You will be pleased to know that I am now even better looking than I was before. I have new glasses.
Well, not exactly new glasses. I kept the old frame. Well, I may have an old frame but it's perfectly serviceable. It bends in all the right places, and is hard and stiff in all the right places. So why not keep on using it?
So, new lenses later I can actually see better than with the cheapie ones I bought from the Wharehouse a while ago. Isn't technology wonderful?
Now, what else can I get improved? (That is a rhetoric question!)
According to the news today, the Manawatu and Wanganui regions are sinking, according to scientists at the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences.
Of course, it’s all caused by these Massey University lecturers in the Manawatu stamping their feet when something doesn't suit them. Look what they are doing! It’s time someone told them that there is a difference between putting your foot down and stamping. Just as there's a difference between being laid back and being laid. (Just in case you didn't know.)
And I do hope you realise just how good for your health I am.
Researchers have found that a spell of hearty laughter causes the tissue that forms the inner lining of the blood vessels, the endothelium, to dilate, increasing blood flow in the same way as a bout of aerobic exercise.
The finding adds to evidence that a laugh a day may help keep a heart attack away. Michael Miller, of the University of Maryland, who has studied the healing power of laughter for a decade, said: "The old saying that laughter is the best medicine definitely appears to be true when it comes to protecting your heart."
So, if you manage to get at least a small giggle from my missives, I’m doing great things for your heart. Of course, exercise does good things for your heart as well. But I do not, however, expect you to use this as an excuse for running away from me laughing…
I mean there is no excuse for this. I don’t have bad breath and I don’t have body odour. To avoid this, I liberally use deodorant (and it tastes terrible!).
Did you know that deodorant was invented in 1881 by an unidentified man in Philadelphia? He sold it commercially, using the brand name "Mum".
Geez, but is this Freudian. A deodorant called Mum. “All you need is a bit of Mum and it’s no sweat”. I don’t think I’m going there any further…
They invented the roller ball deodorant after getting the idea from a ballpoint pen. Now *that’s* a worry. My ballpoint pens spray ink in splotches everywhere. Is my deodorant doing that? Great big blobs clogging up my underarm hair…? I’m not going there any further, either!
You have to be careful staying smell-free, though. Some deodorants apparently contain aluminium (now *that* is taking the protective shield thing a bit too far) and the accumulative affect of aluminium is thought to cause memory loss and damage to the central nervous system.
Well, I have just been into the bathroom to check my deodorant out but when I got there I couldn’t remember what it was I was looking for and my hand kept shaking too much to read the label anyway.
So there you go. Wherever it was we were going.
Well, I think I’ll pop out and do some shopping. Now, did I apply any deodorant this morning?
Friday, June 30, 2006
Monday, June 26, 2006
Have you heard that a pig’s orgasm lasts 30 minutes? If so, you probably now want to come back in your next life as a pig.
But think about the following before you put your order in with the Reincarnator Almighty.
Firstly, pigs have no sweat glands. Yet a pig’s body is made up of one half to two thirds water. So, with no sweat glands, your body is going to retain that water and wobble around like Dolly Parton minus a bra.
Also, pigs live in social groups and are so communal that they even sleep together, huddled in a nest. And they mate up. So it is therefore quite possible that pigs have mothers-in-law. This means when you have that 30 minute orgasm, not only is the rest of society is going to hear it – you kinky pig, you - but your mother-in-law is also going to be listening in!
I don't suppose it's much surprise that pigs spend much of their time foraging and rooting. So would I if my orgasms lasted for 30 minutes.
But there is a definite downside to being a pig as is shown by this story.
A farmer walked into a bar with his pig and ordered a drink. The bartender could not help asking the man why his pig had a peg leg.
"Well, you see," said the farmer, "this is an amazing pig. Why, two years ago, my son was chopping wood in the field when a tree collapsed on him, pinning him to the ground and making breathing difficult. The pig, which was in the area, ran to get assistance and, squealing loudly, led us to my son to rescue him."
"You're right,” said the bartender, “that is an amazing story. But why does your pig have a peg leg?"
“This is no ordinary pig," the farmer continued. "One night while we were sleeping, our barn caught fire and the pig managed to squeeze through a little hole in the wall and circle our house, squealing as loud as it could to wake us up. We were able to save all of the animals."
"Wow! Incredible! But why does the pig have a peg leg?"
"Wait. Once, our home caught on fire. The pig managed to run to the next house over and wake the neighbors, who were able to save us and help put out the fire."
"OK. OK. The pig is amazing. But why the peg leg?" the bartender demanded.
"An amazing pig like this. You can't eat it all at once."
On the other hand that 30 minute orgasm is an attractive thought:
Farmer Brown's pig had gone into season, so he decided to mate her with Farmer Jones's County Fair award-winning hog.
So Farmer Brown called up Farmer Jones to ask if he can bring the pig over to mate.
“Sure,” said Farmer Jones.
So Farmer Brown put his pig in the back of his pick-up and headed off to Farmer Jone’s farm. The pigs were put together and they went at it for ages. Even when they were parted they had the steamy look in their eyes.
Anyway,Farmer Brown dragged the pig out of the pen, put her into the back of his pick-up and headed home.
But as he drove, he got to wondering. "How do I know if she's pregnant?"
So when he got home, he called Farmer Jones to ask him. Farmer Jones, experienced in the ways of pigs, said "That's easy, when you see her tomorrow morning, if she's rollin' in the mud, she's not pregnant, but if she's eatin' sweet grass, she is."
So the next morning, Farmer Brown looked out his window to see his pig rolling in the mud.
"Damn!" said Farmer Brown and called Farmer Jones to ask to do it all again.
That was OK said Farmer Jones so Farmer Brown piled the pig into the back of his pick-up and headed to the other farm.
This time they went at it for nearly and hour, with lots of gruntin' and groanin'. And when they were done and Farmer Brown put her into the back in the pick-up and headed home, she again still had that steamy look in her eyes.
Next morning, Farmer Brown looks out and sees his pig rolling in the mud, again.
"Damn!" So, once again he called Farmer Jones and asked again. Again he put the pig in the back of the pick-up and drove to the other farm. This time the two pigs went at it for over two hours, whoopin' and hollarin', mud flying everywhere.
When they were done, the female pig got put in the back of the pick-up and Farmer Brown drove home.
The next morning, he was very tired, so he asked his wife to see what the pig was doing.
She came back a minute later and Farmer Brown asked, "Well, is she rollin' in the mud, or eating the sweet grass?"
His wife raised her eyebrows and said, "Neither. She’s in the front seat of the pickup and BEEPIN' THE HORN !!!!!!!!
But think about the following before you put your order in with the Reincarnator Almighty.
Firstly, pigs have no sweat glands. Yet a pig’s body is made up of one half to two thirds water. So, with no sweat glands, your body is going to retain that water and wobble around like Dolly Parton minus a bra.
Also, pigs live in social groups and are so communal that they even sleep together, huddled in a nest. And they mate up. So it is therefore quite possible that pigs have mothers-in-law. This means when you have that 30 minute orgasm, not only is the rest of society is going to hear it – you kinky pig, you - but your mother-in-law is also going to be listening in!
I don't suppose it's much surprise that pigs spend much of their time foraging and rooting. So would I if my orgasms lasted for 30 minutes.
But there is a definite downside to being a pig as is shown by this story.
A farmer walked into a bar with his pig and ordered a drink. The bartender could not help asking the man why his pig had a peg leg.
"Well, you see," said the farmer, "this is an amazing pig. Why, two years ago, my son was chopping wood in the field when a tree collapsed on him, pinning him to the ground and making breathing difficult. The pig, which was in the area, ran to get assistance and, squealing loudly, led us to my son to rescue him."
"You're right,” said the bartender, “that is an amazing story. But why does your pig have a peg leg?"
“This is no ordinary pig," the farmer continued. "One night while we were sleeping, our barn caught fire and the pig managed to squeeze through a little hole in the wall and circle our house, squealing as loud as it could to wake us up. We were able to save all of the animals."
"Wow! Incredible! But why does the pig have a peg leg?"
"Wait. Once, our home caught on fire. The pig managed to run to the next house over and wake the neighbors, who were able to save us and help put out the fire."
"OK. OK. The pig is amazing. But why the peg leg?" the bartender demanded.
"An amazing pig like this. You can't eat it all at once."
On the other hand that 30 minute orgasm is an attractive thought:
Farmer Brown's pig had gone into season, so he decided to mate her with Farmer Jones's County Fair award-winning hog.
So Farmer Brown called up Farmer Jones to ask if he can bring the pig over to mate.
“Sure,” said Farmer Jones.
So Farmer Brown put his pig in the back of his pick-up and headed off to Farmer Jone’s farm. The pigs were put together and they went at it for ages. Even when they were parted they had the steamy look in their eyes.
Anyway,Farmer Brown dragged the pig out of the pen, put her into the back of his pick-up and headed home.
But as he drove, he got to wondering. "How do I know if she's pregnant?"
So when he got home, he called Farmer Jones to ask him. Farmer Jones, experienced in the ways of pigs, said "That's easy, when you see her tomorrow morning, if she's rollin' in the mud, she's not pregnant, but if she's eatin' sweet grass, she is."
So the next morning, Farmer Brown looked out his window to see his pig rolling in the mud.
"Damn!" said Farmer Brown and called Farmer Jones to ask to do it all again.
That was OK said Farmer Jones so Farmer Brown piled the pig into the back of his pick-up and headed to the other farm.
This time they went at it for nearly and hour, with lots of gruntin' and groanin'. And when they were done and Farmer Brown put her into the back in the pick-up and headed home, she again still had that steamy look in her eyes.
Next morning, Farmer Brown looks out and sees his pig rolling in the mud, again.
"Damn!" So, once again he called Farmer Jones and asked again. Again he put the pig in the back of the pick-up and drove to the other farm. This time the two pigs went at it for over two hours, whoopin' and hollarin', mud flying everywhere.
When they were done, the female pig got put in the back of the pick-up and Farmer Brown drove home.
The next morning, he was very tired, so he asked his wife to see what the pig was doing.
She came back a minute later and Farmer Brown asked, "Well, is she rollin' in the mud, or eating the sweet grass?"
His wife raised her eyebrows and said, "Neither. She’s in the front seat of the pickup and BEEPIN' THE HORN !!!!!!!!
Sunday, June 25, 2006
I've been a busy boy.
I have been developing a resource booklet for the motorcycle riding course I’m running soon, printing it out, and assembling it, etc. That's always a hassle, but it didn't help that my inkjet printer colour cartridge ran out, so I had to buy a new one. So I ordered in a cartridge from a firm in Wellington but of course they sent the wrong cartridge. So I went to Stationery Wharehouse here in Masterton and bought a generic refill thinking it was a bargain. The official ones cost $54 while the refills cost $42. But the refill ran out after only printing 720 pages! (Less actually because all the pages didn't have colour on them). The cartridges usually print about 2000 copies!) So the extra $14 for an official one is worthwhile spending!
Anyway, I sent the course resources away today and then took my car in for a WOF. It was booked in for yesterday but I forgot! But I know the owner and he did it for me today. Partly because I gave him my kid's novel and told him that his firm and firm's phone number was in the story...
While the car got its the WOF, he, of course, found about $500 worth of work that needed to be done on it. ~sigh~
And when I left the car with him and went for a walk while he did the WOF, along the road I must have stepped funny because I got a sore leg. At least it was a change. Things to do with WOFs are usually a pain in the neck. I seem to have pulled a muscle in my right leg. I now have a limp. (I should point out here that nothing comes after the word “limp” in that sentence...)
So I limped to the library only to find that they don’t even have a copy of my Dating Diary book in the library. Maybe it’s too naughty for them!
I have also been working on restoring my trailer. The man at the hardware store gave me these neat screws that drill their way through wood or metal as if it isn’t there. So I have now attached my plywood bottom (Now, now…!) to the frame and my trailer is now looking more like a trailer than a mobile cattle stop.
