I'm an accidental twerper

The things you say you'll never do ...

I bought an iPad after initially saying there was no need for such a thing in my life, as I have an iMac, a Macbook Pro laptop, and an iPhone. But I succumbed to the ads and the frenzy ... and got one. Did I need one? No, of course not. But I loves me some shiny toys ...

And lo and behold, I'm on Twitter now. I've actually been signed up to this seemingly inane thing for some time ... but after a couple of half-hearted twerts (thwaps?) I gave up on it.

I initially didn't see the point of it, when I first heard of it. Then after joining up due to ... what else do guys do things for?* ... a woman,  I quickly decided it was indeed a silly thing. And that I should stop. And so I did. Until now.

* I believe it was Chris Rock who opined that if a man could get a woman by just living like a hobo in a cardboard box on the street, not bathing or caring about how he dressed, that's the way things would be ... but no, we have to constantly be on our game to ensure we have a chance at female companionship. So we do things ... ANY thing, it seems, that it takes to stay competitive in this gotta-have-a-woman-world.


So I've revived the Twitter account. I'm helping a friend suss out a multi-media promotional concept, and part of this help involves seeing exactly what and how these social networking things are all about. And, if they're useful or just so much e-fluff.

I have loaded up my Twitter "followees" with a few well-known comedians and a couple of mates, and someone who's deploying the same sort of "multiple social network" idea to promote something.

So now I sit back and study, and ponder, and go to school on this stuff. I had heard there was a method of posting on one site and having said post appear on many such things ... and a-Googlin' I went.

I had a look at Tumblr, but it's limited to just itself and Twitter. But then I found Ping, and it appears to be a good method of posting to a whole bunch of things all at once:

Here's the Ping dashboard. Just tick and add

all the other social network sites you want to post to

simultaneously. They're almost all covered, except

for the new Google+. But I'm sure that's coming.

Et voila, here is the current list of Ping-able

social network things. Many I have not heard of.

But it certainly makes sense to have a 

"one and done" idea with posts.

For my friend's project, there'll be a specific FacePlant page, YouTube, and a proper website as well. Most of this 'net stuff is free. But there'll need to be some marketing bucks invested at some stage, to facilitate running around making a nuisance of ourselves, physically getting the idea across to the media by pestering them. It's all about getting the word out.

It's kind of fun to have a reason to be dabbling in all this stuff ... because really, why else would you? Unless you are trying to promote something like a business, how up to date do we all have to be? It's out of hand ... with just the general Joe or Josephine Public posting up minute-by-minute updates re: where they are and what they're doing ... no one cares. You are not unique. You are, in fact, a bothersome entity, and you're in the way. Order your drink and step away from the bar before you start posting up about the cocktail you just bought, you jackwagon. 

Why would you want to be that connected and accessible?

I'm now witnessing how deeply embedded it all can get. Besides posting from a desktop computer, there are apps to post from phones and tablets, too. The only way this can get any more all-encompassing (or invasive?) is if we all got tracking collars or microchips, like raccoons (or lemurs?) in a game park. Just log in to follow the antics of your favourite person/cheeky critter, 24/7.

Handy info to have, little buddy! And with that tracking collar and the

live satellite uplink, we know exactly when the 

wee beastie is chowing down!

Windows update – Click here to download a man with some power tools ... Dean the Landlord is here now, fixing my busted-ass window. For now, it's a temporary swap-over with the window in the laundry room moving over to the bedroom ... until the broken one can be fixed. He is outside in the rain doing the fix ... and likely wishing he'd sorted these old n' busted windows out earlier. Heh.

Winning the nurse lottery – The district nurse was by earlier to inspect my one-little-piggie-down foot. She has proclaimed it doing magnificently well. But never mind that. What has become poignantly noticeable is the level of attractiveness I am being rewarded with, vis-a-vis these home-visit nurses. 

Today it was Claire, a lovely brunette Scottish lass, who is the third smokin' hot nurse I've had visit me in the past few weeks. I have also been inspected and delighted by Nicki (also brunette and gorgeous) and Karen (a honey blonde) – each a stunner in her own right.

While it sucks that I have to go through this medical nonsense yet again, at least I'm getting a good daily dose of eye candy.

