where I couldn't hear my droning drunk voice.

I was so far gone that when it came time to get me home I had to have helpers go with me to help me down the stairs and into the cab. They even came with me, which came in handy as I avoided the soiling charge by their ensuring the taxi pulled over so I could spew onto the side of the road.

That taxi-bourne spew is actually the last thing I remember. Apparently I self-dakked in the doorway of the house in an effort to get my keys out then stood for half an hour next to the toilet in case of spews. When I was put to bed by the suffering theWife I later sprawled out on the floor by the bed with my head resting on a tray-like bucket in case of further wrong-way-Jose throatal distress.

When I awoke I felt terrible. Head was okay(ish) but my body felt like one great aching bruise. Not even a shower perked me up.

I know I remember I had a good time, uber drunk people often think that, and C--- assured me I wasn't being the shouty ranty prick that Mikey's sober brain re-conjured on waking this morning, but I'm pretty sure that would have sucked to be forced to listen to me, especially for those people who'd I just met. I feel especially bad for the kewl bearded dude who turned up in a Professor Moriarty costume complete with half-top hat that I drunkenly slandered all night as being instead that of Abraham Lincoln—'See?! Abraham Lincoln agrees with me!' being I suspect I thing I said during rants when all he did by way of agreeing with me was to be polite and sit there and listen.

Sigh.

I know people have theories about hangover cures (4); the greasy breakfast or hair of the dog. But for me the best I felt was after my sesh on The Purgatory Cart (5), the 20 minute ride causing me to break out in a cold sweat.

As I limped from the shed a cool breeze washed over my half-naked sweaty form, further cooling me from my ride. It was nice. It was certainly a nicer experience than when I'd been riding and looking down at my harry-high worn PJ pants during the ride and thinking my cinched in gut fat looked all the world to be a front bottom. An actual secondary bottom of stomach fat, as opposed to a British hoo hoo.

Finally big ups to M--- and C--- for not only seeing me home but checking up on me the next day by phone and in person (6).

It almost makes up for the shabby treatment of phone-recording my drunken ranting...

UPDATE: I just remembered ... I also took over the iJukebox and loaded the play list with songs that I liked from D---'s vast selection of music. Bad Mikey ... Even though D--- said anything I selected was okay because it wouldn't be on his computer if he didn't like it there were some unusual choices made; like Ace of Base and 'Docterin' the Tardis'.

(1) Attention Arctic wilderness survivors. If I am asleep in the snow do not attempt to store fallen comrades in me.

(2) I forgot about the costume part. P---, who was still safe to drive, took 20 minutes out to dash back to his place for costumes—P--- plays live role-playing games and has a chunk of kewl clobber—and returned as Ming the Merciless (2a). He brought a kewl hooded long-coat for me, and I think he may have even given it to me, and someone put some steam punk goggles on my head. So I kind of looked vaguely villain-ish. Not heroic, or indeed, anti-heroic. Perhaps a comic foil or side-kick? But let's face it, my bod can't write hero cheques. Just not going to happen.

(2a) Being drunk and therefore with heightened narcissism I used D---'s nearby iPad to dial up a a Ming-themed blog post and demanded P--- read it. To his credit he politely read the entire thing, his lightly furred chest on display via the V of his Ming costume, but it was probably because I was staring at him with an unsettling drunken intensity.

(3) I however paid him $20 for the half-bottle I consumed.

(4) Medically speaking it's likely simple dehydration that causes hangovers and the best way to avoid one is have water between drinks or sip water afterwards or during the night (if one is able to).

(5) An exercise bike technically owned by the foul temptress Cass but liberated by me in a Tom Cruise style from-the-ceiling dangle. And she doesn't even know I have it; AH HA HA HA HA etc.

(6) And of course to theWife who had to wrangle me to the end-room bed despite looking after a sick child in her own bed. Poor little Chooky!

Exactly how I felt...

2012-01-20T13:44:00.001+11:00

My big toe gets intimate with pharmaceuticals

2012-01-20T12:35:00.002+11:00

I woke up again, having I think been woken by theBoy around 6.30 to sneaky put on Blue's Clues for him, at around 10.30 and in accordance with bodily custom felt like warmed up poo. I try not to take pain killers straight off the bat, concerned as I am about the damage that would do to my already fucked-up innards, so I held off until lunchtime. Thanks to my regular pain med being withdrawn from the market my doc put me on a new one that is a single pill that lasts six hours. It takes about twenty minutes to drop but it seems to drop pain about two to three points and there's nary a negative wiggy to be had (the previous caused drowsiness).

Only when I got it out of the packet, thanks to my stumpy fingers, I dropped it onto the kitchen floor. Having had a hip operation a few weeks back I am ixnay on endingbay more than ninety degrees lest my new hip meets weakened still-knitting muscles and bad things happen. I have a grabber extendor claw but the pill was too fine-sized an object to claw-grab.

So I used my good foot and carefully lowered onto it where my big toe meets my foot. Then I monkey gripped it in the folds of toe skin connected to the underside of my splayed-out foot and lifted it up far enough that I could reach it with my hand. You can't exactly wash a pill clean so alas it was either discard it or take it.

I took it. Fortunately for me the narcotic effects of the pill has helped allay any fears of accidental ingestion of accompanying toe jam.

It's good be me.

And yes, McKay Hatch, I swore when it happened. That's what normal people do when something fucked happens.

Casso asked for a substitute word to use in place of cursing, where it is both a single syllable and ends in a hard sound. She proffered Truck or Dog in place of those naughty words to make a McKay blush. May I humbly counter-suggest Hatch as a spak-filler for the empty hole where your fuck should be?

UPDATE: I just had to toe-grip retrieve my 32 gig stick from where it fell on the illegal shed floor. Fortunately I didn't have to ingest it ... the stick ... not the floor.

Last night I saw a young roach crawling under the glass-topped cat-themed tray we keep under the kettle. I deftly moved the tray then squished the roach. Time was of the essence, though, because it was about a 0.2 second roach-dash from the assembled CBD of building-like coffee, tea, milo and sugar silos in the corner of the kitchen counter. Once in there it was gone. No time then for a wad of kitchen towel. Yes, my hand went in bareback. Because the counter was cluttered a fisting or palm slap was too risky. So I indexed it, pressing down on its back like it was a lift button and causing a roach-innard money shot to squelch out its side, leaving a faintly grey podge of greenish slodge. Even I, who was a boy that once ate hot chips in sauce covered in lawn clippings thrown by a taunting hot chip possessing bully because he (me) was denied hot chips in the home, found that disgusting.

I wiped off as best I could then ran to the toilet shelf where the alcohol cleanser pump pack sits and vigorously served myself several squirts. I then proceeded to rub my hands down as per the flu warning posters that go up in Winter in all the Commonwealth Public Service bathrooms. Which I admit I normally don't follow. What am I? Prepping for surgery. Ei 'Ont 'ink' 'o.

Another Dr Evil spawned near miss

2012-01-20T00:03:00.000+11:00

Our desktop computer sits atop the last piece of ex-govie furiture on active duty within the house, an old but still robust adjustable grey desk. With it is the Dr Evil Chair, a wheeled reclining office number purchased from the place where the Office comes alive, Officeworks.

It's a comfortable chair to use, and I've spent many an hour with the chair tilted back, listening or watching something on the TV yonder or the computer itself. It's a good chum. Only its tilting capacity has in the past tipped me out of said chair.Such as that time I had theBoy (as a baby) in my arms and just the other day I was laughing at something theBoy did and the chair and I fell over onto our side.

Tonight we were doing Storyverse in the end room and I leaned back. I must have leaned back too much to the right as the chair started to fall backwards. It only didn't fall because I had the middle three fingers of my right hand pressed against the carpet, taking the weight of me and the chair, as I had managed to flail my arm out to stop the fall in progress.

I started yelling for theWife as I had no means to push myself back up and I could feel my fingers failing. theBoy tried to help but he's too little to be able to do anything like pull his plus-sized Dad back up from a frozen-in-mid-fall manuever. Fortunately theWife heard me, after I up-ticked the yelling to very loud and panicked (she was at the other end of the house), and got to me just before my fingers gave way.

Once again Mikey dodged a potential hip-dislocation, with my being at most risk of damage in the six weeks post operation. Alas the same can't be said for the many-world Mikey that either fell or didn't get help in time.

Dr Evil chair ... sometimes ... I dunno ... I'm not sure I can entirely trust you.

The monster truck drives off to goldfish heaven

2012-01-19T14:13:00.003+11:00

My IBS flared badly last night—with a pain scale of 5-6 at up to 4 am when I finally got up to take painkillers so I could sleep. It was the return of the fist; the fist-sized lump of pain from likely constipation. Despite the writhing I'd committed to sleeping in the big bed instead of writhing alone in the end room but fortunately on this occasion I was able to drop off to sleep.

When I awoke ... the pain was still there. And indeed back to 5-6 because the pain killers had worn off. I got up with the arrival of theBoy and tried once more to pass it. No going. Eventually I relocated to the end room after gobbling more meds and grabbing my beloved for some couch-bed based surfing until they kicked in an allowed a return to the land of nod.

I woke up after midday. My body gave me the airport-paddles-wave to head on back to the toilet to try and pass it and pass it I did—a mental flash of a long train passing by a subway tunnel in my mind as the seemingly over-long bowel motion continued its motions.

Eventually though it was done. Being a poo looker—you have to be when you're riven with complications in the bottom department—I looked.

It had attempted a ghosting, where the stool tries to get around the S-bend of its own kinetic accord. However it was unable to do so due to sheer-girth. The exit tail—where it tapers away to a point on leaving the body—curled up back around like the end of a desert-themed slipper and nearly crested the surface of the water.

And yes Mckay Hatch, before-during-and-after I swore like a mother fucker. And no, it wasn't implied.

Alas I didn't get PAG, that sensation of utter emptiness and silent-still guts post-defecation, did not fully bestow itself but at least the pain crept back down to bearable levels. I even went and had a cycle on TPC, watching Jon Stewart irresponsibly use Colbert's Super PAC money on Hollywood artefacts and having a world renowned chef prepare, cut, then chew his food for him and then mamma-bird it into Stewart's mouth.

And yesterday ... I had practically nowt dairy. So much for that theory.

Epic rubs-sore-tummy sigh.

McKay Hatch—get f____

2012-01-19T12:59:00.004+11:00

Modern Family is an awesome show. Just from a technical perspective with acting, use of camera, and the marrying of three sub-stories with the three families into a single unified broad story arc. It really is a testimony to how good TV can be.

There's an upcoming ep. where Mitchell and Cameron's adopted daughter, who is two, drops the F word at a wedding. It of course should be pointed out the actual utterance of the word is merely implied for comedic purposes with the "suspect" word bleeped and pixelated out.

As a parent whose had to dial back cursing, albeit often unsuccessfully, since the arrival of our little man, and whose little man himself has indeed dropped the F word because of daddy, now and then your child will emulate you and say bad words. You then, likely stiffling giggles, have to explain why you're allowed to use it and they're not. The plot of this episode that resonates with anyone with a child.

Enter McKay Hatch;

An anti-profanity crusader in the US has asked the ABC television network to pull this week's Modern Family episode in which a toddler appears to use a bleeped curse word.

"Our main goal is to stop this from happening," McKay Hatch, an 18-year-old college student who founded the No Cussing Club in 2007, said on Tuesday.

"If we don't, at least ABC knows that people all over the world don't want to have a 2-year-old saying the 'F-bomb' on TV."

"We hope they know better," said Hatch. He's asking his club's members, whom he said number 35,000 in the United States and about three-dozen other countries, to complain to ABC.

McKay Hatch; get fucked. If you don't want to experience implied cursing, let alone actual cursing (1), in all its rich delicious glory, then fuck off and don't watch any fucking television or read anything other than your precious do-gooder holier-than-thou texts. When / if you become a parent then you too will experience the delicious joy of trying to steer your spawn to do the right thing but you will fail sometimes along the way. That's what happens. Don't impinge your shitty fucked up uber moral world-view on other people because you find a little bit of cursing, implied or otherwise, to be a hideous evil—so much so you set up a lobby group to stomp it out.

I also find it delicious that a 18-year-old thinks they know anything at all about how the real world is and they think they can broadly monster an entire network with their 36 000 like-minded coterie of thin-lipped fuckwits that get all anal mouth when they hear a curse word, even if it's merely implied, and who almost certainly sign up to a strait-laced bible-inspired societal view that encourages the oppression of women and / or technically death to gays and Wicca—go fightin' Leviticus! (2)

I also feel sorry for Hatch. I wonder what words burble out of his mouth (3) when something bad happens that generates an impulse to swear? Studies have shown the bellowing of a hard-sounding curse word dials back the pain and / or frustration in the immediacy of the event. And as a man who is wracked constantly in low-grade pain of aching muscles and fucking bones and guts that are on a constant churn then I fucking swear a fucking lot. What's Hatch do? Some sort of Napoleon Dynamite 'Gosh' or 'Darn' when his ankle turns and he goes arse-over-lactating-access-ports and crumples to the ground?

Stick your No Cussing society right up my hairy-fringed anus, you overly puritanical anti-the-human-experience fuckwit.

(1) I imagine McKay would have a somewhat difficult time watching pretty much anything produced by the good people at HBO.
(2) This is not at all to suggest that genuine Christians actually feel this way and can't in fact divorce the dated components of their holy text from the reality of a world that is becoming steadily more accepting of the view that women and people who prefer the genitals of their own sex are equally valued and entitled to decency of treatment and access to opportunity to pursue happiness. However there are many, and let's say they probably go to churches prefaced by the size-synonym "mega", who do; and also likely have issues with people whose colouration trends towards the non-white. I have good close friends who are evangelical Christians and who are some of the most decent, welcoming people I've met. However they're actually Christian Christians in they practice all that stuff that Jesus fella said about loving thy neighbour and helping people in need, as opposed to the 'no swears on the tube' cock-head crowd of one M.Hatch (2a).
(2a) They may indeed do good works too. But their language-oppression is like an abnormal protein that indicates a broader illness in the body. To wit their strait-laced 'my way or the highway' usage of language. I'd like to re-lyricise a hymn I sang as a child—"Get fucked, get fucked, and again I say get fucked'.
(3) Presuming he's a he; he could be a lady boy for all I know.

Area man twins his OCD with the many-worlds theory

2012-01-18T13:33:00.004+11:00

I have low-grade self-diagnosed OCD. I self-diagnosed, from memory, after reading an article about OCD and how some suffers feel compelled to pick up or move in-the-way items and stow sharp objects because they're worried people will slip, trip and/or be stabbed and they will die and it will be all the OCD's persons fault. That pretty much sums me up.

Isn't that grand? A fucked mind for a fucked body. Oh well, you play the cards you're dealt etc.

Any-hoo, so when I see something that should be rectified—such as encountering a potential trip or slip hazard like an object in a foot trafficked area such as a glossy magazine left on a smooth floor surface—then despite my semi-failed but still chugging along muscular-skeletal system, I will with a groan of effort either pick it up. Or, without any real effort, toe it into a location that won't be in the way of walkers.

When it comes to my personal safety, especially with the recent hip replacement (1), lately a thought has crossed my mind that 'other universe Mikey didn't fix that and he died.' This in turn makes me more likely to fix things (or avoid them) if I encounter them.

Yes, that's right, the many-worlds theory has landed on Mikey and infused his OCD with a patina of Sci-Fi. Like today, when after a particularly brutal session on The Hell Wagon (2), I was aching and trembling, with sweat dripping around my puffy man-nips, as I flicked out the bathmat before the shower, and a potential slip/trip presented itself. For one of the corners had folded under itself and presented a large bulge at the front. Instantly in my mind's eye I saw the lifeline, a great green shimmering Tron-esq effort, snuffed out for a parallel universe Mikey, all because he'd failed to heed the danger of the bulging bathmat (3) and not rectified it.

I am determined to be the longest-living Mikey of all the multi-verse versions of moi. I do feel sorry though for the two parallel Mikeys that died with the Pulmonary Embolism I(we) suffered during the recent hip operation when it lodged in their brain for one of them and heart for the other, alas killing them (I lucked out as it landed in my lungs and just knocked me unconscious). After-all that's just bad luck as there's nothing they could have done to stop that happening apart, of course, from avoiding the operation entirely (4).

(doffs hat, downcasts head).

Oh and a shout-out to the Mikey that dashed his brains out on the brickwork on his first foray outside on crutches because unlike me theWife wasn't there to catch him when he fell backwards.

