sixthseal.com – Page 275 – Leading the wild into the ways of the man…

Melbourne: Day 2 – The Paramount

December 25, 2003 by HB

Day 2 of the
Convocation: Melbourne, Australia (December 2003)
series.

The Paramount

There was a change of accommodations on the second day to The
Paramount Serviced Apartments at Exhibition Street. I didn’t know if I
should go to Unilodge or The Paramount when I got back from the doof. I
wasn’t sure if the rest of my family (my sister flew in around
midnight) had already checked out. I tried looking into Unilodge and by
a stroke of luck, there they were – right at the reception desk to
check out.

We checked in at The Paramount after that and the facilities here
are much better than at Unilodge. There are washing machines, dryers,
dishwashers, a full sized fridge, and even a nifty food grinder in the
sink. Here’s a couple of shots of the interior:

The lounge area – sorry about the backlight, was too scattered to notice then.

This is the kitchen.

I was so ready to pengsan
[pengsan.com] then, I’ve been awake for a long time by that time and I
was feeling totally knackered. I was ready to sleep for a day…but
before that, the search for food must begin! Hibernation requires food
intake beforehand – it allows longer hours of sleep and you feel better
when you wake up, especially when you’ve not been eating before that.

Food court at The Paramount shopping arcade.

I’ve been to The Paramount’s shopping arcade before, it’s just off
Little Bourke Street (Chinatown) and there’s a short cut elevator that
exits there instead of in Exhibition Street. I got some food at the
food court, just one normal meal, take away, instead of overloading
like I usually do, because space is needed for the other hibernation
prerequisite – alcohol. 🙂

I have a couple of beers leftover from the night, but I wasn’t about
to put my faith in two measly beers so I also went to the bottle shop
at the shopping arcade to grab another six pack. The photo above shows
Burke’s Original Hemp Filtered Premium Ale. I’ve had these a couple of
times before, it’s a good tasting one. It’s filtered with hemp
(cannabis plants cultivated to produce negligible amounts of THC), and
their ads play on that angle a lot like most hemp beer manufacturers.

Burke’s Original Hemp Filtered Naturally Brewed Premium Ale

Needless to say, hemp does not affect the beer in any way. You’ll have to do what veritas did with 95% alcohol and cannabis
[sixthseal.com] for a cannabis/alcohol concoction. Nevertheless,
Burke’s is an easy to drink beer, perfect for chugging. I made sure to
take generous amounts of nitrazepam (a fast acting benzodiazepine with
long hypnotic effects) and some lorazepam (a benzodiazepine with great
anticonvulsant properties) sublingually before the meal. Please note
that I have a legitimate prescription from a licensed medical
practitioner for the two.

This is the dining area beside the lounge where I ate.

Anyway, the rest of my family was heading out for sightseeing so I
informed them of my intension of sleeping 24 hours so they could take
both the keys down. The Paramount has an excessive security framework
that requires the keys to operate just about everything. You can’t even
press the buttons on the lift without swiping the keys through the
scanner first and there are several doors that needs swipe access as
well before you can exit the building.

Well, after that’s sorted, I started drinking and I may have been
too liberal with the benzodiazepines because I nearly fell asleep on
the table. I decided that I would eat half of the food and then go to
sleep because the benzos sure isn’t going to wait for me to finish up.
😉 There are two bedrooms, one with a large queen bed and one with two
singles. I stumbled into one of the singles and passed out.

I slept for 26 hours.

Nope

December 24, 2003 by HB

Hello, sorry for the lack of updates, I’m swamped with work, so no
Christmas for the wicked. Or something. I learnt something these few
days. I mean, its bleeding obvious, so I already knew about it but
anyway:

If it’s not in black and white, it means fuck all.

Yeah verbal = fuck all. We need a record like email. People can act
all nice with you verbally and fuck you later since, naive boy, there’s
no record of verbal conversations.

So remember dear readers, no record = fuck all.

Have a Merry Christmas everyone! 🙂

Melbourne: Wildlife with Deviant Species (UK) live outdoors doof

February 2, 2024December 22, 2003 by HB

Day 1 + 2 of the
Convocation: Melbourne, Australia (December 2003)
series.

