Auld Lang Syne

31 December - Woke up at 10ish with a little bit of a hangover (tis the season to be drinking ...) but managed to shake it off with my dwindling supply of Nurofen (it's Advil over here but i'm very loyal to my brand when it comes to Ibuprofen) and a very long shower. Jason was packinga van with all of his stuff and it appears that quite a few of the things that i'd supposed were household items in fact belong to him. The kettle, the iron, the monitor for the house computer - I think we'll have to make a mention with the landlord next time we see him. But, for the moment i've got my new cupboard space and that makes me reasonably happy. Moseyed on out to the drive for a blueberry pancake breakfast and finished a few pulpy books (King Of Torts by John Grisham who can still pump out a good page turner and Resurrection Men, a crappy Inspector Rebus tome by Ian Rankin) - need to find something thinner to bring into work. Kept myself busy for the afternoon before heading over to downtown for a New Years Eve party with some friends I met on Christmas Eve (eve's can be very sociable at times). Twas a masquerade party with masks provided for those who didn't bring any (that was me and most of the other guests as it turned out). Drank copious amounts of vodka throughout the night but started off slow and lined my stomach with a fair selection of ordervs so managed to keep it together for the long term. Met quite a few interesting people including a very loud Australian movie set designer over here doing something with Warner Bros - countdown was fun, headed off to another party where I switched to beer briefly (not great after vodka and obligatory champagne) before returning to original place and ended up crashing in downtown. Pretty clean hangover resulted (ah, vodka - you are such a gentle mistress) and I wandered back home, stopping at the IGA (i always thought that stood for Independent Grocers of australia but apparently it's Independent Grocers Association - you learn something new every day) where I tried to buy some strawberries for breakfast but was told they were overpriced and was sold some other overpriced strawberries instead (it was very suureal at the time). All in all, a pretty good nye - if you keept you're expectations low you can never be disappointed. When I got home crap TV was calling and I answered.