I HATE TO COMPLAIN, BUT

it's the one thing i'm really good at.

I haven't been blogging as much as my avid readers would like. Sure, i've managed the odd post here and there, about transparent frogs, cheap cars, Safari Bob™, but, clearly, it's not like the old days. Because, until now, i have been completely unable to log in and blog on at home. And, for reasons of national security, the newspaper prefers me to spend my time on their computer at work writing newspapers.

The problem stems from my much loved fifty-dollar iMac™. It sits there in my room in Carnarvon like some hog-tied, mute Gimp™ - offline, disconnected, silent and accusing. But then, on sudden impulse, i grab a networking plug Thingy™ from Louis at the computer shop. Procuring a long red network cable, i plug it into Mickey T's broadband connection, and drill a couple of holes in my ceiling. Looking good. Stacking one barstool atop another, as you do when it is not Work Safe Week, i send Colby up into the roof cavity to ferret about with the cable and wallah! - a broadband internet connection.

It's like - welcome to the 20th century!

And then Mayhem turns up, and in one rather casual fell swoop, she just hooks up the whole house into some kind of telesmatic wireless matrix of artificial intelligence, connecting iPods and phones and laptop computers and garages and refrigerators into the kind of sophisticated communications network that would make Interpol look like, i don't know, a bunch of cops. It's magical. As the brilliant science-fiction novelist and world-renowned pedophile Arthur C. Clarke once said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Which is, of course, complete bullshit.

But now the Gimp™ goes on the defensive whenever i try to install any version of Safari™ that is able cope with the ins-and-outs of Blogger™. "You can't just go doing things like that, what do you think this is?" says the Gimp™ in its pop-up dialog box. So i circumvent the problem with Firefox™. Firefox™ lets me interface with interactive functionalities on the Internet in ways i never dreamt possible. Like clicking on icons and having them do stuff.

So avid readers, everything is now back to normal. Yes, peace and tranquility has once again returned to The Nerve. This week, readers can relax and immerse themselves in what is, on the surface at least, a sleepy subtropical paradise on the Gascoyne River delta. What with Mayhem away in Perth, and the Motorcycle requiring brakes, the means for stimulation and excitement is limited. But i can at least write about the possibility of writing about the possibility of writing about something. Which is, of course, better than nothing.

I could, i suppose, write about last Friday's disorderly, frenzied party at Pippas, and the depths of depravity that were plumbed by those present before Mickey T completely lost control of his bodily functions, and i was ejected unceremoniously out into the main street, as was a libidinous, out-of-control, hormone-and-alcohol-fueled Nurse Nikki. But i have been sworn to secrecy. Oh, no, that's right - i only promised Mickey T i wouldn't write about his exploits in the newspaper... to be fair to Mickey T, and to allow him to cherish what few shards of self respect and dignity he may still possess, i will just say that if we had partied any harder we would have been immediately signed to the West Coast Eagles.