Team RASS has left the building

Yeah. So that happened.

Since my last post, Robert arrived in Sydney to form Team RASS (Robert, Andy, Sarah, Sam). And in the week that the four of us were together, we conquered Sydney.

Unfortunately, that week came and went far too quickly. And now, Sam and Sarah have already arrived back in New York, Robert's currently somewhere over the Pacific en route back to Houston and I'm left to wrap my head around the last two weeks. I will hopefully provide a fairly comprehensive recap in the next few days, but until then, enjoy:

Chillaxing in the Hunter and Port

We are back!

Sam, Sarah and I had a great five days --one in the Hunter Valley and four in Port Macquarie -- doing our best to "chillax" (as Sarah liked to deem it) 24/7. There was our wine tour with a crazy guide, hydro golf, St. Patty's Day celebrations at Finnian's, hanging out at the lighthouse, going to the koala hospital and, of course, getting in plenty of beach time.

The trip back yesterday featured a trip to Harry's in Newcastle because, well, it was on the way. And what trip to Australia is complete without some beautiful meat pies from Harry's?

Back in Sydney, we picked up Robert from the airport this morning and hit up the sights during the day, with the beautiful sun beating down on us. Tonight is gonna feature pizzas at The Australian Heritage Hotel with some of Australia's finest local meats: kangaroo, salt water crocodile and emu.

More to follow (including pictures?) next week.

Procrastinatin' with some Kleinballs while I curse myself

Well, in case there was ever any doubt, it's now official: I'm an idiot.

Somehow, over the last several weeks, I came under the very erroneous impression that Sam and Sarah were arriving this morning. I mentally circled the date in my head, and all errands and activities this week were planned so that I'd be free today to pick them up from the airport and start our two-week adventure together.

I emailed Sam and Sarah on Wednesday, the day they were gonna head off from New York... that is, if they were to arrive in Sydney on Friday morning. I told them that I couldn't believe they'd be leaving New York "today" and that I'd be waiting for them at the airport on Friday morning. I even provided this link to my post about their visit, in which I clearly say that they'd be coming on Friday morning.

Sam and Sarah responded to my email. Below are some excerpts from each of their emails:

• Email #1, from Sarah: "Still awake haven't slept yet way too pumped."
• Email #2, from Sam: "I'll confirm the flight when I get to work. I can't believe this. 2 weeks in oz baby!!"
• Email #3, from Sarah: "Can't believe we leave tomorrow!!!"

Any mention in these three emails that I was under the very wrong impression of which day they'd arrive on?? NO! In fact, Sarah's first email almost confirms my understanding. Was she so excited that she couldn't sleep two nights before she was scheduled to leave? Because that's the only way to interpret her words.

It wasn't until Sarah's last email, in which she says they'd be leaving "tomorrow" (in response to my email in which I said -- and I quote -- "Holy shit, you guys leave today. TODAY!!!") that I realized something was amiss. For not only did she say that they'd be leaving "tomorrow" (Thursday), but according to my calculations (which were based on my faulty understanding), she should have been about 30,000 feet over Colorado at the time she sent it. So I searched through my old emails, found Sam's original email with their flight info, and there it was: arrive Saturday morning. Yep, I'm an idiot.

ANYWAY.

Now I've been sitting in my apartment all day with nothing to do because I had left my schedule wide open to hang out with them. Now there's nothing. So in an effort to make the day pass, I figure I'd throw a couple of Kleinballs out there.

Man beats up 'kangaroo Jackie Chan' in house. A good and intriguing headline, no doubt, but after reading this story, my lord, the possibilities are endless! Someone get the New York Post on the phone! A few options that I very hastily came up with in about 3.4 seconds:

• Man confuses kangaroo with lunatic ninja, goes Seven Samurai on its ass.
• Kangaroo shreds mans underpants.
• Chef cooks kangaroo, kangaroo's cousin attempts to exact revenge on chef's family.

Okay, I'll be the first to admit that these all could use some work -- I swear I used to be good at writing headlines -- but there are some beautiful tidbits in that article. One thing's for sure: only in Australia.

Peanut butter sales are plummeting. I've had nightmares about this. (Wait, maybe this is a good thing? All the more for me to horde?)

