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.

Woo hoo! I can legally say schizzle my nizzle!

Mixed bag.

We just got back from Bruce Almighty. Hey, every now and then, I'll admit it, I suffer from the particularly American need to just shut off my brain. Is there any point in my rating it? You know exactly how it was, if you've ever seen a Jim Carrey movie before. Actually, this seemed less funny than his typical fare, which probably means it's REALLY not funny if you don't like him.

Is there anything better than the smell of curry cooking? You can dance in a cloud of it down at Little India here every evening, but often you get it just walking by people's houses. I'll know I'm dead when I've been lying in a hospital bed and suddenly smell curry.

Wikipedia is a free, volunteer-run online encyclopedia that's made leaps and bounds as far as content recently. It's really quite useful and wonderful now. Check it out, just go and click around on whatever interests you.

I can't wait for my SARS kit, and for the toilet ratings.

The Trivia Kings. Last night was our night to run the trivia contest at a local pub. Actually, the usual hosts had a bunch of questions as well, so we split up the duties, and ended up with a marathon round of 100 questions total. This was just too many, and they really had to fly through them towards the end. But everyone had fun, it seemed. We decided we could run a really kick-ass contest on our own, given the chance.

Here are the questions we asked. See how you do; I'll post the answers in a couple of days.

Back. Just had my "IVU"; a pretty grueling ordeal. After changing into their standard doubly-modest hospital gown (two pieces, plus you leave your underwear on; a far cry from the typical drafty American gown where you have to CYA like a middle-manager), they laid me out on the X-ray table and proceded to inject me with dye and prod me and roll me over for over an hour. At one point they laid me on my back and put two big stone-like things on my kidneys, then strapped a clear plastic band over my torso and tightened, and tightened... I have mammogram empathy now, I guess. Anyway, it'll be a week until my next appointment when I get the results.

Because I had to fast since last night, I treated myself to Diandin Leluk (that Thai place I raved about before) after the procedure. I tried a couple of dishes I hadn't had before -- the chicken coconut soup, and the deep fried chicken in red wine sauce, both of which were merely outstanding, but not at the level where I want to kidnap the chef like on previous visits.

Who's a bad-ass? From the coach's report of yesterday's game:

Ventz 5pm scored an impressive 7-0 win against Summer Ville. Mark S, Graeme , Jeff , Edward (Guest Player) , Ben(2) and Steven A did the trick for us.

5pm walloped Sumer Ville 7-0! We never looked back after Mark's 5min headed goal from a corner. Great result for such a new team. Opponents were missing a few regulars but still 7-0..................! The 5pm team is going well with about 20 players but still needs games to gel them together as its a mix of new and old recruits.

That's right, baybee... The game-winner, coming up from playing defense. And we shut them out to boot.

Obviously, I've been feeling better; no pain at all yesterday or today so far. I'm just now leaving to go get my extensive X-rays, though.

Yes! I'm so glad they caught this guy. Friends of mine were at the Olympic Park hours before the bombing, and easily could have been victims. I hope they catch all the asshats that have been helping him too, and lock 'em up.

Coping. The past few days have been more tolerable, as I've taken ot the strategy of uber-medicating myself at the first hint of pain. Tomorrow I get the super X-ray, where they inject me with dye (I'm hoping it's just a regular needle, and not one of those big ol' amniocentesis needles), which I'm expecting to look something like this.

Interesting possibilities ahead -- I may have to jet the country temporarily after my temporary dependent pass expires in week or two, while Marjorie's back in the US. So, I'm having to pick somewhere nearby that I can get a decent deal to. Marjorie's given me a list of places that I'm not allowed to go without her, for safety, medical, and jealousy concerns, including Cambodia, Burma, and Borneo. I'm leaning towards a place that I had never heard of before yesterday -- Fukuoka, a city on the south island of Japan, which looks to have a lot of interesting historical and cultural sites, as well as having all the mod cons. Japan is awfully far away, though; I never realized before coming out here, but it's as long from Singapore to Tokyo as it is from Atlanta to Anchorage, Alaska.

The Pain-O-Meter. For those of you keeping score at home, it got about up to a 9 last night after I blogged. That lasted only fifteen minutes until the drugs kicked in. It came back a half an hour later, but again only lasted fifteen minutes or so. Got to sleep around 2am, and slept fine until 9am when the pain birds woke me up again. I'd rate it a 6 right now. It's moving down a bit -- now it feels like I've been kicked in the, uh, tackle, but at least it's moving along.

Today was better; I had a few impending attacks that seemed to be held off by the drugs. Actually, it's coming on pretty bad again right now and I'm waiting for the pills to kick in.

Forgot to mention; the four different drugs they gave me yesterday came to a grand total of S$7.15 (like, US$4). Crazy! A country where drugs aren't priced like a luxury item.

Ouchy. C'mon, pills, do your thing.

If you've ever seen the movie Full Metal Jacket, you remember the scene where they pin Private Pyle to his bed, and the whole platoon takes a whack at him with a bar of soap wrapped in a towel; afterwards he lies there in bed just crying and going "Ow, ow ow"... That's a pretty good summary of my morning. Kidney stones suck worse than the worst thing ever (and you're talking to a guy whose doctor bent his broken arm the wrong way when trying to set it). I had a 10:30 am appointment to see the doctor; I was up at 5 a.m. from the pain; by 8:45 it was so bad that I just went in for my appointment early to see if they could do something. They were all very nice and accommodating. The X-ray seems to show a good size stone in my left kidney; the pain is probably from a smaller piece in my urethra. I got some new meds; a painkiller, an antacid, an antibiotic, and some sort of liquid (potassium citrate) that's supposed to help break up the stone. I have an appointment for some further, more extensive X-rays, then who knows, maybe that ultrasonic thing. I wish there was something they could amputate.

