I was chatting with a mate of mine who's recently single about dates we'd been on, and it reminded me of a horror encounter I had a few years ago. So I thought I'd share.

DJ'ing in a bar in Paddington a few years back, this rather attractive girl that had been making eye contact and doing a little flirting throughout the course of the night finally comes up at the end of the evening and asks if she can call me sometime.

She initially came across as a rather nice girl, so I gave her my number and we agreed to meet for a coffee somewhere.
Anyway, she calls me the next morning (some may say this is a little too eager, but I'm not that judgemental), and we arranged that she would pick me up at 5pm at my place in Surry Hills and go to a cafe at Fox Studios the following night.

The next day, she arrives at my place half an hour late with no explanation or apology, but I don't bother saying anything as I had no other plans so technically it hasn't really inconvenienced me that much. Also, I didn't really want to start the date off on a bad note.

So anyway, I'm now sitting in her car. She guns the motor of this poor little Holden Astra like a rally driver with ADD, and we leave the kerb doing about 90kph. Shooting out of a side road into Crown St. without so much as a sideways glance, we proceed to weave in and out of traffic like a couple of extras in a Dukes of Hazzard episode.

At this point, I'm seriously starting to wonder whether she chose a sunroof over the more luxurious (and obviously pointless), options such as 'brakes' when she bought the vehicle.

After proceeding to almost tear a hole in the very fabric of space and time, we screech into Fox Studios (I was half expecting her to slide sideways into a parking space, but disappointingly it didn't happen).

The whole ride there, all I could think of was that old line from 'Shitscared' off the Late Show on ABC..

"Were you scared Rob?"
"I'm not wearing the brown underpants for nothing Tommy".

So I finally make it to the cafe/bar alive, and order a coffee. The waiter then asks madam what she would like.
"A toblerone", she replies.
For those that haven't had one of these particular conconctions before, they're a heady mixture of Frangelico, Baileys, Kahlua and cream.
Oh, and they're also $15 a pop.

During the next 90 minutes of her berating me about how 'high maintenance she is' (yes, she actually told me that), how she 'doesn't sleep with guys until she's known them for at least six months', that she's 'looking for someone that "ticks all the boxes"', she proceeds to drink six of these cocktails, whilst yours truly has two lattes.
In hindsight I probably should have consumed some form of hard liquor to stop my hands from shaking, but nevertheless..

As we were sitting on a couch in front of the open fire, the conversation eventually degenerated into me staring into the flames pondering possible escape routes while she waffled on about her perfect man, her nail art and various other riveting topics.
Eventually my ears start to bleed, so I decide to tell her I have to work that night so we might need to get going.

So now the bill arrives, and it's close to $100.

She's now sitting there staring at her nails (with half-glazed eyes), at this point, obviously expecting me to pay, so I do the chivalrous thing and put a ten dollar note on the bill tray, tell her I'm going to the bathroom and I'll see her outside.
In the bathroom, I call my best mate to come and get me as there's no way I'm getting a lift home from this (now extremely inebriated), lunatic. Before I know it, I start telling him about the whole horror scenario, and after he's stopped laughing hysterically, I realise I've been on the phone for about 20 minutes.

I walk out of the bathroom after this extended delay to find my 'date' (and I do use the term loosely), now asleep on the couch in front of the fire.

Being the gentleman that I am, I hurriedly retrieve a post-it note from one of the bar staff, scribble "THANKS FOR THE COFFEE", and gently place it on her forehead, before hightailing it to my friend's waiting car.

All fun and games.

Let me just say, Ben is a friend of mine, and a really great guy. I like him.

But on the weekend, he made what I would term a 'slight error in judgement'.

You see, Ben went out on Saturday with his friends, but made the mistake of falling asleep before anyone else did.

Poor Ben.

..I am so fucking normal it's not funny.

http://grouphug.us/

This is the most weird/scary/funny/disturbing/unusual stuff I've read in a long time.


You have been warned.

Boy, am I tired. I hate starting off Mondays like this. The kids stayed over last night, and Pip (my 2yr. old), decided at 2:20 in the morning that she wasn't really interested in sleeping any more and would prefer to wake up the entire apartment by repeatedly kicking the wall next to the bed whilst requesting various flavours of cordial in an increasingly whiny voice.

