Results are in, bitches, and the most surprising/exciting news is: SASSY SUCKS LESS THAN WE THOUGHT.

Sassy’s owner has never been so proud

She’s charged into round one with a perfectly respectable 6 from 8, also known as “way-better-than-forgetting-to-put-your-tips-in-because-you’re-too-busy-watching-Law-&-Order-repeats-on-the-W-Channel”. She’d like to thank all of you for your support.

She’d also like to thank the Roosters and give the forks to everyone who tipped against them. IN TODD WE TRUST!

That brings us to the winners board, and after round one it looks like this (higlighting by Sassy):

It’s an all ladies top ten, whut whut! Come and post and claim your glory, ladies.

KEEP SCROLLING DOWN KIDS, THE REGULAR POSTS ARE WAITING FOR YOU BELOW!

Why yes, it IS that time again. After the overwhelming* success of ErrolTips 2009, we’re putting on our tipping pants (note: we may not actually be wearing pants) and starting that shit up again for another year.

We even had a proper meeting to figure out ways that we could improve on last year’s ErrolTips Experience (TM). Because, um … last year’s winner was southsydneyrussellcrowe – we like to think that’s the real Russell Crowe – and he still hasn’t collected his prize. It’s possible that’s because he’s in France. It’s also possible that he wasn’t especially keen on the idea of hitting the town with the Errol girls and drinking Smirnoff Blacks with a straw while we rock out at the Judgment Bar. CAN’T IMAGINE WHY.

We have to change the prize this year regardless because in the last six months the Judgy has turned into a pub police state. Drinking there is like a trip to old East Germany, except with fewer trench coats, uglier carpet, and LESS FUN. The bouncers don’t even wear Hawaiian shirts anymore! Instead they wear threatening vests that say RSA Marshall and patrol the floor looking for anyone with balance issues or sleepy eyes so they can promptly evict them.

This is clearly ridiculous, because who goes to the Courthouse unless they actually are blind drunk? No one’s stopping by the judgy at 7am on a Saturday morning for a coffee and a chat. If I was sober, I would totally stop and think, hey, maybe I have better and more productive things to do than drink a schooner at dawn while chatting to a man with waist length hair and a teardrop tattoo on his face.

ANYWAY. We have new revamped prizes that we hope you’ll enjoy. The winner of this years comp will take home their choice of:

1. a not-yet-ripe banana

2. an Oh Errol stubbie holder

3. the Mystery Box.

No, there is no cash prize, because there is no joining fee. Bloggers don’t have money and we didn’t want to price ourselves out of the competition. Also,we’re not materialistic and we do it for love and blah blah whatever. Now get your asses over to footy tips, sign up and join in:

JOIN ME NOW NOW NOW

There will be weekly updates talking up the winners and mocking the losers, plus, of course, the mystery box. Heh, box.

* May not have, in fact, been overwhelming.

So what do you think, babies? Like the new design? We set the interns to work over the last few weeks in their custom-made Errol hotpants to spruce up and repaint.

oherrol.com, now with NEW HAT!

By ‘interns’, we may also mean that the awesome Charlie Gearside from Bad Blumau lent us his web skillz and redesigned our humble blog. He’s now on holidays in Europe – possibly because dealing with us drove him to leave the country – but hit him up if you ever need a smart, speedy and hilarious web designer.

Because we have the technological kiss of death there might be a few teething problems – just comment if you find anything broken / confusing / with tomato sauce stains on it and we promise to a) fix it, and b) repay you with thankyou gropes for giving us the heads up.

Enjoy!

So this is the last part of our Oh Errol American adventure from earlier this year. Ok, that’s a lie. Really, it’s the second last part. However, as the last part involves Savannah and Vegas, this is the last part that we will be describing on the internet. SOZ GUYS.

We’re been saving this bit up until we were well and truly into the league season for 2009 (over here and in the States). A lot of our readers go on holidays over the non-league season and we wouldn’t want all the little lost sheep to miss out.

Basically … you NEED to know about these guys. They call em the Jacksonville Axemen, and this is how the story goes.

After our bizarre jaunt around Disneyworld we jumped into Ron Burgundy – our gigantic, burgundy-coloured, Dodge minivan – and hit the road for Jacksonville, Florida. Why? Well it wasn’t to see Ryan Adams, because as it turns out, his song Jacksonville … not about Florida. Not that that stopped us singing it incessantly. That, and the soundtrack from High School Musical. That shit is great driving music.

He has many leather-bound books and his interior smells of rich mahogany.

Jacksonville is a quaint little beachside city in Florida. Down near the sea it’s full of 50 and 70s style diners and strip malls, and faded bleached-out salt-stained buildings. In the morning and at night the place fills up with fog that washes in off the Atlantic. It’s kinda Central Coast-ish really. It even has, wait for it … a RUGBY LEAGUE TEAM. Fuck off, now that was something we had to see. A league team in America’s wang! It makes sense that they might have them up North where the Yankees play rugby union at college, but in the South? Amazing.

The faithful Ron Burgundy delivered us to Jacksonville Beach right on the eve of Australia Day and found the Axemen waiting at the hotel with a cooler and a playlist of Aussie songs ready to welcome the Oss-tralians. WE HAVE FOUND OUR PEOPLE!

