Archives For November 2003

i have a theory that those are the most dangerous words in the english language.

think about it, almost every mistake in your like can be summed up with the phrase:“it seemed like a good idea at the time”

my first marriage could be and has been summed up with those fateful words. i`m not slagging off on my ex-wife, she`s my best friend and we both agree, we shouldn`t have gotten married, but [say it with me] “it seemed like a good idea at the time”

and it applies in a global context as well, take your pick from the headlines:

Kobe? [all together now] “it seemed like a good idea at the time”

War in Iraq? [you know you want to] “it seemed like a good idea at the time”

i could go on but you get the idea. i think as we get older we learn to recognise the signs, we at least i think i have, maybe this post is an indication that i haven`t quite worked it out.

you see when i first though about it writing it [say it with me] it seemed like a good idea at the time.

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fashionably wrapped

November 14, 2003 — Leave a comment

i wear sarongs. i wear them with pride [long before david beckham made the fashionable too]. i even got married in one. i`ve said this before, i`m not a fashion plate.

remember `and your mother dresses you funny`? that was me until i started working for my own money. and even then i`ve always been fairly staid. i know what i like and that`s pretty much being comfortable.

apparently i wear clothes well. i`ve had tailors fawn over me, because even with my remarkable posterior, i`m comfortable in whatever i`m put in.

when i was a lot thinner i used to model, actually i did the media association fashion show for the last two years but that`s about it. according to one local designer, they don`t make clothes for fat people. and that pretty much sums it up for my wardrobe. there is very little made locally that i can wear off the rack. i have a tailor here but most of my ready made clothes are from old navy or whoever has a size that fits.

i tend to wear a lot of t-shirts and jeans plus i have a couple of shirts, made of some manmade fabric that i firmly believe if it gets too hot will spontaneously combust.

for the less casual occasions if i can get away with it, i wear a sarong. i think it`s most comfortable thing in my wardrobe. the one i currently i wear as often is the third one that i own.

there is a joy to sarongs, that i think anyone who`s worn a skirt in a tropical clime will understand. i`ve been trying to get a kilt for some time, although in this climate wool would defeat the purpose.

men and skirts seem to be a big thing lately. what`s strange is that i`ve never seen it as a big deal. when i was a wee lad, the minister in my mother`s church was from tonga and went everywhere in a sarong. this made more sense to me, then and now, than our police service removing short pants as part of the uniform and having the special branch in thick wool sweaters.

i`m not a cross dresser [well there was that one time and the polka dot dress, but we wont get into that], i just find kilts and sarongs appealing and comfortable and believe every man should have at least one in his wardrobe. and to answer the question, what do i wear under my sarong?

ask my wife.

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tabula rasa

November 13, 2003 — Leave a comment

i get to start again. next week is a new job in a place where i`m not very well know.

for a lot of people that`s coupled with a sense of dread, i look at it as an opportunity to make my mark somewhere else. i live in a country where six degree of separation has been depreciated to three if you`re lucky.

in my case, i believe it`s as little as one. it`s going to be good to get away from that, at least for a while.

i`m not kidding myself that i`ll be completely anonymous, but my profile will be a lot lower, at least for a while.

i get to start afresh. new job, new apartment, new place. the sense of adventure is palpable. it`s an adventure.

before i go on, i got side-tracked by an article i was reading about how panther renders text, but even for newbies this is a really interesting read about typograhpy [go read, what are you waiting for?]

now, where was i? adventure. strangely most of aspects in my life, i`m pretty stick in the mud.

food, i find something i like, i`ll order it again and again. it`s almost monotonous to eat out with me. kind of sad in retrospect.

i`m not an adventurous dresser, well there is the sarong, but that`s just comfortable. otherwise my wardrobe is positively monochromatic.

but mention the word, travel, my heart races, i start planning. i don`t even think it`s the being there, it`s just the planning and airports.

all that aside i`m really looking forward to this, the fact that vic three hours away by air and within budget of my salary is icing on the cake.

