Are you a person who will offer someone directions if they’re looking lost? What about if they ask? Or are you the type to shrug, say you don’t know, and if they persist just point anywhere, in order to get the person asking to go away as quickly as possible? I like to think I’m someone who will help where I can, but in my life I’ve been all three. There’s even a fourth type, that’s also been me at times. It’s the person who’s asked for directions but isn’t sure, however really wants to help. So I’ll point where I believe the destination to be, only to realise after the person asking has departed, that I’ve pointed in the entirely wrong direction. I’ve also discovered that running after this person while yelling and waving, only makes them run away from you in the wrong direction even faster. Advertisement So all I can do is hope that they figure out to ask someone else, or they’ve got enough provisions to last until they’re rescued. As one of the last remaining humans who seems to walk anywhere in the suburbs, people often pull over and ask me for directions. Often I don’t know, and then have to put up with questions about why I’m wondering around a suburb if I don’t know where I’m going either. Basically the person is saying, ‘What has gone so wrong in your life that you’re an adult human who doesn’t have a car?’ Then there are the people who don’t believe that you don’t know, so will hound you for help. In the end I’ll just point towards what I hope is a main road, and they’ll smile and say, ‘See? That’s wasn’t too difficult now was it?’ Half an hour later they’ll then creep around a corner, still lost and spy me, still walking. This time, they’ll pretend they haven’t even seen me. Which is fine with me. I’ve even been asked for directions out of a shopping centre car park. As it turned out, I didn’t know either. Thanks to Google Maps what […]

So I’ve finally organised a book launch. It’s my first ever book! Please do come along, and invite whoever you can. Here are the details: On Wed, March 26 from 6pm at the Clyde Hotel, 385 Cardigan Street, Carlton. Finishing at 8pm sharp (ish). There will be finger food and (some) booze. WOW. With a few short words from: The ‘Fabulous’ Adam Richard (Spicks and Specks, etc) Antoni Jach (My creative writing lecturer) With music from: The Moosejaw Rifle Club as well as Ben Hynes and Luke HYnes. Supported by Readings Carlton. Who’ll be supplying copies of my book. For other books go to their store. Oh and I’ll be signing books if you like. I can sign my name, or the name of someone famous. Most popular so far have been: Clive Palmer, Gina Rinehart and Muhammad Ali. More details: http://www.xaviertoby.com/ To buy the book now: http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/ Join the Facebook Event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/779575808737119/?previousaction=join&source=1 Read the first four chapters of my book here: http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/static/files/assets/5211afa1/Mining_My_Own_Business_Extract.pdf  

In much of Australia today, it’s stupidly extremely really very hot. Like instantly start sweating, dog won’t mind not being walked, go to the bottle shop and hide in the beer fridge hot. Especially in the parts of Australia that are on fire. In much of America, it’s ridiculously, outrageously freezing cold. Like instantly turn your snot to icicles, don’t take off your gloves you might lose a finger, huddle around the heater and forget the rest of the world cold. On the news earlier today, I even saw a bird get frozen. While in mid flight. So what does it all mean? You know, in terms of the planet and stuff. During the hottest days of summer I often overhear this: ‘How hot is it today?’ asks one. ‘I know. Bloody climate change,’ replies two. Then during the coldest days of winter, it’s this: ‘How cold is it today?’ asks one. ‘I know. Bloody climate change. Definitely doesn’t exist,’ replies two. Do you know what’s actually proved by a few really hot or cold days? In terms of how the climate might be changing over time? Nothing. Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot. Unless they’re joking. Then they’re not funny, and they’re also an idiot. The most terrifying thing is that people all over the world are saying on television and in newspapers that these extreme weather events are evidence of something. Others are then hearing and reading this and thinking, ‘It is extremely hot/cold/wet/windy/humid/inclement today. They must be right.’ They’re not even a little bit right, but we believe them because humans are hard wired to be stupid. Our brains actually have trouble with logic and reasoning. The way we learn stuff was developed thousands of years ago. You know, back when Madonna and Kylie Minogue and Johnny Depp were just starting out. Back then there weren’t any books. Just like twenty years from now, there’s not going to be any books either. So back in hunter-gather times, when the late show with David Letterman had first gone to air, and the local car manufacturing industry made […]

For many, this is the first official working week of the year. Which sucks. Perhaps you’ve already been back at work for a week or more? Sucked in. Maybe you’re one of those rare people who adore their job, and have been counting down the days until you can get back to work as if it’s Christmas. You freak. For most of us, that first week back after a big break is among the toughest of the year. It’s waking up next to your partner that first day after your honeymoon, looking at them and thinking, ‘Welcome to the rest of my life.’ Work is far worse though, because you can’t have sex with work. Well, you shouldn’t and please don’t give it a go unless you have your own office. With a lock on the door, and closed curtains. Also, most people don’t love their job nearly as much as they love their partner. Which I think is the way it should be. If it was the other way around, we might have people marrying their jobs instead of other people, and we’re a very long way from that. In a lot of places around the world, it’s still illegal for people to marry certain other people. If you don’t love your partner, I recommend telling them immediately, leaving them, having an affair, joining an online dating site, or something. I also recommend never taking relationship advice from someone who’s not in a relationship. Such as myself. Back to holidays, and don’t we all wish we could just go back to our holidays right now? No matter how long they are, they never seem to be long enough. I believe holidays are actually founded on some weird mathematical equation where two weeks of holidays passes in the same amount of time as one hour at work. Especially that first hour after holidays, as you’re staring at over a thousand unread emails. If life were even remotely fair, for every one hour at work, we’d actually get two weeks off. Now there are pills to make stay awake for longer, […]

