Archive for the 'Random' Category

So before I get to the amazing events of Saturday night that are completely impossibly to recall, I think it is best to preface with what I had been doing before hand.

Since the previous Friday I had drunk 6/8 nights, this was all coming to a head this weekend with the aforementioned Saturday night intending to be the summit of drunken greatness (greatness?).

Last Thursday night was a post-Uni-Games party. Being the clever sods we are, we also arranged a pre-post-Uni-Games party; honestly, are you surprised?

I was unfortunately at work in the afternoon, but after a message at 3pm informing me drinking had begun I decided I would no longer stay till 5.

Before 4 had rolled around I had rolled out.

Planning ahead I had a change of clothes with me, which once applied (you can apply clothes right?) I wandered [read: went as fast as not running would allow] to the liquor store. Thinking I had around 3 hours of drinking before arriving at the bar for the real party I purchased 8 cruiser (and cruiser like) beverages and headed to the pre-post-party.

Upon arrival I took party in the mandatory funnel on entry; pineapple cruisers go through a funnel like, um, a really good simile!! (Oh yeah, I went there). I reall should have filed the funnel event under “Obvious Foreshadowing” (thanks Tucker), but my excitement and anticipation for the night ahead meant I was not quite thinking properly.

About 30 minutes after my arrival I realised I had underestimated my drinking ability [read: urge] and borrowed a bicycle to head to a store and get some more drinks. An additional 4 should hold me over; we are going to a place with $2 drinks after all.

Exact events of the rest of the pre-party escape me, but I finished my dozen, and had done at least 4 as funnels. It is safe to say I probably shouldn’t have driven anywhere. At about 7 we started the walk to town, yet halfway down the first road a friend pulled over in his ute and started yelling at us. With very little to no provocation many of us piled into and onto the ute and were magically transported to town.

From this point on the story all becomes hearsay and bank account details. I do; however, remember at least four things:

- As soon as we arrived I brought the maximum allowed amount of drinks (who wouldn’t?)

- I played pool with a friend from my team. I don’t know why they picked me, as other people wanted to play and everyone (including myself) mentioned that I was in no state to play. We beat these other people (twice?)

- A friend of mine was flying out of the country the next morning (at like 4am, the guy who picked us up). He was outside at one point telling me (or others?) that the people he was going with were not impressed he was out and wasted. I decided to be a good friend and fix everything for him. Using a trick I had learnt/ed from SDC the Saturday before I took his phone and rang one of the people.

After the initial answer thinking I was him and saying I had to go home, I explained that I had not seen him in about 40 minutes. I went on to use the excuse that he had given me his phone and vanished. She was not fully impressed. I don’t know if I just hung up or gave the phone back. Probably not important.

- And the final thing I know is that I brought a kebab before walking home.

Apparently there are more things that happened than that:

-According to my bank account I spent around $100 on alcohol for the night (it was $2 and $3 drinks!!! Unless I was buying other things?)

- I am told I did some sweet dancing. Well, some dancing. Well, I kept trying to spin a girl and things like that but possibly was failing miserably.

- I was given a bar tab meant for our hockey team. Freaking out that I was going to spend it all without telling anyone else I started yelling for the host of the pre-post-party (guy in my team, and probably as drunk as me) as I figured he would be responsible with it. He was, drinks were brought.

- With the many drinks I brought, several were given away, or potentially stolen by team members (I am speaking about you Mr Thumb-Smasher). The aforementioned is a reference to someone being told “Green Griffin just brought me this drink. He doesn’t know it though”.

Another friend told me I gave him multiple half drinks as I was too drunk to be finishing them. I would then go and buy myself fresh ones as I wouldn’t know where my drink had gone.

- Finally, according to photographic evidence I was intoxicated to the point that making an even moderately photogenic face was beyond me.

Oh well, it happens.

Now for the ubiquitous (really that isn’t quite the right word for this, but it’s OK) plug.

The bar we were in is Bar101, the new greatest bar in Hamilton. There is nothing bad about this bar at all, especially as (as I discovered the next night) you can get $3 drinks all the time with a student ID.

Go there, go there now.

[Another aside about Bar101, on Thursday I must have made friends with one of the bouncers, as when I walked in on Friday he started chatting away with me and talking about events of the previous night. I thought it was nice, but had no idea at all who he was or how he knew me. Yes, Thursday was a very, very good evening (so was Friday and Saturday actually, maybe I will write about them now)]

-GG

So this day had high expectations coming in. The Foo Fighters are one of my favourite bands, and arguably one of the greatest bands of all time (or at least our generation). They also put on awesome live shows (as I have seen them several times already), so I was expecting an great night.

