Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

January in Sydney is supposed to be the heart of summertime, filled with well-chronicled sunny days where the Harbour and coastal beaches soak in the warmth. But when I think of January 2008, that crazy wet stuff in the sky is all I can remember. Turns out this "summer" was the wettest in 15 years or so, and coming from Southern California where rain is common as a Clippers playoff appearance, this came as quite a shock. But don't let the weather keep you down....friends in the Northern hemisphere are shivering in the snow and ice....well, except in Cali.

Other than wet, cold weather, the new year brought upon a familiar college football result (no comment), playoff football and of course the excitement of Australia-India cricket! That one dude Singh is a prick, but from what I could tell, India got the best of the Aussies. I still can't believe they play without a mitt or any hand protection. I'll get to rugby in a bit, but same deal there....no pads, helmets. Are the Aussie athletes tougher? Possibly, but dammit, they don't have Vin Scully (you're welcome Jeff).

The other happening that I can remember (other than the rooftop incident...will take that one offline) is Australia Day weekend trip to Melbourne. Australia Day is kinda like 4th of July without the fireworks, parades and utter drunkenness. Yeah, I know. But a venture down to Melbourne with the crew was an interesting experience, complete with crazy dudes running with hammers, girls flashing their boobs with our encouragement and bizarre saxaphone players getting all uppity. Melbourne is a cool town with alleyway bars and what seems like a pretty decent music/art scene. Oh, and Sharapova won the Australian Open while we were there, so no complaints. Did I happen to mention the cougar bar in St. Kilda?? Yeah, will have to make another visit to Melbs, she's a gem.

Christmas in July

Of course it's strange enough to be in Califonia during Christmastime, when all the houses are lit up with the backdrop of palm trees and surfboards. But Sydney is in the dead of summer and twinkly lights/Santa on the lawn aint exactly the Aussie's style. In a way, almost wish they did a have a touch of that American cheesy Christmas spirit, at least it gets you in the spirit.

So when I think of December, there are a few things that come to mind: first off, the H&K Holiday Party (sorry, Christmas Party. They're not as PC here). They planned an island theme, complete with Fantasy Island characters and islander dancers. We were taken via boat to a private island out in Darling Harbour. Hilarity insued on the island, then in the after party on the way back (ie, Bon Jovi and Aussie, Aussie, Aussie cheers). At some point, the stragglers piled into the back of the moving van so we could all "safely" make it to the bar as one. This H&K office is a whole new bag. Agency of the Year, island Christmas parties, big clients...winning team.

Christmas break wasn't entirely neccessary, considering I had only been working a month or so. But it did give the chance to get out of Sydney: make the trek up to Newcastle, an industrial area, but actually pretty nice with good beaches and all. Being away for Xmas was a bit strange I suppose, but I had the dogs to keep me busy and orphan friends celebrated together at Rory and Suzy's place. Like much of our get togethers, lotsa alcohol was consumed. Unlike other times, we were singing along to a 50-something guitarist, Suzy's dad. Not quite like a Connecticut Xmas, but great time with pseudo-fam.

Oh, caught the Dylan movie during Xmas break. Not sure what many thought about it, but I was pretty mesmerized a few days later. Might have been blinded by he music (Stuck Inside Memphis....great opener song) and sadly, Heath Ledger's performance, but I was a fan. In short, the movie was exactly like Dylan's career and music: unpredictable, an enigma, left up to viewer (or listener) to interpret.

Finally, the month ended off with New Years. Split my earliest ever NYE between Cher's cousin's in North Bondi and Wazza/Allison friend's place in the city. Caught fireworks, got drunk, yee haw.

Ok, I remembered alot from December, good on me! 2007 was a transition, bring on 2008.

Welcome Back, Welcome Back

Just imagine the Mr. Kotter music playing in the background....alright, so after reading other friends blogs and inspired by the fact that I should probably document my Australian exerience more, I'm going to try and hop back on the blog train. Oh, and I hate when band or other Web sites go months without an update. It's been a fun ride so far here and I have alot of memories (and a ton of non-memories!) to relive via blog.

In commemoration of my ten months in Australia, I'll go month-by-month in the next week to relive what I've been up to. And since it's very late and not sure why I'm even up anyway, here's the rest of November:

Went to PC Authority Awards in my ratty old suit and BB shirt, where of course my accent was spotted by the comedian host, Vince something. He proceeded to tell American jokes, I remember a Clinton-Lewinski one (dude, 1998 called, they want their material back). Don't recall too much of a Thanksgiving, maybe turkey tacos/burgers a few days later. All in all, November was about me getting the visa and starting at H&K Sydney. Canon, ready or not, here I come...

