Express Yourself!

It’s funny to think that the endless stream of emotions that we feel everyday are often boiled down to one dimensional terms like happy, sad, frustrated or mad. That despite the millions of minute intricacies that occur within every smile or frown we still reduce that felling to either happy or sad. Your favorite television show gets cancelled, “well, I feel sad” you say; or perhaps the family dog passes on and you use the same adjective to describe your disposition, it’s all every odd and all very funny when you think about how we pair some of the emotions together.

The only reason I bring all this up is because I was watching Six Feet Under this morning.

There I am watching Six Feet Under and part way through the exhausting rollercoaster of emotion that is the show, I suddenly reflect on how involved I have become with this rear-projected reality, I was just as involved with Nate’s plight as I have ever been about anything in my own life, which is a completely ridiculous concept, but nevertheless true (at least on a very instinctive level).

This sudden awareness of what I was going through instantly brought a smile to my face, and at once gave me an idea for project of Claire Fisher proportions. During the remainder of the episode if I suddenly became conscience of my involvement in the show, I would try to maintain my expression and take a photograph to document my attachment to the show. The results are pretty hilarious, especially in light of my introduction here and I admit some of the photos are rather indulgent, but it is a saturday morning after all and Roadrunner isn't on anymore...

(AFTERWORD: Despite my hypothesis that we reduce all emotions into singular adjectives I'm now aware, after looking through 25 years worth of photographs, that these are the only four expressions my misshaped head in capable of making).

Hello Lovely...

I'm thinking of placing an add in the newpapers personals. May read something like this:

"Level 12 Elf with specialties in both marksmanship and magic, seeks early 20s female Necromancer to discuss the black arts and enjoy raising the dead with. Must love dogs."

Not sure about the font yet, but tired of waiting for the one special Dark Elf to knock at my door.

I See Dead People

Three series of six feet under in three days makes Mark a little crazy.
Three series of six feet under in three days makes Mark a little crazy.
Three series of six feet under in three days makes Mark a little crazy.

Three series of six feet under in three days makes Mark a little crazy.
Three series of six feet under in three days makes Mark a little crazy.
Three series of six feet under in three days makes Mark a little crazy.

Three series of six feet under in three days makes Mark a little crazy.
Three series of six feet under in three days makes Mark a little crazy.
Three series of six feet under in three days makes Mark a little crazy.

Friendly faces everywhere. Humble folk without temptation.

For nearly a week now my days have been spent staring aimlessly at my inbox and reading onion articles until I eventually fall asleep browsing some inane post on IMDB (read "the answer to what was in the briefcase" thread - truly the work of super nerds and Taratino Fanboys who take his oft retarded word as lore). I’ve been bored to say the least, and I fear the Internet is sucking my will to live. The constant flashing of the Word typing cursor seems to bellow at me “useless” as my word count rests without direction at 0.0.

To be fair though, while the Internet does do more harm than good these days, everyone once in a while I do find something online that helps wane away those daylight hours without reducing me to tears at the reality of how uneventful my days are.

Now call me crazy, but I’ve always wondered what my friends would look if illustrated in the South Park style, well, now I know…I found this program on the glorious www and after tinkering with it for about hour I couldn’t help myself from smiling ear to ear at the realism of each of the following characters.

While I think we all look great, David’s Butters-esque smile absolutely kills me. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you The Super Friends of South Park.:

This surefire cure for the blues can be found here.

If there is one thing I think about more than anything, it’s the prospect that one day the world will become overrun with zombies…

Call me crazy, but I’m sure one day it’s going to happen. There you are eating your breakfast of coffee and oats or perhaps you’re the sort of cat that likes tea and crumpets in the morning, I know I do; whatever the scenario, the day will come when you lean over the kitchen table to kiss your loved one goodbye before heading out to a hard day of work at the office and BAM! She/he tries to eat your face off. Are you prepared for that? What would you do? After all, they were, up until a few moments ago anyway, the love of your life. Just because they’ve suddenly become a member of the living dead doesn’t necessarily mean you have to stop loving them, does it?