Geez it’s been hot here today. I’ve had a fan going inside with all the doors open. The flies come in one door and are blown out the other. It’s cool inside, but if you go outside, you roast. It’s so hot that even the butterflies were sweating! And they have built-in fans.
Today I got an email that said:
“We all get heavier as we get older because there's a lot more information in our heads. So I'm not fat, I'm just really intelligent and my head couldn't hold any more, so it started filling up the rest of me!”
This of course explains why information-laden older guys like me are not quite as slim and lithe as younger guys. But it also raises an interesting question:
When a woman takes her clothes off and a guy gets excited, is the swelling because he’s learning lots?
Not that I know much about that, of course. I’m still learning (and swelling). But a mate has just told me a great ploy for seduction. The idea is to remind your lady friend on a cold night that men have higher body temperatures than women. So it makes sense to sleep next to a man like me. My mate said to tell her she should look on me as an electric blanket with an interesting on/off switch.
Then again, that’s all very well for him, but I just can't seem to convince women that I'm the kind of man who deserves to have the kind of women I don't deserve.
I’ve always found women to be real jigsaw puzzles. With pieces missing. And, like any jigsaw puzzle, if the bit isn’t right, you just can’t fit it in.
But we men always run into the “understanding woman” problem. I was talking about understanding women to a married friend of mine the other day and said I wish women came with instructions.
He spluttered, raised his eyebrows and said: “They do come with instructions. And they give them to you all the time”
He’s right, of course. I just need to think back to my marriage to remember that I used to always be the silent, attentive-type. It made her think that I was listening.
I still don't completely understand women, even though I’ve spent a lot of time studying women from afar. Well, at least out of handbag range.
It hasn’t helped one bit. There’s a chasm of understanding between us. I mean, how many times have you heard women say that men are scared of commitment? Yet if a woman doesn’t want to get too close, she calls it independence.
So next time a woman tells me that men are scared of commitment I’m going to quote Dave Barry:
"Contrary to what many women believe, it's fairly easy to develop a long-term, stable, intimate, and mutually fulfilling relationship with a male. Of course, the male has to be a Labrador retriever."
Now, where’s my collar and registration tag?
I have been developing a resource booklet for the motorcycle riding course I’m running soon, printing it out, and assembling it, etc. That's always a hassle, but it didn't help that my inkjet printer colour cartridge ran out, so I had to buy a new one. So I ordered in a cartridge from a firm in Wellington but of course they sent the wrong cartridge. So I went to Stationery Wharehouse here in Masterton and bought a generic refill thinking it was a bargain. The official ones cost $54 while the refills cost $42. But the refill ran out after only printing 720 pages! (Less actually because all the pages didn't have colour on them). The cartridges usually print about 2000 copies!) So the extra $14 for an official one is worthwhile spending!
Anyway, I sent the course resources away today and then took my car in for a WOF. It was booked in for yesterday but I forgot! But I know the owner and he did it for me today. Partly because I gave him my kid's novel and told him that his firm and firm's phone number was in the story...
While the car got its the WOF, he, of course, found about $500 worth of work that needed to be done on it. ~sigh~
And when I left the car with him and went for a walk while he did the WOF, along the road I must have stepped funny because I got a sore leg. At least it was a change. Things to do with WOFs are usually a pain in the neck. I seem to have pulled a muscle in my right leg. I now have a limp. (I should point out here that nothing comes after the word “limp” in that sentence...)
So I limped to the library only to find that they don’t even have a copy of my Dating Diary book in the library. Maybe it’s too naughty for them!
I have also been working on restoring my trailer. The man at the hardware store gave me these neat screws that drill their way through wood or metal as if it isn’t there. So I have now attached my plywood bottom (Now, now…!) to the frame and my trailer is now looking more like a trailer than a mobile cattle stop.
Geez it’s been hot here today. I’ve had a fan going inside with all the doors open. The flies come in one door and are blown out the other. It’s cool inside, but if you go outside, you roast. It’s so hot that even the butterflies were sweating! And they have built-in fans.
Today I got an email that said:
“We all get heavier as we get older because there's a lot more information in our heads. So I'm not fat, I'm just really intelligent and my head couldn't hold any more, so it started filling up the rest of me!”
This of course explains why information-laden older guys like me are not quite as slim and lithe as younger guys. But it also raises an interesting question:
When a woman takes her clothes off and a guy gets excited, is the swelling because he’s learning lots?
Not that I know much about that, of course. I’m still learning (and swelling). But a mate has just told me a great ploy for seduction. The idea is to remind your lady friend on a cold night that men have higher body temperatures than women. So it makes sense to sleep next to a man like me. My mate said to tell her she should look on me as an electric blanket with an interesting on/off switch.
Then again, that’s all very well for him, but I just can't seem to convince women that I'm the kind of man who deserves to have the kind of women I don't deserve.
I’ve always found women to be real jigsaw puzzles. With pieces missing. And, like any jigsaw puzzle, if the bit isn’t right, you just can’t fit it in.
But we men always run into the “understanding woman” problem. I was talking about understanding women to a married friend of mine the other day and said I wish women came with instructions.
He spluttered, raised his eyebrows and said: “They do come with instructions. And they give them to you all the time”
He’s right, of course. I just need to think back to my marriage to remember that I used to always be the silent, attentive-type. It made her think that I was listening.
I still don't completely understand women, even though I’ve spent a lot of time studying women from afar. Well, at least out of handbag range.
It hasn’t helped one bit. There’s a chasm of understanding between us. I mean, how many times have you heard women say that men are scared of commitment? Yet if a woman doesn’t want to get too close, she calls it independence.
So next time a woman tells me that men are scared of commitment I’m going to quote Dave Barry:
"Contrary to what many women believe, it's fairly easy to develop a long-term, stable, intimate, and mutually fulfilling relationship with a male. Of course, the male has to be a Labrador retriever."
Now, where’s my collar and registration tag?
Saturday, June 24, 2006
The other day, after a bit of house-proud urging from friend Ken, I popped over to Wellington to visit him, discuss business, and look at his $900,000 house.
Yes, a $900,000 house. Ken doesn’t like to be pretentious. That’s why he didn’t buy a million dollar one.
Ken has been a friend of mine for years now. It’s one of the few cases of bad judgement I’ve known him to make.
He’s actually an amazing guy. Many years ago, he was driven into bankruptcy by an incompetent manager with whom he entrusted his business while he went on a motorcycle charity ride around the world. That was the second bit of bad judgement I’ve seen from him. He was going to ride around the world on a motorcycle! Then again, maybe that’s good judgement. There’s no way the mother-in-law would want to come with you.
Anyway, after losing his luxury home, luxury car, and luxury sandflies (he used to own a mansion near the sea), Ken has turned his life around and is doing very well for himself. But I notice that he, probably unlike I, learns from past mistakes and he now works for himself, with no staff nor money-munting managers to bother him.
And he has dragged himself up in the world not by hard business tactics that prey on other people, but by win/win Internet business deals.
Ken is an impressive marketer. He could sell ice creams to Eskimos … and then sell them the freezer to keep them in.
Bt he does have some quirks. He’s not quite perfect like you and I. He has this thing about cars. He has four vehicles, yet he seems to walk everywhere. I think that’s because his cars are in such mint condition that one stone chip is a major disaster. And as for exposing them to the risk of trolley strike at the local supermarket…
I suspect that’s why his latest vehicle is a Lexus SUV. On that, anything a shopping trolley would hit is virtually undamagable and, from the high driving position, he has a chance to see gravel-strewn roads in plenty of time to avoid them. Not to mention drunk pedestrians. Lexus drivers don't drive over drunk pedestrians. It's such a common thing to do.
Anyway, Ken sent me a photo of his new house and I just had to visit. It’s one of those modern style houses with walls that are just about all windows.
I have another friend who says he refused to live in a house like that. He says people who live in glasshouses don’t have much of a sex life.
They do have a good view though. And in Ken’s case, since the view from the house is a spectacular one of Wellington harbour, that’s probably an asset. But it’s going to cost him a fortune to clean those windows. I’ve suggested that he cultivate some friendships amongst people of a political bent, then throw a window cleaning party. The politicians could just huff hot air on the windows while he cleans them. It would save a fortune in window-cleaning fluid.
It looked like such an interesting house I just had to visit him.
On the way over the Rimutukas there was some minor excitement when I discovered that someone had parked their station wagon halfway down the bank after failing to round a corner. But the Police had already been and gone, and all that was left was the vehicle, sulking halfway down the bush-clad hillside. So I took off my Captain Spunkbubble tights and got back in the car again.
When I reached Wellington, I turned onto a narrow hillside road that lead towards Ken’s new home.
I’d forgotten how narrow that road was. It’s so narrow that even the Prime Minister’s convoy wouldn’t travel at more than 100kmh on it. Indeed, the convoy probably wouldn’t even go that fast on it since most of the corners are so blind that they have Braille road markings on them.
As I slowly wound my way up the hill, I kept getting this mental image of some rich little old lady coming hurtling around one of the blind corners in her Spewgo convertible and me ending up wearing the poodle that comes through the windscreen.
But, thankfully, most Wellingtonians seemed to have gone away for the holidays (if you lived in Wellington and got a holiday, you would go away, too!), so I met not a single thing coming down the goat track that the Wellington City Council laughingly calls a street.
Eventually I turned into the fancy, relatively new subdivision Ken now lives in, and drove past the mouldy decorative wooden posts on the roadside that the developer had obviously thought would add class to the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, it was obvious that he’d forgotten that this was a bush-clad Wellington hillside where the only things that don’t grow mould are the birds, and then only if they fly above treetop level at least once a day.
The road wound it’s way into the subdivision and at about that time I remembered that I’d forgotten Ken’s house number…
I was about to do a mild panic when I saw the car sales yard - I was looking at Ken’s place.
So I parked my car amongst Ken’s, hoping that someone would actually think this was a car yard and make me an offer I couldn’t resist. I must admit that was unlikely as, amongst Ken’s cars, my Honda Accord looked like something that had been used as troop transport in Afghanistan.
So I quickly walked up to the house to knock on the door. This was when I first discovered that, on this multi-story, hillside dwelling, not all levels have an entrance.
So I wandered up another level and there was a door with doorbell beside it. I rang the bell and then, distrusting lad that I am, I also knocked on the door. Which was just as well because the doorbell wasn’t working. It’s this sort of thing that door-to-door evangelists hate and people who like a quiet life love.
Ken answered the door. I don’t know what the door had asked him but he told me “I thought I’d better answer the door”, so it had obviously asked him something. Probably: “Why haven’t you fixed my bell yet?”
He ushered me into the living room. The view from it is enough to kill for. It takes in the harbour, Eastbourne on the other side of the harbour, the hillside suburbs below plus, way down below, a tiny piece of the Wellington – Johnsonville railway line as it winds between two tunnels. Although no trains came through when I was there, it was obvious that it would be like looking down on a toy train buzzing around an electric railway set.
The décor was very modern but somehow the house didn’t have a cold feel. I think this was both because of the way they had furnished the room and because all the windows in the house (and there are a lot of them) are double-glazed. This does two good things. It keeps noise out and heat in.
As I walked into the lounge Ken’s wife, Andy, welcomed me. Andy is a counsellor. She works for such salubrious organisations as prisons, Lotto outlets, marriage guidance organisations, credit card companies, and the zoo. Well, it was one of those, anyway.
She put down her book on Body Language For The Short Sighted and asked me if I’d like a drink. I said yes, and then she asked me what I’d like and rattled off a large number of choices. Halfway through, I thought to myself that if she kept going, she was to have to give me counselling rather than a drink. In self-defence I interrupted and asked if she had any tea. So she rattled off four choices, none of which was Earl Grey.
Eventually we were all sitting down, partaking of a nice morning tea and catching up on each other’s news. As usual, Ken avoided asking about my love life. He gather that he’s not one for comedies, although sometimes I think my love life fits more into the fantasy category.
