Mars. Star Wars. And my budding career as a poet.

A couple of tips on living in Germany
1. It appears that people in Germany do not know what it means when you say to them 'A La Peanut Butter Sandwicheeeeeeees!' And then start counting like the count from Sesame Street. So don't try that. It just goes to show that there are always going to be language barriers in this crazy world we live in.
2. It is also heavily recommended to refrain from doing the Chewbacca growl when you are in an elevator with Germans, because 9 times out of ten, they will not find it funny if you are a stranger. Standing in the corner holding a lamp. In a black singlet.
On a moving job.

Also, try learning German if you want to get a job.

Coincidentally, my work schedule has picked up markedly in the last month. I have done around two moving jobs navigating our trusty van Jim the Eagle with various items throughout the streets of Berlin. With a grand total of around 10 hours work under my belt I feel it is about time to 'update the CV'.
The money is really starting to roll in so I feel it is safe to ring my mother and tell her than gainful employment has been attained. I will call collect.

Most of my other time has been spent hanging around at the Neukolln pools in Sam's pink togs and walking up to people asking if they have any of 'the chronic' aka 'the weed' available to buy. Preferably about 5 euros worth.
Here is a picture with some guy with his head stuck in a big bag of 'the chronic'. It looks pretty cool.



I found success after running into a guy by the name of 'Killer' I had met previously at a punk bar up the road when I was playing pool.
He didn't seem the type to hang around at the pools, but man did I know I was wrong after I saw him a) swimming b) hanging out in the park by the pool and c) lining up for the high diving board. I have also lined up for the high diving board and flown off it like a wing and a prayer. it is a 10 metre drop and is pretty exhilirating. It is also good entertainment watching all the young fat kids at the pools going off it. I am going through a fat kids phase, I find them critical to the world.

While the pool has been a staple of my summer, If I am up early enough (before 1pm) it is a nice option to mix things up and go to the lake. The last time I went I borrowed Sam's medieval sword and cut the water and did quite a few good poses on a floating log for a photo shoot whiist drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette.





Although I don't look absolutely amazing in the photos as I am a bit fatter than most of my friends, it sometimes works in my favour to be a bit 'bigger', especially when people mix me up for a fat version of Mark Wahlberg, or if I am wearing all black, a slightly fat version of the singer from Metallica. It is not so cool when you get called the brunette Philip Seymour Hoffman, or the fat guy out of the magicians Penn and Teller.

The last couple of days I have not gone to the pools or the lake because I am pretty sure I have Glandular Fever or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I am extremely tired and even have slept through my 11am alarm where I wake up for two minutes to get a juice and then check on the internet to see if Jeff Goldblum has died and/or retired from acting before immediately going back to sleep until 1pm.
My friend Heather seems to think the lethargy is coming from my 'continuous series of drinking appointments', but I am sure it is something more serious. Maybe I have accidentally swallowed some poisonous berries or a small dose of Rohypnol or slow release Ketamine.

This guy looks a little bit like he has had some Ketamine also, or is in the 'K-Hole'


Since I have had time on my hands I have tried my hand at poetry and also begun researching outer space a lot. Mainly Mars, as it is the most natural planet for humans to relocate to in 2012 when the world ends, due to its similarities to earth. Eg. It has water, it has carbon, it has a 24 hour day. Essentially Mars is a world of wonders with canyons, river valleys and giant ice sheets. Not to mention the giant rift in its surface which is 5000km long and the volcano which is as wide as Arizona.
I pretty much copied that whole paragraph from a song called The Case For Mars by The Symphony Of Science AKA my new favourite band (apart from Beastwars).
The Symphony Of Science originally ripped off those words from a few scientists like Carl Sagan and Robert Zubrin and others, however since they put the words through a vocoder and set it to trippy space music I would never call it plagiarism.

Here is Mars, AKA the Red Planet, aka the Planet Mars. And as I said previously, it is pretty much a world of wonders as far as I am concerned.



As I mentioned before, I have been trying my hand at poetry, and if I don't say so myself... pretty good.



GOLDBLUM by R. P Bonner
When will you stop acting?
When will you die?
Can't you quit while you're ahead like Rick Moranis did?
He is retired from acting.
Or at the very least stop acting so patronising and only playing one character.
You were pretty good in The Fly i suppose
I felt robbed when i thought you were dead last year,
It was just some sick, twisted media hoax
But actually.... Michael Jackson was dead on the same day you were rumoured to be.
And Farrah Fawcett too... (but mainly M.J.)

THE END



It is a little bit raw, but I think that is my style.

