The one where I read good

In White Teeth, Zadie Smith quotes P.G. Wodehouse: "...Samad was like Jeeves: if not exactly disgruntled, then some way from being gruntled." Or paraphrased, actually--PGW said "far from being". I know because I wrote that line down in my journal when I came across it in January. (Of course, maybe _I_ got it wrong…)

I was quite mathy in high school (no, go on, really, I really was), and pretty much in college, too. But, probably through a combination of living with Rocket for a couple of years and my more recent cruciverbalisticism (I do crossword puzzles), I've been concentrating more on my word side. So this might seem familiar to many of you who had to muddle through my early entries about Ultimate—a long entry, chock full of stuff you could probably not care less about. Here's some stuff I've read and thought about this trip, with some random observations thrown in:

Other Wodehouse lines I liked:

"He did what is known as struggling for utterance."

"Bertram Wooster is a man who knows when and when not to be among those present."

I read some W Somerset Maugham, too. A couple of times he amazed me with his ability to paint an incredibly nuanced impression of a person, or describe a situation or feeling better than I ever could, with an economy of words. Obviously a skill I don't have, but here are some examples:

"She just missed being beautiful, and in missing it was not even pretty."

"It was the kind of party which makes you wonder why the hostess has troubled to bid her guests, and why the guests have troubled to come. There were ten people. They met with indifference, and would part with relief. It was, of course, a purely social function. The Stricklands 'owed' dinners to a number of persons, whom they took no interest in, and so had asked them; these person had accepted. Why? To avoid the tedium of dining tête-à-tête, to give their servants a rest, because there was no reason to refuse, because they were 'owed' a dinner."

Anyway, here’s what I've read, or at least most of it:
- A guide to grammar for English schoolchildren published in 1882
- Honor Among Thieves (Jeffrey Archer)
- Mainlines, Blood Feasts and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader (Ed: John Morthland)
- The Rule of Four (Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason)
- The Final Solution (Michael Chabon)
- Summerland (Chabon)
- Red Rabbit (Tom Clancy)
- Red Storm Rising (Clancy)
- My Many Colored Days (Theodore Geisel)
- Neuromancer (William Gibson)
- Carter Beats the Devil (Glen David Gold)
- A Long Way Down (Nick Hornby)
- The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
- Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer)
- Freakonomics (Steven Levitt and William Dubner)
- On Human Bondage (W Somerset Maugham)
- The Moon and Sixpence (Maugham)
- The Razor's Edge (Maugham)
- The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
- White Teeth (Zadie Smith)
- On Beauty (Smith)
- The Fellowship of the Ring (JRR Tolkien)
- The Two Towers (Tolkien)
- Return of the King (Tolkien)
- The Hobbit (Tolkien)
- Bluebeard (Kurt Vonnegut)
- The Code of the Woosters (PG Wodehouse)

What I tried to read but _despised_, and still shudder when I think about:
- The Unconsoled (Kazuo Ishiguro)

Other Notes:
- the grammar book included 'beeves' as an example!
- Number of times I'd heard (and noticed) the word 'impecunious' before this trip: One, from Rocket
- Number of times I've come across it in my reading: Three, two from Maugham (including 'impecuniosity'), one from Smith

Some Movies I've watched:
- Touching The Void
- The Godfather
- Scarface
- The 5th Element
- Thank You For Your Consideration
- The Valet
- Casino Royale
- The Karate Kid
- Good Will Hunting
- The Fellowship of the Ring

Some Movies I've watched on busses and planes:
- Thank You For Smoking
- Thank You For Smoking
- Thank You For Smoking
- You, Me and DuPree
- Thank You For Smoking (I saw it several times)
- Miracle on Ice
- The Queen
- The Devil Wears Prada
- The Departed
- My Superhero Ex-Girlfriend
- The Incredibles
- The Queen (I saw it twice)
- The Robin Williams One Where He Runs For President

Words I've coined:
- Misgerunding

Words TY's accidentally coined:
- Wasier

Words I Dislike:
- Monosyllabic ('cause it's not)
- Palindromic ('cause it's not)

