When I was a kid I always struggled with the concept of “New Years”. You see I saw the calendar of twelve months as a linear path, you travel in a straight line through time from January to December and once you hit the 31st that’s it, year over. The problem wasn’t in that logic but more so the fact that after December 31 it was once again January. Calendars weren’t round like the clock hanging on the wall of my bunk-bed adorning room. Clocks made sense, you went in a circle, years were straight. I always imagined that there was this strange Euclidean time period between the end of the year just gone and the start of the new, some sort of time spatial U-turn the universe made to allow it to travel all the way back to January 1st. What made my mind explode just that little bit more causing me to start dripping blood from my nose Butterfly Effect style was if the universe had to travel all the way back to January how on earth did it do it so freakin’ quickly when it took us 365 days to trudge through the year. Had I been alive in the days of Magellan or Columbus I dare say I would’ve been your typical ham sandwich pitchfork farmer burning witches and waiting for some poor bastard to sail of the edge of the earth because he was some crackpot that thought the world was round.

Needles to say I was quite young when I thought like that, you get a little older you learn about orbits, the year being another circle of the sun, blah, blah, yadda, yadda. Boring science, I like my idea better; you try and get a four year old to create their own time/space theories! I was a special child.

So how does all this relate to the year that is soon to be passed, 2007. Well… it probably doesn’t really, but I thought it best to share a nice story rather than swear through this entry entirely about how much of a shit year it’s been and that no matter who I’ve talked to they all say the same. I don’t know what it is (actually no that’s a lie, I do know, but I’m not sharing so there!) but boy did this year suck the cock meat sandwich (Harold & Kumar 2 reference… watch trailer here). I truly hated this year; even with my world trip I am gladly leaving this year in the past!

To mark this rather dubious celebration of crapness I wanted to do something a little different than highlighting what I believe are my favourite movies, TV shows, and similar junk that every man & his blog (I say man because 99% are done by nerds) will do and never be read. Whilst I’m most certainly not under the illusion that millions will read my blog either it will none the less be entertaining and cathartic for myself.

It is with belated breath and great pleasure that I present to you… Raj’s list of stuff for 2007 (very similar to the Raj-makes-up-categories TV Awards)

Most annoying thing of the year - People on Public Transport
I could devote a yearlong expose on how much the persons occupying space on any form of public transport truly shit me to tears but I’ll try and keep it brief today. I’ve got no beef with public transport itself, as in the actual physical thing that gets you from A to B, it would be a fantastic system if I was the only person using it at any time of the day and I didn’t have to put up with the seemingly endless sea of frigtards (see next award) that don’t cover their mouths to cough & sneeze, that stink, that are just purely nuts and that don’t make room for anyone to get on! I fucking hate public transport, and if any of you write a comment saying “buy a car then” I’ll personally send the crazy air gun guy from No Country for Old Men after you.

Word/Saying of the year - frigtard
Whilst the rest of the world can go on believing that the geek word “w00t” is somehow cool now because all the frigtards out there are now online using Facebook or MySpace and can speak like a 12 year old kid playing Halo 3 for sixteen hours straight on his Xbox I will break from the collective sheep and personally elect another completely made up word that I have already used in this paragraph. Frigtard (pronounced frig – tard)
Frigtard is a word that I believe was made up by this guy who wrote a blog pretending to be Steve Jobs (well that’s where I found it anyway). The word (if you haven’t guessed this already) is a derivative of two, frigging (used as a euphemism for ‘fuck’ according to Apple’s Dictionary app) and retard (a politically incorrect way of saying moron). Ergo all people on public transport are frigtards. See what I did there, tying it back into the previous award, clever!

Best procrastination tool of the year - Guitar Hero
I’m extremely tempted to put the Internet as the winner of this award but I spent a month without that and one of the only things that kept me from doing anything productive during the solemn period was Guitar Hero 3. That and not only did I get Guitar Hero 3 this year but I also bought number 2 earlier on and haven’t stopped playing both of them since. When you haven’t got time to spare but you really don’t want to do what you’re supposed to be doing than this is the tool for you! Sit back and watch the hours literally disappear and your impending unemployment become ever closer.

Worst moment of the year - Being overseas when I should’ve been at a funeral
Had a couple of things happened in January instead of December 2006 this little award would’ve been completely different but as it turned out they just happened a little too early and basically made this year shit. Anyway that didn’t happen in 2007 but this one did. So I was overseas, sitting around Paris enjoying myself as you do in Paris when I find out that an old friend of mine has passed away. Shit in itself but the next two weeks I spent trying to get home early to attend a funeral and unfortunately couldn’t do it. It sucked; I still feel shit about it.

