Don't Be Howlin'

I don't know how many folks out there have dogs.
My friends mostly all have dogs and we all enjoy walking them.
When you walk your hound through the streets (unless you have a very well behaved dog) you need to keep it on a lead, otherwise they can be all over the show - mine is anyway.
But it's such a joy to head to one of the reserves where they can be let off the lead and they can run around and be dogs and go silly.
It also gives them the opportunity to roll in rancid things and eat rotting corpses and be disgusting.
Thank goodness they are so loving otherwise you'd fumigate them and put them in ziplock bags.

Citizens of Earth, Your Attention Please

In the last 12 months they have introduced a system whereby you can send an sms to someones landline and it will be read out to them by a pleasant computerised ladies voice.
I spent some time yesterday texting messages of doom, from a robot in the future called Megalor who was destined to destroy mankind and take over the Earth.
It was very amusing for me to hear this read by a courteous young woman.
The rest of my weekend was very pleasant.
I didn't do any walking but I did do housework (much needed) and I had a pal over for dinner on Sunday.
We had been to an Italian restaurant on Friday night and she had ordered the lasagne which was not that great so I felt the need to rectify this (I mean really, how hard is it to make decent lasagne - not very hard at all).
That was all very jolly and we watched Big Brother and I was delighted to see Gianna get the flick.
Gianna the lying, self important, spoilt little brat.
Ha ha I say.
Friday night we went as saw a production of My Fair Lady (after the crap lasagne) and it was pretty good.
I had a bit of trouble with the girl playing the lead, as I known her and don't care for her a great deal so it was hard to really go for her.
She sang extremely well but the rest of the time I thought she was awful.
She was up against some pretty strong acting from others in the play however which would have been difficult.
Welcome to this week - I hope you enjoy it.

Red Right Hand

It is Saturday evening and I have come back to work to use the internet.
I do have a computer at home but it is in storage and the connection here is better.
I was hoping to catch someone online.
I can't remember the math to find out if they are actually awake...oh wait I have this website that works it out for me...be right back.


Yeah ok they probably wont be online at 4 in the morning.
Anyway.
I have discovered in the last few weeks that 3 of my former clients have all been in trouble with the law.
One for stealing coporate funds, one for burning his business down, and one is having copyright issues.
Amazing.
2 of these clients are really nice people and the one pinching the money is a dreadful character.
There is an arguement that I could have sent all three of them on the road to villainy, but I am innocent in this case.

I was actually intending to do some hard yards and get some extensive picture posting done, but the phones have been ringing here non stop since I got here.
I am reluctant to answer them as they will almost certainly be someone complaining about whatever is being broadcast at the moment.
There has, in the last half hour, obviously been some violence or nudity on the television which tends to get old folks pretty cranky.
They seem to think that something will happen if they nag enough.
Or perhaps there's a sporting event on that's not being televised in Tasmania.
People LOVE to phone to complain.
Just before I started my last job, they moved the game show, Wheel of Fortune (phones have stopped for the first time in half an hour - my guess is that it was one person with a mission and...oops to late....here we go again...I'm going to answer before I go and use an amusing accent a silly voice and insist they have the wrong number) had its time slot changed from 5 to 5:30 and all the local nursing homes were up in arms because all the old folks would watch Wheel of Fortune, have their dinner and then piss off to bed.
The time change meant that they were going to bed a whole half hour later!
Can you imagine.
Here in Tassie, people often don't realise that the two commercial television stations are not run by exactly the same people, so they will sometimes see something on one network, then phone the other to complain.
And then get shitty when you tell them that there's nothing you can do (I am now certain this is one person with an issue. They continue to ring but they are leaving more space between calls and letting it ring for a shorter and shorter time).
There is also the possibility that the person calling is a particular dumbshit cameraman who has driven past and noticed I'm here.
If it is him, then this is his version of a joke.

I just answered it and said it was the wrong number - I'm going to answer next time.

Ahhh. Righto. The digital signal this network broadcasts has obviously dropped out.
I've answered the phone using a very realistic and feminine voice and flirted outrageously with 3 different people including one old woman (who thought I was delightful).
I'm going to answer in a real Aussie voice shortly and tell whoever it is to piss off.
I shall take a few more of these calls to entertain myself, then I'm going home.

Tall Monkey

It has just been revealed that Australian Shapelle Corby has just been sentenced to 20 years inprisonment in an Indonesian prison for alegedly bringing canabis into that nation.
I guess she's the only one who knows if she's guilty (she claims not).
If she did do it, she shouldn't go unpunished, but 20 years seems harsh.
On the other hand it's a well known fact that the Indonesian authorities are tough about these things so why would you risk it?
A sad business either way.

