Ringing in the New Year, Victoria-style

We are in the twilight of another year, that brief break in the ryhthmic breath of the universe when we pause to consider the mistakes we made in the last 12 months and prepare to repeat them.  As always, everyone will ring in the new year in their own way.  Some will already be in bed when the big moment comes, some will be off their face on Jack Daniels and glue, some will be hurriedly packing their mountain caves with ammunition and tinned ham in preparation for the big showdown in 2012, when everyone's favorite feathery serpent will rain down the kind of destruction we haven't seen since Y2K.

I Gave Up My Bus Pass For This? - Driving in Victoria

Until this August it had been seven years since I’d driven an automobile.  In some circles this declaration would be cause for games of celebratory hacky-sack and lengthy speeches about how everything cruel and savage in this world is powered by the internal combustion engine.

I’d like to say that my reasons were ideological.  That I abstained because of some objection to the way Mother Earth has been viciously subjugated by the demoniac heralds of that brutal warlord Henry Ford.  This would be a craven lie.  In actual fact, for years I have simply been too lazy to take a driver’s test. 

West Coast Tap House | 829 McCallum Road | Langford

Note:  This article was meant to be accompanied by photographs but the shots I took were so awful that you, dear reader, do not deserve to have them inflicted upon you.  Trust me.

It’s a sad fact that at this point in my life I prefer coffee shops to bars.  Not because I suddenly crave the company of self-important anorectics hardwired into their MacBook pros, but because in a coffee shop one may enjoy a drink in relative peace.  The loudest thing you’re likely to hear is light jazz and the soft tap of a keyboard as someone in a turtleneck writes bad poetry about the pale, distant girl who left them when their sweater went out of style