28 October

Live without the sunlight

Wilful

If the last 48 hours have taught me anything, its that I actually have no discipline. Self-control is a foreign concept, and it seems that more often than not I take some sadistic pleasure from ignoring my responsibilities rather than acknowledging them. Instead of a presence, I look for an absence. Where there should be, there is nothing, and where there isn't, I'll always find something. I could do the whole "explaining myself" thing about now, but its probably best it remains cryptic. Whatever the case, the past couple of days have provided SOME entertainment.

Friday night consisted of under age drinking at a bar. Before you assume this is pointless bragging, I'll try and explain how this came to pass. At about 3pm on Friday, it came to my attention that "Friday Night Happs" seemed rather non-existant. Now for someone concerned with absences, this should not be a problem. However, the presence of frequent and prolonged phone calls from a certain Finn and Robert (incriminating pics forthcoming) spurred a burning desire to take leave from my house, and with my departure create a rather pronounced absence. This was spurred on by the arrival of two house guests, and without sounding shockingly homophobic it was two gay men, and yes they are still in my house. Yes, this does bother me. No, not because they're gay. You see, my household has a habit of attracting Capitalist Scum who come here under good authority from Ron Jones, official "Master of the House" and decide to stay. Mostly doctors, this guy and his hairy Greek boyfriend are here to go to some Opera and a film festival or two.

Back to the point, the underage drinking eventuated when we finally decided (at about 9pm) that we'd meet outside the central library and more or less roam the streets. In a burst of inspiration I suggested we head down to Tanuki's Cave, a stunningly atmospheric Sake Bar and drink ourselves silly. One thing it did teach us is that sake is a very expensive way to get drunk, and chicken's hearts and quail's eggs are none too bad (this was pretty much standard Japanese bar food). Anyway, the sense of self-importance, and the overwhelming warmness and temporary blindness made the excursion wholly worthwhile, and we eventually set off for a "thoughtful" walk around town.

This thoughtful walk went horribly wrong when we began to notice the oppressive police presence on Queen Street. For a friday night it was bloody ridiculous, and despite this the "obnoxious drunken teenager" presence was equally high, which made for hilarious drunken encounters, not the least of which was one of the official "Starbucks Loitering Scum" who accused a trenchcoated Finn of being a "Sand Nigger". Ahh people, they never cease to amaze and entertain, huh?

This walk was somewhat sobered by the sight of the Seamart and a crab trying to climb desperately over its fellow crayfish cellmates to escape the tank of death. Tendrils, claws and antennae seemed to pulsate in a seething mass of fear and hatred, enough to fill us innocent onlookers with a deep and echoing sensation of depression, echoing so loudly that Robert remarked, "This is so depressing to watch".

Last night was similarly entertaining, with a bunch of us meeting at Michael's for a screening of the Kung Fu classic: Drunken Master. Well, aside from the incessant fart jokes, the quality of the movie was enough to leave me pondering the well-expressed and provocative thought, "Why so sexy?"

Anyway, I feel it has come time for the inevitably meaningless, Rumination of the Moment™:A good listener is a good talker with a sore throat. What a technique! I ought to try it on your sister!

27 October

This is Ground Control to Major Tom

timofy gwei

Well, I'm finally back. Yes, in characteristic fashion, I've jumped back on the bandwagon. Again. Of course, as usual it seems that everyone has dismounted in anticipation of my arrival, as the art of online diary writing seems to have gone "out". Of course, there's no reason that should deter me, so from now on you may consider the Memoirs of a Madman officially online. Before I begin, I think it's important that I justify (if only to myself) why I want to keep a diary. Why should I take satisfaction from this, and more importantly, why should you keep coming back to read it? The answer is pimps. Black pimps in green suits. What will make this diary superior to any other? Why, the frequency of black pimps in green suits, my dear.

Now my friend, I shall share with you the story of my last diary, the original. There was a good period, probably over 3 months ago now, where I kept a diary for a month. I never put it online, which is where confusion often arises. I busily and religiously returned to my computer, not daily, but pretty regularly, and poured my heart into this thing. The idea was that I was to publish it for all the perverted scum on the internet that take pleasure from weaving their way into other peoples' lives. Oh don't worry, I've no problem with this...in fact I take this kind of exhibitionistic pleasure at that very thought, otherwise I wouldn't have loved me old diary quite so much. Him and I were like that, veritable blood brothers. However, one fateful night, following entry fifteen "complications" arose. My brother thought it would be a good idea to format my computer, and I agreed on the condition that the diary (which existed only in a little wordpad document at the time as a string of slashes and html) be saved. He copied them all into a "docs to keep" folder, which he intended to copy over the network onto my other computer as the other one was formatted. Mais non, this was not to be. In a tired delerium, he decided to copy a folder called "docs to save", which he'd created in a subsequent format job onto the computer, and the more recent docs to keep was deleted. Untimely ripped from my nurturing hand. With my diary (which was a relatively small part of the grief process) went all my schoolwork for the last five years (again, that was peanuts...bad memories if anything!) but also five years of deeply personal writing. Woh-yeah! Out the door went my 36, 000 word (I actually have no idea what the word count was when it was lost) novella, the great New Zealand love story for our times (that was a working title, I swear!) and every little bit of personal and creative writing I did, my earliest works, if you will. I'll make no secret of it, losing that tore me to shreds, and made me feel like a shell of a being for the next good month. Recurring thoughts of worthlessness were coupled with a burning feeling of injustice and rage. And so ends the obituary...

Amen to that! Onto a lighter note, celebrations of my first (or sixteenth, depending on how you look at it) entry hurrah! Back to the whole "justification debate". When I was first presented with the idea of diary writing, I thought "Who has the arrogance to assume that other people actually give a fuck what they did in their sad little insignificant lives?" - That was "Ultra-cynical, generally nasty and helluva bad mood Tim" talking, which I assure you is not my normal form. Since then, I realised that we lived in a voyeuristic society, and the intense depression I felt following the end of the smash hit Big Brother just proved it. I was interested in other people's diaries, why shouldn't I be? And why shouldn't other people be interested in mine?