The rugby world cup is almost upon us so you know what that means.

Is that the date already? I haven’t got time to hang around here.

Ah, it’s been a big week on Australian television. Well, not really. But I’ll say it is, because this is my new column and what I say goes. This time, it’s Monk, Alias, Doctor Who and Six Feet Under.

This week’s premiere was Monk (Ten, 7.30pm Sunday), an american detective show with an obsessive compulsive hero consulting the police force that he was kicked out from. Tony Shalhoub gave a heartfelt performance, but could do with just a little more personality showing through in places. When his nurse, Sharona, was ready to quit, so was I. But the dialogue between the two leads was good, and made the show worth watching. The actual mystery felt a bit obvious from the middle of the episode. Still, I’ll be watching this again next week. I’ve always been a sucker for shows with near-impossibly clever heroes. It must be a viewer identification thing.

I was desperate to watch Alias (Seven, 8.30pm Mon) this week after the series-shaking events of last week. It was something of a disappointment not to see Dixon or Marshall’s reactions to the SD-6 takedown, but that was made up for by an appearance from the latest in a long line of film stars with dwindling careers — Ethan Hawke. An awfully shocking opening led into a decent episode, though Mr Hawke was actually very good, and helped create a very tense story indeed. It remains to be seen what the show will replace it’s double-agent intrigue with. I’m thinking… triple-agents! It sounds like a guaranteed success to me.

Thank goodness for shows completely changing their stripes though. This year I suffered through one of the most painful reminders of what can happen if this doesn’t occur regularly — Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s season seven. It doesn’t look like Alias will be taking the same road. Or, for that matter, Angel — but I’ll have more to say about that next week. Another good example of a show that was happy to change itself completely is of course the currently repeating Doctor Who (ABC, 6pm Mon-Thurs). Although today’s episode was aptly named ‘The Ordeal’ and was a huge pile of padding — the highlight being when a character gripping a rocky cliff ripped off a part of it to reveal white polystyrene, and had to go on with the scene. Probably best if everyone waits a few months before watching this one. Though it has become apparent that any special effect looks better in black and white. I must remember this for the next NTGF film…

Finally, Six Feet Under this week saw the return of Rachel Griffiths as Brenda — Nate’s attractive, world-weary and until recently, sex-obsessed ex-fiancee. Which was good. Sadly, it also featured young adults who should know better really ballsing up their chances at relationships. Which is realistic, but irritating to watch sadly. I enjoy it more when it’s someone like Xander Harris having relationship problems. Claire’s new artist friend looks like the suicidal type, however, and he’s making me nervous.

Anyhow, see you next week, when I’ll come up with an hilarious catchphrase to sign these columns off with.

What it says on the tin.

The ultimate position of stupidity is when you’re too lazy to work, and too guilty about it to organise to do anything instead of working.

Result: doing almost nothing. I’d like to thank the internet, without which none of this would have been possible.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this is a good thing.

If I’m ever again on a train where someone’s Nokia has its ringtone set on the highest possible level and they get SMSes every three stops, I will leap across the carriage, force feed it to them, and flay them just for good measure.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps should not be interrupted by anything, let alone some moron who hasn’t spotted the ‘silent’ feature.

Things I haven’t done, but should have:

• Some Alias, Pirates of the Caribbean and American Psycho reviews.
• Fixed up Grapefruit’s WinIE rendering issues.
• Finished a REALLY GOOD design for Nutech.
• Gone to Tuesday night’s final Parish Development meeting.
• Seen more of my friends.

No, actually, what silly things to do. I’ve had much more fun sitting by the computer vaguely thinking about work but really just chatting away on ICQ/MSN and, of course, sleeping.

See me, I am Mr Efficient.

A mac parody. This has already done a tour of the web but it’s worth watching if you haven’t seen it yet. Best of all, it’s in windows format.

I finally got around to looking up what work means. hmm, I guess I’d better reload this year. I think I have a save game from about the beginning of March. Which is the button to bring up the options menu? It must be one of these.

OK, I appear to have a fully-functioning body now, and no major assessments due, so let me tell you the fun tale of my skiing adventure.

I suffered the incredible agony of waking up at 4am in order to get myself and our esteemed music reviewer, Andrew Coulthurst, to Mt Buller by 8 o’clock. And we made it. The journey went really well until the end when various Buller-people insisted on charging me for everything I did. I was half expecting a ‘swipe credit card here’ device on the toilet.

Andrew helpfully explained to me how to put on skis, and sent me on my merry way. I fell over about three seconds later as I tried to change my direction.

I’m not going to bother repeating that last sentence twenty times, but in fairness I should have.

Once we met up with Neil and his buddies, we went skiing again. I was worried Neil would explode through sheer enthusiasm before actually reaching proper snow, but he just managed. In exciting news, I worked out how to turn, and started to be able to go down a run without falling over three times.

Though always once. Sadly even at the end of the day, I had no idea how to stop properly. See folks, this is what lessons can do for you. Don’t be a stingy bastard like me.

And now it’s holidays, yay! During which I must make a big, classy looking paint website. Boo. But get paid for it. Yay!

I’ve started a new and original fantasy book. It’s about a boy who’s a poor painter and lives with his mother. One day he finds that his dad was actually a king and since the aforementioned dad had just died, he is now heir to the throne. He finds that he has magical abilities but hasn’t found a magic sword yet.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

Owwwww. Ugh. Oooh. Eh. Tsk.

I’m sore all over! Every part of my body is bruised. I’ve fallen over a lot in my time but never more than fifty times in one day until now, and never at such high speeds…