a helpful guide

so i asked ruth to post a few hints to avoid seeming like a wanker to your friendly neighbourhood bartender, and she obliged with gusto. i didn't really think much of it other than 'yay, guess i'm not as big of a bar-wanker is i thought i could be'. i didn't feel like i had much to add, not being a professional and all.

that was until i realised i was a professional. professional drinker & cynic*, that is.

and who else wouldn't we mind thinking 'hey, they're not wankers at all!' about us in a pub or bar? your fellow drinkers, that's who! so, here's a little guide from me as to how, in the breif minutes to might share bar-space with me and others, to kind of seem half-cool.

• just because it's obscure, doesn't mean it's awesome. you know those people who only ever listen to music by bands that no-one has ever heard of? similarly, ordering a 'rabid nun with a twist' and then having to fill the bar staff in as to how it is made just makes me think you're a wanker and, if this shit is happening while i'm waiting to be served behind you.... blargh.
• sure, there are cooler drinks and less cool drinks, but there is nothing less cool than drinking something you don't like because you think it's fashionable. i'd prefer to see you looking neatly satisfied by a bourbon and coke than watching you painfully down a dry martini over the course of an hour. but, martinis are clearly super-cool.
  
• shots are a fun & fast way to drunksville. that said, they don't need to be a big deal. if there's a bunch of you at the bar and it's 'omg shots guys! SHOTS GUYS! we're doing shots!' and then 'oh yeah! wooo! SHOTS!', i hate you. it's unlikely i'll roll you out of your own vomit when i find you passed out in the bathroom later. unless i have to roll you over to get access to your wallet.
  
• collars down, boys.

*i'm qualified to say this shit, people! i have quaffed remy martin louis xiii cognac AND thrown up an entire noodle box into a friends sink (two seperate drinking events). every end of the drinking spectrum = covered.

shopaholic

yes. i'm addicted to shopahol.


had to finish off the x-mas shopping today, so headed towards the jam factory as it has a borders, and that's basically where i do all the shopping for everyone i know. the first present i found basically jumped off the shelf and molested my face with it's colorful hijinks. remember where's wally?





yep. and it's not just osama! you can get bonus props for finding wonderfully awesome things like sarin gas canisters, patty hurst and other assorted fun stuff. this will end up on my aunts coffee table, all the best to torment her stupidly conservative church friends with. you go girl!

i also brought this for myself:



and while standing in line paying for the two books, found this:



i still have no idea who to give it to.

i can't book buy for my mother as i don't understand her at all. voucherville, every bloody year. i had already purchased a recent release of dean koontz' for my dad, as he reads some pretty decent stuff.

i also purchased myself perhaps the hottest western shirt in black check ever, as well as a new man-smell by those italian scent-wizards at versace.

FLASHBACK: 2004.

so i'm living in westgarth with my good friend simon and a girl who seemed sane at the time of lease-signing. eventually she just gives up paying rent and starts to squat in her room while leaving half-eaten fast food everywhere and stealing all our stuff. later we also realise she's a call-girl and has a large coke habbit. basically, she turns our lives into living hell and i eventually escape to kew, while simon remains to soldier on.

PRESENT DAY:

i go visit simon, who remains in the house from hell due to cheap rent (because it's a dive, yo). we get wasted around the corner at kelvin and end up ranting and raving about how much we dislike she who can't be named. when we get back to the house, i steal her blender and drive home.

GOT YO' BLENDER BITCH! HOW YOU LIKE THAT?!?!

i think this pretty much speaks for itself. MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all. this is what i would give you if i actually were going to give you stuff.

and!

i just realised that there seem to be two seperate elaines who comment here, when i'm pretty sure i thought they were the same person! clearly if your name is elaine, you are lovely as a rule.

hrmm.

wasn't exactly looking forward to work last night. a combination of a new almost-boss who knows less than nothing about everything (this isn't an overstatement. less than nothing about everything i tell you), five wonderful hours spent supervising the work of an angry ex-girlfriend AND the very real likelyhood of hours and hours of brain-rotting overtime.

so i did what anyone else would do and went for a stiff drink before heading off.