Candy coated special delivery – My ISP just sent me a box of top-quality chocolates via courier. Within was a card thanking me for my patience, for how long it took them to swap me over to their new high-tech scheme, featuring a modem that does phone and net all in one. Not to mention, a cheaper monthly rate with more gigs per month in my cap. Thanks Orcon! These are damn tasty.

Lose 20 pounds, look years younger, win friends, get rich, influence people – Well maybe just the 'look years younger' part ... I have dropped a bit of weight due to once again living off of Wellington Hospital's kid-sized menu (where oddly, they will not provide a bottle of wine with each meal). 

As for looking younger ... I sprouted a goatee whilst most recently incarcerated, because once again I broke out in a few pesky cold sores due to the medication and such. This infestation makes it impossible to shave while thusly pock-marked. I hadn't grown the goatee in many years, and it seems now the auburn I was used to seeing in bygone years has given way to a distinguished shade of grey.

Today however, I decided to reclaim my inexplicably youthful appearance (considering the rate and frequency at which I abuse myself), which comes with being clean-shaven ... judge for yourself, here are the before (goatee'd) and after (shorn) shots from today:

Don't look a day over 60 now!

Wedding news down the pipe – As I type this, the sordid and motley crew of friends recovering from a big wedding and pissup (oops, reception) in Parksville, BC, Canada checked in via Gmail Chat. The newly-joined Mr. and Mrs. Knoop (oops, Findlay – sorry Allan!) informed me that Meagen did a keg stand in her wedding dress at the height of the shenanigans yesterday. 

Gillian is claiming no hangover. But things suddenly went dark on Gchat, when it was also announced there was a bit more beer left in the kegs to drink. 

Stay classy, you crazy kids!

Randomly unexpected - that's so 'gay'!

OK "Take 2" on this post.

I started this in hospital (again) on my iPad with "Blogger+", an iTunes Store application meant to make it easy to post up on Blogs.

It was easy all right. Right up to the point where I spastically wobbled around in my hospital bed and erased the entire post ... and a half hour of searching the thing turned up bupkiss. Nada. Zilch.

So I'm home and back on the big iMac. I'll now see if I can recall whatever the hell it was I was rambling on about ...

I recall starting out by saying it was going to be a collection of various observations of late – and although I was in hospital, I didn't want to make it another whinging hospital thread ... although there were a few things in hospital that amused me to the point where I will list them.

But first ...

The hip and trendy new terms all the kids have been using, and using incorrectly.

Random – This became about as ubiquitous as "gay" as a knee-jerk thing to say about something (not meaning the same thing of course). In the case of "random", it's deployed to describe something surprising or unexpected. Which is incorrect. Random means "not specific".

Reboot – A term now commonly used to describe a "remake" of a movie. Initially this term was used to describe a process with a (Windows) computer that wasn't working. It was the "go to" instruction from IT gurus as the first thing to try ... to restart the wonky thing and hope for the best ... which psychologists will tell you is one of the prime indicators of insanity – repeating exactly the same thing and hoping for a different outcome.

Restarting a pile of shit will only result in the pile of shit to reappear in the same steaming heap it was before you restarted.

With Windows, it is recommended to use the literal meaning of reboot – re-apply your boot to the side of the useless thing. Then go to the store and get a Mac.

And so with movies, if you could actually "reboot" one, you would remake the movie shot-for-shot, using the same actors (and they'd have to be exactly the same age as they were the first time). What people mean when they say "reboot" is the movie is being "re-made" or "updated" – usually by someone with absolutely zero creativity or without a single original idea in his/her head, but who thinks by applying their own deft touch, and the latest technological marvel, their version of the original movie will miraculously be better.

Most often, this is not the case.

And now for something completely different ...

Vomit buckets – Not the nicest of concepts. But while in hospital most recently, one of my flatmates (I was in a room meant for four people) was a man with many issues. He had broken his shoulder badly, but also suffered from wonky kidneys (needing daily dialysis) and was a diabetic. His 24-hour routine involved trying to get him stable enough to move around a bit and hold some food down.

Usually at some point in the night, he would wake up and chunder his guts out. Volumes of it. And the item on hand, provided by hospital staff, to contain such eruptions? A shockingly small plastic bucket ... about the size of a large beer mug. The average amount of spew erupting from an unwell adult human far exceeds the capacity of such a thing. Anyone who has ever drank too much, or been sick with the flu, can attest to this fact: you need a decent sized bucket. As in the mop or dirt-digging variety.

