The Wrong Side

Ok, I’m going to say it flat out: I don’t drive and it isn’t entirely my fault. Let’s start at the beginning of this journey – my sixteenth birthday. Most of you will recognize this as the day that you ran to the DMV for your learner’s permit; I on the other hand spent that day and all the ones that followed wondering what the big deal was. My lack of interest in this supposed “turning point” in life continued for several years.

Not to pass the buck or anything, but my biggest problem was everyone else. Let’s start with my friends, many of whom had not only driver’s licenses but some of them had their own cars. Then there was my family who were willing (or unwillingly pressed into service) to drive me wherever I needed to go. The final problem was the TTC, or Toronto Transit Commission, which served my needs pretty darn well back then, getting me from home to just about anywhere for the price of a student metro pass.

Eventually I gave in and managed to barely pass my driving test shortly before my 19th birthday and just in time for me to leave for university where I appreciated the photo ID but didn’t have a car to drive. Shortly after my incarceration in University, I returned to Toronto where I had a job right on the subway line.

I didn’t really start driving until Hubby and I moved to DC where he was the lucky one who had a job on the Metro and I was the one driving forty minutes each way to work. The tradition continued in the Midwest where he could walk to class and I had another long drive to the office. It was during these years that I learned to enjoy driving to a certain extent – just my car, NPR, the road, and me.

Even during all these years of enforced driving I had rules: I never drove on the highway because other cars freaked me out almost as much as roads with multiple lanes did. Having grown up in California, Hubby had absolutely no sympathy for me and felt that if he dropped me off in the middle of the Beltway that I would figure it out. Would that be before or after I had a nervous breakdown?

And now I’m in the developing world where driving is a scary X-Games worthy contact sport. Both in India and here in Kenya, I’ve been lucky enough to have a driver so that I would never have to face my fears and get behind the wheel. As for which country has the worst drivers? In India we sat in the back seat and never really had to watch the nightmare too closely thanks to Swami. In Nairobi we sit up front and I have the privilege of prying my fingers from the door after every ride. They’re both bad and let’s just leave it at that.

Which brings us the biggest problem I face when I return to a Real World filled with people offering to let me drive their cars. You people drive on the wrong side of the road! That’s right, I said it. I’ve lived with right-hand drive for two years now and that is now my “normal” direction. When I go home, I get into the wrong side of the car, look the wrong way into traffic, and, only once or twice, turn the wrong way into traffic.

My point in all this is that I don’t drive. Heck, I never really did unless pressed into it. So when I go home, please just offer to drive or drop me off at the subway. Don’t offer me the keys to your car because we could both end up regretting it.

Facing Myself

Thanks to She of the Gratuitous H, I recently found myself invited to join Facebook. Although I had heard of this networking site, I had never thought to visit let alone join. Some of you may recognize the name as Facebook received quite a bit of press last month as students at Virginia Tech used it to check on friends and mourn lost comrades.

I should note that I’ve been “on” Facebook now for only a few days so if you look me up (and I hope you will) please don’t mock my small number of friends. In fact, feel free to “poke” me (I’m still not sure what exactly that is) and take pity on my constant loser state by “friending” me. For the uninitiated, Facebook has a lingo all its own. Friending, poking, and gifting are only the beginning of the puzzling road that newcomers must traverse.

After hours (and I do mean hours) spent attempting to upload my picture onto the site, I gave up and decided to look for people I might know – that, after all, is the point of the entire thing. I started by looking up my high school and was shocked to see how skinny everyone was (*pout*), how many of them appeared to have children, and how many of these once staunchly feminist women were now married like me – the staunchest, most unlikely to marry of the entire gaggle.

The biggest problem I have encountered thus far is fear. Will So-and-So remember me? Do they like me? Did they ever?! Will So-and-So respond to my lame, loser-girl request to be friends and not ban me for life because I was that geeky girl with her socks pulled up to her knees in ninth grade?!

From what people have told me, the paranoia and instant reversion back to a high school clique mentality seems to be part of the appeal. You join networks and groups just like you were sixteen again. And, like then, you sit and wait for someone to acknowledge you. Some people, the popular kids who don’t have neuroses, aren’t worried – they know that someone will answer, tell them they’re witty, and the rest of us will wither a little more inside.

