Well its been a busy last few days. Very busy.

Lets go back to Thursday. Firstly, I’ve been saving so vigilantly for so long that the money burning a hole in my wallet became unbearable. So I used the excuse of my birthday to buy myself a new video card for the computer because I’m sick and tired of doing my work or playing a game and everything going tits up. So thats the nerd part of my story out of the way.

On to Friday, my birthday… again (they’re getting quicker, I swear they are). The birthday messages began pretty quickly. Tim got in first from New York, closly followed by Bev in England. It then was quiet until the morning when the Brisbane crew got in with their bday messages before work – which with day light savings time, woke me up. Thanks guys.

Walking into the office I got a few more happy birthdays and through the day my email was clogged with facebook emails letting me know that yet another person has written on my wall. Always a good thing though. Dave got in with the first Birthday pressent, a coffee, followed by jono with a copy of Commander Keen with nick getting his birthday pressie, another coffee, in on the afternoon.

Work ended at the usual Friday Beer O’Clock time of 5pm, signalled by the handing out of beers. After an hour of FNB, we all made our way to a pool hall in St. Kilda, which for a chance, was clean and classy. Maybe we weren’t the right people for them to let through the door but they did all the same.

The night was all paid for by work which was great, as we spent a good few hours in there playing game after game and drinking round after round. After most people had left and, a dodgey berger was in order and we made our way to a place I know I’ve eaten at numerous times before, yet I’m still completely unaware where the hell it is.

Dave and I had a game of Frogger, we all ate our food and then came to the decision that another beer was in order, so we headed to the Village Belle (which seems to be a re-occuring theme). Along the way we lost Nick and Ben, who seemed to do a runner from behind our back into a cab, because they are soft….

Anyway after that I headed home, stayed up for a while and slept through to about 1ish, to which I woke up and was informed we were going down to Carlisle Street for food. 20 minutes later I had had a shower and was drinking my first beer of the day. I didn’t realise at the time but I had a long way to go on the drinking front.

Andy decided he wanted to put money on the Caufield Cup and I thought I’d follow suit. I decided to put $10 on #1 to come first and $10 on 16 for a place. Well 16 was hopeless, didn’t do too well at all, but #1 actually came first. I couldn’t believe it. The odds were 12:1, meaning I walked out of there with $120. BEER MONEY!

So, we ate our food, and headed into Beer DeLuxe at about 4:30.  It wasn’t long before the people started showing up. Fair enough really, the invite did say be there at 5 after all.

The night progressed along quite nicely. I had about 20 people show up throughout the night. I don’t think I’ve turned down so many free drinks before in my life. I couldn’t keep up! I was already drunk enough to do my first maccas run by 7pm…. and not my last either.

Anyway after drinking away in the beer garden, enjoying the location, weird rowing sculpture thing (resembled the effort of a certain Australian rowing team), and the evacuation of the cinemas next door, we decided to move on. Ben was onto this one. He knew exactly where to go. We headed of down Swanston and onto Flinders Ln, Turning right onto Elizebeth. We then went right down an alley, back tracked to Elizebeth and back towards Flinders Ln. Half way up, we came back to Elizibeth and headed back again towards Swanston.

All a little annoyed about our laps of the Melbourne alleyways, we decided to head to Bridie O’Rilleys, on the opposite side of the city.. ugh. Apon ariving (20 minutes later), we started drinking again. The music here was terrible, can’t hang around for too long. So we smashed a beer and exited for Pony next door. Another favourite of mine.

The bouncer decided that we were all sober enough to go in, but since we had just walked out of Bridie O’Rilleys, we better have a good reason why he should let us in. We said their music was shit. He agreed and let us in.

Back to the Beers.

So we drank for a little while longer. Allan made a friend for 5 minutes, I had a sausage roll from 7/11, had another beer and we all decided to move on again. This time back across town to a place on Hosler Ln, who’s name evades me. We were now back next to Fed Square where we started in the first place. I’m estimating its about Midnight now.

I think scotch and dry was now on the menu. A few of them maybe? I’m not too sure. I know I had more then one drink. In fact I think I had to scull one because I had to make room in my hands. Yeah I’m sure that was the case.

Right, I’m now down god knows how many pints, 1 cheese burger, 1 sausage roll, 3 (?) scotch and drys and one smashed glass and a few stragglers who went home. Cool. Conversation is a bit hazy by this point. Im sure it wasn’t Nobel Prize winning stuff.

So we were there for an unquantified amount of time. I know we left that place and I know we lost a few more people after this in the never ending conversation outside. I think this was the point we lost Tim and Ruth. That meant were down to Ben, Allan, Andie, Leanne and Myself… sorry to anyone I have forgotten.

We then made our way to The Lounge Bar, only to find out it was cover charge. That leads me to believe it was definately after midnight. Mr. Doorman tells us its $10. Mr. Ticket room says its $15. We tell Mr. Ticket Room where to put his ticket and head on out. Mr. Doorman asks why, we tell him and Mr. Doorman yells at Mr. Ticket room man and we go back up. Evidently Mr. Doorman is > then Mr. Ticket room guy. We go in for $10 each. TO THE BAR.

Right, so I think I had a beer first up. But I know I had spirits somewhere else in the night. This is where time starts to dissapear on me. I’ve established were in this venue somewhere around 12 – 1.30ish. Ben and I, in conversation at work today, cannot remember a single song played in that place but we both remember saying the music was good. One key moment I remember was putting my drink on the table, bumping Andy’s scotch (which means I was drinking scotch at this point – woo I can remember things) with my little finger, watching it skate across the table ice hockey style and smashing everywhere. Whoops, better get another one from the bar. Not that Andy needs it cus hes smashed himself, but I do so all the same.

Anyway I know a lot of stuff happened like talking to people, buying drinks and going to the toilet. This all continued until we decided to head home. We walk out, Allan goes his way, and Ben and I go back to Maccas again. Oh yeah. I think we actually had 2 helpings. We even had a big conversation would have been borderline I’m certain was incoherent.We out our first helping in Maccas and our 2nd in Fed Square. Good times.

Last I remember was getting into a cab, checking the time, it was 6am and the sun was coming up. I wrote on my Facebook “Luke has drunk himself sober” … which seemed quite plausible at the time. My head dissagreed when I woke up at 4pm. Actually that’s not entirely true, the worst of the hangover didn’t kick in till 10-11pm on Sunday night. Fun times!

Well, anyway today was hell because I was exhausted, yet here I am at 12:30 tapping out another blog post when I should be sleeping.

In other news, Brooke comes to Melbourne tomorrow. Woohoo. She’s here till next Thursday and on Saturday I fly to Perth to spend time with Dad. Good times all round.

Well I best sleep. Night

p.s It should also be noted that this post is far too long for me to proof read, so too bad if there are mistakes. I’m sure someone is anally retentive enough to point out mistakes.