Merry 'king Christmas, I have impaled a diorama.

oh god what have i done. more later when i'm notso durnk.

Oh Papermate, you light like paper weight.

This is my last day of work for oh-five. Next week, I'm going to get drunk twice a day, with a nap around mid-arvo in between. It's going to be awesome.


Have a sunset dappled dog, and a great day.

xo.

Fail with consequence, lose with eloquence, and smile.

Alright! Just got back one of the reviews of my thesis, and he wants to have my beautiful babies. You can read it here, if you so desire. Hungry, bestial desire, that is.


A happysnap from Pete's sweaty drunken party several weeks ago, the evening before the Newtown festival. Guess which trooper turned up the following day, and guess which ladyboys stayed home? Also note Pete's face has healed, even though he had been beaten up on three separate occasions for no reason over the previous two months or so, to varying degrees of severity.

You kept the things I sent you.The lengths I went to.

This is my favourite fence, on a property between Moyston and Ararat. I like its attitude.

My younger brother Luke has arrived home for Christmas break, back from working on a mine in Western Australia. The shortage of workers over there is dire, and the amount of money to be made boggles the mind. On the oil rigs, you can clear three grand a week. Clear. The mine that Luke's at is pretty swish. Free food, accommodation, heaps of leisure activities available, like a gym, tennis courts, indoor cricket, pool tables... Makes you think, eh.

On Friday our family is heading over to Millicent on the Limestone Coast in South Australia. Some shearer bloke Dad knows lives there, and is going somewhere else over Chrissy, so we're going to be house sitting his joint. Should be good, nice and close to the coast, pretty rural, full of bogans. I'm aiming to spend a fair bit of time with my new speargun, getting my eye in, working on the breath hold, and making sure the modifications on my RIG are all adjusted correctly and working OK. Also, there is quite a bit of crayfishing to be done in the area, and Dad knows some drongo with a boat who's gonna take us out. Rock, rock on.

So that's the 411. Not terribly exciting, I'm tired.

"The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters." - Genghis Khan.

Fantastically, courageously, and with grace.

A field of oats up the road.

I've finalized my arrangements for attending a conference in Perth. That is, I've registered for the conference, uploaded the final version of the paper for the conference, booked my flights, and, most importantly, I've bought a ticket to the Big Day Out in Perth, which is on the weekend after the conference! The lineup is pretty good, and it looks like I may finally see 2manyDjs. The timing is going to be a bit tricky. We will probably leave Gladstone on the 28th, and I have a flight from Melbourne to Perth on the night of the 31st, which means we are going to have to hoof it back to Melb. The bugger is, we (where we = Me and my uni mates Mat, and Dan) wont have the Wen connection to smuggle in copious amounts of booze in the staff entrance. I aim to strap myself with booze and/or explosives, the latter guaranteeing me safe entry in the event I'm sprung.

Also, looks like I'm going to Chicago for a stretch in Feb/Mar to finish off this book chapter, and also have an interview for a postdoc there. My devious mind is wrangling ways that I can turn this into another trademark gallivant, that is, while it's not wrangling ways to abduct Mischa Barton. One possibility that springs to mind is the ol' RTW ticket under the pretension of visiting a bunch of blokes in the south of France. Trouble is, I'd have to orgy-nize all that soon, because I'm going to be deserted on Wanker Isle II in the midst of a sausage sizzle that involves one rather large pork sausage.

I've had some disjointed musings on the recent execution of Stan "Tookie" Williams. Knowing nothing at all about the case gives me a unique perspective, and thus the license to bray about it on the BLOGOSPHERE. Don't worry, Ma'am, we're from the internet. Tookie is the kind of nickname that only your girlfriend would give you,
and one that you'd hope was only spoken in private. I think he probably got pretty hot under the collar when people started calling him Tookie around the place, and then they weren't very understanding about his feelings, and he just flipped out and killed some guys, then word got around that "Tookie" was pretty badarse, his name preceded him, if you will, which only made things worse. That's all.

