I Swear On Mickey Mouse

Sorry, this just popped into my head...something that actually happened to me, but I get the feeling that no one believes me when I tell them. So I'm going to blog it, because everyone believes what they read on the internet.

Years ago, when I was still living in NYC, I went to the movies one afternoon with a friend. We had a few minutes before the movie started, so I figured I would get some snacks, and saw a vending machine for ice cream bars.

I went over and selected the frozen Mars bar, put in the appropriate amount of money, and waited for it to arrive.

Finally, it fell out of the vending machine with a thunk. And as I looked down and prepared to grab it, I saw a mouse run out from under the machine, and straight into a movie theater. Which, by itself, is kinda gross. But I then looked up, and the theater the house had run into was showing none other than...Stuart Little 2.

I shit you not.

Four Days Is A Bit Much

We just finished the 4-day Easter weekend and I realize I might be in the minority for saying this, but I don't think 4 days off from work is really necessary. Mostly because Australians purely see this as a reason to be drunk for a week straight, and with my new wiser and more mature sensibilities, I look down on such things.

Having said that, I fully participated. For some reason I organized after-work drinks on Thursday evening. You know things are going downhill when 1) the first bar you are at tells your group to leave because the bar is closing (at the random time of 8.41pm), but doesn't seem to be mentioning this to anyone else 2) the coworker who has a habit of getting completely shit-faced and waking up in weird places, including a stranger's backyard and a towel closet at a 5-star hotel, says that things are getting too messy and he needs to go home and 3) one of your colleagues goes to the bar to ask for a water and the bartender serves extra waters "in case anyone else over there needs one". We so classy.

In the slightest nod to the holy weekend, not to mention the need to stop Australians from drinking because they certainly won't stop themselves, bars in Sydney close at 10pm on Good Friday, thank god. We all went out for Junior's birthday dinner and some drinks, and I feigned disappointment when it was time to go home but really I was sort of relieved.

On Saturday I hosted a bit of a lunch/BBQ/roast at my place and invited around 10 people over. You'd think that eating unnecessary amounts of food would have slowed down the intoxication of those in attendance, however shortly after 6pm at least two people could barely stand up and the party ended a bit early. Considering we didn't really start the party until 2pm and ate a massive meal at 4, that is nothing short of tragic.

Sunday was another BBQ but at the risk of sounding weak, 4 nights in a row is too much even for me, and I was home and in bed before midnight. And so, Monday was a quiet day involving leftovers and the first season of 30 Rock, about 2 years after everyone else watched it.

And just as I was ready for a quiet short week and avoiding alcohol until Friday, I've just been reminded that I have a birthday dinner tonight, and dinner at a friend's place tomorrow, and I am now starting to wonder if any of my South America vacation will be refundable if my liver falls out before I get to Buenos Aires in 2 weeks. Help.

Babysitting Services Available

We recently started chatting about children in the office -- we only have a couple of people in our team that have kids, although a few recent marriages probably means more are on the way. Great, just what the world needs.

I'm personally torn on the topic -- I think kids are cute and lovely, but only as long as they do what they're told and don't cry or throw tantrums or require any extra effort other than playing with them for my own personal entertainment and giving them back to someone when I'm done.

Not only that, but I find a crying child completely unacceptable in public. I recently sat on a 5 hour flight listening to someone's brat scream the whole time and by the time the plane touched down I was possibly a few seconds away from lecturing the parents on how they could have left the baby behind for this trip and just brought some photos along instead. Likewise, I think young children in restaurants is just rude, and I believe it should be understood that if you choose to get knocked up and pop these suckers out, then you have just chosen to confine yourself to private houses until your child knows how to act in public. It's only fair to the rest of us.

In the end, if children of any age refuse to act appropriately, I stand by the school of thought that says it's acceptable to use statements like "Hey kiddo, why don't you go play with the pretty bottles under the sink and I'll come see how you're doing in a couple of hours". Consider it a sort of Darwinian situation, with the end result being win-win for society as a whole.

Pussies

Every year around this time we get a few days that are cooler than what we've seen since before summer started, and everyone in Sydney starts whining about how winter has arrived. Many of them bust out the scarves and winter jackets and might even call in sick claiming they have a cold.

Just to give you an idea of "winter" approaching in Sydney, please see the weather forecast for the next 5 days:


(For those who speak Celsius, a.k.a. the vast majority of the world, it's going to be around 25 degrees on Friday/)

And so, please join me in serving my fellow Sydney-siders with a hot, steaming mug of shut the fuck up. Seriously.

Let's Have Some Fun, This Beat Is Sick

Per usual, I was hopeless this weekend at staying quiet and not spending more in one weekend than most people on the planet make in a year.

Friday wasn't too bad (I was home before 10, although considering we started drinking at our desks at 3.30pm, it wasn't exactly sober) and Saturday went from my plan for quiet lawn bowls in the afternoon to partying at an apartment and contemplating getting into the massive jacuzzi on their roof. Don't worry, didn't happen.

Now I'm struggling because a friend has just texted to let me know he's at a bar nearby, but I'm determined to stay in and spend the evening cooking. And as I've been typing this I've decided that a happy medium might be opening a bottle of red to keep me company while I'm slaving away in the kitchen. Photos of my third degree burns coming soon.

Status Report

I'm feeling guilty about slacking on the blog front this week -- alas, my week involved a trip across the country to spend less than 24 hours in Perth, hence being busy and disoriented. You know you've just gone on a pointless trip when you don't see any purpose in bringing along a charger for your phone or iPod, and don't actually set your clocks back because you'll be back in your original time zone so soon anyway.

While in Perth I had a few hours of meeting and attended a trivia night with the client. Clearly you're held in high regard in the office when you tell your boss about the trivia night beforehand, and she pleads with you not to get too drunk and act like an asshole.

In other news, I have tried to set myself a $400 cash limit each week to cover drinking, eating out, and taxis. It's Friday morning and I have about $100 left, despite the fact that we haven't reached the most expensive two days of the week. I'd consider this a total budget fail, but the Australian government has just approved stimulus payments so I think I'm covered, and will try again next week.

In the meantime, there are farewell drinks tonight and possibly drunken lawn bowls tomorrow, check Facebook for embarrassing photos that I don't manage to untag quickly enough, which is my new favorite pasttime.

It's The Monastery Life For Me

Apologies for going quiet, but my weekend was uncharacteristically subdued. This is mostly because I organized Thursday drinks which turned into me staggering home around 1am and needing several days to fully recover.

The apparent highlight of the night (which I don't remember but was recounted to me over drinks last night) was me being introduced to a friend's colleague and pulling on his curly hair and asking if he was "Jewish or something". Nice.

I even managed a couple of hours at a day spa for a massage and facial to top it all off, since I foresee some very messy weekends ahead, in part because the 4-day Easter Weekend is coming up, and it's what Jesus would have wanted.

Bipolar Advertising

When I changed the template on my blog, the Google ads down the side of the page seemed to have vanished, which was upsetting. Not because I make any real money off of these ads (I seriously make about $0.01 each time someone clicks on one of those) but I find it highly entertaining to see what Google thinks are appropriate ads based on the content of my recent posts.

So imagine my delight when I looked at my blog the other day and the ads were back. Especially because these were the first two listings:


Apparently Google isn't too concerned about mixed messages. Nice work, team.

Fine, Don't Show Up

Although I've been on Facebook for almost 2 years now, I'm still adjusting to various elements of Facebook etiquette. Being who I am, I have no real qualms about deleting a "friend" or 20 at a time, and I often use my status updates to tell people what losers they are. Consider it a public service announcement.

The one thing that continues to get my goat (I'm trying to bring that one back) is events on Facebook. I love the idea that a site that so many people use can be an invite list management tool, but it seems that not everyone got the memo on "How Not To Be Rude, Even If We Are Online". At least back in the days of evite, which was used pretty widely in the US but never took off in Australia, you had total control over the guest list to the extent that I could move people from the "Not Replied" column to "Attending", since I knew they were rude lazy shits that would claim to be too busy to click once on a page they were already looking at.

