Recently Global TV Quebec asked for stories on St Patrick’s Day. We thought we would send in the following story of how the St Pats Drunk Dial came into being. For your benefit we thought we’d reprint the letter for the whole web:
Hi Global TV Quebec, let me share a St. Patrick’s Day Story. This is probably one that is not quite in the scope of things but it’s story of how a St Patrick’s Day tradition was born and how it has gone as far as getting space on Times Square in New York City this year.
Once upon a time there was a boy of Sri Lankan descent (me) who moved to St. John’s, Newfoundland and ended up making lots of friends. So many that I now consider Newfoundland to be my home, despite living in Montreal right now. While there, every St. Patrick’s Day, we would go out to celebrate, share good times and have a pint or two.
Later in life we all grew up and finally we all moved out and moved around the world (and I mean everywhere!) only to get together once a year or so at weddings or Christmas in St. John’s.
But St. Patrick’s Day, well, no matter where we were we would celebrate it. Five years ago I came up with the “blindingly stupid” idea that my friends should
phone me after they had had a few pints on St. Pat’s no matter where they were.
Blindingly stupid because I never counted on the timezones and my own drinking. However the stories from what I remember were fantastic. And so was born the St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial.
In subsequent years we set up a web site and a phone number to record it. We judged the best entry and gave them a bottle of Screech
Rum.
This became so much fun for our friends that word got out. One friend in BC reported how a complete stranger came up to him at a party to tell him about it.
Last year, to our incredible surprise someone told CBC Newfoundland and suddenly our winner was not one of our friends but the fantastic St. Patrick’s Day story sent in by Dan Niederloh in Hawaii.
This year (the fifth year) we decided that we would bring the St. Patrick’s Drunk Dial to as many people as we can. We launched a website (http://stpatsdrunkdial.com), a video on YouTube and a press release to the world!
We don’t want to make money (yes there are google ads on the site, but let’s face it, we’ve only ever made $50 in five years so whatever). It is not commercial, it is simply my friends and I (now based in Montreal) sharing some of the fun we’ve had and some of the laughs we’ve shared with as many people as we can. We personally have put up all the money to do this.
To that end, we actually bought some time on the Reuters sign in Times Square to advertise the Drunk Dial between 4-7pm on March 17th
There you go, that’s my St. Patrick’s Day story from a non-Irish, Sri Lankan, Newfoundlander living in Montreal who believes that St. Patrick’s Day truly is about toasting a good time, to present and absent friends and reconnecting with those around you.
I hope the staff of Global Quebec will dial in this year and tell *US* a fun story in return for the above, that’s all that we ask!
PS. I’ve copied the press release we issued if you are curious and interested.
The following is the official 2009 St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial press release:
Don’t Drink and Drive! Drink and Dial the St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial!
Introducing the World-Wide Debut of the St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial!
“Drunk Dialling” is a world wide phenomenon affecting millions of unsuspecting people when intoxicated friends and family are struck with an uncontrollable urge to phone their loved ones. Many of us have been victims of these early morning calls and now, thankfully, there is a way to avoid those 3 a.m. phone calls.
This year for St. Patrick’s Day, instead of drunk dialing loved ones, why not phone the St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial and share your St. Patrick’s Day experiences. Your message will be saved on the web allowing your friends and family, and other St. Pat’s revelers, to listen at their leisure.
The St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial began a few years ago when a group of Canadian college friends, who had spread around the world since graduation, wanted to get in touch with each other during St. Patrick’s Day festivities. As with all good ideas, the idea grew over the years. In 2008 the Drunk Dial was covered by CBC Radio Newfoundland and on several online newspapers. We’ve had so much fun; this year we wanted it to spread the laughs to more than just our friends.
Not only does the St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial help you avoid alienating friends and family, and possibly avoid that embarrassing drunken phone call to your ex, it may even help pad your wallet in these tough economic times. Each call will be published online and the most humorous entry will win a $100 (US) prize. This year there will also be “People’s Choice Award” with a prize of $50 (US).
From last year’s winner Dan Niederloh:
“St. Patrick’s Day is my favorite holiday, due to the sanctioned Guinness drinking. I was enjoying it at home in Hawaii with my two sons and read of the Drunk Dial online. I thought it a brilliant idea for sharing the festivities with folks far away, and my sons encouraged me to get “drunk enough” to leave a memorable message. So after a bit of libation I imagined what it was like for those to whom the holiday is a source of melancholy, and left a message at the number provided. The next day I had all but forgotten what I growled into the answering machine, until a phone call came telling me I won the contest!”
