Now, after writing the following statement I intend never to write anything like it ever again, so read carefully and enjoy it while it lasts: I am a straight man who doesn’t overly love romantic comedies or fashion stuff and who last night watched Gok’s Fashion Fix and actually enjoyed it.

Yes people, I enjoyed Gok’s Fashion Fix. I loved it actually! If I was gay then Gok would be my icon.

For those men even more macho than me (a small minority indeed but I am sure there must be a handful), who know more about the ethics of Latin dancing than they do Gok, here is a short introduction; Gok is a tall and camp, lip-stick wearing fashion icon and every week on his programme he challenges a designer (whose name I can’t remember, but she may well have had gastric balloon surgery , if that helps?) to a kind of intense fashion duel on the catwalk: Gok duels in the style of accessible high-street clothes that everyone can afford and the girl duels in the over-the-top unthinkably and obscenely gratuitous kind of way that only the richest are privy to.

Anyway, the reason I write about it here is that it is genuinely a really good programme; why? Mainly because it teaches people who don’t have a lot of money how to look good; indeed, even if you only have a tenner then there is no reason to look a shambles! That’s something that in these credit-crunch times even a macho man can love–but don’t tell anyone I said so.

I hate debt. I am deep in debt. Each day of my life does not pass by without one reference to the piles of debt I have. However much I try to be rid of it, I will never be free of debt. Every day something comes up, either another electricity bill, a mortgage payment or a credit card.

Not everyone can live a debt free life, you have to be super savvy at spending, or to be just plain lucky to win the lottery to be able to pay off your debts and enjoy your life. But again, millions of us in the world still have debts to pay, big or small, they are still debts.

But I have wondered, what would it be like to be debt free for just one day? Just one day, without the irk of having to pay someone money, a world where we can do what we like with money without having to worry about it later, a world where independent financial advisers didn’t exist. Everyone could be happy, not necessarily be totally rich with gold houses, holidays every day and space shuttles for cars, but there would be lower stress levels, we’d all be more carefree and happy, regardless of the amount of money we have.

But that is a world that may never exist. Debt being wiped off the planet will never happen, someone somewhere likes to see us squirm to pay off our monthly debts, but it doesn’t cost anything to think about the perfect world where credit card bills and mortgage repayments do not exist.

Now, I am well aware this is a tech kind of blog (I was going to talk about presentation skills training, but that can wait for now.) But sometimes you need to cut loose, you know? So that is what I am doing with this post here:

The other day I witnessed something that made me feel both elated and like a terrible human being: the worst kind of emotion in a way, but also the best, and now I shall explain myself.

I had been walking along the street, past the shops, when I heard laughter. It was that animal-pack, fanatical kind of laughter you only get when something truly cataclysmically bad / tragically funny happens. Up ahead I saw the source of it. It was a woman driver (I could see her woman’s hair through the glass, before you start; I didn’t just assume this bad parking was attributable to a woman driver); she had managed to park up on the pavement and wedge her Volvo in between two signs.

And it was funny. It was quite brilliant, because the more she tried to get herself free, the more wedged-in she became. Then I noticed some youths standing there trying to help. They were pointing at her car, telling her what she should do. Although their instructions sounded helpful, the fact that they all had their hands over their mouths and were splitting sides told me they were actually trying to get her more in trouble, and being pretty successful at it.

I interjected: “excuse me, leave her alone would you?”

They said they would, and then they did. As they walked off down the road baggy jeans swaggering, they swore at me and called me an idiot. It was hard to hear what else they were saying. I too had started laughing maniacally at the misfortune of the woman, and that was when the woman broke down in tears, sobbing, face against wheel.

“I’m sorry,” I said, weakly. “now let’s try and get you out of this mess shall we?”

Ten minutes later the fire brigade arrived and they started laughing too, so I didn’t feel so bad.

You know how some people are naturally good looking? Naturally charismatic? Naturally photogenic? Well, I am naturally good-looking-ugly.

I know, it makes no sense whatsoever. But that is what I am. According to a woman with great presentation skill who stopped me in the street last week. Her name is Maggie, and she works for a modeling agency who are “currently recruiting those with fascinating, sort of non-orthodox features”. She was a bit older than me, barely able to walk in her fashionable pencil-skirt, and wearing dark, sinister glasses.

