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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Long night's journey into day.

Thursday

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

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

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

Speaking of.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My schedule today:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Atlanta summary:

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

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

Wow, I forgot how fast everyone drives.

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

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

Likewise for Geico and the gecko.

Strip malls are breeding exponentially.

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

Things I had completely forgotten about in the US:

Check-cashing stores

Radio Shack

Popeye's fried chicken

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

Just how big a Super Target store can be

TV ads for feminine products

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, no thanks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

India's a messed up place.

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

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

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

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

A fine bottle of Prosecco to celebrate Easter.

Sleeping in.

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

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

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

Laika likes it too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flickr - essential for photo sharing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recognize a song that's played backwards.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learn to kick with my left foot exclusively.

Quit.

Become a goalkeeper.

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

Other Tasmania trip points of note:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marjorie and Mark get dey wing on. Tonight we made our best effort to recreate our favorite Atlanta tradition, Wing Night. When my parents came to visit (and I still have yet to blog about our trip together), they brought me some real buffalo wing sauce, which is not available here. (Well, they have Hooters wing sauce at USA Foods, but it's wrong on several levels.) Not owning a deep fryer, we cooked the wings on the grill, then doused them in sauce. We cooked tater tots (potato gems, in Aussie parlance) instead of fries, and used creamy Italian dressing (also brought by my parents) instead of bleu cheese. But the celery sticks were true to form, and the beer we chose (James Squire Golden Ale) was perfection: slightly microbrewish, just like the pitchers of (? we forget!) that we used to get at Taco Mac. Yum.

The email you never received:

Subject: New friend request from Mark

Mark wants to be added to your Friendster friends list. By becoming friends with Mark, you will be able to send Mark messages and connect with his friends.

He would have invited you a long time ago, but, c'mon, "Friendster"? It just sounds like another internet fad, the kind of thing sent to you by the same sort of people who tell you that Bill Gates will send you $1000 for forwarding on this email. However, Mark and his wife both like meeting new people, and if Friendster helps, then why not? But he would rather not risk annoying you by putting an invitation in your email inbox.

So if you are doing the Friendster thing, drop him an email or leave a comment and he'll send you a proper invitation.

Go Knights! My old alma mater played their first ever bowl game this weekend. Sounds like it was a great game but with a disappointing result. They even had the highlights on TV here last night.

It's hard to get in the Christmas spirit when:

There is a largish planet between you and the bulk of your family.

It's the middle of summer.

Flies have taken over. (Okay, there are no "swarms" here but they're still pretty bad.)

You have to work the next week.

A large, dead tree in your backyard picks Christmas eve to start falling over. What's worse is that it's a tree that for some reason -- elephants? -- evolved prickly thorns all over its branches, and even its trunk. I've been at it with a saw for much of the afternoon.

Still, we're making do. This is traditionally the day to gorge myself ill on my grandmother's pierogies. We found some pierogies here to do the same, but tomorrow's supposed to be hot, so we decided to cook the turkey today.

Merry Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza/Festivus/Newtonmas to family and friends everywhere!

Year-end music wrap up. Oh, it's been a sad year. I just had a look at the Pitchfork Top 50 Albums of 2005 and I've heard, let's see, none of these albums. Not a dang one. I am official OLD and OUT OF TOUCH. Phooey. I've heard of one of the top ten bands, and that's only because he went on a rant after the New Orleans disaster.

I dunno, I filled out my collection of the back-catalogue of a few artists I already like, like Lucinda Williams. I listened to a fair amount of new stuff on Pandora. I saw a few concerts (Finn Brothers, Polyphonic Spree, PJ Harvey, Mudhoney, the Shins). But, musically, as far as new stuff goes, this year has been a giant sucking dearth.

If Laika, our dog, could talk, most days would sound like this:

Morning:
Me: Good morning. [Scratches Laika behind the ears.]
Laika: Good morning. Thanks for the scratching. You don't mind if I follow you around while you get ready, do you?
Me: That's fine.
Later.
Laika: I see you are ready for work now. Give me my rawhide chew, and I will run out back to eat it alone, because that is my instinct. Then you can close the kitchen door and go do whatever it is that you do.

