Let's Make That "Better Never Than Late"

I somehow missed the original airing of the always ridiculous Eurovision song contest last weekend, and so have settled for viewing it almost a week later. If nothing else, it was a reminder that such experiences are much better in large groups, as it was actually a bit depressing to see these countries embarrassing themselves on a global stage. No better were the Australians who hosted the version that aired here, who even had the balls to ask the Greek contestants if they were sure their country could pay for the event next year if they won this year. Classy.

Still, the theme this year was "Share the Moment", so the least I can do is give you guys a brief rundown of the annual trainwreck that is Eurovision. I may as well just give them in alphabetical order, as there's no easy way to rank a set of performances that delve into the realms of awful the way these do.

Albania - The most notable thing about this performance was the three black backup singers. I'm all for globalization and multiculturalism, but those bitches ain't Albanian.

Armenia - They had the hottest singer (Eva Rivas, for those who want to Google her), but considering the name and topic of the song was an "Apricot Stone" I have to admit I still have no idea what was going on other than her hotness.

Belarus - Painfully boring song called "Butterfly Wings" that was almost worth ignoring until the 'climax' when the girls' dresses burst open into butterfly wings. Fantastic, if you then ignore the fact that they kept singing.

Denmark - These guys had a forgettable song, but between various parts of the stage moving around constantly and the wind fans blowing so hard we thought the performers might tumble away, they get points for trying. And then lose them for failing.

Georgia - I can't remember if it was truly horrible or just kinda crap, and simply don't have the energy to look it up on YouTube and suffer through it again.

Germany - The German chick technically sang in English but it didn't sound like English other than a few key words. She still managed to win, with her acceptance speech starting with her saying the award was too heavy for her to hold, and then finished with her trying to get out of singing her song again, as is custom at these esteemed awards.

Iceland - I have to say, I didn't mind this so much, despite it essentially consisting of a fat woman singing to dance music a la 1990's.

Israel - This was so boring and horrible. Why even show up?

Moldova - It started with a mulletted violinist on a spinning platform surrounded by fireworks. Need I say more?

Romania - This performance had a man and a woman playing at joined glass pianos and singing, until halfway through where they decided to leave their instruments and sing. No explanation provided as to how the pianos they were supposedly playing were able to continue belting out the background music.

Russia - A bunch of poorly dressed men singing in falling snow. It was highly depressing, and made me consider killing myself. The highlight (lowlight?) was when they sang something about "looking at her photo" and held up a drawing of a woman's face. No imagination needed, apparently.

Serbia - The Serbian entry was actually painful. The singer was tone deaf, and was supposedly a man but looked more like a pre-op tranny.

Spain - This was both boring and weird, a tough combination to achieve. What managed to spice it up was a random guy from the audience jumping on stage and mocking the weird clowns/court jesters dancing around the singer by joining in (rather convincingly, I should add). Unfortunately the contest managers decided to give them another chance, which meant we had to hear this awful song all over again at the end.

Turkey - There was a dancing robot that sawed its own arm off halfway through. 'Nuff said.

Ukraine - The Ukrainians offered us a hot, young girl singing about death, war, and humans killing each other, while managing to achieve increased states of undress throughout her performance. Obviously.

UK - I can only assume this was a joke, despite how earnest the performer was, and it came in dead last when the votes were in. A little Eurovision 2010 trivia for you: the song peaked at #174 on the UK charts the week of the contest. How embarrassing.

I personally would have given it to Moldova or Turkey, but I supposed garbled English sung by a German girl can't be totally discounted. I'm definitely organizing a viewing party next year, if only to avoid sitting by myself wondering if the world is really worth living in any longer.

Peace Out

Yesterday was my farewell celebration at my company after almost 4 years there. That may not seem like much to most people, but in my team it's an eternity, so naturally a messy afternoon and evening were planned well in advance.

After a boozy lunch, we later braved the torrential downpour to make it over to Cruise Bar by the Harbour, and promptly started ordering beers, bottles of champagne, and enough shots to make the cast of Jersey Shore feel a bit queasy.

In case you're wondering precisely how messy things got, here are a few indicative photos:

(Yes, that's a glass of beer in the taxi.)

I think we can safely assume that everyone in attendance is having a quiet Saturday, as I sit here wondering if some of the photos should ever see the light of Facebook. I suppose it's always good to have a few items around for blackmail purposes some day.

