The problem with birthdays is that you feel compelled to spend the day doing something useful. One can't waste the day. The previous two years, I'd spent my birthday in New York City and New Zealand (Auckland, to be precise). This time I was home, in Lovetown, Melbourne. Breakfast ended up being in Greville St after passing by the horridly full Chapel St cafes, and since I was somewhere near work and hadn't remembered where the hell I had to go this afternoon to attend a friend's buck's night, I popped in. It seemed that I had the whole place to myself, according to the attendance log at the front desk. I pondered the hidden meaning behind this - last weekend there were no shortage of employees doing out of hours work, and yesterday too, but today ? Nobody. At this point, perhaps I should've retired to the pub next door, but I'll be there tomorrow night (if you hadn't heard already, turn up after 6pm on Monday the 11th to the Bluestone Belgian Beer Cafe in St Kilda Rd and feel free to tell me I'm old). Instead, I wandered up to Brunswick St and had a coffee while I waited until it was time to head over towards my next social engagement, stopping by Dixons Recycled on the way...

My friend's buck's night was a simple, modern affair - drinks at a Fitzroy pub, none of that lowbrow stripper stuff. The downstairs pool table area seemed remarkably reminiscent of his parents' outside cellar where we used to play RPGs on weekends. Upstairs, a band played country music...