Better Day We went to the Temple Of Literature today, which was very nice and got us away from the old quarter in Hanoi and into some nicer/cleaner areas of town.
As Mark said we'll be in Sapa for the next few days. Night train tonight, then trek for four hours tomorrow, spend tomorrow night in a "house stay", then trek two hours Sunday, then a free afternoon and spend the night in a hotel. Monday morning will be free then we'll take a night train back to Hanoi for one more day in Hanoi before flying off to Hue. Sapa's supposed to be fantastic so hopefully we'll enjoy ourselves. We're slowly starting to get over our initial culture shock, and therefore more likely to have a good time. We've discovered ways to take little breaks from the insanity and intensity of the streets so, unlike yesterday, I think we'll be able to manage three more weeks here. Yesterday I wasn't so sure.

Cripes, is internet access here slow. Good thing it's only something like $0.33 per hour. Don't think we'd even be able to upload pictures anyway at the bandwidth we get here.

Change of plans -- we're taking a tour of Sapa for the next two (maybe three) nights, starting with a night train out tonight. The tour is through HandSpan travel. We're going to sleep in a villagers house! At least, that's what they tell us. It will likely get changed around. We'll also be trekking for four hours the first day, two the second. Most mountain villagers don't have internet access, I think, so we won't be checking back in for a few days. Wish us luck!

For visitors to Hanoi, I offer the following words of advice:

Advice #1: When at a restaurant, ask to use the restroom (WC) first, because it will usually involve you going through the kitchen, which you can then scope out.
Advice #2: Ignore Advice #1, or you'll go hungry.

Actually, we found what seems to be a rather nice travel cafe, that seems to go all the others one better -- HandSpan travel. Clean, spacious, and friendly. And with full-sized seats -- nearly everywhere in town uses kindergarten-sized chairs, for some reason. Must have something to do with the fact that squatting seems to be the official Vietnamese stance (and I'm not just talking about the toilets). For some reason, you see people squatting around everywhere.

We've decreed today to be Casual Day. We're off to do some more casual things.

Things are brighter by the light of day Even with a hangover (due to a bottle of french bordeaux last night), things seem better today. We're getting better at ignoring the constant street attention (people constantly coming up to you trying to sell postcards, fruit, travel guides, anything) and have mastered crossing the road without flinching. We found a lovely place to eat brunch today (banana pancakes for me, french toast for Mark) and plan on booking a tour out of town today (maybe to one of the nearby national parks). We realized, after I put down the crackpipe, that we are not flying out on Monday, but are leaving Wednesday (the 18), so we have more time here than we realized.
For anyone interested the practice of serving up dogs as dinner is still ongoing in Hanoi and the surrounding area. Apparently they breed the dogs, keep them as pets for awhile, and then eat them. Look out Beau and Sadie! Dog meat is Thit cho or Thit cay. Also on the menu in many places are snakes, bat, muntjac, and frog. Unfortunately I don't know the Vietnamese words for these items. Comfortingly we've found a nice vegetarian restaurant in Hanoi.
Our hotel last night was rather nice and only $12. However the owner is a bit pushy and keeps trying to get us to book tours with him, but after our Halong bay experience, we'll be sticking to the tour bookers highly recommended by Lonely planet.

The reality fails to meet with the fantasy as things often do in real life. Ha Long bay was rather nice but Vietnam so far is largely disappointing (and frankly the dirtiest place I've ever seen). I imagined that by going here, Mark and I would automatically graduate into a "higher level" of traveler. That's partly true and largely not... we've experienced a third world country now, and somewhat uncomfortable travel, but I don't see myself going out of the way to be this uncomfortable again.
The discomfort is hard to pinpoint as well: You constantly feel as though someone is trying to shake you down, and often you are correct. You worry about your bags when you leave your room, and rightly so. You are constantly inundated with startling sights, sounds, and smells, it's sensory overload to the full extent possible (minus the sniper though Dad). This said it's not all bad either: It's amazingly easy to meet really interesting, very friendly people, often other travelers (we kinda stand out in the crowd), and you have an immediate bond with these people because it's so crazy all around you. Also, you attain maximum alertness most of the day simply because you need to be in order to cross the road without dying. You feel ALIVE, because you are so alert, but it's exhausting after awhile and honestly if we don't find some respite here, it will be a very draining experience.
We've heard from a couple of different people that Hoi An is really nice, so the plan at the moment is to fly to Hue on Monday, then slowly make our way down to Hoi An, stay there until the 27 or 28 and then fly to Ho Chi Minh city for the last few days of our trip. There's supposed to be a pretty nice beach in Hoi An, and it seems to be better (by reputation) then Nha Trang of Phan Tiet.
Keep the comments coming. We love hearing from you all

Ha Long... Ha Long must we sing this song... Back in Hanoi now after spending last night in the Ha Long Bay vicinity. We had signed up to sleep on a boat on the bay, but we were informed -- after we were on the bus on the way there -- that for some police reason or other, that would not be possible. Uh huh. This sort of thing is apparently par for the course with tour companies in Vietnam. They would have to put us up in a hotel instead.

The bay itself is just magnificent. We took lots of pictures, and even some short movies, but unfortunately, the internet cafes here have ancient computers without USB connections, so I won't be able to upload any until we get home. Disappointing.

They took us onto one of the islands in the bay that had a gigantic cave inside, with countless formations of dripped limestone. Very cool. And (for a small extra fee) some young boys from the local floating village (!!!) took us on their boat through a tunnel into a small basin where we were surrounded on all sides by 500 ft cliffs.

They put us up for the night in on Cat Ba Island, a seedy island town that's about how you'd expect a tourist resort run by communists to be. Our hotel room had the following nice features:

A sopping wet roll of toilet paper.

A used and very dirty comb.

Leftover food wrappers from the last tenants.

A door of lightly frosted glass, which I guess eliminates the need for Soviet-era spy cameras.

We had a number of drinks with some fellow travelers at the Flightless Bird a few doors down from our hotel, then passed out. Today we breakfasted (baguettes with cheese, a banana, and tea), boated back (even more magnificent in the sunlight after the trip out with overcast skies), lunched (some fish dish; some chicken dish; steamed bok choi, tomatoes and cucumbers [avoided], french fries, spring rolls, rice), then took the van back into Hanoi. Tomorrow we have a relaxing day, then will probably do the Perfume Pagoda on Saturday.

I cannot stress enough what a chaotic place Hanoi is. The dust, the dirt, the waves of people clogging the streets, the smells (good and bad), the sounds. The other day we hung out our hotel room and listened to see if we could hear a full second without a horn beeping. We gave up after a few minutes. We have adjusted, however, and can now cross the street like old pros.

Back in the same place this evening for another entry... We just walked around much of the day; just soaking it all in is tourism enough. We did go see water puppetry tonight, which was pretty cool. I thought the accompanying band was amazing. It's not every day you see Vietnamese water puppetry.

We continued a tradition tonight, by having Indian food. We've now had Indian food in six countries!

Disturbing sight of the day: I knew they cut people's hair out on the streets, but I was not prepared for... STREET DENTISTRY! I kid you not.

Tomorrow we take a tour to Ha Long Bay, where we'll be spending the night on a boat.

WE ARE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE. Holy jeez... In an internet cafe in Hanoi now. This place'll totally make your head spin. Marjorie's next to me blogging so some of this information may be repeated.

We got off to a bad start when checking in on the plane. I convinced Marjorie not to check her bag -- just to take it carry-on -- not realizing that she had a Swiss army knife and a pair of scissors. So they tried to confiscate them, until we convinced them to let us check the bag anyway.

We stopped over in Ho Chi Minh City on the way to Hanoi, where we went through customs and changed money. The airport is pretty chaotic. It's 15,300 dong to the dollar, so when I changed $100.00, I ended up with a huge fat wad of money. That might come in handy if we find ourselves somewhere without toilet paper...

The drive into town from the airport in a minivan took a year from my life. Well, it's not really that bad, once you realize there's a system to it, but the drivers here pretty much honk their horns constantly, and bikes and mopeds are ubiquitous and dart in and out constantly. Often you'll see them just going the wrong way, against traffic.

Our hotel room is Western and comfortable, except for the bed, which is hard enough to bruise you if you jump in too fast.

