Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Volunteers Required

I have no idea what is ailing me at the moment but I am sleepwalking through life.

OK so I am never exactly 100% stamina wise but lately things just seem so much worse. Each day starts off with good intentions but I rapidly lose any focus and just drift between bed and chair.

This would be all well and good if there wasn’t so much I want to get done.

I end each day feeling useless having accomplished hardly anything and so frustrated I could scream. Not good.

So please step up one and all because it seems I need a bloody good kick up the arse. Send a CV with previous arse kicking experience to my usual address.

Thanks

Giving Thanks

Yesterday was Thanksgiving in The US. Talk of turkey dinners, big family gatherings and a general sense of excitement filled BP and twitter. I of course knew about this holiday in some detail having seen it displayed countless times on US TV and more recently in my growingly in-depth studies of US history and culture. This, however, was the first year I felt that I really understood it.

It really is a thing of beauty.

Here in the UK, it has dawned on me, we have no real celebrations of the ordinary all of ours being of the spiritual kind. The big ones being Christmas and Easter. It is of course true that these holidays, for many, have no real religious significance anymore but the trappings are still there. Due to this faux spiritual, however, the focus rarely reaches a human level.

The sense I get is that this is not so with Thanksgiving. There seems to be a genuine process of grounding. Participants stop, count their blessings and give thanks for what they have. OK perhaps it is not that rose tinted but from where I stand it appears pretty damn special.

Having spent the past few years on something of a mental and physical roller coaster I have much to be thankful for. Continued life being a key one. My nearest and dearest have stayed close and supportive and continue to be the bed rock beneath my feet. As a family we have come through many storms intact and stronger.

This year I am also particularly thankful for new found friendships.

I am tempted to avoid the specific at this point but to be honest that almost seems cowardly. So I won’t.

I am especially thankful for the friendship I have with Alachia. It has, in no small way, lifted me and continues to do so. Our conversations range from the trivial to the monumental and each is a joy to be a part of. By means unconsidered not that long ago I have made a connection that I will cherish forever. OK gush over.

Happy thanksgiving (belated).

The Black Dog

I am in the black dogs jaws. It’s filthy breath is filling my lungs. There are no ups only downs and all seems so pointless. My insignificance grinds my ego. Pffft!

3 – Sick (Again)

Head throbbing, stomach cramping, throat burning and sweating bullets. Oh joy.

Still mustn’t grumble.

2b – I Love Amazon

The title kind of says it all. However I will expand.

As predicted by about 10:30am I was fast asleep and dreaming of being beaten about the face and arms by a dear friend (dreams will play a big part in these posts as I have so many). I was awoken from this carnage by the ring of our doorbell. It was the Amazon Man! Ok so technically he works for City Link but he delivers all my Amazon goodies.

Living as I do in a small place it is pretty much always the same guy playing the part of Amazon Man and it is a rare week indeed that we don’t meet over my doorstep at least once.

He always gives me a friendly smile but his eyes seem to say ‘here I am busting my hump and you answer the door in a dressing gown at 3pm – bastard’ Still I bare him no ill will.

OK back to Amazon.

I love books. So much so that I am banned from several county and city libraries because of my failure to return what I borrowed. As a child I would always request books for birthdays and Christmas. My mum approved of this my father however, in pure old time Yorkshire logic, was convinced this confirmed me as a big southern jessy. Living as we did in relative poverty every book was a treasure in my eyes.

Flash forward several years.

When I read about Amazon opening in the USA I was stoked. I may be wrong but I remember this as one of the first genuine online shops. Having little time to browse real life bookshops this was like nirvana to me. I of course went mental and had soon spent several thousand pounds (no joke). The thrill of brown parcels arriving all the way from the US of A filled with books was like a drug.

When they opened the UK store the joy almost killed me.

OK so nowadays finances do not allow the excessive purchasing of the past but the thrill still remains.

By the way it wasn’t a book that arrived but the starter box for D&D more of that later.

2a

Just popped onto WoW before the shut down to grab some Mohawk Grenades. OK they are maybe another fluff item which does little to enhance the game but it made me laugh and that's gold in my book.

It is always strange to me that the greatest urge I get to actually play WoW normally hits me on a Tuesday when most weeks, due to maintenance, I can't. I guess this is part of wanting what you can't have. Either that or my brain has decided that WoW is bad for me and stores all my desire up when it can't be met.

OK maybe that is a path best left unfollowed.

2 - Oh so tired

Up at 5am again this morning after laying down (just for a minute) at 8pm last night. OK so 9 hours isn't exactly excessive but I know come 9am I will once again be in the land of nod for another 8 hours or so.

I worry that life is just shooting by. I have this aching desire to do so much and have finite time in which to do it and meanwhile I'm hibernating. Frustration!

Don't get me wrong I have come to terms with the fact that physically I am now less then I once was. My days of foolishly fighting that fact are over but I'd hoped that the more sedentary pursuits were still possible.

So...

1

Where to begin.

I guess it would be good to explain what this is all about.

One of my homes on the internet indeed the place I can be 'found' more than any other is the WoWCast channel of BINDpoint. For want of a better word (because there isn't one) it is a chat room. It isn't a noisy place although it does have it's moments as the participants are few but vocal (or should that be verbal).

I suspect all were initially drawn there after listening to Alachia on WoWCast. I certainly was. Topics range from WTF just happened on Glee to the existence of God. One recurring topic seems to be lamenting the loss of 'meat' in society or in other words depth.

I describe it as the goldfish phenomenon although I suspect inaccurately. In essence a great deal of the population is happy with the surface of things. They feed on quick morsels of information which is equally quickly digested and soon forgotten. Thoughts of diving deeper do not occur to them indeed are frowned upon by their peers. In order to cater for this majority things are 'dumbed' down and fashioned into easily consumed chunks.

OK I realise I am distracting myself. So back on track.

(There is a part of me that would like to go back and change a lot of the above but as you will see in a minute I can't)

So perhaps unrelated to any of the above one of the regular BPers (Jaminbee) came up with what I think is a great idea. In essence that we (fellow BPers) write a blog not as some type of fluff piece that is sanitised and streamlined but rather as an honest reflection of our beliefs and thoughts.

In order to ensure a level of purity (honesty?)it should be first draft stuff. The process of constant review and change that now sucks the life out of blogs is therefore disallowed.(This also includes going back to correct grammar, spelling etc - I have not so far 'gone back' but may have already broken that rule by correcting as I go - so sue me!)

The use of pictures is also forbidden (much to Alachia's disgust - haha) I guess because although a picture may paint a thousand words they aren't necessarily yours.

We should aim to write 3 times a week. I assume this is to avoid awaiting an 'event' before putting finger to keyboard.

This next one kind of stumps me a wee bit I'll be honest (hey it's working).

Thinking is NOT allowed. Hmm my only problem here is I think far faster than I type. Although I appreciate the necessity to avoid over thinking and streamlining between brain and paper.

One thing I also believe to be important in this exercise is to forget ideas of an 'audience'. The whole process (as Jaminbee points out. I would link you to his original article but that is also forbidden) of tailoring for the goldfish generation is what has led to the absence of depth and truth.

So...

...and so let the truth roll forth.

This is a zero bullshit zone. If you are easily offended than grow a pair already!