The day started pretty early, woken up at 6.30 by SA having a show. I then proceeded to get up once SDC and NK had gone to work, and sat around watching some cartoons while surfing the net. Before I knew it, 11.30 had come around and I hopped the bus to town to meet up with SDC for lunch. Little did I know my cousin was meeting us there as well with his army buddies.

So I arrive and the boys had just finished ordering their meals and had a round of beers on the table, I quickly got my own beer and ordered a dozen buffalo wings (Degree is an awesome place, and these wings are amazing – I had been crazing them since I left Auckland). So drinking took place, and then SDC arrived and got his own beer and ordered food. Drinking and eating occurred and SDC headed back to work (three beers down at lunch – nice). I, being a student who had decided to take several days off, hung around and continued to drink many more pints with the army boys.

This was a highly positive idea on my behalf, as these army guys were good freaking quality. I have never had so many laughs about weird conversations and events at lunchtime before. Just for a taster, one of the guys explained to us that when he was younger (at primary school) he beat off to Officer Callahan from Police Academy. Police Academy the Animated show that is. The reason that is worth noting is because this guy was quite loud – and it was 1pm in a public place. Yeah, it was heading to be that kind of day…

Continued drinking till about 5, then came back home and before long we were down at the concert. Originally I had been a little disappointed because I was seated, but once I found my seats (stage right, not to far back in either direction) I realised that the view was awesome, and that I was not going to be disappointed.

The concert started with Let it Die, followed up by The Pretender, and then still without saying a word they went into Times Like These and Breakout. After that point I kind of forget the order the songs were played, but the set list looked something like this

· Best Of You

· Cold Day In The Sun

· The Pretender

· Let It Die

· Long Road To Ruin

· Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make-Up Is Running)

· But, Honestly

· Times like these

· Breakout

· Staked actors

· Monkey wrench

· Everlong

· Breakout

· Big Me

· All my life

· Ballard for the Beaconfield Miners

· Marigold

· This is a call

· Learn to fly

· My hero

· Long road to ruin

· Skin and Bones

Clearly an awesome set.

But not only was it sweet music, there was a good portion in the middle where a second stage came down from the roof and they played a bunch of acoustic songs, similar to Skin and Bone (the DvD). This was extra awesome because it also allowed for Dave to do a whole bunch of talking, which is always entertaining.

So, they played for a few hours, and it was the best few hours of my short little life. Afterwards I just could not stop smiling.

I am very excited about seeing them again tonight.

The only bad thing I have to say is about Vector. As everyone has said time and time again, the sound in Vector is not really great. It was noticeable again last night. Not very bad, but there were bits of the show I felt that Vector was letting them down.

Oh well, I was seeing the Foos twice in two days, I am probably not going to complain.

- GG

Sunday started like oh so many do: not wanting to wake up.

Eventually I motivated myself to leave my room, and then I proceeded with the next common Auckland Sunday activity: sitting around with BT guys, playing on the Internet, and talking about junk.

I can’t completely recall what went on during Sunday.  We watched a few movies on the media centre: Gone Baby Gone and The Bank Job, and also watched a new episode of the office.  I don’t really know what else happened but we passed the time till 7 when we started watching actual TV. We also ordered pizza at some point.  Who knows of these days.  As the evening drew on and we realised there was nothing on TV everyone went to sleep.  I on the other hand had no work the next day so I stayed up watching Cobra on TV (until Sky died due to the weather), and Jumper on my laptop.

Bed happened, but sleep didn’t.  I was ever so excited about Monday – Foo Fighters day.

- GG

Ah Saturday.  This was a special day, I don’t often have such big hangovers after Friday night’s these days.  I am not complaining at all, as Friday was excellent, but it did make Saturday not so nice.

I got up at about 9, and knowing what was ahead of me for the day I quickly drank a cruiser.  Yes, that’s right, 9am and I was drinking a vodka cruiser while surfing the internet from bed.  I have truly reached a high point in my life.

White Warrior sent me a text message not long after advising that I should get up as he was picking me up shortly.  After struggling out of bed I had a shower and then proceeded to pack my bag.  WW showed up and as we drove away informed me that there was going to be some firewood to be picked up.  As I was hungover (though on my way back to getting drunk), I did not think about this – I was going to be carrying firewood around.

After a short stop in Matangi we were on our way to Parongia (yeah, all over the show way to get to Auckland).  I decided this was a good point of the day to start drinking properly, so cracked into the Raddlers I had left from last night.

