AK All Day Face: The unloved one

The unloved one (photo: AGK)

There's Wimbledon. There's the French. There's the US.

And then, grouped with the other three, yet often relegated to the periphery, there's the Aussie.

It's equal to its counterparts! It deserves -- nay, it demands -- respect. Yet it doesn't always get it, not even from some Aussies. I've often heard Aussies self-deprecatingly question how their own country ever ended up with a Grand Slam tournament, as if it doesn't deserve it.

Don't question it. Just love it.

The vitals
Title: The unloved one
Subject: AK
Face: The pain
Location: Melbourne VIC

I could get used to this

No movement on the job front. Things are still very much in limbo as I inch towards my date of deportation.*

But. BUT! The weather this past week has been amazing. Hot and sunny every day.** So I've been taking advantage, with trips to various beaches, barbecues and other excursions. I can't complain.

*From here on out, let's simpy refer to this day as "DOD".

**Maybe it did get a little TOO hot the other day when it hit 42ºC (108ºF) during the day and that night was the hottest in Sydney in 12 years. Then again, with temperatures reaching ridiculous lows in the US right now, I really can't and don't want to complain. I'll take this over that any day of the week.

To up the ante, today is Australia Day, and we're celebrating by hosting a barbecue at our apartment, listening to an annual Top 100 music countdown, and switching back and forth between cricket and tennis on the TV.

Yup. I can definitely get used to this.

Unsure about my own future

The hammer has dropped -- I've officially been let go from my agency.

Yesterday I wrote about how I was excited for the future of my country. And now, after somehow waking up at 4 this morning -- still quite drunk from last night -- to watch the inauguration festivities, I might be even more excited for the future of the US.

For my own personal future, however, "excited" very much does not apply to my current mindset. And "unsure" might be the kindest and perhaps most incomplete way to sum it up.

I knew this was coming; it wasn't a surprise. But when I was actually called into a room with HR, yeah, it was still a kick in the gut. About ten of us were let go, and that's never going to be pleasant.

What now? Well, pretty much exactly what I've been doing for the last three months: lots and lots of looking, cold calls, informational interviews, etc. Only difference is that now, I'll be doing it from the comfort of my apartment. But today, and maybe for the rest of this week (which will segue quite nicely into a long Australia Day Weekend), I'll be taking it relatively easy, sleeping in, going for some long jogs, taking some jaunts to the beach. Might as well make the best of a very unsure situation.

Excited for the future of my country

Big personal update to come tomorrow. Without giving too much away, I can very much say that my current excitement level -- as suggested by this post's title and to be explained below -- extends only to where my country is headed. I'd do a post on that now, but I already had this one drafted. And unless I post it today, it'll be dated, so here it is!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometime in late 1996 or early 1997, just after Bill Clinton had been re-elected, Chris Rock hosted Saturday Night Live. I don't remember the entirety of his opening monologue, but for whatever reason, I vividly recall Rock questioning just how much life would change if your guy was or wasn't elected as president. Something like, "My guy lost? Damn! Trash won't get picked up this Tuesday!" Obviously, it was in the name of comedy, and obviously, on such a superficial level, it's absolutely true -- a president can only impact our daily lives so much.

But then there's Tuesday. (Or my Wednesday.) And even though I'm 9,761 miles and a 214-day walk (and kayak) away from the festivities, I'm still quite excited for the inauguration of our 44th president. And that's not wholly because I support most of his policies or admire his willingness and desire to work across party lines or think that he's a genuinely good guy. Those all go into the equation, yes. But what I'm really excited about is much more simple than that; he just seems to get it. He knows what he knows, he knows what he doesn't know and he's not afraid to admit it. He's just a normal guy who has worked hard and paid his dues throughout his career, loves playing basketball with his friends, and is going to make someone pry his Blackberry from his Greg Focker-like kung-fu grip.

On that last point of the Blackberry, the appeal for me isn't his apparent addiction, although that absolutely makes him out to be all the more normal and relatable. No -- what's so appealing to me is why he wants to keep it:

It's just one tool among a number of tools that I'm trying to use, to break out of the bubble, to make sure that people can still reach me. If I'm doing something stupid, somebody in Chicago can send me an email and say, 'What are you doing?' I want to be able to have voices, other than the people who are immediately working for me, be able to reach out and send me a message about what's happening in America.

