Scary Stuff

Well folks, it's finally that time of the year again - tonight is the big Halloween party that I throw with Jules every year, and I'm pretty sure this will be the best costume I've had in ages. A comment that shouldn't be lessened by the fact that my costumes are usually half-assed and thrown together at the last minute.

There will be music, prizes, and hopefully a mix of fake and real vomit.

Of much more concern, and much more horrifying if you ask me, is the fact that I need to be up at 6am tomorrow morning to head to the airport for an international flight to the Maldives via Singapore. Given the condition I was in when I woke up the morning after last year's Halloween party, I guarantee whatever I look like tomorrow morning will be the scariest thing those Singapore Airlines flight attendants will have seen all year.

Seal of Approval

Someone just sent me an article in Psychology Today titled "Why Intelligent People Drink More Alcohol". Not that I actually read through this thing to find out what the actual reason was, but it's good to know I'm behaving appropriately for my clearly superior intellectual level.

Desperately Seeking New Friends

Granted I was totally busy being hammered and would have had trouble squeezing this in to my busy schedule, however I am incredibly upset that there is apparently an annual Zombie Walk in Sydney, and no one told me about it. New friends required, immediately.

In any case, it looks like it was an awesome time, so enjoy the photos:

For Shame

Started boozing at lunch yesterday, and basically continued through the afternoon in anticipation of the big work party last night.

Woke up this morning with little recollection of coming home, and an empty box for a Pizza Hut large pan pizza on my dining table.

(That's over 2000 calories, in case you were wondering. All eaten by me.)

And now I feel pretty average, and need to be ready to start drinking again by this evening, and then wake up again for a boozy pub lunch tomorrow. That will be followed by book club where we'll be discussing Faulkner, which has to be the worst planning of any sequence of events by anyone, ever.

Speaking of Career Management

Juice alerted me to this classic news headline, made much more inappropriate by the fact that this is actually one of Australia's more respectable daily news publications:

The headline was updated within minutes to something a little more professional, however we're betting the original headline writer will either be fired today, or treated to free drinks for the remainder of the week.

Done

Well for the most part, the weekend turned out to be what we thought it would be, with two people falling over (a total of three times) in the first night. But instead of writing about it, I'll let the photos tell the story...

Circle of Death (1 of 4 games):

Modern interpretive dance to Khia's classic tune, "My Neck, My Back":

The end of the night:

Back to Basics

I know I've been boring you all to death with my quiet weekends of not acting like a complete ass-hat recently.

To make it up to all of us, I'm thrilled to announced that I'll be driving up the coast today to beautiful, sunny, beachy Port Stephens, with a few of my friends who would be identified by some professionals as clinical alcoholics. We have already planned to spend some $500 over the course of two nights, which means in less than 10 hours a few of us will definitely have thrown up on each other.

Photos and stories to follow. Unless it's bad enough that we have to pretend that the weekend never happened at all.

Skid Marks

A couple of years ago, a group of friends from here in Sydney all moved to London. While it was sad to see them go, and we all still trade stories about the insane drunken times we used to have together, I still appreciate the fact that I don't see how I'd have a job at this point if I still partied like I did back then.

Fortunately, they've generally continued living exactly the same way, which means there's always at least a trickle of stories that get passed back to us Down Under. Just a week or so ago, Mickey reported having woken up in bed one morning with the lights on, wearing his suit and shoes, and without a clue how or when he got home. On the plus side, someone pointed out, at least he was ready to go to work.

And then there was this instant message conversation this afternoon:

Juice: oh did you hear [franz] shit himself at a bar the other night

Zander: WHAT?!?!?!

Juice: yeah at the Village

Juice: flushed his undies and kept drinking

Zander: how does that even happen???

Juice: i don't know

Juice: he said it was close to the start of the night as well so he wasn't that drunk

Enough

I barely believe it myself, but I just finished my THIRD (and probably last, don't worry) quiet weekend in a row. It's actually getting a bit creepy, I am starting to understand what characters in sci-fi horror movies feel like when they're being controlled by an alien entity.

However, this quiet weekend was pretty much unavoidable. I flew to Brisbane on Friday night for dinner, had to wake up early on Saturday for a christening (yes, a christening), and flew back to Sydney on Saturday night but had to go to bed early to wake up and bake banana & raspberry muffins at 5am.

Stop laughing and I'll explain.

See Sydney has this annual event called Breakfast on the Bridge, where they close the bridge for a few hours on a Sunday morning, lay down grass, and let 6,000 people have a breakfast picnic with music, gift bags, and various entertainers. When I first won the tickets I was horrified at the thought of eating breakfast on a bridge at 6.30am on a Sunday, but I have to admit it was a very unique experience. I mean in the end, how many cities would actually close their iconic and well-trafficked bridge so that bleary-eyed residents can eat croissants on grass that is barely worth the trouble to put down so it can be ripped up and disposed of hours later. Have I mentioned I love Australia?

The End of Productivity

After almost 4 months of avoiding having a TV on my desk (which is no small feat given the fact that I work at a major TV company), I've moved desks and my new location has come equipped with a television and cable box.

My first few hours were spent clicking around trying to find something to watch at any given moment, before I realized I was at work and not sitting on my couch, and needed to consider how much this was pissing off anyone sitting near me. I've now mostly settled on watching music videos or the news, as both are relatively easy to tune out.

Having said that, it's only a matter of time until I start watching my favorite movies and shows (and bringing popcorn to the office, of course), and I personally don't think they should be allowed to reprimand me for it, since they're the ones who put the TV on my desk!!

Will let you know how far that argument gets me.