Lazy Slob

One of the things I am finding to be very helpful about this whole blogging business, is that it is encouraging me to create a new image everyday.
The fact is that I draw every single day, but I rarely have a finished piece (if you are prepared to call these quickies finished pieces) done that often.
It's giving me a very nice opportunity to try some new things, let some stuff evolve..you know.
I like the idea of printing this stuff onto t-shirts and perhaps I'll attempt that at some stage.
Postcards.
Posters.
All the stuff I would like to be doing.
Is it basic laziness or fear of failure that stops me from taking these things further.
Laziness I think.
Ugh.

Fancy a Shag, Love?

I have a new friend in this world who may read this post and be a little freaked out.
Rest assured new friend all is well.
I was thinking about that very strange feeling you get when you meet someone who fancies you a bit, that unpleasant feeling in your gut like you need to shit out some eels (this is not a common experience for me so get stuffed).
That weird feeling that says "Oh how nice, I might get to touch someones nude bits soon, perhaps I should go home for a wank".
All very peculiar.
I don't have a good history of associating this kind of feeling with anything positive, so I am always rather wary of it.
I refuse however, to whinge online about being lonely and pathetic and single.
Fuck that.
Instead I'll get drunk and abuse passersby.

Here Be Dragons

I took some pictures as I walked Ella today.
This is the spot where I slipped over and did my leg the second time.
I have complained to the council and they have shut down the entire park so no-one can enjoy it anymore.
Hurrah for red tape.
I'm being silly of course.
Can you see the ice?
The frost?
The mist.
It was nothing like this when I fell over.
It was muddy and undignified.
There was also a lot of duck shit.
And swan shit.
Sigh.

Down the Valley of the Shadow

To make up for my lack of content today I've decided to post this nice picture I took out of my front room Tuesday morning.
It reminds me very much of the barrow downs from Lord of the Rings.
Many of my neighbours are quite possibly undead barrow wights so it's not that far removed.
I renovated last year and have a 180 degree view in the main living space of the house.
This is one of them.

Stupid Blog

I spent a good amount of time chatting about the Australian big Brother, which I unashamedly love.
I talked mostly about pretty girls taking their kit off, in particular a girl called Kate.
Then the whole thing fell over and I cannot be fucked re-typing the whole lot.
So this is all you get today.

Where hearts were entertained in June

I dedicate todays post to Terry Gilliam, and more specifically, his film Brazil.
For those who haven't seen this movie it is usually described as an Orwellian thriller set in a future distopia (or something like that).
The reason I'm thinking of Brazil (the movie) at the moment is because at my new job, one of the managers I deal with has a truly unhealthy obsession with paper work.
I personally believe that she obviously doesn't really have a great deal to do, as if she were busy with her production duties she would be too busy to pester me with things like "I asked you to send me a 52b not a 52c".
That of course is an invented issue but it makes it much easier to explain than her real problems.
She also has a particularly screechy voice that seems to amplify 10 fold over the phone.
Add to that her endless patronising tone and you got someone that a smart punch in the mouth wouldn't fix.
"Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP" I want to scream at her.
Ugh.
Yesterday I never mentioned that I had to show a 15 second commercial to a client in a town called Burnie.
An hour 40 to drive there.
5 minutes to wait for the prick to finish polishing his nuts or whatever it was he was doing "up the back".
1 minute to show him the ad.
Hour and forty minutes back.
I did a lot of singing.
This was the same dumbshit that told me the ad was initially the worst ad he'd ever seen.
When I showed him the ad he reassured me by telling me that doesn't like making a fuss.
I was tempted to ask him why then I was the fuckhead who had to drive 2 hours to see his sorry balding arse instead of him coming to me.
I haven't walked the dog today as it's been raining.
Tassie is lovely after the rain and I hope to post some pictures to prove it.

Driving through darkness

I headed down the coast again yesterday to see Revenge of the Sith again (still enjoyed it) and The Life Aquatic, which I enjoyed very much.
If anyone is unaware of the films of Wes Anderson go look him up.
His few films are Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tennenbaums and the film I say yesterday.
He has a very particular style and anyone interested in film should go look them all up.
Rushmore is my favourite at the moment.
Life Aquatic seems to me to be most like Bottle Rocket.
In Life Aquatic there's a wonderful set piece, which is (I assume) a life sized replica of a boat in cross section.
Delightful.
The film also had some animation and recurring bare breasts, two things always guaranteed to keep me happy.
And Cate Blanchett, who is edible as far as I'm concerned.
One of the things I very much enjoy about visiting the coast, is that as it takes a good hour to get there driving through the countryside, it gives me an hour there to sing all the way, and an hour to sing all the way back.
There's something about driving in the dark on a cold night with the window open and the heater on and singing loudly that is very entertaining.
If anyone is interested, my play list for the day was:
Beth Orton - Central Reservation.
Tom Waits - Blood Money.
Neil and Tim Finn - Everyone is Here.
Crowded House - self titled.
Luka Bloom - Innocence.

