goodbye my lover, goodbye my friend...

Let me just say that I have a really thick beard. A few fellow beardoes that I know, some of them have quite soft facial hair. Not me. I'm thinking of gathering up all my beard trimmings, gluing them all together and using them to scrub the pots and pans tonight after dinner.

So, I've decided that in preparation for tomorrow's "unveiling", I'm going to shave in two parts - a rough draft tonight, then in the morning, crank out the Schick that I posted about yesterday and smooth everything out. To get me used to have no beard, I've gone very slowly...



wish me luck!

PS
Sponsor Me!

The Best 4 Letter F-word There Is

Even though I've not done a MOvember before, I have plenty of mates who have and all agree, that this year seems to be the biggest yet, which is great news. There's more promotions, more sponsorship, more word of mouth and it seems that every man and his dog is doing it this year, which is even better news.

Because of the extra attention, it clearly means more budget. Which means that there's extra budget to throw around. And thrown around they have.

I quickly reached $30 in sponsorship, and I got sent a MoBro pack:



In case you can't see, there's a Schick Quattro Titanium razor and a Movember moustache comb+mirror, in a neat little toiletries bag!

I then reached $50 in sponsorship and I got sent the MoBro Rewards Card:



This gets you all sorts of cool shit. Usually stuff like 10% off here, and 20% off there, and other state-only benefits - if you live in Tassie, you get a free golf game each week at the Launceston Golf Club! if you live in Victoria, you get a free burger EVERY DAY at any Grill'd burger bar!

Then when I reached $100, I got a ticket to the Gala Parte:



Pretty sweet, huh!

There's also a Souvenir Shop where you can also buy heaps of cool stuff too. I bought a t-shirt, a couple of wrist bands, and a poster set.

I'm also the captain of my MOvember team (we're called "Boonie's Boys"), so I'm also in charge of setting up the MOvember office party at the end of the month, so when you register your company as a part of MOvember, they send you out a pack that has heaps of free stuff like beer coasters, posters, stickers, tomato sauce, more wristbands, and the newly most sought after possession currently in our offices - the Man Of Movember sash!

How's that for some awesome participation rewards!

It's the last 24 hours that I have left with my beard, so if you'll excuse me, I need to be alone for a while with just me and my beard.

PS
Sponsor Me!

to Mo, or not to Mo, that is the question

I figure that in the last few days in October, there's many of you guys reading this who are probably thinking "should I do Movember this year?", let me drop some knowledge on you, so that the next time someone asks if you're doing Movember and you say no, and follow it up with something along the lines of "it's just such big commitment". Let me assure you, it's not. It's nothing. Think about it this way...

Did you know that nearly 3,000 men die every year from prostate cancer? That's about the same amount of women that die from breast cancer, yet everyone seems so damn concerned about what appears to be the more fashionable cause of breast cancer that prostate cancer is often forgotten. In fact, in a 2002 survey, only 52% of men said that they felt that they were informed to a satisfactory level about prostate cancer. Given that 1 in 9 men will get prostate cancer, this is not nearly enough.

More than 18,000 men Australia wide are diagnosed with prostate cancer every single year. That's almost a 1 in 6 chance of dying. The rest will spend the majority of their lives in and out of doctors surgery, choosing between the course of treatment that will keep them alive as long as possible.

Or how about the fact that 1 in 6 men will suffer mental depression, but most of them won't actually seek help. Between 1988 and 2002, the suicide rate amongst men was 4 times that of women. Depression is an illness, not a weakness and men shouldn't feel ashamed to seek help. Yet studies show that yes, they do.

So, when you take that into consideration, I figure getting around with a funny looking moustache for a month isn't really that much to give up at all. It's events like this that are important to talk about and make known, or more importantly, do something about it. So I'm growing my Mo, raising some cash, talking about it with friends and family, and doing it all with a gigantic smile on my face.

Because I'm thinking that if I do my part now, they'll be able to help out my parts later.

In the beginning, there were beards....

So, this is my blog for my Movember effort for this year. It's the first year that I've done MOvember, so I thought to honour this mammoth occasion, I'd be incredibly nerdy and devote a whole blog to my facial follicle festivities.

I'll post pictures along the way of my progress, give props to classic mo' wearers of our time, and times gone past, and any other Mo related news I can find along the way. Given that it's only around for 1 month, I'll try my hardest to have something new each day.

So, to give you guys a bit of a current update, this is my facial hair situation as it currently stands:



I've had this little beauty for about the past 5 or 6 months. Before that, I had, well, essentially the same thing I've had for the last 10 years or so - the Hat Strap look that follows down and into a goatee. I've had facial hair ever since I've been able to grow something that's not peach-fuzz. Naturally, November 1st is going to be a very nervous day for me, as part of the rules is that you must be completely clean shaven at the start of November.