Thing 228 Cocktails and Cupcakes Ball

Ever notice how super villains are always at fundraisers for charity? James Bond (or whatever hero you're having yourself) usually turns up too, to expose the bad guy. I've always wanted to go to a charity fundraiser. I could pretend to be James Bond or the bad guy, and for this one, I'd to wear a tux and everything. The problem is, that while every other man alive looks like 007 in a tux, I look like Bruce Wayne's butler's assistant... Honestly, I'm the only man alive to look this ridiculous in a tux.

Which brings me to my first lesson of the day. When trying to look fancy by getting yourself a waistcoat to wear with your tux, have someone smarter than you pick out the appropriate attire. When the guy in Tony Connolly's (they're the lovely people who let me be a mannequin for a day. Thoroughly lovely people) asked me what kind of tux to get, I half panicked... "I dunno... eh... a good one"? "All of our tux's are good ones". "Excellent", I said, "one of them then...". There's something particularly wrong with me having any kind of say in matters of fashion or style. You've seen what I look like right?

The next fun thing to learn about was exactly how long it takes for a man to get ready for a night out. The Canuck had plans to hit the town. Drink a few pints of Guinness and play him some guitar. Jacko, The Thief and I had a spare ticket to the Cocktails and Cupcakes Ball. The cab had already been called when we told The Canuck he was coming with us. You'll note I said told him, not asked him. By the time the cab got to the house, ten minutes later, he was suited and booted. He'd even taken the time to comb his awesome handlebar moustache and slap a bit of gel in the hair. Only the lord in heaven knows how long it took for the girls to get ready, but it was the best part of all day. The Canuck: horrible to handsome in ten minutes. Classy dude...

By the way, in the background there; that's a giant cupcake tiered cake... I think I might be in love with it.
The weirdest thing of the day though, by a long way, was going to Thomond Park, not in a Munster jersey, not even to watch rugby. Going there in a tux, for a ball? It just seemed wrong. Really well done though. Smashing function room, and Heritage Green were the band, so we got to see Barry Murphy and Felix Jones, in Thomond Park, and it had fuck all to do with rugby. Things like this upset me greatly. As you may have guessed; I'm easily upset.

So fair play to all concerned, the event was a fundraiser for Pieta House, which is the centre for the prevention of self harm. It's an excellent and worthy cause. They're opening in Limerick now. Worth shelling out a few bob for that kind of cause. Not worth shelling out a few bob to look like Alfred's butler... Stupid tux...

Thing 227 Watch Gay Porn

They told me I wouldn't do it. They said that I couldn't do it. They said it would make a perfect Project Thing.

I did it. Most awkward five minutes of my life. And I don't want to talk about it anymore.

Thing 226 Celebrate Thanksgiving

American television has a lot to answer for. The list is pretty long, but right up there is the celebration of Thanksgiving. I'm one of those (many many, too numerous to count) saddos who's seen Friends fifty million times. Including the numerous Thanksgiving specials. I shouldn't know anything about an American traditional holiday. I don't know anything about Italian traditional holidays or Ethiopian holidays... curse you American TV, every time I learn about something new it pushes old things I learned right out of my head. Just knowing about Thanksgiving has erased my memory of maths...

For example; I know there's American football on Thanksgiving day, and that it's the last Thursday of every November. So this year we decided we'd celebrate it. We're not American, but we have things to thankful for: Cheese, for example. The International Monetary Fund. The Rubberbandits... this list is not exhaustive...

It was a pretty awesome day. We (and by we I mean Spoon and The Frenchman) fed seventeen people. We packed seventeen people into the house, and Spoon and The Frenchman cooked up a storm. I crushed some garlic. See, I can be useful...

On top of that, Size Two Shoes turned up for some grub, and while the turkey was roasting in the oven, they performed a little impromptu gig in our living room. How many Irish Thanksgiving Day parties include gigs in the living room?

In fact, it went so well, it started to look like a Budweiser ad. Honestly... It was positively cheesey. I loved it. Guitars all over the shop. Beers. A fire. Plenty laughs and a toast to the things we should be thankful for. This kind of cheese is right up my alley.
Now, to feed seventeen people you'll need the following: A Frenchman, a Spoon, a ten pound turkey crown, about two car loads of potatoes. Cranberry sauce (apparently it's an American thing). You'll need boatloads of gravy. Steamed veg, roast veg and boiled veg (of any variety). You'll also need to get any clowns who'll just interfere to stay out of the kitchen. Which is what I did... It was my contribution to Thankgiving: do nothing. I'm sure everyone was thankful for it.
P.S. I was mostly taking the piss, but in the spirit of Thanksgiving, today CiCi Do gave birth to her fourth child, my third niece. Baby Grace was born at 7:15am on the morning of Thanksgiving 25th November 2010. Healthy, hale and hearty. Now there's something to be thankful for. We toasted her future.

