My Brain is Already Gone

Well, it is Saturday, thank the powers that be, and I have survived another week in that scintillating world they call customer service. No real crises this week I am more than happy to report, but a new guy joined the ranks of the Customer Service Damned - its a new horror genre that is destined to overtake zombie movies as the 21st Century service industry du jour gathers pace, and grows and grows like topsy - and while he's a lovely guy, turns out he may have lied just a little about his knowledge of our systems. Having done some training of 'new hires' (aka 'lambs to the corporate slaughter') before, I ended up showing him the ropes, and while it was good to exercise my trainer muscles, which had atrophied a little, I got to Friday brain dead and very tired. There's something about trying to get your own work done, and simultaneously training someone that just kinda takes it out of you. By the time I filled up with petrol last night, I was barely able to string entire sentences together, which could be why I told the guy that my car was the 'Mars Bar' out there - yes I really, really wanted a Mars Lava bar so clearly my mind was elsewhere!! - when in fact it was the far less edible, and crying out to be washed, Hyundai Excel. Just as well I was 5 minutes from home, and did not have to engage any more actual human interaction.....Lord knows what I might have said! I slunk home, trying very hard not to think at all, and certainly not trying to string any syllables together, and made it in the door, slumping into my comfy chair to eat my curries, Naan bread and pakoras, all chased down by Absolut Vanilla Vodka and Vanilla Coke (yes, I would like to thank my sponsors.....) while I watched 'Las Vegas' (perfect Friday night brainless fodder for the mind), 'Lost' (Hurley's back story is one of the best yet - those damn numbers - yikes!) and 'The Amazing Race'.....it was one of those weeks where I feel like I just made it over the line, and was glad to reach Friday afternoon, and the allure of a relaxing chilled weekend with no demands on my time but a Stereophonics concert tonight which should be just brilliant.....oh yes, and I plan to finally read the manual (I hate and detest manuals in much the same way Carl Rove appears to hate all liberals) to my 3 week old mobile phone so I can actually start using it.....it does make a very pretty table ornament though I must say...shame to actually use it.....

Walking On My Hands Because I Danced My Feet Off

Actually I danced my feet off vicariously, and much as I would like to be called Stumpy by all and sundry (gotta hand it to Sundry - he is quite the individual and while he is always with All, he does at least attempt to stand out from the crowd), the closest I got to dancing last Thursday night was sitting about ten metres from the actual dancers. My good extrovertive friend, Kerry (also known as Alice, as in Alice in Wonderland) from Brisbane is an avid, and that is desperately understating the depth of her devotion to all things salsa and tango, Latin Amercian dance enthusiast, and has accumulated a number of very good and talented friends who share her passion. One of them, Alex, entered the ABC TV programme (the ABC is Australia's national broadcaster run on an anorexic shoestring), "Strictly Dancing"'s dance competition along with a good friend of his, Adam, thus becoming the first same sex couple to compete, and have made it as far as a final, which was taped last Thursday at the studios at ABC HQ in Ultimo (which is very funky and modern, and hipper than a human body part). Since I rarely get to see Kerry, and she was in town for this one night only, I tagged along to the filming along with about 20 other family and friends of Adam and Alex, and sat ringside for the taping of what can only be described as "Not Your Nanna's Ballroom Dancing Show". With a very funny and irreverent host, Paul McDermott (if you could only see the bits that will never make it to TV such as his wooing of a gorgeous 87 year old grandmother, Joan, with hilarious sweet talk and even a song serenade - a lot of fun to watch!), music from the likes of Will Smith and Britney Spears, and more glitz and glam than Oxford Street (Sydney's main gay street, and the main parade route of the yearly Mardi Gras festival), it is a ballroom dancing show for Gen X, Y and all the other younger demagraphics they are still working on catchy and ultimately meaningless names for. Kerry added to the buzz by making up her very own "GO ADAM & ALEX" sign, and will no doubt be edited into the show being the only audience member to go to that much trouble. Paul remarked on the whole "Big Brother" feel of having a banner, and trust me this being an endeavour of Kerry (who is as loud, gregarious and full of fun as they come!) , in the audience, but he made sure Kerry got filmed, and being next to her, half of my head may just make it into the shot...or not. Anyway, I am to Kerry's right, behind a mass of frantically waved red and white so I am kinda, sorta on TV. At last! My 15 minutes of fame!! Woohoo! True you can't see me, but when has that stopped anyone these days parlaying their brief TV notoriety into lasting fame and fortune. I can see it now - I will be styled as "The Guy Behind the Banner" and I will.....ah forget it...lets face it, they'll probably offer hosting of that new reality TV series, "Fat Celebrities on a Desert Island with their Pet Baboons on Ice" to the banner......it really is very charimatic and lifelike.....and will no doubt marry another famous billboard like the Coke sign at Kings Cross before divorcing it for a meaningless fling with a roadside sign for McDonalds, 23 km from Coffs Harbour......

