Inconsiderate

I was sitting at dinner last week with a friend. We had ordered so much Indian food that the waiter had confirmed with us that we knew we were, indeed, ordering three main courses (in addition to the paneer pakoras and our mango lassis).

The restaurant was about half full, and we were enjoying catching up about work and exercise and whatever, when (seemingly, I'm sure, to her, from out of the blue) I started this non sequitor:

"Do you know how, when you're driving, you stop because someone is crossing the street? You might be turning right and the pedestrian has the right of way... but they walk VERY slowly?

Not, like, they're in pain and can barely walk. But, like, they have nowhere to be and all day to get there, and they don't give two shits about whether you, as the driver waiting for them to cross the street, DO have somewhere to go?"

She let me finish asking this semi-rhetorical question (it didn't really matter whether she answered "yes" or "no," although since she doesn't drive, it would probably have to be "no") and we both waited a couple beats, as she knew I expected her to ask, "Where the heck did that come from?" and yet she knew I knew she was a bit confused and wanted to wait me out.

She inhaled to ask me, and I started back in:

"I bring that up because I'm reminded of that situation by that couple over there. They finished eating about 10 minutes ago and they received their check. Their baby is crying... and crying.

In spite of the fact that their offspring is producing ear-splitting noises of discontent, they seem to be in no rush whatsoever to scoop up the little one and flee to the sanctity of their own home. They are so inured, it appears, to the noise that they simply don't give a crap about anyone else's dining experience."

In spite of the inherent kindness my friend possess, she had to agree... maybe because she doesn't have kids.

Eventually, the family left. We enjoyed our food in peace. It was good.

Maybe, someday, when I have children of my own I will forgive individuals who show no sense of urgency to alleviate the sufferings of those around me. Of course, I don't dilly-dally in crosswalks as a pedestrian, so hopefully I can avoid becoming that particular kind of annoying.

Mysterious T-Shirt

I wore a rather mysterious t-shirt today. First, let me give you the visual:

It is a black t-shirt with a single, white line art element on the front. On the back there is an important clue:

www.phantom.net

It is mysterious because, to be honest with you, I have little to no recollection of where I got it from. I pulled it out from a bin of clothes I haven't worn in years (or ever) and I decided to wear it today as a reminder to try to research what the heck it's about.

A quick Web search won't get you what you want (at least in this case; if you want to know, say, the definition of "febrile" then it can help you out)... www.phantom.net has a simple image on black with "A new site for a new year. Phantom Entertainment. Coming soon."

Not terrifically helpful.

It did, though, give me another keyword to search with. Googling "phantom game" led me to the Wiki entry for The Phantom (Game System).

And it started to come back to me.

A console that gets hooked up to the Internet and streams games to your living room for a monthly charge. A console that was supposed to revolutionize gaming. Wired's 2004 #1 Vaporwear product.

So I remember that. That's fine.

What I do NOT remember is where I got the t-shirt.

Was I working and got it as a give-away? Did I go to a convention or something and get it? Did I steal it from a homeless dude?

I don't know. And it's going to eat away at me, perhaps for the rest of my days...

Haircuts the Mighty Men & Monster Maker Way

When I was a lad I served a term as an office boy in an attorney's firm.

I also had a toy called Mighty Men & Monster Maker. The idea was that there were different tiles in three different regions that you could mix and match, and then trace over the tiles to make either a monster or a superhero... or some combination. A werewolf head on a superhero body? Sure. Frankenstein's monster with a werewolf head? Why not. The pieces lined up in certain ways, but were independent of one another beyond that.

It was great fun, and it helped me think early on about permutations.

I was reminded of this venerable toy during my trip to Australia. Specifically, I was reminded of it because of many of the haircuts that I saw on Aussie guys.

(As a quick precursor: I don't care about hair that much, especially on guys. My hair does what it wants, for the most part, until I decide to get most of it hacked off. I don't have a particularly good sense of what looks good or bad, so when I bring this up it's not to be snobby.)

