Message to KRudd

I’m now following KRudd’s Twitter updates via my account – I think he uses it well, giving insights into the role of Prime Minister and politician that has seldom been done before in Australia.

Anyway, as I mentioned in my last post, I’m off to Phuket this weekend to meet up with some friends. So is KRudd. Except his friends are the leaders of different ASEAN nations across the world. I’m yet to crack that clique.

So I updated my status, hoping it will get through to KRudd:

In Phuket this w'end...beach cricket. Trying to get @KevinRuddPM to come & roll his arm over…an expat game might be a good break from ASEAN!

You never know, might get lucky, like some at the recent Winter Ball.

It's all happening

God bless budget airlines. Over the next five weekends, I certainly won’t be doing anything for the global push to reduce greenhouse gases emissions:

18-19 July (this weekend): Flying to Phuket with Clare, not to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and KRudd who are there for the ASEAN summit, but to hang out with some friends from Bangkok and Singapore. On the agenda is a bit of beach cricket, maybe see if we can find a place to watch the rugby, and a couple of beers.

25-26 July: Flying to Saigon on a 1-game weekend rugby tour, playing and meeting up with a few of the blokes from the Saigon Geckos.

31 July – 2 August: I’ll be flying down to Singapore to meet my mate Dave as he travels back to Australia from a UK business trip. It’s also his birthday on the Monday, so will see if we can arrange a bit of festive action for him somewhere…

8-9 August: I’ll be staying in Bangers, meeting up with my mate Al who’s coming to stay with Clare and I. The Wallabies play the Boks that weekend, so will be watching it in between showing Al the finer points of Bangkok.

14-16 August: Flying to Chiang Rai for the weekend with Clare. Chiang Rai is tucked right up the top of Thailand – there we might go on a day jungle trek (if I can convince Clare), likely do some market shopping (if Clare can convince me) and enjoy each other’s company for the long weekend alongside some good grub and wine.

I feel very fortunate!! So will hopefully have a few more interesting blog posts to throw up over the next month or so…watch this space!

For Willis

On twitter…

Talk about online evolution – in the last decade, I’ve gone from:

ICQ to Yahoo!Chat to Yahoo!Games to GoPlay to Hotmail to Blogger to LinkedIn toYouTube to Facebook to Skype to now…twitter!

Twitter’s a micro-blogging service where you can send and receive 140-character updates, which can include links to cool articles, personal reflections, by-the-second news etc. Sort of like the status update feature in Facebook. I’ve decided to make my profile based on sport, with my user name ‘scrumblue’.

So I’m now following the updates of the Wallabies and Waratahs (media!!) teams; journalists Jessica Halloran, Mark Cashman, Ben Kimber and the Ruggamatrix crew; a rugby blogger fromGreen and Gold Rugby; sports star Lote Tuqiri; and rugby brain and ex-Wallabies coach Bob Dwyer.

For instance:

LoteTuqiri So i'm getting 4 wisdom teeth pulled out after yesterdays consult. Now where to find the time???

You’ll also notice I’ve attached a twitter widget onto the sidebar at the bottom right (scroll down). This will include any of my updates or conversations happening on twitter.

Gay Cut

There's a barber down the road called Gay Cut. I'm still not sure if they are trying to attract a niche market, or if they're insinuating that said haircut would be an exceptionally happy experience.

I went in this morning to investigate.

Its clientèle consisted of one bloke getting a pretty standard haircut, and another getting the letters 'MJ' shaved into the side of his head. No discernable evidence of sexual disposition.

After being led to the chair by a young woman sporting pink braces and tight pencil jeans, we run through the logistics of a short back and sides in Tinglish. I then settle into a Thai popstar magazine and she gets snipping.

"OK, na ka?" she asks.

I look up. Oh god.

Is that a square chunk of hair that she's just excavated off the side of my head? Yep, a number 1 job on the sides, shaped for a lover of geometric figures. I can't even go an 'MJ' now...

We worked on it somewhat, but it has still turned out to be a shocking haircut. Only another two weeks until I no longer look like a US Marine in Bangkok on R&R.

Conclusion about Gay Cut - must be named and aimed for the gay niche market.

Could you imagine a worse place to live?

Beach times with Clare

I found these snaps on my computer randomly so thought I'd put them together and post them on the blog. They're from a disposable underwater camera that we used at beaches from Freshwater Beach in Sydney to Byron Bay in late 2007.

Doesn't Clare look like an absolute surf'n shweetie!

Click to see a larger, higher resolution photo...

On tour

I'm currently in Phuket playing in the international club rugby 10's.

After what can only be described as an emotional night last night, today I'm part man, part brewery. The rugby is a painful formality.

Elsom dominates

Watched the Heineken Cup final with a few mates on Saturday night, enjoying an absolute ball-tearer of a game from Rocky Elsom. Interestingly, Irish legend Brian O'Driscoll reckons he's the best player he's ever played with...

Elsom was named Man-of-the-Match in the final, apparently his 11th honour in Leinster's previous 13 matches, an incredible statistic.

Here's a vid including a few of Rocky's highlights from the final. Let's hope the ARU can get him back on Aussie soil!!!

Clare and I on Sunday

Clare and I are in bed, feeling somewhat sorry for ourselves after a particularly festive Saturday night...Clare sent me this PM on Skype which pretty much sums up the two of us (yes, we message each other whilst lying side-by-side...).

Playing the numbers game

According to the new 'computational knowledge engine' Wolfram Alpha:

• I am 7449km from home.
• I consumed 34% of my daily recommended caloric intake at lunch. 
• I am 25.56 years old today.
  
• My birth was not a notable event.

