Attack of the hippies. So yesterday I took a break at work, and headed down to the food court below the building to use the ATM. Just as I arrive in the lobby, a dreadlocked mass of hundred or so hippies storms in. Each was carrying a sunflower. Several of the more ambitious ones jumped over the security gates, trying to reach the elevators. They were whooping and hollering. Some of them followed me through a door they thought led deeper into the building, but actually led into the food court. They sheepishly ran back in. When I got back from using the ATM they were squatting in the lobby, chanting "One two three four, we don't want no global war." A couple were arguing with a security guard who they said was using excessive force in preventing them from getting through the security gates.

While I don't know what their specific beef was, I did figure out that they were protesting BHP Billiton, who we share the building with.

The police came, and I eventually made it back through the gates and into the lift.

We are definitely not in Singapore anymore!

Man of action.

Yesterday marks one year that we've been living in Melbourne. It doesn't seem that long at all. The amazing thing (to me) is that I haven't been on a plane since. I don't think I've ever gone a year without jetting off somewhere since the first time I flew.

Not that nothing is scheduled. We'll soon be flying off to Hamilton Island. I'm really looking forward to this.

May be starting a new project at work soon, which might send me to Adelaide on occasion as well.

Apropos of nothing, I have really bad hiccups right now, that have been going on for a half an hour. Perdue, help!

Marjorie often accuses me of having a fourth-grader sense of humor. I deny that. Actually, I think she's just mad because my sense of humor is rubbing off on her. She even makes puns these days.

Anyway, there's a song that my friend Jim used to sing that I recently tried to remember. It took a while for us to piece it back together, but I think we have it. It's very much the sort that would appeal to a fourth grader. Oddly enough, neither of us could find it anywhere out on the web. Sorry I can't post the melody, but here are the words:

Old Lady Bliss
Went out out to piiiiiiiii...ck some flowers
Stood in the grass
Up to her aaaaaaa....nkles, dearie
She saw a bird
Step on a turrrrrrrr...key feather
It broke her heart
She let a farrrrr...mer take her home.

Visit Austrlia. We may have one less apostle but we do have one more dolphin species.

Just bought a new 19" flat screen monitor that's big, bold, and beautiful. And what better way to break it in than some new pictures from space. I'm giddy. Earlier today the Deep Impact mission successfully slammed a coffee table-sized probe into the comet Tempel 1 to analyse the ejecta. The comet is a dirty snowball that has been sitting around peacefully since the time that the planets formed, so analysing what it's made of should tell us lots about the early solar system. Great work folks!

Update: Now with video. How did you picture a comet to look like, up close? I really had no idea. There's no sense of scale in the video, but the thing is about half the size of Manhattan. I've never thought of comets as things you could walk around on.

Last night we celebrated our anniversaries (three years of marriage, seven years together, and one year in Melbourne) by getting all dressed up and going out to the Waterfront Restaurant. It was nice, but we are a bit crapulent today.

Our new pub is fifteen minutes walk away. There are three or four pubs closer, which is why it took a while for us to find it. We like it quite a bit. Big and homey, with an interesting menu. They've decorated with some interesting kitschy touches, and have a couple of fireplaces and a mellow tabby cat that's given free wandering rights of the place. There's also a big lovely beer garden out back that we're looking forward to hanging out in come spring.

Last night we played trivia there -- it was their first night having it, I think -- and won. Took away two bottles of wine and six free drink coupons. Not a bad haul.

The Big Idea. Our company is pushing a big Thought Leadership initiative. They want us to come up with innovative new ideas, and leverage them into the market. (Did I really just say "leverage"?) There's even a prize for the best idea that's proposed within the next few months: a trip for two to Byron Bay.

Right about the time they announced this, an awesome new idea struck me. The particulars of it are technical (they're described at the end), but in short it would mean that at the very least our company could be producing much more reliable software. Conceivably the Idea would grow to become the ultimate new must-have testing tool. And further afield, I thought it might have the chance to change the way programming itself is done.

I thought about it for weeks -- in bed, on the toilet, on the tram. It would be difficult to write, but not beyond my ability. I had visions of leading a group of employees to develop and expand it, and to apply it to our existing applications. Or even to apply it to existing software (such as the Java Virtual Machine itself).

It would be hailed by one and all. And I would be feeling all smug and heroic while Marjorie and I relaxed up in Byron Bay, margaritas in hand.

The Idea was sitting out there, ripe and unplucked. I looked around, and could find no one else who had done it before. This was it. My big moment.

And so. Just before I started bearing down to work on a proof of concept, I decided to give one last look around to make sure it hadn't been done before. And as you've probably guessed by now, I found a product that does exactly what I had been thinking of, and then some.

Rather dismayed, I downloaded and ran it against our current project, and it found a lot of bugs. They did a great job with it, but the fact that it has not taken the programming world by storm is of some small consolation.

[Geeky technical description: I'll talk about how it applies to the Java programming language, but there's no reason why it couldn't be applied elsewhere. It occurred to me that you could, through code analysis, determine places in the code where null pointer exceptions would occur, simply by tracking variables as having a value of "null", "not null", or "maybe null". Methods would be tracked as returning the same possible values. So, it is quite possible to determine, for every pointer dereference, whether a null pointer exception was even possible. A program that passed such a scan with no possible null pointer dereferences would be guaranteed never to crash that way. And that is one of the most common ways for a program to crash.

After considering that for a while, it occurred to me that other unchecked exceptions, such as array index out of bounds and class cast exceptions, could be scanned for in a similar manner.

The program I found that does it is JLint. It finds many, many other kinds of bugs as well. You can integrate into the Eclipse API using this plugin, just like I was planning to do with my idea.

I don't know why it's not used more widely. Probably because it was done as a research project and has no advertising dollars behind it.]

Marjorie's parents have gone off home, leaving the dog to pine away alone on the weekdays, after two weeks of near constant attention. We'll post some images from their visit soon.

Next month we'll be celebrating our 7th year together, my birthday, and our one year anniversary in Melbourne. So we're going to go away somewhere. I get to pick, since it's my birthday, but there are just too many options to choose from.

