Thank You, Aerogard. I Will.

Or: Ten Reasons My Weekend Was Awesome, by Jo.

1. It included the Friend In Hand pub in Glebe.
The Friend In Hand is the only pub I’ve never wanted to steal anything from*, because it’s already groaning to capacity with all manner of glorious crap that’s already been stolen from somewhere else. We had to move a lawnmower to fit another chair at our table. Moving a lawnmower = my kind of pub.

2. It included ordering food via touch-screen.
My new favourite restaurant has all the usual boxes ticked - swish décor, polite staff, delicious food, drinks menu of fractal endlessness – and one feature that I want to apply to every corner of my life, starting now. Everything is ordered via a touch-screen menu at your table. With pictures. And sakē. And Japanese pizza. And sushi roulette, where one person gets a hidden eye-watering wodge of wasabi if they pick the wrong piece. I’m not telling you where this place is, because then you’ll be the reason I can’t get a table, but you’ll be able to find me there every night for the rest of my life.

3. It included temperatures in the low forties (that’s Celsius, to all my thousands of American readers).
Dunno. Just like sweating, I guess.

4. One of my mates got married on a clifftop by the ocean.
It was simply one of those wedgings where everything’s relaxed and gorgeous, with incredible food, great speeches, brilliant music and really, really good champagne. The only drawback: the hot trombone player was married. Seriously, ladies – when you’re planning a wedding, PLEASE ENSURE THE MUSICIANS ARE SINGLE. I think that’s pretty obvious.

5. I saw a bag full of cane toads.
I spent some of my weekend in Queensland, and observed my first mini cane toad cull. They’re pests and ugly and therefore must die, but the humane way to do it is to stick them a bag and then in the freezer, so they ‘go to sleep’. Cane Toad Freezer Of Death = best band name ever.

6. I played my first game of Goon Of Fortune.
Apparently this game is reasonably well-known, but it was new to me. A bag of goon (that’s ‘inner bladder from a cask of relatively inferior wine’ for the highbrow amongst you) is pegged to a Hills Hoist, with the nozzle pointing downward. The Hills Hoist is spun slowly, whilst participants chant “Goon of Fortune! Goon of Fortune!”. Whoever the bag is closest to when (ironically) the spinning stops may treat themselves to a sizeable gobful of goon.
Also, I like opera.

7. I got called a mole. Like, heaps.
It's been a while.

8. I threw a Frisbee without squealing.
You don’t understand. With the exception of my sister, I am the worst at throwing a Frisbee in the known cosmos. Amputees, foetuses and quadriplegics throw Frisbees better than me. It’s like the laws of physics cease to exist the moment I hold a disc of plastic in my hand. Friends stare at me in disbelief when they watch me trying to throw a Frisbee anywhere but backwards or straight onto the ground. On the weekend, someone told me to throw it from behind my arse, and it worked. It went where I wanted it to. It went straight. It went high. It went far. It begs the question once again: is there anything my arse can’t do?

9. The concept of Hypno-Shorts was invented.
If you see a guy wearing boardshorts covered in black and yellow concentric circles, DO NOT STARE DIRECTLY AT HIS CROTCH. You’ll find yourself under their power, and suddenly unable to say anything funny or interesting. It’s not your fault, though. It’s the shorts.

10. Beer.
Thank you, beer. I love you.


* Just coasters and the occasional billiard ball, Mum. And a really, really nice glass for gin and tonics. And a barman, but just the once.

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Urban Decay 5

Part 5: Cooking With Keith.

(This might be a little confusing if you haven’t yet wandered around the articulate background stylings of parts one through four. Go on. I’ll wait.)

You know what Keith Urban likes more than songs about denim and tall ginger women?
Cake. Keith likes cake.

Now, because I’m such a diabolical diva in the kitchen department, I thought I’d make a cake especially for Keith.
He told me I could give you the recipe:

1. Recipe reference: Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook – Chapter Two: Tarts, Turnovers, and Rectangular-Chinned Country Singers

Keith, meet Martha. Martha: Keith.

2. Ingredients: Eggs, Flour, Milk, Baking Powder, Butter, Sugar, Keith Urban’s Greatest Hits.

Don’t get your eggs too close to Keith, ladies. You’ll end up with a child with a stupid name.

