Happy New Year!!!

Hey there. I hope your 2011 is going great so far. I had a nice Christmas at my sister's house in Raleigh, NC. Due to the blizzard in NYC, I changed my travel plans and got to see Dave for his Grandmother's Christmas in Virginia. We took the train up to have New Year's Eve together at my place, where a game night was held. (Apples to Apples, Wii Boxing, Celebrities.)

I have very limited recollection, but apparently I had a great time:

(Thanks to Jesse for my awesome new jacket for Christmas.)

This weekend I am excited about the NFL wildcard games. My pics are Saints, Ravens, Colts and sadly, the Packers. Go Eagles! Prove me wrong!

Things are very busy. I just got back from working in Knoxville, TN and next week I am off to Reston, VA. Next Thursday I fly to Louisville, KY for my Grandmother's funeral. After that I'll be back in NYC for packing and a final send off. What?!?!? Oh yeah:

I'm moving to Charlottesville, VA. I'm moving there on January 22. Sorry, if you were planning on visiting me in NYC, you will just have to visit someone else. Charlottesville is the home of UVA and nice fall foliage. I'm sad to be leaving NYC, but it had been 10 years, and NYC isn't going anywhere. I may be back.

Come and see me in Charlottesville after I get settled. It's a nice little town.

Courtneyspondence will take a turn again. What was once a travelogue for my adventures in Melbourne will now be an ethnography on life in the small town south and a withdrawal journal on going cold turkey on the convenience of NYC. As always, please stay tuned.

Tacos Fooled, Scheme Hatched

Happy April. As much previewed, last weekend I went to WAFC's Fools Fest with my girls from Flash Taco. It was pretty much a perfect time.

Here's the gang:

Yes, I am wearing a taco costume. I wore it for every game. I threw the first goal of the tournament, and I caught a score in every game. We were a fun group.

I've spent my fair share of Fool's Fests huddled in a car during byes, cursing the rain, but this year the weather was just perfect, sunny and warm all three days. It was great to play with everyone. Maximum fun was had.

There are about 700 pictures of the weekend. Here's a few of my favorites:

• Me, running my mouth about something, as usual
  
• Me on the hammer mark
• Me on the line, ensuring my spot
• Romer with a typically athletic catch
• Dorks killing it like she did all weekend; Seriously, all day
  
• Tucker puts it
• SUSSMAN is so fing cute, even when she scrambles, See!
• Maybe the only thing in the world cuter than SUSSMAN! (Kim & Zoe)
  

I had so much fun at Fool's that I didn't vomit fire later that day when I learned that the Eagles had traded away near certainty of making the playoffs and one of the top 5 QBs in the entire NFL, inside the division, for the 37th best draft entrant in 2010 (read NOBODY). What am I supposed to do with this? Seriously, Donovan, who I love, is going to get shredded by that nonexistent offensive line in Washington. And how is that supposed to make me feel? I hate the Redskins, so I should be glad when their QB gets sacked, but I won't be glad about Donovan. And what about the Eagles? Should I be glad when they go 4 and 12, because they made this terrible decision? What about the Eagles/Giants games? I may need to move rather than bear Jesse's gloating about this. What if this means a bigger role for Vick? Getting sicker. I have been an Eagles fan since I was 7 years old. I have a poster of Randall Cunningham in my bathroom. I am so sick about this, I feel so betrayed that I may have to forsake the Eagles entirely. I am thinking about being a full-time Jets fan. This should provide about the same level of gut wrenching pain I've come to expect from the NFL.

Speaking of nausea, I did another SNERTZ on Thursday. You'll recall that last time I puked twice. This time there was a considerable improvement. I finished the whole workout in 51:35 (first set = 13:30, second set = 28:00, third set = 40:00). That's about 8 minutes better, which is a huge improvement, but really only shaves off the puking time. Saturday I'm playing women's pickup. Sunday I'm planning some horrible sprinting before a game of pick-up.