When people ask you, "Who is the man?", how do you respond? Now, you can tell them, it's me. It's probably not good form to crow when the team loses the game but dang it feels good to score.

To spare you from having to endure these reports in the future, I've set up The Dull Blog, where I will be posting all my game results, in addition to books I've finished, movies I've watched, CDs I've bought, and a whole host of other unfascinating statistical minutia about my life. As the name implies, it'll just be things too dull to make it to the main blog. Well, I'll probably still crow a bit here when I score a goal or something.

Marjorie's parents have been in the country for a week and a half now, and seem to be having quite a good time. They've already visited Sydney, Cairns, and Uluru. They've ridden camels, held koalas, and snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef. They've actually seen more of this country/continent than we have now. Her dad says there's a few months worth of things he'd like to see here. Tomorrow I'm taking off work and we're going to go explore some more around Melbourne.

Marjorie's parents are visiting. They came all the way from the other side of the world just to bring us a suitcase full of American groceries. Isn't that nice. Oh, they're going to see a thing or two while they're here as well. Today Marjorie took them around to see some wildlife, and scored on all fronts -- koalas, kookaburras, flying foxes, lorikeets, galahs, pied cormorants, and brush-tailed possums. Later in the week they're all heading up to the Great Barrier Reef together, leaving me all alone and OH MY GOD I'LL HAVE THE WHOLE HOUSE TO MYSELF FOR A WHOLE WEEKEND -- uh, I mean, I'll be lonely.

Three years, three continents, three cities, seven apartments. Yesterday was our third anniversary. We just did a quiet evening at home, but we splashed out a bit on a bottle of wine. Let's see, first anniversary is "paper", second is "cotton", and third is "cold germs", right?

Sickie. Only my second week of work, and I'm taking my first "sickie". Actually, that word has connotations of "faking it", but I really am sick. My first big, brash, Aussie cold, and I got some big, brash Aussie drugs to counter it with -- all cold medicines are over-the-counter here, but they have codeine in them.

Laika is the only dog I've ever known who doesn't bark at visitors. Workmen came to fix the kitchen ceiling, and she greeting them with a wagging tail. Our kitchen is filling with dust as I write this.

My soccer team now has a website where you can read game reports. I know you will all be checking regularly. I'm back on the thirds team for now. And apparently I was chosen as "B.O.G" for our last match, which I hope means "Best of Game".

After upgrading our workstation to Windows XP, I made the mistake of not turning on the firewall.

Stupid.

IE had started rerouting my default homepage to some search engine that encouraged me to look up information on Viagra. We started getting popup ads for anti-spyware programs (which is like a burglar breaking into your house and leaving pamphlets for home security systems). Ad-aware just found 117 infected files, and cleaned them up. Hopefully. There's a good chance it didn't find everything.

Things like this make me start to reconsider my opposition to capital punishment.

Tonight is our soccer team's big social event of the year, in honor of the FA cup. There's going to be something like 130 people there. It starts with a trivia competition at 7:30pm, but the game doesn't start until midnight, Melbourne time. Then I have to be up at 7:30 tomorrow morning for, you guessed it, our soccer game. Sounds like poor planning but that's just how it worked out. I'll be rooting for Man U if Tim Howard is playing, or for them to lose big otherwise. This game is just a warmup for the big match next week anyway.

Tonight we rented I Heart Huckabees, an unlikely little movie that we enjoyed very much. Say what you will about Hollywood -- they still turn out a slew of daring, original titles each year that don't pander to the masses.

After Marjorie went to bed I heard a crash from over in the kitchen. It turns out a big chunk of the plaster roof, about a meter square, came crashing down on our kitchen counter. A nasty, dusty mess that took me a good hour to clean up. It got into the stove, toaster, and sink, so I hope our dinners aren't crunchier than usual this month.

Good news. I've been contracting for nine months with this company. They are choosy about whom they hire, it seems. But now they've asked me to join on, and we've agreed on a salary. Huzzah!

In no time at all, it seems, the sun started going down before we even get home from work. And the days are only getting shorter. We're on a comparable latitude with NYC, so I don't know why it seems so extreme, and so sudden.

It's roughest on the dog, who doesn't get the same sort of quality park frolic time she used to. Everyone here is in the same boat, and so the poo density in the park is increasing, as no one can find their little steaming piles of responsibility in the dark to pick them up. And thus nature provides itself fertilizer for the spring, and the cycle is complete.

As I alluded to, yesterday I played on the second "reserves" team, in addition to just the thirds team that I usually play on. I honestly can't figure out why, as there are much better players than I on the thirds, and that's not just false modesty. But I ended up playing pretty good, and had a really good time in the end. I like the bigger pressure. I got to watch the first team play afterwards, and hoo boy, I am most certainly not ready for that.

Before the game the seconds team coach collected my ID (they have stringent requirements here), and did a double take, saying "Hooray, I'm not the oldest guy here!". That gives me mixed feelings. I'll show these young hooligans a thing or two though.

Back on-line. Upgraded the home computer to Windows XP, upgraded the RAM, installed a wireless network card, and we're back.

Not a lot new here. Weather has been awesome. Spring seemed to give us a miss, and summer wasn't much to speak of, but autumn has been just one spectacular weekend after another. This is the first weekend that's it's been cold at all during the day. Looking forward to playing soccer in it tomorrow. Somehow I ended up agreeing to play two games tomorrow, which is going to hurt.

I should be hiring on permanently at work soon (finally). The project is approaching the critical end stage, and I only recently learned how huge in scope it really is. More details to come.

What a mess. So, after the misadventures with the first repair place, I took it to another. After a week, they called to say it was ready. Of course, it wasn't; it was having the exact same problem. So today was another week later, and this time they said it was the memory that was bad, intermittently. Okay, fine. The replaced the RAM, and I tried it out in the store; it booted, but kept getting some sort of page fault when it tried to shut down. But at least it was booting, so maybe they were on to something.

