The Ice Bar - "Minus 5"

I've been meaning to blog about this for quite sometime, actually ever since about the second week of January but just haven't got around to it. I've only just uploaded the photos of this place to my computer. But what do you expect from the laziest chick on earth???

Yes so that's right folks, on the 10th of January my good friend Adam Cramp (did anyone ever call you Adam Crap at school??? ~ Cecilia Frisch) came to visit me for the Christian Conference "Planet Shakers". But the conference didn't start until the next day, his plane just arrived on the Tuesday. So anyway, before we headed off home, we (Adam, Elyse and myself) spent the day in the city, mostly in Circular Quay but visiting Centrpoint Tower just for a browse, a rip curl shop and other shops (Adam, is a shopaholic whose aim was to become the richest man on earth until God challenged him at Planet Shakers about being rich and earning money etc). I should probably mention at this point that earlier in the morning we had a Krispy Kreme brunch at Mascot with Mooj.

Ok so we were in the Rip Curl shop and i suggested visiting the Ice Bar which many people had heard of but very few had ever set foot in the place. So we asked the tender in at the shop if he'd heard about it, he said he had but that he thought it was only a New Year's Eve thing and was never open again.

Wrong - but he did mention it was at Circular Quay. So off we trotted down to the Quay, on the train which thrilled Adam to pieces - he loves trains, poor deprived country boy that he seems to be, although we figured out that we are both living each others lives unbeknownst to us.

Anyway, we got to Circular Quay and after enquiring with various people, we stumbled across a little bar in the edge of CQ (Circular Quay) we waltzed on in and thought we were in the notorious ice bar. We sat for awhile and realised the ice bar was a flight of stairs further. So we walked up the stairs and there before our very eyes was the lady sitting behind the reception of THE ICE BAR. Otherwise known as MINUS 5.



WE MADE IT!!!!!

We were so excited that we could hardly contain our excitement hahahah.....but our hopes and dreams of entering into a world of ice were quickly dashed and faded as the receptionist informed us that contrary to what the NSW population believed, for half an hour it would cost each of us $30 to experience this wonderful place. I was sad. But Adam was the visitor and he wanted to experience Sydney in all its entirety. So he offered to pay for himself and another person to accompany on his journeys which was fair enough considering he didn't want to go on his own and he was the guest. So i offered to opt out of the equation and allow Elyse the honour.

Myself and Elyse feeling quite inadequate and uncomfortable sat on the lounge while our guest paid for the two tickets. He returned to us with not two, but three tickets. All three of us would get to enjoy the thrills of the cold ice bar on that blistering summer's day, i was beside myself with absolute happiness, a happiness that brought tears to my eyes and a permanent smile to my face. This was all mixed in with a feeling of guilt that i hadn't paid for the experience. Adam you will be my friend forever and i won't divorce you if you become rich, i promise!!!

The three of us rugged up in big, furry, hooded jackets and proceeded into the next room with the "tour guide" where we dumped our personals in a locker style drawer. We were then given two pairs of gloves, thermal/disposable socks for the people with open toe shoes, a free cocktail/mocktail voucher and a tag around our necks. After watching a video about what to do and what not to do, we were led into - THE ICE BAR.

This is what we walked into.....

That's right,everything was made out of ice. The cowhide was used to prevent slipping off the seats. We even found out from the bar tender that it was all non-stick ice so if we liked (and trust me, i did like), we could lick the ice!!!!! I was in ice heaven, i was loving every second of it and savouring as much of it as i could because i knew that i would want so desperately to go back in there after i left. Although every man and his dog in NSW has probably licked that ice, i couldn't resist the urge.

After our initial shock, awe and wonderment had subsided, the three of us proceeded to the bar to collect our free drinks. Boy, were they chilled?! Our cups were made out of, that's right you guessed it - ICE. I felt like a little kid in the original Willy Wonka entering the land of candy, eating the cups and saucers and for the sake of being able to eat the crockery, i took a few bites out of my cup. Gosh, i couldn't have been more happier if you'd have put $100 in front of my face....(actually that's a lie)......though i was truly in my element!