*thump*
"Can I have some Strawberry?"........"Go to sleep Pippa"
*thump*
"Straaawwwwwbeerrrrreeeeeeeee!"........"We don't have any Strawberry Pip"
*thump*
*thump*
*thump*
"Raspberry!"........"GO. TO. SLEEP!"
"Oran.."........"NO!"
*thump*
*thump*
*thump*
*thump*
*thump*

This assailment lasted for 45 minutes before she fell asleep exhausted.

Lucky for me I managed to stay awake for the next half hour thinking about what I had to do today.

Somehow, Connor managed to sleep through the whole thing. What a gift.

Being the absolute trooper that I am, even in this sleep-deprived state I will soldier on regardless. Therefore (inkeeping with the true spirit of the Australian public service work ethic), I have read my emails, drunk 2 cups of coffee and surfed numerous pages on the Interweb trying to find a new set of tail lights for my car. I think I want the LED ones.

---

B-Bar was fun on Saturday. Went a bit hard after 2AM and dragged out stuff like Sander Kleinenberg's Remix of 'Muscle Car', and the Axwell & Ingrosso version of Hi-Tack's 'SOS'. Seemed to go down pretty well 'cos we didn't close till about half 3. Was Timmy's birthday and also his last weekend in the 'Berra, so I'm glad it all turned out nice 'n that. Apparently he was last seen running naked down the main street of Kingston yelling something about "hating Rolf Harris and his fucking jukebox"..

I've also promised myself I'm going to put together a new CD this week with all the dirtiest tracks I've got (think along the lines of 'Club Therapy' by Peace Division if you know it). This should keep seb happy for a while at least.

Keep on truckin'.

I don't normally post about what I've been up to on a day-to-day basis due to past meanderings through other people's journals. The main reason I choose not to go down this particular path is that the dangerously high adrenalin levels resulting from a painfully detailed explanation of How To Apply Conditional Formatting in Excel, or the best way to cook a Turducken may prove fatal to individuals with a weak disposition. And quite frankly, I can't afford to take that chance.
I'm keeping it real.
Foshizzle.

However, just for today (hurry, stocks are limited), I will forgo my usual rather awkward observations on stuff and stray briefly, as it would appear that the majority of readers of this journal are drawn together by a mutual love of house music and clubbery. Alternatively, if you were to enjoy this particular pastime dressed in fetish gear, it would be rubbery clubbery. Or if you were out on a Saturday evening dressed in nothing but leaves and twigs, it would be shrubbery clubbery....And so on and so forth.
But I digress.

This weekend was incredibly enjoyable from a DJ'ing perspective. I know people like Seb, Troy and Richie will understand exactly what I mean when I say that 'everything just came together'. There were times on Saturday when I felt I could do no wrong. A tweaked acapella of 'Bust A Move' over the top of a looped intro to 'Bimbo Nation' really worked, that new Sarah Mcleod track absolutely rocked it, and a remix of 'Somebody Told Me' by the Killers just tore it up (with a shout out to Timmy here). Even threw in the acapella of 'Pump Up the Jam' over 'No More Conversations' and that went down a treat.

And if that wasn't enough, I had a fantastic Sunday with my kids where we dressed up as superhoeroes, played many many rounds of 'Stax On!" and generally acted like idiots. How could you not love that.

Oh, and I finally caved in and bought one of these.

And a King size bed and mattress.

I love weekends.
And by all accounts, Seb does as well.

Being the overly critical creature that I am, I've never really held my own writing in very high regard. I tend to look at other people's work and get the impression that (comparatively speaking), what I produce resembles the textual version of takeaway food.
However, after quite an interesting (and rather cathartic), chat with some close friends of mine on the weekend, my grammatical self-confidence has been boosted quite significantly.
Again, thank you to those responsible. You know who you are.

Buoyed by this intrepidity, I have therefore decided to take the plunge and embark on something I've been promising to do for a number of years. A journalism course. Granted I will have to do it online, as my current schedule of trying to complete a project management diploma whilst working full time five days a week plus DJ'ing Fri and Sat night leaves me just about enough time to shower in the mornings, give myself a nasty case of indigestion, then drive like to work like a P-plater on crystal meth. The other consequence of this situation is that if I spend too long in the shower, the time required to put on pants becomes a luxury I can ill afford.
Oh well, you can't say I'm not making friends.
*fade to black*

*fade in*
....It's one week later, where I'm now in the process of perusing the mountain of glossy correspondence that has arrived on my doorstep. Having only applied to five schools, I am staggered by the sheer volume of  propaganda that stands between me and literary greatness. Somewhere an Amazonian pygmy silently weeps.