Anyone who is struck by the St. Patrick’s spirit can participate, regardless of what other “spirits” may have been consumed. Many of the best entries have been from tea totaling sober types who are just plain funny. While we acknowledge that, for many, a drink or two is all part of the festivities on St Patrick’s Day, we want everyone to drink responsibly. No one should drink and drive when they can drink and dial the Drunk Dial… before they call a cab to take them home.
How to Participate:
1. Enjoy St. Patrick’s Day between 12:01am ET, March 13 and 12:01am ET March 23
2. Dial 1-888-734-1285 and leave us a funny message or just say hi! The number is Toll Free in the US/Canada, normal air-time charges may apply.
3. In the event the above number does not work, dial 1-802-752-4671 (this number is not toll free)
5. Come back to our website to listen to your message over and over again!
Remember the St. Patrick’s Drunk Dial is about sharing stories, a few laughs and keeping the bonds of friendship strong across the miles.
Contacts:
For more information on the St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial please contact Duleepa Wijayawardhana (dups@stpatsdrunkdial.com) or phone 1-888-734-1285 and leave a message. You can also get more information at http://stpatsdrunkdial.com
I love technology and I embrace technology incredibly fast. However, I have issues with using technology in ways that it was not meant to be used or technology used in ways that aggravate the hell out of me. For example, using a shovel as garlic press is a bit ridiculous. Oh sure, I know that this post will make me sound like a curmudgeon, but so be it.
Let me give you a guide to texting on a cell phone to someone like me. I know I have broken some of these rules, but from now on I intend to stick to it like glue considering how much cellphone text misuse has recently annoyed me.
1. If you are within walking distance of me and can actually come talk to me, do not ever text me. Come talk to me. Especially if I have to pay to receive your text or I have to pay to send you a text. The only exception I have for this is that you are dying, cannot yell, one arm and one leg have been sliced off and therefore have lost the ability to do anything but to get your phone out and send me a text message.
2. The following conversation should not be by text:
A: Hi
B: Yes?
A: How are you?
B: Good what’s up
A: What time can I come up?
If your conversation with me will involve multiple texts, please phone me. I do not want, nor care to exchange pleasantries over text messages on a cell phone.
3. If I ask a question in a text, send me an answer. For example the following is not what I would call useful.
A: We are leaving in 10 mins. Where are u?
B: The weather is nice here
Please note the above will likely end with me screaming and you being gutted with a spoon… a very blunt spoon.
4. Complex plans and situations should *never* be done over text messages. For the love of all that is going to keep you alive. The following is likely to make me scream and throw my phone away or at the very least turn it off:
A: We’ll meet at X in 5 mins bringing three people
B: Front entrance or back?
A: Side entrance instead.
B: There’s a side entrance? Okay see u there?
A: Actually going to be late, 2 pple going to front entrance.
B: Which entrance should I go
A: Side entrance then front entrance in 5 mins
B: ok
A: Oh pick up tickets
B: where?
At this point, the vein on my head will start throbbing. Chances are, you will see smoke out of my ears and then a scream of pure undiluted frustration. The voice functions were invented to have conversations and for people to plan. Please use the appropriate technology.
5. If you are going to be indecisive, please do not do it over text messaging.
A: What time will you be there?
B: Not sure, when do you want to be there?
A: 6pm
B: Hmmm not sure…
At this point, if you do not phone me I will likely decide that sitting in a clown bar by myself and having a fake red nose pinched every 2 seconds for the next 12 hours will be a much better circle of hell.
6. Do not have conversations with multiple people over a cell phone text messaging system. It was not created for such use; I do not know who else you have texted and I cannot see their replies to you. This is not how to plan something. If you are going to plan something, use the phone and voice call people and take responsibility to lead.
A to BCD: Meet at 6pm?
B to A: Can’t, coming at 7pm
C to A: When is everyone else meeting
D to A: Sure
A to B: ok
A to C: 6pm or 7pm
A to D: ok
B to A: is C coming?
…
You get the picture and why I might suddenly get aggravated.
Now don’t get me wrong, text messaging is a fantastic technology. When travelling it is the best way to get a hold of people, or a quick message such as “We are here” or “am coming” or “address is xxxx”. Just not every text conversation should continue as a text conversation. Take it upon yourself to stop, think about what the other person might be feeling and go voice as appropriate.
I hope this guide is useful, your mileage may vary.
Is anyone else slightly feeling desensitized to the amounts of money that governments are suddenly spending or companies are hemorrhaging? Obama wants to spend 800 billion which comes after Bush already poured 700 billion last year, Canada will likely announce something like 64 billion over the next two years, firms like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, HSBC have lost numbers which are followed by the word billion.