I have it home now, and it's connected to the internet, so I'm a tiny bit satisfied. Everything seems really sketchy, though; I think there are problems with the registry. So, I'm in the process of uninstalling everything. Now the wireless card has stopped working. Anyone know any good diagnostic software?

The return of boring soccer reports. Dull cheers and golf claps, everyone!

First game was today. Inauspicious, in that it was way the hell out in whatever the Australian equivalent of Podunk, Iowa, and I tried to go by public transport. Despite leaving more than two hours beforehand, I only just showed up as the game was about to start. And I scraped myself climbing over the chain link fence to get to the pitch.

Luckily I had the first half to compose myself on the bench, since you have to clear it with the referee that your a registered player. This is a MUCH stricter league than in Singapore. Everyone has these large printed ID cards with their pictures on them, and scan codes that the referee swipes with a bar code reader whenever you get a yellow or red card. Finally in the second half I got called to go on, and the ref took my number and made me tuck in my shirt. Then, just as I was about to run on, he said, "I can't let you on with that earring..."

I didn't play horribly, but I didn't play well. It seems like a good bunch of folks, and I think my skill level is about right. Good to be playing again.

Phoo. Our long silence has been brought on by a sick computer. It gave me the blue screen of death mid-email, and simply refused to boot afterwards.

I took it to one repair shop, who promised to get back to me in a couple of days. After harassing them a bit, finally, a week later, they called me and said that it was all fixed, that the problem was caused by dust.

So I went to pick it up, and luckily I tried booting it before leaving the store, because the exact same problem was occurring. Not only that, the plastic around the display had a nice new crack in it. Which they denied responsibility for.

I was not pleased.

Now, I don't want to mention any names, but it was Phil's Computers on Pelham St in Carlton.

Anyway, now the computer is in another shop, and we have brought out our backup computer, and have connected using dialup. Soon we'll get it hooked up to the network proper, but for now, some access is better than no access.

Our friend Ken from Singapore (he of the art and the zoo is in town for a visit. Yesterday we drove out to the Healesville sanctuary, which turned out to be more zoo than sanctuary. But it was quite cool. Every exhibit featured wildlife native to Australia, which was good because we got to see some local things we hadn't ever seen before, like Tasmanian devils and pygmy possums. The koalas and echidnas were active as well, which is unusual. The highlight (at least for Marjorie and me) was the lyrebird. We had seen one of these before in the wild but this time we got to hear him display for a prospective mate. Lyrebirds are the best mimics in the world, capable of imitating barking dogs, chain saws, camera shutter noises, etc., but this one seemed intent on just imitating local birds. Finally, after a few minutes, we were presented with an uncanny imitation of an ambulance siren, that even transitioned between the slow rising/falling note and the alternating high-low sounds just like the real thing. Very interesting.

I joined the fantasy football league at work. That's fantasy Australian rules football, actually. As I can't name a single player, it's going to be tough. So I picked every player in the league who's named "Mark". My team name is the All-Marks.

Woo hoo!

Find soccer team (Mark)


I think I finally found my team -- Middle Park -- and they play just up the road. There's actually three teams; firsts and seconds that compete hard, and a third that is more of a show-up-and-play social team like I had in Singapore. They train on Tuesday and Thursday nights. I practiced with them on Thursday, and boy is my [everything] tired. Not used to doing actual drills and such. We did running drills as well as pushups and situps. Afterwards everyone went to the pub, and I chatted with just about everyone. There's guys from all over -- England, Chile, Scotland, France. They used to have an American, who was really good apparently, so everyone is calling me the "replacement Yank".

Although they take the game seriously, it seems more of a social club. To wit: at the end of the night at the pub, they said to me, "You should keep coming out. Oh, and if you want to play some soccer too, that would be great!"

The company I'm working for just landed a choice new contract with Lonely Planet, to do some work on their website. I'm hoping I get a chance to work on it when my current project is done. How cool would that be?

Flotsam.

It's Labour Day weekend here. Just like Labor day in the states, it's a three-day weekend at the end of summer. By good fortune, the weather is supposed to be in the 30s (that's a good thing here). We're going to try to hit the beach.

In chess news, I've been playing a guy who's a bit better than me, but who I can beat on a good day. But today I played a guy who just wiped the table with me, two games. A good dose of humility. Part of the reason that chess is fascinating to me is because you can follow all the supposed rules of strategy, and see them work, but then good players are still able to drive in a wedge and crash over you like a wave (to mix a metaphor).

The last great physicist of glory days of the first half of the last century died this week. This was the guy who figured out how the sun shines. I always wanted to meet him.

The Station Agent is a great little movie.

New Aussie term: "to spit the dummy". A dummy is another word for a pacifier here. So, like a baby would spit out a pacifier when pitching a fit, spitting the dummy is having a tantrum. Also known as "cracking the shits" or "having a tantie".

Besides taking first place at bar trivia tonight, we also learned an interesting additional bit of trivia: apparently, Guy Pierce and Hugh Jackman live right on our street. From what we heard, Guy has grown his hair and beard long to avoid recognition, and Hugh is a regular at a neighborhood cafe.

Aussie term. "Grog" is somewhat archaic slang for beer. To take "a bog" is to defecate. Hence, a "grog bog" is the equivalent of the "beer shits". Thank you and good night.

Caught Mudhoney last night at the Corner Hotel. A solid set, with a good mix of old and new. But overly smoky. Mudhoney is a band that I'm happy to have just grind out albums and tour, forever. Most bands have one essential member; they have three, in Mark Arm, the singer/songwriter, Dan Peters, the drummer, and especially (I decided last night) Steve Turner, the guitarist.

The dog's favorite food is, officially: cheese.

Geek alert. I made an interesting discovery recently. The building next door to my work is the State Library of Victoria. And, they have an entire room dedicated to chess. So, a couple of times over the past few week, I've started grabbing a quick lunch and running over to get in a quick game against random strangers. How geeky is that? Geeky enough, at least, to not even mention it to my coworkers yet.

Laika nearly dug her way out of the backyard yesterday while we were at the wine festival, as we were gone for thirteen hours. So today we took her with us when we went to breakfast at an outdoor cafe.

A bird pooped on her head.