Then Andy rushed off to counsel something or someone and Ken gave me a guided tour of the place. It was, at first impression, a home of wall-to-wall bathrooms. You see, there are five levels in their home and four of these contain bedrooms. So there are four bathrooms. This is commonsense since you don’t want a tired kid who needs to go to the toilet tempted to slide down the banisters to reach a bathroom on the floor below. It could get messy.
As I wandered down the stairs to the next level and the next bathroom, it came to my mind that the sewer must be on the road below and in front of Ken’s house, and not on the one above and behind it. Otherwise, the builder would have had the interesting task of having to push shit uphill. I’ve been told that it’s little thoughts like this that indicate that I have a unique thought process.
Ken showed me his office. I have never liked Ken’s office. It’s always so tidy! There is not a single piece of paper out of place, and you can actually see the desktop and find the telephone!
Everything is so organised. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s measured his head just so that he knows how far apart to place the stereo speakers.
I suppose that you could say that his office is like a clear felled pine plantation, while mine is messy native bush. Then again, if mine is native bush, I’ll get more birds in my office. But Ken is married, so he doesn’t need to house wild birds. He can afford to clear-fell and sell the result. I guess this all explains why I’m a starving author. And have peck marks.
On one level, as I looked into a room I saw a fluffy Berman cat spread out on the floor. It must have been about a year since I had last seen the puss and I wondered, as I approached her, whether she would remember me. But as I knelt down and reached out a hand, she rolled onto her back and offered up a fluffy tummy for a rub. Then, as I rubbed her tummy, she playfully started clutching at me with her paws, claws sheathed. Yes, she remembered me. Or maybe I just have a way with pussies. Er … I won’t go there.
Eventually we reached the bottom level and the garage. I noticed that Ken didn’t have enough garage space for all his cars. Then again, the way he’s going, he‘ll have to buy the Southward’s car museum if he wants to do that.
After we reached the bottom level, I rediscovered the problem of living in a multi-story house. You have to go back up all those stairs again. But Ken is a gadget freak. Give him a month or two and he’ll have a Star Trek transporter fitted to the place to make movement back upstairs a doddle. Then again, I’ve always been worried about that sort of transport. What say you have two transporters operating side by side and a malfunction gives you some of the bits from the female being transported in the unit beside you? You could end up with big breasts and a hairy chest. The combination just doesn’t bear thinking about.
So, still with a manly chest but out of breath, I arrived back at the top level and the lounge, and Ken and I sat and talked business for a while before it was time for me to leave.
As I drove away, I looked at all the modern, expensive houses perched on the hills around his house. And the occasional empty sections. Ken was saying that some people have bought the $300,000 sections and now can’t afford to build on them, especially since building costs increase when a house is built on a sloping section. Ah well, this is earthquake-prone Wellington. If they wait long enough, their sections will be flat and they’ll be able to afford to build.
And Ken won’t have to worry about the transporter.
Yes, a $900,000 house. Ken doesn’t like to be pretentious. That’s why he didn’t buy a million dollar one.
Ken has been a friend of mine for years now. It’s one of the few cases of bad judgement I’ve known him to make.
He’s actually an amazing guy. Many years ago, he was driven into bankruptcy by an incompetent manager with whom he entrusted his business while he went on a motorcycle charity ride around the world. That was the second bit of bad judgement I’ve seen from him. He was going to ride around the world on a motorcycle! Then again, maybe that’s good judgement. There’s no way the mother-in-law would want to come with you.
Anyway, after losing his luxury home, luxury car, and luxury sandflies (he used to own a mansion near the sea), Ken has turned his life around and is doing very well for himself. But I notice that he, probably unlike I, learns from past mistakes and he now works for himself, with no staff nor money-munting managers to bother him.
And he has dragged himself up in the world not by hard business tactics that prey on other people, but by win/win Internet business deals.
Ken is an impressive marketer. He could sell ice creams to Eskimos … and then sell them the freezer to keep them in.
Bt he does have some quirks. He’s not quite perfect like you and I. He has this thing about cars. He has four vehicles, yet he seems to walk everywhere. I think that’s because his cars are in such mint condition that one stone chip is a major disaster. And as for exposing them to the risk of trolley strike at the local supermarket…
I suspect that’s why his latest vehicle is a Lexus SUV. On that, anything a shopping trolley would hit is virtually undamagable and, from the high driving position, he has a chance to see gravel-strewn roads in plenty of time to avoid them. Not to mention drunk pedestrians. Lexus drivers don't drive over drunk pedestrians. It's such a common thing to do.
Anyway, Ken sent me a photo of his new house and I just had to visit. It’s one of those modern style houses with walls that are just about all windows.
I have another friend who says he refused to live in a house like that. He says people who live in glasshouses don’t have much of a sex life.
They do have a good view though. And in Ken’s case, since the view from the house is a spectacular one of Wellington harbour, that’s probably an asset. But it’s going to cost him a fortune to clean those windows. I’ve suggested that he cultivate some friendships amongst people of a political bent, then throw a window cleaning party. The politicians could just huff hot air on the windows while he cleans them. It would save a fortune in window-cleaning fluid.
It looked like such an interesting house I just had to visit him.
On the way over the Rimutukas there was some minor excitement when I discovered that someone had parked their station wagon halfway down the bank after failing to round a corner. But the Police had already been and gone, and all that was left was the vehicle, sulking halfway down the bush-clad hillside. So I took off my Captain Spunkbubble tights and got back in the car again.
When I reached Wellington, I turned onto a narrow hillside road that lead towards Ken’s new home.
I’d forgotten how narrow that road was. It’s so narrow that even the Prime Minister’s convoy wouldn’t travel at more than 100kmh on it. Indeed, the convoy probably wouldn’t even go that fast on it since most of the corners are so blind that they have Braille road markings on them.
As I slowly wound my way up the hill, I kept getting this mental image of some rich little old lady coming hurtling around one of the blind corners in her Spewgo convertible and me ending up wearing the poodle that comes through the windscreen.
But, thankfully, most Wellingtonians seemed to have gone away for the holidays (if you lived in Wellington and got a holiday, you would go away, too!), so I met not a single thing coming down the goat track that the Wellington City Council laughingly calls a street.
Eventually I turned into the fancy, relatively new subdivision Ken now lives in, and drove past the mouldy decorative wooden posts on the roadside that the developer had obviously thought would add class to the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, it was obvious that he’d forgotten that this was a bush-clad Wellington hillside where the only things that don’t grow mould are the birds, and then only if they fly above treetop level at least once a day.
The road wound it’s way into the subdivision and at about that time I remembered that I’d forgotten Ken’s house number…
I was about to do a mild panic when I saw the car sales yard - I was looking at Ken’s place.
So I parked my car amongst Ken’s, hoping that someone would actually think this was a car yard and make me an offer I couldn’t resist. I must admit that was unlikely as, amongst Ken’s cars, my Honda Accord looked like something that had been used as troop transport in Afghanistan.
So I quickly walked up to the house to knock on the door. This was when I first discovered that, on this multi-story, hillside dwelling, not all levels have an entrance.
So I wandered up another level and there was a door with doorbell beside it. I rang the bell and then, distrusting lad that I am, I also knocked on the door. Which was just as well because the doorbell wasn’t working. It’s this sort of thing that door-to-door evangelists hate and people who like a quiet life love.
Ken answered the door. I don’t know what the door had asked him but he told me “I thought I’d better answer the door”, so it had obviously asked him something. Probably: “Why haven’t you fixed my bell yet?”
He ushered me into the living room. The view from it is enough to kill for. It takes in the harbour, Eastbourne on the other side of the harbour, the hillside suburbs below plus, way down below, a tiny piece of the Wellington – Johnsonville railway line as it winds between two tunnels. Although no trains came through when I was there, it was obvious that it would be like looking down on a toy train buzzing around an electric railway set.
The décor was very modern but somehow the house didn’t have a cold feel. I think this was both because of the way they had furnished the room and because all the windows in the house (and there are a lot of them) are double-glazed. This does two good things. It keeps noise out and heat in.
As I walked into the lounge Ken’s wife, Andy, welcomed me. Andy is a counsellor. She works for such salubrious organisations as prisons, Lotto outlets, marriage guidance organisations, credit card companies, and the zoo. Well, it was one of those, anyway.
She put down her book on Body Language For The Short Sighted and asked me if I’d like a drink. I said yes, and then she asked me what I’d like and rattled off a large number of choices. Halfway through, I thought to myself that if she kept going, she was to have to give me counselling rather than a drink. In self-defence I interrupted and asked if she had any tea. So she rattled off four choices, none of which was Earl Grey.
Eventually we were all sitting down, partaking of a nice morning tea and catching up on each other’s news. As usual, Ken avoided asking about my love life. He gather that he’s not one for comedies, although sometimes I think my love life fits more into the fantasy category.
Then Andy rushed off to counsel something or someone and Ken gave me a guided tour of the place. It was, at first impression, a home of wall-to-wall bathrooms. You see, there are five levels in their home and four of these contain bedrooms. So there are four bathrooms. This is commonsense since you don’t want a tired kid who needs to go to the toilet tempted to slide down the banisters to reach a bathroom on the floor below. It could get messy.
As I wandered down the stairs to the next level and the next bathroom, it came to my mind that the sewer must be on the road below and in front of Ken’s house, and not on the one above and behind it. Otherwise, the builder would have had the interesting task of having to push shit uphill. I’ve been told that it’s little thoughts like this that indicate that I have a unique thought process.
Ken showed me his office. I have never liked Ken’s office. It’s always so tidy! There is not a single piece of paper out of place, and you can actually see the desktop and find the telephone!
Everything is so organised. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s measured his head just so that he knows how far apart to place the stereo speakers.
I suppose that you could say that his office is like a clear felled pine plantation, while mine is messy native bush. Then again, if mine is native bush, I’ll get more birds in my office. But Ken is married, so he doesn’t need to house wild birds. He can afford to clear-fell and sell the result.
On one level, as I looked into a room I saw a fluffy Berman cat spread out on the floor. It must have been about a year since I had last seen the puss and I wondered, as I approached her, whether she would remember me. But as I knelt down and reached out a hand, she rolled onto her back and offered up a fluffy tummy for a rub. Then, as I rubbed her tummy, she playfully started clutching at me with her paws, claws sheathed. Yes, she remembered me. Or maybe I just have a way with pussies. Er … I won’t go there.
Eventually we reached the bottom level and the garage. I noticed that Ken didn’t have enough garage space for all his cars. Then again, the way he’s going, he‘ll have to buy the Southward’s car museum if he wants to do that.
After we reached the bottom level, I rediscovered the problem of living in a multi-story house. You have to go back up all those stairs again. But Ken is a gadget freak. Give him a month or two and he’ll have a Star Trek transporter fitted to the place to make movement back upstairs a doddle. Then again, I’ve always been worried about that sort of transport. What say you have two transporters operating side by side and a malfunction gives you some of the bits from the female being transported in the unit beside you? You could end up with big breasts and a hairy chest. The combination just doesn’t bear thinking about.
So, still with a manly chest but out of breath, I arrived back at the top level and the lounge, and Ken and I sat and talked business for a while before it was time for me to leave.
As I drove away, I looked at all the modern, expensive houses perched on the hills around his house. And the occasional empty sections. Ken was saying that some people have bought the $300,000 sections and now can’t afford to build on them, especially since building costs increase when a house is built on a sloping section. Ah well, this is earthquake-prone Wellington. If they wait long enough, their sections will be flat and they’ll be able to afford to build.
And Ken won’t have to worry about the transporter.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Written January 2, 2006
What happened to me today?
Well, it seems that OCR computer programs know that it’s the holiday season and that everyone is hitting the bottle.
Because, today, I was scanning some text about my children’s book about that weather phenomenon, El Nino, from an old brochure I had produced. Scanning it saved me having to rewrite or retype descriptions of my books for the website I’m building, and I’m always one to avoid typing where possible. Some people’s fingers dance over the keys. My typing fingers need a walking frame.
