Violent streak? Me? Frustrating game today. The team we played against had a player who was the biggest cheater I had ever seen. You breathe on him, and he falls down and cries out like he's in agony. The problem was, the ref fell for it almost every time.

I was covering him. I'm usually a pacifist, but I can't stand that sort of crap. So I tried to rile him up by calling him every name in the book whenever he was near me. At one point he ran through my space, so a grabbed his shirt, and of course he fell down and cried for the ref. The ref missed this one, so I said, "Awww, what's the matter? You fall down there?" It was all I could do not to at least step on him. He was just ignoring my taunts, so I figure, as long as he's falling anyway, and the ref's letting it happen, I might as well get my licks in. He was subbed out before I could do much. But he came back later, and then worst thing happened, which was that he scored the go-ahead goal. While I was covering someone else, but still.

Even now, the big dumb jock in me wishes I had left him with some scars. Sports are primal sometimes.

Anyway, the coach announced that this would be my last Sunday game (though there's a Wednesday night one that I'm still playing) and everyone applauded me. At least I hope they were applauding me, and not the fact that I'm leaving. It was nice.

Asian moment. Sometimes we forget we're living in Asia. We've gotten used to things, and often take the comfortable route as far as food, transportation, and shopping. But last night, we came home after dinner, and there was a Chinese opera going on at the little temple that we can see out our window, just down the street. This was about 10pm. They have a new open stage back behind it, and a tent set up for onlookers. We can see just a tiny bit of stage through binoculars. When the wind was from the right direction, we could hear the music, which is really strange to Western ears. Minimalist, with plinking noises and occasional cymbal crashes; the singing is kind of shrill. The closest Western equivalent from pop culture I can think of is that "We are Siamese if you please" song from the Disney movie.

Steal a poll: I stole this off Krisalis's blog.
Where Were You When...
The Questions:
1. Where were you when you heard that Ronald Reagan died?

It was only a week ago, but oddly, I don't remember where. I think it was at work, and I saw it on the Yahoo home page.

2. Where were you on September 11, 2001?

Atlanta. Marjorie called and woke me up and told me to go turn on the TV.

3. Where were you when you heard that Princess Diana died?

Lulu's Bait Shack in Buckhead, in Atlanta.

4. Do you remember where you were when you heard Kurt Cobain had died?

At work. That very night, I went and saw Frank Black with the Ramones. Frank Black, when he was with the Pixies, was a huge influence on Kurt Cobain, and their album Surfer Rosa is usually quoted as the inspiration behind Nevermind. So I thought he would say something about it, but he didn't. All Joey Ramone said was something like, "Too bad about Kurt Cobain. Still, he did go out in the true punk style."

5. Take one for The Gipper: What'?s your favorite flavor of jelly bean?

Once you go black, you never go back.

6. Where were you when Magic Johnson announced he was retiring from the NBA due to AIDS?

I remember first hearing about it after coming back from a work trip to Italy.

7. Where were you when Reagan was shot?

Don't remember.

8. Where were you when the Challenger exploded?

I was witness! I was going to school in Orlando, and had worked at the space center the summer before. I actually came out to watch the launch, despite the fact that it was 9 a.m. and freezing. I was maybe 50 miles away. I watched the smoke trail rise, and when it started to bend the wrong way, someone else who was standing nearby said, "Is it supposed to do that?" And I said, "No, it's not supposed to do that..." I ran back to my dorm room to catch what was happening on TV.

9. Where were you when the 0J verdict was announced?

In Vicenza, Italy, working on the NATO base. I watched the verdict with pretty much a whole platoon of soldiers, of mixed race. There wasn't much a reaction from anyone, beyond a collective sort of "Huh".

Mr. Nutty. The last time I had a night off from Marjorie, I ended up going to the library. Last night, though, I didn't even make it that far. I stayed at work until 11:15, writing. I'm a wild man!

I did manage to knock out 1350 words of a story idea I've been bouncing around. That's still short of the daily average that's required (1667) for completing a 50,000-word novel in a month, but I still felt pretty good about myself afterwards. I'd say the story is about two thirds done.

I'm still going to workshop it before any of you all will ever see it. I found a pretty good on-line SF workshop that I've joined. They require you to critique other's works if you want yours critiqued, and so I've written up a few. Let me just say that I won't be the worst writer there. I won't be the best either, but I think I'll improve a lot.

