t and/or essay and place all my hopes on doing exceptionally well on the final. Although it would be great to not have to do any work until the final, I will probably be kNOwBalls Moreno, play it safe and complete all the assignments . My favourite class is Writing Short Fiction, but it could not come at a worst time (yes I spelled favourite that way because the Aussies like the British cannot spell and always use -ou's and s's instead of z's). The class lasts from 4-7 on Wednesdays which is in the middle of Wicked Wednesdays at the Tav. Now, for those of you who think I am a little alcoholic for worrying about missing out on Wednesday drinking, I must enlighten you on the cultural differences between here and back at home. Going out to clubs in Perth are not always worth it. You will spend mad money, wait in heaps of lines and deal with hella uptight bouncers all to be rejected by wicked reluctant girls and take a sweet 40 dollar cab ride home (quick note: I think every should appreciate my cross-cultural adjective use in that sentence). To avoid this club mess, the Tav has two big nights a week that allow for a normal, fun and college-like experience: Wednesday and Friday. Additionally, St. Patricks Day happens on a Wednesday this year and since this holiday is the second most fun drinking day of the year outside of the Superbowl Sunday I do not want to miss out on any of the celebrating. Unfortunately, I now have to choose between my academics and my social life and the nerd in me
will not allow me to skip any of those classes. Luckily, the course has an upbeat teacher, an interactive curriculum where we practice many helpful writing exercises and a collection of the most talented writers I have ever been exposed to up close. The last academic unit I have is the JCLA program that I mentioned in the last post and do not worry I be asking for money and help for our rebuilding African villages project throughout these weekly posts.After my long two days of class, I headed to the Tav for another cultural experience. When I walked in, I felt more popular than Alicia Silverstone in Clueless because I was quickly surrounded by twenty or so of my fellow JCLA members. It was great to see them again after the amazing retreat the weekend before and even greater to see how generous they were in giving me free drinks. For the most part, everyone remained relatively well-behaved as we were not kicked out of the place, we did not break anything and had no trouble remembering everything in the morning. The best part of the night had to be the realization of my blog's influential power. Last week, I called out the Jim Beam girls for being greedy and disingenuous, which may have been a little unfair. On this night they pulled a complete 180 and proved me wrong. As I walked to the bathroom, one of them stopped me and I instinctively told her that I was not going to buy anything. Her response was the antithesis of what I expected. She told me I did not need to buy anything, she talked to me about America and gave me a free pair of JB aviators. I fell in love with her right there as that was the most action I would get all night. The only logical conclusion to her turnaround is that she must have heard about my blog, realized how much of a cultural phenomenon it is and wanted to make a good name for herself. This encounter unequivocally proves that my blog changes lives.
Thursday night, I planned to take it easy, but "The best laid schemes of mice and men, go often askew, and leave us nothing but grief and pain, for promised joy" (Burns). I debated going to the library to put myself ahead for the week, but then I found out that the library closes at 9pm at night on week days. Closing that early is worse for business than hiring the Bills stuttering and incoherent CB, Ellis Lankster, to be your company's spokesman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_WxcNirNDM. Then, I found out that there was a free sausage sizzle, which is not to be mistaken with any event in SF's Castro District, and beach volleyball games by my dorm. The beach volleyball was shirts optional and if you want to gain a more accurate representation of what it looked like rent Top Gun and forward it to the volleyball scene. Other than the blood, sweat and tears on the court, the event helped me meet most of the residents in KV and discover that Lindsey and I were not the only non-Asians in the village. Later, we decided to head to the casino down the road. I put on Sam's Texas jacket and wore my newly acquired JB glasses for good luck. The outfit worked for blackjack but failed miserably for poker. Usually, I do alright playing poker but that night I played worse than Rich Gannon in the 2002 Super Bowl. I became way too overexcited when I had a strong hand and went all in with a pair of 6's against a guy who had pocket aces. Sherry did not do much better at the table behind me, but at least neither Sherry nor I nearly got taken out back and had the life beaten out of us. During one of Blake's hands, he prematurely flipped over his cards because he thought the guy called his raise. The dealer and the other guy thought he was folding, so when Blake argued that he still wanted to play all hell broke loose. The competitor started screaming at Blake and threatening him with the most obscene and nonsensical phrases you will ever hear. Blake and the dealer tried to calm the guy down, but there was not much anyone could to cool this steaming tea kettle. Eventually, the security people came down and reviewed the surveillance tape and ruled that Blake should still be allowed to play. Blake then subsequently lost the hand and made all that effort that allowed him to keep playing a complete and utter waste of time and energy. After the rough poker experience, I needed to redeem myself. To regain my confidence I started betting Nick and Sam's money that they recently won from video roulette. I went to what I thought was the BlackJack table and threw down fifteen notes. After receiving only one card I doubled my money. I was confused and bet again because I had finally won some money. Again, one card and I won. I looked back at Nick and Sam and told them I did not think this was 21 and in fact it was not. I had been playing Casino War, a game that requires absolutely no skill or knowledge. The deal passes each player a card and if your card is higher than the dealers you win. Once I lost my first hand, I went to try to win back all my money that I had lost at poker at the real BlackJack tables. Now, I had become a relatively strong BlackJack player before I left for Australia because I had a large amount of time to play the BlackJack app on my IPhone. My time spent on the Iphone seemed to work in my favor as I turned my hundred dollars into 235 in thirty minutes. However, my goal was to win 240 so I could offset the hundred dollars lost during my ill-advised poker playing. I never quite reached 240 and should have quit at that point but I guess that is why the house always wins.