Words I Like:
- Beeves
- Eleemosynary
- Googol
- Heteroscedasticity
- Polysyllabic
- Sesquipedalianism
- Wasier

Frequent Advertisement For My College Radio Show
- Fidda Fadda Fud Fud

Jeopardy Category I Should Submit: Musical Material
- This type of picture is sometimes called a "velvis". (What is a Velvet Elvis?)
- Mel Tormè. (Who is The Velvet Fog?)
- This Alannah Myles song about Elvis Presley hit #1 on the charts on March 24, 1990. (What is Black Velvet?)
- Isabella Rossellini performed this song in the David Lynch film of the same name. (What is Blue Velvet?)
- Originally, Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Angus MacLise. (What is The Velvet Underground?)

The one where I'm a millionaire

I went to the bank and took out some money--one million Ugandan Shillings (Ush). Which is worth about $550US.

There are bills for 1000, 5K, 10K, 20K and 50K, and coins for 500, 200, 100, 50, 10 and 5Ush. The 50,000Ush note is worth about $30, the 5Ush coin about 1/3¢. And for some tourist~y things, the standard is US dollars--I don't think you can even get a Visa to enter Uganda using Ugandan money.

Some prices are extremely cheap by US standards, and many people make very little money. You have to try to make sure you use big bills where possible so that you always keep little ones available. For example, I tried to buy a Coke for 1000Ush using a 20,000Ush note, and the guy looked at me like I was mad. "I am sorry, I do not have change for a bill that large," where "that large" is worth about $12.

In a sense, though, I'm living like a millionaire--other prices are similar to what I'm used to, meaning that most packaged goods and restaurant meals and such are largely reserved for foreigners. A sampling, using rough exchange rates:

Soda (pint): 60¢
Beer (pint): $1.20
Gasoline (gallon): $4.50
Loaf of bread: 50¢
Eggs (dozen): $1.30
Water (5 gallon jug): $3
Latte: $1.50
Spanish "Omullet" with potatoes: $1.50
Ride in a matatu (shared taxi minibus): 40¢
Ride on a boda (scooter): $1
Night at a hostel: $4
Night at a nice hotel: $104
Monthly wage for a gardener (city): $100
Monthly wage for a gardener (country): $40
Daily wage for a former coupon industry analyst working as a flunky at an international health conference: $60
Mandatory Mastercard joke: Priceless

_sg

The one where I flew safely

Ma and Pa,

I flew from Sydney to Bangkok to Dubai to Addis Ababa to Entebbe. I have arrived safely in Africa.

I didn't read much on the flight--the entertainment console at my seat for the first two legs offered more than 600 different options. Hundreds of films on demand, many in a host of different languages. I watched The Devil Wears Prada and The Departed and a coupla others (all in English). Hundreds of musical choices. Run DMC's Raising Hell? Had it. And hundreds more currents and classics. Prefer Mozart operas? There were three. Every Billboard #1 from the UK charts from 1952 til now? Yup. Audio books. Video games, some of which could be played against others on the plane. A flight status monitor. Cameras with live feeds looking forwards and down. You can make phone calls, including to passengers in other seats.

Okay, that may sound like an airline press release, but it was pretty impressive. And the food was edible, too.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I got here.

The Anderson Bowens say hi,
sg

The one with no lions or tigers

So I don't think I'm supposed to tell anyone yet, but I've never been good at keeping secrets and I'm really excited--Guinness is gonna list my record for Cleanest Windshield Ever in their next edition!

Turns out, the confusing part about driving on the other side of the street is driving on the other side of the car. I had no problem remembering to stay to the left, maybe because I've been over here for 3 months already, so I'm getting used to looking the right way when crossing the street and such. But shifting gears with the left hand while steering with the right took some getting used to. I washed that window every single time I changed lanes for two days...

As planned, I rented a car (it's cheaper with advertising!) and drove along the Great Ocean Road. Like the Pacific Coast Highway, except with the Southern Ocean and you drive on the other side of the street.