Quitters Inc, part II. Moving is a good time for new beginnings. It's also a good time for endings. The following are things that I've resolved to give up once we get to Australia:

Packaged ramen-style noodle soups. I love them; I never outgrew them after college. But they're just too artery-clogging.

Polo shirts. I've always been indifferent about them but Marjorie hates them so away they go.

On line "Boggle"-type games. I've played Playsite's TangleWord and Yahoo's Word Racer for about eight years. Playsite tells you how many games you've played, total, and based on that I computed that I've spent scores of days playing. I don't regret it; as leisure-time activities go, you could do worse than one that increases your vocabulary. But it's time to move on.

Ellipses (...), emoticons (;-), and leaving the subject off sentences, as if I'm writing a postcard (e.g. "Woke up late today. Went to the store."). None of these are particularly bad, I don't think. But by damming up some of my usual forms of expression I hope to rechannel some of it down other paths.

Soda.

Crap TV. I'm not opposed to TV; one can learn a lot from it. Or, just be entertained by it. But I could stand to be a little more selective.

Poker face. Ben Affleck has apparently just won $356,000 in a poker tournament.

This makes sense to me. To be good at poker, you must not let your face betray your emotions. KIND OF LIKE AFFLECK DOES IN HIS FILMS.

A banner game. Who is the man? I ask again, WHO IS THE MAN?

Ventz PM beat Kuay's Team 2-0. Mark S scored both our goals
[...]
PM also played well in taking the lead with Mark scoring with a Maradona-ish (v England in Mexico WC) run from midfield. He doubled our lead with a header from a corner. We did well to contain them in the 2nd half as our oppoents raised their game and in the end no more goals were scored.

Everyone was pulling for me to get a hat-trick. I didn't have a chance until the very last play of the game, when a corner kick came straight to my foot. Caught it on the full volley and shanked it wide, and the ref blew the whistle.

An injured teammate was taking pictures too, and said he got both my goals. Soon, I will bore you not just with words, but with pictures!

Boxing day. We're starting to pack boxes in preparation for mailing them down. Well, okay, Marjorie's started the packing, but I'm offering helpful critiques. Somehow we managed to accumulate quite a load of stuff, without ever buying much here. It's going to be at least 15 good-sized boxes to mail, in addition to our big suitcases and carry-ons.

Happily, while packing, Marjorie came across the pair of glasses I bought in Barcelona that disappeared during our last move and that we thought were gone forever. Hooray!

Yesterday we visited Jurong Bird Park for the last time. They have a new Lorikeet exhibit that's very cool. It's a huge aviary with hanging walkways connect five towers a hundred feet off the ground. Although, these birds won't be as exciting to us soon; they seem to be everywhere down in Melbourne.

Look at this sorry lot. A photo of my soccer team. This is obviously a pre-game photo, as there is no sweat, blood, or wheezing. We put all the young 'uns in the front row because it would take ten minutes for us geezers to straighten out our legs again after squatting like that.

Schmegeggie. I don't know if I have a Yiddish gene or what, but I've always loved Yiddish/Jewish jokes. I wonder if this runs in my family. Marjorie apparently has the gene too; this whole subject came up from a book she's reading, "Portnoy's Complaint", which also reminded her of similar jokes in "The Autograph Man".

These jokes, are each from Arthur Naiman's "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish", except the last, which is from Leo Rosten's "The Joys of Yiddish". These pop up occasionally when you log into a Unix machine; they're part of the Unix "fortune" program.

A man goes to a tailor to try on a new custom-made suit. The first thing he notices is that the arms are too long.
"No problem," says the tailor. "Just bend them at the elbow and hold them out in front of you. See, now it's fine."
"But the collar is up around my ears!"
"It's nothing. Just hunch your back up a little ... no, a little more ... that's it."
"But I'm stepping on my cuffs!" the man cries in desperation.
"Nu, bend you knees a little to take up the slack. There you go. Look in the mirror -- the suit fits perfectly."
So, twisted like a pretzel, the man lurches out onto the street. Reba and Florence see him go by.
"Oh, look," says Reba, "that poor man!"
"Yes," says Florence, "but what a beautiful suit."

