Was greeted at work yesterday morning by the fastest animal on Earth -- a peregrine falcon. She brought along a pigeon for breakfast as she perched just outside the office where I was working, twenty-seven floors up in the center of town. She sat there for about forty-five minutes, reducing the pigeon to a pair of wings and a rib cage, which she courteously left for us on the ledge. Better than dropping it on some passerby's head, I guess.

I got a new phone with a camera on it from Santa, but it went kaput two days later. So the above photo was from someone else in the office. Seems everyone has a camera phone these days. We saw Modest Mouse last night, and the little LED displays were a constant distraction (not that I wouldn't have taken a photo if my phone had been working). Really good show, and as a bonus treat for Marjorie (an old Smiths fan), Johnny Marr is now a member.

The year in music. Not at all a banner year for me. I can only think of four new albums that I got at all familiar with:

Augie March, "Moo, You Bloody Choir". Strummy pop. Local boys done good.

Ron Sexsmith, whatever his new one was called. Forgettable.

Jet, "Shine On". More local boys, but you wouldn't know it because they never play here. A solid effort.

Phoenix, "It's Never Been Like That". (Marjorie scored a copy by flirting with the guy at her coffee place.) Probably would have topped my list no matter what else I listened to. Bright guitar pop from a bunch of French dudes (in English though). Rare in that it stands up to both the close listen required of serious song-based pop, and also as just background atmospherics. Mark says check it out.

Tomorrow we're off to see Modest Mouse. Woop!

Reasons why Christmas in Australia is a pale imitation:

Hardly anyone puts out Christmas lights. It's light until almost 9 pm this time of year anyway.

There's no Thanksgiving, so there's no day-after-Thanksgiving shopping madness day to set the tone.

No cold weather. Although Christmas started in the middle east, the northern hemisphere totally pwns it now. So much so that they spray fake snow on Christmas displays. (Today's forecast though: "Mostly cloudy with showers. Local hail and thunder. Fresh to strong and gusty southwest to southerly wind. High of 16C -- about 60F.")

A Christmas Story only shows on pay per view.

USA: A Charlie Brown Christmas. Melbourne: Illicit wombat/platypus love.

Christmas in the best of years has a melancholy feel to it, for me; particularly so this year. Missing family very much. The turkey's in the oven, though, and will be ready in an hour.

Update: I think we'll probably remember this as the Christmas that we went jogging and got hailed on! It seemed like hail at one point, at least.

Silly season. Christmas party was fun. I kept the mo' because there was a pirate theme. Only one photo is known to exist of my costume, and it's from behind. (Recognise the bird, Mom?)

The mo' is no mo'. Marjorie is glad. Thanks to all who donated.

Marjorie's party was fun too. Just a few more holiday gatherings to get through. Then, we're going alcohol-free for the month of January (at least until the 26th, when we're going to a concert at a winery). I'm all about the month-long self-improvement exercises these days.

Not much new, but one has to report in every now and again, if one is to keep a blog.

Last weekend there was a haze of smoke over the city, and the smell of burning countryside. Very hot and dry, but then the weather changed (in about a minute, like it always does here) and conditions improved. Things are still burning however, and spreading from the high winds. No danger to us here though.

Slammed at work, trying to learn all the Lonely Planet stuff while still supporting my previous project. December is my least favorite month. Always stressful.

I've kept the mo' for now, because our Christmas party this Friday has a "pirate" theme. Marjorie's sick of it. After all my pleas for sponsorship, she's wondering who she has to pay for me to shave the thing off.

For no reason at all, here's a list of the places that I've flown through but never visited:

Dallas

Phoenix

Cincinnati

Houston

Brussels

Hong Kong

Reykjavik

Auckland

Who would've thought that after all these years, facial hair doesn't actually look all that bad on me, by most accounts. Check the beard, the goatee, and the subsequent mo.

Yeah. It's all well and good until you realise that I look like this guy. So family, friends, do me a favour, okay? Go here, and enter my Rego number (5917) and your credit card details to sponsor me. It's for a good cause.

Novelty: a new wine, a new sandwich, blah, blah, blah... Grew tired of tracking the new things I was doing every day. I'll still try to keep it up for the month, but the exercise has already proved enlightening. It seems that more days go by than I thought where I don't do anything new or creative. Several times I've had to scramble at the end of the day to find something that qualifies. I have a theory now as well, that whenever you find yourself thinking "Man, this week/month/year has flown by fast", it's probably because you had a high number of days that were no different from the others during that time period. That will always be a warning sign to me from now on.

Mo update: I had a full beard as of yesterday, but then shaved it down to where it's officially a "mo". I'll post pictures of both tomorrow. I think the mo is pretty hideous but Marjorie likes it, at least for now.

Do me a favour and take this quiz and post your results in the comments. See if it doesn't nail where you're from as well as it did me and a bunch of other people on a mailing list that I frequent.

Novelty update. Falling a little behind here -- before I forget, here are the exciting (not) new things that I've done this week:

Tuesday: Watched the whole first season of the American version of The Office. Surprisingly good, for something that's an adaptation of a British show. (I know it's a TV show, but it was a rental, so I'm counting it.)

Wednesday: First day working at Lonely Planet, and ate at the LP cafe.

Thursday: Tried a greasy spoon down the street from LP. Decent burger.

Friday: Tried another nicer cafe down the street from LP. Asian wrap was decent. That pretty much covers it for the lunch options around the place.

Saturday: Had a Speight's Ale at the Limerick Hotel.

So here it is, our third experience with Melbourne Cup Day, a.k.a. The Race That Stops A Nation. (Third already? How time flies.) For an interesting take on the festivities, check out Mark Twain's account from a century ago. Not much has changed.

(Sunday's novelty: Spotted a leaden flycatcher in the backyard; the first new bird spotting in the city in a long time. Yesterday's: Played around with an interactive music channel I didn't know we were getting on our satellite TV, and fell asleep to classical music.)

Traitors! We've officially applied for Australian citizenship. This is not to say we're renouncing our U.S. citizenship or anything like that. It's just that both countries are cool with dual citizenship, and this will give us the opportunity, if we leave, to come back whenever we want.

All we have to do now is arrange for a test, where they'll quiz us on our rights and responsibilities, and make sure we can speaka de English. I'm reminded of The Simpsons, when Apu was taking his citizenship test:

Proctor: All right, here’s your last question. What was the cause of the Civil War?
Apu: Actually, there were numerous causes. Aside from the obvious schism between the abolitionists and the anti-abolitionists, there were economic factors, both domestic and inter–
Proctor: Wait, wait… just say slavery.
Apu: Slavery it is, sir.

It does mean we have to vote (Australia being the only democracy in the world that requires voting). We'll have to serve on jury duty if called. One thing I like is that we'll be able to get an Australian passport, which is probably a lot safer to travel under than an American one in this day and age.

Postscript. Novelty from two days ago: Did a little work on my graphics package.
Yesterday's novelty: Fried chicken and tofu balls at Misuzu's.
Today's: Went to a nearby but well hidden cafe, St. Ali, for brunch, after getting a tip about it last night. Very nice coffee and sammy.

What's new. A less-than-auspicious foray into the November of Novelty. I tried a new restaurant for lunch -- the Ants Bistro in Chinatown -- and ordered the "Rice with Chicken Soup", largely because it was said to contain "diced botchy". What's that? I had no idea, but it turned out to be standard Chinese broccoli, and the soup on the whole was kind of bland. I will try the place again sometime though; it was just my fault in ordering an unexciting dish.

I tried to double up the novelty by trying out trivia night at the Gunn Island Hotel, but it turns out they don't have it anymore. Bummer. I updated the trivia map.

A rule I try to live by is to try something new every day. It sounds a little trite, but I figure you only get so many days in life, and to spend a day in the exact same way as you've spent one before seems to be a total waste.

I've gradually evolved rules to the game, as to what counts and what doesn't, and since these rules are my own, they only really have to make sense to me. Seeing a new movie counts, but not a new TV show. Finishing a book I've never read counts, but not starting one, or finishing one I've already read. New restaurants always count, and even new dishes at familiar restaurants. What's best is things I've always been a little leery about trying (such as the Turkish delight I tried for the first time a few weeks back). Checking out new neighborhoods or new routes to get from point A to point B also count. Newness created is as good as newness discovered, so doing any sort of creative work counts.

