Monday, December 31, 2007

Happy New Years Mates....


So the new years party in Sydney is the bomb. I ended up spending it with my old flatmate Allison, her 2 friends in town, and Sean (the guy whose room I lived in for those first few weeks) and his girlfriend. We went to the harbor bridge to catch the 9pm fireworks, first buying all the most annoying things we could find from the street vendors, then hightailed it back to the beach for the big Groove Armada party on Bondi Beach. I avoided a near disaster early in the night when a female cop on a horse freaked out and accused me of throwing a beer at her horse. Ten cops swarmed and threw me against the wall. I was like, "How did I throw a beer at a horse when I am holding a full can of beer?" The cops after 10 minutes or so realized I was right and let me go. They had the COPS cameras there and about 35 people stood to watch this show. Or maybe they were all just looking at my bling...who knows. It was all good though. I wasn't at all drunk at this point and that got diffused, however I suffered a major casualty in that my hat was taken away. Not a big deal considering, though the cops gave me my beer back. After a brief dance off on in the street, which I won of course, we headed to the beach. It was just a massively good time. Here's some video of the new years party...10,000 people.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Grrrrrr

So I just blogged about my opera house endeavors and the videos I uploaded, which took an hour for me to upload, failed at the last second. Grrr. I'll try again tomorrow, but in the meantime, you can enjoy my picture with the Aborigines. When I was around them, my first thought was, "Wow, they really remind me of the girls that McGrane hooks up with."



The one guy playing the instrument on the right stopped to check his cell phone...nice.





Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Christmas and Boxing Day


So you're probably thinking, spending Christmas at a beach has gotta suck. You don't have all the cold weather, snow, holly, miserable dogs dressed up in reindeer outfits, egg nog, 2 hour masses, blah blah. I thought that too but was wrong. I definitely miss the family, but 80 degree weather and sunshine pretty much ends all that. On Christmas day, from 12-5pm, there was a huge party here on Bondi Beach. It was actually overcast and windy, so most people laid out and bbq'd up on the grass hill. My flat mate and I actually sat near this guy pictured above. You can see he's buried in sand standing up. He was that way before I got there and was that way when I left an hour and half later. The ocean swim is quite a tradition and as cold as it was, it was fun as could be.

From there I went for Christmas dinner at my flatmate's parents house, which is a gorgeous house up in the Mosman hills (Northern suburb of Sydney) overlooking several beaches. Elliot got a remote control helicopter which he tried out in the house, and of course, as soon as it took flight, it landed smack down on the Mom's wine glass shattering it to pieces. Wine was everywhere...walls, counter. Everyone laughed and had 'no worries' (even though it was a vintage wine)! All part of the laid back culture I enjoy here. The next day (Dec. 26th) is Boxing Day, which is also a holiday. The big Sydney-Hobart (Tazmania) yacht race kicks off this day and we had an amazing view of that, which I added some pics of down below.

Well...holidays are over...back to work. It's a shame, the first thing I see when I open the newspapers is 1.) Paris Hilton's to-be inherited fortune was given to charity, and 2.) Jamie Lynn's Spears (Britney's 16 y.o. sister) is pregnant with some other guy's baby...some older executive that would face jail time for sure. Regardless, how is this news?!? There are so many more interesting things going on. Oh well, gotta run. Cheers!

Bondi Beach Christmas Day...overcast and chilly (65 degrees I'd guess). Locals have been saying this has been the oddest weather they have ever remembered.


My flat mate's family. The girl second to right is a family friend of his 2 sisters who are not pictured. The parents are hysterical. I could talk in the same unfiltered manner as I do my friends at home. Cursing included! haha.


Start of the Hobart race. You can see the DHL (yellow) boat (coming towards you) is over the line and thus got penalized. The large boat in front is Wild Oats, the winner the last 2 years and the favorite this year.


View behind me...

Monday, December 24, 2007

Christmas Time...Jews for Jesus


OK people. It's Christmas time and no one is in giving the spirit but me....ie...no one posts any comments anymore and I am getting no love back. I know you're all reading these posts because the stats show it...but I need some love back. I sent a whole heap of post cards out too and nothing except one thanks. Just for this reason, I'm buying all my Christmas gifts for you from this store. This store really exists here in Bondi. Haha, weird. Unfortunately no t-shirts. I went to a great Christmas Eve party last night and am going to my flat mate's family's house for dinner tonight. Gimme so love people.

Cheers, happy Festivus, and Merry Christmas.