(re-doffs hat, re-downcasts head).

So there you have it. I have managed to enhance a mild mental quirk with quantum mechanics ... which is somewhat ironic as I am barely numerate (5).

(1) I had a dream the other night that people from my various stages of life—University Mikey; Early-in-Canberra Mikey, Second Work Area Mikey etc.—were on crutches when we ran into each other; we'd all had recent hip replacements! Then we swapped manly stories about near-misses with falling, pain management etc. Even my dreams aren't safe from me.

(2) The Hell Wagon, an exercise bike on semi-perm loan from Casso, the Titania of the suburb we both live in (unnamed for privacy reasons), was the name given to the bike on its initial arrival at our house. For it was a most brutal object d'exercise to use—it was like the wheel of pain from Conan. Every turn of the pedal seemed to be incredibly difficult. I initially chalked it up to my constant physical failings but theWife investigated and found the wiring for the difficulty adjustment mechanism had come loose. Being a most useful mammal she fixed it and The Hell Wagon was re-christened The Purgatory Cart since it was now less painful to use, but still rather annoying as all exercise for the sake of exercise when one is blessed with a semi-fucked body is. Alas when I got on today the wiring had come loose again and it took me 24.55 minutes to reach my minimum cease-and-desist point of 5.5 kays. theWife will naturally now fix it.

(3) Which, of course, sounds like a Sherlock Holmes title—The danger of the bulging bathmat. Turns out the bathmat was really a Bulgarian Opera Singer who'd studied poisons under an Indian Fakir and when Mrs Throsby tripped she went head first into the mirror. A mirror laced with poison! Of course she died mainly from the severed jugular and fractured skull but if she'd lingered longer .... poison!

(4) Thus there's another me that made that decision and is hobbling around with his original nearly dead hip and wondering if he made the right choice. I expect if he knew of the deaths of other Mikey (Brain) and other other Mikey (Heart), he would!

(5) Unlike that other Mikey that had a maths-whiz brain and ended up working for the team at the Hadron Collider (5a). Alas when they did one of those recent potentially world(universe)-ending experiments I(he) fucked up and it did actually re-start(cause?) the Big Bang. I am of course hoping he wasn't somehow spat into my universe and complicated doppelganger shenanigans do not ensue.

(5a) I had deliciously initially written this as Hardon Collider. You just know there's a gay porno out there with that title and that was filmed guerrilla-style after core hours, in a dude's Nuclear Power Plant workplace, perhaps using the back-up (slash) training control room for the backdrop. 'Hey man, check out my rod. It's approaching meltdown!' (Bocca, Bocca, Wow, Wow).

Always lock the door to the bathroom

2012-01-18T11:00:00.004+11:00

Otherwise you might hear a Nelson-style 'haw, haw' and turn to discover your gleeful child is standing there having snuck in and pulled the shower curtain aside. To encourage him to leave, when verbal wasn't enough, I applied the cat-control method and splashed him. He retreated momentarily then pulled the curtain away from the other side for some more giggle-infused daddy-in-the shower looking.

What a Chooky!

Well that's a new flavour

2012-01-17T10:50:00.003+11:00

We don't have Ben & Jerry's here in Oz. Which is good because I'd likely hoe into their vast multitude of flavours like a bear going a pic-er-nik basket.

Blessed with IBS and likely milk protein intolerance (1) one of my frequent physiological displays is eye-watering farts. When my guts are churning like the contents of a witch's cauldron then it's nearby be aware time. However I am a polite lad. I try not to inflict it on others and if the butter churn in my abdomen is doing a Sorcerer's Apprentice and self-churning I will remote myself or go for a walk to try to safely unleash. Like a POW out in the exercise yard covertly dropping off a pants' cuff-load of tunnel sand .

As per Ben & Jerry's my farts come in many flavours; cabbage, egg, sulphurous etc. But last night, with the end room reeking from my emissions, I discovered I'd produced a hitherto unknown flavour. It took me a while to get it, given infrequent exposure to what it resembled, but eventually it came to me.

Dead fireworks. That delicious residue of cooked-off gunpowder.

A plod has moved in next door, and due to us having a Swampie cooler, the end room window is always open. So I hope I don't get a stern knock on the door and my neighbour-in-blue doesn't politely remind me that fireworks are now banned in the ACT. Because then I will be forced to mumble 'not fireworks ... it's farts.'

Here's a challenge to the firework people. Make a unit that smells like (normal) farts. I'm sure there'd be a practical application. Though you'd just know some wag would fire it off behind their back then waft away the fart-tinged smoke whilst stating it must have been something they ate.

Farts; always funny, and universally so since it crosses the language barrier as an all-humans-do-it shared experience (2). Only the humour wears off when it's 4 am and you're writhing around in bed actually wishing you could fart more if only to release some of the vast volume of abominably crippling gas.

Sigh

(1) I am not lactose (a type of sugar) intolerant. I was tested for that and found okay on the lactose front. This is good because lactose sounds like lactate which is what lady boobs do and, let's face it, lady boobs are awesome. Man boobs ... not so much.

(2) Except my mother-in-law. No living person has reported hearing her produce such things. Not even her husband of 40 years. Now that's some hardcore rectal control!

Shades of Corinthians

2012-01-16T14:43:00.004+11:00

From midway through year four through to the end of eight I was sentenced to an all-boys private school. Not in the formal court sense but by my parents, allegedly on recommendation from my state school on the grounds I needed something they couldn’t give. Rigid unthinking discipline without accounting for the needs of the individual I suppose.

As part of an all-boys private school that was owned and operated on behalf of the surrounding Anglican diocese it meant my having to go to chapel at least once a week in the morning before school began (1). Only our bus arrived later than most and I was forever having to shuffle in conspicuously after the service started.

The choice of bible reading poison to me seemed to be always Corinthians, specifically the bit about putting away childish things and becoming men. Which was somewhat ironic since the school enforced sport on all its subjects and thus in summer and winter both they ran around after balls. It basically made me feel bad that I played Dungeons and Dragons.

Eventually though I convinced my parents to re-submit me to the state system and in year nine I commenced my last years of high school in a co-ed state school. Unfortunately my years at the all-boys private school had done some severe emotional damage and I arrived there in a fucked-up state and basically spent nine months without friends and sitting under a tree at lunchtime because the moustache-clad female Librarian had banned me from the library for life (2). I once ventured away from the tree and tried to make friends but one of the cool hot girls (3) came over and told me to fuck off so back under the tree I went.

Ouch. Twenty plus years on and that still hurts.

But despite the hell and brimfire about putting away toys there were some toys that were always considered cool and in many ways you were more manly for liking them. I am of course talking about war toys. The school had a cadet unit, and being a disabled (4), I was sentenced to the Quartermaster’s Core along with the mentally and physically damaged, which included some fuckwit with an artificial leg (5). But being a cadet unit it meant we had access to guns. Inoperable SLRs in fact, the large heavy-duty weapon of choice fielded by the Australian Army during their participation in the Vietnamese war and right up until the futuristic-looking Steyr came in sometime at the end of the ‘80s.

We got to field strip the rifles and re-assemble them, timing how long we were and even trying to do it with our eyes shut. The proper cadets, not the failed fatties like us in the Quartermaster’s Core (6), even got to go out to a rifle range and shoot real operable guns at targets. That shit be bitching to a boy.

And how I loved war. I loved war toys—the play loft above our garage was littered with hundreds of my toy soldiers and I played with them right up until we moved house in year ten—and I loved guns. As noted before I even cut kewl pics of guns out of magazines like National Geographic and kept them in my manila folder of gun pics. Guns—and war—were fantastic to me.

As I got to uni, however, it all became a little less fantastic. I did an arts degree, starting a year after all my friends due to 1991 being the year of the fucked up university admissions debacle where universities had given away slots under a principals recommendation scheme and subsequently the marks needed to get into arts went from 49.5 to well north of 80 (out of a hundred). I’d earned a paltry 63.15 from memory and thus could not get in.

When I started my degree I had no idea what I wanted to eventually do in real life. None at all. So I just chose courses that I was interested in and, this being a critical make-or-break criterion, were on in the afternoon. My embryonic interest in psychology ended on day one of choosing courses when I discovered lectures were nine o’clock on a Monday. Fuck that shit.

In first year I went with Ancient History, it being the one subject I enjoyed in High School (even if I did come last in the class), Philosophy and English. By second year and third year the courses got more interesting and basically I went for communications classes—semiotics, advertising, textual analysis and film studies—and history courses such as medieval history. One of these courses was The Literature of War.

The lecturer/tutor who ran the class was my favourite tutor during my undergrad time, but it was a slightly fractious relationship in that he once kicked me out of an earlier lecture for turning up drunk and carrying on down the back. Luckily he didn’t remember that was me. He also made fun of my library-sourced copy of The Iliad which featured a heavily dated translation full of “thees” and “thous”, because as I recall I’d spent all my text-book money on partying and was forced to get what I needed from the library (7).

Literature of War covered the mythic and epics of Homer through to current times, such as a protagnist in a bomber aircrew grappling with the terror of having to do 25 bombing raids. We also looked at Weir’s Gallipoli as the two protagonists of Archie and Frank represented old war and new war; old war being all gallant and athletic and how physical prowess mattered; new war being hyper-deadly and industrial, where even the great were mown down by machine guns alongside the hopeless and ordinary.

That course changed my idea of how awesome war is. Because war is not about machines of death and guns and heavy weapons, as cool as such things are, but it’s about people. War is people versus people and not only do ordinary people suffer the privations and misery of war, but so do the soldiers and sailors and air men and women that take part. What they put up with and what they are asked to do is nothing short of incredible and it’s why the greatest burden on any government now is to consider the when, where and why of military intervention when lives of their soldiers and sailors and airmen and women are on the line. Not just physically but mentally, especially in deployments to prevent or monitor civil conflicts and where the utter misery and bastardry that lawless conflict inflicts on people can be seen (8).

With having recently enjoyed the ‘Who Farted’ sequence with the emerging then re-submerging Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now I re-watched Hearts of Darkness: A Film-makers Apocalypse, the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now, which used footage and photos shot by Francis Ford Coppola’s wife, Eleanor, and interviews some ten plus years later with assorted cast and crew. It is probably the best 'making of' documentary I’ve seen to date.

Then I re-watched the helicopter assault scene from Apocalypse Now.

For those who’ve not seen the movie, but are likely aware of this scene as it’s one of those seminal pop culture things, an air cavalry unit commanded by the somewhat unorthodox Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore, assault a village at the mouth of a river in order to insert a river boat carrying the protagonist, Captain Willard, up said river to assassinate the insane Colonel Kurtz. The air cavalry, consisting of Huey helicopter gunships and smaller one-seated spotter helicopters, come in low over the waves towards the village, blasting ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ from large speakers as part of psy-ops. It is an incredible scene and made all the more incredible for the fact it was shot in the ‘70s and CGI was not used. All the helicopters were rented from the Philippine Army and in fact were being used in counter insurgency ops during filming with filming often halted because several copters were called away to go spray hills (and presumed rebel occupants) with machine gun fire.

So I watched that scene and as I watched it I was reminded of that transformation of consciousness that I had during uni when I realised that war is actually fucked up and while war toys and what-not look kewl their purpose is to kill.

You have to hand it to the cast and crew of the movie to deliver a scene that not only showed the full power of a first world military in action but the impact that had on innocents—with the village shown in the minutes before Wagner could be heard faintly then with steady increase in volume; a pristine community with a central swept clean flagstone square; schoolgirls in pristine uniforms being corralled to safety by teachers as the first strains of Wagner could be heard; a female defender with an AK-47 herding villagers; villagers heading for concealed gun pits to repel the invaders.

Then at a critical moment in Ride rockets are fired and the assault begins in earnest. The battle aftermath is a chaotic shambles as Colonel Kilgore strides around in a broad-brimmed 1870s US Cavalry hat, whilst stripped to the waist, then delivers his famous dialogue about the smell of napalm and how a burned to a crisp hillside smells to him like victory.

As noted I am wigged out to heck, courtesy of my failing to properly stock my sads meds, and I’ve been without anti-depressants for two days. I get a new script later this afternoon. I’m dizzy, teary, and aching.

I watched the helicopters come in and the villagers defend their ancient home and I cried. Not a lot, but there were tears, at the hideous wrong that was inflicted on them by another nation thousands and thousands of miles away and done so because of a geopolitical assessment that to not intervene in this civil war would somehow cause surrounding nations to fall to the evils of communism. Even though Ho Chi Minh was a committed nationalist who’d basically gone communist because he saw that as the most effective means to achieve independence from the French (that and China, despite ancient Chinese-Vietnamese enmity, supplied them materiel during their struggle).

War is not fantastic; it is fucked up. Even if occasionally it’s a necessary evil to stop a greater evil at play. Though of course then there’s the problem of deciding what is in fact a great evil and when intervention is needed. Hello the fail that was the western world intervention in Vietnam and the recent Iraq war.

Anyway here I am … thirty years removed from childhood … and I realise that war toys are not great and thus I am putting my admiration for them away.

Though in no way do I now I call myself a proper man. Fuck you, Corinthians—and I still play Dungeons and Dragons!

(1) Oddly, however, I joined the school choir which meant more being in the chapel time. Except that was enjoyable singing and not listening to men talking about how you needed to be more manly and one way of being more manly was to run around after balls all seasons of the fucking year. I suspect however the main reason I was in the choir was because during practice over recess in the Winter months the choir master ensured delivery of a platter of sausage rolls and sauce.
(2) One of three lifetime bans I received from the library during my time there, with herr librarian relenting on each punishment after a suitable amount of purgatory time on my part. However I should note, with tremendous pride, that I got the library chess club disbanded due to rowdy behaviour as we'd had a chess piece fight and we'd smashed a thrown bishop into a plate glass window (though it was not cracked or broken as I recall).
(3) I cannot tell you how “hard” it was to enter a co-ed school in year nine having spent four and a half years in a single sex school. I got a mad crush on the first girl who was ever nice to me and spent years pining impotently after her. I asked her to the school formal in year 10 and she said no … but she did dance with me. As luck would have it I enhanced my fatty form dance with an electro-mechanically driven spinning bow tie. I really wish someone had sat me down and explained when comedy wasn’t applicable. But then that’s a life lesson I’ve never learned and in many ways the best comedy is when it’s not applicable. Am I right?
(4) I was restricted from sports and PE around year six I think when I developed water on the knee from my awkward sitting pose, developed as it turns out because of my fucked-up skeletal system. So I got to wear sneakers, leather shoes didn’t provide the right support, which in an all-boys school where violence and abuse towards peers was never ever ever not condoned by staff, and who sometimes joined in (4a), proved to make me somewhat of a target. It didn’t help too that I’d gone from normal weight to massively ballooned. And I still got it! (jiggle, jiggle).
(4a) I had a home teacher actually chant my hated nickname in front of the whole class while the rest of those fucking turds looked on and laughed. My parents paid about $6000 a year for the privilege—well, my dad’s former employer did, a rich old French Canadian expat who made millions in the heady boom years of Western Australia during the 70s. For some reason he said he'd pay. What a waste of fucking money.
(5) He wasn’t a fuckwit because of the leg. He just happened to be a fuckwit who had a false leg.
(6) I got my revenge on being sentenced to the Quartermasters core by leaving the charging radios plugged in after they’d reached full charge, they were most-dated military surplus, and destroyed their batteries as a result. It was a happy accident; fuck da man!
(7) It was one of only three buildings in town that had a lift! It had that machine oil smell to it. It was an Otis so I’d say ‘Mornin’ Otis’ when I got in. Because I am a splendid comedy machine even when on my own. The library also had an agony aunt noticeboard where you could see responses to provided suggestions or even metaphysical questions. The toilets were covered in hilarious semi-high brow graffiti and more than once some clever wit had written ‘Arts Degree’ on each sheet of toilet paper then carefully re-rolled it back up (7a).
(7a) The best movie representation of words on toilet paper goes to the ‘BOOM’ written on Murtaugh’s toilet paper in Lethal Weapon 2, trapping him on the toilet as he’d realised he’d triggered a pressure switch that would activate the device when he got off. Eventually he has to get off…
(8) I went on a wiki-jaunt about the Vietnam war and ended up reading about Tiger Force. That directed me to some Pulitzer prize winning articles (see References in the wiki page) from the early noughties about the war and the actions of the ‘counter-guerrilla’ Tiger force to “pacify” their area of operations. What they did was nothing short of psychotic and abominable, with civilians casually killed out of hand for the most spurious of reasons. Some men in the unit tried to speak up but the broader hierarchy wasn’t interested. Some say this lack of intervention or care as to the brutality Tiger Force was inflicting had a role in the horror that was the Mai Lai massacre, that took place about six months after the Tiger Force operations (that ended after the valley they were pacifying was sprayed with defoliants to kill agricultural settlements that had been there for thousands of years and thus forced the re-settlement of the surviving people). The worst incident I read about was the decapitation of a baby by a soldier in order to get the baby's necklace. The fact this events happened and nothing was ever done is a deep dark stain on the history of the US Military.

