New Years Eve... What the??!

This year will be very different, I cannot say I even want to do anything to celebrate at all this new year. The highpoint was a call from -

My my my Mariah! - (sung to the tune of Delila - Tom Jones)

A nice surprise was hearing Mariah on the phone this afternoon. She is a funny gal! We chatted for about an hour and laughed and talked about everything!

Heard from a Canadian friend over the past few days and I am glad that her situation, or more to the point, her perspective has taken a serious turn for the better. Knowing her as well as I do I hope that she keeps it up and lets it get her to a place she really wants to be. I made some alternate suggestions for her, some of which she liked but the most import thing is that Stella got her groove back.

Obi here next year

Waiting...

A few friends, both home and abroad, are having life changing evens happening to them. Most for the better, some for the worse. The point I am attempting here is that around major public holidays emotional and relationship unheavals occur. I will be watching closely and waiting to see what I can do to support these good friends.

Yesterday Bubba SMS'ed me and asked me if I could help him with a 2006 summary list but as I look back across the year it seems like a gray blue blur.

Oooh - the first episodes of the new series of Dr Who were shown on the BBC in the UK on Christmas Day!! Coolies! I'd love to see it, I got quite into Christopher Eccelston being the Doctor, but now, because he felt he'd be typecast, we have a new one... David Tennant, wonder how it will go...

The Gravity index is rocketing in past critical to just bloody stupid as the year creaks to a close.

Will I miss this year? = No.

Did many good things happen this year? = Not enough

Bob Denver passed away as did Richard Pryor, so the funny index for planet earth has dropped. Kerry Packer - Well dunno what index a billionaire fits in - any he wants to buy is the answer.

Hmm - the list goes on...

Obi Bids Peace! Jah make ya!

Christmas Comes but Once A Year…

Well it has been a quiet yet surprising season for me. Quiet on the family front but just the right amount of Christmas past for this old Ebenezer.

I do hope all my dear readers also have a happy festive season, which ever day you celebrated.

Nothing much to report here, but the start of a few good things. Two daze to get through at work and then New Year – which I must say is a kettle of fish I have yet to tackle.

Obi one energized boy!

?? Happy New Year ??

A dear friend called to say she had paid for my ticket to the New Years Eve bash a mutual friend was eluding to in an SMS the other day. She is always sweet and the first one to offer a hand.

The details arise from the murky depths that the tickets are to a place that I absolutely HATE and I am sure my friend BUBBA would agree is pathetic. I am likely to see an old housemate there that still owes me money and rubs in my face the fact he won't pay, for no good reason at all, any opportunity he has. This just happens to be where that moron with a complete lack of imagination ALWAYS goes rain hail or shine. Monkey see monkey do....

Now if I see him there while I am in any enibriated state I will lose my cool and try and re arange his features. Not a situation I want - ergo I am not going. I think I will revise my christmas day schedule and repeat the same... besides I also discovered that Date with Density girl will be there and that is just too much to deal with. Deleting her SMS's and voicemail is enough to do.

Obi elsewhere for new year

Bless The ' Re: Read Reply ' Part Deux

Saved in the 11th hour. I got a message through today at work saying Merry Christmas and a little note about being busy.

So he wins back all his bonus points and goes into the next round.

Moral of the story is - Be polite the first five times then start rattling that cage in the 6th and don't stop til you either get a response or piss em off...

'nuff said Obi

Scattered Threads & The Ties That Bind

Seems to me that most of the poignant and most important people and events of my life are scattered from me to the 5 corners of this world. (added in an extra one, everyone needs a spare)

I wish I had some idea of how to tie all these threads together and sew up the holes I hide.

I would gladly let them keep their piece of me to keep the memory of me from fading. But as I look at me now, I see all the holes where the wind gets through.

Obi

Remembering You Fondly Lonnie

I used to live in Vancouver. I remember distinctly the beauty and majesty in every sight and sound from nature to street corner. I felt like every day was Christmas and I was born each morning. I was blessed.

But the most cherished memory I have is of the beautiful blue eyes of someone who cared deeply for me and loved me in her own crazy way. I love her still, she is a gentle and generous soul and she contacted me today out of nowhere.

I thought she had abandoned her email address which is a priceless link and my only means of communication with her now. So I give thanks to the chaos than made the memory of me move her fingers across the keys and her words across the oceans.

Thank you Lonnie. I am so pleased to hear from you.

Love you always Obi.

From me to you - Paul Weller's - Sunflower

Old Word New Meaning

Word - OBLOGATION - is o·blog·a·to·ry ( O-blog'-tôr'ē ) adj.