Frankly I haven’t a clue how much a billion really looks like. That’s 10 million $100 bills. I’m thinking that would take a little more than a carefully camouflaged briefcase. Assuming that each $100 bill weighs 1 gram that would be 10,000 kg using $100 bills. That would be one hell of a mattress. In the US an average car weighs 2000 kg, so it would be the equivalent of 5 cars. Cool!
Okay, so it’s not exactly the kind of amount you decide to just take to the shop with you.
You know I can’t even imagine spending a billion dollars, let alone misplacing a billion dollars (which makes you really wonder about these so-called expert brokers and bankers on Wall Street, Bay Street and elsewhere). If you assume $20 for every meal and three meals a day, 1 billion dollars would buy you 3 meals a day for 45,660 years or the full lifetimes of 750 people. Wow. To be honest for most of December I was living in Ecuador where I was spending $3 a meal… that would mean 304,414 years of meals.
So let’s see, the United States and Canada will have spent a total of almost 1500 billion dollars, that’s 1.5 trillion dollars (wait a few years, we’ll just replace billion with trillion). Okay let’s do that in food… 1.5 trillion using $9 a day for food in Ecuador, well, that is the amount of money to feed 7.5 million people for 60 years.
Right. So a billion dollars is a *lot* of money. 1.5 trillion is a humongous amount of money.
What’s the point? The point is that really, I’m fundamentally at a loss as to whether the entire world has gone mad or not. It seems pretty obvious at this point that people are just making up numbers and no one actually has any clue as to a) what those numbers actually mean any more and b) where all the money went in the first place?
I know, I know, the money no longer exists because the stuff that was supposed to be worth something is worth a whole lot less.
Does anyone just want to yell “STOP” and ask people to just reset the whole system? The numbers just stop making sense.
In the week that President Obama stood before his nation and proclaimed that “we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America” as this was the “price and the promise of citizenship”, Microsoft proves that corporate America is beyond that hard-won citizenship, that it can act as it wants with no thought to solving the problems of the world.
Today Microsoft announced that this past quarter it had made profits of 4.17 billion dollars on quarterly revenues of 16.63 billion dollars. This in a company that employs 94,000 people and has 20 billion dollars in the bank.
Let me put that into a bit of perspective. This quarter Microsoft accounted for the equivalent of the entire GDP of Niger according to the 2007 listing on Wikipedia. It had revenues which equaled the GDP of countries like Tanzania and Bahrain and if you think about it that would be close to its yearly profits.
However, this is far from enough for the giant, rich company. It wants to lay-off 5,000 workers, because the times are tough.
Times are tough? The company earned 4.17 billion dollars as profit. This is not a company that lost money, this is a company that made 4 billion dollars in profit. Is this how corporate America reacts to beginning the remaking of America? Is this the way to show the price of citizenship? That it made 0.5 billion dollars less in profit is unfortunate, but is that really a reason to announce lay-offs?
Microsoft, let me tell you about when “times are tough”. When your country went deep into a depression that saw millions out of work, many starving and the prairies turn into a dust bowl, those are tough times. When people have to line up for food and not be able to feed their children, those are tough times. These are the hardships that created your country, these are the hardships that gave you the ability to own and run your company.
I work for Sun Microsystems, I know we’re laying off people. But at least we are making a loss, there may be some justification to it. Microsoft, look at yourselves: your company is making a profit, you are one of the great engines of the North American economy. Your inability to have an imagination, to heed the words of your newly elected president, to try to remake what it means to be corporate America is a shame upon all of corporate America.
Admit the fact that announcing layoffs is a way to appease the greed and sensibility of Wall Street.
Putting people out of work when you can afford to keep them and to try harder to create new markets, new technologies, new avenues for growth, that would be an answer to get us all out of this problem. Instead you successfully spread fear, doubt and fuel an even worse disaster.
Happy New Year to all from Quito, Ecuador. Right now the city is rioting on the streets to welcome 2009. Some friends here explained some of the weirder traditions of the New Year. For one, make sure you have yellow underwear on at the stroke of midnight to guarantee money in the new year. I even passed a store open just now festooned with bright yellow underwear. I was tempted.
All through the streets cars are selling grapes. Supposedly you need to eat one grape for every chime of the clock at midnight.
If that weren’t enough there’s the crossdressing and the dummies. Throughout the city today teenage boys and men are dressed as women and have strung lines across the roads to stop the car. You have to give them some coins which they collect to pay for the New Year’s party. The crossdressing me drape themselves on cars and dance lasciviously and generally have a lot of fun while their friends and family sit on the sidewalk with a couple beers.