Spring is for real here in NYC and I am loving it. Looking forward, this weekend I'm coaching Beacon on Sunday morning. The girls have an overnight trip to Springfield, PA coming up April 24-25. You know I'm not religious, but if you pray you might consider praying for me about this. 16 high school girls with me in a hotel. I am terrified that I will lose one of them, or one of them will try to run away and join the circus or get married or something.

Next week I'm working in Reston, VA. This week I worked in Knoxville and Reston and took two 6 am flights. Killer.

I am still reading for the 20 minutes each flight before I'm allowed to get out my laptop. I recently finished A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami. I liked a lot of the prose and descriptions, but in the end the plot proved a bit to metaphysical for me. It was as if Murakami wanted to write certain passages, but couldn't be too bothered to put together a narrative that those passages fit inside.

Oh yeah, This just in: I went ahead and hatched the scheme to form my own women's team: WTF. After talking smack about it all off-season it was time to put up and get serious, and how do you show you mean business, by starting a blog of course. Here's my blog for Women's Team Frisbee.

Thanks to Benji for sending along this pretty awesome clip:

Fall on Me

Ok. So it’s been a while. What can I tell you?

I was shocked recently when I was told that my blog was hopelessly out of date. I had no idea there were still any readers. Keri, this one’s for you.

The past 6 weeks or so has been a blur of regional jets. I’m mostly between NYC and Knoxville, TN but it’s hard to do that directly, so I’ve had my fair share of time in Charlotte, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Cleveland and once even Detriot. I’m trying to limit myself to one Cinnabon per flight. I’m working on an endorsement deal there, so I’ll keep you posted as my fame expands and eventually precludes my interaction with the common folk. Just remember you knew me when…

Speaking of Cinnabon, I’m mildly addicted to this web site This is Why You’re Fat . I’m thinking of submitting a recipe where I make a layer cake out of Cinnabons, heavy cream, and butter. I’m not sure but I think the purpose of the website is to remind the rest of the world why they still hate us now that Obama is President. Can you imagine seeing these photos in Malawi? It is a purposeful, willful abandonment of those people we all practice.

It’s only been about 5 months since my trip to Zion national park in Utah. Take a look at the photos of the trip through the narrows and also a 2 day hike in the back country. I am pretty much recovered from the mountain exposure.

Book Review: I just read Alex Stewart: Portrait of a Pioneer . It is pretty much just a loving devotion about an old mountain man who could do a lot of things none of us still can, like make butter churns and buckets and build his own house and deal with snake bites. It’s pretty amazing how much better at stuff it seems everyone was back then. I need to check three different DIY websites before I try to hang a picture on the wall. Pretty much everyone living on this mountain in Tennessee could build a house, build everything in the house (furniture, kitchen items), hunt, gather forest edibles and raise crops. None of them really went to school, but when was the last time you used trigonometry or debated the tension between liberty and nationalism. I think if you teleported the members of subway car I was in this morning (Q to 57th street) back to 1920s Tennessee everyone in there would be dead within the week. Conversely, if you brought those mountain people to the present they would probably hunt us, skin us, and use our ‘tallow’ to make candles and waterproof their shoes, and that would be a considerable improvement in our contribution to the human race.

Ultimate: Regionals occurred in Devens, MA. Zojirushi lost all our games and finished 16th, clearing my schedule to be a spectator all day Sunday. I had a pretty good time. This means ultimate is over, except for the fun winter tournaments (like PadaMosh this weekend) Turkey Bowl and all the others that basically take us to the start of the spring season.

In the ‘off season’ I’m coaching the Beacon High School girls team. The girls are amazingly dedicated, meeting to practice from 6:30-7:30 am each day and also after school. The girls have great spirit and a long way to go. I coached them at their first Beacon Tourney for the season: KitKat outside of Philiadelphia. We had and lost 3 games, but the third was the closest, so I think we learned something. Hopefully they will all be much more motivated about doing sprints to get in shape and working on throwing and catching. Our game is a hard one if you can’t throw and catch.