• Morally or ethically bound to create a blog entry.
• defined as the urge or neccessity thru which you are compelled to author a blog or make an entry.

Obi's a Word Smif!!

Gravity Is A Harsh Mistress

Is it me or has anyone else noticed around public holidays that gravity increases?

Dragging my sorry ass around generally is not that much of an effort, but this past 2 weeks I have noticed the gravity exceed 'earth normal' and venture into a black hole range.

I mean to say, everything at this time of year takes

SO MUCH EFFORT TO DO!

Work is normally a tawdry apendage to the body of my life. But now, I am dragging it around with the other limbs like a octopus who has been sitting on his tentacles for a week.

I HATE CHRISTMAAAAAS!

Mommy Make The Bad Man Go Away!

Obi here for new year...

Bless The ' Re: Read Reply '

A friend of mine from long ago calls me occasionally and tells me how much he misses and wants me to live in Vancouver again, even claims he wants to sponsor me for a work visa. Now I would like to live there, fantastic city and a place I could thrive and feel the joy that life throws at only a few...

Now it has been months since he replied to my emails and so I sent a short message asking if his hands were broken because I had received no emails and thought that would be a good reason, a little funny as well, but making the point.

I have my email open all day as a matter of course. I saw the read receipt sent back and ignored. This pissed me off. The next day I sent a message - replying to the read receipt - making it obvious I monitored the email that he did not reply to - I sent a message saying - all I wanted to say was hello, seasons greetings and happy new year. That message too was ignored and the read receipt came back for that.

HOPELESS. This is a guy who wants me to spend thousands to travel across the planet and be at his wedding in May 2006. Now for a guy that can't get out of his own way to answer the several emails I have sent over the last 3 months and especially the ones I have sent read receipted - well I should be of a similar opinion about his wedding in May shouldn't I?...

Obi travelling elsewhere...

Life is looking up!

Damn it all! I am cheering up whether I like it or not! Decided I am going to Canada and America in May for 3 weeks. May even travel up the coast and go sailing with my Aunts partner Richard on his 30 ft yacht. Buying a car or a house which ever I pass first and I am making Lemonade! Lemonade I tell you!!

(I would stamp my foot hard on the ground but I may have to follow up with a second step that may resemble boot scooting and I vowed after that night of Tequila and Garth Brooks - NEVER AGAIN!!)

Someone once said - "...if all you can see is the dull side of life - Polish dat bitch up!" I intend to resemble that advice!

An American friend who I have known for 20 years is planning to come down to Australia for a while - it will be nice to have a houseguest. My house is too big and gloomy for just me anyway.

Stay cool all - advice on staying cool or not boot scooting gladly welcomed in Comments!

Obi is a man! (an achie breakie man) ... 2. 3. 4...

Sprained Thumbs & Brain Drains

Obi Log
Drink Date: - Friday
Location: - Mountain View Hotel.
A good friend invited me out for a seasonal beverage at the pub closest to his work. A nice gesture considering I don't see him much these days. After cancelling with the Shrew in the last posting I decided it was still a night to get out and meet people.

I found Fluffy (protecting the name of the innocent here) sitting at a table surrounded by an assortment of suit wearing revellers, most suffering from drinkers deafness and motor skill deprivation that coincides with ingesting alcohol. Fluffy introduced me all around and the revelry continued. Among the group I met Dale (his real name, to protect the figments of my imagination) a guy I used to work with when i was in domestic insurance and I chatted to him. Discovered the gorgeous blonde at the other end of the table was in fact his Swedish girlfriend Maree. Now I spent a few fruitless years learning Swedish, for many and varied reasons. I saw the chance to start Swedish again - Dale said he needed to learn more and I said that I will do it with him to be a support person and help him get closer - linguistically to his fair maiden. Everybody need a study mate.

I stopped after 2 beers but saw the collective IQ drop drastically over the next 2 hours, I was sorry I could not join them. I ended up driving a few on to another bar - packed like sardines.

I had received a few text messages from an old ex girlfriend of mine and she was flirty and daring me to meet up with her. Now when I say a few I mean constant flirtatious exchanges over 2 hours and 3 locations. This girl was either:
A) Teasing me with a professional fervour.
B) Passed the phone to one of her friends again to make a fool of me
C) Keen to catch up but too lazy to meet me at a bar in-between us.

