life is such a wonderful slide, you're hangin' around the day...

The dreary working week drew to a close, and your fearless blogger had quite a busy weekend ahead. On Friday evening, I caught up with Mr Chris Mac for the first time in AAAGES. Needless to say there was a lot to catch up on, and much drinking to be done.

After a few glasses of vino at his house, Chris and I wandered down Toorak Rd for a cheap but hearty meal at La Porchetta. Then, as the liquor began to make its effects felt, we embarked upon what became a gay bar crawl. First it was off to the ultimate haunt of queer trashiness: Commercial Road, for a visit to Diva Bar. Diva is quite fun, in a harmless, clichéd stereotype-of-itself kind of way. Yes, this is the kind of gay bar you see in the movies: scantily clad boys dancing on the bar, brazen drag-queen emceeing the proceedings, a crowd of hip young thangs - 50% of whom are 18-25-year-old guys with the same haircut, the same clothes, and no doubt the same ambitions for the evening. Among this crowd of bleached, waxed groovers and shakers, I encountered a familiar, non-stereotyped face ~ another suprise meeting with Mr Marcus, smiling & cheerful as always. Chris's beau Mr Hao also met us there, before taking his cold/hayfever home to bed. Chris and I kicked on to XChange, about twenty minutes before closing. Just enough time for yet another vodka and a drunken traipse around the dance-floor, before we bundled into a taxi and off to the opposite end of town: The Peel. After several more drinks and a bit more dancing (among a very drunken and largely half-naked crowd) mindlessmunkey was high nigh ready for bed. So I dragged myself into another cab and found my tired, drunken way home. It was a great night and simply wonderful to spend time with Mr Chris again. Time spent in the queer scene is always an eye-opener... especially with someone fun and slightly cynical who trancends the gay cliché.

Saturday was the celebration of Grandma Ashton's 90th Birthday! Yes, dear readers, both of my grandmothers are still with us, at 91 and 90. What a classy couple of ladies. For Grandma's celebrations, Oli took me to the house of Aunty Sheila, where it was a day of drinking *hair-of-the-dog munkey*, eating and merriment among my beloved relatives. Ms Snazzles came along too for a long-overdue catch-up with the other leaves of my family tree. Especially lovely to see were babies Jett and Maxx, growing up so fast, as all babies seem to do.

A well-earned recovery-day was enjoyed on Sunday, before heading off to Hanover Court. The evening was spent feasting on Lady Lili's stir-fry, guzzling Macbeth's wine and wallowing in the trashiness of Australian Idol. And may I here proclaim a mighty hurrah that talentless pseudo-punk fucknuckle Lee Harding has hopefully disappeared from the public radar for all time, and will - please God - disappear back into the obscurity of Frankston.

Munkey had a blessed RDO on Monday, and used it to visit Dr DaveGoo and his other half Mr Raymond. Dr Dave took the time to provide me with a copy of The Sims 2. It is so cool! We all know I'm not a big computer-game person. In fact, I'm not even a small computer-game person. But there's something about the anthropological manipulation and social meddling involved in The Sims that gets me right where I live. And The Sims 2 - especially with the University and Nightlife extension packs - is EXPONENTIALLY more complicated. Hours of fun - if not days, weeks, months...!

Right, well I think that's enough wittering away for one entry, lovers and dreamers. Love to y'all.


L to R: The kind of simulated human being you might see in gay clubs; The kind of simulated human being you might see in The Sims 2 .

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