Much of my trip was spent scanning the radio stations, trying to find a channel. What I listened to:

- Cricket. And I even understood everything.
- Smack That--if I ever have a date, I hope to take her back to my place so we can kick it like Tae Bo.
- Maybe she'll be Fergalicious--D to the E.
- Some lady reading the newspaper. I think she was Christian.
- And once, a This American Life story on PRI.

I saw...koala bears, oh my! There were a bunch of people pulled over to the side of the road, so I pulled over to the side of the road. "Look, there's a bear in that tree!" And so there was. And another in the other tree, and two more in another. And another in another, and another, a total of twelve bears in all.

Also, many many kilometers of pretty coastline and curvy wooded roads.

Now, I'm back in Sydney, getting ready to leave Australia. Sorry about all the exclamation points in this post.

chao,
sg

The one where I'm still in Melbourne

I'm in Melbourne.

Still.

I originally came for the tennis. It was scheduled to end on the 28th, so I pretty much arbitrarily decided to stay until the 30th.

By happy coincidence, Laura Veirs had a show here while I was here. Laura lived down the hall from me my last (and her first) year at Carleton. I went on to count coupons and then retire, while she is now a somewhat famous (and really good) singer and songwriter. I just missed meeting her parents in central New Zealand.

So when I first got here I went down to the venue (the Corner Hotel, in Richmond) to buy my ticket to her show. Turns out, the Violent Femmes were gonna be playing the same venue on Feb 1. Heck, I've gotta stay for that--I'm not a huge music guy, but I've liked the Femmes since Mikey Bails introduced me in about, well, a really long time ago.

And now, probably a combination of enjoying Melbourne and not having any specific plans and being a bit tired of always being on the go in search of my next stop, I've just kinda stuck around. I'm not being overly touristy. I just spend most days...living. I walk around downtown. Maybe head to the botanic garden to read. (For a while, I was reading at a rate of almost a book a day.) See a movie. Sit in a cafe. That sorta thing. I'm not sure where all the time's gone, but I don't think that's a bad thing.

There's no overarching theme to my visit, or story to tell, so I'll just list some factoids, in somewhat random order.

Food: The Victoria Market is right across the street from where I'm staying now, with sections for meat/fish, deli foods and baked goods, fruit and veggies. And it's open on Wednesday nights with food stalls, music, artisans and such. Last night, for example, there was a row with stands where I could eat Chinese, Dutch, Ethiopian, German, Greek, Indian, Indonesian, Irani, Italian, Japanese, Latin American, Malaysian, Mexican, Spanish, Turkish, Vietnamese... Or burgers, fish and chips, pizza,...

In heavy rotation for my normal days are
- sushi rolls, which you can buy every 100 yards or so for $2
- kabobs
- pho/ramen
- bread, cheese, hummus...

- Super Bowl: Watched in a bar on Lygon St with Scott from Melbourne (a 49ers fan), Manning from Melbourne (Bills), Ben from Chicago and Macalester (Bears), Lonnie from Vancouver (Canucks). It wasn't overly exciting, and now we're no longer the reigning champions.

- Melbourne is nice. There's lotsa art about, on the street and in parks along the river and such. There are lots of nice areas to wander about and streets full of cafes and the like. I've hung out in Richmond, Carlton, Fitzroy, Southbank, and the CBD, and been around several of the outlying areas at least once.

A lot of types of businesses are heavily concentrated, which I guess isn't that uncommon. There's a Chinatown and a Greektown, but also a block with all of the camera stores and a block with the car rental agencies and so on and so forth...

- I talked to my parents on my birthday, around 11pm my time. Dad asked how I secure my stuff in the hostels. I told him I didn't really need to. When I woke up the next morning, my camera was gone. So now I'm on to camera #3. I'd just loaded many of my Outback pictures, so all I'm missing are the less important Outback pictures and the first stretch of time in Melbourne, which unfortunately included the LV show and the tennis. Oh, and the camera. What I've taken on #3 have been loaded to the picture site.

