Many moons ago I used to sing in a band.

One thing that always struck me when I would sit down to write a song was that I always found it easier to write about negative things. I'm not sure why, but I suspect that when I'm happy I'm just too busy doing the things that make me happy to bother with all these songwriting shenanigans.

As an interesting side note, I eventually decided to broaden my musical horizons and learn the guitar, opening myself to the stage once and for all. This allowed me to flourish into the consummate musician I am today, and I can proudly say today that I can play up to three chords in the same song, as long as I can find my pick.

Of course, a fingernail-chewing habit long ago blossomed into a fingertip-biting habit, and I often have to wait out month-long healing processes before I can even look at a steel string.

My last blog detailed five things that have been making me mad of late.

Originally I had intended to include a list of five things I was enjoying but, somewhat unsurprisingly, I ended up writing 1,500-odd words of complaints. Complaining is easy, especially when you don't bother with all that constructive-proposal-of-a-solution malarkey.

So, in the interest of presenting a less psychotic public profile, I present the balance: Five things I've been digging.

Five Things I have been Enjoying in the Recent Past: The First: Comic Books.

I used to collect a lot of comic book when I was a kid. It is fair to say that I purchased as many Spider-man and Wolverine comics as my father could reasonably afford. After a long hiatus I'm back into the hobby with a vengeance. The catalyst was my discovery of this new-fangled podcasting thingamajig - which incidently allows me to get Media Watch sent to my laptop every week, hoping I don't appear on screen but guffawing at those who do. I now subscribe quite religiously to ComicGeekSpeak, a podcast in which a group of comic fans sit around and talk about comics. I realise this would be incredibly lame to almost everybody, but it provides me with the illusion of something I haven't had in a long time, and never really had to start with, a group of guys to talk comics with. Between that and Chris' Invincible Super Blog - www.the-isb.blogspot.com - I'm reading and enjoying more comics than ever. If you're at all interested in the medium I suggest you go out and read Invincible, Girls and Mouseguard as soon as possible - all quite different, all really excellent. Also Sandman. Read Sandman.

Five Things I have been Enjoying in the Recent Past: The Second: LOST.

I felt a tang of disappointment after watching the six episode subset that kicked of LOST's third season, but now that things are up and running again on a weekly schedule, I'm loving it. The last three or so episodes have been some of the best, with the formula tighter than ever and lots of awesome stuff happening.

I was a bit nonplused with all the hatchiness of the second season as I felt it lost a lot of the island flavor, but it was never awful, and its back with flying colors.

I can't really recommend jumping onto the show right now, as its the sort of thing you'd really have had to of watched since the start, but if you can get your hands on it, pick it up.

Of course, if you're one of those people that thinks that nothing happens on the show and that its just too slow, there's nothing I can tell you to change your mind - you're just watching the wrong show.

Anyone who didn't get a big, stupid grin on their faces seeing Hurley driving his van around in big, lazy circles is made of stone. MADE OF STONE!

Five Things I have been Enjoying in the Recent Past: The Third: Cocooning.

I am having a great time at home with my awesome girlfriend. If you've been trying to call me I apologise, but I don't really feel bad about not answering.

Five Things I have been Enjoying in the Recent Past: The Fourth: Wii.

My Nintendo Wii is the most awesome technological device in the history of unnecessary consumerism. It's that fun. Even after all this time I'm still addicted to Wii Tennis, and playing that four-players is the ultimate in goofy fun. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance rocks, and I'm romping through the old Gamecube catalogue like a man possessed. Downloadable NSW game chunks of my childhood? Bonus. The only drawback? My Mii looks exactly like me, but also like a gigantic dork. The conclusion is inescapable.

Five Things I have been Enjoying in the Recent Past: The Fifth: Inadvertently cyber-stalking by twin brother.

I have Google Alerts set up to email me every time Broken Hill is mentioned in the news, as it aids the whole working-there-for-a-newspaper-thing.

I was tinkering with the settings recently and, on a whim, decided to set up a similar thing with my surname as well. This is because, obviously, I am a well-adjusted awesome machine.

So, on top of emailing me every time an article of mine goes online (about twice), I also get an email every time me brother's name is mentioned on the interyweb (about seventy-billion).

apparently, all this 'taking his local music scene by storm' stuff isn't total crap, as he's name-checked in many a music article.

Before I knew it, I was accidently peeking into his work on quite a regular basis, even listening to a podcast he was on. It's kinda creepy I know, but it sure does save on phone money.

It dawns on me that if you've never seen LOST, read comics or payed a Wii, you will have no idea what I'm talking about in the passages above. I hope this will encourage you to grow. 

Also, Eileen and I are doing another every-episode of Futurama marathon. Unlike the Simpsons, I can seemingly watch that show endlessly and still laugh out loud at episodes.

Great zombie Jesus!