On the way out of the casino, Sam and Nick ran into some trouble with two intoxicated Aboriginees after they laughed at their sister who was making a fool of her inebriated self. When I came down the elevator the Aborignees tried to get in my face because Nick and Sam had said the Tweekinator was coming to bring the pain. Although I would have loved to "bring the pain," I had no intention to fight some drunk idiots in front of a police-surrounded casino, especially if I was going to be battling under the name the Tweekinator. Back at HQ (Sam's Don Watts Flat), we brought the skateboard out to do some more late night shredding. Since it went so well last time with Atlee's fall, what could possibly go wrong this time? Nothing at all, except for the fact that SV broke his wrist so bad that it was a prettier sight to watch JaMarcus Russell play QB in the NFL than to look at Sam's swollen, lopsided wrist.
Sam tried to outdo everyone else and gain heaps of momentum before he went down the hill, but he never quite made it there. He fell face first off the skateboard and landed directly on his wrist. At first, I thougt it was the funniest thing of all time, and did not think there was a problem because he finished the run. When he came back to the top of the hill, he showed us the wrist and said that it was broken, so Nick, Blake, Ben and I took Sam and a fresh Goon sack to the emergency room right away. Blake was able to drive because he had not been drinking, which was the one lucky thing that happened to us all night. While Blake and Nick dealt with the nurses, Ben and I we went back to the car and drank the bag of wine because that was the most we could contribute at that point. At 5am, we made it back to campus where Sherry and I headed to bed, but Blake and Nick admirably stayed up for another few hours to bring SV back home from the hospital after they adminstered all the X-rays and other medical tests. When we finally woke up in the afternoon after being up the entire night, we tried to be responsible and head to the RTA a.k.a the Aussie DMV, to register our car with the state. Like any DMV, we waited in line for hours and were told that they were unable to process our request once we finally made it to the counter. Since our license plate said New South Wales, we had to go to Sydney to register the car. Awesome, I am so glad the pamphlets and online information about registering cars that we had looked through meticulously did not tell us that. Nick offered to have one of his friends back in Sydney help us out and we will deal with it next week through our Sydney contact. Next, we went to Sacrborough beach where the sea was angry that day, my friends. The wind was blowing harder than a Jenna Jameson porno and the rips, or riptide, dragged you worse than RuPaul. As every knows I am an Olympic-level swimmer, who refused to compete in the games because only sell outs like Michael Phelps swim for superficial medals. Still, with my swimming prowess, I was overcome by the strength of the rip. I swam as best as I could in one direction and was moved 20 meters the other way. After realizing the futility of swimming in such treacherous waters, we headed back to HQ to shower off the epic fails at the RTA and the beach. I then fell asleep at 9pm and woke up Saturday morning at 11 am. I have never slept for this long and it was the most glorious sleep of my life.When I finally pulled myself together on Saturday, Sherry and I headed to the community pool to swim some laps. It was a perfect facility for us because although Sherry is technically a lifeguard, we are equally mediocre swimmers and the 50m lap pool was less than a meter deep all around. Therefore, we could stand up in it when we became tired which occurred frequently. The complex also had a water slide that the lifeguard let us go on it because she wanted to see some big college kids act like school girls as we screamed down the slide. On our way out we decided to stop at the office to see if they had any jobs available. The employee there was a cute brunette named Lisa who goes to Curtin University and seemed to enjoy our dumb American tourist act. As a result, we decided to give her my number and I handed it to her under the title "Tommy the Pool Guy." For some reason, she has failed to call it, but we are still holding on to the hope that she will. From the pool we headed to the hospital to visit Sam who had recently completed his surgery. The operation went well, and SV seemed in good spirits when we saw him, but that was probably the painkillers speaking.
