Congratulations to our friends Major and Steph, who just announced their engagement tonight. (This is disturbing. It’s only been one week since I made my anti-marriage proclamation and already our ratio of married-to-single friends is shifting.)

Geek or Serial Killer? I am ashamed to admit that I only got three correct out of ten! No wonder slashdot meetups are so intimidating for me; I subconsciously think everybody’s a murderous psychopath!

I’ve been pretty discouraged with the diet lately. After the vacation I went back to hard-core induction but no matter what I did I just couldn’t get into ketosis. That stupid Ketostick just refused to turn pink. Without that encouragement I found myself unable to resist the siren call of carbs. (Last weekend alone I had french fries, eggs benedict, and two burgers with buns!) I decided to give it one last try this week. Again, no ketosis. Finally in desperation I went to the chemist and got some new ketostix. Eureka! It turned pink immediately. I have renewed faith and willpower. Moral of the story: When the packet says “Discard six months after opening”, believe it. The darn things just stop working.

Problems With Having an American Accent in Australia That I Never Noticed in England:

• I regularly get twice as much hamburger from the butcher as I request. Seriously. You see, we Yanks pronounce “have” and “half” almost identically. The vowel sound – at least in my Midwestern experience – is the same. Australians, though, pronounce that second word more like “hoff”. So when I approach Dobsy, our local butcher, and say, “Can I have half a kilo of mince, please?” he inevitably gives me a full kilo. It’s like he thinks I’m an idiot and I’ve repeated the “have” twice, because he doesn’t hear the “hoff.” After the first couple times I finally figured out why, but I feel like an idiot over-enunciating and saying, “Could I HAAAV HOFFFF a kilo…” So now I just get the big bags and split them up when I get home.
• Everyone thinks I’m Canadian. Well, they don’t actually. It’s just that everyone assumes you are because apparently Canadian backpackers get way annoyed when you assume they’re American. So Aussies always start off by asking if you’re Canadian. Which is fine, but it’s getting to the point where it annoys me. Why Canadian backpackers have to be so sensitive, I have no idea.
• Whenever I ask a shopkeeper for something they don’t carry, they think I’m making it up. Exhibit A: the spaghetti squash. When the Snook and I gave up pasta, I thought this would be a great replacement. The only problem is that not a single greengrocer I talked to had ever heard of the damn thing. They’re all like, “It’s like a pumpkin? And you eat it like pasta?” You’d think I was describing some strange Narnian vegetable. I finally gave up on that one. Exhibit B: Since I’m trying to cut down on the beer consumption, I’ve been drinking more cocktails. I saw an ad for Absolut Vanilla recently and I thought, “Man, that sounds good! Mix it up with a little Diet Coke and you’ve got a Vanilla Diet Coke With Kick!” Unfortunately none of the liquor stores in Newtown carry it. Which is fine, except for the fact that the guy at the last one was like, “Are you sure it exists?” Me: “Yeah, I saw it advertised in a magazine.” Him: “In Australia??” Me: “YEAH, IN AUSTRALIA. I’VE BEEN LIVING HERE FOR ALMOST TWO BLOODY YEARS, YOU TOOL!” Maybe I’m the one that’s getting oversensitive.
• Some people are just mean. The old lady at the laundrette was asking me about my holiday recently (since we had so much clothing to wash) and asked where I was from. After assuring her that, no, I wasn’t from Canada, she asked how long I’d been in Australia. “A year and a half!” I proudly announced. She turned and sniffed, “Haven’t really lost the accent yet, have you, love?” Beeyotch.

I’m sure I’ll think of more.

I always thought using “they” or “them” to refer to a singular person was a grievous grammatical sin. Instead it turns out that it’s actually not so bad! We English-speakers have been doing it since the 14th century, in fact. So the next time someone tries to correct you on it, tell them to stick it up their bum.

I just got an e-mail from my friend Julie asking me to take part in the Small World Experiment. Some researchers at Columbia University are basically testing the whole “six degrees of separation” theory. They designate a target person somewhere on the globe and then observe how many e-mails it takes to reach them. Julie’s target (and now mine) is a potter in New Zealand. She cleverly reckoned that – being in the same hemisphere – I might move the chain closer. Now I’m obsessed with picking the right person. I know a couple Kiwis but I don’t think I have e-mail addresses anymore. (Any of you Netdeciders in contact with Ash Dando?) I could take the easy route and just send it to the Snook, since he knows way more folks than me. But I want the chain to be as short as possible!

The Run Log is having the intended effect. I actually thought to myself today, “I better hit the gym tonight so I don’t look lazy.” Ah, the power of peer pressure. I went. My overall pace wasn’t blistering but I did manage to finish the first mile in 11:28 (a personal best). I think I need new gym clothes though. My old shorts and T-shirts are getting pretty baggy and I spend half my time flopping my arms around and trying to un-bunch things into a comfortable position. What do you wear when you run?

Mmmm… butter.

Ballads, Beer, and Buffy.

It’s really over, folks. The Snook and I watched the first ten minutes at the Sandringham Hotel, the pub around the corner. We soon tired of peering around people’s dreadlocks so we made a mad dash for home during the first commercial break. I’d already read the spoilers so I knew everything that was going to happen, but it was still nice to see it. The Snook – who is unspoiled about pretty much everything after Season 5 – thought it was disappointing. “On the grand scale of Buffy episodes,” he said, “I’d rate that one about a ‘4’.” He did get a kick out of the Trogdor reference though.

Now all we have to do is fill in three more seasons worth of missing episodes… Thank heavens for DVD.

Can someone in California please go to 826 Valencia next time you’re in San Francisco and verify that Dave Eggers really is running a pirate supply store? Because that’s nutty. Thanks.