At one point though, i was nearly ready to cry because i was seriously having issues feeling my fingers. Actually they were so cold that they were very seriously starting to hurt. We were abiding in -9 degrees temperature, what do you expect????

At our 25 minute mark our tags/beepers started going off to warn us that our time in the Ice Bar would expire within 5 minutes. That was very sad! I took a few more snaps and a extremely brief video and pretty soon our beepers went off again and we were expected to leave.

We grabbed our belongings, gave back their property and left. On our exit the heat hit us, quite hard in the face. My fingers started tingling again and soon they started to sting readjusting to the outside weather.

Below i've included all of the other photos that I took for your interest.

Anyway, it's very worth your time let me assure you so i encourage you to take that trip you've been putting off to MINUS 5 and just do it, you know you want to and believe me, you won't regret it. Bring me back a cup!!! Floating $5!!!

That's one thing i'm disgusted with though. Where do they throw the cups???? What a waste?! I wanted to take a cup home with me and i also want to know where i can buy them from - coles frozen section???? Where?????

Freeze on suckers....

Tink xoxo

Shakin' the Planet

Oh what to write....

Last week was Planet Shakers. For those of you who choose not to give yourselves over to Christ (HEATHENS!!!!!!!) Planet Shakers is a Christian conference aimed at equipping young people to fight the battle between good and evil (Adam, ying yang is stupid, good cannot co-exist with evil, stupid people that believe that?!).

It was fun and the teaching was powerful, i especially loved black friday, so called because the only preachers that spoke on that day were black!!! Go figure...

We learnt all sorts of things from killing the dogs (Reggie Dabbs - oh the sound effects were hair raising) to breaking boxes (Russell Evans), to yo mamma jokes(surprisingly not Reggie Dabbs, Russell Evans), to holding on to the promise (Mike Guglielmucci), to staying in the boat and crossing over(Sam Evans), to learning to recognise the stink (Matt Fielder) to taking the first step out of the boat (i think was Mike G talking about having enough faith to step out of the boat like Peter did who by the way is the only human being recorded to have ever walked on water, other than JC himself), both in different contexts obviously. Yea it was a good conference! So much solid spiritual food - if you don't got JC, you're missing out and you're missing the boat so all aboard, eh??

Now enough about boats....i'm feeling slightly sea sick....

That was all inspiring and definiately a different experience, i've never been to an actual Planet Shakers conference before so it was great. The freedom to worship in your own unique way was definately a plus and i learnt a great deal about perfect praise, the kind of praise that doesn't worry about the person sitting next to you or the person giving you malicious death stares at your spiritual behaviour, the kind of praise that surrenders all you are and all you have and all you can give to God, the kind of perfect praise that erases all thoughts of what anyone else thinks or says about you (said that), the kind of praise that erases self completely. Mind you, perfect praise is not always easy street and can be hard to actually come to but it was fun just being free to worship in the presence of God, it was fun knowing that being the sinner that i am, God still delights in my praise for him. YEA THAT WAS THE BEST!!! People can think what they like and can condemn my praise because of sin in my life but i will not let satan put it in my head that i can't praise God because i am a sinner?! God wants me to praise him no matter what and i've said this before, he says come to me just the way you are - soooo, take that dog?!

*Steps off preachers box*

During the week i had some awesome friends stay at my house, oh it was so good!!!!! Yes that includes Matt, Joel and Deens who only stayed one night, on the thursday. Adam, Cec and Alaina graced me with their presence for the whole week and what great times we had indeed! They are the bomb even if they didn't have the motivation to get out of bed in the mornings (ha! Adam had no motivation!? What's the deal there?!) and even if we did happen to get there half an hour late everday!!! No biggy, the praise and worship goes for 40 minutes anyway?! I had the most fab time and the best part was realising i had enough money to buy my first pair of thongs ever, ripcurl ones, sooooooo comfy, i want to wear them all the time. Them little kiddies also did a silly thing and bought me a green Paul Frank bag to say thanks for having 'em (gosh, silly children), but it's the greatest and i love it and i love them even though it was far unnecessary!!! We looks forward to all catching up again in March. Things were sehr quiet the next week, let me tell you!

