Hic Sunt Dracones

November is coming. And with it, Movember. And with it, Moustaches. And with it, me – demanding sponsorship.

And with it, me giving you the details so that you can sponsor me. ’cause I know you wants to.

So get thee to this here linky thing. Or, if you want the specifics, what you’re looking for is registration number 1434961. It’s gold I tell you, gold.

I’m the team captain this year, which is something I take very seriously. Our team name is the Mo’town Mo-fos, which for those of a more delicate persuasion can I guess be interpreted as the Movember Town Moustached Fellowship. But it shouldn’t be.

Now last year I was open to discussion on the path of the righteous, and also on the path of the Mo. There was some brief discussion but basically it was all about the sifty handlebar trucker thing.

Sifty is my middle name. I share it with Dave.

This year? This year I’m thinking of something else. Last year’s effort was a bit too close to my stock standard goatee, so I feel I’m cheating a bit, or not really pushing the “how silly can I look” envelope as much as I should. The problem is that 30 days isn’t really enough time to grow a truly stupid Mo, at least not for me.

So should I shave my head and get my “dear God put that man in prison” Mo on? Or should I gogo some kind of prono Mo that will get me beaten up should I stray to close to a school? Only time will tell. I’m open to suggestions (I’m susceptible to hypnosis) and also to outright bribery (I’m very susceptible to capitalism).

Last year’s sponsors – you were greatly appreciated. This year the photo montage will be more betterer, (in that I’ll send out more than say three photos?) and also animated with music. Er, maybe not with music.

For information on where your donation will be heading (if you actually care about that, rather than sponsoring my silly face), you can check out Movember Fundraising Outcomes.

And finally, let me remind you that – I got some loose Jell-O OK?

1. I voted today. I wouldn’t generally, feeling that voting in a pool the size of Ilam / The Nation is a bit useless, but thought that I’d check out the voting overseas dealio. Said dealio checked out. You most likely did not.
2. I scored a try in this week’s touch game. First game back for the season and we are victorious. You didn’t.
3. I stayed up till 1am because I have created a monster. My boss and two workers have joined, and so the four of us ran around Elwyn till later than was probably sensible. I know you didn’t.
4. I filled in my Australian tax return, and in a surprise move, they are giving me money back. Thanks Australia. You didn’t – suck it.
5. I spelt guarana wrong. You probably didn’t.

So, here I am at work on a Sunday afternoon, after being here at work on a Saturday evening as I power through a user guide that I need to have done on Monday morning, and due to some suck on behalf of some people I was working with on the client side of things last week I didn’t get much of a chance to work on. So I bought myself two cans of V (two for $5) from the 7-11 across the road and I drank one last night and left the other in the fridge.

And lo, because I’m lame, I came back into work on Sunday to finish the job and stuff. And I sat at my desk drinking water and plodding away till another guy came into the office an hour or so later. And he opened a can of soft drink and I heard it, but thought little of it.

UNTIL NOW MY FRIENDS. UNTIL NOW. Because having just returned from the fridge I can report that my second can of V is gone. Gone baby gone (that’s really gone). Suspicion falls squarely on my former friend and fellow member of the working on Sunday losers collective. It is possible that someone else drank it between 2am when I left here and 2pm when I returned here. But… the can opening noise! It can not be. J’accuse!

I could wander down to his cubby hole, smash his face repeatedly against the desk screaming “did you order a code red?!” whilst fossicking about for a (presumably) now empty can of V. But instead I’m blogging this, and have just printed out a somewhat awesome missing poster depicting a poor can of V. I think I’ll take the $2.5 loss like a sissy cause he’s kind of a weird finance guy who I don’t really know.

Of course, I could set the building on fire…

Our embedded reporter BJA on the spot with the latest:

Dave drove car into a ditch. Awaiting the AA. Worst Coe’s Ford mission ever.

More updates as they come to hand.

Update at 23:13 (local time):

So far random bits of wood have been tried and FAILED. I was keen for giving the jack a go but Dave’s opted for the someone who knows what they’re doing option.

For our viewers at home, here’s a map of roughly the region we believe these boys are trapped in.

Update 2 at 23:24 (local time):

Good news folks! Help has arrived at the stranded car. BJA with the latest:

We have bogans. The average IQ level of whom is about 12. They too have FAILED.

