Just a quick post to let you know that the observant among you may be able to spot a few new photos up. Any photos that people want to donate (don’t have to have anything to do with me) welcomed. No photos of naked guys please (including me, unless I’m in a bath with lots of other people), clowns, mimes or sharks.
Power to the people.
Many much belated merry post-winter-festive-new year-period greetings to one and all.
I guess I’ve been pretty rubbish at keeping the posts up to date lately, for which I humbly apologise to the Blog Monkeys and beg forgiveness.
Christmas
Christmas was a pretty low key affair this year, much the same as it is every year. Had my Nan around, but the brother had to work all over Christmas. Christmas for my family mainly involves a couple of great meals, some drink, and lots of sitting in front of the tv. This is really not my thing (especially as I couldn’t drink because of antibiotics), but it has to be done, to be sociable and such. Over Christmas Day and Boxing Day I watched more tv than I had in the entire year put together. I do not exaggerate. I wish I did.
After Christmas I spent that awkward anticlimax-not quite holiday week with the lady, had an excellent time, very relaxing. Saw Avatar, my first 3D film and was totally blown away by it. Definitely recommend it to anyone.
Work
As I may or may not have posted earlier, I’d been given a lovely booklet on vitamin C to write over the festive period. 40-60 A5 pages. How hard could it be? Right? Turns out it can be pretty hard indeed. 40 A5 pages is roughly the same size as an undergrad dissertation. Add to the mix the fact that I know nothing about vitamin C and had to research and write at the same time, as well as having time out for teeth issues, family time, seeing lady time, and feeling sick on antibiotics time, I really had to push the boat out to get this one done. Luckily, I got it done, and hopefully in time for it to get sent out to Australia for the book tour. This is something of a miracle considering I got the entire Battlestar Galactica dvd for Christmas. 120+ hours of quality sci fi is not condusive to getting much work done.
The cover artwork is being done at the moment, and the boss is having an edit/rewrite (or as he put it “sprinkling his magic pixie dust” on it. First run will be 2000 copies, coming out before February. At first I think it’ll just be printed in Australia for the tour, but will soon be available internationally. Much excitement is in order, and I’ll post a link to it once it gets online.
Snow
It’s been snowing like a proper one down here in the backcountry recently. Almost blizzard conditions yesterday. Somehow the fact that it’s winter and there’s snow has taken the entire country by surprise. Winter-snow. Go figure. Roads, trains, airports, shops, schools and pubs have shut. People have been panic buying, and, very tediously, been talking about nothing but the weather for the last 2 weeks. I know the British love to complain about the weather, but come on, there are limits!
Despite 2 feet of snow, the lack of road gritting, black ice, and general coldness, I’ve managed to get to work. Lonemobile 1 - snow 0. All the 4×4 drivers seem shocked to see my trusty car slipping and slidding it’s way down the glacial country lanes, Johnny Cash blasting out on full volume, gamely slewing its way around corners and bouncing off the snow drifts. Frankly if I can manage to get around in my lovable deathtrap, the rest of the country has no excuse.
You want snow? This is real snow, damnit.
Real snow
Peace - thanks for your patience, I’ll try and keep the posting regular from now on.
Sorry for the delay on postings all, I know it’s been a while. Life’s been pretty hectic and I’ve got a huge deadline on a piece of writing I’m doing that has to be met. Promise I’ll throw something together in the next two days.
Peaces
Howdy. Hello. Hi.
Just found this buried nugget of writing while updating the ‘Net Presence page (see above), and realised that I was actually quite pleased with it at the time. So here it is, once again, just in case anyone fancies a peek. Dug up, spit shined, revisited, the deluxe collectors edition.
Excellent, ridiculous, invaluable advice for the dating male. ( I still laugh at the fact that some people took this as a serious advice article, coming from me of all people.)
Ps. Congratulations to my much missed bud Omar on the good news!
Pps. Emily, buy your own damn twiglets! 
As you may now have noticed, the Funny Links section has been collated into a single page of hilarity, comedy, prat falls, and insanity. Access the page from the links above. And no, clowns will never be featured in the Funny Links section because clowns are not funny. They are strange and sad and disgusting and must all be hunted out and exterminated. Die clowns, die. The Blog hates clowns.
Oh, and just in case any of the Blog monkeys are interested, the Blog has truly gone global now baby. We’ve had visitors from: UK, USA, Canada, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Iceland, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belguim, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, South Africa, Oman, India, China, Japan, Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. Thanks to everyone for reading! (I’m still waiting on Mongolia).