sadly, though, as i dug around the fridge to find some soda, or even a little tonic, i realised i'd done all my mixers the day before in an afternoon boozing blitz prompted by nothing more than the fact that it was sunny, and i'm an alcoholic. i'm not a complete barbarian, and wasn't going to drink straight liquor before dealing with the sensitive medical details of patients who trust me with their very lives. oh no. that was when i saw my housemates neatly refridgerated cans of 'v'.

i poured myself a half gin and v and was extremely impressed. not only was their some kind of flavour-party happening in my mouth (to which it seemed many a lively guest had been invited), but i was also enegised. energised by the energetic energy of my energy-drink mixer, V! so i decided to have a second, as the first disappeared in no time. can it get any better than one gin and sickly-sweet energy thing? YES OH GOD IT CAN.

before i know it i'm rationalising drink number four because i didn't want let the remainder of can number two go flat.

work wasn't half as bad as i expected, strangely enough.



ALSO: Fights we would all like to see but would probably never happen



Ivan 'Angry' Drago


VS

Bronwyn 'Bitch-Tits' Bishop




sadly this odd-couple pairing would be very unlikely due to serveral reasons. ivan drago is a fictional character, which makes it hard for anyone to fight him, bar rocky. also, unarmed combat usually involved physical contact, and i can't imagine anyone being too keen to touch good ol' bitch tits, even with a speeding fist. i really shouldn't have mentioned bronwyn bishop in the same sentence as the word 'fist'. really uncomfortable images are what i'm imagining at the moment.


ew ew ew.

wow.

this is my twenty-first post! i'm excited. eventually they'll invent some kind of computery thing that will let readers of blogs attach wires to their heads while the authors pour pure emotion directly from the depths of their souls right INTO YOUR BRAIN.


till then, you'll just have to trust that my excitement is large.



just had the work dinner for the leaving of my ex girlfriend. a few people had only started to work out that we were seeing each other before we broke up, and thusfar they still think we've got something going on. so, fantastically*, i was asked to make a speach at said dinner. i think i'll write more later. i need a drink.




*sarcasm

i just drank a whole bottle of gin

disregard last post.









d, your house is well and truly warmed.

wanted:

melbourne-type friends who love cocktails. must have a high tolerance for both alcohol and stupidity. apply within.

skillz

every time i go to grab a beer from the fridge i am reminded of two points of interest.

#1: thank you wankers for making it 'botique' to not use a twist-top. perhaps there's some other bar-tendery reason for this. guess what. not interested.

#2: you guessed it, since moving i have no bottle opener.





me: 'oh great fortress of brown glass! grant me access to the beer-y treasure you contain within!'

beer: 'show us ya bottle opener then'

me: 'i have quested long and hard for your brewed pleasures! accross great plains and barren deserts...'

beer: 'you still haven't got a bottle opener, have you, fucko? nice work champ. you've only had, what, three months? you don't deserve my 'beer-y treasure'. fucking pansy'

me: 'seriously. don't talk back to me, beer. i'm a person, and you're a freaking inanimate... beer! i totally could break your face.'

beer: 'but you wouldn't waste the beer. softcock'

me: 'what did you just say?'

beer: 'nothing. *cough*SOFTCOCK*cough*'

me: 'oh. now it's fucking on.'



WWRDAAMD*?



i tell you what he'd do. he'd take a paperclip, false nail a copy of new weekly and have that beer open in like two seconds. and you know what? the new weekly would only be used for reading material while he was drinking. he's that kind of guy. for the last month or so, i have been taking regular household objects and using them to open beers. my list so far includes:

* clothes iron

* 2nd bottle of beer

* rubber thong (foot-style)

* extension cord

* copy of dean koontz' 'the husband'

* tin of milo








*what would richard dean anderson as macgyver do

some kind of hook

i wish i had some kind of thing. a blog-type thing. a thing that i would do, regularly, that would be seen as my... er... thing. for example, i love the illustrated adventures of ruth, which pop up now and then. i also find friday questions with ms fits hilarious. any time the devil talks about mmorpgs in dinosaur comics, i get goosebumps.

