Holy places. Today we wandered a bit through Chinatown, down near my new workplace, with a camera. Check out some of the holy places we passed by. We still haven't learned the proper etiquette for visiting these places so the shots are all external ones. I don't think they like you taking pictures inside anyway.

Foodie alert. Here's a nice long piece on eating in Singapore from (of all places) the New York Times. I only know where to find about two of the places they mention. We've been missing a lot, it seems.

Trial by lack of supervision. Today is my first day in our big new office, all alone, as I will be for the next two to three months. Party time, right? Wrong. I am much happier when working productively and getting feedback. There is a constant temptation to slack off that I must overcome. The fact that our new neighborhood is borderline magical doesn't make things any easier. There are something like seven temples within two blocks of me, and a veritable cornucopia of food sellers.

I am determined to resist tempation and be productive. Woops, probably shouldn't be blogging.

Slow boat down under. We've mailed off our paperwork applying to migrate to Australia. A twenty page form, plus about as many pages of marriage records, proofs of employment, CVs, passport photos, all stamped, certified, and checked over four or five times... Together it all weighed exactly as much as a back monkey.

Optimistic estimate: six months to process. Pessimistic: eighteen months. Realistic: twelve. (Relativistic: negative six months. Sorry, geek joke.)

Art is dead. Apparently geckos don't have to be alive to stick to the wall. I knocked him down just awhile ago. He was already starting to decompose. Poor guy. He was alive a couple of days ago, wiggling around the kitchen. I wonder what happened to kill him.

Wildlife adventure, living room stylee. Marjorie knocked the tail off a gecko while vacuuming this afternoon. I held the tail in my hand while it twitched for over a minute. It was trippy.

There's another tailless gecko in our kitchen that's been sitting high up on the wall for over a day in the same position. We've named him Art. He looks like a Matisse cutout.

I'm still here! Generally, when I take a long break between posts it's either because a) nothing exiting is happening in my life or b) I'm really busy. This time it was B. I'm finally (semi) employed, working three days a week as a classroom facilitator for a child with special needs. I'm in a class with my charge and about 12 other three year olds. I love kids at that age, they're so funny. They are just getting beyond the babyish stage to the point where they're able to do a lot of things for themselves (like feed themselves and use the toilet), but are still so new to the world and have these fabulous observations and comments.
I'm also still volunteering at the education information center. My time there is really valuable to me in what I'm learning about Singaporeans. I'm hoping that (soon) my volunteering will turn into a paid part-time position.
On other fronts, we're both jonesing to get out of S'pore for a few days in the very near future. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that a great deal to Tokyo is going to magically appear.

We watched 'Bounce' the other night. Why is Ben Affleck famous again? We kept thinking they should've had a stunt-actor, to step in whenever some real emotion was required. There was one good scene, where he was almost mauled (and upstaged) by a rottweiller.

(Then again, last week we watched 'Shakespeare In Love', and it pained us to admit it, but he was actually good. He needs to play more pompous asses.)

New digs. I've been having a pretty hectic week. We're moving into a new office, and my boss is going to be splitting the country this weekend, for two, maybe three months, so we're having to get everything set up. The office is in a really great location -- a place called Club Street on the edge of Chinatown. There are restaurants, pubs, and all sorts of other interesting things within a block or two. I promise to do a photo series of the area once we're settled.

Thank God for the internet! Really, life would be so much harder and less pleasant for us if it weren't for modern technology. My latest joy is listening to KCRW on-line. KCRW rocks the house, NPR and good music too(I'm listening to radiohead now) what more could you want? I discovered them in LA on my most recent trip through (thanks again Kristina). They must be one of the coolest station in the world, guess I should subscribe, huh?

If you could invite any three people, living or dead, to a dinner party, who would it be? goes the old cliche. Until recently, my hypothetical dinner table had one empty seat (the other two being occupied by Richard Feynman and Benjamin Franklin). But, judging from my latest read, the last little place setting card will read "Dorothy Parker". She's best known for her satiric light verse ("Men seldom make passes/At girls who wear glasses"), but she did great short stories as well. And literary criticism. Did she invent sarcasm? Probably not, but the case could be made the she invented modern sarcasm. She was way ahead of her times. Dig this, from a review she wrote in 1927:

The professor starts right off with "No matter what may one's nationality, sex, age, philosophy, or religion, everyone wishes either to become or to remain happy." Well, there's no arguing that one. The author has us there. There is the place for getting out the pencil, underscoring the lines, and setting "how true", followed by several carefully executed exclamation points, in the margin. It is regrettable that the book did not come out during the season when white violets were in bloom, for there is the very spot to press one.

Love it.

We just got back from a live gig of original music, yes, original music, in Singapore, at The Substation. And it was really good. It was a listening room type of thing, and was packed to the gills too, leaving us to sit on the floor. Our uncomfortable seating arrangement drove us out before it might have, but we saw about ten songs by couple of bands.

Tomorrow is for WOMAD, which I'm excited about...

Elvis has left the building. If you know me, you know I've been a rabid Elvis Costello fan for years (I used to run this web page). Well, I recently procured an advance copy of his latest album, North. And wow, it really lacks goodness. He's trying to do some slow neo-classical lounge music thing or something. The word "godawful" springs to mind. It's not that I hate all his experiments. The Juliet Letters is my desert-island disk, and I really like Painted From Memory. But holy cow, he is going to be savaged by critics and fans alike with this new stuff.

Wireless world. During a crosstown taxi ride I encountered today's Something New -- on-demand taxi TV! A little console in the back, where I could bring up news, sports, city guides, or, much to my driver's chagrin, music videos (on MTV Asia, again). Probably not many sixty-year-old Chinese men like the White Stripes. I kept the volume low.

Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps. But they appear on MTV Asia, occasionally. We just caught Public Enemy's "Fight The Power" video, which was partially censored, but lots of things we didn't expect slipped through. MTV is often a whole lot better out here than back Stateside -- there are hints of what MTV used to be, back when we and it were cool.

We're surprised sometimes here, like the other day with The Secretary, which was apparently not edited either (according to Marjorie, who saw it in the States).

Maybe we'll go pop in "Do The Right Thing" now.

I forgot to mention that many of the animals in the zoo were feeling friendly as well. We saw some mouse deer (mice deer?) and a couple of some kind of monkey getting the freak on, always good for a giggle (we're so immature). Also saw some mild territory dispute amongst the lions with some territorial spraying for good measure. Mark also really appreciated the naked mole rat exhibit. They're pretty strange little animals; they have colonies sortof like ants and bees with a queen mole rat who is the only breeder. I love the zoo.

