I'm Lovin' It

Not to rub it in, but how great is not working? I am just halfway through my first of two weeks off and having the time of my life.

Case in point: Yesterday I showed up to my 7pm dinner plans already trashed, and proceeded to drink a hell of a lot more, just because I could.

A simple example, and yet I believe it illuminates my point perfectly. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to eat something as there seems to be only leftover alcohol rolling around in my stomach...

Back From Melbourne

Got in from Melbourne almost 24 hours ago, and have spent the entire day recovering and trying to feel human again. Not that the weekend in Melbourne was that different from what would have gone on here in Sydney.

Things that we would have done regardless of location:

• Spent all of Friday night at a trashy bar, harassing strangers and drinking like the beer was going to run out any second
• Shopped on Saturday, where we managed to eat about 4 times before heading to dinner and a bar, because god forbid we go a day without being in a bar
• Started on the booze around 2pm on Sunday, leaving us drunk by 5pm and pole dancing by 9. I guess we've never done that in Sydney, so we should get points for that, I'm thinking
• A long boozy lunch on Monday where we were so unbelievably loud that the waiters were avoiding our table like the plague and we had to give shy, apologetic (and rather insincere) looks to the other patrons when we finally left

Still, I'm glad I finally got to visit Melbourne. I don't see how anyone would think it compares to Sydney as a place to live, but it's always nice to make an ass out of yourself in front of some new faces.

Captain Jolly Bunny

I am seriously over the moon today. Just in the most amazing mood. Main reasons:

1) Today is my last day of work. I can't stand this company. I am planning to make a quick exit at 5pm on the dot, and hopefully escape without having to accept a farewell card, or make a speech, or anything of that nature. What would I say anyway? "Well I've only been here 7 months, and clearly I'm leaving because this company is absolute crap. Good luck, most of you need it as you are either inept morons, or you're stuck with total assholes for management. See ya!" Yeah...might want to keep me off the floor this afternoon.

2) I am going to start drinking in about 5 minutes. Lunchtime is here, and I am going with the only two people I really enjoy spending time with at this job. We are pledged to getting at least one bottle of wine, and there's a good chance it will be more than that, since the two of them have resigned this week as well. Nothing to lose baby, nothing to lose.

3) I'm flying to Melbourne tonight! It will be my first time out of the state of New South Wales, which is sad, but hey at least I'm getting around to it. Going with a whole bunch of friends, and I will try to take enough pictures to make one of my usual drunken photo albums out of it. And I'm off work for the next 2 weeks, so god knows I'll have time!

4) November will be AWESOME because I got the news this morning that Emla and Domini are COMING TO SYDNEY, visiting me for the first couple of weeks in November. While I should probably be concerned that my friends here are about to find out what a massive asshole I truly am, I'm too excited to care. Not only that, but it looks like they are coming right when Kylie Minogue is having her comeback performances here in Sydney, so we just might have to throw on some pink baby tees and hot pants and gay it up. And yes, I realize I am way too excited at the thought of that. What can I say.


In other news, I'm actually even more superficial than I had previously realized. I've spent most of this week making sure that I have as many album covers associated with songs on my new iPod as possible. And then last night as I was listening to music on the way home, I noticed that I was about 6 times more likely to listen to a song if it had an album cover attached. Not only that, but there was a Missy Elliott song that already had a rather unattractive photo of her attached, and I refused to listen to it until I had replaced it with a properly airbrushed album cover. Love the woman's music, but let's be honest, she just isn't that attractive. So yeah, I'm vapid. We knew that. Sorry to be redundant.

I Am So NOT Australian

Don't know how I forgot to mention this as soon as this tragedy took place, but not long ago I was convinced to try the oh-so-Australian product known as Vegemite.

Now I am the type of person that is willing to try almost anything at least once -- I can't stand people that won't even give something new at least one shot before saying it sucks. However in this case I will only say that I should have known better.

See, I already knew that Vegemite is made from what's left over after beer has been brewed. And there's a reason that it's left over, or at least that is what common sense would indicate. Not only that, but it's brown and ridiculously salty, and I'm not a huge fan of salty foods. So there was almost no way in hell I would like this stuff.

But like I said, why not try it. Of course as soon as the piece of toast with this vile concoction on it hit my tongue, I started to gag. Determined not to just vomit all over the place I chewed on that little piece of toast and swallowed it in the hopes that it would be over quickly, but the taste just sat there in my mouth. It was at least 2 drinks and various foodstuffs later that I was able to put the whole traumatic experience behind me.

