Getting in trouble with The Lemming

*WHACK* *WHACK* *CLOBBER* *WHACK*
It's something of a miracle that I haven't been laid low with some sort of acquired brain injury, given the number of times that I've been beaten across the back of the head after having The Lemming run away with my mouth. It's not like I actually set out to offend people or to upset them in any way, I just have this problem with poor impulse control. You would think that some people (Jennie for example) would be more understanding of this affliction of mine and not use my occasional verbal eruption as an excuse for a little percussive adjustment of my hairline. You would think wrong on that score. Earlier this month Jennie decided that she needed some help, and brought her mother out for a visit...

Things got off to a frisky start with Carol's first day here. It's the first afternoon that she's here and, proud house-owner in training that I am, I'm showing her the front garden. Carol, pointing at some of the various plants, asked what they were. Without thinking I answer with "Dead and dying", and bring Carol's attention to the hole in the side garden, telling her that we've had just the one successful escape. Carol was most amused, Jennie was not. I went to bed that night with this ringing sensation in the back of my head - It must have been the sun or something...

Things went on as normal for most of the month, the only break from the monotony of Jennie trying to break the back of my skull open was when Carol joined in the cranial pummelling festival. Right up until last night that is, when Jennie was offended into a particularly savage assault upon my person by a particularly witty observation from The Lemming. The latest and most severe of the unwarranted assaults in my person was caused by Jennie's complaints about the ineffectiveness of the fly-swatter she was wielding in the job of fly slaughter. I merely observed that if Jennie were truly serious about killing flies then she should water them.

*POW* And that is how my latest headache occurred. *WHAM* *BONK* *WHACK* And it also brought some friends. My unfeeling brute of a mother-in-law was most amused, both by the comment at her daughter's expense and by the immediate physical response it prompted.

Painkillers, I need painkillers.

The author would like to reassure readers that no animals were harmed in the writing of this blog entry. It must be stated however that The Lemming was solely responsible for any number of smack-downs and beat-downs upon my person. All complaints about the mistreatment of this particular animal should be referred to management, who will in most likelihood use it as ammunition for further abuse.

B R A I N S S s s z z z z zzz

RISING FROM MY GRAVE
2 months of silence. 2 months buried in an unhealthy dose of "Blah". That's the main reason for this hiatus, honest. "Procratination", "absent-mindedness" and "sheer, bone-idle LAZINESS" have absolutely nothing to do with the sheer level of non-productivity that has been evidenced on this blog recently. Anything that you may have heard to the contrary are LIES (dammit!) spread by people who just happen to know me. (It saddens me tho think that I may now be more unreliable than Piro of Megatokyo fame, who at least has the excuse of still being a new(ish) father to excuse him from his current bout of non-productiveness.)

It's not just this blog that's fallen victim to my flurry of inactivity. The decking out in the alfresco area at the back of the house hasn't had anything done to it since just before Melbourne Cup Day, DIY (Don't Involve Yourself) at it's very best! This is most likelly due to the recurring nightmares that I'm pretty sure that I have every night. While I can't remember anything of my dreams each night, I'm so tired when I wake each morning that I'm certain that I spent the night running away from delivery trucks from Soilworx. I have furniture that I need to put together before Christmas (like Ikea flat packs only without the Allan Key to go with it), presents to buy for my father and brother (for which I have no real clue for the most part) and I'll have to clean the BBQ before Thursday. There, the griping about what's on my plate is now out of the way so time for coffee...

SPEAKING OF CHRISTMAS...
We have a real, live Christmas tree slowly dying in our living room, and presents underneath it, around it and behind it, blocking off all possible access to allow water deliveries to prolong the tree's torment. The only real difference between the vegetation in the lounge room and the vegetation in the front garden is that the stuff in the front yard dies in natural lighting conditions. (Which is not entirely accurate, the tomato plant that Jennie ignores is thriving! Go figure...)

Every year we make a solemn and heartfelt vow to not lose control this coming Christmas and every year, shortly after November heaves its way into view, there's a *splash* as we go overboard again. This year Jennie started a computerised inventory just to help keep track of things, and by next year we should be on a full-blown, multi-user database with a crack (addicted?) staff of one (me) to keep it working.

More to write later, now I must get back to work for the benefit of the security camera that's pointed right at me!

Waking up, still not dead. Damn.

NO REST FOR THE WICKED
I'm sure that one day, while I'm enjoying the convenience of modern al-fresco dining, that I'll be able to look at this time and laugh. I won't be able to do that today though, I hurt too much for that. In fact I hurt too much for much of anything at all - I assume that those bits of me that don't ache were surgically removed from my body sometime on Friday night and were only reattached last night. Everything else had to endure moving a large pile of crushed rock from the front of the house to the back of the house, one wheelbarrow load at a time on Saturday.

Sunday was the day when the fun really began when the timber frame for the paving stone deck was slapped together and the pile of crushed rock was spread out to all parts of the frame interior. Just when I thought that things couldn't possible get any worse than I had endured, reality strolled up behind me and subjected to to a savage, brutal mugging. I don't know what I have done to earn the distaste, ire and downright blatant hostility of anything to do with hardware but it must have been major.

Yesterday it was the turn of a hired flat plate compacter to subject me to misery without end. Not content with having its motor splutter and die every 6 seconds on average it then decided that the only way possible that it was even going to approach working was if I lifted the back end of it up so that the back of the plate had no chance of harming its delicate surface with the likes of tangible work. Compacting that layer of rock involved being stuck in the middle of the wrong end of a biceps curl while man-handling an irrationally murderous mass of petrol powered metal up and down the decking to be.

The icing on the cake from all of this? Finding out that we need more crushed rock, and that Jennie will be ordering it for Wednedsay delivery. My plans for much of this week are now as follows:

• Monday - Wake up, curse the fact that I'm still alive, go to work, come home, move a large pile of sand from the front of the house to the back of the house, collapse in the lounge room, pray for death and then go to bed,
• Tuesday - Wake up, curse the fact that I'm still alive, go to work, come home, move 32 square meters of paving stones from the front of the house to the back of the house, collapse in the lounge room, pray for death and then go to bed,
• Wednesday - Wake up, curse the fact that I'm still alive, go to work, come home, move more of that fuckinig crushed rock from the front of the house to the back of the house, spread that rock out for compacting, collapse in the loungeroom, pray for death and then go to bed,
  
• Thursday - Slip into a coma and then fade gently into death. Or, wake up and curse the fact that I'm still alive should I prove to be less than fortunate... Plough through the rest of the day with a smile on my lips (rictus of horror) and a song in my heart (silent shriek of pained terror) as I wait with breathless anticipation for the new trial of pain to be given...
  

Should I die this week I'd just like Jennie to know that I hate that fucking plate compacter, I really do.

A view from far, far outside the cage.

"ECONOMY" IS THE WATCHWORD
There's a part of me that has begun to really admire the sheer, bloody-minded level of consistency that the U.S Republican Party has shown in its choice of Vice President since 1988. Back in the dying days of The Cold War they gave us Dan Quayle - A man of extraordinary qualities I'm sure, provided that you were able to stop laughing at him long enough to actually find them. I'm still laughing. From 1988 until 1992 the leadership of the free world was a single assassin's bullet away from devolving to the sort of specimen that should have been expelled from the human race for failing the drug test. (He was tested and found to not be on any of them, thus the epic fail).

Fast forward to 2000 - mainly because I can't remember who the Republicans shoved into the arena after Bush (the Lesser) and Quayle (the bewildered) lost to Clinton and Gore, which marked the victory of Bush (the Least) and Cheney over Gore and somebodyorother. Once again, in fine tradition, the office of Vice President was occupied by someone who can only be described as ... "gifted", and was the perfect pairing for a former cocaine and booze hound of gargantuan proportions from Texas. It was amusing to watch, after a certain fun-filled hunting trip involving Mr Cheney, a firearm and a badly misplaced hunting companion, the members of the Secret Service keeping a paranoid eye on the VP, just in case he tried something against the President. (Who would you shoot, and how many times?)

If you go to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise,
As the Vice President shoots you between the eyes..

Now we have Sarah Palin. The sort of politician that has comedians the world over coming in their collective socks in sheer, unbridled joy. I'll admit, I'm a fan - But only because I enjoy watching this sort of train wreck in action secure in the knowledge that I'm not there. It's like somehow the Republican Party managed to grab everything that's memorable about Quayle (dim, without the charm of Gomer Pyle to make it work for him), Dubya (ignorant as sin and as thick as a bag of frozen pig shit) and Cheney (bad news with firearms no matter what species you are) and rolled them into a one-size-fits all bag of genetic defects before giving it as a running mate to John McCain who, from latest accounts, probably needed a guide dog to help him fly his plane properly back in Vietnam.

