DVD Mania! Mark and I have really enjoyed watching a few of the DVD's we imported from home lately. Particularly the Larry Sanders show. I force us to ration them so we'll have a few more weeks to enjoy them before we have to repeat. We've also been enjoying the second season of Coupling (I believe this is on BBC America at home). There's nothng aired here that's approaching how funny these two are.

Speaking of TV, does anybody, besides the media, really care about Janet Jackson's peekaboo? Honestly, it wasn't even sexy.

"Me" shirts. You never notice them until they're pointed out to you, then you notice them everywhere. Singaporeans are crazy, it seems, about "me" shirts. That might not be their official name, but I don't know what else you could call them. These are just t-shirts, almost always black, that have some familiar graphic printed on the front, with the word "me" replacing some part. For instance, one of the more common ones is a chessboard showing a partially played game, with one of the squares showing "me" instead of a piece. Other examples include: a maze, with "me" trapped somewhere inside. An eye chart, with one of the "E" letters replaced by "me". A Pac-Man screen, with "me" running around the maze. The I-Ching symbols, with one replaced by "me".

There are at least twenty varieties I've seen. I'm not even quite sure what they mean, though I expect they don't mean anything in particular, except "my life is complicated" or something like that. I have no idea where they sell them -- I know one place that sells the white "Pac-Man" version, but that's it. It's a mystery.

Why our lunch break today was more interesting than yours. We went and saw the procession for the Thaipusam festival. Scroll down for pictures of this amazing event. Now that's devotion.

I have a particularly stupid prejudice where I only expect Western religions to keep up with modern technology. It's hard to imagine the temple that organizes such a festival to have a website, but here it is. Check out their guidelines for devotees.

I'm amazed. I never thought it had a chance of happening. But it appears the Pixies are reuniting.

When asked whether the reunion tour was strictly a money-making venture, front man Frank Black responded "Ha! No! No, my child, this is not my desire." Seriously, I don't care if it is. I just hope they head out this way. A lot of Singaporeans have been clamoring for a Pixies reunion.

No, wait, I'm thinking of Air Supply.

I kid! I kid!

There's a new restaurant within walking distance from us that I've become obsessed with trying. It's called Midnight Curry, and it's only open from midnight until 8 am. Such an eatery might not be out of place in Manhattan, but it sits in a quiet, staid little corner of a conservative town, and there's next to nothing in its immediate area (Clementi and Ulu Pandan). I can't figure out who they cater to, so I am intrigued. Curry after midnight sounds like a recipe for scary dreams though.

For the last month I've been hounded relentlessly by
journalists and fans alike, all wanting to know "Where is your
Top Albums of 2003 list?" Well, you can all stop harassing me
now. The delay was caused by several new albums I got over
Christmas that I wanted to give a chance to sink in before I
ranked them. There's almost nothing novel in this year's list;
mostly just new albums by bands I already liked. In the internet
age, I can hardly blame the musical pit that is Singapore for my
lack of finding anything novel. And so it goes:

10. Turin Brakes, "The Optimist LP". Marjorie latched onto this
one more than I did, but it's pretty solid acoustic rock,
with good harmonizing. Rating: 6.

9. Death Cab For Cutie, "Transatlanticism". Marjorie has also
been playing this one a lot. It's a quality effort. The acoustic
ballad (need to look up title) is one of my favorite songs
this year. Rating: 7.

8. Frank Black, "Show Me Your Tears". More of the same from Frank.
That's a good thing. When bands break up or artists die, you
always end up wishing they had produced more output. Hard to
complain about Frank, who's been averaging a couple of albums
a year. Rating: 8.

7. Quasi, "Hot Sh*t". A somewhat new direction; they've pretty
much abandoned their signature fuzzy organ sound. Lots of
good songs here. Rating: 8.

6. Joe Strummer, "Streetcore". The world has been robbed of Joe's
enormous talent, just one year ago. I still feel bitter and
poignant when I listen to this album, which might be keeping
me from enjoying it more. I don't think this album ranks
up there with his previous two, but you still feel (more than
hear) Joe's greatness shine through, often. No one else could
cover "Redemption Song" and get away with it, I think. Rating: 8.

5. Radiohead, "Hail To The Thief". There's so much expectation
built into every new Radiohead album, like each has the
potential to bring the world crashing down. And so, there's
always a letdown when you first hear it. But, I pulled this
one out again recently, and tried to listen to it like it
was some new band I'd never heard of before, and you know?
It's a damn fine piece of work. Rating: 8.5.

