It has been brought to my attention that this blog won't update itself [despite my very sincerest of hopes], so I've decided to take the initiative and write something about my North American adventure as it draws to a close.
It all started over 6 months ago at Sydney airport. Since June 16 it's been a hurricane of laughter, late nights, booze, gambling and one actual hurricane by the name of Fay while we were in Miami. I'll be returning with qualifications in First Aid, Casino Dealing and references for coaching tennis and childcare. I will be back with more money than I started with, mostly thanks to several long sessions spent at the poker tables. The money is mostly an illusion though, as I was flat broke on a number of occasions and am only alive because of several stimulus package bailouts provided by the Royal Bank of Mum.
I came to Canada with a backpack full of summer clothes without the slightest sense of the frozen hell that is Canada in Winter. By all accounts Vancouver never snows in December for more than a few hours [it usually falls at night when it gets cold then melts by the next morning]. Apparently my presence prompted it to snow for 3 weeks, causing Vancouver to completely freeze over, leaving 2 feet of ice and snow on the city. I then had to walk through said winter wonderland five nights a week to get to work for my 11pm-7am shift at the casino. Then four nights a week. Then two nights a week. Then finally, on my last schedule, three nights in a fortnight.
This catches me up to where I was somewhere during my last post. Out of the three shifts I was assigned, I got ONE. One shift. The casino totally fucked me in the proverbial ass which has left me on the couch of The House of Pain, watching re-runs of Californication. My only achievements from the last week are watching the entire two seasons of that show as well as the first season of True Blood [nothing quite like Sexy Redneck Vampires].
As monumental an achievement as this may be, I feel like the first month of this new year has been a total fucking bust. I was planning on achieving a lot of shit this year, a bunch of stuff and with about 8% of it over, I feel like I'm wasting my time already.
So, I'm really happy about coming home in 4 days time. I feel like my adventure has run its course. I'm having a farewell party at the house tomorrow night, a barhopping adventure on Sunday, a casino day followed by Australia Day celebrations on Monday, a miscellaneous hangover-nursing/packing day on Tuesday then I fly out on Wednesday. Altogether an action-packed end to a journey. The 26th of January promises to be off the fucking hook, stay tuned for the stories of that night. I'm planning to completely and utterly whore my accent out like the integrity-free motherfucker I am until I drop dead, end up arrested or unconscious in a pool of my own vomit [a distinction I've never quite earned]. Hopefully none of those things happen but if they do, consider myself warned.
Next post will most likely be with tales of Sunday barhopping or Australia Day - hopefully with some choice pictures included.
Til' next time.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
The Caribbean Swiss Ball Workout
...Better than porn. Or cheaper at the very least. I was a little bit hesitant to make this my first post on a brand new blog in fear of setting the tone too low right from the outset. I had it in my head that I was classier than that, that this blog should be some sort of revolutionary take on blogging and printed literature itself. However, it took me very little time to realize I wasn't going to do any such thing and the result is this post.
So for the last two months I've been working graveyard shifts at one of the casinos here in Vancouver. 11pm until 7am, dealing Blackjack, Baccarat and a bunch of little poker games that seem to specialize in extracting cash from people's purses [I'll dedicate a full post to cranky punters later]. Well tonight was going to be a shift, so I spent most of the day sleeping, trying in vain not to feel like shit on a stick by 5.30 in the morning the next day [Edit: Completely coincidentally, it's now just after 5:30 in the morning and I do in fact feel like shit on a stick]. I was just about to head off to bed for one final two hour nap when the phone rings. Now at the moment I live in a house with three roommates, all who have people that call them regularly - if the phone rings, it's never for me. Since there are only two of us home though, I decide to check the caller ID.
"RIVER ROCK CASINO" it says.
"Fuck..." I say, followed quickly by:
"Hello?" as I hit the Talk button on the phone.
So for the last two months I've been working graveyard shifts at one of the casinos here in Vancouver. 11pm until 7am, dealing Blackjack, Baccarat and a bunch of little poker games that seem to specialize in extracting cash from people's purses [I'll dedicate a full post to cranky punters later]. Well tonight was going to be a shift, so I spent most of the day sleeping, trying in vain not to feel like shit on a stick by 5.30 in the morning the next day [Edit: Completely coincidentally, it's now just after 5:30 in the morning and I do in fact feel like shit on a stick]. I was just about to head off to bed for one final two hour nap when the phone rings. Now at the moment I live in a house with three roommates, all who have people that call them regularly - if the phone rings, it's never for me. Since there are only two of us home though, I decide to check the caller ID.
"RIVER ROCK CASINO" it says.
"Fuck..." I say, followed quickly by:
"Hello?" as I hit the Talk button on the phone.