- That day, I started talking to a guy in my hostel, a musician from Hobart, Tasmania. Brian Ritchie (of the VF) lives in Hobart now, so he invited Martin (the hostel guy) and a coupla other Hobart guys to play the Melbourne shows with the Horns of Dilemma, the revolving cast of "[s]upplemental musicians who appear on stage with VF." I got him (Marty, not Brian) to sign my journal. I was gonna call him when I got to Tasmania, but I don't think I'm going to Tasmania.

Other bands that I haven't seen while I've been here:
Music Versus Physics
The Walkmen
Beasts of Bourbon

- I have a new life goal: someday, the evening news somewhere will lead off with Exclusive Pictures! of me with someone.

- Starting tomorrow morning, I'm planning to rent a car and drive down the Great Ocean Road, the Australia equivalent of the Pacific Coast Highway. I'm a bit nervous about driving--I haven't driven on the left before, and there're some quirks about Melbourne driving. Note that I've planned to start this drive every day for the last week or so, but I think I'll actually do it tomorrow. I wasn't sleeping well for a while and was a bit sick, so I think I lost some time there. I can't name anything specific I've done in the last week or so, but I've felt pretty busy with I'm not sure what.

- This delay means that I probably won't be able to get to Tasmania. There are great swaths of Australia that I won't have seen during my trip, but I'm not going to second guess the choices I've made.

- When I get back from my road trip it'll be time to head to Sydney. I leave for Africa in less than a week. I mean, !

Okay, I'm off to eat a kabob. If you're interested and didn't notice, note that I also just loaded entries on tennis and driving. Soon, maybe, might come the ones on reading and words and such. And New Zealand...

Chao,
sg

The one where driving in Melbourne is quirky

So traffic in Melbourne can be a bit weird.

An example: I think I've only seen a couple of these, but I might easily be confused and it might be unique. But there's at least one intersection where the cars heading north/south have stop signs, while the cars heading east/west have a light. I've walked past this several times, and the drivers at the stop signs are uniformly confused about what the other cars are doing.

A better example: At some intersections in the city, cars can only turn right from the left lane. To turn right, you

- start in the left lane (like the blue truck here)
- pull forward and to the left, right next to the crosswalk
- wait until the light turns red, while everyone who's going straight passes you on the right
- when the light turns red (and the cross traffic gets a green...), make sure no one else is coming on your right and turn quick, across the entire intersection, hoping the cars coming straight the other way know that you're there

Anyway, I just thought that was weird.

The one where I watched tennis

If you like the game, tennis can be one of the greatest sports to see live. Now, the atmosphere is very different than that at, say, a Steelers game, where you're surrounded by tens of thousands of screaming fans. But the ability to get close to the action in an intimate setting, the breadth of the offerings, and the value for your money are all incredible.

Melbourne Park, the site of the Australian Open, includes
- the Rod Laver Arena, the primary show court with 15,000 seats
- the Vodafone Arena (10,000 seats), a secondary show court (and general arena venue the rest of the year)
- A couple of smaller show courts (Margaret Court Arena (6000), which should really be called the Court Court, and Show Court 2 and 3 (3000 each))
- about 20 more outlying courts, with seating for anywhere from 50 to maybe 500 people

To get into the Rod Laver Arena, you need a ticket for matches in the Rod Laver Arena. The Vodafone Arena has a reserved seating section, for which you can buy seats, and a general seating area, which is first-come, first-serve (no pun intended) for anyone with a grounds pass. All other courts are first-come, first-serve. And, especially at any of the smaller courts, you're right there with the players. If you speak in a conversational tone, they hear you. And what makes a tournament such a great spectator experience is that (especially in the first coupla days of the tournament) there are just way too many matches going on to play more than a small fraction in the primary courts, so you're guaranteed to have quality players playing on the smaller courts. Especially.

