Fraternising with a Mongol Horde

'I want you to lend me $30 million dollars.'
It was a fairly quiet evening at the Amethyst when Free Beer marched up to me and asked for a sum of money that I would not earn in this, or the next several, lifetimes as I plummet down the sliding scale of reincarnation (from unfit human to insectdom)- amassing a giddy amount of financial and Karmic debt. Strange. I was going to ask Free Beer for exactly the same amount of cash for reasons too numerous to go into here. Naturally I asked him why he needed so many 'dead presidents'.

'I want to start', he said '...a Fraternity.' Free Beer had mentioned this idea a month or so ago when I went to visit him one Sunday. We had just finished watching for the umpteenth time what is arguably THE BEST FILM EVER MADE- 'Old School' - a film about three guys heading into middle-age who are forced to start a fraternity to avoid getting kicked out of a house. We were joking about how cool it would be to hang around all day drinking beer, ogling women and getting 'pledges' to pick up the remains of beer bottles that we'd smash against the walls for no reason. At least I thought we were joking. Evidently Free Beer had been mulling this over for quite sometime and was seeing how feasible it would all be. These days he talks of almost nothing else.

Hell, when you actually think about it, it'd be stupid NOT to start a fraternity.

We've decided to call it 'Genghis House' after the great unwashed Mongol. The artist formerly known as Temujin (1162-1227) started his rookie year off as a goatherd and eventually graduated to the MacDaddy of Asia. Both Free Beer and I love his 'surrender or die' attitude that got him voted 'Most Likely To Kick Serious Ass' several years running.

In space, no one can hear you scheme,
Fatman

Travelling Light-Headed

Woke up on a tram the other day. When you slowly wake up from a booze-induced slumber on a moving vehicle the first thing you have to do- this has happened to me several times in the past- is to not panic. This is generally a fairly easy task as all that beer in your system tends to blanket your mind from the outside world quite nicely. It's always a bonus if you have boarded the right tram. There are a few ways of finding out.

The first is to whisper to the closest person and quietly say 'Where the HELL am I?' but as a seasoned professional I would not recommend this approach. Your communicative skills are probably not up to scratch (this would explain the pool cue-shaped bruise from the evening previous when a disagreement over the "one shot on the black" rule with a friendly biker resulted in a hitherto unplanned marathon run 'cross town) and the garbled sentence you drool out may sound to the untrained ear like; 'Where have you taken ME?What did you do with my wife?'. Also no one wants to talk to anyone on a tram.

The best way is to just kick back and relax till the outside world starts to feel familiar. Get a few more hours of sleep in. If you have boarded the wrong tram just sleep it off until you reach the city again. Once you're back in the welcoming arms of Melbourne change trams. You might even tuck into the breakfast menu if you so desire. The only difference right now between you and a gutter tramp is that your alleyway is mobile and air-conditioned. Just avoid the silly people going to work complaining about your smell.

What's my age again?
Fatman

Linkin Krap

'PC Load letter?! What the f-ck is that?'
Michael Bolton, Office Space

I have been linking the sh-t out of my blogsite this week. Having been born one notch down on the evolutionary ladder than most of the folks I meet as demonstrated by;

a) my simple vocabulary (communication with the rest of the world achieved by pointing, grunting, barring teeth, farting, etc.)

b) an inability to program the VCR (that's a primitive form of the DVD)

c) my tendency to sit in a cage flinging dung at tourists

d) a friendship group that consists of several equally un-evolved Collingwood supporters (easily identifiable with their sloping foreheads, hairy knuckles, inability to program...etc.)

Where was I? Yah, so I figured it was about time to find out from my housemate Darren, an RMIT lecturer and a nerdly sort (ie, he can type things on the computer that doesn't cause a neighborhood blackout), how to do some basic...stuff...on the internet. And I do mean basic. It must have been an annoying task for him as most of our dialogues were along the lines of;

Me: Darren! Darren!The flat, magic, word-box has gone blank!

Darren: The...? Do you mean the monitor?

Me: Ugh. (Probably means yes)

Darren: Well, first of all put down the crowbar. You won't need that.

Me: Ugh! Ugh! (Bares teeth. Thumps chest angrily.)

So bottom line my blogsite looks slightly less amaturish than before. Some links- the highlighted words-are also pretty durn funny.

