There are lots of foot reflexology centers in town, usually featuring a wacky sign like this showing the link between places on your feet and your various vital organs. I of course put no stock in it as a science, but I did visit one of these places on Friday night for a foot massage. They do like the rough stuff here. It was pinchy and hurty when they worked my toes, but I got more into it as the session wore on.

Learned a new term: "slurp shop". This is what they call those small food outlets specializing in noodles, where you see lines of customers crammed onto tiny tables and chairs, bent over their bowls of soup. I had a good meal last night at one of them; then, after a failed attempt at (geek alert) finding a geocache, I checked out some live music at the Singapore Street Festival, then went to watch the skateboarders for a while at the nearby public skate park. I miss that stuff. If it didn't hurt so darn much I'd still be riding...

Interesting article on the demise of cursive. Like countless others, I had cursive drilled into me for many years, all for the sake of my signature. That's honestly the only thing I've used it for since I left college twelve years ago. And my signature ain't all that.

Quote from the article:

"The letters you write to people are beautiful, and they'll cherish them forever. Have any of you ever received an e-mail that you cherished?"

Um, yes?

Why spend years grilling the kids on a practically useless skill? To appease some dewy-eyed English majors? Teach the kids to write, not to write cursive...

We are all booked to go to Australia next month. This is just a fun trip. My work trip to Tasmania is again a possibility (the word from the guys in Australia is that our position "looks good, mate!"), and that might involve a side trip to Melbourne, so we're going to go to Sydney this time. Woo!

Disney. On a mailing list I'm on, we've been chatting a bit about Disney. Here's an excerpt from my last post:

This talk of Disney has me thinking back...

Some of my earliest memories are of our family vacation(s) to Disney World; we went pretty much every year while I was growing up. This involved a three-day car ride each way, down from New Jersey and back. With three kids. I don't know how my parents managed that.

Earliest trip for me had to be about '71 or so. I do remember being there just before Space Mountain opened, and I don't think that was our first trip.

Some other early memories:

Getting all excited to go on "Star Jets", and then being petrified when I discovered I had a fear of heights. My older brother, who was manning the controls, kept us up as high as we could go for the whole ride. Big meanie.

Being given my (E?) ticket to get into the Country Bear Jamboree while in line, and promptly losing it. Several very nice people offered us their tickets when we went back through the line to look for it. I was probably crying.

Losing my shiny New Year's hat over the rail into the water near Cinderella's Castle.

Laughing like crazy when the totem poles started chanting in the Tiki Room.

Chasing armadillos in Fort Wilderness.

My stomach falling out from under me for the first time, when the boat goes over the waterfall on Pirates of the Caribbean.

The mirrors, where it looks like a ghost is in your car with you, in the Haunted Mansion.

Fleeting bits from: Swiss Family Robinson treehouse. It's a Small World. The car racing thing (Autopia?). And The Hall of Presidents. If You Had Wings (had wings, had wings...). Jungle Safari.

Lastly, I remember loving Disney so much that it actually made me sad... It's a hard feeling to describe, really, but I was just so worried that it might someday come to an end. I guess I was a melancholy kid. Disney was a lot for my widdle bwain to take in.

Here's a great site with old pictures of Disney, and people's recollections.

New digs. This evening we went to take another look at the apartment we're going to be moving into in a month. Definitely a nice place, and lots of space for visitors, hint hint. Take a gander at the pool.

The new Radiohead album is, like, good and stuff. I like it a lot, on first listen, and that's saying a lot, cuz I never do that. Thankfully, more accessible than recent efforts, but still out there. These guys remain light years ahead of everyone.

Not in Kansas Anymore. Two out-and-about in Singapore quickies:

As I exited the elevator at work the other day, a Chinese dragon team got off a neighboring elevator. I have no idea what they were doing up in our skyscraper, or how they all fit in an elevator, like clowns in a circus car.

I took a taxi to the doctor's this morning; the driver was an old Chinese man who was listening to a cassette of some very old and strange (and occasionally grating) Chinese music, that sounded like a theater production; it was replete with some twangy string accompaniment and tinny cymbal crashes. Interesting. He obviously knew and loved it and was singing along the whole time. As he dropped me off I asked about it; he was clearly delighted that I took an interest. I asked if it was from a play, which he didn't understand, so I said "You know, like Kabuki." He pointed out a little indignantly that this was Chinese (not Japanese, like Kabuki. Oops). But he was still happy, and said "Is good, yes? Is good?"

The verdict at the doctor's: I've passed the stone that was in the urethra causing all the pain, as I suspected, and still have the bigger one that's in my kidney. Fortunately it's in the bottom of the kidney, whereas the tube flowing out of the kidney is in the middle, so I may not have a repeat episode -- the stone will likely just stay there. I'm to be x-rayed again in six months.