Um anyway yea...planet shakers was good and the company was great too. I miss them all terribly so but know that they are always thinking of me as i am them. I'll sign off coz i'm not sure what else to write.

Tink xoxo

NB: Stop hassling me about never writing blogs, it's very hard to write about fresh experiences. You know who you are!!!!

A Cyber Space Friendship

I thought i'd share with you something i have been getting into during this Christmas/New year break and something which seems to happen frequently every Christmas/New Year. I think it has something to do with the boredom that gets the better of me.

I have been chatting with all sorts of strange and wonderful people. Both through typing in chat rooms, to the audible voice-chatting, which is just like having a telephone conversation which is extremely odd for me because of my phonaphobia.

Nonetheless, i have met some very interesting people and it is always worth my while. I want to tell you about some of them. This could be another long blog.

I'll start with Andrea because she is the only female i have chatted to this break. Andrea or Drea (pronounced Dray-a) as she likes to be called is the most sweetest girl in the world. I'm not sure how old she is but she's an American gal i stumbled across one time when i was chatting in a room. We look out for each other in the room and if one person is being verbally attacked or attacked via typing, we automatically side with eachother, it's great. She also has a brother called Gary who apparently says i have a sweet voice. If ever she is to come to Sydney, she's going to let me know!

This brings me to Mr M240. He's a great Wog-sounding guy, who's very sweet. Apparently Drea is married to him....i think this might be a weird internet thing but you know. He usually hits my ignore list for playing excessive music in a room (which Drea encourages!) but there is the rare occasion when he's fine. He likes to talk about his cars and and motorbikes and things. He's currently having one of his cars done up, it looks very flash, says he gets pulled over by cops alot because of it, which i can imgaine!!!

Then there is Mesa, also a wog. Mesa is tough. But underneath his toughness he is a puppy!!! When i first chatted with him, he told me i was too giggley and too chirpy so i told him that you have to be positive in such a negative world, that broke the ice, dinnit?! He now considers me friend....awwww....Mesa in his tough moments, like's to harrass his fellow chatter Slappy. Slappy is one of my all-time favourites!!! When i first met Slappy, at the same time as Mesa, he was a little bit intoxicated and was dipping in his neighbours pool, without them even knowing. It was a dare from us. Slappy is an islander with an african american accent. Every once in a while, you can hear his african american slip to reveal his true aussie islander accent. Mesa and Slappy have history. Mesa likes to push slappy's buttons. Slappy is very sensitive about brotha's and nigga's. He says that unless you are black, you are not entitled to call someone a nigga and unless you are blood related, you are not allowed to call someone a brotha. So natually Mesa likes to call every dog and his owner either nigga or brotha, just to get on Slappy's nerves, and that he does!!! Slappy gets very distressed which you can hear in the tone of his voice. But we love Mesa and Slappy and in return they love us!

Up until this point, everyone is a regular in the Yahoo Sydney Chat Room: 2. Some other people i have met are:

Eddie
Eddie's an Asian sweetheart but he's 39 years old, first telling me that he was 31 (why do i always attract lies???). I'm not usually phased by age when we're just chatting but i think that's all we might leave it at, although he does want to do the whole meeting thing, so we'll see what happens. He says he's very young at heart and looks young. He's also been good to me by giving me advice on all sorts of multi-cultural issues. He's truly an absolute gem to chat to!!!

Arizona Jim
This guy....now, wow?!....we had a voice conversation for 3 whole hours?! And didn't we chat just about everything under the sun?!?! He is a very confident American from California (if i remember right) with a Bachelor in Film and going on to study literature to be a school teacher. That's right folks unintelligent me chatted to a mr intellent!!! Also if i rmember correctly his name was Ed - two Ed's in one summer break, wow! Our conversation ranged from politics to jobs to age to risk-taking to cultures to riots to phobias to compliments and ended with sex before marriage, but i got frustrated and annoyed at him for not seeing it from my point of view and not understanding me so the last half hour was just annoying. When he said goodbye i was so annoyed that i didn't even say goodbye and then he went offline. So we didn't exactly finish on a good note, but the rest of the conversation was jolly!