Mark and I went to the Singapore Zoo today. We're "friends of the zoo" here, as we were in Atlanta. The zoo here really is amazing. Many of the animals are in cage-free exhibits, including the howler monkeys, and large african storks.
We've resigned ourselves to being here in Singapore a bit longer than we originally planned. We're starting the migration process to Australia (truly painful) and have estimates that this process could take anywhere from 6 to 20 months. The reality is that it's not at all practical to move back to the States before going on to Australia; it just doesn't make since financially, especially since Mark has a relatively stable job here.
I've been keeping myself busy lately volunteering at the United States Education Information Center. I answer questions about U.S. colleges and universities. It's rather interesting, and it's amazing how many Singaporean kids think they can go to Harvard (not likely kids). I've also been taking Spanish classes " Yo soy alumna de espagnol". Still, I'd prefer to be busy with a paying job. I'm working on it.

Interesting Singapore Factoid #871: Many Singaporeans slow down at traffic accident scenes, not to rubberneck, but to get the numbers off the license plates of the cars involved. It's for the lottery. The belief is that the license plate numbers had bad luck, and must be evened out by good luck in the future.

Booted. No more spiffy downtown office. The guy I work with and the bossman of the office where I was squatting got into a bit of a row. Thought it was going to get ugly, but luckily it fizzled before anybody had to get escorted out of the office. I'm going to be working at my cow orker's house for a while, while we look for a new office. Ups my 40 minute commute to about 45, and mostly by bus now, too, so I'll get all pukey if I try to read. And he has no AC. Ratsafratsa.

We saw Secretary tonight. It was good. If you've seen it, maybe you can answer me a question -- I've been away from the States for a while; are law offices typically like they're depicted in Secretary, or are they more like on Ally McBeal?

Woo hoo 80's! The concert was more fun than we expected. It was a great venue in the middle of town, with lit up skyscrapers in every direction, and it was a nice cool overcast evening. We were cordoned off 50 yards from the stage, since we bought the cheap tickets. There was a local band who opened, who did covers (natch); we were treated to their interpretations of Coldplay, U2, the Beatles, Dave Matthews, and Lynrd Skynrd. Go West was next; they were okay. I only recognized one song. Then ABC. Unfortunately, if you're in ABC, you pretty much have to wear a suit, no matter how hot your concert venue is. The lead singer was resplendent in a purple one this night. They ran through pretty much all their hits; they sounded great, and were well appreciated. Level 42 was last, boring, and enough to send us home.

Why, why, why is this town obsessed with a glam ballad that's more than a decade old? I hated it when it came out; now I loathe it. Extreme's "More Than Words". I hear it nearly every day, in a restaurant, mall, or taxi.

Then again, who am I to judge? We're going to see Level 42, Go West, and ABC tonight, on the pretext that we both kind of like ABC. Shoot that poison arrow, baby.

This is your brain on drugs. Try this. While sitting at your desk make clockwise circles with your right foot. While doing your foot is circling clockwise, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand.

What direction is your foot going now?

The forces of darkness are winning.

Worms. The new Blaster worm attacked my home computer yesterday. I didn't realize it at the time. I'm good about running Windows Update to get the security patches but somehow it still got through. If you get a warning saying that your computer will reboot in 60 seconds, that's it.

Viruses. I just got another virus mailed to me, which of course I didn't open, but it's still the fourth time in the last month.

Spam. I'm still getting twenty a day, five of which manage to oil their way into my Inbox. I love the new strategy of giving them an innocuous curiosity-inducing title, and coming from a common-but-not-too-common name, like today's batch of "Wanna know what I heard" from Natalie F. Hughes, "You forgot to respond" from Cameron Kelly, and "I don't think so" from Zoe Green. Respectively, these contained ads for -- chyeah, right, like I'm going to open them.

Pop-ups. More and more have been sneaking past my Pop-up Stopper. You'd expect that sort of thing from the likes of on-line gambling casinos, but I've been getting a bunch from Orbitz lately too.

Why can't a man surf in peace?

Bits of tid. A few morsels from the past few weeks:

Saw this giant moth (perhaps a butterfly?) at Mount Faber park a week ago.

It being full moon, there are a few people burning sacrifices in the street in front of their houses as part of the Hungry Ghost festival. One was an old lady who was feeding a rather sizable fire with fake money she was pulling by the handful out of an Ikea bag.

We took second in team trivia at the Yard the other night, and won five Heineken t-shirts.

InstallAnywhere is a damn fine piece of software. That's not a compliment I throw around lightly. Highly recommended for building installers for your software.

Had my worst soccer game yet the other day, gifting the other team a goal when I tripped over the ball instead of tapping it wide. Gave myself a nice bloody hipper in the process too. This was just when we were fighting our way back into the game, and it totally killed our momentum. I hate having to wait a week for any chance of redemption.

News! The Tasmania deal is now apparently a lock. We're just waiting for the final formality confirmation in the mail. I'll likely be heading down end of September/beginning of October. We've got lots to do before then. Marjorie will join me for a week of it, probably, and then hopefully we'll get a few days to do a side trip to Melbourne. Woop!

I just spent about 30 minutes reading the archives of our blog. It's amazing how "normal" life in Singapore has become for us. So many of the little things that were so exotic when we got here have become normalized or commonplace. I suppose that happens to everyone living abroad.
Another thing that's interesting to me, is tracking my attitude; little glimmers of culture shock denied. Singapore is certainly one of the easiest places in Asia for a westerner to become acclimated to, but it's still Asia. Is it ethnocentric to think spitting and picking your feet in public are gross? Other differences hard for me to accept are the tendencies of some people to drag their feet and/or walk slowly, seemingly oblivious to other people (painful to me when I'm in a hurry and want to get around them).
All in all, living in Singapore isn't bad. It's hot, and sometimes (frequently) I wish there were more entertainment options (I.E. good live music-not cover bands, uncensored movies, uncensored t.v., etc.), but, for the most part, the people here are friendly, it's safe, and there are plenty of great restaurants. Truthfully, I think I'd be mostly content if we just had more friends here. We miss the old posse.

Happy National Day! Singapore is 38 years old today. I believe Malaysia is 40 now. You may not know that Singapore started it's independence as part of Malaysia but was booted out. That's right, Singapore was forced into being the independent country that it became. I don't know the whole story, but I've been reading/skimming Lee Kuan Yew's book "From Third World To First" for the past 6 months and I know the story's in their somewhere.
Anyway, in an attempt to do our part at learning a bit about our country of residence Mark and I went to see the "Homeland" Imax at the Science center.
We also went iceskating at the Fuji ice palace. Big fun, except they made us buy gloves to wear while skating. Cloth gloves. How were these supposed to help us? I smell shakedown. We also tried to go see the facilities at Snow City but they wouldn't let us sneak a peek. Their loss.

Work. A sneak peak at what I've been working on all week. This will only make sense to you if you can read Thai, and even then, it probably won't make sense because all the text was translated using one of those automatic translators which often produce humorous results. The technology has a long way to go.

In addition to Thai, I can now generate similar versions of our product in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, as well as Malay and all the standard European languages that use standard English-like letters. We're still hoping to be able to do Hindi someday, but their crazy script is only just recently being tackled by computers.

