Every night where it's 2am and it's still warm enough to be wearing board shorts and thongs is a Summer gift from God.

When I got out of the lift and onto my level this morning the first thing I noticed was a terrible, dry, scratching noise. It was coming from a broken fan in a server rack near the security door to my cubicle farm, and it sure was grating. Normally this would only be a problem when I walked past the door. However seeing as I am still isolated on some random cubicle right near the door while my actual desk is reconstructed it quickly became obvious that this was a noise I would endure all day.

So, still within earshot of this grinding I noticed that my Ghetto Phone looked slightly crooked. And upon reaching my desk and performing further examination I realised that someone had reclaimed the cable. I peered over the fabric wall and over the weekend some has settled on the desk over from me. Then - with their phone line reclaimed - they'd erected a micro barrier over where the cable once stretched by planting the big wooden block that has their name on it on the top of the partition.

I sat and took heavy breaths as I felt the isolation closing in around me. Then I put my headphones on to drown out the sound of the scraping fan and all the phone calls that the newcomer was getting (with Pepe Deluxé). This worked for most of the day. Then, as I was walking past the door with my second coffee of the day at around 3pm I was internally narrating the ghastly sound and I the best simile I could come up with to describe it was 'like a dentists hook scraping over all of your teeth, probing for plaque'.

After thinking that my teeth hurt. I went home shortly after.

Today I did an unassisted overhand chin up for the first time ever. It was surprising.

I also tweaked my profile with Internode to High Speed instead of High Reliability. On High Reliability I was losing linesync at least once a day anyway, so I figured as I already had low reliability I could try High Speed. Then I downloaded the new episode of American Dad at average speed of 712kb/s. As a nerd who five years ago was journaling on a red 56k modem at 4kb/s this sent me into all sorts of sexual appreciation.

It wasn't really an episode of American Dad, RIAA, it was an episode of a Linux ISO.

Scotch is a Christmas spirit, right? Johnny Walker red and white label?

One of the best parts about this time of the year, being in a corporate world of polite circle jerking, is all the Christmas Functions I get invited to. For every client I support I get another drinks and nibbles invitation email. Plus all the internal ones: Team Drinks, Department drinks, Corporate Christmas Party. Today I received my invitation to my Building's Christmas celebration. I hovered over 'Accept' in Outlook as I quickly glanced over the attached message.

"Congratulations for all your accomplishments in 2007. In reward for your hard work you are invited to the X-Mas breakfast on Thursday 20th December, 7:00am - 9:00am."

Excuse me, Outlook Appointment Notification? Getting up for a 7:00am breakfast isn't a reward, it's a punishment. What's the point of working so hard and being 100% committed to my company when I don't get to slack off during work times for half of december?

Disgusted, I prepared to mark as tentative and inevitably just turn up at 0830 for a few beers before work. Until I realised that there's not even alcohol served at this breakfast! Seriously, this company has some major issues.

Derp is a funny word after a joke that is obvious and everyone can see coming.

I set my alarm for 7:55am and chose SexyBack as the chords that would wake me for my day. The theory was that the Timberlake/Timbaland combination would spur me into morning action with the hint of shenanigans that would occur at, uh, shenanigans later in the evening. I woke up at 9:50am and my alarm hadn't gone off. I hate to say this, but that's ironic.

So, when I finally did arise I smashed through a shower because, seriously, I was 2 hours late for work. That shit don't fly with me.

I didn't have lunch at work today. In fact, I actually worked almost the whole day, which is unusual. Usually at least a few hours are dedicated to internet browsing and general slacking. So imagine my surprise when at 4pm after a solid 6 hours of work I realised that Facebook, Bigfooty and every single web messenger interface had just been added to the firewall's blocked website's list.

Yes, that's right, I work harder than I have any other day this summer and it coincides with the death of the majority of sites I use at work.

One website that wasn't blocked was gmail. And I received an email saying that the Chemical Brothers were now coming to the Adelaide Future Music Festival. That's right, I spend $400 for nothing on tickets and flights to Melbourne to see them only for them to extend their visitation here a day later.

That's Derp. Everything is derp alright.

I got linen pants. I wore them to work and by God every step I take is like gentle sex. Not like heavy, brutal metal chick sex but more like sultan with several concubines who slowly wave me with fans sex.

When I was first invited to play in a weekend basketball carnival a few months ago I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it through a day of multiple games without my back giving out completely.

Then, last Sunday with the carnival less than a week away I rolled my ankle and I wasn't sure I'd even be able to run during the six games of basketball I'd have to play on the first day.

What I didn't expect, and thus it came as a surprise, was that on the third day of Christmas I would get extreme thigh chafing. After 12 hours of running around in the same sweaty underwear with my thighs constantly going scrape, scrape, scrape I emerged from day one of this weekend carnival with long red rashes down each of my inner thighs. And disturbingly, much less leg hair.

