This is the story of the shot of tequila I had last Thursday night which ended up costing me $430.

It all started at a Christmas party I went to on the Thursday night. I wasn’t planning on drinking much, so I drove there. I had a couple of beers early, but had had nothing for a few hours, so would have been perfectly fine to drive home.

I was feeling good with myself for not getting tempted by all the free alcohol. But then I went and messed it all up by having one shot of tequila. Not even sure why I did it, given tequila is absolutely awful. But anyway, I did it, it was done, so I decided that I would leave my car there, catch a cab home, and pick up the car in the morning.

I then proceeded to have a couple more drinks, then jumped in a cab and went home.

The next morning started off badly. Here’s what happened:

1. I woke up with a cramp in my leg.

2. There was nothing in the house for breakfast.

3. The first two trains were cancelled, meaning that I had to wait half an hour for a train, which was inevitably crammed with three trains worth of people.

4. The breakfast burger I bought at Flinders Street station was the worst burger ever (it was full of pickle mustard, which wasn’t mentioned in the burger’s description on the menu board. Pickle mustard is not great at the best of times, let alone at 8am).

5. The tram took forever to arrive, and when it did it had a dodgy door that could open but not close. The driver had to get out of the driving compartment and manually close the door at every stop, which doubled the time of the journey.

6. There was a ticket inspector on the tram, and I had a band-aid on my thumb which made getting my ticket out of my wallet near impossible. After about a minute of me struggling, he was just about ready to give me a fine for not having a ticket.

After such a bad start to the morning, I was thinking that things could not get much worse. It had taken 90 minutes to get from my house back to where my car was (a trip that should have taking 45 minutes at most).

But then things got a whole lot worse.

My car was not where I left it. In fact it was nowhere to be seen.

Then it hit me – I had parked in a clearway zone, and the car had been towed away.

A delayed train and rotten burger paled into insignificance compared to the realisation that my car had been towed.

I found the phone number of the towing company on the pole with the clearway sign on it, a sign that now seemed to be laughing at my stupidity. The towing company gave me the address (after abusing the local council for publishing their number instead of the council’s number – as if I was the council), and I jumped in a cab, on my way to retrieve my car.

A tow would cost about $100 I thought. I was wrong.

The tow itself was a whopping $275. Talk about highway robbery.

Speaking of robbery, the towing company was located in a dodgy alley in Collingwood, that made me think of the company as one that stole cars and then made the owners pay a ‘ransom’ to get their cars back.

As I was handed my receipt for the $275 tow, the towing man said that they left the parking fine on the windshield. This hit me like a left hook as I am falling to the ground as the result of a right one. I totally forgot that there would be a fine as well, for parking in the clearway. The fine was $110, as you can see below.

I got my car, drove it away, and eventually got to work three hours after I had left home that morning. It proved to be one of the most frustrating mornings of my life.

The tequila shot I had was the difference between me driving home that night, and not driving home that night. By not driving home, it cost me the following:

Cab ride on Thursday night $25.50

Train/tram ticket $2.70

Breakfast burger $3.95

Tow $275

Cab to towing company $17.80

Parking fine $110

TOTAL $434.95

If I was thinking in a Mastercard frame of mind, I would also include:

Story that is ideal for introducing the fact that I am about to start goal 4 on my list – Priceless

Yes, this long-winded story did have a relevant point, besides the moral of not having shots of tequila. It serves as a great way to introduce that on January 2, 2008, I begin goal 4, which is to abstain from all forms of alcohol for 100 consecutive days – a goal I now wish I had started a couple of weeks ago!

The goal is complete if I can last until April 11. In the process, I hope to learn that alcohol is not required in order to have a fun time.

And if last Friday is anything to go by, I might save myself a few thousand dollars at the same time!

Month completed: December 2007

For anyone who still thinks of lawn bowls as ‘yawn’ bowls, it’s time for a hit of news – lawn bowls is now trendy.

In fact, it’s probably been that way ever since Mick Molloy’s movie Crackerjack (if you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it).

And it is ever since seeing that movie that I have been wanting to play lawn bowls. Given the movie came out in 2002, my first ever game of lawn bowls has been a while in the making.

My much awaited opportunity came last night at the Christmas party of our digital agency (thanks to Visual Jazz for putting on a great night). Melbourne Bowling Club, Australia’s oldest existing bowls club, was the setting for this goal-achieving game.

After a few practice ends (alert – technical lawn bowls term), the 2007 Visual Jazz bowls tournament started. Our team, the Fantastic Three (ironically named given we were a team of four), made it from the initial round of sixteen, down to the round of eight, and then the final four, where we bombed out in a closely-fought contest against the Howling Baboons (also ironically named, given there was not even one baboon on their team, let alone one that howled).

Nevertheless, this first attempt at lawn bowls has opened up a new-found passion for me and I can’t wait to play again.

Still questioning lawn bowl’s ‘trendy’ credentials? Check out these facts:

- You play barefoot

- Beer is at super-cheap prices

- You can bring your beer out onto the green (in fact, rather than being told that we could not bring beer onto the green, we were told that you could only bring beer onto the green!)

- You can play an entire game without having to put your beer down

- It’s pretty much as easy/hard to do left or right-handed, so you can pretend that you are ambidextrous

- You will never raise a sweat, as you exert minimal physical effort

- You can watch old people in their natural environment, and laugh at their silly clothes

- You can roll the ball down really fast and smash into other balls, which is always fun for the inner child in us all (the picture below is of me doing a very mis-directed smash, but at least my form looks OK)

Convinced now?

If so, let me know. I am totally up for another roll.

Month completed: December (well, duh!) 2007

As we well and truly enter the technological age, emails, text messages and social networking websites are now the main forms of communication among my generation. Communication is now very easy, almost too much so.

I’m not sure when was the last time I received a handwritten letter in the post, but I remembered how nice it felt. That someone had taken time out of their day specifically for me.

Recognising this, I made goal 57 to send out Christmas cards (slightly connected to this is goal 58, which involves sending out handwritten letters). And this Christmas, I have achieved this goal.

If you were one of the lucky people who got a card, congratulations. You mean a lot to me. If you missed out, don’t despair – I only sent out 10! Next year I plan to do a lot more.

Doing the cards felt surprisingly good. If you need a bit of Christmas cheer, send out a few Christmas cards – you’ll feel much better.

Merry Christmas all. Stay safe.

Month completed: December 2007

In 2004, I was part of a team that wrote a case study on what it would take for a Melbourne team to be successful in the soon-to-be-launched A-League in Australia (A-League is the premier soccer league in Australia).

Quite a few of the thoughts we had were matched by the team that was eventually created, known as Melbourne Victory. The name was one thing they didn’t match though – we had decided on the name Victoria Colonials. Victoria to make the whole of Victoria feel as though the team was playing for them, and Colonials to help separate the team from the ethnic connotations that were partly to blame for the dissolution of the National Soccer League (the previous premier soccer competition in Australia).

All of this back story is to explain why seeing a Melbourne Victory match was on my list of goals. Ever since they launched, I have been keen to go along, but never have.

During the week I was offered free tickets to go along to the upcoming Victory match. Never one to pass up free stuff, I took two tickets, and Nat and I went along to see Melbourne play Adelaide. And what a game it was.

2-nil down with ten minutes to go, a penalty and an own goal brought the score back to 2-all, which was the final score. There was many highs and lows, and it was overall a great atmosphere. Nat even wants to go and see another match, which has shocked me!

Anyone who hasn’t gone yet, I totally recommend it – Go Victory!