Sadness. Our friend Mike has died, far too young. We met in Atlanta, as a result of our mutual Elvis Costello fandom. His blog was consistently our favorite, and we've linked to it many times here.

His last blog entry has become the place for tributes.

You might remember trip to NYC just before we left the states, where we got to see David Bowie in an intimate venue. That was all Mike's doing.

I have a handful of other memories of Mike, and they're almost all gems; an Elvis show in Nashville, Steve Earle, Neil Finn, and Nick Lowe shows in Atlanta. Beyond that, some parties, some dinners, an occasional email.

It's hard for me to characterize just how decent a person he was, both globally and locally. It was my good fortune to know him. Goodbye, my friend.

In between shows. Last night we caught The Shins at the Corner Hotel. I wasn't too familiar with them going in, besides liking some songs. But they're from Albuquerque NM, so I was subconciously expecting them to be, well, inconsistent. But they were anything but.

So rare for good bands to come out of smaller markets. The only other one I can think of is Built To Spill out of Boise, Idaho. Any others?

Tomorrow night we have an evening planned with Rufus Wainwright. Very exciting.

As the resident Yank at work, I receive a fair amount of grief. My co-workers think it's cute when I bring in a bagel for breakfast or peanut butter sandwich for lunch, fullfilling their expectations of the stereotypical american. This week I've recieved gentle teasing over the following slips as well:
Not ever having a "pavlova" a common Australian dessert of some kind.
Saying Xerox instead of photocopy.
Talking about the "weed-wacker", I can't remember what it's called here, whirly something.

The teasing is always good-spirited, and it's the aussie tradition to take the piss, so I'm not offended. More, just surprised by the little differences that attract their attention.

Alas. I caught the first half at home, a bit of the second half at the casino, then monitored the game at work via the internet. It seemed whenever I was watching, the Eagles did well. So their losing is obviously all my fault.

Something else was missing -- the Super Bowl isn't the same without the million dollar Super Bowl commercials.

All this talk of "dynasty" in regards to the Pats. Winning three Super Bowls by three points each does not a dynasty make, in my book. If they are, they must be the most boring dynasty ever. They play football with German efficiency.

Speaking of bitterness (and nailbiters), I think I'll finally quit biting my nails, thanks to a new product -- Stop That! by Manicare -- that's like clear nail polish, but is extremely bitter (and non-toxic). I made it through most of the day without biting today, but got a good nasty taste a couple of times this evening.

I like the name -- "Stop That!". It's like having Marjorie in a bottle! Ha ha.

Super Bowl Monday! Monday morning here, and I'm home watching the Super Bowl. Eagles looking a little tentative so far but are starting to settle in. The dog is trying to relax next to me, but keeps jumping up when I shout out the TV. The game started later than I thought, so I'm probably going to have to miss the second half, as I'm expected in at work at lunchtime.

Metamorphosis' Valentine's Day limerick contest is back. The subjects this year are medical pioneers, microscopic animals, and skin conditions. We'll be back to defend our crown.

I placed a bet on the Super Bowl today, legally, at Crown Casino. (The guy at the counter tried to wind me up a little, saying "Eagles? You mean the West Coast Eagles?")

Rumor has it that Paul McCartney, who's doing the halftime show, is an Eagles fan.

Another Aussie-ism is to use "crap" as an adjective, instead of "crappy". Like, "It was a crap movie." If something is really bad, it was "the crappest".

Yesterday's weather was the crappest. It rained all day to start with, then in the evening the wind whipped up as well. And kept it up all night. Supposedly it was the heaviest rainfall in Melbourne since they started recording it in 1856. Wow. To top it off, the huge ferry that leaves for Tasmania from just up the road from us was forced to turn back in 20m seas (more than 60 feet!). Bleah.

We were woken up at about 5am by the sounds of drips; our bedroom roof was leaking in a couple of places. It also leaked into our kitchen and bathroom. The wind was still blowing something fierce. But, less than an hour later, it all stopped, and there were blue skies.

Everyone took their dogs to the dog park today, since no one could yesterday. There were twelve trees down. I think we were actually pretty lucky all in all. Mad weather here.

Bike. Last weekend I bought a used mountain bike. There are some spots of rust but it rides good and I like it a lot. Marjorie already has a bike, so this will definitely extend our range, having previously being limited to walking and our single tram line. Not always, of course, but most of the time I'm glad I don't have a car. I think bike's are one of the greatest inventions ever. The fact that they've had the same basic design for a century says a lot.

Bikes I have owned in the past (that I can remember), and their eventual fate:

Age 5: Orange tricycle.

Age 6?: The bicycle I learned on. I seem to remember it was red and very stripped down.

Age 14: Red, white and blue bike with banana seat. This was a cool one.

Age 16: Ten-speed.

Age 18: Ten-speed. My college bike. Left it locked up over winter break and it was gone when I came back.

Ages 18-33: Nothing!

Age 33: Mountain bike. Great bike. Left it locked up at Music Midtown in Atlanta; came out and it was gone.

Age 37: Green crappy Carrefour (i.e. K-mart) special, in Singapore. Stolen from train station bike rack. And they say there's no crime in Singapore!

Age 38: see above.