Because I have been at home a lot more I tend to see my flatmate Heather in the lounge sometimes after I come out of the bathroom:

'Do you find it absolutely necessary to sing the Star Wars theme song every time you have a shower?' she asked me
'No. The answer is no to that question.'
'Ok, you just seem to sing it an awful lot when you are showering. The walls are pretty thin here,'
'I have never sung the Star Wars theme song in the shower in my LIFE'
'You just got out of the shower after singing it about two seconds ago,'
'INCORRECT!' I shouted with gusto 'I think you will find that is the Imperial March AKA Darth Vader's theme that I was singing which is totally different from the Star Wars main theme,'
'Ok Reuben. I should have known that. I apologise,' she said sarcastically
Ignoring the sarcasm I continued on my tirade as I felt it was my duty to try and expel some of the ignorance in this world in regard to the masterpiece that is Star Wars.
'The Imperial March is a theme that represents the totalitarian Galactic Empire as a whole, and Darth Vader specifically. More than other Star Wars themes, the March has attained an iconic status in the Western consciousness as a general "evil theme" and in the Original Trilogy, The Imperial March also represents all that is the Empire; therefore,I would almost go so far as to call it galactic anthem. Or some crap like that,'
'You're strange,' she replied
'I may be strange, but at least I wouldn't be caught dead singing the faggy Star Wars main theme or even worse the Rebel Fanfare while I am in the shower, or anywhere for that matter,'
She left the room.
I also left the room, whistling The Imperial March as I simultaneously spun on my heel and flicked my towel over my back the same way Lord Vader might with his cape after he would leave a meeting with the Emperor. It felt pretty good.

touring with larry arab and the prime ministers, and some other crud about some things i like and dislike.

It was probably only the second time I had ever been offered legitimate work since I had been in Berlin so I decided I should probably take it. A friend had emailed asking if I would be interested in going on tour with the band Lawrence Arabia as tour manager/ driver. Any travel involving music was usually exciting so I gratefully accepted, but naturally before we ironed out the finer details I asked if there was room for me to bring Kenny Powers the pig along.
'I don't know if I feel absolutely comfortable with you bringing a pig on tour,' said James Milne aka Lawrence Arabia.
'Ok that's understandable, is it a space issue or...?'
'I think there would probably be room in the back of the van with the instruments, but I guess it is more of the 'toiletting' issue. And just the fact that we are not really used to travelling with a pig,' he continued.
'I see. Well, he is pretty well trained, but maybe it would be easier if I left him with a friend in Berlin.'
"Yeah maybe it would,'
I felt a bit put out to be honest, but then realised it was for the best as Kenny Powers did not seem to be a huge fan of me dragging him along to live gigs since his hearing was damaged at the Spandau Ballet concert when we were stuck near to the speaker.



I asked my friend Heather if she minded looking after Kenny Powers the pig for a couple of days, this was immedietley after I handed her a copy of Tina Turner's 'Private Dancer' on vinyl as a gift.
It was a cunning ploy, but she said yes. So I gave her a packet of nutri grains and some written instructions on what his favourite activities were (watching the Jane Fonda workout video, sniffing around for truffles in the park and lying on the balcony in the sun on his back looking like he's dead).
'Please don't get him wet or feed him after midnight,' I told her
'Oh really, ok, why?' she sounded worried which was not really the desired effect.
'Just kidding, that's just what happened in the movie Gremlins. You weren't allowed to get the mogwai wet or feed him after midnight. Or put him in direct sunlight.'
'Oh, ok, I haven't seen Gremlins' . She didn't find the joke especially funny, which is usually the case with jokes where you have to explain the punchline.
'Oh,' I replied.
'So it doesn't matter if he gets wet then? Or eats after midnight?'
"yeah, I guess thats ok,'



We had a quick uncomfortable silence and then I left the house and went and unlocked my bike Nenneth (which is essentially Kenneth with an 'N').
I spent about five minutes thinking about how funny that Gremlins reference might have been if the person I told it to had seen the film Gremlins. Then as I hopped onto Nenneth my pants split and I slammed the handlebars and yelled out the F word. These were my only pants I had in Germany and I was about to catch a train to Hannover. Luckily I was wearing my summer trenchcoat which covered the split.


The train to Hannover was reasonably boring and as per usual I looked for a seat close to the 1st class section as it is quite common to see old men in 1st class who look like Colonel Sanders, and i didn't want to miss out.
After one hour of not seeing any sign of any Colonel lookalikes I decided to look out the window at the wind turbines. I think the bald man in 1st class appreciated this anyway as I assume he felt like I was staring at him the whole time as we made A.E.C (awkward eye contact) about thirty times. He looked a bit like Ghandi I must admit and i sat there wondering if he was thinking that i looked like The Fat Mark Wahlberg or the lion out of Wizard of Oz. Which I have been told I look like a few times.
I have also been told I look like the mutant son of Art Garfunkel and Meatloaf, but that was coming from a guy who looks like the combination of the main orc from Lord of The Rings and a first generation iPOd that has been dropped on the ground a few times. Hence why I call him 'the Orcpod' or sometimes just 'The Orc' or 'The Pod'.





I guess everyone has their own opinion on lookalikes.

