Wasting Time on the Internet

"I wasted time, and now doth time waste me."
(William Shakespeare)

1) Grape Stomping Ladies
2) Charlie Bit Me
3) Chocolate Rain
4) Dancing Baby
5) Post Secret
6) Charlie The Unicorn
7) Mentos and Diet Coke
8) Numa Numa
9) Peanut Butter Jelly Time
10) George Lucas In Love

11) You're The Man Now Dog
12) Yatta
13) Star Wars Kid
14) Bubb Rubb
15) The Flying Spaghetti Monster
16) Dramatic Chipmunk
17) Homestar Runner
18) GI Joe Pork Chop Sandwiches
19) Fail Blog
20) Skateboarding Dog

21) All Your Base Are Belong To Us
22) Winnebago Man
23) We Like The Moon
24) I Can Has Cheezburger
25) Barney Vs. Tupac
26) Shining
27) Cute Overload
28) Rick Roll
29) Lazy Sunday
30) David After The Dentist

31) Powerthirst
32) Christian The Lion
33) Bert and Ernie Rap
34) Lady Punch
35) Leprechaun in Alabama
36) Where The Hell Is Matt
37) Boom Goes The Dynamite
38) Breakdancing Baby
39) Drunk Jeff Goldblum
40) Scarlet Takes A Tumble

41) Sepultura Covered By Gauchos
42) Gay Mount Everest
43) Afro Ninja
44) Cop Shoots Himself In Leg In Classroom
45) Tron Guy
46) "Leave Britney Alone"
47) Laughing Baby
48) I'm the Juggernaut Bitch
49) The Chairperson Falls
50) Take On Me The Literal Version

51) Bill O'Reilly Flips Out
52) Don't Tase Me Bro
53) The Landlord
54) Breakdancing Baby Kick
55) The Pet Penguin
56) Ms. South Carolina Answers A Question
57) I'm F*#king Matt Damon
58) Will It Blend
59) Spaghetti Cat
60) Tom Cruise Kills Oprah

61) Little Superstar
62) Chad Vader
63) Pretty Much Everywhere It's Going To Be Hot
64) I Like Turtles
65) Who Needs A Movie
66) Jake E. Lee Shreds
67) Hawaii Chair
68) Aussie Party
69) Hitler Plans Burning Man
70) Flirting with Magic

71) Look At The Horse
72) Asian Backstreet Boys
73) Leroy Jenkins
74) Pinky The Cat
75) Monkey Sniffs Finger
76) Sneezing Panda
77) Prison Inmates remake "Thriller"
78) Techno Viking
79) Ask A Ninja
80) Best Man Trips and Ruins Wedding

81) Best Wedding Toast Ever (Amy's Song)
82) Kitten Surprise (how to break up a cat fight)
83) Katana Sword Infomercial Goes Wrong
84) Matrix Ping Pong
85) La Pequeña Prohibida
86) Angry German Kid (translated)
87) Evolution of Dance
88) Ok Go – "Here It Goes Again"
89) Battle at Kruger (lions vs. buffalos vs. crocodiles)
90) Daft Hands

91) Lego Porn
92) Most T-Shirts Worn At Once
93) Zero G Dog
94) Cuppy Cakes Song
95) George Washington
96) Scary Maze Prank
97) Gay Referee
98) Human Beatbox
99) Tranquilized Bear Hits Trampoline
100) Reporter Gets A Fly In The Mouth

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life

"Life's a piece of shit,
When you look at it..."
Monty Python's Life of Brian

But sometimes, it's a piece of shit made out of ice cream, with little hearts stuck all over it.

Enjoy your life.

The Real Reason Why I Drink

Be Passionate
LOVE
Dream Big
Be Spontaneous
Celebrate
Change The World Or Go Home

This inspiring bottle of wine is brought to you by Stormhoek. I bought mine at Asda.

I'm A Crazy Deranged Fool

This is a plug for Hugh McLeod, who blogs at Gaping Void. Hugh has decided that what the world needs now is crazy, deranged fools.

