Wednesday, December 31, 2008

A year in Review. Ish.

It's the last day of the year. OMG so many things that just didn't get done, and the house is a sty and the family are descending in T minus 85 minutes and it is 40 degrees. I've sloshed out of the tub of cold water I was quelling the heat induced nausea in, and reeled around the house wondering if I should put my mobile in the fridge (do you think when it is so hot that all the interior surfaces of the house are at greater than blood heat it's a good idea to put important pieces of tech into a cool place?).

But I digress.
So what exactly did get done in 2008? Well, there was 52 weekly paycheques collected. Pass Go! Thank you very much Sheltered Workshop. 59 books read (Percentage trash approx 80%) which is not great, but not really despicable either. 14 hours spent doing yoga - that's pathetic. Really pathetic. Weight lost - unknown. Gave up tracking that in August. There's a lesson in that, if only I could understand it. 10 films seen at the cinema (it feels like less, but at least I made it into double digits - enough to stay moderately in touch with popular culture). All bills paid, all contracts fulfilled, all obligations met.

87 blog posts, 18 ooo words for Nano and enough emails to paper the moon.

Best experience was seeing Neil Gaiman in May (thanks everyone who made that special treat happen) at Kinokuniya and Kev saying Sorry.

Look it's not much of a review, I know that. I'm grateful for all the good things that happened and that my house is flood-proof and the widow-maker has only crippled the clothesline. Not bad for a year of natural catastrophes. Everyone in the family still has their limbs and air travel is still possible. Frankly I'm stoked.

May 2009 bring everybody more nice moments (I'd like more hugs this year) and less crappy shit. Yes, that is a tautology, sorry.
May your sovereign state stay solvent.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Too many Days

The 28TH of December poses a real and present danger to the capitalist way of life and should be dispensed with under the Keynesian Laws of Market Stimulus (1927).
This problematic day creates a hiccup in the smooth flow of capital from the proletariat to the businesses of escape and should either be commercialised or excised. The major investment poured over the decades into creating a day of massive consumption (code name "Christmas") and the corresponding after party (Code name "Boxing Day" - both 'sales' and movie premiers) has been inordinately successful. The use of all subsequent days as lead-ups to New Year's Eve and the increasing commercialisation of this event is being undermined by the subversive elements within Dec28TH and this cannot be allowed to escalate and put at risk all that we have achieved.

Situation Report
Undercover agents have again reported unacceptable behaviours on this day such as the vague and somnambulistic questioning the value of ongoing consumption of disposable consumer items, public expressions of symptoms and sensations of boredom, even a desire to connect with other non-familial humans without the purchase of special clothes or equipment in order to do so, and most problematically, some were seen to take a long walk on this day and to read a non-fiction book when they returned. Obviously this is not yet a crisis, indeed may of these behaviours are part of the cultural legacy inherited by the system from the previous historical construct. They are weakening overall but the cabal feel that at this juncture of the dominance of global capital such outbursts constitute a warning sign. This undercurrent of unease could be used by the rebel forces to politicise and activate currently placid consumers. That risk is unacceptable.

The Decimal Option
A further investment of funds into a fresh event is always possible. However analysis suggests that both December and January are sufficiently subscribed to meet requirement. Many other months are desperately under-subscribed, entire quarters in some instances (August, September, October for example remain barren of all but the weakest events. Despite ongoing investment and marketing application, Father's Day remains sluggish against expectations). This presents an opportunity to instigate a radical re-visioning of the year as we know it in line with some other goals of the cabal. Let's be honest - 365 has always been an unwieldy number. Non-decimal, pagan, geo-centric it represents a psychologically uncontrollable random element to life and commerce. Frankly, it's just annoying. Twelve months is two too many. Seven days a week - WTF? - let's make it 5 or 10 and neaten up the whole calendar business. The year would be much more manageable at, say 200 or 250 days length. Each month would then have a perfect four or five weeks (at a 5 day length) and in the course of two comparative centuries, we would accrue an extra 92 Christmases (using the larger 250 day a year model, results are even more dramatic at the 200 day a year rate). Thus creating an increase in the rate of return on investment for cabal members that I'm sure will be persuasive in and of itself.

