although american accents are increasingly normal around here. exchange students.

I listened to you, simon and duke on the podcast today. you all have awesome accents.

I’m hoping to post more very soon. I could write another one exactly like this with the crazy shit thats gone now since its posting…

last night I got very drunk in an Irish bar singing along to the covers band. they were awesome.

stephen wright is also awesome. I’ll try and post a more worthwhile reply after I’ve had something to eat…

Oh, and I know what a kick it is to make established funny person laugh, as I learned when I did the same with Stephen Wright.

“In areas where hedgehogs have been introduced, such as New Zealand and the islands of Scotland, the hedgehog itself has become a pest. In New Zealand it causes immense damage to native species including insects, snails, lizards and ground-nesting birds, particularly shore birds. As with many introduced animals, it lacks natural predators. With overpopulation, it kills off more insects than initially intended and expands its diet to include things such as snails, worms, and the eggs of wading birds.”

I’m reminded of Don Mitchell’s mongoose piece of months past: how the mongoose has become a pest in Hawai’i. (I hope I placed that apostrophe correctly, Don.)

Unfortunately all this adventure (and not to mention hard work!) is somewhat getting in the way of the novel. I’m going home for Christmas, and my home life is quiet and dull. Should be perfect for getting the first draft finished before 2010 rolls on around.

I want to start 2010 having written a novel, however bad it is. I think that might just be a good enough launch pad for the 365 days that follow…

I hope the fact that I was also wearing a smart, double breasted coat adds to that mental image. I still regret not bringing it home…

Hedgehogs make everything better.

I like your story. As the TV show testifies, animals do indeed do the funniest things…

great mental image…

I haven’t listened to Led Zep IV in a while. Not since debating it’s merit with Greg a few weeks ago…

My last two gardens have had foxes. My dad says he saw a badger once. in my garden here we have a tail-less squirrel. Ne’ver seen a ‘hog before though.

My only regret is not picking it up. I think if I’d had gloves on I probably would’ve done.

If I see him again I’m doing it.

I want to be ‘that guy who brought a hedgehog home.’

TNB’s got no one else like Irwin.

Stay crazy brother.

If there’s a bustle
with your hedgehog…

We live sort of out in the country and get a lot of deer that come through our property. My husband and I were standing on the front porch one day, watching two cats stalk one another down the hill from our house. After sizing each other up for nearly 10 minutes, one finally pounced on the other. There was a typical cat scuffle – all shrieks and hisses and flying fur. We were just getting ready to yell at them to break it up before someone got hurt, when out of the blue, this young buck leapt right in the middle of the two cats, front legs splayed, all wild-eyed like “WWHHHASSSSUUUUUUUP!” The cats totally freaked out and ran in opposite directions and the deer actually chased one of them. He was having a blast. It was funny and weird. I didn’t know deer were funny.

It’ll have to be bartender, I think. There is a chapter set in the New York Library, but it already references Ghostbusters… as for hookers… no… That’s what’s going to set my novel apart from the Bible: no hookers.

Cheers!

Now that I’ve dazzled you with my brush with fame, I’m sure you’ll want to include me in your book. Bartender, hooker or librarian would be my preferences.

Congrats on your newly improved social and academic life!

Fruitless.

Maybe one day we’ll meet again…

I’ve just been discussing the true meaning of Christmas with two old lady christians. I’m now going carol singing in an Irish theme bar next wednesday…

Barbecue sauce. *snort*

Only you could find a hedgehog in a cemetery. Very cool…

They are weird looking things, but they’re adorable

It’s like a more vitriolic version of ‘shit.’

A good trick for playing on people in bars, or at parties, if you’ve got a bunch of people who are in on the joke.

Step 1: Meet someone.
Step 2: Shake their hand.
Step 3: While shaking their hand, suddenly allow an impressed look to come over your face.
Step 4: Say: ‘Man, that’s one hell of a handshake you’ve got there.’
Step 5: Call out to your friend (let’s call him John). Call ‘Hey! John! You gotta come over here and get a load of this guy’s handshake!’
Step 6: John comes over, shakes the mark’s hand, and suddenly, he, too, is impressed.
Step 7: John calls out to Tim. ‘Hey! Tim! Check this guy’s handshake out!’
Step 8: Tim repeats the cycle.

If you’ve got enough people, soon enough you’ll have a new friend in the middle of a circle of about ten strangers, all of them complimenting them on how good their handshake is.

This place is giving me plenty of material, but very little time. I wrote this at about 4am last night, and it’s only thanks to Gloria that I got to put it up. She fixed all the technical ‘boo-boos’ which would have taken me about a another week to get around too…

Girls are strange. And awesome. I like girls.

Both are complicated, yes. But I’ve only seen one hedgehog in 20 years and 4 months…

Loved this.

I’ve joined a grunge bad, which is why we keep singing that song. Or why we kept singing it.

The girl from the party is indeed the same girl that came to the tea room with me for what be the last time for all concerned. The afternoon was a disaster that ended with a proletariat uprising and the theft of a pepper pot.

It was only a little lie, but it seems like something that should be crossed off a list. I don’t know, I felt like HST at the time.

I’m so glad I’m having a good time here, because my last university experience was shite. This is what dreams are made of.

I love the thought of you singing Rape Me. Great song just made better.

You never told me what happened with girl who agreed to go out with you. Is the girl from the party the same girl?

Also, I love that your big rebel moment was just a little lie to the police. Too cute.

I agree with Matt, it makes me nostalgic for my college days, except mine were never as adventurous or enriched as yours are. So glad you made it back to Uni. They need you there!

We had to a presentation afterwards which we wrote five minutes before class.

I love being a bad student though, because I suspect we had much more fun than the other groups who looked liked they’d put a lot of effort in— and researched forensics.

Ah well, I value TNB comments more than I value good grades… so totally not worth the effort…

It’s meant as a sort of tribute, but it’s also good fun trying to get them all in. I still have a few to go… and obviously it’s not every TNBer, because there aren’t that many characters…

was seriously the funniest thing I’ve read in a while. Love the truth in it. I was just watching The Mentalist the other night and a suspect made a point about how juries expect such things now, and if the prosecutor can’t serve up spit on a plate, no conviction comes. So you nailed that handily, and said it better.

Awesome stories too, though. Good job making the Centurion laugh. Good job making us laugh, too.

Underground cult compound? You must have been spying on my REAL life.

Also, corn syrup plus red food coloring is a cheap alternative to stage blood. It’s what they used to make the first Evil Dead.

Part Two focuses almost entirely on the main protagonists and there are less silly vignettes, so I haven’t had the pleasure of writing the fictional Belardes a chapter for a while. And I still maintain that he’s my favourite character.

In one of the next few chapters you are going to show up in an underground cult compound…

I want to hear the rest of the story!

Did I mention hedgehogs are cool too? They are. I remember meeting this hot babe who raised them… I better stop telling that story already.

We set our movie in 1911 because it was crime fiction and we couldn’t be bothered to research forensics etc… it was genius in a way…

I recently finished Part Two of my novel, and have written the first few pages of Part Three (of Three). I’m hoping to finish it over the Xmas break…

How’s your novel coming along?

We seem to sing ‘Rape Me’ alot, although not as often as we used to…

I wish I could still afford Peroni…

The BBQ sauce kind of works because the scene was black and white. It was a Psycho parody/homage. It worked a treat!

I respectfully request that you must always carry a video camera to record impromptu performances of Nirvana’s Rape Me.

Peroni is one of my favorite beers. Mmmm.

Congrats on your comedy props. I’m not surprised. The Funny: you haz it.

BBQ sauce blood? Beautiful.