Sure, some of these things may be minor, but they're better than a day of work / TV dinner / reruns / sleep. And while the rules have formalised in my head, I've never actually tried to enforce the "daily" part on myself. But I will, next month. While growing my 'stache, I'll also be living the November of Novelty, and reporting here each day's new experience.

I once again missed my chance to cross something off my life-list, when I slept through a small earthquake that struck town. I didn't even know they could have them here.

The other big talk of the town is that apparently Phar Lap was poisoned. Sounds like a mighty dastardly thing to do but amounts to little more than a historical curiousity at this point.

And speaking of dastardly, I might be trying to grow a Snidely Whiplash for next month's "Movember" fundraiser. Though it'll probably come out looking more like a Tom Selleck.

Cup final yesterday, and I went from hero to goat, at least in my mind.

Though the first and second teams actually got us to the cup finals, they let us thirds actually play it, since we had been playing so well, and they had other cup games to play on the same day. And it was against our chief rivals, Albert Park.

Twenty minutes in I crash the far post on a corner kick and put us up 1-0, a lead we held until halftime. Unfortunately, they put three past us in the second half, all of which involved someone I was covering or should have been covering. I ended up getting substituted, and deservedly so, which is never fun. Final score 3-1. Team photos here -- I'm in the bottom picture, for those of you who know what I look like...

Submitted without comment.

Assessment Results: Mark

Mark’s Full Scale IQ was in the “very superior” range of ability. His percentile ranking was 99.5, indicating that Mark was performing as well as or better than 99.8% of peers his age. It is with 95% confidence that his “true” IQ lies within the “Very Superior” range of ability.

However, Marks Full Scale IQ is not a unitary construct because there was a significant difference between his Performance IQ and Verbal IQ. Therefore his Full Scale IQ is not interpretable.

The Verbal IQ was in the high “very superior” range of ability. Mark’s percentile ranking was 99.5, indicating that Mark is performing as well as or better than 99.5% of peers his age. It is with 95% confidence that his “true” Verbal IQ score lies with the “very superior” range of ability.

The Performance IQ was in the “Superior” range of ability. Mark’s percentile ranking was 95, indicating that he is performing as well as or better than 95% of peers his age. It is with 95% confidence that his true IQ score lies within the “Superior” range of ability.

Subtests

Performed best in subtests which tap into:

* short-term memory via auditory means. This involves short-term acquisition and retrieval.
* Verbal comprehension
* Acquired knowledge and general factual information
* Long-term memory.
* Crystallized Intelligence and Fluid Intelligence
* Visual perception of meaningful stimuli (people and things)
* Non-verbal reasoning
* Synthesis (part-whole relationships) and anticipation of relationships among parts.

Subtest scores identified difficulties in the following areas:

* Distinguishing essential from nonessential details
* Creativity
* Visual perception of abstract stimuli

NB: Superior IQ range lies between 120 and 130.

Very superior IQ range is greater than 130.

Woo hoo, I say, to have discovered a grocery store that sells pepperoncinis by the jar. I've been making myself sick on them since discovering them last week. This country is pepper-deprived.

Interesting note on Australian language. Lately, I've started noticing how much they use "whilst" down here in place of "while". For instance, in the trams there are signs that read, "Do Not Talk To The Tram Driver Whilst The Tram Is Moving". It just sounds wrong -- archaic -- to me. Turns out, it's from the English: in England, all official signage uses "whilst" instead of "while" for an interesting reason. Seems that in the north of England, "while" is often used to mean "until". Not a big deal, unless you consider a sign that reads something like: "Do Not Cross Train Tracks While Lights Are Flashing".

We got Laika two years ago today. Marjorie wants to buy her an anniversary gift, as if she would know the difference. Kind of like the woman I used to work with who bought her cats Christmas presents, wrapped them, and opened them for the cat on Christmas. I don't get it.

We did find the perfect place, though, to take her out to for the occasion.

Odd names. A woman I am about to start a project with has a somewhat unusual name. I can't mention it here, but it started a conversation tonight about odd names.

In junior high I remember two brothers, Linwood and Cherrywood Reed. Unusual, and a little unwieldy, but not too bad.

I also remember a Sunday school teacher at our church named Mercedes Ferrari. (The first name was pronounced "MER-seh-dees".)

I think Marjorie topped it all, though, with a family she's encountered at her work. The children are named Laverne, Shirley... and Ann. I didn't get the "Ann" at first, but then Marjorie explained, "Laverne... Ann... Shirley".

There's no law against it, but maybe there should be. Not life in prison, but a year or two, surely.

Big Blue. I've spent the last month locked in battle with IBM's WebSphere-based web content management tool. Today we came across this gem of an error message in a log file:

Syndiation error occured during reponse

Three misspellings in the space of five words. That has to be a record.

They say no one's ever been fired for going with IBM. Maybe it's time they start.

By popular request, some jokes:


Man in a doctor's office: "Doc, it hurts when I go like this."
Doctor: "Hmmm, step up on the table and let me have a look at that."


Later...
Man: "Doc, when this heals, will I be able to play the violin?"
Doctor: "Yes, you will."
Man: "That's a relief. You see, I'm a concert violinist and I was worried that this would affect my career."


A tourist visiting Manhattan: "Excuse me, how do you get to Carnegie Hall?"
Pedestrian: "It's three blocks up, on the right."


Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?
A. Probably in search of some food, but it's difficult to tell the motivation of animals.


"Take my wife, for instance..."


There was an airplane about to crash. The pilot had a heart attack and there were 4 passengers on the plane but only 3 parachutes! Right away one man grabs one of the chutes and said "I am Tiger Woods -- the greatest golfer of all times and I am taking one." He put on the parachute and jumped out of the plane. The next one to get up was Bill Gates. He said, "I am the smartest and most successful businessman in history, so I deserve one as well." He put on the pack and jumped out of the plane. The two people left were the Pope and a small five year old boy. The Pope turned to the boy and said "Bless you my son. I am an old man and I have lived a long and good life. You are young and have everything to live for. I insist that you take the last parachute and jump." The boy turned to the Pope and said, "Thanks!", and he put on the parachute and jumped.

Kind of cool. Looks like in a few weeks I'll be working on the Lonely Planet website. This is not just some Aussie-based version, but the global site. We've always used their guidebooks, and I used to even consult their site a lot, so it should be interesting to work on. The downside is that it might mean an extra 20-30 minutes commute most days.

Aside: apparently there's some London-based nutter that's been harassing them for something like eight years now, posting inappropriate material to their forums two or three times daily, creating a new login each time after the old one gets kicked off. Seems he's disgruntled after being rejected on a book deal. You just can't compete with crazy.

Recommended reading. You wouldn't think something written in 1889 would still be funny. I'm halfway through Jerome K. Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat". Here's a excerpt, where he's talking about his hypochondria:

In the present instance, going back to the liver-pill circular, I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being "a general disinclination to work of any kind."

What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell. From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it. As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. They did not know, then, that it was my liver. Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to put it down to laziness.

"Why, you skulking little devil, you," they would say, "get up and do something for your living, can't you?"--not knowing, of course, that I was ill.

And they didn't give me pills; they gave me clumps on the side of the head. And, strange as it may appear, those clumps on the head often cured me--for the time being. I have known one clump on the head have more effect upon my liver, and make me feel more anxious to go straight away then and there, and do what was wanted to be done, without further loss of time, than a whole box of pills does now.

You know, it often is so--those simple, old-fashioned remedies are sometimes more efficacious than all the dispensary stuff.

And the beauty of books that are this old is that the copyright has run out and you can read them online.

Soccer season is over, save for a few cup games and one-offs. Great season as we finished as the strongest team in the league. I ran the numbers today, and the last half of the season went like this:

team	Played	Wins	Draws	Lost	Gls	Gls Agnst	Pts
MIDDLE PARK FC	9	8	0	1	23	10	24
vermont	9	7	2	0	42	7	23
south port utd	10	7	2	1	38	8	23
caulfield cougars	10	5	2	3	39	15	17
kooyong jfc	9	5	1	3	31	29	16
carringbush	9	4	2	3	23	15	14
marcellin eagles	9	4	1	5	21	14	13
olympiakos east kew	9	4	1	4	25	22	13
kew deaf united	8	3	0	5	21	40	9
highlander united	8	1	0	7	5	37	3
port melbourne	11	1	0	10	8	53	3
oakleigh series	9	0	1	8	8	26	1

We were pretty near unstoppable for that stretch. Pity the season was longer than just that though.