At night we headed into the city to Amplify and Capitol, two neighboring clubs that open up and become one huge party at midnight. As previously mentioned, I am not the biggest fan of going into downtown Perth, but these two places were actually a great deal of fun. Both places had massive dance floors full of people gettin their groove on. One side was more alternative with songs like "Shout" and "Sweet Child O' Mine" while the other side was the stereotypical Studio 54 modern club scene. The other reason why I headed to the clubs is because I wanted to use one of the best pick-up lines that we had learned a few days earlier. The line is based on an episode from Flight of the Concords. It starts off by you making solid eye contact with a girl and then going up to her to say, "I am really sorry, but I do not want to have sex with you." The girl will then reply with a response like "yea I don't either" and then you follow up with, "so to be clear you do not and I do not want to...(pause)...but we could." This moment is where you have to drive it home because you have gained a little spark of interest from her. The last and most important thing you say then is, "Is it because I am dangerous and you think I am going to ride out of town with your heart just as fast as I rode in" and if you say this correctly
you will then sweep her off her feet to the dance floor. If she is still ambivalent about your danger, respond with "you must at least be slightly concerned about my danger" and if she is not then abort and get out of there. It is not a foolproof method, but it is worth a shot, especially since a simple, boring "hi my name is and can I ask you to this dance" has become too cliche. I used it once at the bar that we were at and it actually gained some interest but I lost it on the follow through. At least, now, I have some confidence and experience in using the line, so it has to work in the future. The best pick up of the night though was at Mackers when one of our local Australian mates picked up a girl in line. This move was a little dodgy because a girl alone at 3am at McDonalds is usually not the girl you want to date. Nevertheless, he obtained her number and she has already texted him back. Good luck with that, mate!Sunday I decided to go down to Cott with the SMU crew because I had become bored of waiting around to see when Sam was being released from the hospital. On the train ride down there, this creepy old man tried to provoke Carly and Lindsey to sing some tunes. He actually had a decent voice and sang a Frank Zappa song for us in the hopes that the girls would return the favor with a song their own. Sensing the girls disomfort, I stepped in and helped the girls sing Bohemian Rhapsody. This number sparked a series of other songs, culminating in everyone on the train car belting out Don Maclean's "American Pie."
Cott beach itself is awesome whether you are down there to drink during a Sunday Session or to simply enjoy the water and atmosphere. There was modernist art exhibit on the beach with giant diamond ring statues and a tunnel of glass flowers along with other works on display all over the beach. When most of the crew went into the bars for a true Sunday Session, Morgan, our Irish friend, drove us back to KV. There, Sherry, Sam and I made some tasty Juicy Loosey's before I went to pick up Nick and Blake from the Citigate Hotel. Nick's dad and business partner had come down to city to see Nick. Blake came along to be the ambassador for Nick's American friends. Nick's dad, Phil, was extremely nice, and bought drinks for all of us. At first, the conversation did not go so well. I started up a somewhat heated argument over why American football is better than any Aussie sport such as Rugby and the AFL. Halfway, through this discussion, I relaxed and realized that it was insensitive of me to come to their country and tell them what to like and what not to like. Once I gave into the fact that all sports are great games and they had a few more drinks, things went smoothly. Phil as he continued to drink gave Blake and I many life lessons that all generally made the point that "you must have fuckin' fun in life." Also, he threatened to beat up Blake if we did not visit the Hunter family in Sydney before we left. Blake and I would like to take Phil up on his offer for Blake's safety and for the experience, but we could not promise anything as we may not have the time or money. Nevertheless, like Nick, Phil is a very generous man and a great bloke to get pissed with. The drinks with the Hunter clan was a great way to finish the weekend and get us ready for another wild week down under. Before I end this new edition, I would like to say congrats to a fellow Trinity Bloke, Sam Adams, for releasing his lp "Boston's Boy" this week. It has skyrocketed to the top of the itunes album downloads and if you want a sample of his songs go to biggreenbeats.com. Finally, if you happen to know Chris Purdue, please for our sake, especially Sam's, tell him he is a dildo.
Hey that was my goon! I hope you enjoyed it bastards ;)
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