The new Birkenstock, now with a sole that's molded to fit your... Well, it's just molded. This is what happens when it rains for five days straight. Marjorie put up a brave fight with the Lysol, but Mother Nature won in the end.

Equatorial living. Two tidbits about living close to the equator that I bet you didn't know. If I hadn't read about them, I would have never noticed, myself.

The moon appears to flip completely upside down in the process of going from one horizon to the other.

Sunsets and sunrises happen faster than they do at other latitudes, as the sun rises and sets pretty much vertically.

That's all Mr. Wizard has for you today. Remember, kids, sleep with your hands above the covers.

Comments, yay! I've switched services, so you should be able to comment now, if you haven't already moved along to newer, more user friendly blogs. Go ahead. See if I care.

Trip report, a few days late:

Just flew in from Bangkok, and boy are my arms loose and relaxed, kneaded into a doughlike consistency. We took a last minute escape on the weekend of Chinese New Year. A quick trip report:

Friday night: we arrive, and spend ten minutes head-scratching as to how to get into town, and bemoaning our lack of preparedness. Finally we just get in the taxi queue and ride into town without much fuss. No seatbelts, fast driver. The town smells of exhaust. We check in (Windsor Hotel) and discover to our chagrin that the door to the adjoining room is paper thin. A woman is chattering away in Thai (we presume). We go for a walk in hopes that things quiet down. Spot a very interesting small bat, not much bigger than a moth, and not flying much faster than one either, circling the lights of the adjoining hotel. Streets are dirty and smelly, but seemingly safe enough. Walk a few blocks, come home to quiet in the room. Our beds are ungodly hard, and that includes the pillows.

Saturday: Get up late. I point out to Marjorie that the world is now officially our oyster. YA GET IT? Make a run for the Grand Palace. We stop for Marjorie's required Starbucks at a nice, new, upscale mall by the Sky Train station. Take the Sky Train to the river's edge, where we hope to catch river taxi. Decide to have lunch instead. Eat lousy food at a Hot Pot restaurant: cold dim sum, average pork and duck with rice. Realize that we aren't going to have enough time to do the Grand Palace proper (it closes early), so we get back on Sky Train and go to Bangkok's famous market, off the Mo Chit station. Made the obligatory pun with that name. Among countless other things, numerous animals were for sale: puppies, kittens, rabbits, hamsters, miniature squirrels, GIANT fish. One food hawker was selling the following items, all deep fried:

Crickets

Grasshoppers

Water bugs (look like giant roaches)

Grubs

Fetal -- chickens, I guess? Some sort of baby bird, whole.
Sky Train back to Siam station area. Walk by Jim Thompson's House. Area overrun with students in either a red shirt or pink, rival fans attending a local soccer game. Beer at the Dallas Pub. Foot massage next door -- ohhh, migod that's good. Marjorie wonders why she was reluctant at my initial suggestion. We bliss out, for 200 baht each ($8 Sing, about $5 US for an hour). Back to our hotel area (Sukhumvit). Decent German food at Otto Bei across from our hotel -- Marjorie: some sort of schnitzel, me: Jager Schnitzel (pork) mit Spaetzle, my favorite dish. It's okay, but half the mushrooms in the sauce are shitake. Hand and arm massage up the street. At this point we are counting time and money in terms of the amount of equivalent massage. This time is was a half an hour for 100 baht. Back to our severe beds.