Halfway through the trip a lady got on the train and sat across from me and read the paper really loudly. I had no battery left in my iPod but put the earphones in anyway and began humming, and a bit of whistling because I felt like annoying her so she would get up and go and turn the pages somewhere else at the volume of 100 decibels.
I don't remember much about the tour other than arriving in Hannover and getting lost but ending up on a street with lots of Thai 'Massage' options and also asking to borrow someone's roll on deodorant but them not being extremely comfortable lending it to me.
I also dropped a bottle of cherry juice on the ground and it smashed and cut James foot.
The other thing I remember is telling the band the aformentioned fact about looking half like meatloaf and half like art garfunkel and some one suggesting the nickname 'Meatfunkel', which I thought was pretty good.
Although, I have recently taken to wearing a cape around the city and have therefore self-titled myself as The Vigilante, even though Sam's flatmate called my cape an airplane blanket and referred to me as 'The Lard' instead.

After doing that two or three days of work as a tour manager/merchandiser/ driver/ party planner, I decided to take it easy for a month or so. As i didn't want to get 'burnt out'. So I spent a lot of time doing some critical thinking and also a slight amount of soul searching.

After some serious internal debate I have recently decided that I like the following ten things:
1. Wizards
2. Juice
3. Nunchakas
4. Olden day fighting movies eg Braveheart etc
5. Outer space
6. most fat people
7. my pig Kenny Powers
8. looking out the window and thinking
9. running along, doing a jump and then Punching the air
10. Labyrinths



I have also decided that I don't like the following 15 things
1. slaters
2. being buried alive
3. making eye contact with strangers when they are eating
4. people splashing me in the pool
5. people who are so allergic to nuts that you can't even eat peanut butter sandwiches around them
6. Goldblum
7. having a dream about something totally awesome happening to me and then waking up and realising it never happened, and most probably never will. eg, the time i found 20 million dollars at mcdonalds and also the time i dreamt i was getting married to drew barrymore and had sex with her.
8. people eating bananas around me in enclosed spaces eg a train or an elevator
9. acid rain
10. humans who look extremely similar to a particular animal
11. ovens which don't have the words 'BAKE' or 'GRILL' or 'FAN BAKE' on them, but instead, stupid little signals which are hard to actually figure out what they mean.
12. The woman from the band M People
13. Having to go to dinner at annoying people's houses when your partner makes you
14. having to change the duvet cover
15. drugs that don't work or are so intense that you have to puke or freak out for an hour before they become good

here is a picture of what would happen to a gargoyle if you didnt protect it from acid rain



There are other things to be added on both lists, but these are the ones that immediately sprung to mind.

I also remembered recently I am not a fan of bonfires when the wind seems to blow the smoke towards you wherever you go and also flick sparks at your good jumper. There are actually about 10 more things I don't really like but now is not the time to be negative (eg.people who watch the TV out the corner of their eye with their head turned to the side so it feels like they are staring directly at the side of your face)

stay tuned for a great tale about me going into a labyrinth and meeting one of life's true weirds dressed as a medievel soldier down there brandishing a bow and arrow. And my ensuing envy.

Don't Fear The Reaper

Well, Sam and I and Kenny Powers the pig made it back to Germany unscathed.
It was a battle and a journey all rolled in to one, but mainly the adventure of a lifetime. I think I am probably the only human to have snuck a fullgrown Vietnamese Potbellied pig into the Caesar's Palace Casino and hotel complex in Las Vegas and made it out without being arrested. For that, I will pat myself on the back and give Kenny Powers the pig a bag of nuts to celebrate.

It is probably his favourite food, especially if i crush them up and put it on a human plate as opposed to them being served uncrushed in his plastic blue bowl which has 'Kenny' written on it. Quite crudely written I might add, and done in lipstick that I stole from my ex-flatmate Slutbeast 2000, whom I never really liked. But that is a story for another day. Suffice to say she was given her name as she is a total moron who needs her head read and should go and jump in loch ness and hopefully get eaten by the L.N.M.



I will just conclude by saying that Kenny Powers also never really liked Slutbeast 2000 and maybe as it is her lipstick on his bowl, maybe that is why he is not so fond of eating from it.
Anyway.
The three of us are currently stuck in a small German village called Rodenbach. With a population of approximately 12,000 and located around 20km from Frankfurt I would not call it the most happening place in the world, but it certainly does have it's benefits. We are here because our trusty van Jim The Eagle was stored here over the German winter when we were in New Zealand and it has now been committed to a repair shop to undergo treatment on around 800 Euro worth of rust damage. When the man told me
a) Jim The Eagle wouldnt be ready until tuesday (when we were supposed to be in London by)
and
b) that Jim The Eagle's repairs would cost around 800 euros to fix, I felt like kicking a hole in the wall.




But then I calmed down after about five minutes because Sam started cooking a pizza.
All the instructions on the oven here are in German and neither of us could get it to go above 60 degrees as it some stupid digital device. The pizza took around one hour and a half to cook and was pretty gross. I caught myself looking out the window while I was eating it thinking about how I wished I had a better tasting pizza, but I can't complain because as my Aunty Raech used to say 'Think of the poor little homeless kids living under London Bridge eating only old orange peels.'