It's been something a revelation to work on this stuff. I'm reminded of Huckleberry Finn:

"Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does?"

"No, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said -- not a single word."

"Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?"

"I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a book. S'pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy -- what would you think?"

"I wouldn' think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over de head -- dat is, if he warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat."

"Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying, do you know how to talk French?"

"Well, den, why couldn't he say it?"

"Why, he is a-saying it. That's a Frenchman's way of saying it."

"Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no mo' 'bout it. Dey ain' no sense in it."

"Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?"

"No, a cat don't."

"Well, does a cow?"

"No, a cow don't, nuther."

"Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?"

"No, dey don't."

"It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from each other, ain't it?"

"Course."

"And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different from us?"

"Why, mos' sholy it is."

"Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a Frenchman to talk different from us? You answer me that."

"Is a cat a man, Huck?"

"No."

"Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow a man? -- er is a cow a cat?"

"No, she ain't either of them."

"Well, den, she ain't got no business to talk like either one er the yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man?"

"Yes."

"WELL, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he talk like a man? You answer me dat!"

I'm a little like Jim, in the way I've always assumed that languages used a discrete set of letters that correspond to sounds, and build words out of them. It just isn't so. Symbols get combined, lines are drawn to connect things in weird ways, and symbols are used to represent whole words, giving no clue as to how they get pronounced.

Having a small set of discrete letters may even be one of the key reasons for Western advancement; first because they made the printing press feasible, and lately because computers can deal with them much easier. (Recently the Chinese have gotten in step with the times through widespread use of a simplified form of their alphabet.)

Thai is pretty cool looking, no? Definitely one of the more interesting-looking languages out there (though I would give the nod for beauty to Arabic and Hieratic).

It's the seventh lunar month in the Chinese year, otherwise known as the Hungry Ghost Month. During this month Taoist Chinese believe that the gates of Hell are opened and the dead are allowed to enter into the world of the living. To appease the "hungry ghost" food offerings are laid out and ghost money and accessories (paper clothes, cabinets, dinner wares, anything a ghost might need) are burned. Believers do not buy property, get married, move, or do much of anything that may be affected by "luck" during this month. It's interesting stuff and I'm trying to find out more about the holiday, but it's harder than you might think. A trip to Chinatown this weekend is definitely in order. Also, I believe there will be a lot happening on the full moon. Anybody have any recommendations?

Yes, apparently my signature no longer matches... my signature. They have some serious check nazis down at the bank. I'd be willing to bet the signature checker's job title has the words "Anal Retentive" in it somewhere.

Always good to bounce your first rent check in a new apartment. This sort of thing is not a problem back in the states.

Another (probable) bombing in S.E. Asia. This one in Jakarta at the Marriot Hotel, no articles to link to yet as this just happened. The timing is telling as the main man suspected in the Bali bombings in on trial with a verdict due any day now, as is a general linked to crimes against humanity in East Timor.
On a completely different tone, I finally received approval for my dependent pass today. Finally.
Another thing to bitch about: Our second rent check to our new landlord bounced not due to insufficient funds but because our bank said of Mark's signature "he doesn't sign his name that way". Um, what?!

Upgrading from Windows 2000 Server to Windows XP on my work computer. A short list of all the software I have to install:

NVidia video card driver

TextPad text editor

Cygwin (all the standard pieces, plus: clear, crypt, cvs, doxygen, emacs, file, fortune, gcc, gdb, make, man, openssh, openssl, vim)

XEmacs

Panicware Popup Stopper

WinCVS revision control system

Apache Tomcat web server

Seti@home screen saver

Winzip

The Gimp (open-source PhotoShop)

Java 2 Software Development Kit

NJStar Communicator for chinese language entry

ElevenProspect License Manager

XP language support for Japanese, Thai?, Korean, Chinese

Google toolbar

Netbeans IDE
What a joy. That should take just about all of tomorrow.

The dream. When I worked at the Space Center, the stress of being responsible -- even in a very small way -- for a shuttle launch seemed to give everyone the same recurring nightmare. The nightmare is that it's launch day, and something goes wrong during the fueling, or worse -- during the launch, and it's your fault. Everyone I worked with had this dream at some point. It's not a good dream.

I still have the dream, every few months or so, including last night. It's changed a bit over the years; the shuttle still goes haywire, but it's no longer my fault when it happens. It's still distressing. This time, I was really close to the launch; only a few hundred yards, and it was really cloudy. Through a hole in the clouds I could see sparks flying out of the shuttle where no sparks should have been, and thought "Oh, no...". I told everyone it was going to crash, and while I didn't see the impact, molten lumps of debris started raining down on us, and we had to dodge them. Then I woke up.

I can't imagine working on some of the probes they are launching now. Each requires more than a decade of work to plan and build, and it all comes down to a single launch. I think the Mars probes they've launched have had less than a 50% success rate in just getting there. I sure those guys have The Dream a lot too.

Okay, this is a cool game. It's like Myst, you just have to figure out the right things to click on.

Our government-issue SARS kit has arrived. Contents:

A pamphlet, "Taking Your Temperature Correctly", translated into English, Malay, Chinese, and Thai.

Two surgical masks.

Mask instructions, also in English, Malay, Chinese, and Thai.

A rather nice digital thermometer, with instructions in English only.

Just in the nick of time, too.

Mark and I watched a documentary on Bhutan tonight and it struck me -- I'm the third generation in my family to spend at least a year in southeast Asia. My grandfather was stationed in Bhutan (then Burma) during or around World War II, my father spent a year in Vietnam, then another in Thailand, now Mark and I are here. Of course I'm here under very different circumstances than my predecessors.

A great site for movie reviews is Rotten Tomatoes. What they do is to collect and summarize views from critics around the world. A good review is marked with a red tomato; a bad one with a green splat.

It's a rare movie that some critic, somewhere does not like. But there is one out now. Maybe the filmmakers should have listened to their focus groups.

Update: Oops! Looks like they found one reviewer who liked it.

The latest "Awwwww...." My dad's been on a mission to scan in all our old slides. Here's Another picture from my childhood (me on the right). I love this stuff. Hey Dad, where the heck was this, any idea?

We hosted pub trivia last night at Shamus O'Donnell's. It all went pretty well, excepting the small turnout. We did make the mistake in one question of implying that the Boomtown Rats were British, when in fact they are Irish. This is not a good sort of mistake to make in an Irish bar. Marjorie, who was reading the question, received several indignant shouts. Proving she can "take the piss" with the best of them, she responded, "England, Ireland... Aren't they the same thing?" This cracked me up, and everyone else too.

I'm fed up will the old comments provider (klinkfamily.com) which kept going down, so I've swapped in a new one (haloscan.com). These will hopefully be more reliable. Now all I have to do is come up with some actual content that's worth commenting on.

There'll be two comment links at the bottom of each post for a little while, if the old comments come back up. Please use the one that just says "Comments".

