Suddenly Smithy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2gsLhroTtQ

Better seven years too late than never, eh?

Enjoy this grainy memory from my teenage years and silently wish that I still posted whymsical blog entries week after week after week...

012 Future Tense

I hate not finishing things.

And despite the string of unfinished endeavours, and half loved labours that lie in my bedroom closet – I have resolved to finish this, my blog. Or at the very least give it some sort of ending.

Unfortunately, this blog has been a casualty of my ever increasing workload and annoying and pointless responsibilities outside of work.

In the short time I have been writing, I’ve touched upon the stupidity of life. Its futility. Its pain. Its colours and flaws.

Or maybe I’ve just been having a wank on the computer talking bout pissing and lobsters and drug-pig celebrities.

Nonetheless life continues.

It gets faster and faster with each new line of character or age that I discover on my face (and also my first few grey beard hairs).

It’s my firm belief that most endings in life should speak of the future and not the past. That’s why I’ve decided to use this final entry to extrapolate the likely course of the rest of my life…

Here goes.

Ten Hours from Now:

Distraught, I will be meander about my small kitchen after downing three glasses of Scotch and a few episodes of Red Dwarf. I have realise that it is getting late and I’ve skipped meals all day. Now its time to eat.

Wacky antics ensue as I, aesthetically impaired and half way inebriated, struggle to make a simple meal and eventually settle on over cooked fish sticks with ketchup.

Six Months From Now:

My growing sense of paranoia and general angst prompts me to install a panic room underneath my house. There, surviving on Tacos and a sizeable stockpile of Snack Pack, I begin writing a new blog, under the pseudonym “Scotty Clarendon”.

Not knowing where I am, my family abandon all hope of seeing me again and sell all my stuff on eBay. I cannot find any clean underwear.

Twelve Months From Now:

After growing gradually disenfranchised with my panic room and my job, I enlist in the Australian Military, quickly developing an aptitude for weapons handling, covert operations and domestic chores.

I make the entire platoon a Mushroom Risotto that is simply to die for.

But the army is lonely and I marry some dude on the internet with red hair. He lives in Oklahoma. It is a marriage of convenience, enabling him to travel to Australia and pursue his life long ambition of stalking Delta Goodrem. I still cannot find any clean underwear.

Two Years From Now:

After graduating from my military training with high honours (and a notable reputation for streaking) I briefly gain notoriety for spearheading the “Five Minute Fight Club” underground movement. It even has its own MySpace.

My marriage fails, and that red headed guy I mentioned before runs away with gypsies.

Lost at sea during military training exercises, I wrestle with, and later apprehend, a rogue shark. While speaking to the press, I dedicate the heroic episode to the late Roy Scheider.

Five Years From Now:

Several wars break out. They’re about oil or grain or land or Osama’s bones. I bravely serve in my capacity as weapons specialist and combat chef with the rest of my platoon. After six months, I am severely injured on the front lines when I get run over by a laser powered Panzer battle tank.

Ten Years From Now:

After an honourable discharge from the military, I decide to use my savings to buy a small villa in the south of France. There I spend my days watching re-runs of Seaquest and ebaying various coffee mugs from around the world. I live in relative seclusion, learning Spanish by correspondence and only ever leaving my house when in need of more Snack Pack.

Fifteen Years From Now:

After marketing my own brand of genetically enhanced Corn to the French public, I endeavour to make a name for myself on the local art scene with my controversial oil on canvas entitled “The Brigadier’s Son” depicting a small boy in mid fellatio.

I tell the press that the provocative image was inspired by my time working at a box factory in my youth.

After nude photos of myself (taken in my military days) surface, my reputation as an artist lies in tatters.

Twenty Years From Now:

Gradually succumbing to the asbestos poisoning I received while exploring an abandoned mental asylum in 2008, I return home to my home town of Melbourne to old friends who thought me long dead.

I tell them all long rambling stories of my colourful exploits over a hearty glass of scotch. They all have ugly human children and rubbish cars.