Thing 225 Disney Studios

There's an arbitrary photo of me doing the Thing. Which was to see the Disney Studios. Which were cool, but have absolutely nothing to do with studios, or at least very little. So I did the Thing. It was great. The Thief loved it. Wish there was a bit more studio in it, but that's all fine.

The real new experience of the day was the trip back home...

I'm not sharp with my money. I'd blown most of it in the first three days of the trip, so I kept the little bit aside for the following; car parking back in Dublin. The bus from Disneyland Hotel to Beauvais Airport. Money for the extra check-in bag full of shopping which was now needed to bring on to the flight. It left little in the way of funds for hacking around. In fact, it left almost nothing. Credit card was maxed out too, with the last of it going on some grub at the airport...

Now, on top of being craptacular at minding my money, I'm also not the sharpest in the world when it comes to time-keeping. The two are related, probably. Or something. I'm trying not to delve too deep. One way or another, I'm not great at either. A prime example of not being good at timekeeping includes not setting your clock to Paris time and thinking you've two hours to kill in the airport, when in fact, you've got only one.

Two hours is plenty of time to check in a bag. Alright, that queue is looking a little long, but there's lots of time. Now, checking in luggage at the airport means handing over your boarding passes, and taking your docket to a seperate counter to split with your cash... or in this case, and according to the terms and conditions (which I didn't read, let's not make this a list of my shortcomings please) on the Ryanair website, your credit. They don't accept cash. Which would be fine if there was money left on my card... Now what to do... Panic? No, sure there's loads of time left to sort this out...

It's at this point that I realise my clock is still set on Irish time...

Yes. It's now time to panic.

I've no credit in my phone, and The Thief's battery is dead, and she's no charger. Thankfully there's interweb on my phone. So I can webtext... At this point I'd like to thank Panda for his prompt reply. And for the unending suspicion that there was some kind of scam act going on. He was insisting that the person webtexting wasn't me, and was in fact some kind of French scam.

By the time he figured out that it wasn't a scam, they'd closed the check in desk. How many twenty six year old men do you know who are on the edge of heart attacks? Seriously... I could nearly feel the tingle in my left arm. Thankfully the nice lady had them re-open the desk. Sprinting to the boarding gate.

By the way, don't do that. Security in France aren't going to be rushed, and even if you don't set off the alarm, they're going to put their hands in your socks to search for drugs. Yep. In my socks. Do I look like the kind of person who smuggles drugs? On second thought, don't answer that...

Raced all the way down to boarding gate. Where everyone was waiting... so much for running.

So while the Thing was to see the Disney Studios (which I really do recommend), the new experience was Beauvais Airport... it'll be the last time I experience it. I'll swim home before I fly out of there again...

Thing 224 See Eiffel Tower

If I quit The Project now, which I won't, I'm having too much fun, then at very least I'd be able to say that it forced me to go to take in one of the most amazing sights that I'll ever see, and visit one of the most impressive cities on earth. The French didn't defend the city during World War Two, because basically they didn't want the Germans to wreck the gaff in a fight for it. On top of that, the Allies didn't bomb the crap out of it because it had little strategic importance, and when it was liberated in 1944, the retreating Germans didn't level the place like Hitler had ordered. Effectively, I think anyone who sees the place likes it too much to want to smash it up good. It's amazing to think it made it through the war unscathed.

Around sixty tonnes of paint are required to paint Gustave Eiffel's giant monument to amazingness, which he built with his bare hands in 1887... alright, I made up that last bit, but he was the main man involved in creating it (fun fact, he also designed the internal structure of the Statue of Liberty).
As world sites go, this one must rate up there with the very best and most incredible things to see in your life. The Colosseum in Rome is right up there too, and I've seen that. Statue of Liberty, Pyramids of Egypt, Great Wall of China, Big Ben... all of the world leading attractions, and now I've seen this one. It's the kind of thing that you can't really have an appreciation of until you've seen it. I mean, everyone's seen pictures of it. You all know what it is, but until you're right there and staring at its immenseness, you're not really going to get what I'm trying to say.

There are some other fun places to see in the City of Light. Arc de Triomphe being one of them. Another impressive piece of architecture that you won't really appreciate till you're watching nutcases drive like lunatics around it. The Thief appreciated the hell out of it too, not as much as the shops on the Champs Elysees mind you, but appreciated nonetheless.
I also got to walk along by the Seine River all morning, and stop off under one of the bridges. Just like Sinatra sang about. I know that's sad, but I've always wanted to do that. In fact, after the Notre Dame Cathedral and the open top bus tour, as well as Parisien coffee just off the Boulevard Saint Michel, I like to think I crammed about a weeks worth of Things in one day.

Too bad The Project doesn't work like that. Still, a pretty productive day right?