I got bailed up by ol' "Budgie" at the gym today. God, he just doesn't get out of your personal space and shutup. I've learned you just have to carry on, and put in the odd 'yep' or buddy-buddy conspiratorial nod. I really wish I could have recorded the two hours during which he incessantly raved on and on, initially circular monologues about a few topics, and then, like a giant rolling bullshit snowball, gradually incorporating more of his own deranged rhetoric into the circle. I'd set the entire recording to animation, it would be absolutely hilarious until he found out about it and hunted me down in his old Kingswood.

NYE is shaping up to be a few beers on the veranda until the mozzies get too bad. Being 27 sure takes the stuffing out of one. Keep off my damn lawn, you good for nothing kids.

With a rebel yell,She cried more, more, more.

I'm somewhat subdued by B-roq's solemn and revealing update, and feel a bit dirty launching into another flippant monologue about everything else except how I'm actually going. For those who are wondering: about a nine-point-eight. You're thinking, that's pretty good, and you're damn right. Now back to the regularly scheduled flippant monologue.

Broken Social Scene was recommended to me by last.fm based on my listening habits, and it was it right on the money. Feel Good Lost is perfect work music. Go, go, internet.

My boat license test is tomorrow, and I've barely read the book. Balls.

This post was started and abandoned yesterday. I'm back from the grueling test just now, involving 30 cunningly devised multiple choice questions, and am happy to report I passed with a grade of 100%.

Now I just need my Chopper license, and I'm ready to start Phase II. Be alert, true beleivers.

Ten-four, big buddy.

The pepper tree at sunset. The sun isn't setting over the Grampians during summer, the pesky thing has moved to a less interesting part of the horizon.

Rhubarb sponge for dessert this evening, made from home-grown Rhubarb of course, and I got to lick the beaters.

Ate the first ripe fruit from the Mulberry tree yesterday.

With all this rural bliss, I don't know if I can get the draft of this chapter done in time. I've got under two weeks left, and I've done sweet effay. However, panic should set in soon, and I'll bang it out.

On the Pharmacy's recommendation, I've been listening to a bit of Sigur Ros. Apparently the guy sings up in a made up language, and Thom Yorke reckons they are the bees knees (Thom is quite the entomologist).

Haven't been able to get in contact with Steve to see how he's handling his dive course. I'd quite forgotten about the fitness test elements, in which you have to swim a whole bunch of laps and tread water for a while. Choco said he did ok, but it nearly killed the poor bugger. I'd not really told him much about what was involved in the course, which was quite remiss of me, and I think it's all been a bit of a shock.

Stop Press.

MF Doom (from Madvillain) and AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE!?! I have died and gone to some kind of awesome heaven. Where are my bitches.

From the torrent description:



Two of this generation's most respected hip-hop artists, Danger Mouse and MF Doom, have come together to produce Dangerdoom: The Mouse and the Mask, an album inspired by Adult Swim, cartoon network's popular late-night animation network. the album, set to debut in October 2005, will be released on Epitaph records, in association with Adult Swim. the album will contain character voices and skits from adult swim's most popular original shows, including Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Sealab 2021 and Harvy Birdman, Attorney at Law.

Danger Mouse is recognized as one of the most innovative artists and producers. Danger Mouse's the Grey Album, an ingenious re-production of Jay-Z's black album with the Beatles' White Album, was named the Album-of-the-Year in 2004 by Entertainment Weekly and catapulted him into the international spotlight. Danger Mouse recently produced Gorillaz Demon Dayz album, which has sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide in it's initial first weeks of release. his next project is Gnarls Barkley, a collaboration with music's flamboyant, one of a kind force of nature Cee-Lo.

After a five-year hiatus, that ended in 1998, a former member of KMD emerged as MF Doom, a persona inspired by the comic supervillain Dr. Doom, and released the critically praised albums operation: Doomsday and MMM...Food. Doom also released on of 2004's most acclaimed albums, Madvillain (featured in Spin, Rolling Stone, Vibe, the New Yorker, etc), under the same name and Venomous Villian under the name Victor Vaught. he has been involved in a number of collaborations with the industry's finest and has a project with Ghostface Killah (Wu-Tang Clan) in the works.