The double y chromosomed,
Fatman

Gearing for Failure

"I don't even know who the candidates are other than Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), let alone this Gere," Gaza soap factory worker Manar al-Najjar said. "We don't need the Americans' intervention. We know who to elect. Not like them- they elected a moron."
Reuters

From the 'What the F...?' files:

Richard Gere, grey-haired actor, supporter of the Dalai Lama, vegan, alleged fornicator of gerbils, has decided to put his two cents worth in the recent Palestinian elections. Israeli-Palestinian peace lobby group One Voice asked the officer and the gentleman to endorse their cause. Which is well and good but no one in Palestine seems to know him that well. Added to the fact that some of Richard Gere's new friends may be seriously dodgy individuals. For example, Skeikh 'Funboy' Tamimi was overheard to have mentioned "The Jews are destined to be persecuted, humiliated and tortured forever, and it is a Muslim duty to see it that they reap their due. No petty arguments must be allowed to divide us. Where Hitler failed, we must succeed." Yikes.

Incidentally Abu Mazen won by 62.3% of the vote.

Take that Richard Gere!
Fatman

Ruth

Ruth has returned alive and well. 'My plane got delayed a few days because I got a cheap flight.' she cheerfully informs me. I could kiss her and/ or strangle her. But not in a Michael Hutchensway.

Good Luck Mr. Gorsky!

A CASE of mistaken identity has heaped mystery on the disappearance of a 12-year-old Swede in the tsunami, police said yesterday. The fate of Kristian Walker triggered a police investigation and worldwide media speculation that the boy might have been kidnapped from a Thai hospital. But police said the reports of Kristian being in hospital turned out to be a case of mistaken identity caused by a Thai doctor who could not tell two European children apart. "There is no evidence that Kristian Walker has been kidnapped, but we are still looking for him," Sub-Inspector Stephen Katay said.
The Age, January 7, 2005

They tell me that Buzz Aldrin - the second guy on the moon but you may remember him from shows such as 'The Simpsons'- was the first person to defecate on the moon. I wasn't there obviously. The whole, it happened in 1969 a full (um....um....carry the two..er...) seven years before I was born about 384,000 kms outer space, made the possibility of me experiencing the glory of Buzz doing number twos relatively impossible. However, it's plausible enough. And if it didn't happen- who cares? It's not going to change what I had for breakfast.

The Age article, courtesy of a discarded newspaper on a train, dampens my previous e-mail's preachy ;The End is Nigh! Repent all ye Sinners! Fire! Brimstones! tone somewhat. I'm a big, gullible (a word which has since been removed from the O.E.D.) lout at times. But the truth should never prevent stories. Good or bad. Usually cool stories are not 100% true anyway. Exaggeration, misunderstanding, lies and memory loss contribute to falsehoods being spread around. As long as stories are entertaining I say; let's keep yappin'.

Was there a Mr.Grosky? Nope. But someone like him is bound to turn up on our doorstep or inbox sometime soon.

A thin man ran; makes a large stride, left planet, pins flag on moon! On to Mars!

Fatman

(The above is an anagram of the Neil Armstrong quote: That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind)

Somber thoughts for the New Year

At the risk of sounding like 'that guy' at parties who hangs around the dip and is a doom & gloom, end-is-nigh, why is the world the way it is-type, I cannot help but come into this new year in a pretty crappy mood. Feeling "pretty crappy" the luxury of someone living in Melbourne, Australia and not the areas of Asia affected by earthquakes, tsunami and now disease, hunger, homelessness, etc. Having gone on the Bangkok Vacation with Jenks would be a major factor too as both he and I were anxiously awaiting replies from some Thai bar girls we met while there (they are safe- we found out New Years Day).

There still hasn't been any reply from Ruth who had just started working at the Amethyst Bar. She went to visit the north of Thailand but not receiving news makes me a little worried. The tsunami having taken a large chunk of Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Burma (you all know the list) and with the mortality rate rising I've been scanning the papers daily. And brother, is the news not good.

Apart from some gallant behaviour (There was some news item about this guy who took over a tour bus or something. I'm thinking; oh during a tsunami this guy is a hero but if I did something like that sans natural disaster it makes me a criminal. Go figure) and a massive outpouring of generosity that surprised even the UN, there have been some absolute monsters. Paedophiles kidnapping children, rape, mutilation- there was even a f-ckhead in England who was e-mailing the families of those missing to inform them their loved ones' were dead.

Feelin' kinda empty,
Fatman