I was feeling adventurous at lunch today, so I had my first ever bowl of Fish Ball Noodle. It was really quite good, and not at all fishy. Somehow they make the fish balls have the consistency and uniformity of hard-boiled egg whites. There are lots of other dishes that come in ball form that I'll have to try.

Weekend wrap-up. Friday night: Went to see Something's Gotta Give, and enjoyed it muchly. Saturday: Grocery shopped, hung by the pool. Reminisced about "wing night", so we showered up and went to Brewerkz and got wings and (very cheap) pitchers. Yum. Sunday: Soccer game for me at Turf City; tied 2-2. Almost scored on a header, but it was our own goal. Cooked up green mole chicken with tortillas, refried bean, Mexican rice, and chips; yum again. Watched a rental DVD, "Whale Rider" about a Maori village; very good. More exciting updates as events warrant.

Addendum: Oh, and we got buzzed by our second flying lizard, right as we were walking out of our apartment complex. We chased him up a tree.

[Oops, this is actually Mark, but if I change it now, I lose the comments.]

How ready is Marjorie to move to Australia and own a dog? While we don't even know what kind of dog we're getting or what we're going to name it, she already has plans to refer to it as "the dingo" when it's bad. As in, "The dingo ate moy shoe!".

There's a line in a Crowded House song "Every night about six o'clock the birds come back to the palm to talk". This seems especially true here. Tonight my taxi driver and I had a brief conversation about the Mynahs at Ghim Moh, how they always meet in the same trees, same time. I said it's Happy Hour for the birds, he said they were discussing the bird flu in Thailand counting their blessings here.
The birds here bring us so much pleasure. We're turning into serious bird geeks anyway, but the predictable antics of our regulars are so pleasing. I see ravens flying in packs past our windows from the hour of 5pm on, heading to their meeting place, I feel a need to hassle the stragglers, to remind them that they're late after 6pm.

There are a hundred more examples of Australian speechies ( I made that up but it's appropriate). Mozzies for mosquitos, Chrissie for Xmas, bikey for biker, esky for a cooler, the list goes on and on..... I wonder if that will be at all annoying when we get there? IF we get there. There is, after all, the chance that we could still be rejected for migration. I suppose if that happened we'd cry, then move to California.
We're spending this weekend readying the house for visitors next week. Very exciting. It's always good to see people from home.

Weirdie. Until the conversation with our dinner guests last night, it never dawned on me how often Australians shorten their words. We all know they're Aussies, not Australians, and cook on barbies, not barbecue -- but they also go to unis, not universities; they're from Tazzie, not Tasmania, and they eat brekkie, not breakfast. Any others I'm forgetting?

I've also noticed a Britishism from the Brit who sometimes drives me home from soccer. The "n't" contractions are used as little as possible, in favor of combining the to be and to have verbs with the subject. So it's "we've not..." instead of "we haven't...", and "Joe's not..." instead of "Joe isn't...". That's a subtler thing. Usually, he'll drop one or two of the wackier Britishisms every trip, like something being "sixes and sevens". (I wish I had written them all down.) The other day he made a wrong turn and said, "Woops, I think I dropped a bollock here..."

On a more disappointing note, they replaced the crazy Mandarin lady's voice on the MRT line that warns you to stand behind the yellow line. Of the four languages they speak it in, hers was the only one that was replaced, so they must've had complaints.

OZ. We've got two out of the three tasks completed that are required for our last steps towards migration. I'm so ready to have those stamps in our passports I practically have our bags packed already. I'm contemplating changing my blog icon to something more Australian, maybe a Tasmanian devil or a platypus. Mark's sea dragon is totally appropriate as they are only found in the sea directly south of mainland Australia, near Adelaide I believe.
We're planning a trip to Melbourne soon, which will hopefully coincide with a work contract for Mark in Tasmania (the same one he's been hoping for since last August).
We're also having dinner tonight with some work colleagues of mine who've both lived in Melbourne, to suss out which neighbourhoods might be the most interesting for us.
Melbourne sounds perfect for us on paper, hopefully the reality lives up to our expectations. Time will tell.

Yay us! Our limerick was selected as one of three winners in the Metamorphosism Valentine's Day Limerick Contest. For our encore we're working on a cure for cancer.

Valentine's Day was very nice. A quiet dinner followed by (as Marjorie mentioned) a quiet evening at home with chocolate-covered strawberries, and champagne.

In other news... Goooooooaaaaaallll! Scored again today, despite playing defense, on a decent shot from 25 yards out. Of course, it helped that the team we were playing weren't very good -- it was 4-nil at the half, and my goal made it six. At halftime our coach said he'd buy us ten pitchers later in the month if we reached 10 goals. We made it, on a penalty kick in injury time, for a final score of 10-2.

We've submitted our entry to the Metamorphosism limerick contest. Ours certainly isn't the best but at least it scans.