Note, if you go to that website above, here is what the website says:

Jews for Jesus is an international organisation of Jewish people who believe that Jesus is the Messiah and Saviour of the world. We exist to make the messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people worldwide.

I am no genius, but if you believe Jesus is the Messiah, then that makes you a Christian. I am 99% sure this store will have a 'Out of Business...For Lease' sign in the window within the coming weeks.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Daft Punk Concert - Sydney 12/22/07



So Saturday was crazy. My roommate Elliot and I went over to his friend's house where there was a pre-party at 10:30AM. We had a bus take about 50 of us to the concert at Olympic Park. It was pretty much pandemonium. They had a Jagermeister tent hooked up with a Red Bull tent, and the party was on. I'm also 100% sure I was the only person not on drugs. The bus ride into the show was a riot because 10 minutes after we left, this guy realized he had forgot his wallet, which also had his ticket. He was pretty bombed so we dropped him off and continued without him. Well, 5 minutes later the guy who was sitting next to him found his wallet. Turns out the kid put it in that mesh backing of his bus seat and forgot...he was pretty bombed so not surprising. I told everyone my similar story when I lost my Skins/Lions Club level playoff ticket at the gate...only to find it on the inside of my hat after I entered the stadium on a scalped ticket. Haha, good times. Anyway, I don't know how he got to the show without his wallet, but it was a $100 cab and he did meet back up with us. Inside was pretty nuts. DJ booths all over the park playing and people getting loose. When Daft Punk came on it was insane...I tried to capture some video with my poopy camera which is below. My new camera gets here in a week which I look forward too...thanks ma.

Anyway, after the show I got split up from everyone and got lost. I asked a guard where bus stop 7 was, he looked at his map, didn't know, so he said 'follow me'. Now, for those of you that don't know Daft Punk, they're 2 French DJs that are mega superstars world-wide. They always wear helmets when they do any public appearance and no one knows what they look like. If you Google them, the only picture you'll see is from 10 years ago and that is the only one.

The conversation with this guard (as we're cutting through the Olympic security area) went like this:
Guard : So, where are you from?
Me: The States.
Guard: (laughing) I'm from Iraq!
Me: Oh boy, well, I gotta say it's a shame how things are going and just to let you know the majority of the US feels that way too.
Guard: Oh no. I totally agree with everything the US is doing. It's a good thing!
Me: Really? OK good then. I am actually going to Falluja next week for business.
Guard: WHAT?! Really?
Me: No...haha. I enjoy how my head is attached to my body.

He then went on to talk about how he very sadly and disturbingly saw a US soldier get shot and then dismembered. I immediately cut him off and refocused him back on getting me to bus stop 7. At this point we had gone past several different security checkpoints and fences and I am now standing next to the tunnel where several people were standing and waiting, including a collection of really hot girls and an area with some couches. I knew I was at the backstage access and told the guard 'Lets ask these people'. At that moment the 2 members of Daft Punk walked right into where I was standing. One immediately went one way and the other went back into this lounge area. As soon as I went to take my first 1-inch step towards the lounge area, which was still 15 yards away, this massive security guard screamed at me and the guard and escorted us out. Game over. Well, I ended up making it back to the bus and it was quite the highlight seeing the faces of 2 quite illusive people. The highlight of the show was when they mixed 'Stronger' and 'Around the World' on top of each other.

DJ playing house music waiting for Daft Punk to come out...


Stadium during DJ set..


Entrance into show...


My roommate Elliot on the far right and friend Matt next to him.



The bus and party where much more raucous then these pictures lend. These people know how to party. Maybe these videos will show that. At the time it seemed like a great idea to pan the crowd but that failed miserably.

One More Time...


More stable view...


More...

Friday, December 21, 2007

Aussie Beer Pong...


So my flat mate and I went one of his friend's house parties. I walked in and the first thing I saw was the ping pong table in the dining room. Now, anyone that knows me knows that if there is a stupid drinking game, I am the king of it. If I had a penny for the number of times I have been asked for an autograph at FedEx Field for my Beruit skills, I'd be a rich man. Anyway, once I got on the table, I never left. 3 hours! The rules are simple and involve paddles. It's 2 on 2...hit the ball back back and forth. If it hits one of the 2 drinks in front of you (1 spirit, 1 beer)...you drink a sip. If you knock over one swinging for a shot, you're out and the next person in line jumps in. That's it...so there really are no teams or score per say. If your shot lands in the spirit, then that person has to down it and they're out. I had 1 of those and it was quite glorious. It gets interesting because sometimes on shots the ball hits both cups and you gotta drink both. Either way, I came, I saw, I conquered. NEXT!