You may remember my Movember adventure from last November, and that for those people who donated on my behalf, I sent out a daily email with pictures of my slow-to-grow moustache. Robert, who will himself be landing here in exactly one week's time -- and don't worry, I'm positive of this date -- put together the following brilliant video that chronicles my 'stache:

This baseball off-season, if the Red Sox had signed CC Sabathia to anything comparable to what the Yankees ultimately signed him for, I would have been furious. Insanely overweight pitchers (and he's the second heaviest in baseball!!!) with huge workloads over the past two seasons (including many starts on three days rest late last year) don't exactly have the best track record one, two or seven years into the future. So I was all for the Yankees signing him to that albatross of a deal: $161 million over seven years. Anyway, I know it's only Spring Training,* but nonetheless, this pleases me to no end. Let the glorious revisionist history begin.

*And of all people, I'm the one to generally put zero stock in how players perform in March.

The National Rugby League here begins its season tonight. And just to make things really interesting in the lead-up to the season, earlier this week, one of the best players on the defending champions was accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl. As if that's not insane enough, a team executive recently had the tenacity to fault the league's salary cap for creating an atmosphere in which that might happen. Riiiiiiiiight. Anyway, I hadn't even heard of this ridiculous assertion in Australia until it was picked up by an American web site. I'm not even going to try to explain; you can read the absurd logic for yourself.

Along with the beginning of the NRL season comes the beginning of the fantasy leagues, and most of my friends in my neighborhood are all in the same league. I thought I could be bad when watching a game that had implications for me in fantasy baseball, basketball or football. But these guys... yikes. They take it to a whole new level.

I guess it's comforting to know that I'm not the craziest person out there. Just an idiot.

Here comes the madness

This is one of those preemptive posts, a la the end of last year, in which I give advance warning for what will be a light few weeks of blogging. I wish that this was because I was about to start a new job, and I knew that I'd be too busy to even devote a few minutes to this every day or two. Nope. Instead, the next few weeks are simply going to be madness.

First, on Friday morning, my friends Sam and Sarah fly in from New York. We're in Sydney for a brief two days before we head north to Hunter Valley for a wine tour, spend the night in a hotel/brewery (!!), then drive a few hours further north to Port Macquarie for three days of R&R. (Minus the rest and relaxation, of course.)

The day after we get back to Sydney, Robert arrives from Houston (via Dana Point and Disneyland). Combined, the four of us make up Team Oz -- with previous incarnations as Team Maine and Team Martha's -- and in Sydney for a full week, we will go hog wild.

Team Oz! Featuring Robert as The Lion, Sam as The Scarecrow, Sarah as Dorothy and yours truly as The Tin Man.

No definitive plans at the moment, but at the minimum, we'll be seeing the big sites, hitting up the local Portuguese Chicken establishments (they're all versed in the PCW) and absolutely playing some pitch and putt. Because this group of four has a somewhat -- nay, a very -- unhealthy obsession with pitch and putt, going back to when we all lived in New York and made many a trip to Queens' Flushing Meadows pitch and putt course.

Team Oz (with Maz on the far right) at the Flushing Meadows pitch and putt course. I won that day. I always beat those guys.

Sam and Sarah leave on the 26th, with Robert departing a day later. And that gives me three days to prepare for what is by far the most important event of the year: my fantasy baseball draft. Go ahead and make fun of me. I don't care.

And then, a day after the draft, I fly out to LA for the wedding of my friends, Benny and Hannah (aka Benihana).* I'm there for a week, and in addition to the wedding, I already have several things planned: Bay Cities Deli, maybe a Dodgers spring training game, and CHUMASH!! (If you don't know, don't ask. Words would never do it justice.)

*In a perfect coincidence, the day I fly out is also the last day that I can legally remain in Australia. That's right: my DOD is upon us! So it's quite serendipitous that Benihana is getting married when they are, as I'll also use the trip to reenter Australia on a tourist visa.

The Monday after the wedding, I fly back to Sydney, ready to renew my job search. Because, yeah, that's really what I should be doing this entire month.

Maybe I'll find time to write about a few things over the next few weeks. That would be nice, for both you and me. But most likely, it won't happen. So until then, here's to the Northern Hemisphere's merciful exit out of winter, to the glory of Spring Training, to March Madness, to Benihana.

Getting back to the basics

I'm a broken record. The rationalization and impetus for seemingly every one of my posts in the last month has had something to do with my (and my roommates') unemployment. So what the hell... here's one more.

Recently, we've been dedicating ourselves to the simple things in life. Specifically, we're starting to make things from scratch. Because (a) we have the time and (b) it's cheaper. A win-win! (And according to this article, we're apparently not the only ones who feel this way. Stupid GFC.) Here's what we've been up to:

Brewing beer

I covered most of this in this post from a few weeks ago. And Little Bear Brewery is still going strong! We just bottled our fourth batch of beer -- modeled after Newcastle Brown Ale -- and are about to start work on a ginger beer. To the left is our wheat beer, nicknamed Wheat Bear. It has a really great aroma and nice initial taste, but the aftertaste is currently a bit bitter. We're hoping that this gets better with more time for maturation.