I managed to meet up with Liam, Andrew and Ashley after I woke up
from the much appreciated nap, and we headed back to halls to stock up
on supplies before heading out. It was good to see halls again after
all this while, managed to get a photo of Roberts Hall. Introductions
were made (I only knew Liam then) and we headed out to Glen Waverley
after everyone was sorted. I had only bought along a 1 liter bottle of
water and worn my warm jumper, and was surprised to find everyone
packing bags. Needless to say, I was inexperienced with doofs (outdoor
raves).

Anyway, Liam drove down to Glen where we picked up a slab of Carlton
Draught stubbies and two packs of ice from the bottleshop. In case
anyone was wondering, I meant ice as in “the frozen form of water”.
Just to make things, er…crystal clear and all that. 😉 Okay,
enough lame jokes. Ashley had brought along an esky (cooler) and the
picture you see above is a shot of Ashley and Liam loading it with beer
and packing it with ice.

I forgot the name of this town.

This was all done in the car park beside the bottleshop. We stopped
for gas after that and drove straight down to Jeeralang, where the
event was going to be held. It’s part of the Strzelecki Ranges. The
drive was slated to be about 2 hours and it does seem far away coz I
distinctly remember passing Mt Baw Baw. We did made a pit stop at a
town near the venue for KFC before continuing the journey though.

Driving up the steep road.

The road into the venue wasn’t marked, and it was a really steep
drive up. I did see a “Wildlife – Deviant Species Live” sign at one
point so we were on the right track. There was this sharp turn halfway
up that had a bent street light, so it seems that at least one car
didn’t make it to the top unscathed. 😉 It was a beautiful night
though, the city lights were visible and you could see past the trees
and down into the bottom of the hill with the amazing bush air breezing
in.

Checkpoint!

We got to the checkpoint where the promoters were and damn, was that
guy enthusiastic about the night. It gave off a great vibe. We got to
the top just when it was turning dark and I knew I made a mistake
regarding attire when I stepped out of the car. It was freezing! I
don’t know how cold it was, but the wind chill was insidious. Warm beer
never tasted so good…and there’s no need to worry about hyperthermia
issues, that’s for sure. 😉

Warmth available here.

The doof was starting music at 10 pm so we went to the hobo fire
that was going on in front of the stage. It seemed to be the most
popular spot with the weather that night. I had to make frequent trips
back to the car to warm up. It’s a good thing Liam parked near the
stage and there was this trippy light device under some trees to guide
the way. The lights refracted off the tree leaves in a surprisingly
mesmerizing manner. It felt like a psychedelic light show.

The Great Illuminating One!

The trees were a bit tricky to navigate though – there were branches
sticking out at the most unexpected places and navigating though the
maze without The Guide (which was what we dubbed the trippy light)
without being sober would be unthinkable. The first DJ set came on, and
I vaguely remember someone ordering bales of hay at one point for seats
around the fire. I haven’t acclimatized yet, so the extreme temperature
change was quite uncomfortable. The others had spare coats but I
declined and stayed by the fire instead.

Setting up the set.

The early ones…

The crowd started small and grew larger as the night went on, this
psy-trance event wasn’t heavily publicized – they probably wanted it to
be a smaller gathering for the psytrance regulars. I didn’t dance much,
I was er…mashed, so to speak and besides I was freezing my ass off in
the chilly weather. The fire was good, though it was a wood fire, so
smoke inhalation was an issue after a while beside it.

The crowd fills up…

as the night progresses.

I actually convinced myself that I had hypothermia at one point. It
wasn’t really hard to do that under the circumstances, and I was
seriously thinking about leaving. I thought I was going to freeze to
death if I stayed since the coldest spell hasn’t even hit yet.
Thankfully, the guys talked me out of that thought loop. Thanks
everyone! 🙂 Also, Andrew gave me his warm coat, cheers for that! I
stopped thinking about hypothermia and did the second inventory stock
take and it was all lovely after that. 🙂

Deviant Species live set!

This one taken without flash.

