December 29th, 2004

krazy koati

You're happier now than you've been for several years, 'cos you're going back home again

Arrived, safe, sound, and tired. I'll write more when I've recuperated, but the campus and the city seem to be intact, and the only horrible news is from neighboring countries. Channel NewsAsia is reporting heavily on the tsunami and crisis hotlines, as you might expect, and has started running advertisements for itself warning the disaster is not over yet, and showing footage of flooding and wreckage, as well as pictures of their reporters talking in front of chroma-keyed footage. Those reporter pictures are shown in black and white, I suppose to prove they take this seriously.

The flights went well; the first, short leg was under-booked so that I had all three seats in my aisle to myself; and then I got bumped up to Business Class for the other two legs. So I caught a couple films, actually slept, and saw a couple episodes of Kim Possible on top of it (the first with Ron Stoppable's excellent question, on being lowered into a shark tank, ``Why is it never otters? I wouldn't mind dropping into a tank of otters. They're fun!''; the other, Doctor Drakken plans to conquer Wisconsin using a deep-core mine headquartered on a giant building made of cheese. He thought it was just cheese-covered, which the Mary Jo Pehl-esque tour guide explains, ``Oooh, noo, a lot of people would be mighty surprised to learn ... ''). More ... later, when it's not so early, or something like that.

Trivia: In the 1730s at least 70 percent of all English (and Welsh) licensed dealers in coffee and tea were in London. Source: London: A History, Francis Sheppard.

Currently Reading: Ozma of Oz, L Frank Baum.