I Got Nuthin...

Still been partying all week and all that, but nothing too ridiculous. I'm still on decent behavior so that by the time everyone here I hang out with realizes I'm a complete twat, it'll be too late to exclude me from their social circles.

Went to my cousin's college graduation dinner last night, which was highlighted by yet another 80 year old woman hitting on me and even inviting me to lunch today. Shockingly, I had other plans. Next time, grandma.

I also got an open invitation to drunken golf one of these days, I'm already picking out sweater vests and practicing golf course poses.

Pictures soon, I promise.

You're So Stupid It Hurts

Now as anyone who knows me at all can attest, while I love to joke around, I am seriously offended by genuine stupidity and ignorance.

So you can only imagine my reaction last night when exposed to the most idiotic gay guy I have ever met in my entire life. And before anyone cries foul, the fact that he is gay is VERY relevant for two reasons - 1) there are a LOT of stupid gay people out there, and 2) it's bad enough to be as dumb as a box of hair, but it sounds even worse when accentuated by a ridiculously queeny southern English accent.

This is only partially based on the following conversation:

Someone else: There were a lot of Lebanese at the bar last night.

Gay English Idiot: What's that?

Someone else: What's what?

GEI: A Lebanese.

Me [complete with eye roll] : It's a person from Lebanon.

Several blissfully quiet minutes later...

GEI: So whereabouts is this 'Lebany'?

Me: What did you just say?

[everyone else in the room dying of laughter]

GEI: I don't get this silly joke.

Me: It's not a joke you fool, it's LEBANON and it's a COUNTRY. In the MIDDLE EAST.


Of course this night wasn't complete without this same idiot getting lost in the apartment even though the one he's staying in is EXACTLY THE SAME in layout, some doofus asking me if Jamaica was in Mexico, and both of these morons thinking I was from England after talking to me for over 10 minutes. Fortunately they left before I could seriously injure someone, and I'm still SO irritated right now and can't seem to do anything about it.


P.S. Maybe I should shut up, not quite as bad, but last week I was at trivia night and SWORE on my mother's grave that the three states bordering Louisiana were Alabama, Tennessee and Missouri. Sorry, mom.

This Is What I'm Talking About

Take a good look at this sign from Coogee Beach...

...and note that the Australian definition of "alcohol-free" still means you can booze it up for the entire afternoon and early evening.

F'ing BRILLIANT.

My Drinking Dilemma

Well another week is coming to a close, and I've been drunk every single night, blah blah blah. At this point it's not really blog-worthy unless I get arrested or deported or at least start a brawl in a pub. Or maybe, like the girl I saw last night, I can imitate an 80's hair band video and roll around on the hood of a taxi until the entire city is honking at me. How she got that drunk by 6.30pm is anyone's guess.

But I digress.

Actually my original intent was really just a random comment on the state of my drinking here. As anyone from New York knows, I'm a vodka tonic man, with the occasional glass of scotch thrown in. HOWEVER, bars here follow that silly rule they also have in the UK about limits on hard liquor in a drink, which means I have to ask for a double to get anything decent.

All of which leaves me drinking beer. Constantly. And that is dangerous for two reasons:

1) I'm going to get fat. Especially if I start remembering to eat dinner again.

2) Beer is the kind of thing that one feels very comfortable drinking in the middle of the day. Which didn't seem to be a problem until the other day when I was sitting at a friend's place checking email, and got up to get a beer, and then had to stop myself because I realized it was, um, 10am.


Anyway, I doubt my story here about having to drink tons of beer between napping and lying on the beach is going to elicit much sympathy, but felt obligated to share. If anyone has any suggestions though, other than smuggling my own liquor into the bars, since I certainly did that last weekend (don't worry guys, that flask you gave me will definitely go to use here), I'm all ears.

My Favourite Australian

Possibly the best story I've heard lately is the tale of Ashley McDonald, an Australian tourist who was missing in New Orleans for two weeks. Turned out just before Hurricane Katrina hit, he got into a fight at a bar because they refused to serve his drunk ass, and got thrown in jail.

As if that isn't typically Australian enough, he calls into a radio show here in Sydney the other day and they asked him "Wow...you get kicked out of a pub for fighting, thrown in jail, the hurricane hits, you get robbed and have to survive the riots...wasn't that all pretty traumatizing?"

His response? "Yes well I must say, getting thrown out of the pub was rather awful."

Sir, consider yourself my Australian Idol.


Of course I have to give an honorable mention to Kenny, a guy I've hung out with a couple of times here in Sydney, who was recently at a business dinner and managed to drink enough to throw up ON THE TABLE.

It's good to have role models, you know.