Even more exciting is the stash of beer that we're starting to build up. Behold (part of) our stockpile, currently at 114 bottles!!


That's 85.5 liters (22.5 gallons) of beer!!

Growing vegetables

This has mostly been Shorty's labor of love. On our balcony, we now are growing the following: tomatoes, roma tomatoes, basil, coriander, peppermint, spring onions and lettuce. They all still need some time to grow, but once they're ready, we can cross those items off the weekly shopping list!

Some tomatoes and herbs.

Lettuce.

In the works for the future is some rocket (arugula), chili and a lemon tree.

Baking bread

Shorty's girlfriend was kind enough to give us her family's bread machine, which had been collecting dust in their garage for the last few years. Our apartment, on the other hand... we're putting it to extreme use.

After starting off with some basic white breads, we're starting to spread our wings a bit. Recent experiments have included French bread (as seen to the left), cajun jalapeno bread, pesto and pinenut bread, banana bread and herb bread. There's another thing to cross off the shopping list... although now we're buying a lot of flour.

Homemade pasta

The beautiful thing about the bread maker is that it does so much more than make bread! For example, it makes pasta dough. Taking advantage of that, I made some ravioli the other day. This was a brutally long and painstakingly monotonous process -- it takes forever to flatten the dough, make the filling, drop it onto the dough and then seal the dough around it -- but the result was very nice.

Below is a picture of some ravioli (with much pasta sauce on top) and homemade bread with garlic and cheese. Good stuff.


I also made some linguine (or something resembling it) last night, which was much easier to do. Maybe I'll just stick to that in the future.

Homemade pizza

Another use for the bread maker: pizza dough! Short took the lead on this one, and created several different pizzas the other night. Here's a sequence of pictures of him making it:

Spreading out the sauce -- in this case, barbecue -- on the dough.

Adding some cheese.

The toppings: chicken, onion, red pepper, hot pepper, etc.

Some more cheese!

The final product.

Coffee

And lastly, Short surprised us last week with a cappuccino/espresso maker! So now we're making ourselves fresh lattes and cappuccinos and whatnot.


A return to the basics! We clearly have the time. It's saving us money. The perfect win-win.

This cannot wait

Normally, the below would simply be thrown into the mix of ramblings, links, and whatnot the next time I threw some Kleinballs. But this video... well, it just cannot wait. It must be shared with the world. Right now.



I've watched this three times, and I still don't know what to think of it. Should I be impressed? Horrified? Bewildered? I'm not sure. So for now, I'm simply speechless. I am without speech.

The quest for a six

March is upon us. This is notable for a variety of reasons, but most applicable to my purposes here, it means the following two things:

First, the Australian summer is unfortunately coming to an end. Along with lowering temperatures, earlier sunsets and fewer beach days, it also means that the cricket season is winding down. Specifically, I'm talking about the cricket season for Fumblers-B, my friends' team that I occasionally play for.

Second, the one-month countdown on my DOD has officially commenced, and I still have no legitimate job prospects. (I actually have three interviews tomorrow -- all first interviews -- but I've long since learned not to get my hopes up too early in the process.) The longer this job drought goes on, the more I fear that I might have to call an end to this Australian adventure.

Pondering these two items the other day, it occurred to me that my last ever opportunities to play organized cricket could be over the next few weeks, as Fumblers-B's regular season ends and they enter the playoffs.* It's a sobering thought -- a thought I'd rather not even consider -- but nonetheless a very real and possible scenario.

*You know what one good thing will come from the end of the season? The end of season trip!!! Many more details to come on this as planning gets under way.

As far as I'm concerned, my cricket playing experiences thus far have been quite comprehensive and fulfilling. I've batted many times. I've played wicketkeeper. I've made a few catches. I've actually bowled six overs. Granted, I did none of these things well -- okay, I did most of these things quite poorly -- but for someone who only gained any appreciation for the sport a little over a year ago, I think this is a body of work of which to be proud.

Anyway. As I reflected back on all of this the other day, it occurred to me that there's one thing I haven't yet done on the cricket field: hit a six.* So last week, as I was scheduled to play in a match on the approaching Saturday, I announced to the rest of Fumblers-B that it was my intention to do just that.

*For those not familiar with cricket, a six is essentially equivalent to a home run in baseball. Hit the ball on the fly over the fence (or rope) and you're awarded six runs.