Afternoon:
Laika: Hooray! You're home!
Me: Good to see you too, girl!
Laika: Hooray! You're home!
Me: Yes yes, okay, good girl.
Laika: Hooray! You're home!
Me: Settle down.
Laika: Let me lick your face!
Me: No.
Laika: Let me lick your face!
Me: No.
Laika: Let me lick your face!
Me: No. Oh, okay. [Lick.]
Laika: Hooray! You're home! Can we go to the park?
Me: Mind if I put my things down first?
Laika: Can we go to the park?
Me: Can I go to the bathroom first?
Laika: Can we go to the park?
Me: Give me a minute, would you?
Laika: Can we go to the park?
Me: Oh, okay.

(Back from the park. Mark is eating a piece of cheese.)
Laika: That cheese looks good. Can I have some?
Me: No.
Laika: Can I have some cheese?
Me: No.
Laika: Can I have some cheese?
Me: No.
Laika: Can I have some cheese?
Me: [Sighs.] Okay, here you go.
Laika: That was quite delicious. Can I have some cheese?

(Later.)
Laika: You can't take my toy away.
Me: You're right, and I don't want to.
Laika: You can't take my toy away.
Me: Yuck, get that slobbery thing off of me.
Laika: You can't take my toy away.
Me: Yes I can. [Yank.] See? Now go fetch it. [Throw.]
Laika: [Fetches, returns.] You can't take my toy away.

"Where do you find all these awesome websites?" I get asked that a lot at work, when I pass on a link. Here's where:

Blogdex - most popular links culled from people's blogs.

SlashDot - the best techie news site, with user comments.

Digg - sort of cross between the first two. I check this more and more these days.

del.icio.us popular list - sites people are saving as favorites.

Got any others you like?

The hazards of using your second language. Today, one of my Asian cow orkers (while heading off to lunch) said: "Well, I'm off to get some grubs." I hope he didn't mean that literally but I stifled my laugh just in case.

Weekend summary:

Friday night: Mark's other office Christmas party. We discover after arriving that partners were not invited, so we make an early evening of it. Indian food in town at Gaylords; my dish, yummy, Marjorie's, not so much. They also served ketchup with their papadums.

Saturday: Mark up early to watch the World Cup draw (Australia drew Brazil, Croatia, and Japan [ouch]. USA's in with Italy, Czech Republic, and Ghana [double ouch]). Afternoon: shopping, massages. In part of Mark's ongoing quest to try every type of spa treatment, he subjects himself to the "Traditional Stepping Massage". This did not involve the tiny-footed Asian girl as I had envisioned but rather an older Chinese guy in socks who proceeded to work me over thoroughly like the roughest soccer game I've ever been in. But it was surprisingly envigorating.

Sunday: Rollerbladed down to the Espy. Burgers on the grill. Then we set up the tent in the backyard just to try it out. Laika seemed to get the idea of camping, but was too excited by the surrounding possums to settle down, so she got the boot early on. The possum twittering drove Marjorie in soon after that; I made it to 5 a.m. or so, when the morning mynah birds drove me inside. Now I realise the real reason people have houses: they're to keep out the animal noises while you're trying to sleep.

The local paper has a short article and photo about last weekend's photo shoot. I won't say who I am in the photo except to say that I'm very, very visible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A friend of mine just got back from a trip to Egypt. I'm insanely jealous. Fortunately Marjorie decreed that tonight was the night we'd book our trip to Tasmania, which makes me feel better. Tasmania's always been just an obscure place on the map for me, not some place I'd ever thought I'd visit, and I'm stoked that we're going.

Sweet! Last night, in front of 83,000 people, Australia's national soccer team (dubbed The Socceroos) beat Uruguay to qualify for their first World Cup appearance in 32 years. It came down to a penalty kick shootout, which are VERY nerve-wracking, but for the first time in a very long time, the team I was rooting barracking for actually won a big game.

I watched from a pub with dozen or so of the lads from my soccer team. It was crazy fun; I yelled myself hoarse. Sadly, no one did the "Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oy oy oy!" cheer there, but people on the news were doing it. There were similar celebrations across the whole country, apparently: soccer has arrived.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Mark's out wandering around the Outback, encountering Emu's and other strange birds, while I'm here with the dingo and LimeWire re-experiencing the joy of being able to download random music. Remember Nik Kershaw? Bet you couldn't find his albums in most record stores these days, but they're online. And so is most every other random artist you may have ever liked.
Gotta love the internet.