So what have we all learned from Typ0’s foray into Facebook? Yes, I’m really messed up and evidently have been for a very long time. Hopefully you have also learned that if you know my real name, are on Facebook, and want to take pity on me, that you should look me up and offer to be my friend. Most of all, we’ve learned that I can kill hours and hours of Internet time on just about anything. And that’s cool too.

Better Than the Real Thing

Long time Devoted Readers and our friends back in Delhi will likely remember that one of the things that Hubby and I loved most about our lives in New Delhi was Sunday Brunch. I’m sure that brunch as an institution was invented centuries ago, but rest assured that it took India to perfect it. In Delhi, the main theme of Sunday brunch in any good hotel was simple: all you can eat food plus all you can drink wine, martinis, or champagne.

Our favorite, as many of you have heard us talk about repeatedly, was at the Metropolitan Nikko where we could enjoy “all you can eat” sushi accompanied by “all you can drink” champagne all for the very reasonable price of 1500 rupees. A typical Nikko-themed Sunday included showing up to meet our friends for brunch around 12:30, consuming numerous bottles of champagne, leaving around 3:00 p.m. so that we could go home to pass out for the remainder of the evening. A perfect day by anyone’s standards.

Nairobi, on the other hand, has been depressingly devoid of alcoholic happiness on Sunday mornings. Until today… Last night Hubby had the inspired idea that we should bring back the joys of Delhi – only at home.

With that in mind, Hubby made pancakes while I grilled some blood pudding (which he wouldn’t eat). The highlight of his idea was the bottle of champers that I had purchased several weeks earlier on a whim. Initially, Hubby suggested making mimosas with some of the Ceres juice he had purchased the previous day. Don’t get me wrong, his well-meaning idea was sweet but I think that we all know that I didn’t bother diluting my perfectly chilled glasses of champagne.

While we didn’t have quite enough bubbly to perfectly recreate those lovely drunken days back in Delhi, we did our best. Cheers, folks!

Power Up

I just spent more hours than I think I’d like to admit to the entire Internet reading world watching cartoons. Ok, nothing new there – most of you know that I’m a 12-year-old girl with an obsession for all things animated. But this 26-year-old woman (with a penchant for fudging on her age by a year or so) has an even guiltier secret than just simply watching “Justice League” on DVD. You see, I like to pretend I have cool super powers.

Pretend might be too strong a word – it isn’t as if I have a spandex outfit in the closet complete with cape and mask. But it might be possible that I like to imagine that in a cooler world, I could fly, shoot lasers from my fingers tips, and have an incredible body complete with super strength. Who doesn’t play pretend every so often? *listens to crickets chirp* Fine, I’ll be the only one here who is willing to admit to their imagination fueled foibles!

Watching the JLU episode “Clash” made me want to share a few of my superhero related questions. First off, let’s say you’re the bad guy who keeps getting foiled by Super Blogger in Cool City. As a super villain, why don’t you try moving to a new town? Stay with me here for a minute: Lex Luthor keeps trying to take over the world from Metropolis where he knows Superman hangs out. It’s the same with the Joker and Batman in Gotham. Hey super bad guys, “Move!!”

The episode in question dealt very nicely with one of my long-standing ponderances of the superhero genre: the super fight. You know the ones: half the city gets torn up as cars are used to smash people’s faces and buildings lose their facades when people get thrown into them. Don’t the people in these towns care? And, who pays for the clean up? I mean, if I, as mayor of Cool City, kept seeing Super Blogger and Bad Dude wreck my town every week, wouldn’t I ask them to move out or pay up?

Which brings me to a disclaimer: I love superheroes. I wish I had cool mutant powers that extended beyond the ability to pick out the most expensive item in any store and love it. And I totally understand that Lex and Supes live in the same town because it is fiction, it moves the story along, and a comic book about Clark Kent mooning over Lois Lane would be far more boring than watching Lex trying to take over the world and defeat Superman through the use of Kryptonite.

