Posted without comment. We just saw this commercial on TV down here.

Your literary quote of the day:

There was something distinctly intimidating about her stare. It seemed to come from a one-woman mob, separated only by time and chance from her knitting bag and a splendid view of the guillotine. -- JD Salinger, "Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters"

Somehow I never noticed this book on our shelves before. So I'm reading it on the tram now, and it's brilliant.

My new crusade: ALL words in book, movie, or song title should be capitalized. Leaving small words like "the" and "and" uncapitalized only leads to confusion. Why not just capitalize them all?

Yesterday we met up with my internet-cum-real-life friend who was in town visiting with his sister. This is the third continent we've met on (previously we've met up in Atlanta and London). Had a great time showing them the city and our neighborhood. He works for Apple, so I got my first look at an iPhone and was wowed. To my surprise, given all the hype and my previous distaste for most things Mac-ish. That is one sexy gadget. Want.

Arthur Dent never could quite get the hang of Thursdays.

For me, the problem is Sunday nights. Back in Atlanta, it used to be "wing night", where I'd go out with a group of friends, usually to Taco Mac, and basically just try to extend the weekend for another night.

I have no big friend group here, and no proper spicy wing to speak of. But I'm left with the stubborn refusal to go to sleep on Sunday nights. Last night was typical. I started drifting off to sleep on the couch shortly after Marjorie went to bed, around 10:00pm. But instead I woke myself up on purpose, and stayed awake watching a soccer game I didn't care about, until after 1:30.

It starts the week off all wrong for me; I yawn through my Mondays, and have to play catch-up the rest of week on sleep. But what really bugs me is that I can't fully articulate my reasons for doing it. Yes, it has something to do with holding on to my free time, to not being a slave to work, to the feeling that days are slipping away. But it feels like there's something missing in that explanation, something not in my front-brain, and and not really in my control.

I got a new phone last weekend, and gave Marjorie the old one. The old one was a Motorola C261, which is a good phone, and has a camera, but unfortunately has no way to download the photos you take -- you can only send them to someone else. So today I've been sending all the photos I took with the old phone to my new one so I can download them. The quality of them isn't great, but what do you expect from a phone camera?

Remember my soccer injury from the middle of last year? Here's a shot I took of my face immediately afterwards.

And here's a photo of a standoff that took place on a walk around Albert Park Lake. I really don't know who would win this. Swans is mean.

A mix tape for Grandmom? Marjorie and I have been trying to put together a mix CD for my grandmother. She doesn't have a CD player, I don't think, but we can at least play it when we're all visiting at my parents house next month. It's been an interesting cross-generational experience, downloading these old songs -- as you might expect, a lot of the stuff I remember her liking, we've been finding, well, grating. It's not a product of the times, I don't think -- I've been listening to a fair bit of early jazz lately (Louie Armstrong, Benny Goodman), but I'm trying more to remember what SHE has always liked, growing up second-generation Polish in southern New Jersey.

The three names I can recall are Bobby Vinton, John Denver, and Lawrence Welk. It's hard to imagine finding any of these names on a mix tape I'd make for any of my friends. Vinton at least does some polkas, but his love songs are pure schmaltz. Denver is not offensive at least, while Welk is pure elevator music to my ears.

I also remember distinctly a few 78s that us kids always played at my Grandmom's house -- possibly they were two sides of the same 78? The songs were "The House of Bamboo" by Andy Williams (which actually swings) and "See You Later, Alligator" by Bill Haley and the Comets. I don't know though, these might have been my mother's. We were actually able to find both of these.

I'll have to see if we can track down some stuff from the Mummers Parades as well!

It seems that my late entry into the Metamorphosis Valentine's Day Limerick Contest came away with the coveted Best limerick making fun of the limerick contest award. Props also to lisad (who has been known to occasionally comment here) for taking the slightly less prestigious third prize.

I just got back from the beach, and boy are my arms tired. For the first time since 1994(?), I went surfing. It was good fun. I hired one of those long floaty longboards, and was happy to stand up at least. It was hard not to continually remember that the place that we went, Ocean Grove, is not terribly far from some Great White feeding grounds. The big clumps of kelp in the water were occasionally disconcerting.