Unnecessary

Had a boozier weekend than I've had in a while, more than enough to remind me why I don't tend to do that any more.

Friday was a friend's surprise birthday drinks, which was supposed to lead to dinner until I apparently hijacked the night and said we should all spend the evening binge drinking instead. Genius, I know.

Saturday was even worse - after having a ton of people over to the new apartment, I decided that 11pm was a great time to buy another bottle of wine and swing by a dinner party I'd had to miss earlier in the evening. After stumbling around for an hour and alternating between boring and offensive, I grabbed some Indian food and cabbed it home. I'd sum up the end of the night as a completely ridiculous way to spend $100, and don't recommend it to anyone.

And so, Sunday was recovery, which involved not leaving my apartment complex and falling asleep on the couch around 8pm. I'm an old, old man.

Ridiculous

The title of this blog post refers to a few things. First, that I'm working more than ever even though I've resigned from my job. That ain't right. Second, that I just had such a quiet weekend that I'm still a bit scared about what it means for my life going forward when I'm mostly sober for all of Saturday *and* Sunday. Third, that even when I'm a boring teetotaler, that Juice still manages to end up like this:



Let me be clear - this isn't actually Juice. However, it not only looks just like him, but this is actually how he ended up on Saturday night. His face is now something that you expect to see on a woman who "fell down the stairs", knowing full well it means she probably overcooked her husband's steak.

Movin' On Up

Looks like I've forgotten to blog for over a week and a half. But in all fairness, I've spent the last week moving into a new apartment, and I even resigned from my job yesterday, so I've had a lot going on.

The new place is shaping up well, and we had our first round of sunset drinks last night resulting in 12 beer bottles, 2 vodka bottles, and a wine bottle having to be discarded this morning.

And in case you were wondering, the best conversation last night by far was the following:

Juice: I know it's a bit morbid, but have you ever thought about what you'd want to be buried in?

Junior: A Snuggie!!!

Zander: That was disturbing for several reasons. First, that you clearly had thought about it. Second, that you were serious. And third, the excited look on your face when you said it.

Junior: But they're so comfortable!

Zander: But you'd be dead.


Something tells me our balcony is going to see many similar conversations over the coming years...

Escalation

Several years ago, while living in my last apartment on the second floor of a building in a leafy neighborhood of Sydney, I walked into my livingroom and found a huge spider on the wall. Shortly thereafter, I moved into a 9th floor apartment. Until this week, I have lived a blessedly spider-free existence.

Last night, my flatmate showed me a huge spider he'd found in his bedroom. On Monday, I move into a 43rd floor apartment.

Listen, Mother Nature - I know I've never really been a fan, but I'm willing to respect your existence and keep my distance if you're willing to do the same. Please don't have a flock of birds fly into my windows or something. Because, honestly, I'm not sure what I will do next, but it may involve investing in oil companies. And neither of us want me to do that.

Ah, That Explains It

Went to a birthday dinner last night where I only knew about two people at the table. This generally isn't something I mind, as I love a fresh audience. However my rigid inability to remember the names of anyone I'm introduced to unless I've met them at least three times tends to cause a problem. My current method of learning new people's names is receiving friends requests on Facebook and then scanning their profile photos until I've plowed through my faded alcoholic memories of recent nights to remember who they are.

As I was saying, Friday night was yet another example. The sad part is that I was sober and trying to give off the semblance of tact, and yet this is the type of conversation that ensued:

Zander: Do you have an accent? I know your name is Ryan, but it sounded different when you said it.

Guy: My name is Graham.

Zander: Oh.

*Akwardness ensues*

Class. Act.

We Have Nothing In Common

I'd write something here about my weekend, but I spent it in Brisbane. It's a city that I'd compare to Pittsburgh, where I spent my university days - great for families and old people, I hear, but not my choice of residence.

A colleague started telling me about his weekend of camping and spending time in the country and seemed to think I should be remotely interested in the concept. I quickly informed him that I'm about to sign a lease on the exact opposite of anything he would appreciate - an apartment over 40 stories high in Sydney's tallest residential building in the heart of the city.

Having said that, the fact that I have to pay a bond/security deposit and first month's rent in the next week (shortly after two weeks in NY that may have stimulated their economy, but did nothing good for me financially) means that much of my drinking in the next few weeks will have to be either subdued or done on the cheap at friends' homes. I'll be opting for the latter, thanks.