Most people work for the money. Most people hate their jobs. But some people aspire to work in a way that produces both joy, meaning and contribution for both them and others, while also paying the bills.

I am one of those people.

I Haven't Really Thought This Through

My John the Baptist Years

I used to be a corporate whore, and I stayed in nice hotels, and ate in nice restaurants.... but it didn't satisfy me. I had sexy girlfriends, who thought I was funny... but didn't understand me, and that left an empty space I needed to nourish.

They were my John the Baptist years, my wandering in the desert years.

I set up Hot Vimto as a vehicle to reconnect to my creative inner child through reminiscence, smut, and rock and roll, but I have had to accept that I can't even describe myself on my own terms! At least, not to my satisfaction. I have been pretty messed up over the course of my life, and the most important thing has been re-connecting with my integrity.

*Waves*

Sometimes, Reason Is A Disease

Since I'm a person who got labelled "clever" at an early age (and a very empowering label it has been. mostly) I feel pleased and relieved that my intelligence hasn't led me into the dead end that some people get into.

This BBC article describes what's like to be completely rational, all the time.

Elliot endlessly deliberated over irrelevant details, like whether to use a blue or black pen, or what radio station to listen to, or where to park his car.

When choosing where to eat lunch, Elliot would carefully consider the restaurant's menu, seating plan, and lighting scheme. He would then drive to each restaurant to see how busy it was.

But all this analysis was for naught. Elliot still didn't know what to do. Pure reason is a disease.

Bollocks to that, say I. I like my emotions.
I like to write songs. I like to rock and roll.

I don't want to be rational, thank you.
I'd rather be a crazy deranged fool.

Gordie Is Slack

I am a new man.
I am determined to be the very best I can be.

When I look in the mirror, I want to see this:

Make Way for the Homo Superior

Wake up you sleepy head
Put on some clothes, shake up your bed
Put another log on the fire for me
Ive made some breakfast and coffee.

Look out my window what do I see
A crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me
All the nightmares came today
And it looks as though they're here to stay

What are we coming to
No room for me, no fun for you
I think about a world to come
Where the books were found by the golden ones
Written in pain, written in awe
By a puzzled man who
Questioned what we were here for
All the strangers came today
And it looks as though they're here to stay

Oh you pretty things (oh you pretty things)
Dont you know youre driving your
Mamas and papas insane
Oh you pretty things (oh you pretty things)
Dont you know youre driving your
Mamas and papas insane
Let me make it plain
You gotta make way for the homo superior

Look at your children
See their faces in golden rays
Dont kid yourself they belong to you
Theyre the start of a coming race
The earth is a bitch
Weve finished our news
Homo sapiens have outgrown their use
All the strangers came today
And it looks as though theyre here to stay

Oh you pretty things (oh you pretty things)
Dont you know youre driving your
Mamas and papas insane
Oh you pretty things (oh you pretty things)
Dont you know youre driving your
Mamas and papas insane
Let me make it plain
You gotta make way for the homo superior
Written and Performed by
DAVID BOWIE

Gordie is Sluggish

I have achieved moderate amounts of good work today. Moved furniture, thrown away crap, dealt with bits of administrivia, done laundry, and eaten an unprecedented number of Muller Fruit Corners.

But I am not In My Flow.

(Flow, according to a psychologist whose fascinating book I read, is an almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness, in which you are fully immersed in what you are doing with a feeling of energized focus, fully involved in the process and the outcome.)

I have spent too little of my life in my flow.

Most often, I have gone through life as though something life-threatening was only inches in front of me, like poor Mr Slug here.

Wouldn't your life be ruled by fear, if you were a slug in a maze made of salt?

Things are changing. I took on the mission, a year or so ago, of writing myself a new life-story, and using this blog to put it out in the world. I know it's been episodic and pretty cryptic.

