new year 2007

nobody planned anything for new year this year. except for spanky. he went to scotland. most of us wanted a quiet one (we are getting old) and decided to stay local. gone are the days when we used new year as an instrument to up the averages - scoring 30 girls in an evening (albeit after four of your dodgy mates have also been there), meant that when eveything was tallied up at the end of the year, you had a base starting point of almost 3 birds a month right off the bat.

we would arrive at margate, or ballito, or southbroom on the morning of the 31st long-haired, free-spirited, and ready to drink and kiss anything under god's blazing sun. out would come the booze-packed cooler boxes. nirvana unplugged was shoved into the tape deck, boom box pumping. deck chairs on the verge. shirts off. drunken rugby in the road. down-downs. and funnels. and fives. boozed-up jirating in the tent. lots of smooching at midnight. some sand grinding in the early hours (if you were lucky). and a drunken ride home before the road blocks come out.

hmmm... anyway... that was then. this is errr... now. so we booked at flaming wok, or jim thompson's, or drift, or whatever it's called these days. it was super chilled. we had some awesome food. and a few beers. and then headed to the dancefloor just before new year. five. four. three. two. one. no final countdown. i was bummed. we sang old angsign (how the hell do you spell that?). then joined in the dancing train. had a few more beers. and then headed home.

and the last time that i drank alcohol. honestly. i have not touched a drop since. and that coupled with year end and being super over worked have made it a pretty hairy january. i didn't make any formal resolutions, but have vowed to become healthy, to work less, and to portray a more positive and happy image (after one of my mates called me melancohlic and advised me not to smoke dope as i was a prime candidate to get drug-induced psychosis or schizophrenia).

here are some pictures (those hats sure are terrible)...

snow (hey oh)

it snowed in london yesterday. porto excitedly burst into my room at 7.30am, ripped open my curtains, and with a beaming face, announced: "dude... it snowed". i was in no mood for such arbitrary information half an hour before my official wake up time, so mumbled: "i know" and then turned over and went back to sleep.

the reason i knew that it had snowed is a quaint and delightful tale...

for some reason, i have a fairly weak bladder, and often have to get up of a night to relieve myself. during dopey's time in the house, i used to get lambasted the morning after and he never got tired of questions like:

1. did you get up last night at x.xx (precise time) to go to the toilet?
2. how do you know you need the toilet when you are sleeping?
3. how come you need to go to the toilet at night?
4. is it like sleep-peeing?
5. have you ever thought of not drinking two hours before bedtime?
6. is it right to fondle man boobs?

faced with these morning questions continuously for months on end, i tried everything: i tip-toed up the stairs, i peed on the side of the bowl (not in the water), i didn't flush - anything not to wake him up, but every morning without fail the usual barrage of questions would fly my way.

that was until i developed a cunning plan. devious. and evil. i have french doors in my room leading out onto our back garden - so i figured, instead of going upstairs to the loo, i would head out of my garden doors to pee at night. and so developed my nightly garden pee ritual.

dopey was amazed: "sooo... you didn’t pee last night?". sly smile: "nope". he was a lost man without his morning ridiculing and, in truth, our relationship never fully recovered... it was always kinda frosty after that.

despite the fact that dopey has subsequently left and martin has moved in i have continued to pee outside... i guess i have come to enjoy my moment of solitude under the stars.

and so it was two nights ago that i routinely stepped outside in the early hours of the morning, only to be blown away by the peacefulness of a blanket of white. serene and tranquil. no wind. no cars. no birds. utter silence. i was alone with the fluttering snow and my steaming yellow wee. there is something magical about snow, and as i stood there urinating, i became one with the world and the universe. peace of mind. quality.

i stood there taking it in for a few moments. admiring the pure beauty of the world. and then i fcked off back to bed.

