Happy New Year peeps!

Hope it is going well for all y'all and that not only did Santa come visiting this past X-Mass, but that he brought at least one of the items on your lists. Speaking of which, some of you may recall this, the infamous list that Kei started sometime early last year. Well, it turns out that he never quite completed the darn list. He actually didn't go further than the silly clock he had mentioned then. That of course should not come as a surprise to those of us who know this boy, finishing is not one of his strong points.

Apparently, Santa, after hearing of it through the grapevine, or perhaps, after chancing on Kei's blog while stealing his employer's bandwidth, decided to cut him (Kei) a break and not bypass his chimney-less house this past season. And not having much of a list to go on, he must have decided to guess at what Kei might have wanted to put on the said list..... And obviously he doesn't know Kei very well, or nearly as well as I do, coz no way in hell would I have picked this particular gift for Kei. Heck, judging from the 'deer caught in the headlights' look that has been in his eyes these past three weeks or so, Kei himself would never had picked the gift, let alone put it on a list.

Oh Yeah! you should have seen the shock that had registered on his face when he had unwrapped it and found a shapely, 5' 4" c-cupped figure with flawless dark skin. The shock had given way to some indescribable emotion when he had caught a flash of the sparkling whites. Now, he should have known better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. Granted, this was no plain horse and her killer smile made it hard to look elsewhere... but still, a rule is a rule is a rule....innit?

Anyway, our boy is mulling over the dilemma of his life. He would have liked to have been able to re-wrap the gift and return it to the store it came from but Santa did not leave a receipt. So, he (Kei) is stuck with the gift, at least for now. So, if he is not around to indulge your voyeuristic tendencies, he is either busy writing to Santa to get him to send that receipt, or he's out there trying to figure out how this gift works. Santa, apparently, forgot to leave the user's manual too.

But don't you worry, I will be here to try and keep you entertained and perhaps wash some of his dirty laundry:)

Speaking of which, his love hate relationship with one Brianna is finally over. The said relationship took a turn for the worse this past Sunday following yet another New England storm, spurn out of control, hit an embankment, flipped and rolled down the hill and finally came to rest at the rock bottom..... Ahem! I meant the edge of the woods. When the smoke, and the snow, had finally settled, Kei was the only one left standing, and that only with the help of amazed bystanders.

He was virtually unscathed, though I suspect the wounds are inside..... As I type this, he is still besides himself with grief at the unexpected demise of his 'baby'.

Personally, I think its about time that relationship ended anyways.... she had the unpleasant habit of making him dip into our drinking budget, and actually every other budget, one too many times. Not to mention the amount of grief she put him through over the years. I don't care how sexy she looked and sounded, personally I think VR6 engines are overrated; and big, loud straight exhaust pipes are juvenile. The only thing I'll miss is the cold air intake.... n even that, just a little.

I kissed a girl.... and meanwhile

Kei is cooking... according to his latest status on fb. Facebook, he is pleased to note, (not quite sure why he would be pleased but drinking usually makes him easy to please, and he's been drinking some this evening) has become so popular it is turning out to be quite a phenomena. Kind of like uhmmm... can't quite think of anything even close..... But it's not like he's paying me to write this crap anyway, let alone think.

So he was cooking and he invited, on the same status message, anyone who happened to be hungry to go over for some half-cooked ugali and some kachumbari and five pieces of nyama choma. Somehow, and this is not normal for him, he forgot to mention that the 'anyone' on that invite was meant for his female friends only.

An omission he will likely live to regret seeing how the only one who answered the said invite was a local bum. Did I mention how prevalent this fenomena book has become? How does one who can't afford a roof over his head manage to get an internet connection let alone have a Facebook account?

"It's called the public library, dumbass," was the bum's quick retort, in between mouthfuls of the half-cooked ugali and kachumbari and....... "and it's prudence not an inability to afford that effing roof." He had gone on to explain as he munched on the third piece of nyama and in effect making Kei feel rather stupid... you know that kind of stupid like those peeps in 'left behind' must have felt when they woke up to find that they had been, you know, left behind.....

It didn't help that this was the second or third time in the same evening that he had felt that stupid... if not worse. The first time being as he was... believe it or not... wrapping a gift for tomorrow's gift swap at the office. Yes he did quite feel rather stupid as he tried to wipe the blood off of the bloody gift. The blood in this case being from the numerous paper cuts sustained in the wrapping effort. The pain made worse when he'd realized that the said gift in the end still seemed to be wrapping the wrap paper instead of vise versa.

Then he started to cook, (perhaps I should say half-cook judging from the result) and stupid took on a whole hot new meaning as he burnt his knuckles and barely missed, by a fraction of an inch I should add, including a piece of his index finger in the kachumbari as he diced the tomatoes. Which, now that he thinks about it, would have served this arrogant bum well, if he had gone on to take a bite of his food and found a finger tip ogling at him. He'd more than likely have tried to sue as soon he'd gotten over the trauma so it's just as well. The last thing Kei needs is anaa freaking creditor. They are already carpooling to his premises as it is.

