Oh, Really?

Surely someone out there knows it's inappropriate to text someone first thing in the morning to tell them that they will have to make a 30 minute presentation to prospective employees about the company?

I am consoled by the fact that this means 20 impressionable young minds will be mine to shape for those 30 minutes. Someone will regret this.

Mission Accomplished, Relatively Speaking

My goal going into the long weekend was to have a quiet one overall. And I have personally credited myself with accomplishing that. Yes, Thursday night was a mess, but that was kind of the plan -- go all out the first night, and chill out for the rest of the weekend. To the right you'll see the only photo evidence from this weekend -- I don't remember that picture being taken, or the name of the girl on the right even though I've apparently met her and hung out with her on more than a few occasions.

As I mentioned, I only had a few drinks on Friday night. But Saturday was interesting. I had one of those days were I only left my apartment twice, for 10 minutes at a time, to buy food. Otherwise, the only person I saw the entire day was my flatmate, who found it strange that I hadn't either gone away for the weekend, or chosen to obliterate my liver and kidneys in a pub somewhere. But it was interesting because it was the first quiet Saturday I've had alone in many many months, and I realized that I still have that college mentality of always having to be out somewhere doing something. One would think that as I rock up to 30, I might actually grow out of it. But I found myself sitting around feeling depressed and like a complete loser, and even made plans to meet friends at the Coogee Bay Hotel. The only thing that saved me from yet another night out was the fact that they didn't start partying until 9pm, by which point my ass had become part of the couch, and I found myself unable to move.

Anyway, this was just a bit of a sad revelation. Twenty-eight years old, and not any more able to deal with a quiet night at home than I was 10 years ago. I promptly compensated for it by heading to a bar for the birthday drinks of someone I'd met once, as it was an excuse to drink for at least a few hours before the weekend was over. If anyone has any idea when maturity will actually arrive, please let me know.

I Love Surprises

So, Thursday night was a complete mess. But I'd kind of planned it that way -- I had several parties to go to, and a crappy week, and wanted to blow off some steam.

My personal favorite moment was getting to the last club, De Nom, where I was meeting some friends. First of all, I walked into the wrong club (again) but at least I realized it was the wrong place before I paid cover.

And then, I arrived at the correct place, informed them that I was on the list, and got a stamp and went in. When I got to the top of the stairs, a girl was asking for money or for me to show my stamp. Which would have been fine, except I had completely forgotten where the guy downstairs had stamped me. I actually stood there looking all over my hands and arms for a couple of minutes, and eventually had to go back down the stairs and ask the bouncer where it was. I would have been more embarrassed if I'd been slightly less intoxicated.


We had Friday off for some memorial day type thing they have here, where most people start drinking around noon at the latest. Alas, I was far too hungover to even leave my apartment before 4pm, and didn't have anything alcoholic to drink until around 9pm. The highlight was probably this conversation:

Zander: Hey, Jono! I was actually at Lo's place for Passover dinner on Sunday night!
Jono: Uh yeah...you told me that last night.
Zander: I saw you last night?!


Which is why I was more than comfortable heading home after my fourth beer, and why I am not hungover at all on this beautiful Saturday morning, something that hasn't happened in many months.

Now to figure out how I'm getting smashed tonight...

Inappropriate Conversation for a Passover Seder

• Vomiting
• Merkins
• Cocaine

For future reference.

My Weekend, In A Nutshell

[Phone rings]
Zander: Hello?
Friend #1: Hey! What happened last night?
Zander: Last time I saw you was at the bar, but you didn't come with us to the club.
Friend #1: Oh okay. Wasn't 100% sure I made it to the bar. But anyway, I'm going there now to see if they have my jacket. We're gonna have a few drinks.
Zander: It's not even noon. And it's Sunday.
Friend #1: Yup. Come meet us.
Zander: No way. I got home at 6am, I have to start drinking at a BBQ at 3pm, and I have a passover dinner to go to at 7pm.
Friend #2: Oh come on, you have to come. That's all fine. The Jews drink.
Zander: Not enough. If the Jews drank as much as I did, Hitler wouldn't have had to gas them.