The weekend in review, once again:

Thursday: Billy Bragg in concert at the Prince of Wales. Some left midway through due to excessive preaching and politicking, but c'mon, it's Billy Bragg; what did they expect? It was still lots of fun and I'm amazed that one man can entertain a room full of people for two hours with only guitar and his ideas. Closed with a rousing rendition of "Waiting For The Great Leap Forward".

Friday: Moonlight Cinema showing of the Sean Penn movie, "Into The Wild". Giant fruit bats squawking off to our left for much of the time kind of added to the wildness. Movie was good but flawed.

Saturday: Rufus Wainwright at Hamer Hall. Our third time seeing him, and vastly different each time. This time it was with a full band and costume changes (white body suit with sequins, lederhosen, a white bathrobe, and, um, full Judy Garland regalia. I was repeatedly struck by how his shy and stumbling between-song patter contrasted with his confident musicianship and dynamic performance. He's a fantastic entertainer.

Australia Day weekend highlights:

• Took dog to Red Bluff, just to have a look around.


• Hit USA Foods for some salad dressing, key lime juice, and a Dr. Pepper.


• Used the key lime juice to make Australia's best margaritas.


• Took the dog to walk along the Yarra, around the Abbotsford Convent, which included a pass by the Collingswood Children's Farm. Laika was very interested in the sheep, cows, and goats, but didn't freak out, which was a good sign for the sheep herding clinic we want to take her to.


• Ice skating at Waterfront City.


• Ethiopian food at African Town.


• Chicken wings on the barbie.


• Bought a bag of lentils from an ethnic food store. Marjorie warned me they would expand when I cooked them but I didn't believe her. Ended up with three big tupperware containers of them, and tossing out a fourth. I'm not going vegan or anything, I'm just looking for excuses to eat more hot sauce.

Sick of it. I've been ill for eight days -- just a chest cold -- but I haven't improved at all. It's not getting worse, but it's not getting any better. The drugs don't work. At all. I have cold meds from the US that all do nothing, and I went to the doctor yesterday, who prescribed me antibiotics but so far they're doing nothing either. (Come to think of it, I've had these kinds of colds before, and I can't remember antibiotics ever doing anything for them.) I tried going into work back on Tuesday, but only lasted about an hour. So I've had a big long extension to my holiday, but it's all been sitting on the couch, watching movies, and I'm over it!

In case you missed it, Australia elected a new prime minister a few weeks back.

The election was, to us new citizens, fascinating. Australia uses instant runoff voting, which essentially means that we had to rank all the candidates from one to sixty-eight. Each candidate was listed in a column under their party's name, and there are lots and lots of parties, so it was a very long sheet. They have some interesting parties, too:

Senator On-line

Shooters Party

Citizens Electoral Council

One Nation

The Fishing Party

Conservatives for Climate and Environment

There were so many we had to take a cheat sheet in. But I think it's a great system; if your first choice doesn't get a majority of the votes, your vote goes to your second, then your third, etc., so that it's actually possible to vote for alternate parties without "throwing away" your vote. The whole world needs to adopt this.

The other great thing about the election was that it was announced, and then held just a month and a half later. America is killing itself with its year-long (plus) multi-billion dollar debacle that leaves the candidates all covered with mud and everyone feeling acrimonious.

Another quiet Christmas but it was nice. The day consisted of opening presents, champers, snacks, and a nap.

We also caught part of the Bing Crosby/Fred Astaire movie Holiday Inn. A happy little holiday romp, until -- Bing comes out in blackface. He starts singing a song about Abraham Lincoln. Cut to the band, all in blackface. Cut to large black maid singing, "When black folks lived in slavery/Who was it set the darkie free? Abrahaaaaam..." Enter the female lead, dressed as a pickaninny. Cut to Marjorie and Mark, sitting out the couch with our mouths agape. How the times have changed. They apparently edit this part out when they show this movie in the States. They sell golliwogs in a shop up the street here, so I'm not surprised we see it unedited.

The Summer of Mark. By a bit of bad luck I'm going to have two weeks off over the holidays.

I say "bad luck" because I wanted to work so as not to go into the negative on vacation days when we go back to the States in a few months. But there's just no work in my office to justify it.