So if any Australian ever offers you Vegemite, or even starts to sing its praises, DO NOT BE FOOLED. It is vile and was probably created by Satan.


*This message brought to you by the Association of Survivors of Vegemite.

Only Half The Man I Used To Be

Why you ask? Because I only have half the god damn songs on my new iPod that I had on my old mp3 player, as I'm sure I've whined about already.

I've mostly given up on remembering the other 550 songs or so that apparently weren't important enough to me that I could recall what they were, but I thought it might be fun to share the first 10 songs that show up on my iPod in Shuffle mode, so you can at least imagine how awful the rest of my music collection must have been before it was forcefully purged from my life:


1. Notorious B.I.G. with Puff Daddy & Mase - Mo' Money, Mo' Problems

What can I say, I love hip hop and this song may not be that great, but it's a classic. And much less embarrassing than some of the other shit on here.

2. Ace of Base - All That She Wants

Speak of the devil. Yeah, remember those couple of years where Ace of Base and Spice Girls were topping the charts like crazy even though no one would admit to liking them? Sorry, mostly my fault.

3. Kelly Clarkson - Miss Independent

I actually didn't even have this on my previous mp3 player, but I acquired this the way I got a lot of the songs on the new iPod: I saw it show up unexpectedly in Limewire and thought "why the hell not?" For better or for worse...

4. Allure featuring 112 - All Cried Out

Does anyone even remember this remake? Can't remember if it was popular or not. But it IS a good illustration of how I'm one of those people who often prefers the remake to the original, thereby pissing true music lovers off.

5. Lil' Kim - Crush On You

No excuses or comments for this song, I just love it. What a ho.

6. Black Eyed Peas - My Humps

HA. It's retarded and more than a little annoying, so you know it was my anthem for a couple of months there. And for some reason every time I hear it I think of Emla shakin' her ass all over the place, and maybe Miss Jessica in the background throwing things at people. Yeah, for some reason it makes me miss my friends back in NYC. Must be the retarded and annoying theme.

7. Puff Daddy - It's All About The Benjamins

I'm officially a little upset that Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Whatever has made 2 appearances and I'm only 7 songs in. I swear he's only on a few of these tracks...

8. Madonna - Burning Up

I won't lie and you can call me unoriginal, but I like a lot of Madonna's stuff, and this is probably in my top 3 for her most awesome songs.

9. Whitney Houston - So Emotional

Aww yeah we are going old school right now. Probably my favourite Whitney song, when I think about it. Which I don't do very often. Promise. HAAAAYYYYYY.

10. Starkillers - Discoteka (Kobbe & Austin Leeds Remix)

Now this is an example of the type of song that probably got lost in the transition to new iPod. Random dance track that I heard once and happened to download. (How could you not want a song where the main line is "I make the beat go boom, papi") Mostly appropriate for when you've already had a few drinks and you're about to leave for the bars, so why not throw on something vapid with a good beat.

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Hmm, looking over the list it's definitely not pretty, and yet it could have been SO much worse, so I will count my blessings and end this list right here. Although I will give you guys just a little more ammo and mention that the next song to come on was "Get Over Yourself" by Eden's Crush, the "winner's" of Popstars in the US, and from which the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls was also bestowed upon us.

And as I'm sure you've noticed, I am in the middle of a torrid love affair with Wikipedia. Seriously, I can't get enough of that site...

This Blog Needs More Pictures

Retards Representin'

Not even sure what the deal was this weekend, but for the most part everyone seemed like they were acting a little dumber than usual.

Friday night was relatively uneventful other than my friend and his sister managing to get into a stupid fight (he belched in her face, she punched him in the eye, he stormed off and threatened to lock her out of his apartment for the night) which wouldn't have been so ludicrous if they were actually 11 years old. Sorry folks, but once you're in your early 20's maybe you can give that shit a rest. You're making everyone else uncomfortable.

Then again I wasn't exactly a shining example of maturity on Saturday night. Lulu and I decided to have an egg catching contest. Unfortunately for the owner of the apartment, no one won, and there is probably still egg yolk in a few corners of the livingroom. Oops.

Lucky for me, if anyone brings up the egg throwing incident, I quickly mention that at least I'm not the one that burst in on someone else peeing so I could spew my guts out into the bathtub. Eww.