We've All Been There

Sesame just emailed this through to me, and it's absolutely brilliant - mainly because even if I can't remember if I've ever been this trollied, it's a sure bet that we will Juice in similar condition in the near future:

God bless him.

No End In Sight

Despite taking almost 5 days to recover from my jet lag, I managed to have a rather busy week and a rather boozy weekend, despite my best intentions. And now that all I want is a quiet week ahead, I've managed to end up with a fully booked week before flying up to Brisbane for the long weekend.

And yet, per usual, none of my drunken stories (including me falling on two people on Friday night) compare to the week that Juice had, and seems to be continuing indefinitely.

The highlight of his weekend would have been Wednesday night (not Tuesday, when he was out until 4am) when he went drinking and has no recollection of how the night ended. What he *does* remember is waking up at 5am. Under his desk. At work. With no pants or shoes on. YES, REALLY.

After managing to find his pants and shoes in the bathroom, he made his way home and called in sick for the day. He even took the night off from drinking. And has been drunk ever since.

It's always a good thing to have one of those friends who manages to make you feel better about yourself. No matter what.

Self-Medication

Well I've been back from my holiday for a couple of days now. People keep asking me if I'm depressed about being back in Sydney, which is a bit ridiculous - there's only so depressed one can be about returning to a place with amazing weather, relaxed attitudes about what's considered "work", and where most of the people around you seem to be intensely inebriated for a large percentage of their waking hours.

No, my main issue with my return is that I am still jet lagged on day four, despite doing all of the recommended things. I've stayed awake all day. Gone to sleep at the same time every evening. (10pm in case you were wondering.) I've limited my alcohol intake, and even stuck to a mostly healthy diet, although the guy who served me a cheese naan with my Indian food at lunch yesterday might be a tad bit skeptical.

In any case, it's once again 2am and I'm wide awake after only 4 hours of sleep. And so, I will be turning to the most reliable method of overcoming jet lag that I've encountered in my many years of international travel. I'm getting hammered tonight.

Bon Voyage. To Me.

After a truly hectic and stressful 6 months of work, I am off on my first real holiday in close to a year, even if it is a brief one.

Despite my excitement about the trip, my ability to procrastinate crosses over into all parts of my life. I didn't do my laundry until getting home from a pub trivia night around 10pm, and this was a conversation with my flatmate this morning:

Flatmate: Uh, shouldn't you start putting stuff in that suitcase.

Zander: Yeah.

Flatmate: Haven't you been awake for like 2 hours?

Zander: Yeah.

Flatmate: What the hell have you been doing?

Zander: Uh, well, I was emailing, and I just listened to the new Lindsay Lohan song online, and had a snack.

Flatmate: Wow...

So yeah, now I'm blogging. Even though I need to leave in less than 15 minutes and I'm still not sure how this laptop will fit into my bags.

Needless to say, I won't be updating here much, if at all, while I'm away. As always, you're welcome to go back in time and read about what an asshole I was in 2005.

You Are Not Tall Enough To Experience This Ride

It was a pretty typical weekend, with Saturday's boozing starting around noon and then moving to Fish's new apartment around the corner.

It was seeming pretty civilized until I noticed that both Fish and Juice (unfortunate combination of nicknames, can I just say) were slurring and starting to lack any sort of coherence, despite the fact that I'd had just as much or more to drink than they had.

When you're 6'4" (and a half, bitches), it's easy to forget that people who are almost a foot shorter than you might not handle large intakes of alcohol quite as well.

In any case, photo of the month:

Because passing out on your sofa when the sun is still shining is always a Kodak moment (even his dog looks disappointed in him).

Different Strokes

Some people actually spend their average weekday doing "work". So I hear, anyway.

I spend half my day trying to convince people that Chris Noth/Mr. Big has a secret past where he was the lead singer of Right Said Fred.

Come on, get past the hair issue...can't you see it??

Maybe He Just Hates Money

Continuing in his crusade to offend anyone in the world who has ever had even an ounce of respect for money (never forget the iPhone incident), Juice managed to turn an otherwise low-key evening into the reason he will be eating soup in his final days before next pay.