We were so damn excited we bounced about introducing ourselves to every. single. member. of the team … and four guys who just happened to be standing in the foyer and turned out to be US Marines instead of footy players. No wonder they looked confused when we asked where they played.

Much like Hunter S. Thompson, Sassy prefers to conduct all her interviews in hot-tubs.

Let’s just say that the Axemen throw a great clambake. Heh, clam. There were eskies of drinks, an all-Aussie playlist, even giant Aussie flags on the wall.

We even had a special encounter with a couple staying at the hotel. They were just chillin in the hottub having some beers, sitting next to a big pile of clothes … OMG IS THAT PILE OF CLOTHES A BABY? AND IS IT … CRYING? DID YOU GUYS BRING YOUR BABY TO A BAR?

Cut to Sassy and Kiki looking after the kid in the hotel bar while the parents smashed a few drinks. They crooned it Crowded House songs until it finally fell asleep and the parents headed to bed. It totally liked them, especially when the girls sang two part drunken harmonies to you’d better be homeeee, sooooooon.

The Axemen apologised profusely and explained to us … ‘we have white trash here in Florida, you know’. We can tell. Also, as if there’s any need to apologise. We’re Australian! We roll with the punches, or something.

Disclaimer: May not be actual Jacksonville sportscaster.

Now in general, Americans aren’t always the most up-to-date with Australian culture. More than once we were told how well we speak English …. um, thanks?

So you can imagine how shocked Kiki was when, viciously hungover after our Australia Day extravaganza, she was watching the local news and the sportscaster covering the Australian Open said: ‘as a sidenote, it’s Australia Day today down there. Everyone gets drunk and the country pretty much shuts down’.

She ran into Sassy and Lozzy’s room and yelled OMG GUYS, THE FLORIDA NEWS JUST SAID SOMETHING ABOUT AUSTRALIA DAY … HOW WEIRD IS THAT?

We thought how impressive it was that Florida natives know so much about our country, then promptly forgot about it. Until we met Spinner that evening for a sneaky pre-dinner drink. He strolled in, looked at us all, and started cracking up and shaking his head. He deadpanned: ‘you were certainly … memorable last night’.

According to Spinner, Jacksonville’s local sportscaster is a Big Deal. And when he was grandly introduced to Kiki, she grabbed his shoulder and announced:

‘I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHO YOU ARE … LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT AUSTRALIA DAY.’

The rest, as they say, is history.

Disclaimer: not actual Spinner.

Meanwhile, the reason for the Aussie welcome extravaganza was the one-of-a-kind Daryl ‘Spinner’ Howland. Why is he called Spinner? According to the boys: “you don’t wanna know”. We couldn’t even get Spinner drunk to force him to confess, so you can just make up your own sordid stories. It’s more fun that way. Spinner’s an Aussie living over in the States (and a DIRTY QUEENSLANDER. The crafty bastard didn’t tell us that before we drove for three hours to meet him).

The way he tells it, he had found his way into a college rugby team somewhere up north, and in the middle of a team trip around the South, Spinner had a … well, a big night on the tiles in Jacksonville Beach, and woke up too late and too disgusting to make his plane back home.

So in true Aussie style, he just made the best of it. Necessity is the mother of invention, right? So he set up in Jacksonville, started a footy team with a mate and called them the Axemen.

Truth is, knowing Spinner is kinda like knowing the mafia. Hiring a car? Mention Spinner’s name for a discount. Renting a hotel room? Mention Spinner. Trying to dispose of a body? Um …

Knowing Spinner is also kinda like knowing the big banana. Or pineapple. Or whatever. Something that is really well-known and from Queensland. He is unmistakably Australian. In part this is because the back of his car is completely plastered with Australian memorabilia even though we’re 99% sure he is the only Aussie in Florida. Every person in the entire city knows who he is. He’s like a bald-headed Queensland version of the Beatles. Universally recognisable! Plus, he knows Russell Crowe.

We got so dependent on Spinner we became almost incapable of doing things on our own. Every time we got lost we phoned him for directions (and every time we were late he phoned us to ask “are you lost?”). When Kiki had a hangover she reached out her arms and cried SPINNER FIX ITTTTT.

He’s also like the mafia in that if he chooses to, he’s the most generous and considerate guy a blogger could meet. He showed us the best mexican restaurant in town, and the best time we had maybe in the whole of our trip. THANK YOU SPINNER!

When Spinner wasn’t in charge … this is what we ate.

And after spending three weeks dealing with Polite Americans who are appalled when you say ‘Jesus Christ’ or words like ‘vagina’, it was so so nice to see an Aussie man again. Within five minutes of meeting us Spinner was hurrying us up by saying “What the fuck are you doing? I told em you’re Aussies and you don’t take long … so hurry the fuck up! Fair suck of the sauce bottle girls.”

In fact our only gripe with Spinner is that he is quite clearly brainwashing the entire team to support Queensland instead of New South Wales. Surely this is a breach of some kind of coaching or humanitarian law? Anyone?