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relocation update

November 12, 2003 — Leave a comment

i just got a call from my new boss. they`ve found me an apt [1 br studio, h/c water, fully furnished, a/c]  with a short term lease. i leave for jamaica next week.

writing it off

November 12, 2003 — Leave a comment

my handwriting has vacillated between horrendous and prize-winning at various points in my life.

i`ve always owned a pen with a nib, it`s the one thing that redeems my handwriting. it forces me to form my character shapes correctly. i still do pretty well with fine tipped roller-ball pens, but the sad truth is that i dislike writing now.

any prolonged writing and my hands and wrist start to hurt. the other problem with writing for me is that i can type as fast as i think or close enough to it, for me to catch the mistakes [ok the blog is not a good example, but you know what i mean]

in high school i always got into trouble over my hand writing because, primarily i actually didn`t care and secondarily you try to avoid anything that makes you stand out in school. my mother however put paid to that, when i was 14, schaffer had a penmanship competition and my mother though it was a good idea that i enter.

at that age, there was no stopping my mother once she had her mind set on something, so after much stalling and excuses, i wrote my piece, submitted it and completely forgot about it, until that fateful afternoon the principle walks into my english class and announced that i had won for my age group. so much for my low profile. after that i could no longer get away with scrappily done, late essays, cause the entire teaching staff was aware that i`d won.

my poetry writing career coincided with the beginnings  of my career as a graphic artist, so i can say with some certitude that those first poems are the last things i wrote creatively by hand. i think i still have the book somewhere to remind me.

a couple years when i started writing for the newspaper i wrote columns, reviews, pretty much anything that didn`t require me to take any massive amounts of note taking on my part. if i went out on an assignment, i would make my notes as concisely and quick as possible and always make sure i had a number for follow up questions, i could type in the responses in the shell of the story.

i think i get by on writing once a week and signing my name or sketching doesn`t actually count. i still own a pen with a nib, actually it`s pretty cool, it doubles as a stylus for my pda.

as i`m on the topic, i`ve realised that a person writing with a traditional implement is fascinating and they always want to look and touch, but nothing infuriates me more than someone attempting to write with said implement. i`m left handed, that means once i`ve started writing with this pen, the nib is going naturally curve in the direction in which i write, which in most cases completely opposite to the direction they write, thus bending the nib and rendering basically useless. but that`s just my pet peeve.

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I sell lies for a living

November 10, 2003 — Leave a comment

i`ve worked on and off in advertising for the last 12 years. and sometime this month i`m heading back into the fray full time. my background is print and design, but i`ve had opportunities to write radio and tv scripts as well as produce my own tv commercials.

i started in the business as a typesetter, in the early days. when ads were still stripped up. [get that look off your face, let me explain how it`s done].

actually i got fascinated by the business one year when i was working in a printery [my mother believed that idle hands… you know and insisted that i get a job during my vacations, more about that some other time]

now most of the print advertising you see is done entirely on computer, the photos are digitised [scanned, shot digitally or bought online], all the elements of the ad are put together using a variety of applications like photoshop, quark, indesign, illustrator and/or freehand.

when i first started in this industry, the only thing the computer was used for was setting types, even then it was just a step up from rubbing down letraset [letraset used to provide their entire font families at various sizes as transfers, trust me it was long and tedious process]. how the type setting worked was the artist would specify one of the 11 post script fonts that were available to size, i would type it up, put it on a diskette and send it out. no, we didn`t have a laser printer, in the early 90s a laser printer, even for an ad agency was a massive expense.

when the printed type came back from the output house it was then stripped [cut and pasted] into position on a series of overlays. the overlays represented the four base colours in printing: cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

i`m recalling this as i`m typing and realising how easy most of the graphic artists have it now, most of them have no idea about ruby and amber lith, cow gum, the mythical properties of a waxer and spray adhesive.

after the types were stripped in and any prints or negatives were copied in for position, the whole kit and caboodle was sent down to another output house, in those days the only people that did that kind of work here was the guardian. the guardian would then generate a set of negs to the size specified, which would then be sent to the newspapers or the printer as needed.

in the space of two years all of that changed, more and more ads were being built entirely on the computer, images were scanned and placed in the artwork and we could and did send everything directly down to the newspapers

computers have generated a lot of laziness in the industry, very few people do pencil sketches anymore and just sit in front of the computer hoping for inspiration and when that is lacking a photoshop effect is thrown in for good measure.