Afterwards, we took her to the dog park.

A bird pooped on her head.

What are the odds?

Maybe we'll rename her after Steve Martin's dog in The Jerk.

Fruits of the vine. Yesterday we boarded a bus with a dozen or so of my cow orkers and headed out to the yearly Grape Grazing festival. We hit the first winery by 10:30 am. By the fourth winery, there was a lot less swishing and swirling; the Grape Grazing festival had become more of a Wine Swilling festival. Twice we ended up behind another bus full of women exhibitionists.

The festival was hosted by Honda, who recommend a nice Cabernet Sauvignon before getting behind the wheel.

We had a fantastic time.

Call me the man from Nantucket. I took third place in this year's Valentine's Day Limerick Contest. This year, your limerick had to reference medical pioneers, skin conditions, or microscopic life. So my limerick is about the little creature that lives in your eyelashes.

I had another submission that I thought was better, but probably got marked off because it was off-color, and maybe because the last line doesn't scan perfectly. You'll have to find it yourself.

If you're at all interested in the workings of the brain, biology, evolution, or conciousness, might I suggest getting a dog?

I mean, in addition to all the usual accolades of dog ownership, it's fascinating to this other mind, this other kind of mind, living in your household.

The communication barrier is between us and her is bewildering to me. There's just no way to tell her some things. It kills me that when she arrived home here, she didn't even know she was staying. When we go for a walk, she doesn't know which way we're going to turn, at every intersection. When we go out without her, she doesn't know if it's for a minute or for eight hours.

I was surprised to see her start exhibiting behaviours appropriate to her breed. She won't fetch things, except at the beach -- where she'll swim out and fetch (other dog's) balls and sticks, then come back and drop them on the beach, just like a good retriever should. I never realized such a specific behaviour could be bred for, even if it's substituting balls for ducks. But why not? Beavers build dams on instinct alone, and spiders spin webs. I tend to think of such specific behaviours as learned, not ingrained. Evolution in action, even if the selection isn't "natural".

Which makes me wonder -- why have they never bred dogs strictly for intelligence? At least, not that I've ever heard of, or can find with a web search. Why concentrate on floppy ears, miniature size, long or short hair? I wonder just how smart you can make a dog. (Just out of curiousity. Laika, bless her heart, is in the fat of the bell curve, methinks, but we have no plans to trade her in.)

Recording history. I have a kind of fascination with things that are lost to history:

The loss of the Library at Alexandria -- almost inconceivable.

Two whole Shakespeare plays -- Love's Labour's Won and Cardenio -- didn't survive to the modern era.

Lennon and McCartney sat down, early on, and knocked out about fifty songs, which have vanished into the mists of time.

Countless early movies have been lost, or survive in only partial or edited form. (I for one would love to see the orignal ending to The Magnificent Ambersons.)

Many movies are in the process of being lost. There are people trying to prevent that.

Most of early television is gone. People just didn't think it would ever be considered important. Even recently, most of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson from the 1970's is nowhere to be found, I understand.

Those who don't learn from history, they say, are doomed to repeat it. So, I often wonder if there's anything happening these days that's being lost, because we don't realise that future generations might be interested.

Which brings me to an idea for a web site I'd like to implement, if I had more time. It would be appealing in the present mostly to music geeks. In fact, most would consider it frivolous at best.

What I would like to create is "gigography.com", a web site that archives concerts. It would list the band, venue, and date at a minimum, but also trivia, band line ups, set lists, opening bands, audio files, etc. Not just new concerts but shows dating back in history. You could easily browse back and check out the Woodstock lineup, or the Beatles set list on the Ed Sullivan show.

Until recently, this would be an impossible task for one person. But now with the concept of wikis, where anyone can add content, it's quite doable. You would be surprised how many fans have already compiled similar lists (cough) for their favorite artist. But so far, nothing has been centralized. It would be a simple matter to put the plea out there to various music lists to get the ball rolling.

Pointless? Maybe. Historically necessary? Well, doubtful. Fun? Surely.

Life goes on. We drank a toast to Mike at the Rufus Wainwright show last night. (Don't know if Mike was a fan, but it wouldn't surprise me.) An intimate venue, and a fantastic show. I don't think I've ever seen an audience held in such a trance. While the songs were intense, Rufus was jovial in between, joking a lot about being on a diet because his mother said he was fat recently. And because it was just him, he was free to rearrange his songs on the fly, and skip over or redo bits at will. An enormous talent. I never realized what a good piano player he is, too.

We both thought about Mike again during a song Rufus did about Jeff Buckley, who died tragically at a young age. Who frew da ham?

By an odd coincidence -- I watched an old M*A*S*H rerun earlier in the day. It was the one where the nurses all get sent off, and it featured a folk singer that played a sad song in the officer's club. In the closing credits it was revealed that the singer was Loudon Wainwright III, Rufus's father.

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.

Just before we left the states, we took a last trip to NYC, where we got to see David Bowie in an intimate venue. That was all Mike's doing; he scored the tickets through his musical connections.

I have a handful of other memories of Mike, and they're almost all gems; an Elvis show in Nashville, Steve Earle 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. Go easy, my man.

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.

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, which is 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.

Yesterday was Australia Day. We celebrated by going to the beach, having a barbecue, and 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.

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.

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. Ma Bell is a punk ass bitch.

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 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.

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.

An interesting read. The Edge magazine asked a bunch of really smart people, "What do you believe is true even though you can't prove it?". Their responses are quite interesting.

Today was the first day in Australia that we both went to our respective jobs, leaving the dog alone. She was pretty good, but she did get into the recyclables -- she dragged a six pack box and two empty Corona bottles to her dog bed. We're starting to take photos of the artwork she creates each day she's left alone; we'll post them en masse at some point.

Marjorie's at her new job, which I'll let her tell you about. Me, I'm in the new office building, which is a big, sterile Gattaca-like monstrosity. It does have a great choice of restaurants though (a giant food court, and Chinatown and the Greek area right up the street). Our office space is, unfortunately, a newsroom type of office; I can peek over my monitor and spot just about all fifty or so people in the company. Fifteen floors up, but the view is mostly just the ugly tops of other lower buildings.