Murray and Esther, a middle-aged Jewish couple, are touring Chile. Murray just got a new camera and is constantly snapping pictures. One day, without knowing it, he photographs a top-secret military installation. In an instant, armed troops surround Murray and Esther and hustle them off to prison.
They can't prove who they are because they've left their passports in their hotel room. For three weeks they're tortured day and night to get them to name their contacts in the liberation movement. Finally they're hauled in front of a military court, charged with espionage, and sentenced to death.
The next morning they're lined up in front of the wall where they'll be shot. The sergeant in charge of the firing squad asks them if they have any lasts requests. Esther wants to know if she can call her daughter in Chicago. The sergeant says he's sorry, that's not possible, and turns to Murray.
"This is crazy!" Murray shouts. "We're not spies!" And he spits in the sergeants face.
"Murray!" Esther cries. "Please! Don't make trouble."

One of the oldest problems puzzled over in the Talmud is: "Why did God create goyim?" The generally accepted answer is "somebody has to buy retail."

Shamus, n. [Yiddish]:
A shamus is a guy who takes care of handyman tasks around the temple, and makes sure everything is in working order.
A shamus is at the bottom of the pecking order of synagog functionaries, and there's a joke about that:
A rabbi, to show his humility before God, cries out in the middle of a service, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The cantor, not to be bested, also cries out, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!"
The shamus, deeply moved, follows suit and cries, "Oh, Lord, I am nobody!" The rabbi turns to the cantor and says, "Look who thinks he's nobody!"

The first riddle I ever heard, one familiar to almost every Jewish child, was propounded to me by my father:
"What is it that hangs on the wall, is green, wet -- and whistles?"
I knit my brow and thought and thought, and in final perplexity gave up.
"A herring," said my father.
"A herring," I echoed. "A herring doesn't hang on the wall!"
"So hang it there."
"But a herring isn't green!" I protested.
"Paint it."
"But a herring isn't wet."
"If it's just painted it's still wet."
"But -- " I sputtered, summoning all my outrage, "-- a herring doesn't whistle!!"
"Right, " smiled my father. "I just put that in to make it hard."

Tuesday is my day of pain. For some reason, I always feel my Sunday soccer game on Tuesday, especially around lunch. I got compliments on how well I played, but we lost. The heat index beforehand, I heard, was 105. I felt my years, especially in the second half.

If Blogger is supposedly owned by Google now, why is there no way for me to search our archive of past blogs? The Google site itself doesn't even index them. Strange, but they DO seem to be archived on MSN.

We had our final Singapore games night last night. For diarist reasons, in attendance were Ken, Nora, Matt, Kim, Flip, Karen, and Loretta. We'll miss the old crowd. It was a lot of fun.

Last night we saw the the Tiger Lilies. I spent the show sitting there trying to characterize them. It's pretty much a Tom Waits meets Tim Burton meets Charles Dickens meets Monty Python meets Shane MacGowan sort of vaudeville show. Really bizarre and wonderful. Apart from the theatrics, it was quite amazing musically too.

Immigrants always seem to know more about the politics of their adopted countries than the locals do. Well, we didn't learn too much about Singapore's, probably due to the lack of a debating opposition. But Marjorie has charged ahead in learning about Australia's, to the point of impressing an Australian we met recently. Me, I can name only the president, and not tell you much else.

That is, before today. I'm actually familiar with a guy who will soon be running for parliament -- Peter Garrett, the former front man for Midnight Oil. By all accounts his election will be uncontested.

I saw them, phoo, must've been back in 1989 or so, at Visage in Orlando. I have only three recollections from the show:

1. I sold an extra ticket, that I bought for $12, outside before the show for $22.
2. Peter Garrett stopped the show for a minute or so to explain a bit about the Aboriginal rights issue, his pet project.
3. It was hot as blazes, and he kept flinging cups of water into the grateful crowd.

Based on #2 and #3, I think he may be an okay guy.

Greetings, greetings fellow stargazers! Yesterday Venus passed between the Earth and the Sun. As the last time this happened was 1882, no living person had ever seen it before.

Ostensibly, all it looks like is a tiny black dot on a big orange one. This is probably why I don't own a telescope -- unless you own a Hubble, all you'll get to see is tiny dots, or if you're lucky, slightly larger fuzzy dots, all while you're out in the cold getting bitten by mosquitos. One can easily find much better eye candy on-line.

I'll still probably get a telescope someday. There's something appealing about self-directing your search, and witnessing things first-hand.