Alas, in these new days, one simply has to adapt to the following code:

Attending = Possibly, if nothing better comes up
Maybe Attending = I hope you consider this my attempt to come to your event, even though I put zero actual effort into it
Not Attending (with a comment on the wall) = I actually would like to come, but whatever, I'm not
Not Attending (without a comment on the wall) = Oh, are we still friends on this thing? Need to remember to do something about that


And more often that not, the people who actually do show up never bothered replying because they couldn't be bothered.

The reason this bothers me is not because of actual numbers who may or may not attend my events, it's because it makes me look unpopular. Case in point - a day and a half ago I sent a somewhat last minute invite for drinks this evening after work because Miss Chong is in town for a few days and I thought it would be good to introduce her to a few people and have a night out. The numbers?

Attending: 9 (sadly, that includes myself)
Maybe Attending: 17
Not Attending: 4
Not Yet Replied: 70 (including the guest of honor herself, plus at least 8 people who have told me in person or via email that they are coming, but apparently couldn't grasp the concept of an RSVP)


Which makes me think that I might have to go back to email-only invites to events until Facebook lets me play God the way evite did. I am a small, petty man. Awesome.

"You Need A New Liver."

I was reading a recent NYTimes article (actually it is billed as a "blog" which annoys me because I don't see how it's different from one of their articles other than the comments and some marginally different font and page formatting, but I digress) about how we choose drinks based on what we want people to think of us. No huge revelations there, but I still found it an interesting read.

Of course it led me to think about what my drink selections say about me. When I was in New York, my drink of choice was a vodka tonic, both because I liked the taste and also because it was something I'd picked up from my mother. I also thought it seemed a bit classier than drinking a beer, which I associated with poor people and the uncultured. Wine was something that I drank with dinner, but wasn't socially acceptable to be ordered anywhere else.

Moving to Sydney changed all that. Australia (along with other countries like the UK and Ireland, where binge drinking is essentially the norm and a bit of a public hazard) requires that one serve of hard alcohol is equal to one regular shot glass, or 30ml. Considering how much vodka a NYC bartender would normally pour into a vodka tonic, this meant that even ordering a double and paying twice as much left me wondering if I had just been duped into paying for a glass of tonic.

And so, I generally stick to beer and wine. Australian beers are a little bit awesome, especially when compared to the chilled frothy urine that passes for the American version. If I find myself in most places that I would class as a "pub", there's no question that I will order beer. I can actually think of certain pubs I go to on a regular basis that I have never ordered anything other than beer. This is possibly in the fear of anyone in the bar thinking I'm not a real man, which is hilarious considering how many other reasons they would have to think that. But alcohol, much like love, defies logic.

However any trip to somewhere with a nicer atmosphere means that I will lean towards ordering a decent bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, ideally with a friend, as the looks that come along with asking for a bottle and one glass generally aren't kind. I imagine that being specific about my choice of wine makes me seem more worldly than the fatass next to me asking for a $3 schooner of beer, which is also ironic considering that wine gets me drunk and beligerent so much faster and results in many more broken glasses and hurt feelings.

The one other choice that happens literally a handful of times a year is a Smirnoff Black (a.k.a. Smirnoff Blackout) which might seem like a girly drink at first glance, but essentially says that I've decided I have no issues with not remembering anything that has happened or will happen within 3 hours in either direction of that first sip. Because really, you have to save the good stuff for special occasions.

Dickhead

I went out briefly on Saturday night after a nice, quiet day at home. Killed a 6 pack of beer at a friend's place and then headed out to a club to say hi to a few others.

At one point a photographer walked up and quickly snapped a photo of me and a couple of friends, and feeling a bit feisty, I decided to yell at him as he walked away. I believe it was something along the lines of "I'm so sick of you paparazzi following me around! Can't I just have some privacy! I'm a person too! LEAVE. ZANDER. ALONE!!!"

My friends (who I should more accurately refer to as acquaintances, or perhaps former acquaintances now) were sufficiently horrified. This is why I don't get invited out more often.

Unnecessary

Probably should have known last night was going to be material for embarrassment in the morning when I was drunk and had broken the seal before I'd even left the office at 5.30pm.

Things that just did not need to happen included:

• Me and the Hickster jumping in a taxi to go meet a friend and then both completely blanking on which bar we were supposed to go to, followed by the Hickster asking the taxi driver to list every bar in Kings Cross he could think of in the hopes that one of them might ring a bell. WTF.

• Being introduced to a colleague of a friend who I assumed was a lesbian, and upon being corrected that she is not actually a lesbian, asking her "Oh, so is this just a phase?"

• Running into an acquaintance I haven't seen in about a year, finding out he just went through a breakup a week ago, and then giving him breakup advice.

And to think that was all accomplished by 11pm. That's efficiency for you.

If You Have To Ask...

The other day I went on a bit of a rant (you know, for something different), this time about how ridiculously enraged I get when someone asks me "So, are you ever moving back to the US?"

For reasons that I have yet to fully understand, that question is insanely annoying to me. My main gripe with it is that it's just a really, really dumb question. It's essentially the equivalent of asking a single person "So, are you ever getting married?"

People, come on. How on earth could I possibly know how the rest of my life is going to play out, unless you lend me your functioning crystal ball moments before asking me that question? I might move back to the US. I might stay in Australia. I might move to Paris. I might do some mix of all of those, plus a few others. I really have no idea, and I don't have some silly five or ten plan in place, considering anyone who has one of those and makes it public generally looks like a jackass in five to ten years unless their "plan" involved something painfully mundane like "getting married and having kids", which pretty much anyone can do as long as they throw all their other far more interesting life plans down the shitter.

Perhaps I'm assuming the worst when someone asks me that question, but I just find it incredibly presumptuous. A more carefully worded "Do you ever think you might want to move back to the US?" is possibly a little more acceptable, although just as hypothetical. I think a "So, how's Australia?" is general enough to seem like you have a more sincere interest in my life, while also standing a pretty good chance of giving you my view on if I'm thinking I might spend much more time here.

Overall, I agree it's likely that I'm being overly sensitive, and people are probably just making small talk and that's one of the more obvious things to ask me considering they haven't seen me in years and don't actually know anything about my life beyond the fact that I now live in Australia. And so, I have agreed that going forward anyone who asks me this question is simply going to get a response of "Next Tuesday" without any further explanation, and we'll see how that goes down. Dumbasses.

Still Drunk Hall of Fame - Lady Gaga

I made my first 'Hall of Fame' post over 4 years ago with the intention of doing one every few months to highlight awesome drunk celebrities. Unfortunately, many drunk famous people are simply not so awesome, and generally come off as kind of creepy and depressing (e.g. Amy Winehouse), so there's been less than one of these a year.

However, I am proud to bestow the latest admission to this esteemed group of dumbasses to none other than Lady Gaga. Over the last few months, as she has topped charts around the world, she has started showing up in photos on almost a weekly basis where she is stumbling out of clubs, or even better, being carried out by her bodyguards.

Now in the interests of full disclosure, I pretty much worshipped this chick from the moment I heard her first single open with the lyrics "I've had a little bit too much..." -- clearly this would be someone I can relate to. And considering her newest song has her telling some dude that she "wants to take a ride on [his] disco stick", I'm pretty sure she's my version of Jesus.

However I think we can all love someone who not only sings about getting drunk, having sex, and partying all night and day, but clearly lives by these things as the pillars of her life and reason for being. And we should probably consider the fact that she walks around dressed in what looks like bedazzled underwear as a bonus.

Nevermind, I'm Just Awesome (Relatively Speaking)

I would like to immediately retract all of my statements in my last post about being a sad old man because I am planning my 30th birthday party 9 months in advance.

The about-face is because last night I got home (from my 4th night of drinking in a row, but that's another blog post) and received a birthday invitation for the 30th birthday picnic of a former high school friend who now lives in D.C., which included the following line:

"If you want to bring food to share, I would appreciate it being vegan."