Kudos to the doctor who fixed up my hip so well! Pretty much a complete recovery, aside from a strange out-of-whack feeling occasionally when I ride my bike. It'll still be nice to take a week off and let my feet and calves recover.

More geeking. John has between 2 and 5 apples. Mary gives him between 3 and 7 apples. How many apples does he have now? If you can understand this simple question, you have the gist interval arithmetic.

I first heard of interval arithmetic while working at Kennedy Space Center; we used it to model pressures and temperatures of liquid oxygen flowing through pipes. There are other applications beyond physical modeling. It is sometimes used in finance to track the rounding error during financial calculation, so people can't steal fractions of cent from each transaction (like they did in Office Space).

I've started a project that provides a Java library for developers wishing to use interval arithmetic for whatever purpose they want: check it out. It's open-source, so anyone is free to download, use, and even modify it. It's still in a very raw state, but I'm hoping to improve it, especially if there is outside interest.

(I'm torn about hosting it on SourceForge; they're the biggest and most widely known repository for projects such as these, but I hate hate hate Unix-y interfaces, huge lists of features that nobody uses, and sparse and inconsistent documentation, and that's what SourceForge seems to be all about. Maybe I'll switch to Google's?)

Geek alert. Flying back from the states, I came across a contest called "Crossing Capitals" in the back of Games Magazine. The object is to take the 50 US state capitals, plus all of the Canadian capitals, and fit as many as possible into a 19 by 19 grid, crossword puzzle style. This is a regular sort of contest they do, called a "stuffer" contest.

This sounded like a fun thing to write a program to solve, so I set to the task, and was soon generating some pretty good results. I started running it overnight at home, and pretty much constantly at work -- I'd estimate a good eight weeks of total computing time. I'm not sure how many million combinations were tried, but it was a lot. I also did a lot of fine tuning of the algorithm.

The deadline is now passed -- here are the results of the effort:

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That's thirty-four capitals. The tie breaker is the total count of letters used; my total is 243.

Unfortunately, I found a forum for people who do this sort of thing all the time, and it looks like at least three people managed to fit in 35 capitals. At least one did it by hand, too, without computer help! I would have thought that everyone in contention to win would have done it by program -- interesting that brains and computers are so evenly matched.

Steve Irwin died today. The news raced around Australia like wildfire -- I heard it almost simultaneously from about four different directions. Quite sad, I think. He may not have been the best role model for kids, but he was the real deal. Did you know that all the profits from his movie went to environmental causes?

No one's too surprised that he went out like this, except maybe those who were expecting it to be a croc. And yet, somehow, it's hard to imagine him dead.

Fun yesterday as I played golf for the first time in four years, at Yarra Bend. I was predictably terrible (shot 108, I think) but it was the soccer team's annual golf outing, and the weather was great, so it was good fun. Tons of wildlife on the course, most notably the colony of giant fruit bats, but also a lot of eastern rosellas, noisy miners, rainbow lorikeets, and a flock of some sort of black cockatoos.

Then last night we caught the Melbourne Victory beating Sydney in front of the biggest crowd in Australian club soccer history -- nearly 40,000. I'm sure it was the biggest crowd that a lot of the players have ever played in front of as well. Great game and a fun atmosphere.

Brushes with celebrity. For no good reason, here are the famous peeps I've peeped, not counting actual shows, lectures, readings, etc.:

Elvis Costello: Met him after shows a few times. Also sat behind him at a Ron Sexsmith show where he didn't perform, so it counts.

Michael McKean (Lenny of Lenny and Squiggy fame): Sat two rows behind him at an Elvis Costello concert.

Henry Rollins: Saw him in a Starbucks in London. Henry Rollins in a Starbucks.

Gurmit Singh at our grocery store in S'pore.

Molly Meldrum at a footy game. Well, they tell me he's famous.

Shaq, at a nightclub in Orlando. A head taller than everyone else, he was hard to miss.

Horace Grant, at the same club. Shook his hand.

Ted Kennedy: Spooked him in an airport when I suddenly reached into my bag for my ticket just as I recognized him. His bodyguards got him out of there fast!

Michael Stipe, on a street corner in Athens, listening to (what I'm guessing was) a backing track through headphones, and mouthing words over it.

Mike Mills, in a bar in Atlanta. Also saw him driving down the road once.

Not much new to report. Spring is slowly arriving, though, which has made us delay our search for a new neighborhood -- Albert Park is too too nice when it's warm.

Two restaurants plugs:

Santiago -- great tapas, great wine, great atmosphere. Reminded us very much of Spain.

Tandoori Times -- maybe the best chicken vindaloo I've had.

A few weeks back we saw the Picasso exhibit at the NGV. We're both fans, but Picasso's ability to excel at every medium almost makes us angry! Great stuff though.

Next week I'm claiming my birthday present -- we're going to the Melbourne Victory match against Sydney.

Eulogy for Beau


I woke up yesterday to the very sad news that Beau, one of my family's dogs, had been found dead, hit by a car.

This is the email my father sent:

To paraphrase an iconic southern writer, my dog is dead and I don’t feel so good myself.

Bubba Beau, formal name - Beauregard Bocephus (although we were never able to find a registry that would accept him under that or any other name), is survived by Sister Sadie, his littermate and constant companion as well as those of his family handicapped by having only two feet.

Beau suffered from the stigma of being a ‘Replacement’ puppy. His predecessor was a little dog (although too tall for his alleged breed), and when he just plum wore out in June of 1996 the whole Olympic furor couldn’t replace him. So a scout was dispatched to check out a nearby litter with two clear instructions: It would take two big dogs to replace Mikey, and both had to be the same sex. She listened as well as usual and came home with a mixed pair of tiny puppies. They were so small they couldn’t negotiate steps and so had to be carried out to the yard every time they took a drink or had something to eat. Fortunately they could both be transported in one hand in an act we came to call puppy juggling. That came to an end well before Beau hit his peak weight of just over 100 lbs.

They came to us about the same time as the Atlanta Olympics and their birthday was only one day away from mine. I find it much easier to celebrate theirs than mine at this stage of life.

Since he was only a replacement puppy and not a terribly smart one in my opinion (although he could be sly and manipulative) I was determined not to love him. He wasn’t even a real Labrador Retriever, although he looked like one if he kept his mouth shut. (Don’t lots of us reveal things we’d rather keep hidden when we open our mouths?) But 10 years of faithful companionship have a way of worming deep into your heart. I said he was really Marjorie’s puppy, even after she moved out on her own, got married, then moved to Singapore and later Australia. After all when they played and danced she had been known as the third puppy. And Beau always reacted to my announcements that the third puppy was coming to see him, even when the visits were years apart. But when she and Mark adopted their own Laika (kind of an Australian version of Sadie) I had to acknowledge that I was stuck with Bubba Beau. I tried to say he was a sissy and just Linda’s dog, but when he ‘Assumed the position’ (another unique training command that he obeyed usually without command) by my recliner and demanded to be patted or some other affirmative kind of bonding, it was obvious. Would a guy let a dog he didn’t love groom his ears?

Beau was a Retriever and he was genetically programmed to prove it. Sometimes he did that by lugging around some soft toy. Linda continually humiliated him and reinforced the sissy image by buying him pink ‘babies’ to play with. But sometimes a guy just has to prove he’s a guy and go out and validate his place on the table of organization. At those times Beau usually found a possum that was, most often, playing possum. Finding those in the house was a thrill for a great big fellow and terrorized the women who were lucky enough to share the experience. Linda and Becky both became expert on the inverted laundry basket method of possum removal.

We knew that Beau was a (mostly) lab dog, but like I said he wasn’t too smart. He kept getting confused and thought he was a lap dog. When he was half of a puppy juggling act that was certainly an endearing trait, and as a 30 lb. puppy it was still pretty cute. Somewhere around the 75 lb. mark it became dangerous and when he was over 100 lbs it could be damned intimidating. By the way, there’s no thrill like having a 100+ lb. puppy step on your bare foot in his rush to be the first out the door.

