Whether you’re a guy or a girl you can never underestimate the value of a “translator”. These wonderful and truly gifted people make your life a hell of a lot more easy and can help explain to you the secrets of the opposite sex – thus saving you a heck of a lot of time and effort! They’re not easy to find at all – in fact I wouldn’t know how the hell you would find one – but if, or when, you do you’ll no doubt discover that each translator has a wide and varied following and is revered by all who know them. Translators can tell more about you and your life in two minutes than most people will know in a year. It’s that simple. It’s that effective.

So how can you tell a translator from anyone else in the community? Well, for a start, translators have a fairly even spread of friends from both sexes and people are always going to them for advice on virtually anything, they can strip a car engine AND talk about lipstick colors – often at the same time, they get the best prices on stuff that is both functional AND decorative and they can drink beer and belch, fart and talk football with the boys AND drink cocktails with umbrellas and talk about nylons, love and “sensitive” issues with the gals. Of course this is simplifying things a bit, but you get the picture. A translator can go both ways, but without having to resort to AC/DC – though some might be into that as well….

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Year’s and years ago now – back when I used to look like this – I helped “organize” a bucks party for a friend of mine, Enzo. Now while it wasn’t quite like “Bachelor Party” (classic 80′s film featuring a very young Tom Hanks) it wasn’t far from it. For instance no animals, to my knowledge, were killed during the making of our bucks party and there weren’t quite as many women involved. It was certainly clear to see that I had obviously become quite enamored by the film though, and had decided to act out several of the cast roles during the course of the bucks night. Some I remember clearly, some I remember vaguely, others I was told about afterwards…

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My weekend was a bit “Twilight Zone-y” this week. Nothing much out of the ordinary, per se’, but the “ordinary” things I did weren’t with the same people I’d normally do them with…..if that makes sense at all?

I started off by going to my parents house on Saturday. My mum is visiting with friends at Rosebud, a seaside resort town about 60 or 70 miles away from the city. Dad drove her down there on Thursday and I think she comes back on Wednesday? He’s got to fend for himself over the next few days but I think mum has him sorted out on the meal situation? All he has to do is decide which pre-prepared meal he wants on which day. Not that dad can’t cook…..he just hasn’t had the need to much in 40 years or so!

Anyhow, I took over a chicken because I said to dad that I’d cook dinner on Saturday night due to the fact that……well, I had a spare chicken! The funny thing is that I had to remember how to cook it in a REAL gas oven again – since I’ve microwaved all of my roasts in the past 6 or 7 years. It sounds horrible – the idea of microwaving a roast – but it’s not at all. I’ve become quite the expert at it and finish off by crisping it up in the broiler (for Aussies, the griller)

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I’ve found out what’s been happening with my WordPress feeds – SWEET NOTHIN! I mean sometimes they update, but most times they don’t. No wonder my FeedBurner stats read 0-1-0-2-0-2-0-2-0-3-0-2 users all the time! To FeedBurner, and the people who have had the “misfortune” to subscribe to me through there, this is virtually a DEAD BLOG – and people don’t tend to hang around dead blogs too long (or dead people for that matter). Now while I personally have yet to embrace the whole feed phenomenon I realize that there are quite a few people who do. Moreso, if something just doesn’t work right it’s damned annoying and you wanna try and fix it up at least. Anyhow, I must apologize to everyone out there who’s trying to read this through rss. I haven’t yet figured out how to fix it, but I’m working on it. I have a feeling it might have something to do with one of my WordPress plugins so I’m checking through those first. If I still can’t work it out I might have to do a clean install of the program and then go from there.

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Two blog reviews that is…

The first one you may already know about (well, if you’ve been reading this blog in the last week you WILL know about it) and that is the battle/review over at Maximum Awesome known as Blog Thunderdome. I should probably add that if anyone from here wants to “vote” for me on the comments at the Blog Thunderdome page then feel free to do so. I should also add that although the judges say that voting does have an effect over the total outcome I wouldn’t expect it to be that much. After all the guys from the Blog Thunderdome are in it for the laughs and nothing should be allowed to get in the way of a good joke.