That's because I still feel like I'm looking through a kaleidoscope, that splits everything up and gives it back to me every which way.

I'm learning not to be overwhelmed.

I'm learning to be in the moment. I'm learning new ways of paying attention. I'm beginning to venture into the slipstream.

The Party's Over Now

So: the party's over.

Well, when I say 'party', I mean, 'strange psychological journey'.

When I say 'strange psychological journey', I mean 'twenty years feeling like I couldn't get out of my own front door because somebody else's tickertape parade was passing by my house'.

I have a lot of tidying up to do. Then I can get on with being an adolescent again, like before I was interrupted. Except this time, I won't need to use a Fake ID.

Result.

To Be Born Again

If I venture in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dream
Where immobile steel rims crack
And the ditch and the back roads stop

Could you find me?
Would you kiss my eyes?
And lay me down
In silence easy

To be born again...

Writing and Honesty

I haven't blogged much recently, I know. I have felt like blogging, but have been preoccupied with writing and honesty. It's a hard topic to explain, but I can share this:

1. Writing honestly frees up my insides. It clears all the accumulated nard down there and releses energy, so that I can be creative again.
   
   
2. Writing honestly involves writing as though there wasn't an audience. Writing proper sentences, not just scribbling rough notes. Doing real writing, not a rehearsal for writing. But writing as though I didn't care what my audience thought about me.

I do care what you think about me. (I don't mean you, per se, I mean whoever reads me.) I also care about what I have to say. And communicating ideas requires some compassion, and some persuasiveness... but also, I've realised, a readiness to step back from both of those qualities. To step a little further away from you, and closer to me.

Prince Hal's Dirge

A female porcupine is only sexually receptive 8-12 hours per year. The rest of the time, she will scream whenever a male approaches her.

Loudon Wainwright (he's Rufus and Martha's daddy) anticipated the trials of our modern day Prince Harry in a song he wrote way back in the Seventies. (Hence the quaint old fashioned language.) I like Loudon's music and I wish more of his old stuff was available.

Give me a capon,
And some roguish companion,
A wench, and a bottle of sack.
Take me to the ale house,
Take me to the whore house.
If I vomit, keep me off of my back.

My father, he thinks,
I am a good-for-nothing,
And that I won't amount to much.
But he is not aware of my secret weapon.
I can count on my self in the clutch.


Show me a breach,
I'll once more into it.
I'll be ready for action any day.
I'll straighten up, and I'll fly most righteous.
In a fracas, I'll be right in the fray.

I can drink you under twenty five tables,
Fight and be a ladies man.
But all this will change,
When I am good and ready,
To become the king of this land.

Give me a capon,
And some roguish companion,
A wench, and a bottle of sack.
Take me to the ale house,
Take me to the whore house.
If I vomit, keep me off of my back.

written and performed by
LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III

Random and Meaningful

It was the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth on Thursday, and I was pleased to see that the Roman Catholic Church had some positive things to say, about how a biological theory of evolution complemented the Christian view of creation.

I've felt for a long time that evolution didn't take away belief in God, just one of the traditional reasons for believing: the idea that nothing as complex as the world we live in could possibly have come into existence unless there were a single powerful being to create it.

The debate I'd like to hear is not between a Christian and an atheist, but between two Christians, one of whom believes in 'creationism' and one of whom believes in God and empirical science. There's no shortage of the latter.

I get annoyed when people argue that belief in evolution requires us to believe that life has no meaning, and that everything is random. It isn't so. Randomness is only a part of evolution. It's the part that says we are all different, all shapes and sizes, and nature is wonderful in its variety.


Evolution talks about the natural selection of random variations; the idea that some variations die out, but many of them survive, and over a very, very, long time indeed, evolution created flowers and dolphins and spiders and asparagus, and people like you and me.

If you are left-handed, or have red hair, or darker skin, or you have epilepsy, it doesn't mean you belong to the Devil; it doesn't mean your family has been punished by God. I am much happier to believe that the variety in human beings exists because of random variation, rather than giving it a symbolic meaning.

