Settle a bet for us. How would you interpret the expression "Discretion is the better part of valor?"
a) Caution is the better part of valor.
b) Being discreet (i.e. not bragging) is the better part of valor.
One of us grew up misinterpreting that phrase. I won't say who's who.

We're living a control freak's nightmare! There are sooo many things we need to rely on other people to help us with in order to complete the last steps towards migration, and unfortunately, I don't have much faith in the people who are helping us. As Mark described, the doctor's office we visited yesterday needed a lesson in discretion, and seemed more than a bit unprofessional. It went beyond making us carry our pee in front of everyone, but I'll spare you the details.
Also, the fingerprints we need to send to the FBI are harder to obtain in the correct rolled-format then I'd hoped, but hopefully we'll resolve that tomorrow when I go back for a second attempt (Mark's first). I'm so stressed about these damned fingerprints! I know from past teaching experience (I was required to get a clearance from every teaching job I've had) that the FBI often rejects prints if they are unreadable (like the smudgy prints I was given yesterday), and it's going to take so much effort to get the prints taken here, get the cashiers checks in US dollars, and finally mail the prints to the States, that honestly if they're rejected I'll probably cry. We've purchased the stamp pad so that if it doesn't work out at the police station we can attempt to produce our own prints, but based on a first attempt, I can tell you, this is generally something better left to professionals.
Luckily getting our "no criminal record" clearance from Singapore is no problem.

Turn your head and cough, lah. Today we went together to a medical clinic to get our official health exam for Australia. Eye exam, blood test, chest x-ray, the works -- even, no lie, checking our arms for heroin-use track marks. I had to wonder about the place. The first check they performed was a urine test -- Marjorie got a cup, and I got a little litmus-test swizzle stick. And we were told that the restroom was down the hall, past all the other offices on the fifteenth floor of this office building. So we went, and went, and carried our prizes back past the accountant's office and whatever else. The receptionist just needed a visual confirmation on my pee-stick, so I held it out for her over the reception desk, and she said okay, you can throw it out over there, in the tiny step-to-open trash can in the waiting room, right next to another waiting patient.

The rest of the exam went okay, I guess, except for the doctor having to play stabby-stab-stab with my arm trying to hit the vein. She asked if I exercised a lot, because my blood pressure and pulse were low, so I guess that's good. They do need to get confirmation as to the state of my kidney stones, though, so I need to go try to take of that tomorrow. Nothing about this process ever seems to get taken care of on the first pass.

Bowie fish. Two years ago when we were visiting here we visited Singapore's aquarium, Underwater World. Today we went back, and we arrived at the same consensus: it's too small and overpriced. Alas.

However, while we were out we saw in the newspaper that David Bowie is coming to town in March! So we went and got our tickets already. It can't possibly rival our last time seeing him, but we can't complain too much!

YEA! YEA! YEA! We passed the first hurdle into Australia. We received a request for our character and medical assessments from the Australian Government today, which they wouldn't have bothered asking for if our job skills weren't up to snuff. So, once we get our fingerprints taken and cleared through the FBI and Singapore Police (a process which may take up to two months), and get our chest x-rays and HIV test results, we should be well on our way to getting our visas for migration. This means that our goal of moving to Australia in July should be obtainable.
If you want to come and visit us in Asia, the clock's ticking. We'll be gone soon.

It IS possible to make plans to get away for Chinese New Year, even at this late date, but you have to really want it. I just spent two hours searching ever-changing web fares to Bangkok. I finally found something on Swiss international airlines (new to us), but had to pay about S$100 more per person than I wanted to. However, we're flying business class on the way home so I can't complain too much. Tonight we get to spend time burning up the web trying to find a hotel room in a city that's bound to be booked full. I'm not scared, I am the travel-web master! Any recommendations?

A great read. I read a lot, but not much of what I read do I feel the need to praise here. But I just finished The First American: The Life And Times of Benjamin Franklin, and wow. Putting aside what an extraordinary character he was, this biography was also the first really readable explanation of the factors leading up to the Revolutionary War. And Ben himself -- well, everything he touched, he transformed, it seems; his CV would be the most staggering in history, I think. Truly a Renaissance man. Hard to read without feeling worthless. But I recommend giving it a shot.

