Orange Sydney

I woke up this morning to the sound of the wind rattling my windows. Sounds about right, I thought. We're supposed to have some heavy wind today. Then I opened my eyes. And everything was orange. Deep, dark, saturated orange. Riiiiiiiggggghhhhht...

I opened the sliding door to my balcony. Felt warm and there wasn't a smell, so I figured it was just some heavy fog, with the rising sun behind it adding some drama to the colors.

I went for a run in Centennial Park. There was hardly anyone out there. Usually the park is teeming with people exercising in the morning. But with the orange color slowly graying, I stuck by my fog hypothesis and thought little of it.

Got back to the apartment and turned on the lights. Normally a yellowish color, my sight had been so distorted by the orange that they appeared to be blue.

It wasn't until I turned on the TV that I realized, no, it wasn't fog. It was a huge frickin' dust storm. A huge frickin' dust storm that was covering half the state! So during that run, I probably managed to inhale a few pounds of the stuff. Fun!

I had a morning meeting in the city. On the bus coming in, pedestrians were walking around with makeshift masks over their mouths. And when I made it to the meeting, on the 47th floor of a building that usually offers amazing views of the city and harbour, there was nothing to see.

Spending a day in that stuff, after starting it with a run, I'm feeling it now. Itchy throat. Slight trouble breathing. A bit of cottonmouth.

Of all the videos and photo montages that I've already seen, I think this is the best.

It was a strange day. A strange, orange day that I won't be forgetting anytime soon.

Two years

Two years ago on this day, I landed in Sydney and began this adventure. No job. No place to live. No clue as to how any of this would play out. Just a dude, a vague sense of direction and a couple of bags. Two years ago on this day. TWO YEARS!

Three houses, two jobs, 12 roommates, nine AK All Day Faces,* three toilet flushing experiments, 16 Kleinballs and several Portuguese chicken-related incidents later, here I am.

*If only I ever get around to posting ALL the AK All Day Faces I have stored away on my computer...

I don't even know what else to say about that. Has the time flown by? Yes. Do I feel like I've made the most of my time? Yes.

Do I know what the next year has in store? No. Not at all. But I guess that's a good thing.

Been doing... stuff

Had a lovely day of travel on Thursday, coming back from Auckland. Got up at 3:30am Auckland time. Sydney's two hours later, so that's 1:30am. Got to the airport by 5am. Left Auckland at 7am. Landed at 8:45am Sydney time. Made it through customs without incident, meaning my visa woes are behind me, at least for the time being. Brief stop at the apartment and then off to work. Left work around 7pm. Came home, had dinner, went to bed around 10:30pm. That's a fun 23 hour day!

And since then? Haven't been up to too much... little of this, little of that. Easy night at the apartment on Friday. Went a little wild for a friend's show on Saturday. Spent Sunday with some family friends at the Aroma Festival in The Rocks. Watched the finale of MasterChef Australia, which had absolutely taken the country by storm. And then work this week.

I have stuff -- actual, substantial stuff -- that I want to post on here. Just haven't gotten around to doing it yet. Not with all this other stuff that I've been doing. Hopefully soon.

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:

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.

The camera, it hates me

They said they'd make photos and video available to me. And I was actually looking forward to that, to have some kind of keepsake of my run.

And yesterday, the email came: we have pictures available for you to view! So I excitedly clicked on the link. And that's when I fully appreciated the wording of their email. Not "we have pictures of you to view." Oh no: "We have pictures available for you to view." Because here's the one picture that they've offered to sell me:


Great. Fantastic. Am I down there, somewhere on the bridge? Maybe, but I doubt it; I think it's just a photo that they offer to everyone. Meanwhile, a friend from work has five photos available to purchase, all of which were actually, you know, of her. She didn't just have one option, in which she may have looked like crap. No -- she had five freaking options.

Then there came the video of the finish line. Any more of a keepsake, this hardly is. But click here to view the video. I'm about 15 seconds into it, in light blue shorts, on the left. Mindblowing video! Yep, definitely gonna be holding onto this to show to my grandkids!

41:54

In the words of the immortal Brian Collins, boom goes the dynamite!

I murdered that race. Murdered it. Forty-one minutes and fifty-four seconds. That's over eight minutes better than the rough goal I'd set for myself, over three minutes better than the stretch goal. Finished 726th out of 10,600 people, and 197th out of 1,131 men between 20 and 29.

