07.01.2004 - 4:00 p.m.

Blocked nose ? Pressure around the eyes ? it's not an incoming cold, you're wearing a scuba mask.

Huzzah, christmas has finally finished for another 9 months and not before time, I can't seem to get with the general chrimbo groove these days ( years ? ) it's nice to get a coupla weeks off work ( even though I have to take some days as holiday ) and having lazy mornings in bed with J, but the whole christmas thing is getting a bit tired, as I stood in my garden having a roll-up sunday night it didn't feel like christmas has ever happened, maybe it was a glitch in the matwix or possibly just a long weird dream. I was told in conversation with a customer today that it regains it's magic once you have children and grandchildren but all that vicarious living is a bit too distant for now, so just call me Captain Christmas-Grumpy-Pants during the yuletide season.

On the up-side my bro gave me his old computer ( which was nice ) it's relatively old for a computer and I'll mainly be making music and arty stuff on it so it's gotta be upgraded, I've found a new supplier of chip-sets and boards and have picked out a three hundred mega-pixie graphics card churning out 4 trillion pollygones per second per second per second, running alongside a 100hurts dual-band processarse and all topped off with a power board triumvirate of "emulsion engine" kittychips @ 0.004picosqueeks to give me a computing edge in today�s bullshit society.

At the beginning of last winter my Working Mojo span out of control, crashed through a fence and bent itself round a tree, very Bolanesque. My second sight faded as the days grew shorter and I was left feeling, well, I imagine like the rest of you feel all the time. I can even pinpoint the precise date I lost my grip and started sliding ( 18.11.03 ). But on monday evening it was clear that all was ok, the natural predictions were flowing en masse and accurately, very reassuring, no real use to me for the purposes of gambling or something profitable but reassuring all the same.

J's kitten has turned into a noisy teenager and as she's not been 'done' yet fell into season quite abruptly on a friday lunchtime in a whirlwind of posturing, squeeking and calling. She's not been outside yet precisely because she's not been 'done' and we checked in a book because neither of us has owned a horny cat before and it was all a bit surprising. It also seems that she's doing it correctly despite not having another cat to copy or instruct in the ways of kitten production. We did bandy around the idea of sending her out into the cold dark night and not to come back until she was fully kittened up but it would be a bit cruel even though it was the only thing on her mind at the time.

I'm interested in aspects of that special BIOS that comes pre-loaded with brains of, well, anything with a brain really to ensure that it survives long enough to pass on the genetic material to the next generation ( not Picard you fool ) and explains why the less capable members of the human race always seem to spawn first and often, it's not that they're desperate to be parents, it's just that they don't have any higher functions than that which they were born with. There are definitely some members of society ( and you can make a list if you like ) who should be forcibly sterilised to prevent them inflicting themselves on the rest of us in the times to come.

Although my weirdometer has been reading a bit low recently, I think the background level of weirdness has also fallen, and the people I usually recharge with are distant and fuzzy and it's not helping. The Muses of Irreverence are vacant from the environs and I'm lost in a world where straightlaced black'n'white order reigns, if you care at all leave an irreverent message of strangeness, it can only help.....