Then again, the sacred vows of marriage do proclaim until death do us part, so technically, if you’ve ever had a gripe with your loved one: maybe they spilt red wine on your favorite shirt, maybe they ran over your cat, or maybe they just bug you with their always happy upbeat spirit, well now you have the catholic church’s blessing to lob their head off with the nearest kitchen knife. According to the Pope and his rules and regulations of marriage, God wants you to kill zombies. Once they’re dead, they’re fair game. How can you argue with that? But what happens and bear with me now, if they are really attractive? Could you still axe them? “But, Mark, they're a zombie, for goodness sake,” I hear you say, well, that is true enough, they are the undead, but when I say attractive I mean really, really attractive like Natalie Portman in Closer, or if you are a lass, Tim Curry in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, were talking super fit, here people. I don’t know about you, but I’d find it pretty difficult to put fair Natalie out of her eternal misery of damnation, especially if she had that pink wig of hers on. Sure, she’d constantly be trying to eat my brains, but I’d be a fool if I said that wasn’t kind of a turn on.

Super hot deadites aside, I’ve always wondered how I would cope – scratch that, how I will cope – when the zombies do finally take over. If it happens suddenly like in the remake of Dawn of the Dead where I wake up one morning to find one of those tricky zombies running around my lounge room, then I imagine my chances of survival would be pretty slim, but if I received word ahead of time about the rising of my great grandparents, well I think it would be safe to say I’d be in pretty good shape to get past day one, as training to kill zombies is something I’ve spent my life preparing for – believe me, when I first heard of the Bird Flu I was so excited that the dead would walk I went out and bought a new chainsaw and lawnmower.

Now, I’m fairly confident in my abilities to take out zombies, but you can never be too sure, you know, so I decided to put myself to the ultimate test developed by American scientists who have devoted their whole lives to zombie research. Based on my given answers, a super secret, super computer located somewhere in a super secret, super government lab seems to think I’m the Rupert Everett of zombie killers.

Sure, I like to fall in love with the undead, but with the fall of the government and the police department, I figure there's no laws against it and besides, you can never choose who you fall in love with, right? Anyway, take the test yourself here and post your results in the comments section of this post; and don’t worry, if you find the prospect of living dead terrifying, I’ll make an effort to help you out with some pointers.

Talking Grand Final Blues...

What loser forgets to take Grand Final day off work? Unfortunately, I know only one fool lame enough to let that most hallowed day in September slip through their fingers; I refer of course, to the loser typing this post.

Yes, after taking Saturday night off for the past few weeks, the probability of securing a day in the sun with the time honoured Aussie tradition of snags n’ beers in between kicks of the pig’s skin were sorrowfully slim to none. Now, I don’t even like the Aussie Rules, but given a few drinks and let’s say three sausages, I’m yelling for holding the ball and dropping the C-Bomb at the pixilated umpire like any other hot-blooded, testosterone-filled male.

Serving maybe six people at best, during the sunshine hours of work, I quickly slipped into a mass depression as every customer came to see The Devil Wears Prada – mostly mothers with their daughters or gay couples; I guess most of the “blokes” planned ahead a saw the movie before the big game – while I sat forlornly staring out of the window at the merriment of the people playing and having an all-round goodtime (we don’t have any windows at work, so I spent most of the day starring at the ventilation ducts planning my escape). The only reprieve from the dreary white walls of work came on the cover of the Age’s Weekender.

Reaching a point where any distraction was welcomed, an animated Tim Robbins made his way around the facilities in a modest attempt to cheer me up.

A cheeky Daisy gets some time alone with an Academy Award winner.

Hannah giggles at Tim's persistent advances.


A surprised Tim nervously eyes Bonnie as the lioness prepares to pounce.

A wandering Tim finds a surprised Rita (note the expression of Renae who can't believe her luck at meeting her favourite actor)

Tim did bring a little sunshine into an otherwise grey day, but I think next year I'll just take the day off in advance.

