After a week of work and uni, I have to say I was looking forward to Sunday. Sunday was going to be a good reboot before another week of the usual day to day drag, and it was. The day was meant to start at 8am with Canadian Club.. instead it started at 10am with driving to Indro with Benji and Kyle. Kyle had spent Saturday night at his brother's playing poker and watching the rugby and when things died down, they headed to the city. A few pints and a dumb decision later, Kyle was at home in Algester.. leaving his car still at his brothers. So here we were, driving to Indro on a recon mission. Today was full of recon missions, 'Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted'.

We got the car, avoided a mini pileup and went to JB to browse. Oh how that never works. A combined $120 later and a hearty meal of KFC, the wheels were finally in motion to check out The Shack. Benji and I rode to The Shack, in keeping with the tradition of the great place, only to find that we now have a sealed road almost to it's front door. The Shack had been infiltrated by terrorists. All the windows had be removed... by a screwdriver, removing all the hinges and door bolts. Seriously, who has that much time?! There was a few missing planks here and there, and all our tools and booze drawers had been raided, but The Shack was still standing. Some fuckstains, who if I ever catch, had graffitied inside The Shack to say 'IAB, FUCK OF'. Illiterate fucks. Needless to say, those planks will be removed and turned into bats of mass destruction so if they ever come back while we are there we can belt the fuckers across the face with them. Apart from that rage blackout, Benji and I continued to survey the damage whilst sipping on a few Canadian Club's until we called Yank and Kyle to come drive down and have a look. Yank brought some garbage bags and gloves and me and Benji started the cleanup. Five bags of rubbish later, and we had a clean, yet broken Shack.

It's now our mission to rebuild The Shack in time for the NRL Grand Final, it's 2 year anniversary. Everyone will be invited, considering we can all drive to it's door, so there should be no excuses as you don't have to wade through a few hundred metres of bush to get there anymore.

We left The Shack and headed to Yank's to watch the footy. Fuck it was a good game. The Canadian Club continued to flow, and with the help of Yank and Alex's cats, Bliz and Harris, we were entertained to the max. We reconned a few pizzas from Dominos, and Benji and I made the decision to go to The Normanby to cap off the Sunday. Everything happened pretty quickly, but before we knew it we were bailing out of Kyle's car infront of the pub.

The Normanby is huge. It's overwhelming. The talent, the bogans, the amount of bar staff alone. It's all just huge. It's also the first pub I've seen to serve food on premise, which is probably a good idea. I think me and Benji were just shellshocked really, we'd peaked earlier in the day, and now were just trying to maintain some sort of enjoyable level. We had gone out on a shoestring really, I only had $25, but thanks to Jess, our $25 went pretty far. I pretty sure we at least got 4 rounds in, and I still managed to leave with $8 spare. Thanks Jess

But yeah, The Normanby is massive, and blew our minds. We retreated to the pool tables for a bit and almost got victory but fell a little short of the mark. We headed downstairs to check out the band, but it had stopped and we were instead subjected to watching this cougar run riot with as many mates as possible on the dancefloor. Not wanting to become it's next meal, we headed upstairs to the club and scouted it out. Well, Benji will never forget: 'You. Have. Interesting. *gestures* Hair!'. Crazy soon to be cougar said to him. We mingled straight into the dance floor and made it our mission to claim the podium. I don't know what it is, but we see podium and instantly want to claim it. I failed in the mission, Benji succeeded, but was then cockwalled and all that was left was his fro bouncing around.

Time to go really. Yeatsie was our ride (cheers dude) and a short time later, we were both home, before midnight too. The Normanby sorta had the last laugh yesterday, but needless to say, we will destroy it next time!

Last night I went to the Titans vs. Cowboys footy match down at Carrara Stadium. It was a pretty last minute decision but I'm glad it was made as it was a pretty good match and as usual there's always stories to come from it. In the end it was myself, Kyle, Adam and Yeatsie who came on down to see the game. Yeatsie doesn't even like footy but is trying to get into it because his new workplace has a few footy fanatics in it.

