One Degree of Separation

The Gist: I keep bumping into people I know and I went to a comedy show. I've no idea where all the other words came from.

You know you've been living on the Sunshine Coast too long when you start bumping into the same person more than once. Or you go out for dinner and one of the other guests happens to know someone you do. Really well. In Australia there are only about three or four degrees of separation. Pin-point it down to south-east Queensland or the Sunshine Coast and it's more like one or two. It's spooky. That's started happening to me so I'll be moving to Melbourne next month.

I went to a comedy show last night. This was quite an exciting event as such things rarely occur on the Sunshine Coast (unlike bumping into people you know) and it's fair to say that in the three years I've been living here I haven't been to one. Not one! Somewhat different to living in London where there was a world-class comedy club (Jongleurs) just down the road from me (that's London-speak for "it's five minutes that way on the number 77"). It was the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (which was on when we were down in Melbourne but we weren't organised enough to get tickets) Roadshow and it was pretty good. Unfortunately, Ross Noble wasn't there, which is good because my friend informed me that she hates him. (What? Sacrilege! She obviously doesn't know the meaning of the word "funny" or "f***ing hilarious" or "oooh... he went a bit far there, don't you think?") However, we bumped into someone we knew (it happens more often at "cultural" events such as these because they occur so rarely that everyone on the coast goes. In fact, it's strange if you don't bump into everyone you know. And yes, they really do class a comedy show as a cultural event.) So we bumped into someone we knew (again) but that's not the point. The point is that these people told us that Ross Noble will be being funny at Nambour Civic Centre on June 1st. Guess what I'll be googling today.

The point of today's post was originally to share with you that I drank too much beer last night, went to bed feeling sick and have woken up with a sore head, after having weird dreams where Toby, me, my sister (possibly my mother but I really can't remember) and a couple of random infants and a hamster all lived in one tiny house that seemed to consist of only one room. The hamster was psycho and spent the entire time running around and around the house squeezing its little self amongst wires that seemed to be all around the skirting boards for some reason. It really went too far when it tried to squeeze through a hole the size of a five pence piece (or five cents if you'd prefer) in the front door, which I'd been telling Toby we should fix before the weather gets much colder. But again, I digress. That really wasn't the point. But it has given me an interesting idea for future blog topics. Dream analysis! Oh don't get me started. I had a great airport dream the other night. Scary but anyway, I'll share that another time.

The two stars (in my opinion) of last night's show were Mark Watson, a funny, almost hyper welsh dude, and Fiona O'Something, an Irish-Australian alcholic with anorexic sisters and a really scary mother. She left her baby in Liquorland once. It was like a horrible view of my own future when she told that story. I've asked people to remind me, should it ever become relevant, not to let me have more than two children because I will start forgetting them. Every day this week I've managed to forget something. Yesterday was a classic example. I had a meeting with the salary sacrifice lady (how scary does that sound? I don't want to sacrifice my salary, thanks. I quite like it) and I'd emailed her to ask what I needed to take with me. She didn't really ask for much. Just my payslip really. So what did I do? I took my payslip home with me on Tuesday. And then left it there.

Actually salary sacrificing works out quite nicely. I'll be getting about 30% of the cost of my laptop back. Yes! I finally bought a laptop and I'm most pleased because I'm blogging on it right now. It's still not quite set up the way I want it because it only arrived on Monday and I've been very busy drinking and laughing and stuff. So unfortunately I am forced to use Internet Explorer and as such my blog looks s**t, as per my previous blog. If you use IE and you can't see the posts, here's a tip: scroll right down. It's down there somewhere. But then if you're reading this you've probably already figured that out. Sorry about all the swearing by the way; that's the hangover. For those of you that are interested I bought a Dell Latitude D820. It's super fast and has wi-fi so I'm quite happy. It looks cool when it's open because the inside is black. But the outside is a naff silver. I also have a super duper wireless keyboard and mouse. I could write a geeky post about why I chose this laptop (it was cheap!) but I'm not really in the mood today. Another time, maybe.

One of the guys at the comedy show last night was really odd, not very funny and I don't think I'd recommend him. His name was Sam Simmons. Avoid him. Do not pay money to see him.

Oh, just before I go, guess what?! We booked our flights to the UK! WE'RE COMING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS - YAY!!!!!! Looks like we're going via Dubai (send your travel tips!) and we should be in London around 9th December. We're trying to arrange it so we'll get there in time for the weekend. So who's hosting the party for us?

I really have no idea why I woke up this morning with a hangover and thought it would be a good idea to blog so I'm going to stop now.