Most people have haircuts that ... go together. By that I mean they have shaggy hair, or short and spiky, or parted, or whatever. Bad haircuts and good haircuts both tend to have an internal consistency.

In Australia, that concept seems to be much less common.

Sure, there were many men who had haircuts that looked "normal"... even if the haircut was extremely punk or otherwise out of the mainstream, at least it was normal.

Some, though? They had "Mighty Men & Monster Maker" haircuts.

By that I mean their scalps were seemingly divided into different zones (think a vertically oriented Berlin after WWII, perhaps, or look at the image that I made to simulate it)... and each zone could be entirely unrelated.

One guy had spiked short hair in the "red zone", long flatted hair spilling over in all directions in the "blue zone", bushy hair in the "green zone" and then long, straight hair in the back.

The next guy had long/straightened/flat, spiked short blue, medium, then short and curly in the back.

So many permutations for confused hair.

I was looking for rhyme or reason in the hairstyles I saw. There was none.

Similar, I suppose, to starting off a blog post about Australian hair with lyrics from Gilbert and Sullivan.

Brand

I was sitting in a pitch a few weeks ago. A pitch is, for those who are unaware, an opportunity to go in front of a prospective client and let her/him know why (a) you want to work with them, and (b) you would be a good fit.

Our pitches are usually done with a team of three to six people from my agency and involve a Keynote presentation followed by a Q&A. My portion of the pitch is to outline our interactive process and some of our technical capabilities and philosophies... and then to participate in general discussion as appropriate afterwards.

So I was sitting in a pitch a few weeks ago. It was for the redesign of an existing site, and there was a lot of potential to improve it, and a key differentiator our agency makes is that we consider brand to be just as important as technology.

"Brand" can mean many things to many people, and this is not intended to be an occupational exploration, so I'll keep it simple and say that brand generally means how an entity is perceived and what distinguishes it from other entities.

As part of the Q&A, the potential client asked our team what, based on the existing Web site, we thought their brand was. A coworker answered and then I chimed in, saying something like, "Busy. Which is both good and bad. Good in that there is a lot of activity and energy, but bad insofar as it appears to be inefficient and a bit disorganized."

In life, I've come to know that anytime I open my mouth I might be making a mistake. I remember mistakes I made with friends, with women, and even in law school oh, so long ago. I am hopefully coming to terms with this potential for error and I'm learning to assert things I am comfortable with and which I can defend.

Even with the knowledge that I was stating something I could defend and that I was comfortable with--and knowing that the potential client was unhappy with the current site they had--I was still a bit worried that they were going to take it the wrong way.

After all, brand is very personal. Asking someone about your brand is like asking someone about how they like your hair: whether you spend a lot of time and money on it or not, there's the chance that someone can hurt your feelings.

Brands extend beyond corporate--and even professional--matters, after all. We all have a way that we are perceived by our friends and family and people on the bus.

It's rare that I ask someone about my brand, and it's almost as uncommon as having unsolicited observations offered up about me (other than the rather common ones of, "Are you gay?" and "You look like someone...")

The very night that I gave my "busy" comment, I was given an unsolicited opinion that stymied me. The location was the men's restroom at the Frontier Room. I was waiting behind a guy who was washing his hands in the sink. As he grabbed a paper towel and I washed my hands, we had this exchange:

Him: You look...
Me (thinking, "Uh, oh... do I look gay or 'like someone'?"): Yeah?
Him: You look like you should be in a band.
Me: Oh, yeah?
Him: Yeah, like a band that makes really cool music.

That, my friends, is a compliment. Whether I dressed to look like I am in a band (which I did not and I am not) or not, that he added the "really cool music" part without any apparent irony (or homosexual overtones) means that he had a positive view of me.

He liked my brand.

And yet... what did I do? I got flummoxed. I should have (as attractive women around the world have become used to doing) said, simply, "Why, thank you!", but, instead, I thought, "That's an odd comment... at least it's not the worst thing he could have said."

