Yes, There's A Palm Beach Here Too

And I imagine there's a Palm Beach in almost every English-speaking country in the world with a remotely tropical climate, so people need to stop telling me they thought I had flown to Florida and not stopped in to visit them.

ANYWAY, minor frustrations of the day aside, here are the pics from this long weekend we just had for Australia Day. And for those who may be concerned (there have been a few), you can rest easy knowing that I didn't even bring my speedos with me, so you don't have to cringe every time you hit the "Next" button in fear of seeing things you never wanted me to share with you. Actually, half of the shots are from an impromptu trashy pop dance party we had that no one seems to remember very clearly apart from these very photos. Gotta love it.

It's My THING

I don't know what's gotten into me lately, but apparently my new thing is falling down flights of stairs at the end of an evening. Granted, this time I was actually quite drunk and brought it on myself. And it didn't help that I actually heard someone nearby go "Ooooh". Fortunately they were around the corner and I was able to use another exit to avoid further embarrassment. Not that it makes things much better.

Of course I'm just happy that I chose to meet up with former coworkers instead of continue on with another group of friends for Mickey's birthday celebrations. As of this morning, 3 people are out sick, at least one has spent most of the morning vomiting, and apparently a couple of people almost got into a fist fight at the last bar of the night, not that either of them remember it now.

It's a sad sad day when the person who drank a bottle of wine and fell down the stairs had one of the more respectable evenings.

It's Faster That Way

I was pretty sure that Monday was going to be my drunkest weeknight, considering I met up with Busty, started ordering wine by the bottle, and spent half the night drunk dialling and texting her sister who we knew full well was in the middle of day two of a "shagfest" with some dude she had picked up at a bar on Saturday night. I came into work on Tuesday a little bit dazed, but impressed with my stamina considering the amount of alcohol so frivolously consumed the previous night.

Yesterday I met up with a few friends to head to North Sydney for some Mexican food. We had plenty of sangria and margaritas, but their main effect was simply making me sleepy, and afterwards I couldn't get up the energy to head to the pub and went to take the train home with a couple of friends.

As we arrived at the train station, very proud of myself for choosing not only to go home over drinking, but also for selecting the budget option of transport, I promptly slipped on the stairs and slid/tumbled halfway down. Fortunately only my friends saw, and were kind enough to ask me if I was okay between holding in painful laughter. So much for being responsible. My ankle still hurts.

Is It Friday Yet?

Probably a good thing it's not, since we're already at Wednesday and apart from having far too much work to complete in the next 2 days than could be humanly possible, I haven't blogged.

It wasn't too much of a drunken weekend, but there was enough drama that it was still eventful. I'm not one to throw personal details of my life or anyone else's on my blog, so I won't get into it, but let's just say that some privacy settings had to be changed on Facebook for certain people. Yeah, that's right. It was serious like that.

I've been trying to think of highlights from the weekend. Possibly the most amusing was this comment from Juice, who had just received a text message from a friend he was meeting at a house party later:

"Have you guys ever heard of a suburb called...Chatswood?"

For all my majority American readers, that's like someone who has lived in New York for years (and the US for their entire lives) saying "Have you guys ever heard of a place called...Queens?"


Anyway, that was a lame story, all I can do is assure you that we got quite a kick out of it. Now it's Wednesday and all anyone is talking about is Heath Ledger dying, and I'm wishing I could filter out unwanted comments and updates in life the same way I can on Facebook.

Perspective

I was managing to have a quiet week, and then I decided to meet a couple of people for after work drinks on Wednesday, got shockingly drunk, and don't remember the last couple hours of the night, even though I was home and in bed by 10.30pm.

But in these situations, I think it's important to put these things into perspective. At least I'm not nearly as bad as the 16-year old teenager near Melbourne who threw a house party that ended up with around 500 guests, and included a game of naked Twister and required several police squads, including dogs and a helicopter to break up.

To top it all off, the teenager is a complete asshole. When radio stations have called him to have him on the air, he tells them "I'll think about it and get back to you". When he's being interviewed on the news, and they ask him if he can remove his sunglasses, he says "No, they're famous". And when asked what he would tell other teenagers who are throwing a house party of their own, he responded with "Let me do it for you".

I'd find his antics much funnier if he were joking or being ironic, but at the risk of sounding like an old geezer, this is what's wrong with kids today. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go get horrifically drunk and terrorize innocents all weekend. Cheers.