Indeed by the middle of the last game all I could do as a ran-waddled up the court each time was pray for some sort of cool, soothing relief. I was shocked to then actually receive some in what I thought was moisturiser from god appearing on my legs during someone else's free-throws. But it actually turned out to be blood running down my quadriceps.

After getting home and showering I pillaged the bathroom for anything that might be helpful. There I found Nivea Cooling Skin Relief, and this sounded like a blessing. It spoke of dry, red and irritated skin and of the power of its cool, refreshing results. So I wiped a palmful along the inside of one thigh, realising immediately that this bottle had come from a razor gift pack and that the product contained obscene amounts of aftershave. I almost broke my jaw from screaming.

After my second shower I found some Vaseline in my brother's room and applied that conservatively, and then extremely religiously about my nether regions. This has helped a lot. Coming from sensuous linen pants yesterday to grimacing every step this evening has come as quite a shock. I have more games tomorrow.

Before this weekend I didn't even know I wanted bike shorts. After buying them between games today I now feel like I didn't know what having nuts was about until now.

Why are there big red ribbons on things everywhere? Gum trees, street signs, stobie poles, lamp posts. On council property and in people's front gardens. I understand they're there for Christmas, but when did big red ribbon bows become a Christmas decoration? There are already a lot of weird, unnecessary Christmas decorations. Wreaths, balls on Christmas trees, delightful gay tinsel spread everywhere. There's also the obscene amounts of fossil-fuel burning lights. This is what we're dooming the Great Barrier Reef for?

But I'm cool with all those things, because they're traditional. What's not traditional are lazily wrapping up your trees and letterboxes and No Standing signs like they're a gift to the world. It's new and contemporary and I don't like it! I'm paranoid that this is just the first of many steps towards changing Christmas Time into a generic Festive Season. As the world becomes more integrated and more multicultural we need to stop and embrace each others differences, not ignore them and blend them all together. I don't want to hear people saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". And I don't want to lose gay tinsel.

Also, the following stores do not have "all your Christmas shopping needs" despite what they wish you thought:

• Bunnings Warehouse
  
• Supercheap Auto
  
• Officeworks
  

Not to mention Chrisco. I wouldn't want to have shares in them right now.

Finally, in the most perplexing Celebration of Jesus Christ's Birth Day so far, I got home from work tonight and in the mail was a letter from work. This was odd because why would work mail me at home when I had just come from work? Inside was a form letter with my name at the top and talk about 2007 as a period of sustainable growth and better aligning towards market sectors in 2008. (This is done mainly through changing the name of random departments/things). It was the same stuff I'd read in many corporate template emails over the last few weeks from other assorted senior managers and like those this one had a throw away reference to having a happy holidays, which I appreciated (the thought, not the semantics). However the disturbing part of this story is that the envelope it came in was unstamped nor was it Postage Paid Australia'd or baring any sign of having travelled through the Australia Post service. The only conclusion I could assume is that someone from work had been to my house to deliver the letter. While I don't pretend to fully understand the theory behind work/life balance I feel this was surely a gross violation of it. Furthermore, if 2007 was a successful year of sustainable growth why are Senior Management dropping letters off themselves and saving money on stamps?

8 is a lucky number in Asia. Because it has no edges or points or looks like boobs on their side or something (I'm not very cultured).

It was on the 8th day of Christmas I visited the mail room to find a package from Chow. I carried it to my desk and opened it excitedly. What could it be?

LEGO!!!! I love Chow.

So at 10:30 AM I began constructing my Lego in my cubicle. The first instruction was very clear.

Nothing against assembling in a cubicle though. And I was off.

Progress shot. Nice work phone camera, focusing on the background instead of the object right in front of the lens.

But wait! I was building a catapult for destroying the undead horse rider but my set was sans rubber band! Fortunately undead horse rider found one that was holding a packet of nuts together and brought it over, not realising how counter-productive this might be towards his undead future.

Finished and put on my PC.

I modded skeleton rider to be half robot half skeleton rider. I love Lego.

But does the catapult actually work?

BOUUSHHH!!

People keep looking at me. Probably should get back to work.

As the year comes to a close I plan to post at least several features and reviews to summarise the past 12 month. The first of these is Photos of the latter part of the year. Basically photos of the month fodder that was too unique and specific to feature as a photo filled journal entry which was the ultimate cause of death for Photos of the Month.

A dragonfly allows me to play with my camera's macro mode.

Gus is thoroughly impressed by DJ Bradism.

My cousins's foot, a dog, my foot.

Continue Reading Photos of the Latter Part of the Year...

Size 16 thongs (flip flops)
Size 60 hat
Jumbo sized towel
Largest Crumpler backpack in the store

It's like my family has finally realised I'm a giant bastard and now they're poking me with a stick.