And lest I spark a DC versus Marvel debate, I’d like to point out that while I have used DC references, I am, at heart, a Marvel girl with an X-obsession. But let’s face it, when it comes to cartoons, DC was much quicker off the mark to get their animated guys on DVD.

Which brings me to my question du jour that I hope some of you will actually answer for a change (Not that I’m being pouty about the lack of people commenting on this blog. Not much anyways.). Since none of us can fly, shoot laser beams from our fingertips, or lift small buildings as part of our daily training regimen, what are your real life mutant powers? (Oh, and if you can do any of those things, please tell me ‘cause I think that’s Super Cool!)

My Idol?

Had I felt like still being awake between 2 am and 4 am this morning, I could have found out “live” that Jordin Sparks had won the current season of American Idol with her rendition of the world’s lamest song: “This is My Now.” Surprisingly, however, I was asleep at the time and didn’t find out the unsurprising results until Hubby heard the news on CNN before he left for work. Luckily, they re-aired the show for we Kenyan sleepyheads during prime time.

Blake Lewis, the beat boxing cutie for whom the “Now” song was clearly not intended, made a great show of pretending to be shocked that he didn’t win. And the judges did a good job of setting up his loss over the extraordinarily tedious two-hour long show.

Oh well. Congratulations, Jordin. I hope that you manage to become more successful than last year’s AI winner Taylor Hicks who has sold even less albums than that “She Bangs” guy.

A Small Withdrawal

Remember when we were kids and we asked our parents for an “advance on our allowance” from the Bank of Mum and Dad? Or as I liked to call it, “Mummy whom I love and adore, may I please have $20 to go the movies?” Some parents made their kids work for their money. Others made their children justify the need for the money. The really nice ones gave their wonderful children the money realizing that they were good kids deep down and didn’t ask for money unless it was absolutely necessary – like seeing “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” on opening night.

In the developing world, even if you don’t have children you still get to be part of this long standing tradition of visiting the Bank of Mom - or, in this case, the Bank of Employer. Expats reading this know where I’m going but I’ll fill the rest of you in.

I dare you to find the expat who hasn’t been hit up for a loan by a member of their staff. In Delhi, both my sainted maid, Maria, and our driver, Swami, asked for loans at one point or another. I should note that they were both good about paying back these monies. I would also like to note that it was always the chump (aka Me) they approached first for their loan. I must look more gullible than Hubby.

Nairobi has been a continuation of the same. Our maid, V, asked for and received two loans before she had even been working for us for a month. (Ok, maybe I am the gullible one.) My problem is that I always feel bad… Stupid Catholic guilt!

Our driver, Pedro, recently went the radical route of asking Hubby, in writing no less, before mentioning anything to me. And now he needs money again. Did I mention that it’s been about two weeks since we agreed to loan him a small fortune the first time around? And now Hubby is out of town, which means that I’m stuck with Catholic Guilt which says, “Give him the money;” Expat Logic who says that I have to, “Say no or I’m setting a wickedly bad precedent;” and, finally, Real World Common Sense which dictates that, “He needs to give me something in writing from the people who need the money to explain what’s going on.”

Sadly, I’ve never had much common sense and I’ve only been an expat for two years, whereas I went to Catholic school for 13 years. I knew education would work against me eventually!

After weighing my options, I finally told Pedro that I would have to wait to talk to Hubby. Yeah, I’m passing the buck but let’s be honest - I’m not good at giving people bad news. In this case bad news would either telling Pedro no, or telling Hubby that I gave him the money. I hate being a wuss but I would hate it even more if I found out that the generosity of the Bank of Typ0 was being abused.

Book Club

My book club meets in two days and I’m on page 86. I should be reading instead of blogging and chatting online. Plus, it is the middle of the night so I won’t get any more reading done until tomorrow, which means that I now have only one day to read the remaining 300+ pages. Oops!

Oh well…

Ladies’ Night

Boys may want to stop reading now. No, honestly, stop reading. Fine, don’t say you weren’t warned because tonight’s blog is about: periods. I knew that would get rid of the last of the male stragglers.

Seriously though, a world without ever having to have a period is a world I could deal with quite happily. I realize that there are people who say its unnatural and unhealthy, but they’re probably all men.