1000 up

so sometime in early jan i received a discreet email informing me that this blogsite had recently passed the coveted 1000 hit mark... woohoo!!! for a four month period, that is probably pretty rubbish... but this site is an exclusive venue after all... not for the riff raff...

anyway - with this notification, i received all the ip addresses of the people who looked at the site. i therefore thought it would be interesting to break it down (homey). here goes:

1. 437 hits - mom (thanks mom... i always knew you were my #1 fan)
   
2. 103 hits - dopey (dude... you sure must get bored at work)
   
3. 65 hits - fisher (an elite member of the blogosphere)
   
4. 47 hits - britney spears (strange... but true... honest!!!)
   
5. 46 hits - pumpkin (thanks for the support pumpkin)
   
6. 45 hits - anonymous (goddamn you... reveal yourself!!!)
   
7. 32 hits - rph (you up for a beer?)
   
8. 29 hits - paris hilton (hmmm...)
   
9. 27 hits - grumbies - (ridge's edge man... ridge's edge)
   
10. 23 hits - some other folks (undecipherable ip addresses)
    
11. 20 hits - kam (my one and only cyber buddy)
    
12. 20 hits - wiggy (arguably the best site ever)
    
13. 20 hits - hobson & elaine (thanks for the word of the week contribs guys)
    
14. 20 hits - chuck norris (his 1 hit counts as 20)
    
15. 16 hits - lindsey lohan (ja well... you know...)
    
16. 15 hits - biggs & little (legends)
    
17. 15 hits - buffy (i knew you enjoyed the site despite your snide remarks)
    
18. 12 hits - jp morgan (grainger / duarte / belinda... do some work!!!)
    
19. 9 hits - kirk (every story on here is true... i promise)
    
20. 1 hit - the killers (to vote for dopey)

thanks for the support folks.

banana pancakes

there's no combination of words
i could put on the back of a postcard
no song that I could sing
but i can try for your heart
our dreams and are they made out of real things
like a shoebox of photographs
with sepiatone loving
love is the answer
at least for most of the questions in my heart
like why are we here?
and where do we go?
and how come it's so hard?
it's not always easy and
sometimes life can be deceiving
i'll tell you one thing
it's always better when we're together

peace of mind


i think that if we are going to reform the world, and make it a better place to live in, the way to do it is not with talk about relationships of a political nature, which are inevitably dualistic, full of subjects and objects and their relationship to one another; or with programs full of things for other people to do. i think that kind of approach starts it at the end and presumes the end is the beginning. programs of a political nature are important end products of social quality that can be effective only if the underlying structure of social values is right. the social values are right only if the individual values are right. the place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there. other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. i just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. i think that what i have to say has more lasting value.

okay... so i keep banging on about this book, but my mind drifted to zen and the art of motocycle maintenance again whilst i was carrying out my long and tedious tax-accounting sox-driven quarter-end duties late on friday night. the drifting was driven primarily by one question: why the fuck am i doing this?

the result is rather typical of modern technology, an overall dullness of appearance so depressing that it must be overlaid with a veneer of "style" to make it acceptable. and that, to anyone who is sensitive to romantic quality, just makes it all the worse. now it's not just depressingly dull, it's also phony. put the two together and you get a pretty accurate description of modern american technology: stylized cars and stylized outboard motors and stylized typewriters and stylized clothes. stylized refrigerators filled with stylized food in stylized kitchens in stylized houses. plastic stylized toys for stylized children, who at christmas and birthdays are in style with their stylish parents. you have to be awfully stylish yourself not to get sick of it once in a while. it's the style that gets you; technological ugliness syruped over with romantic phoniness in an effort to produce beauty and profit by people who, though stylish, don't know where to start because no one has ever told them there's such a thing as quality in this world and it's real, not style. quality isn't something you lay on top of subjects and objects like tinsel on a christmas tree. real quality must be the source of subjects and objects, the cone from which the tree must start.

science seeks to explain the world with cold facts. hard objects (hmmm...) and set methods. a fool proof manual for life. science fools us into thinking we can just turn up and produce goodness and quality by following a set of instructions or rules that are devoid of any emotional involvement.