4. Rufus Wainwright, "Want One". Rufus's "Poses" was my album of
the year a few years back. "Want One" seems, paradoxically,
both more stripped down and more full of big, crashing
symphonic lushness. Very satisfying. Rating: 9.

3. Fountains of Wayne, "Welcome Interstate Managers". Glad to see
these guys finally getting the recognition they deserve.
A great, fun pop album. I so wish these guys would take
themselves more seriously, though. Rating: 9.

2. White Stripes, "Elephant". Proving their debut album "White
Blood Cells" was no fluke. Jack White is a hugely gifted
guitar player, singer, and songwriter. Despite the punk
stylings and attitude, this album just seems joyful to me.
Rating: 9.

And Mark's number one album for the year...

1. Nothing. I looked back on my favorite albums of the previous
few years, and decided there's nothing I've heard this year that
deserved to be included in this pantheon. Let's hope for better
stuff in the coming year.

The new Birkenstock, now with a sole that's molded to fit your... Well, it's just molded. This is what happens when it rains for five days straight. Marjorie put up a brave fight with the Lysol, but Mother Nature won in the end.

Equatorial living. Two tidbits about living close to the equator that I bet you didn't know. If I hadn't read about them, I would have never noticed, myself.

The moon appears to flip completely upside down in the process of going from one horizon to the other.

Sunsets and sunrises happen faster than they do at other latitudes, as the sun rises and sets pretty much vertically.

That's all Mr. Wizard has for you today.

Bangkok was fun. Yea. But Mark failed to express how bad the massage I received was. The woman beat me up. Seriously, it hurt. I will never ask for a Thai massage again. It's been two days and I'm still sore FROM MY MASSAGE!!!! She was small, but tough.
The little bats we saw the first night was amazing. Small, like very large moths. Really slow wing beats too. There's a small bat native to Thailand called a Bumble Bee bat. They may have been those, but I've yet to find a picture of a Bumble Bee Bat for confirmation. I know, we're geeks, but seeing animals such as these is one of the reasons we travel.

Trip report, a few days late:

Just flew in from Bangkok, and boy are my arms loose and relaxed, kneaded into a doughlike consistency. We took a last minute escape on the weekend of Chinese New Year. A quick trip report:

Friday night: we arrive, and spend ten minutes head-scratching as to how to get into town, and bemoaning our lack of preparedness. Finally we just get in the taxi queue and ride into town without much fuss. No seatbelts, fast driver. The town smells of exhaust. We check in (Windsor Hotel) and discover to our chagrin that the door to the adjoining room is paper thin. A woman is chattering away in Thai (we presume). We go for a walk in hopes that things quiet down. Spot a very interesting small bat, not much bigger than a moth, and not flying much faster than one either, circling the lights of the adjoining hotel. Streets are dirty and smelly, but seemingly safe enough. Walk a few blocks, come home to quiet in the room. Our beds are ungodly hard, and that includes the pillows.

Saturday: Get up late. I point out to Marjorie that the world is now officially our oyster. YA GET IT? Make a run for the Grand Palace. We stop for Marjorie's required Starbucks at a nice, new, upscale mall by the Sky Train station. Take the Sky Train to the river's edge, where we hope to catch river taxi. Decide to have lunch instead. Eat lousy food at a Hot Pot restaurant: cold dim sum, average pork and duck with rice. Realize that we aren't going to have enough time to do the Grand Palace proper (it closes early), so we get back on Sky Train and go to Bangkok's famous market, off the Mo Chit station. Made the obligatory pun with that name. Among countless other things, numerous animals were for sale: puppies, kittens, rabbits, hamsters, miniature squirrels, GIANT fish. One food hawker was selling the following items, all deep fried:

Crickets

Grasshoppers

Water bugs (look like giant roaches)

Grubs

Fetal -- chickens, I guess? Some sort of baby bird, whole.
Sky Train back to Siam station area. Walk by Jim Thompson's House. Area overrun with students in either a red shirt or pink, rival fans attending a local soccer game. Beer at the Dallas Pub. Foot massage next door -- ohhh, migod that's good. Marjorie wonders why she was reluctant at my initial suggestion. We bliss out, for 200 baht each ($8 Sing, about $5 US for an hour). Back to our hotel area (Sukhumvit). Decent German food at Otto Bei across from our hotel -- Marjorie: some sort of schnitzel, me: Jager Schnitzel (pork) mit Spaetzle, my favorite dish. It's okay, but half the mushrooms in the sauce are shitake. Hand and arm massage up the street. At this point we are counting time and money in terms of the amount of equivalent massage. This time is was a half an hour for 100 baht. Back to our severe beds.

