Old jokes. I'm on an email general discussion list with a guy who works for a university translating Latin texts. He just posted these jokes, which were written down in A.D. 400 (though they might be older than that). And I thought my grandfather told some old jokes!

A student who wanted to teach his ass not to chew on things stopped giving him food. When the ass died from hunger, he said: "What a disaster! Just when I had taught him not to chew, he goes and dies on me."

A friend asked a student who was travelling overseas: "Could you please buy me two slaves, each fifteen years old." He replied: " If I can't find what you want, I'll buy you one who is thirty."

A couple of good-for-nothing students were complaining to one another that their fathers were still alive. One said: "How about we each kill our father?" "No way," said the other. "That would make us parricides. But if you like, I'll kill yours and you can kill mine."

A fellow ran into a student and said to him: "The slave you sold me has died." "By the gods," he replied, " he never did anything like that when he was with me."

A student was on a voyage and a storm sprung up. When his servants started wailing, he said: "Don't wail. I've left you all your liberty in my will."

A student invited to a meal didn't eat. When one of the guests asked him why he wasn't eating, he replied: "In case I appear to have come for the food."

A student writing to his father from Athens, thoroughly proud of what he had learnt, added: "I hope I will find you charged in a capital case, so I can show you my skill as a lawyer."

Sudden acute respiratory silliness. Marjorie reports seeing people on the MRT (subway) with surgical masks. I haven't noticed any yet, but my head is usually in a book.

The guy who scooped my ice cream today, though, was wearing one. They also had a sign up, talking about the anti-bacterial cleansing agent they're using in defense of SARS. Which would be really helpful if SARS was a bacteria.

We could still visit Thailand now if we wanted, like we did a few weeks back, but because we're from Singapore, we'd have to wear a mask the entire time. Imagine the tan lines.

My soccer coach sent out an email, saying that anyone who shows symptoms at this Sunday's game will be sent home. He is also temporarily suspending the
communal jug of Tang we use for hydration.

Hong Kong just sent out text messages to six million cell phone users, trying to quash a rumor that they've been declared an "infected" city.

Let's just infect everybody now, and be done with it.

Great quote I just read from late physicist Richard Feynman:

Einstein was a giant.

His head was in the clouds, but his feet were on the ground.

Those of us who are not so tall have to choose!

We watched part of the infamous Michael Jackson documentary tonight, which was finally on TV here. Yes, he's messed up in some ways. But I came away thinking what a nice guy he is, in general, and what a jerk the interviewer was. The way he tried to twist everything the wrong way was really offputting. I don't believe the accusations against MJ at all, and I'm not even a fan.

Found this postcard, which I had to buy because it's exactly the view I see when I walk out of my (work) building. Most afternoons, I can be found sitting along these walkways, having an ice cream. To the left, just off the picture, is a giant video screen that plays the same commercials in a loop, repeating every two minutes or so, for months on end. I have them all memorized.

Wacky. More wacky fruit spotted downstairs: Custard apples, pomelos, and Thai fragrant seed (which the internet seems to never have heard of).

Wacky person spotted downstairs: a karaoke busker.

More SARS wackiness: Considered going to see Moby tomorrow, but turns out he cancelled due to SARS. We apparently caught the Stones just in time; they cancelled the rest of their shows out here. Today I was handed a flyer for an "Aroma Bio-technology air management product" that has a picture of two little kids playing, and says: "What chance do they have if airborne bacteria hit them?" Vultures.

Watched a bit of the local news tonight, for the latest SARS update; I think they're getting on top of it, despite a third death. And we're posting nurses at the airport. They have a little news ticker at the bottom of the screen -- I had to laugh at the blurb that popped up: "Car broken into at Sim Lim Square; laptop, palm pilot stolen". These are apparently the top two stories in town tonight.

Tonight we watched a very silly, but very funny VCD we bought in Thailand: Ali G Indahouse. A spoof of, I don't know, the British white hip-hop scene? Fear of a Black Hat meets Meet John Doe meets Spice World.

Kind of interesting. Some of the flyers that are being dropped onto Iraq.

Back from the Stones. Quite a show. We were a little too far away from the stage to get totally into it, but no complaints; they played a long and energetic show. At one point I tried to imagine they were some new band I was hearing for the first time; it was totally impossible! I mean, there's Keith! And Mick! And they're playing "Let It Bleed"!

Keith poked fun at Singapore at one point by bringing an ashtray up to the mike to put his cigarette ashes in, making a comment about having to keep things clean.

We got most of the big hits: Brown Sugar, Street Fighting Man, Honky Tonk Woman, Tumbling Dice, Sympathy For The Devil, Gimme Shelter, It's Only Rock and Roll, Satisfaction... Some new stuff, some unfamiliar stuff. Angie was a nice surprise. Jumping Jack Flash was the encore.

Crazy news rolling in, just as we're ready to head off to the Stones concert... Apparently Marjorie's school will be closed until April 6th because of this tropical disease SARS. She's on the phone trying to frantically call all her parents about it. There was a big school concert that all the students were supposed to be involved in tomorrow too. No reported cases, just a precautionary measure. I told you this country doesn't fuck around.