Touring Through Europe in my Combi

I may have mentioned before that the cinema in town here is an embarassing heap.
I am fully prepared to make the hour treck out to Devonport on the coast to go and see a movie.
This is what I did last night.
It was quite a fun adventure.
I had assumed there was a session on at 8:15ish so I set out quite early with the intention of stopping in for dinner at a town called Deloraine, where a friends brother runs a very nice restaurant.
I set out in the dark and got to Deloraine, sat down and then realised I didn't have the cash to cover dinner.
So I tiptoed out without anyone seeing and went to a rubbish take away place around the corner, and ate my "Baked Dinner and veg $4.50" sitting in the cold on Deloraines main drag.
I was very much enjoying this believe it or not.
So I set off again, listening to Powderfinger and singing and enjoying my favourite fruite pastilles.
And when I got the the cinema I realised the movie wasn't on again for another hour (at 9:30).
I like a late session but I was hoping to be home before 1, but there was nothing to be done.
I told the girl at the counter the time had been advertised wrong on their website.
I had had a run in with her before and when she wasn't very interested I got very unreasonably cranky (I had after all completely lied about it being wrong on the website...).
There is practically nothing to do in Devonport of an evening so I went to a local Indian place, overdrew my account and had another dinner.
I was the only person in the place and had a fine time regaling the pretty waitress with completely false stories about my travels through Europe with my band.
I have never been to Europe but I did a very fine job of sounding like I knew what I was talking about.
She was heading off there soon and loved the opportunity to chat with an expert on the subject.
I flirted with her outrageously and said my name was Miles.
She was very lovely and when I left I told her so.
The movie was Revenge of the Sith and I am shocked to say that I really liked it very much.

Anal Sex

Well thank goodness for my clients I say, because without them I wouldn't know the joy of being bent over a couch and sodomised.
Today I had delightful fellow tell me that the ad I made for him was "the worst ad I've ever seen".
Which is quite a claim as I've made quite a lot of very shit commercials in my time.
This ad was certainly no award winner but the suggestion that it was the worst ad he had ever seen is insane.
If anything, it was one of the nicer commercials I've made since I've been here.
The shoot was bad and the colour shitty but I ran it through After Effects and jazzed it up quite a bit.
He tried to tell me is was distorted.
This is the first time in my new job that I've been made to feel very very mad.
I would have very much enjoyed suggesting to the backward pinhead from the coast that what he knew about television production and the quality thereof would easily fit into the space between his ears.
But no.
I'm not allowed to do that.
"Let me drop my trousers and fetch some KY. Oh yes big boy, that's right. As hard as you like".
If you are at all interested the commercial was for a car dealership.
Fucking experts.
Typing this however is making me feel much better.
I took the hound for a walk at lunchtime and that helped a bit too.
If I'd gone in there and said, "Sorry pal, you greasy fucking salesman, your bullshit routine wouldn't sell shit to dung beetles" it'd be a different story.
Today I also picked some daisies and wrote a haiku about butterflies.

Lah Di Dah

I have realised that for a very long time now my post have been studded with "Oh I'm so sick" whinges.
Well today, despite the fact that I've only had about 3 and a half hours sleep, I've not going to whine.
Instead, I'm going to discuss something far far daggier - Star Wars.
I am a big fan of DVD commentaries and over the last few days I've been listening to the commentaries on the 3 old school Star Wars movies.
I shall make my comments in dot point:
1) George Lucas is clearly an astonishing fellow.
2) George Lucas speaks a great deal of crap. He is completely contradictory throughout the entirety of the 3 movies. I cannot be arsed going into detail.
3) He mispronounces the name of Lando Calrissian incorrectly 2 times.
4) Irvin Kerschner clearly had a great deal more to do with The Empire SB than I would have imagined. He says a great many useful and important things about basic film making that Lucas clearly decided were not worth remembering when he made his new films.
5) It's delightful to hear the old school Kersch chatter on about droids and Yoda.
6) Frank Oz as Yoda is the best thing in the movie.
7) Darth Vader comes across as a bit of a saddie, especially after the prequels.
8) George Lucas is actually pretty funny but laughs at the wrong things and provides very poor explanation for a lot of the things he has done. Well, he mostly gives excuses rather than explanation. Kind of like accidently making a wonderful chocolate cake and then giving sagely advice about what kind of chocolate cake you deliberately made.
9) Anything Ben Burtt, Sound Designer, says is complete 100% geeksville and utterly fascinating.
10) George Lucas has a big throat pouch like one of the silly aliens in the prequels.
That is all I shall be saying about Star Wars for now.
I'm not promising that I wont bring it up again in the future, but for now, that's it.