Did I already show you this link? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erRqDpMDFFo&feature=related This is what real ultimate looks like. The girls don’t look like this, yet, but I’m working on it.

I got a flu shot. Later, I got the flu. Maybe it was H1N1. I don’t know. I seem to have survived. It was pretty bad. I cured it by taking a bunch of flights. I’m like Johnny Appleseed for H1N1. H1N1 Mary?

I’m all worked up about two articles I read recently that refer to being short: This one and this one. I’m thinking about applying for disability due to my short stature status. People of short stature are 1/5 less likely to graduate from college! At 5’3” I qualify. I don’t know how I did it. We’re also just as likely as the morbidly obese to die early. I never really realized how much I have to overcome. Go me. Every day I stand up is a victory.

I had a few people over to the apartment for brunch and a Bloody Mary competition. It was a lot of fun. I vanquished all challengers in a Bloody Mary Off. My secret: the more horseradish, the better. I recommend a 1:1:1 ratio of tomato to vodka to horseradish.

The Eagles game last weekend was great. I watched with Jesse as the Eagles ran up points on the Giants. Take that Eli face! (I am really glad baseball is finally over.)

I went to a reading last night for this book, Mildred Burke : Queen of the Ring. Amazing story of a woman wrestling in the 1940s. This wrestling wasn’t even fake yet. Look forward to this review. (She was of short stature too, so the story is all the more amazing.)

I went for a good run today in Prospect Park. (+7). It was really nice out. All the leaves are still changing and the park is gorgeous.

Up and coming: This weekend I’m off to Padamosh. Next week I’ll go see Art Brut. I have an appointment coming up to donate platelets. I’m helping to plan a UPA coaching clinic in NYC. I’m off to Louisville for Thanksgiving to see all my Aunts Uncles and Cousins. It'll be great.

Little to Report

Fall is coming. I went to the US open 3 times and saw both Klijsters and Del Potro but not in the finals. I went to a Jets preseason game; it seems Sanchez may be the real deal (but I look fwd to this post being thrown back in my face after he starts acting like a rookie QB). New job is going pretty well. Zojirushi sectionals was rained out last weekend, but is on again now for this weekend. Despair was great and very suspenseful and as soon as it ended I started it over again because the beginning is packed with all these clues that doesn't really make sense until you read then end. This is a good review, so I won't bother. I am glad football season has finally started and that is about all I have to report.

I am "famous" on the internet!

Remember back in October when I had Jury Duty?

I snapped a pic and sent it in to one of my favorite blogs, The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks and the pic was recently posted. Check it out! I am participating in the internets.

This week of work in Minneapolis was just as much fun as usual and also featured a day when it was -21 Degrees Fahrenheit. I thought my eyeballs might freeze.

I am super pyched about the Eagles game tomorrow. Go Akers! Go Westbrook!

I saw WALL-E recently. I loved it. Proably the best movie of the year. Anyone who does not love this is now my enemy. I wish people were more like WALL-E.

Stay warm!

TPS Report

• 31 Days - 100% complete - No Problemo, no big deal


• 100 Push ups - 19% complete; brutal; killer; at risk


• Minneapolis - 2 degrees Fahrenheit


• Westin - 9 stays from Gold status for 2009 (boo)


• Westin Happy Hour: $2 Cheese burgers & Chicken Sandwiches!


• Kiva: Issue resolved. Back up and functioning with new loans, so check back if you checked when they were fully funded


• Eagles - 4 pt dawgs to the Gnats this Sunday, first hurdle to Super Bowl


• Leroy (my iPhone) - still 100% rad and totally worth it, get Lux Touch App (Risk)


• 2009 - yellow status so far...