We had a pretty nice day yesterday. We went up to the Chinese Gardens and walked around for a bit. It's a great area for birding. The first thing we saw there was some kind of Heron (perhaps a Purple Heron) eating a snake. The gardens were quite nice themselves, but overall I'd go for the critters (turtles, and fish, and birds, oh my!) The turtles were engaged in a rather bizarre behavior which involved the little ones repeatedly and persistently getting into the faces of the bigger guys. I have no idea what this was all about, but the big guys looked (understandably) annoyed.
After the Chinese Gardens, we went to buy plants for the new apartment. The nursery also turned out to be a nice place for birding (I know, we're scary) and we got the best view yet of a crimson sunbird. We also saw some cool pitcher plants, which Mark would have been happy to take home, but are a bit too creepy for me.

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.

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.

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...

At last, a photo from Sydney. I'm looking more and more like my dad every day, it seems... We have other photos, but they weren't taken with the digital, so this is all you get right now.

Nature walk. We went back to the Fort MacRitchie reservoir today, in an effort to check out the tree-top canopy walkway we recently learned they've set up. Unfortunately, the tree-top walk was about a 4.5 km walk in, so we only just walked some of the other nature trails. New bird: the terminally drab Olive-Winged Bulbul. Also saw another Greater Racquet-Tailed Drongo, some swifts, a kingfisher, a (water?) monitor lizard, a lot of turtles, and a lot of these guys. They weren't that happy to see us, it seems; they kept dropping sticks on us. Just one would've been a coincidence; after the third, we figured we ought to move on.

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest results have been posted. This is the contest where the object is to come up with the worst possible opening line for a novel. I was going to enter this year, but I couldn't firm up my entry in time. Next year maybe. There's some good ones this year; as usual, they aren't the ones that won.

Unemployment sucks! Not that I expect anyone to be sympathetic. I was not fired, I quit. And even if I'd stayed with my job I'd be idle now due to the summer break. I don't handle the removal of all structure from my life well. But, now that Mark has his employment pass and my dependent pass is days behind, my days of idleness are numbered. As soon as I get my pass I'm going to look into to some employment options and sign up for some classes. There's an interesting night photography course on offer at the photographic society and some Indian cooking classes at the American Women's Association. As for the job, I may sub at my old school (the pay is good without the responsibility for planning), but what I'd really like to do is find my way back to early intervention. First stop, the Autism Research Group which is advertising a need for teachers. Wonder if they'd want someone part time (full-time Autism work takes a really special person, I'm maybe half-way there, therefore half-time capable)?

Random observation. If you were dropped here (by the hand of the Astronaut?) in Singapore, at some random place, within your frame of vision there would likely be:

Ten highrise apartment buildings

Twenty people

Thirty trees

Five cars

Five mynah birds

Two ravens

No litter

Birthday dinner. We just got back from our favorite Thai restaurant (Diandin Leluk), and again, we talked about it the whole ride home. This time, though, we talked about how disappointing it was. They must've changed chefs. We are so bummed.

During dinner we were also accosted by a manic, mostly-toothless man who walked up to our table and engaged us in a conversation that went something like this:

Him: You are Americans?
Me: Uh...
Him: From America?
Me: We, uh, live in Singapore.
Him: But you are Americans? They are friends with Cuba now, yes?
Me: I guess...
Marjorie: Not really...
Him: They are friends, and Jimmy Carter went to visit with them?
Us: ...
Him: They also have great music there, huh? [Imitates a trumpet player]
Us: ...

He left, finally. Not sure what that was all about.

Marjorie got me the new White Stripes CD, another CD by the Eels, a Ben Franklin biography (I've been on a biography kick lately), and a new shirt I like very much.

Aw, shucks. Yes, my 28th year was pretty crazy. Let's hope my 29th is even more so! *

I just, at long last, picked up my employment pass, making me an official resident here. That's a nice birthday present. I'm 2 Legit 2 Quit!


* Note: Figures presented may not represent actual age.

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday Dear Mark(ie)
Happy Birthday to you!!
Hip Hip hooray!
Hip Hip hooray!
Hip Hip hooray!

Last three lines courtesy of our trip Down Under (that's how they do it there).

Happy Birthday Baby! It's been quite a year, hasn't it?

Words of wisdom:

BILL MOYERS: Which is funnier? CROSSFIRE or HARD BALL?

JON STEWART: CROSSFIRE or HARD BALL? Which is funnier? Which is more soul-crushing, you mean? Both are equally dispiriting in their -- the whole idea that political discourse has degenerated into shows that have to be entitled Crossfire and Hard Ball. And, you know, I'm Gonna Beat Your Ass or whatever they're calling them these days is-- mind-boggling.

Crossfire, especially, is completely an apropos name. It's what innocent bystanders are caught in when gangs are fighting. And-- it just boggles my mind that that's given a half hour, an hour a day to-- I don't understand how issues can be dissented-- from the left and from the right as though-- even cartoon characters have more than left and right. They have up and down.

Read on. Very funny stuff, and wise. I miss The Daily Show. We do get it once a week, but it's not enough...

Ouchy. More soccer follies. Marjorie came out to the game with me today, and got to witness me block a full-on shot with the worst part of your body that you can block a shot with. The sort of block that leaves you rolling on ground in a fetal position, hands cupped... I was able to keep playing, fortunately, but I'm still a little tender. We again beat a team that totally outplayed us, so bully for us defenders. I played like hell though.

New birds spotted: a pair of brown-capped woodpeckers, and a flock of Asian glossy starlings, who seem to be our new neighbors...

Blog recommendations. Marjorie and I have both been enjoying Eeksy Peeksy, a beautiful and often moving blog written by a man who writes like I wish I could.

Also of note is Borneo Chela, the blog of an American student doing ecological research across the water from us in Borneo. The best place to learn about tree shrew sex and how to care for your stick insects.

Lastly, check out the blog of Bin Gregory, an American who converted to Islam and also lives in Borneo. Having an intermediary who speaks your language really can help you learn a lot about a religion, and a culture.

Seems as though the whale we saw off Bondi was probably a humpback whale, not a right whale. It's the humpback's migration time. I've seen whales in Boston and many dolphins off the coast of Florida and South Carolina. It's always a thrill to see these amazing animals in the ocean.

I'm one of those sickos who loves to fly, and the flight back was a very interesting one. We passed directly over the famous Uluru (formerly Ayer's Rock), but it wasn't until we were already well past that I noticed our flight path took us right over it. Bummer. North and west from there is some serious desert. There was nothing -- not a house, not a road, nothing -- for about 400 miles. Drawing on their most imaginative thinkers, the Aussies have named this the Great Sandy Desert. (The name is even more embarassing when you learn that the region is almost devoid of sand.) We flew off of Australia near Derby, then south under Bali and Lombok (we could see the volcanos again), over Java, and up the Javan Sea, over very many small uninhabited islands and atolls.