We walked around the block last night after we arrived, and realized that one block of culture shock was plenty enough for a first night. Just down the street a woman was selling some sort of birds stuffed in discarded beer cans, their little feet being the only thing sticking out. We bought a few beers from a vendor with black teeth, presumably from chewing betel nut.

This morning we passed a woman with one of those over-the-shoulder "scales of justice" sort of carriers, with a half-dead bloody duck on it. Vendors and minibike cab drivers accost us pretty much constantly. More to follow soon...

WE'RE IN VIETNAM!!!! It's crazy here. Every guidebook printed warns you about the roads, but you've just got to experience it yourself to believe it. Horns honking constantly, mad chaos all around. A walk across the street is a blind leap of faith everytime. The hotel's okay, except for an extremely hard bed, but nice hot water tap.
Hanoi is totally intimidating. We got in after dark last night and wanted to explore, but got about a block in each direction before wimping out, buying some tiger beer, and retreating to the room to watch MTV Asia (foo fighters in Hanoi).
Thanks so much for all your comments!!!
We miss you all. Sorry if I haven't replied to an e-mail (mom, jen...) you pay by the minute for internet access and we're going for the maximum audience. No time for spell check either, so I apologize.
We're at a travel cafe now, we'll probably book a tour for Halong bay. Maybe go to Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and water puppets today.
We'll write more when we can.

Leaving for Vietnam tomorrow. I think we're mostly ready. I'm a little apprehensive, about the corruption, scams, and squat toilets that we'll encounter, mostly. We'll deal just fine though.

Despite a tentative offer to stay where we're at in Singapore for a while, we've decided to start looking for a place of our own when we get back. We'll be making less money, and housing is expensive, so we're probably going to have to settle for less. Working to our advantage, though, is the fact that most Singaporeans don't seem to like older apartments, whereas we have no problem with that. We'll see. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a high-rise apartment building around here, but we're not really interested in those. Something like 70 percent of the population lives in one though. That's crazy.

We're just running odd errands around the city. It's very easy to get around, once you get the lay of the land. It's rainy season, but that's a good thing here, because it's a good bit cooler. We miss the old posse. They had a party here the other day, and the next day, there was still beer left in the fridge. We thought, the posse'd never let that happen...

Also spotted around town: You know, I've been meaning to go vegetarian, but I didn't want to give up abalone. Looks like my prayers are answered.

What Marjorie didn't mention about the ice kachang was that you don't realize it has any of the weird stuff (except the corn) until you eat your way down past the part that looks like a sundae. I like surprises, but not when I'm eating...

So far, everything I've thought we would have to do without (cheerios, our favorite salad dressing, etc.) we've been able to find. So it seems adjusting to life here will be relatively easy. Another positive, I found a bookstore that "rents" books. You buy a book for a listed price, and they buy it back from you if you return it later for another listed price. I'm so in love with this idea! Why hasn't this been done in the U.S. yet?
While we are very happy to find some things from home, we have been partaking in some interesting local cuisine. Last night we had some Indonesian cuisine, some yummy dumplings and some ice kachang (a dessert with corn, red beans, gelatinous noodles, and some round gelatinous stone thing) Yummy! Also while shopping we've stumbled across some other interesting products such as this.

More wildlife spotting: today it was the olive-backed sunbird, and several unrecognized new birds, while staying at Steve's friend's house in Seletar. We also went by East Coast Park, which was rather nice, but sadly the water is too polluted to do much swimming. If you could see the tankers queued up waiting to get into port, you'd understand why. Pictures to follow shortly.

Here's a shot of our buddy, the spotted-neck dove, who has a nest upstairs where we're staying. She is incubating two little white eggs. Maybe you were expecting shots of monkeys, tigers, or whale sharks? Soon. Local street wildlife is all you get when you're holed up all day by rain and laundry.

Here's my top albums for the year, compiled a month or so in advance to save me from having to type this all up from some sweaty internet cafe deep in the heart of Indochina. Hope this "future posting" thing works.

Another pretty good year for music for me. I don't sample a lot. Usually I only buy ten or so CDs a year -- things I know I'm going to like, and they all make my list.

Note that some of these albums may be from the previous year. I'm not a music magazine -- I don't have to stickle.

10. Pinback, Blue Screen Life

The band that seems unwilling to play a chord. Every instrument plucks out individual notes, and the overlapping vocals are treated as just other instruments in the mix. Interesting pop that's oddly soothing.
Fave tracks: Concrete Seconds, Bbtone

9. Damon Alban et. al., Mali Music

Blur's front man traveled to Mali and recorded with their best musicians, then came home and modernized it all in the studio. It's a dazzling blend of third and first world music.
Fave track: Makelekele

8. Elvis Costello, When I Was Cruel

Actually, I listened to this album a bunch of times and decided it was a big disappointment. It was only after I decided that that I started to really enjoy it. I think it will be regarded historically as one of his weaker albums, but weak Elvis is still better than most artists' A material.
Fave tracks: My Little Blue Window, Radio Silence

7. Coldplay, A Rush Of Blood To The Head

I'm glad somebody's at least trying to put out the stadium-filling guitar pop/rock album that everyone wants Radiohead to do. This album surprised me; I had them pegged as one-hit wonders. Weak lyrically but everything else works.
Fave tracks: Politik, God Put A Smile Upon Your Face

6. Frank Black, Black Letter Days / Devil's Workshop

Two albums, actually, but I'm treating them as one. A little disappointingly more-of-the-same, but it's still solid work.
Fave tracks: 21 Reasons, Whiskey In Your Shoes

5. White Stripes, White Blood Cells

A man and a woman with a questionable romantic link, on stage together making a lot of noise. He writes and sings, she drums. No, not Quasi, who've made my list in previous years, but the White Stripes. Another nice surprise. Some fantastic songs, that seem to cross genres despite being played on the same set of instruments with the same basic sounds.
Fave tracks: The Same Boy You've Always Known, Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, We're Going To Be Friends

4. Weezer, Maladroit

All my favorite bands put out CDs that seem to require many listens before you realize you like them. Weezer is the exception. You like it on the first listen, and are singing along by the second. It's bubblegum pop, but crunchier this time, and fantastic.
Fave tracks: Take Control, Burndt Jamb, Fall Together

3. Ron Sexsmith, Cobblestone Runway

Ron's best work in several years. Singing better and experimenting more, but still immaculately crafted.
Fave tracks: Gold In Them Hills, Disappearing Act

2. Polyphonic Spree, The Beginning Stages Of...

Pure joy, though some would say schmaltz. A twenty-five person choral/symphonic band that's the most uplifting thing I've heard in years. If the whole album was as good as half of it is, this would be my number one for the year, no question.
Fave tracks: It's The Sun, Hanging Around The Day, Soldier Girl

1. Sparklehorse, It's A Wonderful Life

Oh yes. My favorite album of the past couple of years. Warm and mysterious and haunting. It takes a while to seep into the cracks of your brain, but once it's there, it sets up shop. On so many albums, there's a frontal assault of aggressive songs, with an occasional slow song thrown in as kind of a relief. On this album the slower songs just build the tension -- followed by the occasional fast song that serves as a release. Featuring guest appearances by Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, and Nina Simone of the Cardigans.
Fave tracks: Gold Day, King Of Nails, Little Fat Baby

To All The Ladies In The House Yo, Yo I want to send a long distance shout out to all my girls at home. Seriously ladies (Jen, Kristina, Alison, Karen, Chris..this means all you guys) please comment when you read the blog! At least occasionally. I need to know you're out there.
Now for something completely different...
We went to the S'pore zoo yesterday, it was fantastic in ways that no zoo in the U.S. could begin to emulate. They have many no bars exhibits where there is NOTHING between you and the animals. For example, one area called Fragile Forest contains flying foxes (bats), ring-tailed and ruffed lemurs, tree kangaroos, a two-toed sloth, many different species of birds and butterflies, and there is nothing, I mean nothing, between you and the animals. It's truly fantastic. Another interesting tidbit from the zoo, they have lots of North American critters that we would never think to put on exhibit, i.e. raccoons and squirrels (you have to go to the zoo to see squirrels here!). We're members of the zoo now, as we were in Atlanta, it's those little things that make you feel more at home.
Another interesting tidbit, on the bus ride home from the zoo I saw a macaque hanging out on the side of the road, so I guess S'pore still has wild monkeys too.