And so it was bemusing to watch the nurses and orderlies repeatedly cleaning up after one of these biscuit-blasting sessions – the floor, his sheets and pillows, etc.

Graffiti – Here's a positive observation! Lately in Wellington, things like bus shelters and brick/cement have been festooned with art ... of the good kind. Not just the infantile scrawling of some punkass with a can of spray paint, but actual art.

Exhibit A: the closest bus shelter to my home –

The inside of this shelter is well done too – blue sky on the ceiling, and some other stuff on the walls. An exceptional example of what can happen when you hand kids the proper painting materials and encourage them to be creative.

Talking the talk – I pitied the poor fellow next to me in hospital this last time (not the serial puker from across the room, but another fellow on the same side of the room as me ... he was in for kidney issues) ... 

Charles was an older man, and really nice to chat to. Then one afternoon his wife showed up ... and holy christ on a crutch did this woman TALK. Wait, no, it wasn't talking ... it was a rapid-fire, incessant, ceaseless stream of neuron firings in her brain, spewing forth as words, without the benefit of that little filter most of us have to prevent such ceaseless, mindless babbling (most of us when we're sober, anyway) ....

The woman never shut up ONCE the whole time she was there. I was wondering if she was getting any oxygen at all, as she didn't seem to even stop to breathe. And she was there for a few hours. It was painful for ME to endure, but only for a short time, as I had the easy out of putting my earphones on and cranking up some music. She just went on, and on ... no two topics linking logically to each other. Just blathering. Sometimes she'd aim it at some poor hapless nurse or orderly. But mostly, the stream-of-consciousness babbling was aimed at the dude. And he was helpless to escape, confined to his bed ... 

FYI to my friends: if I ever end up in a relationship with a ceaseless, mindless babbler like this, you have my permission to shoot me ... if you don't get in quick enough to stop me from letting it become a relationship.

The change, it is not a-timing – Catching a cab ride home from two hospital trips ago, I realised I was about $1.50 shy of the fair once I got home. So I told the cabbie to put $9 on my ATM card (it was the day before payday), and I'd wobble into the house and get him the balance (from some change I knew  had on the dresser). 

This concept completely flummoxed him. He couldn't work out how to do this ... and after much blustering, he just told me the $9 on the bank card would suffice, as "time was money, and he had places to be!" 

This was at 1 pm in the middle of a week day. I boarded his taxi, which was the first in line of no less than 12 other taxis, all parked up and idling away the day in front of the hospital. 

I guess they pay taxi drivers to sit there in big lineups now. Good gig, pal. You don't want to be late for that!

Stand back, we're from the government – All hail the NZ Federal Government! Just when all seemed lost ... to save Auckland rugby fans from a repeat of the massive debacle of the Auckland city council being completely unprepared for the transportation screw-ups of the first World Cup Rugby game, the government stepped in to handle things.

During that first night, thousands of fans were left stranded on broken trains (after being brow-beaten into taking said wonky transit by Auckland city council) ... many not making it for the Opening Ceremonies OR the actual game. Trains sat dead in their tracks, and the news had excellent coverage of people breaking out of the trains after a few hours trapped inside, to crawl up along rocky cliffs strewn with bits of railway metal and detritus, to wedge their way through fences, to try their best to get to the game ... 

After a week of embarrassment being repeatedly shown on TV, and the municipal government types being grilled by the news media, the City Council was duely informed that the feds would take it from here, thanks.

Because, when things go wrong and aren't running smoothly, a bigger form of government is who you want on the case to fix things ...

How the cocky have fallen – After watching an inspired Canadian rugby squad defy the odds and win a thrilling Pool Game opener against Tonga (classy win guys!), we were treated to the spectacle of the cockiest (for no good reason) mouthpiece of the whole tournament getting his ass handed to him. 

Australian Wallabies captain and general dirt-bag and mealy-mouthed malcontent Quade Cooper was humiliated in the finest style, when he and the rest of the Wallabies were humbled by a ramped-up Ireland side. 

Ireland played an excellent game, outclassing the wobbly Roos, and were helped along in their cause with Cooper throwing up a few choice "bricks" in attempted cutesy one-handed flick passes ... including the last one, into the hands of an Ireland player, as the clock wound down to 80 minutes.