Read for yourself and see what you think. Are you going to join me in a tampon and pad burning ceremony? Or are you going to go the natural route and stick to being grumpy and bloated thirteen times a year? (Stupid lunar calendar!)

First birth control pill meant to end periods poised for approval
The Associated Press

TRENTON, New Jersey: U.S. women looking for a simple way to avoid their menstrual period could soon have access the first birth control pill designed to let women suppress monthly bleeding indefinitely.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expect to announce approval Tuesday for Lybrel, a drug from Wyeth which would be the first pill to be taken continuously.

Lybrel, a name meant to evoke "liberty," would be the fourth new oral contraceptive that does not follow the standard schedule of 21 daily active pills, followed by seven sugar pills — a design meant to mimic a woman's monthly cycle. Among the others, Yaz and Loestrin 24 shorten monthly periods to three days or less and Seasonique, an updated version of Seasonale, reduces them to four times a year.

Gynecologists say they have been seeing a slow but steady increase in women asking how to limit and even stop monthly bleeding. Surveys have found up to half of women would prefer not to have any periods, most would prefer them less often and a majority of doctors have prescribed contraception to prevent periods.

"I think it's the beginning of it being very common," said Dr. Leslie Miller, a University of Washington-Seattle obstetrician-gynecologist who runs a Web site focused on suppressing periods. "Lybrel says, 'You don't need a period.'"

While that can be done easily — sometimes more cheaply — by skipping the sugar pills or replacing birth-control patches or vaginal rings sooner, doctors say the trend is fueled mainly by advertising for the new options. They expect plenty for Lybrel's July launch, although Madison, New Jersey-based Wyeth says it will market to doctors first.

Analysts have estimated Lybrel sales could reach $40 million (€30 million) this year and $235 million (€174 million) by 2010. U.S. sales of Seasonique, launched last August, hit $6.1 million (€4.5 million) in the first quarter of 2007. Predecessor Seasonale, which got cheaper generic competition in September, peaked at about $100 million (€74 million). Yaz, launched last August, had first-quarter sales of $35.6 million (€26.4 million); Loestrin 24, launched in April 2006, hit $34.4 million (€25.5 million) in the first quarter.

Still, some women raise concerns about whether blocking periods is safe or natural. Baltimore health psychologist Paula S. Derry wrote in an opinion piece in the British Medical Journal two weeks ago that "menstrual suppression itself is unnatural," and that there is not enough data to determine if it is safe long-term.

Sheldon J. Segal, a scientist at the nonprofit research group Population Council, wrote back that a British study found no harm in taking pills with much higher hormone levels than today's products for up to 10 years.

"Nothing has come up to indicate any unexpected side effects," said Segal, who co-authored the book "Is Menstruation Obsolete?"

Most doctors say there's no medical reason women need monthly bleeding and that it triggers health problems from anemia to epilepsy in many women. They note women have been tinkering with nature since the advent of birth control pills and now endure as many as 450 periods, compared with 50 or so in the days when women spent most of their fertile years pregnant or breast-feeding.

Barr Pharmaceuticals of Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, whose subsidiary Duramed already is developing a lower-estrogen version of Seasonique, said its research with consumers and health care providers indicates they feel four periods a year is optimal, said spokeswoman Amy Niemann.

Wyeth obviously thinks otherwise.

"It allows women to put their menstrual cycle on hold" and reduces 17 related symptoms, from irritability to bloating, based on one small study, said Dr. Amy Marren, director of clinical affairs for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.

Marren said Lybrel contains the lowest dose of two hormones widely used in birth-control pills, ethinyl estradiol and levonorgestrel.

That might cause too much breakthrough bleeding, already a problem with some newer pills with low hormone doses, said Dr. Lee Shulman, a Chicago obstetrician-gynecologist who chairs the board of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals.

In testing of Lybrel, 59 percent of women ended up with no bleeding after six months, but 18 percent of women dropped out of studies because of spotting and breakthrough bleeding, according to Wyeth.

"You're now basically trading scheduled bleeding for unscheduled bleeding, and I don't know whether American women will buy into that," Shulman said.

