Off to find Utinapishtim...

Well, I'm at the end of my rope, time to go and find the secret to eternal life!

Nah, I'm just kidding. Who wants to live forever?

I guess the question as to why, given my stated antipathy towards recording my thoughts for posterity.

Well fuck you, consistency is for idiots!

Kidding aside, this is just my chance to reconnect whilst in a sort of self imposed exile, a constant journey between work and home with little chance to sit and reflect, and a chance to vent about the existential frustrations that scrape the inside of my brainpan while I try to sleep.

As the description says, I'm a Father, Husband, Wage Slave and Writer/Film Maker in about that order, with the attendant joys and depressions that attend to each. Why is writer last? Well, the first two are obvious, the third puts food on the table, and the last is part of my masochistic streak. Father for four years, husband for ten, wage slave for... yikes, nearly fifteen now... sick puppy for as long as I can remember.

Let me talk about the writing/film making thing for a moment, it'll give you an idea of what this project will be about. The title of this blog almost ended up being "The Lidless Lobster Trap", and it comes from a joke I was told as a kid. As I get older, the joke has more and more resonance:

A US Coastguard boat is patrolling off the shore of Maine, when it spots a lobster trawler with Canadian markings near the edge of their waters. They sound their siren and tell them to heave to. Upon boarding the craft the Captain notices two things; the hold is bursting with lobster, and the traps have an unusual, bucket like design. He calls the trawler's Captain over and begins to question him.
"You know you're near American waters, don't you?"
"Oh, aye sir, I do."
"You've got quite a haul here. Can you be sure you haven't been taking American lobsters?"
"Oh aye sir, quite sure. We only take Canadian lobsters here."
"How can you be sure?"
"Well, you'll notice the traps we have, they ain't got lids, eh?"
"Yes, I've noticed that, I've never seen traps like them, how do they work?"
"Well, it's simple sir. If an American lobster climbs into the trap, it can eat its fill and climb out again. But if a Canadian lobster finds its way in and tries to climb up to the top, the other Canadian lobsters will grab it and drag the poor bastard back down to the bottom!"