Marjorie has to work, though. So I've been coming up with a plan for how to spend my time. The plan includes:

Bringing my techie website back on line

Updating my CV

Finishing up some personal programming projects

Tracking down some books for a certain relative

Sorting out our various frequent flier miles

Starting some kind of exercise program

Keep studying my Spanish

There's a distinct danger, though, that it might end up like:

Sleeping until noon, then surfing the internet all day in my underwear

Stumbling towards Christmas we are. Marjorie's parents just left, after a big long crazy visit involving planes, trains, more trains, helicopters, more helicopters, and automobiles. The only excursion I took with them for was the Puffing Billy one, which was a disappointment for all of us Americans who are used to at least some animatronics with their tourist traps. Anyway, my father-in-law Rob spent lots of time writing up a great account of their adventures, and hopefully I can convince him to start a blog instead of emailing it around.

Christmas, though, will be a quiet one again for us this year, but that's okay. We do sometimes pine for the good proper cold-weather, never-ending consumerist nightmare that is Christmas in America but I think in the end it's just the family part that we miss.

What a long strange trip it's been. Right this moment marks almost exactly five years since we got on the plane and left the States behind. At the time we had no idea whether we would be gone for six months, or forever. The plan was originally for five years, I think, but now we've reached that and still only have tentative plans to move back to the States in a year or two. Or sooner, or later. To some as yet unidentified city. Or to Europe. Who knows.

It's funny how fast the romantic notions of living overseas got replaced by the day-to-day reality. But it's still not an experience I would have traded for the world.

Hooray for Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday. Shared it with the in-laws this year, which means nicer company but fewer leftovers. That's okay, they're heading off tomorrow on their big Australian adventure before the turkey carcass got picked fully clean...

By my mother-in-law's request, here's the story of my trip to South Africa from 2001(?). You can read this same text, but with pictures, on the Virtual Tourist website.


My decision to go to South Africa came about while sitting in an East Atlanta restaurant, The Heaping Bowl and Brew. This restaurant features a giant map across one wall; we were seated directly under Africa. Gazing at the map, I thought about what an interesting place South Africa always seemed to me; I remembered wondering about it at a young age, looking through my parents’ atlas. Not only was it on the other side of the world, it was the southernmost place in Africa, and entirely contained two other whole countries (Lesotho and Swaziland). Then, through the 1980’s, I would hear about it on the news all the time, in reports about the breakup of apartheid. When I did some research and discovered how scenic and beautiful it was as well, my mind was made up.

When Americans think of Africa, they tend to think of safaris and big game. And while South Africa has several safari parks, to be honest, this sort of thing didn’t really interest me too much. I have seen enough elephants and tigers in zoos. I know it’s another thing altogether to witness them in the wild, but I’ll save that for a trip to the Serengeti someday.

The fact that English is widely spoken there made my decision to go by myself much easier; I didn’t want to be all alone in a place where I couldn’t communicate well. And thanks to a friend’s recommendation of a travel web site, I was able to find a (relatively) cheap ticket down there.

My trip down involved a layover in London, which I could extend as long as I liked. Since I had never been there, I decided to spend a couple of days. I latched onto the city quite well; I could easily see moving there someday. Did a lot of shopping, sightseeing, and pub hopping.

My South Africa trip was everything I was hoping it would be and more. I can highly recommend it as a travel destination; while it may cost a bit to get there, I estimate I saved $100 per day over what I would have spent for similar experiences in Europe, thanks to the strong dollar. In the future, I’m going to remember to factor in the day-to-day costs when considering a place that may be expensive to fly to.

Coming home, I resolved to make a trip by myself somewhere every year (next year I’m thinking Greenland by way of Iceland). Travel, it’s said, doesn’t cure wanderlust; it only makes it worse. I have it in a bad way now.