In Support Of Proofreading

Yesterday I submitted a sort of business case for an idea I have for my company, and was completely mortified to see that my aversion to proofreading had let not one but TWO typos slip through the cracks. For some reason I can't bring myself to properly re-read something I've written, even though I'm one of the most anal people I know when it comes to poor grammar and spelling.

However someone else has quickly eclipsed my own embarrassment. Last night, I logged on to Facebook and noticed that a friend had the status "Claire is peeing so badly". I found this a rather personal item to share with everyone on Facebook, but figured I've seen stranger stuff before and didn't really think twice about it.

This morning, she had corrected it to "Claire is PEELING so badly, not peeing", which made me laugh and also reinforced the need for proofreading, no matter how painful. Naturally, I can't wait to see Claire in the near future to rub this one in.

Hot Off The Press

Actually that blog post title is a lie, since I finished these and sent them to most people I know on Friday, but for anyone that may have missed it, here are the pictures from France and India. This is most likely my last captioned photo album for a good six months or so, so enjoy and savor these as best you can.

A Touch Of Culture

As Saturday afternoon approached, a few of us weren't sure what our plans for the evening should be. Quiet night in? Big boozy night out? Then someone remembered that Jazz In The Domain was on -- when some world famous orchestra plays in the park and everyone shows up to listen for free while having a picnic.

I'm officially going to start a petition that they chnage the name of the event to Drinking On The Grass, because really that was all that happened. We could barely hear the music, and it didn't really matter because we all got completely wasted on the booze we'd brought with us and spent hours laughing about things we can't really remember at this point. Although before we were completely blind off of wine and vodka, I do remember Murphy spotting some Asian guy putting on sunblock at like 7.30 at night, and Fry loudly exclaiming "Oh thank GOD, wouldn't want anyone to get a nasty moonburn."

We went to a pub once we realized the music was irrelevant, and apparently I spilled THREE beers straight into Murphy's lap (I'm surprised he was still talking to me after that) and I definitely recall Fry declaring that she was "NOT high maintenance" while slamming her wine glass on the table -- promptly snapping the stem of her wine glass off.

Sunday morning was not the most pleasant experience for any of us, but we've all agreed it was a classic night. One that we will need a few days to recover from.

Tips For Slackers, #54

If you call in sick to work, showing up the next day with a mild sunburn probably won't convince anyone that you were on your deathbed.

Call Me A Slacker

It could be a number of things. Maybe it's post-holiday blues. Perhaps I just need to get into the swing of 2008. And it doesn't help that I'm actually a bit sick. But whatever the cause, I am just not in a "worky" mood this week. So, using my sickness as an excuse, I've left work early two days this week, and today I couldn't be bothered to go in at all. Now I'm off to the beach to meet Sesame for a few hours of fun in the sun, in the hopes that after today and a relaxing weekend, I will slip into a more motivated mood next week.

Or just want to go the beach more.

Back In The Game

So I'm back in Sydney, safe and sound. Since my last post, I had an awesome night in Paris with Audrey and Dom, flew to India, relaxed and celebrated New Years in Goa, went to Agra, and then spent a couple of nights in Delhi before flying back to Sydney and getting back at 6.30am on Sunday morning. And I was back at work today. I will admit that I probably crammed just a little too much into two weeks and that it will take me a few days to really recover and get back into the swing of things, but it was all awesome.

I was surprised that even after all the hype, my highlight from India was probably still the Taj Mahal. And I highly recommend that seeing that place is on everyone's list of things to do before they die. Which sounds really morbid, but seriously, you gotta see it.

Of course I managed to also pick up a bad cough my last couple of days there, but I'd have to say that's better than what every single other person I knew who visited ended up with, which was at least one day where they couldn't be more than a few feet from the toilet. My former flatmate was among the friends there, and after seeing me eat with abandon at every meal while I was there and still not get sick, she has announced to the world that I have "a stomach of steel". And I would also like to make sure everyone takes note that I have eaten street food in Thailand, consumed anything that was put in front of me in rural Vietnam, and spent a week in India, and the only time in my life that I have ever suffered from any kind of food poisoning was from a KFC in the United States. Something to think about.

The other announcement is that after well over 2 years of either using a flatmate's computer or just not having one at all at home, I officially have my own laptop. Which means I have one less excuse to be slack about blog posts, or getting photo albums together. I am sure the 12 people who read this blog on a regular basis are jumping in their seats right now, so I'll leave you with that happy thought and maybe transfer some photos from my trip to my hard drive. Baby steps.