The Eagle Has Landed

Everyone is here safe and sound. I got a voice mail from my mom when I woke up this morning that my Mom and Dad and Aunt Vicki and Uncle John have all arrived and are in Sydney. I was glad to hear that they did not have to divert the plane for an emergency landing for any reason.

They will be touring around Sydney for the weekend and then my parents will fly to Melbourne around 9 PM on Sunday evening. Then the real fun will start. Aunt Vicki follows with John on Tuesday and we'll all be driving down the great ocean road on Wednesday.

I went to a classical piano performance last night and had a really nice time.

Today is Grand Final day, which is like Super Bowl Saturday and the whole city is going nuts. All the hotels are full and downtown is buzzing. I'm not going to the game, but I'll watch it on TV with some friends. Sorry if I've already told you this, but whenever you cheer for your team here you use the article. You might say, "Go The Hawks!" It's very formal. Give it a try, "Go The Mets"! (Are the Mets going to miss the playoffs now? Sad.) The Grand Final today is between the Geelong Cats and the Port Adelaide Power (who wear teal uniforms). I like Geelong as I went to see them back in June with Joy & Hussey in their local stadium. I think we inspired them to greatness.

Have a nice weekend.

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.

Spring and Sport

Hello. I know you're all on the edge of your seat about the AFL finals. The Grand Final is next Saturday. It'll be the Geelong Cats against the Port Adelaide Power. Go Cats!

This week was fine. Work. Sleep. Repeat.

On Friday, I went to a commitment ceremony at Town Hall for Joy and Hussey. Everyone had a good time.

More on TV, (the trend here is that I have been writing these post from the couch in front of the TV.)

If someone was trying to design and direct a Television show for me to become deeply addicted to, they could not have done a better job than Raising Baby. If the apartment were burning down I still might try to make it to the end of the episode before I evacuate. This show is a different baby wild animal being raised every week. I have seen Seal and Gorilla. eeeeeeeeeeeee! I have e-mailed to volunteer to raise the baby polar bear so hopefully they will get back to me soon about that.

In some ways the culture here is more conservative. If they find out a politician has ever gone to a strip club for a bachelor party they want his head. At the same time, I just saw a subway commercial that said regular fast food (McDonald's) gives you a Badonkadonk Butt. Can you say that on TV? Californication is on regular prime time TV here with all the language and nudity. What gives?

They are also running ads on TV supporting television ads. Do you know what I mean? It's an ad for ads, saying that TV ads raise awareness about your business. No really? I hope this is followed by and ad supporting ads for ads.

My parents arrive in Melbourne on Sunday. We'll be seeing the Great Ocean Road and the Yarra Wine Valley. More on that soon. Until then I'll be watching 20-20 cricket, the rugby world cup, the women's world cup (possible semis showdown between the US and Australia) and Davis cup tennis. Have a great week.

Important Things

Just when I think I have nothing else to tell you I get two questions like that. Wow. I have been leaving out some critical topics. That’s why this is a dialogue.

First. TimTams. A TimTam is probably the pinnacle of Australian contribution to global culture. The cookie is two chocolate wafers the consistency of a thin mint without the mint flavor. The two cookies make a sandwich with a chocolate mousse cream that is then dipped in milk chocolate. The best way to eat a TimTam is to bite off both ends and drink milk through your TimTam straw. Most bars will give you a TimTam to drink your Baileys through as well. TimTams are sold in single serving 14 cookie packages.

Next CSI. I love how ridiculous it is. They’ll do anything. They have no qualms about insulting the viewers. The crux of the show is that some piece of evidence solves the case. So the dead body will have insect eggs from an insect that is going extinct and only exists in one town where only one person lives. Or the body will have roe on it and it will be a kind served at only one sushi place in New York and the killer is a sushi chef who was still covered in roe when he went on a murderous rage. Once I know an episode is on I cannot look away until the ridiculously specific clue is found. I love that basically the same show is supposed to be three shows: New York, Miami and Las Vegas. I’m waiting for CBS to create four more to round out the week. CSI Edmonton would be good. What about a CSI Cincinnati that only solves the crimes committed by the Bengals? Or a CSI Lake Wacamaw where no crimes are committed and they use evidence to give parking tickets and high school detention. What about CSI Bombay? That might actually be interesting.