Bleaugh!

A PICTURE OF HEALTH
Ahh, spring! How I love this time of year. The football season is a memory, finishing with my football team crashing out of the finals, the Grand Final's been and gone (and gone to bloody Hawthorn) and that brief 2 month period in the year when I don't have some form of lung infection is just around the corner. Love it! I am so looking forward to going through a day where I'm not trying to cough up a lung, my lunch, and the soles of my shoes. Of course, for a brief period of time things had the potential to be so much worse...

I have to admit that there was a small part of me that was a little disappointed when I got the result of my CT scan back with negative results. I was really looking forward to telling the tale of how, for a brief, shining moment in my life, my clumsiness was responsible for saving my life instead of trying to bring it to a premature and humiliating close. Sigh. Just once I thought that the pain, the frequent and hard to explain (to an audience that isn't collapsed in laughter) injuries, the indignity and the massive social cost would have been justified in some small measure. Instead my lungs, apart from being full of the byproduct of another chest infection, are totally clear of anything remotely threatening, and the fact that I trip over everything (including misplaced oxygen molecules) is but a part of the burden that I have to carry as part of being me.

HORRORZ ON THE INTERNETZ
My brother introduced me to an absolute gem of a web-site the other day, Encyclopedia Dramatica, which is what Wikipedia would be like if it were written by a crazed collection of smutty-minded, juvenile adolescents. Prowling through the pages on this site (such as entries for Melbourne, the United Nations, pwn and lulz) is to be let off the e-leash into a world where karmas are crushed, sacred cows are lined up for slaughter and dogmas of all varieties are subject to surprise buttsex. It's wildly entertaining in places, quite a lot of them in fact, but parts of it are also like the sensation you get when you hit your feet with a hammer time and time again - It feels so good when you stop. You must be cautious, some stuff there is not suitable for minors, not suitable for the office environment and probably not suitable for anyone who enjoys polite conversation. This place has many parts that are electronic equivalent of a toxic waste dump - It's rough, it's libelous, it's probably an abomination before the eyes of God and it's funny as hell.

Final warning:

It has direct links to goatse, and no! I won't be linking to it (or sleeping comfortably at at night ever again).

Dreams of Impending Father's Day

THE VERY DEFINITION OF "INSANITY"
Jennie says that I don't spend enough time on this blog talking about my children, so here's a little something to help rectify that oversight, and to help me talk my way out of the trauma of moving our youngest from his cot to a fully fledged bed.

My favourite definition of insanity is "Repetition of the same action despite assured failure." Last night that definition would have been a perfect representation of the chore of putting Oscar to bed. In fact, let's have a blow by blow repeat of the whole, "Putting Oscar to bed" saga. It goes something like this...

Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Drink a beer. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Drink another beer. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed. Put Oscar to Bed.

And so on. After a while it got to be quite the chore. Of course by the time that it became quite the chore it was 11:00 pm and it was time for the parents of the household to go to bed. In hindsight perhaps I should have given the beer to the two year old, or done something less painful to myself to help break the monotony of the evening - Like hit the recently injured big toe on my right foot with a hammer or something.

AND NOW, THE TRIUMPH OF GOOD OVER EVIL!
Tonight was a different story. It only took somewhere between 6 and 8 attempts to get that little shi ... Errr, little bundle of sunny faced joy ... to stay in his bed and go to sleep. All things being equal however it could be that he was extremely tired from the night before, and is therefore saving the Next Big Thing for tomorrow night. Ah, the joys of Monday! Just in case they weren't miserable enough, Boo can make them so much worse. In the words of Michael Garibaldi, "I'd rather have my gums extracted."

POSTSCRIPT TO LAST MONDAY
I have this nagging suspicion that, in my misadventure in zealous customer service, I may have broken a rib. I'll let you know how it turns out, and how much my colleagues and family laugh at me should my suspicions be confirmed...

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Now playing: Within Temptation - Forsaken
via FoxyTunes

Ouch time. Yet again.

NEW HORIZONS IN CUSTOMER SERVICE
Why it seems that I update my blog only in times of personal injury is probably a coincidence, but here we go again with another episode of the slap-stick comedy that is my life at the moment.

Thanks to the kind people who work at Asus (and their rather nifty looking Eee PC 1000H) I am able to type this entry from the confines of my pain-filled bed, rather than the chilly solitude of the study at the other end of the house. Thinking about it I feel that perhaps there would be little difference, other than missing out on the pleasant(?) company of Jennie at the moment who is next to me, comforting me in my time of need with much heart-warming laughter and merriment. Well, it would be heart-warming if it wasn't at my expense. Deep down I'm sure that she means well - Even if "means well" in this case probably translates as "deeply amused". Jennie has been a rock of support and sympathy to me, even if appearances can be misleading.

The latest incident happened at work yesterday at VU's St Albans campus when a student had finished paying a late amendment fee using her debit card. Seconds after leaving the student service centre I noticed that my most recent client had left her debit card behind. Like a rocket, a bullet even, I was up, out from behind the counter, across the foyer and out the door of building 4 and moving at speed. Look out! Here comes Customer Service Guy (or Clumsy, Suicidal Git - you decide). Across the courtyard I ran, determined to return the card to its rightful owner. I caught sight of her some distance away and, keeping an eye on my target, put on a burst of speed. In hindsight I should have kept two eyes on where I was going.

It was on the second last turn (left) that I came a cropper... I misjudged it, ran into a flowerbed and tripped on the sad remains of a once mighty shrub pruned down to a stump of sullen, vengeful fury filled with nothing but a burning rage against the species that cut it down in its prime. "Tripped" is such an inadequate word to describe the landing I made, and "splashed" doesn't quite work when you're talking about landing in tanbark. In any event I was a victim of momentum, gravity and hostile vegetation.

While we're at it, the phrase "The bigger they are the harder they fall" is misleading. Believe me, the bigger they are the more time they have to think about things on the way down... The list of things that went through my mind during this incident went something like this, "There she is! Shit! What the hell was that? I'm falling? Crap, I'm falling! Where am I going to land? Not good, not good. Can I turn? No. Shit. Arghshitfuckdamnthathurts!"

After impact I went about the sorry business of finding my glasses and removing about half a tree worth of tanbark from my clothing. I trudged my way back to the office, a picture of misery with that bloody debit card still in my hand. After cleaning the abrasions I did what I should have done in the first place, I punched her student number into my terminal to find her mobile phone number and left a message to let her know that her card was still in the student service centre.

This morning shortly before lunch I handed the card, still awaiting collection, in at the security office...

Busy busy busy....

Damn, getting slack again. Oh well, here goes ... One big post to catch up.

(MORE) CLUMSINESS
Those of you who know me best know that sooner or later I'm going to injure myself in some acutely embarrassing way. Last week was no exception, and was probably overdue anyway. It all starts with a cat. Which one? It doesn't matter. For one night last week I hated them all...

It all started with the wondrous odour of freshly laid cat piss in the study. One of our feline inhabitants decided that Graeme, far from having the piss taken out of him, needed to have some deposited on his air mattress that was lying around in the study as a matter of urgency. I decided that I'd better remove the large and ungainly cat toilet from the room, and shift it down the hallway to the garage where I could get to work on trying to clean the bloody thing. The smart thing to do would be to mop up the excess first.

I wasn't smart.

The first part of the trip, navigating the whole thing out of the study without spilling anything on the carpet, was a success. This should have been my first warning, but I wasn't paying attention. Little dribblets of cat piss dripped over the side of the air mattress as I moved it up the hallway. "No problem", I thought, "Hit it with some cleaning stuff and wipe it up with a paper towel (or two, or three) once I've got the rest of this in the garage and taken care of things there." My second unheeded warning was just how quickly I was able to clean up the mess in the garage as well as the trickling mess down the hallway. I used a lot of spray cleanser during the cleaning process and, being winter, things were a little slow in drying. Things like the tile floor running the length of the hallway for instance, that was slow in drying...

The almost inevitable dance that followed this bout of late night cleaning went as follows....

1. Stomp - Stomp your way up the hallway, muttering about cats, bladders and the bladders of cats in particular.
2. Slip - Slip your soft-rubber shoed foot (I was wearing crocs, an apparent injury hazard) on a wet patch of tile floor.
3. Split - Split your legs just as far as they'll go - All the better to lose what little balance you have with.
4. Swing - Swing your foot up, perch it gracefully in the air before you,
5. Stab - Stab your big toe into the floor just has hard as you can.
6. Scream - Scream as waves of pain crash their way from your toe, through your leg, up your spine and into your (soon to be) long suffering brain before you,
7. Swear - Swear and swear and swear and swear...

