Thursday, July 24, 2003

Four reasons to be angry.

1. US just lost to Brazil, in heartbreaking fashion. I was so hoping for a US-Mexico final.

2. National Geographic reports that Singapore's biodiversity has been ravaged. Paints an awfully bleak picture for the effects of rising population everywhere.

3. The comments have stopped working again.

4. Ice cream, my newest kick, is really bad for you, according to a new study by the people who previously ruined Chinese and Italian food for everyone.

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

Playing around with the Terraserver web site. Here's an overview of where I grew up in Cherry Hill, NJ, age zero to ten, and a guide to the marked points:
1. Our house.
2. The church parking lot that I first rode a bike without training wheels.
3. The church (Pope Pius X) where we went every Sunday, and I had my first communion.
4. I used to catch big preying mantises here. I had an awesome insect collection.
5. I caught a ton of cool butterflies here, at a larkspur bush.
6. This used to be a field. One time playing softball(?) here, where if I remember correctly, my sister ended up with stitches after a collision.
7. My friend Dale's house.
8. My friend Terry's house (I think).
9. Here I knocked over a small tree in the yard of my friend Donny, and had to work it off in their garden.
10. Mean Mr. Taylor's house. Once our kickball went on his lawn and he took it and put it in his garage.

Tuesday, July 22, 2003

Up the street from the new pad is a hawker center and a wet market. Marjorie and I walked up there today for dinner.

I was hoping she could see the wet market, but it must just be a weekend thing. I scoped it out last Saturday, and it's a trip. Everywhere is fish -- whole fish to cook up, fish heads, aquarium fish, prawns, crabs... A bucket of dead squid in their own ink. And, a container with about thirty live bullfrogs. Also they have meat, fruits, and vegetables galore.

Tonight we found the grounds of a "bird club", which probably explains all the caged birds we see hanging outside area houses. Apparently, the old men bring their caged birds to this site in the evenings and hang them next to each other so they can sing to each other. They have larger cages in the back containing numerous birds. Interesting.

Dinner was a decent chicken murtabak and a Nasi Lemak that we tried unsuccessfully to order without anchovies...