The best part of the whole night was that Adam and Alex, who combined brilliant dance technique and more X-Factor charisma than a thousand high octane extroverts in a telephone booth all smiling at once, WON! Yes indeed! Kerry only watched them all night but kept asking me as the impartial observer who didn't know Adam and Alex, if they really were better than the other two couples, since she couldn't really be objective. Happily I could truthfully say that they were dazzling, and an absolute pleasure to watch! As was the taping of the show, which took place over four very entertaining hours (they also film another episode so that while one set of dancers is changing for the next round, the other episode's are burning up the dancefloor). The only downside was the fact that we had to line up to get good seats from 5.30 p.m. and filming didn't stop till 10.30 p.m., which meant I was just a little hungry by taping's end...so I did the unforgiveable and ate KFC at 10.45 p.m. on the way to Town Hall train station. Jenny Craig forgive me but I WAS HUNGRY!!!! Clearly all that glitz and galmour went to my head and I was caught up in the moment. Besides I am now a (partially obscured by a banner) minor temporary celebrity and such lapses are part of my public persona.....now all I have to do is enter a rushed marriage of PR convenience (hello Tom and Katie), get some nasty sort of drug and alcohol habit (will check with Courtney Love I guess for that one), and have a bizarre nervous breakdown in public somewhere in country California (thank you Margot Kidder)...so little time...so much trivial superficial living to do......better get dancing...uh moving.......

Ah the letter 'Z' how I love thee

Now before you think I am some sort of sicko last-letter-of-the-alphabet fetishist, assuming such a fetish exists (which this being Sydney is quite likely), my love of the letter Zed (or Zee if you watched way too much Sesame Street as a child) stems soley from the sleep deprivation I suffered on Monday night when for reasons known only to that lazy Sandman guy (who ironically must have been sleeping on the job), I experienced a bizarre bout of insomnia that kept me awake till 3.30 a.m. That wouldn't have been so bad if I had had the following day off, but alas the alarm was ticking inexorably down to 5.30 a.m.......I was very chilled after my 3 days off over the long weekend - to celebrate our dear Queen's birthday, the only time of the year I am a monarchist! - so the insomnia, which I usually get from everyone's favourite 21st Century affliction, stress, was unexpected....maybe it was the tension of "Atlantis" getting to me....the protagonist's life was hanging in the balance in the poisonous depths of the Black Sea and I just closed the book and turned over to go to sleep (callous reader that I am).....or didn't......fortunately last night I crashed out into the wonderful embrace of ZZZZZs and didn't stir all night - hence today 'Z' is my official letter of the day and unlike Sesame Street, I will leave you to work out which words start with it - and woke up feeling like a million bucks, even getting out for a walk with the temp hovering around a balmy 10 degrees, (which my Granpa
would have refered to as 'fresh') which kept me awake, alert and pumping, and has ensured my brain is zinging along like an ADD hummingbird on turbo-charged sap......

The weekend itself was one of those chilled weekends full of good times with friends, food with way more than 15 g of fat - lets hear for pizza and Indian food and Sara Lee ice cream to follow! - TV shows I taped weeks ago, and have just dug up from the deep dark video vaults, reading, and a nap or two, which is the perfect way to follow reading Saturday's "Sydney Morning Herald" which is so large it needs an entire postcode all of its very own....of course, all the benefits of chilling out were lost within an hour of starting work yesterday but it was good while it lasted.....ah, good times.....good times......

