American Stars in Bars

I just won the Irish or UK lotto again 3 more times. If only it was the ***FINAL NOTICE*** as the subject line implies.

In other news I've been extended to stay here through April, which I am glad about. I'll be busy at work, but hopefully I'll get to Asia on a trip of Christmas and have another good season with Team Box* (*perhaps working on a rename to Sporting Squadron or some such English as a second language joke. Stay Tuned. We'll see.)

I've been working ALL weekend on another PowerPoint and some spreadsheets. Liz and I discussed spreadsheet nightmares. I'm glad it's not only me. I'm not glad I worked all day both days. Makes me GROUCHY!!!!!

Friday I had awesome soup with Amanda and 7/9ths of TEAM WILD who will be going camping back to Wilson's Prom next weekend. I am REALLY looking forward to that. Not so much the camping actually. But the being outdoors and the not being at my laptop.

Thanks to Amy for sending along this free rice link which is a good way to procrastinate when you have to work on a spreadsheet all weekend. Did I mention I was grouchy? It is gorgeous outside.

Here's this week's check on the window box:


Same updates really, Erinus seems taller, Lavender wider, Begonia sadder. Look back here to see a much happier Begonia on October 24, really just under 3 weeks ago. This serves as another reminder about how roommate situations can be complex. I recommend living alone if you don't want to look like that sad Begonia.

They put up even more Christmas decorations everywhere. Everywhere! There are these frosted metal stars that reflect like a hologram on a credit card across all the streets. There is much more Christmas stuff than I ever saw in NYC, even with the Maceys Day Parade and the Nightmare/Miracle on 34th street. See?

These stars are lining every block of every street in the CBD. It's a wonder, just the sheer volume. I dislike them.
In contrast, here are some decorations I do like. This is a current view of Flinders Street Station, the train station about a block from my apartment. Can you see that they are promoting World Diabetes Day? Click here to learn more.

Here's a close up where I was able to crop out the nearly omnipresent stars:

A few posts back Kimmie blogged about here interst in this, ""Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn.") and is said to have called it his best work." Well this isn't quite as moving, and it's 25, not 6, but this is a sign that someone posted in my elevator this evening:

I think that explains the situation pretty clearly. I didn't post the sign (note the neat handwriting) but I applaud it's sentiment.

I bought tickets to the Australian Open in January. That should be fun. I'll let you know.

100th Episode

Don't ask me how I know this, but laundry detergent actually tastes salty. At least mine does. It's not what you would expect. Thus begins the hundredth post here at Courtneyspondence.

One of my favorite people has turned up in one of my favorite places. I love the Economist. It's the best news magazine and the only source of truth down here in the upside-down world. I love that tiny font, even though it takes me a month to get through an issue. Kimmie Kay and her husband wrote a letter to the editor. How cool is that? Check out the current issue (Nov 3-9) with Adam and a hand grenade on the cover. Here's the link to the letter. Way to go John! Fire season is just about to heat up down here, are you coming?

I went running with the bats again tonight. This is a lot better than when I went running with the rats in DC.

Is everyone looking forward to next season of Prison Break? He's going to be abducted by aliens and have to break off the spaceship. I can't wait.

Are you watching the new A-Team called the Unit? It's a pro government, pro-army version. The good news is that it won't be impacted by the Hollywood writer's strike because it's written entirely by Karl Rove.

I'm sleepy. Leave me alone.

A Day at the Races: The Melbourne Cup

This Tuesday was a Victorian State holiday. It was a day off for Melbourne Cup Day. As dutiful Victorians Liz and I decided to attend the race. We took her Chris (another 55) and Pottsy who can be seen getting schooled on page 170 of Tony & Zagoria's book. It was a big horse race. It was a lot like the Kentucky Derby, without the blanket of roses, Mint Juleps, or My Old Kentucky Home. That is to say it was just another horse race. Melbournians wear their finest to the race, even to sit in the infield. The behavior is pretty much the same, but chances are that drunk girl two blankets over passed out in her own puke is wearing a thousand dollar dress and Malono Blahniks. It is nuts. Here's us:

Chris and Pottsy having a beer

Liz, Chris and Pottsy

Pottsy, Liz and Chris, still with beer. (You get the idea)

Me laughing at Liz

Me and Liz enjoying some Champers, (there is a racetrack behind us somewhere, note the guys in ties sitting on the grass)

We bet a lot but did not win too much. We had a fun day and a nice picnic lunch.

Team Box had a preliminary get together to throw around a bit on Monday which was nice. It was good to play again.

Work persists in being totally nuts.

In other news, I took this photo while shopping for the picnic lunch we had today at the race.
See the pink bunny selling the Duracell batteries. I am flummoxed. You can see him better here on Duracell's website.