That's all for now..I'm off to the Daft Punk concert...all day thing at the fairgrounds. More to come on that for sure.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Sambuca shots....


So I went out with my flat mate last night and we met up with his co-worker, who had a bunch of Switzerland friends in town. One was a professional ski instructor and does all the extreme skiing you see in those videos with 70% slopes. He probably thought I was retarded because I could not stop laughing anytime he talked. He sounded exactly like a 1980 Arnold Schwarzenegger but better. Anyway, we pretty much took over the place with Sambuca shots...the difference being after you take the shot, you leave it in your throat, then using a lighter, light the inside of your mouth to cause a constant running flame. After 3 seconds or so you just close up your mouth and take it down. There was 7 of us doing these and by the 3rd round, the bartender was furious and cut us off that game. I guess they didn't want the liability if someone's face caught on fire...which has happened...

(wrong way)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBMjWXQ72ug


(proper way)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmqlfEImUXk&feature=related

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Coming to a Whole Foods near you...



They're actually pretty damn tasty....too bad they'll never jump the Pacific to the US solely because of the name and 'outrage' it would spark....similar to when BK came out with its 4 patty Stacker. My high school friend Pete Rogers could eat 6 of these Stackers in a sitting. All I know is when the time comes to leave Australia, I'm leaving all my clothes here and filling up my suitcases with cheese and bacon balls.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Surfing 101



So my first day/attempt of surfing is in the books. I mean, if Sean "I can't parallel park a car" White can surf, my theory is anyone can. I couldn't have asked for better waves for my first time. There were 2 breaks about 10 yards apart, 1 large and 1 small, so I stuck with the small ones which were about 5 feet high. I noticed some surfing lessons going on for these 10 year old kids, so I swam next to them to see what they were doing. (And 'yes Pete, they probably did weigh more than me). Anyway, I'm glad I did because the first lesson was riding the wave after it breaks, then standing up. A nice quick way to learn to stand. Unfortunately, it didn't do much good for me. I was able to almost fully stand a couple times but for the most part it was pretty disastrous. At two different times the chord got wrapped around my ankle and another between my toes. I learned a good amount though and plan to give it another go. I had to jump out after 30 minutes because it was just too crowded. Here's the final tallies:

Number of times I...:
...hit the walls in my building with my surfboard walking to and from the beach: 7
...stood up fully: 0
...got into the 'crouching tiger' (near standup): 2
...got yelled at by the lifeguard: 1
...almost got ran over by a real surfer: 1 (and it was close)
...bumped a pedestrian walking with my surfboard: 1*

* - she technically walked into my surfboard but I was standing in the middle of a busy sidewalk with it held horizontally, so I'll take the blame there.

I had drinks at the Opera Bar last night which is an outdoor bar in front of the Opera House overlooking the bridge and Circular Quay (Key) area. Quite a view. I'll post more on that later.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Got my new doje...just in time for Christmas....



401/136 Curlewis St.
Bondi Beach, NSW 2026
Australia

So the kid has his own flat now, so all that money you've been saving all year to buy my Christmas present, you now have a place to send it! I can move in today but it's not as nice as my current one and the utilities are not setup, so I'm gonna milk this one for all its worth (another week). Being able to walk to the beach was key. So now that it's official, anyone and everyone can get their pale asses over here and visit me. It's 80 and sunny today. :-)

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Best Beer Pong/Beruit tables of All Time

So it's a slow week...weather is overcast, and I've been looking diligently for an apartment, as my current one is ending soon. Anyway, to feed the fish, here's a blog I found of the best beer pong tables of all time. I disagree with some of the rankings but #1 is pretty solid. I actually thought #15 was the winner. How my (and thousands of other people's) bing bong table (suitcase one) is not on here I don't know. I still plan on building my 'stadium' at some point that has in the table: 1.) an automated self-refreshing water cup (like at the dentist office), 2.) movie cup holders on the side, 3.) an integrated keg or fridge, and 4.) an automated 're-racker' is not out of the picture either...but I am ahead of myself. In time..in time.

I plan to try surfing this weekend so look for a post on that. If you don't see a blog entry by Monday morning, call Bondi Beach hospital! haha. Don't worry Mom, the waves here right now are about as big as the waves from a bathtub fart.

http://www.pongalong.com/Beerblog/index.php/the-33-best-beer-pong-tables-ever-created/

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Mayweather/Hatton Fight.....