She's A Naughty Girl With A...Bad Habit

So, I hate to bring out my non-existent prude for a moment, but just thought I would comment on something that I'm just not sure is...right, for lack of a better word.

To give you a bit of context, there was a show that aired here in Australia last year called Summer Heights High, where one comedian plays three main characters at a high school. The show was brought to my attention because one of my colleagues told me that one of the characters reminded her of me -- Ja'mie, the private school girl who does an exchange and attends a public school for one semester, and says things like "I come from, like, a really different environment. We just don't have poor people. Or ugly people. And I, like, don't even understand why someone would even talk to a fat person." So yeah, that was reassuring.

Anyway, another character is Mr. G, a drama teacher who ends up writing and directing a musical about Jessica, a student who died recently from an ecstasy overdose, and the performance includes Jessica being a slut and chasing after massive pills with "E" on them. And the chorus of the song is basically "Ectasy, ecstasy, ecs-ecs-ecs-ecs-ecstasy!"

All well and good -- until they recently released a dance remix of the song, and a video that has fans of the song singing and dancing along. Which you can view here:



My issues with this video:
1) What parents decided it was okay for their 3 year old children to be broadcast nationally singing about drugs and sluts?
2) I'm pretty sure there is at least one person with down syndrome in this video.


I generally love how un-PC Australians are, and it's not that I've ever been overly concerned for the welfare of children or retards, but something about that just seems wrong. Am I just getting old and uptight (it could be part of the whole "gray hair" incident that we do not speak of) or what?

Screw This

I was ready to post something this morning, and then I found my first official gray hair on my head. I am no longer in the mood. Rot in hell, all of you.

Life Lesson #328

Just because "Tequila" and "Tuesday" kind of sound cute together, it doesn't mean the reality is actually attractive in any way. Just some words of wisdom for you guys. No idea what you'd do without me.

It hurts.

At Least I Didn't Sleep In A Park

Another weekend, another drunken mess. I'm actually starting to get a bit concerned that my partying ways have been far too excessive lately, but as long as I'm having fun I don't really see any reason to stop. I'm sure that policy has never backfired on anyone.

Quick recap though -- Friday was a coworker's house party -- they have a huge house, one of the flatmates is a really good DJ, and I was already completely trollied by the time I arrived. I actually wouldn't be able to tell anyone much about the night, but fortunately many pictures were taken, and I'm in around 70% of them. I wish I could guess what time I headed home, but I have no idea. All I know is that apparently a couple of bands that were playing at the Enmore next door came by after their concert, but the general consensus is that I'd probably stumbled home by then.

Saturday I met some friends at the Surry Hills Festival nearby, and then grabbed Brownie so we could head to Busty's "Single and Fabulous" party in Manly to celebrate her new singledom, or "life without a git in it" as she put it in the party invite. Cut to 4am, post much vodka, beer and tequila shots, where I may have been ranting and raving at innocents who just happened to be standing in the taxi rank with us. One girl made the grave error of telling me that she was Canadian to which I may have responded "You should just go back to Canadia! You're just lucky we haven't come in there and cut down all your trees!!!" So yeah, that's one neighborhood I won't be visiting again for a while.

My only redemption (sort of) from that evening is that I ended up better than Brett, who failed to make it back to his Navy base and ended up sleeping in a park for reasons that are still unknown to any of us. He wins.

Alas

I was going to write a proper blog post today...but then I got drunk.

Catch you next week. Or over the weekend if I manage to do something spectacularly assinine.