But astronomy is a feast for the mind, not the eyes. What was amazing about the Venus transit was not that we could witness it, but that we could predict it with such accuracy, and know that it is not a harbinger of doom, but just a coincidental syzygy. Knowing that Venus is only a little smaller than Earth, we can, for a moment, try to grasp the immensity of the Sun.

Part of me regrets that we're not moving to Australia's capital, Canberra. While by most accounts it is a whirling pit of despair, they do do a lot of astronomy that I would love to be a part of.

Not much has been happening as you can tell by the lack of blog entries. I had to work Saturday (our first real demo), and we spent Sunday just bumming around the pool. I feel like I should write about something, but what?

I know! I'll tell you of my secret life... as a woman.

The Virtual Tourist web site is a respository for people's travel photos, stories, and tips. You can include a picture of yourself if you like, and many people do. On any given day you can browse the pictures of everyone whose birthday is that day, or you can just browse by country or whoever's logged on.

There were some complaints about losers using the site as a place to try to chat up women. So a few years back I created a female persona there, just to see what sort of responses I would get. I Googled on "blond" and "model" and came up with this picture (I've lost track of who she really is, but my apologies if you're reading this and it's you).

As a control in my experiment, I created a guy persona as well, using a picture of a guy slightly better looking than me.

I set their "birthdays" as the next day and waited. There were no surprises. The hot chick got about 20 birthday greetings to the hot dude's 10. One guy wrote about two pages worth, that was really rather creepy. To this day she still gets regular mail, while he gets almost none.

They both just had their "birthday"; this year, she got 8 greetings to his NONE.

It's all harmless enough, I guess; nobody's been persistent or harassing. It's been a little eye-opener, I guess, because I could see how this sort of thing could really get to you, if it happened all the time, or in person. I never respond. I thought I could but I really don't know how to "write women".

Here's a few samples of the mail she gets. Names have be omitted.

Hi

I am N----- from Bangalore, India.
i love to travel in India. Especially to places like Goa, Ooty, Kodaikanal,
Coorg and Kerala.
I am very familiar with these HOT destinations in India.
If you would want to travel to India, think of me.
Especially if you love trekking and deep forests
write to me on n-----@yahoo.com so that accessiblity will be easier.
I am 30 and i would love to be your friend.
love
N-----

HOT destinations! Woo!

Hi there..Hopin not offendin u. Actually, we have not had a chance to get to
know each other so far!. But while browsin virtualtourist web site, I have just
noticed that ur birthday is today. Hence, I said to my self, hey man..do
something useful..why don't u congratulate that woman on her spectacular day?.
I really do wish u a wonderfully great birthday filled with happiness & joy.
By the way, I'm M---- who likes to make friendship with nice ppl around the
Globe. I do have a broad spectrum of hobbies including traveling.
Above all, I neither fight nor bite..hehehe.
Pls. if u r willing to get to know each other, drop me a
line..Many thanks..
take care..
Best Wishes, M----

What every woman wants; someone who doesn't bite...

IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY

Today is your special day,
so celebrate in your favourite way.
As time goes bye,
The years begin to fly.
But, you're only as old as you feel,
even when grey hair begins to yield.
Life is full of ups and downs
But, always wear a smile, instead of a frown.
Many wishes for days to come
and may your birthday be a very
extra special one.

I think this was supposed to be poetry.

Hi fellow(what's is the female gender for that term?) Floridian. I'm over here
in Venice a hop ,skip and ok a two hour ride from you. Saw your pic and wanted
to say hi and (now this is my male chauvinistic side ) WOW......beautiful
(refering to you of course)
Have a great day.....B---
p.s. I moved here last year from NJ....lol

This guy is a biker with a beard.

I saw your lovely picture and wanted to send you a greeting.

My name is [woman's name]. I have lived in Paris for the past 3 years surviving
as an artist/photograher and now I am back in the US in Virginia, taking care of
my dear cousins home and two beautiful dogs while he is in flying in Iraq.

I would love to visit Florida. Hope to hear from you:) You would make a
beautiful model to sketch and paint:)

Zoiks!

How did you spend your Vesak Day? We went to Mailboxes Etc and bought some boxes. I took a nice nap, then we went and had pizza at Casa Roma. On to the ex-pat board's Wednesday Night Drinking Club for a quick pint. All day we both had the Kinks' "Afternoon Tea" stuck in our heads.