Entertainment on international flights just gets better and better. Every chair had its own little video screen, as is now the norm, but now there were over 30 movies to choose from, and you could pause and rewind all you want. In addition there were tv shows, video games, news, and a do-it-yourself playlist for music where you could pick songs from about fifty different albums. I can't wait to read back on this in ten years and laugh at how paltry it is. And I'm still waiting for the free in-flight internet access.

Back from Sydney. It was nice. I really wish we'd had a few more days there, and not just because Death Cab for Cutie are playing there on Friday.
The walk yesterday from Bondi to Cogee Beach was a bird geek's paradise. We saw lots of new (to us) species of Australian Birds, including Cockatoos, King Parrots, some kind of Cormorant, some type of honeyeater, some willy wagtails, fairy wrens, and some beefed up mynahs and magpies much bigger than the ones we have in Singapore.
The water was gorgeous as well and we saw some kind of whale (Southern Right Whale perhaps) right off the beach at Bondi where people were surfing.
Sydney's a nice place, it reminded me a bit of Boston with milder weather and without all the colleges.

We survived the bridge walk -- it was a lot less strenuous or scary than we expected. It was pretty cool, mostly in the way that for all my life, whenever I've driven over a suspension bridge, I've always wondered what it would be like to be able to climb up the supports. A bit of fantasy fulfillment, there, but I'm not sure it was worth the price. Fantastic view, if nothing else. We have pictures we'll scan in when we get home.

Tomorrow we're going to walk the trail along the cliffs down around the famous Bondi Beach. We talked about seeing a rugby match but apparently they only go on on the weekends.

Weird musical coincidence, along the lines of the Christmas/Ho Chi Minh City/Clash one six months ago -- Elvis Costello has a song with the Brodsky quartet that goes:

Care of St. Ignatus House
Willoughby Drive
Parramatta, New South Wales
This fifth day of July

Parramatta's right up the road, and the fifth was just the other day while we were here. Wonder if there's a St. Ignatius House on Willoughby Drive.

Greetings from Down Under! I felt a bit superior for about a second about traveling to three continents in one week, but then remembered that Mark had (again) bested me years earlier on his journey to Cape Town, South Africa, by way of London. Ah well....
Sydney is lovely and cold (about 50 degrees Farenheit) a very nice change from S'pore. The city is, overall, much more European feeling than I had anticipated. It's nice; people are polite, the skyline is pretty, lots of homeless though, atleast compared to S'pore where there are practically none.
We've taken in the aquarium, zoo, views, and toured the CBD and Rocks areas. Still have the Harbour Bridge climb ahead of us, and hopefully we'll make it out to Bondi Beach. The plan for tonight is to take in some good live music and Mod Oz cuisine (maybe eat some Kangaroo).
The whole time I've been here I've been assessing the city by "could I live here?" standards, and I'd say, so far, it makes the cut. Lots of local bands and international acts touring through (something sorely lacking in S'pore), good public transportation, nice pubs, four seasons with mild winters (the days are really short though now, sun goes down about 5pm). Many of the good qualities of Singapore (safe, not U.S. and thereby different, interesting wild life) and many other things S'pore lacks (bands, good beer, cold weather, more polite people).
We saw an anti Iraqi war protest on the fourth of July. It was anti George Bush and anti John Howard. While I agree with the protesters and their cause, I felt odd, almost ashamed, after seeing them walk by. I'm with the Dixie Chicks, I'm ashamed that man is my president.

Space! Our new pad has space! We spent our first night there last night, and slept well. Apart from no hot water in the kitchen (it has a separate heater, which doesn't work), all seems fine. There's a convenience store, a butcher shop, a cafe, and a small restaurant as part of the complex, which will be nice.

Transportation will be the continuing headache, though. It took me 45-50 minutes to get into work today -- a longish walk, a long wait for a bus, a short bus ride, and a long subway ride. We're going to have to figure something out.

Funny exchange of emails with people on my soccer team.

Yesterday the coach sent out this game report, from Sunday's game (which I didn't play):

Yesterday's results'
Ventz 3pm beat Shanghai Flowers 2-1. Stephen and Mark scored the goals

3pm played a good game and avoided a repeat of the game 2 weeks back by
having the better play and still ended losing. We scored all 3 goals (one
spectacular own goal!)

Since I didn't play, I had to ask --

Is there a new Mark on the 3pm team, or is "Mark" just what you call people when they score an own goal these days?

And someone responded:

Mark - you wouldn't believe this but from the new 2003 Oxford dictionary -

mark, verb 1a. : to make or leave a mark; b: to follow an opponent closely
(see also "David"), c: to label as to indicate.
defender "pulled a Mark" to put us 3-0 up>

I guess this is my own fault!

I'm back! Back to the blog, back to Asia, back to the old apartment. At least for a few days. We are in the midst of moving and I am currently surrounded by piles of stuff, most of which is shoved into suitcases, preparing to be moved over to the new pad tonight (hopefully).
I'm lucky to have made it back when I did. I nearly missed my plane from L.A. to Hongkong, as I only realized that the ticket meant 1:55 am (not P.M.) at midnight after putting on my pajamas. Kristina (to whom I will be forever grateful) and I threw my bags into the Saab, then I followed her in the rental car rushing through the streets and hitting seemingly every red light in L.A.. I returned the rental car in record time then Kristina hightailed it over to Cathay Pacific where I just barely got a seat on the overbooked plane. It was a long and miserable flight (as always), but I was very reluctant to complain as I was lucky to be there at all. It's so unlike me to do something like that. I'm usually the type of person who's very early for a flight.
I'm looking forward to Sydney in spite of the fact that we did not really give ourselves the proper time to complete the move before we go. We can unpack when we get back. I'm sure we'll hit the aquarium and zoo so we can geek out on the animal stuff, but I'm also hoping we'll catch a few bands as original live music (as opposed to cover bands) is so scarce in S'pore.

Today was for packing. We're moving over the next few days, and it's amazing how much junk we were able to accumulate in six months here. Later in the week we're off to Sydney, as the third leg of Marjorie's whirlwind tour of the continents.

Don't know what the deal with the comments is; hopefully they'll have them fixed soon.

Marjorie's back. Here's what she brought me back from the States:

The Cosmos collector's edition DVD box set. Woop!

Five bottles of wine.

The new Fountains of Wayne CD. Sounds fabbo so far.

My cool fuzzy pants, for our trip to Australia.

The Big Lebowski DVD.

A Cookie Monster t-shirt. Huh.

A Scrabble computer game (thanks, Linda!).

Various housewares for the new apartment.

My CD player.
And most importantly,

Her bad self.

These are dangerous times. I promise to be careful.

I've been playing with Google's programmer interface for some potential work projects. This is a service they provide that allows you to do Google searches from within programs you write, instead of going to their web page.

It occurred to me that I could use it to revamp my old "misspellings" page. So, here 'tis.

The Google API was amazingly easy to use. Quite a number of the queries I sent failed, for whatever reasons, but I can still see this as a handy thing to know how to use. And kinda fun.