And so, my comments:

• Have you ever received an invite asking that all the food brought to a picnic or pot luck dinner be "appropriate for omnivores"? There's a reason for that. It's rude and self-centered, considering the vast majority of invitees are likely to be normal. Get over yourself, and bring your own cardboard to munch on if you're going to be difficult.
• This is why no one likes vegans.
• Who throws a picnic for their 30th? Picnics are for sunny Sundays, or when your children turn 6. Be a little more creative.
• You've invited 250 people to your birthday picnic. I will be impressed if more than 4 show up after reading your request for vegan food, mostly because non-vegans generally find it hard to figure out what weird restrictions there are in vegan diets and after looking it up probably won't be enthused about attending an event where everyone is determined to eat only lentils and tree bark.
  
• While I'm fortunate enough to have "I live in Australia" as an excuse, I would be more than ready to think of a few good ones if I lived anywhere near D.C., or even in the actual park that you are throwing this painful-sounding event.
  

The major positive of all this includes that I can at least feel comfort in the fact that my 30th birthday won't suck as much as this one, as I imagine 9 months of planning should at least result in something marginally better than a vegan picnic.

Pathetic Old Man

There's little out there that has made me realize what a loser I am more than the fact that, 9 months in advance, I've started planning my 30th birthday party.

And so, with 267 days to spare before that momentous occasion rolls around, I have considered different venues (originally wanted a harbour cruise, but decided the logistics and cost were all a bit much), discussed my options with the event staff (I want my own DJ and catering for the first 2 hours), created A and B invite lists (I wouldn't actually notice if anyone on the B list wasn't there), and started to think about what I'm going to wear.

I'm not sure why I'm so ridiculously excited about this, apart from the obvious fact that I love anything that is all about me. Although when you think about it my 30th birthday is probably the only really huge party I will get to throw for myself for quite some time, especially considering I certainly don't plan on getting married unless it becomes some sort of global mandate, with noncompliance being punished with unending and repeated viewings of MTV reality shows or something equally likely to inspire depression and suicide.

And so, I feel rather justified in my exuberance, even if it means that I have made the planning of this party a priority over other possibly relevant things like figuring out what hotels I will be staying at in cities around South America in May, consoling friends who are living through various life traumas at the moment, and so many work related items that I won't list any here because I don't want anything to distract me from the big THREE-O.

It's become so much of a focal point that I think my friends and family might want to start preparing for the fallout when I wake up the day after my birthday and realize I have nothing left to live for. At least not for another 10 years.

Hooked On Chingrish

I got another one of those Engrish emails today, and while most of it is the usual immigrant hilarity, I am determined that I will own this shirt in the near future:


(This riveting update on my life is brought to you by a very boring Thursday afternoon.)

Best Spam Ever?

I've always been a fan of creative junk mail, it's always interesting to see what subject line the email hackers in Russia believe will make millions of stupid Americans open and click.

However I have to wonder what the target audience is when I open my junk mail folder as I did just now and see the subject "Virgin Credit Card in ass".

I mean, I have a Virgin Money credit card, but somehow I'm guessing this isn't an official email from my financial institution. And I'm not quite sure there's value in combining financial products with porn. Nonetheless, I would LOVE to see the click rates on that one. If it's successful, I'm looking forward to "Stick your huge c0ck into super low mortgage rates!"

Window To A Messy Past

This past week was like I had suddenly decided to revisit my life about 3 years ago. Between a few visitors being in town and the run up to Mardi Gras, it was just a drunken mess.

Tuesday was my biggest schoolnight out in months, and on Wednesday I suffered indeed, but still managed to drag myself out for a few quick drinks after work. Friday and Saturday each involved between 6 and 9 hours of partying, and now that it's all over I wouldn't mind a few weeks of sitting at home knitting, or something equally old and lame.

Work has also gotten ridiculously quiet for the past week or so, which has been awesome despite the inevitable worries that if it gets too quiet I will be another statistic. My list of things I managed to do last week included my US taxes, showing up between 10 and 11 in the morning every single day, and planning out my partying schedule for the week.

This week isn't looking much more exciting, and between my allergies and my very empty calendar for tomorrow, I'm considering a well-deserved and overdue sick day at the beach. Don't be hatin'.

Name Envy

I was reading a New York Times article the other day where they casually quoted a woman named "Autumn Boomgarden", and I developed some serious name envy because I thought it was awesome. Sounds like someone destined to be a pop star (or a stripper) and I was amazed that she had somehow escaped fate and ended up as the head of a customer service team.

It reminded me of the time I worked with a hefty black woman named Robin Hood. Yeah, seriously. And the Hickster claims she has an ex-boyfriend named BJ Blowes, and her friend had a boyfriend named Guy Feeler. There are a lot of cruel parents in the world.

As for the one below, I am making the assumption that the guy gave the news station a fake name, for the love of god.

Sounds Fair To Me

I just read an article (accompanied by this photo, which was the last thing I needed to see right when I'm deciding what to get for lunch) about a woman who called 911 three times because she paid for McNuggets at McDonald's and was then told that they were all out.

While I may not have called 911 (and certainly not three times), I can tell you that if I had been in the same situation, there would have been a scene, and I would have essentially forced the McManager to drive to the nearest other McDonald's and get me my fucking McNuggets. You don't screw around with my processed "chicken", damnit.

Also...

I somehow managed to forget the best conversation I had while working on Saturday afternoon, this one with a guy who was clearly already drugged out of his mind at 3pm.

Me: Here's your wristband -- have a good time!

Crackhead: OH MY GOD.

Me: Uh...what?

Crackhead: WHERE are you FROM?

Me: Um, New York.

Crackhead: HOLY SHIT!

Me: Enjoy yourself, bye!

Crackhead: Wait, wait...do you know...that...that THING?!

Me: Not sure where you're going with this...

Crackhead: Oh you know...that thing...oh, oh...CLOVERFIELD?!

Me: Hmm, yes, I saw the movie.

Crackhead: Wow.

Me: Yeah. Totally.

Advice to Upcoming Young Wristbanders of the World

As a favor to a friend, I ended up working on Saturday afternoon. Specifically, I was standing at the entrance to a massive music festival putting paper-plastic wristbands on people as they walked in. Yes, seriously.

It wasn't all bad. I was paid some small sum of money (something like $25/hour), and allowed free entry (to an event that costs around $150) at 6pm after I was done working. More importantly, I learned some very valuable lessons about wristbanding that I can now share with the general population. Take note:

• Wristbanding is one of those activities that looks deceptively easy when you see someone else do it, but let me tell you it is harder than it looks. There are so many complex nuances about a wristbanding transaction -- the approach from either party, the size of their wrist, if the wristbandee is holding things, etc. -- that can mean epic wristbanding failure should something go even slightly wrong. They should make this a special certification subject.

• I decided early on that I would attempt to say something friendly and conversational to as many people as I could, and I kept it up for most of my shift. However, I have a newfound respect for friendly staff, as it was utterly exhausting. Having said that, being a miserable shit seems even worse, so I am confident I made the right choice, and recommend you do the same.

• Making 3-second conversation with what must have been over a thousand people consecutively within one afternoon is not easy. You end up figuring out a few catch phrases and using them often, e.g. "Have a good time!", "Enjoy yourself!", "Love your outfit!" and so on.

• You can be as nice and smiley and conversational as you want, but some percentage of people will not look at you (or even in some cases, pause to have the wristband put on them) for even a moment. Get used to it.

• As obvious as it seems after the fact, commenting on the size of someone's wrist is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs, regardless of the urge that arises every time someone with a spectacularly small or large wrist comes through. I probably told about 30 women that they had the smallest wrist I had seen that day, and I doubt they were too offended, but I'm guessing the girl who I "joked" that I might need more than one wristband for (and who I had assumed was a man from the size of massive forearm and nothing else) was far from amused.

• Likewise, you will occasionally be faced with a ridiculously fat person who says something like "Don't make it too tight.", just as you were wondering what laws of physics you might have to break to even come close to getting only one wristband to fit around what would be considered a cankle if it were located in a different part of their body. Hopefully by the time you're done, they realize the stupidity of the request and everyone can move on.