Most amazingly of all, I did it with relative ease. Felt really good, from start to finish, and I think I could have done it even faster. But as probably generally happens with these races, I spent the first few kilometers weaving around and passing slower runners,* and it probably wasn't until the 2km mark that I was really able to get any pace going. And even then, I was pretty surprised to find myself passing people for pretty much the whole race, right through to the end.

*The race had a self-seeding system, meaning you're supposed to line up at the start based on how quickly you think you'll finish. So after I positioned myself near the front of the group that was aiming to finish between 45 minutes and one hour, it was a bit frustrating to see people who were WALKING, or kids who clearly were always going to burn out after a kilometer, starting ahead of me. Then again, for most of my pre-teen and early teen years, I ran each of the Fourth of July 5km races in Pacific Palisades, and I definitely used to be one of those kids. So I guess I understand.


But it was a fun race, a beautiful spring day,* and a great course: from North Sydney, up over the Harbour Bridge, by the Opera House, into the city, looping through the Botanical Gardens and finishing back at the Opera House.

*The day before this, Sydney absurdly had its hottest day of 2008. This includes January and February when it actually was, you know, summer.

They apparently take pictures and video of us on the course. Once I get those, and assuming I don't look like death, I'll post them on here sometime soon.

Where to go from here? Is there a next step? I really want to do the City 2 Surf run next August, assuming I'm not visiting the States again at the same time. And then for the Sydney Running Festival next year, maybe it's on to the half marathon (although I think that's a bit of a stretch) or possibly setting my eyes on doing the Bridge Run in under 40 minutes. That may be the real stretch.

One year and one hundred posts

This absolutely bewilders me, but this post marks the crossroads of two achievements, mostly unrelated to each other, yet both significant in their own right.

First. This is the one year anniversary of my (third) coming to Australia. For it was a Friday night, exactly one year ago, that I deplaned my, uhhhh, plane and set off on this adventure that I've documented on this blog.

Second. This is my 100th post on this blog. One freaking hundred.

Of these two achievements, the most surprising, without doubt, is the 100 posts. Yes, I've been slacking on updating this thing recently, but that can really be attributed to a rough patch at work and a mild case of writer's block. This will change. And I'll get back to something that resembles a routine, with a couple of posts a week.

But 100 posts?? Still displayed on the right, in the "What is AK All Day?" section that I should probably get around to updating one of these days, I say: "In two months, the easy money is that I won't have updated [this blog]." Believe me, at the time I wrote that, I had every reason to fully believe that statement. For despite how brilliant and witty and inspirational and beautiful my words may appear, let me assure you that they don't come easily. Oh no, my friends. Maintaining the quality of writing on this blog, to the level that you've all come to expect and respect, is work. And work is hard.

Now, back to the first point: being here for a year. Surprising, this is not. For unless I simply couldn't find work here, the plan was always to be here for at least this long. Notable, however, this absolutely is. For it's been a fantastic year, full of new people, new adventures and new places. And it's with this in mind that I'd like to take a look back at some of the posts that have led up to this one, as I review my One Year in Sydney:

Welcome to Andy Blog 2.0
Kicking off a new era in style, with an immediate reference to zombo.com. In case this hasn't already been made abundantly clear, at zombo.com, the only limit is yourself.

A precursor
Do toilets in the US and Australia really flush in opposite directions? This was my first foray into this mystery. And much to my glee, we've yet to get a conclusive result.

The defence against hating cricket
Includes the comment, "I can't see how I personally could ever warm to [cricket]." Twelve months later? I've been in a freaking cricket winter league and played a position that I really had no business even attempting.

This is the story of seven strangers...
My first official accommodation! And a nominee from myself to myself for one of my best-written entries on the blog.

Portuguese Chicken Wars
Yikes, this one has gotten me into a bit of trouble as of late. Without a doubt, this is -- or I guess because of some recent revelations, was -- the winner of the People's Choice Award for best blog entry. Friends constantly asked me about it, and if there had since been any developments. Random people who somehow found this post online sent me strange and somewhat creepy emails about it. And well, let's just say that with these latest revelations, things have changed. More on this in the next few days, I promise.

The weekend trips have commenced
My first foray outside of Sydney on this trip, and a weekend full of randomness, with debates about shrimp/prawns, naked ninjas jumping off of cliffs and a movie about a gang of tap dancers from Newcastle. As well as the first appearance of the AK All Day Face in a post!

Two pictures tell a thousand drunken words
Still depresses the hell out of me.