Then, (you thought that was it, didn't you....) he turns on his T.V. and instead of tuning to TNT or The History Channel like he normally does, he makes the mistake of tuning to MTV... First, he doesn't understand why the commentator's first remark is "oh! finally dude, welcome to the new world!" Then shock on him as the 'dude' goes on to introduce the playlist and Shakira's 'hips don't lie' is not number one... whaaat!

Well not only is it not number one, it is not even on the damn playlist. And to think that the only reason he sat through the whole playlist program was to see at what number she had been relegated to.

Well, in that half hour or so, Kei learnt that Britney had gone from asking to be hit one more time to gimme gimme more (no wonder she went to rehab, dame's always asking for it); that Miles Cyrus was actually the name of a girl and not some milestone on highway 66 like he had initially thought; that Lil Wayne was "ill"... though he wasn't quite sure what the illness was, unless it had to do with his repetition of the phrase of "I'm ill" at the end of his song; and that some girl - Katy Perry or something, had actually been nominated for a grammy for singing about kissing a girl.

Now, that really got to him and I can see why seeing how he actually got to first kiss a girl sometime last year and he'd gotten so blown away by the experience he was gonna sing about it from the top of the mountains, well he'd actually settled for the rooftop.... But I, being his closest friend and confidant and the sane prevailing voice in his lil head, managed to discourage him, telling him how stupid such a move would be. Of course, I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me when after the song ended he had turned to me with painful accusation shining from those big mournful eyes of his. (On second thoughts, I've met his neighbors from downstairs and I'm glad the floor didn't open up.)

Now, as I sit back and watch him watch as the bum brings his fingertips to his lips and sucks each one clean, I can only imagine what is going through his mind right now. He is wondering if kissing those greasy bum lips would be worth the grammy that singing about it would obviously win him; and I am not about to stop him this time. Even I aren't that stupid. So watch this space ladies and gentlemen, or better yet, tune in to MTV next year a time like now for the nomination of "I kissed a bum" by none other than your one and only... please insert here whatever this fool who thinks he owns me and this here blog is to you....

Merry Christmas fools... now, please stand under the damn mistletoe, there is money to be made and more to be had.

Non-essential? Me? No way....

Apparently yes way. Ten O'clock, which on regular Friday mornings would find me finally settling down to actually working, after wasting an hour n a half having breakfast and searching the internet in earnest for the motivation to work, found me this morning settling down on my couch, wondering for a bit what the hell to do with myself.

Being one of what was termed, non-essential staff, I was sent home a few minutes after getting to work this morning due to there being no power(electricity) in our work building. The winter storm, that apparently happened last night, took out half the trees in the neighborhood, which in turn, having sworn never again to go down alone, took out several essential electric poles and wires with them, rendering a whole business district and the residences around it powerless. But its not like they hadn't been warned.... I mean, haven't we been telling them that mother nature cannot ignore the birdies they've been flicking at her all this time forever? Wasn't it Crystal who told them to find a bunker or a bible.... Me I said get both.

Anyway, for all her issues, and she's got quite a few, mother nature does have quite a talent when it comes to painting landscapes and shit. I mean, she can actually turn a dreary looking background into a most breathtaking view, in the time it takes to say... (insert choice expletive)... or as was in my case, the time it takes to sleep off a double shot of rum in a little bit of coke.

O.k... I was gunning for a thousand words but the computer repair guy just called and I won't have enough time...... So I'll let these pictures do the rest for me:)

My view when I got up.

With the window down....duh!

What's up with this. I now can't see my beautiful neighbor getting dressed this morning... damn Ice!

Highway.. on my way to work.

.

Only way to explain this is that they managed to effectively camouflage themselves. How else did they evade mother nature's icy paint brush?

Brianna n I were visibly shaken at the sight of these waters. They have previously cost us al lot, in terms of time, funds, engines and what not.

this lane is usually lined with cars at around two o'clock when the shifts change. I guess it won't be the case today.

I decided to take a different route home... hopefully get gas somewhere.

I guess I was not the only one fascinated by the phenomena.

No power no gas...Whaaat! And Bri pining for gas... whaat!

Crazy folk all over the place. This dude drove by so fast in his four wheeler.....

School is open? U ain't catching me dead in there. Oh! Wait, I don't go to school... so uhmmm... neva mind.

Do I see a green light at the end of the tunnel?

Something... Must be one of the aliens that were slaving all night.

Bri and I so sympathize..... We've been here before. We know firsthand how it feels:(

Clearly, America does run on Dunkins. Must be the only Dunkin Donuts that is running...