More on TV: do you guys have the Snickers ads with Mr. T?
These totally crack me up. Get some Nuts. He looks exactly like he did on Silver Spoons in 1982. Does he sleep in a cryogenic chamber?

Survival update: the Bears got me through to week two, though the Steelers would have worked out as well, obviously.

Cricket is back on here in the middle of the night. WooHoo.

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.

Honorary Queenslander

NUFL 2 was this past weekend in Albert Park. The fields there are a bit like Red Hook with big dirt and dust patches. I ended up an honorary Queenslander for the weekend. Sultry, the team coming down from Brisbane lost a number of their free agents and players who couldn’t afford to fly down to Melbourne and were showing up with a skeleton crew. VOS was already the largest team in the national competition and everyone was coming this weekend since it was in town. As I’m not too deeply enmeshed in my Victorian roots, and I gave up state pride when I moved to Texas in 6th grade, I was happy to volunteer to play with Sultry. The girls were all really nice and I had fun. Our team was out matched and lost all 4 of our games. It was a really windy weekend in Melbourne and the teams played zone all weekend. We just didn’t have the handlers to hang in. We had adequate D and were getting turns, but just couldn’t turn them in to scores. I played pretty well except for a throw away to the dump that is still eating at me and a drop while handling in the axis. I was only thinking about swinging the disc to the other handler ASAP to beat the cup and didn’t wait until I caught the disc first. Arrrgh! So frustrating.

Biking to NUFL2 on Sunday in Albert Park I saw one of the coolest things I’ve seen since I arrived here. I’ve mentioned the huge black swans with red beaks before. (Is a black Swan just a goose? I don’t know. These are some of the most beautiful and incredible birds I’ve ever seen. I’ll go with black swan until proven elsewise.) Apparently it’s swanling (cygnet) time because I saw several tiny baby swans. They are light grey and look like a duckling that was dipped in egg batter and then in snow. They waddle unsteadily. They are the cutest thing I have ever seen. It’s thanks only to the fact that I had to get to a game that I didn’t stay there all day and maybe try to take one home with me.

I lived through week one in my NFL survival pool. Sure it’s easy to do that when you pick the Colts. Maybe that’s automatic and maybe I wasted a get out of jail free I’ll need later on in the season but I’ve already finished ahead of than 5 people in the pool so we’ll see how it goes. What happened to my Eagles? How did we lose to that geriatric wash up? I bet I am glad to be on the wrong side of the world for the NFL this season.

Don’t be frightened, but I’ve been cooking again. Dinner tonight and lunch for the rest of the week is this recipe that I sort of improvised. Boil a cup of brown rice with two cups of water and simmer for 25 minutes. Yes, I know that’s just the recipe for rice. There’s more. Then add a cup of frozen peas, a cup of mushrooms that they cut up for you at and prepackaged at the grocery store, a cup of frozen cauliflower, four servings of tofu, cubed and a whole jar of curry sauce. Makes 1 dinner and 3 lunches. I’m eating it now. It’s pretty good. Would be better if I hadn’t accidentally purchased something that I never knew existed before which are ‘mint flavored’ frozen peas. Who would do this to peas? Why? Are people clamoring for refreshing gum flavored peas? What’s the extension of this aberration? Mint flavored carrots? Tomatoes? Mint flavored orange juice.? Let’s band together to fight this mint invasion. Are you with me?

I haven’t really been too homesick for NYC since I got here, but lately has been the worst so far. Ambush is getting ready for the fall series and just had their famously wild fundraiser and I missed it! Killer. I’m sure you girls had fun. Go Bush!

As Warren G said in 1994, “What’s Next? What’s Next? What’s N-X-E-T?”

Well, my parents will be here to visit soon. I’m steeling myself for that.

The footy finals are in full swing here and I’m having folks over on Saturday night to watch the Hawthorn Hawks vs. the North Melbourne Kangaroos (Dad, that’s the shirt you got for Father’s day). Go Roos!

With NUFL over there should be a little break in ultimate. I was going to play Mixed Nationals with Gary, but that’s in Sydney the same weekend I’ll be in the Yarra Wine Valley with my parents and Aunt and Uncle. It’s okay. You may have noticed I’ve been to a few tournaments before.