Guess which foot did the slipping, stabbling and eventual bruising? Remember this post? Same foot. In fact, here's a picture of last week's injury.
As you can see the big toe is looking all painful and nasty. Jennie, paragon of compassion and empathy that she is, on the night of the injury told me to shut up and stop bitching about it... See! I told you it was injured!

SURVIVING INCOMPETENCE
I am at a loss, I really am, to wonder how anyone would even begin to think that giving Telscrape control of a national fibre broadband network can be anything other than a truly craptacular idea. These chuckleheads have trouble enough as it is with the vagaries of copper wire without giving them even more scope to fuck things up with fibre-optic cable. In my opinion the only cable that these invertibrates should be associated with is the ones separating their lungs from access to a viable oxygen source. Kill them all, and replace them with sheep. Sure, the sheep are still stupid as all hell but at least they're useful when it comes to things like wool and socially acceptable foodstuffs.

Our phone service is out, again. Telstra is denying all involvement with anything remotely resembling a fault, again. I want to execute Soloman Trujillo with a chainsaw enema, again. On Saturday I made the mistake of reporting a fault with our telephone service and then getting my expectations up that something would actually be done for a change. I'll leave it to my email to Telstra's complaints department to continue this line of thought.

Re: Fault number [TOP SECRET STUFF!]

I am emailing this as you do not have the facility to lodge or follow up on fault reports via email, and I feel that lodging a formal complaint with your office is the only avenue available to me at present.

I reported a fault with our residential telephone line on 2 August 2008, and during the call I stated that a full isolation test had been performed and that despite not having any telephone equipment connected to our line at all still yielded a busy signal when I called my home number from my mobile phone. Plugging in completely different telephone equipment that is known to work properly also resulted in no success whatsoever.

During the course of this call to your 13 22 03 number I also stated that our telephone and/or ADSL service suffered whenever the weather was poor, and that if it rained then our telephone service, our ADSL service or both services at once would be interrupted shortly thereafter. In addition I noted that this situation had been an ongoing issue since the telephone line was installed back in February of this year.

Arrangements were made for a technician to visit our premises this week and I confirmed my mobile telephone number with the operator who took my call and was assured that any technician who would be making the visit would call me half an hour before arriving. I stated that I would be available to be on the premises if given 30 minutes notice and was assured, twice, that I would be called before the technician's arrival.

Sweet load of good that did. I arrived home this evening to find that "Mike" had called by our place at 12:20pm today. He was nice enough to leave behind a card saying, "I called to repair your telecommunications service, however you were unavailable". How strange it must be to employ a telephone service technician who seems to be incapable of calling a mobile telephone; or seems to be incapable to remembering that, as a courtesy at the very least, a telephone call prior to a service call is always appreciated.

The fact that your technician stated that the telecommunications service to our premises was working merely adds another level of insult to an already pathetic level of customer service. If I were to deliver a similarly shabby experience to my clients, I would be out of a job in no short order.

We have been without a telephone service since approximately 11:00am on 2 August 2008, and so far this situation shows no sign of becoming any better any time soon. I find it even more galling as my ADSL service is working just fine at the moment, and IT SHARES THE SAME BLOODY LINE!

I'm not asking for much, just the telephone service that my wife and I pay our monthly service fee for. Is that too much to ask?

I expect a swift resolution to my current issue or my next email will be to the Telecommunications Ombudsman, and I will include all the details of this email as well as any response (or lack thereof) that may result.

I can only assume that "Mike the Technician" was pressed for 12:30 drinks at the pub... Oh, for those of you who know what our telephone number is and need a laugh, do a directory for our telephone number search using Whitepages.com.au, and then click on the 'view map' link for our entry. The result is close enough I suppose, it still shows a location in the Melbourne metropolitan area...

For more laughs check out the Troll Doll's wikipedia entry to see the traces of clumsy and ham-fisted edits to make complete jerk seem plain and boring - It was a much larger, and far more critical, document than when I first checked it out in January this year. Then a slash and burn edit happened and all I have is memories...

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Now playing: Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb
via FoxyTunes

Looking up from the haze.

SUCKED IN
It seems that even the most steadfast and stubborn of people will succumb to the all-devouring social-networking hydra that is Facebook, (except my friend Derek who is still hideously addicted to Everquest after all these years). From the depths of (very) short-lived enthusiasm when I created a profile back in March (afterwhich I did exactly nothing for months) to the sudden burst of activity in late June, now I find that no day is complete without at least once visit per day to see what my friends have been up to and so on. Facebook, like Tupperware or any other pernicious drug, is like an addiction - Tupperware just costs more to indulge in. Yes, I'm looking at you Jennie....

A NEW TURN OF PHRASE
What do you get when your wife notices that your hair appears to be thinning in a rather odd way? Rather like parallel lines running back from your forehead... I looked in the mirror and sure enough, almost like racing stripes, were the areas of hair defficiency that Jennie was talking about. "Cool!" I thought, "Male Patterned Baldness." The reality however is more than a little mundane, and with less scope for the Advanced Hair Studio to play with, when I realised that the hair was merely clumped and jammed together by the combination of sweat and motorcycle helmet from earlier that evening. Oh well, at least I look better wearing my helmet than Shane Warne does sitting under that stupid looking lamp set up. (Maybe someone should try telling Shane that treating your hair like it's a plant just isn't going to work, even if your head is full of shit ... errr ... fertiliser.)

Return of the Chocolate Assassin

"INCOMING"
It seems that our household dose of feline idiocy (Burmese variety) has decided to add another tally mark to his list of victims. That wouldn't be so bad I suppose if that additional victim were anyone else but me. Koda had other ideas in his woefully under-developed mind however, and this morning I was the lucky recipient of a gravity assisted cat-attack...

I suppose that I was partially to blame for this in the first place. I locked that manic moggy in the bathroom in order to keep Graeme's mind on getting dressed. With things being the way they were this morning (and much like every other morning when time is a factor) Koda was locked away to his own devices and promptly forgotten in a flurry of activity and parental encouragement (trans: shouting) at children to get dressed before all manner of detention, grounding and fwappage hit them. I swear, some mornings it takes gelignite just to get Graeme and Nathan moving and a cattle-prod to keep them moving in the right direction.

Time passed and, with the rest of the family out the door and on their (noisy) way, I decided that I had just enough time after putting my motorcycle jacket on to put some laundry into the wash and to scoop a metric butt-load of cat crap from two litter boxes before leaving. Scooping the crap from the litter tray in the en suite was easy and uneventful enough. Reality was, as you can see, lulling me into a false sense of security before yet another hose-job. Time to scoop the second litter tray in the main bathroom, so I open the door and bend down to knee level and get to work...

I hear Koda meowing behind me - sounding a little odder than normal, and responded in the appropriate fashion when you're busy moving shit from one pile to another, "Shut up Koda!" while continuing to scoop. More meowing follows, "Koda, will you kindly shut the fuck up?", and then all falls ominiously quiet...

* Thud *

"WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!" I yell as I swiftly realise that our resident cat with a death-wish has launched himself from the top of the shower stall to land on my back. I stand up, a mistake, to feel the unnerving sensation of a cat briefly hanging from my jacket before launching himself sideways into the hallway and a rapid escape from my cat-seeking size 14 shoe. The only comfort I can claim in this indignity is the fact that, due to my twisting and turning in the middle of Koda's launch, the Burmese with a breathing problem (He's still breathing, that's the problem) went off course and bounced off the bathroom door with a heartfelt (and head felt) *clunk*.

If all cats were this much fun we would have killed the entire species off centuries ago...

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Now playing: Tarja Turunen - I Walk Alone
via FoxyTunes

Charles Darwin: 1 - U.S Teenager: 0

I SMELL ANOTHER LAWSUIT
It seems that you can lead a dick-head to knowledge but you cannot make him think, and this story of the triumph of human stupidity over common sense merely goes to reinforce that rather jaundiced opinion of mine. It seems that two fences and lots of warning signs aren't enough to prevent one hothead from doing what comes naturally, and fatal results are inevitable whenever idiocy meets physics.

The really sad thing about this is that the parents of this amazing teenager without a head (or functioning brain) are almost certainly going to try to sue the church group that took this kamikaze package of teenaged hormones to the amusement park, the amusement park for failing to provide a safe environment for genetic ineptitude and the makers of the amusement ride for failing to install enough fluffy pillows in all the right places to prevent this "tragedy" from happening in the first place. I know what would have stopped this decapitation from ever having the slightest risk of occurring - a condom. Failing that, and in the interests of being totally sure, then compulsory sterilisation of the parents would also have done rather nicely.