Nevertheless, I pick up a pamphlet, and pore over the various benefits and life-changing opportunities afforded within. The phrase "hurry, numbers are limited!", leaps off the page at me. I resist the almost Pavlovian response to crash-tackle my phone and immediately start dialling the toll-free number before the millions of others clamouring for the course snap up the few remaining available spots.
I also fail to 'hurry while stocks last!!', get in the slightest bit upset that I will 'never see deals like this again!!", or lose any sleep at all over the fact that 'my business is their priority'.

In the process of marvelling at the testimony of 'Andrew from Adelaide', who recently completed the course and landed a job with a newspaper almost immediately, I am also awestruck by the attestations included by 'Lindsay of Albury', who is about to have her first work published in a nationally syndicated magazine.
Of course, I do have a sneaking suspicion that Andrew is probably working as a dishwasher in the Fairfax cafe, and Lindsay will be forced to go to ground after the majority of her friends realise she's written a piece on 'the joys of erotic asphyxiation' for Zoo magazine.
Nevertheless, I shall persevere.

At this point, I feel it only pertinent to ask the readers of this sporadically updated journal to offer their own opinions, suggestions or criticisms regarding this idea.
Please, be blunt, be frank, but most of all, be honest.  I'm a big boy, and I can take it.

And besides, anti-depressants are only a doctor's visit away.

<sup>So anyway...I was reading the morally thought-provoking scribblings of my journalistic ally daria_33ski, as doing this seems to facilitate my living the "Extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeme!!!*" side of life vicariously through her, what with all the talk of snowboarding, partying and general shenaniganery.

Unfortunately, said adrenalin-charged compositions seem to only further highlight the rather pathetic fact that the closest I've been to "Extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeme!!!" lately is running down a slippery driveway in Havaianas.

....which leads smoothly (or if you're wearing said Havaianas, skids awkwardly, lurches into a wheely bin and ends up face down in a pot plant), down the path of my next point.


Why is it when certain people (okay, I'll put it out there....Americans), travel overseas on holiday and need to ask for directions, they firmly believe that if any habitant of another nation does not speak their language, the best solution is to speak louder and slower, and address them as if they're now dealing with someone that's slightly mentally retarded.
As I've already stated, this only applies if you were born in the U.S., but the above method apparently allows these people to communicate in any language, and hence the foreigner who has been staring blankly whilst the short hairy man in Bermuda shorts furiously gesticulates and makes (what they consider to be), rather lifelike train noises for the past five minutes will now miraculously understand every word. Hence the following verbal exchange..

Bermuda Guy : (Whilst making 'woowoo' noises and rotating their forearm in a circular motion), "Hey, where's the train station?"

Foreigner : "Estoy apesadumbrado, yo no hablo inglés"

Bermuda Guy's Wife : "Sweetie, I don't think he understood you.."

Bermuda Guy : "That's ok honey, I got it covered"

Foreigner : ¿Puedo ahora ir?

Bermuda Guy : DO...YOU....KNOW......WHERE....IS.....EL.....TRAINO.....STATIONO...?"

Foreigner : "Oh right yes, it's about four blocks down, turn right and it's the first on your left"

Bermuda Guy : "THANK....YOU"...

Foreigner : *cough* "Fuck you very much" *cough*

Bermuda Guy : "I'm sorry?"

Foreigner : "Va a casa, usted hombre estúpido.."

Bermuda Guy's Wife : "Oh he's so cute honey...can we keep him?.."


Dumb yanks.

Here endeth my anti-american diatribe.


Oh, an on a more sombre note, Steve Irwin, even with his quirkiness, self aggrandisement and in-your-face personality was still a champion for the cause of all animals, and for that he will forever have my ultimate respect. He is an irreplaceable character, and my deepest sympathies go out to his family.

We'll miss you Steve, you were (to use the Australian vernacular), a bloody legend.





* This phrase must be shrieked in conjunction with the following hand gesture (see below):</sup>