Hi
Hey there Blog, how ya doing? Yeah, I’m good too thanks dude. What ya been up to? Just chilling huh, man, me, I’ve been crazy arse busy. Probably why I haven’t seen you around in a while. Sorry ’bout that fella.
Yes sir, yes indeed, hell yes. Life has been busy folks and Blog monkeys and assorted others. Busy, busy, busy.
Job
Firstly I got the job at the publishing company. They specialise in nutrition and medical information and products, but their remit covers a lot of cool other stuff too. At the moment I’m doing the office thing, taking orders, processing orders, answering phones etc etc. Must be doing a pretty good job of it, because after precisely 20 hours in the job, the boss and the guy I work with left for a lecture tour of the UK, and left me in charge for a week. Employed for 1 week, and in charge of the office. Oh boy.
If my life were a comedy sitcom (which I sometimes suspect it might be), or a movie (preferably one with Johnny Depp in), something crazy would have happened. I’d have knocked over the electric heater while jousting naked on a monocycle and burnt the place to the ground. I’d have invited a bunch of hippies over to drop acid and we’d have woken up in a nest made of shredded files. But, seeing as I’m still newly employed, I thought to play it safe, and do the ‘normal’ office thing, without drugs, fire, and/or naked jousting.
Things have been going well in the love life department as well. Getting on splendidly with the new lady in my life, she likes books, I like books; she drinks coffee, I drink coffee. Really it’s just scary exactly how much we have in common.
Teeth
Only downside to my life at the moment (other than the fact the dreaded Christmas season looms down upon us) is the fact that my teeth are complete and utter bastards. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not all my teeth that I dislike. Some are fairly good chaps, known them for years, but there’s a few rotten apples that spoil the whole bunch. Wisdom teeth for example. Total bastards. Stab you in the back as soon as look at you. Currently got a bunch of them playing merry hell with my face, trying to expand my jawbone to twice it’s normal size. Still, off to the dentist tomorrow, and if she doesn’t do something about it, I’ll take matters into my own hands with a chisel, a bottle of vodka, a tea towel and a half dozen elastic bands. Wisdom teeth, you have been warned.
Funny Links
Hot Gaming - Proof that you just can’t distract a geek from his gaming, no matter what.
When advertising goes wrong - My favourite has to be the Jesus/cat combo.
Peek a'boo
Alternative Captions:
1 good reason not to sunbath naked.
Mental note: don’t fool around with the wife of an F-18 pilot again.
Dave always cheated at hide and seek.
Ps. This post is for Emma, keeping the blogging faith. Yay you!
Peace
Blog Update
While little is currently happening in my life, just the usual looking for jobs, applying for jobs, getting ignored by real jobs, getting accepted by hoax jobs, there has been activity on the Blog.
As the more observant Blog Monkeys may have noticed, there is now a new page (accessed above), entitled ‘Net Presence. It basically contains a bunch of stuff I’ve written that people have decided to buy and stick up around the ‘net. It’s by no means comprehensive, but more of a random sampling. Sometimes people ask what kind of thing do I write, where does it end up, etc etc. Because these people with their silly questions bore me, there’s now a handy place I can point them in the direction of. Take a peek, it’s full of weird and random things. I actually frightened myself a little by Googling my name and finding all the strange outpourings and things people have asked me to write over the years, and where they’ve ended up.
Anticipation
This week is going to be very dull. But there is light at the end of the tunnel, sunshine coming up over the horizon, a wizard and bunch of Nordic horsemen coming over the hill. Saturday, I’m off to Harps to party with the people. Squire Dix is the wizard presiding over the proceedings, wearing his drinking thong of wisdom, while Riders of the Mark Daryl and Toby will no doubt be causing a ruckus in the corner, quaffing gin and manhandling the serving wenches. The only person who won’t be out will be Big Dom who is confined to the barracks with extra homework, but I’m gonna go see him with my hangover the next day so we can chill and swap books. I literally cannot wait. As always full reports will be posted up on the Blog, and maybe, if you’re really lucky, photographic evidence as well.
Peace
Work
Has been a looong day at work today. Weddings always tend to be, but what doesn’t help is accidentally turning up to work two hours early. Don’t get me wrong, the work isn’t all that hard (well, except for having to move loads of pianos around), but those extra two hours turn a bearable eleven and a half hour shift into a tiring thirteen and a half hours. There’s only so much coffee you can drink before starting to shake like a heroin addict going cold turkey, and I reckon I was pushing the boundary line.
As predicted there was lots of cringe worthy granddad dancing, by people of all ages. You know the kind of dance, where someone who has never heard a song before bop shuffles with slightly flailing arms, totally out of time to the music. Just imagine your geriatric uncle Bob trying to dance to hip hop and you’re on the right tracks. But it’s a wedding, so I guess it’s expected and acceptable. The only memorable things were when the groom broke down crying mid-ceremony for five minutes and the bride’s wedding dress, which made her look like an all star quarterback in American football (think the White Witch from ‘The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe’ film).