But it’s holiday season and when the Optical Character Recognition program scanned the text, instead of writing El Nino, it wrote El Wino.
I tell you, perceptive computer programs like this are enough to make a man turn from drink.
Not that, when it comes to drinking, I’m as bad as some. For the last two days I’ve been getting all these sob stories from people who have hangovers. Personally, I only have one hangover and it’s a physical one. And that hangover is not my tummy hanging over my belt.
Thankfully, my tummy doesn’t have an overhang. But I look at some guys who have a huge beer belly and I find myself wondering whether, when they get excited, does it prop up their belly. But you didn’t want that mental image, did you?
I have to admit that my seeing in the 2006 New Year consisted of me going to bed sober to watch a TV program about Nat King Cole. A naturally brilliant singer who smoked cigarettes, Nat King Cole died of lung cancer at the much-too-early age of 45. What a waste! If he hadn’t smoked, he would have (a) had an even more honey-toned voice and (b) lived long enough for us to enjoy his music in stereo.
Me, I have never smoked cigarettes. I did, however, pretend to smoke a pipe when I was in my twenties and I have to admit that it was a very useful experience. I now never get nauseous when stoking the incinerator.
But other things can make me nauseous. Like the experience I had today. I went to a supermarket.
Now city dwellers may consider an outing to the supermarket as nothing very thrilling but, to a city boy who’s moved to quiet old Masterton, this is the only way I can relive the feeling of being in rush hour traffic. It’s all so familiar. You have traffic moving in all directions, trolley vehicles passing inches away from each other at silly speeds, vehicle operators with no real knowledge of the secrets of safe driving, and constant times where the traffic grinds to a complete stop because the carriageway has been blocked (usually by people standing chatting).
When these blockages occur, you have one of three choices. You can politely ask the chatting obstacle to “Excuse me”. However, any city dweller who has driven in rush hour traffic knows the likely rude-gesture result of that. Or you can just stop and stand there, hoping that the obstacle will see that they are holding you up and will move away.
The last resort, of course, is to just push your trolley vehicle through the too-small gap, caressing the usually-overlarge bum of the obstacle in the process.
This latter move is a last resort for the simple reason that, in this politically correct world, if one does this, one is likely to be charged with indecent assault with a trolley. On the other hand, she may think that you have purposefully caressed her bottom with your hand and will immediately have her way with you in the aisle between the pregnancy test kits and the disposable nappies. Not that one minds a lady having her way with one. It’s just that this particular environment is most bonk-discouraging.
And then there’s the big game hunter aspect of supermarket shopping. Take the bread aisle, as an example. In this aisle it’s like being on an well-stocked African plain. You are faced with a huge variety of targets to take a pot shot at. Do you go for the little cheetah (hamburger buns: $1.69 a packet), a mid-sized antelope (single loaf of bread: on special at $1.59), a hippopotamus (three loaves for $3.00), or the elephant (four loaves for $4)? Or do you just shoot yourself in the foot and get that fibre rich stuff worth nearly $4? Oh the thrill of supermarket shopping.
Having made your way through the highway and byways of the supermarket, the next task is to get through the supermarket tollgates, commonly known as the checkouts.
Today I got to the tollgates … er … checkouts just as a very delicious lady in her forties arrived at the same spot. So I smiled ever so nicely and waved her in front of me.
She smiled back and said. “No, no. It doesn’t matter.”
But I insisted. “Please,” I said.
She shook her head still smiling. “No, it’s quite alright.”
That’s when I dipped into my heavy armoury. I gave her a big smile and said jokingly: “Enough of this feminism! Please let me be a gentleman.””
Now, given that this lady didn’t look like a dyed-in-the-testosterone feminist, this was a fail-safe ploy. How could a woman refuse to let a man be a gentleman when women are always complaining that gentlemen are scarcer than males in an embroidery class?
Sure enough, with gracious acceptance she moved in front of me to the checkout.
Now before you start thinking that I’m a dashed nice chap, consider this: With her in front of me, I could feast my eyes on her femininity all the time she was at the checkout. If she’d been behind me, any surreptitious glances I made backwards would have been rather obvious and much less satisfying.
In other words, gentlemen are scarcer than the dodo bird, and for much the same reason – they’ve all been eaten for lunch.
So that delicious specimen of womanhood stood there, rather self-consciously exchanging the odd, (often very odd) smiles with me as the checkout girl worked away. I watched as the checkout girl waved a packet of baby’s trainer pants at the barcode reader.
“Interesting, I thought to myself. “For her own child or for her grandchild?” There are so many intriguing questions raised at supermarket checkouts.
The girl totalled up the transaction and the lady paid the money.
Then, sadly for me, she gathered up her shopping and walked towards the exit. I suppressed the desire to rush after her and, instead, moved up to pay for my small collection of items.
It was then that the checkout girl noticed that the lady had left a bag of her groceries behind. As quick as a flash the checkout girl grabbed it and went rushing out of the store after the lady.
It is only now that I realise that the lady must have meant to leave that bag behind, hoping that I would see it, grab it, and rush it out to her, giving her a chance to gratefully give me her phone number and other vital statistics.
But I was too slow. An opportunity missed! And I can’t even blame it on a hangover!
~sigh~
What happened to me today?
Well, it seems that OCR computer programs know that it’s the holiday season and that everyone is hitting the bottle.
Because, today, I was scanning some text about my children’s book about that weather phenomenon, El Nino, from an old brochure I had produced. Scanning it saved me having to rewrite or retype descriptions of my books for the website I’m building, and I’m always one to avoid typing where possible. Some people’s fingers dance over the keys. My typing fingers need a walking frame.
But it’s holiday season and when the Optical Character Recognition program scanned the text, instead of writing El Nino, it wrote El Wino.
I tell you, perceptive computer programs like this are enough to make a man turn from drink.
Not that, when it comes to drinking, I’m as bad as some. For the last two days I’ve been getting all these sob stories from people who have hangovers. Personally, I only have one hangover and it’s a physical one. And that hangover is not my tummy hanging over my belt.
Thankfully, my tummy doesn’t have an overhang. But I look at some guys who have a huge beer belly and I find myself wondering whether, when they get excited, does it prop up their belly. But you didn’t want that mental image, did you?
I have to admit that my seeing in the 2006 New Year consisted of me going to bed sober to watch a TV program about Nat King Cole. A naturally brilliant singer who smoked cigarettes, Nat King Cole died of lung cancer at the much-too-early age of 45. What a waste! If he hadn’t smoked, he would have (a) had an even more honey-toned voice and (b) lived long enough for us to enjoy his music in stereo.
Me, I have never smoked cigarettes. I did, however, pretend to smoke a pipe when I was in my twenties and I have to admit that it was a very useful experience. I now never get nauseous when stoking the incinerator.
But other things can make me nauseous. Like the experience I had today. I went to a supermarket.
Now city dwellers may consider an outing to the supermarket as nothing very thrilling but, to a city boy who’s moved to quiet old Masterton, this is the only way I can relive the feeling of being in rush hour traffic. It’s all so familiar. You have traffic moving in all directions, trolley vehicles passing inches away from each other at silly speeds, vehicle operators with no real knowledge of the secrets of safe driving, and constant times where the traffic grinds to a complete stop because the carriageway has been blocked (usually by people standing chatting).
When these blockages occur, you have one of three choices. You can politely ask the chatting obstacle to “Excuse me”. However, any city dweller who has driven in rush hour traffic knows the likely rude-gesture result of that. Or you can just stop and stand there, hoping that the obstacle will see that they are holding you up and will move away.
The last resort, of course, is to just push your trolley vehicle through the too-small gap, caressing the usually-overlarge bum of the obstacle in the process.
This latter move is a last resort for the simple reason that, in this politically correct world, if one does this, one is likely to be charged with indecent assault with a trolley. On the other hand, she may think that you have purposefully caressed her bottom with your hand and will immediately have her way with you in the aisle between the pregnancy test kits and the disposable nappies. Not that one minds a lady having her way with one. It’s just that this particular environment is most bonk-discouraging.
And then there’s the big game hunter aspect of supermarket shopping. Take the bread aisle, as an example. In this aisle it’s like being on an well-stocked African plain. You are faced with a huge variety of targets to take a pot shot at. Do you go for the little cheetah (hamburger buns: $1.69 a packet), a mid-sized antelope (single loaf of bread: on special at $1.59), a hippopotamus (three loaves for $3.00), or the elephant (four loaves for $4)? Or do you just shoot yourself in the foot and get that fibre rich stuff worth nearly $4? Oh the thrill of supermarket shopping.
Having made your way through the highway and byways of the supermarket, the next task is to get through the supermarket tollgates, commonly known as the checkouts.
Today I got to the tollgates … er … checkouts just as a very delicious lady in her forties arrived at the same spot. So I smiled ever so nicely and waved her in front of me.
She smiled back and said. “No, no. It doesn’t matter.”
But I insisted. “Please,” I said.
She shook her head still smiling. “No, it’s quite alright.”
That’s when I dipped into my heavy armoury. I gave her a big smile and said jokingly: “Enough of this feminism! Please let me be a gentleman.””
Now, given that this lady didn’t look like a dyed-in-the-testosterone feminist, this was a fail-safe ploy. How could a woman refuse to let a man be a gentleman when women are always complaining that gentlemen are scarcer than males in an embroidery class?
Sure enough, with gracious acceptance she moved in front of me to the checkout.
Now before you start thinking that I’m a dashed nice chap, consider this: With her in front of me, I could feast my eyes on her femininity all the time she was at the checkout. If she’d been behind me, any surreptitious glances I made backwards would have been rather obvious and much less satisfying.
In other words, gentlemen are scarcer than the dodo bird, and for much the same reason – they’ve all been eaten for lunch.
So that delicious specimen of womanhood stood there, rather self-consciously exchanging the odd, (often very odd) smiles with me as the checkout girl worked away. I watched as the checkout girl waved a packet of baby’s trainer pants at the barcode reader.
“Interesting, I thought to myself. “For her own child or for her grandchild?” There are so many intriguing questions raised at supermarket checkouts.
The girl totalled up the transaction and the lady paid the money.
Then, sadly for me, she gathered up her shopping and walked towards the exit. I suppressed the desire to rush after her and, instead, moved up to pay for my small collection of items.
It was then that the checkout girl noticed that the lady had left a bag of her groceries behind. As quick as a flash the checkout girl grabbed it and went rushing out of the store after the lady.
It is only now that I realise that the lady must have meant to leave that bag behind, hoping that I would see it, grab it, and rush it out to her, giving her a chance to gratefully give me her phone number and other vital statistics.
But I was too slow. An opportunity missed! And I can’t even blame it on a hangover!
~sigh~
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Well, the first review of my new book is out. It was featured in today’s Wairarapa Times Age.
The Diary of a Dating Site Bachelor
By Allan Kirk
Reviewed by Heather March
ALLAN Kirk used to sit in front of me in fiction-writing class wearing shirts suggesting he'd taken a wrong turn on the way to Flamenco 101.
I knew he'd made good, of course - one of his books got me off a speeding ticket 20 years later (not that I had been speeding, but that's several other stories).
This book is a selection of entries in Kirk's on-line diary - he e-mailed them to friends throughout the world, who begged him to publish them so others could enjoy them.
The portrait of the author on the cover is highly misleading - with its doleful countenance and "cuddle me" hound puppy pathos - because the book paints an extremely amusing picture of a not-so-solitary bachelor's exploits in Masterton and hereabouts.
Obviously in the prime of his 50s, we are treated to descriptions of his intimate anatomy and love life that make this a rather unsuitable gift for a maiden aunt.
I must confess that at one point I had to put the book down and walk around the room hooting with laughter. Other bits had a familiar ring - is this where all those Internet jokes come from?
Kirk publishes his own books, which saves him from ever having to write a rejection letter to himself - not that he couldn't.