I'm wiggy as heck but I'm loving my return to Baldur's Gate

2012-01-16T00:43:00.000+11:00

Perhaps it's the Romney effect of real-life Mormon behaviour on display that was the inspiration for the heck? I've worked with Mormons before. They couldn't have been nicer or more welcoming to me. At any rate being one of those weird Ozzers that gloms on to US politics I've seen a fair amount of Romney in action, backed by the phalanx of adult aged spawned sons who stand behind him with a default smile only to ebb it away when their dad starts slagging off Obama in his weirdly polite Mormon manner.

But enough of this—to the why of the wiggy!

I forgot to get a new sads meds prescription and only discovered this when I had my last pill on Friday night and no script to refill them with the next day. Thus I've had to miss Saturday and Sunday nights and aim for a Monday doc visit to get a script for more.

If you've never been on sads meds then here's the skinny for when you miss a dose two days running. You get mild to severe head spins; you get mild to severe episodes of sadness; you may cry and if the tears come you have to remind yourself that what you are experiencing is chemical not situational; and if you suffer constant discomfort then it feels immensely exacerbated. Lucky for me though this happened on a weekend and the people who love me most in this world were with me. Nothing takes your mind off the wigs like watching your child in giggly or focused play.

That and Baldur's Gate. I restarted where I last left it which was back in Christmas 2010—having found a DVD copy of the game when shopping down town in my former home town. Onto Mr Lappy the game went and, with the needed bug fixes applied, it helped get me through that sometimes difficult time of the family Wobs (1). On Friday I decided to break it out and delve once more. Because as far as the D&D experience on a computer goes, despite the game's age, it remains the I've enjoyed the most—though the bug fixed Temple of Elemental Evil is pretty kewl, I have to admit. And Baldur's has helped much with dealing with the issue of being sans sads meds by giving me something to fixate on.

Because Mr Lappy's sound system does not work I hooked Mr Lappy through an HDMI cable to the ALDI-sourced TV. Thus my game play was on full display to the rest of the house.

theBoy saw it in action and he liked what he saw. He even bagsed being one of the members of my PC's entourage (2), selecting the nervous-sounding Khalid, a half-elven fighter and member of the Harpers, and who is married to fellow entourage and Harper member, the half-elven fighter druid, Jaheira. As opposed to her husband's vocal stylings of Woody Allen meets Conan, Jaheira has a Russian tinged accent and, when fatigued, complains 'I've seen enough working hours, slave driver.'

It's great stuff and I am totally chuffed theBoy had a bright-eyed interest in seeing Dungeons and Dragons in cinematic computer action. Though in retrospect I probably should not have let him see my party go bandit mining.

At one point in the game a law enforcement lady who hangs in the Jovial Juggler in the village of Beregost offers 50 gold pieces for the scalp of every bandit you kill. So when low on coin the trick is to head to the bandit-infested encounter area of Larswood, set up camp, and hope to get attacked. About a third of the time you will, with ten bandits, uniformly Aryan with blonde hair and who sound like the surf-nazis from Point Break, turning up and who in chorused unison cry 'so I kicked him in the head, hur, hur, hur.'

I've had a decade to perfect my technique of bandit mining and it's really quite elegant. Two spell-casters drop sleep spells while archers target any stragglers that make their save and remain standing. Then ... then you carefully plot a drop point for a fireball and let it rip. A ball of flame blossoms over the sleepers, turning their bodies from blonde, reclining, spell-induced narcoleptic perfection to a somewhat blackened corpse-like state. They're burned; badly. Finally your chosen scalp mule moves in to loot the bodies of treasure and hair (3), the item graphic representation of the latter being best described as a thatch of straw with mashed strawberries soaking one end.

So theBoy got to see this creepy pyro-inflicted hair-harvest in full digital glory and yes he did think it was most cool.

But hey ... at least I euthanised the blonde bandits before I mass-crisped them!

It's more than they would have done for me.

(1) Wobs ... the text string proffered by my old non-smartphone when I attempted to enter the word Xmas.

(2) You generate a main character who is the focus of events in the game and whose goal is to find out more about his identity, background and special nature, whilst investigating the mysterious goings-on on the Sword Coast below the great city of Baldur's Gate. Along the way you can attract up to five other characters to be in your party (slash) posse (slash) entourage. However they all have a side-quest they wish to complete and this in turn helps guide you along the main story arc. I have to hand it to the designers. They created a wondrous party dynamic—complete with verbal sniping between members, especially those with an opposing moral viewpoint—and having fully rounded characters you can meet and slot into your party, instead of generating an entire party yourself, makes, for me at least, for a richer experience because of those side-quests and other events. These side-quests are expanded in the sequel to have additional entourage-related quests or missions pop up during the game instead of the single mission and again make for interesting and absorbing game play. Like Game of Thrones is the current highest level of fantasy perfection on the big screen, so Baldur's Gate and its sequel are for me the highest perfection of roleplaying meets computers I've enjoyed to date. As evidenced by the fact it's over ten years since the original game was released and once more into the breech I have gone.

(3) And if you're really low on cash you can grab the short bows and long swords as well. But fuck the leather armour; it's not worth the encumbrance issues to earn two gold a suit. Bandit mining is also a dandy way of replenishing one's arrow supply.

Fun with da plods

2012-01-14T20:27:00.004+11:00

We were in the dramatically expanded Belconnen shopping centre when walking along before us were four cops (1). One was fully a giant, at least north of six five (2), the next size down was about six two, and the last two were normal-sized then quite short.

They looked like law enforcement-themed Matryoshka dolls that had sprung apart in order to pacify the local shopping precinct. Frankly that would be a neat way of both deploying and storing the po-lease (3) and they should look into it.

(1) theBoy gets worried when he sees the police because he thinks they're 'going to take all our lovely money!' Why? Because whenever he chants 'faster, Mummy, FASTER' theWife has to explain the road rules to him and how the filth will take our hard-earned dosh should we be caught. It almost certainly is nothing to do with that time he was in the car when theWife was on the receiving end of receiving a traffic fine and he experienced the joy of seeing a grumpy cop issuing her a ticket (1a). In theWife's defence it was the dumbest ticket ever issued as it was issued for theWife not having her current address on her driver's licence. You see if you move house after you get your licence renewed you have to call up the RTA to let them know your new address. They send you a sticker in the mail and you stick it on the licence. There's no proof offered for the change of address; the RTA believe you. So you tell one government organ you've moved house and they send you proof of that in order that another government organ believes you when you get pulled over. Ain't bureaucracy grand?
(1a) We were once driving out of Braidwood when the police behind us pulled us over. Why? theWife had forgotten to put her seatbelt on, a hold-over from learning to drive from her dad who, for some reason, only put his seatbelt on after the car had started well and truly moving. As the cops left theWife burst into tears and mourned the loss of 'our lovely money!' That of course was early on in our Canberra adventure when were were still poor as fuck and a fine was indeed a large and horrid burden to bear. I know people look back on their early-to-mid-twenties with nostalgia of play before real life came along with jobs and mortgages and so forth. However all I remember is the constant poverty and inability to purchase fuck-all. To the extent we once as students in our group house had to good a food parcel from Vinnies. Being poor sucks the wang.
(2) I have grown up with metric but for the life of me I cannot work out from eye-balling someone's height how tall they are in centimetres. But in feet and inches ... I can. Go figure. I blame early exposure to roleplaying games that used Imperial measurements. Interestingly though the premier SciFi RPG was Traveller ... and American-produced effort ... and they used metric. I guess because metric seemed so futuristic...
(3) That's how I pronounce 'police' when talking about the police with theBoy. Why? Because it sounds Street. Don't fuck with me or I will fuck all you bitches right in your bottom!

Fun with Apocalypse Now

2012-01-14T20:02:00.003+11:00

It was during a session of Storyverse when the subject of Captain Willard and the river emergence came up. Synybatbat (1), the millinery-loving penguin who lives in an ice cube shaped Igloo next door to Humpty and Stumpty’s tree home (2), was hiding in a water filled bath during a virtual game of indoor hide-and-seek. Synybatbat's eyes were just above the surface of the water and thus he looked like Willard, ably-played by a magnificent Martin Sheen, rising faerie-like from the river, the water’s surface barely disturbed.

Left: Willard rises...

Of course theBoy had no frame of reference for this. But thanks to the majesty of YouTube this could be rectified. It took a bit to find the link—no one has cut just that scene—but someone had posted the full ending to Apocalypse Now that included this moment. By way of spoiler background it’s where Willard sets out to both complete his mission of assassinating Colonel Kurtz—with extreme prejudice, no less—but a mission known to the target, and welcomed, for Kurtz has gone insane from having fully contemplated the reality of war and wishes to be euthanized.

The ending is tremendously powerful and made all the more memorable for The Doors ‘The End’ playing over the action. The full cut of the song, no less, all 12 minutes of it.

So I showed theBoy the scene of Willard slipping seal-like into the river then rising near the shore, gradually emerging from the brown water, wreathed in mist and illuminated by the fires of the festival that is being held by Kurtz’s suborned indigenous followers.

Like I said … it’s pretty awesome.

However we soon discovered a benefit of watching it through YouTube for when theBoy asked to see it again and I dragged the bar backwards Willard gracefully reversed direction and went back into the water causing theBoy to laugh. We then spent merry minutes inventing reasons for Willard to pop up, look around, then slip back into the water such as ‘Who farted?!’ Indeed, theBoy now calls Willard 'the "who farted?" man' and thus I may have ruined the movie for him.

I haven’t experienced such amusing reverse action (3) since in year ten English when Tony C--- leapt out of his chair during a VCR-delivered showing of a somewhat gory and medievally realistic Macbeth (4) and thumbed the rewind button on the VCR box to make a decapitated Macbeth’s head roll back up the stairs and remount his neck…

(1) His full name is Synybattybatbat but is shortened during story time, or between friends, for convenience.
(2) I imagine it as a massive oak-type tree. It has an outer spiral wooden stair ringing the trunk like the red stripe on a Barber’s pole. The full family lives within single chambers within the trunk itself as opposed to a dwelling constructed amongst the branches. Think the inside of a manned-lighthouse. In the ground-floor chamber are Humpty and Stumpty’s mum and dad. I think of them as recent retirees. In the top chamber live Humpty and Stumpty. It’s a single large room but with numerous nooks, crannies, and curtained-off alcoves. In the “basement”, her door located between two great roots where they emerge from the ground, is Granny Bugbear. An irascible thick-set old lady with short hair, glasses and a cane (2a), she has a giant spa-bath that is forever infested with French mice pirates, whose galleons are anchored at the far recesses of the bath, protected by ever swirling steam-mist courtesy of the bath being constantly filled and heated to a geriatric-marinating temperature. They know not to mess with Granny Bugbear but will assemble their small fleet against any other interloper. Humpty and Stumpty have had numerous escapes from attempting to bathe there then coming under Gallic infused rodent mounted attempts at waterborne assault.
(2a) I just realised my mum has glasses and short hair. Though her disposition is somewhat sunny despite her dementia.
(3) ‘How about a little bit of reverse action’ being an oft-said couplespeak line, taken from Adam Sandler’s ‘The Psychotic Legend of Uncle Donnie’ as heard on Stan and Judy’s Kid.
(4) It was a realistic period piece. Not only in terms of look—dirt, mud, filth, chainmail etc.—but in behaviour, with Macbeth and others in an opening scene on a beach killing wounded losers out of hand with a mace to the head.

Check the tablet!

2012-01-13T11:58:00.003+11:00

For some reason 7 am is my fail-time start point. All through my life, as a kid and now as an adult, if I had to get up at 7 am it was a chore. Half an hour either side ... not so much. Perhaps it's a psychological hold over from high school in that 7 am was the time I had to get up in order to have breakfast, get dressed, and make it to the bus stop just outside out house?

This time of 7 am, now, in our Indomitable Trio (of myself, theWife, and theBoy), has a new lease of life in that it's the time theBoy must try and wait until before he comes and disturbs us. Before that he's meant to either stay in his room and entertain himself or sneak out into the lounge room and idly play until after that time.

Of course his concept of time is rubbery. Also, though he does know what the number seven is there's no readily readable clock (1) to tell him that it's seven or after it so he can come in.

This morning he came into me. I was in the end room, thanks to writhing sleep visiting me once more, and about 6.30 am he appeared next to me.

'Hello, Daddy, is it time yet? Can we do Humpty and Stumpty?'

I don't have a clock on ready display in the end room ... but I do keep my Beloved close at hand. I retrieved it from under the bed—it's a couch bed so low to the ground and you can easily reach stuff there—and turned it on.

'Sorry, Chooky, it's 6.30. You'll have to go play for a few more minutes.'

He left and I sank back into sleep. It seemed like an instant later when he reappeared.

'Is it time now? Check the tablet!'

I reached under and pulled out the tablet. Thumbing it on I saw the time was 6.52 am.

'Sorry, Chooky, still ten more minutes.'

He accepted that and left. Shortly after that theWife rose and took over wrangling.

Since I am older now, and my bladder has apparently shrunk, I woke again after twenty minutes and sleep-fogged zombie lurched towards the door to head for the toilet.

There, in the corridor, I discovered his nest.

He'd brought his Wall-E themed tiny kids-sized fold-out couch into the corridor, along with his five or so sleeping aid lambs and bears (Lambys and Fortys), and placed the couch just before the door to the end room. I gather that while he was waiting for 7 am to roll around he'd simply set himself up to wait out the time outside my door—and in comfort, what with relocating his kids-sized couch.

I have sometimes crippling self-esteem issues. I've felt the world regarded me as basically a lump not worthy of consideration or to be endured if forced to interact with me. I've not had that much direct total welcoming love in my life from people who genuinely totally and absolutely love me. But I have it now with theBoy. He loves me so much that he's willing to simply sit and wait in order to be with me.

That's pretty awesome.

Yesterday we were playing a silly game involving a two cent orange plastic ball. I'd get the ball, hobble for the big bed, clamber on and hold it aloft, praising my ownership of the ball. He'd leap on the bed, knock the ball away, then try and slither off the bed before I grabbed him for a wriggly cuddle. I can only hold on to him for a limited amount of time before his giggles turn into frustration at not getting away so I let him escape—but not without lots of feathery kisses and tickles. Eventually he's hanging over the side of the bed while I still have him by the ankle. Then it goes 'Ha, I have your ankle, you cannot get away! [wriggle, wriggle]. Ha, I still have your entire foot! [wriggle, wriggle]. Ha, I have half a foot! [wriggle]. A toe, I have a toe! [wriggle] Aw, nuts, you got away'. At that point he's on the floor and scrambling for the orange ball.

Rumbling with a giggly four-year-old is probably the best fun you can have. And it helps me forget all my stupid aching body crap for a short while.

It is true. Being a parent can be sheer joy. And it is worth all the crap of a truncated life that goes with it.

And it certainly helps to bank memories like these for when your child or children are being unpleasant little screaming shits demanding instant snap-to attention—'Bring me a cordial NOW!' etc.—or are in the middle of a full body on the floor rager where they're beyond any form of intervention and they just have to be left to scream it out.

I do feel sorry for my parents, though. I can't recall their taking delight in the fun parts of us. Perhaps I just didn't see it as a child? Maybe it was their reticent British upbringing to suppress positive (2) emotion where possible—such overt emotive behaviour is best left to those on the continent, what, what? Maybe they felt it but just didn't show it?

And if they didn't get those moments of delight and enjoyment then that's very, very sad for them and it must have been very, very hard at times not to have those good moments to power them through the sheer shit of wrangling three boys just two years apart in age.

(1) Our display clocks are all analogue ... and he's only four and a bit and telling the time off an analogue is a tricky still to learn at that age.

(2) They weren't afraid to express the negative emotions. There was a lot of yelling and anger in my house. Not physical hitting—I can count the number of times I got hit on one hand (2a)—but my six foot plus Dad would en-purple his face with rage and stand over you and yell or my mother would likewise lose her shit and go off in a BBC proper voice fuelled rage of tourette's style super swearing where she'd call us c___. But, like I said, it would have been hard with three boys just two years apart. Especially when for the most part we didn't get on with each other that well. We led separate lives from each other in that we had our own groups of friends, interests, and the like.

