Why We Watch

As I mentioned previously, the highlight of my week (month? YEAR??) was being able to attend the live finale of Australia's Next Top Model last night. I've been watching this show from the first season and what it lacks in the entertaining ghetto-ness of the contestants, it makes up for in actually recruiting girls who have a shot at an international modeling career.

Anyway, the event was fun, if a little dragged out, until it was time to announce the winner. Judging from the dozens of emails I had from overseas about one of the biggest television screw ups in memory, you've probably heard about it already. If not, I think Dlisted had the best write up:

"This kind of mistake does not happen! Babies getting switched? That's a mistake that happens. Accidentally pouring NAIR into your roommate's bottle of leave-in conditioner. That's a mistake that happens! Marriage. That's a mistake that happens! But declaring the wrong winner on a dumb reality show? This does not happen!"

I mean, really, I couldn't have put it better myself.

Mission Bored To Tears: Achieved

After a few unnecessarily boozy weekends, I had promised myself that this last weekend would be different. And so, despite the AMAZING weather, I refrained from planning any fabulous lunches or drinks, and focused on dinners and the sorts of things that I know are far less likely to end up with me doing tequila shots.

On Friday I met up with a friend and checked out a new bar, but ordered some food (this is what passes for personal growth in my life) and headed home around 10pm.

Saturday was easily the most painful part of the weekend. I ignored an invite to rooftop drinks nearby and simply stayed at home all day, gazing at the warm and sunny weather outside. What's that you say? That I could have gone outside and done something that didn't involve alcohol? If that's what you're thinking, then you clearly know very little about Australia or me, and probably shouldn't have an opinion on such matters.

Eventually I went out to dinner to a tapas restaurant I've been dying to try out for a long time now, and after one post-dinner drink, headed home and got into bed. Sunday was a picnic with the gang, and we limited ourselves to a couple of bottles of champagne between us, after which I went home and cooked up a storm.

Most people I've told about my weekend have noted that even my version of a quiet weekend seems to involve doing a lot more than most people would do on a busy weekend. But still, all I could wonder was how fat people live like that every weekend and don't cry from the utter boredom of it all. (Or maybe they do. I've never spent much time with one.) Granted, no one needs to be shockingly drunk every (or any) weekend, but forgive me if I plan a long lunch for this coming Saturday.

Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease

As you may have picked up from the occasional posts about the topic, I generally try to watch any incarnation of Top Model that's available to me. Because I don't see how there could be anything more worthy of my time than judging other people on their appearances. I'm sure you agree.

In any case, I've had a vested interest in this year's competition because a draw in my office where the staff who were allocated the models to make it to this year's live finale would get tickets to be in the audience. Naturally, my model (who I never would have picked if it were up to me) got booted in the first episode, so my best hope was that one of the people in the office who cared the least about the show would get a ticket to the live finale and give it to me. Once again, no such luck.

And so, I spent the 2 days after the second to last episode bitching and moaning about the fact that "everyone except for me" would be attending the live finale, and get to see if Kelsey, Amanda, or Sophie becomes Australia's Next Top Model.

People, don't ever let anyone tell you that complaining never gets you anywhere. Within 48 hours someone was so sick of hearing me whine about it that I had a ticket on my desk, courtesy of their connections in Marketing.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be practicing bitchy comments about the models just in case I get interviewed on live TV.

Not Meant To Be

As previously mentioned, I wanted the approaching weekend to be a mellow and relatively sober affair. Therefore, I have been planning dinners, movies, and other sorts of things least likely to end in shame and a hangover.

Unfortunately, someone up there clearly has other plans for me. Within minutes of getting a cancellation for Friday's dinner, I had an invite to after work drinks from someone else.

I'll keep fighting the good fight, but I make no promises.

Self-Inflicted

I recently read a comment that said something along the lines of "instead of posting to your blog to apologize for not blogging in a while, just delete your fucking blog". On that note, I won't apologize for my absence. Between work and drinking, I simply haven't had the time to jump on here and blog. Not to mention that I can't say anything overly interesting has happened in the last couple of weeks.

Just over a week ago, I went over to a friend's place and got unintentionally hammered, which was embarrassing only because it seemed like such a rookie mistake. Fifteen year old girls might often be stupid enough to drink so much that they accidentally get smashed and need to apologize to people the next day, but my drunkenness is generally fully intended and therefore acceptable.

And so, Hickster and I ensured we had planned a big dinner before we headed to CDP's birthday drinks on Saturday night, knowing it would probably be pretty boozy. Eating before drinking isn't generally something we're great at, so we were quite proud of ourselves for being so responsible.

In what should probably have been a predictable turn of events, the dinner just gave us the ability to drink absolutely insane amounts of booze (we figure about 2 bottles of wine each, plus numerous tequila shots) and as a result we are all on Day 2 of our hangovers.

Thus, I have decided that I will not be drunk over the course of the next week. I won't rule out drinking altogether (I don't believe in detoxes and diets), but I'm curious to see if I can pull off just having a couple of drinks with dinner and heading home at a reasonable hour. Place your bets.