And we had this second exchange:

Me: I guess that's pretty good, right?
Him: Yeah.
Me: I mean, it's better than you saying I look like an asshole, right?
Him: Are you calling me an asshole?

Ugh. I apologized and said I was not.

I think that maybe I should be as willing to accept input about my brand as I want potential clients to be, huh?

Mike's Hard Raspberry Lemonade, The Black Eyed Peas, and Me

I don't see a lot of live music (and I am using the term "live music" rather loosely, as you will discover later). There are a few bands that I enjoy and would consider seeing, although some of them would have unacceptably large (by my count; not their accountants') crowds and some of them would have almost no crowds outside of the UK. So I'm reduced to seeing music of bands that I know people from (which, interestingly, are rather sparse even here in Seattle) or that I don't know or like.

To me, there is rarely a point in seeing live music just to see live music. I know that Flowers and many others will disagree, but... if I don't know the words (or at least the melody) to a song, then it doesn't make me want to sing along and without me wanting to sing along, I tend to find music boring.

An exception is when I want to go out and flop my appendages about, roughly in time with the music. This "dancing," as some call it, is usually greatly improved (in terms of enjoyment, not objective performance) by alcohol.

On Saturday night, I somehow maneuvered myself into going to two shows. The first one, with Flowers and TM2000, was at Neumos to see Rogue Wave--a band that I had never heard of. The second one, at Trinity, was more of an after-hours affair with the Black Eyed Peas. My friend Cinebarre had offered to put me on a list to see them, and while I am no particular fan of the BEP, I do enjoy being put on lists. I also enjoy hanging with her, so Neumos-Trinity was the plan.

But first? To Raftmate's place for the soccer game/prefunk.

Prefunk / Mike's Hard Hell

I got a ride from TM2000 and we stopped for some teriyaki first, and picked up some alcohol to consume before the show. He got beer and I, not being a fan of beer, got a six-pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade. Actually, I got a seasonal (limited-time, allegedly) version of it: Raspberry Lemonade.

Somewhere along the line in the prefunk, I decided to consume the entire six-pack as quickly as reason would allow. Why? I don't know. Why did I eat 13 bananas in one sitting in college? I don't know.

What I do know is that the human body is not built to withstand the rigors of a six-pack of Mike's Hard Raspberry Lemonade consumed in just over an hour. The alcohol was not really a problem, but the amount of sugars and volume of liquid (more than a two liter) gave me intense stomach pain and I ended up vomiting it out in Raftmate's toilet. (I struggle with whether to discuss the particulars, so I'll go part-way: it was the longest continuous stream of liquid I've ever seen in a puke, I had lettuce in my nose at the end, and I felt like a man reborn after the pressure was relieved.)

Rogue Wave / Dinosaur Talk

We wandered down to Neumos a bit before 10:00, and I got a txt from Cinebarre telling me that Trinity was filling up, and that we should meet there at 11:00... of course, Rogue Wave didn't come onstage until 11:00, so I was going to miss them entirely.

Given that I had just been to Mike's Hard Hell and back, I wasn't going to let it bother me.

TM2000, Flowers, F-Bomb and I arrived and caught the final 10 or 15 minutes of the opening act, and then I had about 30 minutes to kill. I had a PBR stuck in my hand (and, after the drinking I'd done earlier in the night, the less-than-sweet taste of something I'd normally not consume was welcome) and we stood there, looking around and waiting.

There was also some minor jostling. People were arriving and trying to procure good views (it was standing room only on the floor where we were) and I was rather roughly bumped into someone at some point.

My natural inclination is not to be quick to anger, and so when I turned to see who it was I wasn't going to punch the person. When it was a woman who was about five feet tall who smiled and apologized, the likelihood of violence was even farther removed. She was with a female friend and they were just trying to be able to see the stage. There was no easy progress, though, so they appeared happy to stay where they were. Which was to my left, with F-Bomb in front of me and TM2000 to my right.