Marjorie starts her new job tomorrow. I don't go back to work until Wednesday. Actually, most of my company doesn't go back until the 10th. We're starting in a brand new office building, that's right on the tram line that starts right by our house. Nice.

It'll be hard to get back on sleep schedule; I've been staying up until 3 or 4 a.m. these days. My interest in chess has had a resurgence; I've been up late playing people from all over the world on Yahoo games. I'm only a mediocre player, but the game still fascinates me. (Particularly the games of Bobby Fischer. Too bad he's completely lost the plot; it kills me that he and Kasparov are both still alive, and will never play each other.)

Ouch. When Marjorie was back in the states, she got me some Dave's Insanity salsa and sauce. It's, like, really hot and stuff. I can only do about a spoonful of the salsa at one sitting. It hurts, but I get a strange sort of happy buzz from it -- probably endorphins or something. Heat aside, too, i'ts actually tastier than anything you can buy here.

Took a nice trip today down the Mornington Peninsula, all the way to Sorrento and Portsea, and even beyond to the national park on Point Nepean. We went to the beach as well, and I went skimboarding for the first time in, oh, ten years or so. I can still jump on the thing but I seem to have forgotten what to do when I get the waves. Still, I managed to show up some ten year old kids.

Though there were signs for kangaroos and echidnas, the only real wildlife we saw were some Australasian Gannets, which are common there, but still a new sighting and pretty cool.

A neat catch on TV tonight; we caught the film adaptation of King Rat. I read the book, and never even realized they made a movie out of it, way back in 1965. And they did a really good job with it, too. It's set in Singapore (in a Japanese prisoner of war camp), though it obviously wasn't filmed in Singapore (there were mountains in the background).

We're planning a getaway for later in the week. We'll probably just rent a car and take a trip down the Mornington Peninsula towards the ocean. Today was actually cold here, but it's supposed to warm up.

I've got a lot of problems with you people. The internet is abuzz with talk of Festivus, a holiday that derives from an episode of Seinfeld. People are throwing Festivus parties, sending Festivus cards, etc.

Which is all well and good. But if you ask me, if there's one holiday tradition that should be reborn, it's Saturnalia.

Memories. Check out the top 100 toys of the 70s or thereabouts. I (or a friend maybe) had 97, 95, 93, 90, 86, 83, 81, 79, 74, 71, 70, 69, 68, 64, 62, 61, 58, 57, 56, 54, 48, 47, 46, 44, 41, 38, 36, 35, 28, 23, 19, 10, 8, 7, and, uh, 1, I guess.

46 (Ricochet Racers) was my favorite, and I had totally forgotten about it for the last thirty years.

The year in music. Another year without me devouring any albums in particular. The problem this time wasn't the location (Singapore was a musical wasteland) but rather the lack of a car. I just don't listen to music that much without one. I could take a CD player on the tram but I find it cumbersome to carry them around. And MP3 players are still too labour intensive to load up. Around the house I never sit idle long enough to concentrate on the music. There's nothing like a car CD player for music enjoyment.

I did hear some good albums this year from Tom Waits, Jet, the Shins, Ron Sexsmith, Franz Ferdinand, the Finn Brothers, PJ Harvey, Modest Mouse, Sam Phillips, and Keane. But I haven't really fully digested any of them.

I do have an opinion on the Song of the Year -- Jet's "Look What You've Done". It's like a lost Beatles track. I just learned it on guitar today and it has sweet little chord structure to boot. Marjorie likes it too, but we're both of the opinion that the song needs just one more idea in it for it to have become a true classic. Jet is a young band though, and definitely going places. They hail from right here in Melbourne, so I'm looking forward to catching these guys live.

One more thing I'm excited about -- My Eagles are 13 and 1! Too bad their star receiver is injured and probably out for the season. Typical.

Five things I'm excited about:

1. We have tickets to see The Polyphonic Spree at the Forum and the Shins at the Corner Hotel.

2. We found the necessary centerpiece for my traditional Christmas eve dinner -- pierogies. It won't be the same without my grandmother cooking them, though. We also have a turkey for Christmas.

3. On Christmas Eve the Cassini probe we sent to Saturn will start the process of dropping a probe onto Saturn's moon Titan. This may be the last, best chance to see anything like this in my lifetime.

4. Books, books, books. I had forgotten how many I had. I'm trying to simultaneously re-read Catch-22, Beatlesongs, and The Winter Of Our Discontent.

5. Some time off. Since the office is moving, tomorrow is the last day I can work until at least the 4th of January. Which kind of sucks while I'm contracting, but it is still time off.

Ten dog behaviours of Laika, the dog:

1. Playing with her new squeaky toy. The first toy we ever got her that hasn't been killed within a day. We're guessing it's because it squeaks when she bites too hard. She's taken to whimpering while she plays with it, which we can't figure out.

2. Sleeping with four legs in the air.

3. Sneaking off to sleep on the guest bed.

4. Running her face through high weeds.

5. Sitting down when another dog tries to sniff her butt.

6. Hiding from the vacuum cleaner. Every dog does this, but we're happy to know she's normal.

7. Yelping at puppies, especially when two are fighting each other. It gets her really excited but she doesn't know how to express it.

8. Chewing on sticks. If she finds a piece that's three or four inches long, she will eat it.

9. Trying to get you to play tug-of-war with the leash if she's not ready to leave the park yet.

10. Jumping up and down whenever Marjorie or I head for the front door, if she hasn't been to the park in the last two hours. I think she thinks that we don't ever take her unless she shows enough enthusiasm.

Corporate shill. A new list of products I endorse:

Braun electric razors. I used the same one for over a decade back in the States. I had to give it up to come overseas, and used some other brand in Singapore. Now I have me a brand new Braun and will never use anything else.

Jock's Ice Cream (83 Victoria Ave, Albert Park). The ice-cream place around the corner from us. It's really, really good, and dangerous to have so close. For something different, try the coconut-lime.