Bored…

Hubby is leaving me again – this time he’s headed back to Ethiopia until midweek. He likes to go to Addis because, as he says, he can’t possibly spend his per diem no matter how much injera he inhales. Plus we have good friends there so he won’t be bored. Then there’s me…

In a rare repeat of last week, I’m actually busy several days this week. Between two days of meetings for the Association (Yay?) and book club (Should I start reading that book now?), I’ll be well and truly occupied for at least a few hours. The best part is that with Hubby temporarily out of the picture, I can enjoy some yummy Typ0-friendly fare for dinner. On tonight’s menu is Steak Esterhazy, the recipe for which my mother kindly forwarded me last week.

Since I don’t have anything terribly insightful to blog about today, I’ll leave you with this thought:

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt

Tired

It is currently late Saturday evening and I’m rather knackered. It isn’t that I’ve done anything particularly active or even tiring today, but I think that the cider that accompanied dinner this evening has finally caught up with me. I know, I’m a lush, but when you hear about the “everyday” gourmet dinner we created this evening you’ll be jealous that you weren’t here to share it. (And hopefully you’ll forget the whole “Typ0’s a lush” thing.)

After months of being promised ostrich at various restaurants in town, we finally found it at the local butcher shop! So earlier today, Hubby and I purchased 660 grams of lovely lean ostrich steak for the equivalent of $15.00 USD. I realize that sounds like a pretty penny but there was very little fat on these strips of meat and there was honestly enough meat to feed the two of us and, if we had been so inclined, another two or three people to boot.

But I did say that we decided to make this meal a wee bit “everyday.” After looking through cookbooks and checking out online experts regarding cooking methods, we came to the swift agreement that we both felt like having fajitas – ostrich fajitas. After a nice seasoning shower in freshly ground sea salt and rainbow pepper, we marinated the meat in a nice sweet and spicy sauce for about two hours.

To accompany the fajitas, Hubby made homemade Mexican Rice from a recipe he made up as he went along. I must say, that although I’m not usually a huge fan of Mexican Rice, this was even better than any I had ever tasted before in an “authentic” Mexican restaurant. After finishing up the rice, Hubby then moved onto grilling the chapattis, which we used instead of tortillas.

Ostrich meat, in case you were wondering, cooks up incredibly quickly. Even raw, I was able to cut it like butter, which made us doubly careful about not overcooking this incredibly tender meat. I stir fried the ostrich, marinade, and all, in less than seven minutes and was rewarded with perfect medium-rare yumminess. Maybe the next time you visit us in Nairobi, I’ll make you some gourmet fajitas. Maybe!

So yes, I’m rather sleepy at the moment, but I think that creating a gourmet meal that even the most finicky eater would enjoy warrants me a good night’s sleep. I have to go put away the leftovers and climb all the way upstairs to the bedroom. Good night…

Olden Days

I used to wonder what people did in the evenings before television, and specifically, before good ‘ole Ben Franklin went kite flying and discovered electricity. I mean, if you can’t come home to a good meal, a cold mug of cider, and a good show on the tellie, what’s the point? I once tried asking my parents about their childhoods but they just gave me “one of those looks” and told me to go play on the 401. So much for asking the experts.

Don’t get me wrong. If there’s nothing on TV, I don’t mind popping in a DVD or begging Hubby to play a game of Trivial Pursuit (or Monopoly, or Life, or cards or…) but I am very much a child of my generation. I derive pleasure from watching people in the pretty magic box that raised me and without it, I must admit, I am a wee bit lost. Which brings us to Thursday night.

Much like in Delhi, we live in a pretty good neighborhood where, we were told, people don’t need generators. “The power never goes off for more than a few minutes at the most,” they insisted. And for the first few months, we found this sentiment to be pretty darned accurate. Lately; however, we’ve been in the dark – literally.

When we arrived home after work Thursday, we discovered that the power was out. No biggie, we thought, as we waited to hear the annoying beep from the UPS backup that keeps our computer and Internet going when the power dies. But there was no beep. Dear God! There was no beep!!!

*deep breath*

The power, we realized, had been out for at least four hours by the time we opened our door at 7 p.m. We shrugged and sat to chat for what we were sure would be only a few minutes until the power returned. Hours passed and we realized that it was 7:30 and the power still wasn’t on.

