Handicapped

So let's get something straight right now: I was never great at hoops, but I could hold my own, especially defensively, and make a few baskets. Now, though, I am a goddamn terrible basketball player while continuing to come back with this knee thing. Can't get off the ground for rebounds, can't play man-defense, and can't dribble past anyone. I'm like a poor-man's Eduardo Najera, and that's not good. I am a shell of my former round-ball self, the only thing that remains (besides a sweet foul shot stroke), is total condescension towards asian basketball players. Oh, and refusal to stop playing even when I know I should. It's step back jumpers all day, and only off my left leg, which ends up getting tired because my body is refusing to let me jump off my right. I am seriously curious how much work the new orthopedic resident did on my knee; it's taking way too long to get back to normal - while you all know I have Zen-like patience (I think it's well established that I make Mother Theresa look like George Steinbrenner), I am having a hard time relenting from my rehabilitation quest.
Unfortunately for my knee, I also just decided to learn how to salsa. Tis the benefit of living with a gay mexican housemate. Just spent 30 min with him and some other friends (of mixed sexes, mind you) at the Night Cat salsa night, and I think my knee would have an easier time getting home from a shark attack. Either way, when I return, I will certainly be Rico Suave on la dance floor - muy bien.
Prior to this hip-swiveling extravaganza, we stopped into an Irish Pub for some Guiness. Almost had to re-enact a DNW moment a la Brewers Art circa June 2005. A woman walked right into me, sending half of my nitrogen-laden sudds (along with some of my frothy head) cascading down the front of my shirt. Apologize? Offer to buy me another beer? None and none. In fact, did not even acknowledge my now-disheveled presence. Fortunately for her fragile ego, I had not been drinking prior, and certainly did not have the gall to stare down her and her friend and point out their classless nature. My shirt is currently soaking in salt and club soda - thank you Curbed. (yes, by this point in this post I have just noticed that within 1 hour I have used an old-maid's trick to remove a pesky stain, and taken up salsa dancing - no conclusions need be drawn).
Finally (because I need to get to sleep and attack the lab with a vengeance never before seen on the stage of bacterial cloning), as for my living situation: I had decided to accept a room on the 23rd story of a sweet-as condo complex - the word swank comes to mind. I even called the guy to ensure that he knew I wanted it, was prepared to put down the [not insignificant] bond. The next day he called to see if I was interested. Umm, yes, hence the prior call. The next day he texted me, saying he needed to know if I was going to take the place - by this point I had already found a German guy, Christian, to take my room. Umm, yes, again, I said I'd take it, and we discussed plans for move in. Now in the utmost example of cold feet, I woke up yesterday and decided I'd rather have the extra cash (this place was 200 AUD more per month than I pay now, plus would require another 100 per for a tram ticket) for things like travelling and going out. Whatever, I hadn't signed anything. So I called him, leaving a message saying that the money situation just wasn't gonna work out, I was really sorry, etc. Seems reasonable. How reasonable? Reasonable enough that it wouldn't have mattered anyway -- He got back to me with a text message saying "no worries" because the place had already gone to someone else. I swear people here have perpetual ADD. What part of "I'll take it" was unclear, 3 times? I'm happy it worked out so that I didn't feel guilty (I have a very delicate conscience), but still, what the hell. What if I had packed up and begun moving, only to find someone else there - that would have been awkward. As an aside, when I called Christian to tell him my new home fell through and I wasn't moving out just yet, he stopped me and said: "Ian, Ian - didn't [name I couldn't understand] tell you -- I am no longer interested in your place." OK. "didn't you call here the other day and I told you I don't want it anymore? So you don't have to move out right now" - Umm, ok, christian (he too no longer gets a capital C), I didn't call you, but thanks; besides, I know I don't need to move out now - I still need to live there you patronizing tart (so now I'm looking into moving in somewhere with my current British housemate, from whom I learn great new vocab words such as "tart" and "wanker", and who, when drunk, drops such valuable snippets of trivia as "my dad colonized your country").
Oh shit, before I go, total sweetness in terms of testosterone elevation: last night we returned from Notturna (think Paper Moon as in open late but think little italy quality italian food and breakfast) only to realize shana locked her keys (and, thus, andrew's and our Kiwi visitor Hendo's keys) in her room. Couldn't wiggle the door loose, and could not pick the lock. Undaunted, we went into the kitchen, where there is another access point door, no doorknob, and sealed from the inside. Mere mortals would have called a 24 lockksmith, but not this team. A starter hole was flayed using a bent hacksaw found under the sink, and then, using my bare (bear?) hands, the hole was torn wider - a feat of Herculean strength (Furhawn, Spence, Anshu: this answers your insipid questions about what the point of going to the gym is). I don't need to tell you that shana and company slept soundly in their beds. I'm like Bob Villa on Andro.

