This morning I got up at 5 am, shaved my tongue (the office Christmas party was last night), and went into town to get naked in front of a bunch of strangers.

It was a hoot, but damn cold. There were, I'd say, sixty of us. All body types; all ages; tattoos, piercings... One woman was there with her five year old son, who was a good sport most of the time, but was not happy to have to lay on the grass. It took about 40 minutes in all. The worst was posing on a bridge over the Yarra river, where we were exposed to the wind. Plus, I ended up having to lay in a wet spot (it rained last night). Brrr! Also, it started drizzling at the very end. The only witnesses were a group of joggers, one person on a hotel balcony, and a mostly-empty tram.

The calendars should be ready in about a week. Be warned, I might post some scans!

Sad News:
We found out yesterday, that one of Laika's park buddies, a dog named Charlotte, was killed in a hit and run on Saturday. What kind of person hits an animal and can't even stop? I suspect he/she was speeding, drunk or both.

An interesting possibility presented itself at work today. The company has ideas about starting to outsource work to India (like everyone else these days). But, though it's way too early to call, it might mean a trip or two to India to set things up. Hyderabad or Mumbai. How cool would that be?

"Silly Season" is another Australianism, which is their term for the time around Christmas, when there are a slew of office (and other) parties. Silly? Hah. They've got nothing on the good ol' U. S. of A..

Uh oh. Last night we went to a (Aussie-style) Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's house. They had a picture of up by that famous photographer, Spencer Tunick, that takes pictures of large numbers of naked people in famous locations. He's even taken shots in Melbourne before.

I said to Marjorie, you know, if he ever comes to town again, we should participate. She said, you go right ahead, I'll watch.

So this morning I'm surfing around, and guess what's happening next week?

What I want for Christmas. An interesting bit of journalism from from favorite new author.

Apparently, Melbourne has another sport to its credit, besides footy, that was invented here and is played here pretty much exclusively. It's called trugo, and was invented in the 1920's by railroad workers, and involves knocking a rubber ring through goal posts with a railroad mallet. We had never heard of it until last night. Strange.