I am thinking about playing with the Australian national team in Taiwan in December. More on that in future posts.

Here’s wishing you a good week and reminding you the escape key will not save you in the event of a fire.

Slackers

Happy Labor Day you slackers. It is not a holiday here, so I'll be at work, laboring.

I seem to have broken my coccyx bone again for a third time. I'm not sure how. I think this is just being old. It is pretty impossible to sit or lie on my back. It happened at work.

Luckily, in this day and age there is an online community for everything. This is my newest social peer group. Seriously gripping reading.

This weekend involved a lot of lying on my stomach, a half birthday for Joy and Jacko at 54 Laity and VOS training.

This was the last weekend of the regular season of AFL. The top 8 (of 16) make the "finals" (the playoffs). They will work toward the Grand Final (super bowl) over the next few weekends.

It's a little wack. Next weekend: 1 plays 4, 2 plays 3, 5 plays 8 and 7 plays 6. The losers of the 5/8 and the 7/6 game are eliminated. The winners of the 1/4, 2/3 get a bye next weekend. The losers of the 1/4, 2/3 play the winners of 5/8 & 7/6. So two weekend from now... lets say everyone holds seed. 4 will play 6 and 3 will play 5. The winners of those games will play the two teams who had a bye, and the winners of those games will play each other in the grand final. If you go back and read this paragraph 5 more times it still won't make any sense. Sorry.

Next weekend is the NUFL 2 tournament. The weekend after that I'll throw a finals party.

It's warm here and spring is coming on full force.

Mixed Nuts

I’m tired. Here’s a quick update.

Since NUFL 1 there was a week of work. I started making my own lunches for some reason which are pretty gross. This won’t last long.

Last weekend was a Mixed Nats qualifier. I played with Gary. We had a lot of fun. We beat two established teams (Honey Badgers and Mucous) and even gave Station 59 (Joy, Hussey, Liz, Chris, Jess, etc,) a decent game. (Tied at 5s, final 17-12). I played pretty well and handled a lot. I tied in the women’s MVP voting and got to split the spoils (a beer) with Mama (Lauren) which is pretty cool. Pretty much everyone on Gary is like a Freshman at Uni and there are also some juniors like Snail's super cool sister Cat. The team is goofy and very positive and it was a lot of fun. Cute Kids.

After the tournament, we went to the beach near St. Kilda. The water was freezing and made my feet numb but Mel Jackson and Chris and Sebbo Barr got all the way in the ocean. Dave did a back flip on the sand despite an ankle too sore to play the second half of the finals against Station 59. I was suspect and biked off to the Gunn Island Hotel where we all watched two footy games and drank Bees Knees beer and ate bar food. It was a good Sunday.

NUFL 2 is coming up. I’m helping to organize “billets” which means a free place to crash with another ultimate player. It’s pretty common here and a uniquely Australian thing. No one makes hotel reservations. They all just couch surf around the country. Slackers!

I got a great card in the mail from my mom. Kelly humor is puntastic. Hippo Birdy Two Ewe. You get the idea. This card couples my mom’s essential criteria (a golden retriever on the front) with a Kelly pun. The golden on the front is standing in a baby pool. The text inside reads, “You’re the one I waded for.” I laughed.

My parents will be here in early October. We’ll be checking out Melbourne, the Great Ocean Road and the Yarra Wine Valley. I am preparing for the impact.

This weekend will involve VOS practice, a party at Joy & Hussey’s house and watching some footy.

Congrats to Ambush for finally getting over on Godiva.
Congrats to Lindy for her first day of Kindergarten.

Thanks to Jesse for passing on this link of the AFL player who is trying out as punter for the eagles: Sav Rocca

Have a great Labor Day you lazy Americans.

The Victorian Era

NUFL 1: This past weekend (August 18 & 19) was the National Ultimate Frisbee League tournament in Sydney.