So one of the local bars had the big fight on all their big screens. To my surprise, there were hunderds of people, the bar was super-packed, and it was rowdy as all hell (The Hatton song and God Save the Queen was going off routinely pre-fight). The fight went off at 4PM Sunday here. I went into the fight rooting for Hatton...as was 99% of the bar, but when the bar decided to boo the US national anthem, I instantly began pulling for Mayweather. And it worked out because I walked away a winner. There's nothing that beats winning, and Lord knows I don't experience this feeling much with DC sports. What a nasty left hook though. I know even before Hatton spoke his first words post-match he was gonna wine about Mayweather's elbows and hands, but he said it best, 'it isn't a tickle fight.'

So the bar cheered for every single celebrity except 1. Any guess of who? Will Farrell, Beckham, Bruce Willis, Brangelina....all huge cheers, then ....... Mario Lopez....crickets. Haha. I wonder if the cameraman lost his job for showing him. Seriously...who cares about AC? Although I've always wanted to buy one of these.

On a side note, I really need to bring my camera to the beach. I was laying out today and looked over to see this elderly Asian man chasing his umbrella which was rolling in the wind. Now this fella was about 50 years old, was wearing a black thong, and was wearing a clear, plastic, shower cap. Pretend you had to balance 2 eggs on toothpicks and run down the beach...this is how this guy ran. He caught the umbrella just next to where I was laying...and when he reached down to grab it, all the newspapers and loose bread in his hand fell out and started rolling down the beach. So then he's running down the beach (with the umbrella fully extended) chasing the papers. And as we all know, chasing paper is impossible. As soon as it stops and you bend over, it takes off again. At this point, 60% of the beach is watching this show. I am still BAFFLED as to why he has the shower cap on. I stopped the papers and as he reached to grab them from me, loose bread fell out of his hand and into the sand. He naturally picked up the bread out of the sand and I saw him eating it later. This guy. OH MAN. I really am sorry I don't have video of this because my descriptive explanation cannot do justice. And it's not like I was laying out near the ocean...we were back probably 50 meters from the ocean near the wall....so why the shower cap STILL?! Hopefully he'll be there next week and you can judge for yourself.

Friday, December 7, 2007

And the Winner Is.....

So from my previous post, my camera is the worst. This was suppose to be the most glorious post ever, yet I got some make shift pics...and of the 10 contestants, my camera decided to crap out on the pics for the 2 runner ups. Either way, Miss Bondi Beach 2007 was crowned today, and as always, I'll make an either/or quiz out of it. Below are the girls...see if you can guess the winner (I was way off). Sorry Mom, I know this post is worthless for the family, but as a journalist, the show must go on. Met some hysterical people today....

Contestant #1:



Contestant #2:



Contestant #3:


Contestant #4:


Contestant #5:


Contestant #6:


Contestant #7:

And the winner is.........

ps - those Energizer MAX batteries I JUST bought for my camera...they're done. They were in my camera for a max of 25 minutes. WTF?

UPDATE: So a professional cameraman here in Bondi posted his pics...so go here if you want to see the real deal.

Don't ever buy this camera.....



So I am blogging from the Miss Bondi 2007 FINALS, and sure enough, my camera batteries die. Not a HUGE deal, there's a store across the street that sells AA batteries. If my camera was a girl, it would be the equivalent of Paris Hilton. I bought the cheapest AA batteries they had, walked out, and was loading them in when I was walking back to the show. Sure enough, the camera would not start up. Even with brand new batteries. So like a p-whipped boyfriend, I ran back to the convenience store and bought the expensive Energizer MAX batteries...sure enough, the camera started right up. What a priss. Either way, when I leave the batteries in my camera (with the camera off)...they're dead within a week. So my advice to the world...never buy a camera that runs on AA.

And for those people that say 'buy the rechargeable AA's'...oh, I did that. This ate the sh!t out of them. Seriously, the batteries fully charged would not even last the night. The money I spend in batteries for this P.O.S. could have gotten me here business class.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Whats Annoying About Sydney (Part II)

So I really have nothing bad to say about Sydney...after all, its 80 degrees, there's not a cloud in the sky, I got my slurpee (the real deal 7-11), and this is the view from 'my desk' in my apartment I just took a picture of.


