I bungled the timing for my trip home and arrived at the airport only 30 minutes before my departure time. I didn’t think this would be a problem, as our small airport is rarely busy, but I guess everyone is on their way home today too.

The security line-up was too long, and multiple flights were departing simultaneously, so I missed my plane. I now have three hours to kill before the next flight leaves.

I hate it when issues arise at the airport, especially when they’re my fault. This is, however, the perfect opportunity to waste away the afternoon on YouTube.

A couple of years ago, when I was traveling, I entertained myself on the trains by listening to podcasts. My favourite podcast at the time was The Ricky Gervais Show, where Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais, creators of The Office and Extras, sit down and chat with their friend, a radio producer, Karl Pilkington. The three of them together produced hilarious results, and I often had to pause my MP3 player and try to stop laughing because people were starting to stare.

Gervais and Merchant are both interesting and funny, but the star of the podcast is, by far, the then unknown Karl Pilkington. I wouldn’t say Pilkington is stupid, but his brain works in mysterious ways. He says whatever comes to mind, and it’s usually so off the wall it’s impossible not to laugh. He sees the world as a child sees it, full of wonder and naive charm. He does come across as prejudice, but there doesn’t really seem to be any hate behind it, just simple, elegant ignorance.

I really only listened to the first season of the podcast, as they were free and I stopped listening to podcasts after I returned to Canada, but I’d definitely recommend it for those interested.

Here’s a clip of Ricky Gervais interviewing Karl Pilkington. It’s from Gervais’ live comedy DVD, and it’s pure brilliance.

Keep in mind, Gervais and Merchant swear they don’t write anything for Karl Pilkington. He’s apparently always like this. I’d probably be skeptical if I’d only watched this clip, but after listening to their podcasts, I think he’s the real deal. If there’s someone out there who could purposely write an hour’s worth of Pilkington dialogue for their weekly podcast, they deserve every award available.

I guess it’s time to start shopping for Christmas 2008 now?

It’s nice to be home for the holidays. I’ve never missed this town, but there are people here whom I miss dearly while away, so it’s great to see them.

I also got to see my dog again. I missed her. She even recognized me through the beard. My sister brought her Min Pins over for the day. They’re little bundles of concentrated evil. I’ve never understood the attraction of Min Pins, but their owners absolutely love the breed. To me they just seem wiry, cold, and cruel. They constantly act and look like a startled deer. Her dogs pretended to not recognize me, but I know they knew me. They were just using the beard as an excuse to freak out. Concentrated evil.

I forgot I would have to bring gifts back home, and I didn’t really pack accordingly. I received a lot of books this year. I think I’m going to have to carry another suitcase on the plane exclusively for books.

I also received a small briefcase containing a tear-apart golf putter. It’s a putter in three pieces that you screw into each other to make a whole putter, much like a professional billiards player does with his cue stick, but with a putter.

Yeah, it confuses me also.

All in all, it’s been a good trip. I’m here until Sunday, and most of my friends have abandoned me for work and vacations, so I should be able to get a good amount of reading done, at least.

I hope all of you had a good Christmas, if Christmas is your thing.

Now that I’ve gotten my Bah Humbugs out a little, here’s a Christmas special I really enjoyed. It aired a few years ago on BBC Three, but I only just found it recently. It’s a ridiculous rock opera of the birth of Christ, written by Matt Berry and Richard Ayoade, done in the style of the original rock operas of the seventies.

The special is full of great comedians, but most of them are basically unknown in North America. I’ve been trolling through BBC comedies lately, so I’ll probably be posting more of their work in the future. Everyone does a great job in this, but I found Julian Barrett, of The Mighty Boosh, particularly hilarious.

Here it is in its entirety:

I started and finished my Christmas shopping today, excluding a few bits that I still need to pick up in Kamloops once I’m there. It may seem late to most people, but it’s right on time for me.

I’m not a big fan of the Christmas season. I’m a bit of a Scrooge, from his pre-haunting days, and I’m typically sick of all things red and green before December even rolls around. I could conceivably get into the spirit if everyone would wait until the week of Christmas before they started celebrating, but that’s just not going to happen.

I do enjoy visiting with family and friends in Kamloops, but that’s really it. Christmas, to me, is a time of pain and suffering and misery. Suffering through crowds of sweaty, overweight people in the shopping malls, cringing in pain whenever a terrible, high-pitched Christmas carol is blared in my direction, and wallowing in misery as everyone around me tries to hold me down and waterboard me with holiday cheer.

I moved to Victoria, British Columbia’s capital city and tourist haven, at the beginning of this year, and my apartment is close to the downtown core, so as an added bonus I get horse-drawn carriages full of tourists singing Christmas carols outside of my window. Unfortunately, the street is just a little too far away to be able to properly pour boiling water on them as they pass.

I don’t mind Christmas wishes, and even Christmas music, within a week of the holiday, but if you bring it up any earlier than that, I will hurt you. I’ve asked for a taser this year, and I will be using it next winter.

I’ve never really been able to draw, and I’ve always looked jealously upon those who can, so last weekend I picked up Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

A friend in high school recommended I read the book, and I’ve seen it mentioned online many times since, so finally, ten years later, I decided to picked it up. If nothing else, it looks quite interesting.

The main goal of this is to get to a level where I can entertain myself with doodles during meetings. It’s maybe not the noblest artistic pursuit, but it’s worthwhile nonetheless. Right now I draw patterns and stick men. I’ve included a digital example of my skill level.