that said, every now and then i'm going to do a bunch of random things and see if anything catches on. now that i've discovered that people actually read my blog (other than people i know via blogs who are kind of obliged), i feel like i want to connect. i feel like i want to reach out and give you all an e-touch on the arse. for the sake of this image, i'm going to assume you all have lovely, well-formed rear-ends. please do not comment otherwise and dispell this wonderul illusion.

my first attempt at something interesting is as follows: m, manly man! where you can ask for a guinuine, bonafide hairy mans-man (not, like, gay) view on anything. bloke opinion on shabby chic? man-guide to landing that hunky tradey/cougar top-wearing busty barmaid down at the local? trying to grow a zz top monster and you're only getting issac hanson-style face fuzz? the answers are all here.


from this:

"i am so metal"



to this:

voted most likely to die via hot girl explosion



from this:

omg brain freeze ow!



to this:

the only thing here longer than this glass is in my pants*





so ask away!

















*hint: it's totally my cock.

please comment with

stupid things you've done to your mobile phone. i was hanging out a load of washing after returning home from the gym and discovered mine at the bottom of the washing basket, screen cracked and full of water.



ungh. slightly annoyed!

i laugh in the face of summer

and by laugh i mean go for a run.






*dies*

can't sleep

too excited. met a bunch of old high-school friends for some james-bonding (heh) and general catching up. most of these people i haven't seen in about five or six years. b was someone i had a crush on during the last year or so of school - but it was one of those safe, stress-free crushes, as we were both dating other people for basically the whole extent of us knowing one another, so it wasn't as though it actually mattered at all. she hadn't changed a bit. eventually the topic of other halves came up, and it was established we were both single. i decided to throw caution to the wind and admit i'd had a crush on her in school, to which she replied 'really?! why didn't you ever tell me!', at which point i explained about both of us being quite non-single back then. 'oh well,' she said, 'we're both single now.'. here she promptly took my hand, and we spent the rest of the night wandering around the city talking about a lot of stuff i can hardly remember. we then made out for about ten minutes before she caught her tram back home.


you can see why i am happy. like, super happy. i am the happytron 5000 d-lux.

south yarra

me: hmm... chapel st.


simon: i could almost live around here


me: really?!


simon: nah. i'd end up killing too many kids.



full of wankers, and annoying children.

let my typos attest

to the fact that i am bloody well drunk. as you can tell from the last post, the whole break-up think was not a wonderful experience, and in an effort to remedy this, i went out tonight to rhiannons birthday drinks planning to get quite well tipsy and therefore feel less of an ass. i mean really, how many guys can say to a girl who's stunning, often funny, intelligent etc 'perhaps, rather than being in an exclusive relationship, we should just be friends' without feeling as though they've betrayed the brotherhood, and themselves? not me. gah. what a mess. anyhow, on the brighter side, i did manage to meet many a fine damsel in st kilda, and while feeling no less of a bastard, was reminded of the fun times which can be had in singledom.

- girlfriend

there's not enough sympathy in the world for the breakeruperer. i feel like absolute shit. why do i always find girls who are completely unsuited to me. we never share any common interests, like each others friends, have similar politics, anything.




fuck ^10. i hate breaking up.

bugger.

big kim really was labor to me. i thought he'd lost his way recently, and perhaps had become a bit of a fixture in oposition, but mostly i remember his knowledge nation plan, and how passionate he was about taking this country back from the fuckwits who we've had in parliament for way too long. i really hope he isn't as broken as i would have been, had it all happened to me. kevin rudd is too much of a dick for my liking. guess it's back to voting green.

the verdict is in:

girls of australian music = hot. here is some evidence (both of their hotness and my lady-crushes).
i will let the photos speak for themselves.


sophie koh


holly throsby


sarah blasko



*PANTS EXPLOSION*



sigh.

also!

richard watts has led me to discover this, which seems pretty darn awesome. i'm thinking of going on thursday and am open to offers of co-attendance. like, super-open.

munch munch

the kitchen was a scary prospect at lunchtime, so i ventured out for a sandwhich. i had plans to come home afterwards and nut out my majors for next year, but it was just too darn sunny, so i decided to walk a little. i've only been in the neighbourhood perhaps four, five months (heidelberg/rosanna-ish) and hadn't really wandered around at all. i wasn't expecting a lot, to be honest, and just thought i'd spend an hour or so soaking up that sun vitamin. you know, vitamin... um... s. s for sun.