I rule. I played bar trivia last night at Shamus O'Donnell's, all by my lonesome, and won. I had no hope on the Rugby questions and such, but cleaned up on the movie questions. I hope my wife will forgive me for missing the Beatles question ("What Beatles album features the song 'Ticket To Ride'?"). The prize was a bottle of vodka, which we surely DON'T need, as the bottle we got at Duty Free on our initial trip out here has hardly been touched.

Burgerlicious. Here's the placemat from Mos Burger where I had lunch today.

How long do you figure it'll be before McDonald's comes out with THEIR version of the squid-scallop-prawn burger with carrots and asparagus?

Notice too that the bun is made of rice. Actually, it sounds moderately edible.

Goooooaaaal! A beautiful cross; I extend my leg as far as it will go, and tuck the ball neatly into the side of the net. The keeper never had a chance.

Too bad it was our own goal.

Phooey. To add injury to insult, I stubbed my toe on the play, too.

Time to de-stinkify myself and go get some Injun food.

End of the line. I rode Singapore's new MRT line out to the bitter end, Punggol, today, just for grins. I wasn't the only explorer on the train. For one old Chinese woman it was her first time in a subway, apparently. When the train started moving she pointed at the concrete walls sliding by the window and grinned hugely, revealing rows of neglected teeth. It was really sweet, actually.

On the way out, I happened to read in Bill Bryson's "Made In America" how they used to build amusement parks at the ends of the railway lines to encourage people to use them. Well, when the train reached the end and we all got out, staring around blankly like we just got dropped off the mother ship, I realized that this wasn't so much an amusement park so much as a WHOLE LOTTA NOTHIN'. Just a treeless waste with a whole lot of featureless HDB housing highrises. It looked like Communism with a splash of orange. Why would people live out here? I walked around a bit, then headed back.

Yet another photo of me at Disney, with my mother and sibs this time. Love those glasses on my mom. My brother and sister don't look all that happy to be there.

Name-dropping. I just learned that one of the stars of C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation, Jorja Fox, went to my high school. While I was there, too. Earlier, she was even in the excellent Memento. Were this a proper name drop, I would right now be hinting that we used to date. As it is, I don't remember her at all.

Writing wrongs. I've been doing some proofreading of a proposal by someone whose writing skills are, shall we say, lacking. Incoherent ideas, run-on sentences, and rampantly misplaced punctuation feature prominently. I much enjoy proofreading, probably because I get to point out other people's errors. I'm generally considered a top-notch technical writer (my college professor on the subject even asked if I was looking for work). Outside of tech writing, though, I feel totally hot and cold. And lately, just cold.

When I'm writing well, the whole idea is there in my head beforehand, and the words just spill out, like I'm taking dictation. At other times, though, I just have some random collection of thoughts, and start writing anyway, hoping a common thread will pop up. Like I'm doing now.

I used to dabble in the Usenet newsgroup talk.bizarre, which is essentially a creative writing forum frequented by some extremely bright people (and plenty of dummards, to be sure). Despite the anonymous nature of the internet, participating there was often nerve-wracking (especially since many there could deliver absolutely withering put-downs). But I learned more about writing there than the sum total of my schooling ever provided.

The constant pressure to be "on", while self-imposed, is likely why I stopped visiting there. Now I'm worried that I've plateaued. Exactly in line with my guitar-playing ability, I just don't feel my writing has improved at all in the last ten years.

As a kick in the pants, I was considering entering the National Novel Writing Month this year (like this Dean character did last year). But I don't think I'll find the time. I think deep down I don't want to write a novel, I want to have written a novel.

So I guess I'm stuck where I'm at, for now. And you, my suffering readers, will have to endure.

Dish fairies. I've been known to do the dishes, as the photo I posted in the last blog will show you. However, I usually leave it to the dish fairies to put the dishes away after they dry. They seem to have been on strike lately, though, starting at around the time Marjorie went back home. Now dishes are piling up in the drying rack. What did I do to get them angry? How do you lure them back?

Awwww... My blog about Disney prompted my parents to scan in this photo of me doing the dishes when we stayed at Fort Wilderness. All that beautiful hair, *sniff*. Strange how I remember all the little details in the picture; the bowls, the dishrag, the dining canopy -- like I can still smell them.

Things that I've learned, decided, or figured out lately. The historical facts are from Bill Bryson's Made In America:

Sam Adams, of beer fame, was actually responsible for propagandizing the Boston Massacre, inciting a popular uprising, blowing the facts of the case totally out of proportion.

Starlings, those pesky little speckled black birds, were introduced to the US by a well-meaning but utterly misguided professor who was trying to populate the new world with all the birds mentioned in the works of Shakespeare.

If I ever write a newspaper column, it'll be called Mark My Words.

When I put out my best-of album, it'll be called A Fat Lot of Good.

Listening to old Built To Spill albums makes me happy.

Curry is actually not a plant. Not per se -- there is a curry plant used for its leaves, but curry like you find in most dishes is actually a mix of spices, including but not limited to pepper, ginger, garlic, coriander seed, tumeric, and cumin.

My dad is the best. Happy Father's Day, Dad...

LA Story: There's some story/legend about one's experience with L.A. based on one's first celebrity sighting here. My first LA celebrity sighting happened at dinner this evening, Jerry Springer, don't know what that means about my future with this town. He (Jerry) was in da house at Border Grill in Santa Monica (which I highly recommend by the way).
LA's a fun town. I've seen as much of the town as my hosts could pack into two and a half days. And, so far, I'm dealing with my jet lag pretty well.
Gossip for the kids: J-Lo and Ben may be married now. You heard it here first, from a potentially reliable source (could be crap though).
Also, I was privy to a phone conversation between my very good friend and Elayne Boozler (the Elayne that Julia Louis-Dreyfus' character was based on) at the Getty Center today. Pretty cool yo.
Being back in the States these past couple of days just makes me want to be here (semi-permanently) again so much more.

There are lots of foot reflexology centers in town, usually featuring a wacky sign like this showing the link between places on your feet and your various vital organs. I of course put no stock in it as a science, but I did visit one of these places on Friday night for a foot massage. They do like the rough stuff here. It was pinchy and hurty when they worked my toes, but I got more into it as the session wore on.

Learned a new term: "slurp shop". This is what they call those small food outlets specializing in noodles, where you see lines of customers crammed onto tiny tables and chairs, bent over their bowls of soup. I had a good meal last night at one of them; then, after a failed attempt at (geek alert) finding a geocache, I checked out some live music at the Singapore Street Festival, then went to watch the skateboarders for a while at the nearby public skate park. I miss that stuff. If it didn't hurt so darn much I'd still be riding...

Interesting article on the demise of cursive. Like countless others, I had cursive drilled into me for many years, all for the sake of my signature. That's honestly the only thing I've used it for since I left college twelve years ago. And my signature ain't all that.