Here comes the chub.

I'm at home reviewing some terrible papers. In the 'Confidential Comments to Editor' section of my last review, I wrote Bad papers make dogs cry ;( (it's not as badarse as it sounds, the editor is my old supervisor).

We're just looking for our future babies Mamas.

• Gmail abusers: Gmail now has kicking rad new feature, RSS feeds (which they are choosing to call "Web Clips", causing impotent rage in nerds globally). This means that Gmail will show you when someone updates their blog! Follow the instructions in the above link, remove all the gay feeds that Gmail includes by default, then in the search box type in: http://dockta-cok.blogspot.com/atom.xml, and then hit the subscribe button or whatever the hell it's called. It's left as an exercise for the reader to work out how to subscribe to other blogs.
  
  
• I've elbowed my way into the global nerdy circlejerk that is del.icio.us and Gvisit, and added feeds to the old bog in the sidebar (Gowon have a butchers). What's so grouse about del.icio.us? Glad you asked.
  
  
• Mash up albums are back in favour in my Kingdom, I have imperiously decided, after coming across these absolute friggen corkers. I will include a bittorrent link for each (Bugger that, see the del.icio.us feed. Cue circlejerk moneyshot). If you don't know how to use bittorrent, send me an email, and I'll delete it then try to forget you ever existed. Or, Barry willing, I can have them uploaded to his Streamload account, and you can download them from there. Not knowing what Streamload is, is forgivable.
  
  I think what I like about these is that they are album length, and are done really well. If you disagree, then we shall agree to disagree and maybe have some hot makeup sex later on.
  
  
  
  • Radiohead - Me and this army remixes. There aint enough bees to make enough wax for me to wax lyrically enough about this, so I wont bother the little beggars.
    
  
  
  • Q-Unit: 50 Cent vs. Queen. This is schmicko. I used to be one of the worlds biggest Queen fans during my troubled youth, but really haven't listened to them in the last 9 years. God I'm old. This might be my last post I have to go die now. And 50 Cent is way rad, and reminds me of B-roq and his maniacal obsessive fascination with In Da Club.
    
  
  
  • American Edit: This is the Green Day American Idiot album all mixed up with heaps of awesome stuff old and new. The last track especially gives me a boner you could break a shovel over (first erection reference), as it is some Greenday track or other mixed with that "just another manic monday..." track, I forget what it's called but that should not detract from the enthusiasm I'm attempting to convey.
    
  
  
  • Grey Album: Jay-Z vs. The Beatles. This has been around for a while. This is especially awesome because Jay-Z released the Black Album, and of course the Beatles had the White Album. How hip and ironic! I have a headspin.
    
  
  
  
  

The rabbits here are bringing the turf war (hur hur) right into the house. I shot one from the kitchen door between mains and dessert during dinner the other night, and from the same spot after breakfast before going to the gym the other morning! My aim is a bit rusty, too many gut-shots. I want to headshot a couple of nice young ones and take them in for my Grandma to casserole. Bugger me gently if that isn't the nicest fuckin' dinner ever assembled.

Peace out.

Fifteen will get you Twenty.

As those who have known will probably know, I sombrely celebrated the death of my youth on Saturday, reaching the Methuselian age of 27. What Melbourne friends I have that are still alive, having not yet chosen to paddle out into the mists of the River Styx, and whose bums still point true to the ground, all got together for a couple of drinks. Firstly, we went down to Thang Phong in Victoria St, Richmond, to get some springers and a number twenty-nine. For those poor saps who've either never "Phonged it" or reached Zen enlightenment, this is spring rolls followed by pork chop with the lot. I had a raging case of springer fever due to my "controlled eating" (don't say diet), and set upon the springers like a man posessed. During this time, Choco and his entourage were, of all bloody places, watching the new Harry Potter fillum. In anticipatory revenge, last week I dug up several very wrong images of the heads of Harry, Snape, and Malfoy, photochopped onto gay porn, and sent them to Chris, frying his retinas like so much bacon. When it came around to watching the film, I was informed that he weeped like a grieving widow who just banged her shin on a towbar.

