Something, instead of Nothing........... :o)

Not much going on right now……. Hasn’t been for a while.

Just thought I’d say Something rather than Nothing, but I guess there’s not a lot of difference between the two which means I might as well not bother, but I am, so that’s Something I guess.

So here’s to Something.

Wrote to my buddy mad Eddie in the States today……… well, last night too actually. Today was in response to him answering right away. He’s been on a downer lately and the once long,-deep-and-regular emails have dropped off for a while now. Mainly my fault I guess; plodding and struggling through life’s thick mud as I’ve been doing for a while now kinda leads me to ‘not bothering’ with a load of things I really should be bothering with.

‘Not bothering’ is kinda misleading though……… it smacks of those things ‘not bothered’ with being unimportant to me. Couldn’t be further from the truth really. Depression kills your life. Kills everything within shouting distance of it too. Kills friendships. Kills passions. Kills your job. Even kills your doctor’s patience too, if you refuse the mind-and-dick-debilitating medication which fails to cheer-up seventy percent of those who swallow it.

Kills the fucking lot really.

Mine’s from my job, and it’s not bad enough to have me curled up in a ball, but it’s bad enough that I can’t be bothered, unless I have to on someone else’s behalf. Work mostly. Which keeps me topped up nicely, thanks.

It’s the bullshit that's increasing in a way that would’ve been unimaginable a few years ago. Actually, it’s still bleddy unimaginable. These son’bitch weenies, all sat in their cosy offices are pissing on us all down here. As if we didn’t have enough of it to clear up as it is. I am often overwhelmed with their ingenuity, and ability to treat the ridiculous as entirely reasonable and practicable.

Anyway……… enough. I’m on a day off, and if I don’t watch it I’ll spend it walking around here having a bleddy good row with the buggers.

So, there’s Something, instead of Nothing.

Now, I’m off to do Nothing.

Y’all have a good day doing Something.

Or Nothing.

Either way, don't feel bad doing it, ok? :o)

Kxxx :o)

A meal and then clubbing with My Girls, a few inspirational quotes, and some Rube Goldberg gadgets. :o)

Went out for a meal last night with a load of staff ('My Girls') I used to work with last year, and then to a big pub, which is pretty much a night club in all but name……. the same one I went to a couple of weeks ago or so, with the bunch of staff I work with now.

It was a great night out, and we had a great laugh. They are a good bunch, and the humour is terrific when we are all together. I was in ‘Entertain’ mode, and the restaurant owner said they were all welcome back, excepting myself. He was smiling though.

(Thankyou God for a great night out.)

I got back home, and it’s silence had the usual ‘flattening’ effect. Another rare night out in the company of people with full lives, and another return alone to a quiet house. Jeees, how many times have I come back to a quiet house? Still, at least I don’t have to put up with someone else’s shit I guess. Some would gladly swap places with me in a heartbeat, eh? :o)

(Thankyou God I don’t have to put up with someone else’s shit!) :o)

Had a bad night………. bad dreams which kept me wakening up through the night. Stood outside for a while pondering on it all, and calling for Lomax, as I do every time I happen to get up at night. Made a cuppa, had a read, and back to sleep at four-ish. Slept on and off then until nine.

Exciting life, innit? :oI

(Thankyou God for waking to another day)

This blog isn’t kicking off today……… no inspiration.

Give up for today, eh? Sometimes you’ve just got to let it go.

Instead,……….. here’s some quotes I found whilst browsing around the ‘net this morning. I just might inspire someone else today. :o)

"I never knew I was going to get to the result until I got there." -- Pablo Pardo

"The perfect state of creative bliss is having power (you are 50) and knowing nothing (you are 9). This assures an interesting and successful outcome."
-- Tibor Kalman

The good news is that you can become more innovative just by taking some action, however small, today. My favorite book on this subject is The Knowing-Doing Gap. In one section of the book, 49ers coach Steve Mariucci explains how he stamps out inaction by not sporting a watch:
"Always know what time it is. It is always NOW. And NOW is when you should do it."

"The best measure of a blog is not how many people it reaches, it’s how much it changes what you do. Changes your posture, your writing, your transparency, your humility. What blogging has done for me is made me think. I get to think about how the outside world will understand something I’m trying to do, for example."- Seth Godin

Exhilaration is the Breeze
That lifts us from the Ground
And leaves us in another place
Whose statement is not found
-Emily Dickinson

................ And here's some U-Tube links:-

This wooden marble 'adding machine' would be fun to make........... maybe a lot bigger with more adding slots to calculate a far bigger number.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcDshWmhF4A&feature=channel

Here's a link to a music machine........... whether you think it sounds good or not is immaterial really.............. just think of the work to put it together, eh????
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Ajg1G3vik

That got me looking at Automata........... something that's always fascinated me, and which I'd love to get around to making someday. I'd love to make something that is complicated, and goes all around the woods to do bugger-all in the end.