On the Front Foot
There's simply no downside to this option, and at this point in history we have the power, the reach, the will and the advertising budget to pull it off. So many of our niggling and accruing problems would be dealt with through this one rational measure. There are simply too many days in the year, and it is time we handled it. Time we created a tighter, pacier year that zips and flows from one major celebration to the next. It is time for this cabal to shine the digital decimal light of market forces onto the slapshod rambling world and really rip some returns for our shareholders. Analysis suggests that implementation costs would actually function as a market stimulus (much as we've recognised that the targeted and deliberate reduction in carbon emissions would). I urge the cabal to get on the front foot and do it now while they're on their knees from the 'credit crunch' (you've got to hand it to our marketing department and their snappy names) and then as a reward we can ease the reins a little. What we lose in control of the crunch will be nothing to what we gain in the big matrix.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Twilight: The Neutered Boy-Band of Vampire Films

Sometimes I leave a series of books to build up, so that then I get to read them in a binge. The Stephanie Meyer Twilight series is one I've saved, so all comments about this film are based simply on the film. Such as it is.

I Pine, I Swoon. I Pine Again.
Wuv, twoo Wuv is tough for vampires, especially if they got turned in their teens. One episode of Moonlight showed just how nasty this can be - 170 years of acne would turn me into a serial killer too. Thankfully for the Cullen nest they all had really good nutrition and clean pores before they became "vegetarian" vampires. Not that I'm going to pick this film apart on plot points. No Sireee, that just wouldn't be sporting. Besides, that's not why one goes to see fare like this. No, one goes to sigh over perfect cheekbones and the lips of an ... angel wouldn't quite be right, but let's just say that I'm surprised that Robert Pattinson didn't insist on equal billing for his hair/lips and jaw. They certainly get the bulk of the screen time. Rightly so. there's not a lot of dialogue getting in the way of the brooding. You get a fair amount of time to look around too, and I've gotta tell you, the scenery in this film is gorgeous. After 10 years of drought, I would watch this just for all the rain scenes and the über-green forest. But I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah - pining for a love that cannot be.

Forbidden Love
*sigh*
For masochists, there can be a deep satisfaction in the denial of pleasure. A tautness to the desire that builds and builds to a blunt edge of pain and it is the pain itself and the endurance of it which becomes a muted pleasure (of a kind) until the eventual release (yes, even masochists get release, unlike Twilight fans). These children hash around at it and it pretty much goes nowhere but I'm betting the books give it a better build-up. It is, after all, the kind of thing that is easier to understand with an internal monologue. Otherwise you're just watching people with a kindof pained expression on their face and you wonder - are they having gut cramps? There's not really a lot of denial going on here either, she pretty much just throws herself at him and it is he, the gallant vegetarian vamp who turns his head away and says no. So she tries again. Who can blame her, he sparkles like a My Little Pony unicorn and declares he feels "strongly protective" of her. Woo - the kids are *wild*!

Bring Back the Teeth
Colour me weird, but I always found that it was the danger that made the Vamps sexy. There's no fangs in this film. There's a little eyeball action (the black guy gets red ones, but Darth Maul's were way scarier) and no blood. OK, a tiny smear in the big confrontation when her (SPOILER ALERT) femoral artery is meant to bleeding out ( I promised I wasn't going to get picky, but c'mon guys you bleed out of a femoral artery in something of the order of 3 minutes - let's not pick that part of the story for some wooden dialogue and pissing around with moral qualms), but only one of the 6 vamps in the room seems to have even a twinge about the snack spilling.
Ok, I'm not even going to go there. I'm totally backing out of this critical direction.


Why Her?!
I get that she would go for him. He can play Debussy (despite the massive handicap of his hair/eyebrows/lips), can climb huge firs in an effortless scramble, sparkles like a My Little Pony unicorn (did I mention he sparkles?) and he lives in the stunning architectural mansion in the forest. But she's a whiny nobody who's only allure seems to be that she smells good. I think Rum Balls smell good, but I don't date them. I think cigars and carrots smell good, but I don't tie myself up in knots wondering if they like me. Oh, and he can't read her thoughts, where he can read everyone else's. Big Woop. I can read most people's thoughts too when they're this complicated: QUOTE "Sex. Money. Sex. Sex. Money." UN-QUOTE nothing startling there.