Friday after work I went home, got all my stuff together and headed out to Southern Cross Station to catch the red SkyBus to Tullamarine airport. Also on the bus with me were my Team Box and NUFL captain Liz Edye and Heads of State team member Owen Shepard. The traffic was bad on the way to the airport and Owen was nervous about missing his flight. I wasn’t worried as I had plenty of time. I was going to check in, fly to Sydney, meet up with Liz in the airport and rent a car. I went to the JetStar counter to check in and couldn’t find the queue for my flight. Hmmm. I went to the JetStar information counter to learn that my flight (which was taking off in about an hour) was departing from Avalon airport near Geelong, not Tullamarine. No one’s fault but my own; it was right there in the confirmation e-mail I had printed out and not read very closely.

There was no way to make it to Avalon in that time, and that was the last flight to Sydney that day. The nice folks at JetStar moved me to the 6 AM Saturday morning flight at no charge. I called Liz to let her know that her parents would need to pick her up as I couldn’t give her a lift home if I was still in Melbourne. Back on the SkyBus (through traffic again) to Southern Cross Station where I learned that the bus I needed to the Avalon airport for my flight on Saturday morning departed at 3:45 AM. Great. It was 10 PM and I needed to get up at about 3 to make my flight. I went home, failed to change my Budget rental reservation because their customer service line closes at 6 PM (thanks jerks) and they won’t take same day reservation modifications online.

I got about four hours of sleep before returning to Southern Cross and then onto the SunBus to Avalon where I met Timill from Heads of State. Quick nap of a flight and then we’re in Sydney. I go to pick up my rental car which has somehow become twice as expensive because I didn’t pick it up last night but I have no time to fight with them as I need to get to the fields. It’s 7:30 Saturday morning and I’m tired and cranky from the mix up and lack of sleep. I need to exit the rental lot and double back around to terminal 2 arrivals to pick up Timill, Rueben and Dave from Heads of State who I had agreed to give a lift to the fields. I’m trying to hurry, adjust my mirrors, stay on the left side of the road and read airport signage. My rental car is also making a suspicious beeping sound. I can’t figure out how to get back to arrivals and I keep ending up in turn only lanes. Well, I end up miles away and have to follow the signs back to the airport and explain to the boys what happened and why I abandoned them at the airport. Rueben agrees to navigate, I assign Dave to ‘left side of the road’ duty and Timill figures out that the annoying beeping is a speed monitor that beeps when I drive above the speed limit. Thankfully, this distraction can be disabled. Let’s hope this ‘innovation’ never makes it to the US.

We go through three separate toll roads and tunnels that don’t accept cash and will require me to pay online later, but we do safely arrive at the fields at MacQuarie University in North Sydney in time to warm up and play.

The Victorian team here is VOS, Victoria One Squad, which refers to the three club teams that joined like Voltron to form the NUFL team: Team Box, Ishtar and Honey. Sydney has decided to form two teams to represent New South Wales: Betty Crocker and Sarah Lee. First up on Saturday morning we play Betty Crocker. The fields are nice, it’s warm and sunny and not much wind. It’s a perfect day for ultimate.

Check out this website for the results: NUFL .For more detail, read on.

Our first Sydney game was close and tough. We started out down a couple quickly like we weren’t quite ready to play. Then we traded for the rest of the first half. I was cutting well and catching well, but I had a turn when I threw a quick break to a receiver who called for the disc but wasn’t open. (I still have to look!) Despite the lack of wind, both teams were having more success with Zone and Junk Ds than with man. I think this is because it stopped the set O plays we had all been planning to run. We fought hard in the second half mostly trading but were never able to string enough points in a row to get the lead.

Pretty much directly after the first game, we had a second game against the fACTory girls from Canberra (Australian Capital Territory). This was another close, hard fought game. We trailed most of the game but were able to string together a few points late in the second half to take the lead and the game. Towards the end of the game I rolled my ankle jumping over to strike on the mark. Mama (Lauren) brought me ice. As close as the game had been, we were lucky to come away 1-1 for the day.

By 2:00 PM we were done for the day, eating a ‘typical’ Australian Frisbee lunch and watching the Heads of State guys lose a close one to Barefoot from Sydney. I was exhausted and getting cranky. In typical ultimate style there was a lot of faffing around and it was 6 PM or so before I could gather up the girls in my rental car to drive to ‘The Ranch’ which was a huge social club like restaurant where all the teams were going for dinner. At this point, I felt like a captive being subjected to sleep deprivation by my interrogators, the VOS girls. All I want is sleep and to be left alone. I ate some pretty crummy pasta and then went out to the car to sleep. In what seemed like one second after I sat down in the rental car, (but was actually an hour) the girls were outside and ready to go back to Liz’s parents place for sleep. We went to a grocery store on the way there to buy breakfast for in the morning and then off to the Edye’s home. They have a beautiful house that easily and comfortably slept the 10 of us. I showered and passed out in a bedroom.