The cover of 'X & Y', Coldplay's latest CD, released June 6, 2005

!POP! KORN

I am a voracious knowledge and media junkie - I am happy for you to stage an intervention as long as the entire process is recorded on DVD, trascribed into a book, and made into a hit album, and the launch of all three is featured on E!, Entertainment Tonight, and Larry King Live (CNN) preferably live, and all backstage scenes are filmed for a later reality TV show - and as is the way with us 21st Century movie/music/book junkies, there is an ever expanding cast of favourite drugs of choice, and so here, with as much flourish as a lack of a massive drum intro will allow (must remedy that - is there a CD available?), are this week's darlings:

MUSIC

'X & Y' (Coldplay - EMI)

Not since ABBA captured my complete and undivided attention back in the 70s, when I was ridiculously young, has a group so commanded my attention and loyalty....and so like the (insanely young, barely able to enunciate words - OK I was 14 but since 40 is the new 30, that makes me really young doesn't it?) child waiting for 'Voulez-Vous' to make its long delayed arrival back in 1979, I wait ed a whole 2 hours on Sunday 5 June before rushing the local HMV and grabbing my copy of their new CD. So was it worth the wait? Well, I have a habit of getting incredibly excited about all manner of things, and then occasionally being disappointed when the anxiously awaited object of my hoped for affection isn't quite what the uber-fan ordered. (Some of my cooler headed friends think I should never get excited about anything thus removing any possibility of disappointment but that kind of thinking horrifies me...with great feelings come great risks, and I would rather pay the price sometimes than risk the sweet rewards that arrive most of the time).

So it is with 'X & Y'. A brilliant album by any standard and suffused with the exquisite melodies, hauntingly aching vocals of Chris Martin, and superb songcraft that are Coldplay's trademarks, but sadly, not much of a Great Leap Forward (Mao's lovely excursion into the psychosis of dictatorship when people were killed and imprisoned, sent hither and yon to be re-educated, and society was treated as one big brave new world, none of which Coldplay has shown the slightest interest in thankfully) in creativity as a very successful tinkering with the status quo, so wonderfully distilled in 'A Rush of Blood to the Head', the previous CD. I am listening to it like it is going out of fashion, and hit the re-play on songs like "White Shadows", "Talk" and "X & Y", but while I suspect I am being unfair with Coldplay to expect ever greater heights of glorious creativity from them (and I remain a loyal and dedicated fan who would happily stalk them if it wasn't so expansive, and uh, illegal), this is not one of those CDs that has captured my complete and undivided attention, and I can hear Keane & Snow Patrol nipping at Coldplay's heels even as I type.

BOOKS

'Atlantis' - David Gibbins (headline)

I have about 6.3 million unread books cluttering my shelves, which I buy and stockpile with monotonous regularity on the basis that I may forget their titles and never buy them, ever, and what a tragedy that would be for all mankind,or specifically me really, and yet yesterday on a whim I bought this book after giving it the cursory two page, is-this-author-complete-crap-or-not test, to read this Queens' Birthday long weekend. Ignoring the dark stares of the paperbacks and hardcovers crowding my shelves on the bookshelf equivalent of Kolkatta or Sao Paulo - you know you have an imagination with way too much time on its hands when you start anthropomorphising books - I sat down and started on this thrilling ride that emcompasses the discovery of the real Atlantis by men who love the purity of knowledge and discovery for its own sake, and the battle to hold on to it when men who value the purity of an exceptionally large bank balance over that knowledge race in to take their slice of the pie. The book's jacket, in a style typical of hyper descriptive copywriters everywhere, breathlessly describes the book as the 'Da Vinci Code' for a new generation, which is hilarious when you realise that the generation reading the Da Vinci code is oh.....EVERYONE...NOW! That bit of hyperbole swept away, suffice to say this is a great, intelligent read, and it definitely puts the thrill in thriller, which is a good thing since if there was no thrill in thriller, you would be left with 'er' which isn't much of a word at all really, and makes you sounding vaguely demented if you say it over and over. Which I have no plans to do since I have reading to do. Oh OK maybe just one time then...... you know, it is kinda fun :)

MOVIES

'Mr & Mrs Smith'