There are cane toads, there are kangaroos... and then there are cassowaries
One of the recaps from my trip up to the Great Barrier Reef, detailing the horrifying night drives, with especial consideration given to the terrifying cassowary.

Melbourne -- there's an angle in here somewhere
The epic recap from my weekend trip to Melbourne. A fantastically awesome weekend that also contained some pseudo awesomeness and some not-so-awesome stuff.

A new home. And the grueling agony of an impossible choice.
The move into my next house! Which was a monumental decision to make at the time. And in hindsight, it worked out in every conceivable way possible. I don't think it would be an understatement to say that the entire course of the universe was influenced by that decision.

Worst idea ever
I still have nightmares from which I lurch out of bed in a cold sweat.

Meeting and exceeding expectations, Vol. 1, Vol. 2 and Vol. 3
Every other weekend trip up to this point had offered a nice bonding experience with a friend, or perhaps the chance to experience some culture. This was just pure raunch. And I loved every minute of it.

A postcursor... of sorts
The follow-up to my study on which way the toilet flushes in Australia. The video here? Anything but conclusive.

The toilet flusheth again
No more finality here! Will there be in the next video I post? Yeeeeaaaahhhh, probably not.

Bringing it full circle
Changing accommodation again, this time into my current place! I'm thinking a video tour is due sometime soon.

Back in America
Most of the entries on this blog -- including this current one, unfortunately -- are written and posted far too quickly, without enough time devoted to the crafting of my words. Because if there's one thing I know that people are expecting out of this blog, it's Pulitzer-caliber writing. But "Back in America"? It's easily my favorite of the 100 that have appeared on the blog to date.

And we'll end it on that! One year, one hundred posts. Where will I be on September 14, 2009? No idea. Will I have made it to two hundred posts? Or maybe just a hundred and two posts? I have no idea. But for now, we know I have to cover at least a few topics: some Portuguese chicken, some more flushing of toilets, a few Kleinballs here and there and many, many, many more AK All Day Faces.

So there's that.

Bleh

Yeah, that's about how I feel: bleh.

I had these visions of grandeur for the blog while I was in the US, that I'd write many updates of a paragraph or two every day or so. Almost like a running diary. And then, well, stuff happened. A lot of stuff. Not that that's a bad thing, so I'm not exactly overwhelmed with regret. Yet my last entry on this thing was on my first day in the US. And now I'm back in Sydney, over three weeks later. Bit of a gap there.

It's strange, as the trip came to an end, I found myself really not looking forward to coming back. I mean, it was the end of my vacation! And unless you're in Vegas, Amsterdam or Trona, CA, you can never have too much of a vacation. But then I thought, I'm going back to freaking Sydney! How is that a bad thing? But as someone astutely pointed out, Sydney for me is not the Sydney for most Americans; for me, it no longer holds the mystique of some sort of exotic locale. Now it's just home, and that's never very exciting.

Anyway. Back to the trip. It was great. Or pick your own favorite synonym. That's what it was. Some highlights, with potentially more detail to follow in later posts:

LA, Part I - Spent an impossibly long day on August 1 (41 hours with the time change) helping Vern shop for a dress. Then her pseudo 30th birthday on Saturday. Gian Paolo said my name about 18 times.

New York - Started off with a miserable day of travel. (Yeah, definitely a separate post on this.) Much, much good food. Many good nights. A ridiculous Thursday that included a Mets game, pitch and putt, and the Astoria beer garden, with far too many beers at each stop. Paid for this consumption on Friday morning. Great night on Saturday. (Yeah, there will also be another post on this.) And a great night of wine tasting and feasting with the one, the only, Bubbles.

Martha's Vineyard - A week that should have been full of relaxing turned into many nights of alcohol. (Again, not that I'm overwhelmed with regret.) Highlighted by Friday night, when the 20 somethings got into a raucous game of flip cup... with my 70 year old uncle. Sailing the sunfish. Eating lobster and clams. Getting some relaxing in on the beach. And the biggest birthday cake you've ever seen.

LA, Part II - A quintessentially American dinner of hot dogs, coleslaw and baked beans. And a final day with Bay Cities and Father's Office. Oh ma gourd.

A 14-hour flight later, and I'm back in Sydney. At least physically. Mentally, my brain is nowhere to be found, for the jet lag is killing me. Killing me. Hence the "bleh". Just finished my second day of work and I'm not sure I could be more useless.

