TV Stuff:

• Did Mimi on Days of Our Lives get fake boobs? We’re just up to the bit where Philip is going to rent her half of the loft, and as she stood there in her (awful, horrible) crochet shawl, I suddenly noticed that her new (glaring, orange) huge breasts were filling half the screen. Snookums was unable to confirm (and he usually has good fake-boob-dar). Any opinions?
• Man, Lost is soooo good. We just watched the second episode. The Snook is the King of Wild and Unsubstantiated Speculation. When the Korean woman unbuttoned her top button, he turned to me in all seriousness: “She’s going to kill him.” When Sawyer read the piece of paper and then meaningfully glanced at the hiking group, he announced: “He’s gay. You’re supposed to think he’s looking at Kate, but he’s really checking out hobbit ass.” Luckily the damn polar bear was a twist neither of us could have made up. I think we’re hooked. (Although every time they mention flying out of Sydney, I get a little more freaked out. Qantas… Qantas never crashes…)
• Finally finished watching the second season of The Office. My heart broke. How in the world could Maria Lucas do that to Tim? She’s such an idiot! Yeah, I think I read a spoiler somewhere that they kiss in the Christmas special, but I’m worried that I read it wrong and they might not have a happy ending because that would be so, you know, hip and realistic and crap. I don’t care if it’s realistic or not. I want Dawn and Tim to hook up, dammit! So now I need to rent the DVD, I guess.

And hey, doesn’t the new Survivor start soon? And the Rob-and-Ambah season of the Race isn’t far off. It’s a good time to TiFaux.

Note to self: Make Ron’s Blue Stater’s Texas Chili this weekend. That sounds sooooo good…

Oh my God. It’s a Hello Kitty crop circle. That rules! (Link courtesy of Ernie.)

“Questions Frequently Asked About TiVo, Answered by Someone Who Loves TiVo Too Much.” Heh. Of course, our own system isn’t an actual TiVo, but it’s changed our lives nonetheless. I haven’t watched live television in probably a month. I’ve discovered some great shows that are only on at truly absurd hours of the night. I worry when the hard drive starts to fill up and badger the Snook to get our second capture card hooked up (which, of course, will only exacerbate the problem). I wonder if we should get cable TV. (We shouldn’t. Australian live TV is actually pretty damn good, especially with the networks importing all the best US shows.) I feel embarrassment when I realize that everyone who visits my blog knows that I recorded Dancing With the Stars. Like I said, it’s a life-changer.

Happy Valentine’s Day!
At the last minute, the Snook and I decided to head out for a Valentine’s Day dinner so we got all gussied up – check us out; I wore the orange bridesmaid dress – and headed to the Lord Nelson, a pub and brewhouse that happens to have a very nice restaurant on the first floor. We sat down and had a look at the holiday set menu. “Shall we get it?” I asked. “But it has a seafood plate as the appetizer,” Snookums said, knowing that I don’t really eat seafood. “I’m game,” I said. A few glasses of wine later, out came the plate. There were four prawns, four oysters (two with strawberries and mangoes on them), two scallops with salmon roe, and an honest-to-goodness Moreton Bay Bug. Folks, I ate everything. I really did. The prawns were really good, but I’d had them before. I wouldn’t say I really love oysters yet, but they’re definitely growing on me. (The ones with the fruit were surprisingly delicious.) I was wary of the scallops for fear they’d be fishy, but they ended up being really good. (And the salmon roe – which looked like little orange tapioca balls and is pretty damn gross to contemplate – really did burst pleasantly in the mouth.) Lastly, the bug, as seen in the photo before you. Hell yeah, I ate that sucker. Cross him off my list. The Snook was absolutely floored that I was brave enough to try everything. The thing is, it was all delicious. I don’t know if it’s just that Sydney seafood is particularly good (which it is), or that I”m slowly developing my taste for this stuff (which I probably am), but I am definitely becoming a fan of the shellfish. Yum. The rest of the dinner was excellent – I had the chicken; the Snook the steak – but not nearly the phobia-challenge of the entree. Pretty cool, huh?

Dude, this HGTV Soctopus is scary.

Just did some much needed house-cleaning on my Weblog and Link lists down there on the right. The Weblogs list is now identical to my Daily Bookmarks list, so if you’ve always wondered where I find some of this stuff, them’s the places.

Judging by the Dooce-Trolling Metric, I’m getting pretty damn famous!
Yeah, I’m still being trolled. Look, folks, for the record, my parents didn’t bankroll my Notre Dame education so I could “peddle yarn” for a living. They didn’t bankroll anything. Ask ’em. I was valedictorian and got a decent size scholarship; I worked full-time jobs every summer and parti-time throughout the year; and I went into debt up to my eyeballs. Every single loan was in my name. (Actually one was co-signed by my aunt – since my parents couldn’t – but I paid that one off in full with my first Christmas bonus in London.) There were times when I didn’t get my grades on time because I was still waiting for the tuition checks to clear. I still owe about thirty grand, and I’m currently paying that off in a country where the exchange rate is really, really shitty. (Getting better, but still shitty.) So call me an expat snob if you must, but a freeloader I am not. And what kind of jerk demeans somebody else’s job and snottily insinuates that they didn’t earn their position in life? I’m just stunned that there are people so petty and vindictive.

Says the Snook, “Tell him to come to Australia. We have beautiful sandy beaches… with lots of sharks… who have a taste for troll.”

Check out this great photoessay on the “Evolution of Personal Audio“. It begins with the personal transistor radio and ends with the iPod. I’ve think I’ve had everything from the ghetto blaster onwards… (Except for the silly iPod snowboarding jacket. Nobody owns one of those.) It’s funny how quickly things date. I remember the Christmas when I got my Discman and how excited I was to have something so “high-tech.” Now when I see somebody on the bus struggling to change CDs while standing up it seems positively archaic.