Looks good on you, you mouthy prick. Enjoy your quarter-final elimination round facing South Africa.

Windows crashed again – No, not the oft-maligned (and rightfully so) Micro$erf operating system. 

Actual windows. The kind you see through. In my house.

I've been plagued with the old (some would say "well past their prime") windows in this heritage house falling out of the frames. Twice now the bifold ones facing out and down into Aro Valley have been sucked out of the frame by wind ... and twice now, my landlord Dean has had to clamber down the über-steep cliff to retrieve said window. The second time, the pane of glass actually broke.

These windows are held in place by what can only be best described as hope ... they're just wedged into the frame and secured by a couple of $2 flimsy metal latches. With two sessions of the things NOT staying put, it's safe to say this scheme isn't working.

Yesterday when my friend Brandon drove me home from hospital, we sat out on the patio to enjoy the sun and sensational vista of my view down into Aro Valley, and out to Wellington Harbour.

As I've done quite a few times on sunny days, I popped open one of the bedroom windows, and played music via a set of speakers hooked up to an Apple Airport Express. It was an excellent day ... until, without warning, the window completely separated from the hinges in the frame, fell to the patio, and shattered. There was no wind, the window just sagged off the hinges and splintered all to hell.

I now have the utmost in home security,

with the amazing TitaniumCardboardBox™

window screen! Totally burglar and wind proof!

Note the hinges with

screws still hanging there.

Closeup view of the rotted window frame

where the screws just waved bye-bye.

The old n' busted window. Brandon was

a champ and swept up all the busted glass so I

didn't hazard stepping into it with my one good foot,

which just had a toe cut off of it.

I have a txt message into the landlord about the window, so we'll see how long it takes for this one to get fixed. Good thing I'm home for the week with my recovering foot. 

Things fall apart – Aside from the glaringly obvious with the window saga above, it's been a few weeks with lots of things just breaking or failing to work. Maybe it's something to do with the spring equinox (cue the Styx album ...) 

With this latest hospital visit being the FOURTH one in two months, I did spend a week or so at work between this one and the last. Demons doth vex me ... the sort of demons in charge of busting up shit.

My work computer took a major dump (I suspect meddling by incompetent IT weasels), my network connection to the material I would be working on took a similar crap, the elevators at work went from slow to glacial ... and the air-conditioning (ha ha) system in the building went from Hades Blast Furnace to Meat Locker and back again ... 

Busses to and from work moved like sedated snails through molasses ... I couldn't do my usual walk to work as my foot was slowly melting down (not quite at "going to hospital" level yet, but almost there) ... 

At home, light bulbs continue to pope at a prodigious rate. This may or may not be the work of a cheeky poltergeist. Enroute to work one day, with iPad in backpack, the yoghurt in a container decided now was a good time to make a break for it, and exploded all over the iPad case ... and, the inside of the pack. That was a good two hours of cleaning. Thankfully the iPad remained unharmed (yet still smells faintly of Berries Of The Forest).

In a doomed attempt to clean up for a district nurse visit a couple of weeks ago, my vacuum just sputtered and died in the middle of it (it's always a good idea to tidy up before a DN visit, because if your place is too much of a tip, they have you committed and sent back to hospital!)

So some of my surfing this week was along various websites of stores that carry vacuums. I have one picked out ... 

Ah and an external hard drive packed it in too. So I need another one to be the 'workhorse' that holds all my downloads, and regularly runs my music, movies and TV shows. More spending ... 

Well that should be enough whinging for now. 

A new week beckons – home alone (with the cats) waiting for my newly-piggyless foot to heal.

Oh and the piggy that bit the dust? 

"Stayed Home".

This little piggy stayed home ... for good.

Old news - Once more, into the breach ....

* apologies readers, for some reason the first try had NO paragraph formatting whatsoever. I did it on my iPad. I'll need to look into that.


Here it is again, with paragraphs, and a bit more info.

... and onwards through the fog!

 Back in hospital again. Like the old Apollo missions, and then the Space Shuttle launches, after the first few trips in here, it's old news. Not many care.

 This makes three times in the last month and a half. It's due to three separate reasons. But the common denominator is, IV anti-bees.

