Wednesday, August 28, 2002
In Retrospect
Thursday
Spent the day in a speed-reading course that was pretty light-on when it came to content. Still, it was good to be out of the office, so we at least gave it a go, but I doubt our retention factor will be very high in a month.
Thursday night saw the genesis of Pub Parliament. Our regular booth was just the right shape for a House of Reps with Government, Opposition, Speaker as well as Government and Opposition Whips. The Government sat on the Speakers right-hand side, the opposition on the left.
Seats were determined by clothing (generally what each attendee was wearing/had on a t-shirt). The pub Government consisted of the Member for Kilimanjaro (T-bone), the Member for Short Skirts (Kat), the Member for Future Robotics and Gansta's Paradise (Pawnstar), and the Government Whip was the Member for Tuscadero (Louise). Cliffy was Speaker. The Opposition was lead by the Member for Howard's End (Chris) and consisted of the Member for SMS (Ms O), the Member for Bloodnut (Chris' redhead mate whose name I don't recall), the Member for No Product (me) with the Member for RipCurl (Big Kev) acting as Opposition Whip. Independents included the Member for Hippy Shit (Ms S) and the Member for Polo Necks / Fancy Pants.
Like the real House of Reps, there were protocols to be followed. Members introduced bills for debate, new members made maiden speeches, question time was held and all members had to seek leave from the Speaker for breaks to seek refreshment etc. Part-way through the parliamentary session the House ratified a motion to not only rise for the parliamentary anthem, but to get up on the benches and dance to it (Fat Boy Slim's Funk Soul Brother).
Several Bills were introduced for debate. The Member for Future Robotics and Gangsta's Paradise introduced the "Child Armament Act" in which it was proposed that all children be provided with an Uzi machine-pistol by 2005. This was amended by the Opposition to include the Glock semi-automatic pistol ("How dare the Government send our children out into the world with inferior weapons prone to jamming?") rather than the Uzi. The other motion of note passed by the House was to formally request the ejection of the cretins in the public gallery for being "ugly and stupid" (That almost had one of the cretins glass Cliffy).
Question time saw the Opposition ask the Government the tough questions on the lips of the voters; was it not true that the Member for Future Robotics and Gangsta's Paradise is in fact the love-child of Chris Isaac and Harry Connick Jr? The voting public waits for the answer to this day.
Pub Parliament is scheduled to sit again this Thursday. The agenda for debate is yet to be finalised, but I can reveal exclusively here that I will be introducing a Bill for the House to debate to "prevent female persons of inappropriate body shape from wearing hipster jeans in public".
Friday
Just another average night at the pub (ie no special events to speak of). We did, however, have the misfortune of encountering some friends of one of T-bone’s housemates. The blonde one, while very attractive, threw tantrums and screeched with a fingernails-on-blackboard cut-right-through-you squeal whenever her friends disagreed with her. She came very close to being slapped by several pub attendees. The short one, while cute, carried an air of the unimpressed and went from being merely sour to being actively annoyed when those in attendance did not believe she was 21 and then revealed her naivety when she willingly handed over her ID, thus revealing her full name and address to a group of complete strangers. After that we were, according to the short & sour, a "bunch of old toss-pots" and "old boring public servants". I quite like being in regular non-service-industry employment with an ability to make my own fun. I’ve been there & done the service-industry thing and I hope I never carried a ‘I’m better than those I serve because I have unrealised potential’ attitude in my student days.
After a trying week for many, I walked Pawnstar home around 3.30am.
Saturday
Actually got to talk to Mum in Brisbane for the first time in a few weeks Saturday morning; we’d been calling each other but playing message tag so it was really good to get all the family news and birthday reminders etc & just catch up.
Despite Pawnstar and I sporting our new red team tops (meant to give us some sort of advantage), Team Liverpool still went down to Team Fulham by one goal in Golden-Goal time. More here.
After the obligatory half-pint of Vitamin B(eer), the afternoon was spent looking at a unit for T-bone, Pawnstar and Kombiman. I returned home to find my housemate cleaning in anticipation of the imminent arrival of her Sydney North Shore friend whom she obviously wanted to impress. I joined in & we now have a very clean and attractive apartment.
Part of the Kingston Massif was lined-up to visit the Palais de Lil Bob for dinner; as a warm-up T-bone and the Pawnstar came around to watch all but the last 30 minutes of the war-porn flick Black-Hawk Down and play some Goldeneye Deathmatch. Dinner, a delicious but very filling pasta, was washed down with a few bottles of nice red (Lil Bob’s Dad has a vineyard apparently & I can definitely recommend Capel Vale as a good drop). I was home in bed by midnight and it was really good to have a milder Saturday night for a change.
Sunday
I spent Sunday morning doing something I hadn’t done in ages; sitting in a bean-bag in the sun with vegemite on toast flicking through Empire magazine. It was so relaxing. With absolutely nothing planned for the day, I had time to tackle the last problem area in my place, my room. I filed papers, I did several loads of washing, I moved clothes from the floordrobe to the wardrobe.
Late-afternoon T-bone came around to collect his travel bag that’d been left behind from the afternoon before & we headed down to the Pawnstar’s place to see what he was up to. Having done all the things I’d been doing too, we were all keen to get out of our respective places and do ‘something’. That ‘something’ turned out to be a movie. Unable to determine what was on & when, we decided to just get in the car & head up to Belconnen & see whatever looked reasonable (ie something not rated G or PG & also not a ‘chick flick’). This plan had the added bonus of being able to drop T-bone home on the return journey thus saving him another southside-northside taxi fare.
With ten minutes until screening time, we chose to see Signs. It should have been good. It had so many things going for it; it was written, produced & directed by M. Night Shyamalan (see also, The Sixth Sense) and had Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix (and even a Culkin) in the cast. Alas, the tension built up throughout the film was given the most weak and lame release ever committed to celluloid, so this Independence Day-meets-X-Files-meets-War of the Worlds-at-the-psychic-farmhouse concluded leaving viewers feeling very strange. We didn’t walk out angry at a bad film; we were bewildered and confused at what’d just happened.
Monday
After a pretty good day at work and an invigorating session at the gym immediately after, I arrived at Monday Pints (the pub session at which those who went out of town for the weekend get to catch up with those who stayed) shaken and stirred by an encounter on the bus with a messed-up twitching and gibbering junky chick very similar to the one I’d encountered before. Flashbacks are a bitch, but good company is a great help.
A flash mash party followed at Ms S & Pawnstar’s place. Ms S does very good Bangers & Mash which this was enhanced with Louise’s mash and Ms O’s onion gravy. Most of the events of the night are not fit to print, and I’m sure that’s how those in attendance would like to keep it for now, but I would like to record that Big Kev and I suggested what the missing words in Bizarre Love Triangle might have been ("I'm waiting for that final moment, You'll say the words that I can't say"), but those too are not fit to print.
Tuesday
Had lunch with the soon-to-be-new boss. She seems quite nice & it turns out that as well as getting a window seat I'll be doing much more interesting things than I had anticipated. Feel free to quote me to myself if I start making lots of complaining posts in the months to come.
Tuesday night Kareoke at the Aree Bar in Civic is a regular thing for T-bone, K-man and the Pawnstar, but for me it’s always been optional pending mood and whether or not The West Wing was going to be broadcast. This week I went along to commemorate a special event with Ms S, and hopefully the good memories of singing loud pop songs and dancing on the benches will go a little way to balance out the not-so-good memories.
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