what i found, though, was pretty interesting. on a typically suburban residential street, squeezed between a couple of very ordinary looking houses, was heidelbergs oldest cemetary, perhaps a dozen stone markers in place on what seemed like just a vacant block of land, albeit a very overgrown one. i could see why i'd never noticed it while driving. there's something surreal about finding things like this in the middle of what really could have been any street in melbourne. i've seen something similar before, on seperation street in northcote, but this one really had the sense of being forgotten. i'm going to go back and take some photos. i also wondered what it was like to live right next to a graveyard. some of them were born before the first fleet even made it here.


then i pretended i was an old man and spent the rest of my walk looking into the windows of op-shops that were closed.

valued and loved

my office christmas party was a booze cruise. honestly, it's like they hate my liver. imagine, you're stuck on a boat with a bunch of office crazies, and the beer is free. what is a boy to do? things i learnt:

#1 if there is a more dangerous place to be while drunk that on a boat, i have yet to find it. i promise, however, i will continue the search.

#2 as suave as you might think you are in your dealings with a colleagues attractive daughter, it's best to beat a hasty retreat when she mentions exams. vce exams.

#3 if you dance, someone will take a photo of it. it won't be a good photo.

#4 if you disembark from the boat singing the 'do, a dear' song from the sound of music, you don't need to continue to another bar.

#5 if the bar is called the salty dog, and they have a real live dog, there is no need for anyone to lick it in order to find out if it is indeed salty.

lol

hahahahahahahahaha




oh man.

words while working

so i was talking to one of the recently employed girls in my department tonight. she's very young and knows a whole bunch about australian idol. these things i now know. we somehow wandered on to the topic of her cousin, who is a similar age (nineteen-ish?) and is trying to break up with her boyfriend, who, in rebuttal, has asked her to marry him. nice. i tried to work out why, at the tender age of whatever the hell tender age this guy is at, he's been considering marriage. perhaps the cousin is the worlds hottest ninteen-year-old. it's a thought, and one i knew was worth investigating.


me: so, is your cousin, like, super-hot?


new girl: well, yeah, she's pretty hot. i mean, she was hot, but then...


me: what, was there an accident? like with acid? or a fire?


new girl: ...


me: has she got a hot body but a weird, melted face?


new girl: um, no. she's just not as hot as she used to be.







now really, was that an unreasonable conclusion to jump to?

ugh.

i'm feeling old. it's taken me two days to remember the e-mail address and password combo i used to create this stupid blog. i remember when i used to be all up with the internets and stuff. gah. anyhow, i've just brought myself another digital camera, and the plan is to create a kind of photo-tour of the last few years - more backstory! to be honest, the next few months look to be ones of anticipation... just working, sleeping, getting revenge against my liver for unspecified past crimes against humanity etc prior to returning to school. hopefully in that time i can paint you a bit of a picture of what it is, and has been, being me.


not that i have a readership to speak of ;)

voila

so.


here's a short history to bring you up to speed: finished school many years ago and moved to melbourne from somewhere less urban to study. choosing to sit around and pretend to be a socialist (to get the cute socialist girls, mostly) rather than study, soon dropped out of uni. travelled a little, and returned to an annoyingly stupid office job which had almost kept me occupied now for four years. i drink heavily, as you can imagine.


after dodging a high-school reunion due to complete lack of life progress, i have decided to sort my shit out and do a number of things, including getting my stupid goddam degree, upgrading my girlfriend for one less annoying and with better taste in music (but hopefully just as attractive), and perhaps learning to play the harmonica. you know, so i can jam. lady pirates is going to be my record-keeper, detailer of all things interesting and positive to come out of the aforementioned changes i have planned. already, progress is made, since the baboons they have assessing applications at vtac have offered me a place back at uni.


things i like: martial art & western movies. the pancake parlour in doncaster, mostly for it's hot chocolate. seriously-looking girls with glasses. books, pretty much all of them. social justice. 3/4 length pants (shorts?).

things i dislike: political correctness. cucumber. neo-conservatives.