The drive down was uneventful, passing through spots of rain hoping that it wouldn't rain when the game was on, but eventually we got to the stadium and parked. After getting out of the car, Kyle did a big stretch, you know,long drive and all, and who did he block from opening his door? Andrew Symonds! Haha. Poor bloke trying to get out of his car and you've got Kyle standing there having a stretch

Our tickets were just general admission so pretty much you watched the game from wherever you wanted as long as you weren't sitting in the grandstands. The match was good, Titans lost, but it's all good because they are both Queensland teams anyway About halfway through the match it started to piss down raining. We weren't abandoning our posts, so we just soaked it all in... for a good half hour of downpour! I did have some cover underneath some 10yo's umbrella, but Adam scared her away so I was left to drip like everyone else.

A few random highlights include Kyle's videotaping of the oh-so-hot cheerleaders, Adam throwing an empty cup of beer at Kyle (who ducked letting the cup own some lady) and the 'anti-cheering' by Kyle to these 4 kids. They'd scream 'COWBOYS' and Kyle would just say 'SUCK!', or they'd abuse the ref saying 'BULLSHIT' and Kyle would scream over them 'THAT IS THE BEST DECISION IN THE WORLD'. The near biff between the captains was also great, pity it didn't follow through, we were right in front of it

The game finished and we ran back to Kinky (my car ) and sat there for a good hour trying to leave the carpark. At last the traffic cleared and we cruised home via Maccas (with the very fit manager ) to cap off a great, semi random night

OaO

Today was the boys annual Anzac Test outing, traditionally the group is myself, Benji, Cameron, Adam and Kyle, but as Kyle had to go to Harvey Bay for work Yank was our new recruit to the tradition. The night started early at about 2.30pm when Yank picked us all up and drove to 8 Mile Plains bus station so we could catch a bus to the city.

The plan was to grab a mean steak then wander over to the stadium, but as it turned out Adam and myself were the only ones real keen on steak so we bailed from that idea and instead hit up the casino. I think most of us wish we didn't! We all decided to gamble a little, mainly on blackjack and sometimes the big wheel, but either we all lost out, except for Cameron. He managed to walk out $80 ahead I think in the end, while Yank managed to lose a further $140 making a total loss of $300 for the week at the casino. Benji walked away $55 behind, and Adam did a little better with only $5 behind his starting pot and I lost $30.

All feeling a little stupid at ourselves (at one stage I had $70, Adam had $160, Benji had $80~ and Yank had $120~), we decided to leave and head on over to the footy. We stopped at subway on the way, and as Yank now has a total of $8 to his name, I was a good bloke and shouted him dinner. He was looking hungry and noone else would shout him despite us jeering Cameron too considering he was cashed up thanks to the casino. Heh, should be good karma! Wandering to the stadium was fairly uneventful, except for the Asian lady and Scottish man telling us to be patriotic and buy an Australian flag... weird.

While we were walking, Yank got a phone call from his Dad telling him that he managed to get two tickets to the corporate box with free booze. We needed a plan to get Yank in there, but him home and still at work in the morning. I suggested I stay sober, drive his car and drop everyone home and then take him to his girlfriends and then she drop me home. It was a good plan so Yank made the calls. In the end the plan was I just drive everyone to where they need to be and then Yank will pick his car up from mine in the morning. Anyway, that resulted in Cameron and Yank going to the coporate box leaving me, Adam and Benji in our seats (where was the karma!). It was great though, we always manage to get the same section each year we've been.

The Aussie's came through with a victory, 30 - 6 and we sent the Kiwi's home with their tails between their legs. The match was uneventful really, the crowd atmosphere was pretty bland until the second half when a few half arsed mexican waves were started and bit of yelling and jeering started to happen. At fulltime, we meet up with Cameron and Yank from their corporate box who were both fairly trashed and headed on the bus home.

Adam left at South Bank so he could get his train home and the rest of us carried on to 8 Mile Plains where I was about to tackle Yank's car. It's a pretty easy drive, bit sticky to first, but other then that, goes really nice! Random singing on the way home, drunken yells to strangers and Cameron being a douche and walking down random streets entertained us on the drive home which was good fun So that's about it, I'm at home, Yank's at his girlfriends, and I've got his car. I guess you could say that karma worked it's magic for me (until tomorrow when I get home from an exam and it's gone).

OaO