We have been holed up in this village for around 4 days and are sharing a two storied family home with an amazing German/English couple and two pet rats called Punk and Ginger. One of the rats has red eyes and every time i see it i am afraid I will get hypnotised by making eye contact with it. That is the last thing I would want to happen to me at the moment, being hypnotised by some German red eyed rat, and maybe ending up in some cult or something and losing a decade of my life worshipping a rat. My parents and Kenny Powers the pig would not be impressed if that happened.
I think i can safely say that when I grow up I will definately not select a rat for my first choice of pet. Especially not one with red eyes. To be honest, I would not call myself the biggest red eyed rat enthusiast.



Apart from avoiding making eye contact with the aforementioned rat, I have also been looking out the window, doing some cooking and playing Rock Band on playstation 3. Rock Band is a game which has a guitar, a bass, drums and a microphone and you can play along to well known pop and rock songs and try and get a good score. The maximum is 100 per cent. Sam and I have spent about 16 hours in total trying to get 100 per cent on the 1970's hit Don't Fear The Reaper by The Blue Oyster Cult.



If you have not heard this song then you are a total idiot and may as well go to a hardware store and buy a stout piece of rope and finish yourself off. it is a cold hard hit and should be given to children on CD on their first day of school if their dad has not already played it to them in the car when he is driving around town picking up stuff like plywood or a hammer and has his kid along even though they probably would rather stay at home and muck around with blocks or watch cartoons.
We have decided that even if our van is ready by Tuesday, we are not leaving this house until we both get 100 per cent simultaneously on Don't Fear The Reaper. I have been playing the drums under my drumming pseudonym 'Beats Powers' and Sam has been playing guitar, but has just been going under his normal name I think.
I actually probably should not be wasting time writing about mindless crap and be downstairs practising on 'Reaper'.
It has been a very relaxing time and Kenny Powers the pig has a good sized bark yard where he will root around for truffles after we have done our daily two hour training session.
For those of you who don't know, Kenny Powers and I are going for a Guinness Book of World Records Record. What record you may ask?
Behold:
The highest jump in the world ever made by a pig is 70 cm (27.5 in) and was achieved by Kotetsu, a pot-bellied pig on 22 August 2004 at the Mokumoku Tedsukuri Farm, Mie, Japan.
We are aiming to beat that by the end of this year and then proceed to reap all benefits involved with winning a 'Guinney'. Which I can only assume is endorsements, monetary gain and obviously attention from members of the opposite sex. My plan is to send KPTP (Kenny Powers the pig) for a week at a pig farm wearing his guinness gold medal around his neck where he can relax and talk to babes about his achievement and maybe make a special connection with some lucky lady.
KPTP and I chose a life less ordinary, and we aim to realise our dreams before we are to old and withered to try any more.
If anyone is interested in helping sponsor or fund this noble cause, then send me a fax, so it is a bit more official etc.
I must admit, it was pretty funny when the nextdoor neighbour peered over the fence and saw me training KPTP to jump out of a cardboard box.
'Was machst du mit dem Schwein?'
'Sprechen Sie English?'
'Ja, I speak some English. Why are you making this pig jump from out of this cardboard?'
'Because I will eat the pig'
'What?'
'I will eat the pig'
'I don't understand i'm sorry'
'I will eat the pig if he doesn't jump out of the box.'
Then the neighbour slowly backed away from the fence into his house, looking from me over to KPTP and back. He left us alone. Mission accomplished.
Sam just tried to run a bath, but the water wasn't hot enough Which reminds me, did everyone's mum used to say:
'You kids can just use the bath water after I'm finished in there?'
I hope so.
This is me in Las Vegas in a bath with James. We bath had a flannel each just in case you were wondering if there were dicks everywhere.

Knuckle sandwich. And the weird christian i followed for about ten minutes

Luckily I just walked past a guy on the street who yelled out
'Hey! I'm A Christian!'.
I pretty much thought 'Good for you.' and kept walking, and then he yelled it again. So I thought
'This is getting pretty annoying now.'
And then guess what? He yelled it again, and I thought
'Who gives a flying crap. I dont walk down the road telling people that I have brown hair.'
And then he yelled it out again, but by then he was getting a bit further out of earshot so it started to become less annoying so I thought:
'Ha. This is kind of funny now, that idiot has just yelled out 'Hey! I'm a christian' five times in a row, I wonder how many more times he will yell that out.'
And then I felt like turning around and following him to see how many times he was going to say it before he stopped.
So I did.