I had been telling everyone that we are exactly twelve hours off from Eastern Standard Time here. Right now, because of Daylight Savings I guess, we're actually thirteen hours ahead. So if it's 8 pm there, it's 9 am the next day here. Just FYI.

Some other random observations:

I've ridden the bus more in the last week than I ever did in the states. They have a kick-ass subway system too that we've been taking a lot. And a ten-minute cab ride runs you only about USD$ 3.

This place must be the toe-stub capital of the world. Workers layout out sidewalks and architects designing houses seem to have no problem with leaving one- or two-inch rises or drops in the footpaths. I have no idea why that is.

There's a spotted-neck dove nesting just outside the window upstairs where we're staying.

For a week now I've had no idea what time it is, nor even what day it is. Nice way to live.

Can't escape fast food exports, but you can ignore it. It's funny they have it here but they don't get it quite right. We passed a KFC/Taco Bell/Pizza Hut combo and I peeked in to see if they happen to sell Nacho's bell grande (pretty much my only fast food weakness), no luck. What they do sell are "taco meals" and "lasagna meals" both served with a side of fries, yuck.
We leave for Vietnam on the 9th (Monday). A few days later than we were hoping but we still managed to find a good deal. The plan is to fly into Hanoi, explore northern Vietnam for several days (Halong Bay, Perfume Pagoda,) then fly to Hue. From Hue we'll make our way down the coast stopping at Da Nang, Hoi An, Nha Trang, Phan Thiet, Dalat, and finally Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon. We fly back to S'pore from Saigon on the 30th. We're not spending as much time in Vietnam as I originally hoped, but it looks like they'll be work for Mark here starting in January and we need to find a place to live and such. Lucky for me, there's an Ikea here (which Mark refers to as "ickea" after an apparently traumatizing experience in the Newark store)

Some random observations from around Singapore:

I'm feeling very tall.

There are at least a dozen karaoke bars within easy walking distance from where I'm at. Not the same without Tommy White though.

It's pretty durn hot here.

Hooray for mass transit!

Businesses spotted:
McDonald's (of course)
Starbucks (ubiquitous)
KFC/Pizza Hut/Taco Bell
Long John Silvers
Orange Julius/Dairy Queen
Swenson's
Border's Books
Kenny Rogers Roasters (yay! My favorite)
Subway
Burger King
Hooters (believe it or not)
Haven't resorted to American food yet. Still loving the hawker centers where you can get a huge plate of food for like two dollars.

We're booked to Vietnam. For a while today we thought we got on it too late; we went to one travel agent who told us there were basically no flights we could take anywhere within the date range we wanted. Then we tried to book online with Travelocity and Expedia and they both said they couldn't send paper tickets outside the USA. Finally we went by another travel agency that was recommended and they got us everything we wanted at the price we wanted. We leave on the 9th and are getting back on the 30th. We're coming back here, as opposed to going on to Cambodia and Thailand, because it looks like I'm going to have work here come the start of the year. That's great news! I'll be working on some graphical interfaces at the local pay scale (which is apparently lousy) but it's a foot in the door.

After running around taking care of all that mess, we stopped at a quaint local coffee shop (cough cough) and while we sat outside sipping our beverages, a mynah bird hopped up under the table next to us and proceded to serenade us. It's the little things.

Now we have a week to kill in the Singapore area. So many options.

Today, after shaving our tongues, we went with our friend Steve and the woman he's been seeing to check out apartments by where she lives, in Seletar. It's a former British Royal Air Force base, and is unusual for Singapore in that there are actual wide open spaces and surprisingly cheap rents. The down side is that there's no good public transport from there -- you'd pretty much have to have a car, unless you'd rather bike to the front gate, catch a bus to the MRT (subway), and then take that into town. It would probably take well over an hour. Cars here are very expensive to own, insure, maintain, and keep filled with gas.

Afterwards we tooled around and went shopping some more on Orchard Road. I bought an electric razor and Marjorie got a hair dryer. We also bought some groceries and cooked cashew chicken for everyone back at Steve's place. Tomorrow we hit the travel agent and book our trip to Hanoi, and hopefully look at some more apartments and such. I'm really having a heckuva time just putzing around, and all the food we've had so far has been great.

Last night we went to a "Thanksgiving party" hosted by a guy from Knoxville, TN and his wife who is Japanese. The food was great and the people were rather nice. There were a few American guys, a few Aussie guys, a kiwi (new Zealander) guy, and one Singaporean guy. All the women, with the exception of myself were Asian, either Japanese or S'porean. That was a little weird for me, but everyone was extremely pleasant. I'd like to be as open minded as possible at this point.
One potential gaffe of the night: A Brit put me on the spot and asked if I thought America was "the best democracy in the world", to me this is a very loaded question, how do you answer that? I said I believed we have one of the better systems, and that truthfully it is impossible to compare the U.S.A. to say Canada, because the U.S.A. is so powerful. Then I said I thought Americans had a catch-22 in foreign policy where we're damned if we do and damned if we don't for every thing we do. The British guy seemed okay with this answer, but I felt very shrill and strident afterwards having been baited into a political debate straight off the plane.
I fear this post may seem too....I don't know, but too something. We're having a good time, and fortunate to already have made the acquantance of so many people.

We're here! After months of talking about it, then more months planning, we're finally here. I had my doubts at 5:00am Thursday morning when we were told at the United ticket counter that we couldn't enter Singapore without a ticket leaving within 90 days. Our original ticket had us leaving in May, of course we're not planning on staying in S'pore straight through to May, we're planning on going to Vietnam in four days, but we hadn't purchased the ticket as we were told it would be much cheaper here....Anyways, we just changed our return date and the lady at the counter took pity on us and didn't charge us the change fee on that end (changing it back however...) In spite of the counter agents pleasantness, I'm not impressed with United Airways. The plane was older then the plane we flew in on last year on Japan Airlines, and the seats were horribly close together, 18 hours spent with no leg room! Luckily on the flight from Atlanta to San Francisco and the flight from Hong Kong to S'pore we had emergency exit seats with abundant leg room, or it would have been 25 hours with no leg room. Also not a fan of the reservation system for United, i.e. the unexpected change of planes in Hong Kong, of which there was NO MENTION when we booked the flight, and the lack of notification that we would need to have passage beyond S'pore within 90 days before getting to check-in. 30 hours straight traveling is not fun. Last year we spent a night in Tokyo to break up the trip coming and going, I think that is really the smart way to do it.

Leaving the states one of the last images we saw was the beautiful Golden Gate bridge stretched out in the San Francisco bay. Nice image to have as a keeper. Actually from the plane we saw a lot of interesting landscape including some icy mountains in the Aleutian Islands.

Overall, my spirits are definitely better now that the move and the goodbyes are behind us. Now we just need to concentrate on what we have to look forward to. So far, I'm glad to be here.

Hello from 36000 feet. Marjorie and I are somewhere over the Pacific after our stopover in San Francisco. The day had an inauspicious start; while at the Atlanta airport ready to make our departure this morning, we learned that we would not be allowed to fly with our current tickets, which have us returning next May, since the longest you are allowed to stay in Singapore without a visa is ninety days. If we could show tickets onward from Singapore, that would be okay, but we were planning on buying those in Singapore. A wave of panic hit us. But the nice lady at the counter let us change our return date to a time just under ninety days from now.

Another surprise, of the not so unpleasant variety, is that we learned that our flight from San Fran to Singapore has a stopover (which was not mentioned at all on the web site we booked it from) -- Hong Kong. Neither of us has ever been. And even though we won't have any time to explore, it'll still be cool seeing it from the window.

And in a happy coincidence, I brought along a big fat book to read while we're in the travel-around phase of our journey -- Tai Pan (by James Clavell, author of Shogun), which (at least initially) is about the founding of Hong Kong.

Anyway. I was hoping I could tell you exactly where over the Pacific we are, as I brought along my GPS. But alas, I can't get a signal inside the plane. I suppose that's not surprising, in retrospect.

At any rate, we seemed to have left the US officially now. Can we call ourselves ex-pats if we don't even have a place to live yet?

