Just realised that my finger tips have been ‘blog oppressed’, so here I am, mustering up some thought recipe to engage whoever has a few spare moments to read anything. This spurs me to recall one incident about a month ago when I felt a niggling object in my shoe. Thinking that it was a small pebble or a piece of leaf, I started to engage my foot in some clever toe contortions. You know the feeling, sometimes you can nudge something into an unoccupied piece of shoe real estate so it no longer annoys you. No matter what I did though, it was all in vain. So I removed my shoe and gave it one good super optical scan, then shook it to death. Nothing. Odd? So I put my shoe back on and continued to walk, however the tactile intrusion continued. I once again removed my shoe and shook it to no avail, nothing dropped out. I rub my socked hoof against the floor back and forward hoping to dislodge whatever it was. Aha, there’s that feeling again, I quickly feel relief as my persistence is rewarded with the knowledge, that the thing was “in” my sock all along. So I take my sock off and to my nauseous surprise, a blood filled leech bounces onto the floor. It is soaked in blood because I had subjected it to a pretty vigorous foot massage while it was gorging on my lower appendage. My toes were stained with blood because the vampire slug had exploded. Due to the graphic and disturbing image of the dead leech corpse sprawled on the floor, and respect to the general leech populace I have decided to post one healthy smiley one from Google Images. Actually, I just don’t want to encourage any revenge attack. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Well, they say, it’s a bitch and what goes around comes around. Over the past few years, I have battled with this concept thinking that I must have played one helluva practical joke or prank on someone influential in my past life. Frankly, I just don’t think Karma exists. And how does Karma deal with those children who are subjected to abuse and violence? And how does Karma deal with war and the effects on innocent people? I think Karma was a sensible dictum instructing the mass not to engage in retaliations or revenge. Because we all know what happens when Peter hits Paul, well Paul gets angry and hits Peter back … next thing you know, rockets are fired over borders and tanks are rolling across fields. Did you know that World War One was started when someone from one country shot an important (but less liked) person from another country. Rather than settling the score right then and there, one of them secured the backing of Germany, and the other called on Russia for support, then one month later they came together for a ‘great fisticuffs with bullets’ … other countries joined in, and four years later and well over 20 million lives lost, the war ended. Shame the knowledge of Karma wasn’t as widespread in the western world as it was amongst the Hindu’s and Buddhist’s at that time. I guess in the end, the ability to deal with setbacks – or outright failures – is really at the heart of a successful, and happy, person. Over time and personally, I have found that some of life’s surprises can be really tough, and some people out there can be totally intolerable … but with the help from some truly good friends, a psychologist and the right ‘brain’ pills, you can indeed be treading along a happy place. Nighty night.

Dave Dixon is a 50-something who has a blog. Besides having a blog, Dixon also was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer in 2009. To combat that disease, he has undergone a procedure that is called a Radical Prostatectomy, meaning that his Prostate Gland has been surgically removed in full, and that was followed by 6 weeks of Radiotherapy. He has been diagnosed with anxiety and depression and is taking meds to battle those. On ddixon.me, the blog Dave fills with rants, opinions and updates on his condition, stands out because of his humor. Dave writes about terrible things, things we don’t want anyone going through, and I quickly found his style a bit particular, but in a good way. Being someone who tries to see something humorous in every situation myself, I appreciate the levity with which he often writes about his ordeal. Not because I believe that every situation has something funny in it, but because I believe that dealing with something this big with a bit of levity just makes it more bearable. Obviously, as somebody who does not know Dave personally (I contemplated calling him Mr. Dixon in this review, but that just felt weird, having read a lot about his life), I at times felt some difficulty pinpointing whether a particular joke was a brave attempt at hiding his feelings or a genuine glance of his humorous personality. The obvious journey when reading the blog in chronological order is that of the man who is ill, venturing down a slippery path that, in ideal conditions, leads back to his full health, with the notable exception of his Prostate Gland, that was removed years ago. The less obvious journey, yet equally interesting to read, although I might be reading to much into it, is the journey of a man that both seems to come to terms more and more with his physical illness and the psychological fallout it causes. And a man whose writing improves visibly with every blogpost, but that’s true of nearly everyone who frequently writes. It goes to far to summarize the blog in this interview, and I do not like spoilers. I highly recommend visiting ddixon.me, going to the very first post and then just start reading. You will find it hard to peel yourself away from the screen or to prevent yourself from skipping ahead. You want to know what happens, and you want to know now! If there is one little flaw, it is that sometimes humor forces actual informing the readers to the backseat, but that is a logical thing and often seen in personal blogs. Those are written by and for the person blogging, as a means to vent, rant and just get things out of their head. Not to have every word dissected by some stranger on the other side of the globe. Tim Bruls

Yup, that’s right … secret is out, “Je suis de la Savage Islands”. Actually, let me tone this claim down a tad to, “I WAS from the Savage Islands”. My mother and her forebears were savages, she begat a Savage-ling in 1962, in Auckland (an almost savage place). And then much to my dismay some smart bastard in their wisdom decided to rename the Savage Islands to Niue Island. So at some point of time, Google Earth would have proudly boasted five Savage Islands, and now there are only four, with one simply discounted as ‘formerly known as Savage Island’. Shakespeare was wrong when he penned, inked or feathered the phrase, “A rose by any other name, would smell as sweet”. Names have power. Why do you think parents spend so much time on naming their babies, … look at me, I say ‘David’, and people immediately visualise ‘muscles and success’. I would have been known as the kid from the Savage Islands when I was at school. Everyone would have picked me to be to be in their rugby team, and begged me to protect them from the bullies. Instead of a yellow flag today, it could have been a skull, and cross-bones, black not yellow, and zombies being hacked to death by us native Savages. The name David was quite common in the 60’s and 70’s, likewise with other biblical names in the new testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, etc). The trend today appear to fashion names from a piece of fruit in the local supermarket, or some point off a compass … what’s with that? I should start giving human names to my fruit. Anyway, must go and look for Poody (the cat) and Buubuu (the dog).

I overheard an interesting statement made by someone recently. He stood proudly alongside the announcement he had just made, ‘… I am an Alcoholic…’, and when quizzed about how long he had been off the turps, he replied, “25 years”. “Oh!”, me thinks … if he’s been off the nectar for that long, why is he still scratching the surface of this scab. It just sounds so negative to be giving yourself a label when you have proven to be a tower of strength and a conqueror over a terrible dependency. I certainly don’t hear self-deprecating comments made by ex-smokers. I think they embrace the positive and say that they have quit, or that they no longer smoke when offered a ciggy. That seems to make a lot more sense to me. Did you know on average, it takes more than two months before a new behavior becomes automatic — 66 days to be exact. And how long it takes a new habit to form can vary widely depending on the behavior, the person, and the circumstances. If you want to set your expectations appropriately, the truth is that it will probably take you anywhere from two months to eight months to build a new behavior into your life. Not 21 days, which I believe is a misconception, or urban myth or feel good, short term target flaunted by so called do gooders.

Most people believe that habits are formed by completing a task for 21 days in a row. Twenty-one days of task completion, then voila, a habit is formed. Unfortunately, this could not be further from the truth. The 21-day myth began as a misinterpretation of Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s work on self-image. Maltz did not find that 21 days of task completion forms a habit. People wanted it to be true so much so, however, that the idea began to grow in popularity.

Here’s an interesting read, amongst a myriad of others about the 21 Day Myth I gave up alcohol 9 months ago, it was tough but I feel like a winner!