What I want, what I really, really want.

The Daily Zen Desk Calendar I received for Christmas from Carole quotes Charles Dickens tomorrow, informing me, "This is a world of action, and not for moping and groaning in." Very well, Chuck. Here's a non-sequential list of things I'd like to see accomplished by the end of the year.

• The short film currently titled Song Of The Sea, a name I'm not enamoured of, completed.
• The ambitious feature film script I'm working on with m'colleague Paul, completed and shopped around to attentive agents.
• The derivative roman á clef novel I abandoned last year, I Missed Out On Everything (a name I'm totally enamoured of), revived, revivified, reimagined, rewritten, revered.
• A workplace characterised by unironic pride, bonhomie, amity, interested leadership and commitment.
• The website to which this list is attached, Cubisia, redesigned and useful.
• The derivative column I envisage writing, The Unseen Sci-Fi Hour, finding a home and in production.
• Regular tabletop gaming, be it roleplaying, boardgaming or some combination.
  

Beyond that, I would also like to contribute to Knights Of The Dinner Table on a semi-regular basis again, see more than The Hague during my August trip to World Dip Con, hone my televisual skills...and possibly even learn to drive.

But that's probably all a bit much, isn't it?

It's near the end!

Back in the first half of 1992, I sat on the steps leading down to the water at Wollongong's Continental Pools with the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook (2nd Edition), which I'd borrowed from Paul Gray (who was in Year 10 to my Year 7) that day so I could make up a character.

I can't remember what my character ended up being (though I'd venture it was a half-elf bard...I loved bards back then and - but I digress), and I can't remember anything about who ran the campaign, the world it was set in or any of the adventures my character (who, if he was a bard, was probably named Cacofonix after the talentless harpist from Asterix comics) took part in.

Those memories are lost to the ether, but 17 years later I can easily be back on that step, ignoring school-mandated swimming lessons in favour of reading David "Zeb" Cook's introduction to the rulebook. Salty water evaporating from my legs as I nod through the opening chapter designed to ease the newcomer into a strange, niche hobby.

It's weird what you keep.

This is my story.

This morning, I called the 7-11 guy a fuckhead cos he overcharged me 5c on a bottle of water. It says $1.95 on the pricetag.

I handed him a $2 coin and waited for my change. He said, in this douchebag voice, “It’s $2.”

I went, “It’s $1.95, fuckhead.”

But then I walked out, cos I couldn’t be bothered showing him the pricetag and waiting for 5c.

Cubisia Is Back.

I noticed the site was missing before I went OS (to London and Dublin, divvn't ya kna?) but decided to deal with it later. It's not like there's anything compelling on here - aside from this, I mean.

Turns out I needed to reregister the domain. I don't think anyone told me this, of course. But I did it today at work, so all's well. Not that you, the hypothetical reader, care about that.

Honestly, I'd regale you with tales of my inaugural Eurotrip, but I'm too tired to even play Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare and/or Left 4 Dead 2, both of which I grabbed today, at my first day back.

This morning I was kicking back at work, easing into things, when I realised how much I have to do before the Christmas deadline. So I'll try to do a full report, if only for my own edification, later this week. Once I've saddled up Jewell and Sophie with questions for their columns, saddled up Anton with True Blue Confessions to illustrate, and got ahead with game reviews, Animal House and whatever else needs doing.

Hmmm...I've stressed myself out. No wonder I didn't want to leave the lands of The Eye, the British Museum, Tate Modern, Westminster Abbey, Tower Of London, St Stephens Green, Trinity College, Guinness Storehouse, Charles Beatty Library, Newgrange, Tara, multitudinous castles, mossy trees, massive rivers and centuries of religious turmoil.

To be sure, to be sure.

Dorm Daze

For something like six months, Dorm Budddy Karl and I have been shuffling our shrapnel from fob pocket to moneybox. One of those big moneyboxes with a $50-note motif around the outside that you can't get into without an old-timey can opener.

On Tuesday, we borrowed an old-timey can opener from Bec at FHM, then skipped merrily to the Commonwealth Bank on Castlereagh, where they have an exciting change-counting machine. In the end, our effortless toil resulted in $69.95. Just 5c short of a round figure. Karl asked the teller if the bank would be generous. Instead, he withdrew 5c from my account to make up the remainder.

Laughable, but fitting.

Anyway, we took our cash in the form of seven $10 notes. Last night, we hit Scruffy Murphy's to spend it. $6.95 chicken schnitzels? $7 jugs of Toohey's New? $7 jugs of Snakebite? Fuck oath.

(Snakebite is a mix of Bulmer's cider, grenadine, XXXX Gold and lime. It's incredible.)

We were joined, eventually, by a Canadian fellow named Tyler, who designs videogames for a living, looks kinda like that bloke from High School Musical and had no idea where he was. Conversation was had until that fateful moment when...Drag Queen Karaoke began.

That's pretty much the point at which the night became truly awesome, and worthy of our dorm savings. There's a family of nuff-nuff regulars, you see, whose performances called to mind the appeal of Victorian-era freak shows. Or Australian Idol.

Honestly, those talent shows should all include a pair of old-tart drag queens hurling abuse at borderline retards. And handing out tokens for free jugs of beer, of course.

