Posting Sober
I am bored. But I take comfort in the fact that I'm not the only one. Boredom is a world wide phenomenon. The ever adorable Lina of From a Mouth recently posted this Audio Visual love letter to boredom.

I can but gape in awe from the side-lines.

Of course writing can be a way to overcome boredom, but I really need some kind of inspiration to produce anything worth reading. Perhaps it's time I went back to fiction. Ron has been taking some night courses in creative writing and he seems to be having a lot of fun with it. He recently wrote a great little two pager called Papa Charlie which was something of an inspiration for me. It was really very funny, well observed and even kind of charming. Why aren't I producing something creative like that?

From the world of sport, London Irish won the Rugby Union final today. This was the first time that they've won anything in the Club's 104 year old history, so you could say that they were due. Before the game, most commentators gave them little chance. For myself, I hoped, but never honestly believed. Even by half time, with their dominance over the Saints clear in the 24 to zip score line, it was still tempting to believe the Irish would throw it away. Thank god they held on. The final score in this emotional, if not beautiful game, was London Irish 38, Northampton 7.




Oh yes, and Thingo was Brian.

Posting drunk
I'm a little bit drunk. Just back from the pub with various ex-Tiny IT types. Namely Chris, Dave, Emma and thingo. I will edit this post in the AM so that Thingo's real name will appear. At this point, you are going to have to be satisfied with Thingo. No one has a job yet. We are all in the same boat. There is a certain comfort to be found in our shared misery.

Lots of interesting things to tell you when I am sober.

Waiting for the call
The agency called last night and said they would definitely call today with news on the interview front. Well, it should suprise no one who has ever had any kind of dealings with an employment agency that they didn't call. I got sick of waiting and so I called them about 3pm today and got the news I was expecting.

NO

Thank the great Blogger in the sky that I have you gentle reader.

My very first Friday Five
I could hold out no longer. Here it is, the by now world famous Friday Five:

1. What's your favorite TV show and why? A nice easy one to start. My favourite TV show at the moment is The West Wing. It's no secret what makes this show work. A great writer and professional inspiration in the person of Aaron Sorkin and a fantastic ensemble cast.

2. Who is your favorite television star? I will admit to carrying a torch for Janel Moloney who plays Donna Moss on The West Wing. Will she get together with Josh? I don't know, but like every West Wing fan, I tune in each week hoping for the best.

A close second in the hubba hubba department is Sarah Alexander, star of BBC2's Coupling.

3. What was your favorite TV show as a child? The Goodies!

Goodies, goody goody yum yum.

G - you need a helping hand,
O - you know we'll understand,
O - we're with you right to the end,
Everyone needs a friend (Goody goody goody)
D - we'll show you definitely
Y - you should employ us three.
We - can take on any old line,
Anything anytime (Hi hi hi)

Goodies - goody goody yum yum,
Goodies - we're coming for you,
Goodies - goody goody yum yum,
Here we come, into town,
Getting up, falling down.

4. What show do you think should have been cancelled by now? Well the obvious answer would have been Ally McBeal, but I've just heard that they cancelled it yesterday. Good news. Amazing how a show with so much promsie, and which started so well, could fall so far.

5. What new show do you hope escapes the axe this season? Scrubs is the funniest, most original new show that I've seen in a while.

Everyone loves bubblewrap
Just a quick Hey, check this out! On the same page, there's a link to the author's home page, definitely worth a peek.

Oh, and I've decided. I'm going to start doing the Friday Five. I mean, every other Blog in the world does it these days, who am I to hold out against the prevailing wind? Check back on Friday or Saturday to find out how I react to the questions on every Blogger's chapped lips.

Why my life is more exciting than yours
Not feeling too inspired today, but I do have some news.

I went for a job interview today in London. It was the longest interview of my life; Two whole hours! I thought it went alright, but there's always that moment at the end when you just know. The ye olde traditional "We'll call you if we want to do a second interview" moment. I don't think it's going to happen. Which is a shame, because I think it might be a really worthwhile job with a really great company. And the location! Just 30 Seconds walk from the Thames and an energetic stone's throw from Tower Bridge. Check this out...