I woke up 10 hours later and feeling much better to the sound of rain on the skylights. I met Liz’s mom and dad who were super nice. We had some toast and tea and packed up to get on the road to the fields, which were a convenient 10 minutes away. It seemed like it was raining pretty hard as I led the warm up for our game against Brisbane’s Sultry. Little did I know that was as light as it would rain all day. The game was dominated by zone on both sides of the disc due to the deluge. The standard of play was actually pretty high despite the wet disc. My ankle was feeling a lot better and I ran a lot of cup and fence. We were pretty much trading until Brisbane scored 2 in a row from 5-6 to lead 5-8. In a game that sloppy, I was concerned that those points would be the break that won the game, but VOS rallied to run off 4 straight points and take half at 9-8.

It was pretty miserable out there. We had a big squad so people were freezing when we were off in between points. It was raining harder than taking a shower. There was 2-3 inches of standing water on the field. I was still pretty happy with how I played getting a few Ds and busting long with enough conviction to make Tasmanian star Ash Martin cover me for most of the second half. VOS hung on to narrowly win in the second half at the cap (maybe 13-11?).

After that, the NUFL coordinators met and agreed to cancel games for the rest of the day due to the damage that is done to the fields when people play in cleats in that kind of rain. I was bummed to come all the way to Sydney and only play 3 games, but we were all blue, trembling and miserable, so I guess it was for the best.

We ran to a nearby squash court which sold us hot showers for $3 each, which was the best $3 dollars I have even spent in my entire life. My fingers were raisins for another hour after that. We all drove to a nearby hotel (read pub) to eat and wait for our flights. We passed most of the afternoon playing Dilemma and that 3 person chuck or marry game. In the most exciting event of the afternoon, Lucy Ross borrowed the keys to the rental to get her stuff out of the trunk and put it in the taxi to the airport. She forgot to bring back the keys and I called her 20 minutes later as she was on the way to the airport. She had to hop out of her cab and get another taxi back to us to return the keys so that I could let other people get their stuff out of the trunk and so we could drive to the airport. Now really late, she jumped in with us, and stressed the whole drive to the airport, in the still pouring rain, that she was going to miss her flight. Thanks to Owen, a Sydney native, for navigating well and keeping me calm despite the nutcase in the back seat during the drive.

We all ended up making our flights and getting back to Melbourne in one (soggy) piece. I've been to Sydney a few times now and there is just nothing charming about that city. It reminds me of Dallas. You have to drive everywhere and the traffic is terrible and there are lots of strip malls. I'm so glad I ended up living in Melbourne.

This week at work was pretty busy and I am very tired. I didn’t do anything from Monday-Friday other than work, work and sleep. Thrilling, I know.

In other news, Australia is having a national election for Prime Minister in a few weeks. It consistently gets less coverage by the local news media than the Hillary/Barack democratic primary races back home. There was a spike in the coverage earlier this week when Kevin Rudd, the opposition candidate, was exposed to have gone to a strip club in 2003 in New York City. He went to Scores. Big deal. Who hasn’t been to Scores? The best part about this story is that an Australian newspaper has got the Scores manager from 4 years ago on record saying he remembers Rudd’s visit and that he was there for about 15 minutes. Right. A politician that might be a big deal in Australia in four years would make a strong impression on your strip club management team. I can see that.

Here’s wishing you a good week and reminding you to turn off the mixer before you lick off the cake batter.

Also, I got a new Flickr Uploadr which makes it much easier to use, and I have no more monthly limit, so I've put some more pics from earlier this year up on Flickr and added some descriptions on the pics.

Brief Mailbag Update

Extra special thanks to Alex, Tim and Nina Rogers for a package and to Mara for a letter and gift. It just keeps flooding in people. My mom has sent a number of golden retreiver related cards as well. I wonder what percentage of the greeting card market those dogs make up?