I love going places where every tree, every plant, every car, rock, bird, or insect is just a little bit different than you’re used to. I love hearing young kids speak another language, and stupidly thinking for a moment, “Wow, that kid’s a genius; I could only speak English at that age!” I love spending the Monopoly money that foreign currency seems to be. I love seeing people work a mundane job in a distant part of the world and wondering what their everyday life must be like. I love telling people about where I’m from, and seeing how it differs from their perceptions. I love finding out how my perceptions about a place were wrong. I love visiting a famous place, and having your mind go “I’m here! I’m really here!” And I love having a real memory to associate with a place, when you hear about it later in conversation or in the news.

As it turns out, I recently had an opportunity to experience this last thing in a particularly poignant way. Last week, a terrorist bomb exploded in a pizzeria that was practically adjacent to the Bay Hotel I had stayed at in Camps Bay. I don’t let these sorts of things bother me, though; the odds are much, much greater that you’ll die in a car crash on the way to the airport than as a victim of a terrorist incident. Not that it ever hurts to be aware of your surroundings and keep your wits about you.

Lastly, I have to mention this. I had long heard that toilets that flush counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere actually flush clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, due to the centrifugal force of the Earth spinning. Then I heard that this was a bunch of malarkey. So I had resolved to test this out while I was visiting. Unfortunately, I got so wrapped up in things, that during the nine days I was there, I never once remembered to check. So it will have to remain a mystery.

Arrival

I managed to sleep most of the way from London to Cape Town, passing over the equator for my first time some time in the middle of the night. I awoke as we were about to land, dipping out of the clouds to a magnificent view of the jagged coastline.

One of the delights of travel for me is the delicious nervousness of arrival in a new culture. Customs seemed a blur for me in my excited state.

The thing I was most nervous about for this trip was the driving. Public transit isn't very much of an option in South Africa; any guidebook you read will tell you to rent a car. What’s scary is that they drive on the other side of the road there, and all the cars have a stick shift that you must operate with your left hand.

After practicing in the parking lot for ten minutes or so I felt I was ready to hit the road. It didn't really seem all that hard. I drilled it into my brain that I must just continually keep to the left. And after a nervous encounter with a traffic circle in my first few minutes on the road, things went just fine. Only once during my whole trip there did I find myself going the wrong way, and that was in a relatively tame parking lot situation. My biggest problem was that I kept getting into the passenger side of my rental car. The standard procedure was to sit down, momentarily wonder what happened to the steering wheel, realize what an idiot I am, and then sheepishly pretend I was just getting into the passenger side to retrieve some small article or other. I must've done this a dozen times.

The only really peculiar driving habit there I noticed was that you are expected to pull over onto the shoulder to let faster cars pass you. Everywhere the roads had wide, clean berms for just this purpose.

Parking in Cape Town was something I wished the guidebooks had warned me about. The way it works is this. Every block has a single meter box for all its parking spots. However, you don't put money into it yourself; you give your money to one of the seedy looking characters that hangs out there and helps you park. He will put money in the meter box for you, but only if the parking ticketers come around. If not, he pockets the money. It seems like a racket, but it's really not a bad system. You pay as much as you would normally, and sometimes you can park in a spot for a lot longer than you're really allowed to.

Of course, I knew none of this pulling into Cape Town on my first day. I gave the guy not nearly enough money and got some dirty looks. Fortunately the hotel owner explained the drill to me and I went out and moved my car. (My male ego requires that I mention that I'm a good parallel parker even on the opposite side of the street.)

I can't really recommend staying in town, especially if you're planning to go out or return at night. There were some very nervous moments walking down the street; the guys hanging out on most street corners would not leave you alone. Everywhere else I stayed seemed much safer.

First Day

I was worried that, because I was visiting during their rainy season, I would not get a clear day to visit South Africa's main tourist destination, Table Mountain, but the first day I awoke to bright, clear skies (as I did nearly every day, as it turned out). Table Mountain is the rocky plateau that looms over Cape Town like a wave about to break. The way to the top is by an astounding cable car ride. Atop there are pleasant walking trails, magnificent views, and interesting wildlife.

Also on top there is a small business set up to allow adventure seekers to "abseil" (rappel) down the mountain. They claimed to be the highest public abseil operation in the world. I scoffed internally at the idea at first, but then I got to thinking. I was here for the adventure. Could I convince myself to go? I sat a while and thought about it. Well, I probably didn't have enough money on me to do it. I went and checked, and it only cost about $30; I did have enough on me, and probably would never find a cheaper place to do it. But, they didn't seem to have a photographic operation set up. Why do it if I couldn't even prove that I did it to the folks back home? No problem, the man assured me. We can take a picture with your camera and give it back to you when you walk back up. I went and thought some more. Finally I went back and asked the guy, "Um, are these shoes okay for this?"