3. Whisk sugar and butter together until light, fluffy, and rocketing up the charts in Nashville.

See, Keith? Some women can cook and act.

4. Crack in two eggs. If yolks break, write a song about it.

Preferably in the key of shut the f*ck up.

5. Whisk all remaining ingredients together, making sure to blend the ballads thoroughly with the country/rock fusion.

That silhouette ain’t getting any less impressive, Keith.

6. Pour mixture into a well greased 20cm cake tin, ensuring every shiny, gleaming corner gets a good dose of your soft, creamy butter. Yes. Yes. Right there.

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.

7. Shove into a moderate oven for 35 minutes. Suppress urge to cackle with maniacal glee.

Ironically, still not hot, Keith.

8. Wait. When housemate arrives home and asks what smells good, change subject.

Mmmmmm. Burning hair.

9. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. The strings of a steel guitar soaked with a poor man’s tears will also do.

Full of carbs I’m afraid, Nicole. Have a carrot or some air or something.

10. Enjoy with a cuppa.

Mind the belt buckle doesn’t get stuck in your throat.


We’re not finished with you yet, Keith. You’re still essentially intact. I just have to figure out the best way to attach you to my car.

Stay tuned, y’all.

Urban Decay 4

Part 3: Tonight We’re Gonna Urban Like It’s 1999.

(You might want to catch up by reading parts one, two and three first. Then again, you might want to rub butter on your torso and slide down a hill. Go nuts.)

Keith loves a party. Parties contain all of Keith’s favourite things: alcohol, pale women, and people so drunk they’ll listen to any old crap.
Recently, my mate Russ’s girlfriend had a birthday party, and I brought Keith along as my date. After all, he’s a bit grotty with a hole in the middle.

Have you ever noticed that all Australian parties have a handful of fundamental things in common? Keith did. Keith noticed. He’s asked me to list them below, because whenever he tries to type something himself, it always turns into a bad song about the bush or jeans or beer or something.
They are:

1. Nobody knows the way to the party in a cab.
Keith and Lorin were arguing about which was the quickest way, but the driver insisted that there was no road to Gundagai in Stanmore.

2. You spend more time in the bottle-shop than at the actual party.
Keith offered to buy vodka for my mate Butters, but the guy behind the counter had to verify his credit card. Nicole had spent all Keith's money on Boto… er, nappies.

3. The laundry or bath tub becomes the bar.
We tried to make Keith cool. We failed.

4. One of the chairs breaks.
This one obviously couldn’t bear the strain under the weight of so many hits.

5. ‘Preparing gourmet canapes’ means ‘Peeling the top off the tub of guacamole’.
Keith totally double-dipped. A couple of days later, half the people at the party came down with a horrible case of blonde streaks.

6. People smoke.
Butters discovered that using Keith as a filter means less tar, but more carefully-manicured stubble.

7. People drink.
Say when, Keith. Keith…..?

8. Somebody always drags a guitar out (and in special cases, a piano accordion).
Keith was crushed when he forgot the words to The House Of The Rising Sun.

9. Somebody always gets felt up by a dirty old perv.
There’s no Stairway To Heaven at this party, Keith.

10. Somebody always gets a pash.
No tongue, Keith. Not after it’s been in the dip.

And finally:
11. Somebody always vomits.
We feel the same way, Keith. We feel the Same. Way.


Stay tuned. There’s more. I know. Me neither.

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Emails I May Never Send #19

Dear Miley Cyrus,

I went to high school with a couple of girls like you.
I don’t mean that they were absolute rubbish at lip-synching, or that they were photographed from behind by Annie Leibovitz, or that their fathers were famous for one song and one haircut, or that their penchant for semi-nudity and bitchiness belied their loudly-announced churchiness.

I just mean that they were brainless skanks who irritated the living crap out of me.

Achily, and also Breakily,
Jo.

PS: “Shah” is not a real word.

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Pull The Other One.

There are many under-appreciated and under-utilised things in our world. Things that quietly go about their business enhancing our lives, expecting (and usually getting) nothing more than a limply appreciative nod in their general direction. Things like coasters. Boob-tape. Nutmeg. Dylan Moran.

I’d like to draw long-overdue attention to one such taken-for-granted entity. One that, it could be argued, is the single most efficient and simple solution to, dare I venture, eighty-seven percent of life’s most perplexing conundrums.