This isn't even worth posting on FacePlant (but I did).  I prologue this Blog with the "in hospital" info to set the tone - the atmosphere, if you will. Each foray into this particular breach always has a twist at the start.

This time I started with a foot tune-up at the podiatrist. A toe decided to light up and start glowing a nice bright shade of red - cellulitis time again.

So here I sit in ward again, counting down the four-hour cycle of drippy-drip-drips.

It's early days, so none of the usual symptoms (flu-y-ness, fever, chills, appetite gone) have surfaced. This time, however, the orthro-pods trussed up my leg in a removable backslab. Not sure why. This is because I haven't seen an actual sawbones yet. And it's Saturday evening ... I've been inside since Friday morning.

I got the drips going, but somehow the blood results were nowhere to be found once I got a (temp) bed last night (hospital chockers yet again). So they wouldn't give me my other usual drug, the blood thinner. I just went through the umpteenth session of getting back ON these damn things, following a week of injections due to being taken OFF them two weeks ago. That was another mission into uncharted Absurd Territory ...

... as my discharging doc failed to submit the right form last time, I was led on a merry chase around town trying to get this one particular drug, to have it on hand for the district nurse visit. Which I then had to finish by coming to that clinic in the hospital, because this cowboy ain't gonna jab himself with this stuff.

Anyway. Where was I?

Ah yes. Back in 'stir' again. Not long ago here in 'real time', they got me into a quad room, after one night in some sort of 'secondary recovery' ward. Not as heinous as The Pit Of Despair from three visits ago, but, a bad layout unto itself.

Twelve beds, one combo bathroom/shower. At least this time I had phone and net reception. For reasons that were never explained, this ward closes at 3 pm Saturdays, and doesn't function at all Sundays.

But wait, I digress. What the HOLY hell was all the constant chatter with the night nurses about? I don't mean subtle whispers every so often. These two sat there ALL GODDAMN NIGHT talking at a normal office-day volume. I was maybe 15 yards from them. So not a lot of sleep ... and when I did nod of, it was drugs drip time.

I mentioned I'm in this pseudo cast. Not sure why. Nothing is broken. No one told me I'm not meant to walk much in it ... but like jabbing myself, Homie don't play "bedpans" either. So I walk to the bathroom.

However ... I was soon to learn that was as far as I'm allowed to roam. I wanted supplies from the cafe and store, but was told in no uncertain terms, "No crutches for YOU." Crutch Nazis .....

So plan B - a wheelchair. No to that too ... But I wonder if they get how wheelchairs work? There is no walking ... A nice nurse went and got me a soda, in the interim - and now Tina is enroute with chips, Powerade and cookies (Tim Tams).

It wasn't long ago that I noted I had no water here in this room - and, come to think of it, I had to ask for the usual jug of aqua in the first ward too. I got my jug here finally ... but no cup. Woo hoo, drinking right out of the pitcher! Just like college!

 This whole mess started with an odd week at work (my only week at work in a month or more ...) Lots of tech was failing. Epically. The network, my computer. Printers. The elevators. The heating and air con.

Then on Thursday morning, I pulled this iPad out of my pack to discover it covered in yoghurt.

A package of it exploded inside the pack ... Which took me 90 minutes to totally clean up. Strange days, indeed. No clue how long I'll be inside this time. But seriously, I've had a guts full of this. I don't want to be broken any more. I am starting to feel THIS >|< close to snapping, like The Champ from the old radio comedy shows.

My wardmates were mostly non-entities this time too ... due to one senile old fellow who would not ... shut ... the fuck ... UP. He had the nurses constantly running for the exact same question almost every time. He ranted and rambled. He was THIS >|< close to experiencing what a plastic pillow felt like being pressed on his face ...

What exacerbated this was, the night nurses who insisted on trying to TALK to this gibbering fool. Besides being senile, he was also deaf. So they had to YELL at him. At 3 a.m. And again at 4 a.m.

At 2 and 6 a.m., I was being awoken for the drips ...

So I'm home now. Somehow, miraculously released after only a few days, AND early in the day.

I'm whipped. Put butter on my forehead, I'm toast.

Back to more fun tomorrow – the Limb Centre for a total recasting and refit of the leg socket!

This should be a good day.

And ... it's payday. There may be a beer involved.