A murder took place in our kitchen last night: I was getting Laika's kibble out of the pantry when Laika lurched across the room, caught a little brown mouse in her mouth and shook him to death, all in about the span of 3 seconds. And while I'm not overjoyed that we had a mouse in our kitchen (our house is over a hundred years old, and I've never seen droppings anywhere) I was significantly more upset by Laika's hunting prowess. Mark and I were traumatised by the poor dead mouse and necessary disposal (including ensuring the poor animal was indeed dead, and not just suffering, which required a bag and a hammer). We're a catch and release family here, even with the big hairy huntsman spiders we find (though roaches, moths, and mosquitoes are shown no mercy). Now we're just hoping that Laika never manages to get a hold of a possum, as clearly she's not quite as inept a hunter as I used to think.

Down the street from us is the Rats of Tobruk House. Such an unusual name; of course I had to look up what this means soon after I noticed it.

Well, last month a big "Auction" sign went up on the house, which I thought was sad. But the story has a happy ending.

I had been so dreading the return to work on our company's contract with a certain maker of tourist guidebooks. The people were nice, but the project infrastructure was hell, and the commute was a total pain (especially with winter coming on). But now it looks like, due to an increasingly acrimonious dispute between our companies, that the contract is dead in the water. Deliverance!

Everyone still has a few personal effects out on their work site. The running joke is that this is like a breakup, and we're going to go out there to find all of our stuff thrown out on the lawn. All we have to worry about now is our company finding a "rebound" contract, or making drunken phone calls to them at 2 a.m....

Everyone in blogville is commenting on Vonnegut's death. Who am I to be different? I've only read three of his -- Slaughterhouse Five, Sirens of Titan, and Galapagos. But I had been meaning to hunt down some others. Sad to lose such a brilliant and original voice.

"We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!"

Night bears. Our dog Laika dreams, which probably means that dreams date back at least to our common ancestor, which is a long long time ago. You can always tell -- her paws start twitching, and she whimpers. One time she even howled, which we can't even get her to do when we're awake. But I've always wondered whether they're happy dreams, or scary ones.

Usually she sleeps on her side. But last night, she fell asleep on the couch with me in an unusual position -- on her back. The practical effect of this was that her tail was freed up, and sure enough, when she started dreaming, her tail wagged. That can only mean that the dream, at least at the start, was happy. Isn't that sweet?

So my niece is into anime. This seems to be a trend that passed me by. For the most part, I don't get it. I'm sure that like anything else, though, there's good and bad.

But even comic books, I was never into as a kid, at all. I only ever owned one, and it was a birthday present from a neighborhood kid. I still remember it -- it was from The Witching Hour series, but I'd be hard pressed to say which one of those it was. I thought it was kind of dumb.

Which is all a prelude to saying that I just finished the first of Neil Gaiman's critically acclaimed "graphic novels", The Sandman: Preludes Nocturnes. And guess what, it seemed like just a comic book to me, and I found it very much like every other comic book I've ever read. I don't get what the fuss is all about. But in it he did name-check a lot of older comics, I noticed -- including The Witching Hour.

My review of the Pixies show the other night can be found on my MOG.

In other news, it's about Easter, and I haven't gotten a call back from The Rich List, so I guess it's not going to happen. Alas.

The new CD by The Shins came with a sticker to promote the band. Marjorie asked, "Where should we stick it?". We both thought a minute, and didn't come up with any place.

I think maybe that one's maturity level can be measured by the number of places one has to put stickers.

Wow. These kinetic sculptures are really cool. Watch the video.

In an exercise of self-indulgence, these are a few of the things that I'm enjoying lately:

Go Fug Yourself

Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke - this site kills me, but not one for the little ones.

Mimi Smartypants, again not for those easily offended, but generally very funny.

Rose wines, a new varietal for us, but one we are both enjoying muchly. We're also still enjoying sparkling wines, though I'm guessing that our ritual of "champagne Sundays" will be put on hold now that the Soccer season has re-started for Mark.

Running- Laika and I have been running anywhere from twice to five times a week for over a year now. I keep expecting myself to get lazy, but it's surprisingly addictive. That said, I need to get more serious about it and start running in some local fun-runs. I'd be very pleased with myself if I trained enough to run a marathon by the year I turn 40, but won't commit myself to it at this point. I currently run anywhere on average from 3 km's to 7 km's so a marathon would be a huge leap.

Music swapping- I've been trading favorite cd's with another expat (French) in an effort to move past our music doldrums. We were introduced to Phoenix this way, a band we both really like, and recently obtained a Ry Cooder CD that we really like too.

I wish I could add my new job to this list, but at the moment I don't feel expert enough to find it enjoyable, and instead feel depressed at being deskilled. I'm hoping to be illuminated in the near future, because at the moment nothing is making sense to me. My colleagues have reassured me that I just need to give it some more time. I'm definitely enjoying the new paycheck though.

