Google in Cahoots with Safety Town

Google Maps caught this dude eating shit on his bike, right here in Oz. Let's all take a moment to laugh at him and applaud Big Brother Google for this morning's entertainment!

Thanks to the f for the heads-up

A Lil' Note about Culture Clashing

I'm going home in a little over a month, and as excited as I am, and as much as I've been waiting for this, I'm starting to get nervous. I'll finally be doled some perspective about the differences between here and NYC, and I have no idea what to expect.

I'm also realizing that I haven't experienced enough in the past year. Haven't even made a dent in all there is to see. I've been so busy downshifting from One of the Biggest Cities to a smaller city that I sometimes forget that there's like, a lot more than the city of Melbourne on offer. But I do try.

It's an incredibly difficult thing to motivate oneself to explore an area that, for all intents and purposes, is completely foreign. It's daunting. You relinquish the confidence of control when you decide to make such strides away from familiarity. My bff cokane has recently joined me in our respective experiences of culture shock, although unlike my kind Aussie friends and neighbs, she's not being very well received.

Her struggle with starting a new life in the Deep South has really helped put my own move into perspective. Yeah, I moved so far away I can't even visit my family without taking a dent out of my yearly salary, but I moved to my husband's home, where friends, family, and familiarity were already well-established. I haven't had to work too hard to find companionship. Awesome people are seriously everywhere. 98% of them don't even hold my Americanness against me.

While it's not all that hard for me to come up with things I love about Melbourne, I do get incredibly homesick, so it's more entertaining for me to point out how (sometimes, literally) backwards shit here is than to whine about missing my mom. And you know what? The locals here think my outsider's views are funny. They don't take offense that I bitch about the fact that despite its best efforts, David Jones is no Barney's. They're not competing, and they're not insecure.

So get a clue, BaRou: our observations about your home are sometimes just how we cope with missing our own.

Party Tram, Excellent.

It's that time again, to say something positive about Oz. It's been difficult lately, what with getting run down by Japanese Paris Hilton, and the jihad Aussies seem to have against Halloween. Someone told me the other day that when kids are growing up here, Halloween is sorta cool but you learn at the same time that it's "just another made-up, consumerist American 'holiday'".

Excuse me, but dressing up and being creative about it, then drinking a shit load to celebrate said creativity isn't exactly American ingenuity, it's French or something, so whatevs to that.

But The Party Tram changed everything. I spotted it while walking down Bourke Street the other night and my negativity about Oz just faded away. I couldn't tell if the passengers on-board were there to party or not. Either way: RAD.

Speaking of parties, summertime is almost here. It's strange being on the opposite end of seasonal depression/elation from my U.S. friends. I was talking to my dad the other week and he was lamenting that it will soon be too cold for him to live in the garage, which is basically where you can find him from May to October. Whereas here, the mood is only getting feistier.

Right now Melbourne is celebrating this thing called Spring Carnival, which has something to do with (mostly) white trash people (called "bogans") dressing up to go to the horse races in ridiculous hats and ill-fitting suits. It actually sounds like a fantastic sociological event, and I must confess I'd be remiss in my duties as a whining ex-pat if I left Melbourne without once bumping shoulders with these awesome people.

In other party news, I'm leaving Melbourne—for like, the third time since I moved here—to go to some friends' wedding in some place called Kyneton. I haven't been to a wedding since my own, during which the guy who's getting married this weekend did a faceplant at the after-party. Danger.

Dangerous Girl in Dangerous Town

On Friday night we met up at Public Bar in North Melbourne to document the Melburn Massive Alley Cat. An alley cat is a bike race through a city, with checkpoints, at which participants receive the location to the next checkpoint. The people who race in these mostly bike couriers, and they're completely insane. And within this insanity is total awesomeness.

I rolled up still wearing heels, so I think I bought a little cred from the crowd, most of whom had started in on the first of many beers. Husband and I joined them, and for an hour and a half everyone continued to put 'em back. I was instantly struck by how friendly and inviting this group of kids was—a few of them knew Husband, but the fact that people came up and introduced themselves to me was really cool. I get really sick of the hipsters in this city, a lot of whom have to meet you five fucking times, and then assess whether they think you're cool, before they'll actually acknowledge you. Most of these people also happen to be total pussies. They are the cause of roughly 79% of my rage, which gets aggravated by alcohol (consumed at venues I have to share with them) and why people consequently think I'm a cunt.

So this was a total welcome change. Bike kids are not pussies. They are the opposite of hipsters. Pictured at left is Hillary, who is also a really awesome skater, and I suspect is not afraid of anything. As for me, I had a nice little buzz happening by the time the organizers decided to start things up. It was almost 8 o'clock, so it was completely dark at this point and starting to get really cold. Everyone scooped up their bikes and headed across to the Queen Victoria Market to begin. The participants had to lean their bikes up against a fence, then go about 25 yards away from them to learn the first checkpoint. Once they found out where they had to go, they ran over to their bikes, each grabbing a can of Red Bull from the ground, and they were off.