But let’s talk Axemen. We had to know how the hell any of them ended up playing league. There are a few Aussie imports, and a new Aussie head coach but otherwise it’s all-American. Randy Dewey converted after playing rugby union at his Catholic School, Rich Alleger converted after playing union up north. And in our favourite story of all, Florida boy John Turlington was poached on his very first day of university in Jacksonville. He walked in at abouy 6′4, barefoot, massive, and wearing denim overalls with nothing underneath, and the rest of the Axemen thought … YES. This is the kind of man who needs to play rugby league. They were right.

Turlington: Face of a beauty queen …

… feet of a giant.

And the Axemen are going great guns. After starting only three years ago, the team is already breaking even and about to start turning a profit. This might be because they have brilliant marketers who come up with ideas like $1 beers on game day. It might also be because they have two guys in the team called Apple Pope and Taco Pope. Awesome, right?

Next step is to get the Yanks to start a national rugby league. If they do, the Axemen are sooo in it – just look on the website in the poll on the left. Bitches are miles ahead in the public vote for which cities they want in the comp.

Meanwhile thanks to the ~*magic*~ of technology, now we get to watch the Axemen games even though we’re all the way over in Australia. Just get on the website and click ‘Home’ and ‘JaxAxeTV’ … wheee! You’ll definitely want to watch because the Axemen are currently sitting undefeated on top of the ladder in the AMNRL and going great guns.

WE LOVE YOU BOYS!

And now we’ll leave you with the Jacksonville Axemen’s ad; written by and STARRING one Spinner Howland. Enjoy, babies!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFSx9R9hRHY]

Special thanks to Spinner, Jay, Rich and Jono for squiring us about town. And the rest of you, buy a t shirt why don’t you? We all have the KISS MY JAX shirts and wear them with pride.

And if you’d like to hear what the Axemen think about US, well you can here and here!

You know who you are.

We are sure you posting threatening, harassing and intimidating comments anonymously on Errol makes you feel like an awesome human being. Congratulations.

Pretty simply, what you are doing is illegal. The police have been informed and action is currently being taken against you.

And for anyone else out there that thinks this sort of fuckery is amusing, it isn’t. It is a serious matter and we are treating it as such. If anyone else decides to partake in this sort of behaviour, they too will be reported to the police.

We did think that there might be a little article coming out soon, featuring an interview with us and some of our thoughts on the recent Four Corners story, on Matthew Johns being stood down from Channel Nine and the Storm, and on the issues of sexual politics, sexual violence and rugby league that the story raised.

But as always, ya can’t control the media, right? We have no idea if or when it will be published, so we wanted to explain why we haven’t said something about it here as yet.

We try not to talk about league scandals too much on Errol, not because we don’t care – that’s definitely not the case. Rugby League is very dear to our hearts and any hint of a scandal kills us in the soul. Kiki has talked about bad behaviour in general in league before (and it’s worth a read). We are certainly opinionated, sometimes really confused, about these issues.

The main reason we avoid discussing them is simply that Errol is so lighthearted. One of the commenters on Cricket Australia called our columns ‘joywork’ (one of the best compliments of our lives so far).

We would be mortified if anyone came onto our site and thought we were discussing any of this without the seriousness and the respect that it deserves. And let’s be honest, wouldn’t you think that if you saw a discussion of sexual violence next to Intern John-John photoshopped in a cowboy hat?

Anyone who saw ‘Clare’ on Four Corners or Phil Gould speaking on the Footy Show knows that these cases are hard enough on everyone involved without feeling like people are taking the piss out of them.

What we’re saying is there’s really place for every discussion. And sometimes context is really important. But if you do want to know what we think, or if you have a suggestion of where it might be appropriate – please let us know. Maybe it’s the arts student in all of us, but we think the more discourse, the better.

We can’t comment on the sexual side of footy culture. But from our first-hand experience – despite a few jibes from footy fans – our interactions with players, ex-players, coaches and administrators have been nothing but positive. They have been respectful and extremely encouraging of what we do on Errol.

Whether we have just been lucky, we can’t say, but those kind of examples will be a massive part of any changes being made in the game’s culture. Since the introduction of the Playing by the Rules program in 2004, a lot of changes already have been made at some clubs.

In the meantime, we’re gonna keep doing what we do, because we have seen first-hand all the positive impacts league can have – especially in country areas - in creating community, supporting young people, and just giving a bit of entertainment. We are 100% committed to supporting, promoting and adoring the goodness in footy. Because trust us, it’s there.

Meanwhile, please leave us a comment with any of your suggestions or to tell us what you think! (nothing that violates libel laws pls. Deleting offensive comments is tiiiring).

Because we just knew that post-cruise we’d want to have a few days of not getting blind and inappropriate, we planned it so Florida’s Disneyworld would be the next leg of our trip. Crafty right? We should start The Oh Errol Travel Agency for Drunks, where we send you off to a wholesome location at the end of your itinerary to wash away all your sins.

So we battled Miami airport again, where Sassy proudly showed off newfangled cultural knowledge by ordering a cafe con leche with ease, and got on a flight to Orlando.

[Turns out: it's just COFFEE WITH MILK. - Sassy]

Our flight was made by a fierce male attendant who cracked himself up over the PA, and scored a pair of sunnies that someone had left behind. And by ’someone’ I mean ‘a lady’.