I am in Hell, Part II

STUCK IN THE OFFICE & BLEEDING FROM THE EARS
After much reflection and pondering I have come to the conclusion that commercial radio was sent to bedevil and torment me. I can think of no other reason why I'd have to listen to Malign Virus' "musical" offering more than once per decade. Listening to this moppet in search of a swift kick is to be reminded of a lesser version of Landfill Ravine - and begs the question of why the Wailing Mullet isn't spending quality time in Camp Justice for repeated acts of terrorism.

Thanks to the wonders of inoffensive radio play-lists and the office radio I get to listen to "See you again" no less than 4 times per day, which is enough to prompt dreams of indiscriminate gun-play and a swift response from the soggies in order to take the edge off some of the pain. The last time I felt this close to an intestinal haemorrahge of epic proportions was back when "Mambo Number 5" was prompting the rest of the world to hate the U.S just that little bit more.

I am in Hell

AT A CHILDREN'S BIRTHDAY PARTY? - DIAL 1800-KILL-ME
Send help. Am stuck in a house with half a million sugar crazed 8 and 9 year olds. No-one is willing to help. Even the pizza delivery guy laughed at me when I asked him how much it would cost if he were to load up the boot of his car and disappear. He thought I was joking. I wasn't...

EDIT: It's 9:30 at night and ... and ... they're STILL HERE! Forget sending help, send scotch. MMMmmmmm Scotchy scotchy scotch....

Proof that gulibility is also endless.

I WAS PWNED!
*Sigh* You would think that after 14 years or more of being on the internet and wading through the lies, bullshit and hype that I would have learned by now, but noo... Provide the right link with just the right amount of believability to it, especially if it involves an activist group with a certain reputation for zealotry to the cause, and have that link delivered by someone who I used to trust, and even I can get fished in.

Megan, I now have to sign you up for all manner of amazing offers for online ordering of prescription medication, surgery-free enlargement of various parts of human anatomy and red hot stock tips. Enjoy.

Proof that stupidity is endless...

HAVE PLACARD, WILL PROTEST
Of course having a placard is a long, long way away from actually having a clue and this week those crazy kids from PETA have decided to put their hand up for the "I'm with Stupid" award for 2008. Even though they're almost certainly up against all manner of stiff competition this year, their most recent protest event is noteworthy for all the right reasons, not least of which is their effort to show a meeting -hall full of hard-core geeks that naked women really do exist outside of a .jpg file!

A quick search of PETA's web site fails to show any mention at all of their latest triumph of people power over the pervading darkness of human cruelty and depravity - I can only assume that the webmaster (or webmistress for that matter, I'm not fussy as long as they're dressed in leather... Oops. Too far?) will make the appropriate updates in due course. Until then however, I salute them!

Okay okay, I laugh helplessly at their expense...

Friday down near the farm.

JOYOUS NEWS
The neck tie is dead, and not a minute too soon (unless you're a lawyer or an accountant, in which case I wish you well in your career induced daily dose of "Choke" - And you're more than welcome to it). Thanks to reading this article over at The Age I can rest peacefully in my bed (except for the twice nightly ritual of blanket reclamation - see below) knowing that I'll most likely never have to wear another tie, outside of a job interview, ever again.

SNOOZUS INTERRUPTUS
I'll be the first to admit that my sleeping habits leave more than a little to be desired, and after more than 10 years of Jennie telling me to do something about my perpetual lack of quality sleep I'm finally starting to go to bed at slightly more reasonable hours. It is therefore more than fitting that circumstances continue to conspire to do my head in. If it's not a dry, hacking cough keeping me up until all hours of the early morning then it's Jennie's efforts in night-time bedding relocation. I'm going to bed earlier now (Okay okay, sometimes), and getting just as much sleep.

I get the fact that she gets cold at night, despite the house being warmed up previously by the central heating system. I get the fact that I sleep in an awkward fashion and have been known to rotate the entire blanket and sheet package some 45 degrees to the right (Don't ask, it happens while I sleep). I fail to get the reasoning behind why I should have to wage a twice nightly war for the doona, and I really fail to get why I should be the one to lose that war twice a night. I also think that it's manifestly unfair that not only should I have to lose out on my fair share of the doona every night but that I should also lose out on my share of the mattress too. Jennie, this is your fault too - Koda's your cat, keep that hairy blister on your side of the bed!

I'M AN INTP, WHAT ARE YOU?
A few months back I did one of those online personality tests, and found out that I'm an INTP - and then bookmarked my results and promptly forgot about them. During my lunch break I was struck by the urge to do some reading up on what it is to be an INTP, and ran into this gem from An INTP Profile, and felt the urge to share. I highlighted the bit that made me snort my ramen...

Humour is another aspect which marks out the INTP. He can readily dream up jokes about almost any situation. Taking things out of context is the chief source of humour and many an INTP is a Monty Pythonite. The Ne is the engine and source of this joke-generator. Needless to say, the humour of an INTP can be pretty zany and warped and may not be understood easily by others. The problem is that the Ne concepts for jokes are put into a structure only by the Ti. Hence, the humour can become black and tactless, having felt little Feeling input. Funnily enough, INTPs are dreadful tellers of jokes (which seems to be more the domain of those with Se), perhaps because they pay too little attention to detail when speaking spontaneously. If you see someone smirking and laughing at some private thought, without any obvious reason, he's probably an INTP. INTPs may however make good comedy writers, with the humour of Woody Allen being particularly liked.

Just think, four out of every 100 males that you meet is just like me... "One of us. One of us. One of us..."

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Now playing: Within Temptation - Aquarius
via FoxyTunes

Ack! Wheeze!

LURGY STRIKES DOUG
It's rolled into winter as I type this up and some unfeeling bastard has decided to stuff a housebrick into my trachea (perhaps even two of them). Breathing is ... problematic and when I wear my motorcycle helmet the struggle to resist the urge to sneeze is frequently a matter of life and death. It'd be funny if I weren't so terrified of sneezing at an inopportune time, like when I'm travelling at 100km/h shortly after rush hour on the Princes Freeway.. "Ah choo! Hmmm... The Western Ring Road is looking particularly claggy this morning."
Thinking about it I suppose I really should be at home in bed, but if I stayed home in bed today there would be a couple of issues that I really am not equipped to deal with right now:

• I'd miss out on a day's pay. When you're working casually you suck it up and take it on the chin, or you don't get paid.
• I'd be expected to do housework. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm hopeless at this sort of thing. "What do you mean the you can't see the floor? There's a piece of it right over there. Okay, there was until the cat sat on it."
• I'd miss out on the chance to make a Connex employee wait for me for a change. Gold! Revenge is sweet, and so is life!

No, I didn't go out of my way to make an employee of Connex trains wait for me - That would be needlessly cruel, and I reserve needless cruelty for friends and family The fact is that I had to make a telephone call to find out where a graduation certificate had gone to, and there was a certain amount of hunting around for the location of that certificate to be done before I could deliver the proper response of "It's not here." While none of this was my fault, I'm more happy to accept the reward in karma for (many) previous misdeeds perpetrated against me by that particular organisation.

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Now playing: Katie Melua - On the Road Again
via FoxyTunes

Trying *so* hard not to laugh (again).

LAST NIGHT'S CATASTROPHE
It happened last night, and I'm still giggling over it this afternoon. It was painful for Jennie, but it was also self-inflicted so I believe my mirth is warranted. We'd finished putting the kids to bed and Jennie was quite the centre of telephonic attention as friends engaged in protracted discussions about whatever it is that gets discussed when I'm not in the room. In any case I was out of room when Jennie was on the phone and Koda noticed that Jennie was tragically cat-less, and decided to rectify that sad lack.

Up, up and awaaayyyyy!

This needs an explanation. The first "up" was the moment when Koda leapt onto Jennie's chest, while she was walking through the kitchen and chatting furiously to Megan. The second "up" was the moment when Jennie's voice hit the level of pain (120dB and climbing!), although a more accurate term would be "Ow! Ow! Ow! AAARrrrrrgh! AAAHhhhhhhhhhhaaaahhhh!!!!". This longer passage was the natural result of Koda, slave to the spirit of self-preservation, digging a paw full of claws into Jennie's chest as she tried frantically to swat The Chocolate Assassin away from her. I can only assume that somewhere in the middle of all the screaming Jennie was able to say "Shoo", to which Koda vigorously denied the invitation to relocate from Jennie's immediate environment. Finally, "awaaayyyy!" is an accurate portrayal of Koda's departure from the scene. Whether or not he left under his own power or was subject to an improvised catapult, I'll never know. What I do know is that Jennie was hurriedly hanging up the phone in tears of pain as I entered the living room, and Koda was nowhere to be seen.

