The Book of Sifty

Cut and paste history of the sift.. 5:41AM

Okay sorry about this, bit of a budget cut and paste
entry. But I did think this was quite interesting since it was written about
me by somebody else, and is an interesting, if slightly fictitious perspective:

The
Condensed History of Sifty Tom
: Born the illegitimate son of a Catholic priest and an Ukranian circus midget
Tom quickly rose to fame at the age of 12 months, performing as ""Tommy The Tumbling
Toddler."" His circus act involved getting tossed back and forth by a group of
clowns holding the corners of an army blanket.

Concerned
public reported that Tom had been seen to miss the blanket and land on his head
up to 4 times during an act. This led to swift action by the authorities and
Tom was placed into ""St. Elspeth's Home for the Sifty"" - Tom spent his formative
years here - being brought up by the loving Sisters of St. Elspeth, who believed
in hanging around all day, and doing nothing, while staring into the middle
distance.

Just after
Tom turned 13 ""St. Elpseth's"" was closed down after a large hydroponics peyote
farm was discovered in the basement. With the sisters serving hard labour Tom
found himself dumpster diving in search of food. He turned to busking as a means
of survival and was popular among lunchtime shoppers for his offkey humming
of Apex Twin tunes.

One wet
lunchtime a passing agent was entranced by his rendition of ""Start As You Mean
To Go On"" (the one that goes ""Waaarrrr Waaaar Dum Waaaarr Eh eh errr eh eh eeeerrr
Woooo wooo Woooo Woooo"") he was immediately signed up for a one record contract
with ""Pantones.""

After a
difficult development period and 18 months in the studio Tom finally released
his first album, it sank without a trace, with the follow up pub tour turning
out to be a total failure. His fan base seemed to consist of 2 Mormon glue sniffers,
and a partial deaf war veteran who'd dance the Charleston into the wee hours,
whether Tom performed or not.

His dreams
of teen-pop stardom shattered, and suffering from a severe Tic Tac addiction
Tom found himself out on the street again. Stealing to pay for his habit he
came into possession of a mint ""Redline"" BMX - which he promptly swapped for
a box of the sugary love that he craved.

Cut and paste continued.. 5:55AM

His second
bicycle ""acquistion"" was in the form of a Scott mountain bike. Before he had
a chance to trade it he found a strange group of people who were impressed by
his bikes primative Scott Unitrack ""shock absorbers."" What's more, this group
were impressed by Tom finesse with car stereos, and his ability to start cars,
even if keys weren't involved.

Riding on
this new found wave of respect Tom found his need for Tic Tac's curbed. All
was well, for a while. Unrest came in the form of other members of the group
also purchasing shock absorbers, most of which actually had travel, and didn't
flex backwards if you hit a rut.

In desperation
to stay ahead Tom moved into promoting pyramid schemes to pensioners and running
Nigerian property scams to finance the purchase of a XTR equipped carbon-fibre
dream machine. Happy that again he was king of bike-geeks he turned his concentration
to his love of pouring money into rusting Italian cars that never actual worked.

A career
in IT finally offered what Tom had been searching for his entire life - an office
with aircon and a nice view. A dangerous new fascination rose it's ugly head
in the form of a dancing baby screen saver on his work PC. Mesmerised by his
screen saver and unable to leave his cubicle Tom was looked after by kindly
workmates who kept him alive with beer and stale chippies.

His 16 month
cubicle vigil of watching his jiggling screen saver finally ended with a city
wide power cut, and Tom was finally free to go home and attempt to ride his
bike. A rude shock came in the form of hitting the wall big time during his
first night ride for 2 years.

Deeply stung
by the jibes of his so called friends Tom booked the next flight out of the
country, in a bid to reclaim his soul - and to forget once and for all that
jiggling dancing baby...

jiggling...

dancing...

jiggling...

So there you go..

One lost thing.. 5:59AM

One thing in my life I could get back?

Other than my missing brain cells?

Passion

A real passion for something.

When I was a kid and my father would come back from overseas and bring me a new Lego set and I'd have to go to bed before assembling every model in the intructions. I'd go to bed and lie there wanting to be waking up and heading back to finish playing with it.
That buzz of going to bed really looking forward to the next day. Like the sense of excitement you had on Christmas Eve and you couldn't go to sleep.