The chief publicity for this movie has been tabloid gossip about the fact that the movie supposedly broke up the divine union of Brad Pitt and JenniferAnniston, which was blessed by the gods of Hollywood, and perfect in all its ways....amen, and I wouldn't have been surprised if the movie was a complete turkey after the nightmare that was 'Gigli' (Ben Affleck and J-Lo's tribute to the banality of complete mediocrity) where another power couple took their love to the silver screen....but it was actually a lot of fun and Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt fired off each other with all the chemistry you need to carry a romantic comedy/action flick if you really want it to sparkle and crackle. The actual storyline is reasonably slight, but what do you expect from this type of movie? The key is the delivery of the witty one liners, and whether you give a damn about the characters, and on both scores, this movie carried itself off wonderfully. It was one of those movies that was a pleasure to watch, and left you with a grin on your face, and the incessant desire for witty banter with your viewing mate afterwards.....which I mostly kept in check for which Tracy is no doubt happy.....

>>>> OK so go forth and listen/read/watch and be happy! Or something.....

The Devil's in the Lane Change

I have seen hell...

Yes its true (and surprisingly it did not involve a group lunch with George Bush, my primary school librarian, and the Teletubbies in a small, airtight room with no doors). However, unlike Dante, who no doubt conceived his particularly breezy and delightful version of hell whilst riding in a briskly moving horse and carriage, I glimpsed the eternal inferno while ensconced for 3.5 hours in the metal vehicular casing I affectionately call Fido the Hyundai (yes as alliterative names go, this one sucks, and I am at peace with it) trapped in hellishly sluggish bumper to bumper traffic, supposedly commuting home on Thursday night....all was well at first, till I reached the approach to Captain Cook Bridge, gateway to The Shire (supposedly God's own country but temporarily appropriated by Satan this evening) and saw those lovely bright orange witches hats (traffic cones) blocking my path and a policeman looking for all the world like Peter Garrett in slo-mo, his arms whirring in all directions as he did his best impersonation of a traffic light (and yet there was not a sliver of red or orange on him, his only accession to the traffic light colour scheme, a lone green vest....perhaps red socks next time hmm? If you are going to impersonate traffic lights, at least try to mimic the colour scheme...we commuters like our mind numbing uniformity of experience, vivid palette and all!).....now a policeman blocking your path while looking like an epileptic on a heavy dose of Prozac is never a good sign of anything, and sure enough, I, along with my fellow commuters were ushered into what appeared, at first, to be an innocent side street, with trees either side, and sweet suburban houses nestled side by side...so far so pedestrian.....with my iPod churning tune after tune through my stereo and the "Sydney Morning Herald" before me, I cared not at first for the slow pace.....in fact I thought to myself "Isn't this nice? A nice relaxing drive home and an interesting diversion from my usual rut-infested commute".....I was briefly, it turns out, stupidly content.....

But lo', as in all good TV shows where the welcoming stranger turns out to be an axe murderer seeking another head to lop, my quiet sunny slice of suburbia morphed into Freddy Kreuger's idea of a lovely place to visit as it dawned on me that far from a trip full of stops to smell the roses, and visions of commuting sugar plum fairies (what? you think they only come out at Christmas?), that I had in fact been detoured straight into automotive hell.....but where Dante's Inferno had 7 layers, I was stuck in one cramped lane (albeit with water views) done in a stunning shade of bitumen (which frankly clashed with everything) and clogged with every single commuter in Sydney or it seemed, as I looked forward to an endless stream of orange brake lights, and back to the glittering of a hundred headlights dancing like a shimmering drunken ballerina across the pitch black of night....not quite the licking, flickering flames of hell but the colours were just about right, and as my initial diversion of reading the paper was taken from me by the descent of night on the caravan of the commuting damned (and not a funky Gypsy to be seen sadly....if you are going to be stuck in a nightmarish traffic jam, you need a Gypsy with a tambourine and a great sense of rhythm to pass the time....I have no idea why; you just do) - did I stop under even one street light?! That would be a no! - I was reduced to seeing just how far you can stretch 1100 songs on one iPod...and the answer is...quite a way...it turns I have over 3 days worth of music on the iPod, which is good to know if I ever migrate to the USA or Iceland (it could happen...no, really) and I am swallowed up by a snowdrift......I may starve to death but I will have the choice of many songs to become emaciated by....a comforting thought.....