Husband and I had volunteered to man the second of the 5 checkpoints with a nice graphic designer/ex-courier dude. As we started to head over to our checkpoint, Husband said to him, "just so you know we're not like, awesome riders." I was so glad we gave forewarning, because as soon as we were off, the guy was weaving through traffic and jumping curbs at (my) top speed. If I hadn't had that alcohol, I would've been way too scared to keep up. As it was, I don't think I did too badly, and when we got to Telstra Dome, I tried to be cool about it.

It wasn't long before the first few started coming through, snatching the envelopes we extended out to them with instructions and directions. There were 25 racers altogether, so after giving out 21, we headed back to North Melbourne, where the winners were already drinking. The first guy through was totally crazy and won on speed, but the second guy through actually completed the tasks, so he was the real winner. One of the tasks along the way had been to bring a takeaway menu from a restaurant. One of the guys brought a whole sandwich board instead.
Everyone headed back to the bar and recommenced drinking, and prizes were given out: cash to the winner, bike shit to the guys who came in second and third, plus First Girl prize, which went to a girl named Sarah, a courier from Seattle. They even gave us a six-pack of Melbourne Bitter cans to thank us for doing the checkpoint. Such rad people! And all the amazing danger inspired me to ride all day yesterday. Score one for Safety Town.

Australians are a Bunch of Sluts

I snapped this photo on the train platform during my recent excursion out of the city because I am really excited to be living in a place that isn't 100% retarded.

As a U.S American, this vaccine was not offered to me until I was already too old to get it, because certain religious groups caused a big ruckus over how giving women a vaccine against HPV, which leads to 75% of cervical cancer cases, is enabling and exacerbating whoredom.

Because, you know, it's more Christian to abstain from sex than to eradicate the second most deadly cancer to women! Oh and btw, I hope you also understand that if it caused prostate cancer this wouldn't be an issue. Women are just whores, and that's what we need to remember.

Playa Hatin'

Okay, okay, it's been like a week since I posted anything. But I needed time to cool down after that last post. I got really riled up about that one, and then caught all kinds of flack from my Aussie friends who were all like, "wow you sound angry, giiirl, why you all be hatin' on Oz n' shit?" (it didn't actually sound like that, because they can't sound black, especially when they try, but I try not to hold that against them...they've never seen black people outside of the "telly".)

But honestly folks, I don't hate Australia. I'm merely observing and recording in a spiteful manner. And to be honest I can do that from anywhere. Just ask my sister; if nothing around me is particularly bothersome, I'll make fun of her tattoos or pick on her boyfriend.

So in an attempt to make nice, I've compiled a brief list of things I've discovered here that could only exist, in all their true glory, in Australia--objects I shall truly miss...as soon as I get the fuck out of here.

1. Tim Tams.
Chocolate gizz you'd never spit out. Especially when it joins forces with tea or hot chocolate to become the Tim Tam Slam.












2. Berocca.
I always considered myself a formidable drinker, especially for my size and socio-economic status, but if not for all my practice before I moved here, Australians' drinking capacity would surely put me to shame. As they don't possess the cure-all combination of Excedrin and Emergen-C, husband introduced me to Berocca, in all its orange powered sweetness and brain cell-patching abilities. It gets me moving enough to get to work, functioning as well as can be expected, but sadly hasn't been improved enough to stop me from still being drunk at said job.













3. Really really tight jeans.
One winter my girlfriends and I back in New York were on an all-out quest for the perfect skinny jeans. H&M briefly carried like 20 pairs (sold out in one day) and went back to lame-o flares with washes that looked like you'd just slid down a loofah. I refused to buy Tsubis because they're like $400 in NYC and I'd thrown so much food at Tsubi-wearing anorexic fashion students on Fifth Avenue that I would've felt like a hypocrite.

The quest got so competitive that one friend refused to give up where she'd found her pair, in fear that we would all get the same ones. (After they sold out she then confessed they were from Urban Outfitters, but I have a major moral dilemma about those idiots anyway.)

Husband informed me that Melbourne is THE world capital of painted-on jeans, and much to my satisfaction, my friend Thom makes the perfect pair at a reasonable price. These bitches are so tight they make my Leona Edmiston stockings look like snow pants. My friend Benny and I have the same pair. He's like 6'6" so his are a foot longer...but same circumference...skinny ass hipsters.

Soooo, I promise from now on I will mix my likes with dislikes in an attempt to be a nicer person. I just can't promise any kind of healthy balance.