It's a guy thing

The above video is running hot on TV at the moment. It's an ad on blokes. It celebrates typical blokey moments and achievements. The ad glorifies different kind of blokes there are, namely:

a. Blokes who punch above their weight
b. Blokes who peaked at high school
c. Blokes built like a brick house
d. Blokes who've had their arm in a cow
e. Men who wont eat their quiche
f. Men who should have read the instructions

and many others. Very funny!

After my experience with my friends last week, I feel the ad missed one group. Guys who are part of this group - you know who you are - will be gutted that such hard-done by blokes have not been recognised. I am talking about the blokes who've been invited (in some cases dragged along) to a September weekend wedding. You may chuckle and say what's the big deal? Why is this category important? Let me explain.

The month of September is special. If you are girl and living in the southern hemisphere, you may say September means it is the spring season. That means flowers. Freshness. All bloom. Romance is in the air. September brings with it new life and new beginnings. Basically, the month of Sep has all ingredients for a perfect wedding.

If you are guy, September is special too. Unlike Ms CuddlyWink's exhaustive list, it's only for a handful of things. The list reads: four weekends, NRL finals and AFL Grand finals. All finals spread out in those four glorious September weekends. HE would either in front of the idiot box or in the battleground (the stadium). There is nowhere else he would want to be. The place is Holy Grail.

Last weekend, it was NRL's preliminary finals night. Along with the-colour-of-my-blood-is-rugby mates, I was at our friend's wedding (groom) on the game night. The wedding was great. I was very happy for the couple and everyone had a great time. A true bloke doesn't miss his friend's wedding. Full stop. Gazza, a common friend, recollected with a serious face, looking down at his shuffling feet, that even last year he missed the NRL final. All because "there were so many bleeeeping weddings in September man. Bleep". Along with the wedding gift, Gazza had planned to give the groom (our mate) a wedgie for choosing this particular time for the wedding ceremony. He spared him because the groom secretly confessed that he had the same feelings too. Instead of a wedgie, the groom received a bear hug from Gazza. Aww...the brotherhood!

During the pre-ceremony drinks, people were standing around in clusters chatting away, it was hard to miss the constant undercurrent footy talk in the conversations. Anything about anything was somehow related to footy. We did try our earnest for a work around to get the live scores. The problem was we were in a church at a small town in the outskirts of the city. The church was on a hill (awesome views of the city!) and we had to drive through dense rain forest to get there. Expectedly, the church didn't have AM radio reception, it had a GSM connection that would load live updates in time for my sashtiapdhapoorthi*, and a 3G network which wasn't strong enough to load the web page. Guys were squirming on their seats. If there were no one was watching us, we would've all yelled in unison "pichukhooo" and sprinted towards the nearest place showing the live telecast.

...and that's actually what we did, but only after the wedding ceremony (no we didn't yell. jees.). We made our way into a local run-down pub showing the game. The regulars in the pub said we were the most well-dressed men to ever set foot in the pub's long history. We watched the last few minutes of the game. Gazza shed a few tears. It was...hmm...a special moment for him. His team won. Nothing melts a true Aussie bloke faster than to see his team in the spoils of victory.

Like any wedding, everyone was decked in their finery's. We looked sharp. The ladies were gorgeous. It's amazing the amount of prep ladies put into weddings. So much that one girl told me that wedding is all about the bride. Considering the state we were in, I couldn't disagree with her more. I was about to say something (not about the trivial matter of footy finals), then stopped. But then...

Weddings have their own rules. We all know rules can always be bent, if not broken. You see, we have a problem here. We have to attend the wedding but we are also deprived of the Rugby. Perhaps we can find a way to incorporate both football and wedding in an innovative way. Maybe the priest can probably do a score update during the ceremony like, "Do you Joe Bloggs, take Mary Jones, to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, like a football which the New Zealand Warriors just landed over the try line to take the score to 16-14?"

Or, how about showing the live telecast (volume muted ofcourse) on a big LCD behind the bride at the reception. 100% attention guaranteed.

Or, how about this in a South Indian wedding. Imagine there is a ODI going LIVE between India and Australia. The sastrigal defies conventions and recites this informative Mangalayam Thanthuna nena

getti melam! getti melam!

(in ARR's tune for Mangalyam Thathuna nena)

Manglayam thanthuna nena

Australiaaa two eighty nine
Indha game-a nambha jeyikkhaa,
Tendulllkar adikanum sadham.

I am just saying...

:D

--

* Sashtiapdhapoorthi - celebration of 60th birthday

Riverfire

Thanks DF

The annual Brisbane Festival started this week with last night's Riverfire. Riverfire is an extravagant firework display show from three major Brisbane bridges, a select few skyscrapers in the CBD and few boats on Brisbane River.

This is my first time at the show and I have to say the fireworks display were absolutely stunning. For 30 minutes, over 600,000 people (yes, you read it right) who thronged the banks of the Brisbane River were treated to some breathtaking display of fireworks. The night sky was lit up in plethora of colours. Some firework burst into patterns/symbols like smiley face, heart symbol, two hearts merging etc, some fireworks were choreographed to burst with beats of popular songs by AC/DC, Lenny Kravitz and A R Rahman's Jai Ho (Pussycat Dolls version). The timing of beats and bursts was almost perfect. Fantastic work!

The OMG-this-is-too-good moment was the show's finale - dump and burn by F-111 fighter jets. The fighter jets zoomed over the CBD, flying fast and low, with the bright yellow trail of burning jet fuel. The F-111s were flying low enough I could feel the heat of the burnt fuel and the ground shake. The noise was just unbelievable.

Below is the video I managed take from my good old Powershot as I watched the F-111s in an open-mouthed wonder.

Note to self for next year's Riverfire: Don't trust Tiffanys Bar table booking. Arrive early. Secure a vantage point. Get the bloody SLR and take pics!