Dinner for breakfast

This blog coming live to you, at least initially, from my bed.

It's not going to get posted this morning, though. No phoneline to my bed, for one thing (although that would be great -"Get me Ben's bed on the secure line immediately!" "Yes Mr. President!"). No, figured I'd come in and type randomly away until the battery ran down, and then finish the thing off tomorrow, if it's not all such a lot of bollocks that I delete it in disgust - but then we all know that's not gonna happen, bollocks is prime material for this site...

To get the inanity rolling then, I can report that finding an adequate typing position is proving difficult. There is a careful balance to be maintained between actually being able to use the keyboard, and staying under the blankets enough so as to not freeze to death. Right now my shoulders are getting pretty cold. Then there's the conflicting electromagnetic / radioactive death ray fields of electric blanket and computer merging, with me sandwiched between them, and God knows what effect that's having (hopefully it's giving me Spiderman like powers even as I write). Finally, there's the concerning matter of the bottom of the laptop not getting sufficient air under it to cool down, due to the hazardous 'blankets rather than flat desk' arrangement. If this never gets read, what will get read instead will be a small headline on about page 7 of The Press that says 'Local man attempts blog from bed; melts groin'. I of course expect you all to come visit me in the hospital (and donate skin as is necessary, naturally).

Still, 6am, what better time to be blogging? Some may well say "What better time to be asleep?", to which the correct answer is of course "What about when that bright star / meteor thingy showed up in the sky in The Triffids and everyone who looked at it went blind, and became defenseless against the carnivourous plants, which proceeded to virtually take over the world?" But "6am" runs a close second as a good answer. Not for me, however, for I have become as a creature of the night (akin to an owl for example, although without the flying, and less inclined to subsist on a diet of insects and small rodents. Oh, and not as wise, obviously). In fact, I have spent the last 2 weeks rising at the leisurely hour of anywhere from between 4-7pm, eating whatever is going for tea for breakfast, and then kicking about the place / other people's places until around 6-9am before bed. Dwelling in the dark as it were. Paint me pallid and call me a goth. If I were a New Zealand town at the moment, I would have low annual sunshine hours - no Nelson or Kaitaia me. The light, the light, it BURNS, etc. You get the picture.

As interesting an experience as it has been to make watching M*A*S*H (5:30pm on Prime) the first experience of nearly every 'morning' (either uplifts you, or makes you bitterly cynical about the world and everything in it for the rest of the day, depending on the episode) I'm thinking it would be preferrable to see the sun more often than not again. The only possible real use for this lifestyle that I can think of is preparing psychologically for the task of wintering over in the Arctic Circle / Antarctica, which is something I'm not planning on in the immediate future. I think after 2 weeks I have fully explored the philosophical implications of listening to Dvorak with the lights off (Ooo, nice cultural name-dropping there. Mind you, only earlier today I quoted Lady Macbeth in reference to indoor cricket, of all things. What a wanker.) and I am ready to restart photosynthesis, which is of course essential if I am to develop healthy foliage. Now if I could just kick this pesky tired during the day / lively at night thing that could be so damn useful, if only I were a hedgehog (how, er, ironic). I think living during the day again would be a good idea for several reasons; what with my lack of recent interaction with the light-based society, (or the 'Eloi', as I like to call them) the fine for my overdue interloan library book must be approaching about the same amount as total Third World debt, and besides which if I skulk about in the murk too much longer, I'm probably going to evolve slime-secreting glands (wot you need to lurk in the gloom proper like) and big luminous eyes. And I'm told I have nice eyes, at least by people trying cheer me up or wanting me to donate a kidney to them anyway, so that would be a shame.

It may be time to bring this section of the entry to a halt, as my breath shows up foggy against the white background of Notepad, and I can't feel my fingers.

Right, so it's Friday now, although it feels like Thursday. I didn't accomplish a whole lot during 'today', except for finally lifting the curse that has plagued our video for so long on Monday and Thursday nights - namely, the second series of '24'. For a show that requires continuous watching for 3 months it came to a fairly abrupt conclusion, in which - surprise surprise - our hero, the indefatigable and iron-willed Jack Bauer, nourished seemingly throughout the day only by his love of serving his country and his ability to derive sustenance from trace particles of argon gas in the atmosphere, killed virtually everyone (although it took the timely arrival of S.W.A.T to actually off the main baddy). Nice work, Jack. And this from a guy who had been clinically dead only about 4 hours earlier in the day. The man is an unstoppable killing-for-democracy machine. So much so this series in particular in fact that I wondered just sort of body count he was personally responsible in the course of the 24 hour period over which the show's events supposedly occur. To the internet I went, but I could not find the figure - damn it, forget instant communication, e-commerce and the creation of a new public sphere, obscure, arcane, and generally useless facts is what the internet is supposed to be for. I'm sure it's there somewhere though.

