pOkE the pLaNeT

Happy New Year All!!!

I was going to post pics from our trip over the holidays in Malaysia but after viewing the 30 I took, of which the 20 that are not completely black cuz my camera sucks for night photos, I ended up with a pic of drunk Ozzie soliders, the twin towers in Kuala Lumpur and some clouds from the plane. Therefore, I thought I'd spare us all the wasting of our time viewing them.

The Malaysia trip was okay, it was nice to go to the 2nd world and get a break from Hanoi but so far has been our least fav country in Asia. Aside from being kinda pricey, especially booze thanks to the muslim sin taxes imposed, it was kinda vanilla even though it possess 3 diverse cultures. Of course it could be just me and being in a country where eveyone pretty much speaks english that takes all the fun out of it for me, no funny word misinterpertations or games of charades needed to be played doesn't suit me.That experience has not extinguished my desire to travel more in Asia, we are going to Cambodia the beginning of Feb. to see Ankor Wat. We decided on Cambodia to escape Tet ( Chinese New Year )chaos here. As much fun as it might sound to stay in town while the whole country is in "Black Monday" mode for a month with inflated prices on everything only to end with a mediocer fireworks display in a sea of honking scooters in exchange for maybe 3 days of relative peace - Cambodia sounds nice.

I will see ya in the year of the rat.

Australians celebrate their New Year half a day before the U.S does, which allows ample time for drinking as we wait for the ball to drop in Times Square. The real trick down here is to celebrate New Years on the Gold Coast, which is the border region between New South Wales and Queensland. NSW celebrates New Years one hour before Queensland thanks to a disagreement regarding daylight savings time, so hardy partiers can crawl along the sand at Coolangatta Beach and get it right a second time if they wish.

We had our federal election late last year and the Australian Labor Party won office. They made a lot of promises during the election but one none of us remember is them saying they would censor the internet. This week Prime Minister Kevin Rudd came out and said the federal government would be imposing mandatory internet filtering to restrict 'objectionable' material. He didnt specify exactly what the term objectionable means, though the legislation is aimed at pornography and violence as in, you know, the news. Civil libertarians are miffed but arent nearly as influential in Australia as the ACLU is in the U.S, and while letters to the editorial pages in Australian papers are overwhelmingly critical of the plan, the government is at least three years from the next election and Australian governments almost always win a second term no matter what they do, so they could care less what the people think. The local internet service providers say it will slow down the flow of information but again the government says its not interested. If they ban the Hannah Montana sites there will be blood on the streets.

The Princess Bride. The R.U.S's rank up there with my favorite screen animals of all time along with Scrat and the gopher off 'Caddy Shack'. Next question... which film features dead aliens in the trunk of a Chevy Malibu ( the good one, not the current model ) being driven around Los Angeles? Hint... you cant find the music tracks for that film on iTunes and Im still upset about that.

K