Sunday: Determined to get an earlier start, we are out the door by about 11am. Sky Train again to river. We board a river taxi without much fuss and ride upriver surrounded by locals, including monks in full robes. At only 20 baht, this is the way to travel. Pass several other wats on the way. Disembark by the palace. It's closed lunchtime, so we buy some satay from a street hawker (me: marinated chicken, marjorie: chicken wings on a skewer). Walk down to neighboring Wat Po; impressive tiled temple complex featuring one of the world's largest reclining Buddha statues. On to Grand Palace. We were both secretly expecting it to be overly gaudy or ostentatious, but we were both quite impressed. You would know you're a king if you lived here. Eat expensive Haagen Dazs at their snack shop (Marjorie: 1 scoop coffee, 1 macadamia nut; me: 2 scoops macadamia brittle). On river taxi back to Sky Train station, chat with American tourist from California who just got back from a month in Burma. Overhear another pointing out a high rise apartment building that has never been occupied, and we can see why: it is leaning like it's from Pisa. We plan to just go hang out in Lumpini Park, but get sidetracked by some stores and finally decide that it's "massage o'clock". Perhaps even "half past massage o'clock". Back to our hotel area, we opt for hour-and-a-half Thai massage. I love it; Marjorie afterward feels like she's been pistol-whipped. Bad massage is worse than no massage. We shower, then Thai food dinner across the street at Saw Sam Sai. Drinks at a pub up the street, which turned out to be right in front of a "lady-boy" cabaret. The crowd and performers spill out after a while, and we learn from our bartender that they make most of their money posing for pictures with tourists. I snap a picture from a distance.

Monday: After check out we scramble to find ATM so we have cash to pay the 500 baht airport departure fee. Sandwiches at German deli across street. Wait (forever) for Airport Bus. Pet mangy, lame (but collared) dog while we wait. Arrive early at airport, get through customs without fuss. Two hours in plane and we are back.

You'd be surprised how many people from Singapore count on side trips to places like Bangkok just for a bit of seediness and chaos. And, conversely, how many people from places like Bangkok occasionally need to come to Singapore for a little peace, safety, and order. It would make an interesting human-nature study. Our trip was not exhaustive or exhausting (however exhaust-filled), but it was deeply satisfying. Bangkok is dynamic; the people are exceedingly friendly, the touts take "no" for an answer, and there are a wealth of places begging to be explored. Fun.

Other points of interest -- American franchises spotted: McD's, Pizza Hut/KFC (sans the Taco Bell), Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, Swensen's, and a 7-Eleven on every corner. "Rancid" T-shirts spotted: 4.

Comments seem to be broken. Am looking into the problem.

Wednesday night we attended the Wednesday Night Drinking Club, which is often touted on the Expat Singapore message forums. Over expensive beers at Liberte in Chijmes, we chatted with people from Germany, Netherlands, Indonesia, and the UK, and also an American, Ken, who was in town interviewing at Singapore's world-famous Zoo and Night Safari. He invited us out for a free night at the Night Safari, so that's what we did last night. They must really want him to work there, because we were given the VIP treatment; we were escorted to the front of every line, on one of their busiest nights of the year. Ken's a great guy, and we got lots of behind-the-scenes insights on the workings of zoos. I hope he decides to come work here.

Every zoo visit is a unique experience; you never know which animals will be active, or what they'll be doing. This time we had great views of the tarsiers, tapirs, and flying foxes.

Chiromancy. Up early today to go get our fingerprints done, or redone in Marjorie's case. We now have some on the official FBI card -- which we printed out ourselves, so who knows if that will be accepted -- and some on official Singapore forms. For our Singaporean we-haven't-been-arrested-here form, they had a cool digital scanner that read our fingerprints electronically. This part they happily do for free, no doubt so they can have our fingerprints on record.

Brian McBride will now be playing for Fulham, so I'll get to watch him on the telly occasionally. The English Premier League is starting to dip into the American well, not just for the talent, I'm sure, but for the potential market of new fans. Hey, it works. Go Fulham!

Chinatown, where I work, is all festive in anticipation of the year of the Monkey. I must've seen a dozen people today carrying pussy willows, which are a favorite to decorate with. Don't make jokes, but pussy willows are my favorite decorative plant. I mean, don't laugh just because I have a favorite decorative plant. What did you think I meant? We're going to get some of them, and an orange plant, like last year. Red lanterns and cards everywhere.

Turn your head and cough, lah. Today we went together to a medical clinic to get our official health exam for Australia. Eye exam, blood test, chest x-ray, the works -- even, no lie, checking our arms for heroin-use track marks. I had to wonder about the place. The first check they performed was a urine test -- Marjorie got a cup, and I got a little litmus-test swizzle stick. And we were told that the restroom was down the hall, past all the other offices on the fifteenth floor of this office building. So we went, and went, and carried our prizes back past the accountant's office and whatever else. The receptionist just needed a visual confirmation on my pee-stick, so I held it out for her over the reception desk, and she said okay, you can throw it out over there, in the tiny step-to-open trash can in the waiting room, right next to another waiting patient.