The Half-Assed Weekend Recap

You know what people, I honestly don't have the energy or memory for these weekend recaps anymore. So here's all you're getting:

Just did dinner and drinks on Thursday, which was a bit lame, but more than made up for it on Friday when Irene and I hit the town, which included about 5 bars and harassing strangers until they invited us to their party the next night (which we naturally didn't bother to attend). Woke up with a massive hangover on Saturday, just in time to head to drunken lawn bowls around noon, where I didn't pass a moment without a beer in my hand. I would also like to thank some of the guys in attendance for making it clear that jokes about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans are already acceptable. Headed off to Audrey's birthday party where I downed about 5 glasses of scotch, and then went to Clay's house for champagne before a trip to a club where members of the party ended up dancing on tables and the like. In case you were keeping track, this adds up to approximately 16 straight hours of drinking. Which was why Sunday, after I'd returned from lunch, I passed out around 5pm and didn't rise again for FOURTEEN hours. Which prepared me well to start boozing again on Monday afternoon.


I've also noticed a trend since I arrived here, where I keep getting drunk so early in the day that I forget to eat dinner, unless peanuts at the bar count, and I'm pretty damn sure they don't.


Sorry it's a bit concise, but you try drinking for 4 days straight and tell me how much you feel like writing about it on Monday. And I'm already working on making it up to everyone, I took plenty of pictures during Saturday's boozefest, and should have some kind of a first month recap for you in a few weeks. Try not to let the excitement interfere with your daily life.

Learning The Hard Way

For the most part, nothing is that different in Australia than it is in the US. Sure they drive on the wrong side of the road and their mixed drinks are way too weak (that's a whole other post) but there's not much of a culture shock coming here from New York.

Of course, there has to be something. In less than 2 weeks I've been ridiculed for using American sayings that don't have the most appropriate meanings over here. A few of my favorites:

• I was out with some people, and was supposed to meet up with another friend, but they said I should keep partying with them. So I told them "Well, I can't just blow him off." Yeah, not the best choice of words. You can pretty easily imagine what that means here. Not to say I won't be using that phrase at any point, I just need to be a little more careful, that's all.
• You know how you might "root" for someone, or "root" for the home team? Apparently that's slang for sex, so don't tell someone you've just met that you'll be rooting for them, because they'll think you're a perv and stop inviting you to things. So I hear, anyway.
• My personal favourite though is when I was talking about tourists, and said something about them wearing fanny packs. Turns out "fanny" is a word used to describe female genitalia, which I previously knew but managed to forget. Of course I got a bit defensive about this one, and asked someone "But seriously, what do you imagine when I say 'fanny pack'?" The answer? "Oh I don't know...perhaps a bulbous oversized vagina..." Nice.

That's all, just a quick PSA, cause I'm lookin' out for you guys. Anyway it's Friday and it's almost 10am, I need to find a bar. Enjoy the weekend.

Won't You Be My Neighbour

*Apologies to those who recieved my mass email update, since this will rehash part of it. Not like any of us thought I was that original in the first place though.

So the other day I moved into a family friend's studio apartment in Kings Cross, which is like Sydney's version of Times Square. Figured it was time to get out of Kate and Cathy's place, since they've been nice enough to put me up for 10 days, and also have always been curious if I'm the type of person that could really live on his own. Oh yeah, and it's free, if only for the few weeks I'll be staying there.

Of course the best part is that I get to live in a whole new neighbourhood, on a street described by people I've met here as "the trashiest drag in Sydney". Oh how appropriate, I say. Best 5 things about my new neighbourhood:

5) On the same street as a few of the clubs I've been hanging out at since I got here. You know those really swanky types of bars where they only let in celebrities and ridiculously rich people? Yeah, I hang out across the street.

4) At least three establishments within a 5 minute radius called "Adult World"

3) The local supermarket is open late, until midnight, because hookers and crackheads have to do their grocery shopping too, damnit

2) The Asians around the corner who dry clean my shirts and wash my laundry - it's just like back home in Brooklyn!

1) And the best things about it is my most visible neighbour, the homeless guy under the foot bridge. Not only does he have a pretty sweet setup, but I think he'd be the perfect friend, since if you think about it, neither of us really do anything all day, so we have plenty in common. He was also wearing leather pants this morning, which is just another sign of his awesomeness. A lesser bum would have sold them, but he just KNEW he had to have them for himself.


And that's about it, although I've only been there for 2 days or so, god knows this list will keep growing.

I'll stop typing now, and you can ponder on a scale of one to ten how irritating it is that I've been out of the USA for less than a month, and I already use the British spelling of "neighbor".

Now That's What I Call Lunch

And now, for the weekend recap...


Thursday

Met up with a family friend and her crew for some wine and food. Had a good time, met some really cool people, although the highlight was probably a very old lady actually saying to me, "Well, you're just gorgeous. Have you ever had an 80 year old before?" I wish I was shitting you guys. My as-diplomatic-as-possible response was to pretend to blush, smile, and then turn around and talk to someone else.