Which brings me to my own family, and one of my aunts, who is a devout Christian, and quite unable to accept variety, even in her own family.

Last year, two of my cousins were diagnosed with bipolar disorder, also called manic depression. About one percent of the population are bipolar to some degree, and the condition is often associated with high intelligence and creativity.

I learned from Stephen Fry's excellent documentary "The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive" (available on YouTube) that people who live with this condition, asked if they would like to have it taken away from them, often say that they would hate to lose the positive experiences they get from being bipolar, even though they need help with the negative aspects.

This is not my aunt's point of view.

I am sorry to say that she is ashamed of her sons, and considers them a great disappointment to her. When my mother heard about this, she wrote her sister-in-law a very strong letter, and I don't think they are speaking any more.

I feel sad, and it has taken me a while to recognise that I feel angry. I haven't seen my cousins for ten years or so, but I shall certainly seek them out and make contact with them now. I'm not sure how I will respond to my aunt.

Am I Nearly There Yet?

I've always felt cheated out of my last six weeks in the womb, and a big theme in my life has been to figure exactly how to compensate for not having what I needed, when I needed it.

Being born is something you have to do for yourself. It's taken me a while to finish it off, but I think I'm just about there.

Hello, world.

Letter to the Ex - No 2

On my birhday in 2006, I played this endlessly,
and sobbed like I was Bridget Jones.

This is no great illusion
When I'm with you I'm looking for a ghost
Or invisible reasons
To fall out of love and run screaming from our home

Because we live in a house of mirrors
We see our fears and everything
Our songs, faces, and second hand clothes
But more and more we're suffering
Not nobody, not a thousand beers
Will keep us from feeling so all alone

But you are what you love
And not what loves you back
That's why I'm here on your doorstep
Pleading for you to take me back

The phone is a fine invention
It allows me to talk endlessly to you
About nothing disguising my intentions
Which I'm afraid, my friend, are wildly untrue

It's a sleight of hand, a white soul band
The heart attacks I'm convinced I have
Every morning upon waking
To you I'm a symbol or a monument
Your rite of passage to fufillment
But I'm not yours for the taking

But you are what you love
And not what loves you back
So I guess that's why you keep calling me back

I'm fraudulent, a thief at best
A coward who paints a bullshit canvas
Things that will never happen to me
But at arms length, it's Tim who said
I'm good at it, I've mastered it
Avoiding, avoiding everything

But you are what you love,
And not what loves you back
And I'm in love with illusions
So saw me in half
I'm in love with tricks
So pull another rabbit out of your hat.

Letter to the Ex - No 1

The way Alison Goldfrapp sings this, she sounds like
she's had a row in a nightclub, been dumped, passed out, and woken up in a refrigerator full of Absolut.

I'll live for you
I'd die for you
Do what you want me to
I'll cry for you
My tears will show
That I can't let you go

It's not over, not over, not over, not over yet
You still want me, don't you
It's not over, not over, not over, not over yet
Cos I can see through you
It's not over, not over, not over, not over yet

Don't let me down
Don't make a sound
Don't throw it all away
Remember me
So tenderly
Don't let it slip away

It's not over, not over, not over, not over yet
You still want me, don't you
It's not over, not over, not over, not over yet
Cos I can see through you
It's not over, not over, not over, not over yet

It's Been A Funny Sort Of Day

I finished a report that's taken me weeks to write. I feel euphoric, but am coughing violently. Not sure if this is psychological, or am allergic to something I ate for supper.

I think I should go to bed, before something interesting happens on Twitter.

Oh noes! Damn you, Darryl Collins!

Too late. It's already started...

The phrase 'Odd One Out'does not really apply here

America's National Pastime

For those who you who aren't interested in the Superbowl, National Geographic is showing a fascinating documentary about the seldom seen side of Mount Rushmore.

You may need your 3D glasses to enjoy this.