There is often a point when a woman enters your personal space where you need to decide what, if anything, is going to be said. I am often quite willing to be quiet in situations, but I am also often quite willing to talk to women, so this situation could have gone either way.

After about 12 words of small talk between the chick, F-Bomb, and me, F-Bomb turned back to the stage and silence fell. And I decided to throw a curveball.

"Hey, F-bomb," I mused. "What kind of dinosaur is that, up on stage?"

There was, I had just noticed, a plastic dinosaur sitting on a speaker at the back of the stage. I asked not because I gave a crap, but because I knew that the woman was waiting for me to say SOMETHING, and by (a) not talking directly to her, (b) not talking about her, and (c) referencing something that she could not see, I knew she would be hooked.

And, indeed, for whatever it's worth, it worked. F-Bomb looked and said he didn't know. TM2000 chimed in, discussing whether it was a brontosaurus or not.

The chick, for her part, was positively busting with frustrating, since she was too short to see. Her friend, who was a bit more of a sourpuss, was poo-poohing my tactic, but she remained engaged and was delighted when I was able to capture the dinosaur with my Nexus One's camera.

It proved such an interesting topic that it worked as an opening for TM2000 with another chick.

Alas, I was not long for that show, and I caught a cab to Trinity.

Trinity / Women

A short cab ride later and it was 11:00 and I was standing outside of Trinity. There were two lines for entry, and fortunately I was one of the lucky ones on the list that allowed me to go through the significantly shorter one.

I walked in and it wasn't quite as busy as I'd feared. The main room (which has the largest dance floor) didn't get really busy until a bit before 1:00, which is when the BEP were scheduled to go on.

Most of the time between my arrival and that point I spent in a secondary dance area ("The Blue Room", as it may be called, although I might have just called it that myself) with Cinebarre.

She is an old pro at the place... she knows everyone and has spent innumerable hours patrolling the ins and outs of the establishment. She showed me around and we got a drink or two and we talked and danced/flopped around (I'll let you guess who did which).

Sometime around midnight, I was merrily flopping away in the Blue Room when a chick approached me on the dance floor. Our conversation/interaction went something like this:

Thigh-Grappler (walking up to me): Hi.
Me (merrily flopping away): Hey.
Thigh-Grappler (wrapping her legs around my thigh and grabbing my sides): ...
Me (looking over at Cinebarre, who remained unaware of my predicament, and then over at Thigh-Grappler's friend, who was giggling embarrassedly): Uh... hi!
Thigh-Grappler: Are you gay?
Me: Do I look gay?
Thigh-Grappler: Yes.
Me: Ah. Well, gay in a good way?
Thigh-Grappler: ??
Me: Never mind.
Thigh-Grappler: Are you drunk?
Me (considering telling her about the Mike's Hard Hell incident): Not really.
Thigh-Grappler (almost falling over, only partly due to my lack of dancing ability): OK.

At that point I disengaged. Wandered back over to Cinebarre, who was laughing. I felt bad... I didn't want to laugh within viewing range of Thigh-Grappler, but... yeah. It was interesting. :)

A bit later I was in the main room and saw a chick that I recognized... a rarity in Trinity, given the difference in the social circles that I normally spend time in. It turned out she used to work at Tini Bigs and I was pleased that she remembered me.

I was particularly pleased because she was in a larger group of women--four others, in fact. Two of the women were blond and very attractive, and I was looking forward to meeting them.

Oddly enough, while she did introduce me to some of her friends, she introduced me to the other two, which included a married woman and a much less attractive woman than the other two. While I'm not sure that being introduced to either of the others would have led to anything, of course, I am occasionally startled at how the Universe conspires against me.

Time marched on. 1:00 approached. And I wandered back to the Blue Room and danced a bit.

Cinebarre is a fun person and, since she knows the scene, was being a nice mixture of informative and protective. She and I have had many conversations so she knows a bit of who I am, and she has seen me dance enough to know I suck at it, but she hasn't seen me dance with women around enough to know whether I will be one of those morons that grinds up on any female thang that moves.

