This one goes out to the one...

Another day, another fatigue-filled, high-stress, high-caffeine low-health food day.
The last three days - nay, three weeks - have been one tired stumble to another. Even as I write this it's a struggle to try and make it into something that's witty, worthwhile and meaningful.
Given how much I struggle at the best of times to do that I don't know why I worry.
In fact, worrying is probably half the problem. If there's something worth worrying about, chances are I'll be there wondering about whether or not it was done right. This is particularly true in my job, where people can (and do) get mighty upset about not getting an article or photo in the paper when and where they wanted them. Otherwise people occasionally (but not often) crack the shits about something when you go out of your way to help them.
In the interests of finding out if there was a way of sleeping the whole night and de-stressing (is this a real word? Probably not, but who cares) I had a peek on the net.
On one site I found they had listed six different types of stress - Speed Freak, Worry Wart, Drifter, Loner, Basket Case and Cliff Walker. Each stress type had a little description, while elsewhere you could vote as to which type was yours.
Problem here is I've managed to score on all six counts. I'm not saying which - but as a fun exercise why not take the traits and see if you can make your own stressed-out me!
Of course it would all help if we were all just the bit more honest with each other. A big problem for many young males is that they don't know when a conversation with a nice female doesn't mean they want to sleep with you. One girl made it quite clear the other night she wasn't keen ("I'm not interested"), and I'm fairly sure we had an intelligent conversation after that (this was after quite a few drinks which have dimmed my memory of most things, so don't hold this as being a true and accurate record).
So a little more honesty people - let me sleep at night!

You can kick off your search for your own personal stress type at http://stress.about.com/cs/inthenews/a/worrywart.htm

Spare the condescending

After ten years as the joke team of the ARL/SL/NRL/whatever, North Queensland have finally shown they're capable of winning more than the wooden spoon. For long-suffering NQ fans like myself this is finally a chance to very quietly get one back at those who seek to poke fun at people who go for bottom sides.
It's actually been a pretty good year for that, what with St Kilda and Geelong now in the final four of the AFL. I can certainly sympathise with Geelong fans - their task next weekend is similar to the one the Cowboys faced on Saturday night against the Bulldogs.
It was a win for the ages then - one for those of us who've endured wooden spoon after wooden spoon, the igonomy of winning the opening four matches of 1998 to finish 16th out of 20, who've had to endure the smugness of opposition fans when they come to play us. Such was my own lack of confidence in the game that anyone who said we'd get done got a small nod of the head and the standard "just happy to be there" line. Being down in Cooma, NSW means there's a fair few more Bulldogs fans than NQ fans.
But please, oh please, spare me the inane questions, the inane comments by a certain commentary team in the last few weeks.
"Fans in Townsville, Cairns, Mackay etc, your team is in the finals." What, don't those of us living elsewhere count?
"What does this win mean for the people of NQ?" It means they've got another excuse to go out and get pissed on the weekend.
"What would a home semi against the Broncos mean to NQ?" It means we've got a chance of finally beating those cocky bloody Broncos.
Fair dinkum, blind Freddie could see that we're all very happy with our team's performance. Please spare me this condescending rubbish - Brad Fittler doesn't get asked what a premiership means to Sydney, so why the f^#! should we?