Quote from the article:

"The letters you write to people are beautiful, and they'll cherish them forever. Have any of you ever received an e-mail that you cherished?"

Um, yes?

Why spend years grilling the kids on a practically useless skill? To appease some dewy-eyed English majors? Teach the kids to write, not to write cursive...

Left alone. Marjorie done runn oft home without me. Saw her off this morning. I'm a little sad. She has something like eighteen hours of flying ahead of her, just to get partway home. Her plane stops in Hong Kong to pick up a few SARS patients before going on to Los Angeles.

I'm leaving tomorrow for the States. First stop Los Angeles to spend a few days with friends in Hollywood. Next stop Atlanta to see family, friends, and two very missed black Labs. Then back to LA for a day before returning to Singapore.
When I get home we'll have four days to move and settle in to our new apartment before going to Sydney. Three continents in one week. Woo hoo.

We are all booked to go to Australia next month. This is just a fun trip. My work trip to Tasmania is again a possibility (the word from the guys in Australia is that our position "looks good, mate!"), and that might involve a side trip to Melbourne, so we're going to go to Sydney this time. Woo!

Disney. On a mailing list I'm on, we've been chatting a bit about Disney. Here's an excerpt from my last post:

This talk of Disney has me thinking back...

Some of my earliest memories are of our family vacation(s) to Disney World; we went pretty much every year while I was growing up. This involved a three-day car ride each way, down from New Jersey and back. With three kids. I don't know how my parents managed that.

Earliest trip for me had to be about '71 or so. I do remember being there just before Space Mountain opened, and I don't think that was our first trip.

Some other early memories:

Getting all excited to go on "Star Jets", and then being petrified when I discovered I had a fear of heights. My older brother, who was manning the controls, kept us up as high as we could go for the whole ride. Big meanie.

Being given my (E?) ticket to get into the Country Bear Jamboree while in line, and promptly losing it. Several very nice people offered us their tickets when we went back through the line to look for it. I was probably crying.

Losing my shiny New Year's hat over the rail into the water near Cinderella's Castle.

Laughing like crazy when the totem poles started chanting in the Tiki Room.

Chasing armadillos in Fort Wilderness.

My stomach falling out from under me for the first time, when the boat goes over the waterfall on Pirates of the Caribbean.

The mirrors, where it looks like a ghost is in your car with you, in the Haunted Mansion.

Fleeting bits from: Swiss Family Robinson treehouse. It's a Small World. The car racing thing (Autopia?). And The Hall of Presidents. If You Had Wings (had wings, had wings...). Jungle Safari.

Lastly, I remember loving Disney so much that it actually made me sad... It's a hard feeling to describe, really, but I was just so worried that it might someday come to an end. I guess I was a melancholy kid.

Here's a great site with old pictures of Disney, and people's recollections.

New digs. This evening we went to take another look at the apartment we're going to be moving into in a month. Definitely a nice place, and lots of space for visitors, hint hint. Take a gander at the pool.

The new Radiohead album is, like, good and stuff. I like it a lot, on first listen, and that's saying a lot, cuz I never do that. Thankfully, more accessible than recent efforts, but still out there. These guys remain light years ahead of everyone.

Not in Kansas Anymore. Two out-and-about in Singapore quickies:

As I exited the elevator at work the other day, a Chinese dragon team got off a neighboring elevator. I have no idea what they were doing up in our skyscraper, or how they all fit in an elevator, like clowns in a circus car.

I took a taxi to the doctor's this morning; the driver was an old Chinese man who was listening to a cassette of some very old and strange (and occasionally grating) Chinese music, that sounded like a theater production; it was replete with some twangy string accompaniment and tinny cymbal crashes. Interesting. He obviously knew and loved it and was singing along the whole time. As he dropped me off I asked about it; he was clearly delighted that I took an interest. I asked if it was from a play, which he didn't understand, so I said "You know, like Kabuki." He pointed out a little indignantly that this was Chinese (not Japanese, like Kabuki. Oops). But he was still happy, and said "Is good, yes? Is good?"

The verdict at the doctor's: I've passed the stone that was in the urethra causing all the pain, as I suspected, and still have the bigger one that's in my kidney. Fortunately it's in the bottom of the kidney, whereas the tube flowing out of the kidney is in the middle, so I may not have a repeat episode -- the stone will likely just stay there. I'm to be x-rayed again in six months.

Language In the short time we've been here we've adopted several Britishisms and a few Aussie phrases. Our favorite of late is "Daggy" which basically means bad taste or a person who doesn't give a s**t. The word is derived from "dag" which is the term for the poo stuck in the fur on a sheep's backside.
Other words we've been overheard using lately: "knackered" for tired or exhausted, "savouries" for salty snacks, "plaster" instead of band-aid, "capsicum" for bell pepper, "coriander" for cilantro....there are many others but it's hard to remember them all now.
On the flip side I will never be able to say "tomato" or "vase" the British (and conversely Singaporean) way. I recently went shopping for a vase and was corrected ("oh you mean....) by every shop person approached.

Inventory: Yesterday was the last day of school for the kid. Now I just have to have my supplies inventoried, my work permit cancelled, my taxes paid...and I'll be finished with this chapter of my career. A few people have asked why I'm leaving the school and the honest reason is that I just don't find teaching very stimulating. The past three months I've had great kids, a good assistant, a supportive principal and team, and I still haven't enjoyed the job. I wish I did, it would make life easier, but.......
Hopefully I'll be able to find an early intervention/assessment job similar to what I was doing in Georgia before we left, if not I may look into consulting or classroom facilitation for students with special needs.
On a completely different note, I'm really looking forward to being back in the States for a few days. I'm not going to be there near long enough (again), but anytime is good. I'm slightly jealous of the Aussies I know who are going home to winter as it's been oppressively hot here lately. There will be no weather relief found in Hotlanta.

Mixed bag.

We just got back from Bruce Almighty. Hey, every now and then, I'll admit it, I suffer from the particularly American need to just shut off my brain. Is there any point in my rating it? You know exactly how it was, if you've ever seen a Jim Carrey movie before. Actually, this seemed less funny than his typical fare, which probably means it's REALLY not funny if you don't like him.

Is there anything better than the smell of curry cooking? You can dance in a cloud of it down at Little India here every evening, but often you get it just walking by people's houses. I'll know I'm dead when I've been lying in a hospital bed and suddenly smell curry.

Wikipedia is a free, volunteer-run online encyclopedia that's made leaps and bounds as far as content recently. It's really quite useful and wonderful now. Check it out, just go and click around on whatever interests you.

I can't wait for my SARS kit, and for the toilet ratings.

The Trivia Kings. Last night was our night to run the trivia contest at a local pub. Actually, the usual hosts had a bunch of questions as well, so we split up the duties, and ended up with a marathon round of 100 questions total. This was just too many, and they really had to fly through them towards the end. But everyone had fun, it seemed. We decided we could run a really kick-ass contest on our own, given the chance.

