Part 6: A Day In History: Saturday, December 9, 2006

Chapter 5: Who Needs A Delorean?

5:20pm: The reception starts in just over an hour.

I race down to North Melbourne

Here we go again. Maddy calls her mum to bring her other dress with her on their way through to the reception. They arrive at 6pm just long enough to drop off the dress before racing against time to get to the reception on time. About 10 minutes later Maddy and I are in the car heading to the Luxor Reception Centre in Sydenham.

I remember this place well as I had to pick up Trevor there one year after he got insanely drunk on red wine and proceeded to call his employer a cheap slut and was unable to drive home. Was an entertaining evening.

We arrive at about 6:28pm - pretty good timing - and hop out of the car, and even the heat seems to have turned down a bit. As we are walking to the door, Maddy's mum and brother arrive and drive past us to park. We must have hit a wormhole or something because they had a 10 minute head-start on us and I didn't speed.

Finally, I'm one up on the universe.

Epilogue: The Happy Ending

The rest of the evening at the reception is a boring story that consists of me having a great time and eating too much. Which doesn't make for an entertaining addition to an already longwinded story. I did get to drink three free longneck bottles of Crown lager and one glass of champagne which helped me warm up for Sylvek's birthday that I was to attend later in the night.

But that story is one I will save for another time, so stay tuned.

Part 5: A Day In History: Saturday, December 9, 2006

Chapter 4: European Equals Overpriced And Annoying

I had conceded defeat. I would call the damned locksmith. Being a Saturday, it turned into an ordeal locating a locksmith that could come out to unlock my doors. I finally got a number that connected and after a short phonecall, it was established that he wouldn't be able to make it out to my place until 6.

Wedding reception starts at 6:30.

So I tell him that will have to do, and I give him my number just in case he can make it earlier. We then had 2 and a half hours to kill, and because Maddy wasn't dressed to be out in public (she only had on a mini-skirt and a singlet top so she could slip from them into her dress) I had to drive her to North Melbourne so that she could hang out with her friend Tsari.

I was now on a mission. I needed to find a new white shirt (because I had completely soaked and dirtied the one I was wearing) and I couldn't go too far from home in case the locksmith called. I headed to a small shopping centre in Brunswick that I remembered existed and bought a 'European' styled shirt.

It turns out when they describe something as European styled, they mean overpriced and annoying. The shirt had double the buttons of a normal shirt, in pairs and even had two buttons almost on top of one another at the neck. When you're wearing a tie, the last thing you want is more bulk right where your Adam's Apple is. This shirt cost me $40, and I swear the extra expense went into the buttons.

As I'm leaving the place at 4:40, the locksmith calls me; he's going to be at my place in 10 minutes.

Great.

So I battle Sydney Road traffic and get there as he does. The locksmith wastes no time in attempting to unlock my doors, he doesn't want to be in the sun for any longer than he has to be with his ginger skin and ample body hair.

It takes him 30 minutes to finally unlock both locks - apparently my locks are good - and $120 later I'm inside! Huzzah!

Part 4: A Day In History: Saturday, December 9, 2006

Chapter 3: The Key Is To Stay Positive

As we pull into the driveway at home, George asks if I'll be fine and asks if there is anything he can do. I reply to him that things should be cool, and I'll be able to work it out, thanks anyway. He motors off and I stroll down the driveway to my car that sounds like it's been running for quite a while.

As I gave upon Maddy's hardened stare, I realise I'm in big trouble. It turns out Maddy had been sitting in my car with the air conditioning going, waiting for me to get home for over an hour. When she first got home, she walked upstairs and went to unlock the door when she made the grim realisation that there were no house keys on my keyring.

Don't you hate that pit-of-your-stomach feeling you get when you know you've really messed up big time?

I had it in spades.

Anyway, me being me, I told Maddy to be cool, and that there was no point in getting upset as it really doesn't help anything. She asked me what I was going to do. I replied with a wry grin and trotted off to the back fence; I was going to attempt to scale the wall and climb in the back window that I leave open for the cat.

Wearing my suit I hoisted myself onto the fence and shuffled around to the wall of my building. At which point I looked down and realised I was standing 15 feet above the concrete pavers the neighbour has in his backyard. Slipping several times due to my dress shoes having no grip, I decided I didn't want to die in my neighbours backyard. It was just too damn hot for that.

I got myself down and strolled back to the car in a dejected kind of way with my shoulders slumping as much from the heat as the sense of defeat I felt from not being able to do what seemed so easy in my head.

"Why don't you just call a locksmith?" Maddy asked with a look of disappointment that had replaced what was once anger on her face. Being a stubborn git, I shook my head; I had one more trick up my dirty white sleeve.