Lured by the promise of alligators playing instruments, we opted to stay at Disney’s Port Orleans Resort. Off we went on the Magical Express, which is a fancy name for a Disney themed airport shuttle where you have to tip your bus driver. TIP THE GOD DAMN BUS DRIVER.

We were so pissed off about it we used our Australian Initiative and refused any help with our bags. It’s ok, we’re Australian! Rusty probably carries his own luggage! Turns out our room was REALLY FAR and involved crossing a pool of some kind but we did save 5 bucks and make a point in the process (to ourselves). TAKE THAT AMERICA.

We never found those friggin alligators, but we DID find an extensive array of Disney merchandise right there in our resort. Even Lozzy, who is usually the cheapest most restrained of us, lost her damn mind in that gift shop and walked out 100 bucks poorer. Our best find? Kiki and Lozzy’s MATCHING SPANGLY ZAC EFRON WATCHES.

Oh yes, those are glittered bands! We think this was a finishing touch to the design. Like the merch makers had the face all decked out with diamantes, but they sent it off to Zeffie for final approval and he was all ‘needs more spangles’.

Our first day was spent at the Magic Kingdom, which really IS quite magical.

We knew it would be because on the way in, one of the staff members complimented Sassy – who was wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt with her newly purchased princess hat – on her ’shirt and hat combination’. It was awesome.

Oh yeah, we wore Disney themed hats and ears all day. It was v inconvenient having to take them off for rides. Hat hair is a bitch.

We went on the teacups (which by the way feels JUST LIKE BEING DRUNK.  take note children: this is your future) got wishing dust in our hair and rode Space Mountain, and then toddled off to the Epcot Center for lunch in fake Mexico. Lunch with margaritas. For some reason everything we did after lunch was just that little! bit! more! fun!.

Unfortunately our day went downhill when Kiki suggested we go on something she remembered as being all fun and sciencey, but since then has apparently been turned into THE MOST TERRIFYING SHIT EVS. See for yourselves. We had to sit on that bloody thing with no escape for like 8 minutes. It was like in The Simpsons when they go to Duff Gardens and Lisa’s hallucinating on the “Duff Beer for me, Duff Beer for you, I’ll have a Duffff, you have one too” ride.

And it turns out that one day is pretty much the limit on the magic of Disney.  One day, that’s it. After twenty four hours you start to wonder whether anyone has ever gone postal at Disneyworld. We say … likely. We just thank god we were too lazy to kick any of the whingy little kids in the shins because we don’t trust that American justice system. WE’VE SEEN THE FUGITIVE YOU KNOW.

So we spent our second day in Disney’s Animal Kingdom, looking at animalz and trying to avoid being run over by all the people riding motorised complimentary Disneyworld scooters while eating ice creams.  We are not kidding.  Blah blah cute animals blah, but do you know what? They would still be cute if the whole of the Animal Kingdom wasn’t massively offensive.

Americans get a bad rap for not being the most culturally aware of cats but this shit was ridiculous. You can visit ‘Africa’ where all the buildings are made to look old and shitty and falling apart – from violence that NATO has done nothing to stop, perhaps? – and all the signs are spelt wrong (because Africans can’t speak English properly, of course) and miserable-looking black people from like, Detroit, have to dress up in feathers and do completely made-up ‘African’ dances in the fictional land of Harambe.  Those bitches probably have college educations.

Apparently ‘Asia’ is also just like Africa in the sense that it’s just one big country where everything is ‘Asian’ and you can buy egg rolls from a cart with Indian writing on it. We know the peeps like all that tribal wilderness stuff, but this has kinda passed kitsch and headed right into demeaning.  You know lots of Africans speak English, right?  They just have different accents. They’re not cavemen. It’s total cultural imperialism and really noble savage-y and patronising and made us feel icky in our fat, fat, ranch dressing bellies.

So here’s a little tip from us to you: don’t ever go to the Animal Kingdom if you have an arts degree and/or have ever been anywhere in Asia or Africa.  You will deadset have a stress-induced stroke.

PS – We say this with love, but a country where you have to tip bus drivers probably shouldn’t be implying anyone is backwards. Just sayin … nobody’s perfect. RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE ALREADY AMERICA.

Now that rage is out of the system … stay tuned for the massive super-partytimes finale edition of the United States of Errol: The One Where We Meet the Jacksonville Axemen. It was one of our fave parts of the trip, and you will love love love it.</p

About a year ago, Kiki and Lozzy read that Hanson would be performing on a cruise ship. We mocked this accordingly, then decided to, you know, pay hundreds of dollars and go on it. Yeah, we’re now Official Rock Boaters. We hate ourselves too.

But let’s not get too caught up in the past. The real story starts in Miami … party in the city where the heat is on, all night on the beach till the break of dawn.

Let it be known that Miami is A SHITHOLE. Will Smith may have led you to believe ‘This the type of town I could spend a few days in, Miami the city that keeps the roof blazin’. Will, why do you lie?