I think he also edits them himself, but his personality and humour shine through the clouds of extraneous apostrophes like a spotlight through sandflies.
Reading this book is like sitting next to a very funny man at a rather indecorous party - you'll go on grinning for a couple of days and have some risque new jokes to try out on unsuspecting colleagues.
Capital Letters Publishing,
paperback, 232 pages, $17.95
====================
Of course, you know me, I couldn’t resist it.
I’ve just sent the following Letter To The Editor to the Wairarapa Times Age:
------------------
‘In her (rather nice) review of my book “The Diary Of A Dating Site Bachelor, Heather Marsh says that she sat behind me during writing class and that I wore shirts suggesting I’d taken a wrong turn on the way to Flamenco 101.
And then she had the cheek to complain about my use of apostrophes in the book.
Listen, any guy who has had Heather Marsh sitting behind him in writing class with her eyes caressing his upper body is not going to have learnt much about apostrophes!’
--------------------
Should I leave town or just hide under the bed?
--
Allan
The Diary of a Dating Site Bachelor
By Allan Kirk
Reviewed by Heather March
ALLAN Kirk used to sit in front of me in fiction-writing class wearing shirts suggesting he'd taken a wrong turn on the way to Flamenco 101.
I knew he'd made good, of course - one of his books got me off a speeding ticket 20 years later (not that I had been speeding, but that's several other stories).
This book is a selection of entries in Kirk's on-line diary - he e-mailed them to friends throughout the world, who begged him to publish them so others could enjoy them.
The portrait of the author on the cover is highly misleading - with its doleful countenance and "cuddle me" hound puppy pathos - because the book paints an extremely amusing picture of a not-so-solitary bachelor's exploits in Masterton and hereabouts.
Obviously in the prime of his 50s, we are treated to descriptions of his intimate anatomy and love life that make this a rather unsuitable gift for a maiden aunt.
I must confess that at one point I had to put the book down and walk around the room hooting with laughter. Other bits had a familiar ring - is this where all those Internet jokes come from?
Kirk publishes his own books, which saves him from ever having to write a rejection letter to himself - not that he couldn't.
I think he also edits them himself, but his personality and humour shine through the clouds of extraneous apostrophes like a spotlight through sandflies.
Reading this book is like sitting next to a very funny man at a rather indecorous party - you'll go on grinning for a couple of days and have some risque new jokes to try out on unsuspecting colleagues.
Capital Letters Publishing,
paperback, 232 pages, $17.95
====================
Of course, you know me, I couldn’t resist it.
I’ve just sent the following Letter To The Editor to the Wairarapa Times Age:
------------------
‘In her (rather nice) review of my book “The Diary Of A Dating Site Bachelor, Heather Marsh says that she sat behind me during writing class and that I wore shirts suggesting I’d taken a wrong turn on the way to Flamenco 101.
And then she had the cheek to complain about my use of apostrophes in the book.
Listen, any guy who has had Heather Marsh sitting behind him in writing class with her eyes caressing his upper body is not going to have learnt much about apostrophes!’
--------------------
Should I leave town or just hide under the bed?
--
Allan
Monday, June 19, 2006
It was a wide sweeping corner with plenty of view. The two lane road heading east from Marton to Sanson was bordered by grassy green fields and grazing sheep, and wound through undulating New Zealand farm country. With an ideal opportunity to pass presenting itself, I swung my car out from behind the big truck and trailer I had been following for some time, and put my foot down. The Honda surged forward, steady as a rock around the corner, past the trailer then truck. I signalled and, well clear of the truck, pulled back onto my side of the road.
A safe pass accomplished without drama.
It was then that, in peripheral vision sharpened by years of riding a motorcycle, I saw a small shape heading on collision course towards me from the right. I moved my focus of attention onto it and it was a small bird, probably a sparrow at full flight. Its path was going to take it straight in front of my car, right into the grille!
My foot itched to hit the brake, but I knew that truck was back there. Any hard, sudden braking on my part for no reason that the truck driver could anticipate would cause a nasty crash. Sometimes you have to accept that killing some wildlife on the road is better than causing death and mayhem to a much greater extent amongst other road users.
I tensed and waited for the sparrow and car to impact. Then, in a Jonathon Livingstone Seagull flight manoeuvre, the sparrow threw a stall turn to his right. One second he was on collision course with me, and the next he was close but angling along beside me.
My brain had just started to marvel at the bird’s flying ability when the car’s slipstream hit it. The blast threw the sparrow out of control and it plummeted headlong into the road surface.
Mentally cursing, I looked back as I drove on. One small body lay on the road near the centreline.
“It might be still alive,” I thought to myself. After all, birds can fly into windows at full speed and escape relatively unharmed. But that bird wasn’t going to live if the truck behind me ran it over. I strained my eyes to watch. As the truck passed the small shape on the road, its wheels were just a few inches from the downed bird. But other cars coming along were likely to run it over, another flattened carcass on the road.
My mind was in turmoil. Maybe the bird was still alive. Should I check it out? If I did, I’d have to pass this big lumbering truck again later.
But the mental image of that small, feathered shape on the road haunted me. I braked and pulled over. The truck and trailer-unit rumbled past.
Like most secondary New Zealand highways, the road I was on was relatively untrafficked, but I knew that a car could be along anytime soon to run over that small body. So I swung the car around fast and booted it back the way I’d come.
There it lay, a small, feathered bundle near the centreline. I pulled over, jumped out of the car, and ran over to it. It was still. Very still. I felt the sadness rising in me. “It’s dead.”
And then it moved! Slightly. But enough to tell me it was alive. I reached down and picked it up - warm, light, tiny, dazed, … but alive.
As a car rounded the corner towards me, I quickly moved off that tarsealed killing field back to my car at the side of the road. There was a cool wind blowing under a clear sky, but in the car it was warm. Warmth the sparrow needed to get over the shock.
I put the sparrow on the seat between my legs, reasoning that the warm bulk of my legs would help keep it warm. The sparrow lay there not moving. Where to from here?
The next town was Feilding, a few kilometres in the direction I had been heading. It would have a vet, although I’ve found that vets don’t seem to know a great deal about wild birds. Maybe there was someone in Feilding who tended to injured birds? I decided that Feilding was my best bet. I swung the car around again, and headed for it.
As I drove, every now and then I looked down at the bird between my legs. Well, since he had entered my life, he needed a name. What was a name for a sparrow? Simon. Yes, that was it. Simon the Sparrow.
Now that it had a name, the sparrow grew more precious. I looked down on it worriedly. Simon the Sparrow just lay there unmoving. Then, after about 10 kilometres of driving, I looked down and saw Simon move. He lifted his head blearily and looked around. The indications were that he wasn’t too badly injured!
I reached Feilding and pulled into a petrol station - I had needed a comfort stop before Simon the Sparrow had flown into my life. I picked Simon up and put him on the front passenger seat beside me. Then I reached out to open the car door. With a sudden flutter, Simon the Sparrow launched himself up off the passenger’s seat towards the closed car window, only to thump into it and fall back onto the seat again. He was rapidly recovering. He wanted out!
I looked around. I was in a busy petrol station at a busy roundabout. I wasn’t going to let Simon out here. He needed to be set free somewhere away from cars. Then I remembered that I had passed a park and playing fields on the outskirts of Feilding. With lots of trees and a big grassy area, that was the place to give him his freedom.
I slipped out of the car as Simon fluttered down into the footwell on the passenger’s side. A quick visit to the service station rest room and I was back to find Simon the Sparrow sitting on the passenger’s seat once more, obviously contemplating his next move.
I started the engine and drove towards the park. Suddenly Simon flew down into driver’s footwell. As I threw a glance downwards, I saw him perched on the brake pedal. Rather than squash him as I braked, I nudged him with my foot and he jumped across onto the metal footrest most automatic cars have for drivers who need a security-blanket for their unused left foot.
By now I was at the entrance to the park. I swung the car into the entry and drove in until I was stopped near some trees. I climbed out of the car, stood back, and left the driver’s door open so that Simon the Sparrow could make his escape. Instead, he just clung to the footrest and looked at me.
I shrugged, bent into the car, and reached down to pick him up. As my hand moved towards him, he flitted effortless past my hand and clung onto the front of the driver’s seat. I moved back out of the car and waited. Nothing happened. Simon the Sparrow looked at me and I looked at him.
After a minute or two of earnest staring at each other I decided that I’d pick him up and see if he had any obvious signs of injury, although I hadn’t seen any and he was flying OK.
Then, as I reached out towards him, Simon the Sparrow launched himself out of the car and, straight as a feathered arrow, flew into a tree some distance away.
I walked over to the tree and looked up. He was well hidden in the foliage. Simon the Sparrow was back in his element, free and alive.
I smiled a happy smile. Fly free, little birdie. Fly free.
And stay away from roads.
I climbed into the car and headed off home. Somewhere back in a tree in a park in Feilding, Simon the Sparrow was getting his bearings. Miles away from home … but alive.
A safe pass accomplished without drama.
It was then that, in peripheral vision sharpened by years of riding a motorcycle, I saw a small shape heading on collision course towards me from the right. I moved my focus of attention onto it and it was a small bird, probably a sparrow at full flight. Its path was going to take it straight in front of my car, right into the grille!
My foot itched to hit the brake, but I knew that truck was back there. Any hard, sudden braking on my part for no reason that the truck driver could anticipate would cause a nasty crash. Sometimes you have to accept that killing some wildlife on the road is better than causing death and mayhem to a much greater extent amongst other road users.
I tensed and waited for the sparrow and car to impact. Then, in a Jonathon Livingstone Seagull flight manoeuvre, the sparrow threw a stall turn to his right. One second he was on collision course with me, and the next he was close but angling along beside me.
My brain had just started to marvel at the bird’s flying ability when the car’s slipstream hit it. The blast threw the sparrow out of control and it plummeted headlong into the road surface.
Mentally cursing, I looked back as I drove on. One small body lay on the road near the centreline.
“It might be still alive,” I thought to myself. After all, birds can fly into windows at full speed and escape relatively unharmed. But that bird wasn’t going to live if the truck behind me ran it over. I strained my eyes to watch. As the truck passed the small shape on the road, its wheels were just a few inches from the downed bird. But other cars coming along were likely to run it over, another flattened carcass on the road.
My mind was in turmoil. Maybe the bird was still alive. Should I check it out? If I did, I’d have to pass this big lumbering truck again later.
But the mental image of that small, feathered shape on the road haunted me. I braked and pulled over. The truck and trailer-unit rumbled past.
Like most secondary New Zealand highways, the road I was on was relatively untrafficked, but I knew that a car could be along anytime soon to run over that small body. So I swung the car around fast and booted it back the way I’d come.
There it lay, a small, feathered bundle near the centreline. I pulled over, jumped out of the car, and ran over to it. It was still. Very still. I felt the sadness rising in me. “It’s dead.”
And then it moved! Slightly. But enough to tell me it was alive. I reached down and picked it up - warm, light, tiny, dazed, … but alive.
As a car rounded the corner towards me, I quickly moved off that tarsealed killing field back to my car at the side of the road. There was a cool wind blowing under a clear sky, but in the car it was warm. Warmth the sparrow needed to get over the shock.
I put the sparrow on the seat between my legs, reasoning that the warm bulk of my legs would help keep it warm. The sparrow lay there not moving. Where to from here?
The next town was Feilding, a few kilometres in the direction I had been heading. It would have a vet, although I’ve found that vets don’t seem to know a great deal about wild birds. Maybe there was someone in Feilding who tended to injured birds? I decided that Feilding was my best bet. I swung the car around again, and headed for it.
As I drove, every now and then I looked down at the bird between my legs. Well, since he had entered my life, he needed a name. What was a name for a sparrow? Simon. Yes, that was it. Simon the Sparrow.
Now that it had a name, the sparrow grew more precious. I looked down on it worriedly. Simon the Sparrow just lay there unmoving. Then, after about 10 kilometres of driving, I looked down and saw Simon move. He lifted his head blearily and looked around. The indications were that he wasn’t too badly injured!