So by the light of our giant flashlight, we (aka Hubby) prepared a rather yummy Bhel Puri for dinner and ate it while giggling at each other when our spoons didn’t quite reach their targets in our now pitch black living room. Without candles to see by, Hubby lucked out and we were unable to play any board games. Darn it!

By the time the lights finally came back on at 8:45 p.m., we were both tired and snuggling, half asleep on the couch. We looked at each other and then at the seemingly over-bright lights and smiled sleepily because we had finally realized what it is they did in olden days before television and electricity – they went to bed early and got a good night’s sleep. Who knew?!

Crazy Ladies

The things that women do to look good never cease to amaze me. Earlier this week, for example, I paid someone to put hot wax on my face and rip hair out of my head in an effort to look like genetics (rather than follicle trickery) gave me two eyebrows.

One time, just for fun, I even tried on the same treatment on my legs. The latter made me wonder why on earth any woman in her right mind would do that on a regular basis. Let alone get her Hoo Ha waxed.

One word for the uninitiated should sum it up: OWWWW!!!!

Mac Help Needed

OK guys, I’m in the midst of a dilemma that only people with more computer knowledge than I have can solve. Specifically, I’m hoping that some of you have some Apple Mac knowledge that you’d be willing to share with your favorite blogging Canuck. Oh yeah, the problem…

To start at the beginning of the mess, I need to start back in Delhi where I was the chairperson for the Association’s newsletter. Many of you, I’m sure, are familiar with the story of how I was thrown into the deep end of that fiasco feet first. Luckily, the Association had an office complete with all the gizmos and programs a girl on a newsletter mission could ever want. It was there that I first discovered the wonders of MS Publisher. As a Mac girl, I had more than a few doubts about this so-called “intuitive” program that I “should be able to teach myself” in a matter of hours.

I’m willing (occasionally) to admit when I’m wrong, and this was one of those times. I really liked Publisher and looked forward to taking the articles I had formatted on my Mac into the office to drop into Publisher. Sadly, I knew there was no Publisher for Mac but thanks to the lovely key to the office I was given, that was never a problem.

But that was then. And this, my friends, is Nairobi.

The Association’s local branch doesn’t have an office, which means that the newsletter I was totally bamboozled into chairing has to be done at home. (Please note that although I was bamboozled and have severe doubts about the Organization’s new leadership, I enjoy having something to do, especially something this creative.)

Remember that newsletter program I loved? And remember how it doesn’t come in Mac-friendly flavors? Ack! So here’s my conundrum Devoted Readers – I desperately need a newsletter program that is as easy to use and intuitive as Publisher which came complete with lots of templates, clip art, and was un-mess-up-able no matter how much I moved, shifted, or resized things.

I looked online and found reviews for everything from Page Maker and Creative Suite to Quark XPress and even something that Adobe put out that may or may not work. But I’m still not sure which one is most like Publisher. Heck after reading pages and pages of user reviews, I’m not even sure which one, Publisher-esque or not, will work best for my needs. I suppose I could try to use Publisher for the PC now that Macs use Intel chips – anyone have any experience with this??

Any suggestions Mac users in Internet land? I’m a newsletter editor without software! Help!

Bravo

I’m not really sure what to say about this article but I think that the title of this blog entry says it all. I think that if more people took a stand against Mugabe and his regime, we would see change there that much sooner.

Australian government scraps Zimbabwe cricket tour
by Robert Smith

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia's government Sunday barred the national cricket team from touring Zimbabwe in September, saying it wanted to avoid giving a propaganda victory to "grubby dictator" President Robert Mugabe.

Prime Minister John Howard, who has repeatedly expressed concerns over the deteriorating situation in the southern African nation, said his government had taken the decision out of Cricket Australia's (CA) hands.

Howard said it was not fair to leave foreign policy matters with sportsmen, preferring that the government accept responsibility. He urged other cricketing nations to follow suit.

"We don't do this lightly, but we are convinced that for the tour to go ahead there would be an enormous propaganda boost for the Mugabe regime," Howard told ABC television.