We spent two days there and almost lost our damn minds. We thought everybody would be wearing Hawaiian shirts and straw fedoras and grooving down the street to festive Latin music.  Instead it’s like the Gold Coast, if you ripped out the small amount of soul the Goldy has and replaced it with 85 different Ed Hardy stores. No wonder Dexter murders people.  We would too if we lived in a city where people wore embroidered Ed Hardy ugg boots.

Granted our time there was spent almost entirely at  the truly horrendous Miami airport (aka where souls go to die), and in our room watching Confessions of a Teen Idol (ok that part was awesome. Have you guys seen how terrifying Jeremy Jackson is these days? They should put his photo up in schools to deter kids from … well, everything. And Christopher Atkins – still hot.)

Miami is also a city filled with cultural landmines.  The following is an edited transcript of ‘Sassy trying to buy a coffee’.

Sassy: Can I have a cafe latte to take away please?

Waitress: … Cafe?

Sassy: Yes please, cafe latte.

Waitress: Cafe con leche?

Sassy: ….. *tick tock*

Sassy: Cafe … latte?

Waitress: Cafe con leche?

Sassy: ….

Waitress: ….

Sassy: …. I’M FOREIGN.

Waitress: Cafe con leche.

From there we made it through the gauntlet of bag handlers (including the guy who said “… you know you can tip me if you want”. SERIOUSLY. LOOK INTO GETTING BADGES. HOW ELSE ARE WE MEANT TO KNOW WHO TO TIP?) and boarded the Rock Boat from the port side, avast ye mateys.

As far as we can tell, after releasing two (moderately) successful songs in the nineties, Sister Hazel invented The Rock Boat so they could:

a) have a captive audience to play to;

b) get to see the Bahamas;

c) have somewhere to live for at least 5 days a year; or

d) all of the above.

We guess (d). And fair enough!  Not everyone can live off song royalties like Hugh Grant in About a Boy.  They also take care of all the loudspeaker announcements, so as we settled into our state room we were greeted with:

HEY THERE ROCKERS!  WELCOME TO THE ROCK BOAT NINERRRR! I’M DREW COPELAND FROM SISTER HAZEL … ARE YOU READY TO PARTY PARTY PARTY?

Seriously that’s what he said word for word. We couldn’t believe it either. We all looked at each other in disbelief  then rolled off the beds in hysterics.

We thought nothing could top this. Then, later that night, we hear the singer of some band we don’t know yell the following -

OOOOOOH YEAH! The boat has officially left port and DADDY’S DRIVING NOW!  Daddy’s in controllll.  Oh wow who ordered all those shots? OH IT WAS ME. WOOOOOO.  We’re not in port anymore so LET’S GET FUCKED UP!

Can I get a helllllllll yeaaaaaah?

The crowd all yelled HELL YEAH in unison then all wooooooooed the way only Yanks can for a good 10 minutes.

Oh, Americans.

To our delight/horror it only got more American as we went on.  The boat has not one, not two, but three hot tubs, all filled with pasty Americans in tiny sunglasses (why do they all wear such small sunglasses?), horrible bikinis and too-high boardshorts. Smashing Miller Lites and making the rock handsign. If there’s one thing Americans love more than that weird orange cheese they eat, it’s a hot tub.

pic: sixthman.net

The most disturbing thing about the hot tub obsession was their willingness to get their kit off in Not Very Warm Weather. It really wasn’t hot enough for frolicking poolside in swimwear. Especially when the majority of them were the colour of pale pale milk. It was like cruising with 1200 Ben Hornbys (btw he totally had a baby in the off season. A baby NOT popped out by us. We are tres upset by this development.)

Now this cruise included a day in Half Moon Cay, and a day in Nassau.  Because the weather was miserable, we couldn’t dock at Half Moon Cay (we hear it’s lovely).  And because we were drunkenly passed out in semi-comas …. we slept through Nassau. Seriously, we woke up and were all “ooh we can’t feel the boat moving anymore, hurrah! Sea legs!”, then Lozzy opened the curtain to see that a) we couldn’t feel the boat moving because we were in port, and b) everyone was walking BACK to the boat – not only had we missed a port, but it was 5pm and we’d lost an entire day.

Suffice to say, we saw a lot of the cruise ship, and not much else.  To our surprise, it’s kind of awesome.  We had our very own little Cruise Steward, Mario, just to look after us and our room.

Note: May or may not be the actual Mario

He would wait outside our room in the afternoons until we woke up to make sure that we were alive.  Then while we struggled up to the 24-hour pizza buffet, he would sneak into our room and make us adorable little towel animals to make our hearts smile.  A different one every day!

Towel elephant never forgets towel facts.

Can’t figure out how to use the tv?  Mario knows!  Can’t find your room because you’re drunk?  Mario knows!  Broken the toilet? Mario will say ‘Oops!’ and call a plumber! A REALLY REALLY SCARY PLUMBER who accused us of putting a towel in our toilet. Coz that’s what people do on cruises, you know.

Poor Kiki, being the only one of us who could get out of bed and/or was wearing pants, had to deal with Scary Toilet Man. (For the full lolz please put on a sub continental accent in your brain. Trust us, its funnier.)

STM: (said accusingly) Did you put a towel in this toilet?

K: Errr….no. Why would I put a towel in the toilet?