Some of the weird fruits you'll find downstairs at my favorite fruit store, the Sun Moon:

Buddha Fingers. Really strange looking. I was going to try this but it turns out they're all rind and no fruit, and so are only used for cooking and display.
Jambu. Like mini pears. Haven't tried yet.
Dragon Fruit. Very strange. Tried this in Vietnam and it tasted like kiwi fruit. Tried it back in Singapore and it didn't taste like anything at all.
Mangosteens. Haven't tried these yet.
Breadfruit. These don't look edible to me for some reason.
Jackfruit. Same with these.

They don't sell durians, unsurprisingly. These are the infamous delicacy that are widely banned from trains and hotels because they stink so bad. They have them in open air markets, and you immediately know it when you walk by a place that's selling them. (Marjorie and I have been known to call each other "durian ass".) I've tasted it before, back in Atlanta; an accurate description I heard was that they taste like orange custard soaking in toilet water.

740 people are now quarantined in their houses here in town due to exposure to SARS. The government here doesn't mess around. Let's hope nobody has to be put down.

Grocery store finds. We've recently bought "Pooh Biscuits" and "Collon Biscuits". They're both pretty good, actually.

Chickening out. We had an invite to go to the American Club last night. In a reverse of our traditional roles, Marjorie was all for it, but I vetoed the idea on cautionary grounds; the war had just started, and the American Club has been talked about as an obvious target here in town. Have the terrorists already won?

Hooray. The War to Encourage Terrorism has begun. Keep your head down everyone.

So where have we been the last few months? Singapore. Hanoi. Hong Kong. New York. Atlanta.

So where have they found this new killer virus, SARS? Singapore. Hanoi. Hong Kong. New York. Atlanta.

Are we "Typhoid Mark" and "Typhoid Marjorie"?

Today was fun. We set out, far too late, for Pulau Ubin, a little island wedged in the canal between Singapore and Malaysia, which is set aside as a recreation area. You get there via a ferry from Changi Village, but some apparent misremembering of the guidebook I checked beforehand led us down near the baggage area of the airport, where we were greeted by concertina wire and signs showing guards shooting trespassers. We tried to get on a bus out, but the bus only took us in, and a policeman came on board and interrogated us, and finally kicked us off. We found a bus back to Changi Village, and were ready to just hang it up and head home. We ended up spending a half hour watching the flock of long-tailed parakeets up in the trees. The ferry, we finally found, was just nearby, so we hopped on (only S$2) and made it out to Ubin. Rented a couple of bikes, and rode around basically looking at wildlife.

Back in Changi Village we had some questionable seafood; what I'm eating is the "prawns with oats", which prompted the question, "Do I eat this, or, did I eat this?"

A few photos from our trip to Ko Samui:

Customs at the Ko Samui airport.

Another scene from the Ko Samui airport.

The giant buddha.

A temple.

The airport bar on the way out.

View from the plane on the way out.

Interesting cultural tidbit. In Japanese, adding "yo" to the end of the sentence means "I assure you" -- it adds emphasis to the sentence. Just like in Detroit!

Everyone is back from the yearly snowboard trip, which I missed this year for the first time in six years. In previous years we hit

1998: Summit county, Colorado (Copper Mountain, Arapahoe Basin, Breckenridge...)

1999: Jackson Hole, Wyoming (side trip to Yellowstone)

2000: Summit county again, plus Vale

2001: Whistler/Blackcomb, by way of Vancouver (where I broke a bone in my hand on the second day)

2002: Lake Tahoe (a complete circuit)
Matt and I would try to outdo each other every year. This year he did a faceplant from twelve feet up on some blue ice and ended up splitting open his lip and bleeding from both nostrils. That would've been hard to outdo.

Damn, that's some fun stuff. I was on a beach in Thailand, and I still have regrets.

Back from Thailand. Not sure why we came back, but we're back.

Not a bad way to spend a weekend. The snorkel/kayak trip was fantastic, though the water was a little cloudy due to an algae bloom or something. Saw giant clams, crabs, sea cucumbers, parrotfish, and a puffer fish. We also spotted some birds that looked like snowy egrets, except that they were black; Marjorie didn't appreciate my suggestion that we call them "negrets". That night we had an amazing dinner at Samui Seafood; I had the hot and spicy white snapper, which was outstanding, and Marjorie had the sweet and sour red snapper, which was jaw-dropping.

The hotel for our package deal was fabulous (except for dozen or so mosquitos in our room when we first arrived -- and this is a malaria and dengue fever zone). We had Thai massages side-by-side out by the pool this morning, which was vera vera nice. It was pretty much the masseuses' whole body (hands, feet, elbows, knees) versus ours, and we never stood a chance.

Much relaxed, we went out for some last minute shopping. While we were loading up on DVDs of questionable origin, a drama was playing itself out across the street; a motorcycle-slash-street vendor cooking station caught fire. We could see flames licking at the gas tank and the cooker's propane tank, so we high-tailed it out of there. Luckily they were able to extinguish it without much fanfare.

Favorite restaurant name spotted on Ko Samui: Cow Pat Poo.