Last Tuesday was a holiday here in Melbourne; probably the only one in the world based on a horse race. This year, we actually went. We would've witnessed some history, had we been able to see: the horse Makybe Diva won for the third straight year, a new record. Have a look.

Quote of the day:

"In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country; in a republic it is the common voice of the people. Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catch-phrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country--hold up your head. You have nothing to be ashamed of." -- Mark Twain

Watch this video clip of some white dots moving against a black background. It is extraordinary, but only if you know what you're looking at.

It's a star, whipping around the very center of our galaxy. Notice that you can't see the thing that it's whipping around. That's because it's a black hole, at the very center of our galaxy. This video clip pretty much confirms that there is a black hole at the center, which can be determined not only by the fact that you can't see it, but the speed at which the star whips by it. They estimate its mass to be about two million times that of our sun.

I had always thought that the center of the Milky Way was too dusty to see into; I don't know how they did it (though the answer seems to be "adaptive optics"). Notice the numbers on the top left; they indicate the year that each frame was taken, so you're looking at a ten-year time-lapse. And at this distance, it didn't just happen; you're looking at a star passing by a black hole about 28,000 years ago. Boggles the mind!

There was a classic commercial when I was growing up in the US, for Chevrolet. It was nothing but a theme song and a montage of scenes depicting Americana; the song went "Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet", over and over. At the time, it really seemed to sum up America, and was a very popular commercial, if I remember correctly.

I'm currently working on the web site for Holden, Australia's biggest and truest car maker, in spite of their actually being part of GM. And the other night on TV they had a hour long documentary on the history of Holden, which I felt compelled to watch. They showed some early commercials, and one was almost identical to the aforementioned Chevrolet commercial. They had different words, though, to the theme song; this, apparently, was how you summed up Australia at the time: "Football, meat pies, kangaroos, and Holden cars".

So now Time Magazine gives us a list of the All-Time 100 Novels (in the English language). Of them I've read:

Catch-22

The Catcher In The Rye

A Clockwork Orange

Deliverance

The Grapes of Wrath

The Great Gatsby

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

Lord of the Flies

1984

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Slaughterhouse Five

Snow Crash

Their Eyes Were Watching God

To Kill A Mockingbird

Fourteen percent -- that's a lot better than I usually do on these sorts of lists. I also tried to read Neuromancer but couldn't take it. It's a questionable pick anyway.

Teacher's pet? My soccer team's end-of-year banquet was last night, in a natty little upstairs function room in town. Pretty fun. Lots of greasy hors d'oeuvres, drinks, and awards. I took home the coach's player of the year award (for the thirds team) which was a nice surprise.

Read this, then this.

For a while I've been keeping a list of the IMDB's Top 250 movies, and checking them off as I go. Others apparently like to do the same sort of thing, judging from this new web site. A link to the movies I've seen can be found via the new link over on the right side under the kangaroo picture.

What's the highest ranked movie you've never seen?

Three posts about the same book? Sorry, but I just finished that diary, and man, they need to make a movie about it. Since I reported last:

The remaining Jews, the guy included, received orders to appear at SS headquarters in two days times with a packed suitcase, for what everyone knew was a death march. He was one of the ones that had to go help deliver the orders.

The night before they were supposed to appear, Dresden was firebombed.

In the resulting confusion he decided to cut the Jewish star off his jacket and run for it.

He and his wife joined the throngs of refugees fleeing the city.

Through a series of close calls, phony ids, and continual near starvation, they make their way as far as Munich.

They are near Dachau when the Americans arrive, and he witnessed survivors, the walking dead, still in their blue and white striped linen.
It all reads like Hollywood. Perhaps most interesting were his reports of the reactions of the people as the war ended and they came to realize that they had been fed humongous pack of lies. Naturally, those that were clued in knew all along (including all the atrocities); on the other end of the spectrum, there were plenty who kept on believing, but of course denied involvement.

"Mo"vember. A bunch of guys at work are planning on using the month of November to grow mustaches. They're calling it "Mo"vember. There'll be judging at the end of the month; I don't know what the prize is, but I thought about participating. Marjorie thinks it would be hilarious if I did.