And So...
If you like your boys pretty and your vampires fangless and all Emo-fied, then you'll probably laugh a lot less in this film than I did and possibly even think it's a pretty neat love story. Basically, this film is an utterly hi-larious trashy b-grade teen flick and I recommend we all get wasted and go see it together, and laugh our guts up. I can't wait for the second one. We'll watch The Craft first tho - ok? and Heathers for afters.
Remember - pine, then swoon.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Stop the Madness or the Robots Will Get You

The specter of a grim future under the control of Robot Overlords is undoubtedly something which haunts us all (ok, well mostly just paranoid SF nuts, and people who actually understand networking intelligence and have time on their hands for contemplating the possible consequences).

Now, I do not want Skynet to wake up any more than the next person. Much as Caprica 6 really sells the idea that sexy, intelligent, independent women can be robots too, the bottom line is that there is no scenario so far in which the genocide of humans is not an outcome. Apart from anything else, on the off-chance I was a survivor, I would make a crappy guerrilla fighter and a very poor motivating leader for the resistance.

However it is hard to remember these disincentives when once again the anticipated serenity of a weekend (or a public holiday in this particular instance) is unattainable due to the suburban love of power tools and mowers. Both yesterday and today there has been a cacophony of tedium. Vacuum cleaners, quad bikes, angle-grinders, whipper-snippers and the ever-ready, every-present, ever-painfully noisy 2-stroke mower. I don't mind loud and late parties, I can deal with (if ungraciously) the thoughtless tumult created by feral children. I can even usually bear to endure the tortured screams and furious rampages of the domestically violent couples in the street. These, after all, are all are among the fundamental of human activities. Power tools are not.

Down Tools!
How simple it would be to incorporate a small amount of programmable logic into these and other irritating items. It need not be networked to achieve the goals I have in mind. I just want none of these items to work on state recognised public holidays or on a weekend prior to 9am or after 6pm. Fair enough!

The proles have had long enough to self-regulate in these matters and have proven themselves incapable of doing so. It is time for the elite to assist them in this, as we do in so many other ways with our taxes, entertainments, intellectual specialisations (where do they think those plasma screens come from anyway? Santa's Freakin workshop?) and generally in resisting the spread of informational germs (it's true - stupid people are more likely to believe other stupid people. Sorry "easily influenced people"). Anyway, we could camouflage it as a clock, or a battery readout, or an FM radio and in this way it would become a feature the proles would aspire to owning and the phase-out would be swift. Those with a legitimate reason, and or the ability to read owner's manuals would be able to circumvent the programming and thus earn the ability to use these tools at these times, but I suggest to you that persons of such capacities probably have better things to do with their time during the targeted periods (such as, say, blogging about how the world could be a better, more loving place).

Self Control
I could stop there. I could, really. There's no real need to tamper in a permanent way with the car of the idiot doing burnouts at 2am mid-week. There's no justifiable reason to apply any liquor rationing to the unemployed or those with criminal/violent records. There's no need to restrict the breeding .... No. Our freedoms as humans are absolute and inalienable. Well they might be if we in Australia had ever enacted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into law. Which we haven't. We aren't the only peoples to look the other way on this one, we're in good company (Malaysia, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Vatican City, China and more have all overlooked signing or ratifying the declaration). In light of what some signatories do feel ok about doing my software control proposition seems pretty innocent.

Yeah, really. It's for their own good.

... hey! What do you mean my access to the internet might be curtailed. That's not fair!
Fine. Frack you. Now where's that manual...

Thursday, December 25, 2008

A Welcome Pause

A collective sigh of relief as 95% of us don't have to work today. Everyone just take a nice big breath. Look up for a moment, and look around.

Breathe again. Oh that's better.
Now, who am I and what was I doing before I got so caught up in working?

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Your Mission: Milk. Just. Milk.

You (or perhaps someone you know) goes into the grocery store to buy some milk.
Just. Milk.
How does that normally work out?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that this transaction is likely to result in a minimum spend of about $10, no matter what sized milk container the subject had intended to purchase.

If the subject is tired, hungry and or depressed, this figure is likely to rise to around the $25 mark as impulse ice-creams/magazines/exotic fruits are added to the basket.

You can plot it on a chart
A classic rising line from left to right where the x-axis is decreasing emotional state and the y-axis is amount of cash thrown after the false gods of retail therapy.
This is just in a grocery store remember, we're not even talking access to big ticket items like espresso machines or new speakers for the sound system that would make Hoyts moan with desire.