After following him down the road for about ten minutes and counting him yell out
'Hey! I'm A christian!' 33 times I got pretty pissed off because I realised I had been walking the wrong way for ten minutes and had totally forgotten to go to my haircut appointment. Which is where I was heading when I first met that Christian.
I couldn't really be bothered turning around and walking back up the hill so I i texted my hairdresser to tell her I was hungover and couldn't make it to the haircut. This was much easier than having to explain to her via text message that I had been following a guy yelling out 'Hey! I'm A Christian'.
Because I was pretty bored I decided to go and look at the book shop, but after I had flicked through some magazine called Cowboys And Indians with Tom Selleck on the cover there was nothing good left there to look at,



so I went into a shop called Knuckle Sandwhich to buy some food, purely because the name is brilliant. The food was 'ok', but it was worth it just to have dined there. Even though the woman who served me didn't really have a clue about anything I had to ask her.
'Hello, welcome to Knuckle Sandwich how can I help you?'
'Hi. I would like a sandwich with lamb and also all the main vegetables. How many sauces are you allowed?'
'Two. Or you can pay an extra fifty cents per extra sauce.'
'Oh yeah. That is pretty standard with sauces really isn't it?'
'I'm not sure.'
'Well that is mainly the way these days isn't it? Two sauces for free etc?'
'Sorry, i don't really know.' She smiled nervously. Maybe because I was wearing my summer trenchcoat I suppose and asking about the sauces. But it was still pretty annoying she wasn't on my W.L (wavelength, or wave-o for short)
'Well I would like mint sauce and also some mayonnaise.'
'Ok that will be 8.50 thank you, would you like a drink?'
'I am ok thanks. If you guys served milkshakes then I would order one. Not many places serve milkshakes anymore do they?'
'I'm not sure.' Nervous laughter. I wanted to say 'Quit it with the nervous laughter.' but instead I said
'Knuckle Sandwich is a great name for a sandwich shop. That is the reason I came in here, I wasn't even really hungry to be honest. Who came up with that name 'Knuckle Sandwich' for this sandwich shop?'
'I'm sorry I really don't know. There is more than one Knuckle Sandwich, so maybe the guy who started the Knuckle Sandwich chain.'

Well if I was that guy who had come up with the name Knuckle Sandwich for all these sandwich shops I would have felt like giving this girl a knuckle sandwich for being my employee and not knowing my name.
She was polite, but so uninformed and complacent that I was inspired to take my sandwich elsewhere to eat it. AKA Walking down the road dropping a couple of pieces of coleslaw on the concrete and then kicking them to the side of the pavement.

'This sandwich is ok. But not great.' I thought to myself and then decided I would hail a cab when I had counted that I had walked 150 steps closer to my destination (which would have saved me about 20 cents, give or take a cent or two) on my cab fare.

My cab driver was pretty amazing, as many taxis drivers tend to be. The name on his taxi driver identification card on the windscreen was 'Malcol' . I assumed that it was short for Malcolm as many taxi driver IDs seemed to have letters cut off the end of their names, but just in case it was his real name I called him Malcol. After we broke the ice with the main questions (Who has your day been mate? What time did you start? What time do you knock off? Have you been busy? Must be awesome when you get called to take someone out to the airport?) we got to talking like two interested in each other human beings.



'So, Malcol, how often do you guys get to renew your identification cards?'
'Around once every five years.'
'That's pretty good I suppose.'
Then I looked out the window at some rollerbladers and cursed myself again for not carrying my slingshot with me at all times. Especially since two of them were holding hands so i could have aimed for where their fingers were linking.
Soon enough I was home, and Malcol rounded down on how much I owed him. So I gave him a tip of around one or two dollars and said
'Thanks a lot Malcol' and closed the door.
Then I walked inside and looked on Facebook and saw my friend had written on his page:
'I saw a goat's dick and now I can't stop thinking about it.' Which I thought was admittedly pretty funny.

Sick Again and a summary of places Kenny Powers The Pig tends to puke

Well what do you know, I am sick again. For the second time within one month. But this time it is serious, well not deadly serious, AKA It isn't AIDS and it isn't AIDS 2, but it is not as minor as the 'common'. I guess you would say it is the flu as all my bones are stinging and also I have been shivering and/or sweating through the night.
It will take me 50 or 60 rolls over in bed before I get close to being comfortable, so after i have busied my self looking like some kind of thrashing bed walrus I will then carry into the night to have hallucinogenic dreams where i am either:
a) in the desert with no water and a plane flies over and drops some water BUT coincidentally a massive eagle with a huge greedy beak flies under neath it and collects all the water that i thought would fall on me. And I pull out my trusty slingshot BUT I have no stones or berries to fire at the cursed (pronounced cur-sid) beast.



or
b) I am so totally thirsty and running a marathon and as I run past, my supporters give me deliciously full water bottles and pat me on the shoulder, BUT as opposed to refreshing H20 or juice, the bottles are filled with either salt water, or sometimes warm blood, which as you probably know are not thirst quenching at all really. So then i get fed up and decide to shoot a flare gun at the next idiot who comes up to me with salt water, no exceptions. BUT it is a little kid. So I shoot him. And he explodes, and I keep running, and admittedly my remorse is pretty minimal because all I keep thinking about is how I wished he had given me some god damn juice.