Driving for your life

I'll be honest with you, when I first faced the prospect of driving I was a little apprehensive. After all, this is something I should have done way back in the 1990s, a time long before the iPod and high-speed broadband. Goodness, back then I still believed all gorgeous, long-legged blondes named Britney that I had cyber sex with were what they seemed, and not truckers from Adelaide named Big Jed - but then again, what did I know? I was sans license in those days. Alas, all that has changed now and I'm well on my way to becoming a John Q. Nobody on the road. The early twenties phobia of driving is long behind me and I'm ready and eager to start my own midnight drag club.

For the life of me, I can't remember why I found the idea of driving so terrifying in the first place - minus images of horrific accidents every time I would drive with certain friends (looking in your direction. Mr. Mathews), whatever the case, I found myself receeding into a life spent moving the car from behind a control pad rather than the steering wheel. However, it turns out that my years of Xbox and all-round suburban Bumdom did yield some precursive tools which I now find help me on the road: renegade drivers and small children running out in traffic are not dissimilar to the infected zombies of Resident Evil parts one and three (not so much the second one), in that both scenarios require you to slow down, address the hazard and give way if necessary.

Not only has my many years of gaming given me the abilty to aviod harazards - be it fresh-eaters ,stray pets or otherwise - but it has also bestowed upon me a way of looking at the roads that your average "I just turned 18, look at me" driver (or child born after 1987 for that matter) could never hope to achieve. I refer to the following image taken from today's lesson.

Note, I still have all my lives and have already equalled the high score...

Pending I don't have to park off any moving logs and past any jaw-gaping crocodiles, I may be the safest driver in the world. Well, that is, the safest driver in the world in the event that zombies do eventually take over...

and God willing, they will.

Ripley's believe it or not...

After nearly a decade of promise, I've finally got the ball rolling:

Seeing as I owe nearly everone living in the Melbourne Metropolitan area countless lifts from years of mooching, I will endeavour to return the favour by securing a small buisness loan and driving every single one of you to work everyday for a year. I realise that this doesn't really balance out, but think of it a bit like when Allen Bond got busted and promised to pay back .10 on the dollar.

The countdown to my Ps has begun.

Why? Because Ben Affleck says so...

Sure, Ben Affleck has made some trash - and it should be said, nobody loaths Michael Bay movies more than me (well, that was until I found out that you can circle Armageddon on your calander sooner than you think!!!).

- and yes, I'll grant whoever stands in objection to my claims that Bounce and Forces of Nature are as bad for your health as chain smoking, but mark my words, I will fight anyone: man, woman or child, who wants to attack The Affleck's awe-inspring "goon" performances in Dazed and Confused and Mallrats, and remember before he was an Oscar winner, he stole the show from Kristy Swanson with his "just take it, man" delivery as Basketball Player #10 in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer - all amazing performaces, all of them.

But somewhere along the line, and for reasons beyond even the most avid fan's imagination, the people forgot Ben; cast him aside like Deuce Bigalow sequel; stopped downloading DivX rips of his movies and started going to Colin Farrell movies instead. These were dark days indeed.

Yet, it seems that now, after much waiting by the fans, that Hollywoodland is a surefire winner, with The Allfeck's characterisation of George Reeves said to be right up there with his Chasing Amy and Phantom days winning big ups at the Venice Film Festial. Not only this, but besides being a lucky enough [dare] devil as to hook, line and sinker the often smoking Jennifer Garner, 2006 also saw The Allfeck's return to director's chair with the shooting of Gone, Baby, Gone a feat he has not indulged in since I Killed My Lesbian Wide, Hung Her on a Meat Hook, and Now I Have a Three Picture Deal at Disney way back when Ace of Base topped the Billboard charts with All That She Wants, or 1993 if you prefer a numerical timeline. Thankfully, it seems that the Affleck is set for a much deserved return to the limelight.

...But all of this provisional, lest we forgot the reason the world fell in love with the man in the first place. If your memory fails you, quickly, sign up any highspeed broadband contract availible, care not about the small print, and press the following link as fast as you can:

Life Lessons 101

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For those who can't wait for the realese of Hollywoodland, you get a dose of The Affleck's radio performances here.