I think it would be funny, but I like my jokes to last somewhat less long than a month. I don't see it happening.

More Aussie-isms.

To rock up: to show up, especially at a social event. "You all go on to the pub; I'll rock up in a half hour or so."

To shit: to bother. "That new guy may be smart, but he really shits me."

Ye: you (plural). Actually, I think this is an Irishism. "You can work on this by yourself, or the two of ye can finish it together."

Upon noticing my Irish coworker using this last one, I told her the similar rule used in the Southern US: "y'all" is singular, "all y'all" is plural. She got a big kick out of that.

Sufficient density. It used to be that you could know pretty much everything about computers, but not any more -- not by a long shot. (The same could be said of mathematics, physics, or several other fields.) In the IT business, you really have to pick and choose what you learn. There's always a buzz of new ideas, which is what makes it such a fun field, but which ideas are worthwhile, and which are a waste of time? Some people just seem to try out everything that sounds cool, and revel in that approach. Not me. I have to wait until I hear a thing mentioned in enough places before my interest is piqued.

Which is a long way of explaining that I've set up a list of my favorite links on del.icio.us. I'm a little dubious that a site for publicly listing your favorite links will have the broad social implications that some people are predicting for it. But, it's reached sufficient density to at least appear on my radar. And at least I'll get to access my hot links from anywhere. So what, beeg deal.

Snobservation. A sure sign of mediocrity in a restaurant: do they use iceberg lettuce in anything?

I'm With Stupid! I had Marjorie look over one of my chapter submissions for the book I'm contributing to. Among other things, she pointed out that in one place I used the word "stupider" instead of "more stupid".

thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou...

The book I'll be contributing to is called "Mind Performance Hacks: Tips and Tricks for Becoming a Better Thinker". It has chapters on memory, math, creativity, clarity, decision making, info processing, communication, mental fitness, and "metaprogramming". My chapters fall under math and communication, but I'll leave the specifics for a later date. I think it has the potential to do very well; I find this sort of thing discussed a lot out on the web, and an earlier O'Reilly book on a similar subject was quite popular. I've seen the proofs, and there's some choice stuff in there. Due out in January. Exciting!

It's already listed on Amazon, Powell's, and Barnes and Noble (under the wrong title).

Years ago, after picking up Mary Chesnut's Civil War diary on a whim, I resolved to read a lot more historic diaries. It has to be THE best way to learn history; even though it's from a single point of view, you still get all the little details that make it real.

I went on to pick up I Will Bear Witness, the first half (1933-1941) of a diary by a Jewish professor of literature living in World War II Nazi Germany. It's amazing, but I never picked up the second half (To The Bitter End, 1942-1945) because the book company was only selling it in hard cover at the time (dirty trick!).

Just recently I managed to procure a copy of the complete diaries ("The Klemperer Diaries") through our library system. It is just an astounding read. The author was Jewish by heritage only; he was actually a Protestant, and had an Aryan wife (which undoubtedly saved his life). Still, as the war presses on, he is increasingly deprived of everything; his academic title, his home, his typewriter, his savings... I'm up to 1942, and was nearly in tears on the tram today as I read about them putting down their much-loved cat before it could be rounded up according to a new decree. This was followed immediately by the Gestapo's first raid of their house. By Klemperer's account, they got off "easy" -- he was visiting a friend; his wife got slapped and called "a Jew's whore". They of course ransacked the place and stole a number of provisions, there being severe shortages at the time. They also ground up some garlic they found and hid it around the house, just so their home would stink.

He's 60 years old and had angina, but still was ordered to work with a road crew shoveling snow -- and was the youngest on the crew. Hard to believe there are still another three years of this to read about; he is continually so close to death; not just from his physical condition, but from the whims of the Gestapo.

Hunt this one down, and give it a read. Utterly captivating.

Read any good historic diaries?

Marjorie's birthday wrapped up with the chocolate indulgence high tea at the Windsor. With me, it's class all the way, see?