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i think i`m over the hump, at least for the time being. emotionally i`m not the basket case i was last week, physically i feel terrible. i ache everywhere. i really think i should pay a visit to my doctor.

i know i`m not the most contentious person about my physical well being, but something seems to be wrong on some level, this is not weight gain adjustment pain, it`s not bad posture. i think it`s just old age.

i`ve had the same doctor for most of my life. at one point in my hormonal and turbulent teenage years i wanted a new, male doctor because i had the hots for my doctor. i managed to get over it and she`s still my doctor. she`s seen me through mumps, measles, flus of various teremity, puberty, my first marriage, german measles as an adult, the mother of all stress rashes, carpal tunnel syndrome, the possible onset of hypertension all without excessive medication and the need for a second mortgage.

my doctor so rocks. you would think with all this faith i have in her, i would see her more thank once every [hmmm how long has it been since i`ve a check up?] three years [i think]. well i think, it`s her popularity. going to my doctor is a day trip. no matter what time you get there, there are people to see her and although it`s first come, first serve, she makes exceptions for children and the elderly. i hardly qualify as either and most of time when i do go to see her, i`m not actually ailing, so in terms of visit priority, i`m at the bottom of the list.

seeing that i`m self employed, well chock full of free time at least, i should try to get that check up before i leave.

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i`ve been up before sunrise almost every morning this week. i haven`t watched the sunrise but i`ve been aware of its presence.

i`m grateful for another day, i`m still here. the pit is still there, but i no longer feel i`m going to be swallowed by it. i`m grateful for the calls, the emails, the pms, the comments. thank you all.

if i can just a full nights sleep i`ll be so much better.

i`m taking an unimaginative guess that i`m not leaving for jamaica this weekend. an apartment still hasn`t been found, hence no ticket. so i`m here for however long it takes to find an apartment.

in other news, i`m looking for a 400-pound gorilla [always loved that phrase] to remind the people that owe me large sums of money that it`s time to pay up. i`m obviously too nice about it, either that or too easy to ignore.

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suicide watch

November 6, 2003 — Leave a comment

over the last couple of months i`ve realised a couple people i know have attempted suicide. it scares me a great deal.

i wonder what kind of hopelessness and despair would facilitate that kind of measure.

i`m beginning to become more and more familiar with the pit.

i`m not going to kill myself. i`m too much of a control freak. suicide would indicate a loss of control. i`m not in control now but i like to maintain the illusion.

i`ve sitting here crying quietly so my mother doesn`t notice and start asking odd questions. it`s not helping.

i`m tired of the fucking struggling to make ends meet, i`m tired of being unappreciated, i`m tired of people taking advantage of me, i`m tired of living my life on hold, i`m tired of seeing my wife infrequently at best, i`m tired being unhappy all the fucking time, i`m tired of having to put on a brave face, tired of not being able to do anything about any of it, tired of it piling up.

tired, tired, tired.

just tired and fed up.

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i’ve got a pain

November 6, 2003 — Leave a comment

i`ve got a dull ache at the base of my neck and across my shoulders and i know exactly what is causing it. i`m stressed out.

for someone that purportedly stays home all day and does nothing, why should i be stressed?

well i`m worried that the people in jamaica will think that giving me this job is too much trouble and rescind their offer. [yes i have insecurities, never said i didn`t.] i`m supposed to be leaving this weekend but i haven`t heard anything. primarily because they can`t find an apartment for me. i just worry that they`re going to decide that i`m not worth all this stress and say fuck it.

coupled with which i have two clients that have royally fucked me over. i am destitute and they`re not returning my emails. i`m now beholden to my mother and that does not fill me with great joy. it`s the first week of a new month and i haven`t been able to meet any of my commitments. that does not fill me with joy.

all of this coupled with my regular woes makes me a very unhappy camper.

i`m constantly tired but i haven`t been sleeping well.

i feel like sisyphus.yes i have faith that it`s all for a purpose and i`ll never get more than i can bear but there are some days it feels like i`m being fucked over royally by the universe.

and you know what? i`m sure i`m going to pay for that crack but what else is new?