How many leaders -- whether it be of a country, a corporation or some little neighborhood group -- have the humility to say something like that?

Barack Obama has inherited one seriously messed up situation. Yes, the trash will still be picked up on Tuesday. But with him now at the helm, I'm optimistic for so much more than that, confident that he has the knowledge, tools and temperament to right the larger ship. So for the first time in my adult life -- at a time when I'm surrounded by many people skeptical of the United States -- I can finally and thankfully say that I'm proud of and have faith in my government.

PCW: Enter Angelo's

First there was Ole and Ogalo. Then there was Portogali. Then Ogalo went away for a while. Then Ogalo came back. And now... now Angelo's enters.


A month or two ago, a few friends and I made our maiden trip to Angelo's. As you may recall from my last post on the Portuguese Chicken Wars, Angelo's is taking a new tact in the ever expanding Portuguese Chicken market in Kensington. For instead of your basic over-the-plate offerings of fast food Portuguese Chicken, Angelo's has gone classy on us. And I'm not talking Ron Burgundy "You stay classy, San Diego" classy, oh no. I'm talking classy classy. This is a restaurant first, with its take away operation very much secondary. So on this first trip of ours, the group decided to do the full sit down experience.* And I'm far from thrilled to say that it was a mixed bag.

*If we're being completely honest here -- and when it comes to Portuguese Chicken, have I ever led you astray?** -- this choice was forced on us more than anything else because, well, Angelo's hadn't even started to offer their take away menu yet.

**Don't answer that.

We started off with two appetizers*: garlic prawns and BBQ chorizo. Both very solid and succulent dishes, although not great value considering the small portions and price. Then we moved on to the mains. Two people had the steak, two -- myself included -- had the slow roasted lamb and one had the BBQ chicken. The lamb and chicken were both very good. The steak, on the other hand, a little bland.

*I should note here that in Australia, appetizers are actually called entrées, and entrées -- or at least as we know them in the US -- are called mains. Which, when you think about what the word "entrée" means, really makes a lot more sense.

So like I said, a mixed bag. But we all left determined to try those chicken burgers once the take away operation was up and running.

A few weekends later, we finally made our move. Shorty and I planned ahead on Saturday, so for that afternoon, I starved myself. No way was I going to go in there on anything but an empty stomach.

Three of us entered the restaurant later that night. Shorty and I ordered the Portugalia Burger, which the menu describes as follows: "Chicken breast on a sesame bun, topped with cheese, a slice of smoked chilli chicken breast, lettuce, tomato and mayo". Ummmm, does that mean there are two chicken breasts in there? And one of them is plain while the other is a smoked chilli chicken breast? Or is that just a typo? Our other friend ordered the Angelo's Burger, which is described as follows: "Chicken breast on a sesame bun, topped with pineapple, onion, a slice of smoked chilli chicken breast, egg, peri-peri, lettuce, tomato and mayo". The kitchen sink! And again, the two pieces of chicken! What is that??

To top things off, we also ordered some French fries* and some of Angelo's homemade peri-peri sauce and mayo.**

*If it hasn't been hard enough for me to start to use the term "chips" instead of "French fries", a few restaurants here actually use the latter term, which just further confuses things. It's one thing that McDonald's does this; that I can accept. But when a restaurant such as Angelo's also starts to use the term "French fries", well, that's when my head starts to spin.

**Secretly -- okay, it was no secret to any of us -- we wanted prego sauce, but we thought we should give these a try. The insane thing though is that while the fries cost $3, so did each of the sauces! That's right: the sauces cost as much as the fries. That's some wacky, wild stuff.

After ordering, we sat down and waited. And waited. And waited. And WAITED. Finally, Shorty and I got our orders. But our friend's burger was nowhere in sight. And it would stay that way for another ten minutes or so, at which point my stomach was imploding, my burger was going cold and my fries had gone soggy from the steam in the plastic bag. Faaaaaantastic.

Eventually, mercifully, our friend got his burger, we rushed back to our apartment and the true test began. But our impressions of those burgers... well, that's going to have to wait for another day. Because some events transpired just today that have brought the Portuguese Chicken Wars to a whole new level. And it absolutely requires a post of its own.

