Throwin' some 'video killed the real blog' Kleinballs

I could be writing about other stuff. I should be writing about other stuff. More substantial stuff. I have a huge backlog of photos on my camera that I should be uploading. There's plenty of news to share. I do, after all, have some huge changes coming up. But I'm being lazy. So enjoy as I throw down some video Kleinballs!

Tying a bow on the end of the Winter Olympics, we look back at Australia's first ever winter gold, just eight years ago. I'm not sure if this is a fitting way for a desert nation to win its first gold or an embarrassing way. Either way, it's pretty funny.

As the regular season for Rugby League approaches, the league recently put on an inaugural NRL All Stars versus Aboriginal All Stars match. And Wendell Sailor – one of the more colorful characters in the league, and who's about to retire – treated us an absolutely hilarious try celebration. There certainly have been better touchdown celebrations in the NFL (Merton Hanks is an all time favorite for me), but you usually don't see overly flamboyant celebrations in rugby. So the shock factor, combined with the fact that Sailor scored the try for the Aboriginal All Stars – you'll see in the video why this latter point is relevant – just sent this one through the roof.*

*Hmmmm... a few weeks removed from this game, I just watched this video for the first time in a week or so. And I'm not so sure the hilarity's going to translate. Just trust me – there's a strong dose of hilarity in there.

Working for a training services company, with one of our core competencies being in leadership development, I read and view quite a bit of leadership-related content on the Internet. I'll concede that I could have found this video on leadership so brilliant because most of the other stuff I come across is so humorless, but... well, no... it's pretty good.

Have a random video you'd like to share? Why don't we continue throwin' these Kleinballs in the comments! Because heaven knows we don't all already have enough places to share inane links and videos.

A shocking sports weekend of epic proportions

I find that my weekends are often defined by sports. This happened in college, this happened in New York and it's happening in Sydney. And while sports can fill a weekend with glee, it can also cast doom on our days of rest.

This past weekend, a huge shadow of sports doom descended upon Australia.

The first blow was the Bledisoe Cup match between the Wallabies and All Blacks on Saturday night. The Wallabies are Australia's rugby team. The All Blacks are New Zealand's rugby team. And amongst the many rivalries between those two countries -- sports or otherwise -- this one takes the cake. New Zealand may be a bit more rugby-mad than Australia, but Australia still loves it plenty. Imagine USA-Canada in ice hockey... except pretend that the US still actually cared about ice hockey, just a little. It would be kinda like that.

Anyway, I was fortunate enough to score some tickets to the match. So out to the Olympic Stadium I went, looking forward not only to what is generally a great match, but also to New Zealand doing the haka, a Maori dance that was traditionally performed before a battle in the hopes of scaring the bejesus out of the enemy.

Based on the premise of this post, you already know this ended poorly for Australia: All Blacks 19, Wallabies 18. And even though it was close, with New Zealand taking the lead for good in the last few minutes, it was actually pretty non-eventful.* I mean, relatively speaking. If I was expecting a 9, I got a 7. So, you know, I was let down a bit.

*In rugby union, teams will often score many of their points off of penalties. And that's pretty much what happened here. 30 of the 37 points in the match were scored off of penalty kicks. Imagine an NBA game in which 81% of the points were scored off of free throws, and that's what you have here.

Even the haka wasn't great. If you scroll ahead to the 5:10 mark of this video, you can see it. But in my mind, the gold standard for the haka came in last year's Rugby League World Cup, when New Zealand and Australia faced off in the final:

Now that's a haka.

The second calamity of the weekend actually didn't come until late Sunday night, when Australia officially lost the Ashes, one of cricket's most celebrated rivalries, to England.

Australia dominated the tournament from 1989 to 2003, winning every single time. And even after losing the Ashes in 2005, they promptly won them back in 2007. So going into this year's contest as the #1 ranked team in the world, it was widely expected that they'd win again. After four test matches, the series was tied at one apiece (with the other two being draws). Starting the fifth and final test match, everyone thought Australia had the momentum. They didn't. And late Sunday night in Australia, England won back the Ashes. Which would be that tiny little urn that Ricky Ponting, Australia's captain, is holding in the picture. Yeah. That's what they play for.

And the final sports catastrophe of the weekend? Let's go back to New Zealand and my ice hockey comment. For in a match that I'm sure no one even knew was happening, New Zealand took out Australia for the first time ever in ice hockey. Is that really necessary, after a weekend that will live in infamy? I think not.

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.

Throwin' some Election Day Kleinballs

Today was, and is, a big day.