I only managed to get three photos of Deviant Species playing live.
I was too mashed to move. They played till dawn was breaking…it was
amazing to see the sun rise slowly over the valleys and watch the place
light up. It really is a beautiful place to have a daylight doof in.
Check out the scenery:

The venue looks different in daylight too. I thought I saw a large
giraffe or some other animal, details are a bit hazy from the night. I
was standing at the cliffs and was surprised to see a large giraffe
appearing here, of all places. Checking with the others produced mixed
responses, but I saw it vividly, and in daylight too! That is, until
the “giraffe” moved and it turned out to be a man beside a rock with
the opposite hills making it look that way after all. 🙂

This was what our path to the car looked like in the light of dawn.

This is us after watching the sunrise.

Liam was recharging for the drive back so we never got a full group photo, but here’s one of us three:

L-R: Huai Bin (me), Andrew, Ashley.

To the best of my knowledge, everyone in the photo is completely
sober. It must be the lighting that made it seem otherwise. I have to
say that my memory of the night is rather fuzzy, but I can fully assure
you that no psychedelics were consumed at the particular point in time
this shot was taken.

Here’s some photos of the morning set with Santos De Castro and Paul Wright (Deviant Species):

A large frame capture from the car.

Moving into the crowd.

Deviant Species were still playing the set.

I enjoyed the talks in the car, it was great, just gotta love the
scene over in Melbourne. Excellent company – it was great to go raving
with Liam again, and I’m glad I got to know Andrew and Ashley. I had a
wonderful time. It’s not about the music, it’s about the…*cough*. 🙂

I’m sorry that you lost your glasses Ashley, hope you find it!

It was close to noon when we left the doof.

Memorable quotes of the night:

“I think I actually have to start earlier to warm myself up”

“Would be one hell of a come down tomorrow eh?”
“Do you want to talk about this now?”

“I can’t believe you’re yawning right after smoking that hit of meth!”

“I’m going off to check on my hallucinations now”

“I’m peaking so hard…I feel full on rushes everytime I move”

and many other classics I couldn’t remember. 🙂

Despite my expression when the event was over and inventory stock
clearence was done, it was worth every second of it! I’ll do it all
over again. 🙂

I Squid!

Quack Quack

December 22, 2003 by HB

I had wanted to write a little rant about my quack doctor, but I’m
too tired right now. I walked to see the nearest doctor – wasn’t easy
for me when my chest pains, fast pulse and labored breathing afforded
me a pace slightly faster than a sloth. Two old men with canes passed
by while I was clutching my chest and poked me to make me walk faster,
while laughing derisively. Okay, that last bit didn’t happen, but yeah
it did take me a while to reach there.

Anyway, I told the doctor I’m worried about my cardiovascular
situation and he went “Heart problems? At your age?” in a disbelieving
tone. Yes, another one slipped through the cracks of med school. I told
him I have hypertension and he did his quacky listen to my heart with
the stethoscope thing and asked “Did you just run here?”. I would have
walked out of Mr. Quack’s clinic if the walk here hadn’t already used
up all of my remaining energy. Fuckwit.

I told him patiently (which isn’t hard to do when you have to work
hard just to breath) that no, I walked very slowly. I tried to make it
simple for him by putting things into words he can understand but
unfortunately he believes he knows more about my body than me. He
tapped me a couple of times on the stomach and said “I think it’s acute
gastritis. I’ll give you some pills for that.”

Oh, for crying out loud…

I told him to measure my BP at rest, which thankfully was a
relatively low 170/95. The second measure yielded the same results, so
I’m not bothered about it. Call me when it’s 220 systolic. 😉 I think
my pulse rate knocked some quackiness out of him though…he measured
me at several points and finally said that I had a very strangely
strong and rapid pulse. Well no shit Sherlock, I’ve been having chest
pains, shortness of breath and I don’t even need to feel myself to hear
the pulse beating.

Now here’s the thing. He made a quick decision to wash his hands of
me and suddenly said, “Oh, you’re still young, perhaps you just had too
much coffee or something. I’ll give you some pills for the chest pain,
but I think it’s probably acute gastritis so I’ll give you some of that
as well, and you can take it easy and sleep tonight, I’ll give you two
sleeping tablets”.

The “chest pain pills” were Buscopan (hyoscine-N-butylbromide),
let’s give him a big round of appause for prescribing that to a patient
with hypertension and tachycardia @ 180 (sustained).

Oh, and those “sleeping pills”? They’re just two Stilnox (zolpidem)
tablets. With my benzodiazepine tolerance, he’ll have better luck
reanimating the dead.