Haydos and televising Twenty20 cricket

I know the readership of this blog, and given the title of this post, you're probably groaning. (Or have already moved on to a different website.) So I promise to keep this short.*

*Okay, in retrospect, it didn't quite work out that way. But I think this still makes for a (somewhat) interesting read.

First. On Tuesday, Matthew Hayden (nicknamed Haydos) retired from representing the Australian cricket team. Considered one of the greatest batsmen in Australian cricket history, he was the first player to capture my attention when I came here 16 months ago. In fact, when I went to Day 4 of the Sydney Test match between Australia and India early last year, he scored his 29th Test century. I know that means nothing to most of you. But believe me -- it's impressive.*

*Ultimately, he ended with 30 Test centuries, which places him sixth on the all time list.



Haydos has been part of my cricket consciousness for just over a year. And I'll still miss him.

Second. The South African team is currently touring Australia, with the two countries squaring off in a series of matches. First were the three Test matches, which the underdog Proteas* surprisingly won, 2-1. Then came the Twenty20 matches, which Australia won, 2-0.

*This is the nickname of the South African cricket team. I have no idea what its origins are or what it means.

I'll save the lesson on Test cricket versus Twenty20 cricket versus One Day Internationals for another day. (Or probably never.) For the purposes of this conversation, however, let's use a bit of an analogy; you know, like an SAT question. Test cricket is to Twenty20 cricket as Walter Cronkite is to Bart Simpson* (with the One Day Internationals falling somewhere in between). Or perhaps more aptly, Test cricket is the NFL and Twenty20 is the XFL.

In other words -- because let's be honest, a master of analogies I am not -- Test cricket stands for tradition, for history, for days when men were gentlemen, for plain, white uniforms. Twenty20 cricket, on the other hand, is the new, exciting, irreverent kid on the block, white uniforms be damned. The same etiquette and rules of engagement very much do not apply.

*Not sure how well Bart Simpson works in this analogy, but that's the best I could come up with in the two minutes I was willing to devote to it. Other ideas: Charlie Sheen? (He's too old, right? Although I guess in a sense, Bart Simpson is as well.) Matt Stone and Trey Parker? (You can't use two people, right? But you also can't separate those two guys; they have to appear with each other, like peanut butter and jelly, Batman and Robin, Charlie Sheen and brothels.) Nick Cannon? Conan O'Brien? Paris Hilton???? (Okay, I've officially derailed here.)

I don't know, this was a serious brain fart on my part. Or, perhaps more likely, it's a frightening indicator that I'm disgustingly out of touch with American culture. So if you have a better example, by all means, please make a suggestion in the comments.

One of the greatest disparities between these two versions -- and to get right to the point, what I want to focus on here -- is how they're televised. Test cricket, being so steeped in tradition, is presented in a very straightforward, stodgy sort of fashion. No gimmicks. With Twenty20, however, nothing is sacred. The sky's the limit. In India's new India Premier League, for example, each team has freaking cheerleaders! Imagine your favorite baseball team bringing some of those out on the field. Jack Buck would be rolling over in his grave.

What I especially love about Twenty20's telecasts is that they sometimes have players miked up to talk to the broadcast booth during the game. So the announcers are doing some play-by-play or analysis or whatever, and then they send it down to a player and talk to them AS THE MATCH IS HAPPENING! Why do you have the field positioned in such a manner? How do you plan to bowl to this guy? What went wrong with that last ball? How freaking cool is that??!?

I would love to see a sports league in the US experiment with this. Maybe it isn't very feasible for basketball, with its constant and fluid action, but in football and baseball (like in cricket), there are relatively lengthy breaks in between each play that lend themselves perfectly to such situations. The insights that I've gained by listening to players as a match is happening have been invaluable. And I think that we could also learn many things from a pitcher, a quarterback or even a golfer.

If this were ever to be seriously considered in the US, many would question how it might damage the sanctity of sports, and I'd absolutely understand, respect and empathize with that opinion. But I'd still very much welcome the debate and think that it should be had. Because miking up players has the potential to revolutionize sports. The game becomes more accessible. Athletes become more relatable. It all becomes more interesting. And that's something that I think we -- the fans, the players, the owners, the TV networks -- would all welcome.