I love the setups where, like a row of falling dominoes, a whole series of events results in something trivial happening at the end. There's a name for these chain- reaction mechanisms but it escapes me right now.............

Ah, yes............ Rube Goldberg Mechanisms.

There's several on U-Tube........... Honda did one, which was an advert called "Cog", and was quite brilliant in itself, using nothing but Honda car parts!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYabfifhEPE

The best one though is absolutely fantastic, called 'The way Things Go'. It used many more spectacular chain reactions, fire and fireworks being amongst them, and although it's a little more amateurish and less 'slick' than the Honda one, it's actually far better, at over a hundred feet long, and lasting for 30 minutes in the full version

Here's a U-Tube link to a shorter version...........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U82eWptFxSs

There's bloke called Theo Jansen who designs and builds the fantastic Strandbeests:-

"Since 1990 I have been occupied creating new forms of life.
Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. I make skeletons that are able to walk on the wind, so they don’t have to eat.
Over time, these skeletons have become increasingly better at surviving the elements such as storms and water and eventually I want to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives."

have a look at his website........... fascinating, it really is. No electronics whatsoever, which means absolutely no computers of any size at all.

here's a link to them working.........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_eY22R0TWE&NR=1

........... and here's a U-Tube link to a lecture of his..........

http://www.strandbeest.com/

There's a BMW advert on the end, and a bit at the beginning, but ignore that. I guess he needs sponsorship, and I won't knock this absolutely genius guy for that! :o)

Ok, y’all have a good day out there,…. well, what’s left of it anyway .............. it's pretty much over here, as it's just gone 5.30pm.

Another day without Lomax bites the dust. I sure hope he's ok, wherever he is. :o(

K.

Choc drops............

Hi there,
Lomax has gone out for the fourth foraging session of the day. He generously let me sleep in to 06.30am this morning, and I managed to hang on until nearly 07.00am, before he had me up for his grub, and getting out for the first of the days Adventures

Hanging on against Lomax’s various wake-the-miserable-old-bastard-up techniques until 07:00am is now considered to be a long lie-in! :o)

Eddie phoned from the States at 10ish, and we nattered for a couple of hours about, well, you name it and we pulled it to bits, and put it together again. He is always real good to talk to, full to the brim with ideas, and I’m good at tweaking them to help give them another ‘edge’. We bounce off each other, the walls and the sky (the ceilings went west a long time ago), and have a good laugh. :o)

Not inspired today re. this blog though………..

Ummn………..

Ok, here’s something I read in a book I’m reading by Boris Johnson….. Seventy Two Virgins:-

“We all have in our lives someone who controls our emotional thermostat. There is always someone whose function is to supply the pipette drops of praise, the intermittent good boy choc drops of external affirmation that gets us through the day. The story of our lives is essentially the rotation of that person’s identity: mother, father, teacher, girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse and so on.”

It caught my eye, and I thought, “Yup, life is kinda like that a lot.”

I adore praise. Tell me I’m wonderful, call me your Hero (girls) and stand back to watch me fly. Piss on my parade, and watch me die. Pretty simple really. One switch……… two positions……… On and Off.

Typical 100% old fashioned Male. Nice and simple to operate. :o)

It’s actually no harder to make the lights sparkle in a woman. Just needs some old fashioned, non-pc male attention………… non-predatory if she’s not ‘yours’. Praise, honest flattery, you know, ………..the stuff that works. The stuff that would make anyone feel good. :o)

It all pretty well adds up to treating people the way you’d like to be treated, and sometimes thinking of their feelings ahead of yours.

I’m real lucky, in that some real nice women along the way have loved me, not in the least my wife back when I was married, and they have all fed me my Good Boy Choc Drops by the handful. Every single one. I have been real lucky with my women. There’s not one I regret loving, and not one has treated me badly. I guess not everyone gets that lucky.

Different people reward us all in different ways, and for me, it’s a woman who lights up the fires every time………. But I’m high maintenance in as much as she really needs to be on site. Or pretty damn close, free and ready to roll at short notice. :o)

It’s different for everybody, but most do need feeding with a reward of some description. I feel sorry for those rubbing up close, but not getting any Choc Drops, no drips of reward, .........and it happens a lot, I think. For both sexes. Some relationships run real dry.

Hard on the bearings, is that.

That must be hell on wheels. :oI

If you haven’t been giving out the Good Boy/Girl Choc Drops, to whomever it is………. get going and start dishing them out……….. and watch him/her light up.

It’s real easy to do, so make sure you do it, because when it’s gone, it’s gone, ...........and believe me, it can happen real easy.

Don't let it run dry.

............. and it includes friends, or anyone who's important to you at all.

And, whilst we are about it, why not include those who aren't important to you as well, eh?

With that in mind, there's favourite saying I live by............

"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good"

My father lived by that, and I'm grateful for the example.

This crummy world would be a shitload better if more people lived by it too.

Nite nite,
K. :o)