First appeared on Byte Stories: http://www.bytestories.com/story/8a33a73/my-worst-ever-new-years-ever It was twelve years ago. In the month before, I’d broken up with my second serious girlfriend. In the week before, I’d been involved in a team kayak race that finished on NYE in Swan Hill. At 9pm on NYE I got chatting to a girl in a pub. My teammates left. I stayed. Then the girl left. Alone. At 8pm I’d loaned my drivers licence to a 16-year-old teammate. By 9.30pm I’d been refused entry. Everywhere. Moments after my ex-girlfriend phoned to tell me that so far she’d pashed 17 boys, and three girls, my mobile phone ran out of battery. I walked around looking for my teammates, and then listened to the countdown. Alone. I spent the next seven hours walking around Swan Hill looking for the campsite. I repeatedly found a racecourse, football oval and farming equipment dealership. At 3.30am I started trying to open car doors, in an effort to borrow one. At 3.43am I opened one, and couldn’t start it. By 4.23am I’d hailed over 50 taxis. Unsuccessfully. At 4.32am a guy started walking beside me. He told me that he had four kids, to two different women, and picked oranges 363 days a year to afford the child support, as well as food and alcohol for himself. He was very skinny, and very drunk. At 5.13am I started walking towards oncoming traffic. All the cars drove around me. None stopped. Some tooted. At 7.03am I found the campsite. It was next to the racecourse.

Here’s my second piece of short fiction for 2014. The plan is to write two a week during the year, making a hundred or so in total, and enough for a book.   The Dog Lover After the fight, I escaped to the pub. Like most relationship tussles nobody was completely right, or wrong, but there’s always one person who’s more wrong, and on this occasion, that person was definitely me. Nothing time and a well-worded apology wouldn’t fix. I hoped. Staring at a football game I didn’t care about, and shuffling around words of contrition in my head like a battle formation, my mind kept wandering to make-up sex. About a 20 per cent chance for tonight, and 80 per cent for tomorrow night, after I handed over the present. ‘Can I buy you a beer?’ asked a well-built and good-looking late twenties man who’d materialised behind me. Next to him on a table I noticed he’d placed a beer, newspaper, dog lead and a tightly tied plastic bag. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why does there always have to be a why?’ ‘Sorry mate.’ I nodded at the screen. ‘I’m just watching that.’ ‘Want to play a game?’ He paused. ‘Not that sort of game.’ ‘So what sort then?’ I asked, without looking away from the football. ‘It’s pretty simple. I tell a story, and you try to guess when I’m lying. If you’re right, I buy us both shots. If you’re wrong, you buy the drinks.’ He waited, and then added, ‘I promise that I’ll end up buying more shots than you do.’ ‘Shots of what?’ ‘Tequila.’ ‘Okay then,’ I said. I did a quick safety check. We were in a public place, I was slightly bigger than him, and if he was thinking of sex, he was hiding it exceptionally well. Not that I’ve ever been a good judge, I didn’t even know my wife was interested until she told me. He returned with a fresh beer for each of us. ‘Okay so I’m 35 and I want kids, and I’m great chat, good looking and sensational in […]

Now that New Years Eve is a few days behind us, lets take a moment to reflect on the annual celebration of the year that often feels like, ‘On this night, you need to have the most unbelievably epic time ever or you’re a loser.’ I believe it’s easily the most overrated party of the year. In my opinion though, any party that’s rated at all usually turns out being a turkey. So did you have a good one? Well I did, and I reckon I’ve finally figured out how to do it right. The main problem is that there’s an immense amount of pressure to have a great time. It builds every time someone asks that one horrible question, which seems to be asked almost incessantly from about mid October onwards. ‘What are you doing for New Years?’ There are plenty of other holiday related questions that for me cause a similar amount of dread, sadness, panic and self-pity. These include: ‘What are you doing for Valentines Day?’ ‘Did you know the Queens Birthday Holiday isn’t actually the Queens Birthday? What do you think about that?’ ‘What’s your tip for Melbourne Cup Day?’ ‘Don’t you love Australia Day? Or do you hate Australia?’ There are a few reasons I detest being asked what I’m doing for New Year’s Eve. Here’s a quick list: 1)    The last five big NYE parties I’ve been to have run out of booze. 2)    Four girls have dumped me on New Year’s Eve. Then proceeded to act like a single girl on New Year’s Eve. Right in front of me. 3)    Only three times have I ever successfully tongue kissed anyone on NYE. That number would be seven, if I were allowed to count animals. 4)    Twice I’ve passed out next to a bin and my vomit hours before the countdown. 5)    Once I got lost in a country town and it took me six hours to find my campsite. See what I did there? It was my own little NYE countdown. That’s one part I don’t mind, and I still find fireworks medium-exciting. […]