Don't we all remember the Energizer Bunny?!?!?!?! If not click here.

This tells me two things. 1) Pink Bunnies = Sell Batteries. Is this obvious? Please explain. 2) Duracell's ad company said persuasive things like: "Oh yeah when we take the sunglasses off it makes him seem more trustworthy." And someone believed this was not just copying your homework off the person sitting next to you, and an ad campaign was born. :(

The Window box is getting out of hand. The Erinus is still growing, but the Lavender is ranging out and tangling up with the Erinus. I do not approve. The poor Begonia seems less happy every day. It just drops blooms. See?

Results Tallied!

Well the Reader participation drive was a huge success. Thanks to all participants.

To summarize the results:
My readers include Robbie, Paige, Sarah, Matthew, Rueben, Dennis, my Mom, J. Mordecai, my Dad and Jennifer. That’s a total of 10, which is lucky because it makes the math on the following percentages so much easier to calculate.

Based on the drive, 30% of my readers are family, 90% are living in the USA, 40% are female, 20% are living in NYC and 20% are living in DC. A shockingly low 40% count as current or former ultimate players.

Maybe I should estimate some lurker, non-responder % as well. I’ll say another 50%, bringing me up to 15 readers. Go ‘Spondence! With this kind of circulation I’ll be in syndication in no time.

Now, on to some specifics:

Robbie. Wow. I had no idea. I had NEVER EVEN HEARD of Mother’s Finest, and had no idea that would be your type of music. Seriously. That is a great song. Would you and Lynn call that ‘your song’. ;) Also, World B. Free is good, but as J. Mordecai points out below, changing your own name is cheating.

Paige, sorry to blow your mind. You don’t have to get the song tattooed on your forehead or anything. It’s just a point in time. I’m also grading on a curve and having a diabetic toddler gets you extra credit, see? Thanks anyway for trying.

Sarah, Yes, where is that Jello mold? I have my Jello right here, mixed and ready to pour. On a side note, Jello here is called “Jelly” so you would never have Jelly on toast, only Jam. So if you are looking internationally it might be best to look for a Jelly mold. Maybe that will help. I will just have to keep stirring until the mold arrives. My arm is a bit tired so hurry.

Matteo, Hooray! I love the Macon Whoopies. That is very good. A hockey sweater would be a nice add to my collection too, so I’ll get on to Santa about that. I have been very good this year.

Rueben reminds us he’s already conducted a much more thorough study on the song topic here . Thanks Rue.

Dennis, obviously still a debater at heart, wins for being the most thorough and I flowed everything across with no drops. Thanks for your detailed answer. You know how much I love responses. Yes, Randle el is a good one. Please check out his dedicated personal site this guy gets points for being thorough too!

The cool thing about the Radiohead album download is that you can choose how much to pay. So say, based on experience you like about 4 songs an album and you think a song is worth 99 cents, then upon checkout for the album you could opt to pay $3.96. Cool, eh?

Mom, glad you still like Garth Brooks’ The Dance. The Saint Gabriel Archangels certainly is a mouthful. How do you cheer for that? Go Archies? (Yes, the cold is pretty much gone now thanks.)

J. Mordecai, Waiting for Superman is a great song. Great, Musically. But the vocals cannot compare to Gladys. At all. Maybe someone who can sing should remake that song. Who do we need? Lauryn Hill? Trying to save this missed pick by switching to the Smiths is a bold move. A bold move indeed, when How soon is now is not even the best Smiths song (This Charming Man). I would agree that this is at least warmer.

Dad, I certainly can count on your consistency. Yes, I love the Eagles comment. Especially ironic as the Eagles were formed in LA.

Anonymous, is that Matthew again? Yes, everyone loves Dick Trickle. But until you fess up to who you are, it’s Mr. Trickle to you.

Jen – wow. That’s a compliment. I’ll take it, but I think J. Mordecai would DQ me as well for adding the F as my “confirmation name”.

Whew! That’s about it.

In other news I have to work all weekend this weekend. Boo. Grr.

Here’s an update on the window box: As you can see, I rotated the window box to put the Begonia at the North end as there is a little bit less sun up there and the Erinus was reaching left/South for more sun and the Begonia was burning up. We’ll see if this helps. The Lavender has about doubled in size since I transplanted it, so I assume it is pretty happy.


Also here is a poor quality cell phone photo of the giant Christmas tree I walk by on my way to work:
ew! Have a good week.

Happy Birthday to my Dad and J-Christ and good luck at Nationals to Ambush despite and organized campaign to thwart you by the UPA.

