» Mad Stuff You've Done To Get Someone To Sleep With You

Quite the opposite, but I love telling this story
Years ago I was sitting in a pub with my mate Derek, we were playing a game whereby you shake all your change up, then stack it and try to guess whether the next one down is heads or tails. If you're right, you keep the coin and go again... and so on until the stack is done.
Whoever has the most coins wins and the loser has to buy the round of drinks.
As we were playing, Derek noticed a rather fetching girl watching.
"Hello," he said.
"Hello," she replied, "what are you doing?"
"We're playing a game whereby you shake all your change up, then stack it and try to guess whether the next one down is heads or tails," he replied.
"If you're right, you keep the coin and go again... and so on until the stack is done. Whoever has the most coins wins and the loser has to buy the round of drinks."
"That sounds like fun," she said.
"Do you wanna go?" he asked.
"Um.. OK," she said, picking up her bag and jacket and walking to the door.
Derek sat there for about five seconds before he realised she'd heard "do you want to go" instead of "do you want a go".
He shrugged, drained his beer, then walked out the door with her.
And yes, apparently she was an excellent shag.
He STILL has no explanation for this utterly random act of good fortune.
(Mon 16th Apr 2007, 7:30, More)

» Housemates

So many choices...
The girls who demanded I pay a share of the food even though I ate at the work canteen or the pub every meal? Nah.
The girl who used my dog's flea soap rather than pay for a cake of regular soap? Nah.
The guy who woke me up waving a running chainsaw at my face? Nah.
For my money it was the girlfriend of a housemate who moved in with us, made life shit in so many petty ways, then convinced him to move out.
I'd steadfastly refused to help him pack, confident it was a stupid move and he'd be back anyway but came back from the pub as they were about to leave.
Everything was boxed up in the truck, goodbyes were being said when she realised the CD currently playing on the stereo was "hers".
"Um... no, that's mine actually," I say.
"No it isn't, it's mine!" she insists, popping it out, putting it in the cover and jamming it into the last box.
"Actually, that is Difficultchild's", her embarrassed boyfriend explains, opening the box to take it back out.
"And... er... so is this one. And this one too. Um and this one."
"But I listen to them all the time!"
"Well that's fine, but they're not actually ours, so we can't take them."
She gets shitty, stamps her feet and glares at me as he starts removing selected CDs and handing them back.
Eventually there's a pile of about 30 cds in front of me when he says.
"Hang on, this is Difficultchild's book too..."
"But I love that book!"
"Yes, but it's not yours... maybe we should just have a quick look through the whole box and make sure there's nothing else that got accidentally mixed up."
And so began what turned out to be more than an hour of unpacking everything from the truck as every box revealed more of my stuff she had packed away because she either used it, liked it, wanted it etc.
I'm talking CDs (more than 100, I was reviewing them at the time and had stacks of the things) DVDs (at least 30), books (about 50), pots, pans, plates, kitchen knives, the blender, a pepper mill, herbs, spices, canned foods, blankets, towells, a skateboard, games, toys, my fucking guitar!!!, plants from the back yard, bottles of wine, stuff from the bathroom, stuff from the junk room (tools, power and otherwise) etc etc etc.
Basically if it wasn't in my locked room, she'd tried to take it.
He was mortified. She was ropable and kept saying "But I use that ALL THE TIME!!!" or something similar.
I was delighted.
The truck was a lot lighter as they left and in the next week I got another box of stuff back he'd found while unpacking.
Then I recovered some more while visiting.
It was all too much, they had a messy break up, he took everything that was his... actually that should read "he took everything" and moved back in.
Funnily enough I ran into her a couple of years later and she asked if I still had that book of hers she'd loaned me.
I laughed so hard beer came out my nose.
(Fri 27th Feb 2009, 2:00, More)