I am, of course, just about the opposite: I end up playing a type of modified vertical limbo most of the night, avoiding bumping into chicks who (presumably) accidentally wander into my personal space.

There were three different times, though, where Cinebarre went out of her way to inform me that different women had boyfriends. Maybe I was looking at them differently, or maybe she knew they were attractive and there was a CHANCE I'd make a fool of myself, or maybe she was just letting me know to let me know. It sort of amused me, though, and gave me the impression that every woman there had a boyfriend.

Black Eyed Peas / Ludacris

I know a BEP song or two, I think. I don't know them well enough to recite many lyrics. I don't know the bridges (or, indeed, if there are bridges).

I know that Ludacris is a performer. I don't know what he looks like or if he's an actor, as well. (I guess I know what he looks like NOW... since I just did an image search... and his pic is now in this blog.)

I knew that Ludacris was performing with BEP in Tacoma earlier Saturday night, but I didn't recognize him when he stood on the little stage by the laptops that were being manned by guys who may or may not have been members of the Black Eyed Peas. A microphone was used, occasionally, to sing. But not often.

That, ladies and gentlemen, was the "live music". It was a combination of mediocre DJ'ing, passable karaoke, and dancing by black guys I'd no knowledge of.

Maybe if I knew their music, I would have found it more interesting. Maybe if I'd known what to expect, I would have seen it differently. But I don't and I didn't, so I didn't.

Not complaining, of course, I had fun and it was worth going to. Cinebarre and I left at about 3:00 and by the time I fell asleep about 18 minutes later I was able to look back at Mike's Hard Hell and the Dinosaur Tactic and Thigh-Grabber and smile... or at least keep it to minor wincing.

The ABCs of My Australian Trip

I haven't traveled that much in my life. Like most Americans, I am content to visit the different parts of my own country, rather than going to lands where people don't speak our language and don't appreciate the good things that the USA has done. Personally, I've gone to Canada several times, and visited Mexico thrice... other than Hawaii, that was about it as far as vacations went outside of the continental US.

Due to a confluence of events (the cessation of my funemployment, my friendship with Canberry, and increased solar flare activity) I decided to make a trip to Australia for a week and a half or so at the end of March/beginning of April. I anticipate having another blog or two, but I wanted to give an overview of my trip using the alphabet.

Here we go. (One of these entries is TOTALLY a fabrication. I'll leave it up to you to figure out which one. Most of them contain at least one fabrication, of course.)

A is for Australia.

Founded in 1732, this island the size of Tennessee is home to some 20 million people with slight speech impediments. (Citation needed.)

B is for Bogan.

In the US, we have rednecks. In Australia they have bogans. This is a relatively new term for a way of acting, dressing, and speaking in Australia... often associated with lesser education and lower class and non-urban. Unlike redneck (or, perhaps, like "redneck" outside of non-redneck circles), to be "bogan" (either as a person or an description for a specific attribute or act) isn't really looked down on.

Canberry pointed out bogan to me about fifty times: could I tell by the accent? Could I tell by the clothes? Could I tell by the circumcision? I will tell you that it was a difficult task, but I have a better sense now than before visiting.

C is for Canberra.

Canberra is the capital of Australia and a nice little city. I didn't get a chance to go inside any of the landmarks, but I got a chance to see many from the outside and I was able to check out some of its restaurants and night life... good times. The population seems young and, as I understand it, is well-educated and relatively affluent. Good stuff.

D is for Darling Harbour.

Sydney has a lot of cool places and buildings in it. We stayed in the Kings Cross neighborhood of Sydney, although we didn't partake in any of the infamous late-night opportunities. We also walked to/through some other neighborhoods, and Darling Harbour was one of my favorites. Very walkable urban environment with shops and restaurants and water taxis. I am still a bit confused by who actually USES water taxis, but it's good to know they're there, I suppose.

E is for Ed from Australia.

I went to a birthday party on one of the Friday nights I was in Canberra, and I met Ed. Ed from Australia, as he will be known, to differentiate him from me... because I don't want to confuse you.