But despite all the "bleh", it still is good to be back. For I'm back to some normalcy and am in my new apartment, and I'm loving it.

For all those who I saw back in the States, it was great to see you. Wish I could have spent more time seeing and talking to everyone, but I guess that's the way it is. So whenever I'm back again, whether that's in April (maybe) or next August (at the latest), we'll just have to do it again.

Two pictures tell a thousand drunken words

Following up on Friday's post, here are two pictures that all too vividly illustrate my state of mind on New Year's Eve.

Exhibit A: My beautiful photograph of the fireworks on New Year's. It would be nice if I even remembered a scene as crap as this. I don't. Yes, yes. Emergency, indeed.


Exhibit B: A photograph from New Year's -- from the same vantage point that I had, mind you -- that was taken by someone who had presumably consumed much less alcohol than me.

I'm not sure why I felt compelled to post this, as this exercise hasn't exactly proven to be therapeutic. In fact, after juxtaposing these pictures, I mindlessly stared at the computer screen for a good ten minutes, not sure what I wanted to hurl out the window: the computer (a la Ari Gold) or myself (a la Waring Hudsucker). Fortunately for all (I think), I've decided to forge on with life and let this debacle slowly dwindle away until it's just a dull, numbing pain. And there it will live along with many other embarrassments, including (but most certainly not limited to) Prom 2000, the night I indiscriminately flagged down cars in West Philly during a snowstorm, NYE 05/06 and, yes, Goulet.

Sometimes I hate myself

My first New Year's in Sydney. I pay a large sum of money (let's not define "large sum") for entry to a party in the botanical gardens on Sydney Harbour, with a great view of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge behind it. Absolutely fantastic spot, and a warm, gorgeous day to boot.

We got there when the gates opened at 6:30pm. Thanks to my patented bourbon in an iced tea bottle (smuggled in along with several water bottles with vodka), we began drinking. The appetizer was good. As was the liquor. The main course was good. Liquor was still going strong, but -- what the heck! -- we decided to start buying bottles of wine. Then there were the 9pm "family fireworks." They were good, although we all knew they'd pale in comparison to the midnight fireworks. Whatever... we had our liquor and wine (which I was probably double fisting at this point). The dessert was good. As was the booze flowing down my throat.

And then? Well, I couldn't tell you. For the freaking dessert is my last pseudo-solid memory of the night. That was maybe 10pm, no later than 10:30pm.

Now, the Sydney fireworks on New Year's are considered to be some of the best in the world. They are absolutely huh-yuge, and I don't think I've ever been present for a greater display than what Sydney puts on. Fourth of July in New York probably comes the closest, but I think Sydney even beats that fairly handily.

So needless to say, leading up to New Year's, I was excited for the fireworks. And at that particular moment in time, as fireworks were being shot off from every conceivable angle around me -- the bridge, nearby buildings and multiple points on the water -- I'm sure I loved the hell out of them. But please note my careful choice of words in the previous paragraph: "I don't think I've ever been present for a greater display than what Sydney puts on." Because that's as accurate of a statement as I can make; I was physically present for the fireworks.

As far as a memory goes? It just isn't there. When I'm old and shrivelled at 80, I would absolutely love to be able to recall how great those fireworks were. But it just isn't going to happen. For my next semi-vivid memory is at 3am, as I walked back to my house scarfing down some wedges with sour cream and sweet chilli sauce (my new favorite late night drunk food of all time).

For those who were lucky enough to be in New York during New Year's 05/06, you witnessed similar debauchery. So for 06/07, I resolved to pace myself, which I did a little too well. Which put me on a direct collision course for 07/08. Caution was thrown to the wind, and now I have a big fat blank for the night.

It's infuriating, it's embarrassing, it's frustrating. And so on New Year's Day, yesterday, today, and probably the next few weeks, I hate myself for it. Here's to 08/09!

This is it

As far as titles for a post go, I guess this one's a little cliché, but, well, this is it. So if that's not witty or original enough for you, then heed the words of what I'm now pronouncing as this blog's official motto: deal with it.

So, ummmm, last night in America?

LAST NIGHT IN AMERICA!!

Such conflicting emotions right now. I'm really excited, but also nervous about this whole "visa" thing. Why do countries have all sorts of hang-ups about visas? I'm from America, dammit, just let me work!

As I arrive on a Friday night, I think my first few days there are going to be hazy and drunken. So who knows when the next post will be. I would just say that if I don't post anything by the following Friday, I might be dead, so, uhhhhhh, keep your eye on that one.