» Pubs

I'm a journalist
So I've spent almost every waking hour of the past 20 years in pubs.
Some highlights:
* Man walks in and waves knife "Give me the money!!" Elderly barman produces a gun and says "Fuck off, sonny." And off he fucked.
* Six foot drunk wanker turns to four foot six petite girl and calls her a slut. She shapes up and with one punch knocks him out.
* Heavily pregnant woman with her top off, sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette, holding a glass of wine while her drunk (male) friend pulls her by the nipple until the whole saggy boob is standing out about two feet away from her body.
* Old crim playing pool and his shooter accidentally falls out of his pocket.
* Smashed detectives stumbling out of the bar into squad car, turn on siren and roar off - into a parked car.
* Seeing a fire hose turned on a group of nasty bulldykes who refused, point blank, to allow anyone else to play pool even though they were crap.
* Drug dealer walks into a bar, upends about 20 grams of coke onto a table and says "It's a present from my mother!" before walking out.
* A man wins an axe in a pub trivia comp (signed by the local woodchopping champ) and proceeds to demolish a couple of tables to cheers from all.
* ANZAC day, watching the parade on TV when one colleague turns and shouts: "This one's for grandpa!" and flattens the Japanese exchange reporter who had wandered in.
* A system of pigeon holes behind a Northern Territory bar where locals would walk in, hand over their wallet and just keep drinking until the barman told them they'd run out of cash.
* Similar system in Queensland where at least 50 ATM cards with the PIN written on in texta were kept in a shoebox, the locals would just order and drink, trusting the bar staff to do the rest.
* Sex, sex and more sex in toilet cubicles, booths, on pool tables, against the bar, behind the bar, in the coolroom, on the footpath, etc etc... including one girl giving a handjob to some bloke while her boyfriend stood on the other side of her unknowing.
* Two guys walk into a bar, announce they're here to fix the pool table, mess about with it for a while, then announce they have to take it back to the factory... they weren't really repairmen.
* The free bong available to locals at one Sydney pub.
* The modelling agency brochure which hung on the wall at another where regulars were allowed to select the new barmaids.
Oh God this could go on all day... I'll just leave you with what is undoubtedly the strangest thing I've ever seen in a bar.
Troughman.
This is a guy who used to regularly be seen around Sydney laying in the toilet trough begging everyone to piss all over him.
Think I'm kidding? Google the name.
(Fri 6th Feb 2009, 5:02, More)

» And that's the thanks I got

Don't even start me...
I work in the media, where getting fucked over by your seniors is such an entrenched part of the job it's just not even worth getting into.
Research, interview, write the whole expose that brings down a corrupt government minister and then watch some other person get an award for "their" work? Been there.
Sit in a stake out for three days to get a pic which makes front pages around the country only to have someone else tack their byline on it after contributing three paragraphs? Done that.
Best part is not how many times it's been done or the worst instance, but how you start getting smarter.
Like the time a big shot investigative reporter took all my work and ran it as his without checking a single fact. Especially the one which I totally invented and which landed him in a massive defamation case which he could never explain away because that would have been an admission of plagiarism.
Or watching the work of a past culprit until eventually, buried in the middle of a piece, you discover someone else's unattributed work and having him outed on Media Watch and then fired. Fuck me I'mm getting so angry just typing this people are starting to look to see why I'm slamming the keyboard. I need a cup of tea.
(Fri 25th May 2007, 2:05, More)

» Buses

Fun, fun, fun...
I knew a bus driver once. Alcoholic cross dressing regular at my old local he was and an entertaining one at that.
He had LOADS of stories of deliberate bastardry against passengers like:
Deliberately stopping in front of puddles so they'd have to step in water.
Angling the bus in sharply at stops when it had rained so the water would sheet off the roof and soak everyone as he braked.
Bypassing stops or entire stretches of his route to make up time after stopping for a sandwich or quick beer.
Refusing to accept $10 notes all day (or $5s or $20s, whatever he fancied).
Refusing to speak English to anyone all day.
Accelerating or braking to send people falling all over the place.
Best one he told however was when the bus was loaded with people he'd look in the mirror and mutter to himself "You're all worthless cunts aren't you?" then tap the brakes and watch them nod in agreement.
(Sat 27th Jun 2009, 8:17, More)