Ed from Australia was a big, muscular guy. Short brown hair and a tattooed right arm. Married to a lovely young woman who was wearing a great dress. He seemed like a genuinely nice guy who I am pleased that I met and who I hope, if he ever reads this will not want to pound my face into a jelly (either the Australian or American definition of the word). He was drinking, and I do some weird/funny-weird/odd things when I'm drinking.

Just not as odd as Ed from Australia does.

The first thing I saw him do after meeting him was pull down his pants and fart into the bonfire. He dropped two n-bombs (in a hip hop way, as opposed to an overtly racist way). He ended up in a friendly wrestling match with the host of the party at the end of the night until the host conceded and staggered, bloodily, to bed.

Ed from Australia seems like a nice guy. I don't know what percentage of his actions was based on Jager and what was based on his nationality, but he struck me as one of the most memorable characters from my trip.

F is for Food.

The food I had was markedly similar to American food. Sandwiches (or "sangas" or (non-racist) "sambos") were expensive and tended to be focaccia, but tasty. Italian food was everywhere, and I had a delicious steak sandwich in a French cafe.

I was surprised at the relative dearth of Chinese restaurants. They were around, but the searching I did seemed to indicate more Mexican places... surprising given the relative proximity of the two countries.

Breakfasts in a variety of locations seemed to revolve around the "Big Breakfast" or "Big Brekkie": bacon (which was a different cut, or something, than American bacon, although I'm not an expert or even a particular fan of bacon, so I dunno specifics) and eggs and potato... with mushrooms and other stuff. I prefer an omelette, but it was fun to try something "foreign" that seemed to familiar.

I didn't eat much fast food on my trip, but McDonald's ("Maccas") was everywhere. Hungry Jack's (sort of a spinoff/brother of Burger King) was pretty common, too. Subway (without the $5 footlong, alas) was ubiquitous. Beyond those three places, though, I didn't see a lot of fast food-type places. Maybe I just didn't recognize them.

Starbucks was a bit less common--they diminished their presence significantly a couple of years ago--but it was nice to see them. Sort of a part of home... of course, I didn't go into any of the Starbucks (just as I rarely go in any here).

G is for G'day.

G'day. How are you going? Good on you. Oy. Take-away food. "Give Way" signs instead of "Yield". "This Way Out" signs instead of (actually, in addition to) "Exit" signs in buildings.

The language is peculiar, even setting aside the accent.

I joked a bit on my trip about how I didn't have an accent (while of course I do have an American accent). When challenged, I pointed out that I talk like people talk on television in the US, and most of the television in Australia seemed to be American programming. Actually, given how often I saw TV shows like The Simpsons on Australian television, I'm surprised that Aussies don't all have Springfield accents.

H is for Holidays.

A four day weekend for Easter? Are you kidding me?

Yes, Aussies no longer get Melbourne Cup Day off as a public holiday, but they still seem to get about one day a week off for some reason or another. It must be nice.

I actually considered writing a couple of pretty under-informed paragraphs on the theological-cultural differences between America (Puritan-influenced) and Australia (Anglican- and Catholic-influenced)... but I'll save that for another time/never blog about it ever.

I is for In-Flight Movies.

I flew on United, and United's planes have built-in screens throughout the cabins. The headphones are free and the movies are free... but the movies were sort of crappy.

When I watch movies, I prefer comedies. Or action. Or mysteries. Or horror.

Basically, anything other than ol' fashioned dramas.

Unfortunately, I am not in charge of movie programming for United international flights. The only movies I saw on the plane were dramas. Everybody's Fine (boring, depressing) and Whip It (boring, terrible Jimmy Fallon acting) on the outbound flight and Crazy Heart (boring, depressing) and Up in the Air (REALLY depressing).

Watching Crazy Heart and Up in the Air back-to-back was, as a 30-something single man, so fucking depressing that I was unable to sleep (much... I can ALWAYS sleep some).

