Defender of brussel sprouts

I just found out there was a National Vegetable Society. I feel protected now. I always knew the mushrooms would rise up against us soon. Now I know something stands between us, the fungi, and any other vegetables with ideas above their station.

PATTOTE: Ready, aim, dice!

No secrets

I've always believed that eventually we meet the one person we can reveal everything to. All our peeves and foibles and silly beliefs. I'm realising that that will never happen. I'm never going to be able to tell it all to anybody. No matter how much I want to.

I feel sick

What's been happening in Joburg, it makes me feel sick. Where to from here? I have thoughts about this but nothing than makes sense, just twisted up feelings, safely tucked away thousands of kilometres in the other direction.

Sinking feeling

This is not good.

Something's gotta give

It's the weirdest thing...I have all this stuff happening. Moving around, going places, seeing people. But it doesn't feel like it's going anywhere. It's just more of the same.

The trappings

Sometimes I think I'm too fussed about the trappings. I'm more concerned with the pen than the writing, the laptop case than using the laptop. Too faffed about the hows and whens than the actual taking action. Too bogged down in the details, that's me.

How you know the universe hates you

1) It's sunny. Wear sandles to work for the first time in a long time because winter was neverending. Visualise to yourself: I am tall and skinny, I am tall and skinny. Trip and twist your ankle. Limp to the tube visualising: pride goes before fall, pride goes before fall.

2) Be at work. Think, today's not going to too badly. I haven't done anything stupid, maybe today will stay a good day. Find out that two of the three pictures you've commissioned actually come from the same organisation. Visualise to yourself: I do not exist, I do not exist.

Random the second

Did you know that vibrators were the fifth household item to be electrified? Right behind the sewing machine, the fan, the kettle and the toaster. It's all about priorities right?

New poll!

Go on, make you mark. Or click. Or whatever.

Random

Yesterday, on my slow walk to the DLR (slow because I was reading The Magician's Guild at the same time), I spotted a lone cucumber lying on the floor. Just a cucumber. And I thought, oh no, someone lost a cucumber! And then I thought, shame, someone is going to get home, unpack their shopping and think, gee, I'm sure I bought a cucumber. And then I thought, wow, what if this lowly cucumber is actually an incendiary device? A really well disguised, advanced incendiary device? And then I hurried on to catch my train.

PATTOTE: The veggies really are out to get us.

A little blog arithmetic

According to my admittedly crappy maths I made:

2.038 posts per week in 2006

1.73 posts per week in 2007

0.88 posts per week so far in 2008.

So at the current rate of posting, I'll post 45.78 posts this year.

PATTOTE: I used the word post a lot in the post.

Results now in!

Larry the Lovely Laptop it is!

PATTOTE: Better living through the naming of inanimate objects

Tie-breaker

We need a tie-breaker people! The poll currently sits between Larry the Lovely Laptop or Piece of Shit.

One more vote will do it - make your mark. And then I promise to change the poll question. I'm thinking of making it a regular feature, a new question every Monday. Then the five people who read my blog will be able to make their feelings known.

The grey zone

A co-worker and I were discussing the relative merits of corporal punishment for prisoners (think chain gangs and flogging, not hanging and gassing). He was putting forward the idea that the threat of physical pain would prevent a lot of the crimes here (ie England) that are motivated by boredom and lack of respect. The country is being held hostage by a horde of teenagers, it has to be said.

This "discussion" got us off on a tangent about human rights (of course) and I was trying to come to terms with the rights of the criminal vs the rights of the victim in my head. And I was realising that the older I get the more I live in this grey zone of discomfort, not completely convinced of any argument, but a permanent fence sitter, a permanent devil's advocate. I'm not happy with that - we're supposed to have convictions, we're supposed to be passionate in our beliefs about things. I don't want to be one of those people who listen to all sides, nod at everyone and then have nothing to contribute. I mean, I do feel things in the midst of an argument. But I wonder if my live and let live attitude has taken over my mind, consumed the argument centres of my mind. I get a bit of a kick out of arguing for a side I don't believe in for my own amusement sometimes. Is this too frivolous?

Can you live in the grey zone? Can you exist with a flexible belief system? How flexible is too flexible? Can you embrace half a theology? Half a methodology? Can you be half a liberal? Half a conservative? Half a socialist? Half a republican? Can you really be"issues driven"? Or will you end up like Patricia de Lille, only voting for the things you think will get votes?

It's all just so much bullshit sometimes, we're all just making it up as we go along. I'd like to think that I still have the courage of my convictions. I'm just not sure I know what my convictions are anymore.

An illness...that's what this is

So I've added four more books to the collection. In my own defence, I was feeling bereft because I had just finished rereading a much loved epic. So I was a bit sad and rootless. It was a therapeutic buy. The newest additions are:

Shakespeare by Bill Bryson
The Magicians' Guild by Trudi Canavan
Slam by Nick Hornby
Children of Hurin by JRR Tolkein

I seem to be reading a lot more fantasy again. I don't know how I feel about that. On the one hand, I love reading good books, and they definitely are. But on the other hand, I don't want to get into a reading rut. I find that happens quite easily and I have to force myself to read something I'm not sure about. The pleasant surprise of discovering something new can't be discounted.

Something to muse about...