Chichh1 aka f.sirone
And last but definately not least (we always save the best things til last) Franky. Franky (aka f.sirone or chichh1) wasn't really a new acquaintance for the new year or even for christmas as we'd been chatting online for a few months or so beforehand but we got to know each other really well and had fun doing it. I introduced Franky to the yahoo chat rooms one time when he was bored and i think he digs it. We talk over the mic all the time and until a couple of days ago, we were chatting every single day. It's kind of bizarre to think that we haven't chatted for a couple of days actually!!! One night after karaoke and some other frivolty, he rang my house phone at 2:30am and we were chatting on the phone until 4am - i had to work the next morning!!! I can't believe i even took the call, but he's becoming more of a good friend rather than an acquiantance so it could be that which is making it easier to accept phone calls. He's a lot of fun and also lives within the area, he's also one who'd like to eventually meet me face to face, so we'll see how that pans out too.

All in all though, the internet is quite a dangerous place kiddies, and you just need to be careful how you play the game. Here are some tips on making buddies online....

• Never give out your full name. Your first name is a-ok or a made up name. (you can find me on yahoo messenger at abbey192000)
• Never tell anyone where you live. Pick a suburb 3 or 4 suburbs away and tell them you live there or politely just tell them that you don't generally give out those kind of details, if they complain, or a. tell them to respect your wishes or b. put them on ignore, they're not worth the trouble!.
• Always put people on ignore if they quote 'asl'. These people have the rudeness to ask you instead of looking at your profile which you took the time to put your 'asl' on!!!!!
• Don't talk to 'bots' (robots). Recognise who they are?!
• As a general rule of thumb, look out for the 'chatty' ones who are fun to talk to. Ignore the rest....hahaha....

Well i think that's enough for now. I'd just like to say that not all people on the internet are scary and it's not a nerd thing to do to make friends off the net. You just need to be extremely careful who you chat with and thoghourly screen the people you return messages or start messages to. Let me assure you that i have had the most amazing and totally exhilirating experience of praying with people over the net and also sharing my faith with them, it can be used as a great witnessing tool and as you've seen, you make awesome friends in the process.

Thanks for reading!

Tink xoxo

Let's Play a Game of Knuckles

The other day i was sitting on the train discovering new things (as i always do on the train) and i looked down at my hands and i noticed the most bizarre thing that really, i had never discovered before.

Try something with me (the last time i did this i got ripped because the game only lasted about 1 minute) put your hand straight out in front of you with your palm facing down.

Now just look at those wrinkley knuckles?!?!?! My guess is that skinnier people probably don't have much skin to wrinkle. But when i got thinking about my knuckles and the wrinkles on them it made me ponder very deeply about them! The reason (and i know you know this) for our wrinkley knuckles is to allow our fingers to bend. Sorry but at that point, my hands just started to seem a little bit freakish. when you stare at something for so long, it starts to look hideous. I just couldn't get over my knuckles. But as weird as it looks, doesn't it serve a good purpose?! Can you imagine us walking around with straight, pointed fingers......imagine trying to answer the telephone?! What would phones look like then?!

That got me thinking about a phrase i'd heard recently......if our kneecaps were on backwards, imagine what chairs would look like?!

Personally though, aside from our knuckles, ears seem the most funniest of all. I mean think about it, we have these two protuding pieces of oddly shaped flesh attached to the sides of our heads. We laugh at what an alien supposedly looks like but do we ever look at our own bodies??? Ears are the most hideous looking things i ever saw....and yet when you forget about certain parts of our bodies we all just look 'normal'.

I'd like you to keep in mind at this point that i am in no way having a shot at God, our creator of all things. I am merely saying that when we closely look at ourselves, we are an odd looking bunch of humans!!! Indeed, we are made with the most awesome complexity ever and we are so intricately woven that it baffles even the smartest of people of mankind! How can we be so magnificently designed and still say that God is a fake or that he doesn't exist.....pffft....we can't!

So, what body part do you find odd? (Vulgarity will not be approved!)

Tink xoxo

More NYE Rambles

Ok, so looking at previous comments on my NYE blog i was reminded that i actually did leave some things out and didn't want you to be left out. So i will explain some things. I also realised that I forgot to include the nights photos.