For your information I would never shoot a kid in real life with a flare gun. Unless he was badly injured and I was trying to P.H.O.O.H.M (put him out of his misery). Anyway, being sick is actually not the best feeling in the universe, and the most annoying thing about the flu is the fact that everything you eat tastes like metal. Chicken sandwich = Metal sandwich. Tomatoes = wet red squishy metal. Roast beef = metal. Not that I would know what the latter tastes like as my mother AKA The Morning Stomper has a pretty strict policy of Rotisserie Chicken for all, for ever, for the whole family, for all meals.
There are currently two different rotisserie chickens in the fridge. I will not go near them though and would rather live off of grass and/or the drippings from the ceiling than eat another one of those things in any way shape or form.
I have taken to wandering down the hallway at night to look in the cupboard and fridge to check and see if my brother has some form of filing system to hide all the good food until I go to bed and then sneak it back out once I have retired, but alas, it is not so. But, I have gone off on a tangent again, the metal, thats what I was talking about.
One item that doesn't seem to taste like metal when you are sick is juice. It is though it will alway stay the same, (thank the lord) and being sick is the perfect excuse to really over indulge in juice, and it really is your god given right to drink around 3 litres of it in one day. And let the vitamins flow through you.
My faithful ally Kenny Powers the pig has a certain sixth sense in regard to when I am sick or not and tends to keep to his corner of the room when it is the appropriate time. Whether he can tell this by my overall juice consumption or just due to my general demeanour I am not sure, but that is certainly one of the top five things I like about him and probably the reason why we are such a powerful and unstoppable team. A few of the other things that I like about him are (including the aformentioned) :
a) Using his sixth sense to keep to his corner when I am sick so as not to get up in my face when I am trying to get comfortable and have my own 'space'. (The aforementioned).
b) Being happy watching a video with me on the couch and not feeling like he has to get up every five seconds to go to the bathroom or ask me every five seconds what is happening with the plot of the movie (which is what girls tend to do and is very disruptive).
c) Being a great discussion point if you ever need to meet any of your friends in the park and there is a bit of an uncomfortable silence when you are sitting around talking
d) Being further inspiration to save up for a motorbike with a sidecar, where he would be my main passenger (wearing an airpilots leather hat, goggles and a scarf).



and last but not least
e) Not needing to be fed all the time. I will happily leave a box of Nutri Grains, a sack of normal grains and a giant Toblerone in his basket at the beginning of the week and he knows it is expected to last him four days before he will get his next 3 days worth of food. He has taught himself to portion, ration and plan, which is just another reason why people should confirm how intelligent pigs are. And Kenny Powers, I believe, is one of the smartest of all of those cute little guys.

Admittedly, although he tends to keep clear of me when I am sick, it is the absolute opposite when Kenny Powers the pig is sick or feeling 'poorly'. It is though I am a magnet for his puke when the shoe is on the other foot and he is unwell. Quite often when he eats a whole block of chocolate he will immedietly get sick and usually puke on my leather jacket, my duvet cover or on and around my ear if i am lying down. It is times like this when you have to rise above the anger and realise you are responsible, almost like a parent, to help your dependants when they are unwell. The best thing to do is slide him off the bed away from the puke and into his basket and read him a chapter from the Hobbit until he relaxes or stops puking.
I must say it was kind of annoying when we had first arrived at the Auckland airport on our way home from Berlin via Korea and it came to my attention that Kenny Powers the pig had not travelled so well and had spent the second leg of the plane trip home puking all over himself in his cage in the cargo hold. A gigantic Samoan woman working at the Auckland airport advised me that there was 'quite a mess that I would have to take care of' when I went to collect him from the quarantine area. 'Great', I thought as I cursed him again. 'All that pig is really good for is puking everywhere at innopportune times and collecting a few coins from between the cracks of the ground with his snout when we are really desperate for money'. But I put those thoughts aside after about a minute and realised I still loved him as much as a man could love a pig without it being 'sick'. And my anger subsided when I saw him sitting there in his cage with puke everywhere, in fact I must say I was impressed that he didn't look demoralised. It was quite the contrary really, he was wearing his usual facial expression of 'I may just look like a pig to you, but if I was a human I would be a Count with riches and esteem that spreads through the surrounding lands'.