We must have done something right, as today was full of good portents. I got my first nibble on a job, and have an interview set up for the day after we land. We got our application to set up a mailbox down there to send stuff to, and it looks like it will be no problem. And at the local grocery store, Marjorie found the beer that was our staple back in Atlanta, Bass, that we'd actually resorted to smuggling in on a few occasions

Ewwww. We discovered tonight that at some point in the last month or so we squished a gecko in the door jamb of our bedroom door. He ended up rather, uh, Picasso-esque. We named this one "Abstract Art".

And in case you're wondering, the person responsible for gecko cleanup in this house is ME.

The search is on. This weekend I'm going to start applying for jobs in Melbourne. The part I hate is dealing with headhunters (recruiters, I mean). With rare exceptions, they are slime. It is in their interest for you to get a job, yes, but all of their profit comes out of the difference between what the company's willing to pay and what you're willing to accept. So, while they work hard to find you a job, they are always trying to rip you off. But, sometimes it's the only way to get a job. If you go to any of the various job sites, 95% of the postings are from recruiters. And the jobs they list there never really exist, either; they are just to entice you to call them. Each recruiter has just a small changing pool of jobs he knows about that he will try to sell you on. (I say "he" because I've yet to see a female recruiter. I'm sure they exist, but are rare. Is it because women have a more evolved sense of ethics that they don't survive in the recruiting field?)

This one time in Atlanta I was contacted by a really strange recruiter who would call me at all hours of the day and night, and who finally convinced me to come visit him at his office way up in Alpharetta. I told him I definitely didn't want to work in that area, but that didn't stop him from springing an interview on me during my visit, with an Alpharetta company he was in contact with. So I gave an impromptu interview -- a good one, I might add; it wasn't really the company's fault -- and then emailed the recruiter that night telling him I didn't want the job and to stop sending my resume out; I didn't want to do business with anyone who so completely ignored my wishes. He ended up leaving a pissy little message on my answering machine about it, that I wish I had digitized; it was hilarious, in a creepy sort of way.

But what's really worrying me this time is the process of interviewing. Melbournians are notoriously outgoing but unpretentious, while I am notoriously quiet but cocky. My attitude seems to work well with American companies, but I'm going to have to vary my approach a bit down there, I think.

I'm also at a delicate stage in my career advancement, where people are going to want to put me in charge of stuff. Well, stuff I can handle; I just don't want to be in charge of people. I don't like managing at all, and have steadfastly avoided ever learning any presentation software like PowerPoint. I can handle heading up a team of a few people, but only if I can keep my hands in the technical stuff. My plan for making more money is by being worth the price of several other techies, but many companies think that throwing enough cheap young coders at a problem is a workable solution. Fortunately there are more and more who have wised up. We shall see.

Jane, get me off this crazy thing. I'm training my replacement, so he's using my computer. I've been given a Mac portable as a replacement. My boss thinks that I would love Macs if I had to use one for long enough.

Instead I think, how can people stand these things? Why are they considered so easy to use? I can't figure it out. I mean, I know that once you've learned one operating system, you're pretty much indoctrinated, and all you're going to see if you switch OSes are the things that are lacking. But I've been able to get practically NOTHING to run on this p.o.s. None of my Java applications will pop up windows. FOP just hangs. I can find no decent text editor -- BBEdit, which is supposed to be great, won't even let you page down. Moronic! I hate the dumbed-down one-button mouse. I hate the lack of keystroke equivalents for most things. I hate the limited keyboard (you have to hold down a function key to hit page up or down, home, or end). I hate the lack of a consistent way to switch between separate windows of an applications. I
can't even find a way to create a text file in a directory except from within an application. I hate how icons in the system tray jump up and down to get your attention.

The fonts are nice, though.

We celebrated our second anniversary tonight; a very low-key affair, just a nice dinner at home. Watched the season three debut of Six Feet Under; what gives? All the tension they built up at the end of last season just went "poof".

Oh, and woo hoo! Passed my Java certification exam. It was hard. Multiple choice, but often more than one of the choices was correct, and you had to get all of them correct for it to count. I swear I thought I was blowing it, halfway through, and that I'd wasted the money. Ended up getting 47 out of 61 questions right, or 77% (52% is considered a passing grade).