Rachel, in a fit of forgetfulness tried to convince us that the Queen comes from bloomin' Sussex....this is a small reminder that the Queen comes from London, darling.

'Innit?! 'Innit?!

And yes, how about those leaves in the wind....just another one of those 'phrases'......

Dina, i don't usually address people personally in my blogs, but for this once, i will. Your Stevie Wonder and my Marcia Hines cannot get together!!! She wants Barry White and actually just recently at my folks house, she has had her eye on the dude with the afro, not sure if it's Michael Jackson in his younger years or a much more recent Guy Sebastian! So forget it!

Now for the pictures......

Just a bitta the 'ol chat in between games

Dina with Lucy or was that Danielle???

Dina & Rachel: 'Really boys, those sausages were a disgrace!'

The boys playing the gamecube and eavesdropping on the CW of A

Yes that's right Rachel, you were treading on VERY thin ice, darl?!

That's all for now...

Tink xoxo

Ice, Ice, Baby

As you are fully aware, this blog is about my latest diagnosed (by me) obsession. As you will have read in my previous blog, I have a new found obsession with ice, yes i even photographed my ice deck.

I have always had it, kind of like a silent disease that you carry within your own genes.....or something....but it is only of late that i have come to admit and understand my addiction. Actually, i dont understand it at all really, but i have come to terms with it and recognised it as being an obsession/addiction. Thank you Kylie but I dont want any steps to help me get through this, it's an obsession/addiction i quite enjoy, but then whose isn't???

I suppose because of the heat this obsession has been made more noticeable but even in the winter i've noticed the need to keep a full deck of ice stored safely in the freezer, if not two.

As a young child i remember that if we drove through take away i would specifically order my drink 'with lots of ice please'. Whether my parents remember this or not is not the topic here but i know my mum used to order it without ice and me with plenty!

You can imagine my delight and utter joy and happiness when i received a frosty mug for Christmas from one of my colleagues!!! 'What's a frosty mug?' i hear you ponder....wellllll, let me explain, it'd be my pleasure, in fact, i didn't even know either until recently!

A frosty mug is in fact two mugs made out of plastic. Mine is Purple and Orange. The outer mug being Orange and the inner mug, which contains a freezing liquid, also made of plastic, being purple. I suppose the outer mug is an insulation mechanism, don't quote me on that! You put the whole mug in the freezer until the freezing liquid is completely frozen, it loses its effectiveness unless it is completely frozen, then once it is frozen you take it out and fill it with a cold drink of your choice, i don't recommend water, let's not be boring! A favourite of mine is green 'coolah' cottee's cordial.

I know, you're thinking, 'well that's not unusual, it's just an ice cold drink'. WRONG!!! (ha! i sound like Gene Wilder in the original Willy Wonka)....when the drink is left to sit for 3 - 5 minutes it begins to crystalise along the edge of the inner mug. An occasional stir, fixes that, removing the ice to allow for new ice to form.

Basically what i'm trying to get at is that what you're left with after about 10 or 15 minutes is a complete slush puppy, slurpy, frosty drink, slushy, whatever it is that you call it on your planet! I know you don't believe me but i have seen it with my very own two eyes!!! It is absolutely miraculous, marvellous, astounding!!!! I am in love with my new frosty mug.

Now i know it's is not in any way helping me rid my obsession with ice but all the same, i love it. I once emptied the whole ice deck into one glass of water at work after a sweaty power walk through the park. My boss, looked at the ice, looked at me, looked at my glass again, looked back at me and just said, 'wow' with a little chortle at the end....i then had to explain myself and assured her that i would refill the ice deck so others could enjoy more ice.

One house i have visited has one of those crushed ice machines on the outside of their fridge as well as cubed ice which you can access without even opening the freezer, for goodness sake?! It was my dream fridge/freezer?!

I'd have to say that it's my unnatural desire to crunch ice and the feeling crushed ice has on the inside of my mouth, it's the only way i can explain it. There is nothing else about it.

So remember, the moral of this story is, please have a LOT of ice stored away and ready to use if i am ever to visit you. I dont want to be getting to your house and have to be told you have no ice!!!!!

That is all.

Tink xoxo

Out with a bomb, In with a splash!