(2a) The first time I swore my mother slapped me. Instinctively I swore again—'Fuck!'. She slapped me again, a back-hander, her hand simply reversing course to strike me again. I did not swear again that night.

Ouch...

2012-01-12T19:38:00.005+11:00

We were doing Storyverse (1) and the lads (2) were playing hide and seek. Having seen Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, which includes some nifty urban camouflage, I introduced the concept of painting oneself to resemble the background. For example painting myself grey and standing in front of the shed. All that could be seen were swivelling eyeballs.

theBoy thought this grand fun. On his turns at hide and seek theBoy subsequently disguised himself as a chair, a tap, and as some form of plant.

I was in the Dr Evil chair, at full reclination (3), when theBoy decided in one round of hide and seek that he was disguised as 'a rocket box', as the packaging for his ALDI-sourced wooden rocket ship was still in the room. He balanced the box against the theBoy-sized chair he sits on by the purple box (for when I am at the computer and he's sitting to do Storyverse with me). He then stood stock-still in front of the box, his mouth closed, and swivelled his eyeballs back and forth.

It turns out full reclination meets full body laughing-heaves is a bad combo. I rolled on my side in the Dr Evil chair as I laughed and the chair then tipped over to the right and deposited me on the floor.

My left thigh (slash) hip area is hurting but I don't think I've knocked the new hip out of alignment. I can still walk okay. I think it's just the shock of being suddenly tipped out of my chair and the left leg slamming into the top of the right one.

Damn theBoy and his japery.

(1) I've decided it should be title case. It's a proper noun, after-all.
(2) In this case the players were myself, theBoy, Humpty and Stumpty (original cast members of Storyverse), Mater and Lightning McQueen from Cars and Cars 2 and E--- and Z--- from day care. The cars arrived via the phone line, theBoy early on decided phone systems allowed ready teleportation of people and objects in Storyverse, and came out the size of cats. That way they'd be more effective players at hide and seek. When I said that theBoy said because I was so big, if I wanted, he'd find it acceptable if I sprayed myself with Santa's Shrinking Spray (tm), the device Santa uses to shrink himself to jump down a chimney. Layers on layers. Or, as theBoy would say when I say 'the end!' to try and cease a Storyverse Session, 'but there's lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots more pages!'

(3) New word! I call dibs on the etymology. Wait, no, I think it already exists.

Ghost PAG

2012-01-12T08:53:00.001+11:00

As anyone who reads this blog for more than four entries would know I have issues when it comes to number twos. I have slow motility which means, basically, I take twice as long to push through and process food as a normal person. Thus typically my entrails are full of shit and I am enduring and/or suffering discomfort from both constipation and abdominal fluctuations and spasms. It's all very painful, embarrasing, and annoying. It also means I tend to have a glum face, wince a fair amount, and clutch my guts like a woman who hasn't felt the baby move in a couple of hours.

So it's rare when I actually do a normal bowel movement. So rare in fact that the other day, when I did one, whilst perched on our medically heightened toilet—we had to put a booster to raise the level of the toilet up so my hips don't bend more than 90 degrees while I recover from the hip operation—I gave an air punch of triumph. A punch somewhat undercut by my toes dangling above the tiles.

My delightful guts doctor—an enthusiastic Kiwi specialist—said that the aim of number twos is to produce what's known in the defecation trade as a 'lovely log'. Which, by my reckoning, is a 3.5 on the Bristol Stool Scale. When producing said lovely log this should also result in a feeling of comfort and emptiness at a successfully passed super stool. This event, and accompanying feelings of relief, I term PAG (1).

This morning I had PAG. Well, at least, I think so. The stain and stress of the bowel motion itself felt like an effort ranging from 3-4 on the scale was happening downstairs, and there was instant relief when it was over. I am a poo-looker (2), in that I always check my leavings (and that they're flushed away when the button is pressed—I do not wish to inflict a floater on the person after me). So I looked.

It was gone.

Yes the power of the poo was such that with kinetic energy from the drop it had driven itself around the S-bend and robbed me of the satisfaction of confirming its presumed 'lovely log' and PAG-spawning status.

So ... in the event where visual confirmation cannot be made, but all other evidence suggests PAG success, ... I will adapt the PAG assignation to include the sub-field of Ghost PAG (3).

Ghost PAG-est. 2012.

(1) PAG—an acronym standing for Poo After Glow. It makes me feel like Father Pio when I do experience such delight as I practically glow in a beatific manner afterwards. Fuck, I could probably heal small animals like Assisi or the little bald kid from The Golden Child (1a)

(1a) Just how disgusting is that bowl of porridge with the liquid blood beneath the oatmeal crust? Also if a film ever needed a George Lucas style CGI ret-conning it's that one. The Golden Child a truly awesome movie but the stop-start animation of the demon looks dreadfully lame. They should re-cut that scene then re-release the movie. It stands the test of time and it's chock-block full of awesome quotable Eddie Murphy moments—'I'm going to paddle your ass!' etc.

(2) Did you know you can replace the words 'Day Tripper' in the Beatles song of the same name with the words 'Poo Looker'? And precede to change other lyrics to reflect the change in theme? e.g. Poo looker ... always looking at poo. You can't help it, look at poo, look at poo. Do ... do do do do dah do do do do etc.

(3) Much like the Illusionist is a subclass of Magic User first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. I am up to about page 50 of The Player' Handbook, with one of my five copies of that tome (3a) next to the exercise bike for me to flip through while the lap top boots up. Holy shit that book needed some editing. I can see now the sheer editing challenge it was to re-boot first ed to second ed. If you're a gamer who also likes to peel the vinyl back to see how gaming evolved I cannot stress enough how awesome this book is; 3 0 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons.

(3a) I suffer from acute nostalgia. In the manner a cat lady "saves" cats if I find hard copy gaming material on the cheap, even if I have a copy, I will probably get it if only to "save" it from not being lovingly owned. I will however give copies of these multiple books away to good homes if I become aware of a gamer lacking a core piece of gaming history such as the Players Handbook (3b).

(3b) I think technically it should be the Players' Handbook as there's more than one player using it ... but that apostrophe looks odd. My crazy old boss once said there was a rule about dropping punctuation from signage to save space but I am not sure if that's the case. Apparently though McDonald's was an aberration for doing so. Again, according to her. Grain of salt etc.

No! (gallop, gallop, gallop)

2012-01-12T07:55:00.001+11:00

theBoy is still grappling with the concept of acceptable violence. When thwarted or annoyed, on occasion he will physically lash out, often swinging a fist at what stymied him. It's often me. When it happens we then have to calmly explain to him how what he did was wrong and the repercussions of hitting people, 'they won't want to be your friend' etc. Sometimes we catch him in mid-swing or post-swing so when remonstrating with him we're holding on to his arm or hand to prevent further lashing out and/or escape from said remonstration.

This morning it was just he and me hanging out together. He was climbing along the top of the couch bed and I pulled him off and into my arms for a cuddle. He didn't like that and he punched me in the jaw. I grabbed a hold of his wrist to stop him hitting me more and getting away while I told him off. I held him firmly by the wrist but he regarded it as too firm and started to cry—'you hurt me!' He tends to claim police brutality when being held onto when told off for hitting. Anyway we resolved it and had a 'we forgive each other' cuddle afterwards.

If you're lucky to be in a couple as a parent after you have one of these solo parenting moments you give the other parent a precis of what happened so they can back you up and reinforce any lessons duly meted out. So when theWife got up I told her all about it; 'Then we had a forgiveness cuddle!' I said, ending my recounting of the tale of woe as he watched on. I then held out my arms in case he wanted to re-enact the cuddle part.

'No!' he shouted. He then mounted a nearby hobby horse (1) and rode away.

Pwned.

(1) The hobby horse is a semi-fancy one in that it has a button on it that you can depress to elicit sound effects of a galloping noise followed by an enthusiastic whinny. Alas he didn't fire off the sound effect as he rode away. If this had been a scripted encounter then yes, that would have happened. Because as writing classes told me you tweak real life when it suits the story to do so. But this blog is an attempted honest recount of the day-to-day events twinned with what more broadly irks me so alas the truth wins out here. But I will teach him that if he ever wants to leave the room in such a fashion again that he should press the button to enhance the impact of his leaving.

Why Archie comics are unrealistic

2012-01-10T17:40:00.005+11:00

Archie's a ginge ... yet two hot girls want him.

A bag of shit tricks

2012-01-10T17:18:00.006+11:00

There's a magic item in D&D called a "Bag of Tricks". I think you pull animals out of it, pokemon style, and throw them down where they expand then fight for you.

Anyway, I wanted a clever post title for a random series of grumps so I chose that with the grumps being the tricks pulled forth.

I've spent two days looming around the house. I can't walk anywhere, leg not strong enough for walks to the shops and back, and even though my left leg was the one operated on and both our cars are automatic, thus not needing the left leg to drive with, I cannot legally drive. Which is why I am off work.

I should be spending this Summer of George more productively. Writing for example, perhaps even completing or re-tooling one of my many word projects. Except sitting at the computer is a bit of a pain (1). That and my guts have flared and I've spent several attempts at defecation in an effort to move things along. Sometimes successful but always painful, with severe abdominal spasms after every visit to the small white room.

So for the most part I've spent my time watching TV repeats. Episodes of 30 Rock for the most part though other things as well. As a member of a couple that watch a lot of TV there are some new shows I am not allowed to watch ahead of theWife. The last time I made that mistake was with Mad Men. But repeats, war stuff like Generation Kill, or shows she's deemed un-Wifeable (2) like Mr Show then I can knock myself out.

So there's that or lying on the couch or bed and using my Beloved to go on wiki-jaunts or current affairs perusing such as following the latest madness of the Republican primary process in the US. Doing that and moaning or farting lots because of my IBS afflicted state.

Speaking of the latter, the other night I gave myself a Dutch oven. I had unleashed hell deep into the bounds of the bed clothes when I was forced to re-jig the sheets' arrangement. This created a funnel between my feet and up my body and out through the top ... where my head was. The full impact of my nasty nearly choked me as it escaped the confines like a ghost out of the ark.

Today I raided the off cuts of shortcrust pasty that were in the freezer. About half of it was in a neatly rolled up half-sheet. The rest was in a sausage of squeezed together bits. The former air-defrosted within half an hour. The latter remained a frozen sausage. So I nuked it, foolishly selecting 40 seconds. It ended up a sticky horrid mess, like home-made glue of flour and water when it's too liquidy. I could have spread it out like pizza dough and sprinkled toppings of ham and cheese upon it but even I baulked at that attempted reclamation.

I'm growing as a person!

(1) Though yesterday I did spend an hour or so playing Freecell and listening to Marc Maron podcasts. However that's monging out not active creating. Big difference.
(2) It's not that they're bad shows ... it's just they don't grab her enough to want to watch them during couple tv time.

Spaced out games—Freecell

2012-01-08T17:29:00.003+11:00

Warlords 2 was my spaced-out game—a game you can play whilst listening to a podcast or even watching TV. But even though P--- has given me a DOS emulator so I can use it in Windows 7 ... I can't work out the DOS commands to run Warlords 2 and thus I've not played it since the old computer died.

Instead I am playing Freecell as my spaced-out game. I twinned the experience with listening to the first ever WTF podcast by Marc Maron, since I have premium membership to his site and can access the earlier shows. Even this first episode is awesome. He talks to comedian Jeff Ross, who is a host for Comedy Central Roasts, and the podcast inspired me to YouTube search for classic comedy roast moments; for example, Gilbert Gottfried's re-telling of the Aristocrats joke at the Hefner roast.

Since this PC is on Windows 7.Something then the auto-games that come with Windows are updated versions over what I am used to. Freecell, for example, has fancy animation, increased game play options, and sound effects.

But it's the latter that is a problem ... because when the cards are dealt ... it sounds like a speeded-up fanny fart (1).

... Windows fail ...

(1) Just how awesome is it that Wikipedia has an article on fanny farts? Suck it, Brittannica (1a).

(1a) My parents invested in a set of Britannica encyclopaedias when I was about 10. They were one of the best investments they ever made. I would lie for hours on the wood splinter covered shag rug before the fireplace just leafing through a chosen-at-random volume. No wonder I can end up in a seven-hour wiki-jaunt.

So ... I have an iPhone

2012-01-08T12:04:00.001+11:00

My friend S---, who resurrected our computer like some sort of high level cleric of computers, has lent me his old iPhone. It's a 3 series.

theWife set it up for me then handed it over. I tried to reply to a text. I could not. Then I tried to send a text. I couldn't work out what to do—theWife had to show me.

Me? The person who people (1) come to for computing advice!

Stupid iPhone.

However, thanks to the Beloved, the precious tablet that so greatly enriched my life just prior to TFCWM, I am adept at using touch keyboards; though the iPhone one definitely requires a defter touch. I've yet to suck myself into the world of applications but I am sure that will happen at some point.

Anyway ... I have a tablet—a low-end Android—and now I have a smart-phone, an already dated model on a semi-perm loan. I'm (sort of) in the 21st century—and it's only going to get much better for a girl like me.

Damn it. Now I want that man.

(1) In a 0-5 rating gaming system where 0 is no skill and 5 is complete mastery I would be a 2. But the vast bulk of public servants are a 1. Then there are the 0s. Like Buckwheat, perhaps the worst public servant I have ever had the misfortune to work with. Refresh yourself with her antics? See labels.

Hoot lauds depiction of penis in submitted artwork

2012-01-08T09:27:00.003+11:00

ABC TV Studios; received artwork segment: Hoot, the owl half of the famed children's TV duo Jimmy Giggle and Hoot, has been overly enthusiastic about the depiction of his penis according to Giggle and Hoot production sources.

'Aw look at this, Jimmy Giggle,' said Hoot in a recent segment. 'You can see my penis and it's huge!'

Jimmy Giggle, the be-wigged co-host then attempted to sight the penis but could not.

'Oh, Hoot, that's not a penis! That's just an extra line used to outline your leg in the picture!' said Giggle.

'Oh no, Jimmy Giggle, I thought I was packing a significant chunk of lady-ham,' said Hoot, crestfallen.

'Besides, Hoot, your penis remains flaccid inside your cloaca and in fact when you're aroused your penis expands from the cloaca wall and erection is provided by lymph, not blood. Also, I think you'll find that your penis is partially feathered!'

'Wow, Jimmy Giggle, you know a lot about my penis!' said Hoot.

'That's what best friends are for,' said Jimmy Giggle.

Jimmy Giggle then launched into a charming ditty about how knowing the state of your mate's penis makes you a better friend.

Doo doo doo

2012-01-07T16:08:00.005+11:00

Being massive consumers of quality comedy—Seinfeld, Simpsons, 30 Rock, In-betweeners, Blackadder, etc.—lines and scenes from those shows tend to make up a large chunk of our couplespeak; the patois you develop as part of living with another person for a long, long time.

If someone has been "wronged", or wants to register their sadness, then one way is the George Michael Sad Walk.

Arrested Development is one of the finest sitcoms of the last thirty years. It, like so many shows, was cruelly the victim of TV executives not giving it a chance. Such is the way with these things. Besides, for every TV series that makes it, dozens of pilots for potential series lie in their wake. It's a dog-eat-dog world in TV land.

But the show was awesome and thus many elements, lines, scenes or elements have entered our couplespeak. There's 'I don't understand the question and I won't respond to it' when someone says something confusing; from when Lucille was asked if she wanted a plate or platter at a down-heel eating place. Then there's 'It's so watery ... and yet there's a smack of ham to it' for moments when ham is introduced into a conversation, as said by Buster when 'sister-mother' made him some 'hot ham water'.

Then, of course, as mentioned, the George Michael Sad Walk.

George Michael is not the George Michael, the famed 80s rocker who found new fame as an out gay man with a penchant for public fornication, but rather George Michael, the teen-aged son of Michael Bluthe, the show's central protagonist. When George Michael is thwarted or rendered depressed he hangs his head like Charlie Brown and walks away in sadness, soft sad music playing in the background.

Today theBoy was making a marble tower (1). I saw on the blue table a toy-version of The Mystery Machine—the van the Mystery, Inc. gang drives around in in the show Scooby-Doo. It was a simple free-wheeling van-shaped toy, without any fancy mechanisms to store power; just straight normal push-along toy-car action. Naturally I had to roll it into the base of theBoy's marble tower.