Roosting With the Dead

Update for you on Shit Mountain. It seems that either the NYC pigeon housing market is just as tight as the human one, or pigeons are not all that fussed about ritual burial. This isn’t the greatest picture, but if you look closely you can see the pigeon that has been ‘napping’ on the right side, unmoved for over 11 days now, and a new SM resident on the upper left.
In an unrelated story, I made it back to NYC after 5 days in Raleigh. I am glad to be home. I saw my parents, sister, brother-in-law and two nieces. This year I gave the girls a Wii and many rounds of Wii bowling and Hanna Montana World Tour were subsequently played. I am happy to report that low-tech is still alive and well. Santa brought the girls each a Slinky and I think those coils were the hit of Christmas. Certainly no toy garnered more attention. I gave my parents and sister & brother-in-law a Flip video camera so look for them all up on You Tube any minute.

Everyone else got a Kiva gift certificate. Kiva is a micro-loan organization that allows members to lend directly to small opportunities in the developing world. The entrepreneur then pays back the loan and you can relend to another opportunity. I think this supports growth and is more likely to make a long term difference than traditional aid, which often begets the need for more aid. Check it out.

I’m presently reading the Elegance of the Hedgehog. So far I would give it just an *okay* rating. It’s a bit of a slow starter with tons of allusions to Japanese films I haven’t seen and Russian novels I haven’t read. In short, it seems to be a bit culturally snobby and I’m more of a Philistine, so maybe I’m just not the target audience. I’ll finish it out just the same and let you know if it picks up.

I’m 23 days into 31 days with no alcohol. It has been pretty easy, though I did really want a glass of red wine when I went to Frankie’s recently with Keri and being around my family was a bit of a struggle. Still, so far I would say that 31 days without alcohol has been much easier than the times recently I’ve tried to go a month with no meat (one success, one failure), but New Year’s Eve tomorrow may present a special challenge. Maybe I’ll take my flask (Blomus) full of water to seem like I’m participating.

Given that not drinking for a month was pretty easy so far, and looking for more of a test, I think I’ll try this 100 push up challenge that Jesse told me about. I'm just getting started and so far I’ve only taken the first test (30) but you if you really have an unnatural level of interest in the details of my life you can track my progress here . Sorry about that, but it’s only through public scrutiny that I’ll motivate myself to complete this. Lynn & Robbie have a friend named Andre that is performing a similar challenge, but with Chin-ups. I think he is a mad man. I am envious of his drive and I will not be picking any fights with him.

I have declared off season cross training offically underway. I've been running again and getting back into 7 minute abs. Some of Ambush is meeting on Saturday for a run, pushups, abs, throwing session and it will be good to shaek off some cobwebs.

Any and all theories on why I’ve had a splitting headache for the past week or so are welcome. I thought it was a gas leak in 29, but my head also hurt the whole time I was in Raleigh and I think they have an electric stove so there must be some other reason. I am trying to cut out caffeine to see if that helps. (No Makers Mark, No Coffee, No Meat? What else is there...? I hardly recognize myself.)

Last night my headache was super bad (railroad spike in the forehead bad) after the viewing of Slumdog Millionaire, which, conversely, was super good. GO SEE IT. It’s an impossible love story and a comment on urban slums. It reminded me a bit of The Usual Suspects and the child actors are incredible.

Speaking of 29 (scroll up, I was. Transitions are hard), no one told Stefan Slywotzky about the economic downturn. He’s raising my rent 8%. I love 29 but in this market rents should be stable or perhaps giving back some of the gains of recent years, (like everyone else) so perhaps it is finally time to move. We’ll see. The thought of packing and getting a truck makes my stomach turn.

It seems my Eagles were just waiting for me to disown them again, to prove to me that they deserved my love. It worked. I am so excited to be in the playoffs. I can’t really explain how we lost to Dallas in week 2 and scored only 3 points against the hapless Redskins in week 16 and then somehow laid 44 points on a Cowboys team that had everything to play for in week 17, but I don’t really care. This weekend takes the Eagles to the dome in Minnesota and I will be yelling at my TV all game.

Here’s another one of those stories that I think helps to answer the question, “Why do the terrorist hate us?”

Today’s Fun fact: 12 – The number of shirts I own with 55 on the back.

