Party Foul

Earlier this year, I realized that Halloween actually fell on a Friday this year. Australians don't really celebrate anywhere near the same way that we do back in the U.S., and since it's easily one of my favorite holidays, I decided I would throw a party with my friend Jules and show the Aussies how it's done.

So I booked the biggest room at one of my favorite bars in Sydney, and even had a designer at work create an invite for me to email out:


And as I always do, I wrote up a long email to set the scene and get people interested in the party, and emailed it out last week. I also decided to create it as a Facebook event, since I actually don't have email addresses for a lot of friends.

So you can imagine my shock when I caught up with Busty on Saturday for some drinks, and she asked me if I had found my Halloween invitation text on the internet. When I asked why she would think that, she told me that she had actually received almost the exact same invitation on Facebook from a different friend a day after she had received and accepted mine.

That's right -- her friend saw my invite on Facebook, COPIED AND PASTED the text over to her own invite, and after some minor changes (including location and date, of course) sent it out to all of her friends. Naturally I had a few questions:

1) Who does that?!

2) If you are going to do something that tacky and unoriginal, wouldn't you at least NOT invite the person who received my invite the previous day?

3) WHO DOES THAT?!!


I immediately had Busty text message this chick to let her know that I thought she was a thief. Most people have told me that I should be flattered, but I think I'm more bothered by the fact that others might see my invite and think that it was ME who was being unoriginal. As if.

The thief (who I feel I should mention is Canadian - figures) has since admitted to stealing my invite, and said I should come to her party, which I think I find even more insulting. I have passed along my own invitation to her, saying she should come to my party as "a Plagiarist", and I will be more than happy to have a shirt waiting for her with "COPY" on the front and "PASTE" on the back.

Loser.

Weight Watchers, Here I Come!

I'm a little disappointed in myself for not blogging for an entire week -- I think I posted more often during my hectic trip around the world. If I have any excuse at all (and trust me, I know this is a flimsy one) I was drunk Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday AND Sunday nights, and Monday night was much needed recovery before I went to a dinner party last night and once again consumed far too much wine.

Which all ties pretty neatly into something I'm trying to make a focus at the moment, and that's my health. After a month of traveling around the world, getting little to no exercise (unless you include dancing the night away in a trashy club, I don't), and eating complete and utter crap, I arrived back in Sydney feeling pretty disgusting. Not that I've ever been the epitome of healthy living, but in the last couple of years I've tended to balance out the bad drinking and eating habits with at least a few healthy things like swimming and the occasional multi-vitamin.

So now I need to focus. And here are the three rules I am trying to set for myself at the moment:

1) Exercise more. It's not that hard for me -- when I first started swimming in the mornings early last year, I did it every single day including weekends. In the past 6 months that's tapered off to around every other day, but that's still not too bad. And considering I'm one of the few people who seems to even look forward to waking up at 6am to jump into a pool that's not nearly heated enough, the prospects on this one look good. Especially when I wake up in the morning and see a fatty staring back at me.

2) Eat less. Probably the most obvious one for most people, but consider that I'm one of those people who has never had to think about what he eats. So my new rules around eating are that lunch needs only consist of one serving (one burrito will suffice, I don't need two quesadillas to go with it), and the afternoon trips to McDonald's to "hold me over until dinner" are completely unnecessary. And if I feel any hunger pains, I can think of that as what it feels like to get skinnier. I learned that one from an actual anorexic.

3) Drink less. So this is the trickiest one. Not only because I am a really social person who finds it hard to turn down an invitation to drinks (and please don't make the ridiculous suggestion that I should go to a bar but not drink, it ain't gonna happen), but mostly because it completely screws me over for the first two rules. Generally I drink for a few hours after work, and then get something ridiculously unhealthy on the way home, which is the only way to soften the blow of the hangover the next morning, which still isn't enough to make me feel like going swimming when I wake up.


Notice none of this refers to any proper diet or detox. I find it amazing that people still do those things even though any doctor, medical study, or person with an ounce of common sense could tell you that cutting anything out of your life completely for some time, only to start up again weeks or months later, probably just reduces your body's ability to process it, and makes you feel even worse in the long run.

So this week, I've turned over a new leaf. Since last night was a dinner party with a family friend, I have excused the few glasses of wine. I was just being polite. Otherwise, I am going to attempt to limit my drinking to 3 nights a week, and I will also aim to drink less beer, since I think it's no coincidence that my general weight gain started to happen around the time I moved to Australia and started drinking beer for many hours at a time, several times a week.

We'll see how I go -- I'm not actually fat (although the bitchier people in my life would tend to disagree), so it's just about feeling a bit better and if I lose a little of the chubbiness in my face and also regain something that could at least resemble abdominal muscles in certain light, then I'll be more than happy.