Fucking Quack, I’ll stick to my lorazepam prescription to control
the problems until I see a real cardiologist. This one is the GP you
see when you catch a cold, anything more complicated would be way above
his league.

My apologies for not being my usual self today, I’m irritable from
the high body load all this is giving me. It’s a good thing I already
wrote the next Melbourne post on Satuday, so I’ll just upload the
photos and the post will be up in a while. I’ll be fine, I’ll go to
sleep soon and wake up anticipation for the work that’s lying in wait
for me. Whee!

Hey, I did write a mini rant after all.

Vote: Photo #1 or Photo #2

December 21, 2003 by HB

I need a subjective opinion so please help me out here…I had to
take a “recent smiling face shot” photo, so I took two a minute ago to
pick from. Which one looks friendlier? I know I’m disheveled and I look
like I haven’t slept in days, but I tried my very best smile under the
circumstances (feeling like shit now). It’s not really important, I
just need one for tomorrow – other people would be doing post
production work on it eg cutting the face out, so the hair and
headphones won’t be part of the final image. My Photoshop skillz suck
so I can’t do it myself. Just the expression, which one do you think
looks “friendlier” i.e. less fake coz I sure had to plaster that shit
eating grin on…

Photo #1 or Photo #2?

Photo #1

Photo #2

P/S – It’s either #1 or #2, I can’t be bothered retaking the photos. I don’t have any smiles left in me.

Melbourne: Day 1 – Unilodge on Swanston

December 21, 2003 by HB

Day 1 of the
Convocation: Melbourne, Australia (December 2003)
series.

It was around 8 AM when the plane touched down in Tullamarine
(Melbourne) airport. I just had two hours of fitful sleep over four
days and seriously doubted my ability to head to the Deviant Species
doof later that night. Customs was good though, I only had two checks
on my declaration list and the customs officer said I could go through
the Green Exit (no need for checks). Not bringing food along was a good
idea, not that I had any use for that anyway, since I’m just coming
over for my convocation.

Melbourne airport customs.

It’s not readily visible from this photo but Melbourne customs
officials seems to have a certain configuration – there’s the one on
the desk you talk to, a row of sturdy blokes after that, and a third
row of older, and presumably more experienced officers. It’s just an
observation I’ve made, and I’ve been held up at customs before, and it
seems that at least the second and third row have communication devices
with the CCTV monitoring division, which I postulate is for spotting
dodgy or nervous characters. I have several interesting encounters, but
that’s not relevant to the post, so I’ll refrain from mentioning them.
🙂

Anyway, my two checks were for shoes and medication. The customs
officer said dress shoes are fine and asked me what my medication was.
I told him it’s just my benzodiazepine prescription, and he said that’s
fine, just go through the green exit. It didn’t turn out to be a hassle
after all. Oh, and if anyone is interested, there were no sniffer dogs
in sight at either baggage retrieval or customs – I’ve gone through
close to 10 times and there was always a sniffer dog around, but not
this time. Yes, I brought my wallet along, though not my backpack.

Unilodge on Swanston.

Well, I caught the SkyBus to Spencer Street Station and found out
that they had a courtesy shuttle bus to CBD hotels, so I hopped on that
to Unilodge at Swanston Street. We’re staying there for the night due
to a mess up with our booking with The Paramount. They have fully
serviced apartments during uni holidays, and it’s pretty spacey –
here’s a couple of shots of the interior:

This is the lounge area – windows open to a great view of the city.

There’s a full kitchen too.

Melbourne – a bird’s eye view.

This is the view from outside the lounge, there’s a balcony that
goes 3/4 around. This photo is of the RMIT/Hungry Jack’s intersection
right when you exit Melbourne Central Station, except this is taken
from the 12th floor.

I decided to take a walk around town instead of sleeping, figured I
won’t have enough time before I had to get in touch with Liam. It was
Saturday morning and there wasn’t a lot of traffic at that time so it
was good to walk around. I noticed a couple of changes since I was last
in Melbourne (July 2003) – Melbourne Central is under heavy renovation
and the familiar Melbourne Central Station escalators weren’t there
anymore.

Melbourne Central Station under construction.