This is a bit dated, but here's a pic I took in the Fiji airport and meant to show you back in July but I lost track of it.

Keep that in mind. Happy New Year.

I could be the Jane Goodall of pigeons…

So much more happens in my life when I get to work in town for a few days. It is great to be home in NYC.

I went to see The Wrestler (Aronofsky's new film) last night. Though it seems to draw its inspiration from the 1999 documentary, Beyond the Mat it somehow makes the story more real, by turning it into fiction. The film is intense. I had to watch several scenes through parted fingers with my hands pressed over my eyes. I would strongly recommend the film. The set and so many tiny costume details nail the desperate mood perfectly. Look for the duct tape patches on his vest to increase throughout the film. The van and trailer are depressing enough in a single shot to capture the mood of the entire film. (Todd Berry, who I once accidentally bought a beer for and subsequently, took said beer away from, turns in a spot-on performance of a prick supervisor.) I think you pretty much know the plot if you’ve seen a single trailer, and I won’t give anything more away, but I found Randy/Robin to be everyman, struggling to make our way in the world as who we wish we were, while being confronted at every turn with who we actually are, and while we wait for whatever means we use of earning a living to destroy us and leave us broken and hopeless. Merry Christmas.

In other news, I gave blood yesterday. Don’t forget to make an appointment as blood banks need you this time of year more than any other. I wanted to ask the Phlebotomist about the training course he’d had taken to be certified to draw blood in New York State (It’s a three week course that you can complete in 3 consecutive weekends and I’m considering as a test to gather some input about myself as to whether I could survive nursing school) but I thought he might mistake my curiosity about the course as concerns about his proficiency and I didn’t want to pry or seem rude while he had a huge needle in my arm.

Also draining my very lifeblood these days: the Philadelphia Eagles. I am actually jealous of Detroit Lions fans. At least they knew what was happening early on and didn’t waste all season to have their heart broken by a team that could only muster 3 points in a game against the anemic Redskins with the entire season on the line. The game made me sick. I guess we just don’t deserve to go the playoffs. I don’t know what my second team will be; I’ll hope the playoffs are just cancelled, like the year baseball went on strike. If that doesn’t workout, it’s likely that I’ll throw my support behind anyone playing the New York Gnats.
After that terrible Eagle loss, where they teased out hope until the very last second, I did not drown my sorrows, as would typically be my custom. I’m conducting a little experiment to take 31 days off from drinking. A search of this blog for the keyword ‘hangover’ yields 10 hits, and there are certainly others I haven’t even felt well enough to whine about, which is probably a bit more than recommended. To see if things are better sans hangover, I’m taking a 31 day hiatus from alcohol. I’m 16 days in and so far, so good. No major revelations or changes. One thing I have learned is that what I thought was being ‘hungover’ is actually the sensation of ‘waking up’. I wake up with a headache and a stomach ache every day. I think my body has an adverse reaction to morning. And to beeping. I hate beeping.

Not sure if this is a side effect from the ‘break’ or if I was briefly possessed by an alien life form, but I made soup the other day. A whole pot of it. Celery. Tomatoes. Carrots. Corn. Garlic. Pasta. Oregano. It was good. I don’t expect it to happen again.


Those of you who know me, know one of my favorite features of my beloved apartment is ‘Shit Mountain’. Two pigeon nests outside a window near my apartment that appear to have been built up out of decades of piled up pigeon waste. No other nesting material is visible. What an innovative use of materials to build a safe place to rear your young! I check the nests every day when I go in and out of the apartment. I’ve seen many generations hatch. I have never before seen what is happening now. There seems to be a perished pigeon on the right side of the ‘duplex’. He’s been slumped over, head hanging down low for days now. Maybe he got into some rat baited food and flew home before the poison kicked in. What I find so strange is that other pigeons seem to come and go from the ‘nest’ with little regard of this apparent detail. You would think they might find settling in next to a corpse, well... unsettling, but they don’t seem bothered at all. I’m excited about seeing this other end of the life cycle, since I’ve seen the beginning of the story so many times. I’m curious what will become of the dead pigeon. From where he is, wind wouldn’t blow him out, so it’s fairly likely he’ll just be absorbed into the nest and the next generation will hatch literally on top of him!