• Midgets are distracting, especially when they are dressed in gold spandex and are standing 10 feet behind you handing out the list of set times for all of the different acts on each stage. Resist the urge to stare but also the natural reflex, when someone asks you about the list of set times, to simply blurt out "The midgets have them." It simply offends said midgets and confuses the person who hasn't looked down yet.

• Around 5 hours or so after the festival has started, people will start getting dragged out of the event by police and/or security, often handcuffed while covered in dirt, blood, and clearly off their faces on alcohol and/or pills. This is by far the most entertaining part of your day, so enjoy it.

All in all, it wasn't such a horrible experience, and clearly I found more than a few moments rather amusing. We were also at a secondary entrance, which meant we weren't that busy and could enjoy all the acts (N.E.R.D., Paul Oakenfold, Basement Jaxx, etc.) that were playing on the main stage right behind us. And once we got off work, I had the opportunity to slam about 3 Smirnoff Blacks within about 10 minutes to try and catch up with everyone who had started drinking 6 hours or more before I did.

Having said all that, it's unlikely I will be doing it again, favor or not, and so I bequeath to the world my personal learnings in the hopes that it was not all in vain.

And Y'all Said I Ain't Classy

I'm no profound lover of art, but I think we can all appreciate the beauty in a truly touching photograph:


You can find the entire gallery here. It's all very moving. And I'm not just saying that because my breakfast consisted of stale Ritz crackers and some cheese I found at the bottom of my fridge.

And That's Two Strikes...

I've just been assigned my first permanent "counsellee" since coming to this job, a new graduate who joined the team this week. I've had a few summer intern/vacationer types before, but this will be the first time I actually have to care because they will be here for more than 3 months.

I already had mixed feelings about the whole thing, but the following items are already threatening my relationship with my counsellee, and thus, his career:

1) As is common these days, I went to Facebook to look him up once I found out what his name was. Not only is his profile freely available to anyone who might want to take a look, but one of his profile photos is definitely of him smoking a bong. This treads the very thin line between excusable due to being young and needing advice, and just lacking common sense as a fundamental trait. And just when I was willing to dismiss this as an easily overlooked error on his part...

2) ...in the email that goes around when someone starts, we ask what songs they have on their iPod or something equally inane. And so, I have major issues that one of the "artists" on his list was none other than Nickelback. I hate Nickelback with such a passion that I'm not sure I can even put it into words. Apart from from the hideously ugly lead singer, and the fact that you can essentially sing almost any of their songs over another because they are the SAME SONG, I don't even think it's possible to like Nickelback in an ironic way. Sure, I like Britney Spears, but not only do I refrain from taking her seriously, but I'm not even sure Britney Spears takes Britney Spears seriously, and therefore I excuse myself from being labelled as someone with genuinely awful taste in music.


And so, it's day 2 of this kid's new job, and he's only one strike away from officially sinking his career in online consulting. Just try me, buddy.

I'm Not Supposed To Be Here

Per my usual weekend plans as of late, I had intended to have a pretty quiet one.

On Friday, I accidentally wore jeans that were somewhat moldy, due to having left them sitting in the washing machine for about, oh, 47 hours longer than I should have, before finally drying them. (It was a busy week, cut me a break.)

Even better was how I realized I was wearing moldy jeans when, as I was sitting on the bus to work, I decided something smelled and started looking around for a homeless person before realizing it was me. My day continued to lack dignity, as my boss (20 minutes into a meeting) asked me if I thought her office smelled, and I spent the last 3 hours of my day having my colleagues spray me down with Febreze every hour, on the hour. Fortunately, my evening was spent at crowded bars and restaurants where no one could smell the difference.

On Saturday, having washed my jeans and aiming for a decidedly quiet afternoon, I went over to a friend's place dressed like an idiot thinking my night would end there, and that said outfit would help prevent me from going out.

Cut to 10pm, when I left a bar and headed to a housewarming party I had forgotten I was supposed to be attending. Nothing says class like getting to your friend's place and being high-fived by a bunch of random frat-boy types because you have an image of a sheep on your shirt and a comment that suggests an interest in beastiality.

And so, I'm sure you can all see why I wasn't that disappointed to head to work dressed in "smart casual" attire on Monday morning. Bring on Tuesday.

Fat Camp, Here I Come

There simply has to be a strong correlation between how hard I am forced to work and how much revenue the McDonald's across the street from my office takes in.

This week has been completely insane in terms of work, and it's unlikely that I'll get a chance to breathe before Thursday evening. And for some reason, the combination of stress, exhaustion, and not being quite sure what time I'll be able to go home and eat a normal meal, justifies in my mind the decision to get a McDonald's meal and a McFlurry around 4pm every day to hold me over until dinnertime.

I had actually been doing really well over the last few weeks or so and avoided the Micky D's afternoon snack trips, but apparently I'm much weaker than I ever imagined. And at this rate it won't be long before I stop seeing ads for the Skinny Man Workout Routine or whatever it is that Facebook keeps showing me:


Which is extremely disturbing in its own way, because seriously, how do they know that I'm skinny? Do fat people get different ads? Because I swear that for the few months last year where I actually started to get concerned that I didn't qualify as "skinny" anymore, those ads stopped showing up. Does Facebook have some sort of scanning technology that looks at our pictures and tells them if I'm probably someone who couldn't fight off a 12-year old girl if needed? But I suppose that's a whole other blog post, and my 4 minutes of relaxation has apparently expired, so it will have to wait.

The New WebMD

I just looked at the stats for my blog for possibly the first time in a year or so. I actually had to ask a fellow blogger what the site was where I could go to check. Turns out that no matter how much or little I post, the same amount of people read this thing. Go figure.

However every now and then I get curious about the keywords people Google find my blog, and the one that keeps reappearing is often along the lines of "treating a broken toe" or "care for broken toe". It turns out that I broke my toe a few years back (which I don't really remember at this point) and briefly blogged about it. Since then, I'd guess that at least 100 and probably more people have ended up on my blog post when trying to figure out what they should do about their own broken toes.

Pardon my French, but that's pretty fucked. I'd imagine there's a lawsuit in this for Google eventually, since surely there are a million other websites with more relevant information than this one on how to take care of your broken toe, and all it will take is one kid with a broken toe and an extra chromosome to take my blog post seriously for the shit to hit the fan.

I'm not even sure where I was originally going with this post (I swear I had a point in mind when I started) because now all I can think about is how after this post and the fact that I've written "broken toe" 6 more times (now 7), I will probably become the leading source on broken toe (8) treatment on the web. And in a strange way, that prospect excites me.

I've just re-read this post and, well...I'm sorry. I promise to drink more.

Enabler

The Hickster, who I've mentioned here before, is someone I met in July when I was up at Port Douglas on a snorkeling trip on the reef. Turned out she was relatively new to Sydney, which was perfect since most of my good friends were in the process of moving to other countries. At this point she's probably my best friend in Australia, as she is very social and always up for an adventure.

On Saturday night, me and the Hickster decided to meet up for a glass of wine because we hadn't seen each other in a couple of weeks. We instantly started ordering bottles of Sauvignon Blanc, and within hours were dancing wildly to the "greatest" dance hits of the 90's.

This tends to be how almost every outing together turns out. We briefly came to the realization that night that she and I haven't sat down to dinner or anything remotely civilized other than the day we met. It's by no means that we aren't able to have fun without being drunk. I would say that I have some of my most interesting and even, dare I say, philosophical conversations with the Hickster. Alas, we both love similar wine and that always seems to be more than enough justification to order bottles, starting a vicious cycle.

And so, we've started brainstorming for things we can do that wouldn't involve such ridiculous amounts of booze. We've attempted a games night at my place that resulted in no games being played and me dragging about two garbage bags of empty bottles down to recycling the next morning. We did a picnic in the park once which was mostly subdued, but probably would have taken a turn for the worst if we didn't each have somewhere else to be shortly thereafter. And once we tried to give ourselves credit for only having one bottle of wine after work one Friday, but considering I had a flight super early the next morning and the Hickster's flatmate was at home recovering from surgery and dependent on her for food, it's safe to say that it took something close to an act of god to accomplish that.