"The Mugabe regime at present is behaving like the Gestapo towards its political opponents, the living standards of the country are probably the lowest of any in the world and you have an unbelievable rate of inflation.

"I have no doubt that if this tour goes ahead it would be an enormous boost to this grubby dictator and whilst it pains me both as a cricket lover and as somebody who genuinely believes these things should be left to sporting organisations... it leaves me with no alternative."

Zimbabwe reacted angrily, describing the ban as "desperate" and "racist."

"The Australians are mixing politics with sport and the decision shows how desperate the Howard government is to isolate Zimbabwe," junior information minister Bright Matonga told AFP.

"Australia is one of the worst human rights violators in this whole world. Look what they have done to the aborigines and yet they have the audacity to stand up and claim to have the moral authority to condemn us.

"This is also a racist ploy to kill our local cricket since our cricket team is now dominated by black players as we slowly transform cricket from being an elite sport."

The International Cricket Council (ICC) indicated Cricket Australia was likely to escape a potential US two million dollar fine for pulling out because the government had made the decision.

"It is not the role of the ICC to make political judgments. That is for politicians," ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed said in a statement.

"It is unfortunate for Zimbabwes cricketers and supporters, all of whom need exposure to top-quality cricket in order to develop as players and to encourage future generations to take up the sport," he added.

Cricket Australia (CA) chief James Sutherland said his organisation would consider playing Zimbabwe at a neutral venue.

"Given our commitment to help Zimbabwe cricket develop, we will now explore the possibility of playing the three one-day internationals we are due to play against Zimbabwe at a neutral venue outside Zimbabwe," he said.

Howard indicated his government would enforce the ban, if necessary, by stopping the use of the cricketers' passports to leave the country.

"It's pretty obvious to me that the players and the body (CA) wanted to act in conformity with public opinion but in the end, not surprisingly, they wanted a situation where the decision was taken by the government and not the players," Howard said.

"I don't think it's fair to leave a foreign policy decision of this magnitude on the shoulders of young sportsmen.

"It's much better, in the end, for the government to take the rap.

"I hope the rest of the cricketing world understands that and it would be a very good idea if the rest of the cricket world adopted the same attitude towards Mugabe's regime.

"I'm not going to stand around and allow some kind of aid and comfort be given to him (Mugabe) by the greatest cricketing team in the world visiting his country."

Australia captain Ricky Ponting said he was "comfortable" with the move.

"I'm comfortable that the Australian government has taken the responsibility for making international affairs decisions on behalf of the country," he said in a statement.

The Zimbabwe tour has become a major topic of debate in Australia, with a majority of the public and church groups urging a boycott.

Howard, who has repeatedly urged Zimbabwe's African neighbours to do more to oust Mugabe, said it was difficult for countries such as Australia and Britain, viewed as the "old, white west," to interfere.

Take Two

I wanted to give you the world.

But I ran out of wrapping paper half way through.

So I hope you’ll enjoy these flowers instead.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Take it Away

People have asked me what I miss most about Delhi. The people, obviously, are greatly missed. After all, we knew some wickedly cool people in India. And I miss our maid, M, who I’m quite sure was in charge of our home and was just being nice enough to let us live there. We don’t miss the oppressively evil heat that is probably suffocating Delhites right now. Nor do we really miss the dreadful “supermarkets” that turned us into take away dependants.

Which brings me to the one thing I miss most about Delhi: delivery food! As many of you know, back in India Hubby and I ate or had food delivered far more often than we actually bothered cooking for ourselves.

The sheer variety was one reason that our delivery guys knew us by name. We were able to choose from everything from Chinese and pizza to North Indian and South Indian (Yum!) food, all of which would arrive within thirty minutes (plus or minus, mainly plus, twenty minutes) of our call.

Of course, the other factor in our delivery addiction was the cost. We couldn’t cook dinner for two for as little as some of take away meals cost. For example, we discovered the sheer yumminess of South Indian food during the last few months of our stay in Delhi. Our usual order cost us 200 rupees and came with enough food for three (or more).

By the time we departed Delhi, we had a well-defined weekly routine that ensured we would never have to venture into our small, dank kitchen except to fetch proper dishes and cutlery with which to eat.