Midnight hit like a freight train and reminded me I had no dinner and no sleep for 20 hours. I left the claustrophobic bar with its inebriated masses and went home missing the booze buses that never stop you when you haven’t drank a thing. Siiiiigh. I am so old and jaded. I think Ebenezer ain’t got shit on me.

Obi waiting for the bus to the next reality.

Date With Density Part 2

I got what I deserved for reopening the can of worms. Of course she SMS me and stated that she was not able to make it she didn't have enough money to go out. I said like the chump I am - don't worry about money I will pay. I got no reply.

The following day came and I had spoken to a friend who knows her and she had actually been bad mouthing me about one thing and another - nothing I will mention here or aloud. Rather a immature thing to even speak about really. I was really livid that she, who espoused maturity and straightforwardness, would even say such things at all. Luckily, this friend she spoke to knows me well and defended me quite assertively and put her back in her box.

Needless to add, when she SMS me I wrote back I was busy. In fact that I will be busy any time she calls and far too busy to ever answer any call she makes to me. I think that gets the message across.

No more sprained thumb for Obi.

Online Dating Schopenhauer Style

On-line dating is it daggy or a sign of the times?

Sure we have all dated, blind dated and been blinded temporarily by a date… or was that just me… just me I think.

The amount of time or should I say, time management skills we have seems to be way outta balance with the pressure and priorities we place on ourselves with the busy lives we lead.

Much like shopping on E-bay, On-line dating seems to be growing in popularity. The young independent late 20’s early 30’s guy or gal that has come up for air from a frenetic effort in his or her career has taken a moment and discovered there is no one by their side and that they have everything and nothing at the same time. Hence the leap to the time saving option of looking but not looking (on-line dating)

In some ways I feel the same about my youthful aspirations to become a naturopath. Still in my teens I was so ready to learn all the natural remedies and holistic lifestyle so I could deliver my own children and treat them from birth to adulthood with learned nutrition, symptomology and herbal remedies. I was so keen I even researched and wrote a paper on water birthing and visited birthing suites in Kew.

Needless to say my aspirations overshot by my reality, life changed suddenly at the end of 1989 and I thrust myself into a Russian winter of 40 below for a time challenged my beliefs and found true love. That is a story I will tell another day. But I digress.

I too have stumbled into the computerized coupling, well, at least registered a profile. I have yet to get fully involved – that would mean paying for memberships etc. But I do scan the sites from time to time and look into the faces and written aspirations of the women seeking a perfect love thru a digital media.

I honestly believe that being in the right place at the right time for love is a myth told my family and friends to sooth us into avoiding the reality that we are all just individuals, many unskilled in the art of knowing ourselves in a true sense or knowing what we want in a partner. So we stumble, tumble and fall, rightly or wrongly, for someone we want for the person we want to be, not the person we are.

I think I have lulled myself into an acceptable excuse for this online dating, expand the social network outside and beyond what my current situation, expectations and circles can provide without the expense of my emotions from rejection or the financial folly of spending money on a woman that just isn’t interested in anything but attention and flattery. Just escaped that situation a few weeks ago and still scolding myself for being that dumb.

But as with all of us we want to give our all to the dream we have for ourselves. I will keep trying either through subconscious belief or genetic directive.

Maybe Schopenhauer was right… love is just an distraction for genetic continuity…

I once had a psychic girlfriend... but she left me before we met..

Bad Boy Obi - I am allergic to cheese and this - is cheesey!!

Bruva from another life…

Well as you know I was chuffed with my success with classmates.com and heard from the lovely Mariah. Well I checked again and now I got a message from my host brother Eddie!!

Back step… I was an exchange student to California back in the daze of yore lived in Glenview Ave. in Cupertino. Silicon Valley. My host Brothers Eddie and Pat were odd fellows, but everyone is odd when you are 15 and emersed into another culture instantly… Anyway, Eddie contacted me. Never the nicest fellow but it is only now looking back on my year there that I appreciate his place in the whole shebang. I hope to hear about the family and what is happening…

Obi keep ya posted.

A date with density…

Why do I meet the hopeless ones?? I have a date – for want of a better word with a woman I have spoken about previously in the blog. I have avoided all contact for 2 weeks successfully de-toxing from my misfortune of actually liking her and was ready to move on. But some how, via the family curse and SMS, am I have a dinner with her Friday? Bet I’m dumb enough to pay…

Lookin fur lurve... Obi-a-man oneday….

Tear shaped tattoo and spiritual slap…

Midnight after my Christmas party I wanted to catch up with my spiritual guru the Fatman. A belly full of beer and a group of co workers ready to kick on until the dawn!.