Today in a practical application of this experiment the subject blew $45 and change in an attempt to buy a litre of milk.
Just. Milk.

How Could This Happen?!
Why hasn't the Rudd government stepped in to protect working families from this kind of insidious bracket creep/erosion of our way of life?! Someone has to stop grocery stores from putting the milk in the far back corner, and from setting the confectionery aisle in front of the entrance. The gauntlet of sugar is a harrowing, chilling, gut-destroying nightmare of gaudily designed sugar lollies, and dark sensuous chocolate wrappers. The subject lowered her head, put her eyes to the floor and walked briskly forward. An excellent strategy that normally works well, this attempt was foiled by her own powerful reticular activation system (AKA Nerd Vision) which caught the merest glimmer of information, processed it on a priority channel and stopped her cold just one step past the target: Star Wars Pez Dispensers.

OMG
Star Wars Pez Dispensers in the grocery store.
Subject was immediately disorientated, was heard to mutter aloud "Darth Vader! Cooooool!" and commenced trawling the entire display to ascertain number and range of characters portrayed and to ensure that one perfect sample of each $2.45 toy/candy dispenser was placed in the shopping basket. Subject then attempted to regain her target item, and snagged a chocolate bar, large box of biscuits, catfood, and tinned food on the way to finally securing 2 litres of milk, before being observed circling back to the Pez Dispenser display to check that no new stock had been put out in the intervening period. The subject resisted the lure of exotic fruit in this instance.

Summary
The mission was successfully completed in that milk was purchased.
The subject exhibited a complete loss of retail control and a new nadir of expenditure for this exercise.
Subject recieves Epic Fail grading for not even eating Pez.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Trojan Catholics Decimate Australian Defences

I blame the Catholics for the recession/depression (have we decided yet which it is? I've been wagging my current affairs sessions).
YES YOU HEARD ME! The Fracking Catholics.
It seems like no one is brave enough (a slight exaggeration: allowable under 'Creative Commons: Poetic Licence') to stand up to their "my invisible friend is bigger than you and your invisible friend" crap and tell the TruthTM.

Well here it is; the walls to the Australian economy were opened by World Youth Day 2008.

Oh Yeah. I went there.
The sub-prime crisis? The slowdown of China? Simply acts 2 and 3 to the opening volley fired by the Catholics.

Allow me to plagiarise a small section of David Marr's excellent essay "The Rise & Fall of 2008"(SMH Good Weekend 13Dec08) present some facts.

In July of 2008, after an agonisingly do-gooder buildup, Sydney was constipated by Catholics clogging the city's causeways (except that the City closed off hundreds of streets and asked all 9000 Cityrail staff to work all days). This catastrophic incursion had been anticipated in the possible millions, but only 223 000 turned up. Shame really, we'd catered for about 5 million, given the Randwick racecourse $42mill in venue hire fees (hope they threw in the PA for that!), set the 'annoyance laws' in place (that allowed for a fine of $5000 per offence) (until the full Bench found in July that these laws were invalid, but too late - they were current for the duration of the WYD event) and perhaps most generously (especially in light of other more token funding gestures), the State Government in a festive spirit despite the humbugs chipped-in towards the party with about $120mill.

Much as that's kinda annoying, that's not all of it.
Oh no. I mean, we could probably afford to host a party (let's see $120mill between 223k guests, that's about $538 per head. You get very noice entrees for that) but what we didn't see coming, was the biological attack. That's right, the dreaded Pilgrim Flu that washed through the city. Then? Then it mutated with the general Flu and spread throughout the country, taking down the people it struck for an average of 3 weeks.
I don't have any concrete idea what that ended up costing us, but sick leave in Australia this year came to nearly $27bill.

So, if you're shitted off about the economy right now or how crap Australian films are, or just pretty much in general (and who isn't?) then consider boycotting either Christmas or politicians (or both). After all, it is human nature to prefer to have someone to blame and it will make you feel better.

I feel better, don't you?