"Yes, they're perfectly fine."

"Rats. That was my last excuse."

I think I was pretty green as he was explaining the procedure to me; he had to repeat some questions to me. I willed myself over the edge and began working my way down. I soon realized I was in danger of hyperventilating so I had to really concentrate on breathing steadily. I worked my way down about a hundred feet or so, then abruptly ran out of wall. The remaining 200+ feet were a straight drop, as the wall bends in from there on down. The instructor had warned me about this, I think, but it didn't really register at the time. I sat there a minute or two just trying to will myself to continue down without anything for my feet to push against. Finally I began inching down. The part that makes it even more fun is that you aren't allowed to grab hold of the rope above you with your free hand, as it gets too hot. About halfway down, I swung around to where I could see my tiny shadow against the massive cliff face. I considered the fact that I was half a world a way from anyone whose name I even knew, dangling like a fool off a massive chunk of rock. That was the most alone I'd ever felt or probably ever will. But it was an amazing experience.

Wine Country

After Cape Town I headed inland toward the wine country town of Stellenbosch. As this is also a university town, I figured it would also be a good place to try to meet up with some locals out at the bars at night.

I did an excellent wine tasting at a local winery and enjoyed the surrounding scenery, venturing into the charming nearby town of Franschoek. That night I tried out a few local bars, and finally found myself in a cozy little wood-framed tavern known as Der Acker, a hangout for the post-college crowd. I struck up a conversation with a regular, who introduced me to the bartenders, who introduced me to more people... Soon I found myself sitting in a booth with ten people, chatting about next to everything. They taught me my only phrase of Afrikaans that I picked up (and I’m going to mangle the spelling of it here): “Kann ech anochre bier krey asseblief” (“Can I have another beer please?”). One of my new friends kept trying to lubricate the conversation with rounds of shots of grapefruit schnapps. As the night wore on everyone was rolling their eyes as new rounds appeared, but as I was warned, this was a heavy drinking town in a heavy drinking country, and no one refused their shot. I'm pretty sure I had a really good time.

Cape Agulhas

My next destination was the southernmost point of Africa, Cape Agulhas (not the Cape of Good Hope as is often claimed). I had been advised by one of my new Stellenbosch mates to drive along the coast for the magnificent view, and I wasn't disappointed. What they didn't warn me is that this route would, as I got close to the cape, take me over thirty or so miles of dirt road. It was relatively smooth dirt; still, I began to worry what would happen if my car broke down there. This was as far removed from the civilization I'm used to as I came on my trip. Birdwatching camps, native schoolchildren, and farms fringed my route.

I picked up the pavement again close to the cape. It was pretty much deserted when I arrived. I had to wait a while to have someone take my picture among the surf-pounded rocks. Cape Agulhas is really just a geographical curiosity, but as good a destination as any when the whole country is foreign and strange and beautiful.

I stayed the next night in a town up the coast, Hermanus, which is a tourist draw in that whales came up to within scores of feet from the water's rocky edge to spawn. Thanks to the strong dollar, my room that night which looked directly down into the bay cost only about $40. No whales, unfortunately; it was only the very beginning of whale season.

Boulders Beach

The next day I headed back towards the Cape of Good Hope. Along the way I stopped at Boulders Beach to see the jackasses. Jackass penguins, that is; that's what they're really called. They are (I think) year round visitors on this beach. The brush that rises above the beach is lousy with penguin nests and baby penguins. It's all fenced in, so even the babies had only the sluggish half-wariness that comes with having no real predators to worry about.

Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope itself is better described with pictures than words.

Final Days

My last few days I decided to splurge, and stay in a five-star hotel; the Bay Hotel in Camps Bay. This decision was made easier by the fact that, with the exchange rates at the time, it was only $82 a night.