STM: I don’t believe you. I’ll check now.

*Kiki returns to bed to hide under the covers from the scary man. STM fiddles with the pipes for a while*

*Kiki feels oddly guilty and goes to check on STM*

STM: (looks up with pure hate in his eyes) YOU PUT A TOWEL IN THIS TOILET. WHY DO YOU LIE?

K: What! No! I SWEAR mate! I didn’t do it.

STM: I show you!

K: No I believe you, I’m just saying I didn’t put it in there.

STM-  *pulls a soaking wet towel from the pipes* THIS. THIS IS A TOWEL. YOU SEE?

K: …………………

STM: SEE! TOWEL!  *slams door*

May we just say at this point that yes, we probably were drunk enough that night to pee and mistake a towel as toilet paper, but that was NOT the reason we needed emergency plumbing. We ran into the bathroom and realised THE TOWEL RACK IS OVER THE LOO. Seriously Carnival, that is some of the poorest interior design we have ever seen.

Back to Mario – we would like him in our everyday life, please. When he came in on the last day and made a sooky face to say ‘You’re leaving meeee!‘ we almost went for the hug. Sure he makes towel animals for everyone, but he totally loved us best.

But for all the good stuff, like getting to hang out with the bands in the Casino bar and never having to worry about finding a taxi home, come the bad parts … like knowing that whatever you did last night might have been captured by the cruise photographer, or seeing the shaggy-haired rocker you pashed the night before sporting full rock star regalia while serving up pasta salad at the Sun & Sea lunch buffet.

We decided to latch onto a new married couple of BFFs that we met in the super-classy Cheers bar (hi Jay and Suellen!) and discovered another great thing about cruising: people can’t get away.

On the fourth night we cruise-ship-telephoned them up and took them to the fancypants Galaxy dining room (you have to wear SHOES there and everything) for a lobster and champagne dinner. You know, just the five of us. On a group date. We are so creepy. Totally worth it though to see the Galaxy waiters jump the tables to dirty dance and have a group singalong. We heart cruising.

pic by suellen

If you happen to be curious about what the Hanson boyz got up to while all this was going on, you can read all about it in this hilarious and detailed email that we sent to Ivey and London over at The New Way. It was pretty much the first thing we did once we returned to dry land – in bed together, while eating 100 bucks worth of Jerry’s Deli and cracking ourselves up – and was also the best time we had in our whole stay in Miami.

Taylor* still dresses like a lesbian and wore capri pants – yes, manpris – to Nassau. Zac is such a douchebag that he has been renamed Alan, who we took to booing constantly (seriously, we’re still saying ‘booo alan!’ to express distaste for anything in general life. It’s just so catchy!). Isaac was outraged at not being able to get a freakin Mojito due to lack of mint.  WE HEAR YOU IKE!  And both their shows were AMAZING.

But our favourite night by far was their second gig in the cavernous indoor theatre known as The Palladium. Because 99.9% of all Hanson fans lack lives, they all started lining up for seats at 11am. The show didn’t start until 12 hours later.

That was their method. Ours was to drunkenly wander in at 10:55pm, skip down towards the front, inexplicably find 2 cute boys, flirt with them, drink their beer and then park ourselves next to them for the entire show. Note we were in prime position RIGHT in front of Taylor and his piano. Considering the rabid Hanson fans didn’t gouge our eyes out, we decided they must have thought they were our mans minding seats for us. Sweet.

[Note - I am a fetching shade of orange due to the cruise gift shop fake tan I had to resort to buying. I am usually less carrot like - K]

[Note 2 - I am not featured in this pic because either a) It was an Alan song so I had gone off to pee, or b) I'm actually there on the left of Sassy, but too short to see. Sadface. - L]

[Note 3 - I have my hair tied back and am wearing neutral browns because after my shameful behaviour on the two previous nights I was trying to be ~*incognito*~. It didn't work. - S]

If you’re wondering about the ‘bitches’ label, these are the two girls who dampened Lozzy’s Hanson experience by sitting down the entire time and rolling their eyes every time she busted out a dance move behind them. To rectify this, Lozzy thought it would be appropriate to tell them “Look, if you’re at a Hanson show you don’t fucking sit down”. They didn’t reply, either because they’re bitches or they couldn’t understand the Aussie accent. Probs a little from column A, a little from column B.

Then at the end Lozzy used her grade-A biting wit to tell them ‘YOU SUCK’, realised that in the light they were both absolute battleaxes and had clearly been in a number of fights in their time, and Sassy had to step in to break it all up. Good times.

Miss Kiki and the boy in the captain’s hat got along famously. And by that we mean she grabbed his ass, told him he was cute then went the pash. In her defence, he certainly didn’t seem to mind. She also grabbed him and whispered I’M MAKING OUT WITH A BOY DURING A HANSON SHOW…IS THIS HEAVEN?

And honestly, that’s not even half of it. We could easily spring a trilogy of Rock Boat posts on you, but we have the rest of the trip to cover.

