Movember: Having a ball
Some time a few years ago I was experiencing a slightly sore left nut, sorry, testicle (to keep it medical). It seemed higher than normal and was more uncomfortable than anything. So, despite how awkward it felt, I did the right thing went to the doctor. The man doctor (phew) told me to take off my pants. He then took an inordinate period of time asking me questions while I stood there yogi style. Surely he could’ve asked me the questions while I was still in pants and then have me take them off?
Once he’d finished with the long list of questions he began his inspection. There are few things weirder than being nude from the waist down and have someone inspect your junk, I literally didn’t know where to look. When he was done he told me I was “well hung” (he was referencing the nut itself unfortunately) but referred me for an ultra sound none the less, just to be on the safe side. The number of people to have witnessed my balls was now growing exponentially.
The ultrasound doctor (another dude) was grumpy chap. I’d obviously interrupted his lovely day rubbing glowing, elated pregnant womens bellies with my maybe defective ball bag.
When you go in for a testicular ultrasound they make you do this thing where you fold you dick, sorry penis, up against yourself with a little towel leaving the testicles isolated and hanging out on their own. I guess it’s so they’re not constantly not having to knock your penis out of the way but it also helps you feel like you’re retaining some dignity. Then comes the lube.
The doctor lubed up my balls with no less than a handful of lube. Not a squirt, not a drop but a scoop of lube and then proceeds to draw tracks over my balls with a small vegetable peeling looking device. He tells me he is measuring circumference and diameter and looks for anything generally out of the norm… The silence is brutal… It’s a good 15 minutes or more of this dude covering every inch of your boys while you watch a screen that doesn’t look like anything more than smoke.
What’s that? Is that normal? That’s not a 3rd one is it?
Thankfully, my nuts are perfectly normal.
He handed me some paper towel to de-lube my balls (not nearly enough) and left the room. As he left he said if I took my referral to the x-ray people down the hall I could get a print out like the pregnant women do. I really wanted to get it so I could keep it in my wallet and show people “the twins” but with my balls still quite lubed and uncomfortable I decided to leave, walking out like John Wayne through a room full of pregnant women.
So why the sore ball you ask? Well, I found out a week later while at the osteopath that it was probably due to my starting to do some sit-ups and exercise after a prolonged period of inactivity. My ball was hanging a bit different and it was probably just getting in the way a bit more than usual and thus a bit sore and uncomfortable… huh.
The 
purpose of this story is to show that as embarrassing as it might seem to go through something like this, it’s the same for all blokes and the peace of mind you receive makes it worthwhile. It could also save your life, so if you’re worried about your balls, you should just bite the bullet and get them checked out. A little embarrassment never hurt anyone, and you will probably get a killer story out of it!
And in the spirit of embarrassment I am participating again in this years Movember. If you like the idea of a ranga trying (note: trying) to grow some lip pubes and failing miserably please donate to me. Or just donate in general, it is a great cause and a lot of fun.
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Why Kids are Dumb
A Dumb Kid
One morning, long ago when I was in year 1 of infants school my friends and I were in the playground before class started. It was just like any other morning, running about being Ninja Turtles no doubt, cowabungering this, Kranging that. Then we found a cash register in the bushes.
We all froze mid Bebop. It was like we were all thinking the same exact thing… We’re rich! We were excited. We began discussing how much money we thought was going to be inside. $100′s? $1,000′s!?
We spent the next 15 minutes in deep discussions about how to split the money. I saw it first versus but your parents are already rich versus rochambeau. We were so caught up in our windfall that we hadn’t heard first bell go and everyone else had gone to class. The time we took deciding how to pull off our heist, or lack there of, raised suspicions and once the teacher noticed we were missing they came looking for us.
I can’t imagine what the teacher thought when she stuck her head into the bushes and saw us there, 4 boys standing around an opened cash register playing rock, paper, scissors over who gets stuck with the coins.