This rant presented with the support of a double shot of "Merlo Coffee: Blended, Roasted and Packed in Australia" (but not grown - don't get too excited) and by the letter C.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

House Sitting

I thought my house sitting days were behind me when I hooked up with Riley. The cat owners who needed their groovy inner-city apartments lived in and their fish cared for (with the side bonus of being welcome to raid someone else's bookcase/dvd collection) were to become but a faded memory of ephemeral good luck.
How wrong I was. In a good way (at last).

Dog owners like to go away sometimes too, and as Riley is of a very portable size and nature, we continue to have the odd job as house sitters. Last time the perk was a swimming pool, tonight it's a cable internet connection for entrees, followed by a Very Large TV Screen for mains. I am quietly confident Battlestar Galactica is going to look pretty darn good on that screen. Oh yes, yes it will.
So Say We All.

An Attitude of Gratitude

Three really brilliant things happened this week. Other people inadvertantly pulled me out of a black funk and pointed my face back toward the sun, reminding me of what I so often try and remind others (and so easily forget myself).
You're not alone - we're all in this together.


Generosity
I re-wrote a cover letter for a woman in the office this week, She is one of the few sane and good-value people in the Sheltered Workshop, and so odds are good that she's a Temp. She's a talented artist with an intelligent sense of humour. Same goes for her husband and their child. She is a Temp as it turns out, and had also worked for a while in my last office (The Fortress of Solitude) so I was happy to offer my services in helping her apply for a plum job that came up in the library (which we're hoping is a normal, sane, pleasant workplace). She had done that thing people often do which is write two pages of dense, detailed explanation of how this and that skill would work in this and that aspect of the job, but then felt a bit bogged in detail and hadn't framed it well.
As Mrs Hill told me in grade 8, "you have to leave flags for readers so they know where they're going". I disagreed with her then (what a shit of a kid I must have been), but I've learnt my error doing hard yards. Mrs Hill was talking about the kind of writing that cover letters need, leading the reader along a broad and comfortable path to the idea that they need to glance at this resume and shortlist this person for interview ASAP. Anyway, it was a fun quick job and I really like having this person around, so it was fundamentally motivated by selfish desires. Which was why I was blown away when the next day she bought in 3 folios of her husbands drawings and offered me to take my pick "Heck, take two or three if you want". What a wonderful gift! I chose just one - an utter mindfuck abstract figure - and experienced a massive jolt of the warm and fuzzies. She didn't need to do that, I was happy just to contribute to her success. I didn't want anything in return. Writing can earn you artworks! How good can life get?!

Inclusion
Well life can also include unexpected text messages inviting you to come along to a comedy gig with the patron saint of booksellers, Bernard Black. Of course one says yes to that kind of thing and life immediately gets even better. There's anticipation for the event itself, but also a strengthening in the sense of inclusion in the clan that the invite and the event brings. I miss my clutches of friends and these excursions they arrange out of spontaneous book exuberance. So it was with palpable gratitude that I accepted this invite and began the countdown. Oh, and decided to sign-up for a writing challenge in April 09 too. Just for the helluvit. Yes! What could be better?!

Thoughtfulness
I'm not really into Christmas (at least not the part of it that's about the virgin birth of a divine Jesus; the mystery & pagan stuff I really dig. The trees inside the house, especially), but the society I have infiltrated and live among is into it (in a fairly strange way that I may never understand). I try to join-in with their cultural activities in order to get along. I do as little as possible or as much as I can bear in order to remain under cover. Sometimes these two measures do not meet, and Christmas is generally one of those times. I maintain low expectations, so it was a relief to experience little pain during the TCSW Christmas Breakfast (7.30am!! AM!!) and Secret Santa. The Office Martyr did an extraordinary catering job on just $5 a head (including proper food for Veggos) it was all going along fine and really, quite ok. Then I opened my gift. I was ready to exclaim my thanks to my anonymous gifter no matter what lie inside the paper. When a silk and pashmina paisley shawl in black and forest green came out I was stunned.
This gift was an act of thoughtfulness and love. It was a beautiful object and felt like a waterfall of light in my hands. My cubicle is very cold and I am constantly wrapped in woolly shawls to keep any feeling in my lower arms and hands. In this one gift, someone had expressed a care for my tastes and a knowledge of my day to day experience. I was (and am) really touched by this beautiful gift.