If anyone out there can help us find something to do that might be a little healthier and cheaper than supporting the Sydney nightlife industry, we promise to be fascinated by your suggestions.

Why Would That Be Okay?

There is no reason I should walk out onto my balcony in the morning, look over to my right, and see this:


And yet...this is what happened. I supposed I should provide a couple of disclaimers on my neighbors behalf:

1) It has been 30-35 degrees (80-90 F) in Sydney for at least a few weeks now, and

2) I myself have probably stepped out onto my balcony in my underwear, albeit briefly, to get a feel for how hot it might be, or to water the plants.


However I tend to avoid doing that in briefs, and I certainly don't throw on pink rubber gloves and spend far too long cleaning my BBQ for hundreds of neighbors to see. Perhaps he thought no one would really see, or it didn't matter because it was just his balcony and not the internet or something. Oops.

Laziness Squared

Well I haven't blogged in days, and I still can't really find the motivation, so instead of a proper post, here's some recycled junk that's going around Facebook that forces you to make a list of 25 things about yourself and then coerce your unassuming friends into reading it by tagging them:

1. The first time I was tagged in one of these things about a week ago, I rolled my eyes and swore I wouldn't do it. By the 5th time I'd been tagged, I felt left out, and I hate feeling left out.

2. I didn't think I would have 25 things to say about myself, and then remember that I talk about myself like it's my job, so this shouldn't really be an issue.

3. 25 people isn't a lot, I'd probably tag more but I am surprisingly one to follow the rules. Otherwise I'd tag at least 75 people.

4. Once every few months I worry that having too many Facebook friends seems really lame and desperate, and I go through and cull around 20 people.

5. I keep people who have funny/interesting status updates, even if I have literally no interaction with them in real life or virtually.

6. I feel really really sorry for the people who have extremely boring status updates about their lives ("Toby Wilkins is eating breakfast!!"), and especially people who do day by day countdowns to their next vacation, which really just illustrates how little else is going on in their lives.

7. Since mid-2008 I have deleted at least 4 people for being Republicans, and I actually feel kind of bad that I'm so closed-minded. But I'd delete them all again if I had the chance. Preferably for a Burger King Whopper this time.

8. I just got a request to move a meeting to two hours later, which means I now have time to go out and lay by the pool and work on my tan, but I am stuck writing this because I can't stand starting something and not finishing it.

9. I clean my apartment for hours at a time at least once every weekend. I worry that it's a form of mild-OCD, but it makes me feel really good so I won't be seeking diagnosis or treatment.

10. If I didn't drink I would own at least one house by now. If I didn't travel internationally, I would own two or more. Seriously, I've done the math.

11. I think teetotaling 30 year olds who own a house and rarely travel internationally should kill themselves.

12. Sometimes I wonder if my natural tendency to speak constantly and very loudly are some sort of a neurological disorder that hasn't been recognized by medical science yet.

13. I've tried in the past to not talk so much at social gatherings, but I often find that I'm far funnier and more interesting than anyone else in the room and can't hold it in.

14. Every now and then I have pangs of sadness to think that I may never live in the same city as some of my closest friends ever again.

15. My excitement for my upcoming 4 week trip to South America only slightly outweighs how mortified I am at how much it's going to cost, essentially spending half of my 2009 tax refund 3 months before I get it.

16. Lately I've become addicted to home renovation and cooking shows, and I'm paranoid that as I approach 30 I'm turning into one of those boring people who wants to buy a house and throw dinner parties instead of getting drunk in random cities around the world.

17. In the past year I've started to feel guilty about eating junk food and not exercising, after almost three decades of thinking people who had to worry about that sort of thing were losers.

18. I just realized I've been writing this for almost 20 minutes now and I'm a bit worried that no one will read it other than the people with the boring status updates. (If you just read that, CLEARLY I didn't mean YOU!)

19. My dream life would be spending October to April in Sydney and May to September in New York, with plenty of other places in between.

20. I would love to live in Paris for at least a few months, but I'm not sure I'd ever have the balls to move there the way I moved to Sydney.

21. Occasionally I wish I had a really strong and consistent work ethic, but then I look around at the people that do and I think they're kind of boring, and I'm not so sure it's possible to have it all.

22. There are old fat ugly women on my hotel room TV screen right now and I am judging them.

23. Clearly I am struggling with the list of 25, as I really just want to head out to the pool now.

24. I hope there aren't any old fat ugly people at the pool. It makes me uncomfortable...as if I thought it might be contagious or something.

25. I can't believe I'm still writing this, or that you're still reading it. Now I remember why I didn't want to do this in the first place.

Serves Me Right For Being Subtle

Okay just a quick rant, folks -- let's do this one as a hypothetical situation.

Let's say you're new to town and you meet someone who seems pretty cool, fun and social. So you exchange contact info, you hang out with this person and their friends a couple of times, and all is well.

Then on a Friday morning, you email this person and ask what they're up to after work. Said person responds and says they are meeting up with some former colleagues at a bar in the city, and will be in touch later to possibly meet up. Which of the following adventures would you choose?

A) Say that getting in touch later sounds good, and make other plans

B) Respond to indicate that maybe you will just get together another time, and make other plans.

C) Ask if you can join the group.

D) Reply to say that you will be at the bar at 5.30pm, waiting.


So yeah, I might have a stalker, and I am vaguely annoyed about it. He's not even a bad person, I don't dislike him, and maybe it's my own fault for telling him what bar I was going to after work. However, I didn't realize that you had to be more obvious than pointing out that it was a get together for people who used to work together (i.e. this has nothing to do with you). Not to mention that when someone says "Oh yeah, stay in touch tonight and maybe I'll see you later" is pretty much universal for "I have better things to do, I will call you if I'm bored at any point in the next few years."

Focused Intolerance

Lately I've grown a bit concerned with my behaviour and inability to deal with a certain type of person. And that would be...willfully ignorant Republicans. Specifically, I can name at least 4 people that I have deleted from my friend list on Facebook for at least one of the following charges:

1) Praising Sarah Palin, without a hint of sarcasm
2) Announcing, once again sans sarcasm, that they were a McCain supporter, even after the Palin selection and Joe The Plumber fiasco
3) Saying something about Bush not being that bad, despite the crumbling of the world economy, a decline in American power and stability not seen in decades, if ever, and the fact that the Constitution will take years to repair after the past 8 years
4) Acting as though Obama is really the worst possible thing to walk into the Oval Office, even though it has instantly gained America respect of the kind we haven't seen in years, and has some of our worst enemies willing to consider talking to us instead of figuring out the fastest way to rid the planet of us


I consider myself to be a very open minded human being. And not just because I think that, in general, people should be able to do what they want to do as long as they're not causing anyone harm. Even when I see people who are blinded by religious and intolerant beliefs and constantly judge others for the way they live, I really try to at least understand that they come from a very different place than I do, and that there's a reason (if not an excuse) for the way they are. It's what I like to think of as a What Would Obama Do? philosophy.

But when someone posts a link to a story on World Net Daily that talks about how Obama is the end of America, I'm not sure I'd have the restraint to not hit the "Delete from Existence" button were I given access to God's control panel. And this is not even for having conservative or Republican beliefs. I actually think there are a lot of intelligent and reasonable Republicans out there, even if I don't particularly agree with their point of view. But if you get your news from World Net Daily, you're officially a moron.

Exhibit A: The person who wrote the article is clearly 15 years old. He may be skilled at the use of a Thesaurus (did he really use the word "platitudinous"?) but if anyone thinks big words equals smart ideas, maybe they should be writing for this site.

Exhibit B: There is an ad for an Ann Coulter book. Even die-hard Republicans who have never seen the inside of a community college think this whackjob is simply an attention-seeking idiot who just wants to sell books. At this point even the most dim-witted of readers must know they are in unfortunate company.

Exhibit C: Loving this headline below...if not only that it's shocking in its ridiculousness, you've gotta appreciate the fact that those who claim to be the most patriotic don't seem to know how to spell "America".


If anyone thinks I'm being a bit harsh by culling my Facebook list for this reason, please please please let me know. I won't do anything about it, but I might pretend to care.