Don't laugh, It's a serious problem, Baby

I was thinking earlier tonight of the old adage that the average male thinks of sex once every seven seconds. Immediately I thought of sex. Then I thought of sex again...

and then again...

….but after about 20-25 minutes of catholic school girls playing a naughty game of Twister, I realized that I probably thought about sex closer to seven times each second.

Concerned by these figures I spent the next two hours taking online sex surveys, to assure myself I'm part of the "lie back and think of England" status quo. I won't bother linking any of the quizzes as a Google search will yield more than enough for a thorough diagnosis, but suffice to say, if your thoughts are anything like mine you may expect a reading like this:

* You should consult your General Practitioner about your sex addiction.

(Note: apprently it is healthy to see Margret Thatcher, John Major, James Callaghan and other former Prime Ministers of the U.K. in the following ink blots:

- Am I the only one turned on by these? You dirty tart number three)

Terrified, questions started to circulate my smutty little brain: “what’s wrong with me, surely I’m not in the not that far gone that I would be called an addict?” and “Holy Jesus, what can I do about this?”

I continued to take a more of these tests with similar results, until eventually I realized that many of them were run by private sex addiction clinics and almost always recommended help at one of their clinics. I guess that's what they call synergy in the big city.

Of course, there were a few tests I took that arrived at the same perverted conclusions, but by that time I had found the picture of this guy on one of the respected sites; and if he’s out there, I know I’ve still got some time to go before I join Sex Addicts Anonymous.

...Then again it could be a sound place to meet women???

Steve Irwin is dead!

By now I'm sure you've all heard the devastating news: Steve Irwin has brutally murdered by a savage, wrong side of the tracks, reform school juvenile, emo-esque stingray. A fucking stingray!

Apparently, the man loved the world over for his 'crikey' catchprase, was filming a documentary off the coast of Port Douglas when a stingray's barb pierced his chest.

If you're like me, then the news of Steve's death isn't all that shocking; it had to happen sooner or later, right? The way he wrestled those crocks, one had to think that he would be caught in a triple-lock death suflex sooner or later. Hell, I'm sure even Steve wanted to go out in the jaws of one of the crocodiles he loved so much, but a stingray - please, this is outrageous.

The only explanation I can fathom is a global conspiracy involving the numerous governments and global corporations and probably even those pale geezers from the Davinci Code, which all feared (and held back) Steve's ability to end the war on terrorism and secure world peace.

Steve Irwin's chest cannot be pierced by a stingray's barb.

Steve Irwin's love for taunting crocodiles, like the love his millions of fans around the world had for his larrikin antics, will live on long past this truly darkest of dark days...

...But rest assured:

I will hunt down and kill every motherf$%#@g stingray I can get my hands on (...Including the Philadelphia Stingrays Hockey team, if I have to), until I rain down venegeance on that no good sonofabitch that has denied the world of ever seeing a sequel to the critically aclaimed Collision Course.You know, I don't know what a barb is, but it better be loaded because when I find you, Stingy, your a one dead sea bed dwelling tit.

Theme Time Radio Hour

You know that niggling feeling you get sometimes when you wake in the middle of the night, that feeling that you are disconnected from every soul on the planet, and if only for that time, while the sun is hiding, you can't help but feel totally alone?

Well, finally there is a cure for the blues; and not just lonesome blues, but all the blues: homesick blues, financial blues, my dog peed on the carpet blues, and what Hank Williams diagnosed as the lovesick blues - all of these and more, can now be mended with one weekly dose of radio. Well, to be precise, one weekly dose of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour.

Playing through an assortment of themes on a weekly basis and handing out wisdoms like free candy, Dylan is touring the radio waves and providing free medical care to any that care to listen. Girlfriend left you for an another man? Car's being repossessed? Megatron Basketball whipped you by 30 points? Well, perhaps a little blend of Calypso and Bluegrass will help turn that frown upside down. Results guaranteed.