I visit the ruins of my old apartment (destroyed during the war in 2013) and find my collection of Star Trek comics and my treasured soup ladle.

Another war breaks out.

At the ripe old age of 44, and badly affected by the asbestos nestled in my lungs, I am too weak to fight.

I donate my brain to science. On October 29th, 2028, I loose consciousness for the last time in a golf cart at Northcote plaza.

My brain is then implanted into some type of robot super soldier who continues to live in my house in the south of France. A vicious legal battle ensues as that red headed guy I married a while back tries to contest my will and claims my vast porn collection.

Fifty Years From Now:

The robot super soldiers has turned evil for some reason and terrorises the streets of London, killing many. It is eventually subdued by three surface to air missiles and the ghost of Mandy Moore.

In honour of the massacre (and of course my amazing brain), a new research institute entitled the “Jimmy Toast Killbot Centre For Nuclear Medicine” is opened – ensuring that history will never forget the name...Jim Patrik.

Thanks for reading.

See you in Twenty Years.

the end.

Britney Watch

"You've got me hypnotised - I've never felt this way"

Before she dies - I have been asked by several people to get a move on with the Britney Watches. So here it is - the latest chapter in the car crash that is Britney Spears.

This week in review:

Wealthy investors, getting domestic, my battle with the kitchen ants, Rachael has been judging me, working more at work, Gareth is sexually harrassed with invisible ink, Hoda snares a Rob Thomas lookalike, Pirate phone sex, Carlota runs into more Banditos, living next to Jews, The Mighty Boosh, dinner gets cummunal, Kelly wants to borrow that top, the benefits of chewing Extra, teasing poor people, watching "old" Doctor Who and the legendary story of my haunted microwave.

011 Lousy Drunken Soldiers.

So today I’m thinking bout that time when Frank Sinatra freed the Jews from slavery in Egypt back in the days before mobile phones existed and MP3s were for free.

It was a pivotal moment in human history.

And, other than being one of the only things I’ve retained from the countless hours spent sealed in an un-air conditioned classroom as a teen, it’s a story that’s always made me think about leadership. What it takes to motivate people.

Caught in the maelstrom of office politics, whispered words and oh-so public meltdowns – these lessons seem all the more relevant to me this week.

This brings me to my toy soldiers.

Like Ethiopian schoolchildren, they are all scattered across my desk at work, closing the gaps between the Daleks, Cybermen and David Tennant all vying for action-figure dominance.

Originally these soldiers began appearing one by one, like a silent invasion force. After some skilful investigation, I discovered that this was yet another attempt by my boss to annoy/harrass/amuse me. Instead these little plastic men triggered a small mental breakdown that lasted an agonising four minutes.

In defiance I took them all as my own and have been trying to whip them into shape as a mean, efficient fighting platoon that can serve as the vanguard for anyone who dare place their germ ridden mittens on my stapler.

I stole that stapler fair n square dammit!!

But with all of the soldiers being Irishmen, motivating them has been especially difficult.

Sean and Callum can’t even hold their rifles correctly, and Kevin, Owen and Seamus are routinely found AWOL in the women’s toilet.

I have tried so hard to get them to behave. To conduct themselves in a manner befitting a man in uniform, but they seem more concerned with laying about in the sun and drinking all day.

More recently, I’ve begun to suspect that they have formed a secret resistance cell aimed at breaking my brutal and unyielding hold over them.

Obviously these tactics will not be tolerated. These individuals who refuse to comply will feel the full wrath of my white Anglo Saxon God.

To that end, I have “extracted” William, Connor and Patrick from the rest of the platoon. Let’s see how they feel about following orders when faced with the prospect of being trapped inside the antiquated gas cooker at my apartment.

In the words of a notorious Starfleet Captain: “When diplomacy fails – violence is the only viable solution”.

the end.

Great Xpectations.

Ladies and lads - witness the triumphant return of Mulder and Scully in The X Files 2, in Ozzie cinemas July 25th (the year of our lord two-thousand-and-eight).

More exciting than Cloverfield or the rubbish new Star Trek remake.

