2-minute Review of Singapore

I flew in around midnight, went straight to my hotel. Overslept, cutting into the time I had planned to use to take a stroll around the city. Was about to finish breakfast when I saw that they were setting up an omelette station, so weighed seeing a new city against my new option, and chose to wait for an omelette. Yes, really.

But from my 5 minute walk around the block, it's officially the only clean and orderly Asian city I've been to, and the absolute lack of poor people in public makes me want to considering moving here in my later years.

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Another quick one, since my flight doesn't board for a few minutes -- I was sleeping on the flight from Sydney to Singapore when I woke up to the sound of an arguably male flight attendant yelling "Miss! Miss! Are you okay?! Miss! Are you okay?!". Guessing from the fact that the woman in question was sprawled out unconcious on the floor, I'm guessing the answer to that was probably "no", had she been in any condition to answer.

The whole situation annoyed me for several reasons. First, can't a brotha get some sleep on a long haul flight? Second, the flight attendant's voice. I can't stand Asian accents (call me racist, I don't care) and overly flamboyant gay voice isn't acceptable. The combination, and at a loud volume, was aggravating at best. And finally, I don't believe in fainting. It's the kind of thing that happens in movies. Or to overly dramatic people who want some attention. I'm guessing her husband was more interested in the latest Cameron Diaz movie than talking to her, so she decided to put on a show. Whatever, lady.

Here I Go Again...

So it's the day I leave on my month long trip around the world. For those who didn't already know, the itinerary includes:

• Singapore
• Kandy, Sri Lanka
• Colombo, Sri Lanka
• Chennai, India
• Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Brittany, France
• Paris, France
• London, UK
• Yorkshire, UK
• NYC, USA
• SF, USA

...and then back to Sydney.

My flight is in a few hours, so naturally I have not only failed to finish my laundry and pack, but I haven't even bought the suitcase I want so that I can travel in a little more style. This all occurred to me yesterday, but I still decided to spend my entire evening in a bar throwing myself farewell drinks instead of taking care of any of that.

Gonna head off and do it all that now, but if I'm quiet for a few days or even a couple of weeks, there's my excuse.

So Much For Professionalism

As much of a douche bag as I can generally be when I'm out partying, I tend to tone it down just a touch when I'm with work people, believe it or not. Make no mistake, I am still completely offensive and most people would never say half of the things that come out of my mouth if they were in professional company, but I'm nowhere near as bad as we all know I can be.

I continued to behave on Friday night when I was in Melbourne and drinking with a few people from our Sydney and Melbourne offices. We'd been in a boring workshop all day, and needed to let off a bit of steam. For me, this meant having a few cocktails and telling a racist joke or two. For one of my Melbourne colleagues, this meant she should get completely sloshed, spend half the night insisting that she is my new best friend, and then get frisky in a bathroom with the friend of one of our other coworkers.

This was the conversation that we endured in a taxi going from bar #2 to bar #3:

Melbourne colleague: Oh my god, he was so hot. And such a good kisser.

Zander & other coworker: Uh huh.

Melbourne colleague: And you would not believe how quickly he got my shirt off in the bathroom. I didn't even know what had happened!

Zander & other colleague: Nice.

Melbourne colleague (to cab driver): Oh my god, I'm not offending you am I? I don't want to, like, offend your culture and stuff.

[cab driver remains silent, probably calling on Allah to strike her down in a fit of rage]


To her credit, she did drink and dance with us until almost 3am without dinner, around which time we left her standing on a curb with her love interest for the night while we headed back to our hotel room to die a slow and painful death. Needless to say, I thought she was fantastic and can't wait to hang out with her again.

Exhibit A

Some photos have surfaced from Thursday night's fashion party thingy. Conclusion: I am still an asshole.

On A Roll

I had told myself I would take it easy in the final stretch to my world tour, however it is now Thursday, I am about to head out for another fashion week party that will be my third night of drinking in a row.

This is all sure to be something I will regret tomorrow morning at 7:30am when I'm boarding a flight to Melbourne to sit in a workshop for 6 hours, only to drink even more once the sun shows any sign of going down, and come back on Saturday feeling even worse...and just in time to meet friends at a pub.

I'd ask someone to knock some sense into me, but I'm having way too much fun.

Surely There's An Award For This Sort Of Thing

Just wanted to share my shining moment from the weekend -- on my "quiet night", Saturday, I was at a club around 2am, talking to some friends at the bar. I was so consumed by my own hilarious story that I didn't see the guy walking behind me with a tray full of drinks, and definitely knocked all of them over, although he did manage to save something resembling a rum and coke that ended up swimming in cheap beer.

You'd think they would have banned me from the more popular nightspots by now...

My Night With The D-List

After being so well behaved for the beginning of the week, I decided I had earned a few drinks by Wednesday night. The event I had been invited to didn't start until 6.30, and so I harangued a few colleagues into killing some time at a bar near work with me. None of them had really wanted to come, and I promised to let them leave after 2 drinks, so considering I left before 7pm, I was surprised to hear that two of them ended up partying until after midnight, and now blame me for leading them astray. Pussies.