We got in trouble for not reporting what we’d found immediately. As if we were the ones who had in fact stolen it.
My poor, young mind went crazy thinking i’d be going to jail for it, for what exactly I have no idea, but I was terrified none the less (and this was before i’d seen HBO’s Oz).
So, instead of finding the cash register, reporting it to a teacher and being heroes we instead got greedy, got caught and were seen as criminals. Meanwhile our playground reputation went through the roof. We had all the girls, red frogs and handball squares we could handle. We lived like kings.
Now, the reason I called this post Why Kids are Dumb is because never mind the fact that no one steals a register only to leave it full of money. Or the fact that there is no way a 7 year old is being sent to prison for finding stolen goods (I mean, the kids in Stand By Me found a body and they didn’t get done for murder). Or the tiny, obvious detail that the cash register was clearly already pried open & empty. Just forget all that, we didn’t for a moment care, our dull child minds simply went: cash register in bushes = free money.
Hey baby
An artists interpretation of me holding a baby
I have never held a baby before. Ever. Not once. I have no interest in it. It scares me. I feel nervous about handling my iphone 4 let alone the product of someones own biology. If someone dropped my phone, it can be replaced. If I were to drop someones baby I don’t think my offer of sleeping with the wife to replace it would really work out.
The heads freak me out. Not being able to lift their own head is just odd. I feel if I hold it wrong the head will pop clean off and roll awkwardly to the feet of the parents, shaking their heads in disbelief, knowing they shouldn’t have let “Uncle Mitch” near their child.
On the weekend I visited my mate who has just had a baby himself (well, his Mrs did the hard work but he helped). After politely declining a few time to hold the baby I was saved by the arrival of my mates parents, the babies grandparents. I took this window of opportunity to leave while the grandparents were distracted playing with the baby. Then I heard the Grandad say this:
Grandad: *baby goo-goo talk*… Huh. His hairs still a little red, isn’t it… I hope this peach fuzz grows out, we don’t want a ranga in the family.
Me: I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
Grandad: *Looks up at me* Whoops, didn’t realise we had one here…
Me: Yup.
Grandad: Sorry?
Me: Never mind, happens all the time.
Maybe, own one day, I will have a child of my own and maybe I will hold it, but it’s more likely I’ll just hug them when they’re 6 years old or a nice pat on the head or something… If they aren’t one of those unfortunate rangas that is.
Asian Adventure: Part 4
Cocktails: Natures Seductive Ninjas
Thailand.
Now this was the part of the trip I enjoyed most of all, finally some relaxing. I knew Thailand was going to be different to Penang the moment I walked onto the beach and could see no less than 8 boobs (that’s right, 4 topless girls for those with poor maths skills) and bikinis as far as the eye could see (as opposed to burkas in the pool I’d become accustomed to). I was home. It was all just beers, beach, cocktails and topless British blondes on the beach. I Loved it.
Until this Asian Adventure I’d never really had a cocktail before. Sure, a sip here, a taste there but I’ve not ever gone into a bar and ordered up a round of Illusions for me and my mates. I know they’re yummy but I just drank beers, that’s all, it’s all I knew and I was happy with that. But when you are staying in a country where cocktails are cheaper than beers (and beers are cheaper than water) why not partake in a cocktail or two?
The first night I played it quite safe and stayed in the lower end of the cocktail pool (literal cocktail pool too) and was ordering a Tom Collins. A Tom Collins is simply a gin, lime and soda, quite refreshing on a sweaty afternoon (side note: The origins of the Tom Collins drink are quite interesting and can be found here). So while Elle worked her way through an array of flavours and colours I played it cool with my Tom Collins. For whatever reason this gave the barman great delight and with each Tome Collins he upped the amount of gin until the last one was no less that 80% gin. As I took a sip and recoiled my face in disgust he was heard to burst out in laughs from behind the bar.
