Deadline of Death

I've got something I have to do and by God I am going to procrastinate until the very last second. I've put this off twice already (by weeks) and done nothing towards it. Nothing. Rather than complete this task, that I originally offered to do as a favour, I've done home improvements this weekend.

Yes, I, the least capable, least interested, least skilled person in all of south-east Queensland picked up a hammer! Then nails! Then discovered I needed screws instead and called a handyman. That was a call he'll wish he never answered.

There was a full ute-load to the tip! Carpet got ripped up! The man-hole (giggle) was investigated to ascertain the viability of taking out some walls (walls, it turns out, can be finicky things to remove. Apparently some of them are keeping the roof up! This is clearly an activity that will have to wait until I have another project due that requires an even higher, more demanding level of procrastination). I pruned, I carted rubbish to the bin, I culled papers, cooked. I even cleaned. The house is looking great.

Still this thing needed to be done. So I watched my tv show and laughed the jolly laugh of someone who is frivolously throwing away time knowing that the DEADLINE OF DEATH is inexorably drawing near. The show finished after only an hour - nothing for it, I must turn on the computer and begin this slow, tedious and uninteresting task and perhaps earn some measure of redemption as a person by finally completing this thing.

But oh, Google opens and I remember that I wanted to find out what car Vin Diesel was driving in XXX as he chases the 'submarine' that thankfully has decided to run on top of the water this time or it would have been a fully shit chase scene
"Can you see it?"
"NO YOU IDOT - it's under the fucking water"
"OK, stay calm, we'll just bomb the shit out of the river"
"Well that's cool, but now what's our reason for drinving this insane care around really really fast?!"
"What?! We need a reason?!"

"Yes," I think "that's a valid tangent so follow at this point" so enter: Classic Muscle Cars and after only 2 pages discover that the Pontiac GTO is nicknamed "The Judge". Cool. I also learnt what 'break horsepower' refers to (and it is not about stopping!), and then as I find myself comparing the relative merits and lines of the 64 Plymouth Barracuda and the 67 Chevy Camaro three things really struck home:

1. I know nothing about cars. Nothing. But somehow I now find them funny instead of reprehensible. I've changed. I also want to meet a mechanic who shares my dream of making the first moon landing in a muscle car. I'll be navigation, they can drive.

2. I am an olympic level procrastinator. The only thing more hilarious than trying to figure out my car's "performance" metrics (Audrey the 81 Mazda 323 is so banged about that we can't be sure which of the two models that were released that year she is. Using Occams Razor - I'd say the cheaper one, not the slightly sporty one. But they had the same engine capacity so no big diff right? Anyway I've kept a log of how many kloms she does every time I fill up the tank so that I can figure out her average kloms per litre, but it's in the glovebox and I forget to bring it in) to add into the heavy-weight champs battle of Barracuda Vs Camaro would be to blog about it and invite the world to laugh along with (not at) me. Please feel welcome to laugh .... now.

and

3. That's another Hour and A Half gone and there is now no way I am going to get this thing done now. Maybe I should just go to bed, and blame the Global Financial Crisis...

Another gold for procrastination!

(Oh, and Happy (Chinese) New Year! Go the mighty Ox!)

2009 Ex Libris J9

Ah, A New Year. Isn't it great when you get it home and it is still in the plastic wrapping and you think "Oh I'm going to keep it in the bag as long as possible so it stays real nice. I'll even leave that little bit of cling-film on the front so it doesn't get scratched where I look at it all the time." Yeah and it feels pretty special and there's a little bit of hope that this one won't go saggy and a bit sour in the late-middle like the last one did.

You might even clean away a shelf and put it just so in the middle (or maybe a bit to one side) and look at it as you potter around making tea or looking for the movie listings section of the paper and glance up at it occasionally and think "That is one good looking year - oh yeah - it's gunna be a doozy". I like to open it up and write my name inside the front cover and then hum a little while I daydream about all the cool excellent things that might happen in the coming months if only Henry Rollins would realise I'm not a stalker but that ours is the one true love, or if that internet ebooks biz would really deliver the cash day to day that the sales website promised. Or best of all that I magically imagine and finish a story that is utterly awesome sexy cool and turns into the must-read graphic novel of someone's age and then Marvel make a kick-ass film about it starring Robert Downey Jnr and Angelina Jolie (who decide I must be on-set to give my valuable guidance about the vision making the journey to celluloid or whatever phrase gets used to justify a junket) but also that as an outcome of the utterly massive truckloads of cash the thing makes, Angelina is able to buy out all of Africa and in partnership with Oprah eliminates malaria, hunger, and unsightly upper-lip or eyebrow hairs for everyone. Melissa Gates chips in with some top ideas about appropriate technology and suddenly Africa has an open-source space program and has culturally uplifted Chimps and Gorillas who are the first non-humans to have a seat in the U.N.

Then I realise that my cup of tea's gone cold, that my creepy neighbour is staring in the window again and that my New Year now has a crumpled corner.
So it begins.