Woke up yesterday and today to some pretty nasty abdominal pain that didn't seem related to any digestive issues. Today it was bad enough that I figured I had to go do something about it, so I hopped a cab down to Singapore General Hospital. After having my temperature taken at the door and being fitted with a mask (for SARS prevention), I was admitted and given a urine test and had X-rays taken. I'm glad I went down when I did, because by the time all the testing was going on, the pain really became excrutiating. They gave me a shot of something in me bum that seemed to fix me up okay; I'm fine now. No conclusive results yet, but they seem to think it's kidney stones -- a prognosis which, though not life-threatening, promises lots of of pain. Fun fun. I go to see a specialist tomorrow.

Has it been a year already? One year ago today we became husband and wife. Our first year together was nothing if not eventful.

We decided not to make a huge deal out of the day. We did go out for champagne brunch at the Ritz, though. We usually don't go in for the chilled fork, lifted pinky, "More scones, love?" sort of scene but we really had quite an excellent time. The free flow of champagne didn't hurt (at least, not until later).

Apartment hunting on Saturday yielded three no-gos and one place that was super nice, tons of room (three bedrooms!), beautiful greenery out the balcony, big beautiful pool, in our price range -- all in the middle of nowhere (Bukit Timah/PIE area). We were all ready to commit to it, but the more we thought about it, the more we realized that the isolation would be a constant, daily frustration. Bummer. We keep looking.

Wildlife spotting. Most of my wildlife spotting has not been in restaurants, unless you want to count animals that are already cleaned and gutted for cooking. Today, however, while lunching at a local restaurant, I spotted a little nose and whiskers poking out from under a refrigerator in a curtained-off cubbyhole. I first thought mouse, then rat. But then the little critter came out from his cover completely to sniff some section of the floor, and I could tell right away (from all the nature shows I've watched) that it was a shrew. Most probably an Asian musk shrew. For some reason I feel better that it wasn't a rat or a mouse, but apparently these guys are just as qualified to be labelled "vermin". I know every restaurant deals with things like this, but there seemed to be several of them there, and they were infringing on the guest area, so I don't see any need to go back to this place...

The Matrix, Retarded. Saw it with my boss, and we tried to figure it out afterwards, and decided that we might trying to make sense of something that the creator doesn't even have a clear picture of. When the audience is laughing at the movie, not with it, there's something wrong. Obviously, not without its entertaining points, but the fight scenes got boring, the psychobabble was laid on thick, and the plot was almost incomprehensible. I'm surprised as anyone that it sucked for reasons other than Keanu Reeves.

Spam, spam, spam. I've been getting more and more spam these days. One spammer in particular has been offering me a "free trial of HGH" every day -- sometimes two or three times a day -- for the past two months. He keeps varying his mailings to sneak around the filters I have set up. If they ever catch him, I hope it's in Singapore, although maybe a thorough caning is too good for him.

Bossman is reconfiguring our web site and mail server. He says that "dictionary attack" emails (which come from spammers who are trying every stinking word in the dictionary at your hostname -- like aardvark@yourhost.com, abacus@yourhost.com, abalone@yourhost.com -- in an effort to discover addresses they can send spam to) are coming in at a rate of more than one per second.

I can't believe this problem is still ongoing. In fact, it's getting worse. Spam accounts for something like 40% of all email traffic these days. Why can nothing be done? I've seen proposals for a pay system -- where it would cost you something like a nickel per email. I would be in favor.

By the way, it's a bad idea to leave your email address when you post comments; spammers seek them out and add them to their lists.

Return of the Assless Wonder. For a while there, I was actually developing a butt. I even had to buy a pair of fat pants. But, now that I've been getting into some kind of shape, it seems to be disappearing. Aesthetic concerns aside, my job pretty much requires sitting on it all day -- and even with a fairly plush chair, it's been increasingly sore. I even had to use a pillow this past weekend when we rented the car.

In other local news, just when it looked like we were about to be declared SARS-free, somebody goes and mucks it up. And, they've declared martial law across the water in Sumatra. Nothing to worry about here, though; the only time Sumatra seems to affect Singapore at all is when it catches fire.

Some random driving today landed us way out on the west coast of S'pore, where there are acres and acres of cemetaries. Apparently this is where everyone who dies here ends up. Interesting, in that the cemetaries are segregated; we drove through the Hindu and Chinese sections, and also past a number of [something]-atoriums, where they had hundreds of little lockers, presumably for burial urns containing the cremated remains. On a small, densely populated island, what else would you expect?

Marjorie drove for a little bit, out in the middle of nowhere; her first left-side-of-the-road driving experience. She did well. But after I took the wheel back, somehow we suddenly found ourselves on the north part of the island, and almost drove into the Malaysia checkpoint by mistake.

We figured we had to go out to dinner, since we had a car. We did Mexican twice already this week, but it was at the places in Holland Village, which are passable at best. So this time we hit Margaritas, which, near as we can tell, is the only place in town that "gets" Mexican food. Num.