The dummies have been on sale for a number of days now made of paper and woodchips depicting political leaders. At midnight the populace burns them. On Avenue Amazonas larger than life puppets are on stages on the streets and a carnival like atmosphere is ready to bring on the new year.
Some of the most unique New Year traditions I’ve witnessed for sure. Oh yes, the tradition of getting drunk and partying, well, that seems universal.
I wanted to test the camera I bought for video quality so that I can (with some luck) use it on various parts of this trip. Be warned, the descent is long and extremely boring. If you want to hear me talk and fall for 8 mins, then fine, otherwise only watch if you are somewhat masochistic
Whoever said there are easy mountains needs to go have their head examined. The plan for Monday was to go to the top of the Quito Teleferiqo when it opened (to 4100m at a cost of $4) and the hike the three hours to the summit of the now extinct volcano, Rucu Pichincha at 4680m.
The cable car is pretty awesome. I’m pretty sure that that’s the first time I’ve ascended over 1000m in under 15 mins. Certainly felt a lot safer than the cable cars on Mt. Elbrus in Russia (we had a game in spotting the plaques for the deaths caused by cable car and/or chair lift crashes while you passed over them).
From the top of the cable car you walk a ridge line to behind the mountain peak and then up a scree slope to a rock outfall which you then scramble to reach the summit. By the time I reached the scree slope I could feel the effects of altitude, I was doing the pressure breathing, forcing air in and out as I climbed. Despite that, I felt little other effects. By the time I scrambled to the top I was starving but generally feeling quite good.
Now, you must remember the last time I was at 4600m I was at Diesel Hut on Mt. Elbrus. Well, imagine my surprise at being joined on the top by a group of Russian climbers. There was the requisite attempts at each other’s language, an appreciation for Siberia and the plains of Canada and then photos under the Russian flag. There was however no view to speak of as the clouds rolled in and didn’t budge.
Then it was time for me to go. After all, I had work to do for Sun/MySQL that day. One of the effects of altitude is that you don’t always think carefully. Coming down the rock scramble, I took a wrong turn, before I knew it I was half way down a vertical rock slope. Because of my boots, climbing back up seemed very dangerous. Going down was equally unappealing. My only option appeared to be for me to leap across a 3-4 foot gap with one foot to a rocky spire while crossing to an adjacent wall with better hand holds that I could come down on. Typically not a problem if you are sure of the quality of the rock. Well I did it. I got down looked at two Czech climbers on their way up and wryly said, “this isn’t the way, go around”. Let’s just say I knew right afterwards that I had escaped being injured.
Of course with that excitement out of the way, the rest was pretty simple but by the bottom of the scree slope I had a massive altitude induced headache. Plus, my knees were hurting and mindful of the many climbs ahead of me, I came down slowly. Even then, I managed to do Rucu Pichincha in the alloted time of six hours and was back to work as I had promised. However, by the time early evening hit, I was collapsed in bed trying to sleep my headache away.
It feels like I have spent most of the last three weeks on the move. When I woke up on Sunday I first considered the possibility of wandering Quito again and decided instead to simply have a lazy day. What a nice feeling not to have anything specific to do or planned. I puttered around on the Internet, cooked a meal for myself and just generally lazed about.
But of course you know I can’t possibly be completely lazy. I decided to hike up the road to the Teleferiqo. This is a recent cable car installation which goes up to Ruwa Pichincha. The cable car goes from 3000m to about 4200m. From there I can climb to the summit of Ruwa Pichincha at about 4600m. To see how I was acclimatizing, I thought a short jaunt up the hill (it’s actually about a 500m vertical gain from the hostel) and finding out what time the cable car would open the next day would be a good idea.
The plan is to do an acclimatization hike on Monday morning to Ruwa Pichincha and work in the afternoon/evening.
At the top of the hill where the cable car starts is also a giant theme park for kids (Parc Volqan) and the usual tourist mix of shops and restaurants. I’m glad to report that I’m feeling fine at the altitude. My only concern right now are slight pains in my knees. I’m hoping that gentle hiking and walking will strengthen them over the next week. I may even follow Mike’s joking advice before I left and do the Teleferiqo at least once more this week. If I remember correctly 4600m was about the height of Barafu camp on our climb to Kilimanjaro and also the height of Diesel Hut on Elbrus. Definitely worth it for acclimatization considering how easy it is to get there!
Now I think I will partake in the strange canned foods I managed to buy at the supermarket yesterday. I’m not entirely sure what they are but hey, where’s the adventure if I don’t try!
