i am still here

in australia. for a time.

all persists. work is still work. i am busy. laaaaate nights.

also, as usual there is some disc. i played in a co-ed tournament this weekend in ballarat. as they say here, we came second. the fields were crap.

tonight i won the division two league finals with the magic mushrooms and my team box teammate cat 'litter box' phillips and snail 'spring box' phillips. the phillips sisters and i then won the division one finals with twelve cheers for and more team box teammates: joy 'human beat' box and hussey 'this is not a' box. yeah league. twelve cheers for is the coolest coed team i have ever played with and it almost makes you consider co-ed. as an option. then again, all of our guys are open players, which i think is what made it so fun. they are also all 19 and the fastest MFs you have ever seen.

i watched the nuggets game cast today on a conference call. AI was huge in the victory over houston. i think the 8 spot is locked in now.

next up is nationals in coff's harbor with sporting team box althetico united. i cannot wait. it will be rad, assuredly. i'll be road tripping to nationals with mama, raging on the gold coast and then four days at the tourney with my St. Bau boxes. Might just be the best time ever.

Paganello!

Paga Paga. Paganello. Paga Paga Paga Paga Pagenello! That is a lot more like the Hare Krishna chant than I realized at the time.

I am back from Italy. The trip was great. The beach ultimate was great and hanging out with all the wedding folks was great. Fortunately/Unfortunately, most of it is a drunken haze so I can only generally describe what occurred.

I can recall the 38 hour trip over there pretty vividly. I flew from Melbourne to Singapore for 8 hours and after just a few hours in that airport, flew from Singapore to Paris for 13 more hours. I was trying to drink my weight in the free business class champagne.

Movies watched in Route:
Juno: A+ - New rule: the more former Arrested Development cast members, the better the movie
Beowulf : B- - Angelina Jolie as Grendal’s mom? Really?
No Country for Old Men – A+ Best villain since Ving Rhames
I am Legend – B+ - Breaks the rule that the dog never dies
Margo at the Wedding: B- - Am I supposed to hate her? I do.
We Own the Night – A – Marky Mark + Joaquin Phoenix means and A was the lowest possible score for this movie, given the eye candy factor, and boy did it ever earn that. Must avoid if you don’t love them both.

Upon arriving in Paris, I learned that due to some Italian labor dispute my 7 AM flight was cancelled, as was the 9, noon, etc. on until 4 PM. I decided to take the train into Paris and though my warm clothes were checked through to Bologna, I had a pretty fun time tooling around a beautiful city.

I took the train to Notre Dame:

From there I had a typically touristy French breakfast that was delicious:
Well fed, I walked along the Seine to the Eiffel Tower. This is a view from my approach:
And from under her skirt:

There were long lines to go up the tower at 3 of the bases. The fourth has a much shorter line, because you had to use the stairs (no elevator) so the fat American tourists did not even consider it. It only took 15 minutes or so to walk up to the second platform. It was windy and hailing, so I took some pictures and got out of there.

There are these cool tourist city bikes that you can hire for just a few dollars an hour from stations all over the city. I rented one of those and biked back to Notre Dame. Here’s the bikes being serviced:

Paris seems pretty bike-friendly with lots of cycle lanes. After I got back to Notre Dame, I took the train back to the airport and waited to fly to Bologna. That flight was uneventful (a little more champagne and a nap).

Once I landed in Bologna I saw this slogan which captured how I was feeling quite accurately at the time.

From there I had an 80 minute train to Rimini and then checked into the Cortina, where I took a long overdue shower and went to sleep. This would prove to be my last full nights sleep for the length of the trip.

On Thursday I synced up with Jen, Chip and the rest of the gang. We started drinking red wine on the beach and the rest is pretty much a haze until I had to get back on the train on Monday. D. Rex played really well, beating our seed (14) and ending up 7th. If it hadn’t been for rain induced hypothermia I am pretty sure we could have broken in to the top 4. We ate one good Italian dinner and a lot of Shwarma. There was much dancing and drinking. There was much amusement due to Duck Rex. Check out his magic neck:

Here’s a wedding point, with a groomsman (Max), the groom, the bride and two bridesmaids:

It's all a haze to me but if you want to see a proper breakdown of scores and games please see Chip's write up who covers everything with such detail I'm beginning to wonder how drunk he really was.

