Yeah, I really do think.

I made a Quiz for you! Take my Quiz! and then Check out the Scoreboard!

So I'm walking to the food court with James and Heloise and James and Heloise, they say, "Wow, so, Taupo was worth totally standing James up for, then, huh?"

And me, I say, "What?"

Heloise: "The drinking and the nudity and the Finn McCool's."

Ohhh. They're talking about my LieJournal.

"Ohh," I say. "You're talking about my LieJournal."

I add, "It's a journal of lies. None of those events occurred."

James, confused, "But you did go to Taupo?"

Yes. Yes, that part was true. It was a lie when I said, "None of those events occurred."

James, hurt, "You just lied to me? But this is just us talking. This isn't your LJ."

Isn't it, James? Isn't it? Then James does a little jig and nearly gets hit by a car.

Heloise pipes up, "But you did go to Showgirls."

Well, it was a business meeting. It would be rude of me not to.

She objects, "You're not in business."

It is the business of being me.

Anyway, then we eat food, and I have a butter-chicken-hold-the-chicken, and on the way back to work I have sex with these hot Argentinian triplets. (Girls).

Anyway, I don't know what on earth you are talking about.

What on earth.

So, at a liquid-lunch meeting with some old business associates, I was coerced into traveling to Taupo for the night. I said to them, "No! I can't do that! For reasons!" But it was to no avail. I was quickly bundled into the backseat of a car (Kyle called shotgun) and we left Auckland and all our worries behind.

And some strippers were also left behind, but frankly I don't think there was room in the car for them, and Taryn never thought to invite them, because he is selfish and whipped by his girlfriend.

There is nothing wrong with the term "girlfriend", by the way. It is a perfectly fine term. As is "boyfriend". It's not childish. Go ahead and use it in your regular daily usage of words. "Hello, this is my partner girlfriend." "I went for a holiday in the weekend with my man boyfriend."

Come on, now, Shortland Street.

Role call! Taryn, Kyle, Anand, Gary, Craig, Ryan. All playing the role of drunken stupid bastard. As if there weren't enough in the world. Thought I used the wrong role/roll, there, didn't you. DIDN'T YOU. Thinking "didn't you" should be suffixed by a question mark, AREN'T YOU.

Anyway, God knows why we chose Taupo. I didn't choose it. I was goddam abducted. But God knows why the others chose it. Ohakune was the other option, which is far more sensible, not because we would have skied, but because other people would be there skiing and that'd be great. And snow.

But no, it was Taupo, and let me tell you, Taupo's a bit of a hole. Not one of those good, warm, moist holes, either. We started drinking... Well, we continued drinking at a place called... um... Paddy O'Tokenirishpub, and met this British couple, who seemed nice enough to begin with, which is probably why we started playing drinking games with them.

Taupo's fucken loose, man. Seriously, there's not a place in Auckland you could do the shit that was being done in this pub. The game was simple: there are no rules to begin with, and anyone who does a shot of tequila can make a new rule.

Here are some of the rules that were made:

So James is saying, "Blah blah blah blah blah blah cos, you know, you're straight."

Dylan stops walking.

Oh, by the way, we're walking like on West Wing. Only, now we've stopped.

Dylan says, "You're straight?"

I nod. Solemnly.

"I... Why didn't you tell me?" he asks.

"I did."

"When? No, you didn't! When?"

Then it hits me.

Dylan doesn't read my LiveJournal.

OMG!!!11

I say, "OMG!!!11"

I say, "You don't read my LJ?! How do you expect to keep up?!"

"We eat together at least once every three days."

"So? That's just talking face to face. This is LIVEJOURNAL we're talking about."

Dylan doesn't get it! OMG!

James says, "OMG, Dylan. OMG."

"James," I say. "Why are we even hanging out with this guy? He's not on our friends list!"

And Dylan, he runs away.

Hey...

...did everybody know that I was straight...?

How 'bout that?

Merry Christmas!

James says, "Hold on."

He says, "Your LiveJournal isn't a record of things that actually happened at all."

"It's a journal of lies," he says.

"It's a LieJournal. No more lies, Ryan," he says.

Just then, terrorists attacked! They wanted 12 of them! There was no time to explain, so it was all I could do but to stop them!

Journal of lies indeed.

"I'm going to send a letter to the cast and crew of Mercy Peak," I tell him.

"Uh-huh."

"The sad thing is, that means I'm more motivated by Quality New Zealand Drama than by the plight of my sponsored child, to whom I've never replied," I note.

"What?" James says, SHAKEN FROM HIS REVERIE.

"I'm more motivated by-"

"What do you mean replied?" he asks.

I reply, "Writing back."

"Your sponsored child has written you letters?" he asks, INCREDULITY CREEPING ACROSS HIS FACE.

"Um."

"And you haven't replied?"

"Um."

"Jesus," James says. "You're a horrible person."

Well, duh.