All things considered I'm rather proud of the fact that I didn't laugh in her face (immediately) upon hearing this sad and sorry tale, even after hearing Jennie's reaction of "Oh shit! Now you're going to blog this, aren't you?". It was only after I'd been (most unjustly) pummelled for pointing out that Koda's adoption into the house was the result of Jennie's decision and that therefore this incident was self-inflicted that The Lemming decided to stick his own oar in. I knew that any sort of pun, joke or humorous observation would be (swiftly and unreasonably) punished by an enraged and injured Canadian, and tried desperately to shut the fuck up.

Fail. Epic fail in fact. In spite of the fact that I was actively biting my tongue The Lemming, responsible for so much of the pain I suffer in life, took control of my mouth and let fly. I only wish that what was said wasn't lost behind a veil of pain and blunt force trauma, I remember being quite amused by my comments even if Jennie was not, who expressed his displeasure with many kicks to my right thigh.

Staggering past the weekend.

WHUUURRRRR.... WHA?
I spent most the the weekend feeling below average, sub-par and aspiring to the status of sub-human. There's no real reason for it that I can see, other than a mild sniffle that keeps threatening to escalate to a miracle mix of pneumonic plague and the Ebola virus at the drop of a hat, and yet I still feel dreadful.

MY WEEKEND FUNNY
Nathan, when he's not being loud, obtuse and aggravating, can come up with absolute gems of misapplied and misplaced words. This weekend delivered an absolute gem, one that had me giggling for hours afterwards.

• The set-up: Graeme is currently working on a diorama for a school project, and he's decided to do that project on Arctic habitats and the various animals that can be found there, and so for the last couple of days he's been talking about polar bears, seals, snowy owls, lemmings and so on. Nathan, being Nathan, had to ask a few questions of his own...
• The pay-off: Ahhh yes, Nathan and his questions. This one was a doozy. "Mum, do snowy owls eat lemmingtons?" Insert a brief pause as your brain derails, then try desperately not to laugh in his face. (Putting that sort of pressure on even a mildly full bladder should be a criminal offence).
• The follow-up: My brain is determined to sabotage any chance I have of putting on a sober and dignified demeanour in front of the rest of my family. I know, I know, it's an exercise in futility but I feel that I have to try occasionally. Random bouts in giggling and insane cackles, as I have discovered, is not the way to look sober or dignified (or even mentally sound) - Quite the opposite in fact. In any case, there I am in the kitchen some time later loading up the dishwasher when the vision of lemmingtons, all jam-filled and covered in shredded coconut, hurling themselves off a cliff-top intrudes into my mind. Instant, uncontrollable laughter follows, along with a pitying look from Jennie and a long-suffering sigh, "I don't even want to hear about it."
  

AUSTRALIA POST - WE (SELECTIVELY) DELIVER
It seems that, somehow or other, our neighbour (and fellow victim of Australia Post) is yet to have any mail delivered to his home address, despite the fact that our house has been blessed with a number of mail deliveries every week for almost a month now. So, in light of what happened back in February it's time to give the power back to the people. With that in mind, take a moment or two to do the following between the hours of 1:45pm and 2:00pm (Australian Eastern Standard Time) each business day:

1. Phone (03) 8342 6902, (of +613 8342 6902 from outside Australia).
2. Ask "Why can't Peter get his mail?"
3. Hang up.

Remember to phone during that 15 minute window (a few minutes early is fine) as the schlebs in the office are trying to skive off for the day, and seeing as we have to be at work at that time, so do they.

Lies, Damned Lies & Cats

MY GOOGLE ADS HAVE LOST THE PLOT

I just looked at my blog with a browser with no ad suppression facility built in, and noticed that there were a few ads attached to my blog that were, in my opinion, works of the most outlandish fantasy possible. Let's look at one (the most delusional) shall we?

Cat Behaviour

Easy Solve Any Cat Behavior Problem Reveal
The Cat Training Secrcts !

SecretsOfCats.com

First off the bat, let's make damn sure that we're on the same page here. The secret to solving ANY problem cat behaviour isn't pills, moggy massage or intensive psychotherapy. Believing anything otherwise is the product of a fragile and diseased mind... Cats in general, and every cat in particular, are so overwhelmingly stubborn and resistant to change that the only possible solution to to their many and varied personality "quirks" (trans: full blown psychoses) is taxidermy.

Before you write me off as being needlessly cruel (again), think about it for a moment. Taxidermy is the secret to owning the perfect housecat. A properly stuffed and mounted cat will never shed a metric butt-load of fur all over the house, will never shred your furniture into confetti, will never get constantly underfoot yowling for another feed the moment that you even begin to think about going to the kitchen and will never pay back any slight that it might feel, such as your incessant refusal to feed it more than twice a day, by peeing on your clothes/shoes/bed or on you. Of course the cat will never come to you when you call it, but as an experienced cat owner you're probably used to that already.

Utterly speechless...

MEMORIAL DAY (US)
Sometimes I'm fortunate to run into something on the internet that makes me sit back and take a moment to think just how lucky a bastard I am. Today I bumped into a blog entry on one of my favourite online comics that provided such a moment.

This blog entry is one of those gems that arrive out of nowhere and hit you with a massive dose of reality.

A far view of close-up madness.

SOME PEOPLE JUST DON'T GET IT
For some people religion and computing are naturally bound together like Laurel and Hardy, Love and Marriage or (for the truly poetic of spirit) Ham and Eggs. Most of these sorts of followers can be found kneeling at the Altar of Mac/Linux/BeOS/TRS80/Whatever, depending on the particular flavour of their digital religious persuasion. At any rate, some of these binary devotees have a deep and abiding love for the Amiga computer, and choose to express this love is any number of ways. Eric Schwartz is one such person, his comic creations are enough to fill a book (several of them in fact), and a little while ago he decided to create a tribute video a while ago as a testament to the computer platform that he loves despite the fact that the only people to see any significant degree of cash from it since Commodore went bust back in 1994 are a bunch of rampaging lawyers.

If you've seen the video, and have more than a passing clue about the Amiga scene, then you'd know that it's a pretty accurate summation of the events that have befallen the Amiga since 1994, and is in no way to be taken seriously. Some people however, despite prolonged exposure to the collective blatherings of the 'net, just don't get it or the ideas of irony or pathos. Rann at Livejournal is one such beastie, and shows in this post that he missed the boat, the point and the gold-plated clue-by-four when it was his for the taking. Subsequent posts also show that he lost his sense of humour, but that's his problem...

The Amiga is (un)dead! Long (un)live the Amiga!

I'd procrastinate, if I could find the energy...

SLACKER
I'm getting really slack at this. I swear I procrastinate so much that even the most indolent of moss-covered tree sloths would look at me with disdain. I have no excuse, other than to say I'm not that lazy I'm just easily distracted by ... Ohhh look! Shiny!

A QUICK CATCH-UP
Since my last posting here the cats have entered into an uneasy truce ... One that often flares up into "border skirmishes". That wouldn't be so bad but for the fact that all three cats like sleeping on our bed, while Jennie and I are in it. While I am unlikely to be woken by any feline fracas that may ensue at 3:00 in the morning, I'm not looking forward to waking up in the morning with a face that looks like I'd tried shaving it using a blender set to "disfigure".

The prime threat to household peace is Trudy, who appears to believe that being the smallest and youngest cat in the house is like a licence to annoy, pester and bully the other feline inhabitants. One of these days Pixel and/or Koda is going to corner that little monster and pound the ever-lovin' crap out of her... I say we sit back, let it happen and keep the winner - A suburban version of "Survivor" if you like, with a one-way trip to the vet for those "voted out" of the house.

Koda is a worry. All my life I've had cats who have been more than happy to remain at or near ground level. Koda is something else... I now live in fear that one of these days I'm going to try and close an already open door, and that cat is going to drop on my head. Koda is a Burmese, a breed of cat that has be tailored through decades and centuries of selective breeding to bedevil and torment me and my sense of well being. If it's high and out of reach of anyone without the aid of a chair to stand on, Koda will be there. If it's cramped and inaccessable, Koda will be there. If it's hideously inconvenient to remove a blithering idiot from, especially if you have a load of jars and other foodstuffs in your arms that you have to put in the cupboard that you have to extract a cat from first, Koda will be there.

If it's stupid, insane and massively dangerous to the house as a whole to sleep there, Koda will be there. I didn't know that the cabinet that our oven is built into has a gap right above where the skirting board meets the floor, leaving a comfortable little hidey-hole for any cat with a deep-down desire to be at the centre of uncontrolled combustion - It took Koda, at most, 3 tenths of a second to find that hole and climb in.

