End of ''In The RAW'' and sick!

So Merry Xmas and hope you've had sorted new years too. So the jolly season over here is time to be out in the sun, on the beach soaking it up, swimming, and generally running amok. But the weather is crap at the moment, it's averaging at around 23 degrees. We're almost having a European white xmas. And to top it off, the weather's caused Sandy and I to be as sick as dogs on a diet of snot, flem, and mucus these last couple of days. You know, how you feel when you swallow too much snot when you're sick and it all sits in your stomach waiting to come out the other end?

So me and Sandy have been lying next each other in bed, with snot filled faces that feel like they are going to slide right off with the next blow, saying to each other, 'Zerry Zismas, zaby. Pass me another tissue?'

Apart from being sick though, things are pretty cool. The show we're making is coming to a close after our 2nd season and we're proud of the effort we've put in. We're even getting fan mail, I may have told you about that, but the thing is with fan mail is that it's a fifty-fifty thing, because you also get hate-mail. It's some weird ratio that comes down from the cosmos and it says for every bit of praise you receive, you must also get a slap.

Kiss, slap, kiss, slap.

But the slaps are the stuff that really get me going, because, I don't know, maybe I'm a sadist, but I find it amazing that people feel so affected by something we made that they feel the need to let us know about it. I'm completely stoked 'cos I don't reckon I've ever felt that way about anything I seen, read, or even heard. Don't get me wrong though, there has been loads of shit that I have thought was just that, shit, and still do (and then I probably do think 'that's total crap' all too frequently about new things I am exposed to) but I'd only give my mates a blast about it over a beer or something. To be motivated enough to write to the makers of it would take some serious change to my spiritual self, because I reckon I (and most of the folks I know) clearly fall into the category of, 'Could not be fucked!'

Fan mail is the same, yet another breed altogether.

So as you can see, I am fascinated by these people, but it's also making me completely narcissistic. My ego is going on rampages renovating my mind with arrogance. It's insane. I have this addiction to checking our website stats every morning. It gives you a breakdown of each day, (with bar graphs!) and then level of detail goes more indepth with an hour by hour breakdown. I love it! You can tell if more people checked out the site after the show has run on TV pr not. Sandy sees me doing this, rolls her eyes and hands me a coffee, and says, 'You're a loser.'

So I guess she has kept me partially in touch with reality.

But thank Christ the ride is nearing an end, because the amount of work and effort that is required by me and Sandy to put into it is insane. We have to schedule the interviews, set up the set, film, direct, do lights, sound and edit and deliver the show to the station and then put it all up on the Net. It's bloody exhausting, because then we have to go to work our day jobs as well because there's no financial return on it.

It does crazy things to your head as well, like you know how when one of your mates has a baby, and every conversation you have with them becomes a discussion about the baby, because its understandably the biggest it's the biggest thing going on in their world and they say things to you like, 'He's doing solid poos now.'

How can you react? 'Umm....Yeah nice, me too.'

Well its just like that because its all me and Sandy talk about. Not that our baby is doing solid number twos, not yet, but it's doing better than crawling.

And in a way, there's going to be a lot sadness and grief when we have to put our baby in the coffin and bury it, because we have really built it up, but in the same way I'm going to be glad to rid of the little attention absorbing bastard. I want my life back! I wanna get back into other stuff, like writing.
So merry Christmas, happy new year and all the bessings and trimmings that go with the jolly season. I hope Santa's been good to you this year and I know i have been pretty crap on the email and the contact last year, but i'm hoping that is all going to change soon. The only project i have for myself next year is Spanish lessons for when we head back to Europe mid-year. That is, after a big stop over in Cambodia to sit on the beach for a few weeks on the way.