Here are the questions we asked. See how you do; I'll post the answers in a couple of days.

Back. Just had my "IVU"; a pretty grueling ordeal. After changing into their standard doubly-modest hospital gown (two pieces, plus you leave your underwear on; a far cry from the typical drafty American gown where you have to CYA like a middle-manager), they laid me out on the X-ray table and proceded to inject me with dye and prod me and roll me over for over an hour. At one point they laid me on my back and put two big stone-like things on my kidneys, then strapped a clear plastic band over my torso and tightened, and tightened... I have mammogram empathy now, I guess. Anyway, it'll be a week until my next appointment when I get the results.

Because I had to fast since last night, I treated myself to Diandin Leluk (that Thai place I raved about before) after the procedure. I tried a couple of dishes I hadn't had before -- the chicken coconut soup, and the deep fried chicken in red wine sauce, both of which were merely outstanding, but not at the level where I want to kidnap the chef like on previous visits.

Who's bad? From the coach's report of yesterday's game:

Ventz 5pm scored an impressive 7-0 win against Summer Ville. Mark S, Graeme , Jeff , Edward (Guest Player) , Ben(2) and Steven A did the trick for us.

5pm walloped Sumer Ville 7-0! We never looked back after Mark's 5min headed goal from a corner. Great result for such a new team. Opponents were missing a few regulars but still 7-0..................! The 5pm team is going well with about 20 players but still needs games to gel them together as its a mix of new and old recruits.

That's right, baybee... The game-winner, coming up from playing defense. And we shut them out to boot.

Obviously, I've been feeling better; no pain at all yesterday or today so far. I'm just now leaving to go get my extensive X-rays, though.

Yes! I'm so glad they caught this guy. Friends of mine were at the Olympic Park hours before the bombing, and easily could have been victims. I hope they catch all the people that have been helping him too, and lock 'em up.

Coping. The past few days have been more tolerable, as I've taken ot the strategy of uber-medicating myself at the first hint of pain. Tomorrow I get the super X-ray, where they inject me with dye (I'm hoping it's just a regular needle, and not one of those big ol' amniocentesis needles), which I'm expecting to look something like this.

Interesting possibilities ahead -- I may have to jet the country temporarily after my temporary dependent pass expires in week or two, while Marjorie's back in the US. So, I'm having to pick somewhere nearby that I can get a decent deal to. Marjorie's given me a list of places that I'm not allowed to go without her, for safety, medical, and jealousy concerns, including Cambodia, Burma, and Borneo. I'm leaning towards a place that I had never heard of before yesterday -- Fukuoka, a city on the south island of Japan, which looks to have a lot of interesting historical and cultural sites, as well as having all the mod cons. Japan is awfully far away, though; I never realized before coming out here, but it's as long from Singapore to Tokyo as it is from Atlanta to Anchorage, Alaska.

Today was K2 graduation. As the kindergarten at my school is gigantic, this lasted WAY too long! The kids did really well though. The parents (in general, not our class parents) were obnoxious though: They were all armed with camcorders to film every moment and had them stuck in our faces for every second of the two hours and pushed their ways into the area taped off to be seating for the kids so the kids had to sit in the tiniest little space with the knees of parents practically in their backs.
One more week and we're free for the summer.
Mark's still hurty. Poor thing. Selfishly, I just hope he passes the stones before I go home to the States so I don't have to worry about him being hospitalized when I'm away.

The Pain-O-Meter. For those of you keeping score at home, it got about up to a 9 last night after I blogged. That lasted only fifteen minutes until the drugs kicked in. It came back a half an hour later, but again only lasted fifteen minutes or so. Got to sleep around 2am, and slept fine until 9am when the pain birds woke me up again. I'd rate it a 6 right now. It's moving down a bit -- now it feels like I've been kicked in the, uh, tackle, but at least it's moving along.

Today was better; I had a few impending attacks that seemed to be held off by the drugs. Actually, it's coming on pretty bad again right now and I'm waiting for the pills to kick in.

Forgot to mention; the four different drugs they gave me yesterday came to a grand total of S$7.15 (like, US$4). Crazy! A country where drugs aren't priced like a luxury item.

Ouchy. C'mon, pills, do your thing.

I left school yesterday when Mark called me from the hospital. I told my kids I had to go because of an "emergency" so today they had questions. First question: "Why did you leave yesterday?" My response:"I had a friend in the hospital and I needed to go and make sure he was okay". Their next question: "Was your friend your husband?". My response: "Yes, it was my husband". Next question: "Did you kiss?" followed by many giggles. Me: "Okay now, let's get started on our calendar."

If you've ever seen the movie Full Metal Jacket, you remember the scene where they pin Private Pyle to his bed, and the whole platoon takes a whack at him with a bar of soap wrapped in a towel; afterwards he lies there in bed just crying and going "Ow, ow ow"... That's a pretty good summary of my morning. Worst pain ever (and you're talking to a guy whose doctor bent his broken arm the wrong way when trying to set it). I had a 10:30 am appointment to see the doctor; I was up at 5 a.m. from the pain; by 8:45 it was so bad that I just went in for my appointment early to see if they could do something. They were all very nice and accommodating. The X-ray seems to show a good size stone in my left kidney; the pain is probably from a smaller piece in my urethra. I got some new meds: a painkiller, an antacid, an antibiotic, and some sort of liquid (potassium citrate) that's supposed to help break up the stone. I have an appointment for some further, more extensive X-rays, then who knows, maybe that ultrasonic thing. I wish there was something they could amputate.

Woke up yesterday and today to some pretty nasty abdominal pain that didn't seem related to any digestive issues. Today it was bad enough that I figured I had to go do something about it, so I hopped a cab down to Singapore General Hospital. After having my temperature taken at the door and being fitted with a mask (for SARS prevention), I was admitted and given a urine test and had X-rays taken. I'm glad I went down when I did, because by the time all the testing was going on, the pain really became excrutiating. They gave me a shot of something in me bum that seemed to fix me up okay; I'm fine now. No conclusive results yet, but they seem to think it's kidney stones -- a prognosis which, though not life-threatening, promises lots of of pain. Fun fun. I go to see a specialist tomorrow.

Has it been a year already? One year ago today we became husband and wife. Our first year together was nothing if not eventful. Love ya, sweetheart.

We decided not to make a huge deal out of the day. We did go out for champagne brunch at the Ritz, though. We usually don't go in for the chilled fork, lifted pinky, "More scones, love?" sort of scene but we really had quite an excellent time. The free flow of champagne didn't hurt (at least, not until later).

Apartment hunting on Saturday yielded three no-gos and one place that was super nice, tons of room (three bedrooms!), beautiful greenery out the balcony, big beautiful pool, in our price range -- all in the middle of nowhere (Bukit Timah/PIE area). We were all ready to commit to it, but the more we thought about it, the more we realized that the isolation would be a constant, daily frustration. Bummer. We keep looking.