Blogging live. About ten minutes ago, I heard a crunch, like a fender-bender, outside my second-floor work window. I looked down to see a young man lying on the road, motionless, next to a white van. He had just been hit, apparently, but there has been no blood. He eventually was helped up (despite my yells to not move him), and now an ambulance is here. (The ambulance siren as it approached is the first siren I've heard here.) It got here in less than ten minutes, and had the guy out of here in about another five. The victim had blood around one eyebrow, was all that I saw. He was awake and alert on the stretcher. The police are now trying to reconstruct the scene with the help of witnesses. They chalked the street to mark the position of the tires and moved the van away. Half an hour later. The police have called in the situation and are presumably waiting for advisement. The driver of the van, a pony-tailed man of about thirty-five, calmy waits. He seems unphased.

I could have been the first to dial 999. I should have been. Luckily the guy seemed to be okay.

Celeb spotting, Singapore stylee! After a morning matinee of Good Bye, Lenin! (which was just okay), we went to the grocery store, and happened to spot Singapore's biggest celebrity, Gurmit Singh, AKA Phua Chu Kang. He was easy to recognize, even without his trademark big, ugly mole, since he's been in just about every sitcom this country has ever produced. If you saw the Amazing Race episode where they came through Singapore, he was the guy in the apartment that everyone had to go meet.

Today's new symptoms: tactile sensitivity (like, my skin is very sensitive), sore throat, and loss of apetite.

I brought my X-Arcade joystick back from the states (yay!) but it doesn't seem to work with my laptop (boo!). I do have MAME (the arcade game emulator) now loaded, and found a site from which I grabbed over 1000 old arcade games, but they only play from the keyboard as yet. I must figure this out.

Sad passing. Tug McGraw, who gave me one of my greatest baseball memories growing up, has been taken out of the game. I still remember his strikeout pitch in the 1980 World Series.

Illin'. I managed a whole five hours of sleep last night, 11pm to 4am. Who knows why, but jet lag hounds the return traveler much worse than the departing one. And now, I think I'm getting sick. When you get a chill at midday while out walking in the Singapore sun in a long sleeve shirt, something is definitely wrong.

Perverts. Just checked our blogstats to see who's been visiting our blog. We generally have the same regular visitors (we love you all), but occasionally someone finds our site on a search engine. Two of our recent visitors were searching for "zoophilia" and "overplucking". Glad to know the search engine directed them here.

It's surreal being back in Singapore, and I don't think it's entirely the jet-lag haze I'm in. I was really enjoying myself back home, I don't think I was quite ready to return. It's easy living here, but I was relishing not being a foreigner for awhile and blending in everywhere we went. Luckily I've lots of goodies brought home from our trip to keep me company.
L. A. was fantastic, thanks again Kristina and Michael! The hike in Griffith Park was particularly wonderful, as Mark mentioned. L.A.'s such a funny place because you can go from ugly urban sprawl, to amazingly beautiful natural surroundings in the blink of an eye. Griffith Park is truly beautiful, and also cool because it's been the set for so many movies/tv shows that it seems vaguely familiar even if you've never been there before. Hiking to the peak we saw the Hollywood sign, the Griffith observatory (set of Rebel without a Cause among many other films), snow-capped mountain peaks in the distance, and the Pacific ocean. Amazing.
On the Singaporean front, I discovered today that we missed an entire story line from Love Actually due to censorship. Apparently one couple meets on the set of a porn flick? We didn't see that. Maybe I would have liked the uncut version better. I gotta say I resent the Hell out of the Singaporean government for censoring movies/tv shows. The way they do it seems completely random and inconsistent.
Speaking of stupid government decisions, note to the Mayor of Los Angeles: The way you've centralized all the security checkpoints in the airport is stupid and has created a nice centralized location for a terrorist to target. Also, kudos on preventing people from diving up to drop off and pick up travelers, as a result you've increased the human traffic in the airport three-fold, creating potentially more casualties. Seriously, I hope they are reconsidering this new airport arrangement. As is a terrorist could easily drive up in a taxi or in a rental car van, they've prevented nothing, just made things more inconvenient for most travelers. I've been through L.A. recently before this bullshit and it was much, much, much better, and I felt safer.
For those of you considering visiting us here, the Singapore airport is great. Probably the best airport I've been through.