Today was a big day because in Australia, the Melbourne Cup was run! As I so eloquently explained in my post about the race last year, this is a national event. Everyone stops what they're doing, loses their mind for an hour or two, gets boozy, places bets on horses that they hadn't heard of half a day earlier, watches the race, and then life goes on. Anyway, some horse won, I didn't win any of my bets, and that was that.

Today is a big day because in the US, there's a bit of an election. I doubt I need to tell you this. And I also doubt I need to tell any of the brilliant readers of this blog to get the hell out and vote! Even if the vote won't make a damned difference, like my absentee ballot in New York State, which likely will never even be taken out of its envelope.

For some election-related chuckles, have a look below at the wording of the headline above the picture of Sarah Palin on the front cover of Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald. And for a few more giggles, have a read of the accompanying article, and pay particular attention to how they quote poor Glenda Hock starting in the sixth paragraph.


A belated, but huge congrats to the Phillies for winning the World Series! I ended up running out of work for the last inning or two to watch from a sports betting office, and when they sealed the deal, I found myself standing there with a huge grin on my face. I couldn't be happier for the people of Philly. And for the rest of the country, just be happy to know that the apocalypse has been avoided.

I've seen two movies of note on cable in the last few weeks: Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Sleuth. The former was hilarious. I hadn't so much of heard of the movie whenever it came out, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The latter? Let's just say that if you ever have the opportunity to watch it, just run. Turn around and run.

In other Aussie news, the country is currently hosting the Rugby League World Cup! Although to be honest, this shouldn't interest you or anyone outside of Australia. Because the history of past winners of this World Cup, with Australia unfairly demolishing the competition, reads like the history of Ivy League men's basketball champs from 1958 to 2007, when Penn and Princeton reigned supreme. In fact, this might be the most one-sided international tournament out there, and I think the case could be made that it would be even more one-sided than a theoretical international World Cup of American football. Good stuff!

Throwin' Kleinballs on the brink of disaster

The Dodgers completed a sweep of the Cubs on Saturday. The Red Sox finished off the pesky Angels on Monday. And I'm one step closer to disaster. I'm officially frightened. And thrilled. I hate myself. And yes, I wouldn't blame you for hating me too.

I'm not sure how much attention Erick Aybar's little dance in protest of his tag on Coco Crisp in Game 2 of the Sox-Angels series received in the US, but when I first saw it, I burst. As did the other Aussies in the room. Thankfully, someone out there was kind enough to a video on YouTube... in the only ridiculously crude fashion that MLB would allow to slip through their iron fist:


With the time difference, most night games are played the next morning my time. This worked out perfectly for me this past weekend, as I got the Sox-Angels on Saturday morning, Dodgers-Cubs on Sunday morning and then, thanks to a three-day weekend (Labour Day in October!), Sox-Angels on Monday morning. Of course, what was perfect for me -- three consecutive mornings/early afternoons of baseball -- probably wasn't so much for my roommates and visitors to my apartment. This came to a head with a marathon of a Game 3 between the Sox and Angels, during which at one point I was surrounded by nine Aussies. As the game went into extra innings and Jason Varitek and Mike Napoli seemingly trying to one-up each other with multiple visits to the mound every inning, I was just waiting for them to revolt, rip the remote from my hand and throw me off the balcony, cheering all the way.

Filling out my weekend with sports, the Rugby League grand final was on Sunday night, between the Melbourne Storm and Manly Sea Eagles. As you may recall, I witnessed the Storm absolutely embarrass the Cronulla Sharks, 28-0, in the semi finals. In the finals, Manly returned the favor and shut out the Storm, 40-0. That's some exciting rugby there!

I have absolutely no idea what this guy is talking about, but if (a) I lived in Jamaica (we can dream, right?) and (b) I didn't do it already, this would make me buy Guinness:


A subtle benefit of living here: being able to thank someone by saying "cheers" or calling a friend "mate" and not sounding like a complete jackass.

We sprung forward last weekend! So for those keeping track at home, until you guys fall back an hour on November 2, I'm now 15 hours ahead of the East and 18 ahead of the West. Those in the middle, you can figure it out on your own.

Or don't worry about the time difference and just come visit! Qantas is currently having a special to Australia, which you can view here. $881 roundtrip from LA, $1,081 roundtrip from New York. Granted the travel must be between October 20 and November 27, but those are honestly the best prices I've ever seen. Get on it!

Throwin' some Return of the Kleinballs

It's Return of the Kleinballs! Back from a 78-day hiatus! Who's excited?