Right, so not the good news we were hoping for. And our hearts do go out to the families of Dave and BJA and whomever else might have been traveling on board the Starship Dave this morning. I feel editorially mandated to comment that criticising the IQ level of people who haven’t driven into a ditch is a bit harsh. But then again, the reporter wasn’t driving Dave was. As a brief aside folks I’d like to give mad props to Dave’s ongoing non smoking efforts. He’s saving up for a pony.

Now back to our infomercials.

Update 3 at 23:34 (local time):

Our mistake was grabbing the cheese. Or in this case, attempting to drive off with no lights on in order to faux-abandon Andrew and girlfriend.

So there we have it ladies and gentleman. Investigative reporter BJA begins to uncover some of the truths that have so long stayed buried in this case. Grab the cheese? Sounds masonic to me. Cheese it!?

We put a question to the stranded survivors of Starship Dave’s fight or flight: How the hell is the AA man going to find you?

Intrepid reporter BJA has faith in the AA man: “Hopefully he [AA man] can find us by going to Coe’s Ford. I’d gather up the wagons into a circle to stave the bogans off, but we only have one and it’s stuck in a ditch.”

The second section there being a response to our (at the behest of our lawyers) suggestion that he offer up woman folk to the bogans lest they turn feral (feeding frenzy people! I’ve seen it happen before!).

Update 4 at 23:49 (local time):

Relief in the form of money – from Dave’s wallet – has arrived. And with it, the AA man. BJA a shadow of his former self after nine months on the trail just filed this:

The bogans mock us. But it must be said AA man has made in the end a pretty easy 120 bucks.

We will continue our efforts to speak to the driver, and failing that attempt to get a thorough update of the situation on the ground from the journalistic wunderkind that BJA is turning into down there in that pit of despair.

And please – keep those pledges coming in – 1900-Dave-in-a-Ditch.

Update 4 at 0008 (local time):

They’re up and away, fleeing the bogan’s eventual wrath. That’s right they’ve set sail for RIO, the perfect salve to the psychological pain inflicted by the Dread Pirate Bogans and their crew of skanks. (NB: Skanks may or may not have been present and or members of the crew.).

Wait, sorry, a bad line from BJA. Apparently they’re going to Denny’s! Milkshakes all around.

And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

Though he doesn’t condone it. And he agrees that I’d make a terrible stand up comic. Anyway.

Took the riverside path home today, passing through Federation Square I spotted a ute full of V. Or at least significantly full of it. And took the proffered beverage. And continued my walk home.

I used to drink a fair whack of V back at school. For a long time opening a bottle would give me that strange smell-memory triggering effect and send me back to The Loft. Didn’t drink too much of it after honours, but got back onto it during afternoon snack time where my boss and I would walk to the dairy and get a V and a cookie. Which of course led to ODing on it, in probably the same way as the eCOSM boys did. Actually no. They probably just drank eight cans one day and felt ill.

Sitting on the couch drinking my ill gotten (well no) gains I noticed that the can was embossed around the V as an atom section and wondered about that. Don’t know if I’ve come across other cans with embossing… It’s pretty minor, and I wonder about the cost to do it, versus the reward? People going to choose V over something else because the can is embossed? People going to spend a few seconds telling someone else? Me going to blog about it? (The last one seems like a given at this stage).

And then, when I was thinking about blogging it, or asking the question or what have you. I realised that a few years ago I would have – in the interests of full disclosure – been forced (not) to acknowledge that I was a share holder in Frucor, the makers of this fine beverage. A very small shareholding it was. But it was fun.

But then the French came along and bought it up, eventually compulsorily acquiring my shares. But they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. And then the Arabs came and they bought Mercedes Benzes.

The end.

Unrelated Red Bull update: They now have cans that are 400ml to compete with MOTHER which rocks the 500ml can. Leading to a bizzare “max 1.2 cans daily” recommendation. Also, Red Bull Racing won a GP! Woo (Well, Scuderia Toro Rosso, which is Team Red Bull in Italian, as opposed to Red Bull Racing which is the other Red Bull team in F1, ’cause when you got it. Flaunt it.)

Largely unrelated MOTHER update: As promised, I found some MOTHER drink and I drank it. And it was OK. And it was in a drink.

This was going to be a brief thing about V, Shares and Dinosaurs. But I pulled in some other threads. My stories in real life tend to be like this, rambling and ultimately pointless. Luckily here it’s easier for you to get out of the car and walk home. Although, as usual, you probably realised that too late.