Prison

Ohhh! I just noticed, someone from Florida Department of Corrections read my blog. I doubt it was an actual prisoner though.

David and me.

I had a very vivid and strange dream last night (I just woke up) where my company wanted me to write something - a special project - about some connection between us and David Bowie. And it also had something to do with a wading pool, but I never did quite figure out what that was about. Apparently, David Bowie had had some role at or with the company stretching back to the 70s (David Bowie + 70s = my special subject) and they wanted me write all about it.

I was very happy to take on the project, as you can imagine. Then it morphed into one of my customary dreams about having responsibility for doing something and then not doing it and being caught. And there was another thread to it, I was talking to my boss (completely unlike my real boss) and even though I knew the project was something that I probably couldn't do I was saying that it'd be quite easy. I said that if I spoke to David Bowie a couple of times I'd be able to write it all up pretty quickly, and even as I said it I knew that I was just saying it for the sake of sounding good. Which I hate myself for - this is good material for my Peter session on Thursday.

Fat body, and body fat

I had a body scan yesterday at BCA and no, it didn't involve rubber gloves or wet celery or anything, so please do get your mind out of the gutter.

Overall bodyfat was 24.6%, which according to most definitions, puts me at the upper end of Acceptable, and just slightly below Obese.

On other vaguely health-related news, the titanium screw in my jaw dropped out yesterday. Or, as they explained to me at the dentist, it wasn't the whole thing, just the top 1cm or so that screws into the titanium socket. It was pretty exciting but ultimately easy to resolve. The dentist (actually, a periodontist or something equally fancy) said it was unusual but not unheardof.

Traffic - and numbers

There was an article in today's SMH about a survey by the NRMA (surely not a completely disinterested observer when it comes to traffic, but that's another quibble) that showed that drivers in Sydney who used tollroads saved a hell of a lot of time and gas money. Hardly a surprise, really. My favorite bit was this....

"Drivers living in the outer north-west and paying four tolls to get to the city - on the M7, M2, the Lane Cove Tunnel and the Harbour Bridge - are reaping a 94 per cent saving in travel time, taking an average of 47 minutes"

So if you save 94% of the time it would otherwise take to drive, and it still takes 47 minutes, that means it must normally take 783 minutes, or about 13 hours. Or maybe the journalist is clueless about numbers. Take your pick.

Improvement

I played this afternoon against M, the guy who beat me 6-0 6-0 two weekends ago (or something like that). Much better this time, 6-1 6-3, and I nearly won a couple more games.

How many digits?

I called a financial services company about an account I have with them. First thing I get is the automated answering thing, which I don't really mind too much. But what I loved was then the voice said "now enter your account number, one digit at a time". I can only assume that they say this in the belief that if they don't, I'll just mash down all the numbers on the phone keypad at the same time. D'oh!

Tennis

I played against my friend I on Tuesday night, and I beat him 8-6. This might not seem like a big deal but it's really put a spring in my step. Why such a big deal? Two answers really.

For a start, I don't beat I very often. We used to play every week and I could usually get close but not actually beat him. He's very cunning and could usually manage to pull some trick out of his bag. Also (and this is still part of the first reason, not the second one) I had played another guy the weekend before last, someone I'd never played before, and it was very disheartening. When we were hitting up I remember thinking I can beat this guy, I hit the ball much better than him. But in fact he gave me a real pasting. It was very frustrating. While I'm pretty good at hitting the ball, he was much better at actually winning points and games. D'oh!

On a deeper level, I was spectacularly unsporty as a kid, and growing up in Australia without sport wasn't great. I eventually ended up with a bunch of friends who were similarly unsporty, and we used to drink a lot, self-medicate and play in bands. A few years ago I started playing tennis (I think I was bored, it was when I was living in Singapore) and I discovered, almost from the first time I tried to hit the ball, that I loved it. It seems to satisfy some very profound urge that I have. I don't think I've ever enjoying anything as much as I enjoy playing tennis. Which is bizarre, given the sort of person I thought I was.

Anyway, I'm playing that guy again on the weekend... should be interesting. Last time he beat me 6-0 6-0. Yes, I couldn't even get one game off him.