The van collided politely with the base of the marble tower and ever so gently rocked the tower side-to-side.

'Got it!' I shouted with triumph.

theBoy resented my claim for victory.

'Ha, ha,' he chanted. 'You didn't knock it over!'

So I recovered the van then power-slammed it into the marble tower, knocking it over.

theBoy whimpered ... turned ... and eyes downcast did the George Michael Sad Walk. He was actually genuinely upset even though he'd directly invited me to have a crack at cracking his tower. I tried to explain that I took his 'ha ha' as an invitation but he wouldn't hear of it.

Daddy fail.

(1) It's not a tower made of marble. It's a bunch of tower components and slides and the like to roll marbles down. You build it then drop marbles down it and watch them roll and drop.

Damn you, Arthur

2012-01-06T20:10:00.006+11:00

For those of you without kids then you've likely not inflicted yourself with having seen the cartoon series that is Arthur. Arthur is Canadian in origin and the main character, Arthur, is an aardvark. He's humanoid, is in year three in grade school, and lives an otherwise normal kid's life. The rest of the people in the universe are also anthropomorphised animals of various kinds; dogs or cats of various breeds, moose, rabbits etc.

Leading up to New Years ABC2 religiously advertised the upcoming Arthur Rock and Roll Special, a double-length episode about some of the kids starting a rock band. Arthur, being a bit of an institution, has been blessed by numerous celebrity appearances. The Rock and Roll Special was no exception. The celebrities in this case were The Backstreet Boys.

theBoy is only subject to the ABC as far as kids' TV goes so the only ads he sees are promos. They've very effective. Because of the constant appearance of the Arthur ad this built in him a feverish excitement to see the episode. And he did see it, watching it as it played live and as we recorded it on the DVR. Since that initial viewing he's seen it another twenty times.

Today, during storyverse, Humpty and Stumpty came around to theBoy's house. The chosen activity? Watching the Arthur Rock and Roll Special.

I've blogged this before but I am sure it's a common trait of near-in-age siblings to violently bags (1) being certain characters in the show you are watching. I was always too slow off the bat which is why when Battle of the Planets was on I usually ended up choosing third and thus from a pool of Tiny, Princess, or fucking Keyop. If Monkey then usually from Pigsy or Tripitaka.

So in storyverse Humpty decided to bags being an Arthur character; 'I bags being D.W.!' he shouted. I think D.W. is either Arthur's four-year-old sister or the rich only child girl who lives next door. Anyway then it was Stumpty's turn. From memory he bagsed being Arthur himself

And theBoy? What was his choice of character from Arthur Rock and Roll Special?

'I want to be a Backstreet Boy!' he shouted.

(Mikey gasps as he takes a mortal wound...)

(1) We had some doozy fights as kids. Actual fight fights. With fists and kicks and improvised weaponry. For the latter I once threw a rope-strut pine lounge chair at my younger brother. My foster grandmother ineffectually attempted to break it up. The fight—not the lounge chair. Oh well, that's what happens with three strong personalities so close in age and with such ready access to furniture and fittings.

Being heavily medicated helps deal with nasty surprises in life

2012-01-06T11:46:00.008+11:00

Unaccustomed as I am to regular exercise (1) I find the whole process mostly unpleasant. Sometimes not unpleasant ... but for the most part ... it's not fun.

My misshapen bones and connecting muscle tend to report low-grade ouch signals fairly constantly. Twinned with dodgy guts this means Mikey is in pain most of the time. Oh the intensity varies, but generally background pain is a 1 or a 2 on the pain scale.

So forcing said bones and muscle to do things to which I as a lazy pain-afflicted man do not want to do means they tend to hurt more when I do so.

When I ride The Purgatory Cart (2) then chances are I will medicate before I do so in order I dial back the pain now to compensate for the pain climb that will occur within a couple of minutes after starting.

But that, alas, is not enough. I need to take my mind of it as well. Solution? Watching or listening to kewl stuff via the dodgy old laptop that is on permanent station atop a box atop a massive retired CRT TV within our unapproved shed.

My choice of audio-visual stimulant varies. Not having had to drive to work, and thus missing hearing his dulcet tones, then lately it's been Marc Maron podcasts. Today, with The Daily Show lads back on air, it was The Daily Show.

So this, combined with the meds, means I can by and large ignore the discomfort of exercise with the panting and the sweating and the aching; glavin (3). I tend to also enter a zone out-head space as I concentrate on what I am watching or listening to.

Today it must have been a while before I noticed the spider gently rocking up and down on my pumping pyjama-clad thigh. Being zoned out from a combo of super meds and perhaps my greatest hero in the world (4), Jon Stewart, I didn't panic or freak out. I assessed the situation and mind-mapped possible responses, Sherlock-Holmes-style (Arachnid. Eight legs. Pull one leg off, use it to repel mandibles. Kick once in the thorax then, when stunned, épée-thrust the leg deep into brain-case through roof of mouth).

But simplicity is best. I swatted it, a palm death drop from above, and, as its legs curled I brushed it off, the spider dropping to the shed floor only to somewhat bizarrely land upright. It looked like it was simply sitting on its legs instead of being D-I-V-O-R-C-E-D ... from life.

It was only then I took in the fact its body markings probably meant it was a fucking redback.

I shudder to think what theWife would have done. Once when a spider appeared she abandoned a car in traffic...

As I left the shed I was wearing just my pyjama pants, my favourite ones in fact, and the headband theWife bought me the other day. I felt like one of the lads from 40-year-old virgin...

UPDATE: A taste discovery—brie wrapped in raw pastry. Good lord.

(1) Actually, that's a lie. Baring two weeks off for a hip operation I have performed some form of dedicated exercise each day since around mid-June 2008.Almost all of it through the power of walking ... only to successfully walk my way to having a hip operation. Sic vita est.

(2) The Purgatory Cart! The Purgatory Cart! Owned by Casso, it makes you fart!

(3) Freaky coincidence time. Footnote 2 is sung to the tune of Professor Frink, Professor Frink, makes you laugh, makes you think...
(4) Cass pointed out in comments there was no footnote 4. I don't in truth know what footnote 4 was intended for. Maybe a panegyric about Jon Stewart? Perhaps. He does deserve one.

(Sighs heavily)

2012-01-06T10:44:00.005+11:00

Work intrudes upon my sick leave. Well, not work. My personal administration of my sick leave. I had to apply for extra leave because of my unforeseen need of a hip replacement. I got approved to have it and in theory that should have sorted itself out. But it hasn't. Instead the pay section cancelled all my remaining leave then docked my pay to cover the rest. Now they want me to burn Long Service Leave.

So now I am having to sort all this shit out by email and it's incredibly annoying.

I could sort it out by phone I suppose. But I don't want to talk to anyone. Once the family leaves for the day I go into monk mode where I don't talk to anyone and simply exercise (1) and read Wikipedia. That's what Mikey needs to do to recover! Besides if I do talk on the phone I may trigger the infamous temper us boys have, courtesy of the paternal line, and I am worried I will lose my shit at someone.

Argh, so frustrating.

Plus I had lots of ice-cream yesterday (2) and I am paying for it now. I know in the moment when Present Mikey thinks about having naughty food he tends to shrug and say 'Future Mikey can worry about that'. Except Present Mikey becomes Future Mikey or rather the future becomes the present and then Present Mikey has to worry about it (slash) endure it.

Damn you then-Present Mikey for your decision to inflict Future-is-now Mikey with your poor food consumption decisions!

UPDATE: My case manager apparently has sorted this issue out. Yay for having a case manager! I wonder how I am going to get my pay rectified? UPDATE2: It will be rectified next pay. I also got an apology from the pay officer who had started raiding my leave stores like she was an ancestor of Brandon Harris.

(1) This implies I am engaged in daily Madonna (slash) zen monk levels of vigorous athletica or pumping iron in the prison yard while I frantically work out to boost my musculature so at least the little-sized fellow inmates will leave me alone. This is not the case. I ride an exercise bike for around 20 minutes a day. That's currently it.
(2) Bowl of low-fat artificially sweetened ice-cream with banana about 2 pm. Choc top at the movies at about 9 pm. Then ice-cream low-fat, full sugar, with banana about 12 pm ... then another scoop with raw sugar on it about 1 pm. It's obvious then what I have to do. Ditch the banana...

Kooky raven-haired beauties need to lock lips, stat!

2012-01-06T09:19:00.003+11:00

Clinton Funt, spokesman for the Australian Organisation for the Prevention of Groinal Cruelty, or AOPGC, has issued a demand that sexy sirens Katy Perry and Zooey Deschanel, both newly-separated from their former partners, get it on and get it on now.

'Kisses, tender exploration through to "strap it on, I'm going in"; we don't care what it is as long as something of a sexual nature happens between these two and happens immediately.'

Clinton Funt said that not only can Perry can finally live out her dream of 'kissing a girl' but that it's Perry and Deschanel's chance to 'give something back' to their fans and to help others fiscally in addition to the obvious groinal assistance.

'Look, Bangelina, when they popped out natural number four out of their blended legs-eleven of children birthed and acquired sold the rights of their birthing for millions and gave it all to the children. Other children, you know, orphans and shit. So this is their chance to not only prevent groinal cruelty but make money for the children. Won't someone think of the children? I confess I am not. I am actually thinking of Katy licking the hollow of Zoey's neck then her bright eyes appearing to gaze deeply into Zoey's eyes as then, by some unspoken shared thought, they kiss tenderly and deeply as Katy's slim hand comes up to mould Zooey's breast. And I bet I'm not the only one!'

'These ladies have a duty and expectation that they will have at least one sexy encounter and that it will be recorded in film, preferably 3D,' said Mr Funt.

An apology was then given out to all the overly hopeful people who had the same idea and did a Google search for Katie Perry and Zoey Deschanel and strap on.

Previous AOPGC Announcements

Call for Alien V Predator match up for country themed phone sex girls

Australians demand a rice dish

And as Christmas elves

Australians demand the Veronicas just do it already

I feel like barely-warmed poo but I am going to the movies!

2012-01-05T19:21:00.001+11:00

My big brother is in town. He graciously indicated he'd stay in and oversight the Noodles as the Noodles goes to sleep. And we're going to slip out and see the new Sherlock Holmes movie! Hooray! And I am going to get a choc top, maybe popcorn (I didn't eat the last lot) and of course a big fuck-off syrup slushie thing.

Thank the genetics (1) I am not diabetic.

I also found out the pay people fucked my pay up. So I get the giddy delight of sorting that crap out on the morrow. Grr.

And a shout-out to Casso who has suffered her own bureaucracy SNAFU and makes mine look like an incidental toe stubbing by way of comparative hassle.

(1) But is un-thanked for poor skeleton; obesity; IBS; depression; looking like a potato; hairy back; and a whole host of shiver-me-timbers that you'd not want inflicted.

As told to my big brother when I got some clothes from the end room

2012-01-04T12:43:00.002+11:00

My brother is bedding down in the end room. The end room is technically the master bedroom but we kitted it out with the desk top computer, a fold-out (actually comfortable) couch bed, and our library of four large Ikea bookshelves. The room is the shizzle. It's also where we get dressed as the walk-thru wardrobes that service our wearing-of-clothes needs is also located there, connecting the bathroom with the master bedroom.

As I passed Bod (1) I had in hand my black tracksuit pants and collared sports-esq black T-shirt.

'It's my Balkans' war criminal outfit,' I burled happily. 'I mean if you can't ethnic cleanse in comfort, why ethnic cleanse?' (2)

My problem of over-stepping-the-line is clearly a deeply ingrained one. Though in truth, wrongness aside, it was gold.

(1) I glommed onto my big brother's far more exciting life of undergrad uni attending by hanging around his group-house whenever possible. They lived in a somewhat hedonistic manner of drinking lots, partying, and testing the moral fibre of their fellow female students. His flatmate, E, called my brother 'The Body' one Summer when my brother got all fit-serious. He was looking fine. Eventually it was shortened to 'Bod'. I started calling him that because my love of his life was so great. It is awesome having a cool brother, there's no doubt. Which is why I sat at the band chicks' table whenever his group was playing. Me and a bevy of assorted 'bitches'. Nice. (1a)

(1a) They were not 'bitches'. Most were long-term or live-in girlfriends and were music students or performers themselves. I should point out that as far as preening for girls went my status as the brother of the bass-player in no way improved any access to lady-tasty at all. I was and remain a sad, laughable figure.

(2) And also in truth I said one of the former members of Yugoslavia by name but I won't say which one. After-all when the Balkans conflict kicked off there was mutual slaughter against and by all sides. Though some, of course, were worse than others. Chris Hedges' book War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2a) was a real eye-opener about what it was like to experience that conflict, and how as a westerner the experience was a toxic combination of adrenaline, danger -seeking, and lust. And how easily people slipped into total barbarity; sometimes against neighbours of 30 or more years. It also savages the then ruling party in Serbia who used nationalistic fervour to entrench political control and this, combined with the economy's collapse, utterly rent the fabric of society and made that barbarity more likely.

(2a) I confess I love first-person accounts by war correspondents. The psychotic experiences they enjoy and endure are like an LSD trip meets guns. What's not to like? Michael Herr's Dispatches and Orwell's Homage to Catalonia are two of my favourites.

Too much naughty rich business

2012-01-04T12:12:00.002+11:00

No ... I'm not talking about the US where CEOs earn 185 times the average wage or where one per cent of the population owns 40 per cent of the wealth—a disparity greater than what happened circa 1929. I am talking rich food business.

With my big bro in town—rarely seen as he works overseas—we headed out to the Erindale food strip—a street of 20 or so shops of which most sell food or drink—to see what was open. Both Thai places, which are both awesome Thai places but alas only Basil does home delivery, were closed so we ordered Crust instead (1).

And don't get me wrong. It was good. Very good.

Only ... we also had to get a dessert too. And we were in Erindale...

Yes, we got Goodberries.

For those not in the know Goodberries is frozen custard that is the same consistency as thick soft-serve. It is delicious. Frighteningly so.

So in addition to luxury pizza ... I ate half a large concrete—the name they give their frozen custard concoctions—riven with shards of dime bar and flake.

Also I added full-fat cream.

The IBS flared like an oil well burning off gas about 11 pm and presented itself as a fist-sized lump of pain deep within my abdomen. There was no real chance in sleeping it off, even with all manner of super meds and pills gobbled. I think it was perhaps 4 am when the pain abated enough for me to sleep. I spent my time in sleeping purgatory idly flitting between my Kindle-ap-served-up book about mass-gullibility and wiki entries about the Dirty War in Argentina.

So ... note for the future about the likelihood of an IBS flare. Luxury pizza ... perhaps. Goodberries ... probably. By their powers combined; oh most definitely.

I will save Cass the trouble; slaps forehead.

(1) This blog is un-monetised so it is of no advantage to me to spruik a product or company. (adopts narrator voice from the execrable Alan Smithee version of Dune) Know this. In the year 2011 Mikey discovered Crust pizza. He knew then that he cold never sup pizza from inferior chains.

Big walk

2012-01-03T18:25:00.002+11:00

Went into Civic with my brother to peruse the shops. Went sans crutches. I walked from the underground car park, through the Canberra Centre and out onto London Circuit. Was on my feet, resting against walls and so forth, for a good hour. Then back to the car. Legs ached as afterwards but it still felt good to walk.

Though I was bitterly reminded of all those days of walking without fail where, if I had to be in Civic for an appointment, I'd go for a walk first. If it was raining then circuits of the underground car park, listening to Tripod on my Mp3. Or when weather was good red-faced buffing billy style marching around the outer streets of Civic before ending the walk, heart pounding, just before where I needed to go. If it was an acupuncture session I'd be lying there, heart still a-thudding from the walk, minutes later hating having had to do that walk and resenting the fact I had to do it. Every day without fail.

And all that time all I was doing was was grinding away the last shreds of cartilage until the point I needed a fucking hip operation.

I think the next time someone abuses me for my weight I will tell them that I literally walked myself to the bone in an effort to be more as people said I should be. Can they match that? I think the fuck not.

Anyway I probably exacerbated the effort all by wearing a thick cotton jumper skivvy thing and thick track suit pants, the crotch of which on my short stout frame was very MC Hammer down low, on a day in the mid-thirties.

When we got back I sacked out on the bed, curled around a pillow, and drifted in and out of that sleep where you can almost control your dreams. Only to be woken when theBoy came home and had a terrific tantrum of having been denied what he wanted, only as he screamed and wailed, he was bouncing naked in the middle of the trampoline. I think if you've been genuinely wronged and your wails are acceptable ... you'd not be power bouncing sans clothing in the middle of a trampoline.