Thing 223 Disney Parade

I was in Disneyland once before, with the Tiny Fairy when we were all of eighteen years young, fado fado, when I was small and innocent and we didn't have television or something to that effect. In the time we were there we saw a few bits and pieces, but not a lot of the Disney characters. It's a sad thing for a twenty six year old man to admit, but I love those Disney chaps. I know that people say Walt Disney was a bit odd, but I grew up with Thorny Wire on a steady diet of Jungle Book, Alladdin and the highly underrated Robin Hood cartoon. Awesome.

It would also be extra sad for a twenty six year old man to admit to finding Disneyland "magical", and "amazing" and "breathtaking", so there's no way I'm going to do that. But when the Monsters Inc crew and Baloo the Bear are singing Christmas songs on a stage with Mickey Mouse and Woody from Toy Story, it's hard not to be blown away. I'm still not admitting to it. Thankfully The Thief was so excited she was like a six year old, which means she didn't notice me flipping out...

The Thief made us get up at eight in the morning. I hate eight in the morning. The one thing it did mean was a fun-filled day in Disneyland. One long ass fun filled day. We took in Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain Mission Two, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril, the Tea Cups, and it on and on. I got my photo taken with Winnie the Pooh, and watched Mickey and Minnie Mouse walk off into their castle thing hand in hand. Sweet.
There's a thing about Disney. For the twenty somethings out there, Disney movies are instant transport back to your childhood. A blast from your past. It's memories of Saturdays spent sitting on the ass, rapt as King Louis did his thing and Baloo dressed as a lady monkey. These days I'd be looking at that and wondering about the merits of a cross dressing bear monkey, and whether or not it's appropriate for the King Louis to be clearly attracted to this odd animal. Sorry if I've ruined that for you... I'm a bit of an asshole from time to time.
After a long day of taking in the Disney phenomenon, it was nice to just stand back and be impressed by a massive display of lights and fantasy like you've never seen. It was also cool to see how amazed and impressed all the kids were. Tiny little faces completely blown away by the spectacle of it all. If you've got kids, and you can afford it, Disneyland is the place to be. Amazing!
By the way on a slight tangent here, there's a serious Goofy discrimination campaign currently going on in Disney. We could find giant stuffed toys of the most obscure Disney characters you can think of; the tiny aliens from Toy Story, the bit part monsters in Monsters Inc, a massive variety of Pluto the Dog toys wearing a bunch of different outfits and not a Goofy toy to be seen. Nowhere in the park could we find Goofy... if I wasn't lazy and apathetic I'd be all about a petition or something... But I am those things, so I'll give it a miss.

Seriously though, does anyone else miss Goofy?

Thing 222 The Flight to France

Every so often the blog Things get a bit difficult. They're not stupid or outrageous. They're brand new and difficult to execute, but they're mundane enough. So here's the first thing that's brand new to me. Finish a night shift, get home, DON'T go to bed. Instead of hopping into a nice warm bed and dozing until the mid afternoon, the new job is finish packing and take Lady Northy to Dublin, and continue on to the airport with The Thief to fly out to Paris.

Driving to Dublin after a night shift without any sleep is a terrible thing. Flying anywhere is also a terrible thing. I know that people older than I can remember a time when flying to somewhere wasn't a chore, but these days... No checked in baggage. Two carry ons, but The Thief must have mistaken the length of time that we were going to Paris and packed for four weeks instead of four days. She also somehow managed to get it into the one carry on bag, and jam what she couldn't fit into a giant handbag... It was dodgy walking through the boarding area. I was full sure someone was going to give out.

Then there's Charles De Gaulle Airport, which is a circle. One large circle. I know this because we were walking to find our bus connection to Disneyland, and it occured to me after about half an hour that we'd passed the same set of dodgy looking taxi drivers about five times. Cut me some slack, I was tired. So tired in fact, that I slept past out hotel in Disneyland and got all the way to the wrong hotel before I we woke up. I don't have any French, but thankfully, The Thief is smart, and better educated than I, so she was able to tell the driver that we were asleep while I stood behind her apparently playing charades and mimicking someone sleeping... like a clown. I'm awesome at charades though.

Then there's the Disneyland Hotel we stayed in. Now there's a new experience. Donald Duck standing in the lobby as you go to check in. French accents everywhere. All I could think of was "Faux De Fa Fa" by Flight of the Concords (here it is, in case you're interested). The hotel room had a TV, and I normally love hotel tvs, you just never know what kind of a channel selection you're going to get, and then they're always really circumspect about offering you porn. It seems to be in every hotel room I' stay in. Our Disneyland hotel though had one channel where a very annoying young English teenager talked endlessly about Disneyland and then every other channel in French. This shouldn't have surprised me, but it did...

Mickey Mouse shaped soap holders and shampoo. A large bath. Two beds. And the sound of excessive Frenchness everywhere. It's like living with a Frenchman... no wait, I already do that.

On the list for the coming days: Disney Parade, Paris City Centre and Disney Studios...