Styrip clubds alwas syeem like a good idea

tikl you get there.... unless it's LFHC

ok - i'm attmepting to type after transfrorming the McWilliam'ss into the Donner family. Quick backgrought - McWilliams was winery of the year, 200y here in AUS. (oy oy oy) - and I have consumed the McWilliams'sss. Great end to a great Australia day! - we bhad the day off, it's a holiday (instead of, you konw, revolution, indepenence, and John Hancock - not to mention Sam Adams and the Boston Brewing Co.) , we get Australia Day - basically a glorified October 12 (columbus day for those of you with steel wool between your ears) - it's the day Captain Cook "discovered" australia. Hoooray, a new prison colony awaits you, my liege.

Basically I wanted tochronicle the past few days, but honestly, i'm a little, umm, "off" right nowq - here's the short version: wen't to the Aussie (oy 9y oy) Open tenniks tournament today, and actually have a new appreciation for sports that I do not directly follow or play - and by appreciation I mean shit, these guys can play - anytime you're watching the best in the world do somethign forirst hnag, it's impressive. No offense to anyone who I wnet to see play live in hgih shool (actually this is just one of you) -but these mothafuckers are ridciulous - I cacutally like wathcign the omwen a bit more - they mhave longer volleys (and ponytails an play up the russian thing like it's nike advertising). Thogu hti i got sun burned ,i t awaws worth it because I delved into a new sport, kinda like John Madden - he coached a sport remarklhybably lke football, only an archaic versian, and now he's introduced to the the modernized analogy, rife with crazy invetions such as the forward pass. Fuck!. Bitch! Shit!. I don't watnt to think about football, it makes me infuriated and miserable - i can feel the upside down smile crreeeping to maye face. 3:30 up by 3 w/ the ball. damint. - oh well- there's always the celti... oh nevermdn
s
so i'll actually type up a review of the past week, but on the tip of my mind's tongue is this snippet - remember richard simmons, the guy at the gym who just pushes my buttons (is it cause i'm american? today he told me to move my weights out of "walkways" through the weightrom - i honestly think he's decided it's his role to remind me of where I came from.... thinking... thinking...oh that's right, the most wealthy and successful country in the world, but anyway----) His name is not far off of simmons - I checked the employee obaurd -it's Simon (one "M") -and his area of expertese, not suprsinignly: Motivation. I'm motivated all right; to find a new membership somewhere away from this master motivator of mercurial malevolence. Oh, and he has Suicide First Aid training. I'll let that sink in.
Ok, fingers missing keys, and hearing people missing stairs on their way to the louvre. i'll tell you about he most recent melbourne theft as well as the Weirdest. Day. Ever. very soon.
one

Will update soon

sorry for the delay again, vultures, but i've actually been pretty busy at work and finding a new apartment. When I return, though, in a day or so, you will hear about my Weirdest. Day. Ever. as well as me gushing over 24. (all I can say is "Wwwhhhaaaaatt?")
Oh, and Leese, if you're still reading this (I think you may be the only one to appreciate this, well, you and Jon) - I will probably be getting ground passes to the Australian Open on Friday. They're recruiting people from everywhere to massage Serena Williams' legs, and the australian population's arms are tiring from the volume of work.

Relocating my palace

First, a brief apology. I haven't been nearly active enough in providing free entertainment to you people. Since my life centers around making others happy, I really should keep up the good work on this site more often. Thanks and praise are not needed.