Beau had another life long trait. He was a runner! If there was a fence he could find its flaw. If there was electric or electronic reinforcement he knew the second the power was off or the battery ran down. And he encouraged his co-conspirator to follow his example. In the early years there was some doubt about who was lead and who was wing, but not so in recent years. If Beau was having an out of yard experience by himself he was usually docile and responsive to calls, content to show you that all the money you’d spent on fencing and gadgets wasn’t what ran his life. But if his four footed pack was completed then he was off and adventuring. At the end of the adventure we could expect a call.

“Your dogs are in my pool” was the most startling, and for several reasons. They were about half a mile from home and had had to cross a busy road to get there.

But the call always came. Since we moved to Cumming the adventures had picked up again. A new neighborhood had to be explored and again we knew they weren’t respecting the boundaries we’d have drawn. But the call always came.

Tuesday evening we got a call while we were 50 miles away from home that they were on another adventure but hanging around close to home. When we got home several hours later they were nowhere to be found. The next morning I got the call I feared – “Hey, I found your dog.” Singular, not plural. And my heart fell. These were a pair. They’d never been found apart. We looked Wednesday and Thursday morning, putting out ‘Lost Dog’ signs and all. But Thursday we had to leave on a long scheduled trip to Boston, where we had once lived with Mikey many years ago. So we left the search and answering the calls in the hands of our oldest, dearest friends and The Dogs’ Nanny. Carole diligently searched Animal Control with no results and initially was told that no dog of that description had been found on the roads by DOT. But while checking in to our Boston hotel we got the call. Beau had had his last adventure and it had ended near the intersection of Kelly Mill Road (busy - with a high speed limit) and Pittman Road. He was about a block from home and although there was some confusion in my mind about whether he was coming or going, it’s now clear that the adventure had run down and he was on the way home. I’m told he was found on Thursday near one of our “Lost Dog” signs. That doesn’t fit my belief that Sadie wouldn’t have been found Wednesday without him had there been any choice, but it must have been her arthritis that brought her adventure to a premature conclusion on the wrong side of that busy road and within sight of the place where her bubba’s last adventure ended about 30 hours later.

So again, life goes on. I won’t miss the big dumb, hairy so and so. And my keyboard’s not going to rust from my tears falling freely. Revising and adding to this days later, as more that just can’t be left out occurs to me, reinforces my original conclusion that he was a big dumb hairy beast and I’m going to be a long time getting over him.

And anybody that doesn’t think Lewis Grizzard is as iconic a southern writer as William Faulkner can kiss my grits.


Beau was a lovely dog. He was sweet, and had a very silly, easy-going personality, and, in spite of what my father wrote, Beau was a very smart dog, probably the smartest I've known, though he was equally lazy and not worried about impressing anyone.

I spent most of yesterday crying, and imagine today won't be much different. I'm so glad I got to see him last May when I was home.

I'll miss his facination with "the magic floor", dirty laundry, and anything edible (or not so much). I'll miss having him follow me from room to room when I visit my parents. And I'll miss his morning salutations of "roo, roo, roo".

He was loved. He will be very missed. And I'm sure I'll stop crying eventually.

Guinea piggery. One of Marjorie's cow orkers who's working on a psych degree gave me an IQ test this evening, and boy is my brain tired. This was the face-to-face interactive test (not an online mouse-clicky thing) and is a lot more full-on than you might expect. There were 14 tests, and most seemed to start out easy, and ended with you feeling stupid. Here's a run-down of the sections, and a representative question from each:

Information - "Who was Mahatma Ghandi?"

Comprehension - "Why is it necessary for the government to collect taxes?"

Arithmetic - "An item is on sale for one third off the original price. Its sale price is $400. What is the original price?"

Similarities/Differences - "In what way are a friend and an enemy alike?"

Vocabulary - "Define 'tangible'."

Digit span - "Repeat these digits backwards: 4,3,6,2,8."

Letter-Number Sequencing - "Given this sequence, tell me the digits in order, followed by the letters in order: 5,K,2,P,1,J,9,Q."

Performance - "What's missing from this picture?" (A typical picture: two people running along the beach, one leaving no footprints.)

Digit Symbol - Coding - Each digit had a code, and I had to draw the code for a sequence of numbers.

Block Design - "Which picture completes the block?"
Matrix Reasoning - "Which picture completes the sequence?"
Picture Arrangement - "These cards each have a picture on them. Arrange them so the scene makes a logical story."
Symbol Search - "Circle 'Yes' if one of the two symbols on the left appears in the list of five symbols on the right, 'No' otherwise."
Object Assembly - "Arrange these puzzle pieces into a coherent picture."

This after a long day of programming. But it was interesting. I get the results in a week or two.

I'm 40, darnit, and I'm allowed. I asked Marjorie if she's going to be disappointed if I become a huge Gilbert and Sullivan geek. She said she's surprised I'm not already.

I saw Topsy Turvy last night, and kept thinking, where have these guys been all my life?

I'm a sucker for clever wordplay and catchy melodies. Melbourne has their own Gilbert and Sullivan Society who are putting on a play in November -- unfortunately, it's not a Gilbert and Sullivan play. So it'll be a long while before I can experience G&S proper.

It's dawned on me how much of my music taste is the result of collaboration. I love Strummer and Jones, Lennon and McCartney, Difford and Tilbrook, Lerner and Loewe. I'm kind of fond of Bacharach and David, but was never that keen on Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Rodgers and Hammerstein are okay I guess. Who else? Does anyone even collaborate anymore, other than one-offs?

For the record, I just had my second visual migraine. Woo hoo.

There's a ping pong tournament going on at work, and I'm all bitter because I had planned on at least making it to the quarter finals (where I would have had to play a guy that used to be ranked sixth in Australia) and instead I went out in the second round. I was winning the first game 16-7, then just kind of froze up and started trying not to hit the ball into the net, which of course always results in hitting the ball into the net. To the other guy's credit, he took me off my game. Nuts. I blew $10 on a quality new paddle too.

But soccer's going good; my fitness is back and my hip has seemingly made a full recovery. There are hints here and there that the weather is warming up. Fish are jumping. The cotton is high.

Hmmm, that's odd... Eight minutes ago, I started experiencing my first visual migraine. Luckily, my brother had one a little while back, so I know what's going on. It started as a little blind spot, that was making it hard to see the letter on the screen that I was looking at. It has since grown and moved off to the left. It's now like if I were looking out a window where someone had frozen the letter "C" onto the glass, causing a rainbow diffraction effect, except that the ice is also shimmering. It should end within the half hour, by all reports, and I might get a slight headache after. Very strange, and it would be scaring the tar out of me right now (think: stroke) if I didn't know what it was.
Update: It passed as predicted, in about a half an hour. I got the slightest of headaches afterwards, which is also typical. I found this Flash animation that gives a very good depiction of what it was like (except that the distortion was more of a "C" shape for me).

I knew I could do it. A year or so ago I quit biting my nails, thanks to a product marketed under the great name of Stop That (in America, I think it's called Bittrex). Stop That is a highly bitter substance you put on your nails for a little instant negative feedback whenever you put them in your mouth.

The problem was, I still had the tendency to pick at my nails with my other nails (or even a nail clipper), quite incessantly. I wasn't biting, but my fingers still didn't look too good. I tried all sorts of tricks to stop that, without much luck.

In the last three days, though, I've quit the picking. How? With a little product called Stop That. I just applied it to one nail, and whenever I caught myself picking at my nails, I made myself take a lick. Gross, but effective. I had to reapply several times at the start. But now, after three days, I pick no more.

The Chagall print we got is Lovers in the Red Sky. Marjorie loves Chagall and goats, so it was a good choice for her, and me -- well, boobies.

It actually came mounted wrong -- with the goat at the bottom and the houses on the left. We're trying to decide whether to leave it as it is or fix it.

Happy Birthday Mom! Wish we could be there with you.

Mostly as an exercise in Google Maps, Javascript, CSS, and web hosting, I've started a page of weekly pub trivia nights here in Melbourne. Check it out, but please remember, this is not an exercise in graphic design (which I have no real flair for).

Birthday was nice, actually, and not at all angsty like you might expect. On Saturday we went shopping for art (my birthday present request; we have a lot of bare walls in our house). I didn't find any winners but Marjorie picked out a nice Franz Marc Chagall print that goes great in our living room. At night we went out for Cambodian food, which was only just okay, but the neighborhood itself was a great find that made it worth the visit. We've added Yarraville to our list of neighborhoods to consider moving to. Sunday, my actual birthday, featured soccer followed by a massage, followed by pizza.

