Engaging

a side effect of no longer being in the pub game is that Lize and my social lives are becoming more varied. Our work lives have broadened and we are no longer surrounded by groovy young hipsters, tearaway would-be rockstars and struggling artists. Instead we get to spend our Saturday night in a draughty hall on the outskirts of Ballafornia at the engagement party of one of Lize's new work colleagues.

Sadly, it seems to be a doomed romance. The male part of the happy couple is a tool of the highest order, a half-man half-weasel whose credentials as a life partner seem piss poor. But hey the girls in love, or at least in love with the idea of getting married so good luck to her.

But the party was outstanding. I daresay in 20 years time parties like this will have died out in all but the most rural areas. Firstly it was in a hall. A big cold bugger of a place, brightly lit and ringed with plastic chairs, pink balloons and tables with baskets of crisps. A DJ was stationed at one end of the hall, a portly chap with a touch of the used car salesman about him given to rambling over the mike unintelligibly between songs. The catering was Oz classic circa 1970. Pies, sausage rolls, egg and lettuce sandwiches for the vegetarians and the crowning glory miniature saveloys. Cold cans of VB were the go, with a wine selection that boggled the mind. The sole red on offer came out of a box and was a cheeky fizzy number. Thats right folks, fizzy red! The white options also came out of a box and offered a sweet moselle up against a really fucking sweet lexia for variety.

As the night wore on and the speeches were completed the lights were eventually dimmed and the DJ truly came into his own. Firing up a barrage of strobe lighting, smoke and lasers that would do Pink Floyd proud he pushed up the volume, shouted a lot and packed the dancefloor with pissed aunties as the Shania Twain, Grease and Suzy Quattro blasted forth. Lize's boss and her partner revealed themselves as enthusiastic, disturbingly raunchy dancers.

Top night!

the beat goes on...

and the fun continues. The first two weeks in this new job have been a delightful plateau of boredom punctuated by occasional lows and over frequent cigarette breaks. I'd forgotten the oddity of office life, with so many disparate and incongruous personalities corralled together into a room with uncomfortable seats and too much climate control. There are the office trolls, the alpha males, the red stapler guy who never seems to leave. The supervisor who nearly loses it when death comes up in a conversation, the repository of all knowledge chick, the dude who looks like Craig David and the posse of wenches who arrive at 8.15 in the morning all boobs and hair like it's Friday night. More on these people later. I have drinks to drink and steam to spare.

the new job

the new job kinda sucks. I'm in a call centre working for a large state government authority. To book a single appointment can involve as many as five different programs running simaultaneously, and my fellow staff are by turns angry, broken or snippy. Breaks are short and frequent, I suspect because the meltdown factor is quite high. No eating at the desk, no denim, no mobiles, no internet use and constant monitoring by a little robot on your desktop who gets angry if you go to your break late. I can't wait to see the little arsehole's reaction to long boozey lunch. The queue time for the long suffering punter is over 20 minutes and they are correspondingly irate when you eventually get around to talking to them. It doesn't help when a clueless buffoon like myself is trying to guide them through a legislative minefield that he is equally ignorant about.

They aren't all sad times though. Tomorrow is free pizza and stupid shirt day, and once a month the place goes nuts and casual clothes are allowed. Crazy!

a small victory

i got a job! An honest to god, sit on yer arse, 9 to 5, public service job. Its only a three month contract to start with, but apparently if you aren't an absolute nuffie extensions aren't a problem. I applied on the net last week, aced the interview (the first interview I've had since I was 17) and lo and behold the call came thru today. I'm pretty happy, at the back of my mind I was worried all I'd ever do was pull beer. Not that I don't think its a good trade but it was making me a cranky old bastard.

the week that was

it's been a week of minutae. Saturday had Lize, myself and our mates Vicky and Andrew head down to Koroit for an Irish music festival. It pissed rain for the duration of the festival which seemed to thin numbers considerably as the day wore on. Despite this I had a pretty enjoyable day (the cheap Guinness might have helped with this) A couple of decent acts, Bean an tre (?) being the most notable, livened things up. Some acts were frankly shithouse. Out of tune guitars and mandolins just aren't excusable in this era of the electronic tuner. Anyhoo it was a good a day with an honourable mention to the kitchen staff at Mickey Burke's pub who were serving piping hot stews and soups to the bedraggled hordes who desperately needed something both nourishing and warming.

Applied for a couple of 'normal' jobs this week. Weirdly enough I still haven't heard back on the part time bar gig I put my hand up for... ...maybe fate is intervening to keep me away from the taps!

Back to the eye quack today and things aren't looking great, nor are they dire. Referrals to specialists are in train and I've decided to stop worrying about it. As i type I'm sweating buckets and coughing hideously anyway, so the flu is providing a pleasant distraction from longterm eyesight dramas.

Another Wedding

This one was the little brother's. For reasons best known to themselves they decided to get married in Melbourne. The logistical dramas that stemmed from this were many and varied but once everyone hit town everything fell into place. (One tip though - casual parking for a couple of hours in the Melbourne CBD had this bumpkin wincing - $42 for two hours. Highway robbery.)

Anyhoo the kids got married in a registry office, something I've never seen before. It was quite low key but surprisingly emotional. Their musical choices were excellent as befits a groovy young couple - Radiohead, Flaming Lips and Augie March. The celebrant's avant garde grasp of English made for light relief and it was quite short and sweet.

We then repaired to the Gertrude hotel in Collingwood for refreshments. The food was excellent (little bro and I are good mates with the chef), cider and beer flowed freely and there was pumpkin and orange cake and champagne toasts. We left late in the evening having had a lovely day. Pausing only for a toasted ham and cheese from a roadhouse on the way home (which tasted oddly of fish) it was a tired carload than pulled back into to Ballarat at midnight.

Mess Hall

Its funny how you can get swept up in a Friday night, even when you haven't done the work to earn the enjoyment of it. I guess I'm still playing catch up. Bought some Merlot cleanskins, pate and camembert to take the edge off the week for Lize, then cooked a couple of rippingly good scotch fillets with barbequed corn on the cob and baked spuds. The girl had had a hard day at the office and nine o'clock found her a bit dazed and confused, so she opted for a lie down on the couch while I decided to hit Karova and see one of Australia's best kept secrets.

The Mess Hall are two piece rock and roll, more QOTSA than White Stripes and while quite bluesy in parts, a bit more manic than the Black Keys. They cook up a dirty wall of noise, with drummer Cec's incessant pumping kick drum and sinuous drones and scattershot licks from vox/guitarist's Jed's old Tele. The vocals are exhortations and yelps and the whole thing is a damn fine example of the things that are good in music. Notably absent from the stage were ironic keyboards, designer jeans and bassplayers that look like some tit from Spandau Ballet. All plus points in my book. Caught up with the lads afterwards (though Cec seemed to spend most of his time throwing up from his exertions) and Jed was a fount of good humour and gossip. Apparently Wolfmother haven't broken up and are back in the studio which is great news for fans of Black Sabbath.

Being the old and broken man I am I snuck home in a cab at 1.30am.