The rest of the exam went okay, I guess, except for the doctor having to play stabby-stab-stab with my arm trying to hit the vein. She asked if I exercised a lot, because my blood pressure and pulse were low, so I guess that's good. They do need to get confirmation as to the state of my kidney stones, though, so I need to go try to take of that tomorrow. Nothing about this process ever seems to get taken care of on the first pass.

Bowie fish. Two years ago when we were visiting here we visited Singapore's aquarium, Underwater World. Today we went back, and we arrived at the same consensus: it's too small and overpriced. Alas.

However, while we were out we saw in the newspaper that David Bowie is coming to town in March! So we went and got our tickets already. It can't possibly rival our last time seeing him (in a 1000 seat venue in Brooklyn), but we can't complain too much!

A great read. I read a lot, but not much of what I read do I feel the need to praise here. But I just finished The First American: The Life And Times of Benjamin Franklin, and wow. Putting aside what an extraordinary character he was, this biography was also the first really readable explanation of the factors leading up to the Revolutionary War. And Ben himself -- well, everything he touched, he transformed, it seems; his CV would be the most staggering in history, I think. Truly a Renaissance man. Hard to read without feeling like a worthless sack of shit. But I recommend giving it a shot.

Blogging live. About ten minutes ago, I heard a crunch, like a fender-bender, outside my second-floor work window. I looked down to see a young man lying on the road, motionless, next to a white van. He had just been hit, apparently, but there has been no blood. He eventually was helped up (despite my yells to not move him), and now an ambulance is here. (The ambulance siren as it approached is the first siren I've heard here.) It got here in less than ten minutes, and had the guy out of here in about another five. The victim had blood around one eyebrow, was all that I saw. He was awake and alert on the stretcher. The police are now trying to reconstruct the scene with the help of witnesses. They chalked the street to mark the position of the tires and moved the van away. Half an hour later. The police have called in the situation and are presumably waiting for advisement. The driver of the van, a pony-tailed man of about thirty-five, calmy waits. He seems unphased.

I could have been the first to dial 999. I should have been. Luckily the guy seemed to be okay.

Celeb spotting, Singapore stylee! After a morning matinee of Good Bye, Lenin! (which was just okay), we went to the grocery store, and happened to spot Singapore's biggest celebrity, Gurmit Singh, AKA Phua Chu Kang. He was easy to recognize, even without his trademark big, ugly mole, since he's been in just about every sitcom this country has ever produced. If you saw the Amazing Race episode where they came through Singapore, he was the guy in the apartment that everyone had to go meet.

Today's new symptoms: tactile sensitivity (like, my skin is very sensitive), sore throat, and loss of apetite.

I brought my X-Arcade joystick back from the states (yay!) but it doesn't seem to work with my laptop (boo!). I do have MAME (the arcade game emulator) now loaded, and found a site from which I grabbed over 1000 old arcade games, but they only play from the keyboard as yet. I must figure this out.

Illin'. I managed a whole five hours of sleep last night, 11pm to 4am. Who knows why, but jet lag hounds the return traveler much worse than the departing one. And now, I think I'm getting sick. When you get a chill at midday while out walking in the Singapore sun in a long sleeve shirt, something is definitely wrong.

New pictures from other planets will always get a nod on this blog while I have any say so. I don't know how guys can work on those projects -- sixty percent of the Mars probes we've sent have failed. Can you imagine working years on something like that, all to have it disappear (and usually without any explanation)? I would have nightmares.

Home. Just flew in from L.A., and why am I not more tired? For the record, fifteen and a half hours to Hong Kong (ulp), then a layover where we got five minutes rest, then another three and a half hours to S'pore. That sounds like a long time, but we must be used to it or something; I don't know why, but it didn't seem that bad. Marjorie slept a good nine hours of the first flight, while I got a good fifteen minutes or so. I'm functioning purely on sunlight, jetlag, and Sudafed right now.