So there I was....making about 1 km every 40 minutes or so, and thanking the Lord above - yes I had a spiritual awakening on the road to Miranda (not quite the road to Damascus but then you don't have the sand storms, and that can only be a good thing) - which I guess happens in hell, automotive or otherwise, for ABC radio and great current affairs.....so at least you get to be intellectually challenged in Sydney's version of hell which just goes to show you that the whory old dame ain't the bimbo every one says she is......

So what did I learn about Sydney's asphalt-encrusted version of hell?

(1) It is place of great suffering

Not necessarily eternal - although 3.5 hours in a car with my leg muscles seizing up, and no toilet facilities (yes, I know I should have taken the restroom option when the car salesman offered it but dammit, I didn't think! I just didn't think....) can make a traffic jam feel like eternity - but thank goodness for that...the idea of a never ending traffic jam is about as appealing as having my leg gnawed off by an over eager troop of hyperactive beavers hopped up on speed - thankfully I had left the beavers at home so beaver mauling was not a likely outcome of the jam (another compelling reason not to be a part time courier transporting animals between zoos - you get stuck in gridlock, the beavers get bored, and before you know it, its a bloodbath.....you just know that while the extra money is handy, that it will all end in tears)....you know you are suffering when the idea of an inflight meal sounds appealing....the worst part was knowing that home was only about 5 km away and it may as well have been on the moon.....and I am not talking about the lump of rock orbiting Earth....think Io far out near Jupiter where it is doubtful a beaver could survive but don't dismiss them out of hand....

(2) There is a demonic presence

Otherwise known as the motorists who won't do a 1 on 1 car merge when your torturously slow backstreet finally meets a semi-major road with gridlocked traffic of its very own....I know these people have also suffered greatly, and no doubt bear the scars of not having their iPod with them, or from carrying unrestrained North American fauna with them, but some people take great pleasure in guarding their very own slice of bitumen, and even looking at you as they glide on past....yes lady in the silver station wagon, I am talking about you!.....and don't pretend you didn't know what you were doing! ......OK, re-setting zen-like calm and moving on

(3) Satan comes in many forms

This would be the hoons who sped past in the opposite direction calling out "Ha! Ha!", which as you would no doubt appreciate, endeared them to us all....ah what I wouldn't have given for a sidewinder missile at that point (which is probably why they don't give them out on street corners unless you are in Baghdad, where you get one free with your morning coffee)....I shall of course add them to my Christmas card list immediately....and the other dear sweet motorists who decided that the line would move far more quickly, and apparently the laws of physics would be rendered null and void, if they simply sat on my car's backside throughout...strangely enough, and yes I know this will leave you gobsmacked with complete surprise (lift that jaw out of the gutter! You never know where its been), my car did not de-materialise so they could pass through, nor did their car-hugging speed up the traffic ahead...I know, shock is writ large across your faces, but its true...but you know what I say...God bless them for trying.....I am not sure if its a glass half full approach or just stupidity on their part - hmm, which one would I tend towards? - but its kinda sweet they found it in them to channel the lesser demons of their nature (they may have hocked the lesser angels to Satan in lieu of their souls) and tailgate me....

>>> so after my lessons in Sydney Car Hell 101, I finally hit the highway - thank the powers that be, I have never been so glad to see a major three laned road in my life; thought of kissing it but I feared escaped beavers attacking me, and unflattering comparions to recently deceased Popes - and arrived home at 6.45, having missed my appointment with Jane, who coped with my non-showing at our meeting by going shopping...yes she is a brave soul, and held up remarkably well thank God (I got some very supportive text messages from her till my mobile, capturing the dark zeitgeist, died from low power).......and how did I relax from my ordeal? Lots of chocolate of course....it was hardly a broccoli and low carb meal moment trust me.....and of course "Lost" was on, and there is nothing like rampant supernatural weirdness to calm a troubled soul....try it sometime, but avoid traffic jams...their supernatural weirdness is vastly overrated and I for one will not be immersing myself in one again if I can help it, and of course, I can't.....D'oh!!