WARNING!!!
This could be a VERY long read, proceed with caution.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Well, today is January 1, 2006 and what a great way to start the new year than to blog (happy 60th) about our swell NYE parties, eh??

Isn't it bizarre to think that on NYE, all your parties don't kick in til late? It's the one time where everything can be done before the festivities begin! Including a very brief game of War of the Worlds with my brother (i reached level 2 before giving up, big achievement i thought!) and his online team-speak nerd, geek friends who devote their lives to this phenomenon!! Even when there is an Aussie chick in the room (they're mostly Americans) they still talk about their game......WOW!!! I mean, i'm nothing to look at but damn, i got a sweet voice!!! hahaha....

After much confusion and little advertising, a party was held for our Earlwood youth group at the kind perusal in the residence of Toni and Murray Smith. Originally the celebratory happenings were to begin at 7:30pm but things didn't start happening until 9pm or 10pm.

The evening started when the boys cooked a snag sizzle otherwise known as a bbq, with no salad and almost raw sausages....so we (the girls) lit up the barbie and recooked the sausages until they were just right. Mind you the steak was done well by the little Aaron Campbell. I'd say he takes after his father, bbq chef, Mark Campbell (top job and an A+ on the child raising!). After much thought and planning, we came to the conclusion that the ogre of a dog's name was either Lucy or Danielle (we had no idea?!). Dina decided it was Danielle, I decided it was Lucy, both suggestions being Dina's! We took the sausages back inside and those of us who hadn't eaten, because we got there late, had a feast. We also found out that the dog's name was in fact Lucy, not Danielle as originally guesed!

Two tv's were set up. One being used for the game cube with Mario Party and Sponge Bob games, the other being set up for the Buzz game and Eye Toy on PS2. Now, unfotunately, i can't give you a briefing of what happened on the game cube as most of my time was spent playing the PS2. The first game on the PS2 was the buzz game. For those of you who don't know, the Buzz game is a music quiz gameshow type of game. There are only 4 players but two contestants decided to play in teams. Myself (aka AB), Ben Lines (aka Thorn), Dina Hunter and Aaron Campbell (the Suzies) and Nathan Hodges and Ben Knight (aka none other than the YOBBOS, go figure!). A good game was had, with Thorn and the Yobbo's both competing for the losing position and the Suzies and AB both competing for winning place! The Suzies won but not because of Aaron, who claimed to have known all the songs even though we were playing in old and new music mode, most songs being written long before his little life began!!! Aaron, you don't know jack?! Good times, good times, other Buzz games followed but none were as memorable as the very first game played that night!

Recently i did happen to purchase the sims 2 for PS2 and so dina and i endeavoured to play that. We were only at the choose a sim stage (trust, it takes long!) when the Drysdale siblings told us they were off to watch fireworks!!! It was mentioned earlier in the night that we would go with them because this so called 'hill' was just in Earlwood. So while the others lethargically stayed behind, Rachel Unicomb, Dina, Rebecca and Jonathan Drysdale and myself all took a drive to 'the hill'. There was the most people on this hill i'd ever seen!!! Near Elyse's house!!! After a terrible park we all climbed out and ran up the hill, very extremely aware that we had possibly missed midnight?! In fact, there was no actual countdown that i recall! We searched for a spot to watch the fireworks until we eventually found a relatively good posi. The fireworks were lovely, just lovely, a bit too much red and love etc but just lovely from what we could see! It was nice to overhear a hard core gangsta proclaim to one of his mates 'Happy New Year and i hope that 2006 is the best year of your life'....it really did touch my heart even though we were all in a slightly silly mode - the best is yet to come!

After the 'worx' were over, we decided that there really was just one more final bang to occur and so we stayed to the very end. It was amusing to watch people as they left turn around to see what they had missed when we would ooo and ahhh at the 'final bang'. Some people would turn around and keep watching for hours because of this 'final bang' that they had apparently missed. A few young lads caught on and i noticed them having a bit of a giggle at what we were doing. One has to amuse oneself somehow?!

A hug-the-blowup-lit-snowman floating five was executed and various other floating fives were suggested which i'm not going into detail about here....let's just say that they were difficult to carry out because of the unwillingness of participants. So much for NYE being a night to do anything and get away with it, eh rachel and dina?!