So I'm in the process of looking for new digs, in light of the recent experiences here in "crime-free" australia. That and my landlady probably has three 6's birth-marked into her scalp. Most recently she "repaired" my doorframe, reinforcing it with what appears to be an erector set. Upon entering my domain, I was greeted with the distinct aroma of sawdust and band-saw, first noticing my fortified doorframe, and then the coating of dust and paint chips on everything in my room. Of course there was. I mean everywhere - on my clothes, my briefcase, my rug, my bed, etc - even in my D-Wades! First, she's not allowed to enter even for repairs w/o notifying me first (never happened), and then, common courtesy should take over. Apparently not (speaking of common courtesy, it's apparantly the goal of my favorite Richard Simmons-doppelganger (sp?) to consistently hound me at the gym - the other day, after I nodded an acknowledgement of his presence in his direction, he came over to ask if I were carrying a towel to wipe down benches - I was, he just wanted to interrupt and let me know he's the boss - of course he is). I dont' even have the energy to confront my landlady about it, mainly because I plan on breaking my lease and just dont' want any hassle (she is also attempting to charge me extra for electricity because having a fan in my room is not part of the lease; i've skimmed the 157 page Tenancies Act here, and I'm pretty sure she's not getting a cent for it out of me). But in the search for a new place, i'm strongly leaning toward this sweet-ass apartment down the road from the city a bit, in a really nice area, on the top of a 23 story building. It's damn nice, but pricy - 900 a month, $AU (or AUD), after bills are said and done. Thinking about it, thinking, thinking..... don't want to think to long though (plus the dude goes surfing every weekend - who knows, I could inherit the whole place if he gets eaten by a shark).

On a completely unrelated note, Christina sent me something to completely change my outlook and raise my spirits. The final 2 episodes of Nip Tuck, season 4. I'm with you, Jon, I love where they're going with the show, literally. I've also begun downloading 24 Season 6 from iTunes, can't sleep anymore. Is the show completely over the top? Yes. Are the lines totally canned and could be predicted by a macaque? Yes. Do I blink while watching the show, or tolerate any bad mouthing at all about its quality? No and no. I need this show. It is crafted, as if by Hephaestus himself, in the heavens to reward TV watchers for their continued allegience to all things action-packed. Christ it's amazing. On another note, since I get the show a day after it comes out, you are not, under any circumstances, to ask me what I thought of a certain part or tell me part anyting about it until I publicly disclose the fact I've watched that episode. I'm deadly serious. You've read my file, you know what I'm capable of. Needless to say I've already watched the first few episodes, and am taken by Kumar's performance. What's that got, like 5 "O"'s and 2 "U"'s? No no, there's just one "O" in "overacting" - Ya, Bull shit.

Finally, how many continents are there? 7 Right? We're all agreed on this? Because here they're all taught that there're 5: Aussie, Africa, Antarctica, Eurasia, and Americas. In fact, one girl at a party after naming 4, said, no lie, "what's the last one, Greenland?" Who taught these people geography, Shaq?

You know I'm getting cynical when the gym starts to frustrate me

You all may remember from an earlier story that I was confronted in the gym by one of the monitors [it seems to me] simply exerting his employment-granted authority, in the process irking me. Well, our pal (let's call him Richard Simmons) is back this week, and up to his meddlesome antics, of course. I was concluding my workout with an extended set of an exercise that just so happened to require the repeated return of the bar to a rack, the result of which being a somewhat metallic dissonance. So be it. Well, Mr. Simmons comes up to me in the midst of my exercise with a stern look on his face that he must practise in the mirror (I practice, he practises). I look at him and ask what's wrong, as he's shaking his head (which caused me to stop what I was doing). He said "we don't do that here, this isn't some sort of outer suburban gym where you can just clang clang clang. It scares the girls away." I swear on my D-Wades those words escaped his mouth like Tim Robbins from Shawshank. I really wanted to be like, "Please tell me you're joking. Look, Dick. Me working out with some sound effects doesn't scare girls away - 50 year old dudes in tiny shorts sprouting topiaries from the back of their tank tops while smelling like dingos and outback steakhouse scares girls away." Man, I'm actually mad at myself for not asking for a better explanation, and informing him that everyone's here to get in better shape, not to be concerned w/ anyone else. Damn I'm too polite. Instead I just nodded and said OK. I suck.
While we're on the topic of the gym, it must be said: I think I attend that shit at the same time as a handful of pornstars or pornstar wannabes. I wish I were making this up. That is not to say that they are necessarily attractive, but there are a few just ridiculous, caricature-esque looking people (male and female), with inane revealing/I-don't-know-what clothing. For instance, whether or not you dabble in pornography, just imagine a male porn star. Now join me at the Athletic Center in meeting "Travis". Travis is in very good shape, shows up every day in a spandex shirt with buttons, and his goatee, moustache, and soul patch. Caricature. There's also the woman I mentioned before (who happens to work out with "Travis") who mostly just works out in sports-bra-like items, today it was a wrap around/tie up bullshit that would most likely be found in a club in Little Haiti. There's women with augmentation and tube tops w/ no bras (Caricatures), and other guys spending more time talking to said fitness stars and preening in the mirror than actually working out. And in the utmost example of what I considered gayitude - one kid got to the gym, placed his bag down, and proceeded to apply Tag body spray before his workout. Christ. Although you know they all go home and tell their pornstar friends: "holy shit, I work out at the same time as one of the most stunning examples of a physical specimen I've ever seen - I want to be like him." I'm flattered. Hopefully none of them stumble upon this blog. Oh well, I guess that would be making the giant leap of faith that pornstars are actually literate. I suppose if Traci Lords can ghostwrite a biography others can ghostread the blogs of stuck up, self important tourist. Whatever.