The escalators have moved into the mall instead of being out front
and the upper few floors of Melbourne Central seems to be closed. I
walked down to Elizabeth Street to see if there’s anyplace I could
offload my CF Cards into a CD-ROM. I could fit about 52 shots into a
128 MB CF Card with my 5 MP Nikon 5700, and my other two CF Cards are
32 MB and 16 MB respectively…which means I’ll need something to store
the pictures in. I found that the best place to transfer from CF Card
-> CD-ROM is at Ted’s.

They charge A$ 9.95 per CD and they use one of those dedicated Agfa
red boxes to do it. There’s another shop nearby that’s A$ 8.99 per CD –
they’re using a standard PC with flash card readers and a CD-RW to do
it though, so I went with Ted’s for the perceived privacy with the Agfa
“black box” (don’t know what’s inside those things), since some photos
were not meant for public viewing. 😉

The new mall beside the state library.

I walked back to Swanston and noticed that a new mall seems to have
sprung up beside the state library. It’s not fully functional yet, but
there’s a bowling alley, a Safeway and some food courts inside. I
didn’t take photos of the interior the first day, since I’ve just
offloaded my CF Card into a CD-ROM and wanted to save space for the
doof later, but I did get pictures before I came back. The mall seems
pretty big – it must be the one that’s under construction before I left.

It’s surprising how much construction work can be done in a couple
of months…it went from a deep pit into a monolithic (okay, I lack a
better term) structure. I went into Safeway to get a 1 litre bottle of
water and went to Dick Smith’s at Bourke Street to get an adapter for
charging my digicam battery. It was past 1 pm by the time I called Liam
and we arranged to meet at 3 pm. I went back to Unilodge, charged my
digicam battery and saw this tempting, tempting sight:

Tempt me not, fair maiden…

I was reminded of my sleep deprivation and decided to try and see if
I could cram an hour’s sleep before I went. It’s something challenging
for me, especially if I’ve not been sleeping in the days prior to the
attempt. I set two alarm clocks, but they both failed me…it was way
past 4 pm by the time I woke up and I didn’t have a contact number so
Liam couldn’t reach me.

Did I wake up too late? Will I make it to the Deviant Species doof? Burning questions which will be answered in tomorrow’s post!

Okay, those are stupid questions since you all know I made it to the doof…check back tomorrow for photos from the event!

Melbourne: Day 0 – Cigar rolling demonstration @ KLIA

December 20, 2003 by HB

Day 0 of the
Convocation: Melbourne, Australia (December 2003)
series.

I really have to applaud the KLIA KL CAT system – it’s a really
nifty concept that allows you to check in at KL Sentral (!) and your
luggage goes direct to your destination (Melbourne in this case) while
you take your carry on into the KLIA Express and ride to KLIA in
comfort, without the need to check in again at the airport. A baggage
check in system and boarding pass issue service in the city! I was
impressed…just made it there at slightly before 7:20 pm so I was
eligible to check in there. You need two hours before the flight time
to be eligible.

Cigar rolling demonstration.

I requested a window seat as usual (good for sleeping, and I don’t
piss that often) and took the KLIA Express to KLIA. The train looks
like the interior of a plane, probably designed that way. Well, I
arrived at KLIA and followed the rest of the herd into the aerotrains.
I wanted to make a short post at the net center there but their line
was down, and the seats were filled with irate surfers watching a blank
screen, so I walked around instead and found a cigar rolling
demonstration.

A nice big leaf of tobacco to start with…

It was organized by Davidoff and the person turned out to be “Master
Cigar Roller – Mr. Ambiorix Pichardo Reyes” from Santiago in the
Dominican Republic. He had leaves and fillers and all sorts of tobacco
around him. It was interesting to watch him roll a cigar, he makes
about one per minute and I was offered a chance to sample his freshly
rolled cigars compliments of Davidoff in the smoking room, but I had to
decline coz my flight was boarding.

Cigar making in process.

It was a bummer, I saw several people took up the offer though, it
would have been a nice opportunity to smoke a freshly hand rolled
cigar, it’s not something that happens to you everyday, at least not
here. 🙂 I think it was freshly rolled anyway, it’s not from the same
batch as the ones Mr. Ambiorix had beside him, and the ones offered to
us by the promoter looks more “finished”, but she said it was “freshly
rolled by the Master Cigar Roller, compliments of Davidoff”.