More sick

Continuing my trend of broken limbs and coughing fits, I spent the last 24 hours with food poisoning.
I'll not go into the finer details.
I will mention however that there's not a lot more that makes you feel more single than when you are trying to clean up one pile of vomit while simultaneously creating a several new ones.
I'm feeling a lot better now though.
Apart from the aforementioned horribleness I had a lovely weekend.
I had some friends over for dinner on Saturday night and made a lovely roast chook.
I made a rub out of almonds, caraway seeds and garlic that was fucking fantastic.
Then I went to a fun nibbles and drinkies on Sunday afternoon with the same folks I'd had over for dinner.
I'm still a bit weary so I don't have a whole lot to say or much energy to think of anything.
I will end up by mentioning the Mythbusters hovercraft competition was fucking brilliant if anyone has seen it.

Across the world

I have recently, through this blog, had some lovely correspondence from all sorts of faceless strangers from around the globe.
Imagine I got all this mail in my actual letterbox every day.
Would I respond to it all?
Probably not.
I enjoy writing letters very much but I think I'd get lazy.
At the moment I regularly write to the unborn child of a friend of mine - proper letters written with a pen.
This may seem like a strange thing to do, but I think if I grew up with written evidence that nice people with good intentions were thinking about me before I squigggled into this world then I might be a happier person.
Which is not to say I'm not happy.
I'm just a sap when it comes to these things.
Today we're all ording pizza for lunch.
I don't really want to be a part of it but it's a new workplace and I feel I may be oestracised if I don't participate.
Hopefully I wont be asked to join the touch football team.
I don't even know what touch football is!
What do you touch?!!!
If it involved a team of girls in bikinis I'd certainly be a little more interested.
I'd be quite prepared to touch anything I was asked to.

Their names are called, they raise a paw

For those even remotely still interested in the Australian echidna, I realised I had this extremely flattering picture of me with one of the creatures.
This was taken 2 years ago on the east coast of Tasmania.
Echidnas are not fearsome animals (unless you are an ant).
Despite our best encourangement to get the critter to say hello all it did was dig itself into the sand to protect its soft pink bits.
Perhaps if you didn't know it was an animal you may think, "That fat tit seems to have dropped his wig".

Vomiting phelgm

Lovely!
My cold has pretty much left me, but I am still left with this very attractive cough that has me vomiting in the shower each morning (I have a pretty major gag reflex).
It's all very attractive let me tell you, as I'm sure you can imagine.
I'm looking forward to popping home to lunch where I will be having one of my favorites - chicken breast fillet on fresh white bread.
White on white.
With mustard and mayo.
Gosh it's making me hungry.

Tasting Natives

When the punters first fleet arrived on the shores of this wide brown land they were faced with one very distinct problem.
What to eat.
The largest (land) animal in Australia is the kangaroo and the Europeans found them a little hard to catch and kill (all that jumping about perhaps, who knows).
I found an old cookbook recently that had some recipies for roo and wallaby, but also many for some of Australias slower and less agile animals.
They were apparently very fod of wombat.
This is hard to imagine and the wombat is basically a lump of muscle.
Ask anyone who's run over one on the highway and they will tell you that the wombat could never be described as "tender".
They are basically oval, and I've always had an image of a butcher slicing one up on one of those meat slicers in the deli.
Like a big leg of ham.
I read a small passage where they were waxing lyrical on the taste and delights of the echidna.
If you don't know what an echidna is, imagine a hedgehog with a beak.
I can't really imagine there's a whole stack of meat on one, once you remove the spines and the big claws (poisonous!) and all that.
They have a nice pink belly so perhaps they cut a fillet out of that.
They ate quite a bit of possum too.
I've read that possum is revolting but I've had it in a stew with couscous and I thought it was nice enough.
I've never eaten wombat or echidna.
The echidna is my favourite Australian beast and I'll always stop and watch when I spot one.
I had a friend who had an elderly one living on his block.
It had a big bald patch around it's back where it had no spines.
Cute!