The audition for The Rich List was today. They held it in the function room at the local German cultural center, and a LOT more people showed up than I was expecting -- maybe 120. The first part was a standard trivia quiz. There were forty questions; I started really strong, but stumbled a bit at the end. No matter -- I scored a 24, and the cut off was 18. Everyone under that was out. That whittled us down to sixty people or so.

They took a Polaroid picture of us next, that they attached to our questionnaires. (Of course, I blinked at just the wrong time.) Then the guy running it forebodingly asked if we had ever seen Australia's Got Talent. The thing was, each of us remaining had to get up and demonstrate a talent for thirty seconds or so, "or you can just talk about yourself, but that would be boring." We were given a raffle ticket, and we were called up in random order. I was thinking, "Please, please, give me time to consider this a bit." Luckily I wasn't called until about half way, so I had time to plan my shtick. Some people told off-color jokes, and some sang nursery rhymes, but lots of other people were just talking about interesting experiences they had, so I just did the same. It went basically:

Hi, I'm Mark, and I'm American, as you can probably tell by my accent. Or as I like to think of it, my lack of accent. [Mark pauses for laughter, *cough*] One interesting experience I had was that last year I participated in a naked group calendar photo shoot for charity, down along the Yarra River. The Age did an article about it, and of course they chose the one picture where my naked bum was directly in the front row. Do, uh, any of you recognize it? [Mark turns around and shows backside.]

Shrug. People laughed, but I stumbled over my words a bit, as I'm prone to doing, but it could have gone worse.

Then it was off to the one-on-one interview with the assistants. They asked a bunch of wacky questions, like, if you could pick a superpower, what would it be? I babbled something about super speed so I could avoid all the recent train delays, blah blah blah. There were a few others along those lines. I don't know, it seemed to go reasonably okay for the most part. That was the end of it; we just wait for a callback from here. I don't rate my chances as excellent. But it's possible. They promise to contact their selections by Easter. So, no news will be bad news.

As Mark stated, my friend Kristina was with us the week back. It was lovely to have her here, and like all the people who come to visit us, she's now seen parts of Australia that are still unexplored by us. We did take a trip up to the Yarra Valley together to taste some of the wines grown there, and discovered a lovely dairy farm as well. The highlight of the trip was the Yering Farm vineyard, which was just lovely, and served us a fantastic tasting platter, which sent us in search of the previously mentioned dairy farm to track down a remarkable fetta.
The whole week was a bit of a wine fest, which was fun, but left us all feeling a bit over-indulgent. To top it all off Kristina and I went on a search for the best chocolate bars in Melbourne (this city is a chocolate lovers dream, with over five specialty chocolate bars and many other "lolli-shops", add in the ncredible italian and greek bakeries and you could seriously indulge) though by Sunday we were excessed out and I feel our attempt at binging on chocolate was half-hearted.
On the whole it was a nice visit, and good to be able to play host(s) to Kristina, who has repeatedly been a very gracious hostess to us on our trips back to the States.

Questions from The Rich List's contestant profile questionnaire:

1. List some of the unusual/quirky/interesting experiences of your life so far?
2. What is your greatest achievement and why?
3. Would you describe yourself as a gambler? What is the biggest bet you have made?
4. Are you a member of any clubs (sporting, academic, social)?
5. What would you describe as your best and worst character / personality traits?
6. Do you read newspapers, magazines, books? Which kind and how often?
7. Do you watch quiz shows? If so what shows?
8. Do you attend trivia nights regularly? [note: bing!]
9. What are your interests? (Please list as many as possible and be specific):
10. List your 5 top movies of all time
11. List your favourite bands/artists of all time
12. List the 5 TV shows you can’t miss
13. Who is your favourite actor/actress celebrity?
14. List the sports you love to play and/or watch
15. What book series and/or author do you read?
16. Where have you previously travelled in the World? Where would you like to travel to?

Audition is Monday at 2pm, which is a bloody inconvenient time. (If I'm going to appear on an Australian TV show, I can use words like "bloody".)

C'mon, big money! To heck with hard work. I've signed up to be a contestant on an Australian game show called The Rich List, after a friend of a friend walked away with $250,000 dollars (pre-tax, natch, but still). I figure it suits me because I like lists and am generally a cesspool of useless information. We watched this evening's show -- the contestants had to name as many countries as possible that were formerly part of the Soviet Union but were now independent countries. Naming all fifteen would have gotten them $250,000, but I'm pretty certain I could have gotten twelve, which would be a cool $150,000.

In other news, Marjorie's friend Kristina is on her way back home after a lovely visit. I'll let Marjorie blog about that though.

See? We're not freaks -- we're at the forefront of a trend.

I've got a killer idea for the internet that's too much work for me to build alone. I'm trying to decide what to do with it. The more I think about it, the better it sounds, too. Let me see if I can describe it well enough to convince you.

There are lots and lots of forums around the internet where you can sign on and discuss all sorts of things. And lots and lots of sites -- like this blog -- let you add comments.