Friday

After a few hours at the beach and a couple of naps, I desperately needed a drink, so joined a few people downtown for after-work fun. The bar was very cool, although they weren't paying attention and the big TV in the room started showing the news and scenes from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Talk about putting a damper on my Friday night.

Later on we headed across the street, and our group was lucky enough to include a very, very drunk French girl whose concept of dancing included a lot of vogueing, fist pumping, and staggering backwards into several strangers a minute. Felt just like happy hour back home, really.


Saturday

Ah, yes, Saturday. Joined about 15 other people for "lunch". I use the quotes because their definition of lunch apparently comes from the same book as my mother's. Here's what I consumed starting at 1pm:

• 2 vodka tonics
• 2 caipirinhas
• 4 glasses of wine
• some food
• additional glass of wine
• 4 glasses of champagne
• 1 glass of scotch, neat
• 2 beers
• 2 more vodka tonics

Needless to say, after a couple more bars and hanging out at someone's house where I was allowed to mix my own drinks (which many of you know never works out well for anyone involved) my more vital organs started to shut down and it was time to head home, where Kate and Cathy wondered what the hell I had done to myself before I passed out on my bed until the morning.

Can't wait to do that again.

My Life As A Socialite

So I've just completed my first week here in Sydney, and to no one's surprise I'm taking my sweet time looking into any kind of employment.

Cynics might say that doing absolutely nothing productive with one's day would get old pretty fast. Those people probably have to work for their money. I call them "suckers".

I'm still having trouble mustering up the energy to blog anything worth reading, so in lieu of all that, here's a little diagram that should help you visualize what I'm doing with my days in Australia:



I guess I should have included 1% for actually taking 1.7 minutes to make an utterly pointless pie chart in Excel, but that would mean more work. I think not.

Anyway, I hope this explains why I have no time to blog these days. Unless I multi-tasked and combined napping and lying on the beach. Hmmm...I'll see if that works out and get back to you next week.

Some Photos For You

As promised, here's a photo album from my week in the UK.

As I've warned everyone, a lot of the pictures are cutesy family shots, but that doesn't mean there isn't a drink in pretty much every single one, so enjoy if you have a few minutes to kill.


I'll try and take the camera out with me in Sydney this weekend and see what I can come up with for you guys.

Wish I Had A Proper Excuse

Why I haven't made any real blog posts in the past few days, choose one:

1) This is the first chance I've had access to a computer since I arrived in Australia, and I'm so busy catching up on vital errands that I haven't had a moment to blog.

2) My priorities in life have changed, I've sobered up, and no longer have any drunken tales.

3) I've been drunk or hungover for approximately 73% of the time I've been here, and haven't had enough functioning brain cells to make a coherent post, regardless of the free and constant internet access I have at my current home.


Oh wait, that one was too easy, huh? I promise I'll try to stay away from the sauce today and maybe I'll have something for you guys tomorrow. Or Thursday. Or something.

Priorities, People

So on my first full day in a new city, in a new country, with no job, and no housing of my own, I obviously started a job and apartment search, right?

Of course not. No, I bought a mobile phone (that's a "cell phone" to you Yanks) and then spent over an hour trying to figure out what dirty words I could spell with my new number. My hosts are amazed that even I can be that unproductive at a time like this.

Anyway, I need a nap to sleep off my hangover, so I can be ready to start drinking again at 7.30 tonight. Gosh, life is just SO different down here.

Some Culture For You

As most of you know, I (and Emily) have a deep fascination with stupendously crappy dance music, preferably when the singers clearly don't speak English.

In the absence of much foreign dance music here in the UK, and since I'm a very visual (aka superficial) person, I thought I'd take a few minutes here in Heathrow to share some craptastic finds over the past week:

Artist: Xavier
Song: Give Me The Night

I have to say I genuinely like this song (although please note this is NO indication of actual song quality), but the reason I love it is because I vaguely remember a video featuring scantily clad hot chicks in stilettos dancing around with flashlights. Need I say more?

Artist: Axwell
Song: Feel The Vibe

Almost a run-of-the-mill dance song, fortunately the video had two Indian youngsters breakdancing down the street for four minutes. I am totally gonna do that as soon as I get off the plane in Sydney.

Artist: Jupiter Ace
Song: 1000 Years

Easily the cheesiest one, and probably shouldn't have been produced after 1996 or so. Still, this video clip had a clearly unattractive lead singer that they had miserably failed in sexing up, PLUS breakdancing astronauts. Obviously a classic for the ages.


Feel free to download those illegally. Also, random note -- when did Charlotte Church turn into a total ho bag? Could have sworn just last year she was a little girl singing opera, but yesterday she gave my uncle's TV syphillis.

Okay, time for the longest plane ride EVER. Hopefully they'll have music videos for me to watch.