Ok, drinking story time. After dinner, our humble posse had some drinks, which was all very nice. On the whole, an unremarkable evening. Some friendly banter, the presence of some moderately attractive lay-dies, and the smug satisfaction from hanging out in trendy Melbourne bars (namely, the comfortable chair, which Chris, at the height of wit, dubbed the uncomfortable chair). We smuggled about a bottle of some dark rum (i.e., Darwin Diesel) and tried not to grimace too much whilst drinking it. At the end of the evening, however, there was about half a bottle left. Steve, in a fit of bravado, insisted that he was able to scull the entire amount. After some protestations, he reluctantly agreed to only scull about a third of a bottle, which he did with an appropriate amount of fanfare. Within about ten minutes, Steve was showing everyone how he can do one handed handstands. In the middle of the road. Then got all ninja and attempted to fight Adam, with mixed success but definitely won on enthusiasm. In all of that malarkey, Steve was running about, and punched me in the face without any provocation as he ran past at one point. Chris also copped an unprovoked attack. Basically, for about half an hour, he was quite hilarious and insane. Steve was quite insistent that we head to one of the the nastiest 24 hour pokie pubs in Melbourne: the Tankerville. Choco and Fleabag wisely chose this moment to go home. Which left Steve, Adam, Ada and I to take a taxi.

Something happened in that taxi. Riding shotgun, I recall looking into the rear-view mirror at one point and noticing that Steve's head was on his chest, lolling about hither and yon. By the time we arrived, Steve got out of the taxi, hung onto a parking sign, moaned, and began slowly slumping down onto the footpath. Adam and I tried to hold him up and walk him to the pub, but the bouncer was astrally projecting a big "eff off" from across the road. We shunted Steve across, sat him down, and attempted to give him some lung candy to straighten him up, with no luck. After some effort, we sent Ada off down the road to hail a cab (the sight of Steve was scaring off the flighty cabbies). I dragged Steve across to the cab, and desperately tried to persuade the cabbie to take us home, forcing my credit card into his hand, and swearing on every deity I knew that Steve was not going to vomit. Why was I so sure? Why, because Steve had informed us only hours earlier "I have not thrown up from alcohol in THREE YEARS." (that quote is verbatim). Quite an astounding feat, really, to have current statistics like that at hand. The taxi driver had a look at the semi-comatose, bedraggled figure that we were holding upright, and uttered those insightful words: "He doesn't need a taxi, he needs a friggen ambulance." However, in a grand testament to the power of empathy, he let us aboard, and Steve began vomiting about 50 metres up the road. I saw the first heave, and let out a plaintive cry. The taxi driver screeched to a halt. I cunningly caught the majority of the first payload with my right hand, simultaneously reaching over with my left to open the door while pushing Steve out of the taxi with my hip and knees. Adam leapt from the front seat with the speed of a startled gazelle, and dragged the offender out onto the gutter to fully expunge the Darwin Diesel Demon which wracked his frail frame. The taxi driver swore his complete vocabulary of expletives in some godless heathen language, while scrambling for water and a cloth. We helped him clean his vehicle, pressed a 50 dollar note into his trembling hands, and bid him farewell.

Steve had moved house recently, and we were ignorant of his new address. I dug Steve's mobile from his pocket with my warm acidic hands and called his lady friend. Smashing. We've got about 4 blocks to walk, er, carry Steve home. Adam got under one arm, and I got under the other, we hoisted his elfin carcass up so that his legs just scraped along the ground, and carried. At one point, we came across a shopping trolley out the front of Saint Vinnies, which we emptied of its charity and replaced with our insensate patient. The only words muttered by him in this whole ordeal were the odd half-hearted effin' cees. The shopping trolley worked a treat, but seemed to set off further bouts of technicolour yawning. After this arduous journey, we made our way into his house to find his bedroom up a perilous set of stairs, up which he was lifted by the armpits and legs. We stripped him down to his pantaloons (pantaloons!?!), and did the only fair thing. Took photographs of him with dirty magazines.