Search
With all the wonders of cutting edge technology, which in this case involves a gang of bowler hat wearing monkeys locked in a dimly lit room, selotaped to top of the range laptops, smoking enormous cigars and drinking nothing but dry Martini’s, I can now find out exactly what goes down in the vague cyberspace recesses of the Blog.
One of the cyber monkeys on his fortnightly half hour break.
One piece of gnostic illumination that particularly tickled me was being able to see the key words people are putting into search engines in order to find the Blog. While ‘blog of lone dixstock’ (Dixstock being an annual event reported on uniquely by the Blog) is perfectly acceptable (I bet I can even name the person doing that search), I do worry about whoever found us by searching for ‘lone mad blog’ (possibly a bit insulted by that one), and I’m positively scared to imagine the person who searched for ‘get it down zulu warrior’.
Funny Link
Think you’re bored? - Trust me, compared to these guys your life is a thrilling roller coaster of excitement and cake.
Peace and pickles.
Life/Thoughts
This week has mainly been very dull. Sitting in front of the computer all day applying for jobs isn’t a healthy lifestyle. Have been trying to make up for this by going down the gym, but it’s not something I enjoy.
At the gym there’s always guys, and girls, who watch you out of the corner of their eyes. You can tell the ones. They wear fashionable gym clothes, cut to show off their muscles/breasts/tight stomachs. They mark you. Mark the clothes you wear, the weights you lift, how much you sweat, what you drink.
For these people the gym isn’t about keeping fit, it’s a huge exercise in vanity. They’re the worst kind of physical image Nazi, judging others by their own warped morals. They pour scorn on the overweight people who are genuinely trying to get fit on the treadmills and hang out in their own toned, fashionable, tanned, bunches by the free weights.
Judging people by their looks is a bit of a personal bugbear of mine. I’ve known gorgeous people who were intelligent and interesting, and an equal amount who were vacant and dull. Same goes for those thought of as not traditionally gorgeous. One of the most annoying things I can remember was when an article of mine on this topic was sold. A few days later I checked up on it, and the guy who had bought it hacked it to pieces, keeping almost only the words such as ’sexy’, ‘gorgeous’, ‘attractive’, ‘beauty’ etc. He then used it as the front page for a porn website. Pleased, I was not.
Quiz
Went to a huge charity quiz tonight. Was entertaining. Only two things of note to report.
1: The year’s supply of beer to be won would have lasted me two weeks at most. Either this makes me a drunkard loser, or the organisers very stingy.
2. Out of the 500 people there, I was, literally, the only one to be able to recognise a picture of the current Poet Laurette, Carol Ann Duffy. I’m not sure if this makes me a freak, or everyone else uncultured.
Work
Got to work tomorrow. This isn’t a bad thing as I need something to entertain me, and working weddings can sometimes be entertaining, although I have a feeling this one will not be. Terrible dresses, worse dancing, lots of free wine, and a total lack of inhibitions do often add up to much comedy viewing for the bloke who has to stand there and watch the guests while occasionally serving a few drinks.
Funny Links
Ps.
Just want to say a big thank you to all the Blog Monkeys out there for reading, and especially those new to the Blog who have been leaving great comments. Thanks to you guys the Blog is now 1458.62% more popular than it was last week. Wow.
Peace and love.
I’ve just spent about two hours going through the photos and getting them all sorted out and titled. Erg.
To celebrate this massive achievement of administrative goodness (it’s 2am and was actually quite an achievement) I’m running a mystical, magical, fantastic, fantabulous Photo Comment Competition!! < Woo.> <Yay.>
THE RULES: You have a look at the photo page, and if you think you can come up with a better title for one of the photos, leave a comment at the bottom of the page with your suggestion. Please ensure you include the current title of the photo along with your suggestion otherwise chaos will reign supreme.
THE PRIZE: If your title is funny, filthy, imaginative, or just plain odd, you’ll get to see it up here on the Blog. Also, if it’s particularly good, or if I just like you, you may win the chance to feature as a guest writer and have your own post put up on the Blog. Wowwee, are those fantastic prizes or what?!?
The Blog is a cache, a tiny safe corner of the world where my thoughts can be stored away. Often I write just for myself, so I can look back on them and reflect, but sometimes it's for my friends as well, to entertain them or let them know how I am. Random drop ins may or may not like what they find. Don't read the Blog thinking that is written solely to entertain you. You will be disappointed.