Oh, and how could I forget about Movember, where eery dude in the city looks like a 70s porn extra. That includes yours truly, I was rocking the "ginger" handlebar.

Performance-Enhancing Art

So in the wake of Barry Bonds' indictment for lying about taking steroids, it leads to an interesting thought. I was watching a great movie from the 60s last night, Monterey Pop, and it made me wonder: if not for performance-enhancing drugs, would the Beatles have ever made Sgt. Peppers or any of the San Francisco groups existed? I mean, LSD should be considered the steroids of music, right? I would never defend Barry Bonds and not doing so here, but we need to put this whole thing in perspective. Every entertainer and athlete has used one form or another to boost their performance or creativity, legal or otherwise.

Some say there are not rules or standards in music or art. Ok, fine, good argument. That's what makes rock n roll so cool.

Visa....It's Everywhere You Want to Be

After a day more than two months of being Down Under, my work visa was finally approved today. So now I have to train myself to wake up at 7 again, eat three full meals (instead of breakfast at 11, lunch of a snack and dinner at 8) and shave again. Well, now that it's Movember, gotta keep the lame 'stache, but at the least, will have to wear those pesky shirts with buttons and shoes. But the upside is a paycheck, which will be oh so welcome.

Bring on the TPS reports and conference calls....I'll be an official Aussie employee!

Just Like a Rolling Stone

So upon an invite from friends, I partook (that a word?) in the game of lawn bowling on Saturday. Upon first look, it's a game played by people who are of advanced ages living out their AARP years and maybe richies sipping on champagne. Well, on second look, it is alot of older dudes in white suits, looking like cricket players. But it looks like the lawn bowling folks are trying to get the whipper snappers out to the grounds, and why not? It's a game that has similarities to a number of other games that young people if not love, tend to play on occasion. And plus, there's always a bar attached to the grounds, so that always makes any game more interesting.
Basically, the goal is to roll your ball thingy as close to the little white ball as possible on a short grass surface, similar to a golf putting green. Now, all this ball talk brought back (or moreso reinvigorated) a 12-year-old mentality of finding anything to do with balls as funny. Any sexual innuendo was possible, actually, as we felt for the heavy side of the balls, admired an old man wiping off his balls and instructing us newbies to be gentle with the balls when it was our turn.
The juvenile humor aside, why are there so many games where you have to get one object as close as possible to one "nucleus" object? Was this the basis for the first game ever? In horshoes it's a horeshoe with a stick, shuffle board is a round thingy with some other thingy, bar shuffleboard is round thingys on a long wooden board, curling is the things with a handle near the circles, helped with those agic brooms. Am I missing another? I now know basketball has it's relative in netball, a form of the former without a net or backboard. American football has rugby. Baseball has cricket. But the most simple of games, and in my guesstimation, the first games invented, involved sending an object one direction in hopes of stopping as close as possible to another.
It would only be natural to now think of a full-fledged drinking game in this mold: shuffling shot glasses towards the tequila bottle? Pushing quarters towards the full pint glass? Or maybe best bet is to go for the balls.

A Bug's Life

One thing they don't tell you about Sydney is that at times it can be infiltrated, or even invaded by a number of bugs. First the moths came in October, but they're relatively easy to deal with. Large and mostly confined to sitting on the wall, the bullseye on those guys is pretty big. One slap of the newspaper and they're gone. The flies, however, are a different story.

Unlike North American flies that are just a pest but tend to scoot when asked, these flies are the beagle of the fly family. They're too dumb to realize that when swiped or shooed at, that means go the hell away. Not only do they stick around, but they pretty much make themselves home on your face, neck, sunglasses for as long as they see fit. And this is a constant little game us humans play with the bugs all day long. Most Sydneysiders tend to shoo them away as a minor convenience, but my inclination is to squash every flying bug that comes into my space. If this continues, I might just go a little gnat crazy.

Am I the only one that threatens to A-bomb each and every fly to kingdom come? Maybe with the other creatures Australians have to deal with, the flies are no big whoop. Or maybe I just need to invest in a little bug repellant and I'll be ok.

I've been told that the flies go away in December, which seems odd, since I thought bugs, birds and the like all arrive during summer. If that's the case, cool.....now all I have to deal with are the huge spiders that tend to get in our house.