We all headed back to where the party was with a small detour on the way (no comments will be published if any names are mentioned!!). When we got back we realised that some people only had the intention of staying til midnight and that they were going home. Pikers!!!!!

So those of us who watched the 'worx' decided to crash on the lounge for a bit (the techno remixes of auld lang syne were very quietly playing on the laptop in the background!). This got boring so i proceeded to the kitchen for more drink and ice. It was discovered earlier in the previous year that i have an unnatural obsession with ice. Ever since i was a young kid, i have enjoyed exhuberant amounts of ice! I am at the stage where karaoke drinks are ordered like this....

'Yes ma'am?'

'Ahh, i'd like a schooner of water please and a schooner of ice'

This is how much i love ice, the bartenders always give me the evil, bemused eye, but one must do what one must do in order to possess ice!

Anyway, so i was headed to the kitchen for more drink and ice. Rachel and Rebecca were in there having an old wives meeting. Honestly, they both had drinks in hand and the other arm crossed in front of them. Soooooo, i joined their conversation, hand in one pocket, drink in the other. Pretty soon Dina also joined our conversation and before long we were all talking about our husbands and kids in a Kath and Kim type conversation. Ahhhh wasn't it just the funniest! Topics ranged from the laziness of men, to what our kids were up to and how they were all going which ones were in jail etc, to the hot, sexy cops we kept meeting, to our homemade wares, the scratchy toilet paper not this soft stuff, none of this consumerism!!! Rachel, i believe you still owe Dina the homemade soap recipe!

All the while, the boys in the adjoining room had been silently playing the gamecube, listening to our kitchen talk. They must've been particularly upset and disturbed about us putting down the male race as two of them came over to put their five cents worth in on behalf of the other sex. Ben Knight coming over being some sort of she-male and Joshua blackman coming over defending his species. These boys are odd, i tell you!

So the ladies (aka CWA) took their conversation into the icy cold lounge room (in an effort to make the degrees warmer, i actually made it colder, turning down the degrees, instead of up, my head wasn't screwed on that night!!!). Here they left their country nsw accents in the kitchen and picked up british accents, with the conversation turning to teachers these days and the lack of productive education happening in schools. Some ladies were skating on very thin ice in their hostility and conversation, weren't they rachel?!

Beverages started getting low and Kylie Unicomb came into the room with a full bottle of coke....the ladies having a chat were disgusted (she being an upper-class snob) that she had the real stuff while we were only able to afford LA Ice etc.....she came back several minutes later only to bring us full bottles of Lemon drink and Ginger Beer, who did she think she was?!

After the women took their first trips to the bathroom for 2006, the conversation ended up moving back in with the boys.....here the accents just got crazy and the conversation went wild, dinnit?!

Dina came into the conversation as an Egyptian woman with an Egyptian accent....which is fine for her because well, she actually is Egyptian! But i came in with some hideous accent which no-one had any idea of?! Not even me?!?! Mind you, Dina swayed to the accent i created/made up. I'm not even going to attempt to relay the conversation because it was just out of this world. Pre-requisite is a very big word for a foreigner, isn't it Dale and Kylie, do you know what i say, we learn this before we come, yes????! You no understand what i say?!!!

From about 3am - 5:30am we all were talking about mindless things which i think was the tiredness in all of us! We were denied the right to see the sun rise as people shut the flippin' curtain and refused to allow us see it, what's the point of NYE, huh?? what's the point?! It was suggested at one point that instead of doing the church service at the usual time, seeing as though everyone was all awake we should just do it right there and then. But it didn't happen. In fact I haven't been to church all year!!!

So at the mark of 5:30am everyone who wasn't sleeping at the house, departed in broad daylight and so in came the new year with a scorcher of a day (topping 50 degrees) on the 1st January 2006.

If you're still kickin' it with me at this point, i'd like to thank you for taking the time, opportunity and effort to read about our NYE bash and i wish you all the best for the future in the new year. May it be blessed and fulfilling and may you impact other lives around you in a Christ-like, powerful way!

'Out with a bomb, in with a splash!'
Tink xoxo