A quick check of the New York City weather tells me this: It’s presently 30 degrees and the High for today is 29, the Low is 26. Tomorrow’s projected low is 40, with a projected high of 49. Can anyone tell me how this is possible? If it’s 30 now, shouldn’t the high for today be at least 30? And if the high for today is 30 and the low for tomorrow is 40, then is the temperature going to jump from 30 to 40 at 12:01 AM? This infuriates me. Get it straight meteorologist!

Tomorrow I fly to Raleigh to see the nieces, my parents, sister and brother-in-law. Here’s hoping we have an ambulance free holiday (for once). Deck the Halls.

mild update on my 'life'

Greetings. What can I tell you?

I am pretty much finished with my holiday shopping. The only thing left is that I have been looking for US Senate vacancies on eBay. There are a couple of seats I have my eye on so I guess we’ll see how the bidding goes at the last minute.

Also, if you haven’t finished your holiday shopping yet, Jesse suggests this item, which is truly appropriate for anyone, and has a low carbon footprint.

It will shock no one to report that Minneapolis was cold. Work was work. I am back working in NY for now and won’t have to go back to Minneapolis until January. I didn’t do or see anything while I was there, save the inside of my hotel room and my client’s corporate headquarters. I did not even visit Camp Snoopy in the Mall of Americas. Mostly the cold suppresses any and all exploration urges but not having a car dampens my roaming around as well.

Last weekend Chip & Jen were in town visiting but I barely got to see them as they had a whirlwind schedule and I was quite busy as well. We had the Ambush end of season banquet and it was great to see everyone, eat waaay too much and shake it to our favorites. We are really a dance troupe that plays ultimate to cross-train.

Last weekend I also went to a Knicks game at the garden to see my (ex)boyfriend AI with his new team the Pistons and it really did not work out. (Abysmal no-name Knicks prevail.) I am hoping it is a timing thing and that he has not jumped the shark.

Stephen has offered this comment on AI as a means of explanation. Scroll down for Allen.

The Eagles also beat the Giants which was an unexpected source of much joy.

Other than work and watching sports things have been pretty quiet. Ultimate is in the off season and my hamstring is appreciating that.

The only other major update for me is that I have joined this decade and purchased an iPhone (Leroy). I love him. It is the best thing that has happened to my life in years. I compulsively download apps for it (I love Lux Touch and Around Me). The e-mail interface is better that the one on my laptop. There’s basically nothing he can’t do as far as I can tell. Airport delays are just more time to surf, mail, play games and listen to audio. I’m a happy-camper.

This coming weekend should be busy with some visitors in town from Australia and a holiday brunch. MNF is my birds hosting the Browns which they absolutely must win and are completely capable of losing. I’ll be yelling at the TV with my hands over my eyes, like any Philly fan.

For Christmas I’ll be in Raleigh with my nieces, the Gupton girls. I am looking forward to seeing them and they are looking forward to Santa’s arrival. I have been running queries against the naughty/nice database and it seems they are both in good shape.

It’s almost time to draft this year’s holiday letter. In order to be prepared, be sure check out last year’s letter.

The Brownlow

Time and time again, Australia proves to me that it is a little different. Last night was another case in point.

I watched the 4 hour Brownlow Medal presentation show on TV. The show is a cross between the Oscars and the Espys. It is on prime time TV on a major network. Everyone seems to watch. The medal is essentially for the AFL MVP for the regular season, here called the Best and Fairest. Players are formally eliminated if they were suspended during the year for rules violations. After every match the game officials meet and come to unanimous agreement on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd best players on the ground in that game (from either team). Kind of like the NHL stars of the game award. (Do they only do that for the Capitals? anyway….) 3rd gets you one vote, 2nd gets you two votes and 1st gets you 3 votes toward the Brownlow. Big deal, that all seems pretty standard.

