Hide your face in shame book

I love Social Media.

"Sometime between 7am and 3pm, Saturday 20th" they said.

Our internet connection has been dreadful of late and the multi national involved had responded to my wife's Facebook plea for a better connection - they were coming to replace external cabling leading to the house.

Yesterday we waited, and we waited. Nothing happened.

For Rory D Grant, 'the hour of social media' had arrived. I would shame Telstra into action. I took to their Facebook page and unleashed my displeasure, I ranted, I raved, I demanded and disparaged in equal measure.  Bloodied and beaten they responded timidly, cowed, beaten. There it was on Facebook for all to see - a groveling apology was offered and the contacts proffered to rectify what was in their own words a 'let down'. Would I forgive them though?

Pleased at what I had achieved using social media I triumphantly looked across the sitting room at my wife. "I did it darlin', the bastards are sorry they ever let us down, they've grovelled and will re-arrange for their engineers to come out. I love how they respond so quickly when you hang out their dirty laundry in public. Rory D Grant 1 Telstra 0 ."
"Telstra?" My wife piped up.
"Yeah Telstra."
My wife shook her head, "We're not waiting on Telstra Rory, we're waiting on Energex...."

I hate social media.


Rory.

What's up in Wisconsin?

I have so much catching up to do. Had to start somewhere so I thought I'd have a look at which blog posts have been popular in my absence. Some of you know that I have two blogs - this one and 'If the Truth Be Told'. So I thought I'd look at the viewing figures for both, and I looked again...and again. Was this right? Could what I was seeing possibly be right? The smallest post entry I have ever made had not 100 views (which would have been good), not 500 (which would have been awesome) but....are you ready for this? Just short of a quarter of a million views...Yes 236,064 to be precise...did someone highlight it on TV or radio in Wisconsin? Where is Wisconsin lol?

What have I done? Why Wisconsin? So many questions, so few answers. Does this mean I could have been a billionaire if I'd only signed up for ads? Hell I didn't even do much - just threw up a Youtube video and a small piece of text.... The Blog Post in Question

Rory

Just the usual kind of morning....

Just the usual kind of morning today, got up at 5am, went to the shops for milk, said 'Good morning" to a few faces I recognise daily, found a dead body in the bushes, came home, had a shower then coffee....Oh yeah, 'found a dead body in the bushes' that's a bit unusual I guess. He looked dead, felt dead, poor fella - but when the ambulance guys tended to him they assured me there was life in there somewhere. Anyway, whoever he was, I hope he makes it ok. Now that I'm blogging again I guess God has decided to give me something to talk about by way of a kick start.  I do so hope it's not going to be a blog littered with the dead and dying though - I want happy stuff!

Ok I'm making a promise to myself - my first ten blog posts will be uplifting....It's so hot here today though (I'm talking a million degrees), it's not really conducive to thinking and writing...

Unfortunately therefore, the most uplifting thing I can come up with today is this...

Rory.

I may have been in a coma....but then again...

Gently does it. I sat down and thought of all the weird, wonderful and simplistic things which could have prevented me from blogging for so long - coma, alien abduction, arctic expedition, none of them had the ring of truth I sought - because none of them would be true. Ill health does ring true. But ill health is complicated, 'wordy' and doesn't really convey the depth and nature of the issues bedeviling me for so long.  So there you have it, Rory's been ill, very ill. and that has to suffice for now. I'm better now, I know this because I can see, I can type (albeit painfully), I can walk, I can play guitar again - hell I can even hop skip and jump but I'm still working on the landings. I'm back blogging because I need to - I missed everyone here, even those with whom I might be at variance with their points of view. So why push it? Why turn up now? Well it seems to me there's a whole lot of hate and trouble going on out there (I'm pointing to the street from my window but 'street' = planet).

People who have genuine affection for one another and probably more importantly, genuine affection for those they don't even know, need to gather now. There's an urgency in the air. These are horrid times for so many. Let's see if we can write our way out of all that ails us as a species and a planet.

I cannot be held responsible for any posts made after 9pm however - I take my wonder drugs then. Jonathan Swift would be proud of me.  

To those of you who are still blogging after these years have elapsed - Good on ya :)

Missed you all.

Rory.
PS - Don't ya just hate trying to remember passwords after years of not signing in?

Les Miserables, and so this is Xmas....

A very merry Xmas to everyone. Yes I'm back and this time I'm back to stay. The last nine months have been a living hell and I thank everyone for hanging in there with me. I'm now able to write again. There's much to catch up on but for today my return to the internet coincides with witnessing movie history in the making.