Know when to fold 'em, Know when to Run

A few more brief comments prior to responding to the reader participation drive and a shout out to all 8 of my readers:

This past Sunday was the day I had promised myself I would do a hill work out. There is a pretty steep hill on the Tan, where I usually run, that keeps a continuous incline for about 600 meters. First I decided I would do 5 hills at 90%. Then (from my couch) I raised to 7. On Sunday it was 33 degrees here (91 F) and I bumped it back down to 5. Even then, my last one at 90% was still at a pace that saw me passed by senior citizens with walkers. I will need to try that one again. Maybe this Sunday after Karen & Lee’s engagement party (where I am expected to costume myself as half of a famous couple. I am trying to think of someone who was famously married to their work. Suggestions welcome, but please remember my level of artistic talent before you go telling me to sew an Evangeline costume.)

Also on Sunday, I noticed that the City of Melbourne has put up a huge metal Christmas tree in the square near my apartment. Ug. It glistens in the hot sun. They don’t really celebrate Halloween down here, and not Thanksgiving at all so there is nothing to stop the slide into full scale Christmas capitalism. I’ll try to get you a picture.

“This” is the funniest thing I have read in a long time. I laughed out loud until it “hurt”. I am such a nerd. This is my favorite because of the “slogan”. The whole blog reminded me of KT a bit (the acerbic tone I guess) and I think she should be doing a blog at least this funny if not funnier.

I got a chance to play in a friendly Poker game this weekend, which I promptly ruined for everyone with my ‘Never Fold’ strategy. I got a pair (of 5s) on the first hand and raised too much pre flop. Then I was re-raised enough that I might as well go all in, which I thought would shut them up. Instead, several other people went all in with me. Of course, I lost, but so did 3 other people, which meant that the 4 of us had nothing to do for the next hour or so but watch and a player with two pair won four times the chip count on the first hand, making him the big stack at the table and changing the dynamic of the entire game. (I did win a side game I started with the drop outs.)

Do you guys have that commercial for Extra whitening gum on TV at home with the adorable claymation stains that follow the girl around until she pops in a pellet and then they all fall off the ferry? There’s a coffee cup, a cigarette butt, chocolate and a banana. That’s right. A banana. Fight the scourge of banana stained teeth. I always thought bananas were white. I think the banana only made the cut because it is the cutest of the stains.

The rugby world cub finals were last weekend. Starved for football, I planned my weekend around watching this game on at 5 AM Melbourne time. I went to bed at 7, planning to get up for the day for the game. Instead I woke up at 3 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep. I read. I listened to talk radio. Nothing helped. That is until the game started. I dozed off at 5:20 or so and missed the most of the game. It was all penalty kicks and no trys anyway, so I guess I didn’t miss too much, but I am glad that the South African Springboks prevailed over England.

Here's my window box on 24-Oct-07:

Begonia - Lavender - Erinus

The Window box seems to be doing well despite the trauma of transplant. The Lavender and Erinus are already much taller than they were when planted. The Begonia is still blooming but it might be getting a little too much sun as the edges of the blooms are getting a burnt brown color. The narrow alley location means the direct sun is really only from 12-1 PM or so, but that still might be more than a Begonia likes. I’ll keep you posted.

And finally,

I saw this walking to work today. That's right. Get your Christmas hampers today. With food in them. Jeez.

Have a nice week.

Aftermath

It might seem like old news to you now, but I'll be blogging about my parents' trip top Australia until I run out of material. Today, I got a few more photos in my e-mail from John, and he's a much better photographer than me, so I wanted to post these as well.

They are all from a part of the Great Ocean Road between Apollo Bay and Port Campbell on the way to the Otway Light House. More Koalas! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! We pulled over the Tarago because there were so many other cars here watching this trio of Koalas expressing unusually active behavior. They were grunting and bellowing and shaking the branches and One even got down and had a run around.

In the foreground is a Koala, but at a respectful distance are my aunt and I watching, and Barb apparently going somewhere else. See us back there?

This tourist is trying to teach the Koala to dance like SouljaBoy after he saw the step-by-step on you tube:
The Koala thought that was for the birds and much prefers a dignified Lindy Hop so he headed back for the tree.


Coming soon is my response to the reader participation drive. Until then you can still chime in. Be well.

Reader Participation Drive

Get ready. This post is a reader participation drive. You will have many opportunities to answer my questions. Eeeeeeeee!

Sure, you've run with the Bulls in Pamplona. Here in Melbourne we run with the bats. They swoop down very near you and screech while you run. They are pretty much guaranteed to improve your times.

For your first activity, please check out the photographic art of Chris Jordan.

