Itig. Back in high school there were two girls -- Tia and Mary -- who had invented their own language. It was much like piglatin in that it was just a bastardization of English, one that could be both spoken and understood, once you knew the trick. It sounded really strange, but they were able to hold conversations out loud without anyone understanding.

One day I got them to tell me the trick to it. Unlike piglatin, which only operates on a single word, they mangled every syllable. The trick was to essentially put two unstressed syllables -- "itig" -- in front of every vowel sound. So the word "word" would become "witigord". "Sound" would become "sitigound". It chains together for multiple syllables -- "teacher" would become "titigeach-itiger".

It sounds hard, but it's pretty straightforward. I quickly got to the point where I could speak it as fast as they could. I find I still can, pretty much. What's weird is that, even though I could encode it fast in my head, I could never really decode it that fast. And my sister, who was also privvy to the trick, could understand it easily when others spoke it but couldn't speak it very good (if I remember correctly).

I just remembered this recently. I don't know why I'm blogging about it, except that it strikes me as interesting.

Senescence. Not that I can possibly make it, but it's been pointed out to me that my twenty year high-school reunion is next month. Twenty years! Next month!

Life seems damnably short sometimes.

I don't feel much different than I remember myself at high school graduation. I did have a sense of immortality at that age that I miss now, though. That I was always going to be that age, with no overhanging sense of urgency about anything other than enjoying life.

At one point I considered going to work for one of the few companies that are working on life extension (such as these guys). But I looked into it, and don't see much to hope for beyond some modest gains in our lifetime. It would still be interesting to work on, but there are things I enjoy more. I'll still be first in line if they manage to bottle it, though.

Found out last night that my new favorite writer, Greg Egan, is Australian. He's a left-coaster, though, so I don't think I'll be hounding him for book signings after we move. Check out his web site, the very fine story of his that I read last night, and a worthy cause he campaigns for.

I don't need to read any more of his stuff while I'm working on my own, though. It's kind of disheartening, how good he is. He writes as if he lives inside the worlds that he creates, and his characters are real people, not the cardboard understudies so common to SF.

Ways to save money in anticipation of a move:

1. Place moratorium on buying new clothes, CDs, housewares. Status: Grudgingly implemented.

2. Get a library card instead of blowing wads of cash down at Borders. Status: Implemented (Mark).

3. Sell back old books to used book store. Status: Marjorie doing first load today.

4. Fill suitcases with housewares during exploratory trip to new destination; trek said goods deep into woods, and cover with plastic tarp. Recover after doing actual move. This saves greatly on shipping and storage expenses. A GPS is recommended. Status: Vetoed by Marjorie.

5. Lunch: hawker center $3 noodles instead of $15 restaurant entree. Status: Implemented (Mark).

6. Switch to Tiger beer, the local brew whose flavor can best be described as "formaldehydy". Status: Grudgingly implemented (Mark).

7. When flying down for actual move, wear three pairs of trousers, five shirts, three pair of socks, to save suitcase space. Status: Can't speak for Marjorie, but I plan to do this.

Oh, my nose! I had been getting so many scoring chances from the back line that the coach today moved me up to center half, late in the game. I lasted only ten minutes before going nose-to-head with an opposing player. I thought I was okay until I looked down and my hands were covered in blood. I thought it was just a bloody nose, but when I got home it looked like my nose was crooked, so we trundled off to the ER. They didn't say much, except that they usually give these things a chance to heal on their own; they don't reset until a week has gone by. I'm supposed to get it x-rayed tomorrow, but now that the swelling is down, it looks straight again. Still, very sore.

We moved around a fair amount when I was a kid, and I was always the first one that ended up having to go to the hospital, for whatever reason. We've been here a year and a half, and I've been three times now.

News. Moving. July. Australia. Melbourne, probably. Sydney, maybe. Woop.

Perfectionism. I read an essay today that struck a chord with me and my current efforts to write. It was about silencing your inner critic, and had particularly harsh things to say about being a perfectionist. I had always taken a sort of pride in my perfectionism, when perhaps I should have seen it for what it is: a voice that always says that the things I do aren't good enough. Not a desire for excellence, but rather an impediment to progress.

You know, now that I read that, it sounds like a load of self-help shinola. It's possible that that perfectionism can become debilitating, I suppose, but there's nothing wrong in general with wanting to create something good. I've still become fairly accomplished at a lot of things. Never mind.

Bedways is rightways. Yesterday, we woke up and were sitting in bed reading. Marjorie said, "Let's just do this all day." So we did, or at least we tried. I switched over to working on my story after a point, starting (again, from scratch) the actual composing of the prose.

I couldn't make it a whole day in bed; eventually I had to run off to the library, where I finally got a library card, after my third try (long story). It's kind of cool, book checkout is all DIY these days. I checked out, among other things Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, which I'm not finding a lot of good advice in. He recommends cheats that I don't really approve of. Not surprising, as he's a writer I don't much care for (though I did like Ender's Game when I first read it; who didn't?).