[*We feel like we should address the pic floating around the internets of our beloved TayTay, to be frank, licking a dick (not safe for work. But shit, if you're gunna get fired for something, don't you kind of want it to be for getting caught looking at Taylor Hanson with a dick in his mouth?). Unfortunately, it's fake. This is most obvious from the palm tree t-shirt the subject is wearing. TayHan would NEVER wear something that ugly and chest-hair covering.

The best part is it's been dubbed MmmCock. Awesome. - Lozzy]

Well it’s been a week since we set foot back on Aussie soil, and we’re almost over our jetlag/hangovers/really hot throat infections that we all got from each other.  Speaking of, Lozzy swears any illness suffered was from lack of Vegemite and not excessive consumptions of booze and food. WE NEED OUR VITAMIN B.

So here you get Part 1 of our trip, which we’ve narrowed down to include the things we think Errol readers will most appreciate – tales of us being inappropriate, inept, drunk and really really lolz. In dot points, coz that’s how we roll.

* We decided the best way to cure horrendous jetlag (Sassy was extra tired from lol’ing at Carl Barron on the plane. We mean his standup, not like he was ON the plane. Which would’ve been fucking amazing just btw) in LA was to take massive naps, then follow them up by eating mexican, drinking giant margaritas and getting hideously drunk.

Note: approximately one quarter of actual size.

Seriously guys, Americans make THE STRONGEST DRINKS IN THE WORLD. There is clearly no Responsible Service of Alcohol over there. Obviously, unlike Australians, Yanks can be trusted to have a few drinks then go home and … do whatever it is Americans do. Probably watch The Closer (seriously, they are unnaturally obsessed with that show).

If drinks that strong were served at home we would deadset not be a functioning country.  Not to mention that if you could buy booze 24 hours a day from pharmacies and service stations the way you can in the States we would never ever have a reason to stop drinking and go to bed.

Obviously these lethal drinks are directly to blame for us ending up in a fraternity hot tub later that evening. We wish we were joking.

To Sigma Chi (UCLA chapter) - thanks heaps for the hospitality, and living up to our expectations by having red plastic cups and beer pong. IT’S JUST LIKE THE MOVIES! We also hope the fraternity brother who found the two pairs of  abandoned tights  we left behind enjoys them. They may come in handy for their next hazing ritual.

* LA is all over the bootleg Obama merch – we bought t shirts for various lucky bitches back home and even found OBAMA WATER. Sassy scored the last travel mug available in the entire state of California … apparently those babies are massive sellers, and we’re not surprised.  It’s awesome AND practical.

Yes we can…buy illegal merchandise.

* For some unknown reason, we were an absolute hit with the people of Santa Monica. Especially with black men. Can we say that? ‘Black men’? Well we are! And they loved our work.

Highlights include 2 guys hanging outside a shoe store, hearing our accents then asking if we really have kangaroos in Australia. He then turned to his companion and said ‘YOU SEEN THOSE MOTHERFUCKAS?’ complete with a full kangaroo impression. Including hopping and his hands held up like little paws. AMAZING.

Also the man who yelled at Sassy from across the street DAAAAAMN…WHAT U DOIN WITH THAT BODY MAMI?

* We got to hang out with one of Errol’s biggest fans, the charming Von, who we took on a romantical bike riding group date along Venice Beach. He is quite the Southern gentleman and helped us remember how to ride. He even got behind Kiki and pushed her along until she figured out how to use the pedals.

Aussie men would never do something so chivalrous. Instead they would’ve just pissed themselves laughing at us, and maybe taken photos of us falling off and injuring ourselves horribly.  By the way, that expression ‘like riding a bike’, is such a lie.  Riding bikes is HARD. We had sore lady parts for days afterwards.

To Von – thanks for not being completely horrified when Kiki licked your face over dinner. Also for being generally adorable and letting us grope your sweet sweet muscles. We’ll return the favour when you come to Australia. Maybe without the face licking. We know it makes you uncomfortable.  In our defence, living with two other people, 24 hours a day, kind of erodes your personal boundaries, and we didn’t have many of those before we left Australia.

Our bike date led us to a truly amazing bar on the Santa Monica Boardwalk called Big Dean’s that has literally not changed since the 70’s, except that now it’s the local of Luis from Passions. Seriously, he was there.

Oh,  sorry…. did you say you’re not familiar with the soap opera Passions? LIAR.  Everyone loves Passions.Big Dean’s is famous for serving ‘the first beer of the day’ in Santa Monica, which is how we knew it was our kind of place.  We hit it off with a strange man named Huck and Eddie the Hot Bartender – we would tell you all about how we decided they should be in a new strand of Law & Order called Cat Detectives, but you kind of had to be there.

We then all walked (except for Sassy who RODE Huck’s pink bicycle really really fast. It was terrifying. If it were Kiki doing it there would’ve been broken limbs galore) to the classy establishment Bubba Gump Shrimp Co (JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES!). There, of course, we made a spectacle of ourselves by getting drunk and dancing in the aisles to The Veronicas while everyone else there was just eating dinner.



Eating ten thousand calories a day gives you loads of energy for bike-riding. Thanks, American food!



Thanks to the Bubba Gump bar guy who told us since we were Australian we should forget the entire cocktail menu and just get Blue Hawaiians … “they’re the strongest drink on the menu”.  Clearly he has encountered Australians before. Our heads the next morning were not so grateful.