I reached Feilding and pulled into a petrol station - I had needed a comfort stop before Simon the Sparrow had flown into my life. I picked Simon up and put him on the front passenger seat beside me. Then I reached out to open the car door. With a sudden flutter, Simon the Sparrow launched himself up off the passenger’s seat towards the closed car window, only to thump into it and fall back onto the seat again. He was rapidly recovering. He wanted out!
I looked around. I was in a busy petrol station at a busy roundabout. I wasn’t going to let Simon out here. He needed to be set free somewhere away from cars. Then I remembered that I had passed a park and playing fields on the outskirts of Feilding. With lots of trees and a big grassy area, that was the place to give him his freedom.
I slipped out of the car as Simon fluttered down into the footwell on the passenger’s side. A quick visit to the service station rest room and I was back to find Simon the Sparrow sitting on the passenger’s seat once more, obviously contemplating his next move.
I started the engine and drove towards the park. Suddenly Simon flew down into driver’s footwell. As I threw a glance downwards, I saw him perched on the brake pedal. Rather than squash him as I braked, I nudged him with my foot and he jumped across onto the metal footrest most automatic cars have for drivers who need a security-blanket for their unused left foot.
By now I was at the entrance to the park. I swung the car into the entry and drove in until I was stopped near some trees. I climbed out of the car, stood back, and left the driver’s door open so that Simon the Sparrow could make his escape. Instead, he just clung to the footrest and looked at me.
I shrugged, bent into the car, and reached down to pick him up. As my hand moved towards him, he flitted effortless past my hand and clung onto the front of the driver’s seat. I moved back out of the car and waited. Nothing happened. Simon the Sparrow looked at me and I looked at him.
After a minute or two of earnest staring at each other I decided that I’d pick him up and see if he had any obvious signs of injury, although I hadn’t seen any and he was flying OK.
Then, as I reached out towards him, Simon the Sparrow launched himself out of the car and, straight as a feathered arrow, flew into a tree some distance away.
I walked over to the tree and looked up. He was well hidden in the foliage. Simon the Sparrow was back in his element, free and alive.
I smiled a happy smile. Fly free, little birdie. Fly free.
And stay away from roads.
I climbed into the car and headed off home. Somewhere back in a tree in a park in Feilding, Simon the Sparrow was getting his bearings. Miles away from home … but alive.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Gidday,
Well, life has been busy!
I started today with the discovery that a horde of ants had found a just-accessible cake with sugary icing on it on the sink bench. They were everywhere!
A minor massacre then followed as an annoyed me showed the horde of ants what I thought of them violating my space and contaminating my food. And unlike the late Rod Donald of the Greens Party, they didn’t get a semi-state funeral, either!
That reminds me. Did you see that Rod Donald died of viral myocarditis. And the chances of dying of that are about 1 in 700,000. Then again, that’s better than ones chances of winning Lotto, which is about 1 in 28 million…
Gives one a while new perspective on buying Lotto tickets, doesn’t it…?
Interestingly, pregnant women and children (particularly neonates) are vulnerable to myocarditis. Was there something we didn’t know about Rod? Did Georgina have a friend in Parliament?
But, all joking aside, his death is quite sad really, especially because those most at risk are driven people like Rod Donald who are fit and healthy, who shrug off illnesses, and keep going rather than resting up.
Which only goes to show, sometimes if you want to keep succeeding, you have to stop trying for a little while every now and then.
And to keep on with the doom and gloom, tomorrow I feature in the local paper because I rang the local newspaper and told their transport reporter that I took umbrage with the fact that a truck driver, stung by a bee, started driving to a doctor when he felt unwell. Then he collapsed in his truck and crashed it through a roundabout and into a lamppost. By good luck he didn’t take out some innocent other motorists in the process.
So I made a public statement, in my role of road safety specialist, that drivers who are sick enough to have to urgently go to a doctor should not be driving themselves there!
The reporter was ever so grateful I’d rung. Hey, in a small town of 25,000 any news is good news for a reporter.
Other than that, life has been its usual frantic self. But I did manage to get a walk in today and picked up lots of rubbish at Lake Henley. I left the 3 foot long dead fish floating in the water. It smelled like it had been there a long time, so I decided that fish and chips was not an option for tea…
Why it had died, I would know. Maybe it was also struck down by myocarditis. But at least it will have a fitting send off as well – there is a fireworks display on at Lake Henley tonight.
Well, enough from me. You have a great weekend.
Well, life has been busy!
I started today with the discovery that a horde of ants had found a just-accessible cake with sugary icing on it on the sink bench. They were everywhere!
A minor massacre then followed as an annoyed me showed the horde of ants what I thought of them violating my space and contaminating my food. And unlike the late Rod Donald of the Greens Party, they didn’t get a semi-state funeral, either!
That reminds me. Did you see that Rod Donald died of viral myocarditis. And the chances of dying of that are about 1 in 700,000. Then again, that’s better than ones chances of winning Lotto, which is about 1 in 28 million…
Gives one a while new perspective on buying Lotto tickets, doesn’t it…?
Interestingly, pregnant women and children (particularly neonates) are vulnerable to myocarditis. Was there something we didn’t know about Rod? Did Georgina have a friend in Parliament?
But, all joking aside, his death is quite sad really, especially because those most at risk are driven people like Rod Donald who are fit and healthy, who shrug off illnesses, and keep going rather than resting up.
Which only goes to show, sometimes if you want to keep succeeding, you have to stop trying for a little while every now and then.
And to keep on with the doom and gloom, tomorrow I feature in the local paper because I rang the local newspaper and told their transport reporter that I took umbrage with the fact that a truck driver, stung by a bee, started driving to a doctor when he felt unwell. Then he collapsed in his truck and crashed it through a roundabout and into a lamppost. By good luck he didn’t take out some innocent other motorists in the process.
So I made a public statement, in my role of road safety specialist, that drivers who are sick enough to have to urgently go to a doctor should not be driving themselves there!
The reporter was ever so grateful I’d rung. Hey, in a small town of 25,000 any news is good news for a reporter.
Other than that, life has been its usual frantic self. But I did manage to get a walk in today and picked up lots of rubbish at Lake Henley. I left the 3 foot long dead fish floating in the water. It smelled like it had been there a long time, so I decided that fish and chips was not an option for tea…
Why it had died, I would know. Maybe it was also struck down by myocarditis. But at least it will have a fitting send off as well – there is a fireworks display on at Lake Henley tonight.
Well, enough from me. You have a great weekend.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Well, I've had a dandy weekend. Masterton’s Dick Smiths Electronic store has shifted southward into a BIGGER, BRIGHTER, BETTER (or so they tell us) store down the south end of Masterton. Since firms everywhere else in New Zealand are moving northwards to Auckland, I find this southwards migration a mildly heartening occurrence.
The firm has made a two block move to a shop immediately opposite a raised pedestrian crossing on the main street. I've always wondered about the wisdom of having a shop opposite a raised pedestrian crossing. After all, it is virtually impossible to see all the tempting bargains in a nearby shop window when one is rocketing roofwards as the car hits a raised crossing. (And the average driver never sees raised pedestrian crossings before it's too late.) So there goes all the trade from motorised window-shoppers.
Anyway, in celebration of their move to the launching pad of half of Masterton’s car occupants, the shop ran a SALE. It was not just a sale, nor a Sale. It was a SALE. There were all sorts of useless things on sale at ridiculous prices. I was tempted to buy a bag for the laptop. It was half price. At that saving it was really tempting, but since I don’t have a laptop I decided against it.
But they did have other exciting things. They had memory sticks at great prices. Memory sticks are little things you stick into little openings on your computer called USB ports. Now, since these memory sticks are going into a port you would be excused for thinking they would be called memory ships.
Nope, they are memory sticks. Although, sometimes, they are known as micro drives. Now, since you sail a ship into a port rather than drive, this doesn’t help the computer novice either, of course. Er … where was I…?
Anyway, the shop had these cheap memory sticks for sale. They are great little things that hold 128megabytes of data and make floppy disks look like anorexic filing cabinets. So I bought two, just in case I can find 256megabytes of data that I want to store on them. Of course, by the time I have typed 256 megabytes worth of data to go onto the memory sticks, my carpal tunnel will be so bad I won’t be able to hold the little darn things in my hand to stick ‘em into my computer. But, hey, they were cheap!
I did lots of other exciting things on the weekend, too. I went for a walk around Lake Henley and found myself the prime attraction for a cloud of little flying insects. I’m not sure whether they were feeding off micro-oganistic insects that my passage was disturbing, or whether they were just migrating and using me as convenient protection against the unwelcome attention of birds. Either way, with the cloud of insects hovering in front of my face, I felt like an uncomfortable bride in an insect veil. And I didn’t even get the consolation of wedding presents or a bit of honeymoon nooky to make up for it!
I also shocked the life out of a young lady in a café I visited this weekend. I told her I was a Graphologist and could analyse handwriting, so she wrote something for me to analyse. It’s great fun doing this. After you’ve hit home about four times telling them specific personality traits they have, they suddenly realise that you can analyse their personality from their handwriting! And the mouth of this young lass dropped open really wide when I told her that she should work in the beauty industry.
“I’m booked to start a beauty course next year!” she said looking at me as if I were a cross-dressing witch.
Of course I only told her the nice things I saw about her in her writing, never the less complimentary things I could see. I’m not silly! Her handwriting told me she had an ego the size of a house. And she had a nearly full teapot in her hand at that time… It’s because I notice these things, and that I’m a coward that I’m still alive.
And I wish to stay that way.
The firm has made a two block move to a shop immediately opposite a raised pedestrian crossing on the main street. I've always wondered about the wisdom of having a shop opposite a raised pedestrian crossing. After all, it is virtually impossible to see all the tempting bargains in a nearby shop window when one is rocketing roofwards as the car hits a raised crossing. (And the average driver never sees raised pedestrian crossings before it's too late.) So there goes all the trade from motorised window-shoppers.
Anyway, in celebration of their move to the launching pad of half of Masterton’s car occupants, the shop ran a SALE. It was not just a sale, nor a Sale. It was a SALE. There were all sorts of useless things on sale at ridiculous prices. I was tempted to buy a bag for the laptop. It was half price. At that saving it was really tempting, but since I don’t have a laptop I decided against it.
But they did have other exciting things. They had memory sticks at great prices. Memory sticks are little things you stick into little openings on your computer called USB ports. Now, since these memory sticks are going into a port you would be excused for thinking they would be called memory ships.
Nope, they are memory sticks. Although, sometimes, they are known as micro drives. Now, since you sail a ship into a port rather than drive, this doesn’t help the computer novice either, of course. Er … where was I…?
Anyway, the shop had these cheap memory sticks for sale. They are great little things that hold 128megabytes of data and make floppy disks look like anorexic filing cabinets. So I bought two, just in case I can find 256megabytes of data that I want to store on them. Of course, by the time I have typed 256 megabytes worth of data to go onto the memory sticks, my carpal tunnel will be so bad I won’t be able to hold the little darn things in my hand to stick ‘em into my computer. But, hey, they were cheap!
I did lots of other exciting things on the weekend, too. I went for a walk around Lake Henley and found myself the prime attraction for a cloud of little flying insects. I’m not sure whether they were feeding off micro-oganistic insects that my passage was disturbing, or whether they were just migrating and using me as convenient protection against the unwelcome attention of birds. Either way, with the cloud of insects hovering in front of my face, I felt like an uncomfortable bride in an insect veil. And I didn’t even get the consolation of wedding presents or a bit of honeymoon nooky to make up for it!
I also shocked the life out of a young lady in a café I visited this weekend. I told her I was a Graphologist and could analyse handwriting, so she wrote something for me to analyse. It’s great fun doing this. After you’ve hit home about four times telling them specific personality traits they have, they suddenly realise that you can analyse their personality from their handwriting! And the mouth of this young lass dropped open really wide when I told her that she should work in the beauty industry.
