We demand additional lumber

The problem, clearly, with trying to update the blog every couple of days and posting every 2 or 3 weeks or so, is that things keep happening. What's written here is already getting well behind. But, realising that if I keep trying to update it without ever actually putting it up, it'll never get put up (this has happened before), I may as well cut my losses and post this without covering everything I wanted to. Who knows, maybe I'll be back with shorter posts about more recent events (there was a matromonial ceremony that took place recently for example, and our cat decided she was some sort of troglodyte cat) soonish. Funnier things have happened at sea.

Anyway, I've often said before that (obviously) the single worst thing about not having a job is not having enough resources to do the things you'd like, and with Christmas fast approaching this effect is accentuated somewhat. I'm probably more happy than most with a considerably higher time score than average on the whole "available time vs. available money" continuum (scale / graph?), and don't consider myself really "career-minded" (any more than wishing somebody would give me a chance to start one, at least) in any way, but even I begin to run into problems of the "damn it all!" variety when the scenario of available time being set to 'all' and available money being set to 'virtually zero' has continued to run for long enough. I guess I'm saying if the scale runs from "high powered corporate lawyer with no social life working 70-80 hour weeks" at 10 to "guy who does the absolute bare minimum required to collect the dole and lives in the back of a combi van which he drives around to various surfing beaches" at 1, I'd probably have to put my own preference as high as a 4. Shocking, I know. OK, maybe a 3. But the point is that the 1-2 range lifestyle just isn't that fabulous after any kind of extended period, or, as my mother often likes to point out, "being poor's no fun".

I'm sure it would suck even more largely were it not for a range of factors, being A) Karen paying rent and so on, B) my parents slipping me money occasionally and C) having a large number of friends who are embarrassingly good at buying me things - in particular drinks, regarding which some unspoken agreement seems to exist, mandating that I should be kept in them at almost all times. I'm sure people must get sick of this 'buying things for Ben and sometimes Karen' routine especially, so in case it appears I'm taking it for granted, let me try and emphasise (lets go to the alphabet again) that A) Karen only has no money because of me, so blame me entirely on that one, it's my bad; and B) that I'm not, and that I really do appreciate everybody's generosity a great deal. I am trying to keep a rough track of how many movie tickets and lunches and so on I have had thrown my way by various people, and have a definite handle on a number of small sums of more tangible money that I owe specifically - although I'm afraid I have to acknowledge that in regards to drinks, I have long, long ago lost count. I'm only sure that many different people have bought me a great many of them, so I'll just have to reciprocate in an indiscriminate scattershot fashion when I have the wherewithal to do so. Possibly the best option here is to fill a decent-sized Para pool with vodka one night and invite everybody over for a swim, I dunno.

So it's all hands to the pumps currently in trying to obtain a job, except of course it has been for a while, and nothing seems to be coming of it. A new and deeper level of proactivity is probably required - except I'm not exaggerating things too much to label myself utterly useless at this kind of "get out and throw yourself in people's faces" approach - in fact I find the whole concept of relentless self-promotion sort of somehow wrong and vaguely abhorrent, much like it was one of those strange advertising displays of plasticised dishes you see in the window of some restaurants sometimes (models of food? Did they just actually make the food and then cover it with boat-hull strength polyurethane, or what? It's off, I tell you). However, lacking (time for yet another alphabetical listing) A) any kind of success at applying for jobs I find advertised; B) the contacts in useful places that seem to be a huge part of getting a job; C) a Lotto win, it's probably time to get a haircut and go start harrassing people to gimme a job, damnit. I'm skeptical about the chances of this actually working (By now, I'm very, very cynical about the whole obtaining a job process full stop, as I've probably indicated here before) but as mentioned, the status quo appears to be producing diddly squat, and diddly left town. So a change of tact is probably called for. Much like getting more organised is called for, writing in this thing more regularly is called for, writing more in general is called for, vacuuming the floor again is called for... sigh.

(Just in case you were wondering).