I’m Twittering... because I’m in Rome?

Veronica Corningstone: But it's very important to me that I be viewed as a professional.
Ron Burgundy: Right. When in Rome. Hmm.
Veronica: Yeah. That, uh, expression doesn't really apply to what I'm talking about.
Ron: Oh. Oh, I'm--
Veronica: What I was saying.
Ron: I still don't quite understand what it means.
Veronica: Oh, no. You'll find it.

Throughout Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Ron Burgundy could never grasp the concept of the phrase, "When in Rome". The idea eluded him, was foreign to him, he simply couldn't connect the dots. And so despite his best efforts, he was never able to master how and when to use it.

For the last year or two, this has been my attitude towards Twitter. I got it... but I didn't get it at all. What purpose did it serve? Did it offer any value? When would I use it? Why would I use it?

To these questions, I still don't have an answer. But like Burgundy, I've decided to dive in head first and hope for the best.

You can view and follow my Twitter feed here or simply follow my updates on the sidebar of this blog, buried underneath the "What is AK All Day?" section.* Maybe one day, like Ron, I’ll find it.

*If I'm really going to make a concerted effort to become a reputable member of Twitter Nation, this clearly needs to be more prominent on the blog's layout, which -- irrespective of this -- has remained stagnant for far too long. So after the 17 months with the same template, I may be looking to mix things up here in the coming days or weeks. You may have noticed a change in the width of the margins; hopefully I can muster a little more than that sooner or later.

I need a backiotomy

Or at least that's what Sir-Smoke-Alot would probably tell me. Because right now, my back is killing me.

Twice during college, my back freaked out and went into spasms. I remember both times vividly:

1. Sophomore year. While talking to a TA after a lecture, I innocently reached down to pick up my backpack. As I lifted it up, my back seized up and screamed out, "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" I practically had to crawl back to my apartment.
2. Senior year. At my job as a valet parker, I dropped some keys and simply reached down to pick them up. And again, even with such a simple motion, my back would have none of it. Somehow, someway, I made it through the rest of my shift, whimpering in pain each time I stepped into and out of a car.

Both times, I spent the majority of the next week popping pain killers and muscle relaxers like they were Skittles and lying on hard surfaces, wherever I could find one. Bless my parents for passing on the "shit back" gene.

So ever since then, I've fairly religiously stretched out my back at least once a day. And it clearly has worked, for I'd never again experienced anything to the same degree... until Saturday morning. For playing in the field during a cricket match, a ball was hit in my direction. I chased it down, and as I bent over to pick it up, well, if you don’t see where this is going...

That was three days ago. And today, I'm still hobbling around, hunched over like an 80-year-old man. It stinks.

2009: A big, fat question mark

So. We recapped the end of 2008 here. Last year is over. Time to move on, turn the page and look forward to 2009.

And what's in store for the upcoming year? Hmmm. Yeah. Well. To that question, I have absolutely no answer.

Three months removed from finding out that my agency is losing the one account that I work(ed) on, my job situation is still up in the air. I'm still with the same agency, but it's only a matter of time -- for all I know, just a matter of hours -- before I get the old heave ho. So I'm still looking for work elsewhere. Clearly with very little luck. It is the economy, stupid.

Beyond work, what's in store? Well, I honestly can't say, because it really does all hinge on the job. If I find one before being let go, it's smooth sailing, and I continue this adventure here. But if I get the pink slip first, well, that's when it gets interesting. Because at that point, the Australian government will start a 28-day countdown for me to find a new company to sponsor my visa. And if I don't, I get The Boot.

There's still a lot I want to do here. TONS. I'm not at all ready to leave. So I'm fairly determined to not let the job situation dictate that. Of course, it will very much have to dictate what I do here. Because if I'm not working, well, I have to be doing something, right? And I think that something will be travel. For while I've now done the entire East Coast of this continent, there's still quite a bit left to see: Adelaide, Perth, Darwin, Uluru and many, many spots in between. And before I go back to the US -- whenever that may be -- I'm determined to see all of it.

Of course, getting a new job is still the ideal scenario, as it would allow me to stay longer and save more money for said travel, which would have to be put on hold. And I'd be more than happy to do that.