Just like M & S I've been slightly busy (mostly with work, and sorting out my new bachelor-pad) but I'll be back soon!!

Oh...and for those of you who have e-mailed me asking what hair product I use - Its called Muk. You can check out the official website at www.muk.net.au

Britney Watch.

Right.

My small but powerful army of caffeinated monkeys who usually do my typing are too tired and are currently lying on my living room floor struggling to breathe.

Looks like they might have overdone it at last week’s work Xmas function.

So because of this - here we have my last post of the year with the obligatory final Britney Watch. And what a year it’s been for good’ ol Britters with head shaving, suicide attempts, glue stick hair extensions and a violent umbrella attack upon an innocent, unsuspecting paparazzo.

And an equally eventful year for me too. Many, many bad things happened. But I learned a lot. Mostly who my friends are, and who I can trust. I also learned how to terrorise a small boy using only a handful of Vitamin D pills and an extension cord.

But by far the most important lesson I have learned, is that as long as I have a couple of people around me who always tell me the truth – I can accomplish anything.

L, H and L – I love all of you endlessly. You guys believed in me even when I didn’t.

And for those of you who made things difficult. Those of you who lied and stood in the way of my happiness and success – you all know who you are. You’re all a bunch of cunts.

I hope you all choke on my victories in the coming year.

Thanks for reading. Please come back next year – I still have so much to tell you.

Sincerely, Jimmy.

(This week's Britney Watch photo is courtesy of Matty who emailed it to me while drunk and then drew all over my arm in black texta. I know where you live dude).

010 Knives Out.

Having just ended a substantially long term friendship with someone, I find myself absolutely dumbfounded by the immature actions of certain people.

At the risk of having this stately blog entry morph into yet another forum for me to whinge, I’ll cut to the chase here.

As I choke on my utter indifference at the whole situation, I find I’m noticing more and more how the little things in life often mirror the really big stuff. Sort of like the counterpoint in classical music. Or an episode of Battlestar Galactica.

But endings are kind of inevitable. It’s what lies at the end of the road for each of us. For the lucky few it comes in the form of a two hour movie-length finale.

We live. We die. And when we die almost every trace of our biological existence is erased.

Moby, in one of his frequently sanctimonious essays, once compared this process to that of a guest staying at a hotel room.

When we check in, we are often mortified to find even the smallest trace of the room’s previous occupant.

Thus hotels (well some of them anyway) are constantly being sterilised. To give you the illusion that you are the first person who ever stayed there. But that’s all it is – high tech sorcery.

Of course, anyone who ever saw that episode of 60 Minutes with the UV light and the Best Western hotel room no doubt is thinking differently at this minute.

So now wheels in my head are turning and examining how this situation mirrors the overall theme of our existence. Like being an organ donor for example.

To think that some dude fifty years in the future will be walking round wearing my eyes or carrying round my human heart as if it were nothing more than a ‘spare part’.

I hope they at least wash it before they give it him.

I remember when I first got my organ donor card a few years back. Many of my closest were horrified at my decision.

“Not your eyes, Jimmy – anything but them!”

It was almost as if having every trace of me gone would somehow be comforting to those left behind. To‘re-use’ my components just seemed too ghoulish.

And while I’m sure that organ donation is more fun than a handful of pills and a wank, it seems to scare a lot of people.

So then what does that say about our perspectives on life?

Does total erasure breed a soft, chewy buffer zone for those who find my death too traumatic? Or just another stupid fallacy to stop us from truly facing the transitory nature of our lives.

Like friendships. Like relationships. Like human bodies, everything eventually dies.

The older I get, the more I realise and accept this journey and the places it takes me to (and away from) and am increasingly less frustrated. The wheel simply turns. Sure it can be jarring, but this is what it is to live seven days a week as Jim.

And so finally and at long last I’m not hurt by the process. I’m not angry. And I’m certainly not sorry.

And to the dude who ends up carrying round my human heart – good luck with it.

May you find it less painful to carry round with you than I did.

the end.