Best moment of the year - Watching Ice Hockey in Toronto
Just to prove I’m not a complete pessimist I thought I’d better balance things out with the best moment of the year. Sitting in the Air Canada stadium watching the Toronto Maple Leafs and some other team (I forget) play live was just awesome! I’m not really good at talking about stuff I actually enjoy or like so I don’t really have much else to say other than it was like I was a kid again just having fun!

2008 Resolutions - None
Making a New Year Resolution is just a stupid idea. Anyone that hasn’t figured that out by now is either five years old or has the brain of a five year old. If you want to do something or make a change in your life do it right then and now, don’t wait for some special date because it will never last my dear kiddies.

A special thanks to all the people that have contributed to this year sucking so much; you know who you are. I couldn’t have been so bitter and dry without your help and without your shit I’d have nothing to write about. True I might be to blame for a lot of it myself but in true Raj fashion I’ll blame others. hehe.

In all seriousness though, I hope everyone has a great year in 2008. Thank you for reading my ramblings throughout 2007, perhaps if I find a girlfriend any time soon you wont be subjected to them anymore! Hehe. Au Revoir.

Well everyone it’s getting very, very close to that time of year again and with only a few more sleeps until some fat bastard in a bright red suit of commercialism funnels his way down your chimney (or through your living room window or however you’ve described to your children’s young and impressionable minds) and places a collective of junk beneath your tree. “Presents” that you’ll smile at wryly pretending to be surprised or impressed at, oh and perhaps the useful gift of a digital camera that will come in extremely handy in about 24 hours when you start putting the unwanted on eBay.

Now, now, that’s hardly the spirit is it? And believe it or not that’s not the entire truth as to how I look at Christmas. I’m actually not a complete prick when it comes to the festive season, in fact I’d consider myself quite the opposite. Yes, I’m sure this may shock you all a tad but I’m a sucker for this holiday and not at all because it has anything to do with getting presents. I enjoy Christmas; prepare yourself for this…. I enjoy Christmas for the time I get to spend with my family and the presents I get to give!

Whilst the whole cluttered shopping, putting up shitty tinsel and singing carols basically makes me dry reach ten times a day for the six weeks leading up to the holidays I do enjoy the elation of buying presents for my family. I take a great deal of care in ensuring I’m not rushing around at the last minute buying some piece of shit from an airport newsagent before I fly home for the actual day. I enjoy nutting out the ideal gift and as annoying as that can be sometimes to see their face as they tear open that parcel (mutilating what took you fifteen minutes to wrap ever so delicately in a little under five seconds) and it’s exactly right is more reward than any present you can receive.

I’d say I was a lucky kid, we always had great Christmas days with a whole bunch of relatives and regardless of anything that was going on behind doors Christmas was a time to put that aside and enjoy the fact we had each other. Whilst, unfortunately, the family has thinned and scattered over the years I still get to spend it with my immediate family by travelling to Adelaide and seeing them all at once is a present worth travelling countries let alone interstate for.

When it all comes down to it I guess what I’m trying to say is that Christmas, I believe, is a time to put aside any differences you might have. Reach out and embrace those that are special to you and be thankful for what you have; or rather, far more importantly who you have in your life!

To everyone out there in Internet land have a wonderful Christmas and happy holidays.

Be safe.

Yes non-nerds I actually meant to spell “the” t-e-h as you see it appearing in the title of this the final entry in my “No Internet Diary”. I wont go into teh anymore, other than to say it’s a common typo because of the QWERTY keyboard layout and it’s quite commonly recognised amongst script kiddies and l33t alike as meaning “the”. There, didn’t that clear everything up?

On to more relevant writings.. in the covered words of Dannii Minogue “This is it, this is the real thing!” <insert small cameo by Nip/Tuck’s Julian McMahon here> I once again have a functioning ADSL2+ connection available to my home twenty four hours a day… seven days a week… three hundred and sixty five days a year… bitches. Well unless its a leap year and then it’s three hundred and sixty six, but lets not mince our Julian and Gregorian calendars here shall we; the point is I HAVE TEH INTERNETS! w00t!