Redken Rough Paste. Yeah, it's hair product. But it works so much better than any spray, mousse, gel, or wax I've tried. Redken Rough Paste. Ask for it by name.

The Eclipse IDE. No IDE has been able to tempt me to stop using just an editor to develop, until now. I've been using this to develop Java at my new job, and I won't go back. It even makes CVS workable.

Team America: World Police. Parker and Stone's message is starting to get a little tiresome, but this is still a damn funny movie. "America, fuck yeah! Back again to save the motherfuckin' day!"

New Aussieisms that I've noticed:

"How did you pull up?" Basically, "How did you feel afterwards/the next morning?" Used when inquiring about the after-effects of a night of drinking or strenuous activity. Quite common.

"How good is that?" "Isn't that great?" Quite common as well.

"You should call in." "You should come by." Actually, this may be more Irish than Aussie.

"Chockas" Chock-full of things, people, or events. As in, "We tried to get lunch at the restaurant on the corner but the place was totally chockas." I had never noticed before, but this is rather common as well.

I've started to blog several times in the past week, then for some reason couldn't get into it. So now I'm just going to force it out, to clear out my blotter, so to speak. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Stuff! Our things have arrived. Wheee!!!!

We've been living basically out of a suitcase for two years while all our worldly possessions have sat collecting dust in storage for the last two years. Hence, unpacking is a trip down memory lane, and our house is instantly more homey.

I'm currently most excited about: THE COUCH, my books, kitchenwares, Marjorie's guitar, my leather jacket, other clothes, and the extra bed. Christmas has come early.

Spree. Purchases made this past Friday/Saturday/Sunday:

Computer desk

Six kitchen chairs

Buffet cabinet

Vacuum cleaner

Tall bathroom cabinet

Saw

Two screwdrivers

Shoe rack

Microwave

Light bulbs

Brita filter

Barbecue

Can of spray paint

Several bunches of coat hangers

Two basil plants

Shelves

Subaru Forester (okay, we only rented that)

Bottle of Cointreau

Bottle of Cuervo

One genius, two genius. Marjorie and I had a dinner table discussion the other day about musical genius in regards to bands. More specifically, which bands are based around one genius, and which have more than one? I guess what we were really talking about was songwriting genius more than the ability to play an instrument. We broke things up into categories, and had a lively little discussion. However, the opinions expressed here are mine, not hers. Solo artists can obviously only be single geniuses, and are not listed here.

Two geniuses. The rare confluence of talent that happens only once or twice in a lifetime. Only two bands here:

The Beatles

The Clash

Two near geniuses that add up to more than one genius. Sometimes people can only achieve their best through working with others. This is not to damn these people with faint praise; genius is not a word to be thrown around lightly, and these each add up to more than one.

The Rolling Stones

REM

The Smiths

U2 (actually, a sum total of more than two, I suppose)

One genius, one wannabe genius. Often times a genius will inspire another in the band to better things than they would otherwise achieve, but at the end of the day, there is only one:

The Pixies

Crowded House

XTC

One genius.

Nirvana

The Who (lots of instrumental genius here though)

The White Stripes

Radiohead

Weezer

Many others

Your mileage may, of course, vary. Afterward we had a ton of fun taking turns playing DJ while goofing around with the dog.

My three favorite job titles here in Australia:

"Spruiker" -- a salesperson who addresses passing members of the public from the door of a store, bar, or other establishment.

"Stevedore" -- One who is employed in the loading or unloading of ships.

"Removalist" -- Our office is moving to a new location, and the people that are going to clear out our office have this title. That'd be a cool job title to have.

Spring is gone. Literally. I found out today that Australians mark summer as starting the first of December, basing it not on astronomy, but on the months. Strange to me, but when I explained to my cow orkers that summer starts on the 21st for us, their response was "What? Why?".

So now it is officially no longer spring here. On cue, it rained for most of the day.

Spring has sprung, it seems. About time, too, as it's three weeks until summer. With the heat has come the mosquitos (aka mozzies, which seem to love me as much as North American and Asian mosquitoes) and flies. But the weather is still very nice, and there are lots of outdoor cafes and restaurants.

On Saturday we went to a housewarming party/barbecue for one of my cow orkers, on the rooftop deck of her new townhouse. It was beautiful and clear and the full moon made an appearance late. Fun bunch of folks I work with.

Sunday we saw Garden State, which was first-rate.

Tomorrow night, PJ Harvey.

Elvis Costello is playing up the road right now, and somehow, I'm not there. It wasn't in the cards this time.

Tomorrow, though, we're off to see the Finn brothers. Front row!

This Thursday, we're invited to a Thanksgiving dinner at the home of some Americans we met. I'm excited. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, or at least my favorite meal.

Then, next week, we have good seats again for PJ Harvey. There are advantages to living in a country that doesn't have the internet saturation of the USA -- you can score good concert tickets if you're among the savvy.

Comparing countries. I made a couple of graphs, just out of curiousity, with a little help from NCES's Create A Graph.

First, here's a comparison of Australia, the USA, and China, in terms of area. Pretty close, yes?

Now, see the graph comparing their population.

The point? I have none. I just think it's interesting.

Book roundup. Recent reads:

Call Of The Wild/White Fang (Jack London). I've read a lot of London, but somehow, never these books. Now that I have a dog I figured it was about time. Good stuff. London knows his dogs.

Great Expectations (Charles Dickens). I'm reading this for historical reasons. Recently I came across a couple of separate references to this novel which refer to it as a cultural phenomenon of its time. Pretty much the whole world, it seems, was reading it when it came out, serialized in a magazine. So I thought I would too.

Singularity Sky (Charles Stross). Science fiction candy. The guy obviously reads Slashdot. Some seriously crazy technical references, not dumbed down. Still, his short stories are better.

Titan (Stephen Baxter). Timely reading. Written in 1997, the story begins with the Cassini/Huygens probe -- which lands a month and a half from now -- finding evidence of life on Saturn's moon Titan.

Odd goings-on at the local Borders. Browsing in the bookstore this evening, I came across a ball-point pen that someone had left on a shelf -- not a skinny, cheap one, but a big fat nice one. I picked it up, and hit the button to push out the tip -- and promptly got shocked. What the...?