FINAL SCORE: LOCAL NEWSAGENT 1, AUSTRALIA POST 0
This week the seemingly impossible happened. Australia Post, after much deliberation and argument, started delivering mail to our estate. Yay for me! I can only assume that they hired the services of someone eminently qualified to tell them exactly where their arse was in order for them to remove their finger from it and start doing their job. They didn't have to pay anyone for this, I would have been, and still am, more than happy to tell them where to go for free...

I find it so very amusing to note that while Australia Post's first mail delivery to our house was on Monday, they were beaten to first grazing rights on our letterbox by the local newsagent who started weekend deliveries of newspapers to our home 2 weeks before-hand. I wonder how much better things would be if we were to shift mail delivery responsibilities to our local newsagents and just shoot all the posties (before they shoot us).

Huh?...

A SUDDEN GROWTH SPURT
Our household grew by 8 feet over the weekend. The avowed and card-carrying member of the "I Really, REALLY Hate Cats Society" is responsible for the sudden addition of two more cats into our household. Obviously when she said "After Pixel dies there will not be any more cats", Jennie failed to take into account the provision for what might happen before Pixel died, which is where the faecal finger of fate steps in to mess with my head once more. To summarise the rest of the following blog post, after the weekend passed our complement of cats, from youngest to oldest, now reads as follows:

• A 5 month old female tabby named "Trudy", which is short for "Intruder";
• A 15 month old male Burmese named "Koda", which is short for "Takoda" and is supposed to mean "Friendship" or some such, and
• A 10 year old female tortoise shell named "Pixel", which appears to be short for "Nose permanently out of place and you're all going to pay ... In your sleep."

It began last Tuesday afternoon when I got an email from Jennie saying that she wanted to adopt Koda from a family who couldn't keep him any more (allergies to animal hair). Being more than allergic to rampant insanity, I tried talking her out of it - I thought that the last thing that we needed right now was another animal, and Jennie said flat-out that she was going to use the additional cat as an excuse to get another dog in the not-too-distant future - thereby showing the additional cal to be merely the thin edge of the wedge. We've been having this on again, off again argument about the addition of a second dog to our household since about 3 or 4 minutes after we agreed to get the first dog, and there was no way I was going to leave myself open to losing that particular argument now. So, in my mind, no extra cat, and that was that. (Or so I deluded myself into thinking).

It was only after I had resigned myself to the fact that Koda was moving in that Little Miss Pushy, a.k.a the soon to be named Trudy, propped on our doorstep on Saturday night looking for a feed, a bed for the night and a ludicrously soft touch. Lucky for her she found Mrs Pushy, and made arrangements to move in with us... But only after I had walked to every other occupied house in our estate late at night with that cat in my arms asking if the occupants had managed to lose a cat recently. The easy way out, also known as Plan A, was denied to me. Every single person I spoke to on the estate either had a full complement of cats already or were militantly opposed to the idea of adopting the spare one that I had. Plan B, phoning the council to arrange for a collection of the misplaced cat, turned out to be a bust as the local council doesn't collect cats at all. Time for Plan C! Plan C involved dropping the cat off at the local vet, who would then arrange for the cat to be picked up by the local council later that day (Why we couldn't have the cat collected directly by the council, thereby cutting out the middle-man, is forever a mystery).

When Jennie was informed that Little Miss Pushy's chances of a successful adoption were virtually nil (despite being illegally cute in a built up area), she was adamant that we were going to follow Plan D and adopt Little Miss Pushy, and "suggested" that I start thinking of a suitable name. Luckily for me the 2 hour car trip to adopt the other cat (Remember the email I received on Tuesday?) provided me with ample time to work on something appropriate. The real bummer of that was that I came up with a suitable name after about 15 minutes...

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Now playing: Nightwish - End Of All Hope
via FoxyTunes

Spoiled for (the illusion of) choice

A SAGA OF GREEN WASTE IN THE MAKING
My wife and I are having something of a disagreement at the moment with respect to the ultimate appearance of our front garden once the landscapers have finished planting it. I think that maybe I get to have a say in it, Jennie chooses to disagree with my input...

My initial thought was that the Australian Native Garden was a nice, attractive choice of complementary landscaping vegetation - Sensible, hardy and drought resistant. In short the perfect choice for the constantly apathetic gardener (me), and the family's resident black thumb (not that I'm implying that Jennie is sudden death on plants or anything, but Right To Life do stage pickets and sit-ins outside the gardening section of Bunnings whenever Jennie goes shopping...) It seems that the Australian Native Garden was able to draw the attention of a nice, attractive choice of spousal veto. Okay, Mediterranean Garden it is! "With Cyprus trees? No? They've been vetoed too? Really?" Apparently all I have to do during the garden selection process is to agree, lots.

*sigh* Current score: Doug 0, Veto 2.

Yoiks! And awaayyy!

ADIOS COMMON FUND A1
Last Friday was my last day working for National Australia Trustees Ltd's Common Fund A1 (Hey! I'm no longer an employee so I get to give it this one plug, okay?), and I must admit that the change over to a new career path and job was more than a little intimidating - Even more so given the qualities of some of the people I was privileged to work with. They know who they are, even if libel laws and the International Convention on Human Rights (as well a several Papal Edicts) prevent me from spelling out precisely what those qualities were...

After becoming part of the team as a temporary employee in March 2001, and becoming a permanent employee the following August, it's been one of the constants in my life - so much so that I still can't look at my driver's licence without thinking, "There's 40 points worth of ID right there." I'm sure that with therapy (trans: Alcohol), time and reflection (trans: More alcohol!) I can perhaps make a full recovery... I think that quality time working out my Zombie Plan (with help from "The Zombie Survival Guide" by Max Brooks, and plenty of thanks to Sandhal @ NAT CFA1) will help.

In the mean time I'd like to apologise to anyone from the office who's reading this blog for leaving my desk in such a sorry state. After emptying out the accumulated clutter and crap of 7 years from my workstation and sorting through what could be recycled, what should be thrown out and what could be neatly nicked from the stationery cupboard (Whoops! Forget I said that, okay?) it was 6 o'clock and I had 30 minutes to get myself over to Footscray for pain and suffering. I know that you'll all be tickled pink to know that it hurt. Lots.

ONE ORDER OF "CULTURE SHOCK", EXTRA CRUNCHY
This Monday saw the beginning of my new role at Victoria University as a Student Support Officer... Whoo, what a change of pace! Almost all of my clients (I'm still in a customer service role) and a lot of my colleagues are young. Very young. I used to think that I was something like a redwood in the Common Fund, towering above pretty much everyone in sight whilst feeling well seasoned (and pretending to be mature). Now I feel like an inselberg, in as much as I'm tall, abrupt and ancient compared to the vast majority of everyone I meet each day. I kid you not, a lot of the students I'm helping out were born about the time I spent a lot of my time wagging high school.

FOOTSTEPS IN THE FUTURE
I'm going to hear the pitter-patter of tiny footsteps in the not too distant future. No, I'm bloody well NOT! fathering another child. I said "pitter-patter" and "tiny footsteps", not "thunderous stampede" and "drunken, epileptic water buffalo". The first turn of phrase gives the impression that there may be moments of peace and quiet. My offspring, on the other hand, wouldn't know how to be quiet even if you vacuum-sealed them in form-fitting steel cans and encased them in concrete. I know I said "Congratulations" to Sophie already, so this one's going out to the man who's taking the mad plunge into full-on fatherhood even after seeing my kids in action. Congratulations Stephen, you're a brave man... Insane perhaps, but brave without a doubt.

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Now playing: Tchaikovski - Piano Concerto No.1 in B Flat minor, Op.23 (Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso - Allegro con spirito)
via FoxyTunes

Gahhhhh!!!!!

"HOLD MY BREATH AS I WISH FOR DEATH..."
Jennifer and Krushna, those fun-loving Maidens of Pain, have managed to wring every last speck of pain-free existence from me. I'm really trying to think of any part of my much abused body that isn't screaming in pain at the moment and, other than my thinning head of hair, nothing is coming to me. It scares me to think that little more than 18 hours ago I felt much worse than the shambling wreck of humanity I am now.

Have you seen "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"? Remember that schmuck that had his still beating heart torn from his chest before being thrown into a pool of lava, alive and screaming? Damn I envy him. Especially after being subjected to lunges. Which twisted son of a bitch thought of that brand of torture? I thought squats were bad. Hell, even my sessions with the amazingly misnamed "medicine ball" (medicine is supposed to make you feel better, at least in my book) pale in comparison to the brutal sadism that are lunges. I can see why my wife hates them so much, and I'm sorry I ignored her warnings about them.