Attitude of Gratitude
Far too often, life seems to suck. Days seem bleak and nights are grim exercises in endurance. Then beauty, love and friendship nose their way back into your life like a dog under the covers in bed on a cold night. Snuggle up close whenever you can and take relief in an attitude of gratitude for whomever and whatever makes your heart's winter melt and mind's sun smile. If life is lived in fragments every sliver is precious.

Happy Solstice for tomorrow, and remember; you're not alone, we're all in this together.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

You Might be a Qlder If....

Next Sunday will mark the two year date for my move to Queensland. Two Years. 731 days. It feels like a lot longer than that.

I remember thinking through the plan in lots of years, One year for this and this, two years for this, and maybe five in total, max and thinking, "yeah, that's do-able. How hard can it be?! A few years of inconvenience is not such a big price to pay."

That was the voice of inexperience. That was the voice of someone who has played strategic games often enough to grasp the need for room/time to maneuver, but who has had all experiences of social and cultural deprivation fade into softness from the passage of time. Going without by choice in Sydney for a month is very different to going without for two years because even if you try and hunt it down there's nothing to be had locally.

This has not been my only learning. I have had a while now to observe the locals from my camouflaged blind and based on actual events and overheard conversations, I can now present to you the top 10 possibilitites that you're a Queenslander...

You Might be a Queenslander If:

10. You can have a normal shower in under 3 minutes with or without a timer. You would use the full 3 minutes if you needed to wash your hair.
9. You don't own a winter coat and wonder why people do (surely a pullover is enough?).
8. You think Brisbane is all grown-up now.
7. You have 'good' thongs for going out in (for when you really think you should probably wear shoes).
6. You've considered wearing formal beachwear to your court hearing.
5. You went to Sydney once (for a weekend) but didn't like it.
4. You think it is perfectly natural to operate your whippersnipper/mower/chainsaw/anglegrinder whilst wearing thongs or even just bare feet.
3. You exclusively drink Fourex beer, and consider all southern beers (such as, say VB) to be "gay."
=2. During a 42 degree day you've thought it would be a good idea to get some mowing done (and been surprised that you died of heat stroke/coronary attack).
=2. After a wild storm you've thought it would be a good idea to help the SES by 'tidying up' those fallen power lines.
1. You decorate with maroon.

Oh yes. My time here has been well spent.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Great Copy that works EVERYTIME!

As part of the research into my critic's comment yesterday (scroll down a little if you want to read that one first) I went looking for purposeful blogs and for possible topics of such a blog and gee-whizz there's a lot of overly sincere people writing mostly very dull things about nearly anything you can think of. So I constrained myself to about 2 hours looking only at copywriting. I must say that I did learn a lot in that time.

Hot Sex NOW
For example, I didn't realise how critical sub-headings are to the ongoing readership of one's copy. But many articles touched on or heavily emphasised this facet of writing. This seemed to jar a little bit with my view of the world, but then I discovered a hitherto unknown nuance - copywriting must be persuasive - it is promotional by nature. Anything else is just 'content'. Maybe this is where I've been going a little astray. I thought there was reporting, literature (or just fiction or story if you will) technical writing and then copy. Obviously my mental organisational systems have been limiting me. I read on and discover that not only does my copy/content not use enough sub -headings, but that when I do use one (as above), it's all wrong. Here's how that sub should have looked:

5 Tips to the Hottest Sex You'll Ever Have
1. Be really hot yourself
2. Get a really hot partner
3. Writhe around in a hot state of undress
4. Do it during summer
5. Buy my ebook for 27 kinky tips to set your love life on fire! Just $19.95 if you use this code: HOTMONKEYSEX

Wow. Do you feel the sizzle in that copy!? See that mad 'call to action'?! That is by-the-book AWESOME copy right there. Told you I wasn't wasting my friday night googling "monetise your blog for hot results now".
Mum rang last night in the middle of this mind-altering experience to give me an update on Riley (he's been moping around the house, bored and lonely - so he's gone for a mini-break to play on the farm until Sunday) and mum says "Are you doing anything special tonight?" and I am sitting in my jammies in front of the computer. I should have had the presence of mind to lie and say "Yeah I'm out at dinner with some friends" which would be a pleasant fiction for both of us. Sadly no. I say (with a bit more enthusiasm than it really warranted) "I'm reading about copywriting."
There's a cool pause.
"You're on the internet, aren't you?"
"Yes. Yes I am."
Another coolish pause.
"We found that bull that was missing. We put an ad in the paper, and it turns out he was about 3 kilometers away. He had gone up through Spicer's place but then must have cut through to the back of Joan's and kept going. He's up by Twohill road. Well worth the cost of the ad."
"Oh, I'm glad he isn't dead."
"Yeah, we'd started looking for a bad smell."

