The King of Diseases and the Disease of Kings

I thought that gout went the way of Hippocrates, eunuchs and Henry VIII but apparently not.  Anonymous Colleague came limping into work today.  Figuring it was the whole eight hours he spent wearing his plastic dress shoes at work yesterday before changing into sneakers to walk to his car, I didn't think much of it.  Sadly, he thinks I enjoy engaging in conversation with him and decided to tell me as I was making myself a cup of coffee that he woke up with a bad case of gout.  Gout!  Apparently he gets gout about six times a year.  Thankfully this occurrence didn't happen over the weekend or he would have been in pain during his regular date night at The Sizzler's buffet with his girlfriend. 

Ignoring the surprising fact that someone who loves The Sizzler and plastic dress shoes actually has a girlfriend, is Anonymous Colleague too stupid to connect the dots?  He does regularly give me a blank Dilbert stare when attempting to talk about financials and other company business, but doesn't he know that dietary causes (including over consumption of alcohol, meat and seafood) account for about 12% of gout?  For someone who claims to suffer from it about every other month, one would think that he would stop his weekly forays to The Sizzler. 

Satellite Bingo

During the Cold War era, scientists launching satellites into space wanted to make sure their technology wouldn't fall into Russian hands when it came crashing back to earth at the end of its lifespan.  They seem to have not realized that 30 year old satellites have as much computing power as the average modern day calculator and that the debris would have the possibility of postdating the USSR.  In order to protect their falling satellites, the flight paths were engineered to re-enter over friendly territory.  However the fine engineers at Lockheed Martin didn't want them landing in suburbia, so they went searching for a more suitable friendly country to "land" their satellites.  With a population density of about 1 person per square kilometer, Australia, in particular Western Australia, seemed like a perfect target.  This means that 30 years on, having satellites come plunging down into the back paddock is not an unheard of event in Western Australia.  Instead of bemoaning hunks of metal falling from the sky, the Aussies  have found a way to turn it into their favorite pastime, gambling.

Satellite bingo begins in Western Australia whenever news reports cover a satellite that is beginning to fall out of orbit, and the approximate impact/debris area is announced.  The impact area is broken up into segments and for a few dollars you can buy into the office pool for one of these lots.  As the engineers and physicists out there will probably interject, a satellite will break up on re-entry, and pieces can land over a wide area.  This may present a problem for competitive gamblers, but in Australia this appeals to the sense of "a fair go".  With the satellites scattered over a wide area, the prize pool can be claimed by many people, as anyone with a piece of satellite on their section can claim to be a winner.

Platinum Rock Stars

In the fields that H and I work in, it’s not uncommon for us, our friends and our colleagues to rack up a lot of frequent flier miles.  Frequent flyer ‘status’ was absolutely not on our radar for discussion topics prior to moving to Australia.  But in Perth it’s a totally different story.  In our offices, where nearly every person is a Qantas platinum frequent flier, people flaunt their platinum luggage identification tags like they’re the next Hope Diamond.  Laptop bags are unnecessarily toted around the office so platinum status can be broadcast throughout the office common areas and elevators.  Qantas domestic lounge culinary offerings are discussed as intently as a degustation menu at a new Michelin starred restaurant.  Very angry discourse occurs on a regular basis regarding how alcohol isn’t offered in the lounge until 11:00 AM.  It’s nearly impossible for me to keep a straight face when I see and hear all of this.  Firstly, almost anything is more interesting to talk about.  Secondly, the Perth Qantas lounge is nothing special.  Lastly, everybody here has platinum status.

I had to travel up north last week with a handful of people from work and one of them very excitedly invited me to join him in the Qantas lounge for breakfast pre-flight.  I stopped by a few minutes before boarding to say hello and grab some water and was greeted by a lounge full of people in high visibility work wear and steel toed boots, many of whom were familiar to me from my office and those of our competitors.  What can I say; we all must be rock stars with our platinum status?  Especially when it’s acquired from short haul flights to exciting places like Karratha, Exmouth, Darwin, Paraburdoo, Broome and Geraldton, where the majority of passengers are wearing high visibility work wear in various degrees of filth.

While my Qantas lounge breakfast date invitation cracked me up, the icing on the cake came when an Anonymous Colleague came into the office one morning extremely disappointed.  He had gone to the airport the night before to pick up a friend and when he saw that the flight was delayed, decided to head to the Qantas lounge for a beer and burger.  Despite his platinum card, he was told that he couldn’t enter without a boarding pass.  Shocked and disappointed, he went to wait outside the lounge in mere mortal territory.  Would you ever have guessed that you can’t just pop into the lounge for free food and alcohol whenever you feel like it?  If there was unlimited Qantas lounge access, the bar there would be the most happening place in Perth.