Get your dose here.

(If pain persists please see a doctor)

'T.S. Elliot once said, “radio is a medium of entertainment, which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time and yet remain lonesome.” Well you’re never lonesome when you listen to Theme Time Radio Hour.'

Amen, Bob.

Legend of Blood Ninja!

While he is already a hero amongst anyone addicted to online cyber sex, they're a few unlearned souls out there who don't know of his majesty, his prowess, his downright legend. I couldn't tell you when he first appeared online, for all I know he's been here all long, rising from time to time like Tim Curry in IT to feast on the souls of the unsuspecting, I don't know where he came from, only that he exists.

To transcribe all of his prose under one post would be a blasphemy, so, to pay homage to his work I'll endeavour to post a different transcript every other day. All of the subsequent dialogues were taken over several chat rooms. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Legend of Blood Ninja...

bloodninja: Baby, I been havin a tough night so treat me nice aight?
BritneySpears14: Aight.
bloodninja: Slip out of those pants baby, yeah.
BritneySpears14: I slip out of my pants, just for you, bloodninja.
bloodninja: Oh yeah, aight. Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat.
BritneySpears14: Oh, I like to play dress up.
bloodninja: Me too baby.
BritneySpears14: I kiss you softly on your chest.
bloodninja: I cast Lvl. 3 Eroticism. You turn into a real beautiful woman.
BritneySpears14: Hey...
bloodninja: I meditate to regain my mana, before casting Lvl. 8 Cock of the Infinite.
BritneySpears14: Funny I still don't see it.
bloodninja: I spend my mana reserves to cast Mighty F*ck of the Beyondness.
BritneySpears14: You are the worst cyber partner ever. This is ridiculous.
bloodninja: Don't f*ck with me bitch, I'm the mightiest sorcerer of the lands.
bloodninja: I steal yo soul and cast Lightning Lvl. 1,000,000 Your body explodes into a fine bloody mist, because you are only a Lvl. 2 Druid.
BritneySpears14: Don't ever message me again you piece of ****.
bloodninja: Robots are trying to drill my brain but my lightning shield inflicts DOA attack, leaving the robots as flaming piles of metal.
bloodninja: King Arthur congratulates me for destroying Dr. Robotnik's evil army of Robot Socialist Republics. The cold war ends. Reagan steals my accomplishments and makes like it was cause of him.
bloodninja: You still there baby? I think it's getting hard now.
bloodninja: Baby?

ometime later...(note the savvy name change:)

BritneySpears14: Ok, are you ready?
eminemBNJA: Aight, yeah I'm ready.
BritneySpears14: I like your music Em... Tee hee.
eminemBNJA: huh huh, yeah, I make it for the ladies.
BritneySpears14: Mmm, we like it a lot. Let me show you.
BritneySpears14: I take off your pants, slowly, and massage your muscular physique.
eminemBNJA: Oh I like that Baby. I put on my robe and wizard hat.
BritneySpears14: What the f*ck, I told you not to message me again.
eminemBNJA: Oh ****
BritneySpears14: I swear if you do it one more time I'm gonna report your ISP and say you were sending me kiddie porn you f*ck up.
eminemBNJA: Oh ****
eminemBNJA: damn I gotta write down your names or something

Beware the Blood Ninja. He won't be stopped. He can't be stopped.

Pardon the delay

Potentional cover to my forecoming autobiography: Mark! Found wherever good books go to die.

Brian and Me

Phone rings.

"Hello. Hey, Brian, How the heck are you, you old sunofagun? Excellent, good to hear, buddy, loved Smile by the way. Sunday? Nothing really. Lunch? Sure, around 1.30, after your painting class. Yes, I'll bring some chicken. Yes, and I'll bring my camera."

Top guy that Brian Wilson, but when we get on the source together with a camera near by, things can get crazy.

.................

Well, the clock on the wall says it's time to go. Until next time, remember, you are all my sunshine; and if you think the sunny sun is too hot, just remember, at least you don't have to shovel it.