On day 4, for example, for a $29 all day pass (~$24US) you could have seen Martina Hingis (the 6 seed), Andy Murray (15), Maria Sharapova (1), and Nikolay Davydenko (3) play singles matches in the Vodafone Arena, or you could watch other top seeds like David Nalbandian (8) or Dinara Safina (9) from the first row on a smaller court. And you can go back and forth between these, popping in to see a coupla games on one court, a couple more somewhere else, then grab a beer and sit on the grass in the central courtyard and watch the featured match on a large screen.

And the $29 is negotiable...

sg (asking about a featured match): "What would that cost?"
ts: "Well, the student price would be $94."
sg: "I don't have my id with me."
ts: "That's alright, mate, I believe you."
sg: "I think I'll just go with the grounds pass."
ts: "That'll be $19."

I wound up buying grounds passes on 4 or 5 different days. I saw some singles early, and then lotsa doubles later on when there were fewer singles matches going on so most of them could be on the primary courts. For example, I watched the men's doubles semis with the Bryans vs Knowles and Nestor. If you watched it on tv the close-ups you saw is what I saw, as I was sitting next to the camera in the first row. I was rooting on the Bryans, not catcally or anything but enough that Bob turned and nodded to me as he left the court, and smiled at me when he came back a bit later for the mixed doubles quarters (in which he and Lisa Raymond were awful).

For most matches, I took notes. TY wants details, so here're some examples. If you're not a tennis fan, you probably don't need to read the rest of this post...:

from Richard Gasquet vs Gael Monfils (GM upset Baghdatis in rd 2--I saw the end on tv and he was beating his chest a lot, so I thought it would be fun):

"RG whooped him but good in the 1st, and I really started to like his game so I started rooting for him right away (though GM is the big crowd fave). He anticipates and moves pretty well, while GM hits a lot of lazy shots--if he's on his winners are great, but he has no patience and will never have a chance if he's not on
[...]
why does RG return from that far back?..."

from Ashley Harkleroad vs Daniela Hantuchova:

"15-40 at 5-6, AH wins out w/ some great down the line inside-out forehands. Up 5-2 in the tiebreaker, down 6-5, gets lucky on a return, then has 2 great points to win 8-6. But DH is moving her well around the court--she's not overly quick, and isn't getting the depth that DH is. Up a set, but needs to pick up her game...she did, up 4-0. But, serving at 5-3, she lost at love. And again at 5-5. 16 of the last 17 pts in the set..."

About Vince Spadea during his doubles match against the Bryans:

"looks like a chump in the park. shorts longer than everyone else's, shirt just kind of draped, trucker cap, black shoes, long, shaggy hair w/highlights. Maybe a touch of a belly, etc...
...Played like one, too. Bryans, 6-1, 6-2. 45 minutes. No sweating involved."

from women's doubles semis, Chan/Chuang vs Yan/Zheng:

"packed a good lunch, camera dude gave me an Evian.
The short one on the cute team w/ matching yellow/green outfits (YZ) looks like Lucy Liu, if LL had Boris Becker's quads and hamstrings
tennis: uninspired. At 4-1, I've seen maybe 2 good shots.
LZ game: lobs, like 10 yr olds. But CC always has, well, C back, so they just switch sides and wait for YZ to hand them an easy one or mess up. And C crosses at the net, opening the court, and YZ hit a lob so the other C can just walk over, instead of hitting it up the line for an easy point. CC, 6-3.
Next game--first time they hit a lob with C and C at the net, and first time they went up line w/ C crossing.
--taller YZ needs to be _much_ more active @ net.
Alas, 6-3, 6-4. CC in finals."

Some general comments:
- Roger Federer is a god.
- I like it when the doubles teams wear the same outfits
- Lisa Raymond is really short
- Victoria Azarenka is really tall
- the Adidas players, men and women, wore (really ugly) shirts that looked like either sports bras or the harnesses worn by kids on leashes
- If she ever gets some focus, Na Li will win a major
- I can't wait to go to the other majors

Anyway, seeing the Australian Open was an awesome experience. To see my tennis pictures, click here.

ta,
sg