Overdue update

2006-11-16T10:34:00.000-05:00

While I am in the progress of a bloated blog entry that I started about two weeks ago, I thought that the quickest way to get something up to remind you all that I exist would be to write a short and fast report of recent times.

We're settling into our new apartment and have been on a furniture and household effects shopping spree.  My shipment from Sydney arrived in port on the weekend, but might take many weeks to clear through customs.  The most suspicious item in my shipment would probably be my old 170 meg hard drive which was compressed using DOS 5 or 6 double space and could pose as encrypted secret documents and communiques with my Soviet allies.  I'd be very grateful if the CIA/FBI/NSA could actually decrypt it for me because I really would like to see all my creative writing from year 8 as well as some old classic DOS games.

We're still short a sofa, new TV, computer desk and a job for me.  There always feels like there's movement coming along on the job front but nothing has materialised yet, and as we get closer to Christmas I think things only become more challenging.  The advantage of being unemployed is that I get to bum around the house and not have to get dressed before assembling vast quantities of Ikea furniture.

Another perk of being unemployed manifested itself yesterday when Lissy's cousin who is a member of the screen actors' guild (SAG) invited her to a preview screening of the movie Bobby (about the day of Robert Kennedy's assassination).  Lissy was at work so she couldn't go, so I got the ticket instead.  I thought the movie was great, and it was followed up with some Q&A with the writer/director (Emilio Estevez) and a few of the stars - Sharon Stone, Josh Jackson, Freddy Rodriguez and Christian Slater (who might be mildly retarded judging by the way he was grinning maniacally and twitching occasionally while sitting up the front). I didn't know much at all about Bobby Kennedy before the movie but I still loved it.  The cast was truly unbelievable. The start of the movie was reminiscent of a Demtel ad, but instead of an extra set of steak knifes they threw in Lawrence Fishburne and Lindsay Lohan.  Other stars of the movie included Anthony Hopkins, Ashton Kutcher, Martin Sheen, William H Macy, David Krumholtz, Demi Moore, Helen Hunt, Harry Belafonte, Heather Graham and Elijah Wood. Yes, for all you Basic Instinct fans Sharon Stone was wearing panties and no, I didn't ask that during Q&A.

After the movie I walked back past Lissy's work and then we went to a Vietnamese restaurant for dinner.  I had a huge bowl of pho which played no small part in a highly interrupted night's sleep last night, during which I had many vivid disturbing dreams about driving a car with no brakes around the Canon car park in Sydney.

I've been doing plenty of walking to capiltalise on the warm weather while it is still pleasant here.  It has been unseasonably warm recently, though that is due to change today with a thunderstorm which is meant to usher in old man winter.  I am prepared for the cold because it turns out that I've been taking supplements for arthritis.  My knees have been hurting too much to run lately (I blame the City to Surf and by proxy Stern and Dave) so I had been taking some supplements but Lissy's doctor brother in law told me that what I was taking was generally used for arthritis.  I guess that's what I get for sourcing my medical advice from a 60 year old doorman named Sal.

Hope all's well in Oz,
Ben

entry 1.0

2006-10-17T19:49:00.000-04:00

Hi there. I’ve got a blog. Not quite sure how this'll turn out, though I’m highly optimistic at this stage. I was thinking of calling it “specs in the city” and thought that I registered that name with blogpspot a month ago, but as it turns out I mustn’t have completed the process as someone else seems to have taken it! While trying to work out how to rename it I came across this Coincidence wesbite. As you can see all of you less commonly named people are totally missing out on the greatest part of the internet age. Anyway, as you can see I decided to name my blog “Ben In The USA” in honour of Foxtel Trivia’s favourite entertainer - the Boss, Bruce Springsteen... And there’s a fatwah on the guy who stole the other blog name, though I think he may have done me a favour the more I think about it.

My first full day in the States began with a game of tennis (defined as tennis by the presence of the court, racquets and balls as opposed to the manner in which we attempted to play). The hamstring damaging pursuit was followed by breakfast burritos. Given the amount of egg, cheese and sour cream I’d consumed by midday I think it might be interesting to keep a graph of my weight as my trip progresses online. I fear the potential resemblance to Google’s share price since it floated. Start reinforcing those beds for my first visit back home.

With a full stomach and my arteries rapidly scrambling their air defenses for further strikes we swung past a bottle-o and picked up half a dozen bottles of wine, thus shutting up my liver and brain which had been laughing together at the misfortunes of my heart and waistline. I think my organs have since realized that they are all in this together and are taking their revenge against me by faking terrible jetlag whenever the clock strikes 4PM.

The next stop was a Norman Rockwell museum, just to remind myself which country I’d moved to. I went with substantial hesitancy but found that I really enjoyed the exhibition. I’m convinced that Norman Rockwell’s name appears somewhere in a song that I know but I can’t for the life of me remember it (I think the term remember to me could now be defined as “recall or determine by googling”).

We returned to Lissy’s cottage after the museum and took the canoe out onto the lake. I tried to show off my supreme nautical skills by rowing while sitting backwards at one stage, a feat made far less impressive by the fact that my second and final stroke covered me with frigid lake water. I tried to recapture some of my lost maritime credibility by refusing to answer to the terms left and right and demanding Lissy instead use port and starboard. She may not have bought it so I may have to take to wearing a Captain’s hat around our apartment and hanging an anchor above our bed.

The day concluded with a dinner of beer, ribs and crab cakes at a brewery. Shortly after the meal my small intestine decided to show solidarity with my other (now unionized) organs, but I’m sure I needn’t go into any further detail on that topic as I doubt anybody misses me that much yet.

The next day was spent shopping at outlet stores in anticipation of a job that won’t take as kindly to muscle shirts, shorts and sandals as CISRA. Since then I’ve returned to NYC and have been run off my feet running errands and starting the job search. Hopefully something will come of an apparently successful interview with a recruiting company yesterday.

Keep in touch,
Ben

PS – If you wish to avoid unpleasantly close scrutiny from LAX airport security, steer clear of the fearful combination of a binary watch and vegemite.