I have nothing to do, and I'm stuck in a middle seat in coach, so forgive me if I prattle on about nothing. It's a United Airlines flight, so it's all pretty Western, but they did try to serve something remotely Asian for dinner; I had the spicy chicken with rice and vegetables, that came with tiny shrimp with rice noodles and the tiniest little bottle of soy sauce (I joked to Marjorie that it was like being invited to dinner at Barbie's; she said it all looked like it had been made in an Easy-Bake Oven). They just showed M. Night Shyamalan's movie, "Signs", which I saw in the theaters, so I just watched a little without listening. They're promising to show us some movie called "A Gentleman's Game" in a bit; it's about golf and sounds pretty lame.

Now that the movie's over they're showing the plane's position on the TV screens. We seem to be directly south of Anchorage, equidistant from there and Washington state.

Off to play some video games. My old boss lent me a demo copy of "Age of Mythology" which is pretty cool. I usually don't go in for those overlord sort of games

As ready as we'll ever be. What a massive relief, to be done with everything. Sorry about all the whinging. Now that I can catch my breath, I don't even mind that we'll be getting up at 4AM to catch our flight.

It'll be five hours to San Fran and then another twenty-one to Singapore. D'oh! Sounds like a lot, but we've been through it before. Hope to spend a lot of it unconcious.

Au revoir United States! We'll be back before long, I'm sure, if only to visit...

Sorry about the lack of updates... As you can imagine, we've been phenomenally busy. Marjorie hit it on the head -- there's a lot of harsh reality we have to go through before we can experience anything resembling a fantasy experience. It's almost all done, except for about twenty or so things on tomorrow's list. Twenty things is a piece of cake, at the rate we're going. Just let me on that plane already.

This would have been all but impossible without the help of our parents, who have been just fantastic. I remember giving "World's Greatest Mom" and "World's Greatest Dad" cards to my parents in second grade, but that was before I knew any better. Now I know better, and it's still true. And Marjorie's parents have gone well above and beyond the call of duty in so many ways too.

Tonight we needed a bit of escapism, so we went to the movies and saw Jackass. We laughed ourselves silly.

Bye Bye Love, Bye Bye Happiness? I really do think I'm going to cry.
This is so hard.....we seem to be fulfilling a lot of peoples romantic notions of selling your things to see the world, but the reality is very harsh. We haven't sold many of the items we were counting on selling such as Mark's Saab and our washer and dryer. Mark's parents have taken Saab to Florida in the hopes that a convertible will sell better there in the winter. I don't know how we would manage any of this if it wasn't for both sets of parents, they've been so wonderful. My parents are letting us store all our belongings with them, and my father is taking over a bit of the responsibility for our mail and finances. Mark's parents drove up from Florida to help us pack and took the Saab when we had no success selling it here. In spite of all the tremendous help and support, we are still both on the verge of tears at all parts of the day now. I'm optimistic that we will regain our enthusiasm as soon as we are done with the move, or if not then as soon as the goodbyes are over and we are on the plane.

We've both agreed that this is the hardest thing we've ever done. Physically and mentally exhausting. Whatever part of our brains it is that's responsible for decision making has been fried to a crisp from overuse -- do I pack this? Sell it? Bring it? Every object in the house, every number programmed into the phone, every piece of mail that comes, every card in your wallet -- all suggest a different task to do, address to update, friend to contact, payment to arrange, account to cancel. House is a shambles, but it's starting to look like we're actually moving. My parents are in town to help and see us off, which is great. We took them out to our favorite restaurant, Fritti, tonight.

Heard this song while driving around the other day, and it really put a lump in my throat as it relates to some feelings I've been having...

Galbraith Street (by Ron Sexsmith)

I woke up on Galbraith Street
Where the houses stood like twins
Oh and even though the door's been closed
I can find a way to get back in

For in daydreams my mind returns
Like a ghost upon the hill
As I knock upon old doors again
And find my friends all live there still

So many good times to speak of in a life
But none compare to the good times I had there

The world looks so much brighter when you believe in every word
Now I'm holding on to all those years like a tear before it falls unheard

So many goodbyes to speak of in a life
But none compare to the goodbyes I said there

The sun went down on Galbraith Street
I saw it from my childhood bed
As the red and gold brick houses stood
Underneath a crimson sky that bled

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! We are going nuts from the stress. No time for details.

SCANDAL I went to Doc Chey's, one of my favorite noodle places, last night with some friends. On the way out we passed a garbage can full of chicken flavored RAMEN NOODLES!! THEY USE RAMEN NOODLES!!!! I'm so disappointed in them.

IMAGINE NO POSSESSIONS I wonder if I can..... I'm trying hard to decide what comes with us, what stays here. It's a really a hard decision. I don't want to bring any extras, but at the same time, there are certain things that can help a hotel room feel a bit more like home that it might be worth bringing....but which things?
Our porch is completely empty now, the American Family Foundation came and took a bunch of our stuff to give to people who need it more than we do. And more and more of our possessions are disappearing into cardboard boxes, they'll be there at least 6 months, maybe longer if we decide we like being nomads.

I was looking at my key ring the other day, when it dawned on me: soon, I will have no keys. I will also have no car, no house, no television, no phone, no internet access (other than rented)... It goes on and on. I understand I'm supposed to feel more "liberated" without these things, but it sure doesn't feel that way yet. Not very Zen of me, I know; maybe some will rub off on me while I'm over there.

I have been trying to gain a better understanding of the religions we'll be encountering while we're over there, through a bit of reading. As far as Buddhism goes, I don't put much stock in karma or reincarnation, but it's interesting nonetheless, and of course I'll be respectful while I'm there.

Today was spent dealing with the cars. We had them detailed, then took them in to Carmax to see how much they'd give us for them. Marjorie got a decent deal, but I didn't. So now I have the headache of selling it myself to deal with. Took out this ad in AutoTrader. Know anyone looking for a nice convertible for the coming winter months?

INDOCHINE Mark and I rented Indochine this evening. It's a really visually beautiful movie, amazing cinematography. Now I'm really excited about going to Vietnam.
On the work front, now that we've stopped worrying about it, it seems as though there may indeed be a (short-term) job for Mark in Singapore at around the New Year. We may cut our wandering short in order to go to S'pore for work. I suspect if the job is just for a few months that will resume our trip afterwards.

Just got back from seeing Glenn Tilbrook with friends Bruce and Cathy (after they treated us to a fabulous meal at Alfredo's)... Glenn is always a treat (except when he shows up late and we get subjected to a talentless opening act pushed up on stage to kill time). Another day, another set list:

Red Dragon Tattoo (Fountains of Wayne cover, a nice surprise)

This Is Where You Ain't

Take Me I'm Yours

Black Coffee In Bed

Goodbye Girl

A Woman's World

By The Light Of The Cash Machine

Some Fantastic Place

Picadilly

Is That Love

Truth Is Not My Middle Name (?)

Electric Trains

Touching You, Touching Me

Up The Junction

Hourglass

Another Nail For My Heart

Pulling Muscles (From The Shell)

Tempted
Plus several I wasn't familiar with or can't remember. What can I say about a man who can sing, write, play, and perform, all at a level I could never hope to achieve? Glenn is a massive talent.

WE'RE GOING TO SEE GLENN TILBROOK TONIGHT which should be alot of fun. I just wish we didn't feel so crapulent due to the excesses of last night. Last night was an unofficial going away party for us, and truthfully, probably the last time we will see many of our friends before our journey. We only have about 10 days to go now, and about every hour of that time is scheduled with moving activities or last get togethers with close friends.

Wow. I just hopped up the street to catch Frank Black at a solo acoustic in-store performance at Criminal Records. He was a lot more affable than I've ever seen him. The set list, near as I can remember:

Manitoba (new)

Monkey Gone To Heaven (Wow! I could swear I read that he said he'd never play this song again)

Whiskey In Your Shoes

Bartholemew

California Bound

Mr. Grieves (!!! another big surprise)

End of Miles

21 Reasons (partial, he forgot the words to the last verse)

Robert Onion

Bullet

To paraphrase Beavis and Butthead, you could see this guy walking down the street and you'd never know that he rocks. I'm kinda bummed; he's playing in town tonight, but somehow I never got word, and now it's sold out...