The internet, news and democracy

Fascinating article from this week's Economist on the future of media...what impact will the internet have on not only traditional newspapers, news and advertising, but also democracy...

...Technological change has destroyed all sorts of once-popular products, from the handloom to the Walkman, and the world has mostly been better for it. But news is not just a product: the press is the fourth estate, a pillar of the polity. Journalists investigate and criticise governments, thus helping voters decide whether to keep them or sack them. Autocracies can function perfectly well without news, but democracies cannot. Will the death of the daily newspaper—the main source of information for most educated people for at least the past century, the scourge of corrupt politicians, the conscience of nations — damage democracy?...

Read the full article here.

We live in Bangkok

A couple of snaps from our place here in Bangkok!

Looking toward the north from our bedroom window. We get some amazing sunsets, especially during the monsoon season as thick clouds engulf the city. This part of the city is home to an eclectic mix of Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist cultures, with the Islamic Call to Prayer often heard just before the sun sets.

View from our bedroom balcony, bearing north-west. You may notice the low-lying buildings surrounding the odd high-rise. We live on the 18th floor of a 38-floor building. About 1km away behind the large buildings is the snaking Chao Phraya River and further north is the royal palace and some of Thailand's most revered temples.

Looking toward the east from our living room balcony as night falls. There's quite a lot of building happening at the moment, illustrated by the new W Hotel going up in the foreground. This area is Bangkok's main financial, embassy and flash hotel district. Also of note is the constant flow of traffic along Sathorn Road below, as well as the sky train tracks passing over the motorist's heads.

My favourite Swede-rockers

Romanian handbags

How do you feel?

Dude with a keytar in a Thai rock bar

In a tuk tuk with PK!

Is Kim Jong Il sponsored by Dior?

Kim is obviously well ahead of the fashion game. He's been a proponent of oversized sunglasses for years.

Which brings me to the questions - could North Korea's famous leader be sponsored by a major label, such as Dior, Versace or D&G? And does he have any pyjama sponsors on his books?

Devastated

Despite perhaps dabbling in a little extra dramatic hyperbole with the above title, I am nonetheless unimpressed.

A couple of posts ago, I wrote about the best sandwiches in Bangkok, a rarity deserving UN World Heritage status. Today, my beloved bakery is being ripped apart, quite literally, by a band of marauding ninjas.

What will be the fate of my favourite house of Boulange? Will I ever find a Siamese sandwich to rival that of which I have loved so dearly? Will I be resorted to a firey hell of chilli and kaffir lime for the rest of my days???

Snorkel mania

I'm currently travelling well away from all the action of Bangkok, blogging this photo from a boat in the Gulf of Thailand.

About to go for a snorkel - can't wait!

Chicken salad?

There's a terrific little French place up the road from my work that makes arguably the best sandwiches in Bangkok. Good bread is hard to find in this part of the world, theirs is excellent.

Anyway, went in there today for lunch, feeling like something a little different. After sitting down, a young waiter brings across the specials board - I notice the Chicken Niçoise salad.

Not entirely sure what I'm getting myself into, I ask the waiter, "can you please tell me what's in the Chicken Niçoise salad?" To which he replied nervously, "um, chicken and salad".

I couldn't help but smile.

Good on the bloke though for having a go at another language - I'd have no hope in describing the ingredients of a complex curry paste in Thai language.

I ended up enjoying their delicious potato and leek soup, along with a selection of fresh crusty bread on the side. Reminded me of watching the Brumbies play in 1996 on a Canberra winter night - Mum used to pack a couple of thermoses full of soup, along with enough other treats to feed us until Monday.

Muse – Knights of Cydonia

Is this the most random video clip you’ve ever seen? Awesome song, classic clip.

Can Facebook make money?

I just enjoyed a delicious spag bol lunch and an inquisitive article from a recent edition of Fortune magazine.

Interviewing Facebook’s majority owner and the company CEO, the article asks a few questions about the business viability of Facebook, how marketers are currently using the site as a new consumer channel, and alludes to where Facebook will be in a couple of years time.

For those with no idea of how Facebook works, the article also provides a bit of a cheat sheet on the different components of the social networking site.

Check it out here!

Think you're tough?

Have a go at this bloke…

(From SMH online, courtesy of Clare)

'Ninja' kangaroo terrorises family in bed

Not a bird, nor a plane, but a kangaroo has crashed through the bedroom window of a Canberra family's home before terrorising its unsuspecting occupants.

The family, from the suburb of Garran in Canberra's south, were awoken in the early hours of Sunday morning when their pet dog began barking from the garden.

Moments later, a kangaroo burst through a three-metre high window of the house's master bedroom and onto the bed where Beat Ettlin, his partner Verity Beman and their nine-year-old
daughter, Beatrix, lay.

"My initial thought when I was half awake was [that] it's a lunatic ninja coming through the window," Mr Ettlin told The Associated Press.

"It seems about as likely as a kangaroo breaking in."

While the family took refuge under the blankets, the injured animal proceeded to jump on top of them, gouging holes in the furniture and smearing blood all over the walls.

The next thing Mr Ettlin heard was his 10-year-old son Leighton screaming from his bed: "There's a 'roo in my room!"

"I thought, this can be really dangerous for the whole family now," the 42-year-old said.

A chef, originally from the Swiss city of Stans, Mr Ettlin followed the thrashing and bleeding two-metre tall marsupial and wrestled it into a headlock before dragging it down the hallway and out the front door.

Left wearing just his shredded underpants and with scratch marks on his leg and buttocks, Mr Ettlin described himself as "lucky".

"I had just my Bonds undies on. I felt vulnerable," he said.