And instead of a mid-life crisis little red convertible, we rented a Hyundai Getz.

You are cast into the world naked, screaming. You learn, you grow. Trends come and go and come again. People move into and out of and into your lives. You get wiser, but at the price of a body that heals. The world gets more accessible, more polluted, more chaotic -- more fascinating. But did the world change, or you?. Then one day you wake up and you're... 40?

The web's biggest trend of the last year or two is surely video clips, AKA viral videos. They seem to come in just a few varieties:

• Short funny clips from comedy shows, especially The Daily Show.
  
• Stupid stunts.
  
• Crazy nature vids.
  
• The video editor with too much time on his hands.
  
• People acting goofy in their dorm rooms.
  And my favorite,
  
• Musical virtuosity. Check out these examples. As a frustrated musician, these pain me a little bit.
  
  
  
  • Guitar
    
  • Mandolin
    
  • Drums
    
  
  

Il gioco ugly. People aren't very happy with the Italian team down here, myself included, thanks to last week's now infamous incident (if you missed it, see the video here). Italy's the butt of jokes continent-wide, and will be for a long time to come. The emails are flying -- there's this and this and (warning: may offend) this.

Today at soccer, a guy I was covering took a dive in the box, and later admitted it to me sheepishly. "So, are you Italian?" I asked. He laughed.

Happy Birthday Dad!! Wish we could be there to spend it with you.

I think it's time to adopt children, so that I can teach them to hate the Italian style of soccer.

Long night's journey into day.

Thursday

7:00 pm: Soccer practice.
7:30 pm: I quit because my hip is sore. Full recovery will take longer than I had hoped.
9:00 pm: Begin getting ready for bed. Set the alarm for 1:50 am, since USA/Ghana game will be on at 2:00 am.
9:23 pm: Circuit breaker trips, as it is wont to do. We can't run the dryer at the same time as the bedroom heater. I reset the alarm for 1:50, and the time to 9:23.
5:00 am: I wake with a start, and quickly realize that I should have set the clock to 21:23, not 9:23. Nuts. I've been waiting four years to watch Team USA in the cup, and now I've slept through the critical game.
5:02 am: Learn from the internet that the USA lost. Groooaaaannn... Sleeping through it was a mercy.
5:04 am: Switch on the TV, and Australia is already losing 1-0, after the second minute. Groan again...
5:38 am: Australia equalizes! Justified penalty. Australia seems to be dominating.
5:45 am: Halftime. I jump in the shower and quickly ready myself for work.
6:11 am: Croatia goes ahead 2-1, on the softest goal I've seen in the WC so far. This was our replacement keeper, who coach Guus decided to start that day, for some reason. I hate and feel for him.
6:12 am: We only need a tie to advance. For some reason, I just know we're going to do it. So I run down to the tram stop to head down to Federation Square for the action.
6:15 am: Come on, you stupid tram...
6:30 am: Arrive at Federation Square. The cops are preventing any more people from getting in, but you can see the screen from the street. On top of a small set of stairs there are two policemen on horses; squeezing behind them are two guys angling for a better view, essentially standing in a pile of horse dung.
6:34 am: Kewell equalizes! Much jumping and screaming. I timed my run perfectly, as they say.
6:45 am: The barriers come down. We all run up as far as we can go. You'd think it's Texas Hold'em night the way cards are flying on the field.
6:47 am: Game over. Jubilation! People are chanting, singing, lighting flares.
6:50 am-7:30 am: Victory celebration. Fans take over Melbourne's busiest intersection at the corner of Flinders and Swanston. Cops on horses try to move them off, but they keep filling in behind. The trams start to pile up. Fans are singing: AuzZAY! Auzzay Auzzay Auzzaaaay! Auzzaaaaay, Auzzaaaay! Somebody climbs up on a tram, dancing. After fifteen minutes, Guy with a drum starts leading people up the street, in what is now apparently a new tradition (which happened spontaneously after the last match): the victory march to the Parliament building. Sights along the way: People slamming their hands on the windows and doors of the backed-up trams. Somebody climbed atop a phone booth to dance. At the Nike store, there is a window display of Socceroos jerseys; a line of guys got down on their knees and did we-are-not-worthy bows. Fans surround a Chinese guy sweeping the walk in front of his store -- and he starts dancing with them. Somebody climbed on top of a truck and danced as it rolled down the street.

On arriving at the Parliament house, the crowd is already singing "Waltzing Matilda". I hang around for a half hour or so just to soak it all in, and burn off some more of the disappointment at the USA loss. I decide it's time for work.

On the walk to work I decide my traditional American breakfast won't cut it, so I stop for a meat pie.

Speaking of.

As I mentioned before, I'm back! Following yesterday's return to action, boring match reports are back over on The Dull Blog.

Speaking of soccer, after a little too much jocularity at the wine tasting, it was all I could do to make it to the living room for the Australia game last night, let alone downtown. It was a good match, a respectable match, but a disappointing result for the Aussies.

Speaking of international flavors, over the weekend we went rented a car and went up to Footscray to have Ethiopian food. Very yum.

Speaking of tasty news, The Comedy Channel is going to start showing The Daily Show at 9:30 nightly, instead of the once-a-week Daily Show Global Edition on CNN at god-forsaken o'clock in the morning. Now there's no reason to leave Australia. Well, at least once we convince our families to move down here en masse.

And speaking of family, Happy Father's Day, Dad!

What a corker of a match that was. USA should count themselves lucky to come away with a point against Italy, in a match where anything could (and did) happen.

I have a dream. It's not a big dream, it's a little dream. My dream is that the USA will actually score a goal in this tournament.

It can all turn around next weekend. Our group is completely up for grabs. We need to beat Ghana (which will NOT be easy) and for Italy to beat the Czech Republic (which, well, who knows?). It will be something to watch.

My schedule today:

5am: Wake to watch USA v. Italy.
10am: Soccer match. I'm back! I've asked to play only 15 minutes though.
2:30pm: Wine tasting.
7pm-1am: Nap.
1am-3am: Australia v. Brazil. Right now I'm planning on going down to Federation Square to watch. It'll be cold as heck, and the middle of the night, and the trams will stop running by the end of the game -- but the amazing might happen.

What a sweet moment last night as Australia came back with three goals in the final six minutes to cancel out Japan's unjust early goal. It was enough to make an Aussie march on Parliament! Marjorie came out at around 3 a.m. to find me dancing around the living room. (Next game is against the Brazilians, who will walk all over the Socceroos of course, but you never know, so I'm definitely going to head down there.)

My bliss lasted about an hour, until about five minutes into the USA game. Ugh. In true soccer fandom tradition, I'm already of the opinion that we need a new coach. I think he forgot to tell the Team USA players that they were playing in the World Cup.

When in Rome. In LA I also did yoga for the first time ever. It was pretty tough. There was no experience of enlightenment or even relaxation, but I didn't really expect any the first time. Mostly I just tried to keep from falling down.

It is 5 AM, and you are listening to Los Angeles. Or at least, when you are on still on Los Angeles time, you are getting up at 5 AM. At least there's stuff to watch on TV.

We are back in Melbourne now and trying to get back on schedule. Luckily, Monday is a public holiday, but Monday night Australia and the USA play back-to-back into the wee hours. Sleep is overrated anyway.

We really had a fantastic visit back to the states. I can say, objectively, that my six nieces and nephews are the most adorable in the world. What a great day we all had, splashing around the water park.

The flight back was a piece of cake; we slept most of the way, and our neighbor stayed in her seat. Kudos to Air New Zealand.

Arriving in Melbourne we were greeted with bitter cold and grey. The sun's out now but it's still all windy and cold outside. Inside our house, it's at least not windy.

Atlanta summary:

Saw a lot of friends, but not everyone we wanted to see.

Ate a lot of good food, but missed several restaurants we wanted to eat at.

Wow, I forgot how fast everyone drives.

Also forgot how every new condo is called a "loft" so that they can charge you an extra 20% for not finishing the place.

I can't believe Chic-Fil-A is still using those morbid cows in their ads.

Likewise for Geico and the gecko.

Strip malls are breeding exponentially.

Marjorie's parents are the best! (After my own, of course.)