>>> now far be it from me to sound a jarring commercial note here, but all the cosy 1 on1 time spent with my iPod made me realise that in the middle of this urban nightmare lies the kernel of a beautiful ad campaign that Apple may wish to use once they tire of silhouettes bopping away to Gorillaz or U2. I have thoughtfully prepared three taglines that could form the centrepiece of what could be a very effective, and dare I say, moving, successful ad campaign, which Apple clearly needs as iPods are not selling all that well...yes, only 98.9% of people own one which clearly shows that Apple has some work to do if it doesn't want to avoid being the creator of a complete lemon.....

(A) "I am trapped in my car in a 1 in 100 years traffic jam (like 1 in 100 year storms but way more exhaust fumes)....I never realised how small my car is.....and how close all the other cars are.....Maybe I will never get home...maybe I am trapped here forever and rescuers will find my emaciated body desperately grasping at the windscreen, a frightened look etched on my mummified face....oh no! I am going to die! I'm going to die! I am too young! No, don't let me die! DON'T LET ME DIE! ...........but wait, here is my iPod....sigh, all is well"

(B) "I cannot believe this freaking traffic jam! What on earth is going on?! Why aren't we moving ?! This is an absolute waste of time! And look at those young guys staring at me from their car going in the other direction, yelling out 'Haha!'. How dare they! Who do they think they are! Why if only I could get my hands on them, they would die horrible violent deaths for their taunting and.......but wait, here is my iPod, all shiny white & silver...I feel zen like peace return and all is well"

(C) "iPods - better than a pack of bored beavers gnawing your body parts off one by one"

So Apple if you're reading this, just get your people to call my people...wait a second, I don't actually have any people..I keep forgetting that which could explain all those weird phone calls to my mobile phone...right so why don't you just call me, and perhaps for a small fee I could be persuaded to appear in the ads, for the sake of my creative growth, of course......

So some good could come from my descent into automotive hell, which goes to show that every cloud has a silver lining, which hopefully isn't being held in place by poisonous heavy metals like nickel cadmium, lead and mercury, which will slowly kill me......

What a very merry Hump Day

Actually no it really wasn't but who am I title something "It was a bland and boring day"? No doubt that has already been used elsewhere anyway......trusth is it was just another average day for the most part till the Exports manager at work, who has become a reasonably good work friend, called me aside to ask if I would be interested in a job as Coordinator in that department. Apart from challenging me, and goodness knows I could do my current job with my eyes closed, in a semi-comatose state, and with a troop of hyperactive Latvian folk dancers dancing across my back - a great massage I have to say, with the only downside being unattractive shoe prints across the skin - it would mean a pay rise (won't VISA and Mastercard, my true bosses, be tinkled pink?) and a promotion (see there are way too many downsides! LOL) and a fast track to the gloriously dizzy heights of management. That hasn't really been a focus of mine, and truth be told I would rather be grabbing Pulitzers from thin air, and/or giving Harry Potter a run for his money, but in lieu of present literary success and widespread throughly deserved acclaim, its a great opportunity....no guarantee I would get the job, of course (although a bribe here and a bribe there and.....) but its certainly an intriguing idea, and incredibly flattering to be head hunted (and not in the icky cannibalistic way, which doesn't appear to have much to offer besides drastic weight loss and a more streamlined, albeit dead, body) for the first time in my young life....OK semi-young life.....regardless, a very cool thing to have happen on a day that started with me cursing my colleagues in the USA and UK for failing to follow through on overnight requests....and after we joined their happy little coalition of fools and attacked Iraq to the obvious delight of the grateful populace (haha)! The nerve! So not a complete beige toned washout of a day....

I have an appointment with my career coach tomorrow night, the delightful, and very good at what she does, Jane, and one of the tasks was to get 20 people I know - so far managed 10 - to say (A) What I do best and (B) What they admire about me.......and so far all positive responses thank goodness!! Not that I exactly keep in close touch with my avowed enemies so the likelihood of a negative evaluation was reduced considerably....this is a technique used by many third world dictators to ensure that only nice things are ever said about them - surround yourself with people who like you, or at least, say they like you, and then point proudly at the stellar evaluations of your despotic rule.....either that or have a kick ass secret police with tons of weapons to threaten your cowering populace.....having no access to any secret police, or even some incredibly indiscreet brazen ones with no self-editing facilities at all, and being very low on actual weapons - make that none at all, save a particularly savage egg whisk - I opted to just email friends and family, and the results were lovely....seems I have some great qualities, and while I am well aware of my many flaws and limitation - D'oh! A good dictator never admits to flaws etc, so clearly my lifelong goal to rule over Burkina Fasso will likely be turned down on the grounds that I am a freaking big self-aware softie - it was wonderful to have people tell me what they like about me....yes that warm inner glow will keep me toasty warm through another chilly Winter night...