After the firewood was all loaded we were on the road again – this time actually heading to Auckland.  I continued to drink, more combatively than ever.  I was still feeling a little uneasy from Friday, the lack of sleep and large amount of alcohol were apparently catching up with me.

The drive was uneventful, except for the fact anywhere we stopped I noticed people staring at me.  I couldn’t figure it out at the time.  I guessed it was because I was clearly drinking and it was still before midday.  Later I realised it was probably because I was wearing a bright pink, ah, lightish red shirt.  Huntly was interesting…

We arrived in Auckland, unloaded the firewood (I more just sat around drinking), and then headed to the guys flat to proceed with the party.  Upon arrival we discovered there was actually a Westie Theme to the night, this made my lightish red shirt even less appropriate.  Oh well, I was drunk, I didn’t care.

So, everyone continued drinking heavily, and later on the fun and games started.  I guess the best way to put this is the truth.  We killed a baby [doll].  One of the guests had brought along their baby [doll] and at some point it was decided people should try and hurt it as much as possible.  One of the first things was stealing the baby and throwing it in the microwave.  Soon after this a knife had been brought out and it was placed in the baby’s face.  We then thought the baby should be cremated, so put it in the oven.

Realising the danger of fire that existed we just cut the baby’s head off and stuck it on top of a pepper grinder – well, obviously right?

Sure, it is probably pretty sick, but it was highly amusing at the time.  Excellent.

Eventually people started to leave and the party wound down.  All up it was an awesome evening, and it will also be very sad to see Blue Streak leave (terrible sentence.  Then again, a lot of this has been).

- GG

Friday was “a day just like any other day, no work, and no play.  I knew that paradise was some other place and I’ll get there, another way…”

OK, so that was just a stupid reason to put some Bad Religion lyrics in the blog.  Get over it.

Anyway, Friday was my Mums birthday, so, after doing the lovely son things in the morning I took off to Uni as I had to go to work.  I stayed there for a few hours then went and did a very important tax presentation.  This went really well, so to celebrate, I went back to work.  A few hours later the wine was flowing at work, and all was well in the world.  I hung around for a few drinks before remembering I had a real party to get to that night, so could do much more drinking there.

I got home and opened a beer.  The next steps involved showering and listening to music while I waited for 830 to come so I could go and get drunk.  Like clockwork (hahahahahahha!!!!) 830 rolled around and as did I do Duncans. 

I really can’t talk up drinking with my hockey friends enough.  Sure there are times I pass it up because of other engagements, but when I do drink with them it is always really good times.  This night was no exception.

I will admit that I don’t recall a lot of the happenings.  This was proven more when I saw some photos of the night that I had no recollection of at all.  I am quite the photo slut though, I can’t be expected to remember every shot I was in.

After several many drinks there I somehow got a ride to town, where we all quickly proceeded to Bar 101, the best new bar in Hamilton.

Things go blank again here.  I do however remember carrying Geoff into the bar as he was far to drunk to be let in alone.  I also know I did buy some drinks there – though I have not seen a charge for these yet, so, I don’t know what happened there.

A few hours and a kebab later I was back at home.  Much worse for wear, but in a very happy state.

I do so love alcohol.

The best bit was that I knew this was just the start of an epic weekend.

- Green Griffin

In fact, scrap that, it makes sense why old people would like to come here, it is quite a nice place.  The real question is as follows:

Why is New Zealand allowing people to immigrate when they are over 100 years old?

I have nothing against old people or immigrants. I do however have a problem against what I can see as something pretty stupid.

What good is it allowing immigrants into the country who are already over 100? What are they going to add? These people they are allowing in aren’t even rich, they are just really old. So we are letting them in to the country so they can do what? Die? How fucking retarded is that? Dead people earn no money and bring nothing into the country, in fact they cost money. We have to go and bury them and take up space like that. Additionally they are more likely to cause accidents and hurt other people aren’t they? Also, aren’t they going to be sick and shit and cost money to keep around?

And beyond this, even if I am wrong and they do have money and stuff, what is the point? Isn’t it quite weird to let people into your country just to die? Am I the only one who finds it strange?

Who knows, I guess I don’t really care all that much, I just find it a little weird I guess.

(For those who don’t know over the last few days several (as I understand it) 100+ year old immigrants have been allowed into New Zealand. Google it or something if you want articles with, um, what are those things? Details?)
GG

There are a variety of things I have been meaning to blog for a long time, some I won’t get to with this post, but at least a few of the most recent things I will (in hindsight I got to only one of them).

Let’s start with the good stuff – Mathematics in Mercer.