I walked to the front of our apartment block and looked up at the sheer glass surface. Each pane of glass in the facade is about a metre high and is divided by a 'shelf' of aluminium that is about 50mm thick and sticks about 40mm. I decided that I would give Spider-man a run for his money and proceeded to scale the wall.

As I was climbing I was trying desperately to remember which window always opened and which one needed to be unlocked. I was fairly convinced that it was the one closest to the wall that was always locked, but I would have hated myself for not trying. Sure enough, after getting to the top with sweaty fingers holding on for dear life suspended 20 feet in the air, it turns out I was right - the window was locked.

This was the fun part. It is always easier to climb up something than it is to climb down. Sure I could have jumped, but my knees and I have a fairly shaky truce at the best of times, and I was not in the mood to be waging war on my body. I had to slide to the corner of the window and shimmy myself down, all the while trying not to burn my hands off.

Part 3: A Day In History: Saturday, December 9, 2006

Chapter 2: It Is Right To Give Thanks And Praise

George and I walk briskly to the front of the church, and two young guys advise us as we walk inside that there are still free seats upstairs. We walk inside and everyone is looking at the door, obviously waiting for the bridal party to enter. We quickly shuffle into the corner and try to be inconspicuous, which for George proves to be a little be difficult as he towers over most people by several inches.

As the ceremony kicks into gear I looked around to see a faint mist of steam rising from the standing room area where we are. This is sweat. As I look around at the people standing in front of me, beads of sweat are beginning to roll down their necks, and patches start to form on their shirts.

Thankfully we aren't there for very much longer as it's an extremely quick Catholic wedding. Thank the Lord. So we burst out of the church as soon as the happy couple passes us, and we head for the shade of the closest tree for a little bit of relief.

As he has to drive me home, George and I don't hang around long. We jump into his car and he informs me that we can't put the air conditioning on past 1 and we can't put the windows in the front down either. My phone rings suddenly. It's Maddy, and she's not happy.

Part 2: A Day In History: Saturday, December 9, 2006

Chapter 1: Time For A Change

The details are a bit hazy, but one of the first things I can remember clearly is Maddy yelling into the phone.

"What do you mean the wedding is at 1? You told me it was 2!"

This was at 11am. I yawned and got up. The sweltering heat was already a factor and I was dreading the thought of wearing my suit outside, let alone inside a stuffy church for an hour.

After another screaming match on the phone regarding shoes, Maddy was in quite a strop so I steered clear of her, and got ready at my own pace. I was well and truly ready by 12:30, so we jumped in my car, turned the air conditioning up to 4 and headed to Windsor for the wedding.

We arrived at about 12:50 and we had to wait for Maddy's brother George to arrive with her dress and shoes. He arrived about 5 minutes later, and that gave us 5 minutes to arrive at the church. Plenty of time.

Maddy begins putting on her beautiful white dress with the black and yellow floral print on it that she had been dying to wear since buying it for the Melbourne Cup which she didn't end up attending. I'm chatting away to George and I heard this grunting when Maddy taps me on the shoulder and asks for my help doing up the zip. It's one of those shoddy inlaid zips that is so thin you're scared it's going to snap off in your fingers.

We finally tease the zip up and as Maddy puts her arms down, the teeth give out and the zip bursts. She gets the dress off to try to unlock the zip. Her hands are shaking so much with rage that she can't hold the zip properly. I hesitated, but had a quick go, being careful not to tear the teeth and damage the dress any further, but had no luck.

At 1:10, Maddy drove George and I to the front of the church and we went in without her. She decided she'd go home and try to salvage the dress for the reception at 6:30.

Part 1: A Day In History: Saturday, December 9, 2006

Prelude: The Night Before

Early Friday I'm sitting at my desk, thinking about the gloriousness of the weekend to come. However, one thing was bumming me out; it was turning out that my Friday night was going to be free. If there's one thing I enjoy on a Friday night, it's a good drink with Chief to wind down. I actually feel it makes the weekend seem longer if you go out on a Friday night.

But this week Chief had decided that he should spend some time with other friends. That's cool, do that, then come out, I said. Anyway, I worked on him for about 2 hours before he put his foot down and told me it wasn't gonna happen. I did come close. He told me to wait for a phonecall around 10ish just in case he changed his mind.

I wasn't gonna hold my breath.

Anyway, I headed home and the last thing I remember was walking in the door and put my bag down. The next thing I know I'm awoken by Maddy bringing in my phone and it's Chief; his night didn't go to plan, he wants booze.