If you take a look at the left-hand side of the picture, you'll see a large building on the far side. That's Butler's Wharf. The company I interviewed with is just one street behind there! Not bad, huh?

But let's be honest, it's the getting of a job, any job, which is most important at the moment, not the location. I really need to find something soon. Unfortunately, I have largely squandered these past two months. Garden leave runs out on the 27th and I get my redundancy money on the 3rd of next month. And that will be that. I'll be out of a job and soon after, out of money.

Aren't Blog Stickers fun?

Waxing philosophical
I love reading other people's Blogs. Following links and webrings can be a real adventure, leading you down avenues of thought you might never have considered. Everyone, everywhere has an opinion. They just want you to listen. Some people are trying to sell you something, others just want to ask questions.

Perhaps it is the asking of the question which is important, not the answer.

There are the big questions and then there are the little questions. In this excerpt from BluishOrange Alison Headley's family ask two of the smallest:

we are all sitting around quite lazily at the beach house this weekend--my dad reading a book, my mom playing handheld yahtzee, my concentration directed at the unspeakable evil that is level three of handheld connect four. my dad puts the book down on the couch, stares at the ceiling for awhile, and then says, "what if the hokey pokey really is what it's all about?"

my mom, without looking up from her game, says, "or worse, what if it isn't?"

Well, quite.

But what a wonderful tableau! Don't you just want to gobble them all up? How can one family be so gosh darn adorable? Handheld Yahtzee - Exquisite, just exquisite. The beauty really is in the details.

Listening to Jazz
"Whump ba dump ba da da dump"

So anyway, I have a job interview tomorrow. Did I tell you that?

Oh my god, I've just realised. Something else about the blue-green (Cyan to its friends) used in the design of this page. It is exactly the same colour as the bubblegum flavoured ice-cream that I used to beg my mother to buy me at the Strawberry Fair Ice-Cream Parlour in Cronulla, NSW when I was five or six.

I really used to love that stuff. In my memory, the best ice-cream that I've ever tasted! The only downside, as I recall, was that it used to turn my, you-know-whats, a strangely luminous colour. For some reason my mother never entirely approved. I don't think she thought pooh was meant to be a mysterious shade of bluey-greeny brown. Felt it was somehow unhealthy. For me day-glo shit was only another incentive to eat bubble gum flavoured ice-cream. Not that I needed more reasons.

My mother was forever trying to get me to try other flavours. The only alternatives I would stand still for were the Lemon Gelato and the Choc-Mint. The lemon was acceptable because of its tingly taste. And the choc-mint? Well let's just say that it had its own wonderous pay-off in the bathroom department.

Just in case you're interested, I've just run a quick web search and Starwberry Fair still exists! But don't bother booking those plane tickets for Sydney just yet, because I know for a fact that they no longer carry that extra special blue-green bubble gum flavoured ice-cream. I used to pop into Strawberry Fair occassionaly in my teen years (before or after the beach), and by that time they had long since stopped carrying it. I wonder if the public health people were somehow involved? Not that it mattered, though, because by then I had moved onto Rum and Raisin. A much more sophisticated flavour is Rum and Raisin, I think you'll agree.

A new look
Sometime around 1 am last night I put the new template to bed and went to, errr... bed. So what do you think of the site's new look? I like it. There's very little Cranberry Sockiness left. New colours, a brand new banner, and damn if I ain't proud! OK, so I'm not exactly a design genius, but it could be worse, right?

For those who care about such things, the blue is the blue of the German menu held in from of my face in the banner photo. It's a nice blue, don't you think? If you want more detail of the menu, if only to find out the going rate for over-priced drinks in lakeside cafes in Ueberlingen, or so you can run my fingerprints through some vast Interpol computer, then simply visit my German Gallery, where you will find all the detail you can handle.

If you have suggestions for improvements, please click on the the comments link below this posting. I'm not afraid of criticism. In fact, on certain occassions, I've been known to pay for it. But unless your name is Mistress Helga, there probably won't be any cash rewards for you.

Sorry.