Happy Australia Day - I Hate You

This past weekend was a long one -- we had Monday off for Australia Day, where even old people seem to find it perfectly acceptable get trashed all day and dance. But this post isn't about drunken dancing old ladies. Some people even seem to find such things "cute" and think I'm a bastard for being horrified by their very existence. So fine, let me move on.

I want to talk about the BBQ I went to at my cousin's house on Sunday. It was her new house which was pretty cool, and we all set into drinking heavily, singing along to music, and ended up playing midnight volleyball in the pool, surely to the delight of all the neighbors.

The most offensive part though, was having "that girl" in attendance. I've supposedly met her before, although I have zero recollection. And understandably so, as I imagine many people actually block out memories of her. She was the girl that inevitably starts a massive fight with her boyfriend any time they are in a group with other people, and then acts like a complete ass clown and cries and wants people to have sympathy for her.

Now don't get me wrong, I realize most people have been there. You're drunk, a certain mood strikes, and things get a bit messy. But if you're the person that does this every single time you smell a beer, then maybe it's time to reevaluate your life. Especially if you're crying, then dancing, and then dancing AND crying at the same time. Do you have ANY idea what that looks like, even to people who have been drinking beer, wine and vodka for 12 hours? My god.

Some additional tips for the "lady" in question:

1) We got out of the pool about 2 hours ago. Please get your not-so-toned ass out of that bikini into some real clothes.

2) If I very deliberately turn away from you at the moment you make eye contact with me when you're looking for someone's shoulder to cry on, I am not simply delaying that scenario. I am excusing myself from it. Don't try again 5 minutes later.

3) When I posted the photos to Facebook and didn't tag you in any of them, I actually thought I was doing you a favor. I realize you're no poster girl for the concept of "dignity", but why you would want to tag yourself in a photo where your eyes were rolled back in your head and you were slipping out of your bikini top, I can't even imagine.

4) Please be aware that even though I accepted your friend request just to be polite, I will delete you from my list at the next culling and simply hope you don't notice. Don't make me block you.

Obligatory Inauguration Post

Apologies for the silence, it's been a busy week. I could have blogged a few days ago to talk about the weekend and yet another lunch turning into a half day bender that resulted in at least one person blacking out before the sun went down, but would that really add anything to what's been catalogued here over the last few years? I think not.

I have to admit I struggled for something to blog about. And as excited as I am about the inauguration of a President who doesn't inspire me to take voice lessons so that I sound like I was raised in a South American jungle as opposed to any location that sits on the same continent as Texas, the whole event being talked and blogged and commented to death.

In particular, everyone is obsessed with what Michelle Obama would wear throughout the day. And in what might be a more unique commentary on that, I have to say...I don't really get it. Let me be clear -- I don't hate what she wears. I think it's nice enough. More importantly, it's not nearly as boring as what we've seen on pretty much any other political wife out there. But it doesn't blow me away or anything. And what she was wearing for the ceremony itself, while not offensive by any stretch of the imagination, does look like someone took a Bedazzler to my grandmother's sofa upholstery. If it helps, I'd give it credit for looking like something that was thrown together by one of the promising designers who made it to the final 6 on the lost season of Project Runway and maybe even won this specific challenge that involved choosing a piece of furniture to transform into formalwear, but I think all the ass-kissing that's going on about it is just a little over the top. And really, if most of us had to pick a globe trotting first lady to be if we had the choice, I think we all know the prize would go to Carla Bruni, minus the whole having sex with Nicholas Sarkozy bit.

FAIL

After getting off to a great start this year in terms of cutting back on the partying and spending ( I realize it's only been two weeks, but you have to count the small victories, people), I am sitting at my desk at work having just agreed to go to a ridiculously expensive lunch at a nearby steakhouse with my colleagues.

The lunch isn't for another 45 minutes so I still have plenty of time to change my mind, but I've already looked over the menu, decided on the starter, main, and sides that I want, and even which glass of cab sav I'll be ordering.

I feel pretty guilty about it already, since my original plan for lunch today involved a $9.90 burrito. My rationalization at this point includes:

• I'm always still hungry after the burrito
• It's Friday and I should really eat a lot of food before I start drinking this afternoon
• We all have to treat ourselves every now and then

Any other pointers would greatly improve my comfort level with this whole scenario, so please, pass them on.

Ah, The Good Old Days

I'd blog about my weekend, but you'd all be bored to tears. I did have a big Friday night, but I don't remember enough of it to make it sound remotely interesting.

What I did remember all of a sudden though, was a few weeks back when I was at a supposedly exclusive bar (or at least they try to make it appear that way) and before it was even 8pm some dude started throwing up in the middle of the bar.

That in itself is something of an accomplishment, however to make it so much better, he apparently ran into the bathroom to finish puking, and totally ralphed on a random guy's back, as the innocent victim was simply trying to take a piss at a urinal.

It just reminded me of my younger, more exciting days, that's all.

I have "a quick drink" planned with Busty tonight after not seeing her for ages, so we'll see if I can follow that up with falling the stairs after two bottles of wine each, as I may have done in 2008. Allegedly.

Zero Improvement

I mean that in at least two ways...the first being that just a week ago I mentioned how slack my blogging had been, and here we are a week later in the same situation. And I haven't even been that busy.

Also, there's my bad habits in general. I'm not really a believer in New Years Resolutions. My thoughts on the matter are really that if you were going to make any significant change in your life, you'd do it whether it was January 1st or not. I always laugh when I see people saying they will start a diet "on Monday", while shoving a greasy burger into their face on Thursday afternoon. Because we all know that if they had any real interest in improving their dietary habits, they would already have started.

However, I do understand the impulse to see certain moments in one's life as a chance for a new beginning. I've generally tried to be a bit healthier and to spend a little less money over the last few months, if not longer, but how much I've succeeded is questionable. I do think I'm drinking less, which is great, and I'm eating a little healthier these days. However any financial savings in that area has been blown away by my even more extravagant travel adventures.

And so, I had hoped that in some way, 2009 would be a little less indulgent than the previous year. Imagine my dismay then, when on January 3rd, I found myself (I love that phrasing -- as if some people snuck into my house, overpowered me, dressed me up in a suit and dragged me to somewhere I'd never have any interest in going) at the races, betting large sums of money on horses I knew nothing about while downing champagne like it was oxygen.

The quintessential "who-was-I-kidding" moment was when I drunkenly tore up one of my betting tickets, thinking I had lost, only to realize that the horse in 4th actually counted as a "place" and would have gotten me back some of my bet money. Smooth.

Ah well...at least it's Friday and I haven't had a drink since Saturday night. That sure as hell never happened in 2008.

Oops

I hate to say I actually forgot about the blog for the past week. Probably a result of the fact that as my second week off work comes to a close, my average day has consisted of watched TV, reading, napping, and the occasional dinner and drinks with friends. I'd even forgotten that I was supposed to do some work until one of my clients called me a couple of days ago.

In any case, I've actually been mostly well-behaved over the break, other than a very messy Sunday involving drinking on the beach all day and an attempt at clubbing later that night. And of course New Years Eve, which I think can be summarized by the following:


At this point there's a 64% probability that I will be a drunken fool this evening. I can only be a good boy for so long.

Worst. Christmas. Ever.

I had a lovely Christmas lunch with my family yesterday, and then came home to have a quiet and relaxing evening on the couch watching some of my favorite TV shows. Normally this would have been just fine. However, Santa must have decided I was a very naughty boy in 2008, because for Christmas I got...my first cold sore.

I had always assumed that I was one of those people who just didn't get cold sores. But as it turns out, anyone can get them if you get stressed enough, so I'm assuming this is a result of 12 hour work days followed by dinner and drinks every single night for almost a month.

My family and flatmate have all laughed at me because they claim they wouldn't have noticed it at all if I hadn't gotten ridiculously close to them and pointed it out, however it's really more about the fact that even if no one can see it, I feel like I should have half my face covered a la Phantom of the Opera.

Perhaps I should really put things into perspective and consider all the people who are losing their homes or can't afford to even feed their children this holiday season, but instead I intend to stay inside my apartment and feel sorry for myself until this situation is all cleared up. See you all next year.