It's 8:30, I've been asleep for 3 hours and I haven't eaten. So I hurriedly cook some food, eat it, change, take my house keys from my keyring and slip them in the zip compartment of my wallet convince Maddy to drive me to Chief's.

A solid night of alcohol consumption and merriment ensued. Fine details are lost to me, however I do remember one of the barchicks finishing her shift early and buying me two shots to have with her.

Anyway, I arrived home at about 4am-ish, dumped my gear in the brass pot I keep beside the door for loose change and ran to the bathroom to get a bucket. I was sure I was in peril after the amount of grog I consumed and the drunken food spree I went on on the way home (I'm deeply ashamed about that now, actually). I stumbled to the bedroom with the bucket under my arm and crashed for the night.

Ninja Keyboard!

As you will recall in my post titled blanc. which I posted on Wednesday, November 29, 2006, I said this:

"Anyway, I'm working on his design this afternoon and I'm saving and saving, and it's all going well. I do a fairly big change after doing about 15 minutes of clipping mask around some cherries and click save again.

"Could not complete you request because of an unknown error."

You've gotta be kidding me. So I try to remove certain elements that I know I can recreate quickly, or already exist and try to resave. Nada. This continues for about 20 minutes as my blood-pressure reaches bursting point. Finally, something looks like it's working and it's saving and saving, and then on the last bar. Kaputski.

I think it's time for a reboot.

I bite the bullet and shutdown Illustrator and reboot my computer. Oh, this is all at 4:55pm and I finish at 5.

Computer boots back up and I go to open the last file I had saved successfully.

It's corrupt.

Suddenly letters and numbers are showering down upon me as I realise I've put my fist through my keyboard."

It looked a little something like this:



Anyway, I put the keyboard back together and apart from a few sticky keys (i and space) and some letter prints missing (o, a, s, d, f, h, k, l, left shift, x, c, n, m, ,, ., and right shift) it was going fine. But, looking at it today, I just thought, enough is enough. It has to go. I was getting sick of unsticking the keys everytime I was working on something.

I got a new keyboard when I got this new PC, but never plugged it in because I liked the exclusivity of being the only person who could operate my keyboard with the missing keys. It seems I have been doing myself a disservice. This new keyboard is ORGASMICALLY quiet. By orgasmic, I mean the quiet orgasms you learn to do when living at home so as not to get caught making the hand love.

It's soft to the touch too. Likes hands that haven't done a days hard work in their life. It's like shaking hands for me everytime I touch it ;)

It's so sleek and black and silver and is just simple. The way I like it. Although I will miss my multimedia keys (ie mute, volume control and calculator - I love that little guy) but hey, I'll deal. I can't hear myself typing at 200 words a minute now, so I doubt someone at the other side of the room will be able to either.

Speaking of people at the other side of the room, there is meant to be another 'designer' that comes in on Thursdays to learn what I do. You think he's here today? That's right. I guess that's good cos he's a bit of a toolbag. He makes those jokes that you just shake your head at. But if that wasn't all, he likes to make snide remarks about peoples' appearances and make fun of you to your face.

Several times now I've been on the brink of telling him to get fucked, but he'll squeal and then I'll be in deep shit. I'd rather not go through that.

I had a bad day last Thursday with things that sorta but not really went off the rails and people were trying to place the blame on me to dodge a bullet (something I'm well and truly used to being one of the youngest people here) and I just wasn't in the mood for any shit.

Tooly strolls in looking all smug and says something like "quiet morning huh?" I told him I wasn't in the fucking mood for stupid jokes so he should sit down and do his work. Things went pretty smoothly for the rest of the day ^_^

This is the guy you'll ask for something 5 times before he does it. I asked him for a drawing for a particularly urgent job on Tuesday, and he FINALLY emailed it to me today and says "here you go little guy". So I replied "About time Stretch. Only took you 3 days." Sure it's not the best comeback in the world, but it's better than just sitting back and taking it, or complaining.

Anyway, moving on.

Uh..

So how about that tea huh? Good old tea. I drink it black now with no sugar. It's a bit rough, but man it's good for the brain. Wakes me the fuck up like nothing else. LOL. Can you tell? Ok, I'm gonna go and finish off the little amount of work that I have to do so I can have a relaxing afternoon :)

I'll probably blog again later in the arvo. But then again, now that I've said that, I probably won't. But now I might. LOL! Damn vicious irony circles!

Jagshemash! I like you!

So after exams yesterday I saw Borat. It's good, although I'm glad I didn't have to pay for it.

Watching the charmingly naive, anti-semetic, sexist, moustachioed beanpole take on citizens of the U.S. and A and ridicule them whilst on a quest to track down and marry Pamela Anderson was entertaining for the most part.