BUT, I certainly was perturbed last night. A couple kiwis (New Zealanders) I had met last week and I met out for some drinks at this club. Now, in the states you gotta be 21 to get in, so the fake ID'ers are usually 19 and up. Down under, its 18 to get in, so the fake ID'ers are 15 and up. I felt like I was at an eighth grade mixer at times. Now, I have NO IDEA how this one girl got in, but I seriously thought she was about 11. She had braces, was 4 foot nothing, and was about 70 pounds if that. Plus she was wearing some evening gown type thing. At first I laughed, but then I was just really disturbed. She was on the dance floor too where all these guys and girls were dancing. The one Aussie standing next to me I was like, 'what the hell is that?'...and he laughed and said, 'Aye mate. We just punt them out of the way.' I don't have a picture, but googling around for 'tween'(which is disturbing in itself), I found a picture that looked A LOT like this tweener. Now, I ask you, what would you do if you were at the Angry Inch dance floor and saw this girl dancing??? (but with braces) ... the one in the middle. I'm sure the comments are gonna flood in on this post. haha.


Knowing the Meringolo brothers, they probably have already made this picture their screensaver.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Asians + Beach = Hilarity


So I finally got to hit the beach. It only took 6 days (2 of which it rained and the rest was working). I feel my blog has become a bit of a 'bash' blog, but it's just too funny to let these findings go undocumented. Today (Sunday) the beach was super-busy. They were having the "Life Guards Competition"...which is a 3-day ironman competition for life guards of all countries. The Australian teams absolutely destroyed everyone. I didn't see any Americans in the competition but having seen the ones in Dewey, OC, and even San Diego...they would have stood 0% chance.

As for the beach, it had everything. Speedos (some reallly nasty ones), topless girls, surfing as far as you could see, and some unbelievable people watching. My favorite had to be this group of about 8 Asians next to me. Ok, so not to offend any of my Asian friends, this could have easily been a group of Irish people and it would have been equally funny! :-) However, most of the Asians stay up top by the pavillion and snap photos, but this one brave group decided to rough it down in the dirt. They were all fully clothed: 2 guys were wearing black slacks, another black jeans, and another capri pants (all long sleeve shirts), the 3 or so girls were wearing dresses that went head to toe with hats (and they never took off any clothing). Then they set up their umbrella. Oh man, video of this would have won me thousands of dollars. All 8 of them were huddled underneath this umbrella like it was raining nails. I'm pretty convinced they don't sell any suntun lotion in Asia under SPF 75. They stayed like this for hours...they didn't seem at all comfortable, but they definitely were enjoying the fact that they made it to the beach. Well, at least they didn't get burned like me. Those damn spray lotions are tough to apply on the reverse side.

I got a new flatmate today who's just my style...going out and good times. He told me that the apartment we're living in now is owned by Jack Donovan, a famous Australian actor who is the equivalent of David Hasselhoff to America (including the laugh factor). He got publicly dumped by Kylie Minougue so that surely didn't help. Sweet pad though for sure.

Miss Bondi 2007

So its a known party in Bondi Beach for the annual Miss Bondi competition. It was supposed to start at 1PM...I got there around 1:30PM, but the place was dead. Unlike the US, when it rains at the beach, people do not hit the bars. I went back at 3:30 and the place had grown to 200 people or so. The pictures don't really do justice, but you're probably sitting at a desk right now at work reading this, so what else do you have to do?

A couple things of interest. In this picture, any time the girl on the far right exhaled (which was about once every 4 minutes)...her belly button would pop to an outtie, just like if you were to stick out your rolled tongue. It was freaky.


The other funny part was every girl had to answer 3 questions,

"What is your favorite part of your body?"
"What is your favorite food?"
"What is your favorite thing about the beach?"

It was pretty clear these girls had no coaching because all but 1 of them had the exact same answers. For food...'Chocolate', and about the beach, 'Boys'. The only funny response that provoked a major crowd response was when the girl on the right was asked her favorite body asset.

She replied, "My boobs because they cost $10,000." Haha, I was like, 'Good job...and now you're in a contest where the winner gets a free beach towel.' Actually, a former Miss Bondi winner ended up winning Miss Australia and then Miss Universe in 2004 (Jennifer Hawkins)...so I guess there is still that dream. I don't know, most of them on Saturday wouldn't have even cut it as hand models. Haha, wow, I sound so pretentious. But lets be honest, with as much time as I spend at the gym working on my physique, I certainly am in a spot to judge. Plus, they're on stage to be judged. I actually have started working out here, its pretty easy with this backdrop. My goal is to get my biceps over 4 inches in diameter. I'm gunning for you Pete Rogers. Anyway, the finals are next Saturday so I'm sure you're dying for the outcome of that. Later mates.