I enjoy the series, despite it's hammy and often realistically inaccurate nature. Something is always happening, and Kiefer Sutherland is pretty good. And it serves as a great mother-son bonding device, as Mum and I discuss how ludicrous it is for example for Jack's daughter to just continuously get into (this time round, as opposed to series 1) completely unrelated and irrelevant trouble - one figure I did find on the net was that by midnight in series 2, she has been held captive on 8 separate occasions. I mean, buy a taser, woman, or even a gun, it's America after all, you should have at least 3 in your purse. Possibly the coolest thing in the final episode though was the speech given by the President, after a war with '3 countries in the Middle East' (never given names) was narrowly averted at the 11th hour, following the discovery that the evidence that was the basis for launching an ataack had been faked - the President had just been reinstated after being earlier relieved under the 25th Amendment by his cabinet who decided his response to a nuclear bomb going off on U.S soil was not strong enough. Anyway, the President called the cabinet up and went something along the lines of 'Well, we nearly went to war there for absolutely no reason at all, didn't we? I hope all you fools have learned your lesson, which is this - as leaders it is our responsibility to exhaust every other avenue before we go to war with someone, and the reason for any war we commit to must be based on absolute and total proof. Which we didn't have! You dumbarses.' I thought it was a pretty nice 'up yours' to Bush, Rumsfeld and pals, especially in light of their recent admissions that go 'oh, yeah, actually there might not be any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Sorry, our bad.' Fictional President Palmer would do a much better job in the real world I reckon, except that he's black, separated from his wife, and has moral integrity, and could therefore never be elected. Sadly, series 2 ended with the cliffhanger of him being poisoned by the architects of the grand conspiracy, and being consequently in some potentially fatal looking medical difficulty at the arrival of the credits. Hopefully he's back alive and well to lecture people in series 3.

Teens, Dan, Mog and myself went to little bro Dan's show Cosi at the Ngaio Marsh Thursday night, and it was damn good, and probably not too much more needs to be said about it, except that my brother still has a porn star moustache. What with him pinching my patented Allan Mop-top look of late as well, he looks like nothing so much as Ringo Starr trying to play a Mexican (this has occurred historically, more often than you might have thought. James T. is well aware of the horror). He is embarrassed to be walking around uni, and has actually taken a leave of absence from K-Mart so people will not have to see him. I say good move, he is only a sombrero short of being forced into a life as a bandito named 'Pedro' . He promises a drunken shave (oh dear) at the cast party at the Hoo-House, the three performing residents of which did an outstanding job in the show. Nice to be able to hear all the lines at a uni show for once as well.

I'd love to crash said party and mingle with the strange Dramasoc type folk, of which I am technically one in a non-card-carrying (they haven't issued me my card) member way, and take a chance to further appraise their idiosyncratic social organisation (initial observation suggests it goes: run around referring to Romeo and Juliet as 'R & J', fail to hand in essays etc while using up all spare time to practice production, put on production, have cast party, score each other at said cast party incestuously - perhaps even more incestuously than KAOS or TBALC Affiliates, and then deal with the fallout until next production), but any Jane Goodall-esque
field work will have to wait until a later date, for this weekend, we HUNT!!! Oh wait on, no we don't, we go to Rata Peaks.

This should be good, if one ignores the ominous weight of the tales of the by now legendary (Robert Rankin: good) previous trip to Rata Peaks. I wasn't on that particular trip, it being just slightly before my time and all, but what hushed mumblings I can prod out of people ("On the matter of Rata Peaks, the Prime Minister would like to say...AHUUUMmmmbleiminish,beherrch, rhubarb rhubarb, ahem...") make it sound like it was experiencing the live version of Deliverance, or perhaps like pulling into that certain tavern in Transylvania, and asking a few innocent questions about 'Rata Peaks', at which point the assorted grim-faced peasantry stops whatever conversation they are having mid-sentence and stares at you to a man, some ancient 'Type A: Washerwoman' crone comes up and makes the sign of the cross, or perhaps the evil eye, and the old village spokesman pipes up: "Not from 'round here, are you sir? 'Round here, folks don't like to mention Rata Peaks..."

Accordingly, to prepare for either eventuality, hillbillies or bloodsuckers (or God preserve us, bloodsucking hillbillies) I am packing my bow and arrow and wooden stake ammunition. I'm sure this will prove an unnecessary precaution. But no-one be shocked if I come back with a chainsaw where my arm should be. And before I leave, let me show you this picture of my girlfriend back home. And tell my wife I love her, should the worst happen. Or perhaps wait 15 minutes and if I don't come back, call the sheriff. Tell him our mistake was splitting up to search for clues.

No, in all seriousness I'm sure it will be fantabulous, and as Nic says we will report back with stories and photos and MISSING LIMBS, oh the HORROR!!...(Breathe Ben, breathe...calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean...)

This blog is linkless. I could have had them, but couldn't be arsed. Linkless, I tells ya! Why, it's not really a blog at all. And I should know. Let's fix it.

I was talking to Raewyn on Stuff a couple of days ago, and she was telling me how she was in Laos, and recently reading my blog. This is cool, with the internet and the world and geography being spaces between things and what have you. According to a survey I made in my brain just now, this means that this page has been accessed from Australia, Canada, South Korea, Japan, Laos, The Czech Republic, England and possibly wherever the hell else assorted James's's?s"s'es have found themselves in front of a CPU, most likely powered by a small-to-medium sized yak running round and round in a wooden treadmill. Because as we all know, Europe in particular is very primitive, and has yaks. There is no point, I'd just like to take the time to say everybody praise the mighty beast that is modern telecommunication. Apart from its lack of '24' trivia. S'ss'#es. (OK, let's see YOU do it, if your name isn't James.)

Too much waffling, not enough quaffing. Time for hot chocolate and organisation, in alphabetical order. See you all Tuesday.

Oh, and Hamish '*' is not a post, even if you include 'flooble'. Don't give me that, no it isn't.