I was not really looking forward to cleaning all the puke off him to be honest and thought about offering to pay my brother $35 to do it. But then I remembered I only had 45 euro cents to my name and that he had a very firm policy of 'No IOUs' since I borrowed $20 from his piggy bank when he was 8 to spend on refill vodka to drink at Ladies Bay.
I also thought that because I had not seen him in around six months I didn't want our first conversation to go like this:
'Hi'
'Hi. Thanks for coming to the airport with mum to pick me up.'
'That's ok. Where's your pig?'
'At the quarantine. He puked everywhere on the plane in the cargo hold.'
'That's pretty cool. Did you bring me some DVDs back from Germany?'
'No. I couldn't find any. I got you and mum a big Toblerone to share.'
'Wow thanks for the most predictable gift travelling people ever get for their family, and then dividing it in half between two people.'
'That's ok. Do you know what jetlag is, or are you too young?'
'Yeah I know what it is. Why?'
'Because I have jetlag and need to sleep, so, I think it would be pretty cool of you to clean the puke off that pig when we get home. It will be a good way for you two to meet each other and do a bit of bonding as he will be living with us.'
'I will clean the puke of that pig if you give me $100 cash up front and also you have to take me to the video shop to hire R16 Xbox games whenever I ask you to for the whole of summer.'
'I counter that offer with this offer: $35 cash IOU to clean the pig and I will go to hire the R16 games whenever you ask me, as long as I don't have a headache at the time.'
'No way in hell. Have fun cleaning that puke off your pig. And also have fun trying to convince mum to let him in the car with puke on him.'
He was getting wiser to my devious plans this boy.

In other news, what the fuck is this picture?

Kenny Powers The Pig finds me a ten dollar note and two gays Kissing.

If there is one thing I cant be bothered doing, that is
a)exercise
and/or
b) walking up steep hills trying to eat at the same time.
That is why today when I was sitting outside a bakery eating a chicken sandwich with my pig Kenny Powers (whose name and future bloodlines I now curse), I became extremely angry when he ran away from me and decided to go up a steep hill towards the park against my will and permission.
'Where the heck are you going you stupid jerk!' I yelled after him. He halted, looked around at me and then continued to walk up the hill while still making eye contact. I saw red and shook 'The Fist Of Angst' at the air and yelled towards him 'When I catch you you're dead Kenny Powers you stupid pig!'.


I decided I had to chase after him in case he got hit by a car or kidnapped because if he did then where would I be? I will tell you: standing in the middle of the road with a dead, half-trained pig and back to square one, just as far away from winning a prestigious Guiness World Book OF Records record as I ever was.
(In case you didnt know, we are in training for this record here, which we plan to have beaten within one year.
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records/natural_world/animal_extremes/highest_jump_by_a_pig.aspx )

As I released a loud angry growl of frustration I made a snap decision and refused to leave my sandwich at the bakery while I chased after that moronic pig Kenny Powers, as odds are the woman behind the counter would come by and clear the table away and think my sandwich was left as rubbish. Or worse still, devour it as her own.
I already disliked her anyway as she reminded me of my true nemesis White Hair the lunch lady from my boarding school who would always serve me a smaller portion than the people ahead of and behind me in line. Therefore I C.B.B (couldn't be bothered) asking her lookalike to watch my sandwich while i went chasing after Kenny Powers the pig up what looked like one of the steepest hills in the city. Because no doubt she would have said 'No', or something equally annoying.
This meant that I had to carry the sandwich in my hand when I was walking up the hill chasing that damn pig, and as everyone probably knows, it is pretty hard to not eat a half eaten thing when it is sitting there in your hand beckoning you every one second to stuff it in your mouth. So I had to take bites as I was dealing with puffing and walking up the hill and being tired. Also to M.M.W (make matters worse) I stubbed my toe so bad that a flap had come off just like what would happen when you were a kid in the 80's. My toe started stinging and it made me so mad how 80's a move i had just made by stubbing my toe. I may as well have contracted an 80's disease like the Mumps or the Measles at the same time and shouted at my pig an 80's saying like 'Get Stuffed!' or 'You're Such A Twit'.

It was probably the most annoyed I had been all week, but I couldn't stop biting the sandwich, and with every tired breath and chew I cursed that pig with all my body and heart and took an oath to the sky and said 'He Will Feel My Vengeance aka My Wrath'. And when I got to the top of the hill there he was, just sitting there underneath a tree in amongst a bunch of fallen leaves by a bench where two gays were kissing on the lips.



They had also strategically parked their car with the door open and radio blaring right beside their 'getting with' seat, and it was playing MGMT. As I didn't want to interrupt them it was not the best time to start yelling at Kenny Powers the pig, so I took the last bite of my sandwich while breathing heavily and picked him up and walked back down the hill. I was squeezing him a bit tighter than I usually would so a) he wouldn't run away and b) to give him slightly sore ribs as punishment for making me walk up the hill eating.
I released my grip a bit when I noticed an M&M wrapper and also a ten dollar note stuck to his hoof. That brought down my anger factor from around 9.4 to about 6.1, and it further dropped to about 3 because I realised that seeing the gays kissing had reminded me that it was the Ginger's birthday, and that every birthday he would get a kiss on the lips from his dad, and now he was 31, and still getting a kiss on the lips on his special day. I sniggered at the thought of it and said to Kenny Powers
'I will spend that ten dollars on snacks from the petrol station and as punishment you will only get 30% of what I buy as opposed to the usual 45/55 split. But I am not angry anymore which is the main thing.'
He looked up at me with one of his looks which I knew to mean either
a) 'I understand, apologies for running off'
or
b) 'When In Rome'
Either way, we were friends again. So I started drifting off and thinking about something else. If I remember correctly it was how at a party the other night I had tried to convince a bunch of people that the basketball player Magic Johnson had beaten AIDS.