So after that call, I made a vodka & tonic and returned to the world of red, bold sub-headings atop numbered lists and people making outlandish claims about how much money they make EVERY DAY from ebooks and long copy and repeating the ask. Oh yeah, and the guy who insisted that no article of under 500 words should ever take more than 20 minutes to write. WTF?! - I mean I know 500 words is not all that long, but I can't even type that fast let alone compose a line of thought. oh, he says "I think about it and write it out in my notebook for a few days prior." "Oh", I think, "so lying to make the story better is still ok, and what I'm reading is story or copy - not reportage." Picky freakin bitch aren't I. How am I ever going to be tempted to click through to that ebook if I'm always thinking criticially?!

I learnt a lot about what people who call themselves "the best copywriter on the internet" think great copy on the internet is all about, but I don't think it's going to help me create the best possible 1500 words about the historic Cobb & Co Trail for a new tourism brochure that I need to give a client on monday . I think I'll risk not using the red bold sub-heads on that job.

In his defence, my critic apologised when he realised that his throwaway line had been a bit hurtful, but I honestly don't mind. I am long-time companion of self doubt and I think that's an ok thing to live with and make decisions with. He had a clear-hearted intention and besides, he's only little. As far as he's concerned the internet has always been there, it has always been huge, corporatised and socially networked, in a way he has been looking out for me - doddering dinosaur that I am.

We've strayed a little way this morning off the topic at hand and I've now been sitting in front of the computer (still in the jammies) for about an hour and Rage is coming to a close, which means it's nearly time to get the day officially underway. So let's wrap this thing up.

I really love writing. It is fun and it can be beautiful. I love swimming too, but not the same way. I can live without swimming for months at a time. I'm good at swimming and am naturally buoyant which helps (sometimes it rules to be fat!) although a lot of the time I like to just float and feel held by the water. That's what this blog is. It is my floating pool with a big sky all around and a nice breeze. I'm held here and it makes me happy. Sure there's the odd spider or frog fallen in, and sometimes the water is a bit frosty or i'm sick and can't get wet, but otherwise it is perfect.

So I think that's where I wan to be right now. Visualising this blog as a pool of surrender to physics and the sensuous nature of the physical world, participated in by the willing and friendly. So Come on in if you like, the water's gorgeous!


(BTW:Stay tuned for my up-coming SF thriller "Monkey Jockeys Riding Fascist Ex-Bankers" in which voodoo blood magic takes hold of a small community of Squirrel monkeys being kept for smuggling to rich collectors. These infected, possessed simians find deep roots and power in the spiritually weakened areas of New York (Wall Street) and take command of hollow primates to do their bidding. It's gunna rock out - really).

P.S. Buy my ebook NOW for 27 kinky tips to set your love life on fire! Just $19.95 if you use this code: HOTMONKEYSEX

Friday, December 12, 2008

Not Literature, no sireee, not by a long shot.

Apparently, this blog "lacks vision".

I don't often get feedback from readers, heck I'm constantly surprised there are any. So in a way I should have been delighted to get some frank and fearless critical appraisal, but I have to tell you, I was pretty cut about it.

Isn't the whole point of blogs to just noodle around and entertain oneself?! To write, or not write about things that happen (or don't happen) in a medium where one's words are as broadly available as it is possible to be and equally invisible or unknown as always - surely this is the blogging manifesto? My defensive thoughts circled sharply around this criticism, nipping out justifications, gobbling up rationalisations, but the burley ran dry and the sharks drifted off to richer waters and I was left with the unpalatable realisation that this criticism was entirely justified. After all, blogs are some of the most exciting contemporary writing and publishing around at the moment. I read some to be entertained, some to stay up to date with news of people and events and some just to feel connected to people of a like mind. Some blogs are the political poster kids for free speech - bringing real news out from under tough regimes. Some blogs are recording and tracking the work of researchers, of humanitarian workers, or pronoiacs. They all contribute to the betterment of our society. They are creative, diverse, international, exciting and relevant. Well, ones other than this one are.