It just goes to show that running away from your problems to another city and ignoring them can once again save the day making everything happy and fun for your return. Males rejoice for I have proven said theory of ignorance for all to reference in future court proceedings. QED mo-fo’s… Q-E-D. Returning from Adelaide today I waltzed through my apartment door at around 9pm after the usual cab ride home where I fool heatedly mention I work in IT and then spend the next twenty minutes back peddling because my fellow Indian brother who’s driving the taxi just happens to be an IT graduate who can’t find work. Saturated market people, saturated! Anyway, once inside I dare not drop the 10kg of dead weight that is my luggage because according to this fancy little notification I got via SMS yesterday the DSL light on my modem should be winking at me faster than some dude with an unfortunate twitch that causes him/she to blink rapidly and not at all like an equally unfortunate person who doesn’t blink at all and uses fake tears to lubricate their eyeballs. Luckily for me the modem didn’t need any fake tears because she was flashing away like old “Twitchy”! Oh, yeah!

At this point I reluctantly resided to the fact that I would indeed need to drop my luggage if only to get my laptop out and confirm Twitchy’s (I’ve decided to call my modem “Twitchy” as of this moment) status of connection, not to mention catch up on the copious amount of useless information I need fill my mind with that the Internet has to offer and satisfy that heroin like addiction.

“Cook us up a hit will you Rent” I said to Twitchy, who was now resembling Ewan McGregor from Trainspotting.

The warm glow of my laptop’s LCD screen bloomed to life in only the way an Apple computer can do sending warm fuzzy feelings of love and joy through my body putting the sun’s ever so overrated Vitamin D bullshit to shame. Ahhhh, artificial light, how you keep my Indian skin so pale, if only Michael Jackson had thought of you before all that wasted skin bleaching. As the various elements of my startup process began to appear after taking a nap for the short flight home all eyes were on the top right hand corner of the screen, watching; waiting, breathless as the currently grey icon that represented my home’s wi-fi connection should turn to a solid black indicating a valid connection. Come on, come on… why do things always take so freakin’ long when you’re watching them?!?! And then it happened, ladies and gentleman we have lift-off! Quick, quick, go nuts, before your brain explodes with the possibilities of what you can do out there on the “World Wide Web (of crap)”.

Two minutes later….

In the same way you can imagine your male partner spent after a hard, rigourous, yet extremely unfulfilling sexual encounter sucking back a cigarette in bed and glancing over to say “Was it good for you?” I was once again spent and bored. Over two weeks of pent up frustration and Internet withdrawal and just like that it was all over in mere seconds and there’s nothing left but an empty feeling in my stomach and the question of my commitment issues. I mean I really like you Internet, when you were gone you were all I could think about, but now you’re back… well… I don’t know if this is going to work… Hang on what on Earth am I talking about I love you Internet, don’t ever leave me again OK? I said OK damn it!

Well that’s it, my Internet is back in all of it’s ADSL2+ 24kbps glory. My phone still wont accept incoming calls but frankly that’s a good thing because the only people that call it are telemarketers. I’m sure it’ll get sorted out if I do nothing proactive about it and if it doesn’t I can claim my phone line hasn’t worked for ages and get compensation. We live in a great land.

There are a few people I’d like to thank that have held my hand throughout this journey of hardship and self awakening but it’s now after 1 in the morning so instead I’m going to put a picture of Mary Louise Parker and the cast of Weeds here and thank her for being a great actress and having a fantastic TV show. Thank you Mary Louise.

Until next time faithful readers, adieu.

Faced the with eternal boredom that is my life without an Internet connection and the possible life threatening eating habits that it has produced there was nothing left to do but the same thing any male does when faced with a tough problem in their life…. you ignore it, pretend it doesn’t exist and normally there’s a woman around to fix it for you and you can go back to life as it was before hand. For me whilst there may not be a woman in my life per-say there was one in Adelaide that was getting married this weekend and where there’s another city with a blood relative there’s an Internet connection.

Lets face it, the wedding is really just a convenient excuse for me to jump on a plane when we all know I’m really only going so I can log on to the scourge that is Facebook and piss & moan about all these retard applications people feel they must spam me with, but that’s another story. I’m not here to squabble over my true intentions behind travelling seven hundred kilometres to another state, besides I wouldn’t want to hurt the bride and groom’s feelings. I’m just a caring guy like that, always thinking of others and my email being downloaded in less than two hours as I’m currently experiencing in dial-up world. Fuck it’s shit house. Did I swear? Oops, sorry kids. Fuck I think I’ve already used that joke, I can’t be bothered checking my previous posts, sorry.