Despite the uber walk though ... my leg is feeling better than yesterday and, indeed, each new day. I am just almost at pre-op level in capability now.

Summer of George! (1)

(1) I need a punctuation mid-point symbol for the Summers for when it's neither bad (ellipses either side) or nor good (the un-spaced exclamation mark). Any ideas?

Same page fail from the SMH

2012-01-02T20:38:00.000+11:00

Don't get me wrong. Love the SMH. Love Fairfax. Unlike News Limited its news isn't limited.

But this a bit of a fail.

One shouldn't throw a stone when one is in one's own glasshouse. Especially when both stories are within the the same page.

Books I finished reading in 2011 (inc. audio)

2012-01-02T14:00:00.001+11:00

You must have self-esteem to have self-esteem issues. One of my self-esteem things has been to, for a couple of years now, record for posterity what books I done gone and reads me up a storm with each calendar year. Being a fan of podcasts I have now added to "books read" to include audio books listened to.

So here's the list for 2011. Mainly fantasy on the fiction front and histories for the non-fiction section. And even some schlocky stuff like a book about Great Mysteries!; Bermuda Triangle! Greys! Gray Greys! etc. Lots of fun.

Adios 2011 list. And welcome to the 2012 list. Which remains as yet blank. Hey ... it's only day two!

Notes on the 2011 list

The order is last read downwards

The non-fiction book I got the most from was A First-Rate Madness. If you "suffer" from any form of mental difference to the norm, such as depression, bipolar, or hypomania, this book will make you feel better. In that the author shows how people who suffer mental health difference to the norm, if properly supported (either medically or through psychological assistance, or both) actually have an advantage over normals, and in political leaders, it can even be a distinct benefit. It also handsomely destroys that mentally-deficient chain email of 'which military leader would you want?; HA—you chose Hitler! (1)

The fiction book I enjoyed the most would probably have to be The Left-Hand of God. It grabbed me from the first page and didn't let me go. The concepts explored, the archetypes used, the writing ... sheer bliss. Totally worth cracking the spine (or dialling up on the e-book reader unit of your choice).

The autobiography of Benjamin Franklin ... by Benjamin Franklin
Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain
Blood and rage: a Cultural History of Terrorism by Michael Burleigh
My Booky Wook by Russell Brand
Too fat to fish by Artie Lange
The Rough Riders by Theodore Roosevelt
White Wolf by David Gemmell
The 100 Most Influential Military Leaders by LTCOL Michael Lee Lanning
Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein
Great Mysteries of the Modern World by John Pinkney
The Last Four Things By Paul Hoffman
The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Last Guardian by David Gemmell
The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession by David Grann
The Most Dangerous Man in the World by Andrew Fowler
A First-Rate Madness by Nassir Ghaem
Quarterly Essay 43: Bad News by Robert Manne
In the Sanctuary of Outcasts: A Memoir, by Neil White
The Jerusalem Man by David Gemmell
Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks by Ethan Gilsdorf
Hunter's Moon by David Devereux
Days That Changed the World: The 50 Defining Events of World History by Hywel Williams
Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War by Bob Drogin
The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson
The Protector's War by S.M. Stirling
Jarhead by Anthony Swofford
Secrets and lies - a History of CIA Mind Control & Germ Warfare by Gordon Thomas
The Victors: The men of World War Two by Stephen E Ambrose
The Good Soldiers by David Finkel
The Shellacking: Obama Presidency, The Tea Party, and The 2010 Midterm Elections by Guy Rundle
Master of the Grove by Victor Kelleher
Enigma by Robert Harris
Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling
The National Lampoon's Animal House Book by Chris Miller
Debunking History: 152 Popular Myths Exploded by Ed Rayner and Ron Stapley
Trouble on Titan by Alan E Nourse
Coal: A human history by Barbara Freese
What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception by Scott McClellan
Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race by the writers of The Daily Show
Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America by Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose
Lifeboat by Harry Harrison and Gordon R Dickson
The Technicolour Time Machine by Harry Harrison
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
The Best of Harry Harrison by Harry Harrison
Marching Powder by Rusty Young
The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett
Swords against Ice Magic by Fritz Leiber

(1) Meme can be found on this website; but here it is replicated for ease of knowing what the fuck I am talking about.

It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three leading candidates.

Candidate A: Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He's had two Mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 Martinis a day.

Candidate B He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.

Candidate C He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife.

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Candidate B is Winston Churchill.
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.

The author of a First-Rate Madness explores Hitler's case history and notes that Hitler was almost certainly bipolar and that his condition was disastrously exacerbated, for both the patient and greater humanity, by the daily injection of amphetamines and testosterone ... the latter made from ground-up bull testes. Chain email, you have been served.

Oh hello, grey light of dawn

2012-01-02T11:33:00.007+11:00

On day two of the New Year I got to enjoy the heady delight of seeing the grey light of dawn.

Why? My IBS.

Yes, with the TFCWM aka Steven Bradbury now waning as the major health-foci for me to worry about my much-missed standard Mikey health affliction of IBS reared itself. Perhaps it was because I had a Gaytime for breakfast? (1) Whatever the cause about 12 am mega-pain landed. Eye-watering foul farts combined with acute abdominal pain. Thanks to this visit of the Pain-Nazi it was very much a case of 'NO SLEEP FOR YOU!'

In between futile attempts at sleep I grazed on assorted Wiki entries across an array of subjects, occultists from history (due to a current book I am reading about mass-gullibility), Stephen Fry's entry (the man is a God amongst men ... the irony being he's an atheist humanist) and assorted other entries such as the one for Son of Sam, the serial killer that terrorised New York in the late 70s.

As an extended side note I loved how the killer, David Berkowitz, in a ploy to make himself sound insane as opposed to psychotic but sane, claimed he took orders from an elder demon trapped in the body of his neighbour's dog. Interestingly he's become a born again Christian whilst in the pokey, has self-denied attempts at seeking parole (though getting it would be unlikely; he killed six people and maimed six others), and is on record at campaigning against the production and or sale of serial killer memorabilia.

The latter is somewhat ironic as this issue of serial killer memorabilia—belonging to Berkowitz himself—becomes a plot device in an episode of Seinfeld. In the episode Kramer has lapsed into gambling again and is in debt to a Texan businessman at the airport over coming second best in a contest to correctly predict whether a flight will be delayed or not. In the hole for a fair amount of cash he calls Newman, Seinfeld's Baby Gerald, who is a postman ... just like Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, was. Newman holds Berkowitz's mail bag and it is this that Kramer begs Newman to bring down to the airport so he can use it as a bet stake. When Newman shows the Texan the bag he adds '... and there were a lot of dogs on his route.' I had no idea about the dog reference for the first several times I saw it. The two-parter episode the sequence is from—'the pilot'—is a classic. The double-episode ends with an airline pilot who kicked Seinfeld off a plane staring from the cockpit into the airport motel room where Seinfeld is attempting to insert himself into his girlfriend. It is a remarkable piece of sitcom goodness and another example of how well-written and how carefully steered the show was. I am in awe of all who worked on the series.

By the way the pilot was in fact a real-life pilot.

theBoy came in around 7 am, my having fallen asleep for about half an hour, to hang with me but in a whisper I told him to go to mummy instead. I then struggled to get some sleep, after that is another semi-failed attempt to make doody in the toilet and unleash some more of the foul wind brewed within.

Finally I gave up, rose from the near-dead, and after some light procrastination made The Purgatory Cart (2) my temporary female dog.

... Summer of George...

(1) No, I didn't chug several quarts of man fluid, I mean the delightfully tasty ice-cream of that name.

(2) (Cue Wheel of Fortune Prize Gallery Music [2a]) Hand-crafted from the hide of a rhinoceros by Cassandra (2b), an elderly tattooed artisan famed for her ability to work with the remains of any animal, even cryptozoological kinds, and who dwells in the high cloud-wreathed hills of our mutually-dwelled-within suburb, this charming item will liven even the dullest home.

(2a) See from 12:30.
(2b) We don't actually see eye-to-eye on everything. I, for example, believe Seinfeld to be the epitome of well-crafted situation comedy. Cass thinks it is "pond scum".

Nice things happen too

2012-01-02T00:37:00.003+11:00

I tend to piss and moan about crap on this them thar blog. In that I expect that when it comes to posts that are not about members of the indomitable trio who are not me, the subject matter tends to be negative in tone. As in this shitty thing happened to me or insert-subject-here gives me the shits. Or how much I hate Tony Abbott or one of his linked-to righty chums (George Pell, Joe Hockey, Andrew Robb, both Bishops etc.).

But outside of ranting about things that give me the shits, nice stuff does happen. As I lay here, passing stinky wind like a mother fucker (though exactly why a pattern of disturbing incestuous behaviour would characterise your anal gaseous emissions I know not), I was reminded of something nice that happened just before I finished up work for the year.

A contractor we worked with dropped past our building to say Merry Christmas. She very naughtily brought a gift with her - any gift of $20 or more needs high-level approval to accept and any gift below that amount needs your boss to say it's okay. In this case it was a box of Cadbury's favourites. After she left I went around the work station pods and gave them away like a sort of Jesus and the feeding of the five thousand crossed with Gilliam's Brazil.

But that wasn't the nice thing that happened. It's what she said about working with me; 'We love working with you and we love all your emails. I read them out to the rest of the office.'

I have a conceit that I can write. So when I write I try and write in an entertaining, and mostly lucid, manner, and do so in my own odd little idiosyncratic style. Even if it's something as simple as interacting with a contractor via email. Such as footnoting a simple follow-up piece of corro with a stream-of-consciousness description of my just-had lunch, the stream studded with links to Wikipedia entries or blessed with additional sub-footnoting.

After-all we spend so much of our time working to live ... it helps to inject a little fun for all concerned along the way.

And how lucky was I to find people that actually took enjoyment from it?

Anyway, I resolve to try and remember that nice things happen too and it's not always just raining shit.

~FIN~

Another dash glow point

2012-01-01T23:05:00.007+11:00

I have this theory that life is filled with a bunch of dash glow points. Special moments that burn into your brain that you will never forget; a first kiss; a magic sunset of colours so vivid it's like God (him/her/it)self spat into the sky; the first time you know ... with a lady. Then there are those others. Seeing your child on a chair, nude, grazing on cut veggies for a stir fry while his mum chats away about the dinner they are making "together". Or a peal of hearty laughter from the cycling theWife as she grapples with The Purgatory Cart (1) in yonder shed.

Another one just happened. I like to assault my cat O--- . Now I know that sounds wrong - like I watch and or produce crush videos - which conservative justices on the US supreme court say is a proud banner advertising the power of the first amendment. But it's not a really super wrong assault - just a mildly annoying intrusion on his catson. When he yawns his mouth stays open for a couple of seconds ... which is just long enough for a snake-fast insertion of my index finger to swipe on his tongue. His reaction when it happens is priceless; a kind of shocked disbelief combined with a rapid head reverse. I've only ever been successful at this a few times in our shared life together. When he dies - presuming he predeceases me - I will have crafted by Jim's Statuary a Stele (2) of just such a moment, forever immortalised in whatever space-age material Jim's Statuary uses to make just such Steles, as a symbol of the beauty that was that shared life. Alas I must go on with life without him. Such is the way of things.

Anyway, another opportunity to snake-strike presented itself. O--- was resting on the arm of theWife' chair. I was sitting in the chair's twin just two feet away. O--- turned his head towards me and yawned. It was a real mouth stretcher, his eyes vanishing from view. Perfect, for he would not see me strike. It was too late when I realised that the remote control was in my hand and instead of throwing it away empty gun style to let my finger do the swiping I had impressed it into service as the mouth intruder.

I thrust it across the gap between us and the remote did in fact make it into his mouth for a second. Alas the majesty of the moment was somewhat undercut by the massively loud fart that ripped free from my gas-filled intestinal tract, the pungent noisome cloud momentarily stunning even myself. Still the combined surprise of mouth intrusion, the use of a remote instead of my finger, and my scary thunderous fart shocked all occupants of the chair, theWife included, and there were satisfying expressions on the faces of both victims of my Ninja-like ability to intrude on my cat's orifice.

On the minus side I then had to explain to theWife what had just happened, she unaware of my fencing-like thrust of electronica towards and into O---'s mouth. But on the plus side I felt better for having passed some of my much-trapped-gas.

How's that for luck? A dash glow point on the first day of the year!

Just earlier I talked to my dad. He rang to wish me Happy New Year and to catch up. There was a thunderstorm on so we couldn't talk for too long. It's just him at home now, with mum in permanent care. I do miss talking to her, even if she wouldn't remember that we had in within just a few minutes. And had she been on the phone, and the magic moment of jamming my remote in my cat's mouth as I let a ragged riper go had happened before we talked, I just know that I would have told my mum that story. And I also just know that if I had told my mum that story she would have sighed and simply said 'small things amuse small minds.'

And she'd have been right to do it!

UPDATE: I managed to call theWife the C word on day one of the New Year - in response to her derisive mockery of my ability to record The Birds playing on ABC2. Now that's a marriage!

(1) An exercise bike loaned to me by Casso, my writing bud, and outside theWife probably my next female bestie. She is defiantly awesome.

(2) I discovered Steles as a result of a near-seven-hour wiki session thanks to my beloved, the Toshiba Tablet we purchased as my reward for having my flesh sliced open and a piece of ground-off-bone replaced with sparkling ceramic coated titanium. Hooray for wiki! Hats in the air!

Well hello, 2012

2012-01-01T10:25:00.004+11:00

We saw the New Year in playing Munchkin Cthulhu at Casso's. Alas we were child(ren)-afflicted and thus tired as. The moment the new year ticked over we folded up the game in progress, though Craggles was the only one on level nine and could be argued the winner, and by 12.07 am we were on the road and headed for home.

We crawled into our respective beds and within short order slept the rest of the first morning away. As an added bonus theBoy didn't wake and rise until after eight and as a double bonus I got to sleep in. Hooray!

Now I no longer believe in arbitrary resolutions that have to kick off just because it's the first day of the year; eat better, exercise, be more productive, learn a language, try to swear less etc. It's too much pressure. If you're going to do self improvement then start when you're read to start; don't let social convention dictate kick off and if you are electing to put more resources to being a better you start off small and do so sustainably so you don't flame out.

So in the spirit of ignoring New Year resolutions, this morning my breakfast was a Streets' Golden Gaytime.

Fuck you, 2012.

Today I danced

2011-12-31T16:37:00.001+11:00

I am not much of a dancer. As a child then as a teen I was ever conscious of my utterly absurd body shape, which unfortunately was then compounded by poor choices in clothing (1). The last time I can remember actually dancing all the way through one song was Billy Joel's 'We didn't start the fire' at a high school social (2) in the late '80s. I remember aching towards the end and just wishing someone would put out the flames already.

In uni days I detested going out dancing ... but went anyway because that's what you did. However inevitably I'd end up on the balcony, usually during the colder months since that's when classes were on, half-cut and having a shouty conversation with someone I'd bailed up in order to pester them about my own world and cultural views. Kind of like blogging live to an audience who couldn't get away. Being a regional country town with a university it meant a fair amount of fuckwits were compressed into 2-3 drinking localities down town, and I'd have to endure their menacing of my short and stout person—a classic jape being the yanking of my then ponytail.

So no ... I don't dance. Well ... not in public. At home, with the music pumping, I will dance on occasion. Though being bio-mechanically restricted my dancing basically looks like one of those inflatable blower men that advertise the giant p0rn clearance sales along Gladstone Street in Fyshwick.

I had a hip replacement in early December. In the past few days I have managed to get around without crutches. I even went down town—well, Woden—without them the other day. As long as I moved slowly I was okay.

Today ... today it feels almost as bad as it was before the operation. Which is to say a lot better since the operation. My hip was well-fucked before it was replaced, don't get me wrong, but I could still walk normally—just in a fair amount of pain and occasionally having to press the flat of my hand against my thigh as I walked to relieve the pain.

So I can walk around, relatively normally, but with some pain and discomfort. That will eventually pass and I will be better than I was. Fortunately we have The Purgatory Cart (3), with the standard now five kays to aim for (and achieved in 17 minutes), helping the recovery speed faster along (4).