Christmas Cheer

So I had a few people over yesterday for some drinks. The idea was that we'd do something a bit more wholesome, like play games etc., but we just ended up getting drunk and forgetting that part.

To sum up the evening, here's a bit of a countdown of my favorite moments:

5) Ginny looking at the people on the balcony across from us and asking "Are those mops?"

4) Me trying to drink out of an unopened bottle of beer. Repeatedly.

3) Stranger complaining that he wasn't able to find tickets for a music festival in February, and that when he looked online they were only selling tickets for 2009. Um...

2) Me not realizing someone had closed the glass door to my balcony, and walking into it face first.

1) Ginny leaving the party to meet her boyfriend downstairs to go to dinner with him and his parents...and then coming back upstairs because he told her she was too drunk.


I'm sure this just what the baby Jesus had in mind. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for Christmas Eve drinks...

R.I.P.

While attempting to rearrange my freezer to fit bags of ice in there for my Christmas/Belated B-Day drinks that are starting any moment now, I dropped a half-full bottle of vodka on the floor and it smashed everywhere.

I'm saddened by the loss of booze, which is always a tragedy, however I'm really enjoying the way my apartment now reeks of vodka. It reminds me of Christmas with the family.

It's All Relative

I've had a couple of pretty messy nights in the last week or so, but what I love about those nights is that as embarrassed as you might feel for yourself, it only takes one person to tell you about their night for you to feel almost completely vindicated.

Example #1: Saturday Session In Perth

The aftermath of this one included vague memories of the afternoon pub crawl with Chappy and J, plus new friends picked up along the way, and meeting up with Newman to drink an unnecessary amount of his duty free vodka before heading to the club. This was topped off by cuts on my hands, chipped fingernails (I can only assume I took a few falls on the way back to my hotel), and no recollection of how I could have gotten home.

I was rather angry at myself for being so ridiculous, until Newman called -- he didn't know how he got home either, but was at first just happy he had woken up alone in his hotel room. That is, until he got up and found a stranger's underwear in the bathroom, a used condom on the floor, and a note with a phone number on the bedside table, but still no idea who he had brought home. He wins. Or loses, I suppose.

Example #2: Work Christmas Party In Sydney

I got back to Sydney in time to head out on a yacht on the harbour for 4 hours, which involved me telling far too many embarrassing stories about myself, berating at least one colleague, and stumbling out of the bar without saying goodbye.

My personal humilation was quickly trumped the next day by stories of how one of our graduates had woken up in a towel storage closet at the Park Hyatt, and our boss' corporate card in his pocket.

I am basically a saint in comparison, and will just think about them the next time I do something completely retarded (likely to happen within the next 48 hours).

The City That Sleeps

I've been in Perth for around 5 days now, and I'm finding it hard to sum up for people. Yes, it's relatively small (less than 2 million people), but I would still consider it a city. The weird thing about Perth is how you can actually walk down the main strip in the middle of the day with more than a few massive skyscrapers around you, and feel like you're in a ghost town. Very odd. I've actually had this strange feeling every now and then that it's all just a big set being staged for my benefit. Very Truman Show-ish.

There's actually plenty going on, but you have to be shown where it is. More importantly, the weather has been almost flawless, meaning I've been able to spend what little down time I have laying out by the pool and working on getting my tan out of hibernation. And now I'm looking forward to having at least one day at the beach this weekend, followed by a night of drinking myself silly to make up for all the good behavior of the last few weeks. Time to find out how much these small-towners can take.

Business Travel - Not So Glamorous

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted, but I doubt many have noticed considering how sporadic my updates have been lately.

To recap the weekend very quickly, Brisbane was really good, even though it involved me having the most low-key birthday in possibly my entire 29 years. Better yet is my ability to say that even though it definitely included at least 7 hours of drinking. I'm getting there.

Now I'm in Perth in Western Australia, which I believe has the formal title of "Most Isolated City In The World". It's definitely a bit of a tease being in such a beautiful part of the world and on day 3 all I've really seen is the street between my hotel and the client office, one pub, and a McDonald's (as a result of the pub). I have a few friends here so I'm looking forward to seeing more of the area this week and over the weekend, but my new workaholic ways are threatening to put a stop to that. I know. I don't recognize myself either.

And because I'm working so much, I'm also extremely boring at the moment, evidenced by this post. Expect more painfully boring updates until I get back to Sydney in a week and a half, where I then I have 2 weeks of nothing to do other than get drunk, act stupid, and blog about it. I'm excited too.

The Other Kind Of "-holic" Is More Fun

For perhaps a month or two each year, I go from being a pointless drain on my company's financial resources to the kind of person I usually make fun of after meeting some friends at a pub well before any of us should even be leaving the office -- a workaholic.

This is that moment in 2008. I've managed to coast through most of the year based on the fact that I was promoted last December (so who do I really need to impress for another year or two?) and that I have already taken over 6 weeks of vacation, which tended to be a good excuse to not accept any significant piece of work since I'd be laying on a beach somewhere on the other side of the world before it was finished anyway.

However it's come up to mid-year review time, and I've found myself with an embarrassingly low productivity rating that would reflect someone who was hired to fill some sort of special needs government quota for companies of a certain size. As luck would have it, in the weeks before offical reviews started, I landed two pretty impressive deals -- one through a personal connection and another one because I was just in the right place at the right time, and both have kicked off in the last few days. As a result, I will be traveling to Brisbane for work tomorrow, and Perth for 2 weeks after that. It also means that I've been working 12 hours days and a few hours on the weekends, and that shows no sign of stopping until around February.

I don't handle stress very well. I get even more self-absorbed, I actually socialize a lot less, I get cranky more often than usual. I also don't sleep well because I wake up at 4 in the morning thinking about all the things I need to do when I get to work, and often have to email myself reminders so that I can stop obsessing about them and go back to sleep. But in the end, I generally do really good work for the few weeks that I actually put any effort into it, and it pays off when it comes time to evaluate my performance.

A lot of people are pretty appalled by this approach. Apart from a clear lack of a general work ethic, I will admit that it's pretty sad to know that I am more than capable of being a truly productive member of my team all the time, but just can't be bothered unless there's something in it for me. In my defense though, by setting the bar so low, just a few weeks of actual work really impresses people and probably gets more attention than the people who are working hard all the time. Cynical, but true.

Also, consider this post an excuse for any lack of attention to the blog over the next couple of weeks, while I pretend I have any idea what I'm talking about on a daily basis. Which I suppose isn't that different from the usual.

I Am Not An Imposter

I haven't really blogged in the last few days because I really didn't have much to report. I achieved a relatively quiet weekend, meaning just a handful of beers on Friday night and not a drop of alchohol on Saturday, even after helping a friend move. Australians are very insistent on moving themselves with the help of friends, which I don't feel like I'd ever witnessed until I moved here. In NYC we tend to just hire some guys with a van and watch from the sidelines, eventually shelling out a couple thousand dollars at the end of it all and just being grateful that we're not movers ourselves.

It also annoys me that Australians refer to moving companies as "removalists". It just seems like an unnecessarily complicated word. Not to mention that it's a bit one-sided, as it ignores the fact that after they've removed the items, they place them in a new location. But I digress.

On Sunday I actually came into work for a couple of hours (please, pick your jaws up off the floor), simply to clear my conscience of the few items that I thought it would make sense to just take care of before the onslaught of client workshops and meetings the next day. Once that was done, I felt more than justified in meeting the Hickster at the Yacht Club for "lunch". There was food, but when it's a few pieces of squid after a bottle of wine and then followed by three more bottles of wine, I'm not sure there's any point in pretending that the focus was on the food.

Nonetheless, I consider this success in terms of achieving a quiet weekend, and my last weekend in Sydney until it's almost Christmas, as I'm off to Brisbane on Friday, spending the weekend there, and then flying to Perth on Sunday to spend a couple of weeks there for work. I fully expect both cities to be thoroughly traumatized by the time I'm done. Stories to follow.