In fact, the only thing that cheered me up was the mid-flight musings about a movie starring George Clooney as a basketball coach who is looking at an African basketball recruit while Kevin Bacon struggles in his new role as a person who flies around the country firing people: Up in the Air Up There.

J is for Jagermeister.

The first two nights I was in Australia involved a pair of evenings out. We drank a bit of alcohol, but for a variety of reasons were done by midnight. I had heard about the Aussie propensity for drinking to excess, but I didn't experience it.

Until a week later, when I experienced hard cider, Ed from Australia, sangria, beer, Jagermeister, and vodka (roughly in that order). Actually, Ed from Australia did not contribute, directly, to the level of intoxication I experienced (although he was responsible for putting the Jager in the beer during our game of Aussie Rules Beer Pong (I made that up; I think it was just an on-the-fly version of the frat-boy classic)).

The next day I experienced only my second hangover ever. Crikey.

K is for Kangaroos.

I saw signs for them but no signs of them. I ate none of their lean, tender meat. Very sad.

Maybe next time.

L is for Law Ball.

First night I got there involved me attending a semi-formal event with Canberry. It involved dinner and some wine and some dancing (at the end of the night) ... and the most boring speech I've ever sat through.

The speech was so boring and so terrible that I won't speak of it. And, remember, I wrote about a guy farting into a bonfire in this blog entry, so I'm usually not shy about writing about things.

M is for Melbourne.

I spent about 24 hours in Melbourne. Met Bad Cop II for the first time and saw Jeff Green perform at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. He was funny, and was joking about being an outsider (Brit) living in Australia, so I could relate at some level... even as I didn't get about two thirds of the cultural references.

Melbourne is a city of about four million people. In the 24 hours I was there, I would have had to meet about 46 people a second to get to meet everyone. I didn't quite get there.

I did, though, get to see some cool architecture and walk around the city... and I look forward to getting back there again someday.

N is for Nexus One.

In December, I purchased a new camera. A Nikon D40, it is an entry-level DSLR and I bought it partly in response to Canberry's visit of Seattle where neither of us had a camera capable of taking a decent picture of the Space Needle at night.

In January, I purchased a Nexus One (the "Google phone"), which has a camera built in. Because I have my phone with me everywhere, I've used the Nexus One to take many more pics than I have my D40... but I was anticipating that changing for my trip down under. I brought my phone to take pictures in bars and things but I was anticipating my D40 would be doing the heavy lifting when I went to Melbourne and Sydney.

It worked for about four days... and then, right before we departed Melbourne for Sydney, my D40 crapped out. I turned it off and it wouldn't (won't) turn back on. I did some troubleshooting and think I know the problem, but I can't fix it and am in communication with the seller to get it fixed.

But my Nexus One came through. In spite of its limitations, I was able to capture some decent shots of the rest of my trip. And my love for Google ever deepens...

O is for Outback.

I did not see the outback. I did not visit an Outback Steakhouse (of which there are five in Australia).

Maybe next time.

P is for Prices.

Expensive. $11 sandwiches. $18 toothbrushes. $75 hookers.

OK... so I'm fudging a bit. The prices are inclusive of tax and, as a general matter, tips. It threw me off that an $11 sandwich is actually $11. It's not $11 plus 10% tax plus 20% tip... it was basically equal to an $8.33 sandwich with 10% tax and 20% tip. Throw in the slightly stronger US dollar and a sandwich costing 11 Australian dollars is more like $8 US.

I feel less bad about the cost of that prostitute now.

Q is for Quantas.

I flew from Sydney to Canberra and back on Quantas. Pretty bare-bones, which is the way I like my airlines and my toast, and its logo provided me with another mocking glimpse of the alleged kangaroo of Australia.

R is for Restroom.

Americans don't directly reference many bodily functions in polite company. We don't talk about hacking up phlegm or weeping sores on our scalps. We also have a million euphemisms for urination and defecation. We dance around it to the extent that we have polite names for the room where we take care of our business... a bathroom or a restroom or a lavatory.