Went to my first Rugby League match on Friday, a semi final between the Melbourne Storm and Cronulla Sharks. As reigning champions and owners of the best regular season record, the Storm are pretty darned good. However, they hadn't played up to their standard so far in the playoffs and were without one of their best players (he's been suspended from the remainder of the playoffs for committing a dangerous tackle in a previous game), so the match was shaping up to be a good one. I ended up sitting in a section full of Sharks fans, as one of the friends who I went with is a big fan. This made for a lively and fun atmosphere... until the Storm began to disassemble the Sharks. Demolish them. Pulverize them. Shellack them. Embarrass them. 28 to freaking 0. Not pretty. In fact, so not pretty that by the end, Sharks fans were getting into fights with each other. I've never heard so many f-bombs in all my life.

Saturday was a beautiful day, so a group of us decided to capitalize and headed off to the races, literally a three minute walk from my new apartment. It truly was a gorgeous day. With the obvious exception, of course, of me losing money. Again. I've been to the races many times in my life, and never have I left the track being up on the day. I've won a few wagers here and there, but to leave with more money than I started with? Never. Still, it was fun.

Went to a German restaurant that night with an American friend. Drunkenly demolished a schnitzel. That was good.

Saw Snakes on a Plane for the first time last week. We all know what we're getting with Snakes on a Plane, right? A stupid but fun movie, right? Well, yes and no. Because although the movie was in the vein of what I expected, it exceeded my expectations in every imaginable way. Maybe the best, campy movie I've ever seen. Seriously. I was enthralled, from beginning to end. So if you want mindless entertainment that you can laugh at and unabashadly enjoy, I implore you to go watch Snakes on a Plane. That famed Sammy Jackson line probably doesn't even crack the Top 20 of best moments, if that says anything.

Pumped for baseball playoffs starting tomorrow morning my time! Let the Internet scoreboard stalking commence! Think I'll try to do a bit of a write-up of thoughts and predictions later this week... I'm sure you can't wait!

The below video is just cool. It gets very interesting about 15 seconds in.



A happy new year to all my Jewish brothers and sisters! I celebrated by, uhhhh, yeah, well, ummmmm, there aren't many Jews in Sydney.

It's (finally) on like Kong!

After all the talking, after all the conjecture, after all the uncertainty, after everything... I'm here! Where's "here", you ask? Right at that little yellow thumbtack on left. That would be half a block away from a racetrack and about half an hour walk from the beach.



Thursday/Friday was interesting. Got through customs by about 9 and took this winner of a picture from outside the terminal:



For those who don't have superhuman eyesight, that says, "International Terminal Sydney." I think. Anyway, Maz and Nugget picked me up, then I struggled for a few hours before passing out around 1. (By the way, for those not in the know, these guys have some, ummmmmm, interesting nicknames. Right now, I'm living with Maz, Nugget and Yogi. And there's also Shorty, Jezza, Bitza and Anus. That's right -- ANUS!! This is actually someone's nickname. Unfortunately, I haven't seen the kid since I was first here in 2002, and I'm not sure if anyone still keeps in touch with him. I can only hope our paths cross sometime soon.)

Woke up at 5 on Saturday, ready to go. Faaaaantastic. Dozed for a few more hours and then headed out to an exciting club cricket match! Now, I've been to one other cricket match in my life, but it was a professional match and alcohol was very prominently involved. And after sitting through three thrilling (and very sober) hours of this club match, I'm absolutely shocked that I didn't require thrice as much alcohol last time. My God, what an excruciatingly boring sport. Here's a shot of the exhilarating scene that unfolded before my very eyes:


Saturday night was drinks. A lot of drinks. And more rugby than you could ever imagine. Currently, the Rugby World Cup is going on in France, so people are glued to the screen when Australia is playing, usually around midnight our time. (I think the US lost to Tonga a few days ago. TONGA! Yeeeeaaaaahhhh, not one of our strongest sports.) And then there's the finals for Rugby League (not to be confused with Rugby Union, which is an entirely different version of rugby altogether) that are currently going on. Oh, and on top of all this rugby, there's also the Twenty20 Cricket World Cup going on in South Africa right now. For the uninitiated, Twenty20 is a shorter version of the same boring cricket. So instead of being bored out of your mind for a one day test or the five day test (!!), these matches only bore you for three hours. Which seems manageable at first, but then once you start watching, you realize that three hours of the most boring sport ever is just as impossible to get through as eight hours.

Yesterday was recovery and a nice breakfast barbecue. Here's Jezza and Nugget cooking up some meat and eggs:




And this brings us to today, which is Day #1 of job search! So naturally, first order of business was to see if I could find any pubs playing the Sox-Yankees game. When I had no luck there, I bought a paper and went to the beach. So, uhhhhhh, I'll start looking tomorrow.