And now it's the Monday of my last week at this job, and I'll be damned if I'll be doing anything more than downloading mp3's and music videos, but more on that later...

Better Late Than Never

Sorry I've been so slack about updating the blog this week. Things have been crazy at work as I've tried to basically throw all of my responsibilities at other people as soon as possible so I can coast through my last week here. In Australia it's standard (and in my contract) that you give 4 weeks notice, but I've managed to negotiate getting out of here in 2, which means I will have 2 weeks off between jobs. Oh, the excitement.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

But first things first, I realize I didn't recap my weekend. It was all the usual, although the most interesting part was Saturday night. We had a few girls visiting from New York, and while we had shown them a good Sydney time for their stay, we figured we should have at least one night with a little New York flavour.

Ellen and I had been dying to check out Saturday nights at the Civic, as we'd heard it was hip hop night there, and they have oh-so-awesomely called it "Booty Bar". It did not disappoint, and was very reminiscent of New York, between all the minorities and the 10 minute wait outside even though there were about 3 people inside the building.

Everyone was quickly appalled at how many words I knew to all of the songs (so I had a lot of free time on my hands as a teenager, gimme a break) and we all got trashed and honoured the "Booty Bar" the best way we knew how.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

And speaking of music, I have spent the last 2 weeks trying to replenish my collection of mp3s on my new iPod. I had 1094 songs on my old mp3 player, and I've managed to get up to 495 songs on the new one, and I'm running out of ideas. To think that over half of the music I loved and cherished is lost to me forever simply because I can't remember it is just depressing. Then again every now and then I do remember one or two songs that I haven't downloaded, and realized that maybe I'm better off without those Victoria Beckham (aka Posh Spice) songs from her much unappreciated solo career. Fair enough. Having said that, I spent some time yesterday downloading songs by Ace of Base, so it's not that my taste has improved at all.

If anyone has any ideas of brilliant songs that I may have forgotten to download, you MUST let me know. Because I've been using my work computer for all of this, and I only have a week to go before I end up only having my flatmates slow ass laptop to download to.

Take This Job And Shove It

Figured it's time to give you a rundown of what's had me so stressed the past couple of weeks, and I now feel like I'm at liberty to write about it.

I essentially decided I hated my job a few weeks ago. Things were fine at first, but over time I came to the worst realization that you can have at a job -- that my bosses were complete and utter assholes. I would honestly go to management meetings on Mondays and wonder if there had been a Bad Idea Convention that everyone else had gone to without telling me. Very frustrating.

Fortunately for me the stars must have been aligned in some mystical way. Here's how things pretty much panned out...

Monday (two weeks ago): I decide the fat lady has sung -- I update my resume and send it out to a few companies and recruiters

Tuesday: I make appointments for a few interviews.

Thursday: I get a job offer from New York, even though I wasn't looking there, from a company that wanted to know if I had moved back because they still wanted me on board over a year after I had been talking to them about a certain position. I unfortunately had to let them know that I was in Australia and not going to be back in the near future.

Friday: Get a job offer from a company here in Sydney. Sounds good, but I tell them I will need a few more days to think about it. Spend all weekend worrying about what I should do.

Tuesday (last week): During my lunch break I go to my second interview with a big multinational company. By the time I get back to my office I have an offer.

Wednesday: After sleeping on it, I accept the offer from the big company, and withdraw myself from consideration for several other positions before I get any more offers that will just make me stress even more about making a decision.

Friday: Resign from my current job.


So that's that. I'm still in shock at how quickly things moved, and now I'm trying to work out how I can get some time off between jobs. I felt a bit guilty at the thought of this originally, but I've just gone to have my Australian taxes done and I'm getting about a month's pay refunded to me, so I can now justify napping and watching music videos for at least 2 weeks straight if that's really what my heart desires.

Of course just in case I get too relaxed, I now have to go through the entire visa sponsorship process AGAIN, and the big companies do it the way you're supposed to which means I have to have all kinds of documents that I didn't even know existed just to apply. Hopefully they haven't hit their quota for loud drunk kinda-black-but-not-really Americans yet.

Liar, Liar

A few days ago was Census Night in Australia, which everyone got very worked up over. Every household had to fill out a form for each person spending the night there, with all of the basic information about each person.