Surprise, surprise. The yard sale-cum-porch sale actually went surprisingly well; we got rid of a lot of stuff -- including the snowboard, CD rack, two cabinets, a lot of clothes, CDs, albums, books, toys, microphone and mic stand, vacuum cleaner, two guitars, and a chair.

Just now I've been going over Vietnamese restaurant menus I've found on the web in an effort to come up with a cheat sheet for deciphering menus once we get there. Especially, to come up with a list of dishes to avoid. So far, here's what I have on the avoid list:

Item	Translation	Reason to avoid
Cua	Crab	May contain "flukes" which get in your bloodstream. Ick.
Trung	Egg	Found someone's tale online of getting served fetal goose, still haven't gotten over the heebies.
Huyet	Pork blood	I've been phasing most kinds of blood out of my diet.
Long	Intestine	I'll have none of that tripe!
Ech	Frog	Eat Kermit?

Bummer. Yard sale starts in five minutes and it's pouring down rain. Somehow I don't think we're going to get rid of quite as much stuff as we had hoped.

Hard not to feel loved when you become the inspiration for a Friday rap.
I'm currently reading a book called "backpacker" by Emily Barr about a girl who backpacks through Vietnam, Loas, Thailand, Singapore.....It's the perfect chicktion before our journey.

My friend Matt occasionally will send out a "Friday rap" to all his friends on email. Today we were the subject. The last line is a reference to the fact that we go out for chicken wings most every Sunday. Dig dis:

G-raj sale money trying to lighten the load,
Marky Mark and Marj-ry bouts to hit the road,
Goin on a trip but who knows how long,
Tiki bar pint slammin wit the Viet Cong,
Safe and injected with the ant-e-dote,
Yellow fever ain't the flava with the bags in tote,
Extra supa happy meal, burger made of dog,
Sunday night spicy, bufflo wing? no bufflo frog.

Last day at work -- for who knows how long. Woop! There's going to be a lot of water under the bridge before I can really start enjoying my time off though. Every day for the next two weeks is mapped out. It's no fun being this regimented.

Stuff is gradually disappearing from our house, into boxes, or the hands of friends, or the garbage can. Possessions are a burden, but so is the lack of them.

TWO WEEKS TO GO I'm working daily to check things off on the "to do" list. Traveller's checks have been purchased, prescriptions for Malaria prophylaxis filled, charity truck scheduled to come and pick up all the items we don't sell at the yard sale, flyers put up around the neighborhood advertising the yard sale. Every day there's a list of tasks I try to take care of so we'll be ready to leave. In spite of all this activity though, it still doesn't seem real. I suppose the reality of going won't hit me until we get on the plane.

This is interesting. I actually used to work with the guy, before he switched over to this latest project. He's a smart man, and doesn't seem to be as nefarious as Safire is painting him to be, but who knows. His latest initiative does sound frightening.

I'm a little irked at Hotmail right now; for the past week or so, I keep getting

You have made too many unsuccessful sign-in attempts with an incorrect password

messages whenever I try to log in. It takes me five or six tries to get through. Wonder if someone's trying to hack my password or something? I'd complain but Microsoft won't let you complain unless you sign up for their Passport service. Serves me right for getting into bed with them this far. Too late to switch to some other mail service now; too many people know my Hotmail address...

Not for the faint of heart. Please remember, he had plastic surgery to look this good.

I'm hopping on the band wagon and copying Mike's googlism. Here's the edited version of the Marjorie seach
Googlism for "Marjorie".

marjorie is born
marjorie is the author of the book the divine right of capital
marjorie is one of mistaken identity
marjorie is an astute observer of people and behavior
marjorie is a gifted artist
marjorie is having a midlife crisis
marjorie is placed within the boundaries of her home
marjorie is also a contributing reporter for the show
marjorie is often on the road giving demonstrations
marjorie is her mother
marjorie is a hopi field nurse
marjorie is part of london zoo’s history herself
marjorie is listed as appearing
marjorie is on pages 1
marjorie is out enjoying her garden
marjorie is on her way back to the ocean
marjorie is one of our best tour guides
marjorie is sitting at her desk at home
marjorie is content to do what she thinks he wants
marjorie is a profoundly loving and compassionate healer
marjorie is recovering from a mental crisis
marjorie is going to stay at your house until march 27
marjorie is a successful motivational speaker
marjorie is not volunteering at the peace and environment resource centre
marjorie is almost like a jewish phyllis
marjorie is founder and chief executive of sane
marjorie is
marjorie is reluctant to tell her friend to leave
marjorie is pleasant to be with
marjorie is not catholic
marjorie is responsible for making sure all parties are medically screened and the results forwarded to the doctors offices before any procedures are done
marjorie is also illustrating children's books and greeting cards
marjorie is already encouraging him to call her "mum" ;by day three they're rolling around in bed together
marjorie is a fearless driver
marjorie is a regular moderator on diabetes station
marjorie is the well
marjorie is a mess
marjorie is returning home from work and stops at a corner store
marjorie is certainly no stranger to difficult circumstances
marjorie is extremely well read
marjorie is the instigator of everything
marjorie is already a cartoon
marjorie is suffering from a severe case of midlife angst
marjorie is the co
marjorie is available for bookings in clubs
marjorie is a brilliant lady with a keen sense of curiosity and the tenacity to plow through details that would send anyone else running
marjorie is restless
marjorie is now
marjorie is very proud to be returning to the bus after a north american tour
marjorie is a member of the huronia rose society

Some stores are really dangerous too. They should be required to have warning labels on the doors "WARNING! You will not be able to leave this store without spending at least 2X's what you planned". Target's one of those, and so's The Container Store. The Container Store is particularly dangerous when you're moving/going on a trip, and you're not allowed to buy anything else. The Container Store is also the only store I know of that is equally appealing to both men and women; the perfect combination of aesthetic appeal and functionality.
The yard sale is on for Saturday, I'm off to flyer the neighborhood, as the local paper wants $70!!! for an ad (who would pay that?).

Movies are dangerous. Compare and contrast this and this. The obvious solution is to ban all movies, because stupid people will try to imitate them!

Son of a...! I just got mail from Mellon Investor Services, asking if I can confirm that I am the Mark S that was living at a certain residence in Orlando, ten years ago. It's in reference to assets on this one share of stock I own in a company that I received as a gift, that was paying dividends of something like $0.34 a year. They can't find my address anymore. The sinister thing is that I looked this Mellon company up, and they're a subsidiary of ChoicePoint, a company that compiles databases about people, a la J. Edgar Hoover, and sells them. Quite a racket they have going as middleman spies. I'll have to contact the company I have the stock in directly.

Just for fun, I'm taking a trip down geek memory lane.

Some time in the late 70's, my dad bought a KIM 1. It had a whopping 1K of ram and you had to store your programs on a cassette tape. It had a hexadecimal keypad (seen here on the lower right) for inputting your programs in machine code and six red LEDs as the only display. All the circuitry was exposed. Despite the limitations, I was hooked immediately. I remember punching in machine code to play Hunt the Wumpus. (And, amazingly, chess. Some guy wrote a chess program that fit in 1K.)

In '79 or '80, our school got a TRS-80, which I pretty much took over. I still get a little lump in my throat looking at the old pictures. I still remember playing some of these games, especially Defense Command.

Another fond memory of this time was connecting my dad's dumb terminal to a university computer to play Adventure. Due to the partially disassembled state of the modem, I remember there was an alligator clip we had to attach to a screw when we heard the carrier signal.

Around '82-'83, my dad started bringing home an HP-85 from work. Wow, what fun. It could draw lines for graphics instead of just blocks like the TRS-80. It had a little thermal printer built in, like you see on cash registers.

Shortly thereafter, my dad and I played a ping-pong match with high stakes. If I won, he'd buy a TRS-80 Color Computer for the house. If he won, I'd have to get a job and pay for half. Did he let me win? I'll never know, but he came home with the computer a few days later. Sixteen K of RAM! Color! And a screen as big as whatever TV you plugged it into. What a joy. (I remember a friend of my dad's had one with 32K of RAM. 32K! How could anyone possibly ever use that much? As a point of reference, my new laptop has over 16,000 times as much.)

That was the computer I really learned to program on. My brother and I wrote really good knock-off of Activision's Atari 2600 game Kaboom! in assembly language. I remember we had to shorten our variable names just to be able to load the whole thing into the editor, so I guess I started to realize that maybe 16K wasn't so much.