Moyston is going well. We have baby emus, baby chickens, and I've shot a few baby rabbits. Also managed to execute a couple of Hares that are accused of nibbling the plants in Mum's garden. A fitting punishment for such an heinous crime.

Choco, Steve, and Fleabag have set off on the first evening of their dive course this evening. I was informed via an electronic mail (e-mail) that Steve had failed his dive medical, which may be loosely correlated to the pack of Marlboro Reds he sucks down every day. The last I heard, he was being driven by a large black man to a shonkier doctor. Back to me, I'm going for my boat license next Friday, which will be kickin' rad.

Logorrhea

I'm back in Moyston, chillin' like a villain. I aim to be posting a little more regularly now, as while I was in Sydney, I was too buggered all the time, and while I was in Melbourne my cunning bro controls all the intarweb access through a Linux proxy server, which logs everything, and this bog is a family free zone. And Abs is onto me, as Choco keeps going BLOG BLOG BLOG BLOG around him despite all my withering looks. Ah well.

The weekend before last, I was in Kiama testing out my speargun and new gear. Without a rubber upgrade, the gun is fairly harmless, and with the square edges on the butt filed down could probably be safely used in kindergartens. That's a mild exaggeration, but it did bounce off a few fish who weren't terribly far off. The club hired a schmicko house overlooking the bay and in view of the blowhole (apparently it cost the club $1k to hire it for the weekend), and bought an arseton of food. There was much diving, partying, and eating, and it cost us the princely sum of 30 bucks per night (booze sold separately). Highlights:

• Plukky shot a flathead that could've been passed off as a sunken aircraft carrier. It fed 25 odd people (sidestep obvious odd people joke), but unforturnately tasted a bit like arse. That may have been the arse-like taste of bitter jealousy. The rest of the spread, however, was gorr-may.
  
• We took a bottle'o bourbon. I reminded Wen that most dive club people don't necessarily get completely wasted in the manner she might be accustomed to. I had one drink, I come back to find about 2/3 of the bottle missing, and Wen being a raucous derro. For shame, that was my raucous derro juice.
  
• Woody found a skateboard. The house was on top of a hill, and the road leading up to it was treacherous and windy. We took turns sitting on the skateboard, riding partway down the hill, and having spectacular crashes. Needless to say, I grazed my elbow in three places and customized my new jeans. Our most successful ride down the hill had both of us cramped up together sitting on the skateboard, and riding it down backwards. How extreme. When the barely coherent Wen found us, she demanded to have a go, and wouldn't be told otherwise. She returned home without most of the skin from her right forearm. Woody got his finger caught in the skateboard wheel at high speed. Actually, on the whole this was a very bad idea. I was sore for days.
  
• I nearly fell asleep driving home, and had several micro-sleeps. This was very naughty of me, and I vow on the bitter blood of Christ the lamb with chips I shall never do it again.
  

And so I found myself in Melbourne early last week, which was hardly a surprise because I booked the ticket and everything. I was picked up at the hairport by a large black man. Unfortunately, at the hour of my arrival, all licensed establishments near his house were closed, except for a turkish restaurant. Actually, that understates the place. It was more or less deserted except for a few men playing a strange board game while smoking steadily on Shisha's (sp?), and there was a cacophony of interminable horrendous turkish music. Unfortunately, this was not the last time we went there, and I suspect we'll end up there again on some forsaken evening.

The rest I consign to another post. It involves the following charming phrase from one of the local cabbies, "He doesn't need a taxi..., he needs a friggen ambulance." Steve: 0, Bottle of Rum: 1.