but following a step-by-step jamie oliver cook book doesn't make you a good chef. similarly owning a david beckham football training video won't make you a good footballer (mainly because beckham isn't a good footballer... but that's besides the point). and going to guitar lessons won't make you a good musician. science or truth has been put on a pedestal as the ultimate "answer" - when in fact it is just a side branch of knowledge. what science fails to recognise is "feeling". it has detached us from our surroundings by disregarding spirituality and irrationality. it gives no value to peace of mind - that which produces goodness or quality.

the key to peace of mind is to eliminate the subject-object reality that dominates our conciousness. zen talks about mechanics and motorcyle maintenance and "just fixing" - to have a feeling of complete indentification with one's circumstances. to become one with the surrounding environment. to care. some people might find this harmony through mediation. some may experience it through the arts. some through music. or dancing. or martial arts. or fishing. or surfing (the search for the perfect wave bro). some may even find it in their day jobs.

for me: it's football. (very occasionally) dualistic thinking stops. it's no longer "me" and "the rest of the world". my mind becomes a blank canvas. suddenly i am one with the ball, and the other players, and the field, and the goals. i no longer have to think about what i'm going to do, or where i should be, or who i should pass to. it just comes naturally. conciousness and the changing nature of the game seem to flow through me in parallel. inspiration. an inner quietness. attentiveness and caring. peace of mind: we have all experienced it in one way or another. we have all been "in the zone".

zen says this is how we should feel in every activity in our everyday lives. this oneness, this harmony with the "outside" world and with nature. zen sees this as the answer to mass disillusionment in a society which just wants to get through their mundane everyday lives (their daily jobs, their daily travelling, their daily cooking, their daily cleaning) and on to something else.

"work to live rather than live to work" is popular romantic remark. but it is also a rather sad statement in that it implies that one is spending the majority of time doing something they don't really want to do, in some place they don't really want to be. just getting by. detatched and uninterested. a low quality existence. but we do it because it makes "sense".

so i guess what zen is trying to say is that sometimes you don't need to do what makes sense... you need to do what feels right.

in the past our common universe of reason has been in the process of escaping, rejecting the romantic, irrational world of prehistoric man. it's been necessary since before the time of socrates to reject the passions, the emotions, in order to free the rational mind for an understanding of nature's order which was as yet unknown. now it's time to further an understanding of nature's order by reassimilating those passions which were originally fled from. the passions, the emotions, the affective domain of man's conciousness, are part of nature's order too. the central part.

laguna beach

the real oc: what can i say? yup... the new series has started (dopey... eat your heart out). mtv 7.30pm sunday evenings. myself and my housemates have become super addicted to the show. it's got to be the greatest reality tv show ever. i sit at work thinking about the next episode of laguna. i'm on the treadmill at gym thinking about laguna. i go to bed thinking about laguna. i sure am sad!!!

i've totally fallen for tessa - she is super sexy, and such a nice girl. i know this sounds kind of freaky and stalkerish, but i'm considering saving up to fly over to laguna beach so that i can find her and rescue her from all her boy woes... i'm just the type of nice genuine guy she needs... errr... i think... hmmm... anyway...

i'm on the side of tessa and rocky (martin likes rocky - but she has nothing on tessa) in their battle against the evil kyndra and cami and the other ugly shallow bitches. i have to admit that i don't mind cameron, even though he totally played tessa... bastard... but he's young... and he's getting young love... so you can't really blame him. other dudes include alex (rocky's boyfriend), nick (this dude is a laugh... he's nowhere - cameron's ego booster), and various others. oh yeah... i forgot to mention jessica. i like jess too - but she's also getting played by cameron.

so for you folks that don't have mtv or missed the first episode on sunday, here's a round up: it was februrary time - i know this because the show featured valentine's day. rocky said she loved alex for the first time. he said he loved her too. but the the next day he told his mate he doesn't love her and that he's not in it for the long term. i was very disappointed in alex as i thought he was such a genuine guy. oh well. cameron rocked up at kyndra and her boyfriend's (tyler) valentine party. cameron and kyndra had hooked up previously. tyler got jealous and dumped kyndra. good riddance to bad rubbish i say. and what of the lovely tessa? she didn't have a valentine. can you believe it? i wish i had known... i would have made a plan. that was pretty much it.