I made some other forays into the nightlife, checking out such clubs as the nearby La Med. Home for the beautiful white people who dance badly -- it was like the opening credits to Friends. Much better was the Observatory district, a narrow little street near Cape Town's university. Friendly little bars line the streets. At one of these I had a long, friendly conversation about racism with a "colored" woman.

In South Africa, everyone was considered either "white", "black", or "colored" under apartheid; the latter category is a catch-all that includes mulattos, Indians, Arabs, and even, I believe, Chinese. These distinctions no longer hold the force of law, but they are still in effect on a much subtler level. South Africa now has the most liberal constitution in the world, guaranteeing equal rights regardless of race, gender, nationality, age, economic status or sexual orientation, and though everyone is supposed to be equal in the eyes of the law now, in practice there is still a wide gulf between the "haves" and the "have nots". Most of the u unpleasant jobs are still staffed by blacks or colored people. Nowhere was this de facto separation more apparent than a scene I came across while driving out of Cape Town one day; twenty or so white golfers were lined up at a driving range, while a black man with a helmet as his only real protection retrieved the golf balls into a bucket out on the range.

Anyway, the woman I chatted with, I was surprised to learn, had grown up in an integrated school. Because of the sensational nature of the news reports I had heard throughout the 80's, I had assumed that every school down there was segregated by race but this was not the case. She had encountered some incidents of racism during her life, but all in all her experience didn't seem all that much different than someone living in the United States.

My flight back involved nine hours back to London, a three-hour layover (during which I had to make my way from Gatwick airport to Heathrow airport), and another nine hours back to Atlanta. It wasn’t at all as bad as it sounds, thanks to the portable TV sets that everyone gets onboard British Airways international flights. They are a godsend for making a trip fly by like nothing.

What's been going on:

Instead of going to the races this year, we just went up to the Transport Bar and watched the people come and go. Some were even undead.

Saw Crowded House last week; very good. The show ended with a touching tribute to their former drummer who killed himself here in Melbourne a year or two back. No, Jim, I didn't throw a paper airplane.

Am playing soccer in the corporate games again this year, but am having trouble finding a pair of soccer boots that fit me. I swear, sometimes the businesses in this country make it hard for you to give them your money.

We are culture whores. This weekend we hit the Hispanic festival (which had some really good food) on Saturday and the Polish festival (which had some really long lines for some decent food) today. We passed on the Turkish festival. Multiculturalism is the bomb!

Marjorie's parents are in the country and on their way here. They'll be heading off to even more places we've never been, and we'll be trying not to resent them for it. :-)

While we like all of our nieces' and nephews' names, sometimes you still hear of some people who name their children in ways that make you think, "What were they thinking?" (Frank Zappa and Gwyneth Paltrow spring to mind.)

Anyway, so as not to deny you all the pleasure of laughing at the names we would give the children that we're never going to have, here they are:

Girls:

Imogene Frances

Esme Matilda

Boys:

Hamish

Noah

We're still working on the middle names for the boys. The last names are all fluid too. It's all moot anyway, but I thought you might have a laugh.

I was admonished on Friday in front of my office: "Don't kill anyone today!" The hippies were again protesting BHP Billiton, who share our building with us, over uranium mining or something. I was going to counter with, "I work for Deloitte, moron!" but I decided I kind of like being thought the bad guy, and I don't honestly know if they have legitimate reason to protest or not.

I've hired a costume for our work Halloween party this Friday -- I'm going as the Grim Reaper. I better not put it on before I get to work, though -- they might think I'm a protester.

Dog update. She's recovering. Still limping a bit, but she's gotten used to the new routine, which involves no off-leash time. She's back to making danger-runs past the vacuum cleaner every time we turn it on. Our dog's a freak.

She also still doesn't like it when we dance in her presence. Other dogs mind their own business.

Wednesday was National Ride To Work Day, and as our workplace coordinator, I kind of had to do it. The weather was perfect -- sunny and cool. The cool thing about it was discovering that it's actually quicker than taking the tram. In fact, Marjorie left the house ten minutes before I did, but then when I got into the city, who should get off the tram right in front of me but her. And that's with me briefly stopping by the courtesy breakfast, too. I'm going to try to start riding in once a week, I think.