In Halls Gap, Victoria, at 12.11pm on December 23, 2010, during an intense thunderstorm, one of the oldest trees in Australia was split down its centre by a lightning bolt. A much younger tree to its direct left said, ‘Wow. That was close.’ A middle aged man passing by said, ‘Stuff me. A talking tree.’ Both were Eucalyptus trees located on the main street just outside a combined supermarket, bottle shop and souvenir store in Halls Gap, a small tourist town in the Grampians National Park. The old tree did not catch fire, however both huge halves did topple. One fell across an empty road without incident. The other half fell into the store, destroying a row of camping non-essentials, two spinning postcard display racks, a large beer fridge and a substantial section of the roof. Heavy rain proceeded to pour into the store until it stopped the next morning, destroying plenty of produce. Very luckily, nobody was harmed. The middle aged man was on holiday with his large extended family, who were all in tents at the campsite across the road. His wife and two adult children were in a hotel, because he’d read the weather forecast, and was terrible at assembling tents. A trait he suspected that he’d passed to his children, along with a preference for comfort. Due to the severe weather, he was alone on the street so was the only one to hear the talking tree. Back at the hotel room, he encouraged his wife to come out and witness the damage, however his main aim was to present the talking tree. They stood at the base of the broken tree, and the talking tree said, ‘Just a little to the left, and that could’ve very easily been me.’ ‘Too true,’ said the man. The wife said nothing, and got out her mobile phone to call someone, but had no idea how to notify the world of a talking tree. After that, things progressed quickly for the talking tree. It became known as Terry, a name that the tree did not choose, but it did […]

You know what Xmas and New Year used to mean to me? Stress. Rushing to do too much in too little time, traffic and crawling around overstuffed multi-level car parks. If anything proves the existence of the devil, it’s car parks. No matter how many levels high they might be, it always feels like you’re underground, and surrounded by urine and crime. Once trapped inside, you crawl around looking for a car park or an exit, and there’s always a point when you feel like you’re never going to find either. This is what I imagine it feels like to be in hell. Car parks for me are a reminder of what really happens during the holiday season. You never budget for the time wasted in a car park, and before the holidays begin, you imagine they’ll be filled with all the fun stuff you never had time for during the year. The way life is structured, we always seem to leave the things that we enjoy most until last. I’m guilty of it as well. In order to properly enjoy your leisure time, you make sure everything else is done first, and when that stuff doesn’t get done, once again you’ve run out of time for fun. The holidays are the one time of year when I’m sure it’s not going to happen again, and then it happens again. All those little obligations that slice away at your holiday pie, until it’s all over way too soon. Tasks that you don’t see coming, or because they’re so mundane, you assume they won’t take any time at all. Picking up relatives from the airport, lining up for twenty minutes at the deli counter, searching for a car park. Which all used to make me super stressed. Then with everyone constantly reminding me that it’s the exact opposite of what this time of year is supposed to be about, it just stressed me out even more. So you know what I’ve realised? It’s not all about me. A lot of these obligations involve us doing things for other people. Maybe you’d […]

You know what I hate most about Christmas? Getting presents. I know how that sounds, so let me explain. Every present I get is crap I don’t need, never wanted or that doesn’t fit. If I need or want something, I go out and buy it. Because I’m an adult, not a child. If there is something that I want but don’t have, then I probably don’t need it, so am happy to do without. Worst of all is the barely-concealed disappointment on the face of every adult I give a present to each Christmas. I’d be overjoyed to get a book from a remainders store, wrapped in an old newspaper which features one of my columns. However, it seems that I’m the only one. Nearly as bad is when someone asks what I want for Christmas. Unless you’re willing to kidnap my perfect partner and trap her in a cake or you’ve invented Smurfs, you’re going to disappoint me. Around this time of year so many of us go mental stressing about what to get for whom, and how much it’s going to cost. Opening presents on Christmas morning as a child provided some of my best memories. However, opening them as an adult means waking up way before I want to, and inventing uses for stuff I never wanted. “A cookbook? Wonderful! Because they don’t have recipes for cupcakes on the internet. And although I’ve never baked, who knows?” So here’s my number one suggestion for improving society this Christmas: no presents for anyone over 21 years old. It’s the date when you officially turn into an adult, and when you often get some of your best presents. Meaning that after 21, the presents only get worse. So what’s the point of getting any? You might be thinking that this is unfair for people who don’t have any children, who then have to buy presents for those who do. Well bad luck. Without kids, you have much more disposable income and a social life. Stop whingeing and be thankful. There’s even some logic behind the “no more presents” […]