Things I had completely forgotten about in the US:

Check-cashing stores

Radio Shack

Popeye's fried chicken

Cashiers at clothing stores asking "Did anyone help you with this?"

Just how big a Super Target store can be

TV ads for feminine products

Right on red
The standard US coins seem smaller than I remember, too. And why are all the dollar bill denominations the same size and color?

We did have a blast in LA. After too much shopping in Santa Monica, we finally went our for proper Mexican, and just hung out in the booth all night while friends of Michael and Kristina stopped by and took off again. From that description it doesn't sound like a glamorous LA night, but you had to be there.

We're in (very north) Atlanta now, doing to much shopping and taking care of other errands. I thought we were getting over the jet lag but last night we were both awake from 4 am until 7 or 8. Bleah.

Well, I claimed to like flying, but this flight wasn't all that great. Not the airline's fault -- Air New Zealand was timely, with good food and service, and TVs in every seat back, which is getting more common these days, thankfully. I watched The Fastest Indian and The Matador, which were both good; also parts of Syriana, The Producers, and a lot of TV episodes. Interesting cultural aside -- the pilot interrupted everyone's movies to announce the result of a New Zealand rugby match.

But I was stuck in a center seat, next to a guy with serious personal space issues. Crying babies will eventually stop, but a guy who huffs at you when you try to push his knee out of your space is a flying nightmare. Of course, it's tough to sleep while being constantly irked. I would have got into it with him verbally, but I knew the adreneline that would result would've made sleep impossible. I thought about queuing up Brokeback Mountain on my TV and then rubbing his leg seductively as an aversion tactic but was afraid it might've had the opposite effect I was intending.

So I'm operating on sunlight and Mountain Dew at the moment (the first thing we did was make a run for the border). We're about to run out to Santa Monica to do some shopping, and there's a shindig of some sort tonight, so I'm just going to push through.

What's a good day for you? For me it's sitting on plane for the whole day, watching movies, reading, doing puzzles, looking out the window... I'm a freak, sure. But that's my tomorrow. And what's waiting for me at the other end of this flight? Three words: proper Mexican food.

I'm an idiot, because after mentally preparing for my dentist appointment today, and mentioning it to several people, I plum forgot to go. Rescheduled for Friday.

It only adds to what promises to be a mad week of preparing for our trip stateside which we embark on next weekend. So much to do, still, and lots to wrap up at work, plus two talks to give.

It's been two years, four months since I've set foot in the US. Crazy, man. I can't wait to see everyone -- especially all the nieces and nephews, include one niece I've (shamefully) never met, who's four. We're all going to go for a bit of splash, which should be a hoot.

As winter approaches the days have been getting shorter and shorter, so that by the time we go for "walkies" it's dark. The upside of this is that it's also Bat O'clock. As Laika and I walk to the park in the dark, hundreds of flying foxes fly overhead. Whenever I see them I'm reminded how lucky I am to live in Australia.
Laika and I have also seen an owl at our park lately. Cool.

I'm twenty five years and ten thousand miles from where I last had to face a dentist's drill, so I was a bit apprehensive. There are four fillings to replace; I was hoping to do them all today, just to get it done with, so he just did one side.

"We can fire up the camera again if you want to watch what's going on," he said.

Yeah, no thanks.

The worst part is still the needle. I just have to close my eyes and go to my happy place as soon as he whips that thing out. The other worst part was that the drill occasionally found the resonant frequency of my skull. Yesh, I did thound like thish for a while afterwards, but beyond the needle, the procedure was without pain.

I'm glad to get rid of these fillings. Not because they're mercury -- I don't buy the hysteria about that -- but because they were leaking. My mouth has been like a petri dish lately (ick, I know, sorry). As a bonus, the new fillings are white instead of dark.

I get to do it all again on the other side next Monday. At least I know what to expect now.

Singapore and the UK have banned this ad for Australian tourism in their respective countries.

Singapore I can understand, but the UK? The people who brought us this and this and this?

New Tricks:
I've discovered recently that Laika is quite capable of learning new tricks. We just don't teach her the right ones. We've managed to teach her "crazy disembodied head", which is when she puts her head between a person's legs and proceeds to try to attack alternating hands (she prefers it if you scissor your hands in front of her face). She's also learned how to herd us out the door for walkies. I've recently been trying to regain the balance of power before walkies by having her "sit" and "drop" before going out. We're also working on "stay", she's almost got it. We're still working on "shake", I suspect we will be for awhile.

Had my visit today with Arthur O'Scoppy (he's friends with Fizzy O'Therapist).

The last time I had surgery I was in my twenties, and so had that immortal, indestructable feeling going in. This time I was a little more apprehensive. Still, I couldn't have been that nervous, as I took an hour long nap before the operation after they were done with the prep work.

I couldn't help having the opening theme from Six Feet Under in my head as they wheeled me down the hall, though.

They put me on the operating table, then turned on my drip and said "You're going to start to feel a little strange." "Stranger than being surrounded by all these people and lights and equipment while half naked, you mean?" That was the last I remember, before waking up in post op and asking, "Stupid question, I know, but have I had the operation yet?"

Apparently, it took about twenty minutes. I can walk, without crutches, but slowly and gingerly. It's six hours later, and I just took a couple of pills but probably could have done without. Signs are good for a quick recovery.

Last fall every weekend was gorgeous, it seems. This fall, not so lucky. Today was drizzly and cold. But, we went to check out the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre and had a nice romp around their facilities. It was good practice for our impending trip back to the states -- we're planning a big family gathering at Disney's Typhoon Lagoon. Fortunately, Marjorie and I still have the ability to run around like kids and even went on their waterslide.

The other movie we watched last weekend, at least partly, was Devdas -- the most expensive Bollywood epic ever made.

The quality of music, dancing, and acting were an order of magnitude above your average cheesy Bollywood potboiler, but that only made it less fun.

In fact, several incidents really gave us pause. In one, the main character Devdas finds that his true love is marrying someone else, after he spurned her. They argue, and he sucker-smacks her with a necklace, making her bleed from the forehead. On her wedding day, I might add. Instead of her giving him the heave-ho, they instead decide together that this injury will be a symbol of their love.

In another, her mother is expecting his family to welcome her daughter, but instead they reject her, because she is of low caste. The mother, distraught, is heard to comment, "I came here to wish you a long life and grandsons. But instead I wish you granddaughters!"

India's a messed up place.

Happy Easter! Just wrapping up a nice four-day weekend. Highlights:

Soccer practice on Thursday night. Scrimmaged when I probably shouldn't have, but it was a tonne of fun. Drinks afterwards at The Limerick Arms.

Lots of movies. Somehow I had never seen "Glengarry Glen Ross": outstanding.

Bowling at Melbourne Central while waiting to see "March of the Penguins". Video jukebox played our videos on screen right next to the scoring. Sophie Ellis Bextor, woo hoo!

A fine bottle of Prosecco to celebrate Easter.

Sleeping in.

Finally found the book in a local Borders. Fun to see your name (and words!) in print. Would've bought it, but I can get it cheaper back in the states. For some reason, I didn't expect to see it in the "self help" section. While browsing there, I learned an interesting fact: women, it seems, are from Venus, while men are from Mars. Who knew?

Right now, there's a bit of kangaroo meat stuck in my teeth.

It's actually quite good. I found some on sale at the grocery -- three dollars for three chunks of it. It looks kind of dark and unappetizing in the package. But it cooks up much like a beef roast; it comes apart in strands, but wasn't gamey at all. I ate all three pieces.

Laika likes it too.

Can't I just trade it for some free drinks? I won this funky bike at pub trivia. Any takers?

At work I got sick of trying to figure out every Friday how many hours I worked on various projects to log to my time sheet. We're supposed to show not only project by project totals, but subtasks within projects as well, down to every tenth of an hour. Some weeks it would take me nearly an hour to figure out everything.

So, during some down time I wrote a little program where you can enter your tasks and just click on them to start a timer. At the end of the week you can view the totals in a nice little table. It works like a charm, and I use it every day. My time sheets are accurate to the minute these days. And a couple of my coworkers have started using it as well. I'm going to ask if I can release the program as open source so anyone can use (or modify) it.

The problem is that I've been having "work dreams" almost every night recently, and it dawned on me that they started right around the time I started using my timer. I think the program is like a little Sword of Damocles that's been subtly poisoning my subconcious, to mix a metaphor. If I remember correctly, my dad once refused a job because he didn't want to punch a time clock. Something in my blood, maybe.