Ok time to finish off my homework for Jane - probably shouldn't be admitting I still have some to do the night before I see Jane - Jane, if you are reading this, please utilise what I am sure is your latent gift for selective amnesia, and forgot that last sentence! I finished it all really before you gave it to me such are my organisational and time prioritising skills- and watch some TV till my brain shrivels and dies and I am capable of nothing beyond dribbling and enunciating half-formed single syllables.....ah modern media, how I love thee......you do all the thinking for me, which on a 'school night' is just what the "ER" doctor ordered......

I See Bright Lights.....Very Bright Lights

.....and so it begins! To be honest, auspicious sounding though that first phrase is, I keep thinking I should be coming up with something a little more compelling, thought provoking or downright epic as I begin my blog. But given that I am hardly landing on the moon, or throwing my hat in the ring for a Pulitzer (at least not yet!) that'll do for now while I get used to blogging, and the inestimable joys I hope it holds. What I am hoping, inspiring first sentences aside, is that it allows me to use some of the creativity that my current job in Customer Care at an international courier company does not, and the hope is that as well as writing what I hope are entertaining - for me at least, and for anyone who stops by - diary entries, that the blog will feature all sorts of short stories, serials, commentaries etc that take my creative fancy. The blog is supposed to push me to great creative heights, which may or may not happen after 4.30 a.m. starts, and long days at the Customer Care coalface saving the shipping world for Type A high-octane personalities, and inspire me to push imaginative envelopes (assuming that they don't push back) and my imagination, crushed as it can be by the sheer inanity and blandness of everyday life, comes along for the ride. I think it will, and if so, this could be the best thing for me since Coldplay, "Lost" and Lindor Balls....doubtful it can surpass chocolate but ya never know do ya?..OK what am I thinking?! Of course it won't be better than Swiss chocolate but I hope it comes close....

So who am I, and why do I need this creative outlet? Well, what I am not is a slave to the frenetic demands of others, and for such a free extrovertive personality with a very left of normal view of the world - although I can be ridiculously normal at times although clearly not when naming my blog - ending up in Customer Care for most of my working life was one of those "Oops, how the hell did that happen?" slides into one of those unexpected, and increasingly unwelcome, avenues of life that wasn't signposted but really should have been......in big red neon letter with all sorts of "Warning! Do Not Enter!" signs and a hyperactive robot shouting "Danger! Danger" in the nearest cyber equivalent to a high-pitched panic-laden voice. What was supposed to be a multi-coloured romp through the rose-tinged funk-infused landscapes of life - and lets face it I think we all think life will be a never ending melange of 1000 different kinds of fun in our 20s - has, while still fun, turned into a very beige, cubicle-encircled big freaking pile of the great El Blando, thank you very much. Not to say life isn't a good thing, and I assure you I am not a grumpy old man who thinks life has passed him by - quite the contrary, I am often far too "glass half full" for my own good most of the time! - but I was really hoping for a lot more pizzazz and a whole lot less snoring.....so here I am, an extrovertive highly creative guy with a yen for the slightly weirder more oblique side of life, who is hoping that a feverish outburst of unbridled creativity, and an imagination let loose from the shackles of far too many corporate emails, and blue scuffed carpet, will enrich my life, and define where I go from here......yep, good thing my expectations for this blog are so low......LOL.....at the very least, I hope that investing in a new pair of sunglasses wasn't a waste of money...I expect bright lights to hit my wide-open with eagerness and anticipation eyes, any moment now....

Waiting........waiting......nope my life hasn't been completely re-invented yet......hmm, must learn to be a little more patient.......OK now? Nope....back to waiting.....

Symphony in the Domain - wearing the exceedingly bright T-shirt that will light my way should the blog fail to do that
January 2005