Anyway, in the evening, we moved the TV into the bedroom so we could watch DVDs from bed -- Curb Your Enthusiasm, Mr. Show, and Larry Sanders.

There should be a National Stay In Bed Day. Give it a go yourself. You might actually get some stuff done. You can afford one day a year.

Last night we caught our first film of the Singapore Film Festival with friends Carolyn and Mike -- the disturbing but engaging Capturing the Friedmans. Seemingly uncensored, too. Wow. We all talked about it for a half hour afterwards, which is a good sign. Next Tuesday (I think) we're seeing Osama.

Oh, and I've given up on Gmail for the present, until they include an address book that works. Bummer.

New email. From being a member of Blogger, I've been offered an early chance to set up a Google Gmail account. I'm excited. The free gig of storage is what sold me -- I hate having to delete old emails. So so long, hotmail, I hardly knew ye. I'll be sending out my new address soon. Any predictions on how long until I get my first spam?

There is a Feng Shui convention in town next month.

Can you imagine the squabbles that go on while they're setting up their booths?

In other news...

From the Gooooooooaaaaaal Dept. comes this report on Sunday's game:

PM played a lacklusture 1st half as the heat forced many to play below par. As with the AM game , it took a goal in the middle of the 2nd half to wake us up. Mark S scored a rare goal off a corner before Kelvin rounded off the comback with a scrambled goal after good work on the left.

I've been averaging about a goal every other game this year. Not too shabby!

From the Too Damn Funny Dept. comes a report on the worst records ever. What's funny is that I've been hearing the "winning" song all over town in the past month, for some reason.

Writing. Six months after vowing to write a science fiction short story, I have the outline half done.

That's not as dire as it sounds. I had stopped work on it for several months. Just in the past two weeks has my interest in finishing it been rekindled, and I have the plot almost completely worked out, thanks to some heavy thinking sessions while riding mass transit. I came up with a narrative device that will let me tell the story much easier. All the pieces of the plot fit together nicely; it has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and it even has a [gasp] theme. Ninety percent of the time I'm working on it, I think it's going to turn out original and wonderful and hailed by one and all; only the other ten percent of the time do I think it's going to be crap. Which, considering my usual self-doubt on creative efforts, is amazing.

I'm starting to worry about the size of it. Maybe it'll turn out to be a novel after all, although I shudder at the thought. There's a dangerous middle ground, I've learned, where stories are too big for magazines and too small for novels. A rather large gap, in fact: between 20,000 and 40,000 words, a story is useless. I'd rather shoot for under 20,000 than over 40,000, but it seems like I have an awful lot of plot and required expository.

I've heard that fiction can be five times harder than non-fiction to write, and now I believe it. I'm still reluctant to sit down and work on it much of the time. But once I get started I get into it. Still, if I end up with 20,000 words, and get published in one of the top magazines, that would earn me a measley $1000. How do people make a living at this?

"He had yellow eyes! So, help me, God! Yellow eyes!" Yesterday's post about the chimpanzees got me thinking back to my junior high school days.

That's when bullying was at its worst for me. My compelling need to be considered the class brain certainly didn't help matters, but that was my primary source of happiness so I wasn't about to quit. Another factor was working against me; I cried very, very easily. I would've given anything to be able to control that but I couldn't. Once other kids figure that out about you, it's all over. Still, because I never fought back, I never really got beat up.

The day that stands out in particular was in the first week of class in seventh grade, which would put it at September of 1978. During the first day of REAL gym class, all the boys had to shower together, nekkid, for the very first time. We were all kind of nervous about it but got through it just fine. Standing around in the lobby outside the locker room afterwards, we were feeling pretty good ourselves.

That was when Randy and his little band of thugs came out, and started working down the line of boys, accusing them of being too chicken to get their hair wet. The wetting of the hair was, of course, not the real issue; he was just establishing his dominance. Still, I cowered in the corner of the lobby, dying for the bell to ring, and wishing to God that I had gotten my hair wet (as if would have made any difference). He worked his way past and through a couple of my friends and down to me. I can still picture him screaming up at me in his nasally voice. (Yes, up. He was a full head shorter than me, and scrawny too. It's not about size, it's about how mean you are.) I don't remember what words I used to placate him but eventually he and his entourage moved on.

You can bet that the next day, all of us who were out in the lobby made sure we got our hair nice and wet.

Somebody in the class actually stood up to him about halfway through the year. Randy jumped on him, knocked him down, and they wrestled around a bit, right there in the locker room. He escaped mostly unharmed, and was left alone for the rest of the year. I could easily recognize in this a ticket out of tormenting, but of course was too much of a chicken to try it.