It only takes about 15 minutes for the Borat gimmick to grow old, but that's OK because seeing the reactions of ordinary Americans is, I think, the main point of the movie.

There is a scene where Borat is to perform the Kazhakistani national anthem to the tune of Star Spangled Banner in front of a rodeo crowd. In order to get the crowd into his performance, Borat makes a few tongue in cheek announcements.

"I completely support your war OF terror"

Which is met with thunderous applause.

There are others namely "I hope George Bush drinks the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq."

Which isn't met with as much applause, but still garners some. Makes you wonder, eh?


Also, there is a scene where Borat goes to buy a gun to protect himself from Jews. He asks the attendant what would be the best gun to buy that would be best for taking down Jews. The guy answers with a straight face that he believes a 9mm or a .45 would be best and hands him a gold-plated Desert Eagle.

Funny.

There are other real performances that make the movie worthwhile.

[ SPOILER WARNING: If you would not like to know about one of the grossest scenes in the movie, I suggest not reading again until you see an END WARNING message ]

One scene I have to warn you about is the sweaty, naked, fat man wrestling scene. If you have a week stomach and are offended by seeing dangly man parts that are most probably very smelly, then I suggest closing your eyes when you see a fat naked man on a bed making hand-love to a Baywatch magazine. It's funny, but it makes the quease well.

[ END WARNING ]

So yeah. It's one of those movies that you possibly could wait until the DVD release. I wouldn't mind seeing all the outtakes, I reckon they would be gold.

One movie I can't wait to see is Casino Royale. I've been waiting for about 6 months now, and it comes out today! I might have to set aside some time on the weekend (I'm not sure when it's gonna happen as I have a wedding, a 30th birthday party Saturday night and then a 60th birthday party with the family *rolls eyes* on the Sunday at 1pm).

Maybe Sunday night.

Who knows. It might have to wait until next week sometime. I'll try to give a review of that too when I see it.

The Pain!

So as I touched on earlier, I scored 6 points in basketball last night. This is a highlight because in the last 6 weeks I've only scored 3 points (!!!)

So last night, I was on again, which for me was a welcome relief. But that's not the point of this post. The point is I had to work hard for those points. The first 3 I got in in the first 5 minutes, so I was pretty happy, and the rest of the game moved along pretty well. The score seesawed a bit, but it was pretty level.

It got to 6 minutes to go, and I just seemed to be an inch too short all night, as I was only getting fingertips to the ball in most occasions. Anyway, the other team were going to fast break, and I was down their end ready to intercept. The ball spilled free and as I'm reaching for the ball, one of the big guys on the other team dropped his shoulder - footy style - and cleaned me up as he grabbed the ball.

His shoulder collected me clean in the nose and cheek which sent the top half of me flying to my left. At that moment, his team-mate came up on my left and collected my legs or hips (I'm a little hazy) and took them out from under me. There was a split second where I was horizontal in the air, rotating 180 degrees so that my face and shoulder were facing the floor, and 90 degrees so that my feet were pointing towards my right.

I then landed with all of my weight on my shoulder and was just a little bit disoriented.

They called the foul on me.

I had a break on the bench for about 3 minutes or so whilst I regained consciousness properly and checked for blood (of which I was surprised that there was very little). With about 2 minutes to go, I came back on the court and very soon I had an opportunity for 3 again. This time I popped it up and scored in the face of the guy that cleaned me up. Cha-ching. I felt I didn't need to let him know, my shot going in did all the talking for me.

So now, I'm feeling very ginger as my shoulder aches and my nose is throbbing. But you know what? I'd do it again. I miss that physical shit; it's one of the things I miss most about footy.

What can I say, I'm a bit of a mosochist :P

Finding An Adequate Title Is Such A Chore

So it's December, the mo' has gone, assignments are outta the way and so are exams! I got to sleep in on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and I scored 6 points at Basketball last night. I just have work for the next 9 days and then all there is left to do is drink. Muhahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!

This morning I was down to 73kg. Now mind you, I was nude at the time, and when I weighed in for the first time I was 85.1kg with clothes on. This was a particularly light day for me, as on a regular day I would usually weigh 87kg with clothes on. Last night I was 74kg with clothes on, so as far as I'm concerned, I have hit my first target. It's been bloody hard.

But it's not the end. I intend to reach 70kg by Christmas (only 18 days now). It's gonna get even harder soon with only 1 week of basketball left on the calendar and so many break-up parties to go to. It might be a struggle to stay at my first target, let alone reach my second! I bought a months supply of my weight-loss stuff, so I really have until the 4th of January to be happy. That should be enough time I think.

I'll keep you posted :)