This being Marjorie's birthday weekend, we rented a car and drove up to Daylesford/Hepburn Springs for some west and welaxation. I've recently resolved to try all the various different types of spa and massage treatments that exist, so this time I got coated in mud and cocooned in a blanket, while getting a head massage. Very nice! Marjorie opted to get her feet done.

Along the way we saw our first two wild kangaroos -- alas, roadkill. But while waiting for our spa treatments, we walked a little ways up a nature trail. After spotting some Jacky Winters, a superb fairy-wren, and several crimson rosellas, Marjorie spotted a small kangaroo peering at us from the top of a rise fifty metres away. Our first!

Super Bowl Grand Final Sunday Saturday. Last Saturday was the big game day in Melbourne, our second footy Grand Final. And for the second time, no Melbourne team was involved, despite the fact that Melbourne teams make up more than half the league. This time it was the Sydney Swans versus the West Coast Eagles. Support in our neighborhood was overwhelmingly in favor of the Swans, for reasons we couldn't fathom. Was it an east coast versus west coast thing? Turns out, the Swans used to be the South Melbourne Swans, before moving north to Sydney.

Twice while we were eating out during the weekend did the patrons spontaneously break into the Swans team song. Obviously, they won.

Geek warning. A thread on a board I read regularly spurred me to go out and try to do some basic astronomy. We only have one crappy little set of binoculars, but I thought I would at least see if I could orient myself. Living in the city means you only get a handful of stars (though Melbourne has far clearer nights than any comparably-size city I know). But with a little help from Your Sky and a field guide I bought a long time ago, I was able to pick out the tail of Scorpius yesterday. Slightly hazy tonight, but I spotted it again, and followed a trail from it to a particularly bright star just above the horizon. My field guide identified it as Rigil Kentaurus, which didn't sound familiar. So I looked it up online, and it turns out that that's just the proper name for Alpha Centauri, our nearest neighbor! A lucky find, considering there were only twenty or so stars even visible through the haze. Like the Southern Cross (supposedly right next to it, but obscured by a cloud), it's not visible from most of the Northern hemisphere. Pretty cool, I think.

I'm the penultimate! Our soccer team tallies best player votes at the end of each game. The other night we had our annual Vote Count night, where we see the tally from the year, presented as a game-by-game slide show with running totals.

I took second (for the thirds team), which is cool. Especially considering I have no ball skills to speak of, and don't have a particularly cool head when I have the ball. Early on I was aiming at not being the worst player on the team, so I'm happy with this.

Fairly eventful weekend, last. Saturday evening we went and saw a perennial favorite of ours, Glenn Tilbrook, at the Espy. Always a hoot. Nice thinly populated show, which is a good way to catch him. I called for him to play "By The Light of the Cash Machine", and he complied straight away. Marjorie walked up to the stage between songs to request the song he wrote with Aimee Mann, which he said he didn't remember -- "but I think it had a G chord in it." He did his amazing rendition of Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile", on acoustic guitar -- it has to be seen to be believed. He put the guitar behind his head and played an intricate repeating part while talking calmly into the mike -- he's quite an amazing guitarist. Climbing up on the bar, he did "Goodbye Girl" and "Black Coffee in Bed" singalong. There were a couple of blues covers with a guest guitarist whose name I didn't catch, that were quite tasty. And he closed with a cover of the Cornell Hurd Band's "Genitalia of a Fool" that had the crowd in stitches.

We stayed out too late, so I had to play our last soccer game of the season slightly hung over and with not enough sleep. We lost a game we should have won. But it was fun. Home for a nap, then the first of a scheduled year's worth of once-a-month wine tastings, organized by a friend. Our turn to host will come. It should be a lot of fun, and edumacational too.

In the evening I went out and met with all my soccer teammates who were out "getting pissed". Out too late again, and I forgot to eat dinner too.

Not exciting news. YET. I've been asked to be a contributor to a forthcoming book. Without getting too specific, I will mention that it's an O'Reilly book, which is about as cool as it gets in the techie arena. I'm not going to get my hopes up too high, since my contribution would be small, and may not survive the editing process. It's very much the equivalent to a walk-on part in a big movie, that may well end up on the editing room floor. Still, it will be VERY COOL if it pans out, and might lead to follow-on stuff. Further details as events warrant.

On a lighter note. Here are the photos from our trip to Hamilton Island.