Pulling some tobacco into the roll.

Nevertheless, it would have been great to have one since the chance
doesn’t come by that often, so I wanted to just grab one, have a quick
puff and then run off to my gate, but doing that just for the sake of
doing it and leaving a perfectly good cigar with just one smoke in the
ash tray seems blasphemous, so I declined. I’ll have to say though, I
would not have declined if this happens again, with hindsight. 😉

Rolling it all up into a cigar.

How many times can you say you’ve smoked a freshly rolled cigar by a
master cigar roller? Not very much…yeah, I’m still kicking myself
over it. Anyway, after taking a couple of photos (very grudgingly
taken, since I wanted to preserve CF Card space and battery power just
in case I couldn’t offload and recharge in Melbourne before the doof),
I boarded my flight and…couldn’t sleep.

Finishing a freshly rolled cigar.

Yes, I took enough benzodiazepines to sedate a small horse. Yes, I
drank heaps of alcohol. No, I did not sleep the night before. However,
sleep just wasn’t forthcoming. Nope. It wasn’t. No sleep for the
wicked, probably. I filled in the declaration card since I was bored. I
only had two “Yes” answers, was hoping to go out the Green Lane. After
that, I still couldn’t sleep so I wrote a post while continuously
downing Bloody Mary’s with a cup of water (can’t be dehydrated before a
doof).

Yes for medication and used shoes.

It was called “sixthseal.com offline (12/12/2003)” and it was
written on pieces of tray liner (!) because the flight doesn’t have
letter pads, sorry. They did have postcards though, which they gave me,
but you can’t very well write on a postcard, so I asked for something I
can write on, and they gave me this. Personally, I think the cabin
attendants were just sick of me pressing the “Call” button and asking
for a Bloody Mary (can you make it stronger this time, please?) and a
cup of water every 15 minutes. 😉

Anyway, the two pieces of paper goes through things I’ve already
mentioned in this post, so I won’t be scanning it as I originally
intended. It had a story about me losing my Valium blister pack, which
I’m lazy to re-write, but yeah, I lost it somehow. There was either a
very sedated taxi driver or a very sedated MAS ground staff that night.
That’s at the expense of my sleep, those were 10 x 10 mg diazepam
tablets…I had to dip into my personal stash of 5 mg nitrazepam and
slept about 2 hours into the next day.

sixthseal.com offline!

Oh, and towards the end, the irate cabin attendant made the Bloody
Mary in front of me. Heh. She poured two shots into the pre-mix in
front of me, probably to stop me from repeating “Can you make it
stronger this time?”. 😉 However, she did not allow three shots,
stating some obscure code they have to adhere to – she said I could
have as many double shot Bloody Mary’s as I liked, just not 3 shot
ones. The trick to get cabin attendants to keep on serving alcohol is
to appear sober and be polite and obviously, don’t slur your words.
I’ve read about some guy assaulting flight attendants coz they refused
to serve him more alcohol, and I’ve seen people being denied more
drinks on previous flights, but I’ve never had the same problem myself.
Their mistake was to be demanding and appearing to be drunk – two
things you shouldn’t do.

As always, retain a sedated composure (it comes with benzos anyway,
that gives off an impression that you’re not a “violent drunk”), appear
to be sober (don’t slur your words, don’t give off any outward signs of
intoxication) and just be polite and friendly. I’ve never been denied
drinks before and I’ve had more than my fair share during flights,
including an embaressing one that ended up with me passing out and
spilling drinks and er…finding myself on the floor when I woke up.
Even with that faux pax, I was still served, so if you aren’t already
aware of the obvious tips, keep them in mind and the free flow will be
free flowing you to sleep. I only had a two hour sleep – but that’s
going into Day 1…coming up soon!

Stage exit left, regurgitate

December 20, 2003 by HB

Greetings! My apologies for the lack of updates, I was sick (no,
really). It started on Friday morning when I ate some noodles with
sotong by the roadside for breakfast which made me projectile vomit for
the rest of the day…seriously, I couldn’t keep even fluids down,
despite my best attempts, and my best attempt can be a good one,
considering the things I’ve had and held down in the past. 😉

Anyway, was absolutely knackered for the rest of the day, but
still worked nevertheless, like the productive employee I am. Heh. I
didn’t want to call it quits and take an MC because these things “build
character” or so I’m told, so I subjected myself to a day of frequent
trips to the bathroom for regurgitation. This makes two dubious quasi
“character building” events in the past week, the first being the
hypothermia (my mind was convinced anyway) incident. More about that
soon!