NO THANKS to Huck for riding off into the night with Sassy’s sunglasses after realising none of us were going to shag him. They were Really Good Glasses.

NO THANKS to Kiki’s brother.  When she rocked up at the hotel door and rang him to let her into the house he was very unhelpful, and very meanly pointed out: ‘you’re in America, you drunken fool’.

* You’re probably wondering why we spent all our time in Venice Beach and Santa Monica, when there’s you know … the whole rest of the giant Los Angeles metropolis to explore. The truth is, Venice is pretty much our spiritual home.  We like to pretend it’s still the seventies, and Jay Adams might appear unexpectedly over the crest of the hill and board down to the beach.

We also love that it’s a little pocket of America that’s completely free of khaki shorts, Juicy Couture tracksuits and Republicans.  Instead, you get awesomeness like this:



Sup? Nothin …. just playin my flute shirtless in the street.

Thanks to the lovely local who stopped us in our tracks to tell us “the sun … it shines for YOU, girl.”  THAT’S HOW NICE PEOPLE ARE IN DOGTOWN. Granted most of them are homeless and possibly mentally ill but whatevs. They make pretty crafts and dance to the music in the head. Happy crazies!

* Fear not though, explorers that we are, we jumped in our white Corolla (according to Thrifty Rental it’s “sporty”), put Sassy behind the wheel and some 1990s Coolio on the stereo, and hopped on the freeway to Hollywood.  It looked a lot like this:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcGR7H32L20]

We sang the Melrose Place song as we drove past Melrose Place, we bought vitally important things like vintage tutus, white denim shorts, and esoteric books and tarot cards from The Bodhi Tree bookstore …  Sassy even managed to throw a fit of cultural arrogance and earn a $45 parking ticket by parking on the wrong side of the road.

Thanks to the Los Angeleno who saw us arguing about the parking ticket (I TOLD YOU NOT TO PARK THERE! … BUT YOU CAN DO IT IN AUSTRALIA!) and just cracked up.  It was very Australian of you. Of course, we replied with the sentence we used every time people were confused/offended/disturbed by us: “It’s OK, we’re Australian”.

* Because we are awesome cultural investigators and anthropologists, we learned some valuable lessons about the United States and American culture that we would like to share with you.

1. Always keep wads of 1 dollar bills on you. You have to tip pretty much everyone. Yelling YOU SHOULD GET BARACK TO INCREASE MINIMUM WAGE or I’M AUSTRALIAN WE DON’T TIP THERE doesn’t go down very well. We decided everyone who needs to be tipped should wear a big brightly coloured badge saying ‘Please tip me’.

2. Never, ever, try to imitate Barack Obama giving a speech while speaking to a black person.  It will end up sounding like Robert Downey, Jr. in Tropic Thunder. That is not a good thing.

3. Do not watch American television. You will become addicted to Law and Order and CSI because one – if not both – of them is screening literally 24 hours a day. You will also develop this really overwhelming feeling that in order for your life to be complete, you need to buy the P90X Extreme Home Fitness System.

4.  Yanks, for some reason, don’t lick salt off their hands with Tequila shots. When they see you sitting at the bar licking the back of your own hand, they will think you are insane. True story.

Look out for Part Two of our United States of Errol adventures coming soon, kiddies.  And yes, by ‘coming soon’, we mean ‘eventually’.  But IT WILL be WORTH IT.  It’s the Rock Boat edition, so you know it will be good. Love and kisses from us.

HAVE YOU MISSED US?

We are sooooooo terribly sorry kittens, we know we promised you at least a few updates as Lozzy, Sassy and Kiki travel through the United States, but we have been busy like little bees, and all of a sudden three weeks have passed without one post from us. It’s pretty much a travesty. Believe me, we feel just awful.

It’s also possible that by ‘busy like bees’, I mean that we were variously drunk, hungover, and unable to figure out where we left the laptop charger / how to work the hotel internet / whether we can scab people’s free wifi in the States without a mob of scary Yank cops busting in on us.

However! We have been seeing America Hunter S. Thompson style and have some amazing tales to tell. Not to mention all the gorgeous photos we’ve snapped along the way. We are tres artsy sometimes.

We are now on the last leg of our trip, living it up at The Palms in Las Vegas. Yeah, a 5 star hotel on the strip…WHAT WHAAAAAAT. We be superstaaaaaahs!

Bret Michaels is playing downstairs tonight and the array of whorebag outfits is truly fucking awesome. Seriously, its like 1989 threw up. It’s amazing.

Tomorrow is the Super Bowl. Yeah, who cares right? But we are going to find a bar playing it specifically so we can get drunk and yell things like ONLY PUSSIES WEAR HELMETS and TRY PLAYING FOR 40 MINUTES STRAIGHT YOU FAT FUCKS. Offending Americans is probably our favourite thing to do in the whole wide world. That and lie in bed together eating pie and talking about Hanson.

SO we will be home in about a week and chock full of lolz for you. They will be delivered in instalments. Like an advent calendar but far less holy. It should be just what you need to count you down to the start of footy season.  Wheee!  See you soon, bitches.