On Saturday, I was ready. I had visualized. I had gone to a practice session on Friday, and batted pretty well. I had gotten a good night of sleep. I had eaten my Wheaties.

Around 11:30 or so, after over two tortuous hours of waiting, my turn to bat came up. I walked out to the pitch, the guys on my team knowing full well what my intentions were.

The bowler approached. Mentally, I was there, focused only on watching the ball come out of his hand. The bowler released the ball, and I immediately saw that it was headed outside off stump (in baseball terms, it was going to be outside), so I stepped towards the ball and took a hard swing. But the ball was too far outside, and I missed.

Little did I know that that would be the only ball I'd face.

With that ball being the last of an over, Maz started the next over on strike (meaning that he was now facing the balls). And when he hit a ball, he aggressively called for us to run. I ran hard but immediately saw that my chances to make it safely to the other end of the pitch were small. So I prepared to dive, hoping that the wicketkeeper might fumble the thrown ball before he could get me out.

The next two seconds seemed to take a lifetime.

The wicketkeeper did not fumble the ball; he caught it cleanly and knocked the bales off the wicket. I was out.

I started to slow up.

The wicketkeeper's momentum, as he started celebrating, took him right towards me.

Seeing the wicketkeeper heading into my path, I really hit the brakes.

I stepped on a thin layer of dirt on the pitch.

I slipped on the dirt.

I fell, with my forehead colliding with the wicketkeeper's knee.

I hit my tailbone on the pitch.

I smacked the back of my head against the pitch.

I was out.

After about half a minute on the ground, I groggily got up and walked off the field. My chance for a six had passed for the day, perhaps -- although hopefully not -- forever. This wasn't exactly how I had visualized it.

Linkin' to some Kleinballs

One would think that now that I have almost nothing to do every day, I'd be blogging a lot more. And I think that line of thought held true for a few weeks. But now, I've reached a point of (non-)critical mass where I have so little to do, that I just do none of it. It sucks.

ANYWAY, instead of recapping my fascinating week, full of sitting in front of my computer and, ummmm, other stuff, I'll regale you with some of the more interesting links and videos that I've recently come across.

Why are you fat? This is why. There's some ghastly stuff on here -- sadly, about 80% of it still looks delicious to me, with the other 20% generally composed of people just trying to put the most ridiculous concoction of crap together -- but this one takes the cake: "Chicken fried steak, chicken-fried bacon, a country sausage, a fried egg, a fried green tomato topped with cheddar cheese and sandwiched between buns toasted in bacon fat, all served with a gravy dipping sauce." Honestly, I was fine with this right up until the part about the buns being toasted in freaking bacon fat.

For the last few years, I've had this nagging urge to join the Ukranian army. However, I could never pinpoint what so compelled me. Now, I have the answer:*


*Some things are just so absurd that, even when spoken in a completely foreign language, no translation is necessary. But for some more shits and giggles, here you go.

Just because. It's been too long.

Twitter is still a mystery to me. I love how insanely involved Shaq is. I love my feeds from CNN, Drudge, ESPN and MLB. And with the Twitter Influence Calculator, my insignificance on that monster has been confirmed. For according to it, my relative influence is "just emerging."* Whatever.

*Shaq's relative influence, on the other hand, has been deemed "astonishing." And he's ranked as the 59th most influential user on Twitter. I love Shaq.**

**Speaking of how cool Shaq is: Steve Kerr, general manager of the Suns, gave an interview a few weeks ago in which he said that after most Suns home games, Shaq goes shopping at Wal-Mart. Now, that alone is a ridiculous fact. Not just that Shaq goes shopping at Wal-Mart, but also that he does so AFTER games. Which would mean that he generally goes around or after midnight. But what's REALLY great is that after he makes his purchase, he often will tell the people working there that he'll pay for the next ten customers in line. Shaquille O'Neal, ladies and gentlemen.

Words often have different pronunciations in the US and Australia (and many other countries). In the US, for example, oregano is something like oh-RAY-geh-no. In Australia, it's oh-reh-GAH-no. Or garage is ge-RAJ in the US, GAH-raj in Australia. And that's fine. I get that. But what I've never gotten is how brand names often have different pronunciations in different countries. Because if I was the keeper of an international brand -- living in a global economy -- I'd want that brand's name to be pronounced consistently throughout the world. This, however, doesn't always happen. Consider:


It's Hyundai. Like Sunday. But in Australia? Consider:


And this doesn't just happen with Hyundai. Same goes for other brands, like Nokia (noh-KEE-yah vs. noh-KYAH). I don't get it.

Lastly, my newest addiction: sporcle.com. Try any of the games once. Just once. And you'll be hooked.