Where it gets a little wacky is in the presentation. The show to present this medal is the biggest TV night of the year. There is a lengthy red carpet process and thorough critique of all the wives and girlfriend gowns. Now remember, the whole show is to present just one award. How does that take all night? I’ll tell you how. By reading each vote, for every game, all season.

That’s right. It’s a bit like Bingo. “In round 1, Collingwood Magpies vs. the Hawthorne Hawks, with 1 vote Collingwood, Dale Thomas, with 2 votes Collingwood Leon Davis, with 3 votes for best on ground Collingwood Anthony Rocca…” There are 22 rounds, and 8 games per round. That’s 176 games, and 528 separate votes to read out. One. At. A. Time. This would be like a Cy Young show where every sportswriters vote was read out individually. In between all of this they show some highlights from the season and do some player interviews.

Obviously, they could tally the votes for us and just announce the winner, like every award show in the US, but where’s the fun in that?

Speaking of sports and voting, I’m not sure how long we can vote, but please consider voting for my Georgetown friend Dan Brody to be an Olympic torch bearer: vote

NFL Survival update: Steelers got me through week 3 and how. Take that San Francisco. Looking at week 4 now for a team I actually want to cheer for that might win. Easier said than done. My Eagles finally did win, but in the ugliest throwback jerseys I’ve seen in quite some time. Speaking of jerseys, thanks to Jesse for this link which is like a Vice Don’t Website tailored just for my interest: http://straightcashhomey.net/

Jesse also found provided this link to an important anthropological study so something tells me he’s been doing a little extra surfing of the net lately.

Barb and Mike touch down in my hemisphere this Thursday. Stay tuned.

3 Day Old Sushi

Hmmm… What can I tell you? It has been a quiet week. I worked. Ran some. Biked some. Threw some. Pretty quiet here. I’m not proud to admit that on Tuesday I was so bored I watched two successive episodes of So You Think You Can Dance. That was pretty sad.

TV here has every crap American show. For some reason they are two seasons behind on the Ghost Whisperer and that is always on. Why is Jennifer Love Hewatt always in some low cut top talking to dead people’s relatives? Why do I know this? Why is any American show, no matter how crappy, on TV here? I know I should get out more. Australians get a bit of a chip on their shoulder that shows are always on here a few months behind in the states. The local TV stations have started a new promotion that they call TV “Streaming from the States”. It’s for new shows like Californication. The concept is that Australians no longer have to endure the wait of a few extra weeks to see the next episode of American Law & Order, you can see it at the same time as the US. Of course, the ‘streaming’ term makes no sense, as the show is not actually shown at the same time, because that would be in the middle of the work day here. Whatever. Minor details I guess in the grand scheme of progress which is of course defined as getting the latest American TV show as soon as possible.

The only plus side to Australian TV right now is a little something I call Tuesday lunch football. I’ll be watching my Eagles on Fox sports here live. The game starts at noon. The Eagles will try to make something out of the season. Let’s all hope they can beat the Washington Racial Slurs.

This week in the survival pool, I was going to go with the Steelers, but I was afraid that the miracle Bills might pop up and win one for Everett, so I decided to wait on that a bit.

The drought is still quite bad here and all the crops are failing so food prices are on the rise. Of course, this won’t really affect me, but it is bad news for poor Australians. All the banana crops died in the drought and as a result bananas are almost impossible to find here and like $6 each if you can find one.

I bought a new flashing light for the front of Deirdre. I hope she doesn’t get all bling conscious and materialistic.

I had a Footy Semi-finals game party on Saturday. The “semi-finals” are a round played when 6 teams remain. Next week, with only 4 teams left they will play the “preliminary finals”. Then, just after my parents arrive, they will play the Grand Final. The ‘party’ was quiet but fun. I had about 10 people over to eat sushi, cheese, TimTams and watch the game.

Thanks to Kimmie for this shout out to my CSI addiction: Fact Checkers Unit

Have a good week.