Under the threat that I will be inundated with daily comments until normal service resumes (although I'm not exactly sure that one-a-day is the same as 'inundated') and since it has indeed been approaching two months since I last wrote anything it is probably for the best that I do so again. Not doing so would probably result in me forgetting how to write, and that would be the end of my chances of getting my DREAM JOB of working in the factory where they make the yellow signs saying WET FLOOR as the guy who writes the letters on the side, because I'd end up writing WAT FLEUR by mistake and then when one day there is a spillage somewhere and they put the sign out a confused passing frenchman will go "What iz theez? I cannot zee any flowerz from Cambodian Buddhist Monasteries*!" and then he will slip over on the wet floor and I will get fired, or worse.

Anyway, in lieu of me actually having anything that interesting to talk about I shall instead rummage through the aptly named "My Pictures" folder for another entry in our ongoing series of "ADVERTISEMENTS FOR THINGS BRUCE HAS SEEN ON THE INTERNET AND THINKS TOO MUCH ABOUT" So, without further ado:

Yes. As we can see, it is an advertisement for a SOCIAL SKILLS GUIDE. The main reason it caught my eye to begin with is that our protagonist in the middle - despite all his claims of popularity - is the only one in the whole picture standing by himself. This kind of scenario is more commonly associated with words like "smells like old mayonnaise" than "popular".

I also only just noticed that our man is apparently an amputee. I'm not saying theres necessarily anything wrong with amputees - I've been friends with many...people who I would continue to be friends with were they to lose an arm or two, but on the other hand there's nothing to tell us in that picture that he isn't at perhaps an arm-wrestling convention. I tell you, there is nothing worse then an amputee at an arm wrestling convention. Obviously in these kinds of scenarios he is likely to be unpopular.

It is also interesting to note that his friends (or not-friends, depending on how you look at it) seem to have arranged themselves so that all the short people are at the front, and then his freakishly large friends are all standing behind them. Either that, or this guide will make you SO POPULAR that you are able to bend the laws of perspective, which I guess isn't all that unreasonable a suggestion.

A little while I ago I read one of Bec's books (somebody needs to open a bookshop I reckon) called How to Talk to Absolutely Everyone or something to that effect. It was full of advice ranging from obvious common-sense suggestions to probably-accurate-but-also-slightly-impractical ideas. I can't really remember all of it but as a general rule to being popular, as a crass succision, being NICE and POLITE to people is a good place to start. The statement I'M POPULAR YOU'RE NOT seems to me to be a little bit in contrast to those ideas. I'd perhaps even go as far as to suggest it's the kind of statement that would make you less popular. So ha, internet advertisment. Ha to you.


*Apparently this is what a 'wat' is. So perhaps you have learned something to day (french people already know this fact, so my story makes sense).