Climbing stairs hurts. The process of sitting down hurts. The process of standing up hurts. Walking? That hurts too.

Pain and suffering at VU redux.

BRRRR.....
I've discovered the secret to making my exercise sessions at Victoria University even more miserable than before. I thought that, perhaps, I'd managed to plumb the depths of human misery over the last couple of weeks, and boy was I wrong.

1. Take one serving of excruciating pain as long absent exercise makes its return and takes its toll on someone who, at best, can only be described as "hemi-demi-semi-muscular";
2. Add rain;
3. Add wind;
4. Remove anything remotely resembling heat from the environment;
5. Stir, chill and serve.

Yup, everything tells me that summer is gone and winter is giving me a sneak preview of things to come whilst I'm making my (reluctant) way to last night's training session. The only thing colder than the ride to last night's serving of pain with Jennifer and Krushna was the ride home again.

MORE BRRRRRR....
Can someone please explain why it seems that purchases of Tupperware are more important to the household (and my life, apparently) than purchases of sundry items of clothing, like rain pants? Got to work this morning after being stalled in traffic on Dynon Road that was more intensely clagged than is normal just in time to be utterly drenched in rain and hail that hit with a thud. It's more than 3.5 hours since I made my (soggy) way into the office - Thanks to everyone who laughed at me on the way in, I appreciate it - and my underpants are still damp from the ride. Too much information? Really? I thought that blogs and other aspects of Web 2.0 were made for personal minutiae like this. You'll just have to sit through your discomfort (in much the same way that I have to sit in mine) until it passes.

I'm stiff, sore, slightly damp and I don't wanna play any more...

Pain and suffering at VU.

DREAMING OF "CAPTAIN FREEDOM'S WORKOUT"
At what point does the line between idiocy and masochism blur? I ask because, thanks to my loving (and sadistic?) wife, I find that I have been volunteered for that special kind of pain that can only be experienced by someone, who's done next to no exercise since sometime around September 1987, who suddenly gets dropped into a metric ass-tonne of physical exertion for the benefit of a couple of remedial therapy students who need to graduate by torturing a live victim for a change.

In order to lessen the impact of flashbacks and traumatic stress disorders that I may suffer as a result of revisiting the past I'll post my pained recollections of each session separately.

Week One - Wednesday 12 March
By now you think that I would have learned better but nooo, learning that when Jennie has that overly reasonable tone of voice means that somehow, somewhere, somewhen, I'm being set up for a hose-job is beyond me - Even after all these years of repeated victimisation. This particular hose-job started with Jennie asking if I'd be interested in helping out at Victoria University by volunteering to be part of an exercise program run by a couple of students. "Sure," I thought, "How bad could it be?" I found the answer to that question all too soon enough. Last Wednesday was the start of my odyssey of torment; the tip of a pain filled iceberg and I was nailed to the bow of the ship that was going to hit it head on. Do you know what a "maximal exercise session" is? It's where they work you until you drop, scrape up what hits the floor with a sweaty sounding thud and move you on to the next piece of equipment. Yes, it's as bad as you think and then some.

It started out innocently enough, pleasantries were exchanged and so on with the two students (and it's a defensive mental block that stops me from remembering their names, sorry) and their supervisor Steve. This was your basic softening up session, and my first inkling that I was in trouble. Looking at the younger of the two Maidens of Pain gave me pause to think that she was probably beginning primary school at about the same time that I was giving up on the whole notion of regular exercise. I should have left things at that. Bugger that! I should have run screaming (okay, I should have shambled wheezing) from the building then and there. Like an idiot, I stayed. Stayed while they shaved bits of my chest, and while those lost hairs didn't have names they were individually numbered (Now my chest is pasty white and rather patchy and threadbare, not a combination that I would recommend to anyone).

I'm then attached to a computer (yes, it went 'Ping!') that monitored my heart rate and other vitals through the aid of about half a million strands of sticky-ended wire, and it's while they're hooking me up to this that I notice the extra large adhesive contact pads and the automatic defibrillator that's conveniently nearby. It seems that the sweet mercy of death would be denied to me. Bugger, I'm going to survive this...

The first assessment that they put me through obviously tried to directly measure my pain tolerance threshold as they hooked me up to (and tangled my wires with - no escape!) an exercise bike with the sort of uncomfortable seat that wouldn't be out of place in a blacksmith's forge. Thinking about it since makes me realise that the blacksmith's forge would have been an attractive alternative. Having large lumps of near molten metal dropped onto my butt and then beaten into new and exciting shapes with a hammer would have been a welcome distraction from the pain of sitting in that diabolical contrivance. Just when I think that the seat on the exercise bike is going to grow teeth and bite me we have to stop the test. Not because I'm close to pegging out or anything (fond daydreams of it aside), but because I'm too big for the bloody thing and that because of this they won't be able to perform a full test to determine what my baseline measure was. Time to restart the test, only this time we'd use a treadmill...

Welcome to Hell.

Postscript
Note from Jennie (the sadistic bitch) - As I sit here and read the entry my darling husband has so painstakingly put together - pain from exercise, not from writing, he is standing behind me, breathing so loudly in my ear - at resting rate - that I have come to the conclusion he sadly needs this 10 week exercise program. Besides, I don't know why he's bitching so much, I start my 10 week program with two of the 'Maidens of Pain's' classmates.

Postscript to the Postscript
Jennie, you've done this sort of thing how many times in the past? You knew what you were in for when you volunteered for it, again. Any discomfort (and associated cravings for death) that you may experience as a result of your serial madness are self-inflicted...

My 2nd Religious Experience in 24 hours.

WOOT! BACK ON THE AIR!
It seems that my lunchtime dose of abject pessimism might have been a tad ... misplaced. I feel normal again, my domestic net connection is back in action and the withdrawal pangs are abating. I'll be in a more normal frame of mind just as soon as the voices tell me exactly what "normal" is...

Back soon, downloads are calling.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the first religious experience for me in the past 24 hours is what I got when Jennie dipped a pork-chop in beer batter and deep fried it. Yum! Guaranteed diet killer from 1,000 meters, try one today.

----------------
Now playing: Vangelis - Heaven & Hell : Part I
via FoxyTunes

You have GOT to be kidding me!

FINAL SCORE: DOUG 0 -- FAECAL FINGER OF FATE 1
If a person who hates modern technology is called a "Luddite", what do you call a person who is hated by modern technology? I ask because it seems that modern technology has it in for me. Big time. Either that or Telstra has decided that, for whatever reason, I must know pain, I must know fear and then I must know death. I can therefore only assume that this is the "knowledge of fear" portion of the programme, and that my eventual death by Telstra service van is only a matter of time (and will probably arrive late anyway).

Exactly how hard is it to connect a domestic phone service, and then connect an ADSL service to that new and shiny phone service? Okay, how hard should it be? I've been without a domestic net connection since 8:37pm on 18 December 2007 (not that I'm counting or anything), and it's beginning to get to me. Seriously, I've been outdoors so often and for so long now that I'm in real danger of developing something approaching an all-over tan. For 13.5 years prior to my current network blackout my skin was regularly ("Constantly?" you might ask. "Nearly..." would be my response) kissed by the loving glow of a CRT.

I thought that I had everything settled and sorted, and that a regular supply of digital download delights would be mine from the middle of last week. Sadly, this was not to be and now it seems that there is a problem with the ADSL service reaching our phone sockets from the local exchange. I am told that a service fault call has been lodged with Telstra, and that I should expect a follow-up phone call Real Soon Now(tm). I won't hold my breath waiting for this to happen however, all that ever happens when I do is that I pass out, fall down and hit my head on something hard on the way down. While I will grant that the blinding headache that follows this exercise does take the edge off some of the pain of dealing with Telstra, the blood-stains on the carpet really aren't worth it.

Sigh... All donations of wireless broadband time gratefully accepted. Email me at ... Okay, e-mail is something of a wash-out right now, time for a logical alternative. Address all snail-mail to ... Bugger... Are smoke signals out of the question?

An answer at last!

PATIENCE HAS ITS REWARDS
Surprise surprise! Seems that the reason why we're not having our mail delivered to our house is because, according to the vast intellects that dwell within the vast and mouldy vaults within Australia Post, our address is located in a rural area. How silly of me, thinking that the noise and hyperactivity in the morning was my overgrown children! Obviously, given Australia Post's reasoning, it's really a stampede of cattle and other misplaced livestock that rampage through my living room each morning. (Come to think of it a stampede of cattle would probably do far less damage to our living room than Nathan in full filght, but I digress...) At any rate I'm sure that Jennie will be thrilled beyond all measure by these happy tidings, she's a country girl again!