Thanks to Jesse for this fantastic submission to to the all names team. I know who's jersey I want for Christmas. If only he were #55 instead of 15... (wistful)

My #1 locked starter on the all-name team will always be God Shammgod from Providence College. Wikipedia says he currently plays for the Portland Chinooks, but they don't list him in their 2006 roster. Come to think of it, scratch the Thorpe jersey, I want a Chinooks Shammgod jersey. Sarah, are you on that? (Wikipedia also tells me that a Chinook is a Native American tribe and a kind of sled dog. How did we ever survive before?) Can anyone tell me the best sportscenter line ever about God Shammgod?

Also reader, who's your favorite sports name. Dig deep. I want figure skaters. Bowlers. (Who am I kidding, they will all be from the NBA/NFL.)

Vinny Testaverde won a football game this weekend. This delights me. My free Halloween costume pick for you is a Testaverde Jets jersey, a Santa Claus beard, and a cane. Does he do Viagra commercials yet? He could just about do AARP commercials. I love it when my heroes never leave me. I guess this is like when people still pay money to see the former Rolling Stones tour. If Warren Moon were playing flag football in his backyard next weekend I would pay to watch.

Does your apple keyboard stick like mine and make you have weeekends and appples and other such nonseeense?

Have you downloaded the new Radiohead album? I like.

My iTunes has 6101 songs in it. The very best one, and the best song of the last 100 years is Gladys Knight and the Pips singing Midnight Train to Georgia. This seems to me to be a matter of fact. That said, I'm opening up the comments page to hear your counter points. (Dad, I have you down for Unchained Melody).

Ok I'm waiting for your input on all this and more. Go nuts!

Erinus

This weekend I was reminded how much fun it is to go running with a head cold. Negative 147 fun. That's how much. Ew. Still sick.

I also bought plants at a Royal Botanical Garden sale for my window box. I got a Begonia and some lavender and something called Erinus. I didn't really know how to get them out of the pots they came in. Maybe you are just supposed to put those pots in the ground. I got them out, but by pulling, which the plants can't enjoy. We'll see if they live I guess.

Today I did the Melbourne Romp, a sort off electronic texting trivia contest with no clear beginning, end or purpose. I had fun hanging out with Cath and Nicki, but the whole thing could have been drastically improved by binge drinking if I felt a little better. Sober, it was like one off those quizzes a high school librarian gives to see if you can use the card catalog correctly, but on a city-wide scale. It was a gorgeous sunny day.

In the NFL this week, my two favorite teams will meet in a loser bowl. The only good think about this is that one of them will probably get a win, unless it's a 0-0 tie, which i think the Jets and Eagles are both capable of. I'm also waiting to see TO tear into Romo after the Pats beat the Boys. TO will attack him like AIDS attacking a T cell.

More Trip Pics

My parents are home safe and all the animals are glad they are back. My Dad shared these photos he took on the trip:

Double Rainbow at Wye River
Me and Mom in the wind by the Apostles
Watching the Surfers from the Hotel (pub) in Wye River
A Reedy Creek in Victoria, Australia. Kate you will have to show your teacher!
Me and Mom in front of the channel near the Wreckage of the Loch Aud

Wineries and Wildlife Sanctuaries

Whew! I am totally exhausted. I am pretty sure my parents are as well. They should just about be back home now. I hope the trip home went smoothly. I have a killer cold. Now I am wondering if all those illnesses after Christmas are really Kate and Lindy's fault or maybe Barb and Mike are suspects as well.

Last weekend my parents, my aunt & uncle and I went to the Yarra Wine Valley. On Saturday, we toured 4 of over 60 vineyards and tasted lots of wine. They grow a lot of Chardonnay and Shiraz here due to the cooler climate, as was explained to me by our tour guide. We all had a good time. (It all pretty much tastes the same to me.) On Sunday, we went to the Healesville Animal Sanctuary for their birds of prey show and a view of Kangaroos, Koalas and Tassie Devils. Monday I went to work and my parents had a quiet day of souveniring and hitting the pubs. Here's some photos from the weekend. If you just can't get enough of Barb and Mike overseas be sure to check out my Flickr account where all of the photos from the week are uploaded.

Inside the Vault at Domian Chandon. This is essentially Champagne (Made from the same grapes, using the same process) but not from the Champagne Region, so they have to call it sparking wine.
The tasting area at Domain Chandon was magnificent
Can you find Mom and Uncle John sampling the wine?
Flying Fruit Bats!
A Wedge Tailed Eagle!
Barb near a Wallaby
A little braver with this sleeping one
a big roo
barb and mike in front of a group of roos
Koala!

Okay, more soon. For now I need to get back to soup, juice, and sleep.

I can't move on without a huge shout out to my Girls on Ambush for making Nationals in Sarasota this year. Tear it up!