I was down in Hamilton for the most recent weekend and on our way home we stopped at Mercer. I was very hungover and decided I would buy some garlic naan bread. While this was being prepared I walked to the service station (Mobil) and got something to drink.

Now, anyone who has been around me buying drinks on these hungover days may know that I tend to:

a) Make bad decisions
b) Not know what I want
c) Buy many drinks

So, I wander around Mobil and not knowing what I want, I get a bottle of fresh up, a 600mL carton of milk and 2 Mizones.
See what I mean?

(It is important to know I bought two Mizones because they were $3.99 each, or two for $4.99. I am a sucker for things like that apparently)

So, I go to the counter, the guy scans the goods, I pay (eftpos) and I am ready to go. However as he is looking at the receipt he notices that he only scanned one of the Mizones. This doesn’t bother me much as I can see I just need to pay an extra dollar and all will be solved. (Un)fortunately the guy at the counter does not see this simple solution, and because of my aforementioned hungoverness I don’t actually verbalise the solution. Instead I just kinda stand there staring at him blankly.

So, the guy is confused and doesn’t know what to do. He knows something needs to happen, but clearly doesn’t know what. He scans the stuff again, but doesn’t really know why. Eventually he calls over another lady.

The lady comes over, gets the problem explained to her. She then gets the receipt of what I paid and asks “how much did you pay”. I continue with my staring blankly, unwilling to respond to such a stupid question. She too scans the things and knows something is wrong, but apparently can’t figure it out. Noticing the $1 difference between the receipt and the screen is too difficult for these people.

Anyway, the first lady then calls a second lady over to help with the problem. Now I have three staff members trying to figure something that a hungover guy figured out in less than 3 seconds. Oh well, I guess I am in Mercer, I had to expect them to take a little bit to figure it out.

So, I continue waiting, not saying anything, just waiting for them to figure it out. Then I hear something that I find too shocking to actually react to, the third lady says:

“Yeah, you have to give him $4”

I am not sure if she is telling me I have to pay the first guy who served me $4 (meaning I get no discount as I was meant to), or if she meant he had to give me $4 (meaning I hadn’t paid for either Mizone and would then need to pay $5 for both).

Turns out she didn’t mean either of those alternatives. What she meant was that the guy would give me $4, put the second Mizone in the bag and let me go on my way.

Not one to question idiots I take my ‘change’ and all my goods and head back to the Indian store (sells Indian food, not Indians).
So, the moral of the story is that I got both the Mizones for free and only paid for the juice and the milk (that I probably shouldn’t have bought anyway).

After I got the naans I went out into the parking lot to get back in the car. Unfortunately the car is not where I thought it was. So I take the obvious course of action. I stand around in the middle of the car park looking. Looking at nothing in particular, I assume looking for the car but who really knows.

Eventually I see the car with the other guys in it laughing quite a bit. Apparently it was highly amusing. I can only imagine.

I write this as we are just leaving the small Northland town of kawakawa. We stopped there because they have a nice public toilet.

Yeah, that’s kinda weird

What was weirder was going to look at them and finding people taking photos. What is the deal with that? Taking photos of a public toilet, who is impressed when they see that?

Furthermore, why is a town so proud of having nice toilets?
Having the best public toilet is like winning at the special Olympics, you are still retarded in the end.

Or, as SDC put it

It is like being the worst* Nazi. It doesn’t make you awesome, it just makes you slightly less crap

*by worst Nazi I mean the Nazi who was the worst at being a Nazi.

This town did get better however, as across from where we parked there was a coin save store, and hanging outside there were three different colours of Paul Pierce shirts – that’s right, in this small town that no one should ever go to, you can buy a Paul Pierce jersey in green, red or blue.

I thought it was pretty great, seeing as I had met Paul Pierce last year.

GG

(You could have also got a Vince Young jersey or a pink LeBron James, if that’s what you are in to)

Well, I imagine some may be sick of the excessive Box posts of late, but I didn’t have the net while away, so had to get them all up when I returned… Well here’s another for you, although it will be brief… Oh but just quickly, photos are coming, however they all tend to be of buildings and such… nothing inappropriate unfortunately.  Just have some technical difficulties to tend to then feel free to browse at your leisure…

So, yeah, the title of this post may suggest I have something figurative to discuss today.  But in actual fact, I just witnessed the blind leading the blind.  Seriously.  I thought that my eyes were deceiving me (yuss!), but it really was like some kind of blurry fairytale (not quite there, but ok!)…

Don’t get me wrong – I love blind people.  Hell, my eyes have been deteriorating for years and I am a full time spectacle wearer.  I just found this to be most fascinating, as one was definitely playing the lead role in their uncommon duo.  At the time, they were actually struggling with navigating over some speed bumps but I’m pleased to say they were successful in the end.