Arrrgh Mateys

That subject line actually reminds me of the time I was visiting Australia for the first time around 5 years ago and received an email from Drama with the subject line "Ahoy matey!", as she thought that's what they said to each other here. I had to explain that it was Australia, not Pirate Island, and the term she was trying to think of was "G'day mate". Good times.

But no, this time I use that subject for my post because I actually had a minor operation this morning to remove a small lump from my eyelid. It wasn't particularly noticeable (the proof of that being that I've had it for well over 6 months and almost no one has noticed it until I've pointed it out) but being the vain bastard that I am, I decided to have it removed. As a result I've spent most of today with a ridiculous patch over my eye, which is uncomfortable and about to "accidentally" come loose so I can watch a couple of hours of TV without getting a headache.

Naturally, this has also managed to coincide with the week that I've kicked off two important new projects with two important new clients, so despite being a bit drugged up and unable to see properly, I've spent much of the day sending work emails and on the phone with clients. Considering I have a questionable work ethic at the best of times, I think we can all be sure this won't last long at all.

Gobble Gobble

My Thanksgiving dinner party went off without any major hitches on Saturday afternoon. People started showing up around 3pm and many didn't leave until after 1am -- and security didn't even shut off my power this time!

Probably my favorite moment of the evening was when my flatmate joined us for a bit, and the Hickster - after around 9 hours of drinking, I should mention - had a conversation that involved her establishing that he was my flatmate (although she had met him at least once before) asking him where he worked about 3 times in 10 minutes, and then asking him where he lived. Smooth.

Not long after finishing the food, we cranked up the music, focused on the drinking, and ended up dancing and singing along to modern classics like "Shoop" and "Drop It Like It's Hot", just like the pilgrims did with the Native Americans back in the day. It feels good to keep the traditions alive.

Also fantastic is how the drunkest friends always the ones who want to keep going. There are two I can think of who could barely talk or stand up by the time they left my apartment, and were demanding to know which bar they should go to in order to continue the festivities. Whatever people, just get out of my house.

Relatively Speaking, One Could Think Of Me As A Teetotaler

I actually haven't had a drink since Tuesday night, when the only reason I was out drinking was because a friend was visiting. And I'm aiming to abstain from (or at least limit my exposure to) alcohol this evening as well, since I'm having some 25 people over to my place tomorrow afternoon for an early Thanksgiving dinner and I can't imagine anything worse than cooking a 15 pound turkey and sides while severely hungover.

In the meantime though, I figured I would share a link to some drinking stories that put most of this blog to shame. It's good to know that there are people out there that make me seem like one of the most conservative and boring party people to grace our kind. I also hope that tonight I dream of booze in fountains and rushing through the streets.

Redemption

So after writing myself off on Thursday and Friday, and then following that up with a booze cruise on the harbour for around 5 hours on Saturday, I was feeling pretty wretched on Sunday morning. Since I wasn't too hungover though, I ended up spending most of Sunday doing the one thing that makes me feel better about being such a useless member of society -- I cleaned like a maniac all afternoon.

I cleaned the stove. I cleared out everything questionable in the fridge. I even mopped and cleaned the balcony, which I've never done before in over a year and a half of being in that apartment, and is possibly one of the more pointless activities I've bothered with lately considering the balcony is like outside and stuff, and will be filthy again with a week or so.

I am now attempting a relatively quiet week in preparation for the massive Thanksgiving dinner I'm hosting at my place this coming Saturday. At which point, it starts all over again. Life is funny that way...

It's All A Blur

Quite literally -- I am having trouble focusing on what is actually displayed on my computer monitors at work. I've found myself in that limbo of hungoverness, where I'm far too hungover to do anything productive at work, but not too hungover that I would be opposed to a few more drinks this afternoon.

That Would Be Unfortunate

Based on a mention of it in a Time magazine article, I checked out http://www.livingto100.com and took the Life Expectancy quiz or whatever to see how long it thought I would live based on my various health habits, or lack thereof.

My result was nothing short of horrifying:

Some of you would be surprised to know that I'm a relatively healthy person. I get exercise, I generally don't eat too badly, try to sleep for close to 8 hours a night, all those sorts of things.

I will also readily admit that I got off easy on the drinking question. As with many of these things, their options for the "How many drinks do you have in one sitting?" question were something like a) 1, b) 2, c) 3+, d) I don't drink. I'm sure it would have shaved at least a decade off of my life if they'd kept going and I'd been forced to select q) 17.

And let's hope so, because I can't imagine anything worse than living past 80 years old -- no offense to my absolutely lovely 96-year old grandmother.

I'd write more, but I have a bar to get to if I'm going to get that life expectancy down. Cheers!

Ah, Right...

Just remembered the other item I meant to add to the previous list...and I will own up to this one. I spent so much time out partying this weekend that on Sunday evening when I got home and ran into my flatmate (that's right, not "roommate", get over it), he actually thought I'd been away for the weekend. Nice.

Signs You Had Too Much Fun This Weekend

Had an absolutely huge weekend -- so huge that I'm pretty sure I'm still recovering, as I can't seem to wake up in time to head to the pool in the mornings.

In any case, I would like to add a disclaimer to the following, as not all of them are actually my highlights, but shared between three of us. So without further ado, here are some signs you may have had too much fun this weekend:

1) You claim you're going to have a quiet Friday night, start drinking at 4pm, and head home trashed at 2am thinking you've just managed it.

2) You somehow think it's acceptable to be having a few beers in a bar at 10.30am on a Saturday while waiting for the real drinking to start at lunchtime.

3) Arriving at a cafe for another birthday party after lunch, you sit down to chat with some very sober friends who just happen to be there, and only then realize what a drunken idiot you must sound like, at only 6pm.

4) After meeting a new person, having to sit next to them for a few minutes and realizing you don't like them, you actually signal a big thumbs down to your friend to let them know that the new person sucks. While the new person is still looking at you.

5) You get to an apartment building for a house party, and while waiting for someone to figure out which apartment we need to buzz up to, you turn to your friend and ask him why he can't just let us into his apartment -- and are then informed that it's not his building, which looks nothing like this and is on the other side of the city.

6) While at the house party, you knock a potted plant off the 5th floor balcony -- and are asked to leave the party.



The last one is my favorite, because seriously, who is kicked out of a house party without having started a fight? With one of the hosts? But after 12 hours of celebrating various birthdays, I think it's only fair.

Sadly I think I've forgotten a couple of great moments (go figure!) but if anything comes to mind maybe I'll try to slip it in there without anyone noticing. Haha that made me laugh. Okay, I will stop typing now.

Am I Dead Yet?

Cup Day was the usual madness, and we even ended up at an afterparty to cap off 9 hours of heavy drinking.

And so I woke up feeling awful on Wednesday, but ridiculously excited at the prospect of positive election results. I was stressed and cranky until around 3pm when Obama was announced, and have been completely elated ever since.

Left work early and grabbed a few friends to meet up at the Democrats Abroad party at Slide Lounge, and downed so much champagne that I might actually be part French now.

Alas, the buzz is finally fading, and I think I might die when I get home in just over an hour. Which would be totally worth it.

Giddy Up

Apologies if I've used that same subject line in years previous, but it's Melbourne Cup Day here in Australia, so we're all about to leave the office to spend the afternoon drinking and betting on horses.

This year I was the social chair for Cup Day, so they gave me a $1000 budget to play with, and I've booked a room for 25 of us at the Dolphin Hotel, plus food and a few bottles of champagne.

Pictures to follow, I'm sure.

Scary Stuff

Friday night's big Halloween party went off without a hitch, and I was pretty impressed with most of the Australian's effort, considering they're not really used to celebrating.

The only issue was creativity. Not that mine was particularly mind-blowing, but I made the mistake of telling a couple of people that I had decided to be a cop, and thus ended up with about 4 female partners at the party. Some of the numbers:

Police officer: 5
Amy Winehouse: 3
Pirates: 3
Playboy bunnies: 2
She-devils: 2


And I'm probably a little biased since I was the one who forced Juice to get this one, but this was definitely my favorite:


Full album with captions coming shortly.