Thanks for indulging me...

It's the little things that make me happy! Eggnog Lattes are back at Starbucks. Yummy.

Ah, the joys of the last week at work. In tech sectors, the last week of work always means one thing: writing up documentation. To top it all, someone or something deleted some earlier documentation I had already done, so now it has to be redone. If there's one thing worse than documenting, it's redocumenting.

And this stuff will never be read, either. It's tempting to put in such descriptions as, "The purpose of this page is to display a tasty recipe for gazpacho" or "The inclusion of this field is a vivid demonstration of why management needs to start cracking down on three martini lunches". No one would ever know.

For the record we also saw a little green heron and several osprey. And here's a shot of one of the manatees that came up to my parent's dock. None of the ones we saw had any propeller scars, which is an atypical but welcome sight.

Some other highlights:

Seeing my new nephew Bryce (or Cooper, depending on which parent you ask). Bryce is very big and gurgly and interactive with his environment for such a young age. What a cutie.

Finally bonding a little with my niece Chaeli, who's four. Growing up in the sticks of northern Florida as she is, she must hear a lot of southern drawls; she apparently thinks I "tawk funny". Her mom (my sister Danielle) has picked up a drawl too!

Food, and lots of it. I always turn into a pig when I visit my parents.

Chasing manatees in a little dinghy, with Marjorie, who's a little dinghy herself, ha ha. *Ouch* Ooh, that's going to bruise.

Roadkill spotting. We saw raccoons, armadillos, an alligator, and a wild boar. In Atlanta we only get squirrels, cats, and dogs.

Thanks, family! You all are the best!

BACK FROM FLORIDA
I definitely married the right man. Not only is he wonderful, but his family really couldn't be nicer too. We went to Florida yesterday (returning late today) to visit Mark's family one last time before we leave, and in spite of the Red Tide, which contributed to dreadful air quality, we had a fantastic time. His parents, grandmother, and siblings have really been incredibly supportive of us and our desire to see the world, which is not something I want to take for granted. I occasionally hear stories about scary in-laws from friends of mine, and I'm so glad that neither I nor Mark can relate. We both really like our in-laws.
I really enjoyed visiting Florida too. We saw manatees today off the dock at Mark's parents house and several jumping mullets (fish, not hair), and later driving around I saw a kingfisher, and several cormorants. Yesterday a large blue heron landed in front of the window, and last night, when hit with a middle-of-the-night panic attack of the "what are we doing! we're going to be jobless and homeless in three weeks!" variety, I went out and sat on the dock to watch the waves and stare at the never-ending expanse of stars and sky and, in-spite of Red Tide air quality which left me with a sore throat this morning, I felt calmed and centered by all the beauty of the natural surroundings. Florida really is a beautiful state, in spite of all the over-development, strip-malls, and Jeb Bush.

As Mark noted, we saw Elvis Costello last night. That was our fifth time seeing him together. There are a few more shows to look forward to this month as well, Glen Tilbrook is playing the 17th, and the Strokes are playing the 24th. I plan on being at both shows. I've started a concert list for myself, though it's far from complete I'll try to post it later today.
The Friday Five will be skipped today, as its regarding elections, and I'm still bitter.

We couldn't resist. Elvis Costello played in town the last two nights. We almost held out. The tickets cost way too much. But in the end, who were we kidding?

Great stuff all the way through. A funny thing about Elvis is that he has at least fifteen to twenty songs that whenever I hear them, I think "This is in my top five". He played at least six or seven from that list last night, including "The Other Side Of Summer", "Almost Blue", and "I Hope You're Happy Now". And there were some nice surprises, like "I Wanna Be Loved", "Brilliant Mistake", and "Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down".

My good friend Jim has a second child on the way. Today they found out it's going to be a girl. Which is disappointing, because if it had been a boy, they were going to give him the middle name of "Action". As in, "Action is my middle name." Seriously. Such a middle name wouldn't, uh, go over so well for a woman.

I got my hair cut today, now it's perfectly chin length. I treated myself and went to see my old stylist, Julian, at Van Michael's Salon. I don't generally go see Julian anymore because he's too expensive. However, he's the best stylist I know, and since I'd decided to cut my hair in a short and easy to maintain without appliances style, I figured I should go to someone good. I also had my eyebrows waxed when I was at the salon, eyebrows always look so much better/neater after waxing. The make-up artist admonished me for overplucking though and suggested I "not touch" my brows for a month. That seems like a simple enough request, but brow plucking is like an addiction. I never noticed my eyebrows until I first had them waxed when I was 25 or thereabouts, now I can't leave them alone. Clearly my life is too pampered if this is what I blog about. Oh well, my pampered days are numbered. We leave in exactly 20 days now.

Our entire office has been pushing people down stairs all day. Even though it's just a simulation, I'm not going to walk down the stairs in front of any of my cow orkers for the rest of the week.

OKAY, Here's my concession speech. I may have been a little too shrill/strident in the last post. And yes Mark, I acknowledge that there are some people I know and love, and am very closely related to, that drive SUV's (although honestly, it's an SUV-Lite) and many more who live in the suburbs. Forgive me, I was upset.

As promised, here are pictures from Halloween. I'm in the cheesy mustache, Marjorie has the blue hair. My favorites were our friends Brooke and Toby, who'll you'll find in the lower lefthand corner in all their glorious Royal Tanenbaum-ness.

I'm worried that anyone just wandering in here might get the wrong impression. They're likely to see a lot of liberal pontificating, and notice that we're leaving the country. Maybe from this they might think that we are leaving in protest, or are abandoning the country. That just isn't how it is. If we didn't care about this place, we wouldn't be upset about the way things are going. It will be nice to get some different perspective for a while. But we're not Baldwins.

"And the liberal, with the small L, cries in front of the TV......and wearing badges is not enough in days like these"
I'm utterly depressed. Seems Mark and I picked the right time to leave Georgia. It's so sad, and really Billy (Bragg) says it best "The majority by their silence shall pay for days like these". All the news stations here are shocked. All their polls predicted a solid victory for the democrats, especially Governor Roy Barnes. I guess people just didn't vote, excepting the conservative right-wing, SUV driving, suburb living, anti-choice, neo-fascists that live all around us, they clearly voted. The Republicans here didn't even run on a platform, they just showed a series of negative mudslinging democrat-attacking ads. I'm going to go and cry now.

I'm speechless. I am without speech. How could the people of this country want to give one party unilateral power? Especially that party? I fear for us. I really do. The Dems needed to find a message, one that people can rally behind. They had none. Of course it's too late now anyway. Now they're goners, and it'll be two years before anything can be rectified. Scary times.

Mark and I went to see Bowling for Columbine last night. The film really explores the gun/violence issue in the United States in a very insightful, balanced, and provocative manner. I left the theater with a renewed respect for Michael Moore. I really think it should be on everyone's "must-see" list.
Now I'm off to vote.

A couple of friends of mine are participating in NaNoWriMo, a project centered around inspiring people to write a first novel, by encouraging them to write 50,000 words during the month of November and reporting their progress. It's engrossing to watch, and inspiring. Maybe next year I'll try.

I know what my third book is going to be about. It's an idea too choice, too irresistible to pass up, but it's also too ambitious for a first try.

It's science fiction, like most of my ideas, but also political. The idea is that mankind has sent off a "generation ship" (as has been suggested in sci-fi numerous times as a way to reach the stars -- because it takes so long to get to any other star, you create a large spaceship that's self-supporting, and generations live and die on it before it reaches its destination). Just before it gets where it's going, there is an election on the ship, that's close, and hotly contested (the parallels to recent history should be obvious). When they arrive, they discover two planets orbiting the star that are habitable. So all the liberal supporters of the one candidate go to settle the one planet, and all the conservatives supporters of the other candidate go to settle the other.

That would just be how it starts. There's worlds of interesting and comical possibilities that can grow from that seed, methinks.

For no reason whatsoever, here are five movies that I think are grossly underrated. Are they my five favorites? Quite possibly, but there are some more popular ones that would probably squeak into the list. In no particular order:

Remains of the Day -- IMHO, Anthony Hopkins gives the best acting performance by anyone, ever. A study in repression.