It's been fun looking through everyone's forms before they send them in, because I'm a nosy jerk. However, I have to take issue with the religion question that people are so quick to answer. I don't know anyone here who has been to a church since I've been here in the last year. Most of us are such heathens that I'm pretty sure God would strike us down if we ever ventured near one of his holy houses. So to see that so many of my friends are suddenly claiming they are members of various churches that I've never heard of is rather upsetting.

I have enough of a problem with people who only go to church for Christmas and Easter and claim to be religious, but hell, at least they're putting in the effort to pretend. The most common answer I've heard is "well that's where I was christened". Uh yeah, sweetie -- I've been to Vatican City, doesn't make me the Pope. Gimme a break.

In the end I think I blame the Australian Census for making the question so vague. If they phrased it more like "Which organized religion are you an active member of?" then at least people would have to admit they were lying if they picked one. You'd think they would have learned their lesson after the last census where apparently so many Australians claimed they were "Jedi" that it almost had to be counted as an actual religion.

I thought about writing "Alcoholism" but I think have a few years to go before I can properly claim that honor.

How Work Should Be

The company directors were out of town on a business trip on Wednesday, so myself and my two closest work buddies had already planned to extend our pub lunch a bit.

Then again I don't think any of us really bargained for a 2.5 hour lunch with a couple of bottles of wine that would leave us smashed all afternoon. The sad part is that we reconvened in my office around 3pm to debate whether or not we should just head back to the pub and claim we had to go to "a meeting", since god knows we were all out of work ethic and productivity by that point. Fortunately we restrained ourselves, otherwise today would have been pretty damn ugly.

Eww

Had some business to attend to around lunchtime today, which meant taking a bus across the city. And during my 10 minutes on the bus, two totally separate people attempted to hand me religious flyers about "the Bible" or "Jeebus" or something or other.

Now listen folks -- I realize you don't know much about me or my family, but we are not lapsed Christians. The only thing we worship is any bottle of vodka that hasn't been completely drained of its sweet sweet nectar. And maybe the crazy homeless guy near my office, because sure he might smell like pee but he is just too damn funny sometimes, what can I say.

Not only that, but if I was trying to convert people to my religion I'm pretty sure the last ones I'd want on my team are the ones who would change religions based on a stupid fucking pamphlet. That's all I'm sayin'.

More Retail Therapy

This past week has defintely been one of the more stressful one I've had in recent memory. I think I've hinted at this before, so I'm hoping I can give you the full update once I have things resolved before the end of this week.

Needless to say, I needed something to calm me down. And dropping my mp3 player on the street on Friday and having it stop working altogether was definitely not on the list of things that would have helped.

Now before I go any further, I should give you a little history on my mp3 player. See, I bought this thing when various companies were introducing their players. I insisted on being different, and outright REFUSED to get an iPod. Seeing everyone on the NYC subway with their little white headphones just irritated me for some reason, and while I am generally a mainstream sheep, I like to be just a little different at the same time. I think it helps feed my superiority complex. So I got a Dell DJ. It had better battery life, was a little more user friendly, and was the same size as an iPod at that time.

Of course this was back in 2003 or so, and I still had the same player until last week. Meanwhile, iPods have gotten tiny, and Dell discontinued their players because I was the only idiot who bought one. In the past year my Dell DJ has been described as "a brick", and worst of all I've had two people on separate occasions ask "Oh...does it play cassettes too?" Yeah, it was that bad.

I finally got over my anti-iPod stance this year, and for weeks have been saying I would buy a program off the web to transfer my songs OFF of my Dell DJ, so I could then buy a new iPod and put them on there. Of course Murphy's Law has kicked in, and now the damn thing is completely done. How many songs were on there? 1100. How many do I have between my work computer and my laptop at home? Oh about 32. Guess what I'm doing for the next month.

Anyway, I popped down to the Apple store yesterday and picked me up a shiny black video iPod. I still don't think it's as user-friendly as my Dell DJ, but it's credit card thin and people say "ooh" and "ahh" when they see it instead of offering me one of their parents old 8-track tapes, so I guess it all balances out. It also matches my new phone, making me feel oh-so-coordinated. And let's be honest, some of the songs on that old mp3 player really needed to be lost forever.



Okay, I better start hitting up Limewire for some of my old favourites and I can hear more than a few one-hit-wonders calling my name...