Sunday: Determined to get an earlier start, we are out the door by about 11am. Sky Train again to river. We board a river taxi without much fuss and ride upriver surrounded by locals, including monks in full robes. At only 20 baht, this is the way to travel. Pass several other wats on the way. Disembark by the palace. It's closed lunchtime, so we buy some satay from a street hawker (me: marinated chicken, marjorie: chicken wings on a skewer). Walk down to neighboring Wat Po; impressive tiled temple complex featuring one of the world's largest reclining Buddha statues. On to Grand Palace. We were both secretly expecting it to be overly gaudy or ostentatious, but we were both quite impressed. You would know you're a king if you lived here. Eat expensive Haagen Dazs at their snack shop (Marjorie: 1 scoop coffee, 1 macadamia nut; me: 2 scoops macadamia brittle). On river taxi back to Sky Train station, chat with American tourist from California who just got back from a month in Burma. Overhear another pointing out a high rise apartment building that has never been occupied, and we can see why: it is leaning like it's from Pisa. We plan to just go hang out in Lumpini Park, but get sidetracked by some stores and finally decide that it's "massage o'clock". Perhaps even "half past massage o'clock". Back to our hotel area, we opt for hour-and-a-half Thai massage. I love it; Marjorie afterward feels like she's been pistol-whipped. Bad massage is worse than no massage. We shower, then Thai food dinner across the street at Saw Sam Sai. Drinks at a pub up the street, which turned out to be right in front of a "lady-boy" cabaret. The crowd and performers spill out after a while, and we learn from our bartender that they make most of their money posing for pictures with tourists. I snap a picture from a distance.

Monday: After check out we scramble to find ATM so we have cash to pay the 500 baht airport departure fee. Sandwiches at German deli across street. Wait (forever) for Airport Bus. Pet mangy, lame (but collared) dog while we wait. Arrive early at airport, get through customs without fuss. Two hours in plane and we are back.

You'd be surprised how many people from Singapore count on side trips to places like Bangkok just for a bit of seediness and chaos. And, conversely, how many people from places like Bangkok occasionally need to come to Singapore for a little peace, safety, and order. It would make an interesting human-nature study. Our trip was not exhaustive or exhausting (however exhaust-filled), but it was deeply satisfying. Bangkok is dynamic; the people are exceedingly friendly, the touts take "no" for an answer, and there are a wealth of places begging to be explored. Fun.

Other points of interest -- American franchises spotted: McD's, Pizza Hut/KFC (sans the Taco Bell), Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, Swensen's, and a 7-Eleven on every corner. "Rancid" T-shirts spotted: 4.

Oz migration update: We finally mailed off our fingerprints to the FBI today. Depending on your source, the nightmare could end here, or it's just beginning. We're keeping our fingers crossed that everything goes well. We should have our medicals on the way in a week or so, as well as our Singapore police clearances.
I'm really hoping we'll be asked to pick up the PR stamps in our passports by May. We'll just have to wait and see.

Wednesday night we attended the Wednesday Night Drinking Club, which is often touted on the Expat Singapore message forums. Over expensive beers at Liberte in Chijmes, we chatted with people from Germany, Netherlands, Indonesia, and the UK, and also an American, Ken, who was in town interviewing at Singapore's world-famous Zoo and Night Safari. He invited us out for a free night at the Night Safari, so that's what we did last night. They must really want him to work there, because we were given the VIP treatment; we were escorted to the front of every line, on one of their busiest nights of the year. Ken's a great guy, and we got lots of behind-the-scenes insights on the workings of zoos. I hope he decides to come work here.

Every zoo visit is a unique experience; you never know which animals will be active, or what they'll be doing. This time we had great views of the tarsiers, tapirs, and flying foxes.

Chiromancy. Up early today to go get our fingerprints done, or redone in Marjorie's case. We now have some on the official FBI card -- which we printed out ourselves, so who knows if that will be accepted -- and some on official Singapore forms. For our Singaporean we-haven't-been-arrested-here form, they had a cool digital scanner that read our fingerprints electronically. This part they happily do for free, no doubt so they can have our fingerprints on record.

Brian McBride will now be playing for Fulham, so I'll get to watch him on the telly occasionally. The English Premier League is starting to dip into the American well, not just for the talent, I'm sure, but for the potential market of new fans. Hey, it works. Go Fulham!

Chinatown, where I work, is all festive in anticipation of the year of the Monkey. I must've seen a dozen people today carrying pussy willows, which are a favorite to decorate with. We're going to get some of them, and an orange plant, like last year. Red lanterns and cards everywhere.

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?