Why? What purpose could it serve? My immediate (and far too overdramatic) thought was that it some sort of spy pen, like the briefcase that shoots poison gas at you if you open it wrong. Then I thought, maybe it's a self-defense device, like pepper spray.

Of course, like the dumber maze rat, I had to get shocked a second time before I learned.

An internet search cleared up the mystery; it's just a novelty.

I just hope I wasn't being filmed.

Resuming my job as a cultural ambassador, today I tried a famous Australian "delicacy". Composed of yeast and sea salt, vegemite is typically spread on toast at brekkie. The cafe at work has little packaged individual servings of it (surprisingly to me, made by Kraft). Taking the advice of the Aussies I work with, I spread a very thin amount on my English Muffin. It has the appearance and consistency of gunky axle grease.

Americans notoriously react negatively to it. I thought I might be different; yeast and salt don't sound like a bad combination to me.

I have to say though. Ick.

The other night I proofread fifteen OCR'ed pages of an old book about the influence of ancient Greece on modern times. Why? For Project Gutenberg, a project (started well before the internet) to make publicly available books of interest that are in the public domain. Most of the books had copyrights that expired, or were old enough that they were never copyrighted. Check out some of the amazing books that are available for you to browse or download.

Music. I think I've mentioned here a few times my plan to have a home music server where I would just start downloading everything, without even considering the quality. There'd be a lot I would never listen to -- but, so? Memory is relatively cheap; I think the tendency to be discriminating is merely a holdover from a time where a large number of albums would require lots of money and space.

Well, here's a story about a guy who's trying to do it. His goals are, at least on the surface, more noble; he claims to be an archivist. Interesting, though.

It's funny, 'cuz it's true. Today's Overboard. 2.4 seconds is maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but this morning Laika wolfed her bowl of food in under 30 seconds.

The comics I keep thinking about in relation to her, though, are a series of classic Far Sides. It's obvious that Gary Larson knows his dogs:

1. The one with the two dogs watching their food being prepared, with big smiles. The one dog says to the other, "Oh boy, it's dog food again!"

2. The one where the dog is picking up another dog for a date, and he says to her, "You look lovely tonight, Alice -- and whatever you rolled in sure does stink."

3. The one where the dog is riding in the car, and you can see that outside a nuclear bomb has gone off, and people are running around screaming in terror. The dog, though, is looking at another dog, who's just sitting there on the sidewalk. The caption reads, "Suddenly, Sparky saw something that interested her."

It's Friday evening here, and pretty nice out. We're sitting out in the backyard now because it's supposed to be rainy and cold again this weekend. Phoo. We just cooked up an awesome Mexican meal of soft tacos and beans, with Coronas on the side. Marjorie is reading over my shoulder and the dog is sitting next to me chewing noisily on a piece of bone.

Our stuff is supposed to arrive in port on the 17th, and then spend God knows how long in quarantine. But soon. We simply CANNOT WAIT.

We did get a box of groceries that Marjorie mailed from the states. Customs confiscated some of the stuff, like the black bean mix (because, apparently, it had chicken in it) and a Sante Fe rice mix, presumably because of the corn. They are seriously uptight about agricultural imports here.

The IOCCC winners have been posted; mine is under "schnitzi". Ah, the sweet buzz of fame. Actually, I haven't even shown it to anyone at work.

No chance to see the aurora last night. Actually, the sky was clear and blue in the morning when I woke up, so I missed my chance, I think.

It struck me earlier today how much the "Woy-yoy-yo"s in Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldier" sound like the theme song to The Banana Splits. Coincidence? Conspiracy?

There's a chance that I'll be able to see something tonight that's on my Life List of Things To See. Heavy sunspot activity means that the aurora australis (a.k.a. the southern lights) should be visible from here tonight. If the weather cooperates, which it isn't. Bummer.

Mall rats. Today we took a train a good ways out of town just to go to a mall. Marjorie convinced me by showing me on their website that they had a Wendy's, my favorite fast food. It turned out to be really quite a huge mall, and we had big stupid grins on our faces as we arrived, which we attribute to our being American. There's something fundamental in the American psyche that requires an occasional mall visit, and it's been years for me.

It turns out that the Wendy's was an ice cream store. Phooey. The excitement of being in a mall wore off rather quickly, in fact.

In the Borders there, though, I finally found a copy of the November issue of Dr. Dobbs Journal in which I am mentioned on page 16 for the IOCCC thing. Aw yeah.

Cup day. Today is an officially sanctioned holiday here in Melbourne -- Melbourne Cup Day. Perhaps the only holiday anywhere that's based around a sporting event? Lots of big hats on the tram. I went in to work thinking there'd at least be some skeleton crew there, but there was nobody. So I left. Time to go play!

Two things I haven't seen in years, that I just saw:

A rainbow, on our way home from the dog park. Then, half an hour later --

Hail.

Move your bloomin' arse! For once, the weather was crappy leading up to the weekend, then turned beautiful: not the other way around. We just went city exploring, like we hadn't done in a long while. Me in shorts.

Late in the afternoon, we headed back to a bar just across from Flinders Street station, which is in the very heart of town, to watch people come back from the races. It's great stuff, and we can't wait to do it up ourselves next year when we have more disposable income. It's rather like Ascot opening day in My Fair Lady, except that everyone is like Eliza instead of the snobby rich people. Ladies in fancy dress and big hats with feathers; men in suits or tuxes; everyone drinking a lot. Monday (and maybe Tuesday, I haven't quite figured it out) is a work holiday here in Melbourne, just for the Melbourne Cup, which all the other races have been leading up to. Of course, being paid hourly, there's no real motivation for me to take a holiday.

Marjorie had an interview the other day that sounds like it went really well. We'll keep our fingers crossed. That'll be a good one to check off the list.

Happy birthday, Mom!

The dog continues to provide comic relief. Now she's taken to attacking her tail. Not chasing it, but actually catching it.