Junior high is a time of great fear but also of great fun. And it's amazing how fast the needle can swing from one side to the other. The only movie I've ever seen that captures this is Welcome To The Dollhouse. I've known many people who can't even watch it, but I thought it was amazing.

Emotion, I've heard, is the trigger your brain uses to know when to store something in long-term memory. So it's no surprise that I can remember so many little details about that fearful day outside the locker room. And my mind can still drift away while pondering all the things I could have said or done.

Best lines from games night at the American Club tonight:

1. During a game involving a timekeeper --
Nora: I'm going to the bathroom. Here, Flip, you take the timer.
Flip: What was your previous record?

2. During a discussion of using phrases like "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzapies" to remember all the planets --
Marjorie: These memory tricks, what's that word for them again?

Two fascinating articles containing much insight into the human condition and the keys to happiness:

The Tyranny of Choice cites recent studies to suggest that having an abundance of options may actually be a recipe for unhappiness, and suggests some guidelines on how to best cope in a society where often there is no lack of choices. This is something we can really relate to. Unfortunately you'll have to buy the magazine to read the whole article.

No Time For Bullies: Baboons Retool Their Culture describes the changes that occur in a baboon society when all the agressive males died off due to tuberculosis they caught while fighting other tribes. Fascinating stuff.

Quitters Inc. report. A few weeks back I reported on my plans to quit cracking my neck and knuckles, as well as biting my nails.

Quitting "cold turkey" is not possible for these compulsions, I think, since I do them involuntarily, and the means to do them is close at hand. With something like smoking, you have to conciously go out and buy the cigarettes, which gives you a lot of time to think about it beforehand.

So I've been just tapering off these habits, stopping and mentally scolding myself when I find myself doing them. No snapping of rubber bands on the wrist or anything.

It's kind of working. My nails look better, at least, but I still catch myself biting fairly regularly. My neck feels all the time stiff like it wants to crack, and it's giving me headaches, so I'm still occasionally partaking of a good twist. Knuckle cracking seems to be my biggest success; although I haven't quit 100%, it's getting more difficult to actually do it, as the joints stiffen back to their normal range of flexibility.

Next thing to work on is my habit of smashing plates on my desk while singing "Lee dee dee dee dee".

We're back. Gee it's hot here.

I'm not much of a photographer, but I really like this photo I took at the wildlife park.

Melbournians are an interesting bunch. They are brash, outgoing, friendly; tall, big-boned, and barrel-chested. They say things like "How are you going?" and "Ta" for thank you; if they like something, it's always "quite nice", "brilliant", "lovely", or even "gorgeous". They really do say "no worries" a lot, but we haven't heard that many "g'day"s.

We had a brilliant excursion the other day. It was a tour we booked through Autopia, and it started at a wildlife attraction where we got to hold a baby wombat, and hand-feed kangaroos. Next we visited a coal mine in Wonthaggi, which was quite interesting. This place marked the southernmost either of us has ever been, and I think we were 60 meters underground at the time! Then it was on to Phillip Island, where we took a brief stop at a lookout point before moving on to the "penguin parade", where huge crowds of people gather every night as the penguins come up the beach after a day of fishing. It was cold, so we only watched a few dozen little waddlers before heading back to the van. It all ended with a pizza dinner, and was all in all a quite lovely brilliant gorgeous tour. Met lots of folks from all over too.

Last night we wandered into a pub that was having a lively trivia night and serving Harp (well, they were out of it). Just as we were joking that we'd found our place, they played a Pogues song. Brilliant!

Melbourne is cool. We've mainly just been exploring neighborhoods, riding around on the trams, checking out supermarkets -- all the things we need to do to evaluate this as a possible place to live. And it's passing in every regard, so far. We're staying in St. Kilda, and have also checked out the Toorak, Prahran, Carlton, and Fitzroy areas of town. Lots of really inviting little areas, and the people are outgoing and friendly. Weather's a little warmer than we'd like right now; we're jonesing for cold!

Sunday night we checked out one of the coolest clubs we've ever been to; the Esplanade Hotel here in St. Kilda. It's a gigantic place, converted from an old hotel, and had three separate rooms with different live bands.

Our motel is right next to rave club. It's a friendly place, graciously sharing their (earplug-defying) bass notes with us until the wee hours. On Saturday night it kept us up until 5am. We figured, hey, we can deal with it for one night; it's Saturday after all. And true, it was better on Sunday night; it only went on until 4am. We've switched to the other side of the hotel; hopefully it'll be better tonight.

Wildlife spotting: penguins, sulphur-crested cockatoos, magpies, magpie-larks, black swans, a flock of rainbow lorikeets, and a lot of different birds in the botanical gardens, where we went in search of flying foxes, which have been (shall we say) convinced to move to another area of town. Tomorrow we're taking an organized tour to Phillip Island to see the penguin parade, among other things.

Herbie Hancock would be proud. Okay, these dancing robots really freak me out. How cool would a pocket-sized one of these be?