I was singing 'Wonder Boy' to theBoy and on a whim summoned him to the end room where the new and improved desk top machine lay in order to take in its goodness on YouTube. He didn't like it—mainly because his eyes was attracted to 'the fire one!' (5), which was in the row of 'you may also like' suggestions of other Tenacious D clips; in this case the one for 'Tribute' which showed a fire-limed Dave Grohl as the Devil.

Eventually, though, we started clicking on to non-Tenacious D stuff.

It was then my body demanded it dance. So I did, doing the inflatable blower man, however still being careful not to put too much weight on "the bad leg".

And the choice of song?

The Bloodhound Gang's 'The Bad Touch'

Enjoy!

PS We're off to Casso's for New Years. Oh and fuck you, 2011.

(1) Such as my infamous "all brown" outfit of years 8 to 9.

(2) In Oz, for the benefit of no one else, we call school dances 'socials'. A British hang-over? Perhaps.

(3) Pried from the clutches of the swamp-hag Casso whose green-streaked hair, long nails, and snaggled teeth has excited would-be seekers of extreme sexual congress for centuries. Only I think she bites their heads off afterwards.

(4) theWife goes after me and matches time served ... plus a few seconds or a couple of minutes more than me. She's so competitive!

(5) I have dangerously instilled a love of fire in theBoy. Yesterday I showed him this. Previously I have also demonstrated butane-fuelled kitchen scorchers during a storyverse session much to his wide-eyed enjoyment.

Channeling his inner grump

2011-12-31T15:52:00.003+11:00

theBoy was attempting to assemble a toy using a toy drill and parts. It wasn't working. Normally he goes Mad Goat and starts yelling and throwing stuff but lately he's been trying not to get mad at stuff—count to ten, that sort of thing.

Just then he was annoyed. But he held it largely together and instead of yelling (slash) throwing of the offending item he simply snarled at it; 'I don't believe it !'

Yes, he did a Victor Meldrew.

Gold.

UPDATE: Eric Idle guest stars his voice on One Foot in the Grave.

Things you probably shouldn't say to your four-year-old

2011-12-31T11:33:00.000+11:00

(In response to an annoyed theBoy who was trying to pummel me)

'My spoof made you. Think about that!'

Left power fist shout out to our Syrian brothers and sisters

2011-12-31T11:04:00.000+11:00

Here in Oz most of us are looking forward to the New Year celebrations. theWife for example is at the shops getting some tasty treats. She didn't have to risk her life to do it.

In Syria half a million people (1) have taken to the streets seeking freedom. They brave guns. They brave tanks. They brave arbitrary detention where they can be tortured and killed. Their bravery and their courage to risk their lives to stand up against a government that has never been of the people and by the people is astonishing. I cannot express enough my admiration for those people who see something that is clearly shit standing up and pointing at the shit and declaring the shit is shit when friends and protectors of the shit have guns and mother fucking tanks. I mean holy crap, that's just fucking incredible.

So on this New Years, where our government is there to protect and serve with cops there to weed out fuckwits from ruining a good time for everyone else or ambos ready to help people who partied a little too hearty, spare a thought for those people whose government has a foot on their neck solely to preserve the power of an unelected elite who rob their people blind.

Rock on our Syrian brothers and sisters. May 2012 be your year of freedom.

(raises fist)

(1) Syria has about the same population as Australia. The most we ever had people on the streets for was 300 000 gathering in Adelaide ... to catch a glimpse of the Beatle s. Puts things in perspective.

I wonder...

2011-12-30T22:04:00.001+11:00

... if Lord Haw Haw ever fell in a Ha-ha?

Carrot and Stick

2011-12-30T16:23:00.005+11:00

theBoy's level of power within the indomitable trio, him plus we, is not great. We're bigger than him and control all the resources. So when it comes to threats then really he doesn't have much to threaten us with.

Except that is party access. On several occasions we've now been dis-invited to his "party". Not just any party, either but a Transformers party. Usually we pout as a reaction and eventually he relents and re-invites us. Though of course who sets up and runs the party to which he is referring to has not been made clear—and thus I presume it's us—so in truth I'm not sure his threat has any weight behind it.

Once theWife went to pick him up at day care. You can hear the action in the day care main gathering room well up the corridor as you approach. She was walking along and as she got closer she heard a bunch of kids dis-inviting each other to parties. 'Yeah, well you can't come to my party; it's a Transformer party!' 'Oh yeah, well I am having a party also, and it's also a Transformer party, and you can't come!' Several separate bunches of kids interacting with multiple separate instances of dis-invitations to Transformer parties.

I hope theBoy wasn't responsible for it ... though I am hoping against reason here. He's like the shit stirrer from Asterix and the Roman Agent.

Today theBoy added a new Carrot and Stick to his armoury—badges.

I did something wrong, not listening to him I suppose, and he launched into the revelation about the hitherto unknown existence of badges and the fact I was not going to get one.

'Well you're not getting a badge. You only get a badge if you listen to me and do what I say!' he yelled.

Fortunately for me, on the ex-govie furniture (1) grey computer desk, was a pack of First Dog on the Moon post-it notes (2). I pulled a post-it note off and stuck it to my chest.

'Oh yeah—check it out. A badge!'

theBoy leaped for me, scrambled across the bed, and grasped for the badge. A delightful rumble ensued. Then, victorious, with the "badge" in hand he scrunched it up and tossed it away.

So I got another post-it note...

This went on for some time. At one point I doubled up like had on papery stripper tassels. There's now a dozen scrunched up self-awarded badges of awesomeness that were retrieved by a giggling theBoy lying scattered by the side of the end room bed.

Which of course theWife will have to pick up given my infirmities.

She was cool with it. Fuck I love rumbling with my son. It's like the most enjoyable thing ever. It's going to cut deep when he decides I am lame.

Then, later, during a storyverse session, I got him to say "Rhinoceros' Arse-hole". theWife and I were on the end room bed when it happened. We had to press our faces against bed clothes to stiffle the giggles while theBoy kept shrieking at us to 'stop laughing!'

A golden indomitable trio moment for sure.

UPDATE: I am of course saving for the next time he threatens to not badge me a delicious rejoinder of 'Badges? BADGES? I don't need your stinkin' badges!' In your face four-year-old that has no frame of reference in regards to that line (3).

(1) I'm from Canberra. Ninety per cent of our furniture as purchased in our early years was ex-govie furniture. My old work knocked down some buildings and sold all the fittings just prior to demolitions. So we went along and spent $100 on several veneer bookshelves and old office chairs and desks so as to outfit our house. Alas the only thing left on active service is the grey computer desk. The shelves have been banished to the shed.

(2) First dog is the in-house cartoonist for Crikey. Awesome stuff.
(3) How awesome is it that Wiki has a wiki on that line? If you use Wiki then donate today!

Largely mobile

2011-12-29T23:42:00.007+11:00

Today we went to the movies to see Happy Feet Two. Feeling adventurous, even downright saucy, I elected to do a tent preacher move and cast away my crutches. theWife dropped me off closer to the door and I lurched across the road like Krammer in his too tight jeans, and awaited theBoy and theWife. Armed with popcorn (of which I ate but a fraction) and a choc top (1) we went in. Naturally the screen was the one at the far end of the cardboard movie stand lined passage-way, which was a bit tiring to traverse, but I made it up there and back with only mild discomfort.

Happy Feet Two was a decent sequel, though the nature of the plot constrained the localities used in the movie. The end sequence, which I watched from the entrance, having done a typical Mikey and gone to the toilet at a crucial moment of the movie (2), was easily the best bit. I even found myself crooning along to the chosen Queen number (3), though my lyric recall is limited, unlike theRainman that is theWife when it comes to lyrics, and for once I didn't care when I fucked them up.

We headed out to the food court afterwards. I saw my old, old, old boss++, from like over ten years ago, walking along with his doll-sized wife. They were hand in hand. However I held back so as not to draw attention because if I talked to him then I would have ended up talking about my boring health crap. The other thing was that when he worked for my org he was regarded as a debonair sophisticated gent, that set the girls' hearts a fluttering, only today he was wearing long pink board shorts that were in a"Harry High" position. It just didn't seem like him.

My chosen lunch of four mini spring rolls proved a fail when they were discovered to be cold and chewy. But in truth I was still feeling like partially gelatinous cat crap so I didn't need a replacement. I just sat there with my Costco mini Diet Coke can instead. theBoy decided he wanted some Humpty and Stumpy action, and who am I to disagree? (4) So we started, the boys on a magic paddle boat and getting up to mischief. As the story progressed I noticed a girl on the table next to us—a higher table with stools instead of chairs—was listening in. She was about five or six.

She started to join in.

It wasn't like she pulled her stool up and introduced herself. She just sat and interjected with comments like 'paddle boats are the boat that never ends!' Her dad didn't seem to notice, he didn't turn away from his spaced out steady cud-chewing of his salad sandy, nor did the girl's sisters seem to notice. I semi acknowledged her contribution with non committed responses like 'yes' and 'indeed' but it was all too weird and I wasn't sure what the protocol was on food court improv and whether outsiders should join in. Not that theBoy cared. He didn't seem to notice she was trying to be part of it either.

Finally it was back to the car and home. I walked around sans crutches some more and did my cycle—now up to 16 minutes (slash) 4.4 kays. Incredibly, even though she mowed the lawn and did a bunch of chores stuff, theWife still matched me minute-for-minute on The Purgatory Cart. She's a machine!

It's now the dying embers of December 29. I just went and got some raisin toast and spread out a grub mat - okay, it's a bath mat - on the bed so as to catch crumbs. As I walked to and fro during the toasts' preparation I noticed that I was actually walking near normally. As in not lurching too badly and with a near normal gait.

So despite all the lingering yucky crap that's afflicted me post-op, Gastro and this gunk lung thing, as far as the hip replacement is going ... well it's going gang-busters. Every new day is noticeable improvement. Soon I will be at a mobility point that will be better than what I had just prior to the operation. Then eventually better than what I had my entire life. For someone that has only ever previously experienced steady bodily ruination, having an actual body improvement is a somewhat unique experience ... and it's a most welcomed one at that.

Summer of George!

(1) In addition to my OCD of not starting a choc top until the start of the movie, I have another tradition - or rather we as a couple do - of giving each other the cone end of our choc top. I know ... it's sickeningly cute.

(2) I missed the end of Van Helsing when thanks to an ill-advised agreeing to up-size my combo I drank two litres of post-mix Fanta and had to do a mad dash for the toot lest I voided myself spectacularly.

(3) Freddy Mercury died when I was in high school, or close to it. He was a man at the pinnacle of his profession but cut down by disease a good forty years before his body clock said it should have been. When theBoy was a toddler I'd play old Queen music clips, 'I want to Break Free', 'We will rock you', 'Under Pressure', 'I want it all' etc. As I watched the end sequence to the chosen Queen song I couldn't but help think that Freddy would have approved of having his music sung by a massed penguin choir.

(4) My children need wine!

You have to admire his native cunning

2011-12-28T15:06:00.009+11:00

theBoy loves cuddles from his mum. To the extent that she has to fob him off when he's super clingy. Cuddles from me, however, he resists. Probably because we turned it into a game where if I get a cuddle I win.

He does not like to lose.

My mobility has improved now that I don't need to really use a crutch unless I am outside the house. It still hurts and I can only walk slowly but for the most part, in the home at least, I can make it around okay and without fear of falling if the I put weight on the recovering leg.

All of this means is that I am able to play some of our games. Like sing that I am going to cuddle him which means he takes to his feet and with a glorious trilling of excitement runs off down to end room to evade me ... and usually taking advantage of the time I take to lumber after him with my dicky lurching walk by hiding or making himself inaccessible.

When I made it down to the end room I discovered he'd pulled a Ned Kelly (1) and improv-created himself some armour to thwart my cuddles. How? He'd simply tipped theWife's clothes out of her tall plastic grill-work clothes basket and slotted it down over his body. This combined with kneeling meant he became impossible to cuddle.

You win this round, theBoy...

UPDATE: Having finished Michael Burleigh's Blood and Rage, an interesting look at various manifestations of terrorism since the mid-nineteenth century (2), it was back onto the Kindle wagon and continuing on with Life on the Mississippi (3). All that saucy riverboat (slash) steamboat (slash) paddle steamer talk made me declare that I would like to take in such a river-bourne adventure the next time we're in the region of the Murray (4). In storyverse sessions I've taken to using Google Images or YouTube to call up examples of a concept mentioned during the story to give theBoy grounding in what I am talking about. Or I will even sketch, Pictionary-style, a pic of an item mentioned (5).

Having mentioned the desire to ride a paddle-boat I called up a YouTube video of one steaming along on the river to show theBoy. Having watched it for a bit he got excited, ran over to theWife's iPhone, theWife having sacrificed it in order to get some reading / bed lying time, dialled up one of his puzzle games then deftly completed the puzzle. When the puzzle is completed the entire pic animates into life. So he held up the screen to show it to me what it was ... an animated paddle-boat steaming stage left. What a Chooky!

(1) Unlike Ned Kelly of course theBoy's armour actually worked. It's funny how in Oz we celebrate celebrated failure. Gallipoli is our Homeric Creation Myth and we laud Ned Kelly for his Backyyard Blitz style beating of ploughshares into armour plate, plus natty slitted hat, but neglect the fact that the first time he tried to use his armour the cops simply shot him in his unprotected legs to bring him down. Cops: 1, Kelly: 0.
(2) That alas is somewhat hampered by Burleigh's whinging about "TEH Left", the judiciary, multiculturalism, Bono, Michael Foucault, and Jean-Michael Sartre, as well as blaming much terrorism on the fact that higher education was opened to the proles in the '60s.
(3) I can now spell Mississippi without having to redline-then-right-click-for-correct-spelling first. Thank you, Mr Twain.
(4) A favourite Australian-set kids story from my yoof is The Adventures of Riverboat Bill. I believe I had a copy somewhere.
(5) The other day I drew a bandoleer. Why? Because I wore one with corks in the cartridge slots because Humpty and Stumpty kept bouncing on the trampoline where I was asleep to wake me up and in order to prevent their cavorting I had to Ninja-star throw corks ... into their butt-holes. Whereupon they go to hop/spit/al ("nee, nor; nee, nor; nee, nor") and a Doctor that sounds suspiciously like Dr. Hibbert, but is not due to copyright, chips the corks from their butts. theBoy chooses which sound effect to make—the chipping of the cork ("chip, chip, chip,. chip, chip") or the exclamations of pain! ("ow, ow, ow, ow, ow").

Oh Lordy

2011-12-28T07:00:00.005+11:00

I am sick. Still. Coughing up or nose-blowing out gunk, the sore eyeballs, and just general malaise. It bites the wang.

I made the mistake of watching Game of Thrones before turning out the light. Still wracked by fever dreams I became part of it; a chaotic welter of half-thoughts and fragments of plot. I woke every couple of hours and lay there in a stupor trying to shift the mind fuzz of fever dreams in order to get up and go to the toilet only to return to bed and have the Game of Thrones once more suck me back in. I think at one point I may have been the Khal's brother, and thus an attractive muscular ultimate bad boy, which says a lot about the pathetic state of my subconscious.

theBoy came in just after 6 am. I was so wrung out by fever sleep I soon gave up on our mutual dozing, he half-nude and sprawled out on a mountain of tangled bed clothes, and eventually we decided we were up. So we cracked open Horton Hears a Who and started to watch as I railed against being sick and having had shitty sleep.

Now I am in the lounge room, shivering and with a snot-swollen nose as theBoy has a breakfast break from Horton, doing this. I keep doing these massive yawns where tears leak down my cheeks and past my snot bubble producing nose.

... Summer of George ...

UPDATE: theWife sent me back to bed when she got up. It's now early afternoon and I feel a lot better. We had a delightful BBQ outside then Casso and P turned up to festoon us with belated gifts from themselves and other friends (1). Only a couple bouts of gut pain since then, though I've coughed so hard now I have a pain in me Gulliver.

(1) As due to illness we'd missed P's much anticipated and looked forward to Boxing Day extravaganza; an event that features gift giving! ...even though we'd inadvertently Bah Humbugged on Wobs this year given our bunkering down because of the TFCWM and hadn't gift given outside children of immediate family. So next year we will be better! Thanks to all those people who thought to give us stuff and look out for us during all the badness of late.

Got the Boxing Day Blues

2011-12-26T23:35:00.024+11:00

(cue atmospheric harmonica music; in, up, under: 30 seconds)

So I am sick ... again. I'd put it down to having a reduced constitution due to the ole hip replacement except theWife has a touch of it as well.

My eyeballs hurt. Seriously, they do. And I am coughing up hideous gunk again.