New pictures from other planets will always get a nod on this blog while I have any say so. I don't know how guys can work on those projects -- sixty percent of the Mars probes we've sent have failed. Can you imagine working years on something like that, all to have it disappear (and usually without any explanation)? I would have nightmares.

Home. Just flew in from L.A., and why am I not more tired? For the record, fifteen and a half hours to Hong Kong (ulp), then a layover where we got five minutes rest, then another three and a half hours to S'pore. That sounds like a long time, but we must be used to it or something; I don't know why, but it didn't seem that bad. Marjorie slept a good nine hours of the first flight, while I got a good fifteen minutes or so. I'm functioning purely on sunlight, jetlag, and Sudafed right now.

LAX was a madhouse, even worse than last time, and not without drama -- I got called out by an airport worker for cutting in on a line that I didn't cut in on. Luckily the people ahead of us in line vouched for me.

We brought a serious load of CDs, DVDs, and consumables back with us. Stuff. We like stuff.

Oh, Griffith Park was awful. In the old sense of the word -- full of awe. Our hiking trail took us up to the summit of a lookout with a 360 degree view, looking out over the entire sprawl of L.A. and the ocean in one direction, and the mountains in the other. Rain the previous day kept smog to a minimum, and the day was sunny as we could have hoped. Just stunning. Pictures to follow.

Celeb spotting -- we ran into Gary Jules, who's a former neighbor of Marjorie's friend in L.A. He's recently famous for his cover of Mad World that was the number one song in UK over the holidays. If you saw Love Actually, you'll understand why there's a particular emphasis this year on being number one in the UK for Xmas. The song was used in the movie Donnie Darko.

The Atlanta visit was most agreeable, if not exactly relaxing. Took care of a lot of the business that needed to be taken care of after being away so long, and saw old friends and haunts. New Year's we went to our friends Rob and Ally's house for a party with the old Posse.

In Los Angeles now for one day before we fly back. Yesterday driving around we saw the restaurant where the begin and end of Pulp Fiction was filmed, and later took a drive up and around Mulholland Drive, with its amazing view out into the valley.

While driving I spotted a car with the license plate "IMBJORK". Driving it was a smirking woman who looked something like Bjork. But I'm not sure. Having seen the footage of her taking down a paparazzi in an airport, I can't imagine the real Bjork wants to advertise.

Today we're going to hike in Griffith Park, where much of Short Cuts was filmed.

Depressingly, it occurred to me last night that this is now the year of my 20th high school reunion. Sigh.

Our day. Mailed off Australia paperwork (aah). Tried to get fingerprinted. To the bank: deposited checks, fixed ATM card. Lunch at Eats. Looked at $230 glasses -- just the frames -- at Pearle Vision. Bought $30 frames at Stefan's in Little Five Points. (We each bought frames. They are identical. What are the odds? We are now officially Twinkies.) Blew $100 on CDs at Criminal Records. Had lenses put in our new glasses. Dinner at Ma Li with Marjorie's parents -- their Pik King Pork may be my favorite meal anywhere. On to the Thrashers game -- we lost, 2-1, to the Canadiens. Hockey is such a great sport. Grocery shopping -- stocked up on things to take home (cold meds, Mexican rice, Shake and Bake). Night night!

Back in ATL: We've already been able to indulge our craving for Nuevo Laredo, now it's on to Burrito Art with our friends Rick and Stephanie. Later this evening I suspect we'll rent another uncensored movie, since we feel deprived in Singapore. It's been nice to spend some time with Beau and Sadie (doggies), and with my parents, plus I finally got my first full-night of sleep since returning to the States, as the jet lag is finally fading.
Mark didn't mention that we also saw a beautiful bald eagle at the Enchanted Forest. My first siting our our national symbol in the wild.

On our last full day with my parents, we tooled around the area a bit, looking at wildlife and such. First stop was the Enchanted Forest Nature Sanctuary; then a drive north to Ponce Inlet, near New Smyrna Beach. We saw alligators, gulls, shrikes, tortoises, kingfishers, armadillos -- it's a neat area where they live, definitely.

We're up in Atlanta now with Marjorie's parents; we're about to head off to Nuevo Laredo for some din. Yum. Lots of work to do here tomorrow, which we're trying to forget for the evening...