Back to being knackered, I finally decided to see a doctor at around
5 pm (coz being dehydrated sucks) and said I’ll be back. That’s not a
good time to go to a doctor because the clinics usually close around
that time. Thus, it was back to work and I practically had to crawl
back to Bangsar after work. It was seriously that bad, somehow food
poisoning and the subsequent hourly regurgitation and stomach cramps
tires you like nothing else. It felt much worse than multiple day
*cough* runs without food, that was how bad it was.

Anyway, got to Bangsar, crawled (a manly crawl, mind you) into the
nearest clinic and got an IM injection, a much appreciated anti-emetic
which stopped all thoughts of throwing up within 20 minutes, and I ate
a bun and slept for 17 hours and felt perfectly fine today, and went to
work and went to BB and came back and now I’m writing this. I will be
posting the Melbourne convo series soon, please entertain yourself by
looking at this in the meantime:

It’s a Christmas present from Lee Qeuh (I think – the signature is
hard to read) from the company Christmas dinner that I couldn’t attend
because I was in Melbourne at that time. There was an exchange of gifts
scheduled, I didn’t know what I gave though, since I didn’t have time
on the Friday I was about to leave so Rozana (my friend from work who
sits beside me) got a present for me by proxy instead.

Please stand by, the much delayed Melbourne series is coming right up…

“I’ll have breast meat with that, thanks.”

December 18, 2003 by HB

I went to take away some chicken rice just now and somehow got
breast meat in addition to the drumstick I requested. I don’t even like
breast meat. The incident happened when I squeezed through to the
cashier’s place. To do that, you had to go through the existing queue
for chicken rice. “Excuse me!” I said, and lifted my hands to utilize
the “wedge yourself through by force” technique and got to the
cashier’s. I started pulling out RM 1 bills from my wallet, when
suddenly, I felt someone staring at me. She was wearing office attire,
probably mid twenties, with…well, decent (for the lack of a better
word) assets for someone of her physical build.

The realization dawned upon me that in my attempts to navigate the
human maze in the cafeteria, I had inadvertently initiated
inappropriate physical contact between my left hand and the
abovementioned person’s mammary appendages for about 3 seconds. I
realized that my outer left hand had slid across the chest area of the
unfortunately positioned woman, thus affecting not just one, but both of the extrusions in question.

It must not have seemed like an accident to her, because the look on
her face could only be described as “consternation”. It wasn’t
“appalled”, thank goodness, nor was it “shocked”, just mere
“consternation”, with an unasked question hanging above her head.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that”, said I. “No, no, it’s okay”, said
she.

However, I noticed that she had her arms firmly crossed against her
breasts when I was about to exit the area, presumably to avoid a repeat
of the previous incident.

I walked out behind her, just in case. 🙂

Duty Free

December 17, 2003 by HB

Guess who’s back? Okay, that’s the lamest ever start to a post and I
must apologize for subjecting you to that overused cliched statement.
Sorry guys. 😉 Anyways, I’ve just got back from Melbourne, breezed
through customs. Thank God, there were 5 items I think they would take
exception to and frown upon. Heh. Anyway, I have to work tomorrow and
it’s 11 pm now and even though I drank enough Bloody Marys (can you
make it stronger this time?) and other alcoholic beverages (hey, it’s
free) with bzd I still feel quite awake, but fear not, dear readers,
beer is still cold in my fridge and I bought 3 bottles of 1 litre
flavored Absolut Vodka (for me) and several cartons of Marlboros (for
someone else, coz I don’t smoke).

I will update tomorrow, one day each day, starting from Day 0 and
ending with Day 5. I wanted to do it Memento style and go ass backwards
from Day 5 -> Day 0 but I fear that will fuck with your mind too
hard and I don’t want to wish that upon you after I had mine fucked
with last night. No, no large scary chickens were involved, thankfully.
I don’t think I’ll be able to handle that abomination chasing after me.
😉