Maggie could see she’d put her foot in it immediately (I turned away and called her a “stupid fashion moron”) and started up a speech to regain my interest. “But Iggy Pop is good-looking-ugly!” she said, “and don’t you want to be like him?”

“What?” I replied. “On TV selling car insurance and with the skin of a three-thousand year old lizard?”

Maggie couldn’t really dispute the lizard thing, so she just sort of smiled.

“No,” I went on, “I really don’t.”

Then I started walking.

“But there’s money!” screamed Maggie, and I stopped dead. My pockets were empty, so this was a reflex action.

I walked back and asked how much. Maggie said “More than some regular good looking models make, there’s really a demand right now for good-looking-ugly."

Ten minutes later I had joined the ranks of Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger. I’m still yet to see the money, but here’s hoping anyway. And besides, I know where Maggie lives so there had better be some.

In the eighties, our family thought the internet was amazing. Our computer (more a two foot x two foot block compared to today’s flat-screen technology) lived in what used to be our dad’s study, and we’d all crowd around the machine and watch in fascination as bar after horizontal bar appeared slowly on the screen–eventually (and it was a long eventually that took about ten minutes) forming what we’d now consider to be an appalling picture.

Those days are long gone. Everyone has a computer, and most people have a blog. The saying about rats always being nearby can now be applied to marketing and social networking: if you work in the city, there is probably someone who knows about both these things within five feet of you right now–

The future being already here is the topic of discussion at the following blog.

This got me thinking. If blogs and social networking are now here, what does the future hold? It’s hard to imagine. But one thing is for sure: most of our guesses have been wrong in the past, and I don’t see Back To The Future style hover boards appearing in the shops any time soon.

You could do far worse than look to an Enigin blog for inspiration about how to do the whole social networking thing. The company know their stuff and each blog has a load of buttons which venture off in to many different areas, exploring lots of different themes and asking many important questions.

Sold, signed and transferred. Stay tuned for new posts soon, and can I just take this opportunity to say, so glad to be back!

About 2 weeks ago, I anounced that the site had been sold to “John”. It appears that I posted that post a bit too hastily. It would seem that I have been scammed.

Yesterday while randomly checking a few account, I noticed that my PayPal balance had gone into the negatives, something that has never happened to me before. After a little bit of investigation I realised that “John” had sent a chargeback for the amount he sent to me a few weeks earlier.

Luckily I have been on the losing end for so long, I had only sent “John” a copy of the sites code and the database, the domain was still firmly in my control. The original plan was for John to set up the site on his server and I would transfer the domain when he was ready. I guess he got a little trigger happy.

So once again, the site is up for sale. With a Pagerank of 4 and a ton of quality backlinks, I have rather high hopes for it’s sale.

After weeks of negotiations over a fair price for the site, I am pleased to announce that Runts Life has a new owner. I apologise for not being able to maintain the site with crisis after crisis happening in my life at the moment. Well I guess I really am living the life of a Runt. The new owner has assured me that he is under similar pressures and will simply blog about his successes and failures.

So before I continue, I would like to introduce you all to John, the new owner of the site. John has asked that I stay on for a while just to help him build up site momentum again. So you are all going to be bored to tears by a few more of my whiny posts.

I wish John all the success with the blog. I know there is potential here, I just wish that I had the time to find it on my own.

I would like to start by thanking everyone for taking part in the GoDaddy e-Gift card contest. With over 25 unique contestants and a total of 107 entries, I feel it is safe to say that the contest was a great success. I took me a while to add all the entries into my randomizing script.

And now, the moment you have been waiting for. Can I have a drum roll, please? Tatatatatatatatatata, the winner is:

?brahim Korkmaz

Congratulations ?brahim, I have emailed your GoDaddy e-Gift voucher to the address that you used when commenting. Please let me know if you have any problems using it.

I have attached a screenshot of the selection window for your viewing pleasure. I also ran the randomizing script a second time to select a runner up, congratulations to Sanil. If ?brahim does not claim his e-Gift card, I will award it to the runner up in 48 hours from now.

Remember that the competition will continue to run over the next 4 weeks, so you still have 4 more chances at winning. Your current entries are still valid and I will add any new comments to your total. Thanks again for taking part and good luck for next week.

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