Name envy. On my current project, I work with people with last names of Oh, Ho, Ng, and Lam. It would probably save me a million keystrokes over the course of my career if my name were that short.

Had a dentist appointment today, my first in two years (I been baaaad). What was cool was that they had a telescoping camera and a TV on the ceiling so they could show me the inside of my mouth. What was not cool was that they showed me where four of my six fillings (I got 'em all in one particularly bad year when I was 14) were showing signs of hairline cracks and creeping rot underneath, meaning they'll need to be replaced. Nuts. My streak of twenty-five years of good news at the dentist has come to an end.

Confirmed for hip arthroscopy in late April. Recovery is typically quick; I should even be able to walk out, but no sports for six to eight weeks.

Sometimes you don't post for a while, and it gets harder and harder to finally post something...

Not much happening here. I mean, the Commonwealth Games are in town, but we could care less, really. If Americans aren't even invited to compete, well, why should I watch? Attendance hasn't exactly been setting records anyway, so we're not the only ones. Plus, they've actually delayed daylight savings for a few weeks because of these games, which is causing problems with our calendars at work.

Last weekend we checked out the Werribee Open Range Zoo, which was pretty cool.

Oh, you can listen to a nice radio interview with the author of the book I contributed to here. The interview starts about 23 minutes in.

Last night we checked out a really cool new, um, bar? in the neighborhood called The Butterfly Club. It's built inside an old Victorian house, and features (believe it or not) cabaret. In the States that usually equates to "drag show" or "live nude girlz" but here they're actually talking about the original, old-school style cabaret. The place is dripping with character, and I can't wait to see a show there.

How to get a week off work and loose five pounds:
Step one: pick up a nasty bacterial infection (Campylobacter Coli/jejuni). Apparently it can be found in some sketchy water sources and uncooked chicken. It's usually caught while traveling in less hygienic countries, but if you're resourceful you can find it domestically.
Step two: Let the bacteria work it's mojo. If you're lucky you won't be able to eat anything for a good five days, and stomach cramps will continue anytime you DO eat something for an additional five days.
Enjoy! Or maybe not.
This week I have been sicker than I've been thus far in my life. It's not the worst food poisoning I've experienced, just the longest. I started feeling bad Friday morning last week, and a week later, I'm mostly recovered, but still crampy.
It was actually good news when I got the results of the pathology report and discovered it was a bacterial infection. At least now I don't have to worry about giving this to Mark or anyone else. Fun stuff!

Book news. Apparently the book is at sales rank #277 on Amazon, which is really good, and is the top selling book in the computer science category. This is all before Ron (the author) has done any press too. There are rumours that it will be reviewed on slashdot soon, which is just about all one could hope for (well, a positive review there is all one could hope for). Woot!

Interesting article on The 2006 Best of Web 2.0. ("Web 2.0" is just a buzzword, guaranteed to make most techies retch, for a supposed new paradigm shift in the internet.) But basically it's just a bunch of links to new sites that are proving to be particularly useful. I clued into it because I was already using a full 7 of the 10 sites. So, take my word for it, there will be something useful here for you. Here's a rundown of their picks, with my comments:

Flickr - essential for photo sharing.

Vimeo - basically, Flickr for video. Seems like it might be useful but I don't do a lot of video. Don't know how it compares to YouTube or Google video.

Del.icio.us - for tagging and sharing of bookmarks. I'm enjoying this more the more I use it.

Digg - essential for techie news. I check it more often even than SlashDot these days.

Bloglines - for aggregating feeds from blogs, news, or anything else with an RSS feed. Dare I use the word "essential" again?

Netvibes - slickly lets you build a page made up of all your favorite services, blogs, and other info. I just signed on, and this one is really, really cool. For amusement, add a Flickr content panel that searches on the keyword "drunk".

Writeboard - lets you create a document that's editable by people all over the net. I can't think of a use for this right now but I could see it being useful at some point.

Google maps - great, but would be more useful if there were better Australia map data.

Google local - again, this is probably more useful for those of you in the States.

Meebo - combines your AOL, MSN, Google, and Yahoo instant messengers into a web page. Only useful in getting around a workplace ban on IM chatting, as far as I can see.

We're planning on moving to another part of the city, where we could pay less rent, and Marjorie would have a shorter commute to work. We've been house-hunting in a half-assed manner on the weekends: we like where we're at now, and are not in a big hurry to leave. Luckily, we're month-to-month at our current place, so we have the luxury of being able to wait for the right situation.

This may sound strange, but our dream house is a duplex. We each want our own space. We can't afford that right now, of course, but we're quite serious about doing it eventually. It's not that we despise living together so much; it would just be nice to each have our own sanctuary that's all ours. As it is, now, we only sleep in the same bed two or three nights a week.

When we mention that sort of thing to some couples, they look at us like we're nuts. Others, you can see the wheels start to turn in their heads.

Yesterday we went on our second annual Grape Grazing tour. No striptease from the bus in front of us this year, unfortunately. In fact, the whole thing seemed to fly by. But it was still good fun.

There's a show we like on local television called Spicks and Specks. It's a low-budget music-themed quiz show, hosted by a local comedian. It's loosely formatted, and often breaks down into everyone just cracking jokes.

We went and saw a taping last night, which was a lot of fun. They have guests every week, usually Australian celebrities who we've never heard of, and last night was no exception. But they have a lot of amusing challenges for the contestants, like these we witnessed last night:

Substitute: One team member must sing a well-known song, but with lyrics substituted from another book (such as ones about Communism or picking up women, as we saw). They do this one on every show.

Watch thirty seconds of a cheesy video clip, and answer questions about it afterwards.

Recognize a song that's played backwards.

Guess what's missing from an old album cover with part of it blocked out.

Before the show, the host was warming up the audience, and asked if there was anyone here from outside Australia. Aside from a couple from New Zealand, there was only us. So he made a few jokes in our direction, and referred back to us a few times during the night (not while they were filming though).

Just watching the production was interesting to me too. They had to cut a few times to fix sound issues, then try to pick up where they left off in such a way that they can edit it together. There was even some funny audience comments that they wanted to capture on film at the end, so they had to ask the audience member to reenact it on camera. They filmed a good 45 minutes for each show, I think, that gets edited down into 25 minutes or so.

Gammy leg. The MRIs came back on X-ray sheets, ten big ones with twelve cross-section shots on them each. Most of the shots looked like grade-A nicely marbled rib-eye steaks. Looks like all the force-fed corn and hormone injections paid off.

Just got back from the doc, where we went over my MRI results. Bottom line, it was indeed the cartilege around my hip/thigh ball joint, and woo-hoo, no evidence of tendon or ligament damage. I'm now scheduled for a consultation with a surgeon next month, in preparation for probable surgery in April. Arthroscopic, so I should be up and around quite quickly. I may not even need crutches. No soccer this season though.

I'm a freak, apparently, because I like flying. Even the ridiculously long flights it takes to get back home, I enjoy. I can't explain why, really, but I'm pretty much alone on this one, from what I can tell.

I'm also fairly alone in liking public speaking, as I've just noticed the other day. If you know me at all, you might find that surprising, as I've had several embarassing public speaking disasters in presence of friends and family. Sometimes, I just can't form a sentence, and my voice decides it wants to sit halfway down my esophagus.

But the other day I gave a talk with a coworker at a staff meeting, about new web trends like del.icio.us and Wikipedia, and it came off superbly. If I had to do it for a living, I wouldn't mind that at all, believe it or not. And I can't wait for my next chance.

Tragically, hip. Saw a proper sports doctor this morning. He pretty much confirmed that it's the cartilege where my right femur joins the hip that's messed up. I got an MRI this evening to find out just how bad. I'll get the full analysis of it a week from Wednesday, but by all indications my options are going to be a) take anti-inflammatories, play for maybe one more year, and not fix the problem; b) quit; or c) surgery. I can't imagine how invasive it must be to get to the hip joint during surgery, but it might be better in the long run. I don't like any of those options much.

The MRI was cool because I got to choose the music I wanted to listen to, through (non-metallic, air tube style) headphones. I almost fell asleep. If magnetic insoles and such are really supposed to have curative effects, then how come you can lie in a 10,000-gauss magnetic field and come out feeling only slightly bored?