I had a job interview (and the haircut, which I don't like very much) a while back, and the position sounded like it would be about an 8 on the previously mentioned scale...hmmm. I don't think I stand much chance of getting it however, since it sounds like they're after someone with a lot more experience who is also, if possible, some kind of bully. Many of the questions I was asked were essentially focussed around how good I would be at yelling at people. I lied and said I'd be fine. Bizarrely, I was also grilled for a good 10 minutes over the fact that my CV says something like "I get along well with most people..." somewhere on it. "What do you mean, most people?" my interviewers demanded, having (I could see the copy of my CV they'd printed out, upside down, from across the desk) actually underlined that word in preparation. "Who are these people you don't get along with?" This took me surprise somewhat, especially since it had seemed a perfectly reasonable statement to me - the word "most" merely being a totally throwaway concession to some kind of concept of honesty I made while I was writing the CV, essentially without even thinking about it. I spent 5 minutes trying to give the answer "Well, like most people, I struggle to get along with complete arseholes" without actually using the term "complete arseholes". This is more difficult than it sounds, especially when I had to use some of my brain power to simultaneously take a mental note to change that sentence in my CV, so that from now on it reads: "I am a benevolent and loving friend to humanity in its totality - and indeed, to the beasts of the field and the birds of the air." Sadly this would of course probably just result in the next interviewer asking "I note you don't mention fish. Do you have a problem with them?" or maybe "I'd like to know what you'd do if a form of extraterrestrial life - life, but not as we knew it - arrived here on Earth and took up a supply position with Talleys. Do you feel you could establish an effective working relationship with a creature that existed in a realm beyond our own limited scientific understanding?" I bet other people don't have this problem.

Curriculum Vitae: God
Job Skills: Omnipotence
Work history: Before the dawn of time - present: All things to all men.

Or maybe they do. "This certainly seems impressive at first glance, God, but just looking over things here, I was certainly left wondering - and Ron had similar thoughts, didn't you Ron - can you make a rock so heavy that you yourself can't lift it?"

Ah, the job application process. Some 2 weeks or so later and Ron and his buddy at Foodstuffs are yet to actually bother with officially rejecting me. Oh well.

Anyway, much more fun employment-wise was a short play-skit-thingo I performed with some other stalwart Dramasoc types a short while back, allowing me to add "professional actor" to join "professional musician" and "professional filmmaker" (shut up, taping lectures at uni for the A/V department is too film-making...I'm Renaissance Man, I tell you. RENAISSANCE MAN!) on my CV. Actually, neither of those two things are actually on my CV - more revision clearly required. But a professional actor I nevertheless now have been, as we more or less winged this "edutainment"type interactive "learning the history of science is fun, kids!" presentation for the benefit of about 50 secondary school science teachers. The idea was to illustrate, in a hopefully "edutaining" fashion, a paradigm shift (ooooh!) in 18th century to actually collating, classifying, and comparing interesting specimens like fossils, bits of foreign animals, cultural objects etc. in a (proto-) scientific way, rather than just bunging it in a display case in your stately home somewhere and making up a story about it ("Yes, it's a baby mermaid/dragon horn/plant-sheep thingy" etc.) as seemed to be the fashion throughout the 17th century. It seemed to go down well, and in another first, in sticking to character, I had wine for breakfast (still gross at breakfast time). So well, in fact, that they are full speed ahead for touring it to schools next year, and apparently want us to do it again early next year, possibly for some visiting BBC science programme presenter. Crikey. Still, huzzah, more money, and more making things up on the spot and (hopefully) having people laugh at them. Good times all round. They are also apparently keen to have me help write whatever 'script' there may be for this next one, so I guess that might technically make me a professional writer as well...did I mention how I was Renaissance Man? Yes, Renaissance Man who can't get around to updating his blog.

Actually, in defence of not blogging, I have been a little bit busy with Catch 22 stuff, he says, noting again that this post has gone past its one-month anniversary, and is yet unreleased onto the internet. Yes, busy for that entire month... much like the proactive job hunting, it's all about the unacted upon but entirely genuine-at-the-time good intentions, I suppose. But show rehearsals are finally underway and are set to continue apace, especially early next year. The first one was reassuring in that I found I actually had director-esque things to say - having not really tackled the job before (or not really properly, anyway), I was slightly worried I might end up sitting there staring into space with nothing helpful to say. Thankfully I turned out to be sufficently opinionated to get people to actually change the way they were doing things, and now after a few more I feel much more confident about the whole process. (Any members of the cast who may be reading can ignore those uncertain sentiments; it is merely my little joke, because I always have been and still am absolutely 100 percent sure about my own directing abilities. Ahem.)

And now, since I have to go and talk more about show related stuff tomorrow and thus need to go to bed, and since the playlist has come to an end, and since I had determined I should post this this evening in all its rambling, less than comprehensive and outdated glory, I shall. To finish however, this. Perhaps you have to have been watching super-agent Jack Bauer ultra -competently (number of terrorists, conspirators or their cronies killed by Jack Bauer over a 24 hour period in season 5: 38) make the world safe for democracy over the last few months as I have to fully appreciate the hilarity here, but the two-line conversation at the start is comedy gold in itself. This is definitely more for the 24 fans, but is still funny.

Right. Back who knows when.