So anyway, another trip back to Adelaide, my Dad, bro & sis live there, another glorious plane ride on the Virgin Blue bus and a couple of days working out of the Adelaide office to avoid the further drain on my already suffering annual leave allowance (currently sitting at negative six days… boooo!). Adelaide’s a nice city, anyone that’s coming to Australia shouldn’t listen to the general population of the world because it’s not a complete shit-hole. Even that’s probably a bit harsh, it’s actually quite a beautiful city, lots of trees, parks, churches, etc. It’s just if you wanted to do anything besides look at trees and visit churches that you might start to find the attractions of fair Adelaide a tad dull. Hell don’t try and get a drink on a weeknight after 8pm, you’ll have to go to the Casino and… well…. let’s just say it’s not pretty. Enough of the Adelaide bashing, it’s an OK place, and this being my sixteenth trip back there this calendar year I should probably come clean and admit to enjoying it there, even if it’s only for my family and friends.

(It’s OK, the place wasn’t on fire… I swear!)

Adelaide aside, I was here for a wedding, well I think I was… I did land and start up Azureus but I was at least making it look like I was going to a wedding by carrying a suit with me. It was on Saturday, thankfully the scorching heat that I’d just had the pleasure of being baked by for the last two days had somewhat subsided for the auspicious occasion by dropping to a light 29 degrees (Celsius). I wasn’t exactly sure about the wedding, I didn’t really know anyone, the bride I hadn’t seen face to face for about four years and I’d never met the groom before, I was honoured to get the invite don’t get me wrong but if it wasn’t for my old friend from school (lets call her Mary Louise, not because that’s her name or I’m wanting to conceal her identity, I just think Mary Louise Parker from Weeds is hot) coming along as my date I would’ve just sat there like an idiot looking more like an idiot than normal.

Driving to the reception Mary Louise and I decided that seeing how no one would have any idea who either of us were we’d take on new identities for the evening. She, Mary Louise, would be “in the entertainment industry” and I would play her most recent “director”. Yes, yes I’m sure you can figure out where this is going…. Should anyone probe further her so called “entertainment” employment may have been linked to certain “adult” forms of entertainment. Yes it’s childish and yes I’m quite clearly overusing “quoted words” but I’m trying to see how many times I can use them in one paragraph, don’t “freak out man”.

Arriving at the reception hall, navigating our way through the family introductions and looking stupid by not knowing who anyone is and who I was meant to kiss and hug (it was an Italian sorta wedding) we found our table and name tagged seats.

“Hey Raj.” came a voice and then an extended hand.

“Ahhh…. hey…” I replied, with pretty much no idea of who this guy was, why he knew my name (maybe he was mental and read everyone’s name tags and was showing off) and why he expected me to shake his hand. I did anyway, but only because I’m nice (see the 2nd paragraph where I state this quite clearly already for you). How are you?”

“You’ve got no idea who I am do you?” said hand-shakey-guy.

I thought about lying here, I mean he’s basically ruining my whole porn directing career before it had started, but truth be told I couldn’t be fucked bothered. “Ahhh, no mate, sorry, no idea.”

“I went to school with you.”

I looked at Mary Louise with you-went-to-school-with-me-have-you-seen-hand-shakey-guy-before eyes. She looked back at me with don’t-look-at-me-I’ve-got-no-idea-I-do-porn eyes. OK so maybe not the “I do porn” part but that would’ve been hot.

“Did you? Really??” There were only 100 odd people in my grade at school, I was pretty sure I knew most of them.

“Yeah; I was in your sister’s grade”. Oh for fuck’s sake, you expect me to know you because you were two years below me? Actually it’s probably fair, I knew most of them too, just not this guy. Way to feel like a douche in thirty seconds. “I’m Lionel.”

“Lionel, shit sorry man, no idea but I’ll take your word for it.”

Wave bye, byes to the adult entertainment industry.

For the rest of the night Mary Louise and I pretty much forgot about anyone else that was there, mainly because we didn’t know anyone (well except Lionel now), and made fools of ourselves dancing, drinking and having a pretty good time. Put it this way, aint no way else in hell you’d get me dancing to Nutbush City Limits had there been anyone I’d actually known there!

With the wedding done and dusted the rest of my time in Adelaide was split between friend catch ups, family and work. The only other thing of any real significance was the little SMS that arrived on my phone to alert me to the fact that apparently my ADSL connection had been activated and was awaiting my digital fingers to caress its curvaceous figure… I need help. Can I fly home now please?!