Or, was no longer testing HIV Positive after being diagnosed with the virus in 1991 just before my mum and stepdad got married. Either way, i did not know enough about the facts of him beating AIDS and could not back up my argument so the people at the party thought I was probably a real moron. But screw them as they were talking about boring crud in the first place hence why I had to bring up AIDS, which is always a pretty good ice breaker.

Banished by the Stomper. A story about determination.

As my brother is confirmed as the preferred child in the family and also gets dibs on all the best groceries it was of no surprise to me upon getting sick with a mild case of the 'common' that i was banished by my mother, aka the Morning Stomper, to my bedroom so as to not infect my brother with my ailment. It was understandable as he did admittedly have a very important race coming up, and as he is one of the best 1500 metre runners for his age in the country, there is no way that I wanted to jeopardise any chance that at least one of the children in this family could do some achieving. This would bring up the family average, and keep the Morning Stomper satisfied with the level of her offsprings productivity, and therefore make her less likely to come in and shout at me for spending time in the middle of the day sitting in the lounge watching old Macgyver episodes.

I consider this bad juju and really feel like my 'mellow' is 'being harshed' when the Stomper comes in with flailing arms and words flying while I am sitting there trying to enjoy one of the greatest TV series ever created, or what I like to call a 'Shakespearianesque drama'. Especially when it is on on a monday afternoon after I have had a tiring weekend, and even more especially when it is one of my favourite ever Macgyver episodes 'Trumbo's World' AKA the one set in Brazilian Amazonia where massed colonies of billions of soldier ants take out anything in their path including humans, cattle, trees and whatever. It is totally awe inspiring and in M.H.O (my humble opinion) the best Macgyver episode ever to air - (not including any episodes which has the international assassin 'Murdoc' in them - Macgyver's nemesis. For these always work out to be the best episodes by a county mile).
this is him below looking totally awesome and reasonably evil.

But I digress, the point is, when I am trying to get in the zone and soak up some culture, I don't need the Stomper giving me a bad buzz or any 'heat'. So this is why it is good that my brother gets out there and runs, and achieves, and levels the balance of the universe inside this little house we all live in, because I would do it for him if i could run. Also he owes me because the last time I stuck up for him in front of the Stomper we were both punished and had to carry bits of wood from the yard down into the bush at 8:45 at night. Which was admittedly, pretty annoying.
Soon after the Macgyver incident, where i was sent to my room anyway, I got the aforementioned dose of the 'common'. That is short for the common cold, in case you are total idiot who didn't pick up on that.
My 'common' was quite mild, but the Stomper insisted that I would stay in my room until my brother left for Wellington 3 days later. I was allowed out to use the bathroom, but only if I took bacterial wipes with me to wipe down all surfaces around the taps and door handles, and even though she didn't say it, I knew she would prefer if i held my breath on my way down the hallway.
My meals were brought to me in my room and usually passed through as small a crack as possible, and I was told 'we must keep you contaminated', even though i'm pretty sure she meant 'quarantined'.
I think the 'Pièce de résistance' of this whole caper was when my brother came to the door of my room wearing a doctors or 'sars' mask to give me a glass of berocca sent from the Stomper in a bid to speed up my recovery.
The door opened a minimal crack and his hand placed the fizzing cup on the table and then withdrew, still peering in.
'Drink it' he said to me in a muffled SARS mask wearing voice.
'What the hell are you wearing on your face?'
'A SARS mask'
'Where did you get that from?'
'Don't talk to me you're contaminated'
'Seriously, did mum get you that to wear around me?'
'Correct.'
I laughed uncontrollably for around one minute and could tell he was also smirking at the hilarity of the situation under his SARS mask.
'You look like a real idiot with that thing on you know'
'Yeah well at least I am not confined to a room with AIDS or Ebola or whatever the hell it is you have got.'



'It is the common'
'Yeah well you are starting to remind me of the weird albino from Benchwarmers who is afraid to leave the house.'
'Yeah well tell the Stomper to either a) let me out of the room, or b) lend me the car so I can go somewhere.'
'She won't lend you the car for fear of contamination, I don't blame her really. Why don't you get out of the house on roller blades like you used to in the 90s?'
'Yeah well mum probably gave my blades away to a chinese family around the road like she did with all my toys.'
'Drink the berrocca. And don't talk to me. You're contaminated. Night'
'Night'
I did drink the Berrocca. And it kept me awake until around 4am, but I didn't really care because I had plenty to do between reading the Motley Crue autobiography, ringing the Guthy Renker infomercials call free number, and looking on the internet every now and then to see if there had been any new animal faceoff battles loaded up on youtube.