Author: Rob

Dear all,

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted Gregorian calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

Rob.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher. No trees were harmed in the sending of this message.

In my mailbox this morning…

“Hi. My name is Eugene Gershin. Perhaps we have met online, but more probably you don’t know me from Adam. I monitor blogs for SamsonBlinded, and came across your post.

I’d like to welcome you to look at Obadiah Shoher’s blog. Obadiah – an anonymous Israeli politician – writes extremely controversial articles about Israel, the Middle East politics, and terrorism.
Shoher is equally critical of Jewish and Muslim myths, and advocates political rationalism instead of moralizing.
Google banned our site from the AdWords, Yahoo blocked most pages, and Amazon deleted all reviews of Obadiah’s book, Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict.
Nevertheless, 170,000 people from 78 countries read the book.

Various Internet providers ban us periodically, but you can look up the site on search engines. The mirror www.terrorism-in-israel.com/blog currently works.

Please help us spread Obadiah’s message, and mention the blog in one of your posts, or link to us from theuglytruth.blogspot.com. I would greatly appreciate your comments.

Best wishes,
Eugene Gershin.”

Dear Eugene,
Thank you for taking the time to read the blog. I’m interested to know which of my posts you read to make you think I would be interested in the writings of Obidiah Shoher. Presumably not the ones featuring comedy vegetables.
Despite your dark insinuations, I found it remarkably easy to find references to his work online, and indeed the book is available on Amazon, complete with a user-friendly glimpse at an extract.
On reading the material online, I have to admit to a slight feeling of disquiet. Actually, make that a honking great lorryload.
Perhaps I misread Obidiah’s intentions. Perhaps his work is intended as a modern-day satire on Machiavelli’s book, “The Prince.” Please tell me that he’s joking when he talks about deploying biological and nuclear weapons at Palestine. Or sending troupes of “Indian mercenaries” into the region as Trojan horses. What kind of Indians he’s talking about is not made clear. If he’s expecting floods of Iroquois to tear into the West Bank on ponies, he may be disappointed. I doubt that the Native American community are that willing to do the bidding of a pseudonymous politician who doesn’t have enough belief in his reactionary, eye-swivellingly lunatic pronouncements to publish them under his own name.

Thank you for forwarding me on the link to his blog. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter. I’ve found out enough through the perfunctory Googlege that is all this material deserves to realise that the man is either a comedy genius or a raving nutbag. And we all know how close the line between the two can be.

Yours, not knowing whether to laugh or cry,

Rob Wickings.

(This is what I get for putting The Ugly Truth on Britblog. To think, I used to pine for readers.

(We return to the amusing veg and comic book references tomorrow.

eyethangyew.))

I’m always bitching about how I always miss comic events, as I find out about them after the event.
Now I have no excuse.
(via Forbidden Planet and the coolness that is Bugpowder)

Well, that snuck up on me.

I’m trying to be positive about the whole experience. A bacon sarnie, a cappuchino and R.E.M. saw me right this morning, and I now have a manifesto for my manhood.
ahem

“I’m breaking through
I’m bending spoons
I’m keeping flowers in full bloom
I’m looking for answers from the great beyond…”

thank you.

However, I am still prone to the odd moodswing.

As part of The Birthday That Cannot Be Named, I went out on Friday with friends for a Jack and Coke or two. Oh, alright, ten. I’d wondered why I was feeling so compis mentis at three in the morning.

Then I found this.

Oops.

I need a coffee after that news. That’s alright, surely?

Oh.

Thanks, Darren at LMG. You’ve made a happy man very old.

Things are moving rapidly towards The Birthday That Must Not Be Named, and as the big treat for a big boy, please enjoy the sight of me giving the love to my new MacBook.
Wireless has been set up as part of the deal. Thus, TLC and I are now sat next to each other in the front room, on seperate laptops, not talking to each other.
I sent her a flattering PM earlier that raised a smile, though.

Because sometimes it’s fun just to make life difficult for yourself…

from Dethroner, via Fimoculous via Sore Eyes.

Work? What work?

So, at midnight ought six last night, I finally hit the fifty grand mark on my Nanowrimo project. I’m now one of the (so-far) 5500 people who’ve made it to the blue bar mark, and can show off with the sexy wee icon you see here.
The story won’t end there, in all senses of the word. I reckon the finished article will be close to 60,000 words, or around the 200 page mark. A good fast dirty read, which was exactly what I’d planned. I’ll spend next week getting the story finished, then put it away before polishing it and seeing if anyone’s interested. which realistically means the new year..
It’s been an amazing experience, and one where I only felt half in control of the story. It’s gone to places I’d never had expected. it’s been like hanging onto a wild horse, being able to control the general direction it’s galloping in, but being unable to prevent it from taking jinks and sidetracks along the way. So, yay me. I’m having a day off. Off out for celebratory drinks tonight, then back to it tomorrow.

After some frantic typing this weekend, I bumped my NaNoWriMo word count up to 20,000 words. Big glow of achievement there, but I still have an awfully long way to go, and the days are slipping past rather more quickly than I’d like.
But what an experience it’s turning into. The story has taken twists and turns I honestly wouldn’t have believed. Characters have changed, their motivations flipping 180 degrees. I’m loving it, although I still have to force myself to open the laptop sometimes. I could get into this writing every day bit…

Uh-Oh…

thanks, SoreEyes. thanks a lot.