nerd of 1 herd

The end of a weekend draws near. It's now the bit where I should be at slumber, topping up my charge in readiness for a full-on assault on Monday morning.
It's not the case. I'm sat here typing this, whatever this is. At present I'm also rather delightfully coughing my innards up with a repetition Newton's baby basket would be proud of. I shan't be long for this game, not this evening/morning, but I felt it foolish to waste an opportunity to reveal something fine from the interweb.
This evening I felt a substantial 'nerd-on' welling up in my personal trouser patch. A scratch I simply had to itch, the other round way. I needed to go and look up some classic telly sounds effects to stick on my mobile to make me appear colourful and interesting; perhaps a little zany and most certainly as wacky as possible, at work, in my local government worker standard issue low expectation brown cords, no hoper edition s-belt, non-ironed (but not by design) yellowing grimy-collared shirt and moth-eaten nylon stripy v-neck.
I'd been thinking lately that yeah the lighting's bad in the office, the air's bad in the office, overall the mood is way beyond Par...close to St Austell - so what I should get is a snazzy ring-tone for my phone. That'd inject a little un-beigeness. That, I'm sure, would place a sparkle on the suede of a Swede's semi-brogue.
Anyway, far too absorbed by the Matrix effect of my 'groovy sound effects for my mobile' quest to remember that actually my preferred v-neck is woolen not nylon, I don't wear stripes and that I don't own an s-belt, my shirts are clean and my cords are plush, my shoes are made from Italian leather and my specs are by Gucci. Blindly I Percy Veared until I stumbled across a link which proudly pointed the way to 'The Hunters Lair' - thankfully without misplaced apostrophe.
Here I knew found the Golden Fleece, J-man's grail, the last proud but wrinkled Rizla in the box because here and only here was the forum for people who dress up, rather seriously, as Predator.
Flicking through a series of posts looking for a sound effect of the beast itself 'clicking' as it does so convincingly in the movie, I realised I'd found a bedroom of nerds (that’s the recognized collective noun, I promise) more focused and pedantic than ever before. More insistent than the Nokia natives, more argumentative than the Nikon numpties and far more curious than the Crackberry blands - they whinged and moaned, bitched and bullied throughout their entire forum. These people, not that I think it's at all bizarre, or juvenile, for grown folk to meet up now and again all dressed as Predator, complete with sound effects, engineered weaponry and no doubt fully intergalactic underpants, these people are the sole reason I stopped. I caught sight of myself, for a split second, as one of them. Movie inspired phone sounds??? Seriously? Nope. No sir. Not me. No way. Not yet, anyway.
After that single point in time everything changed. I returned to the sofa (I’d completely fallen off it and was sprawled on the floor, dribbling and calling for a referendum), shook myself firmly by the face and cursed my imagination, the interweb and the time all at once. Now it seems my good friend the weekend has gone. “...she says the jungle…it just came alive and took him.”

4 years in

It's Thursday. I've been at home for most of this week with a stinking cold. It's November and the run-up to Krismus has already started. Not that I'm annoyed by it this year, in fact it's pleasing to be ahead of the game for once. I've used the interweb to preorder several gifts already; the family being prime recipients. This is expected to change, but I wouldn't want to put out any suggestion to further establish any possibility that I'm an Ebeneza at the festive season. This year I reckon I'm up for it big time!
Did I mentioned it's November? November 2009 no less! November 2009 and a good long while since I previously stuck down any thoughts or waffling here. Many things have changed since my previous visit: I'm married, although strictly speaking I was, of two months, when I tapped out my rant about my boss. I have a new boss now and a far more rewarding job to boot. I own a car. I'm sat in a living space that now houses no less than seven speakers, now that's really something. I'm thirty four years old, looking ahead to the middling thirty five in July next year. I've visited New York, Sicily and Barbados - NY was a special; my wife and I travelled with my parents which was an absolute treat. Sicily was Lex and I at our camping and ruining the hire car best and 'Bados was a magical trip to attend a wonderful couple's wedding. My new boss is also my pal - he sent me on a specific training course that I'd wanted to attend for nigh on five years, added to which my line manager is a proper sort who has already enriched my work life beyond past imagined limitations. I'm happy after a long time of, after looking back, what seems like a long spell of a lack lustre grey plateau. I must have grown a little inside myself over past couple of years; I'm a lot less cynical but just as arrogant. I'm very much in love, without irritation, reservation or uncertainty. I'm sat on an expired period of contract with my mobile phone provider, but have yet to rush headlong into another contract to get the latest handset - a trivial point but one that glows with significance as I sit here pondering my existance. I feel I have choices. I'm earning enough money now to be able to save a little, or spank a lot. My iPod's broken and my push bike sits untouched in the garden with resident weeds wound around its spindles - but I'm not phased by it. There are other things to be getting on with. I love cooking. I have things to tinker with at home. The bathroom floor took forever but the toilet seat took less time. Things are beginning to come together nicely. I am, for the first time and in a good way, comfortably numb.