Wracked with mega-ouchies that seemed to utterly riven my body I crawled back into bed at around three. I dozed off with delirium-filled dreams for a couple of hours in which the topic of the book I was reading just before I closed my eyes infested my dreamscape. Specifically it was a book about terrorism where the author—not exactly a paragon of objectivity with his snide commentary about the left-wing side of the political spectrum—presented the history of the topic by looking at a number of examples of terror groups that have emerged since the anarchist wave, fuelled by the new invention dynamite, of the late nineteenth century blossomed onto the geopolitical landscape.

At one point I think I dreamed that I was a member of the Red Brigade, the Italian group from the 70s and 80s, and that in addition to being a fierce member of this cabal of self-appointed guardians of "the workers", despite the fact the Red Brigade did stuff all for the workers apart that is for blowing them up either inadvertently or as collateral damage, I also happened to be a woman. Typical. I dream I am a woman and instead of taking the sensible approach to remote myself and play with my body I run around with a beret and a sub-machinegun like I am some sort of Signora Thanatos.

Thank you, fever dreams.

There was also a point during the fever sleep that I was convinced I had to punish myself by lying on my wound lest the authorities see me as a threat or some-such.

I woke from this hideous restless sleep then dragged myself up to do things until I am properly tired and won't drift back into another fever sleep.

Thus far, by way of staying awake and active, I am reading Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain and utterly hating the now long-dead old coot for his sheer fucking talent.

Ah the Summer of George continues with its heady mixture of recovery, recurring illness, and awesome bunkering down in our compound-esq house to enjoy the sedentary delights that is not going away for Christmas and avoiding having to live out of a suitcase.

Low key but fun

2011-12-25T23:20:00.003+11:00

And so this was Christmas...

With my still recovering from my hip operation it meant we were Canberra bound for Wobs, AKA Xmas. So today it was just us; the indomitable trio.

It all kicked off around 8 am with theBoy ripping into his assorted haul, but not before checking the offering of milk, mince pies and carrots had been accepted (they were!). Then it was a day of hanging, grazing on delish theWife prepared or purchased Wobs fare, and watching stuff. theBoy pulled out an old fave of Monsters inc. and watched it two or three times in a row as he and theWife built their way through the large hoard of Lego-esq blocks that just happen to also work with actual proper Lego. Thank you the Internet. Well ... Santa as it twas he wot brought them.

And even though this is the most food indulgent day of the year we still both had our cycle - for theWife has taken up the gauntlet of a daily duel with The Purgatory Cart, matching me for time served each day. So far she hasn't missed a day since I restarted, my having had a two week break - which was the first break in daily exercise I've had in three years and six months - due to the hip operation. I am about half way back to my pre-op capability with about 14 minutes my current giving up threshold, with 3.8 kays my aim-for distance. At those points my wounded leg begins to ache. This aching now enhanced with arthritic pain blossoming up from my knee and through my thigh and hip thanks to the unseasonably cool and humid weather. I had to have an über hot shower to dial the pain swells back and rug up in black tracksuit pants, top, and zip-up black jacket. I looked like a mirror universe Michelin Man (1).

Anyway so not only is theWife having to wrangle theBoy and myself, and do all the household stuff instead of ninety per cent, she's set herself a goal of daily exercise and has stuck to it.

As ever I am *super proud* of her.

Anyway I hope you too had a good day and if you were with family that it was good and not crap. And that if you are away from family that it went okay also.

I leave you with my favourite Christmas sentiment; Ho ho ho I have a machine gun.

I don't really. Though theBoy did get a kewl water pistol. The universe lays even money that the first time he uses it that within half an hour he will have shot me in the crotch...

(1) In storyverse theBoy's mirror universe double is now making appearances. He's called Bad theBoy, Evil theBoy or Naughty theBoy. Naturally he also has a pencil moustache. Which reminds me ... how do mirror universe lady doubles get distinguished from their prime? Just different hair? Or total difference like good Willow vs vampire Willow? Your thoughts?

Virtual hide and seek

2011-12-24T20:40:00.004+11:00

With my healng hip I can't rumble and ramble with theBoy as much. Indeed, at all. Pre-op we would play hide and seek. A game at which theBoy eventually learned to master and he actualy hides in hard-to-spot locales.

So post-op we decided to go virtual. The contestants being theBoy, various storyverse characters - like Humpty and Stumpty - and characters from movies that theBoy has great love for - such as Lightning McQueen and his bestie Mater. The latter allowed to use a little bit of Santa's shrinking spray in order they can effectively compete given their larger-sized vehicular natures.

Basically it works like this. Someone is "IT" and the IT starts counting. As the IT counts the others hide and I have to rattle off where they're hiding. Then "ready or not, here I come!" Then the IT starts looking and eventually they discover one of the hiding characters. Usually theBoy gets found last but like communist pass the parcel I do mix it up in order that the role of IT isn't always alternating with theBoy (since the new IT is the last one found).

So today we were outside. And thus virtual hide and seek was on outside and outside locations were the only locations that could be hidden in. This outside rule was expressly noted. Humpty was IT and counting and the others were racing to hide - Stumpty for example headed for theBoy's hiding tree which, when real hide and seek is played, is theBoy's go to hiding spot.

'So, Noodles,' I said. 'Where are you going to hide?'

He thought about it then came to a decision.

'I go inside and hide in the cupboard.'

Yes, that's right, theBoy cheated at virtual hide and seek.

Gold.

This morning, at around 8 am

2011-12-21T11:55:00.000+11:00

From outside the door to my bedroom; 'Daddy, can I please hang with you?'

Aw ... what a total heart swell. I got up, my Beloved in tow, and we (1) watched Kung Fu Panda while we waited for theWife to rise.

They're just got back from their Costco adventure. I just came back in from giving The Purgatory Cart (2) a damn good seeing to. Off to the shower!

(1) Well he watched. I was using the Beloved to idly surf.

(2) From Casso etc.

Well it had to happen ... the diary

2011-12-21T11:31:00.003+11:00

theWife is an empiricist. She's also wicked smart and dislikes conundrums besetting her. So she's decided to take on my IBS and work out the root causes etc.

So now I have a intake (slash) output diary. It records everything I eat and drink along with bowel motions and medicines taken. The idea is to build up a body of data and then theWife will put her mind to it and work out what seems to impact me the least or, in turn, help me to poop the best (1).

You know that bit in the vows of 'and in sickness and in health'? Well I've really been riding the clutch on the sickness part. It can't be easy or fun living with someone who is best by various ailments.

Prim and proper people, like George Pell (who is celibate and wears ceremonial dresses), moan and whine about the failure of 50 per cent of marriages in today's rich and heady climes. But when you think about it then it's surprising it's not more. We live far longer than we're supposed to, and in doing so endure more physical limitations as a result of surviving conditions that would ordinarily kill us. So married for life means married for say twice as long as when marriage was initially codified, and often when one or both are beset with ailments (physical or mental; hello depression). Women, mostly those in the west, are now largely emancipated from having to be married. A woman can live a fulfilling meaningful life without the pressures of a man looming around their house in a grumpy fashion, shedding hair and creating other mess, and basically fucking-up the household with assorted man-crap. Hence women don't have to stay in shitty relationships.

Social network technology too is there to assist in not only giving people avenues for entertainment but enabling covert or semi-covert communication with other people you're romantically interested in. In a Good Weekend article (2) a detective said that thanks to Facebook the number of cases he'd taken on for infedility where the husband was tracking theWife had risen three-fold (3).

Finding someone you're willing to live with day-to-day where they not only find you interesting but they enjoy your company is a pretty lucky break. Especially when in living with them they have to care for you when you're sick and endure you when you're being a shit.

And I have someone willing to create and maintain an intake (slash) output diary of my internal comings-and-goings. That's pretty spesh.

(1) As my Kiwi specialist would say the ideal production is 'a lovely log'; basically a 3.5.

(2) Alas I can only recall having read it; I don't have actual Issue (slash) Title references.

(3) He also said that women practiced decent Op Sec (or Operational Security). Where an adulterous male would simply drive from the home directly to the place of boingo then return home again, women were far more subtle. They tended to go out to a public area, like a shopping mall, puruse for a bit, then duck out a side entrance to meet their lover and to go to their nest of temp love from there. Then they would be returned to the public area, peruse some more, then drift back to their car and home. Ladies, I doff my hat.

From my beloved

2011-12-20T22:41:00.008+11:00

So I am in bed and blogging with the beloved. l just popped in to talk about raised stains. Raised stains? Yes, raised stains.

I tend to get clothes in bulk. As in if I have to get clothes then I will get or receive a bunch of the same style of pants or shirts in the one hit. Clothes for me are like haircuts; I try and maximise the time between visits.

I have a bunch of tops that can be worn either to bed or to work. They have minimal buttons—merely three small decorative ones around the collar—and the cloth used is a soft material. They also have raised print on them that looks a little like partly-worn-away street graffiti. Classy. The only trouble is that to my finger tips, as they scrape across my clothed flesh, the partially-present raised print feels like a raised stain - like you'd get if you honked up a goob and it did a Something about Mary and ended up somewhere on your clothing only to dry and harden in place. Then hours later you discover it and—the horror ... the horror—you then pick or scrape the crud off with hesitant nails. Thus my instinct to pick off such kicks in whenever I wear such a shirt because inevitably I will be scratching away, find the print, shudder, then start picking at it.

Speaking of stains. We went to the movies today—we saw Puss in Boots with theBoy. He liked it—though at one point he seemed more interested in sitting all sprawled in his seat with his shirt ridden up and puling his belly button out as far as it would go.

When at the movies—and in spite of my IBS that flares when I ingest rich dairy foods—I usually get a choc top. A boring vanilla choc top. Only I do a somewhat boring OCD thing and not begin eating it until the opening credits roll. I also give the bottom of the cone to theWife Since I am waiting a while the ice-cream tends to be a bit soft and the choc top fragile on the initial crunch. Shards break free of the top and given their softness I might not realise they have struck me. When later I emerge into life I may have poo-colured stains somewhere on my chest, stomach or upper legs—all of which are in the shard fall zone.

Today I had such a stain all right. And I didn't see it until looking in the bathroom mirror ... fortunately one that was still at the cinema.

The fallen shard had missed my shirt ... only to fall on my chest and matt in my chest hair, thanks to the upper buttons that had come undone at some point.

It honestly looked like someone had attempted a Cleveland steamer on my chest but that I had fortunately woken in time to stop them.

Yay it is to be me.

Kim Jong-il

2011-12-20T19:17:00.002+11:00

... now dead.

Staples ... OUT!

2011-12-19T19:06:00.001+11:00

Charming, eh?

That's my left side (inc. arse) presented for the benefit of the poor nurse who then had to remove all my surgical staples.

The removal went well. Better than the last time I had staples removed which was when I had my Gall Bladder out. On that occasion the staples had become infected and I nearly bit through the brim of my hat when they were snipped free.

Prior to today's removal we decided to see how going to the movies would go. It went okay. I even had to legit use the disabled lav before I went in. The facility for that was decent although the various stations of toilet, sink, and blower were in different corners of the room and thus you had to manuever to reach each in turn. Presumably that's a design requirement for manoeuvring with a chair or somesuch.

We saw Mission Impossible 4. It was pretty cool. Simon Pegg's turn as a semi-hapless nerdy agent was the best part of it. But then I am biased in that I have a mad man-crush on Simon Pegg and everything he's ever done and in fact will do. Damn my stupid man-crushes.

As I waited for theWife outside the medical centre where my staples were removed I happened to enjoy that wait right next to the ambulance bay. The one marked 'No Standing' and 'Ambulances only'. In my time there I saw one man park for five minutes to grab his waiting wife, though she was on crutches and on a nearby bench so it could be excused. Then there was the medical courier who parked there for about ten minutes, returning to his car whilst swinging his medical esky back-and-forth to the accompaniment of a tuneless whistle. Then there was the mum with her three school-aged kids in the car. She pulled in ... and stayed. No indicating she was picking anyone up. The kids looked like they were eating happy meals.

If I hadn't had been on crutches and just myself relocated into my own vehicle, theWife picking me up curb side, I would have gone over and pointed at the sign with my long, long crutch, then shaken my head in that sad kind of way like when you're watching a doco on a drought and see a mass bird death.

The next step (ho, ho) is seeing a physio, who will actually come to me instead of me to them, to work out my needs (I'm down to one crutch for moving around the house and in truth can even no use it for small trips). I think probably I will get a cane. Hopefully a kewl cane with a fucking sword in it. Or even a normal sword that is celibate in its behaviour. At any rate, copulating or not, the fact is the sword will be sheathed and therefore protected against unwanted conception.

But as for the doc wot done my hip revision then I don't need to see him until well into January. Hooray! Although I am kind of looking forward to see him. If only to laugh about BFF, the not-very-charming Intensive Care registrar whose medical assessment on my sweaty large form was 'passed out due to excessive fatness' as opposed to the more medically accurate 'likely had an embolism which knocked him unconsciousness'. That and he's got a good sense of humour; he likes Seinfeld, The Simpsons ... and he laughed at my foreskin joke.

Anyway, here's to getting the staples out! (smashes crockery once more in a riotous Mediterranean-culture celebratory fashion).

On da mend

2011-12-18T19:09:00.002+11:00

So the gastro is nearly passed. Or is it past? At any rate it's nearly out and thank divine figures this is the case. I've basically been cruising around with severely ill guts since I got out of the medical chokey, and spending much of my time gobbling meds and writhing.

As for my leg, well it's improving in figurative leaps and bounds. It still hurts when used or banged into. And I am forced into a kind of lurching shuffle to get anywhere ... if I elect to move without a cane or crutch.

Yes. that's right, just over two weeks out from having had the TFCWM I can actually walk short distances without assistance. Tomorrow I attempt The Purgatory Cart (1) once more, though I will limit myself to a short session so I don't over do it and get disheartened.

I am massively stoked by the speediness of that part of the recovery. I was dreading hobbling around for weeks at a time. I have to admit I was worried about theBoy's tendency to lurk then launch a surprise attack on my person, usually his melon lowered and aimed for my groin or thighs. It got to the point that I was checking possible hiding locations, like Clouseau on the watch for his man-servant Cato. I was also worried about theBoy's scat in the form of toys and other crutch-catchers that could readily bring me down will one ill-advised crutch-placement. Fortunately my bad leg can take my weight now, though just, so I am not at immediate risk of TIMBER! should I be charged into or slip.

Sitting to type is a chore. I've basically limited typing to responding to key emails or this. Otherwise it's too meh. Hopefully once I am off the super meds, aka Hillbilly Heroin, I will no longer feel quite as meh and be hungry to write once more.

I saw too that Hitchens finally died. He'd been a sick man for a long while, and his type of cancer (oesophageal) was nasty. It's probably a fair cop to say that his 'sucking the marrow from life' had a part to play given his renowned ability to eat, drink, and be merry.

I've not read any of his books, though I did see him on Lateline a few times, reliably speech slurred in that hard hack from the 70s Fleet Street kind of way, and I've read a few of his columns. The one that resonated with me the most was when Hitchens, a ardentant supporter of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 (2), volunteering to be water boarded to determine whether it was torture or "enhanced interrogation". Hitchens to his credit declared it torture.

In addition for his fame as a hard drinking, hard smoking, hard writing, former leftist he also declared early on for atheism. Indeed he penned a best seller on it; God Is Not Great. Apparently, though I can't find the link for the moment, on a self-google he discovered someone had a book on whether he'd death-bed convert. Apparently, as far as I am aware, he didn't.

He endured nearly two years of fairly intensive medical treatment, leaving his skin radiation burned raw at one point, and it can't have been an easy fight. I can only imagine the number of times he'd have wanted to have just given up.

But he's at peace now, for the simple dint of not being alive, and at least he left a pretty decent legacy. Not only did people want to read his words ... they wanted to party hearty with him too.

That's not a bad life to have lived.

UPDATE: It should be noted I didn't agree with much of what Hitchens wrote. But he sure wrote it all purty-like.

(1) Thrust from the lake into my gauntleted hand by the liquidly moist Casso who dwells within a pristine grotto high in the hills above my castle etc.

(2) Actually, so was I. Based on the apparent possession on WMD. Once that justification vanished, the fact he was gone was still a blessing, but not justification for the war. Sort of a blessing. I imagine being one of the relatives of the 100k+ likely additional victims of the war, would think otherwise. Besides the Arab Spring I think points to the fact that even with massive state suppression the people will rise up when circumstances permit and eventually I think his family would have eventually faced the same fate as Gaddafi.