Easing Back Into It

Well folks, I'm back in Sydney. By the end of my trip, all I really wanted was to just get back here and return to my life, since I think a month is kind of a long time to be away from it all. Not that I've had that much to come back to in terms of work, especially. Sure a couple more people have resigned, including my arch-nemesis, which I've found strangely unsatisfactory, since I love having enemies. But other than that the only real exciting development has been a huge new monitor to hook up to my existing work computer, which means I can read my Gmail and check my Facebook account at the same time. Yes, really.

In the meantime, I should probably get to work on the rest of my photos from the big trip, although I have a new favorite photo ever of myself that Emla was kind enough to send through -- HOT STUFF. I think the extra chromosome really brings out my eyes.

Still Globetrotting

My ridiculous journey is almost over, which I'm more than grateful for. As much as I love travel and adventure, I've discovered that jetsetting from one country to another for an entire 4 weeks can actually get kind of old. Not to mention expensive and exhausting.

Clearly I had to put my blogging duties on the backburner for a couple of weeks while I continued my attempt to hang out with everyone I've ever known around the world within a short month, but hopefully things will get back to normal when I'm back in Sydney next week.

I'm not even sure if I should bother telling any of the random stories here, since I will hopefully document them well enough in my photo album. I will however say that a highlight of the last couple of weeks was spending some time with my 96-year old grandmother in Yorkshire for a few days, which was the first time I'd seen her in 3 years. I can't even begin to tell people how immensely proud I am of my genetic heritage from a woman who consistently tells us how blind she is, and yet is more than capable of rattling off a quick list of who in the family needs to lose some weight, including those who have recently given birth. Bless.

Anyway, I got into San Francisco last night, so I'm going to spend today relaxing by the pool and/or napping, followed by a few drinks tonight, and perhaps a little sightseeing in the city tomorrow if I feel so inclined (which I very well might not, after the last few weeks). Here's hoping I at least catch a glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge.

When I Grow Up

The trip continues, and as exhausted and hungover as I increasingly find myself each day along the way, it's all been far too good a time to want it to be over quite yet. (I may have a very different opinion in a week's time).

Either way, Paris ended up being a blast, not least because we met up with Vix and let her show us her version of a good night out, which was surprisingly similar to our usual, except that innocent bystanders would have not understood quite how obnoxious we were being if they didn't speak English.

I still don't have enough time to blog properly, but here's a taste of the evening with a couple of selected photos:

...For All The Bitches Out There...

I'm about to head to Paris for the night, and then London tomorrow (hopefully), however I couldn't leave the continent without providing some new euro trash for you to snack on.

The clear gem of the collection this trip is by someone calling herself "Discobitch". We're still not sure where she's from, as she 'sings' in both French and English extremely poorly, but between the trashy video and the retarded but catchy dance track, we are in heaven:

Other winners include the latest from Mylene Farmer (decent track but brilliant video) and the new one from Eric Prydz, which has a great beat but wins extra points for inaccuracy and insensitivity regarding the Native American culture.

No Respect

Well I'm currently in France, mostly relaxing, and drinking enough that I would normally consider it partying, but in a civilized manner and with cheese that somehow means we're just being really sophisticated.

Nothing much to report, although we do have some great pictures already that will be posted at some point. Amsterdam was a blast, and as seen in this photo that recently surfaced, I still have no respect for even the most sacred of cermonies and cultures...but I'm not the only one:

More to come eventually, if i can drag myself away from the French wine and Russian vodka...

Seriously? Did You Say That?

Still loving my holiday, and Sri Lanka was amazing. Between great food, playing with elephants, and getting some serious sun by the pool, there's not much to complain about.

But as always, I can think of something. The first night in Sri Lanka, Emla and Presto decided they were going to have a big night. I was exhausted from the travel and the jetlag, and shuffled off to bed around midnight. The two of them, on the other hand, decided to keep going until around 6 in the morning. And they still managed to meet me for breakfast at 9.30am. Impressive.

Emla put on a good face, but by the afternoon she was feeling ill. That's expected, of course. What annoyed me, however, was that she committed one of my top alcohol-related crimes -- at one point during her suffering, she actually said "Ugh...maybe it was something I ate."

Um, no. I'm guessing it's more likely it was one of the 1) 8 pints of beer you drank, 2) 6 glasses of whisky, or 3) 5 hours of sleep you didn't get. To suggest it might have been "something [you] ate" is almost an insult to the very power of alcohol, and I personally won't stand for it.

2-minute Review of Singapore

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

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

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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

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

Here I Go Again...

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

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

...and then back to Sydney.

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

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

So Much For Professionalism

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

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

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

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

Zander & other coworker: Uh huh.

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

Zander & other colleague: Nice.

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

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


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

Exhibit A

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

On A Roll

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

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

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

Surely There's An Award For This Sort Of Thing

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

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

My Night With The D-List

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

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

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


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

Can't Wait To See The Wedding Photos

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

I Would Never Wear Those Shoes

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

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


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

Facebook Message Of The Week

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


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

It All Evens Out

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

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

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

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

Signs You're In For A Painful Hangover

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

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