Twenty minutes and twenty dollars later...... My curiosity and her fuel tank both satisfied....

Home is just past that last tree that seems to be hanging over the road:)

Australia: The Movie

Having arrived at the movies ten minutes late... typical you might say, we found the movie already started. I don't think we missed much other than the previews which to me are usually the best parts but what can I say. Anyway, the first full minute of the movie... a scene that started with a young aboriginal boy swimming in a river, with a black stallion.... which then cut to the kid on the same horse, racing across a great desert and screeching to a halt in front of a wooden stockade, had my wanderlust pining for Australia - the country... but that is not what this post is about.

I just read this here article and I couldn't agree more with the heading. This particular movie venture was a rather impromptu affair hurriedly forced upon me by some storm that suddenly blew up in my part of the world this past week; Let us call it Lucy for now... trust me, Katrina didn't have nothing on her. Anyway, I picked this movie, not because I new anything about it or had even seen the trailer.... and thank God coz I most likely would not have gone based on the trailer, but because it was the only one showing at a convenient time.

I am most definitely not a movie buff.... and while I've seen lots of movies with Kidman and Jackman in them, only the X-Men series comes to mind.... Actually in Australia, I kept expecting Wolverine's claws to emerge every time Jackman got into a fight. Australia I don't think will be slipping from my memory anytime soon, and it has nothing to do with those two. Nullah (Brandon Walters) in his movie debut managed, in my eyes, to steal the movie...... How? Oh! Crap... I'll have to watch the damn movie again to be able to tell you how.

Slow but sure wins the race; Not......

Not this one anyway... besides I was slow and for the most part unsure. Unsure on what story exactly I wanted to tell, unsure of how to tell it and unsure of who it was I was telling it to.

"Mhhmmm! Sounds like a lame excuse to me own eyes... But what to do? Tis the only one I got, so 'twill have to do fi now."

I did not do nearly half as well as I had hoped to do, and by the time I figured out how I wanted the story to go, I realised that half of what I had already written was pretty much irrelevant. Quite discouraging that was, and to be honest with you, I was pretty much ready to throw in the towel by the middle of week two. I didn't, though, because I had me a couple of relentless cheerleaders who wouldn't let me let up.

And so, plod on I did, picking up speed as I went. Where I had barely managed 10,000 words in two weeks, I was up to 27,000 words by thanksgiving, and with a long weekend coming up, I was fairly certain that I would make it to the finish line..... It would be close, but it was more than possible.

Imagine my shock then when, after psyching myself all day that fateful Wednesday, and toasting all night to a challenging last leg of an amazing race, I woke up to find that I had mysteriously contracted that most dreaded of afflictions that has plagued writers of world renown for ages, and try hard as I could, I could not shake the stupid block.

None of the numerous home remedies I found on the internet seemed effective... apparently the virus or whatever it is that carries this affliction, has mutated some since the days of Hemingway... Not even the the strongest rum concoction could rout it... and I balked at the suggestion of a surgical procedure... even a least invasive one, preferring instead to try and stuff my body with turkey and stuffing and cans of cranberry sauce, naively believing in my own genius..... I mean, does it not make sense that a running stomach will cleans out the whole body system.

Well, as it turns out, it does take everything out of you, including energy, sense of urgency and other important crap like that. So today, more than a week since that turkey went down, and seven days past the nonowrimo deadline, I returned to my writing desk and was able to hammer out a couple thousand words in as many hours.

Yes! A light flickers at the end of the tunnel. I wish I was in that particular tunnel.

Gobble Gobble Gobllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll..............

Character, I once heard someone say, is sticking at something long after the mood in which one began it is gone...... Speaking of which, stuck is what I am feeling at the moment. Stuck in what, you may ask. Well, in an endless loop; a vicious cycle of sorts... I am finding that my imagination is not, as I had naively imagined, limitless; and I'm constantly fishing into my memory bank which, as someone has attested to on numerous occasions, is not very reliable.... and on coming up empty handed time and time again, I'm having to turn to my limited imagination... see what I'm saying? Don't worry if you don't, but feel free to nudge, push, shove... anything to get me unstuck.

Happy Thanksgiving to all y'all Turkey Lovers and to the rest, have mercy on the swans, they may speak the same language but they are not really related.

fiftee thau; 50,000

I did it people... well, sort of; kinda. It is the middle of the night or early morning... 3:43A.M. exactly as I type this here post and I have just passed an incidental milestone. Every time my story comes to a halt, both on paper and in my head, my first reflex is to hit the tool button and find out my current word-count. This last time I noticed that I just reached 50,000 and something characters with spaces..

LOL! Whatever I can do to encourage myself in this wee hour.. right. Well, sleep on my friends, or for you on the earlier to rise latitudes, good morning y'all.