Having said all that I have to say that some of the comments there make me laugh quite a bit. Two I particularly like were:

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Continuing on from yesterday, and it’s slightly musical theme, I’ve finally got some of my own music organized and transferred to MP3 (again). This time it’s on two different computers as well as a separate external hard drive so, hopefully, I won’t lose them again (like I did when I lost my hard drive).

I had considered remastering them from scratch but that sounded like too much hard work and I don’t really have the enthusiasm for that nowadays…..not like I did in days past where I would be at a mixing desk almost 24/7 and forgetting about food, drink, sex and sleep. Nope, around about 1991-92 I basically stopped creating music and threw my artistic talents (artistic being subjective of course) into other arenas.

At one stage during my musical life I think I was in about three or four bands at once? A “poppy” alternative jangle guitar band, a grungy guitary three piece, a goth band and a classic standards soul type band. It was a lot of work! At the same time though it was a lot of fun and I got to play with some really cool musicians. At various times I was able to play live on stage and in pubs and clubs in front of people, rehearse and record in studios, make records and tapes and video clips and even hear my stuff on the radio. I never made it “big”, but that wasn’t the issue. Creating the music in the first place was.

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Yes, I’ve accidentally watched Entertainment Tonight again – or rather listened to it from the kitchen while I was making lunch – and I found out about this whole “search for a lead singer for INXS” reality TV show that’s starting tonight or tomorrow in the States. I knew there was some sort of competition happening for it but I didn’t realize it was a whole TV program!

One of the things that pricked my ears up though were the hosts. Now I forget who the girl was but the other person hosting the show was none other than Dave Navarro! He of Jane’s Addiction and Red Hot Chili Peppers fame. It’s pretty weird that he’s hosting the show but I’m glad he’s doing something at least.

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….To quote REG from “Withnail And I”.

Apologies for not posting for a couple of days but I’ve been busy with other “real world” matters. I should warn you that I may be going on an even longer (two month) holiday if the blog doesn’t fair well in the Blog Thunderdome over the next week (or however long it takes?) Still, this might give me the chance to actually finish some things that have been on the go for a while – or at least get them more “advanced” anyhow. Rest assured though I’ll still be around on the Internet somewhere – either on someone else’s blog or working on the new design for The Temple or whatever.

I’m getting a bit sick of “tip jars” lately in my web travels. These insipid little things are now proliferating the blogosphere like Tribbles in an old Star Trek adventure. My God there’s even a site dedicated to those things so it proves that anyone will make a site about anything!

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Is it the ultimate battle arena? Are the stakes just too high? Do you have to be crazy to even consider entering into this bout?

Two blogs enter. One blog leaves! It’s full steam ahead for the Blog Thunderdome!

Holy crap it’s getting hot in here!

There’s a new “Bad Boy” in town and this one’s baying for blog blood! This new contender is the real deal baby, featuring an entire panel of hard nosed reviewers – All smart-assed up and ready to rock! Don’t be concerned with Blog Explosion’s “Battle Of The Blogs” – that’s a mere pussycat compared to this sphincter ripping specter of shame that is the Blog Thunderdome. Boasting a penalty of a two month suspension from blogging for the losing blog, you’d have to freaking crazy to want to enter into this competition voluntarily!

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I had some pretty cool news the other day. A longtime family friend of mine, Christine Griffiths, received news on the weekend that she’ll be one of eight Australians picked to carry the Olympic torch on it’s relay for the next Winter Olympics in Torino Italy in 2006. Christine has already had the honor of carrying the torch during the Sydney 2000 games (along with my mum – kinda – who was asked to hold it while Christine was getting ready for her leg of the relay) and she found that to be a great experience. This time in Italy though was a big surprise to her. Christine knew that she’d been nominated but I don’t think she really expected to be shortlisted – let alone picked to actually carry the flame.

Christine has been an athlete herself for a long long time – ever since I first knew her as a youngin’. Back then she helped to further my interest in reading and now she inspires me with her drive and courage.

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