My wife and I have just returned from watching Les Miserables at the local cinema. This version takes the musical film genre to new heights.. Russel Crowe (Javert) gets big billing for this one and whilst I have no criticisms of his performance I thought he did what he does best - he played Russell Crowe. The show stoppers however have to be Hugh Jackman (Jean Valjean) and Anne Hathaway (Fantine). Jackman powered through the movie displaying the full range of his acting talent as well as his singing, but for me, the moment celluloid history was made was when Hathaway sang 'I dreamed a dream' - go see it, crumple in your seat and wallow in tears. For the entire duration of the song the director never once moves the camera from her face and it's no wonder, her face keeps the rhythm while her eyes sing the melody. I have no idea what the record for the longest time spent on one person's face is in a movie - but this has to be a contender, it also has to be a contender for an oscar. It's probably the most powerful piece of cinematography I have ever seen. A marvellous piece of work by Hathaway that left me spellbound.

Over the next few weeks I'll bring you up to date with what's been happening to me including some pretty astounding neuropsychology findings. In the meantime however; it's good to be back and wishing everyone the fullest and safest Xmas and New Year.

A Horribly Busy Day...

My wife surprised me with some good news today. Remember when my lap top died and went to heaven and yet she somehow miraculously resurrected it? Well, unbeknown to me she took the longish book I had been writing for the last year out of it, edited it and published it on Amazon as a Kindle book (Just in case I died during surgery lol). I was pleasantly surprised to see it there when I scurried off to see if I had sold any of the 'Auld Lang Syne' books in the last month.

It's a niche market - not everyone's cup of tea - but at least it's now 'out there'.

So often is she 'writing' - and so often am I - that we communicate across the office using chat on the computers by sending each other links to interesting stuff on the internet, weird stories, novel ideas - it sounds dysfunctional but can be very humorous and every now and then we do talk to one another in real life. Today, when I thanked her for formatting it and publishing it for me - I asked her why she took it upon herself to do so...had to laugh at her mailed reply...

'Because I know you Rory - this would have been your response if I'd asked you to do it...'

Women, they know too much about us men.

Rory

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Rory D Grant - The Naked Truth

If this blog post 'joins up' at the end - then well and good. If not, it's because it's Sunday, sweltering heat first thing in the morning here in Brisbane, and with no kids here today I have wayyyyy too much time to think about fragmented, disjointed things - and yet my little brain tells me they are all connected. Oh and if nudity affronts you - look away now.

It all started with Cathy at Life on the Muskoka River who'd been taking pictures in her underwear (not of her underwear I hasten to add).

I then ran across a very brave Canadian Judge (Ontario Superior Court Judge Anne Malloy) who refused to sentence someone to the MANDATORY 3 year prison sentence demanded by law in the case of Leroy Smickle. His crime? He was posing in his underwear late at night, in his own apartment, for his own Facebook profile picture holding a gun. The cops bust in looking for his cousin (Leroy Smickle was wanted for nothing) - and arrest him instead for having a 'restricted loaded weapon' (which he had dropped along with his lap top at the shock of the door being kicked in). As Judge Malloy put it - sentencing him to what the law demands (3 years in prison) would be "unfair, outrageous, abhorrent and intolerable" - She sentenced him to a year of house arrest (which is still pretty crap given there really was no 'crime' or criminal intent).

Anyway, underwear was still on my mind as I was thinking of stripping down to mine in this heat - 'but what if the cops bust in looking for someone else? And the broken button on my boxer shorts gives too much away? Could I be charged with pointing a weapon at them? Even if it's a pretty harmless one?'

That got me to thinking about nipples. Not sure why but it did. And the crazy laws which pervade the USA about certain parts of the body. I remembered an ad I had seen being slated on the internet from Florida - Here it is -

Notice anything? All those big butch guys have no nipples. Seems it's against the law in Florida to display nipples in advertisments. From nipples it was only a small drop down to buttocks, and the lengths America goes to to keep them covered up...I remembered being outraged at the TV series NYPD Blue being fined $1.4 million dollars by the FCC for showing a 'buttock' on one of it's airings - a fine that took eight years to be overturned in a higher court. So what? The audience saw someone's ass (or at least half of it) - are we so ashamed of the human body that we pretend someone having a shower doesn't actually have an ass (as was the case in NYPD Blue)?

Then...I remembered...I don't talk much about 'private bits'...and on one occasion where I had to see a doctor to enquire about what I perceived as a problem with mine - I sat in the waiting room running through what the most 'user friendly' terminology to use would be - how do I tell the female Doc I want her to look at my.....'thing'? 

Do I say 'Penis'? Willie? Privates? John Thomas? It was perplexing me no end and when I finally reached her room and she asked in a mix of Indian/Scottish accent - 'What can I help you with Mr Grant?'

I kind of spluttered 'Well...it's my Birdie Doctor'

"Many happy returns." She said, and sat patiently waiting for what ailed me....

So I'm not the greatest conversationalist when it comes to 'bits' but I do have very strong opinions about them.

I'm no prude, I'm all for people getting naked though I don't do it myself....maybe when I was younger I would've been braver but in my entire life I have only posed naked for a picture with my instrument in full view once. And that was because my dear wife didn't think I would have the balls to do it. I'm a sucker for challenges.

It was so empowering I even thought of enrolling as a model for art students so they could master the art of drawing wrinkles accurately....

Hmmm - I don't think it did join up did it lol?

Let's blame the post op drugs :)

Rory

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