My admiration of this engineering masterpiece knows few bounds, and is not based on any deep knowledge of physics, mechanics, or even Bindi Irwin (file under: remains a mystery). No. The love and respeck offered to this humble mechanism stems purely from my insistence that most problems can be solved by it.

Ladies and gentlemen.
I present to you:

The Pulley System.

Before you scoff (or perhaps just after you’ve scoffed, if you tend to scoff prematurely), let me propose the following scenarios:

Problem: It’s your turn to buy drinks, and you have the money, but you couldn’t be arsed getting up to go to the bar.
Solution: Pulley system.*

Problem: You’re drunk in bed, your blanket’s in a twist, and your feet are cold and exposed.
Solution: Pulley system.*

Problem: The remote control is on the far side of the room, where you suspect your housemate has just farted.
Solution: Pulley system.*

Problem: You’re dressed like a tart and one of your boobs has escaped.
Solution: Pulley system.*

Problem: Via a memo delivered by seraph, you’re told that you have to deliver some myrrh to some illegitimate kid in a barn, but you’ve got Christmas shopping to do and can’t spare the time.
Solution: Pulley system.*

Problem: Timmy’s fallen down a well.
Solution: Lassie.*



*Yes, a trained monkey would also be fine. What’s your point?

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Urban Decay 3

Part 3: Konichiwa, Keith-San.

Just in case you’re too lazy to go back and read parts one and two, my mate Russ and I are in the middle of a very important project – the gradual destruction of a Keith Urban Greatest Hits CD. All the cool kids are doing it.
Well, some of the cool k…
Well, two or three of the c…
We just thought it’d be fun. Shut up.

Anyway, Keith has been pretty busy lately, and he mentioned that perhaps he’d earned a holiday. Keith is a whining bitch. After nagging, stamping his feet and refusing to eat his Rice Bubbles, Russ and his percussive compadre Frosty finally caved and agreed to take Keith with them on a Japanese jaunt. They also asked Keith to empty his pockets before going through Customs. You can never be too careful.

First, Russ wanted Keith to really get a sense of traditional Japanese culture, mostly involving pyjamas and pictures of fish.

He thinks he’s turning Japanese. He really thinks so.

Frosty thought maybe Keith would appreciate something more contemporary, like a foray into the Japanese railway system. And… and some stairs.

Keep left, Keith.

The main point of the trip, though, was to show Keith what proper, grown-up music sounds like at Fuji Rock at the Naeba Ski Resort. Keith was a bit hesitant and skeptical, especially when Russ and Frosty explained that the festival would be almost completely free of slide guitar. They pretty much had to drag him there by the teeth.

They eat CDs raw over there, y’know.

When it started to rain, Keith got spooked and couldn’t be found anywhere. Russ and Frosty gradually narrowed their search, and also got almost unnecessarily artsy with the camera.

Keeeeiiiiittttthhhh….

Oh, Keeeeiiiiitttthhhhh…

Keith, you scallywag. We were worried.

Russ thought Keith could do with a bath, partly because he was all muddy, but mostly because Keith told him he was dressed a little bit like a homeless person. Russ hates it when Keith does that.

Don’t forget to wash behind your ears, Keith.

Finally, although it’s a bit of a cliché, because everybody always goes on holiday and always takes a ride on the head of a mechanical shark, Keith took a ride on the head of a mechanical shark.

Now jump it, Keith.

I couldn’t be prouder of Russ and Frosty. Not only did they go above and beyond the international call of duty for the sake of the Urban Decay project, they were also willing to be seen in public with Nicole Kidman’s bitch. Gentlemen, your bollocks are robust and impressive. Or so I’ve heard.

Stay tuned for more Urban Decay, in which Keith gets all Gordon Ramsay on your arses and parties like it’s 1999. And stuff.

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Pick Me! Pick Me!

Well, well, well.

With the assistance of a bit of vitriol, a bit of sarcasm, and quite a lot of swear-words, I'm one of eight finalists in Cleo Magazine's 'Next Top Blogger' competition.

The winner is chosen by public vote, so I'd really appreciate it if you'd click on the link below and throw a vote my way. And tell your friends to. And their friends. Etc. See how that works?
http://www.cleo.com.au/top_blogger_finalists.htm

Thank you. You smell great. Is that Paco Rabanne?

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