I Feel Like A Guinea Pig

Until this weekend I always thought people were being dramatic when they said a certain brand of beer would make them act a certain way. Some liquor, I can easily understand -- too much gin and I'm even more of an asshole than usual, and too much tequila and I'll probably have about two less friends in the morning than I did before that first fateful shot.

But since I'm relatively new to being a big beer drinker, I had never really experienced any difference between them, other than anything made in the United States tasting like rat's piss. However I recently decided I liked the taste of Toohey's New better than Carlton Draught, which had been my favourite for almost a year now. And woe to the man who underestimates the New.

Saturday was another day to start drinking at 2pm, and this time it was Toohey's New I was drinking. Now please keep in mind that I ate a massive lunch in preparation for this boozefest, and even ate about 3 slices of "NY style pizza" around 7pm or so. So I'm still confused as to how I completely blacked out for the last hour of the night, especially considering my night ended around 10.30pm. To make matters worse, not one person in the group remembers which bar we were at when I decided to go home. That's pretty fucking bad. So yeah, it's back to Carlton for me.


Oh and on Sunday I discovered that it's only cheap white wine that gives me the ability to thrash everyone at Trivial Pursuit, apparently drinking more beer makes me tie for last place. But we won't dwell on that. (And in my defense, almost all of my questions were something like "Which Australian Labour minister resigned in 1963 because of allegations of adultery?" or some crap like that. Not fair at all.)

I Know I'm Not The Brightest Bulb In The Box...

...but I got this rather funny news story a little while ago and I can't help but wonder why a 23 year old woman was using a stolen ID to prove she was old enough to drink??

Sorry it's not a real post, but it has been a CRAZY week, I will try to update you all on it after the weekend.

So True, So True

You know we always hear about really wise and insightful things that all of these famous philosophers and authors may have said, but I think it's the every day things people say that need to be paid the most attention...

Girl on cell: I was like, "Back up, bitch. Get off your high horse and don't ever talk to me again." Such a bitch. And the thing is, she's not even cute. Like, she has no right! She's a fucking bitch, and she's ugly! It's one thing to be a bitch, but to be one when you're ugly? You just don't do that.

Chew on that, Confucius. I mean seriously, who can argue with that statement? Exactly.

If I Can Have A Moment

One of the best things about having a blog is that it gives you the chance to rant about stupid crap. I try not to do that too often simply because the blogging world is full of people whining and moaning about everyday things, and I would prefer not to be one of those miserable twats. But every now and then I feel compelled to comment on some of the daily occurences that are so insignificant, and yet aggravate me to no end.

Today it is my fellow bus passengers. Although I can't remember the last time I took a bus anywhere in New York, here in Sydney it's my preferred way of getting to and from work. For the most part I just try to read a book and ignore everyone, but I'm a bit of a people watcher (aren't we all) and if it's 6pm and I'm too tired to read, I listen to my fantastically bad pop music while staring at morons.

I actually have to restrain myself from yelling at the people who stand at a bus stop for a good 10 minutes and when the bus finally comes they are the first in the door, only to stand in everyone's way for god knows how long, fumbling around in their purse or bag looking for their travel pass. Excuse me, but did you not know you were getting on a bus?? I would assume since you stood at a bus stop and stepped onto one that it was your plan all along. Did it not occur to you that instead of gazing into the blue morning sky for 10 minutes like a lobotomized koala, you could perhaps take a few seconds to take care of this rather necessary step before it inconvenienced the other 50 people on their way to work? It is honestly only a matter of time before I'm in a really foul mood one morning and say something nasty to one of these people.

And joining those assholes in the land of cluelessness are the ones who get on the bus, and then stand there without holding onto a damn thing (despite there being 4 poles and 8 hand straps within reach) while squinting towards the back of the bus to see if they'd prefer to sit next to the fat and slightly insane-looking woman three seats from the back, or next to the blubbering toddler at the front. Um, excuse me shithead, but buses move. So when it does what buses do and begins to roll forward after closing its doors, don't look all surprised (or even better, shoot the driver a dirty look) when you go flying and end up with someone's umbrella in an uncomfortable part of your anatomy. The only reason I tend not to have to maim these characters is because they do such a good job of it themselves.

Anyway, those are pretty much the main offenders during almost each and every daily commute. I'd gladly pay extra taxes out of my paycheck if the Sydney Transportation Authority could pay someone to stand on each bus and bitch slap these idiots, but until that happens I will continue to be filled with the rage of a thousand burning suns at their dumbassery.