LivingSocial - The Breathalyser Edition

In the U.S. this week, everybody seems to be buying LivingSocial deals for Whole Foods.  Conversely, in Australia, pocket breathalysers are all the rage.  Given the choice between delicious organic food for half price or two pocket breathalysers to determine just how drunk one is after a marathon sundowner session (also known as how many beers can one drink while the work bar tab is still open), I would choose the Whole Foods deal with absolutely no hesitation.  I'm currently pondering when exactly I will wake up in a country that doesn't have major alcohol issues.  After living in Qatar where the only liquor store in the country required employer sign-off and a declaration of not being Muslim for a license that entitled one to purchase a fixed value of alcoholic beverages each month and Australia, a country that is seriously full of alcoholics, I'm ready for a change.

Why Mandatory Police Fitness Testing Reduces Crime

An acquaintance of mine had some trouble with the law recently.  And like most things in Australia, it was a minor situation that somehow ended up with a petty and ridiculous conclusion.  Through this incident we have learned that in small town Australia, it is worth stopping someone who is walking home on a quiet street if they are walking in the middle of the street as opposed to on the side of it or on a sidewalk.  After the police officer stepped out of his car on the quiet street, our Anonymous Friend sized him up and found the local law enforcement officer to be on the larger side of portly.  Quickly deciding that he didn’t really want to pay the A$50 fine for obstructing the non existent traffic flow on the street, he made a dash for it.  He didn’t think the cop could get back to his car in about 20 seconds, at which point he would be around the corner and gone; without the car the cop would sooner suffer heart failure than catch him.
   
This plan worked brilliantly until a younger and far fitter police officer who was sitting unseen inside the car gave chase, with the car.  Anonymous Friend made it to about a block away until he was overtaken by the police car.  To add to the red face of the over sized police officer, when asked why he ran, our acquaintance told him that he looked like a “fat f**k” and was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to catch up on foot.  Unamused, the police officer arrested him and made him a ward of the state until he could post bail.
   
Unfortunately this town is so small that Anonymous Friend couldn’t find adequate legal representation and had to fly in a lawyer for his court date.  Fortunately the judge had a sense of humor, and while he did not condone avoiding law enforcement, understood that there was little danger to public safety, and only sentenced him to a slap on the wrist.  
   
This did not sit well with previously mentioned over sized local law enforcement officer.  He meted out his own punishment by passing around Anonymous Friend’s mug shot at bars to warn everybody about this “trouble maker” and vigorously enforcing jaywalking ordinances. 

Western Australian Surrogacy

Apparently there are some men, at least Australian men, who actually will date prostitutes.  Take Anonymous Friend for example; he really should be demoted to Anonymous Acquaintance after uncovering the following...

One horny single Australian oil worker + one paid escort leads to a relationship where dates and sex cease being exchanged for cash.  Said paid escort, now unpaid (at least by boyfriend) girlfriend lies about being on birth control.  Said horny Australian oil worker breaks up with paid escort turned girlfriend.

Fast forward two months...

Paid escort turned girlfriend repents for lying about being on birth control.  Horny single Australian oil worker takes her back.

Fast forward one month...

Pregnancy test returns positive sign, happy face, two lines, all other symbols that say yes, prostitute / girlfriend is pregnant!!!  And yes, she did tell horny oilfield boyfriend that she was taking birth control pills when she was not...again.

Fast forward eight months...

Horny oilfield worker is eight months single after breaking up with paid escort turned girlfriend for lying AND the father of a newborn baby girl who will hopefully not follow her mother into the world's oldest profession.

Fast forward five years...

Horny single oilfield worker is still using paid escorts and still fighting his paid escort baby mama over vaccinating their daughter.  Just as the baby mama thought it was wise to lie about using birth control, she thinks it is wise to leave their daughter completely unvaccinated while engaging in travel to places where polio, cholera, typhoid and diphtheria run rampant.  Horny single oilfield worker thinks the headache is worth the unpaid time he got with his escort girlfriend five years ago.  I'm still trying to figure out if he is desperate, stupid, insane or all of the above.

Australians, Convicts, What's the Difference?

Conversation at last night's beer tasting:

Bob-o: You know who really can't pull off a shaved head? 
Me: Who?
Bob-o: Jack-o, he looks like a convict when he shaves his head.
Me: So?
Bob-o: So he looks like a convict.
Me:  He's Australian, what's the difference?

Oh, snap.  I'm sure I'm the only one who thought that was LOL hilarious a la Larry David.  What can I say?  Hello, my name is Anonymous Expat and I'm an oilfield prisoner.  Besides, everybody in Australia claims that their ancestors were free settlers rather than the prisoners the British sent over to populate the territory.  I call that revisionist history...free settlers were the minority of immigrants.