Rushmore -- Certainly my favorite of the last few years. Quote: "I saved Latin. What did you ever do?"

Welcome to the Dollhouse -- If you were raised outside the US and are curious to see what it's like to be an adolescent here, there is no more accurate depiction. I know a lot of people who can't watch it because it's too accurate and brings up painful memories.

The Thin Red Line -- A deeply psychological and philosophical war movie. This one leaves me in a fog for days after viewing it.

Fearless -- A disturbed and disturbing tour de force. Jeff Bridges' best work. Rosie Perez is even tolerable.

While on the subject of movies, a pox on TBS for always hooking me in by showing those movies that you can watch over and over. The Shawschank Redemption, As Good As It Gets, The American President -- do they ever show anything else? And yet they hook me every time. If they were to add Groundhog Day and The Princess Bride I'd never be able to flip past that station. Not my favorite movies, but they suck you in...

And while on the subject of TV, I'm giddy that The Larry Sanders Show is now on nightly on Bravo. I find that show just fascinating to watch.

Some Halloween pictures, for your bemusement. Unfortunately, Marjorie was still getting ready while we were futzing with the digital camera. We'll take more pics tonight. But, here's a shot of me and one of me with my friends Mike and Matt. Listen all y'all this is sabotage!

Had dinner last night with friends Brooke and Toby at the always-amazing Fritti. I'm sad that with only 26 days left until we leave, we'll only get to eat there, like, 26 more times.

I kid. But as foodies, we have been keeping a list of places where we have to dine on our last week here. These include:

Sotto Sotto (Fritti's sister restaurant)

Fritti (of course)

Tortillas (for Marjorie)

Ma Li (for me, love the Pik King Pork)

Neuvo Laredo (there's always an hour wait, but for good reason)

Yacht Club (me again, love the beef brisket)

We never made it in to see Hot August Knights at the Clermont last night -- we were having too much fun across the street at the Local doing karaoke. Marjorie and I butchered a version of Wouldn't It Be Nice. It was a hoot though. My friend Matt took second in the costume contest, mostly because we shouted ourselves hoarse for him.

Non-sequitur of the night: "Paintball guns are an underused form of social commentary."

WORD OF THE DAY
The Merriam-Webster word of the day is
sanguineous • \san-GWIH-nee-uss\ • (adjective)
1 : bloodred
*2 : of, relating to, or involving bloodshed : bloodthirsty
3 : of, relating to, or containing blood

I'm glad to see they're getting into the Halloween spirit.

I'm working on a theory that the stages of human development can be mapped directly to how we dress for Halloween. To wit:

Infancy -- Your parents dress you up for Halloween.

Childhood -- You dress up. Halloween rules! Can I be Batman?

Adolescence -- You are too cool to dress up.

Early adulthood -- Hey, dressing up is fun. Why did I stop?

Adulthood -- Who has the time? Maybe if a friend is throwing a party.

Parenthood -- The kids are dressing up. Why not me?

Old age -- Get off my lawn, you mischievous little brats!

Okay, it's not a perfect theory.

Somewhere in America, a woman is sexually assaulted every 2 minutes
I learned yesterday that a friend of mine was recently drugged (GBH or rohypnol) and raped while on vacation in San Francisco. This is the third person close to me, that I know of, who has been raped. I spent last night tossing and turning filled with rage and impotence to do anything about this problem. Women are simply not safe in this country. Today I donated money to RAINN, The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. You too can donate at www.rainn.org.

My favorite new conspiracy theory, now that Mondale is leading in the polls: the Democrats killed Wellstone, so they could win the Senate seat with the sympathy vote. Maybe it was Clinton!

Moooooon river..... Had my first physical in four years this morning. Got a clean bill of health. If there's one thing this adventure is doing for us, it's getting us to take care of a lot of little things we should have been doing all along.

CHECKING OUT the Blogdex site Mark referred to, I came across this article that ponders "Was Paul Wellstone Murdered?" A question that has probably occurred to every cynical liberal in the country at this point. The article then remembers another recent liberal politician who died in a small plane crash "Mel Carnahan, who lost his life in 2000, three weeks before Election Day, during his Senatorial race against John Ashcroft. Carnahan went on to become the first dead man to win a Senatorial race, humiliating and defeating the unpopular Ashcroft posthumously. Ashcroft, despite his unpopularity, went on to be appointed Attorney General by George W. Bush." Kinda scary to think about kids, isn't it?

I would really love to make a website like Blogdex -- that is, a news/interesting link website based on polling hundreds of blogs -- that would have the following improvements:

It would be human-edited, so advertisers couldn't phony their way onto the list like often happens on Blogdex.

Each entry would have a paragraph of description, not just a few confusing words.

Separate links which point to essentially the same story would be collapsed into one place on the countdown.

A homespun graphic to accompany each entry would be nifty.

So would a comment feature/discussion board for each.

Sort of a cross between SlashDot and Blogdex. With all my current plans, though, this will probably fall into the bit bucket of conceived-but-never-realized projects. On the road to big money and internet fame, there's a lot of wreckage in the ravine...

More vaccinations this morning... We both got polio boosters, which should fix us for life. I also got my first Hepatitus B, and will get another just before we leave and another 6-12 months down the line. (Marjorie's already finished with her Hep B.) We also got prescriptions for three different malaria preventatives which we can choose from. Now we must choose which of them we want based on the trade-off among side-effects, time of coverage, and price. The good ones are $5-$10 a pill, to be taken daily.

When people from southeast Asia come to visit the US, do they have to get vaccinated for things that they have no natural resistance for? Like, yuppie flu, carpal tunnel syndrome, or the summertime blues?

GOOD GIRL
I'm having a very productive Monday: I've scheduled the movers to come; Confirmed our doctor's appointments for more vaccinations; Got money orders for our visa's for Vietnam; Mailed off our visa applications; Returned our library books; Turned in the applications for our international driver's permits, and picked up the permits; and checked on the baggage restrictions for our flight to S'pore. I love checking things off the "'to-do list".

I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die. Speaking of seedy -- last night, patrons of a local country bar known as the Crazy Horse were treated to the second installment of my karaoke tribute to Johnny Cash -- this time it was Folsom Prison Blues. Love to sing that baritone.

There's a strange place in town called the Clermont Lounge, which for most nights of the week is just a very seedy strip club. They say the only requirement to become a dancer there is that you can in no way be the least bit attractive. On Saturday nights, however, it becomes one of the most popular discos in town, and is usually packed to the gills by both men and women. The seediness only adds a strange energy to the place.

There's a strange band here, too, called Hot August Knights who are a Neil Diamond cover band. And by all accounts they are amazing; the lead singer is apparently the spitting image of Neil, both in appearance and voice.

This coming Thursday night, the latter will be playing at the former. In addition, the band will be dressing up as the band Kiss, in full makeup, and will be adding covers of Kiss songs to their set. The lead singer will still be singing in his Neil Diamond voice though.

And people wonder why I prefer city life!

Scrambled around today trying to put together Halloween costumes, only to find that everyone we know is doing the Halloween thing next weekend. At least we're ready for next week. You'll have to wait for pictures to find out what we're going to be though...

Yes, Billy Bragg did preach a bit. But he wasn't quite the flaming Marxist he's rumored to be. He was a lot more pragmatic than I was expecting.

Oh, and the music was great too.

At one point he played a rather pointed new song dealing with the Iraq situation called "The Price of Oil". At the end he handed out a dozen or so CDs of it that he asked people to upload to the web. That's not something you see at a lot of concerts.

I've revamped my list of concerts I've been to, and added this one. I'm still missing a bunch, I'm sure. The ones marked with an asterisk are ones I saw with Marjorie.