Didn't Think That Really Happened

I had a pretty crappy start to work yesteday. Came in, read some of the dumbest emails I've ever had, all from different people at the same client, and then dealt with them via the phone and in person, which left me ranting in the office and threatening to quit. Apparently it was just convincing enough that our PA went out and got me a cupcake to cheer me up, and then scheduled a meeting for me to talk to our firm partner, who I will be ranting at this afternoon. Can't wait.

But that didn't really compare to how I managed to finish off the day during a conference call with the same client. As with all conference calls I have in the office here, if someone is on the room with me, we tend to put the call on mute while we make smartass comments about what's going on, or just talk about something personal and completely unrelated. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

Someone had just started saying something shocking stupid, and I looked at my colleague and just said "Oh for fuck's sake." Imagine my unadulterated horror when I looked down at the phone and realized that she had UNmuted the phone moments before without me noticing. Since the client kept talking and didn't seem to acknowledge what had happened, we then had to mute the phone so that we could laugh hysterically for 5 minutes about what a dumbass I was.

It's the sort of thing that I thought only happened in sitcoms and it reminded me a little of a funny FedEx ad I saw recently, so I'm still a little in disbelief. In my favor, the client has yet to say anything about it, so either it's being ignored or it wasn't even heard on their end. Although a small part of me wishes it was...

Devil's Water

On Friday I didn't have any firm plans and decided to meet up with Scuzzy, a friend of a friend who's recently moved to Sydney from New York. All was well and good, and we were behaving like polite adults and all, until my former coworker CamCam finally made an appearance.

CamCam is always trouble, partially because she's naturally mischievous, and partially because she has a thing about ordering rounds of tequila shots until everyone (or at least Zander) is laying on the ground in a stupor.

And so the night continued as any night with CamCam does, with all of us getting smashed, befriending randoms, and then starting a whole new round of tequila shots with our new found friends.

Woke up feeling the pain on Saturday, and eventually went to meet Lou for a blate lunch before Fry and Duff's farewell drinks. Let me tell you, I don't remember the last time it hurt so much to attempt to drink a beer. I made it about 20% of the way through before realizing I might vomit everywhere.

I therefore did the responsible thing and started drinking wine instead.

However, after drinking for 8 hours, I was in that condition where you had so much to drink the night before that there's no amount of alcohol that will actually get you trashed, and so I gave up and headed home by midnight.

So now Fry and Duff, my best friends in Sydney, are gone. I find this thoroughly depressing, but somehow I'm thinking I will manage. Nothing a cold bottle of vodka can't cure...

When It's Time To Go Home

Friend #1: I'm bored of this place, let's go somewhere else.
Friend #2: Let's go to Oxford Street.
Friend #3: Eww, Oxford Street is full of poor people.
Friend #2: I like poor people. They're easy.

Stuff Drunk People Like

I woke up this morning slightly hungover and decided that what I needed for breakfast was a bowl of Easy Mac and a big glass of chocolate milk.

After some careful thought and analysis, I realized that being hungover is a lot like being pregnant. You feel sick in the morning, have odd cravings for food, and you are a little apprehensive about what might come out of your body.

This concludes my deep thought for the day.

Still Not Sure What The Theme Was

I went to some sort of a costume party on Saturday night and ended up dressed as....whatever it is I'm dressed as in the above picture.

The reason I'm so vague on this is because we didn't even start getting dressed until after a "lunch" at Icebergs where Muthy and myself had consumed a bottle of red wine (which I almost never drink) and two bottles of champagne, and then started on the half bottle of vodka I had left from the long weekend. You can just see the vacant look in my eyes, and I'm pretty sure that picture was taken before 9pm.

Needless to say, neither of us remembered much of the actual party, and I believe I got home by almost falling in front of a taxi in the middle of the street and then bribing the driver enough money to forget about the person he was supposed to be picking up a few doors down.

A few of us have pieced together the night as best we could, and Banx has been kind enough to let me know that I apparently "left three voicemails on my mobile phone between 11pm and 2am, each progressively drunker than the last." Why wouldn't you want to be friends with me? I don't know either.