David Foster Wallace
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!
I’ll have to read some of his stuff, I guess!
I’ve had this post in my drafts folder for yonks now. Yes, YONKS! That’s a long time, right… I know. I am lazy and I am sorry. Hopefully this post won’t stink… (hehe).
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I have always had a bit of a sweat issue. Let’s cut to the chase – I am a pale redhead, and I am slightly on the cuddly side. Therefore, I sweat pretty easily.
It is also a genetic thing: my father, who was not a redhead and was a reasonably fit bloke, would sweat at the thought of sunshine. True story! We used to do Taekwondo when I was younger, and he’d be drenched in sweat 5 minutes into our warm-ups. The incredibly creative people there called him ‘sweathog’. Left brain people, all of them.
So anyway, I sweat. The past few months have been especially challenging, and I am not sure why. I have long been an anti-perspirant user, and for the past few years, Speed Stick have helped keep me natural. Then, they stopped being effective! I was all underarm phooey and dank patches in shirts once more. Unpleasant, to say the least.
I tried to outflank my BO, by using a bunch of different deoderants for a day here or there, and mixing it up in between – never let my sweat glands relax, y’know? IT DIDN’T WORK!
Then, I finally cracked the shits and spent $11 on some Rexona Clinical Protection… and hey presto! Problem solvered. It has been a month now, and I am nice and fresh once more. Sure, the weather’s cooler, but that has never really bothered my pits, they sweat all year round.
But now I am clean and happy and thankful to Rexona. Even if Ricky Ponting endorses them, I don’t care. They work for me and that’s enough.
Postscript: I have embraced my Ricky Ponting-inspired life choices, and now take Swisse Men’s Ultivite daily. Vitamins, eh Ricky?
Today marks 12 years since my father died. I’ve written about it previously so won’t rehash it all here.
I miss my father and I am sad that he isn’t here to be a Poppy for my children.
But this is the hand I was dealt, and I’m making it work as best I can; having a wonderful wife and two healthy boys is a pretty sweet life 
I am a father again! My wife and I, the delightful Mrs Guru, welcomed our second child into the world on Monday 15 March, 2010. We had a second son, and we named him Gus.
This isn’t a recount of the birth adventure (which was timely, standard and quite pleasant this time around, all things considered); I will save that for my other website, which I am still working at updating, though I will cross-post that one when I do write it up.
No, rather than the birth, I wanted to reflect on the unbelievably selfless and challenging role that parenting is.
I’ll be honest, I had no idea just how damn tough being a parent can be. I love my kids and I love being a parent, that’s not the issue – I just had no idea at what was demanded, which is basically handing over your every moment (waking and otherwise) to little people who won’t ever really appreciate it themselves until they continue the circle and have children of their own.
Baby Gus is feeding quite a lot, as he was a little tiny thing and needs to fatten up a bit. My wife has spent a lot of the past week just sitting on the couch or lying in bed, feeding and feeding our wee lad. She has a sore back and is very tired, but she keeps going because she is, like most mothers, simply amazing.
A second child is an even bigger challenge than a first, as not only are you welcoming and settling in a new one, but also taking care of your first child as well. This very moment, for instance, I am sitting up with my eldest boy Leo, who is sick and miserable and wants only to watch In the Night Garden and snuggle on the couch. Nothing else is helping him so this is where we are, at 2.30am on a school night.
Parenting is hard and I had no idea beforehand at just how demanding it would be. Not for a second though do I regret having my children – they are the best thing I have ever done, and a happy family is my sole ambition. I am exhausted and so is my wife, yet the tender moments of cuddles and smiles are as good as sleep most of the time, so we adapt and we soldier on and we raise our babies.
Over the past 48 hours, I conducted a little ‘speriment. I used Twitter to make a decision for me, and I have sworn to abide by its verdict.
You see, I’ve never really been all that big a fan of soccer, or The World Game (SUE ME SBS!) and so have never had a team to follow. In other sports I have teams (Carlton in AFL, Storm in NRL, Brumbies in S14, Vic in everything else) and I like following someone.
Enough. It was time to find a team and jump on board!
A few people I follow on Twitter are huge soccer fans and seem really quite passionate about their team and results and 0-0 draws after 90 minutes (NOTHING HAPPENED! DON’T YOU WANT A REFUND?!) and so on.
Joining the dots, I devised an evil scheme:
I would put it to a vote and let Twitter choose my team. And I would fall in behind the result.
For a 24 hour period, I invited people to vote for their teams and I’d support the one with the most votes. It started slowly at first, but more votes piled in, until the end of the 24 hour period…
I HAD A 6-WAY TIE!
6 teams had been voted for, by six people. Get the maths of it (and low voter turnout)? Six people said their team, and they were all different!
Rather than call for a run-off and further embarrassing vote numbers, I put the names of each team onto a scrap of paper, then into a semi-clean lunch container where they were shaken and shaken. I then asked a work colleague to choose a sticky note at random.
The verdict… I am now an Arsenal fan.
The gunners, yeah! I don’t know much about them, so I did some digging and came across a recent blog entry from Nick Hornby. I like his passion for his team, and so I feel ok about supporting them now.
My thanks to the tweeps who voted in my poll:
@cherriemoore
@Heath_Eddy
@PostProdEditor
@MrTHill
@clubwah
@euaneggs
Let’s go Gunners!