Australians? They talk more directly... they go to the toilet. They label their restrooms as the "Toilet". I have no problem, personally, with the word. I understand what it means and I can use it in a sentence. I am, though, a product of my environment and calling something a "Disabled Person's Toilet" is just about the same as naming it a "Crippled's Crapper".

S is for Sand.

As part of our voyages around Sydney, Canberry and I went to Bondi Beach, which is a world-famous beach (although, as a typical American, I had never heard of it). The sun made an appearance and the beach and water looked great.

I was, naturally, wearing dress shoes, gray jeans, and a black t-shirt... I was going to take the bus back to Canberra later in the day, so I didn't want to walk on the beach and risk getting sand in my shoes. So I admired the sand from afar.

T is for Transit (Mass).

Australia had some MUCH-used trains in Sydney. I've never been to New York City (other than the airport) but I can't imagine the subway has a higher occupancy rate. The trains were double-deckers and every seat seemed to be full during rush hour, with people standing up in the non-seat areas. It was an impressive display of what mass transit is capable of.

I took the light rail in Seattle to and from the airport, and it was a great experience. It was cheap ($2.50 for a one-way) and it was clean and it was fast. It was also, sadly, pretty empty. I don't think I saw more than 20 people on the train with me either way. It's a relatively new service, and it's an expensive investment for the city, but I hope it catches on like the train in Sydney has.

U is for Uni.

We go to college in the US, even if we go to college at a university.

Australians sometimes go to college, but at a college. Unless it's a high school. They go to uni at a university.

College, I was told, is years 11 and 12 in Australia, but it's not always called a college, since it's up to the states to handle education.

At least I think that's right. It's confusing.

V is for Vegemite.

"The worst thing I've ever eaten" is how my brother described his experience with the yeast-based Australian food staple, Vegemite. I had never tried it before, and I had expected the worst.

I was pleasantly surprised. It was salty but tasted pretty good.

Maybe my brother had slathered too much Vegemite onto whatever he was eating (which, I was told, is a big mistake). Or maybe he's just got messed-up taste buds.

W is for Weather.

When I started this blog (the evening of my return to Seattle), I was going to be sort of negative about the weather I experienced in Australia. It was gorgeous in Canberra the whole time I was there, but of the four days I spent elsewhere, it was only sunny the last day in Sydney. Disappointing? Sure.

But now I'm back in Seattle. It's not sunny here. And it's cold.

I miss the Australian weather already.

X is for Xenophilia.

Xenophilia is the love of foreign things. I have a definite streak of that myself (see: foreign accents on women) and I think that I experienced it in Australia.

While I have spent over a month in Mexico in my life, I rarely felt all that special there (they frown upon the practice of proudly spouting off one's standardized test percentiles). In Australia? I got the sense that people were interested.

Interested in my (alleged) accent. In my country. In Seattle.

Sitting in companionable silence is something I'm comfortable with--much more than most people, I think. I generally find mindless chit-chat that interrupts that silence as a response to the other person's discomfort (either with me being silent towards them or silence in general).

But the chitchat on this trip? I felt like people actually were interested. They wanted to know if Americans were as naive or bad or cool or whatever as they thought. They wanted to know about my travel experiences and how jet lagged I was and when I was moving to Australia and what I thought of Melbourne vs. Sydney. What I thought about League vs. Rugby. What I thought about Easter and Maccas and Jagermeister and so many other things.

And I got the impression that this chitchat was legit.

Y is for Yar's Revenge.

This Atari classic has nothing to do with Australia, as far as I know. But it's an Atari classic that I haven't blogged about before. So it gets a spot here.

Z is for Zero.

I have zero regrets that I went to Australia.

I generally hate the term "zero regrets" or "no regrets", especially when someone says they have no regrets in life... I find that unbelievable. We've all made mistakes and I think that it's OK to regret those mistakes, whether they were missed opportunities or errors of action (rather than inaction). No one's perfect, right?