Meeting peeps

I always find it amazing how perfect strangers in movies just end up as special friends.
From my experience most folks are not at all interested in being pals unless you are attractive to them.
I often meet people and think, "Oh, well, she seems nice enough, perhaps we could do something sometime".
But I never do ask because I always end up feeling foolish.
I think it's easier if you're a woman.
If a guy asks someone to do something it's taken as given that he's after a shag (which would be nice but not really the ultimate goal).
So who knows what you're supposed to do.
I have a small group of intimate friends (intimate emotionally, not intimate in a pink bits kind of a way), and the fact is that I rarely meet anyone I'm that fussed to spend time with anyway.
So ultimately I'm whining about nothing because I have dear friends.
But it would be nice to have a shag occasionally too.

Hooray for snot!

I spent Saturday arvo/evening babysitting the lovely Ashleigh (2 and half) and Logan (7 months).
It's always a pleasure.
They are both a little ill at the moment.
All snotty and a little grizzly.
As a consequence they spent most of the asleep.
Not in their beds, but on me.
As a result I am also snotty and a little grizzly.
I am particuarly annoyed not because I'm sick so much as I have to spend the day on the coast making car ads.
I hate making car ads.
I don't know anything about them (in fact only this weekend it occured to me that my car was making a funny noise. I discovered after visiting the petrol station that you apparently need to keep the water and oil topped up.... well I did know that I'd just forgotten...).
I may be at home in bed tomorrow so unless I see you there I'll catch you all soon.

The client is number one

This is the triple headed client monster; the beast, the clown and way, way up the back the nice head that you don't meet very often.
I'm not going to go on some endless rant about how much I hate clients, because I don't, I have a handful that I in fact love dealing with, but they really are the thing that wears you down.
In my new job I've got only a small client base - I'm making 2 or three commercials a week.
In my last role I was hammering out, on average, 10 jobs a week, sometimes more.
I was very happy to exit that role (I was asked to exit, it wasn't voluntary) and this new gig, with half the drama and half the aggrevation is suiting me nicely thank you very much.
I would however like to be doing something else...

Running, run, run

I very rarely plan any of the images I do.
I just let them arrive on their own.
This one however I think I will end up creating as a painting.
When I have finished it I will no doubt take a look at it and think, "Hmmm. Well it's ok but that original scribble I did on the blog was a million times better".
It's always the nature of these things.
Scrawled notes on serviettes and on the backs of envelopes are always a delight.
Not that I would ever be so vain to compare myself to him, but I wonder if Rembrant or Picasso or whoever ever say back and thought, "Geez, I didn't really nail that expression like I did in the margins of Saturdays paper".

Tired

In the film (and I assume the book) Fight Club, Edward Norton describes the symptoms of insomia as feeling like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy.
A terrific description.
Although I don't really suffer from insomnia I know the feeling.
I hate those days where even though you've had a great nights sleep and been eating plenty of vegies and fruit, you still wake up exhausted.
You eat your lunch and SPLAT - you're knackered and need a sleep, like some sort of 3 year old.
Acting like a 3 year old isn't really a big problem for me (I do work in advertising after all) but for some reason there are those who think popping home at 2 in the afternoon for a sleep is a little wrong.
Some people have no compassion.
I've not yet done this with my current job (and don't intend to) but my last role was so busy and exhausting that towards the end of my run there I would often bugger off home for a sleep.
And there's something really nice about having a sleep in the middle of the day.
It's really the only opportunity I have for sleeping in the sun (but not my head - I hate leaving my head in the sun. My hair is very black and I heat up awfully).
Turning up slightly bleary back at the office smelling like toothpaste and fresh deoderant.
People say "Oh, where have you been?" and you tell them you've been visiting clients or popped off for a shag or whatever.
There was an episode of Seinfeld where George build a small bunk under his desk in the office.
I thought there was a great deal of merit in that.

Me and the mutt

Anyone single with a dog will know the difference the animal will bring to your life.
Instead of being pathetic with no-one, you can be pathetic with another living creature.
You can take your sad, hollow existence and plug it up with a canine (and I don't care what anyone says, a dog is much better than a stinky cat).
I have had cats.
Kate and Dustin.
Dustin was run over at a young age, and I have no idea what became of Kate after the partner I shared him with and I broke up.
He was a pretty hopless kitty.
Couldn't climb.
Was scared of everything except me, who fed him.
And he was stupid.
Give me my manic, crazy woofhound any day.