After having a few drinks out at Stranger's place in the 'burbs, Juice figured he hadn't spent much money so may as well shell out $50 on a cab ride home, which I suppose is reasonable. Except that when he got home, he realized his keys were still sitting back at Stranger's house. Oh yes. Guess who ended up taking another $50 cab ride BACK to the asshole of nowhere and spending the night there anyway.

If that isn't almost the equivalent of simply flushing $100 down the toilet for no real reason, I don't know what is.

What Not To Bring To Trivia

Went to trivia the other night. We didn't do so well. If you want to avoid the errors of my ways, I suggest the following:

• Don't go to trivia in Australia when you have no Australians on your team. Rookie mistake.

• Don't go to trivia with 4 people who will mock you for wanting to hear the questions (thereby drowning out any chance of hearing the question repeated).

• Don't go to trivia with a girl who will drink three glasses of wine and start playing some pictionary version where you draw your answers.

• Don't go to trivia with a girl who insists on being the scribe, yet can't spell. Like, at all.

• Don't go to trivia at a pub where you might run into your friend's drunk sister who happens to smell like she eats cigarettes for at least 2 meals a day, and has no sense of personal space.

Oh right, I should probably mention that you should probably not go to trivia when you're secretly a super competitive asshole who will post a bitter blog entry about it later in the week, so that your friends will read it and then not invite you to trivia again.

Schadenfreude, Interrupted

There's a new channel here in Sydney (LifestyleYOU) that seems to be made for me - 90% of the programming is trashy UK reality shows about everything from fat people, to parents have zero common sense when it comes to raising children, to brides who are willing to let their husbands plan the entire wedding and surprise them on the day. I'm still not clear on why these people participate in these shows, but I love them and every single one of their silly sounding accents.

The latest show that seemed to have a lot of promise was Spendaholics - showing us people who seem to have zero concept of personal finance management, and gladly drop a few hundred pounds on a pair of jeans that don't actually fit.

The primary appeal of such a show, of course, is to remind ourselves that despite our own failings, we are not quite as dumb as these people. And so, the first 20 minutes or so is fantastic.

And then...they bring in the psychologist. And he's like, a real psychologist. I personally tend to prefer the fake ones, like the "psychiatrists" they would have on hand at that makeover competition show The Swan, who would actually tell participants that their unwillingness to get a nose job showed that they weren't really committed to changing their life around. But no, this guy is serious. And within minutes we have to hear some pathetic story that ends up somehow linking the spendaholics purchase of a $2,000 projector to the one time their dad didn't take them to the zoo when they were six. And for some reason, it always ends with the spendaholic taking a walk on the beach with one of their parents to discuss whatever childhood trauma has been dug up.

So yeah, my advice is watch the show, but switch off after the first 15 minutes. It's not like any of us actually want to watch people getting helped, for god's sake.

That Hurts

The blogosphere, twittersphere, and various other spheres are all enamored with the "90 Types of Bitches" list that seems to have been written by one or more 3rd graders in the DC-area, so I just want to make sure EVERYONE is across it.

I qualified for the list by the time I got to category #2, but feel free to point out which other categories you guys think I fall into.


And of course, the original blog post and full list can be found here: http://andiamnotlying.com/2010/types-of-bitches/

Go for the amazing list. Stay for the hilarious comments.

Successful Friday Night

You know you had an awesome Friday night when you:

a) don't actually remember getting home

b) left your friend talking to a hot German

c) made new best friends with a group of Irish people based on the retelling of your classic racist jokes

d) can't bear the thought of drinking on Saturday until 6pm when you crack open a bottle of gin.


Hurrah.

You Guys Are Gonna Love This

As I may or may not have mentioned here, I started running a few kilometers every other morning or so starting a few months back. I figured it was the best way to make sure I wasn't fat in my birthday photos, since the swimming alone didn't seem to be cutting it.

Last week an email was sent to the entire division of my company asking if anyone wanted to join our company's team for the corporate biathlon coming up in March. Since the distances didn't look too horrifying, I responded to indicate that I had some interest but was very new to running in particular so wouldn't be offended if others were a better fit for the team. I figured, maybe there would be a B or even C team where performance didn't really matter.

About 10 minutes later I got an email confirming that I was representing the company in the biathlon with 3 others (who would all qualify as the most fit people I have personally ever met) and a corporate shirt to compete in was on its way.

Needless to say, I am already having visions of being the next big thing on YouTube. Also, my mother hasn't stopped laughing since I told her about this three days ago.