Happy Valentine's Day! Evil Hallmark money-making holiday that it is, Mark and I always do something together. Tonight we have plans to go to dinner at our favorite Brunch spot, Cellar Door, as we've never made it there for dinner before. Maybe after dinner we'll attempt chocolate fondue and make chocolate covered strawberries. YUM!
If you're up to it metamorphosis is hosting the third annual VD limerick contest. This seemed right up Mark's alley, but I haven't been able to convince him to submit anything, nor have I even though I came up with a really bad limerick rhyming trichinosis with psychosis.
I've been illin' this week, sore throat, clogged ears, nasty cough. Lucky me. I bragged at one point, that while many seemed to get sick frequently in S'pore, Mark and I had stayed very healthy. This certainly hasn't been true for me over the last three months as I've had something new every few weeks. Could be a side affect of working with a bunch of three year olds, watcha think? Although honestly you'll find as many booger pickers (grown men generally) on public transport here.

Lucid dreaming. Do you ever have "lucid dreams" -- the kind where you consciously know you're dreaming, and can control what goes on, at least to some extent? For a while I've been having them, mostly in the mornings in between alarm clock snoozes. There are certain things you supposedly can't do in these dreams, such as flick on and off a light switch -- apparently the part of your brain that controls what's going on can't handle the sudden change in lighting. Well, I've been particularly fascinated with trying to read in my lucid dreams. It's really strange; try "picking up a book and reading it" the next time you're lucid dreaming. Your dream-composer knows it's supposed to be filling in some sort of coherent story, but it can't do it that fast. So what you get (or at least what I get) is a string of almost random words, mostly grammatically correct, but with only just a hint of coherency. It's kind of exhilarating in a hard-to-define way.

I'm trying to figure out how to transcribe some of what my sleep-brain is composing. Sometimes it can go on for paragraph after paragraph, but whenever I try to hard to remember some of it, I pop back into consciousness with only the last few words in my memory.

Bike. I bought a bike today. It's a cheap little mountain bike, and I do mean cheap and little. Got it for S$35 (about US$20), and it's too small for me, but the price, how could I say no? Basic transportation is a good thing.

It's been a couple of years since I've ridden a bicycle, but it turns out, it's just like riding a bicycle.

A walk on slippery rocks. Forgive my longwindedness tonight. I've decided to start trying to write more.

Tonight's subject is philosophy. No need to run screaming; I'm not going to share any of my personal opinions on the matter with you. I'm just going to talk about philosophy in general.

A while back I had a friend of a friend who was always cold to me, and I never knew why. Years later, I found out the answer. I turns out that when we first met, I found out she was a philosophy major in school, and apparently gave her a lot of grief about it. Now, I have no recollection of this happening. But it sounds like me. I've always thought philosophy to be a soft, and stupid, major. (Part of me was sorry, but another part thought, what philosophy is it that holds a grudge for three years? Don't you people debate a lot?)

Not that I think the subject is unimportant. Some days, it's all I think about. But in the field of philosophy, there seems to be no attempt to winnow out the truth. There's an old joke:

A university dean, facing a budget crisis, decided to chide the head of the physics department. "Why do you need all this equipment for experiments?" he said. "Why can't you be more like the math department? All they need is paper, pencils, and a wastebasket. Or better still, be like the philosophy department. They don't even need the wastebasket!

It's true, philosophy never throws anything away. Take any philosophy course, and you'll be taught mutually exclusive, even highly contradictory philosophies. Some may even be flatly disproven. And yet, they Must Be Taught. I think if a university professor ever tried to espouse a specific philosophy to students, and taught that this or that other philosophy is a complete failure (or worse, neglected to even teach it), they'd ride him or her out of there on a rail.

I've had people try to give me philosophy books to read. I've developed a nice system for dealing with them. The books usually consist of a logical form of argument -- state assumptions, draw inferences, reach conclusion -- and I can at least credit them for that. Usually. But I always see the whole thing as a big shaky tower, built up from the axioms. As such, I usually only read until I reach what I perceive is the first faulty inference. Then I think, if they're just going to build on this, why should I read on? The tower already will not stand. (Not that I could do any better. The small towers I have built for myself have failed to achieve any great unity or height.)

And usually I find that the conclusions these philosophers come to are the ones they were already convinced of before they started their formulating. Their ideas are always a product of their time and place. Like, Ayn Rand escapes communist Russia, becomes a fervent capitalist, then formulates a philosophy. Starting at first principles, she builds and builds upon them until she arrives at -- capitalism! What a surprise!

Okay, I'll say it. I'm basically an existentialist without the angst. If I even understand the term correctly.

I'm mostly through with Albert Camus' The Plague, which got me thinking on these lines. Obligatory quote:

But the narrator is inclined to think that by attributing overimportance to praiseworthy actions one may, by implication, be paying indirect but potent homage to the worst side of human nature. For this attitude implies that such actions shine out as rare exceptions, while callousness and apathy are the general rule. The narrator does not share that view. The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clearsightedness.

I swear I thought of this experiment fifteen years ago when I worked at the space center.

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.