Week 1042 - Not drunk and not disorderly

It's amazing, the things you can come up with when joking around with friends. As I've mentioned to quite a few people, I tend to come up with interesting ideas, though most of the time they're not entirely practical.

So anyway... Over the last weekend a few of us got away from the hubbub of what turned out to be quite a rowdy night for the Residential Advisors here, and took a non-school-work Saturday away and booked a hotel room in town.

*insert unessential sniggering from some residents*

This week: University students stick out like a sore thumb at Himatangi Beach, An impractical way to tell if someone's drunk, ukuleles, and Glee: Illinois Edition.



So it was three of us, Catie, Emily and myself... seizing the opportunity of "all three of us have the weekend off", and heading off to Himatangi Beach.
It was surprisingly a lot closer than I expected, and our impending arrival into the takeaway store was announced by a young schoolgirl pointing to her friend and saying "Look over there!" as we were crossing the street as casually as you can while wearing jeans in a secluded beach town.

Fish and Chips were great though.

The focus of the weekend though was the sheer novelty of staying at the Kingsgate Hotel, conveniently located about 5 minutes from the place we were getting away from.

Saturdays (and Thursdays) are days often dreaded by RAs, for they are days when residents have the need to consume alcohol and go into town at night. As we were trying to avoid running into this situation in town, we quickly rushed in and out of town before anything happened.

"Wow this place looks just like Palmerston North!" (laughs)
"LOL we might run into residents here..."
"Or people might think we're a bunch of drunken students ourselves..."
"Please... we're wearing glasses, that's like, minus 20 points right there."
"Um, what?"

...and so the idea of the "possibly-imminent-drunkenness", or PID, rating system was conspired.

Hey, like I said at the start, I never said it was a practical idea...

The idea behind this is some people just look like people that aren't planning to get drunk. Here are some easy examples:

• No optical assistance: +15 points.
• Wearing contact lenses: +5 points.
• Wearing reading glasses: -20 points.
• Wearing reading glasses with a metal chain to keep them on your face: -100 points.
• Wearing a hoodie: +2 points.
• Wearing a hoodie and shorts: -20 points.
• Wearing Crocs: -500 points.

That last one was good news for Catie.

Ok, so how about the typical, first-year, new hall resident, at Saturday 10:30PM? Here's the run down.

• High heeled shoes: +5 points.
• Long casual evening dress: +5 points.
• Long super-posh evening gown by Versache or something: Unlikely.
• Dress with skirt: +20 points.
• Dress with shorter skirt: +40 points.
• Dress with even shorter skirt: Arrested for indecent exposure.
• Any of the above on a guy: Too late, already drunk.
• Organising a sober driver/taxi: +50 points.
• Organising a drunk driver: Idiot.
• Leaving the hall between 8-9PM : -15 points.
• Leaving the hall between 9-10PM : -5 points.
• Leaving the hall between 10-11PM: +5 points.
• Leaving the hall after midnight: Irritating.
• Playing Poker beforehand: +10 points.
• Playing Strip Poker beforehand: Don't even think about it.
• Playing UNO beforehand: -5 points.
• Playing Snap beforehand: ?
• Playing a Trading Card Game: -50 points.
• Playing a Pokemon Trading Card Game: My respect and -100 points.

...so hopefully you get the idea with that.

To save this post from taking too long, let me wrap this up by bringing you some more music you may not have come across, in what I'd like to call, Musical Horizon Expansion, or in a less pretentious way, "Music I've found on YouTube and enjoyed so I thought I'd link to it here".

So first up, the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra. And yes, that's a real thing... I personally have been to one of their concerts when they were passing through the Kapiti Coast. A great bunch of people, they managed to take some great songs and give them a great tropical, ukulele twist. It's great. I've said great too many times here, but take a listen to I Love You, Raylene.

And finally this week, a shout out to my step-sister's college choir who placed second in their categories at the World Choir Games in Cincinnati over the school holidays. Well done.

On the subject of choirs, thanks to the international success of Glee, a capella groups seem to be getting a lot more popular lately. Here's one I stumbled across recently, who call themselves the Illinois Rip Chords. Take a listen to their rendition of Stevie Wonder's Signed, Sealed, Delivered.

...and both these groups can be found on iTunes. So if you like the music, be sure to check it out! Thanks for reading, hope to see you next Thursday.