I wonder, if I call next week to inquire as to why we're not getting mail, what excuse they'll serve me next. If I keep at it maybe they'll get a bigger wheel to spin. At any rate, because I'm still peeved and downright bloody-minded about this, I'd take it as a real kindness if you give the sleeping souls at Hoppers Crossing a call and inquire as to why I can't get my mail. (03) 8342 6902, (or +613 8342 6902 outside Australia) is the number to call, but make sure you do it before 1:00pm on weekdays because after that the fairy godmother's spell wears off and their heads turn to pumpkins or something.

Stuck in the Wilderness

AUSTRALIA POST - "WE DELIVER"?
Not. Bloody. Likely. I can usually find something to say about anyone given half a chance; be it good (rarely), bad (sometimes) or downright sarcastic (frequently). Today words fail me, they truly do fail me. I'd call the genetic defectives at Australia Post "incompetent", but that doesn't even begin to notch the tip of the iceberg, and merely gives them a performance benchmark to aspire to. Our (laughingly mislabelled) Mail Redirection Service that started back in late December 2007 has yet to result in the successful delivery to our letter box of a single letter. Not one. We've received junk mail already. It's late February, and we still have to drive some 10 kilometres (to a building that closes at 1:00pm each day and isn't open on weekends) in order to collect our mail, provided that it's been redirected that far. Sometimes even that level of lacklustre customer service is too much for the poor widdle fings that pretend to work there, and so our mail goes even more astray.

This self-same "service" is also responsible for no small amount of stress and grief for Jennie who happens to be studying for her Masters Degree through an interstate university, which is stressful enough in a house of 4 oversized children (ages 37, 8, 6 and almost 2) without the added bucket of crapulous joy that comes with having her reading material sent to her via Australia Post (to the old address, supposedly still under mail redirection). Her reading material was sent out on January 10. It was (finally) available for collection from Hoppers Crossing Mail Delivery Centre on February 22. In the mean time, seeing as her reading material had failed to arrive, Jennie has contacted the university and arranged for another load of books to be sent to our current address. Sitting on our doorstep on Monday was the second batch of books that were mailed out after the first batch was a no-show. That's right, on our doorstep...

Huh? I was under the impression that mail wasn't being delivered to our address for the following reasons:

1. We may not be on a mail delivery route just yet,
2. "It's not worth the contractor's time to deliver it to your address", and/or
3. It's against Australia Post OH&S Policy for motorcycle deliveries to be made along any road where the speed limit exceeds 70 kilometres per hour.
   

Reason 1 was provided to Jennie at our "local" post office on 5 January. Reason 2 was provided to Jennie at Hoppers Crossing MDC on 9 January. Reason 3 (my personal favourite) was provided to our neighbour Peter (lives just down the street from us) about 2 weeks ago. Do these jerks have a wheel that they spin in order to generate an "Excuse of the day"? What else is on it? Sunspots? Locusts? Incusions of David Hasselhof impersonators?

Calling Australia Post's customer service line results in little more than more platitudes and the feeling that I've been well and truly "serviced" without the benefit of lubrication...

If you like you can help me out by calling the Hoppers Crossing Mail (Non)Delivery Centre on (03) 8342 6902 and ask "Why can't Doug get his mail?" (Concerned callers outside of Australia may call +613 8342 6902 and ask, "Why can't Doug get his mail?")

Sorry...

I was fortunate enough to be able to watch history unfold this morning, and for once it was positive, it was joyous, it was memorable for all of the right reasons. It's amazing what power five little letters ("s", "o", "r", "r", and "y") can have. Watching Kevin Rudd in his first order of business before the Parliament on TV this morning moved me in a way I had never suspected possible. Even now, hours later, I still feel the buzz, the goose bumps, that came with the applause that followed his gesture to the most marginalised in our society.

It's one thing to chain yourself to history for 11 years of stern-faced denial and call it "leadership"; it's quite another thing to display it in full measure; and this morning Kevin Rudd, the Honourable Prime Minister of Australia did precisely and exactly that. Leadership is looking at the mistakes of the past, acknowledging them and working to fix them. Leadership is looking past ideology, petty squabbling and the blinkers of party politics without fear or rancour, looking at what needs to be done and then working to do what's needed. A brave man walked into the Parliamentary Chamber this morning, a great man walked out of it.

For the first time in a long, long time I am optimistic about the calibre of leadership coming out of Canberra but I'm not going to be carried away by the sense of occasion, it's day one and the future waits in judgement.

Time for a Belated Introduction - Part One

Assuming that I've completed my biographical notes for this blog, and also assuming that you have read them, you'll know that I am in my late 30's, married with 3 (boisterous but lovely) children and that I work in the banking and finance industry. If I didn't update my biographical details (the most likely scenario), or you didn't (or couldn't) read them (possible, but my money is on my own laziness), then you know that now, so it all works out okay in the end anyway. Those of you who actually know me in real life can skip this blog entry, I promise you won't miss anything.

Born as half of a set of twins in Melbourne, Australia in the middle of 1970, I grew up to be the talented and oversized underachiever that everyone around me now has to put up with every day. I'm happily (and surpisingly) married to Jennie, my long-suffering companion since our mutual bout of insanity in 1997. My only excuse is that the wedding was in Canada and I was suffering from this 3 week bout of jet-lag ... Nahh, that's not going to fly. Jennie at least has the "I was drinking beforehand" defence, I was terrifyingly sober for the event. At least the ceremony was painless enough. What came after that... is another story. To give some measure of the family that I married into, it was decided after the ceremony to turn the dance floor at the reception into a mosh-pit, and then put me in the middle of it for some "Welcome to the family!" inspired rib damage. There weren't any breaks, but my newly minted in-laws sure did try (and try, and try again).

Jennie and I share our lives with 3 amazing children who have the good fortune to have Jennie as their mother. Graeme, Nathan and Oscar are like children everywhere, they have this inbuilt gift for provoking emotional whiplash in their parents at the drop of a hat - One minute you're contemplating terrible and bloody violence on all of them in exchange for the merest promise of a few moments of peace and quiet, the next minute you're wrapped around their little finger thanks to the unspoken menace of The Unprovoked Hug, (To those who do not yet have children, beware The Unprovoked Hug for it will own you, and your children will be born with that knowledge. You have been warned.) Graeme (8) looks more like Jennie than me, Nathan (6) looks more like his Uncle Ted (my brother) than me, and Oscar (1.75) looks like a mix of his older brothers. Where that leaves me, I'll never quite know...

My hobbies range from the solitary (No, not THAT! ... Well, not every day ... Sometimes it's hard to pick up a book and remember where you left off. Whatever were YOU thinking? On second thoughts I really don't want to know, let's just let it lie, shall we?) to the nerdy with equally nerdy friends, to the solitary AND nerdy online with friends that I never see in person. I'd be a strange, brooding loner locked up in some dingy little flat with nothing but an equally strange, half-feral cat for company, but I really like messing with people's minds too much for that sort of thing, so I am compelled to be strange, brooding and somewhat social. I relish my current role in customer service as each day is always alive with the promise of new victims... Errr, opportunities to serve our valued customers, as well doing my part to maintain the level of workplace sarcasm and abuse... Ummmm, cheerful and productive morale that our team is justly known for.

I spent most of my formative years in a suburb of Melbourne called Abbotsford, a charmingly picturesque place with only the occasional, badly misplaced and rather self-conscious looking tree to spoil the rugged beauty of inner city life. Oh, there was also this incredible stretch of grass that went on for as far as the eye could see, but we weren't allowed to play on Hoddle Street, not least of which right down the middle of it on the median strip. Primary school was especially fun for me; I still remember the giddy delight I felt when the two houses next to our school were demolished to make way for an expansion of the school grounds. At last we children could play on something else apart that expanse of bare asphalt, and so we got to play on an equally bare expanse of gravel as well. Even now, more than 25 years later, I still bare some of the scars of those happy, happy days.

My musical tastes are varied, indiscrimate even, but invariably involve me being the auditory slave for any passing female vocalist. While it helps if you're a Candian female vocalist, it's hardly necessary. Jennie is Candian and loves to sing in the shower, which explains in part why I fell in love with her in the text only medium of IRC back in the mid 90's (If this is my last blog post then this part will double-up as a suicide note, although being clubbed to death by my wife could also be described as 'Death by Natural Causes', not that I'm suggesting anything by that...)

NON-STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Jennie's voice isn't that bad, honest! But if she thinks that I'm going to let this blog slide by without at least one cheap shot, she's even more deluded than I would have dreamed possible.