I followed the SMS trail to the Lustre Lounge, a stylin’ establishment right on the cusp of midnight. I walked up to the bar, a rather big burly happy faced fellow was standing next to the Fatman and I noticed the tear shaped tattoo under is left eye… (does that mean he is left handed or just artistic?)

Needless to say after reading the fatman’s dance with death.

Obi is impressed!

Side swipe (in the corner pocket)

Dealing with big companies as a customer can usually be good but when it goes bad it goes really bad! Case in point, I just received a bill from my internet company that states for less than 60 days use I owe $6300! Needless to say I will be vigorously defending my position in this – keep you posted….

Obi won Kenardly cop a break.

Perpendicular Happiness

Perpendicular happiness: - a happiness that does not conform to the standard line or expectations often from a source so abstract you are gob smacked…

Recently I scanned the net and my subconscious drew me to classmates.com.

You see I spent some time growing up in Silicon Valley in California and there are times when I catch myself thinking back on the days of youth and discovery. Quite easily the best time of my life.

I scanned the sites as I thought of old friends and good times. I looked for the year I graduated and scanned the names of those who had registered. Some names I recalled and some I didn’t. But after 10 minutes I found myself registering and filling in details about me and starting to hope that I could get in contact with some people. You see I miss the 2 reunions, thru lack of communication with a friend. (The buggah!) And I took that to be my only real chance to catch up with people and do the ever valuable ‘then and now’ comparison we see in the American movies, not unlike Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) except less bullets usually.

Well I filled in the forms and closed the window and went off to bed tired but happier for making the effort. One week later I opened up the site and scanned around hoping I would have a message or a new name would pop up. It actually did work!

The lovely Mariah emailed me and said she remembered me and wanted to say hello. Wow I was really chuffed and did a little chair dancing! I quickly dropped in to speed fingers mode and started to type out the excited happiness in a reply email. Mariah was a freshman when I was a senior and I must say I remember her only in passing. She was a sweet and quiet wallflower but my head was full of the many wonders of ‘Senior Year’ to notice her any more than a nice girl that would talk to me from time to time.

We have exchanged many emails in the short week we have been in contact and I am so happy to see her name in my email box when it does appear. I am off to Canada and California in May 2006 and looking forward to catching up with her and seeing where life has taken her. I miss my friends from that time and it is nice to see that I am remembered and after all these many years people still want to be friends.

Obi is happy! I think the liver cleanse has worked!

Obi-my-valentine!

Paranoia 101 – A Skill Set

A friend recently sent me a photo by email showing me of himself and his new love interest. I was pleased that he looked so happy in the picture. A busy day ensued and I replied to the email and asked where he met her and what her name was. Now this is where it all got funny…

He replied and as if I had asked another question. I thought it strange that he would send me a picture, what I would have thought was more personal than telling me her name, and blithely ramble about something else. I left it for that day as work was piling up. The weekend came and when and I sent the regular, “how you going, did you have a good weekend?” question. He said he’d gone to a party and it was generally good, I then asked back, was it with your new lady, and asked what her name was again. He avoided the question and spoke about other details of the party. I replied that he it was curious fellow and that on several occasions I had asked about her and he avoided the question. No reply.

Now a few things whizzed thru my mind at light speed. Firstly, frustration, as asking the question several times and then again point blank with still no answer. Then the dark thought occurred to me. Why does he not trust me? Then of course I applied that formula to the rest of the dishevelled assembly of thoughts and wondered it I had made the theoretical H bomb. The pieces don’t fall together very well and I am still puzzled. Firstly because I have known this friend for many a year and been through many great times and bad times and supported him through them. I in turn have been supported by him. I value him and our friendship. Recent events in my life have taken me in a different direction in the past 2 years but the same friendship always was there to rely on.

What would change so much that he would be cordial yet absent? I work on the opposite side of the city now, a good hour out and don’t drink with him on a regular basis anymore and perhaps that is a starting point, but not to put too fine a point on it, he is a borderline alcoholic and to drink with him at any time or session would mean dragging your sorry self out of a pub at 11.30pm to catch the last train home on any school night. I cannot do that anymore. The years I thought I could have well past me and I am so very glad for it. My life my mind and my work suffered with that sort of chemical abuse for a time and I broke out of it.

Of course my company’s success has caused a pending move back into the city to overshadow the worry I have about this friend and why he no longer trusts me.