So there are people making blogs where it really matters what they do. Theirs are not vague, personal noodlings or observations on minutiae. What options do I have? Could I become a better blogger? Should I just accept that I am crap and muddle forward? Should I delete the whole thing and chalk it up as an interesting experiment that entertained me for a while but should now really be cut loose to fade into the past?!

I thought these options over for a few hours yesterday, and I'm thinking them over again now. It seems like the blog is whatever it is, and changing over time because I let it be that way. Do I want to change? Do I have the control or discipline or interest to do that?
No. Not really.
I already lead a life of omission, control and deceit (and I live alone!). I just don't have the stomach for any more. This is also something that I enjoy doing in my own 'special needs' kinda way. So it's going to be option B, Crappy & Proud and muddling forward. Well, if not proud at least moderately self aware and kinda at peace with that. So to all my beloved, adored and precious readers, Thank You for coming by to read this humble blog now and then, and stay tuned for more of the same. But what the hey, I'm open to change. Call out if you want a request done, and I'll do my best to fufill it, and if I don't know the words, I'll hum something until we can get a jam going.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

The Joy of Laminate

I have been feeling pretty good about how clean my desk is at work this afternoon. Yeah, plenty of laminate between the phone and the single (canted) pen and my glass of water. Oh, check me out - I'm Gordon Freakin Gecko! PURE POWER BABY!

Except until I needed to get something out of my bag, and turned around to find a towering mass of brightly highlighted pieces of paper saying "urgent - do right NOW" and dated last week, and evem, a bit deeper int eh pile, the week before last. Oh dear. When I face my screen, this pile is just outside of my peripheral vision, and so, it seems, also just outside of my ability to pay attention to it. Crap. I don't remember moving that stuff there, but I must have. I even found my "inbox" inside the anerobic bowels of this swamp, cracked and weeping.

Still, no one has chased up any of those super urgent tangerine highlighted tasks, so maybe I can just file them all straight into the recycling bin and get back to enjoying expanses of laminate.

Oh, yeah, that's it - nice clean desk!

Monday, December 01, 2008

Back to work work.

Welcome to the first day of summer.
December already. Why is it that February always drags but November goes so quickly?!
Nanowrimo has finished for another year. I didn't win. Which is to say my story didn't make it to my goal of 25 000 words and has no ending. Jeeze, it didn't even get to the middle. I got pretty demoralised by my immanent failure mid last week and cracked open a bottle of vodka. and just gave up. I don't like that about me, but there it is. I really feel like I owe it to Edwina to keep going, but some of the magic has dissipated. Actually, I want to finish it. That's the real point of Nanowrimo, to complete something outrageous.

Things I've learnt from doing Nanowrimo in 08:
* Write more. Write everyday. Write and write and write until the right elbow gives out and then go for it with the left.
* Have fun and go nuts with anything and everything in the story. I saw from a new perspective how buttoned down I am about things and that's making my writing boring. Next year I vow to play dirty and have characters singing endless songs or reading aloud from Tolkien, anything to get to 50k. I said I was going to do this in 08, and something in me baulked. Why?! So 09 it is!Really, on my heart, hope to die.
* Remember the rules are just word count and a beginning middle and end. That is all.
* Do not agree to do anything for anyone if it's in November. There's eleven other freaking months of the year to fill up, this is my month, sod off. I talk big, but I failed to say no to a single request this year - and then paid for it - with a slow word count and constant guilty/resentful feelings. Completely my own fault.
* Taking a month off from tv, reading and newspapers is awesome. I dabbled here and there, and noticed the difference when I did. This is not something suggested by Nano, it was an urge, I recommend it to you.
* Go to the write-ins. No one in my immediate family or surroundings gives flying pig about this stuff, so contact with others will really help with the stages of madness (and the boards and pep talk emails do kinda help, but it's better to be with people. I went to some write-ins in 06 and it was great. Even tho they were way-nerdy guys running them ... even I found them nerdy. That's out of hand).

I think that's the lot for now. I feel a bit sad and grumpy today, and there's work needs doing, and it's bloody hot again, and there's no food in the fridge, well, no food that isn't off anyway and the real world is impinging on my dreams.
I hate it when it does that.