i sooo can't wait for next week. hmmm... tessa...

a weird xmas party (15.12.06)

i generally love xmas parties. they create a level playing field. most folks spend the whole year feeling oppressed – threatened by their boss, or their peers, or the strange dude with the intense stare who hangs around the coffee / photocopy machine for no apparent reason. but xmas parties remedy this big time - because everyone gets super boozed.

the faceless multinational conglomerate that employs me is full of impressive people. top of their class and super intelligent (the one dude even has an odd double egg-shaped head to fit in his extra brain), they embrace corporate life and professionalism with a passion bordering on the religious. how i slipped through the door is anyone’s guess, but i generally float around the office on a relative brain-wave-length that is thicker than hobson’s eyebrows. in other words i don’t belong (although this is probably due to the fact that i am recluse... anyway... errr...).

but this would surely change at the xmas party – now these uptight genius freaks would be on my turf. beer, and klippies, and backslapping, and nipple twisting, and swearing, and lurid conversations about chicks, and ass, and booze, and oggling the new super sexy pa bird who gives you a come-to-bed eyeballing every time you walk past her desk. well that's how it was supposed to be...

not so... when you’re playing with academic immortals it’s difficult to bring your B game and you tend to up your level to those you are playing with. so we drank wine and vodka martini’s. and we spoke about exposures, and fun, and shoe, and sox, and gay sex on ecstasy. i ended up having the weirdest conversations with the most inappropriate people. it was strange.

but it was sophisticated. there was swearing... but it sounded as if it came from the mouth of james bond. there was flirting... but it belonged to the chivalrous era of 1920's ballroom dancing. there were arguments about sport... but it was tea and cucumber sandwich language. there was a sinister layer of cleanliness that no form of outrageous behaviour could trash. nothing would take this party down to the depths of 54 on a thursday night in 2001. it was brutally upper class. i was disorientated and broken. and i had to leave. i left before the bar tab closed!!!

i’m not quite sure what my point was - but it sure was a weird xmas party... unlike any that i have experienced before. and the moral of the story? if you like red meat, you probably shouldn’t marry a gay vegetarian.

dopey's farewell (17.12.06)

after only receiving a meager 3 (real) votes to stay, dopey decided to pack his bags and go home. his farewell bash was held at the slug & lettuce in putney. that place sure does rock on sunday evenings. they have posh-busker-type folk there who play live music to a sunday crowd in an almost joe-kools-like-atmosphere (you know the crowd that don't give a shit about monday mornings - yip... students). they play some cool contemporary music and people dance on chairs and couches and tables and sing along enthusiastically. dopey got a good attendance (numbers must have been 35 to 40) - though not sure why... perhaps to check for themselves that he really was going. anyway it was a really good party...

i sure did miss dopey those first few days. no warm meal awaiting me when i got home. nobody to take the trash out on wednesdays. no nasty cynical remarks about arbiturary folks. no rants. no raves. no evil. it was boring...

then cobus (aka martin) moved in. i had first witnessed martin in action one night at abacus after i had joined him and dopey for a drink after my xmas party....

i soon came to realise that martin was a natural predator and a worthy successor to dopey. his beady eyes scanned the dancefloor and quickly identified his prey. a girl with a crutch. dopey had taught him well. an easy meal. survival of the fittest. with dopey-like doggedness he swooped. in no time he had rendered her useless... he had removed her crutch. trapped and with nowhere to go, her eyes were blank and meek, accepting her fate - like a lamb to the slaughter. he moved in for the kill and swiftly and viciously finshed her off. he then gave her crutch back and sent her packing. another victim. another member of the walking dead on the streets of london. another dopey reincarnate. dangerous times.

cos change is okay
what's the point in staying the same
regrets, forget what's dead and gone