I spoke to someone I respect about all this and she said that it has been said about me (from very separate friends to which he is not attached) that I have strong principals. Personally I think that is the nicest way of saying I am immutably stubborn I have ever heard. But I must admit that if I do not agree with something I certainly will not do it. For example that could be something like going to car races. I hate the whole macho V8 rev-head mentality. Or going or not going away on a weekend with the boys. Because I am saving for something else.

Weekends away with friends like this have been alcohol fuelled turbo binges that have had altogether too much violence and fist swinging in them. I am too old to be in anything like that and can express myself reasonably well most of the time. Any time I have suggested an alternative I have been canned instantly. I accept that these friends do not like the same sort of things I do and sometimes I suggest them to make a point that our interest are so different, but that falls on deaf ears and glassy eyes.

Ah ha! I lost my point… Well I need to investigate why this loss of trust has come about and deal with the answers that come my way…Is it paranoia or just cautious speculation?

Obi Won’s
“Idiot’s Guide To Paranoia”
Will be out in all good book stores soon.
Stay tuned.

Apology!

I must make a sincere apology to a very valued friend. I had been inspired by the jolly lad to start blogging and unleash the creative beast within. But all that is coming out is the disdainful doubt and my flawed and damaged view of reality. Perhaps it is like a liver cleanse… all the crap comes out first and then you get better and brighter.

All Obi can say is he needs to...”liver-little”
A bad pun! – Bad Obi… Bad Obi!

I Did It My Way (Gone To Hell Remix)

Well, confusion grips us all the time at different levels of conscious thought. Personally I think to keep mine well within view. What was it that Tsun Tsu said all those centuries ago? "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer". I'm all for that and think it applies well to my point of contention for today.
Now that’s said, I would like to air the dishevelled assembly of thoughts I have here and see if anything rings true with you.

Relationships are great, they keep you on your toes and happy usually, and distracted from the every decreasing days til your demise. Thank God for that! (I would hate to have to get up everyday and tick off the calendar until D-Day).
It is difficult enough to find the tranquil centre within ourselves and be happy and content with the place we have in the world and maintain it. It pisses me off that other people that we hold within the sphere Sun Tsu suggested, who cannot balance themselves without external excessive props. Like Alcohol and toys confirming themselves as valid by lording over others in bulling or power plays. I am a ‘live and let live’ kinda fella and do my best to be equal and open to all.

Maybe I am just getting old. I am actually 7 years older than most of my friends and a good 10 older than my “current interest”. Hey what can I say, you are only as old as the woman you feel. But there are things that I see that they do not. Namely their slow decline into alcoholism and emotional retardation.

I am not one to preach to them, but I do voice my concerns in a non-confrontational way. I would say I would be right up there with them about 2 years ago and even setting some records myself. But now that my life has changed direction and speed (several times over that 24 months) I start to see some of the pieces to my puzzle. Just hearing of the escapades of these exhausts me and makes me sad. I wish I could just shake them and say, “Hey don’t waste your time drinking and dulling your brain cells. There is a life and wonderful stuff out there waiting for you.”

I have been told that the worst smoker is a reformed one, not that I have ever smoked, but I am sure you get my drift.

Obi no Okie…

“…there is something wrong in human nature….”

Empathy

• Understanding another person's feelings by remembering or imagining being in a similar situation.
• Appreciation of another's problems and feelings without experiencing the same emotional reaction. To be distinguished from sympathy, which is usually non objective and non critical.

Now it is a common world with many common and shared experiences, so it is fair to assume that any situation you find yourself in can be related to another in some form of fashion, whether that is themselves personally or through a friend or someone they know who has been thru a similar situation…
Flip back to reality, barely an incident in my recent memory that I have related to anyone, other than a close friend, has been able to be empathised with. Sure they speak the same language and understand the situations and ramifications of the event/incident, but people I have discovered, much to my sadness just don’t care about anything outside themselves or a 3 metre radius.

Take a workplace in a large company, professing to be in touch with staff needs and an understanding open door policy. Having, as all companies do, a Human Resources Department dedicated to staff management relations.

I think more to the point, we would all like to have a Humane Resources is likely a more desirable name which staff would feel comfortable and confident going to…

Case in point. Monthly sales targets are set or forecast on previous years data and results. So why, if conditions have changed and the market has shifted would you put more pressure on the staff to do 20% more that was expected last year with less. No wonder the people I speak with at work list symptoms akin to depression and various anxiety disorders. But when you are worth less the 30 seconds to sack for not towing an impossible line, then really that starts to affect your self worth. I see it all around me and with Christmas here… it is all worse.

Obi Won kenardly keep up!