Just got back from the Big Day Out festival, where we caught Franz Ferdinand, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, and the White Stripes. From a distance, as people our age are wont to avoid contact with screaming sweaty drunks. Franz Ferdinand was sterile, but less so than their records, so it was actually pretty enjoyable. Iggy's still nuts; I saw him probably fifteen years ago or so, and if anything, he looks younger and still has the same energy. The White Stripes sounded really good but we were too far back by that time for any real involvement.

It was interesting to watch for cultural differences in a festival crowd as compared to shows we've been to in the states. Mostly it was subtle things. I like that the whole crowd here can sometimes act in unison; you hardly ever see that in the US.

I failed to mention that a few weeks back I went and checked out the Stanley Kubrick exhibit at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. It was fabbo. Lots of movie clips playing, along with original props, early press releases, protest letters, equipment; all kinds of wild stuff. I never knew that Kubrick put in the most work of all towards a bio-epic about Napoleon. It never got made, but just seeing his filing cabinet of notes, his stacks of books on the subject, production schedules, and repeated drafts of scripts was boggling. What's the maddest a person can be and still function in society? That's the place on the spectrum to look for genius. Exhibit's still running for a few more days if you're in town.

Marjorie hosted wine tasting at our place yesterday. It happened to be the hottest day that either of us can remember -- and we used to live in Singapore, so that's saying a lot. The high was 43 celsius, which is 109.4 fahrenheit. Yikes! Our place has no air conditioning, so we hooked up the bogan AC, which is bowlfuls of ice in front of oscillating fans. Wisely, Marjorie chose white wines, and everything went swimmingly.

Surreal moment during house cleanup beforehand. We encountered a number of spiders that were driven inside, presumably because of the heat. Marjorie, who's no timid country mouse, caught a big black one in a glass, and gave it to me to release. (Some of our best friends are spiders, so we don't kill them -- usually.) I ran across the street to set it free on a tree, which it promptly started climbing. What I didn't realise is that I had just condemned the poor creature to death. Halfway back across the street I turned around, just in time to see a minah bird swoop down, land, and do a quick hop up the tree to gobble up him up. It was literally less than five seconds after I let him go.

Nature, red in tooth and claw. All part of the food chain, I guess, but after that minah just pooed on me the other day, they're one species that's off my Christmas card list next year.

I went to see Fizzy O'Therapist a day after my last blog. Not being a true doctor, he couldn't give me a full diag- or prog-nosis, but the problem is definitely centered around my right ball-and-socket joint, where it joins the hip. And it's probably ligaments. He gave me some exercises to do, and I am going to see a real sports doc next Monday. At any rate, I'm a little more sanguine about my prospects for playing more, even if it isn't this season.

Boring soccer updates may be over, for good. I played a friendly game tonight, and my torn ligament, or whatever it is, decided to make a return visit. Worse than ever, too, despite being pretty much idle for months.

It's right where my right leg joins my hip, and I feel it bad whenever I kick the ball with my right leg, especially if I kick with the side of my foot. What stinks is that I can still run just fine, and am playing as good as I ever have. I just can't kick the ball. (And that's kind of important in soccer.)

I'll go see a physio, but I don't have a lot of hope, since I think it's a ligament tear. I suspect my options will be:

Learn to kick with my left foot exclusively.

Quit.

Become a goalkeeper.

I'm not depressed about it -- yet. I'm just angry right now.

Other Tasmania trip points of note:

While staying in a hotel in Hobart that had a small kitchen, Marjorie asked me to boil some water while she took a shower. What I didn't realize was that the kettle had its own separate base unit that you plug in. Instead, I put the thing -- which has a plastic bottom, btw -- on the burner, then left the room to go deal with the car situation. She came out of the shower to find the room filled with acrid smoke. I totaled the kettle, and left melted plastic all over the burner. It's a damn good thing I'm so good looking, and don't have to get by on my brains.

We arrived home sometime after midnight. While opening the front door, we disturbed a mynah bird that had been roosting in a rafters of the front porch. He shat on me and flew off. Welcome home!

If it's 4 a.m., it must be Regis. A friend of mine is right now trying to become a contestant on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire", at a taping at Disney World. He wants me to be his "Phone A Friend" person, so I might be getting a call, as early as 4 a.m., from -- well, I thought it would be Regis Philbin, but that just shows how long I've been out of the States. Meredith Vieira. The odds are slim that he'll be one of the ones randomly selected from the audience, but you never know. I'll be ready to Google the answer if I don't know it offhand.

I have been away from the States for a while. I just realized that last week marks two years since I've set foot on U.S. soil. Zowee. Later this year, we'll be heading back (now that it looks like I won't be getting World Cup tickets :).

Update. He didn't make it in. Oh well.

As per request, I present to you... facial hair!.

Man purse. Girls are on to something. Over the break I bought a over-the-shoulder carry bag, and I already can't get by without it. What aversion do men have to being able to carry things?

Why do dogs always develop nicknames in addition to their given names? For whatever reason, Laika is almost always refered to as "Sweet Girl" or "Dingus McDognus" in our house.

We booked our trip to Tasmania just just a few weeks back. We called a bunch of places asking about rooms, and they all pretty much laughed at us. Finally someone explained to us that the Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race was going on, and the hotels in town were pretty much chockablock. Finally we started calling pubs, and found a place that agreed to take us.

When we arrived in Hobart and drove to the hotel, we found the room to have just a sagging single bed, crumbs in the carpet, etc. So we declined and tried looking around for somebody with a cancellation. We even tried neighboring towns. Finally we realized that we weren't going to do any better than sleeping in the car. We got a tip from a guy in a hostel about a good place to park along the river. So we got a bottle of wine and headed down. "Stick with me, babe," I told Marjorie. "With me, it's class all the way. Spending New Year's Eve in a Hyundai Elantra drinking wine from a thermos cup."

There were dolphins in the river, which was cool. We ended up crashing out at about 9 pm. Fortunately it was raining, which was conducive to sleep. We half awoke at midnight to the sounds of fireworks, and a few people in the park whooped it up for a while, but the rain soon drove them home.

We slept in until almost 9 am. Our booking the next night was in a caravan park down in Adventure Bay on Bruny Island, so we headed south, caught the ferry, and arrived around noon. Ah, showers and a soft bed. Bruny Island has some crazy wildlife, including white wallabies and lots of rare bird species. We took a few hikes and basically relaxed for a few days there.

The next day was unplanned, so we just decided to get a nice place in Hobart using the money we saved sleeping in the car on New Year's. Our rental car picked that evening to die on us. Consider all the remote places in Tasmania, it was fortunate for us that it happened within a block of our room. Hertz sent a man out who couldn't fix it, so they had a new car waiting for us the next morning. Good on 'em.

We then headed up to Bicheno, a nice seaside town with some great tidepools that we spent a lot of time exploring. We picked Bicheno because it is near Freycinet National Park, which we explored the next day. I love that one of Tasmania's biggest tourist attractions can only be reached via a hike.

Our last day was spent driving up to Launceston, to catch a late flight home. Again, see the pictures for a more vivid experience than my flat prose can provide. Tasmania was maybe not as different from Melbourne as we had hoped, but is definitely interesting in its own right. I wish every place was as focused on preserving their history and ecology. Traveling there, one finds oneself pondering deep questions, such as: What is life all about? Could I survive alone in the wilderness? And, is it possible to make a White Russian with soy milk?

(Birds we spotted: Tasmanian native-hens [which, as you could never guess from their name, are native to Tasmania], green rosellas, Australian gannets, little pied cormorants, white-faced herons, black swans, mallard ducks, Australian wood ducks, kookaburras, pied oystercatchers, sooty oystercatchers, masked lapwings, tons of silver gulls, Pacific gulls, a flock of yellow-tailed black cockatoos, musk lorakeets, a ton of welcome swallows, either a pink robin or a flame robin, New Holland honeyeaters, many superb fairy-wrens, some unidentified terns, and lots of unidentified birds of prey. We walked through the habitat of the exceedingly rare forty-spotted pardalote but didn't spot any.)

Mark didn't shave the entire time we were in Tasmania. Last night I shaved his beard with creative license, now he looks Amish. Funny. I suspect it will only last the morning.

Tasmania. We just got back from our trip to Tasmania, where we spent New Year's and the week after. More detail to follow, but in the meanwhile, enjoy some pictures.