NPWA
We went and saw Billy Bragg last night. It was a wonderful show, and of course, Billy was very riled up and ready to share his latest political agenda...Which leads to the explanation for NPWA, Billy's latest slogan which stands for No Power Without Accountability. A simple enough concept, and one this country was supposedly set up to maintain through a system of checks and balances...alas, lately we seem to be falling short. However, Billy's slogan was not meant directly for the U.S.A. , but more for the gross imbalance of power to the big businesses of the world (World Banks, Industrial monopolies and so forth) as compares with the average person, and in particular the IMF and the shear lack of accountablility this agency seems to possess considering the amount of power they wield. Like I said, it was a great show, and very thought provoking. The most surprising thing about the show to me were all the voices of dissension in the audience from seemingly right-wing minded individuals, I mean honestly, did they not expect the author of "Waiting for the great leap forward" to not talk about politics? Or were they shocked by his very leftist/Marxist idealogy? Had they ever listened to a Billy Bragg album before buying a ticket to his concert? One can only wonder. Beyond the politics though, I gotta say he sounded great. The show consisted mostly of Billy, alone with his guitar, though occasionally he was joined on-stage by Sir Ian McLagan, and the sonic quality of the show was full and beautiful. One of the better shows I've seen, overall. Billy's off to Florida now, to convince the people at his shows to not re-elect Jeb Bush...Although I can't imagine many Billy Bragg fans in Florida would have voted for Jeb anyway.
I suppose maybe Mark and I should make our own personal pleas to family and friends in Florida to please, please, please get out and vote this year and get that man out of office!

FRIDAY FIVE
1. What is your favorite scary movie? Jaws, I love that movie.

2. What is your favorite Halloween treat? Hm.. so many yummy goodies to choose from, I like anything with chocolate, but that's an around the year kinda thing, so I'm going to pick candy corn, because I only eat candy corn around Halloween.

3. Do you dress up for Halloween? If so, describe your best Halloween costume. I usually dress up, though my costumes are usually less than spectacular. My best costume is probably the bear costume I wore last year, but we rented from a costume shop last year, so it's not like I put it together myself, which is a little like cheating.

4. Do you enjoy going to haunted houses or other spooky events? Yea, somewhat. I though the last haunted house I went to was at a fraternity house and it seemed to be an excuse for the guys to wear costumes (be anonymous) and molest co-eds. So it wasnt' really the best experience I've had.

5. Will you dress up for Halloween this year? yeah, probably. I'm actually supposed to go to a friend's house this evening to look at some old costumes of her's that maybe I could borrow.

Tragic news out of Minnesota: Senator Wellstone has died in a plane crash. He was a courageous man who stood up for his principles in the face of overwhelming pressure on many occasions.

I am bummed out.

Rarely do I pass along links that are just pure entertainment, but when it's an animated version of Tom Lehrer's amazing song about the elements, how can I resist? Back when I was doing the ACM programming competitions, it was a point of geek pride among some of my team members to have this song memorized.

New feature test

Testing another new feature of my upgrade -- the ability to post via
email. If you see this, it worked. If you don't, please let me know. ;-)

Tonight is for Billy Bragg. I'm very excited. Billy is one of several
artists that Marjorie introduced me to who I may now like even more than she
does. Opening act -- Ian McLagan. Anyone heard of him?

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To follow up on Marjorie's post, I too am starting to freak out a little. The culture shock will be a little rough to deal with. And I'm worried about the toilets, too. Especially since my love for the cuisine of the region is -- how shall I say -- unrequited.

We're going to make mistakes, sometimes, and be taken advantage of, occasionally, and be uncomfortable, frequently. But we're hardly the first person to visit there, and I think we do better than most tourists, because we're generally respectful and we don't expect people to cater to us or speak our language just because we're Americans or anything.

A photo from our wedding in Key West, courtesy my sister-in-law. Thanks, Kim! Here Mark demonstrates his drinking problem with a bottle of Schnitzius wine.

We've just got a little more than a month before we leave on our trip. My mood swings wildly each day between extremely excited and happy about our upcoming adventure, to terrified and hysterical that we've commited ourselves to a journey that will surely lead to one of our deaths. Anyway.....at the moment I'm very optimistic as I've spent the last hour looking up beach resorts in Vietnam and Thailand. It really will be an adventure in the truest sense, and hopefully we'll enjoy ourselves. The scariest part is giving up creature comforts like sit-down toilets and the relaxed ability to trust that ice cubes won't give you Cholera. Frighteningly, up to this point, Mark and I have never even managed to go camping together (in spite of several planned then cancelled attempts). So far, roughing it for us has meant staying in a hotel that doesn't have an iron or blowdryer in the room. I really think the most important thing that either of us can bring on this trip is a sense of humor.

Freaky coincidence last night. I was out with some friends, and happened to play a really obscure Stones song -- "Dear Doctor" -- on the jukebox. I actually picked it because I had no idea what it was. Well, when I got in my car to leave, what should come on the radio but that very same song. (It was played on WRAS's Tuesday night country show, "Cowtipper's Delight"). What are the odds? That's a really obscure song.

I'm not one to put much stock in coincidences, though. With all the billions of things that occur in life, they're bound to happen...

Messing with the image uploads now. The only picture I could find on my computer right now that was worth uploading was this. This is what happens when you drink too much around my friends. At least there was no make-up applied (that time).

Getting down to crunch time. Yesterday I picked up a copy of all my medical records. Today I got my eyes examined, and some new contact lenses. Also made an appointment for a checkup. And Marjorie made us an appointment to get more shots and malaria pills.

IraqJournal.org deserves a look. It is a news site that breaks ranks with the mainstream press on the Iraq war issue. The slant is decidedly anti-war -- as am I, but I am not endorsing all the views presented there. I just think they deserve credit, and a link, for presenting an opposing viewpoint.

Some words on the sniper situation in DC, in a roundabout way.

When the Gainesville serial killings were going on back in the 80's, I was living in Orlando, about an hour south. There was phenomenal pressure on the police to find the killer. They responded by finding a scapegoat, who as it turned out was completely innocent of the crimes (but admittedly had his own issues). I remember this so well because the scapegoat was the brother of a friend of mine. I won't post his name; you can look it up. The family was dragged through enough unwanted publicity as it was. My friend ended up having to drop out of school, and her brother had his rights basically trampled. They convicted him of some other crime that should never have gone to court, and gave him the maximum sentence for that, solely because he was a suspect in these horrific murders. There was no public apology when the killer turned out to be somebody else.

After I moved to Atlanta, history repeated itself in the form of the Olympic Park bombing. Again, there was enormous pressure on the police to come up with a suspect. And they singled someone out, and trampled his rights. Even worse, they used dirty tricks to try to get him to confess (actually, they probably did enough of that in the Gainesville case too). I won't post his name either. He too was completely innocent.

These incidents were particularly galling, not only because of what happened to the scapegoats, but also because they gave the public a completely false sense of security, while the real perpetrators walked around free.

There is as much pressure on the police in the DC sniper case as there was in the other cases I just mentioned. I have no doubt that they'd have a scapegoat already, EXCEPT that the ongoing nature of the crime is preventing this from happening. Anybody they take into custody will be pretty much exonerated by the fact that they're being held while the next day's incident occurs. So this must be particularly frustrating for the DC police (and all the other agencies involved). All I can suggest is that people lay off and stop pressuring them so much, unless you're the type who can somehow take solace in the police having a suspect who is quite possibly the wrong man in custody.

Let's just hope they get the real killer(s), and soon...

Woops, things might already be happening...

In an earlier blog I mentioned how perplexing I sometimes find my alarm clock in the morning. This morning was a classic example. When it went off, I awoke convinced that there was a numeric keypad on top of it where I'm supposed to key in the time that I want to get up. In actuality, all that's there is a snooze button and an off switch. I banged around on top of it for about fifteen seconds, totally nonplussed. This is the same alarm clock I've been using for (I think) over twenty years now.

Just for the evening Mark and I have apparently traded places. He's sweetly in bed, while I'm wide awake at 1am surfing the web. Today's Doonesbury is about web logs. I predict it's only a matter of time before everyone has their own. I wonder if we'll continue to keep one after we've finally decided where we want to live.

Some crazy people I knew in college used to do this. This was in 1987. Same yell and everything, assuming they didn't just make it all up. Looks like they were trendsetters...

I've just upgraded to Blog*Spot Plus, for the storage place so that we have a place to upload pictures during our trip. Beyond that, I have to say, the Plus doesn't add much. There's a stats page, telling us how many hits we're getting, which is mildly interesting. And you can password protect parts of your site, which I don't see ever using. Nothing beyond that. There are a few features promised "soon".

We're going to go eat Vietnamese food then go buy a new digital camera for the trip today. Maybe we'll stop in an internet cafe to see if we can upload some pictures from a strange computer later on.