James and I are walking down Queen Street, and Jesus, I have to break it to him. He's old enough now, to know the truth.

"James," I say. "You're old enough now, to know the truth."

"What truth?" he asks. Oh, poor naive James.

"I suppose Valentine's Day is as good a day as any to break it to you."

"Break what to me?" he asks, getting suspicious.

"The fact of the matter is, James, that women are evil and exist only to torment me."

"Women are evil?" he asks.

"And exist only to torment me."

"Faith told me women love you!"

"No, she was just repeating what she'd heard from Dylan."

James says, "But Dylan told Faith women love you!"

"No, James," I say slowly, so that he understands. "Dylan was just repeating what he'd heard from you."

"Me?"

"Yes."

"I was mistaken about something?" he asks.

"Yes, I was as shocked as you are."

We walk a while more.

"What about that one there?" he asks.

"Evil."

"And that one?"

"Evil."

"She looks so nice," James notes.

"Yes, they're good at that," I reply.

"Why do they hate you?" he asks.

"I didn't say they hate me, James. Keep up, here. I said they exist only to torment me. Who can say whether or not they take any pleasure in their work?"

"Hm," James replies. "Why did I misinform Dylan?"

"You're my PR guy," I explain. "It's your job."

"Ohhh," he says. Then he says, "Here comes the Thnikkaman!"

Dylan and I sit down to place some of the games.

"Where are the ladies?" I ask. I thought there'd be the ladies.

"There are no ladies," he replies. "This is the realm of men."

"This is the realm of boys," I corrected him. Then, "What about them girls over there?"

"Those are not the ladies. They're the Asian girls who play Final Fantasy XI all the time. Their characters are male."

"Where are the ladies?!" I demand. I seriously thought there'd be the ladies.

"There are no ladies. We're here to play computer games."

FINE.

There's a squeak from the other side of room.

"Is that the ladies? Are the ladies over there?"

"No," says Dylan. "That's the pubescent boys. They're squeaking about TKing and de_rats."

"You know what's a funny word?" I change the subject. "Feminazi."

"There are some girls who'll kill you if you say that word around them," I continue.

Dylan doesn't look up from him getting killed by someone in an Apache, who was probably a Femiraqi. "Do they kill you in a fascist manner?"

Now I'm in the game, finally, since my computer was working in slow motion.

"More of a nationalist-socialist manner," I say.

And we're away.

While on the bus last night, I was accosted by a group of teenage girls.

Well, no. "Accost" doesn't quite feel like the right word, so let's consult thesaurus.com. Did they address me? Well, yes. Annoy? Bother? No. Entice? Well, now... Proposition? Certainly.

Anyway, they rubbed my head a lot, and I asked one of them, who seemed to be the kind of Teenage Girl Leader of the Teenage Girl Gang, "What are you doing?"

She says, "Rubbing your head."

I says, "Ah."

So they rubbed my head some more. And they giggled, and I have to say, their giggling made me think of triffids. Everything makes me think of triffids. You know the knocking sounds the triffids made when they communicated with each other? That's what the giggling was like. Any one particular teenage girl was not really sentient, but the group acted with a sort of hive mind. She was called Legion, for they are many.

"Why are you rubbing my head," I ask.

"Duh. For luck."

I says, "Ah."

Meanwhile, in the sideways-so-they're-more-for-old-people-I-guess seats, there was this old person looking at me as if somehow I had solicited this head-rubbing. Hey, lady! This just started happening! I had nothing to do with it! I'm the victim here! Exclamation mark! But I didn't say any of those things, actually. I actually grinned at the old lady, and was all, "Oh yeaaaaah," about it.

Maybe she wanted to rub my head too. Secretly. Maybe her desire was a secret even from herself.

Anyway, the teenage girls got off at some stop, and I dunno, maybe they had lots of good luck or something. Frankly, I think rubbing my head for luck is a self-fulfilling prophecy or something. You can always look back on the situation and say, "Hey, it sure was lucky that I got to touch Ryan's head!" A tautology or whatever.

Then, this morning, there was this dude sleeping on a bus stop, and I think he was Filipino, and I can't remember if the Philippines has any native martial arts, does anyone remember? Anyway, he was asleep, but apparently he was some kind of olfactory ninja, because the mere scent of my awesomity roused him (that's just "roused", folks - no 'a' at the start), and he started mumbling at me in...

Tagalog?

Yes, that's right. Tagalog.

Here are some words in Tagalog:

"Kapalaran" means "luck". In the Philippines, the first customer of the day is believed to bring good luck. This first customer is called "buena mano", which gives me the impression it means "good man". Another tautologous prophecy. "Well, it was good luck that the good man came in and bought something."

"Karatista" means "someone who knows karate", like the Karate Kid.

And...

"Titi" means "penis", which no doubt has led to all sorts of hilarious confusion and thigh-slapping anecdotes inevitably ending with sentences like, "And he asked to suck on my titty!"