Wampyr

In one of those displays of synchronicity I enjoy, this quote came up on Grognardia:

"Like Stoker's Dracula, I find vampires to be both attractive and repulsive: attractive, because the idea of nearly-immortal damned souls stalking the night is a terrifying one; repulsive, because too few people nowadays look on vampires as unambiguously evil. I suppose that's as much proof as we need to illustrate the glamor of evil, but I can't help but feel disappointment at the way the archetype of the vampire has been so watered-down and indeed neutered of the power it packed in Stoker's day. I think there's still a lot of punch left in vampires but most of that punch comes from contemplating their status as thralls of Hell (whether literally or metaphorically) rather than as forever-young demigods."

The other day I was walking home from work and having an imaginary argument with a straw man (or straw woman) about the nature of vampirism, and the neutered undead that've infested popular culture since Interview With The Vampire - the movie and novel's sequels more than the original work.

They're all such human-loving sooks these days - no wonder two out of three people polled would rather be a werewolf.

A change in worldview changes the world viewed.

I first read that quote in the old Malkavian clanbook, back in high school, and it's been somewhere in my head since. Can't remember who first said it, but they probably didn't have the sort of microcosmic application I'm talking about in mind. That said, they probably weren't thinking of insane vampires either.

The past couple of days, I've been back on the mental trail of wanting to buy a desk. At first, I was thinking about the books I'd like to read - non-fiction, textbooky, related-to-the-craft books. The sort of books that make me feel like I should be producing something instead of taking the time to read them.

That led me to the idea of structured learning, perhaps going back to uni or some other tertiary institution to absorb knowledge in a setting my pernicious brain would allow me to view as legitimate. That's one track I'll come back to later.

The other mental track, connected to the desk, was my long-held desire to have some kind of personal office to work in. At first I was going to look up rental prices for such things, but then - well - the quote in the title there popped into my head and kept repeating itself. Yeah, it was weird.

Nothing earth-shattering, but my bedroom's pretty big, and there's not a lot in it. So now I've picked out the very expensive desk I want, and tonight I rearranged my room so my bed is shoved into a corner instead of dominating the whole space.

This weekend I'm planning to buy said desk, grab my deskchair out of storage, and officially begin using this room as an office. An office I occassionally sleep in.

It's gonna be great.

That's the tooth.

Today I am labouring valiantly to be the kind of man I wish I was, rather than the one I know myself to be. Today I am attempting to remain calm and collected in the face of perilous adventure, when I would much rather stay at home and damn the consequences. Today I am putting on a brave face and pretending it's the fact I've had my first coffee since Sunday morning that's making my heart pump faster and hands tremble.

Today, I'm going to have my first-ever tooth pulled. It's a completely new experience - I've never even had a filling. But I do know that I strongly dislike having a man's hands in my mouth, that the idea of a needle sliding into my gum is a borderline nightmare and that a personal, amateur inspection of the tooth in question shows it to be firmly lodged in my jaw.

Not since I lost the last of my baby teeth have I felt such oral ickiness.

But yeah. Clock's ticking. My appointment's at 11:40, and the best I can hope for is to put on a brave face. And not wee myself. That wouldn't be in keeping with the courageous persona I'm scaffolding around myself.

Walkin' On The Gong

Slid down south yesterday arvo to wolf some beer and Thai with the fam while Lee's in town (Joss, in a classic almost-18 moment, forgot about it and went to Sydney instead). I came bearing gifts - True Blood and Mad Men seasons one on DVD. I also purchased myself S1s of Chuck and Breaking Bad.

My near-future entertainment experience is sorted. Now I just need to sort out my entertainment output.

This morning I was half-awake in Joss's bed, and the air smelled of first-year uni. I tried to foggily keep hold of that feeling, but as usual it fled. Ah well. Having smashed some tea and toast, I settled in to write one of my two weekly game reviews (Ghostbusters: The Video Game).

Now Mum's putting on her shoes so we can go fetch Joss from some dame's place, drop him here and walk over to Nana and Pop's for a visit. Hence the title of this post. She's onto her second sock as I type, so I'll sign off.

Arbeit macht Sachen

The Model Citizens Annual 2009 edges towards completion, I'm happy to say. It's been a smooth ride thus far, which I only mention for the purposes of utterly jinxing myself.

Right now I'm sitting at work, wearing my brand-new Pac-Man hoodie, and wondering who I'm going to pick to be this week's Busted Celeb on the True Blue Confessions page. I've eaten a tuna-and-lemon-pepper sandwich from a $2.50 plate purchased at Hot Dollar (pea soup green, plastic), followed by a sliver of Lindt Orange Intense dark chocolate that has singularly failed to pull me out of an exhausted nose-dive.

Such are the exciting happenings of the day.

More broadly, I spent an odd night at The Red Rattler in Marrickville on Saturday, enjoying the musical efforts of The Outer Space Cowboys and their country'n'molestern mates (not to mention the greatest felafel ever crafted). I'm on the hunt for a pair of red Converse shoes, which seem to be in short supply for some unknown reason.

I'd also like to purchase the first season of Chuck on DVD, Hackmaster Basic and The Eberron Player's Guide. This consumerist sickness always seeps into my bloodstream when I'm called upon by the vicious powers of commerce and temporality to cross weathered palms with silver in order to maintain a homestead, telephonic communication and/or a line of credit.

"Give me objects," my heart sings. "Objects that I may gaze upon and thus know my ceaseless toil has borne physical fruit."