Fun with Bush!

As my departure date gets closer (seven days!), I'm starting to check the websites of local papers in Sydney to see what's going on over there. And what do you know, our president is in town right now! And he's doing all the things that have endeared him to us: inciting riots, wrecking all sorts of havoc on traffic and, uhhhhhh, inspiring web sites like this.

So go ahead and create your own Aussie Bush! My version is to the left. He's wearing an Australian flag as a cape, fishnet stockings and crazy glasses. And he's saying, "G'DAY!" Just like Australians! Ha ha ha!!

Last day on Martha's

Wait, sorry. That was pathetic. This is for Sarah Ralph: LAST DAY ON MARTHA'S!

No, sorry. Still piss poor. One more time:

LAST DAY ON MARTHA'S!!!

Okay, much better. Let's proceed.

As I continue my detox from New York, I've spent most of the last three weeks at the Klein Family Compound on Martha's Vineyard. Which, needless to say, has been nice. Very nice. My days have basically been a hodgepodge of sleeping in, eating, seeing the family, dissecting the newspaper, eating, going to the beach, watching the sunsets and more eating. So much good food! Lobster, clams, scallops, swordfish... you could say that I'm on a bit of a seafood diet these days. When I see food, I eat it!!! Har har har. (Hmmm, works better when I'm telling it, not writing it. And even then, not so funny.)

But as time moves on, so must I. And today is my last day on the island. Fortunately, the three weeks here have done me well, as I'm leaving much more relaxed than when I arrived, with a crazy farmer's tan to boot. (For those I saw in Austin earlier in the month, the farmer's tan is actually even better now. Or worse, depending on your point of view. You may be wondering how that's possible, but believe me, it's real good. I can't wait to see how Australia accepts my White Trashiness.) Honestly, it's hard not to get relaxed here. Just take a look at this video below, which I filmed earlier today. This is what I've been looking at every day for the last three weeks. The horror.

So I leave on the 7:00 am boat tomorrow morning (fantastic) and slowly begin my trek west. And as you can see from this signpost that's outside of a store in town, I have a long way to go to get to Sydney. Ten thousand and ninety seven miles, to be exact.

On the way to Sydney, I stop in LA for about a week and a half. Should be good and should provide a little more relaxation and time to get my life in order. It should also be quite entertaining as the nerves start to build. I guess this is what happens when you move halfway around the world without any definitive plan. Gooooood times.

Welcome to Andy Blog 2.0

You can do anything at Andy Blog 2.0. The only limit is yourself. Yyyeeessss...

What's up party people! It's been well over a year, but in the words of Michael Jordan, I'm back. Dust off the keyboard, boot up that old Mac Classic, log on to World Wide Interweb and get yourself a glass of tang, because it's Andy's second go at a blog. Andy Blog 2.0. (Maybe Andy Blog 1.1? Or Andy Blog 1.0001? How exactly does that work? I'm just gonna make it easy and say it's Andy Blog 2.0.)

For those keeping track at home, Andy Blog 1.0 was Son of Yhency. It started off as my ruminations on life and all my wacky observations, but ultimately, it took on a life of its own as I tracked the every move of the Los Angeles Dodgers' Yhency Brazoban. I know, I know: boring. But no more! For as much as Yhency tempts me, I'm moving on, in every conceivable way. Emotionally, spiritually, physically, you name it.

The interim title for Andy Blog 2.0 is AK All Day. Why? Well, it rhymes, it contains my initials, I like it, it works, and some people have taken to jubilantly exclaiming it in my presence. Plus, this name doesn't limit which topics I can discuss, as Son of Yhency did. So we have an interim title. Unless something better strikes me (or you have any suggestions), I think it may quickly become the official title. Because hell, the URL for this blog is already http://akallday.blogspot.com/. If I changed the title, I'd have to change the URL as well, right? Right.

Anyway. To the purpose of this blog. As anyone visiting this undoubtedly already knows, I have left New York after living there for four years. And now, I will be moving to Sydney in a few weeks to find a place to sleep and a place to pay me. Preferably in this order. Although in quick succession. And for all of those who care enough to see what I'm up to or find out about all my crazy adventures, I figure that instead of sending emails every once in a while, it's easier for me to post updates and let you check at your own leisure.

I'll touch on the details of the move in future posts, but for now, I'd just like to say hello. The next few weeks, months and years should be interesting, so y'all come on back now, y'hear?