LAX was a madhouse, even worse than last time, and not without drama -- I got called out by an airport worker for cutting in on a line that I didn't cut in on. Luckily the people ahead of us in line vouched for me.

We brought a serious load of CDs, DVDs, and consumables back with us. Stuff. We like stuff.

Oh, Griffith Park was awful. In the old sense of the word -- full of awe. Our hiking trail took us up to the summit of a lookout with a 360 degree view, looking out over the entire sprawl of L.A. and the ocean in one direction, and the mountains in the other. Rain the previous day kept smog to a minimum, and the day was sunny as we could have hoped. Just stunning. Pictures to follow.

Celeb spotting -- we ran into Gary Jules, who's a former neighbor of Marjorie's friend in L.A. He's recently famous for his cover of Mad World that was the number one song in UK over the holidays. If you saw Love Actually, you'll understand why there's a particular emphasis this year on being number one in the UK for Xmas. The song was used in the movie Donnie Darko.

The Atlanta visit was most agreeable, if not exactly relaxing. Took care of a lot of the business that needed to be taken care of after being away so long, and saw old friends and haunts. New Year's we went to our friends Rob and Ally's house for a party with the old Posse.

In Los Angeles now for one day before we fly back. Yesterday driving around we saw the restaurant where the begin and end of Pulp Fiction was filmed, and later took a drive up and around Mulholland Drive, with its amazing view out into the valley.

While driving I spotted a car with the license plate "IMBJORK". Driving it was a smirking woman who looked something like Bjork. But I'm not sure. Having seen the footage of her taking down a paparazzi in an airport, I can't imagine the real Bjork wants to advertise.

Today we're going to hike in Griffith Park, where much of Short Cuts was filmed.

Depressingly, it occurred to me last night that this is now the year of my 20th high school reunion. Sigh.

Our day. Mailed off Australia paperwork (aah). Tried to get fingerprinted. To the bank: deposited checks, fixed ATM card. Lunch at Eats. Looked at $230 glasses -- just the frames -- at Pearle Vision. Bought $30 frames at Stefan's in Little Five Points. (We each bought frames. They are identical. What are the odds? We are now officially Twinkies.) Blew $100 on CDs at Criminal Records. Had lenses put in our new glasses. Dinner at Ma Li with Marjorie's parents -- their Pik King Pork may be my favorite meal anywhere. On to the Thrashers game -- we lost, 2-1, to the Canadiens. Hockey is such a great sport. Grocery shopping -- stocked up on things to take home (cold meds, Mexican rice, Shake and Bake). Night night!

On our last full day with my parents, we tooled around the area a bit, looking at wildlife and such. First stop was the Enchanted Forest Nature Sanctuary; then a drive north to Ponce Inlet, near New Smyrna Beach. We saw alligators, gulls, shrikes, tortoises, kingfishers, armadillos -- it's a neat area where they live, definitely.

We're up in Atlanta now with Marjorie's parents; we're about to head off to Nuevo Laredo for some din. Yum. Lots of work to do here tomorrow, which we're trying to forget for the evening...

So, what's weird about being back in the US?

Currency. There's a thing I (and many others, apparently) do when visiting a new country and trying to buy things, which is to just hand the cashier the smallest bill that will cover the cost, instead of trying to figure out the small change and such. Sadly, I've reverted to doing just that back in the US, since the currency denominations here are different than the ones I'm now used to S'pore.

Handing the cashier money. It's like, I've forgotten whether there's a proper way to do it, like there is in Asia (two hands). There isn't really a proper way here, but I still feel self concious doing it.

Malls. Lots of Americans running around here. It just seems kind of surreal.
A year is too long to go, not seeing your family anyway. Yesterday for Christmas Marjorie & I took a walk down to the ocean with my parents, and in the evening had our second bridge lesson. It's a game I think we're going to like a lot; most interesting. We also rented Donnie Darko, which the clerk at Blockbuster said was her "favorite movie ever!". I should have told her that it's a Christmas tradition for us.