I don’t wish to be offensive, and apologise if my views (oh!) are short-sighted (two-for!), but what are they gonna do?  Read this?

Alright, I’ll stop…

Box

Well would you look at that, I am an Aucklander.

One of the first things I did when I arrived at my new home was putting a bottle of Jager in the freezer (where it potentially still is now I think about it). This will likely have ramifications for the rest of my story.

My first night in Auckland was the quite the eventful one as it coincided nicely with Scarlet Avengers birthday bash. This of course meant that drinking, and drinking in large quantities was going to happen. Maybe the consequences of these two evens should have just been filed under “Obvious foreshadowing” (Stolen) and left at that.

But that’s not nearly as fun is it?

For me drinking began around 2pm I guess. I started with a few beers but quickly proceeded to Southern Comfort, you know, because I am from South (of Auckland) and I enjoy being comfortable. This may also explain why my fly was undone for almost the entire night, it is also more comfortable that way (I believe there are photos somewhere of me realising this – pity I didn’t change the jeans before going to town).

Shortly after this point the bottle had been finished (sounds much better than the truth which was the bottle only had two drinks worth in it, I had been meaning to finish it off for ages), so I turned to my next option, the 3 dozen red bull I had in my room. Now you see why I mentioned the Jager.

Yeah, so my drink of choice for several hours was Jager and Red Bull. Occasionally I would substitute Jager for Vodka, but in the end it may have been the consumption of Red Bull that I should have been limiting. I mean, what is the recommended daily intake these days? A bottle? two? Now, what happens when a person has like seven or more in four hours? Good things right?

At some point there was pizza and garlic bread ordered. I ate a loaf of garlic bread. I do not think I actually saw the pizza.

There was also an interesting incident that may have broken in my new bed [Read: Single foam mattress on the ground]. There seemed to be 10 people in my room (quite the squeeze) and for some reason Pink Box, Silver Sovereign and I decided to start dry humping the shit out of each other (for the uninformed ones of us out there, clothes were on. We are not savages. Some may even say far from it). I am unsure how this activity began, finished, or any of the reasoning behind it (other than the amazing, raw, sexual magnetism extruded from each of us), but it was apparently quite the spectacle.

Later in the evening town in Parnel happened. I was in a bar momentarily, then I sprinted around outside (quite literally – maybe because of the red bull?) for a while before catching a taxi alone to the casino where I was meeting a friend (I was aware no one else was going to town).

Unfortunately for me my friend took more than an hour to arrive (it was likely closer to 20 minutes, but the Red Bull was effecting my judgement of time. I rang her twice in this period trying to hurry her up). This waiting did not please me. She and her friend (male) did however wish to go and play in the casino when they arrive, which pleased me greatly (see what I did there?). However, being a seasoned gambler as I so often claim to be I have many firm beliefs about how one should act within a casino, and especially when at, or watching a blackjack table. I was well aware my friend would not know these rules, and potentially not care to learn them, so using all the cunning, stealth, and speed offered to be by the copious amounts of red bull I had coursing through my veins I ditched them at some slot machines and made my way to a $15 table.

Let the good times roll! And roll they did (horribly written). I played approximately six hands before I saw my friend coming back and knew I had to leave the table. In these hands I did not lose (I had two pushes I think), but I did double down on 11 against a 6 (who can say 21?), and got a blackjack. Coincidently on both of those hands an Asian man next to me had bet on me. Either he was good luck, or I am a really awesome person. I lean towards a bit of both (Bow Chicka Bow Wow!!!).

Before leaving the casino ($65 up) I actually won again. It was while cashing out. I had stacked my chips in order of worth and handed them to the cashier. As he started to move the chips around I saw him take one from one end and move it to the other. I found this very peculiar until I saw the chip was a $25, not a $2.50 as I had read it to be. Had I been sober I would have never got that extra joy, this is why alcohol is great.

I then walked around some more with my friend. Eventually found Cream Crusader, and then had a terrible kebab at Kebabs on Queen.

The next day involved much not moving and for some members (SA) much more vomiting than most people would deem necessary.

The day after that I hear (?) you asking about? Well, that is when I started my sweet new job…

(Which in hindsight I may not actually write a lot about, you know, for liability purposes. I don’t want someone to completely overreact to something and then threaten to sue me when they have no grounds to stand upon as I was just expressing an opinion about something. Never mind…)

Green Griffin