I don't have a clue how this is all going to pan out. But I'll be sure to let you know as soon as I do.

Half a month of madness in pictures

For my Christmas break last year, as you may recall, JVA and I took a massive road trip up the coast of Queensland, from Brisbane to the Great Barrier Reef. And then, over the next several weeks, I laboriously attempted to recap the trip over far too many posts on this blog.

For my Christmas break this year, as I previewed in my farewell to 2008, I set out on what was an even more ambitious itinerary, as I went from Sydney to Byron Bay, back to Sydney, up to MacMasters Beach for Christmas, back to Sydney, down to Wagga Wagga, further down to Melbourne, further down to Lorne and The Falls Festival, then back to Sydney along the coast of Victoria and New South Wales.

It was a wild, wild, wild trip, oh yes. And as with the cricket trip to Newcastle, it exceeded any and every expectation that I had for it.* Unlike the cricket trip to Newcastle, however, this was no little three-day weekend, oh no; this was 15 consecutive days of activity, of hootenanny, of hijinx, of hoolbool. In fact, it may have been the most exhilarating, entertaining, manic, jam-packed 15-day stretch of my life. No exaggeration. I've had unbelievable days in the past. I've had great weekends, such as that trip to Newcastle. I've had fantastic months. But on a pound-for-pound basis, for every single day over the past half a month, that trip was insane. INSANE.

*Joe Posnanski -- yes, the man crush is still alive and well -- has recently championed an approach to rating movies in which you base your rating (on a scale of 1 to 5) against your expected rating going into a movie. In lieu of simply rating a movie, I think this is a much more realistic way to gauge how we actually feel about a movie. For example, we all know that feeling when you go to a movie that everyone has been RAVING about and you leave thinking it was good but not great, that you've been let down. So in this case, let's say you were expecting a 5 movie but thought it was only a 4. That's a minus-1 movie to Posnanski. A good movie, yes, but you still feel disappointed. Conversely, if you go into a movie that you've heard nothing about and expect maybe a 3, but leave thinking that that movie was also a 4, well, that's a plus-1 movie to Posnanski. So they're both 4 movies, but you leave the second with a much better feeling than the first.

Anyway. Let's carry this system over to this trip. I expected a 4. That's solid, right? Well, I got a 5. Easily. I sleepwalked to that 5. A 5 hardly does it justice. So let's call this trip a plus-1+. Because unlike the amplifier in This is Spinal Tap, this scale has no leeway to go one notch higher to a 6.

Now the question is, how can I possibly capture this trip with words? And after dedicating several thousand words and five posts to last year’s trip to the Great Barrier Reef, I realize I can't. It was hard enough to do justice to that trip with words; to even try to do the same with this one would be a joke. So Im not going to go down that road. Instead, here’s a bit of a photo/video essay of the trip, with some notes interspersed throughout.

Byron Bay

MacMasters Beach

Lost in the serenity of this beautiful locale, I forgot to take any pictures over my two days there. So instead, you'll just have to picture me on your typical Christmas Day. You know, waking up and taking a dip in the ocean, eating lunch and dinner on a patio overlooking the beach, having some plum pudding for dessert, and drinking plenty of Pimms and lemonade. (It's for moments like these that I love being here.)

Sydney to Melbourne

Melbourne

The Falls Festival

A few quick notes here:

• It was unseasonably cold. Very cold. As low as 5°C (41°F). And off and on rain the whole time. A good camping experience this does not make.
• The musical highlights for me, by far, were Architecture in Helsinki and The Cat Empire. Santogold and Donavon Frankenreiter also did not disappoint.
• It was universally agreed that the lead singer of The Hives is a douche. There was also some debate as to whether he learned his English from Terrance and Phillip.
• New Year's Eve was not in any way a focal point of the festival. And considering how catastrophically awful my last few New Year's have been, I couldn't have been more pleased. On the night of the 31st, there was music, then we counted down to midnight, then Franz Ferdinand came on. C'est tout.

Back to Sydney

Yes, it was a good trip. And I hope these photos and video give a sense of that.

And now we can offically close the book on 2008 and look ahead to a new year that will bring... well, I have no idea. Let's discuss next time.