Monday afternoon I needed to head back to Bologna for my plane. The Italian trains on Easter Monday are chockers. I had a seat but it was still nuts trying to get on and off with all my luggage, especially since I had picked up the Sporting Team Box Athletico United brand spanking new jerseys and shorts off the boys from 5 to save on the postage all the way to Australia.

It was a struggle but I made it back to the airport. There was a lot more sleep on the return flights, but I did see a couple more films:

Rendition: C+ - Cloying, pregnant Reese Witherspoon just about cancels out Jake Gyllenhaal, which is saying something

August Rush: D- - I could only tolerate the first 20 minutes. I should have known better.

Lions for Lambs: C- - Contrived. Stilted. After-school specialesque. I think that might be the kid from growing pains.

Now that I’m back home in Melbounre I’m still on Italy time. It might be jet lag, or it might just be a protest about the trip being over.

If I'm not thinking, I'm drinking 'bout you

Hello. What can I tell you? It was a pretty good week. I am feeling a little sluggish and uninspired, but it's probably time for an update so here we go...

Let’s start with the bad news. Another torn ACL: First was J-Christ, then Brenda then Emma and now Abbey. That’s right, my golden retriever tore her ACL. The injury was sustained while playing fetch with my Mom. She’ll have surgery on Tuesday and then rehab, just like a person. I’m sad about this and a bit worried about her. I remember when this happened to Moose (of TMC fame) and it was a tough deal. Moose got better though, at least most of the way. I’m sure my mother will be keeping a close eye on Abbey.

Deirdre is back from the bike vet and better than ever. I just needed a new peddle hyrdacoil. I got her seat raised a bit and rode her to pick-up.

Pick-up on Saturday was a lot of fun. While there, I found a co-ed team to play with here. The seasons are opposite (rather than concurrent as they are in the US) so most club players play both co-ed and open or women’s. I’ll be playing with “Gary” which is based on a core of one of the open team here in Melbourne, the Heads of State. The boys from heads are pretty nice and a very casual group. I don’t expect us to win many games, but we will win the party. “Gary” is a bit of an inside joke, but I’ll probably expose it here in future posts. Stay tuned.

This weekend involved a fair bit of drinking. Jess and I had 5 long necks of Coopers between us at Hell’s Kitchen on Friday after work. On Saturday Jess, Joy, Hussey and I pubcrawled Fitzroy. We approved of the Provincial and Night Cat, and several other places that can now only be hazily recollected. It’s a good part of town. This morning I had brunch at La Citta and had some bloody marys. It’s a good thing I have to go to work tomorrow, I need the detox.

This week’s strangest event was a corporate team outing to watch the movie Office Space. The whole team was there. We were in a Telstra office, showing the movie on an Accenture laptop on a Telstra projector. We had Pizza. The bit about every day at work being the new worst day of his life still paints a poignant for me. It was a queasy dissonance to watch this anthem of rebellion at work with Lumbergs right there all around me. Maybe that’s what necessitated all the drinking noted above.

I also attended another trivia session this week, this time at the Prince of Wales, with Chris and Liz. I didn’t help much, but I did get a question about Jesse Owens right. We came in next to last, which (strangely) wins a prize.

This week’s mailbag: I have an exciting item in the mailbag this week. Thanks to Peanut for sending me a postcard from Budapest. She is in Hungary visiting her family and resting her planter fasciitis.

Peanut was Lindy’s favorite Ambush player for her sic layouts and long “yellow hair”. Lindy, also of the yellow hair turned 5 this weekend. Time flies.

Best of luck to Ambush at the Boston Invitational this weekend. I think this is the first time in 5 years or so I’ve missed that weekend. It’s strange not to be there.

Fellow bloggers: Do you archive independently from Blogger, in the event that it might go down or eat your blog or something? It is free after all. They don’t exactly have a service level agreement to meet. If so, any tips?

And finally, don't think I forgot about you. Here's a few good pranks to keep you entertained:
Oil and Weather.