Tales of the Unexpected

Hi people, sorry it's been so long since my last update but I'm having to piece this together whilst I'm supposed to be working so it's taken me a fair while. To be honest I was expecting this e-mail to be about a paragraph long basically something along the lines of "work is shit, i can't wait to quit etc." Well it is shit and I can't wait to quit, but I have so much more to report.

The first momentous moment in my life I must mention is the night I discovered the Hungry Jacks 30c ice-creams. They are the dogs bollocks. Seriously. If you're in Aus you've gotta try one - especially combined with a mini Mars bar which are available from any good 7/11.

Secondly, something that doesn't exactly relate to my Oz adventure, but I found out a couple of days ago that the bass player from Franz Ferdinand was in the year above me at school. Apparently his mother used to be best friends with my mother and we crossed paths regularly. How cool/weird is that?!

Thirdly, something other than me being bored off my tits happened at work last week. The building had to be evacuated because of a bomb threat, which wouldn't have been too big a deal, but it just so happens that the place I work in is the biggest government building in Brisbane - I think there was the feeling that Osama and his band of merry men may have been up to a little bit of mischief again. However, rather than go to the evacuation point with everyone else me and Levi thought it would be a good opportunity to get in a bit of sunbathing before going back to work in the afternoon. This plan was somewhat foiled however when I got a call from my manager about 20 minutes later. The conversation went something like this:
Manager - where are you?
Me - sunbathing on the roof of my hostel, who's this?
Manager - it's Jason, your manager, you should be at work, get here now
Me - Ok I'll be there in 30 seconds

So I turned up half an hour later, ever so slightly worse for wear. Needless to say I wasn't much use that afternoon.

Finally, and this really is the greatest story ever told, is the Tale of Billy Woo. You may seem to remember that many moons ago that I moved into a 'flash' city centre apartment. My landlord was a quite pleasant if not ever so slightly eccentric Japanese gentleman (he was actually of undefined oriental origin, but for the sake of ever such slight racism, he was Japanese). His operations were always slightly shady, for example meeting us on a street corner to show us round the flat, not possessing any bank cards, giving us various names including James, Jack and Mike, not letting us have the mail room key 'cos that's where he got his mail sent (even though he had his own apartment) and generally just acting ever so slightly strangely.

Anyway, and please any of you that were actually there feel free to correct me on the details, the drama happened about a month ago now. In what became a long standing tradition whilst I was living in Sydney the people living in the flat got a little bit tipsy on goon (bargain wine in a box). From what I understand, one thing led to another, which led to a few people getting their hair shaved into mohawks, which led to said people going to the Casino until about 5 in the morning. On the way back, Darryl, who in my opinion was always a bit of a knob anyway, threatened the building cleaner. This obviously wasn't a good move, and the building management came up to the flat to investigate who had done it. On seeing the make shift wall in the flat, and I think the word 'wall' is generous especially after the vast majority of us had fallen through it at one time or another, the building owner started asking questions along the lines of 'what the fuck is that?'

A few minutes later after the building management had gone away 'James' came round to the flat in a very agitated state shouting at everyone asking what they've been doing and that they were causing him trouble etc etc. About 10 minutes later the building management came back asking to be let into the flat to speak to 'James'. However, on our little Japanese friends insistence, they were not let in and after a while returned with reinforcements, namely the Police. Once again the police started knocking on the door asking to be let in and 'cos 'James' owed a combined $3000 in bond money etc the police were refused entry. Thinking that 'James' must be holding them hostage or something they asked if they needed anything, to which Jonathan (it had to be didn't it?!) requested a pizza.

Whilst all this was going on 'James' was on his mobile phone for a good 10 minutes jabbering away whatever language it was he spoke. After he'd got off the phone he looked at his watch and said he had to go to a meeting and sauntered off into one of the bedrooms. A couple of minutes later, George came running into the living room shouting 'he's tying bed sheets together, he's tying bedsheets together!!' It appeared that my landlord was making an escape over the balcony in true cartoon style by absailing down 6 floors using bedsheets. He landed on some metal railings about 3 meters high on the ground level and hung there for a few minutes before looking up giving a cheeky grin and running away.

The reason behind all this madness is that my landlord James, was not infact called James as we had long suspected, his name was actually Billy Woo an illegal immigrant from Taiwan of 7 years standing. He had managed to build up a property portfolio of at least 3 city centre flats that must be worth at least $300,000 each, despite not having bankcards or any such thing. Quite genius when you think about it. Once the police finally made their way into the flat they were asking a lot of questions mainly, where the fuck did he go?. Amongst these questions, was, apparently, 'which one of you asked for the pizza?' As I understand it Jonathan replied 'Me. Is it ready yet?' Perfect.

And so goes the Tale of Billy Woo, hopefully I should have pictures of all this to send you soon. My ever so slightly mundane routine of going to work, eating and sitting on the hostel roof everyday pails in insignificance to this story so I won't take up anymore of your time with telling you about that.

I'm guessing you guys at uni must be coming up to the end of your last term before the exams so the best of luck to you all. And remember, if a work-shy slacker like myself can manage to get a 2:1 you guys should all be more than ok. To all the travelers hope everything is going well and if you're ever in doubt what to do, buy a box of Coolabah and the world will become a brighter place. Sorry it's been such a long message, but that's just the way it is when you've got relate the BEST STORY EVER!!!
Goodbye,
Rich