I'm fascinated by the race of hobbit people that have been unearthed. I'm sure the scientists are cringing about them being called "hobbits" everywhere. The significance of this find can't be overstated. I mean, the reason you've heard about neanderthals is because they used to be considered our nearest neighbor in the evolutionary tree. Now we have a new closest relative. Wild stuff.

Marjorie had an interview the other day that sounds like it went really well. We'll keep our fingers crossed. That'll be a good one to check off the list.

Happy birthday, Mom!

The dog continues to provide comic relief. Now she's taken to attacking her tail. Not chasing it, but actually catching it.

I'm fascinated by the race of hobbit people that have been unearthed. I'm sure the scientists are cringing about them being called "hobbits" everywhere. The significance of this find can't be overstated. I mean, the reason you've heard about neanderthals is because they used to be considered our nearest neighbor in the evolutionary tree. Now we have a new closest relative. Wild stuff.

Everyone seems to know a list of celebrities that they share a birthday with. More interesting to me is the list of people who were born the same year as me. I came across just a list. A few of the notables:

Troy Aikman - Rick Astley - Stephen Baldwin - Halle Berry - Edie Brickell - Jeff Buckley - Cindy Crawford - John Daly - Stefan Edberg - Jon Favreau - Ben Folds - Samantha Fox - C. Thomas Howell - Janet Jackson - Paula Jones - Sinead O'Connor - Luke Perry - Andy Richter - Chris Robinson - David Schwimmer - Matthew Sweet - Mike Tyson.

What a graduating class that would be.

When I was a kid I remember occasional visits to relatives where, after dinner, I would be made to sit at the dinner table while the adults talked, when what I really, really wanted to do was to go play. How could these adults want to just sit here and talk? There's all these great toys, right over there!

That, I think, is what the life of a dog is like. In my efforts to empathise with the new dog, that's the example that keeps coming back into my head. There is nothing she wants more than to be out on walkies. Her tail starts wagging every time one of us walks in the direction of the front door.

But, too often, she's stuck at the dinner table while the grownups talk. She's definitely settling in, and has already learned to manipulate us with sad looks, especially when she thinks she's about to be left alone. She's also testing her limits a bit at the dog park and the beach, not coming when she's called. She's a very silly girl, though, and is continually providing us comic relief.

Look Ma, no cord! With the help of a downloaded patch, our wireless internet connection now works, and I'm blogging from bed. Sweet!

We tried a new Mexican restaurant tonight, Los Amates in Fitzroy. It was just okay. We think the problem may be getting the necessary ingredients imported into a country with very tight agricultural import restrictions. Poblano peppers are just nowhere to be had on this continent.

Atlanta, 1996. The Olympics are in town. At a neighborhood restaurant I end up dining at the next table over from Pierre Salinger. This is a year before his ignominious exit from ABC news.

Wow, those are some eyebrows.

I mention it only because now it seems he has died.

I love articles like this: Endangered species: US programmers. To quote in part:

Since the dotcom bust in 2000-2001, nearly a quarter of California technology workers have taken nontech jobs, according to a study of 1 million workers released last week by Sphere Institute, a San Francisco Bay Area public policy group. The jobs they took often paid less.

What they don't realize is that the quarter of the programmers they said were forced to take other jobs were the quarter who didn't belong there in the first place. The business was overrun by people from other fields who had no business or aptitude for the subject, but just wanted their piece of the pie in the dotcom boom. At my old job we rejected hundreds if not thousands of applicants.

Anyway, I really do love articles like that, because they tend to discourage other career opportunists. And as for offshoring, I know a lot of companies that have tried it once, but not many that have tried it twice.

My job here seems to be going exceedingly well, all in all. It's a good bunch of people, and they seem to be really happy with the work I'm doing. I've gotten my groove back, and have also discovered the key to happiness at work, for me: stop screwing around on the net. I've had jobs in the past with free reign to surf at will, and it's a dangerous lure. Without it I'm considerably more productive, and more content as a result.

This new work philosophy comes at a price, though; in idle moments where formerly I would wander out on the web, I now take to biting my nails. It got bad for a while, but I'm stepping up the battle -- I mark up my hangnails with a ballpoint pen so I don't bite them, and have even taken to covering them with band-aids.

I love articles like this: Endangered species: US programmers. To quote in part:

Since the dotcom bust in 2000-2001, nearly a quarter of California technology workers have taken nontech jobs, according to a study of 1 million workers released last week by Sphere Institute, a San Francisco Bay Area public policy group. The jobs they took often paid less.

What they don't realize is that the quarter of the programmers they said were forced to take other jobs were the quarter who didn't belong there in the first place. The business was overrun by people from other fields who had no business or aptitude for the subject, but just wanted their piece of the pie in the dotcom boom. At my old job we rejected hundreds if not thousands of applicants.

Anyway, I really do love articles like that, because they tend to discourage other career opportunists. And as for offshoring, I know a lot of companies that have tried it once, but not many that have tried it twice.

My job here seems to be going exceedingly well, all in all. It's a good bunch of people, and they seem to be really happy with the work I'm doing. I've gotten my groove back, and have also discovered the key to happiness at work, for me: stop screwing around on the net. I've had jobs in the past with free reign to surf at will, and it's a dangerous lure. Without it I'm considerably more productive, and more content as a result.

This new work philosophy comes at a price, though; in idle moments where formerly I would wander out on the web, I now take to biting my nails. It got bad for a while, but I'm stepping up the battle -- I mark up my hangnails with a ballpoint pen so I don't bite them, and have even taken to covering them with band-aids.

Speed. Hoorah! Just got our DSL connection going. The hardware was delivered this morning, and Marjorie got it set up all by herself (almost). Speed is good. We also got the wireless modem, but are just wired in at the moment. Will try to get the wireless working tomorrow, which will be nice.

Yesterday at the dog park Laika noticed for the first time a metal statue of a dog that sits off to one side. It was hilarious -- she started by barking at it, then circling around it growling with her teeth bared and hackles raised. She was totally freaked out by it.

We're getting to know everyone who goes to the dog park regularly. The people we talk to, but no one knows each other's names, just the names of everyone else's dogs. Funny how that works.