“I’m booked to start a beauty course next year!” she said looking at me as if I were a cross-dressing witch.
Of course I only told her the nice things I saw about her in her writing, never the less complimentary things I could see. I’m not silly! Her handwriting told me she had an ego the size of a house. And she had a nearly full teapot in her hand at that time… It’s because I notice these things, and that I’m a coward that I’m still alive.
And I wish to stay that way.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
As I sit here, my gourmet Watties snack meal is being microwaved into a unique concoction of overcooked rice and undercooked chicken as I write.
Next I have to cook some Watties frozen veges in a microwave-safe container.
(If you have microwave safe containers, you must have microwave unsafe containers. So what is a microwave unsafe container? Is it a container that, when hit by microwaves, jumps up and attacks the microwave? All these technical things are enough to give a guy a headache.)
Then I will have before me a superb meal guaranteed to keep at bay the hunger pains (if not the heartburn pains) at least until supper time.
As a writer, I am always on the lookout for ideas for new books and I've just remembered that recipe books are always a good seller. Hey, I could write the "Bachelor's Guide To Living On Instant Meals".
This has possibilities! It would include
Chapter One - How To Keep Your Instant Meals In Best Condition.
This chapter would contain the major tip that the bachelor shouldn't call into the pub and leave the frozen meal in the car with the dog on a hot day.
Chapter Two - How To Store The Instant Meal.
This chapter will contain all the usual hints and tips about storing frozen food, with a special emphasis on the fact that, if you put the frozen meal into another container, label it clearly, especially if you keep frozen fish bait in your freezer.
Chpater Three - Getting Your Instant Meal Ready For Cooking.
This chapter will talk about ways to open those darn boxes without having to resort to the chainsaw - a crosscut saw is quite adequate - and, of course, the need to wear gloves when transporting the frozen meal from the freezer to the microwave. This means that your hands don't get cold, causing you to drop the frozen meal on your foot and ruining your chances of playing touch rugby on the weekend. Or doing any activity involving the missionary position, if that's your weekend game.
Chapter Four - How To Cook The Meal
This chapter will deal with the art of using a plastic pellet pistol or a sucker dart to press the buttons and program the microwave (cooking should be fun), and how to tell the wattage of the microwave. (The latter includes instruction on how to remove the cover and inspect the thermal magnetic adjuster ray since most bachelors won't remember where they left the microwave handbook.)
Chapter Five - How To Tell When The Meal Is Cooked.
Most people believe that the microwave's beep, beep, beep is the sign that the meal is cooked. This is only an approximate indication at best. I recommend that the food be scanned for indicative gamma ray activity with a sensitive Geiger counter so that the instant meal chef can be absolutely sure that the meal is cooked.
Chapter Six - Removing The Meal From The Plastic Tray.
Anyone who has cooked an instant meal knows the problems of trying to get the meal out of its plastic container and onto the plate in a vaguely appetising mass. For example, any meal with rice in it will have the meal curl over as it comes out of the container. Thus, the tiny portion of butter chicken and artificial sauce that was dripped onto the rice in the factory will be covered by a unshapely blob of lumpy rice.
So chapter six will have detailed instructions on how to use the pruning shears (why they are always where the scissors are supposed to be kept, I'll never know) to cut the end off the plastic meal container. Then there will detailed instructions on how to use the screwdriver attachment on one's Swiss Army knife to slide the meal onto the plate.
Chapter Seven – Eating The Meal
While this is all relatively self-explanatory, there will be a detailed chart included that shows which attachment on your Swiss Army knife you should use to pick your teeth, depending upon what sort of instant meal you have just consumed. This is important because, if you get it wrong at home, you’re just as likely to embarrass yourself by getting it wrong while eating at the pub.
Chapter Eight – Cleaning Up
This chapter details the various options the bachelor has when dealing with the dirty dishes. Do you (a) ruin your hands doing the dishes, (b) just break the dishes and put them in the waste bin, or (c) do you put them in the dish washer? In the latter case, too many bachelors forget to disable the spin cycle and end up doing (b) anyway.
Look at that! The outline of a best seller. This man is a pure genius. He only has to cook an instant meal and opportunities for literary greatness spread out before him!
Next I have to cook some Watties frozen veges in a microwave-safe container.
(If you have microwave safe containers, you must have microwave unsafe containers. So what is a microwave unsafe container? Is it a container that, when hit by microwaves, jumps up and attacks the microwave? All these technical things are enough to give a guy a headache.)
Then I will have before me a superb meal guaranteed to keep at bay the hunger pains (if not the heartburn pains) at least until supper time.
As a writer, I am always on the lookout for ideas for new books and I've just remembered that recipe books are always a good seller. Hey, I could write the "Bachelor's Guide To Living On Instant Meals".
This has possibilities! It would include
Chapter One - How To Keep Your Instant Meals In Best Condition.
This chapter would contain the major tip that the bachelor shouldn't call into the pub and leave the frozen meal in the car with the dog on a hot day.
Chapter Two - How To Store The Instant Meal.
This chapter will contain all the usual hints and tips about storing frozen food, with a special emphasis on the fact that, if you put the frozen meal into another container, label it clearly, especially if you keep frozen fish bait in your freezer.
Chpater Three - Getting Your Instant Meal Ready For Cooking.
This chapter will talk about ways to open those darn boxes without having to resort to the chainsaw - a crosscut saw is quite adequate - and, of course, the need to wear gloves when transporting the frozen meal from the freezer to the microwave. This means that your hands don't get cold, causing you to drop the frozen meal on your foot and ruining your chances of playing touch rugby on the weekend. Or doing any activity involving the missionary position, if that's your weekend game.
Chapter Four - How To Cook The Meal
This chapter will deal with the art of using a plastic pellet pistol or a sucker dart to press the buttons and program the microwave (cooking should be fun), and how to tell the wattage of the microwave. (The latter includes instruction on how to remove the cover and inspect the thermal magnetic adjuster ray since most bachelors won't remember where they left the microwave handbook.)
Chapter Five - How To Tell When The Meal Is Cooked.
Most people believe that the microwave's beep, beep, beep is the sign that the meal is cooked. This is only an approximate indication at best. I recommend that the food be scanned for indicative gamma ray activity with a sensitive Geiger counter so that the instant meal chef can be absolutely sure that the meal is cooked.
Chapter Six - Removing The Meal From The Plastic Tray.
Anyone who has cooked an instant meal knows the problems of trying to get the meal out of its plastic container and onto the plate in a vaguely appetising mass. For example, any meal with rice in it will have the meal curl over as it comes out of the container. Thus, the tiny portion of butter chicken and artificial sauce that was dripped onto the rice in the factory will be covered by a unshapely blob of lumpy rice.
So chapter six will have detailed instructions on how to use the pruning shears (why they are always where the scissors are supposed to be kept, I'll never know) to cut the end off the plastic meal container. Then there will detailed instructions on how to use the screwdriver attachment on one's Swiss Army knife to slide the meal onto the plate.
Chapter Seven – Eating The Meal
While this is all relatively self-explanatory, there will be a detailed chart included that shows which attachment on your Swiss Army knife you should use to pick your teeth, depending upon what sort of instant meal you have just consumed. This is important because, if you get it wrong at home, you’re just as likely to embarrass yourself by getting it wrong while eating at the pub.
Chapter Eight – Cleaning Up
This chapter details the various options the bachelor has when dealing with the dirty dishes. Do you (a) ruin your hands doing the dishes, (b) just break the dishes and put them in the waste bin, or (c) do you put them in the dish washer? In the latter case, too many bachelors forget to disable the spin cycle and end up doing (b) anyway.
Look at that! The outline of a best seller. This man is a pure genius. He only has to cook an instant meal and opportunities for literary greatness spread out before him!
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Last year the Duke of York came to New Zealand to visit. I never read anything about it in the papers, so whether or not he had his 10,000 men with him I am not sure. But, since New Zealand has 20,000 more women than men, I suspect that Kiwi women would have checked that out.
Just so that you know, The Duke of York laid a wreath at the national war memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Wellington. This means, of course, that the grand young Duke of York must have marched his ten thousand men up one of them Wellington hills to lay the wreath and then he must have marched them down again.
So I find myself wondering whether any Kiwi woman lay in wait somewhere about half way up that there hill in order to snaffle one of the 10,000 for an overdue bit of nookie. Not realising that this would be a waste of time since, by the time all of them men had got up that hill, they'd have been so stuffed they'll be of absolutely no use to anyone!
Even so, this was an admirable opportunity for Kiwi women to get a very desirable man. Indeed, I have been told that these ten thousand men have admirable characteristics for ladies. Apparently, when they're up, they're up.
Although, sadly, when they are down, they are down.
And, worse still, when they are only half way up... Well, it's either a matter of changing position, or else it’s the time during the march to grab them quick.
The moral of this story is, of course. When the Duke of York comes visiting, forget the Internet dating sites and try for the real thing.
Just so that you know, The Duke of York laid a wreath at the national war memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Wellington. This means, of course, that the grand young Duke of York must have marched his ten thousand men up one of them Wellington hills to lay the wreath and then he must have marched them down again.
So I find myself wondering whether any Kiwi woman lay in wait somewhere about half way up that there hill in order to snaffle one of the 10,000 for an overdue bit of nookie. Not realising that this would be a waste of time since, by the time all of them men had got up that hill, they'd have been so stuffed they'll be of absolutely no use to anyone!
Even so, this was an admirable opportunity for Kiwi women to get a very desirable man. Indeed, I have been told that these ten thousand men have admirable characteristics for ladies. Apparently, when they're up, they're up.
Although, sadly, when they are down, they are down.
And, worse still, when they are only half way up... Well, it's either a matter of changing position, or else it’s the time during the march to grab them quick.
The moral of this story is, of course. When the Duke of York comes visiting, forget the Internet dating sites and try for the real thing.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
It's been fine weather today. I went for a walk around Lake Henley, the man-mae lake in Masterton. I had to. A man was bashing and hammering at the front door.
No, he wasn't a debt collector (although I'd gladly give him any of mine). He was replacing my front door with a new see-thru one. I am expecting Dot, the 80-year-old dear next door, to be standing outside doing the Peeping Dot bit once it gets dark. It's tough being so attractive to women.
It was interesting walking around Lake Henley. It was shore-to-shore Canadian geese day. It must be bird-shooting season.
I don't mind these geese visiting, except that they poop all over the paths and as you walk around the lake trying to avoid stepping in it, you look like you're doing the Macarena.
Anyway, having danced my way around the lake, I got back to my car, shooed away some greedy ducks that thought I was a bearer of all things bread-like. Then I started the car, and narrowly missed making a duck pancake of one Mallard as I drove away.
Why did the duck cross the road? Hey, I’m sure there’s a joke there somewhere.
On my way home, I popped into the supermarket and bought a water purifier/filter.
Once I got it home I carefully unpacked it, removed the instructions that were inside the filter unit, and then carefully fitted the inlet pipe to the cold tap.
When I turned the tap on, a very pretty fountain promptly erupted from where the water pipe from the tap enters the unit itself. But, hey, the floor needed washing anyway because the man, while fitting the door, had put dust all over my lovely imitation tile lino.
In case you are wondering, the man made the floor dusty in a simple way. He took out his big green thingy (now, now ladies) inserted the end bit and got it going in and out (Ladies! Please!) and sawed the door off.
There was no careful removal of the doorframe with sledgehammer and crowbar. Nope, he got out his electric saw and simply sawed around the doorframe, through nails and all. I got the feeling that this guy would use a chainsaw to dice carrots.
I have to admit that he did sweep up most of the sawdust and wood remnants later, but the fine dust stuck to the lino. It could have been worse. He could have got it on the bacon on the bench. You know: Dust to dust. Rashers to rashers.