The ensuing 30 seconds involve someone from the casino telling me that my shift has been cancelled due to the snow that has been dumping down all day. Apparently cranky old Chinese guys are even more cranky when they can't drive to the casino without getting bogged in two feet of snow. Now this wouldn't normally bother me, but the fact is that on the most recent schedule I only have three shifts over the next fortnight anyway. THREE! And one of them just got cancelled on their whim. So after hanging up I spend the next minute or so stomping around the house, swearing, slamming doors and generally making a nuisance of myself, all the while cursing the casino and everyone who ever entered it.
It was at this point that I realized I was complaining about not getting to spend my Sunday night [a time when most people sleep apparently], dealing Baccarat to a bunch of angry desperados, gambling the equivalent of two months rent for me, losing it, then blaming me for something they have as much control over as I do. All for minimum wage. Needless to say, once I realized this fact, I found it much easier to deal with.
So now I've found myself back on topic. Seeing as I spent all day sleeping, it gets to 3am and I'm still wide awake. I'm just sitting on the computer, chatting to my G-town connection, Amy, about how I should be starting a blog and how there's nothing on TV anymore. Just as I'm typing that and channel surfing at the same time [multi-skilled I know], I stumble across a program called "Caribbean Workout". Usually I would just skip straight past this, but since just about every other channel falls under the categories of Paid Programming or Televangelism, I decide to give it a look...
What appears before me is pretty much what I expected. Two women in Barbados, stepping on the spot, holding a swiss ball each. Just as I'm about to switch channels I notice a certain look of lust in the eyes of the instructors when they look at each other, couple that with the possibility of assisted stretching later and I decide it's in my interest to stop to listen to the dialogue for a moment.
"Just in case you were wondering why we have balls in our hands..."
Before I can rationalize it, the word "Stunning" has left my mouth and I burst into a fit of giggles, far too loud for 3am when all my roommates are asleep before work on Monday. Once the fit has subsided I relate the story to Amy who tells me that at times like these, you just need porn - "at least that way you can guarantee some action" - I can always count on Amy to call it down the line.
I tell her that I can't afford the $15 for porn through the Video On Demand channel and the computer is made of sticks so it refuses to play videos. So the underlying sapphic tension between the aerobics instructors will have to do for now. Even if one of them looks a little iron-deficient and the other looks a little food-deficient, they're still sort of hot in a pre-menopausal but still in shape kind of way. They're a little too skinny, their skin is a little too leathery and their abs are a little too ripple-y. But to see them work those swiss balls... Well, never you mind the details.
So the moral of the story? If you can come away from this extended stream of consciousness with a single message, it would be this:
You don't always need Jenna Jameson when a couple of early-forty-somethings in lycra can get the job done.
Deep, right? It's a metaphor, think about it. It might change your life... But probably not.
Until next time.
It was at this point that I realized I was complaining about not getting to spend my Sunday night [a time when most people sleep apparently], dealing Baccarat to a bunch of angry desperados, gambling the equivalent of two months rent for me, losing it, then blaming me for something they have as much control over as I do. All for minimum wage. Needless to say, once I realized this fact, I found it much easier to deal with.
So now I've found myself back on topic. Seeing as I spent all day sleeping, it gets to 3am and I'm still wide awake. I'm just sitting on the computer, chatting to my G-town connection, Amy, about how I should be starting a blog and how there's nothing on TV anymore. Just as I'm typing that and channel surfing at the same time [multi-skilled I know], I stumble across a program called "Caribbean Workout". Usually I would just skip straight past this, but since just about every other channel falls under the categories of Paid Programming or Televangelism, I decide to give it a look...
What appears before me is pretty much what I expected. Two women in Barbados, stepping on the spot, holding a swiss ball each. Just as I'm about to switch channels I notice a certain look of lust in the eyes of the instructors when they look at each other, couple that with the possibility of assisted stretching later and I decide it's in my interest to stop to listen to the dialogue for a moment.
"Just in case you were wondering why we have balls in our hands..."
Before I can rationalize it, the word "Stunning" has left my mouth and I burst into a fit of giggles, far too loud for 3am when all my roommates are asleep before work on Monday. Once the fit has subsided I relate the story to Amy who tells me that at times like these, you just need porn - "at least that way you can guarantee some action" - I can always count on Amy to call it down the line.
I tell her that I can't afford the $15 for porn through the Video On Demand channel and the computer is made of sticks so it refuses to play videos. So the underlying sapphic tension between the aerobics instructors will have to do for now. Even if one of them looks a little iron-deficient and the other looks a little food-deficient, they're still sort of hot in a pre-menopausal but still in shape kind of way. They're a little too skinny, their skin is a little too leathery and their abs are a little too ripple-y. But to see them work those swiss balls... Well, never you mind the details.
So the moral of the story? If you can come away from this extended stream of consciousness with a single message, it would be this:
You don't always need Jenna Jameson when a couple of early-forty-somethings in lycra can get the job done.
Deep, right? It's a metaphor, think about it. It might change your life... But probably not.
Until next time.
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