Oriental Fetish

Yay!

Again, I suppose I should apologise for my conspicuous absence around these parts of late.  This new job is more time consuming than I could have imagined, especially in these first few weeks.  In fact, I'm supposed to be working right now at 7 cunting 30 in the evening.  So, I will continue to operate on hibernation levels for the immediate future. 

Still, I had to post today as I just got some good news.  Following the publishing of Tim Worstall's book (that can be bought here, by the way) I sent off a speculative proposal for an anthology of humorous blogging to Tim's publisher.  Didn't hear anything, and all but forgot about it. 

Got home from work this evening to find an email from the publishing director to say that she very much liked the idea and would like to meet up over a beer to discuss it. 

Kickass. 

Unfortunately, of course, I live in the cold, dark hinterlands of Manchester so it's a little difficult to drop everything and drive four hours south to have a beer and talk books.  Initially, then, I hope to get her on the phone and bang out a few ideas.  Hopefully I'll say something awfully impressive and win her confidence.  In the meantime I have to get back to bloody work and make a few phone calls.  Bah.

Burp

Keep the noise down to a low roar for the next few hours, OK?  After a few too many cans last night I went under while watching My Name is Earl at 2am.  My lovely evening ended with some fairly impressive projectile vomiting on my bedroom floor.  As if that wasn't bad enough I blocked the sink while performing the drunken cleanup, leaving the unenviable task of reaching my hands wrist-deep into a sink full of diluted bile chock-full of half-digested scrambled eggs, pepperoni and chicken feast pizza, a pack of Wotsits, a bite-size Milky Way, a few Cadbury's Roses, cheshire cheese and a couple of packs of Polos. 

You've never wanted me more, have you?

Because I'm Bored, OK?

For want of something better to write, I'll play along with this little meme via Iowa Voice (who needs a little help, by the way) and LaShawn Barber.

Four jobs I've had in my life:

Sales assistant at Toys'r'Us (fired for swearing in earshot of the customers).
Medical guinea pig for anti-depressants (had to masturbate while attached to wires - not my finest hour).
Timeshare salesman for a semi-criminal Cockney wideboy (went bankrupt and he lost his precious Porsche 911).
Potwasher in the patient kitchen of my local hospital (had to literally climb into industrial vats to wash off rancid mashed potato mess)

Four movies I could watch over and over, and have:

It's a Wonderful Life
Anchorman
The Shawshank Redemption
Dumb and Dumber

Four places I have lived:

Stalybridge, Cheshire
Stalybridge, Cheshire
Stalybridge, Cheshire
and, er...
Stalybridge, Cheshire

Four TV shows I love to watch:

Scrubs
CSI:Miami
The West Wing
Family Guy

Four places I have been on vacation:

Melbourne, Australia
Fuerteventura
Luxembourg
All over France

Four websites I visit daily:

Protein Wisdom
Wuzzadem
Dean's World
James Lileks

Four favourite foods:

Pizza
More pizza
A little more pizza
Y'know what, I'll just have the whole thing

Four places I would rather be right now:

The Mongol Rally, summer 2006
Crosscountry US, summer 2007
St Kilda, Melbourne
York, UK

La Shawn
La-Shawn
Shawn
Lashing
Lassen
Edit...
Ignore all
Add to dictionary

Trouser's
Tyrus
Torus
Toast's
Torr's
Edit...
Ignore all
Add to dictionary

guinea
Guinea
Guinna
Juneau
Guinean
Edit...
Revert to "guineau"

Random Stuff

If there's one person I would really love to trade lives with, it would be James Lileks.  OK, that's not entirely true.  There are any number of people I'd happily trade with - rich people; people with interesting jobs who get up to all kinds of wacky stuff in their spare time; old guys who've lived a rich life and can now sit back and enjoy watching their grandkids play.  Still, Lileks is one of the only people I really envy.

See, for as long as I remember I've wanted to be a writer.  It's a dream that started long before, and has outlived, almost every one of my other aspirations.  Volcanologist, archaeologist (for the simple reason that I thought all archaeologists lived like Indiana Jones), racing driver.  All my other dreams have been passing fancies compared to the dream to write. 

The problem, though, is that I can barely string together a sentence.  I could probably churn out page upon page if interesting things happened to me, but I really can't get to grips with writing about inane, everyday experience.  This is something Lileks excels at.  Just now I was out in my back garden smoking a cigarette as I watched the battles that rage over our birdfeeder.  The gaps in the cage that holds the nuts are too small for the beaks of the bigger birds, but even so they defend the cage viciously, chasing away any smaller birds who want a snack.  It seems such a pointless pursuit, the way these huge pests expend so much effort to spite the smaller birds. 

Now Lileks could write a thousand words about my birdfeeder with ease.  He would bang out an opus in five minutes that ended with a strong moral message with a few laughs along the way.  I run out of words in half a paragraph. 

Maybe I'm more suited to the podcast.  I heard my first one just the other day (no early adopter, me.  I'm set in my ways), and it was very entertaining.  I'd record an hour or so in the pub, just chatting about random crap that becomes more non-sensical and the beer flows.  Unfortunately I've heard my voice on tape and it ain't cool.  I go all high pitched when I'm trying to defend a point, and you guys don't need to be subjected to that.  Maybe I'll just start posting hardcore pornography to retain my readership.  Whatever I decide, now is the time to eat sandwiches.