Anyway, the highlight of the night was a fashion week party at Cargo Lounge. I had primarily wanted to go because there were free drinks, and the host is one of the main personalities on Australia's Next Top Model, so I'd hoped they would be filming the new season of the show at the same time, and maybe we'd get to see some of the new girls trip and fall off the runway.

The result was even better -- I spent the night surrounded by girls from the last couple of seasons of the show. I also may have dropped and broken a champagne glass on one of their feet while talking to her, but considering I think she's weird and alien looking (the one on the right in the image below) and never should have gotten her own show, I actually didn't feel that bad.


The night ended with me sharing a taxi back home with a couple of very drunk Irish people who I'd met at the party and happened to live on my street. I may have plans to attend their BBQ on the weekend, as they've texted me already. If only I could remember their names.

Can't Wait To See The Wedding Photos

I'm only reinforcing my official Bitch status with this one, but when I got this in the mail last week I simply had to take pictures and email them to various people around the world, and now I've decided to blog about it as well, because this sort of tackiness can't just slip under the radar.

After some 10 years or so of doing as close to nothing as should be possible if not an actual paraplegic, my lovely cousin in Jamaica has decided to get married. It makes sense, considering getting married and squirting out babies has been a chosen method of legitimizing women doing nothing for centuries. (I'm only kidding ladies, don't get all feminist on me now.)

Anyway, regardless of how much free time a girl might have to come up with unnecessary wedding expenditures, I still don't consider it an excuse for this:



In case you are blinded by the cheap gold packaging (it took me a few minutes to process what I was seeing as well), it actually opened up to contain a plastic scroll with the wedding details on it. I assume that's some sort of reference to religion, since the original wedding announcement kept saying something about how they met through God, which is pretty much the opposite of how I ever meet any romantic interest, unless by "God" they actually mean "a bottle of Grey Goose and a case of beer", in which case I am so on the same page. Or should I say scroll.

Reactions to these photos have ranged from sheer disgust to giddy and emphatic insistence that I attend the wedding and take photos because "if this is the invitation, can you imagine how awful everything else about the wedding is going to be?!" Needless to say, they will be lucky if I purchase half a set of coasters off the registry.

I'll probably go to hell for this blog post, but I figure I'll write it anyway based on the fact that:

1. Nothing that interesting really happened to me this weekend (other than a friend getting kicked out of a club after we drank about 3 bottles of wine - who could have seen that coming)
2. I don't think anyone in my Jamaican family reads this blog
3. Going to hell would probably still be a better option that actually going to this wedding.

I Would Never Wear Those Shoes

Well there have been more updates on my antics from Saturday night, a.k.a the greatest night of my life that I don't remember (the highlight being that I apparently got an entire birthday party of 25 people kicked out of a bar where we had a reserved area...something about "strip dancing"), but I've decided not to dwell on such things as they're all in the past.

Instead, just thought I would share a quick announcement that Google Maps has finally started up the Street View feature for Australia this week, and we are already able to appreciate the subtle nuances of the Australian lifestyle:


I should probably be a little more concerned by the fact that when I sent this out, every single person to respond asked "Is that you??", but once again, I won't dwell on such things. Everyone have a lovely weekend.

Facebook Message Of The Week

"Hey Zander! Really great to meet you on Saturday night. Never met anyone who knew all the words to every R&B song ever haha. How did you end up? Trashed I hope."


What my new BFF here doesn't seem to realize is that was already trashed beyond belief by the time I got to my second party of the night, and even after looking through as many Facebook photos as I could find, I still don't think I could recognize this person or anyone else from that evening with a gun to my head.

It All Evens Out

After having such a ridiculous Thursday night, I forced myself to head home after only 4 beers on Friday night, even though I had gotten a second wind and probably could have kept going. Being at home on a Friday night still utterly depresses me, but the knowledge that I would be starting early on Saturday helped me hold on.

And Saturday did not disappoint. I met up with Marina to stop by the bottle shop and head to a BBQ in Paddington, where the host was serving the most dangerous sangria I think I've ever encountered. Despite tasting like fruit punch, it apparently contained red wine, vodka, rum, tequila, and banana liqueur, and after about two glasses I was already light-headed.

I don't remember much beyond that -- I stopped into a friend's place for a glass of wine, and then headed to someone else's birthday at a bar, before we all went to his place and danced and acted like dickheads until a time in the morning I would be hard-pressed to identify. I also have a vague recollection of chugging white wine directly from a bottle, but since there are no photographs to prove it (just yet), I might just pretend it never happened.

I didn't leave my apartment on Sunday, and 94% of my time was spent laying on the couch and ignoring phone calls. And after about 12 hours of sleep, I'm feeling quite fresh again, and considering stopping in for "just a couple" with Busty this evening. It's all about the rebound.

Signs You're In For A Painful Hangover

• The bar you're in has a Thursday night special that gets you a meal and a 40 oz beer for $10
• None of the wait staff blinks (or even hesitates) when you order your 7th bottle of wine or champagne, even though you can barely hold yourself up at the bar
• In a room of 200 people, you and your friends are the only ones dancing...wildly
• You wake up with a woman's change purse in your coat
  
• The following mementos are in your pocket:

For the love of god, someone let this day be over. I can barely see the computer monitor anyway.