I am a little worried, however, that by studying the craft I might lose a little of the raw sincerity that exists within my pieces.

I’ve been sketching a little each day. I’ve found I’m actually not too bad at copying other people’s simple sketches, but I’m absolutely terrible at trying to draw anything from my imagination or real-life. I don’t understand how you’re supposed to draw anything in 3D without using vectors and matrices.

Darkness surrounds me, but a dull ambient light shines through from outside. The air tastes stale and musty, reused, and it’s suffocating. There’s a way out somewhere, but I’m disoriented. Which way am I facing? Which way should I head?

I start writing, one letter at a time. Each pencil stroke echoes off the walls of my enclosure, returning muted and dull like an underwater scream. The letters form words, but they’re wrong, cacophonous and extraneous. I toss them aside and start anew. One step forward and two steps back.

There are some good words now, strong words. I place them in piles. Nouns and verbs directly in front and adjectives close to my right. To my left are punctuation marks. I keep them gathered in a bag, so not to lose the small bits. My thoughts come in small, broken chunks. Every comma and period will be needed. I place the adverbs behind me and try to forget them.

With the rules of grammar unfolded in front of me, I start arranging the words together, but they just don’t fit. My mind is a small allen wrench, unwieldy and painful to use. Through perseverance and patience, the first sentence finally reveals itself. Soon another has formed and another. I have to run to keep up, throwing word after word on the end, leaving behind a trail of characters, scenes, and ideas.

Mid-stride I hit a barrier and tumble to the ground. This path has reached the end, and the story can go no further. I can push my hand against the edge, and it will give to my force, but it won’t break. Trying to tear it open proves futile; it will not rip. My only choice is to pick up this trail of words, one by one, like a breadcrumb trail home, and start again.

Will I ever write my way out of this paper bag?

Bernita at An Innocent A-Blog is hosting a writing contest, Weirdly Contest, so I decided to enter.

The goal is to write a scene, of a maximum 250 words, based on this picture. My entry turned out mildly strange, but the contest is entitled Weirdly, so that works.

Sacrifice

A man stood before an abandoned orchard. Black, twisted trees stretched out of the ground like fingers from a shadowed beast trapped below, a stark contrast to the pale grey sky.

He pulled a crumbled mass of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, flattening it with the palm of his shaking hand against a rock on the ground. His eyes burned as he focused on the picture. The colour from the field had bled up into the trees, striping them a yellowish green and blending the image together, yet it still revealed the exact scene he saw before him. Every time he closed his eyes and tried to drift into sleep, that image haunted him.

He rose to his feet and stumbled from the path toward the nearest tree. After six days without sleep, his legs moved like thin, brittle twigs. He brushed his hair back. It clung to his fingers like wet moss.

“What am I to do?” he asked in a weak voice. “Why bring me here?”

His questions were met with a cold silence. No birds in the sky called out, no insects buzzed below, and no branches creaked in the wind. It was the silence of something waiting, the silence of expectation.

He reached the tree and ran his hand down its leathery bark, his fingers leaving a trail in the moisture on the surface. Laying down at the base of its trunk, he watched the sky disappear as he sunk deep into the grass.

I spent a good part of the morning listening to idiot SUV drivers scraping their shiny rims on the curb while trying to park outside my apartment. I lead an exciting life, ladies and gentleman. This is but the tip of the iceberg.

I also spent that time thinking about where I am in life and where I’m going. I haven’t really felt like myself this last month. It’s hard to explain, but I just feel unsatisfied or unfulfilled or…bored, really. I think it has something to do with my current stationary state.

I’ve been living and working in the same place now for nearly a year. I know that doesn’t seem like a big deal, and it’s really not, but this is the longest I’ve stayed still in the last five years. While at university, I was moving and starting new jobs every four to eight months. That may sound horrible to some people, but I had grown to really enjoy it. Every move, or new job, felt like a new chapter. Life always felt fresh and progressive. Since finishing my degree, I feel like I’m just drifting motionless. This is the first point in my life where I haven’t had a sketchy six month goal and a neatly-packaged four year goal. It’s a strange feeling.

Don’t get the wrong idea, my life is actually quite good right now. I really enjoy my job. I work in a fantastic, casual office that embraces creative solutions and produces results without much bureaucratic nonsense. I’ve made good friends here and have a decently active social life. I’m in better shape than I was in high school, which, to be truthful, isn’t really saying much. I have a single apartment in a nice part of town, so I have a calm, cozy place to live. All in all, everything is going quite well.

I just don’t have anything to strive for right now. I’ve met most of the goals I’ve been aiming at for the last decade. I still have career ambitions, and I’m learning a lot in my job, but advancement takes time and experience. Apart from working hard and continuing to learn, there’s nothing I can really do to speed up that process.

I’m not really excited about anything right now, nor am I unhappy with anything; I’m just mildly content. I’m medium, warm, neutral, gray. I’m floating in the middle of the pool, constantly out of arm’s reach of any side. Contentment was never one of my goals. It’s just watered-down joy. It halts momentum - a covered pit on the path to real happiness, and it’s easy to fall in and never get out again.

This contentment has left me in a creative slump. I’m uninspired, as you could probably tell from that manuscript introduction I posted. I’m in a position now to focus on personal projects. The path I was on this last decade was a ride. It was like a playground slide. Once I pushed off, I didn’t have to focus on moving myself forward. It was just a matter of stopping myself from falling over the sides. I guess now I just have to find a new slide and start climbing those steps.