Joy. We are freshly back from the Polyphonic Spree show, and boy are our spirits uplifted. It was like being at a religious revival. There were twenty-three in the band, by our best count, but it was hard to tell because they were constantly going nuts. Everyone dresses in choir robes. The eight-person choir spent half the time dancing like a cymbal crashing. Besides drums, bass, and guitar, and choir, they featured a harpist, trumpets, flutes, and a French horn. Great songs too. The audience ate it up; they turned on the audience lights at one point and I could see everyone was grinning ear to ear. Some people were going into paroxysms, like they'd just been healed. Hard to describe, but totally joyful and original.

We finished up our Australia day by going to see Closer, featuring equal parts Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen. It was engaging enough, but didn't see a lot of point to it. Nor did I particularly care for any of the characters, which isn't usually a problem for me, except that I get the feeling that I was supposed to. Clive Owen was his usual excellent, though, and I'm glad to see he got an Oscar nod for it.

I'm reading my blogs nowadays through an aggregator, which I highly recommend. I also use it to watch for updates to a lot of my other favorite sites, like Snopes and the NY Times Science section. There's hundred of other things you can subscribe to.

While we were gone today Laika got into a box and chewed up my drinking bird. Besides the "yikes" of her chewing on glass and doubtless tasting the red mystery liquid contained therein, it's kind of a bummer -- it was a gift from a friend. He got it for me after a discussion we had one day where we both found out, to our mutual amusement, that we each independently had a "random object" that we kept ready to mention whenever someone asked us to name a random object. Mine was a drinking bird; his was a doorknob.

Now that I think about it, we never found the drinking bird's head. Double yikes.

Happy Australia Day! We've celebrated in a relatively Australian way, by taking the dog to the beach and then enjoying a backyard BarBQ complete with lamb (for Mark, I find it a bit gamey). It's been one of the hottest days of the year today (35 C), so it feels like the fourth of July at home.
It's nice having a day off in the middle of the week. Particularly because today is sunny and the rest of the week is forecasted to be rainy. This evening we'll probably go see a movie, maybe one of the best picture nominees.

Aw yeah. The teams I root for never seem to make it to the final game, at least not since I was a kid. Today my Eagles made it. Woop! I had to get up at 7 to watch it, and I could only watch the first half before having to go to work. For the Super Bowl, you can bet I'll be staying home to watch the whole thing.

Who needs a phone? If you have a microphone on your computer, download Skype and give me a call -- my contact name is "angusmcpresley" (don't ask). I'm trying to hook up with parents this way, but they're asleep most of the time I'm on-line.

I realize this is like posting my phone number on the web, but if I start getting crank calls, I'll just change my handle. That's the other advantage of this over phones.

Update: I just had my first successful call to my parents. Talking around the world for free is hard to beat. The sound was only a little murky (possibly due to the hardware or connection speeds involved) but not too shabby.

While I'm elated that the Cassini/Huygens mission went largely as planned, apparently there was a glitch that went almost entirely unreported. A software bug caused the loss of nearly half of the 700 images that were hoped for.

See, that's why I'll never work on a project like this, despite being an enthusiast. I just can't imagine what it would feel like to be the one responsible for introducing a bug that dashes the hopes of your colleagues and costs millions of dollars, while instantly flushing at least a decade of your life down the toilet.

What will make a good weekend for me?

The Huygens probe lands successfully on Titan.

The Eagles beat the Vikings.

I get the shelves hung.

A bad weekend, obviously, will be the opposite of all those.

Update: Three for three!

I really don't like the new "typing pool" work setup. Very distracting. I feel like the guy in Memento, where every thirty seconds I forget what I was working on. I need to find an mp3 of white noise and some headphones.

We are in the process of trying to score some Rufus Wainwright tickets. We listened to his "Poses" album over dinner, and both just marvelled at it for the umpteenth time. So, as is our frequent wont, we started coming up with another music list over dinner. This list was, Albums That We Consider To Be "Old Friends", Mutually:

Rufus Wainwright, "Poses"

REM, "Reckoning"

Squeeze, "Frank"

Radiohead, "The Bends"

Jellyfish, "Spilt Milk"

Elliott Smith, "Either/Or"

Neil Finn, "Try Whistling This"

Soul Coughing, "Irresistible Bliss"

Soul Coughing, "Ruby Vroom"

The Kinks, "Village Green Preservation Society"

Hoodoo Gurus, "Mars Needs Guitars"

Elvis Costello, "Imperial Bedroom"

Sam Phillips, "Martinis and Bikinis"

Billy Bragg, "Talking To The Tax Man About Poetry"

Jiminy! Members of the Australian Cricket team are going to be in my building tomorrow doing a tsunami benefit.

Cricket (the sport) is ubiquitous here. I'm starting to appreciate it, a bit, though I still have no real connection to it, and I still don't fully understand it. Like most Americans, I'm learning it in how it relates to baseball. Though the spirit of the game is quite different, the comparison helps one learn the rules. Take baseball, but:

Give the pitcher a running start. No umpires to call balls and strikes; rather, if the ball hits the sticks, yer out. Get rid of first and third base. No foul balls either; everything is in play. Instead of trading sides every innings, have everyone bat. Then it's the other team's turn. Make a home run six points, and hitting it to the fence is four.

Actually, the main way I'm learning it is through playing the game that everyone in our office has been playing: StickCricket. My highest slog score thus far is 218 for 4.

Happy Birthday Lana and Rick! I hope you both have a great one.
Lana, I tried to email you and don't have your current email address. Could you email it to me?

I bet Jon Stewart had something to do with this decision. Thanks Jon.