The next night I became more adventurous and jealous of Elle’s coconuts. Under the guise of ordering for two, one was for my girlfriend who had yet to finishing her last, I worked my way through no less than 10 cocktails in about an hour, all the shapes and sizes I could find. Ones that were on fire, ones served in whole coconuts and ones that would make even Don Draper purse his lips.
I like Pina Colada's and taking walks in the rain.
Despite drinking so much I wasn’t really feeling any effects. Perhaps a bit silly about having a blue tongue, but that’s about it. How wrong I was. I call cocktails natures seductive ninjas because they use their being delicious and colourful to distract unsuspecting victims from the fact you can drink them quickly and get quite drunk off them. How many times have you heard someone take a sip of a lovely daquarie and say:
“You can’t even taste the alcohol?”
Famous last words. Next thing you know they’re stumbling back out of the disabled toilets, their panties in their purse while some guy is following out behind her doing up his fly.
When I stood up to go to the toilet after my cocktail innings I nearly fell right over as the fruity alcohol shot through my body. I had been seduced.
Now, almost a month later, I think it’s pretty safe to say that I am addicted to Pina Colada’s. I’ve made them for myself and Elle almost every weekend since we got back and I can’t see stopping any time soon. I can only hope to keep my addiction in check and not end up in a disabled toilet some place.
Asian Adventure: Part 3
Penang, Malaysia
Some people travel with a sense of freedom and adventure. Every hiccup is a lesson learned and nothing can go wrong because it’s all part of the experience. Others, like myself, travel the world thinking everyone is trying to mug you, drug you or steal your organs.
No, I’m not one of those people who walks about with their money and passport hidden up their butt like a suppository but I am the sort of person who flinches when a man in the street uses the shotgun he is holding to gesture to where the nearest toilet is (true story).
Penang is nice. Hot, but nice. I just found myself a little uncomfortable there. Besides the weather causing me to sweat like a tap after taking 2 steps outside, it was probably the most culture I’ve ever been exposed to. I had culture shock. The majority of the tourists and visitors to the hotel we were in were from the Middle East. There were women in burkas everywhere. By the pool, in the pool and even jet skiing! I shit you not, jet skiing.
Hawker Markets
One of the highlights were the hawker markets where you go for delicious food (Elle discusses it in better detail on her blog The Spicerack). When it was described to me the idea of “a community of outdoor street vendors cooking a variety of delicacies” didn’t really appeal to me. All I heard was “a bunch of dirty outdoor vendors all cooking various street animals”. Mean, I know, but I’m picky with my food and the thought of these hawkers cooking anything that would appeal to me seemed unlikely. It’s not till you are there and amongst all the beautiful aromas and cooking styles that you realise this is the best, most honest food you’ll ever had, and everything cost less than a sausage roll. Plates of different delicious foods piled up as I ate my way across 4 countries in one night, all from the one table.
Of course there was shopping at night markets. Well, Elle shopped, i followed, Frappachino in hand.
We did a few tours in the mountains to look at temples and what-not (*yawn*). Not really my thing, anything like that becomes an exercise in seeing how much I am able to sweat. I’m not comfortable.
stay puft marshmallow man
My favourite thing that we saw was (of course) the Toy museum. Now when I told about this Toy Museum I wasn’t too excited, I imagined a boring collection of wooden toy soldiers, musty teddy bears and creepy ceramic dolls with broken eyes. Boy was I wrong. A more accurate name for it would have been the Amazing Action Figure Archive. It housed literally thousands of action figures dating back to the 80′s, dozen’s of life-size statues of some great characters and even an original Ecto one Ghostbusters car, the toy that I wrote about melting at school. I really wanted to steal it except it’s Malaysia so i’d probably be executed or something.
Overall, Penang is a beautiful place, the people couldn’t be nicer and some of the best food I’ve had in my life. But when I’m on holiday I want to relax a bit more whilst still enjoying a tropical back-drop. Which brings us to the final leg of the trip, Koh Samui, Thailand.
Asian Adventure Pt 4 Coming soon!