Anyway, after I’d cleaned up the floor I tried turning the tap down a bit. The fountain then became more drippish. So, since I could now fill a glass with filtered water without wearing a raincoat, I did so. Then I tried a sip or two of filtered water.
I have to say that if that is what filtered water tastes like, I think I favour water with bugs in it. Maybe it’s just because I’m a meat eater. I like body in my diet.
So tomorrow I’m taking the filter back. I might buy an electric jug in its place because electric jugs are fun.
They have this neat water level window and if you stand there and watch and listen, you can hear them starting to heat up. Once they’ve been making noises for a while, you can see small indications that things are coming to the boil. Then, when you reach boiling point there’s a loud rumbling and lots of wobbles. Jugs always remind me of the mother-in-law, somehow.
But I’d take a jug over a mother-in-law, any day. The jug has an automatic cut-off switch.
--
Allan
No, he wasn't a debt collector (although I'd gladly give him any of mine). He was replacing my front door with a new see-thru one. I am expecting Dot, the 80-year-old dear next door, to be standing outside doing the Peeping Dot bit once it gets dark. It's tough being so attractive to women.
It was interesting walking around Lake Henley. It was shore-to-shore Canadian geese day. It must be bird-shooting season.
I don't mind these geese visiting, except that they poop all over the paths and as you walk around the lake trying to avoid stepping in it, you look like you're doing the Macarena.
Anyway, having danced my way around the lake, I got back to my car, shooed away some greedy ducks that thought I was a bearer of all things bread-like. Then I started the car, and narrowly missed making a duck pancake of one Mallard as I drove away.
Why did the duck cross the road? Hey, I’m sure there’s a joke there somewhere.
On my way home, I popped into the supermarket and bought a water purifier/filter.
Once I got it home I carefully unpacked it, removed the instructions that were inside the filter unit, and then carefully fitted the inlet pipe to the cold tap.
When I turned the tap on, a very pretty fountain promptly erupted from where the water pipe from the tap enters the unit itself. But, hey, the floor needed washing anyway because the man, while fitting the door, had put dust all over my lovely imitation tile lino.
In case you are wondering, the man made the floor dusty in a simple way. He took out his big green thingy (now, now ladies) inserted the end bit and got it going in and out (Ladies! Please!) and sawed the door off.
There was no careful removal of the doorframe with sledgehammer and crowbar. Nope, he got out his electric saw and simply sawed around the doorframe, through nails and all. I got the feeling that this guy would use a chainsaw to dice carrots.
I have to admit that he did sweep up most of the sawdust and wood remnants later, but the fine dust stuck to the lino. It could have been worse. He could have got it on the bacon on the bench. You know: Dust to dust. Rashers to rashers.
Anyway, after I’d cleaned up the floor I tried turning the tap down a bit. The fountain then became more drippish. So, since I could now fill a glass with filtered water without wearing a raincoat, I did so. Then I tried a sip or two of filtered water.
I have to say that if that is what filtered water tastes like, I think I favour water with bugs in it. Maybe it’s just because I’m a meat eater. I like body in my diet.
So tomorrow I’m taking the filter back. I might buy an electric jug in its place because electric jugs are fun.
They have this neat water level window and if you stand there and watch and listen, you can hear them starting to heat up. Once they’ve been making noises for a while, you can see small indications that things are coming to the boil. Then, when you reach boiling point there’s a loud rumbling and lots of wobbles. Jugs always remind me of the mother-in-law, somehow.
But I’d take a jug over a mother-in-law, any day. The jug has an automatic cut-off switch.
--
Allan
Friday, June 09, 2006
In late 2002 my wife and I separated.
After 23 years of marriage it was quite an amicable separation – I wanted to leave and she threw me out.
They reckon that marriage is proof that man can mate in captivity. They must be correct. I had three kids. Three girls.
Let me tell you, it’s no fun being outnumbered by women in household. They expect you to put the toilet seat down all the time.
And when their menstruation coincides…
Anyway, my friend Ray and I packed all my stuff into a large truck and I left Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city, to return, a single man, after an absence of some 34 years, to the country town of Masterton.
In other words, I shifted from where the population mostly milked the taxpayers dry, to a district where people mostly milked cows dry. It’s much quieter in the Wairarapa. Unlike taxpayers, cows rarely complain as you milk them.
Since the ex and I had been together so long, I was a bit sad to leave. But two thirds of all marriages end in divorce and the rest end in death, so I took comfort from the fact that I got out alive.
Masterton is basically in the centre of the Wairarapa river plains, a bit off the usual tourist routes, and is 388 feet above sea level. So it is generally considered that Masterton is safe from tourists and tsunamis … and most other Japanese words.
It’s a small town with a population of about 25,000 people, several thousand pussy cats, hundreds of dogs, and the odd (sometimes very odd) parrot. Some of these parrots live on the lifestyle block on the outskirts of Masterton owned by my brother Bruce and my sister-in-law Enid.
Bruce, being the only family I have left, both my parents having died some time ago, was one of the reasons I returned to Masterton – there was someone there with almost an obligation to listen to my tales of woe. Well, to pretend to listen, anyway.
There was one problem that came with returning to Masterton. I apparently bear a remarkable resemblance to my brother and for a while we were confused with each other. Unfortunately, he isn’t a womaniser…
Many years before, Bruce had opened a very successful computer shop in Masterton. However, shortly before I arrived back in Masterton, Bruce had got sick of being exposed to the bytes of his customers and sold it to his son, Craig.
Craig seems to be doing very well. I suspect it’s because he used to be a competitive cyclist. After all, if you can pedal bicycles, it’s a mere attitude shift to pedalling computers.
For more than a decade previous to 2003 I had been writing and publishing mildly successful non-fiction books for children. I also write motorcycle riding skills books. I worked from home, which enabled me to look after the kids while my ex worked.
Consequently, I had a lot of equipment to shift. And to fit into a new flat.
But I had found a suitable flat. It was a comfortable two-bedroom dwelling in a block of five flats set on a back section on the East side of Masterton.
I had to have a two-bedroom flat. You need a room to keep the industrial guillotine in. One never keeps a guillotine in the main bedroom. Never give a woman an easy way to register her disapproval of your love-making.
It’s a comfortable flat with all the mod cons – running water (mainly condensation), a small fridge that came from the ice-age but has a lousy memory, and a toilet that has a window opening out onto the drive (so you can open the window to let every car going by gather up the smell and take it away.)
Except for a couple of spiders in odd corners of the flat, I mainly live on my own. I do get regular visits from ants. The visits are never welcome. I’m very anti ants. They compete with my sweet tooth by making an ant-line for any delicious iced cake I may leave unprotected.
The ant invasion became so bad that I got quite desperate for a solution. Then I heard that ants will never cross a chalk line. Now my flat looks like a kid’s drawing at the local play centre.
I’d like to keep an anteater but I’m not allowed pets. And the landlord keeps a close eye on things. Why, the other day he asked me: “Was that a bit of pussy I saw entering your flat the other day?”
I assured him that it wasn’t. It was just an old dog. He seemed happy to accept that.
But, seriously, I only take gorgeous women into my flat. After all, I have a reputation to uphold with Dot, the 80-year-old next door. She needs the gossip for all the elderly friends that visit her.
But with all these women visiting, I will have to install a metal detector at the front door. After all, Lorena Bobbett was a wake-up call for all of us men.
And you never know what a metal detector can reveal when women visit. It prevents those embarrassing moments at intimate times: “You didn’t tell me you had an artificial leg?!”
And with transexual Georgina Beyer being the MP for the Wairarapa, us Wairarapa country boys know that you simply can’t tell what may be artificial on a woman these days.
But enough from me right now.
This blog will look at days in the life of a datingsite bachelor. Sadly, it won't be too naughty. Hey, I may kiss and tell but when it comes to more intimate stuff I just don't like to boast!
After 23 years of marriage it was quite an amicable separation – I wanted to leave and she threw me out.
They reckon that marriage is proof that man can mate in captivity. They must be correct. I had three kids. Three girls.
Let me tell you, it’s no fun being outnumbered by women in household. They expect you to put the toilet seat down all the time.
And when their menstruation coincides…
Anyway, my friend Ray and I packed all my stuff into a large truck and I left Wellington, New Zealand’s capital city, to return, a single man, after an absence of some 34 years, to the country town of Masterton.
In other words, I shifted from where the population mostly milked the taxpayers dry, to a district where people mostly milked cows dry. It’s much quieter in the Wairarapa. Unlike taxpayers, cows rarely complain as you milk them.
Since the ex and I had been together so long, I was a bit sad to leave. But two thirds of all marriages end in divorce and the rest end in death, so I took comfort from the fact that I got out alive.
Masterton is basically in the centre of the Wairarapa river plains, a bit off the usual tourist routes, and is 388 feet above sea level. So it is generally considered that Masterton is safe from tourists and tsunamis … and most other Japanese words.
It’s a small town with a population of about 25,000 people, several thousand pussy cats, hundreds of dogs, and the odd (sometimes very odd) parrot. Some of these parrots live on the lifestyle block on the outskirts of Masterton owned by my brother Bruce and my sister-in-law Enid.
Bruce, being the only family I have left, both my parents having died some time ago, was one of the reasons I returned to Masterton – there was someone there with almost an obligation to listen to my tales of woe. Well, to pretend to listen, anyway.
There was one problem that came with returning to Masterton. I apparently bear a remarkable resemblance to my brother and for a while we were confused with each other. Unfortunately, he isn’t a womaniser…
Many years before, Bruce had opened a very successful computer shop in Masterton. However, shortly before I arrived back in Masterton, Bruce had got sick of being exposed to the bytes of his customers and sold it to his son, Craig.
Craig seems to be doing very well. I suspect it’s because he used to be a competitive cyclist. After all, if you can pedal bicycles, it’s a mere attitude shift to pedalling computers.
For more than a decade previous to 2003 I had been writing and publishing mildly successful non-fiction books for children. I also write motorcycle riding skills books. I worked from home, which enabled me to look after the kids while my ex worked.
Consequently, I had a lot of equipment to shift. And to fit into a new flat.
But I had found a suitable flat. It was a comfortable two-bedroom dwelling in a block of five flats set on a back section on the East side of Masterton.
I had to have a two-bedroom flat. You need a room to keep the industrial guillotine in. One never keeps a guillotine in the main bedroom. Never give a woman an easy way to register her disapproval of your love-making.
It’s a comfortable flat with all the mod cons – running water (mainly condensation), a small fridge that came from the ice-age but has a lousy memory, and a toilet that has a window opening out onto the drive (so you can open the window to let every car going by gather up the smell and take it away.)
Except for a couple of spiders in odd corners of the flat, I mainly live on my own. I do get regular visits from ants. The visits are never welcome. I’m very anti ants. They compete with my sweet tooth by making an ant-line for any delicious iced cake I may leave unprotected.
The ant invasion became so bad that I got quite desperate for a solution. Then I heard that ants will never cross a chalk line. Now my flat looks like a kid’s drawing at the local play centre.
I’d like to keep an anteater but I’m not allowed pets. And the landlord keeps a close eye on things. Why, the other day he asked me: “Was that a bit of pussy I saw entering your flat the other day?”
I assured him that it wasn’t. It was just an old dog. He seemed happy to accept that.
But, seriously, I only take gorgeous women into my flat. After all, I have a reputation to uphold with Dot, the 80-year-old next door. She needs the gossip for all the elderly friends that visit her.
But with all these women visiting, I will have to install a metal detector at the front door. After all, Lorena Bobbett was a wake-up call for all of us men.
And you never know what a metal detector can reveal when women visit. It prevents those embarrassing moments at intimate times: “You didn’t tell me you had an artificial leg?!”
And with transexual Georgina Beyer being the MP for the Wairarapa, us Wairarapa country boys know that you simply can’t tell what may be artificial on a woman these days.
But enough from me right now.
This blog will look at days in the life of a datingsite bachelor. Sadly, it won't be too naughty. Hey, I may kiss and tell but when it comes to more intimate stuff I just don't like to boast!
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