Hello Vox! Happy New Year to you all. May 2007 be a whole lot better toward you than 2006 ever was. Y'know, I feel that ever year sucks in some way, so the one coming just has to be better, don't you think?
Rabble & I are back from the bush a few days early because we realised we'd fucked up our timing something monumental. Nothing to do with work or other commitments. Just people. Bookings on the national parks website said numbers were relatively light. When we left that is. Clearly, judging by the numbers of cars & people who rolled up after Xmas day, a heap of people suddenly decided to abandon the city for the scrub, just as we'd already decided to do. By Wednesday last week the camp ground - which is a very secluded and individualised native bushland setting - was chock-a-block with cars, jabbering adults and screaming kids. In fact, I heard at least one outbreak of vocal frustration last evening, to the tune of "SHUT-THE-FUCK-UP!". We'd already decided earlier in the day to come home early. I wasn't enjoying it and to be quite frank, was destroying the experience for Rabble. Hey! I'm a grumpy old man, what can I say?
We did a lot in 10 days. Walked mountains, experienced history and heritage, sampled & bought wines (I did.....Rabble doesn't drink), and generally relaxed as much as was possible. Me personally, well, I became more than a little discontent with my lot back here. I hate the city, the life it engenders, the people and the constant demands of family. I'd gladly sell a percentage of my next life for just a few years satisfaction, peace, serenity and productive endeavour living where we've just visited. I've harboured these desires for years now, and they only grow stronger each time we go back. I have some photos to upload to flickr but won't be sorting them until tomorrow at least. Rabble has HEAPS MORE. I seriously mean heaps more. She photographs everything. But for now, here's four I cut out this evening before settling into a mellow mood in front of the box to see the New Year in with some telecast concerts of Eagles, Cream & George Harrison. Cheers!
Who's your 'blog crush' on Vox?
Okay.....I'm not afraid to write it. My blog crush......can you have a blog-lust? Anyway, it's Nox. I have NEVER seen a woman wear a shoulder-holster like she does!
Many things to many people. That’s Christmas. To this Voxer, it’s nothing more than a whole lot of the post title. Humbug! Capitalistic, commodity-driven, materialism excited by wave after wave of pumped up media-promoted schmooze. I absolutely abhor carols, unless they’re female, 35 to 40 years of age with an hour-glass figure sporting bubble-butt hips & massive mammaries. The repetition as well! Silent night indeed……..if only it were. Then there are the trees, the decorations, the endless streams of tiny, flashing lights, wrapping paper which costs and is never given a thought to as it’s shredded uncaringly. Huge sessions of over-eating of over-rich foods which cost much, much more than at any other time of year. Add in the screaming children who have been let out of school for six weeks and the picture is complete.
Wiki says Humbug is an archaic term meaning "hoax", or "jest". It also says that in indigenous patois it means “to pester or annoy”. I reckon Wiki is precisely on target. There is no more annoyingly false faux ceremonial than Christmas. Humbug! and a very merry Bah! to you all, from the me.
Rabble and I are heading bush for the next fourteen days to get as far from the Xmas stupidity as possible. Take good care of yourselves. As I've so often said, no-one can or will look after you like you will. If you survive Christmas and make the sensible decision to go to bed at a reasonable hour December 31st without over-indulging in alcohol, loud music or attempting to fuck someone who is uglier than your usual low standards, I'll will be here to further repress you in 2007. Until 4th January ……….HUMBUG!
I'd known him eight years. He was seven when we met. As old as I am now in people terms. He never judged me, just accepted me from day one. An interloper in his life, but one his mistress obviously accepted, so he did too. He didn't have to go today, and I certainly didn't want him to. I didn't agree with it. Still don't. He wasn't in pain, his life had quality. He might have been old, deaf and going slowly blind, but he still walked around, ate occasionally and still managed to add to the garden shit pile.