In other news, the stuff I'm doing in lab is very new to me and I get a headache every time I sit down to consider cloning strategies (for the uninitiated, this is not the kind of cloning you're thinking of). There's less one-on-one time with my boss, especially for the type of project I've never even remotely been a part of before, so I have more responsibility to troubleshoot on my own and tap others' knowledge to piece together how I should proceed. Either way, it is exciting to have what's basically my own project (for a while) that is fairly significant, even if it requires immense focus just to follow along with my boss when he lays out what has to be done. I don't want the nobel prize though. I'd raher be magnanimous and turn down the honor so someone who has more at stake can claim the spoils. The scientific fame is not what I'm after, strictly advancement to Lance Armstrong's 100% selfless command to Live Strong.

Lo, on the 18th day, he rose again

Honey, I'm home. So now I have a computer, it has been quite a struggle maintaining my sanity until this point - I've been reading books, and I think we all know I don't read books. And as for keeping up my blog, here's the thing: remember when I said it was like writing an essay, which I don't mind doing. But there're many things I'd like to write about, record keeping-wise and as a historical reference to my dry humor. As things pile up, I grow under the distinct impression that it will take more time to write, and thus I put off writing when I think I don't want to spend the time to type, or don't have enough time to put down all the things I'd like to recount. You can clearly see where this is going. The more I put it off (since I don't want to shortchange either you or my own recollections of this trip, well, mostly concerned with myself of course), the more things happen that I'd like to place in this discourse --> would take longer to type, and so I put it off even more. It's a vicious cycle. Not as vicious, mind you, as Zeno's oh-so-aptly named Vicious Infinite Regress, but pretty vicious.

So I'd like to start with the most recent event of which I took note: I bought sliced cheese in the safeway, COON brand. In fact, "Australians don't say cheese, they say COON -- and Australia has been enjoying COON for over 70 years." I felt nearly as awkward eating my melted coon on chicken as Chevy Chase v. Richard Pryor in the job interview sketch from SNL 30 years ago.

And also, it should be brutally obvious by now that I was not burned to death in the hallway fire that engulfed (read: smoke tripped an alarm) my building. It was eerie, though, leaving that night after seeing the fire trucks outside and the code red alert blaring through the building (which of course did not scurr me). Opening the lab door to the main corridor proved a struggle, the building was pressurized and the stairwell was like a windtunnel. Also, all the lights were out (this was about 11 pm) except for the backup generated emergency markers (green exit signs).
Surprisingly enough it wasn't my most exciting fire of the week. A few nights earlier, I was in bed reading and smelled smoke. I threw on clothes and made like Toucan Sam to the origin of the smoke... it's not an exciting ending actually, there was just a burned down house with firemen spraying their hoes. More to come later, I need to refill my computer with relevent software. Peace

Can't come up with a title

So there is one thing conserved between America and australia: older men take it upon themselves to turn locker rooms into Roman public baths. actually, you know what, check that, since I don't yet have a computer replacement and came into the lab to use one here (my life excites even the most daring), the intercom just came on to alert the hospital community re a Respond Level Red emergency in my building. Now things are picking up. But, since I just looked out the window and saw fire trucks out front, I'm going to leave you all to your own devices.