The idea is a thing that will let you comment on any site on the internet, and to see comments left by others. It would be a browser "plug in", which means that it would just be an extra button on your Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer. The button would turn redder the more recently comments have been made. You click the button to pop up the comments/forum. The comments themselves would be hosted on my (hypothetical) company's server.

The advantages as I see them:

1. Instead of having to have separate accounts on separate websites, you would only need a single login. I already have trouble remembering all my passwords.

2. Similarly, you'd only ever have to deal with a single unified style of comment forum.

3. Because the comment forum attaches itself to web sites but is not affiliated with them, you are free to say anything you want. So go on over to that local politician's web site and let everyone know what a schmuck he is. If a dodgy company tries to rip you off, go tell everyone about it, right on their own website (essentially). You can say nice things, too. Comment on any news article in any online newspaper. Sports, politics, religion, books, movies, shopping -- really, anything that has a web page, you can hold a discussion.

There are still some functional issues to resolve, but I don't see any technical roadblocks. There's a few other ideas I have for it, but that's the gist. It's a fairly straightforward idea, and I think it has the potential to give all of the internet a more populated feel, as you surf around and see what everyone is commenting on.

I used to be a good tipper -- twenty percent in restaurants, and usually a dollar on a pint of beer. Australia has ruined me. I still tip ten percent at nice restaurants -- they say that's expected, but no one seems to mind if you don't. But most restaurants we go these days, I tip bupkis. Bars, too.

Everyone from down here (or England) really hates that part about visiting the States. I don't think the service in the US is that much better for it. If we ever move back, that's going to be a hard thing to readjust to.

In the spirit of the weekly blog:
Observation at work- Head Office if frequently referred to as "Town" as it's in the centre of Melbourne. It always amuses me when I hear someone say it.
If I get another tattoo, it's going to be a finger moustache. Makes me grin just thinking about it.

You'd think we missed the whole Texas Hold 'Em craze, but no, it struck here too. Many pubs have Texas Hold 'Em nights, and they show the competitions (celebrity and not) on TV frequently.

I've skipped it, because I've never been particularly adept at poker, preferring euchre, hearts, spades, or (very novice) bridge. But tomorrow our company is having a poker party, so tonight I'm hitting Yahoo Games to at least learn the rules.

Not much else new. I've started soccer practice again; the hip is not perfect but I'm easing into it. Lonely Planet work is going. I've discovered where they put the books you're allowed to take (seconds and old editions) so our bookshelf has been swelling. Um, and Extras is the best show on TV right now.

Update. I made it through the first round, but got lousy cards the second round. Still, if I was any good, I could've bluffed my way through a while longer. I don't have that instinct. I'd like to give it a go down at the casino though.

"New Leaf":
I''m going to make an effort to blog more. The goal is to write something at least once a week, as my contribution for the last year has been piss-poor. Things have been happening. It's not for lack of news that I don't write, just ..... who knows. Anyway, new leaf.

I started a new job this week. I'm now a "Partnership and Service Advisor" which means that now my responsibilities are to monitor agencies, not individuals. At the moment I don't have a clue but I'm hoping the job will become clearer in the weeks to come.

The other exciting event this week was the exploratory "cardiac catheterization" my Dad had scheduled on Monday, which might have lead to Angioplasty if any blockage had been found. Luckily, nothing was found and he is in good health. Scary though, and exactly the type of thing that makes living so far away difficult. It's hard to be as supportive as I'd like to be from another continent.

As requested, the "flooded tent" story:
When I was five my parents decided to take my sister and I on a hiking/camping trip to Kauai, Hawaii (we lived in Oahu at the time). The trip over was taken on a speed boat, and unfortunately I did not have my sea legs. I ended up having to wear a garbage bag to disembark from the boat as I had vomited all over myself (and probably my poor mom and sister). I think the trip back was slightly better.
My parents had been to Kauai without us kids at an earlier part of the year and wanted to bring us back to this amazing spot they found. Unfortunately it was December (or January, it was right after Christmas) and the rainy season. We hiked into a very remote area on the island, carrying in our tents and supplies. On the first night there (I think) we experienced a very heavy rain storm that practically washed mine and Susan's supposedly "waterproof" tent away. I remember we set up camp near the beach, and it felt like we were going to be washed out to sea, though that's probably a false memory. Susan and I ended up abandoning our tent and going to sleep in the bigger, actually waterproof tent with our parents. The other really memorable things about the trip, beyond the camping, hiking, and getting rained out, are the incredibly vivid memory of burnt pancakes, flowers that could be used as soap and shampoo, befriending a feral cat we called "Katherine" (who benefited when Susan and I abandoned our tent), and losing all four of my front teeth at different parts of the journey (at least one was lost eating what I remember as my first Kitkat bar). By the time we got home I had a huge gap in my mouth.
I have positive memories of the trip overall, though the storm was definitely scary for both myself and Susan. It was hardly the last family camping trip we took, as we camped about once a year until I was in high school.
Dad, Mom, Susan, is this how you guys remember the trip? Did I leave anything important out?