We all have our time & Jeffy's wasn't today. I'll miss you, little man. I didn't go with you because for me you're still lying at the front door, in the way of the screen door. I didn't go with you because I couldn't say goodbye. It wasn't your time. I don't hate her for it, but I'm buggered if I can understand it. You still had quality because I made sure I gave it to you in some way. I'm going to miss you, small dog. So will the big dog, too.
This little black duck dabbles in the occult, did you know that? It's probably not a part of my profile and something I tend to keep pretty much to myself these days, but I have studied the ways of the Wiccan belief and magick as determined by the Gardnerian ethos. Personally, I tend towards the more humanist Wiccan belief, in that the 'religion' is what the follower wants it to be. I don't regard being a Wiccan as a religious following or belief, but more a way of life. Succinctly, I strive not to harm any other being by living my life the way I choose. Similarly, I expect no other being to impinge upon how I live my life. That, I realise, is a big ask.
Not that I practise magick (magic?) at all, but strangely, others who know of my beliefs, often like to avail of what my beliefs might be able to deliver for them. Specifically, I read Tarot. Not regularly, nor do I study the Tarot at any level, but those I read for tell me I have a gift. I'm decidedly disbelieving, and withdraw from reading for all but the closest of friends, and then only with some cajoling.
Tonight, I read for a close friend who is under some personal pressures at the moment from family to support a business freshly launched, while she herself is struggling to come to grips with suddenly being made redundant from her job as a credit assessor with a major lender two weeks ago. To be brief, the demands her family are making are unrealistic and inconsiderate of my friends personal financial position and mindset at this point in time. She is toying with the idea of selling up her residence and taking off to the UK to seek work, which wouldn't be all that difficult for her, given her qualifications. The cards delivered thus:
I'm wondering just how many other practitioners of the dark arts are members of Vox, who might be willing to tell me, privately if necessary, what they believe the cards say. I am willing to divulge further information on the querent, with her permission, should the need arise. We await your reading.
What's on your holiday wish list?
Two weeks of uninterrupted, children-less, visitor-less and utterly stress-less serenity in this place. You're so jealous I can feel the green from here. It all begins after breakfast next Thursday. I'm sincerely wishing it was Wednesday evening right now.
Sophie Faulkner - Some time letter-turner-overer on that aged TV quiz show, Wheel of Fortune and television presenter at any event where a lithe body in an expensive frock is called for. Also does underwear ads for Bras & Things stores, Wonderbra (she has one on, can you tell?) and other lesser outlets. Sophie makes appearances at the Melbourne Cup carnival fashion shows both as a judge and clothes horse - no pun intended - charity shoe auctions, and as a presenter on the Seven Network's Great Outdoors travel show.
Personally, her titties aren't as big as I normally prefer, but if she asked nicely, I guess I'd have to say yes.
What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?
Submitted by sami711.
Depends where I'm going for holidays. Whether it's beach or bush, the one tradition I insist on is the afternoon nanna-nap. I'm old enough these days to get away with falling asleep in the squatters chair after lunch, mouth gaping open and a subtle snore issuing forth.
What is your pet peeve, the one thing which really drives you mad?
Submitted by Beki.
Being the curmudgeonly cur that I am, I have many 'pet peeves'. In no particular order:
- Morons who drive faster than their brain's capacity to calculate the responses to their actions;
- Oil refiners gouging the public's pocket on fuel prices, despite falls in the price of oil;
- Carpark cockheads who open their car doors without looking to see who's parked next to them & how close;
- Peak hour traffic;
- Untidiness - even more so when coupled with uncleanliness;
- Skid marks on toilet bowls;
- Hairballs on carpets, in fact hairballs anywhere;
- Cars with all manner of garbage inside them, ie: coke cans, maccas wrappers, empty cigarette packets, candy wrappers, kids shoes, clothes & toys;
- Computer conflicts which just don't quit, despite the solutions thrown at them;
- Recruitment agencies discriminating on age;
- Self-centred, self-important bloggers.
That's enough for now. There's a few 'car' oriented grips in there. I wonder if that says anything about me?