Nairobi, on the other hand, is a land where we have a kitchen that looks like it came straight out of MTV Cribs. We also have supermarkets and amazing fresh veggie shops with great selections that allow us to cook almost anything we would have created back in the Real World. And to complete the contrast, we enjoy a complete lack of any decent delivery places.

As Queen E can testify, even the most basic of necessities – delivery pizza – is completely devoid of yumminess here. The best we have been able to muster is to have Hubby pick up pizza or Lebanese food on his way home. Ergo, we eat at home more often than not. Which, while incredibly healthful and tasty, gets frustrating when all you really want to do is have your fingers do the walking and some other guy do the cooking.

I’m afraid to tell you that when you come and visit us, you are all going to have to either live with going out to dinner (!!) or worse, deal with our cooking. Sorry but without any decent delivery those are your choices. See you soon?

Perfecting the Art

As we’ve discussed previously, I am a Class A, award-winning procrastinator. A genetic trait passed on by my mother - whom I know would never deny that she is the High Priestess and Empress of said Art. It is a gift I honed and perfected over the course of my life. Rest assured that I never started any science fair project until the week before it was due. Nor did I start writing any major essay until at least the day before I was set to hand it in.

In fact, if truth were to be known, I usually write these incredibly witty and amazing blogs (Agree with me here, dammit!) the day I post them. Unless, of course, I have a great idea and write a blog only to have something more amusing (like jailbird Pairs Hilton) arise forcing me to delay my initial witticisms for a day or so.

Which brings us, of course, to the why I’m writing this blog now. You see, I am now in charge of the Organization’s newsletter. Said publication, as luck would have it, was due to its editor about three hours ago and is supposed to be delivered to the printer first thing tomorrow.

Instead of working on the newsletter by formatting and writing articles, I have been reading a book (but not the one my book club is going to discuss next week, thank you). I have also spent my time watching television, braiding my hair, taking a nap, and then, when things got so desperate that I thought I would actually have to open my newsletter files, I decided to write this blog.

To prove to you that I am one of the world’s greatest procrastinators, I’m even going to put off properly concluding this blog until…

Rufus

I have a teeny tiny craving. It isn’t something that I’m obsessing about or working into every conversation though. Nor is it even something that I lay awake thinking about.

Who am I kidding?! Of course I’m lying!

I have a huge craving. And I am obsessing on the subject and have spent an embarrassingly significant amount of time imagining myself eating plates and plates of it.

I have made mental trips to Guido’s in Champbana and ordered a plate of them, which I then ate all by myself without sharing. Then I dreamed about walking into a Qdoba and skipping right by the burritos section and ordering a big plate of my current food obsession with an extra side of queso in case the guy behind the counter was feeling stingy.

Obession would be mild term, perhaps...

In case you haven’t caught on, much like the coolest naked mole rat ever, Rufus, I have a craving for nachos. A huge, enormous want to fly to the States right now and scarf a grande-sized plate of them type craving. Help?

NACHOS!!!!

Kenyan Updates

Hubby is once again off on a brief jaunt. This time, instead of going abroad, he’s getting the chance to see a little bit of Kenya. While I’m not into staying in No-Tells (and that’s if they luck into somewhere nice), I’m still rather jealous at Hubby’s opportunity to see this lovely country that we currently call home. On the plus side, with Hubby out of town I can post blogs with all sorts of incorrectly placed commas and semi-colons!

Or I could look forward to something slightly less lame like… Um… Well I’ll think of something.

In cool news, I accidentally discovered that Spiderman 3 did open here the same time as the rest of the world. Bad Typ0 for being pessimistic! Plus I now know what Hubby and I will be doing this weekend. Woo and/or hoo! To be completely honest, I told Hubby just the other night that due to the wickedly bad reviews I’d been reading, I wasn’t terribly bummed about not being able to see until it came out on DVD. Oh well, at least I won’t be paying Real World prices for my theatre tickets.

More good news from Typ0-land: shortly after Hubby’s Kenyan adventures, he will be gallivanting off to Ethiopia, India, and maybe even Washington DC prior to our home leave this summer. But more importantly, I too am being granted a temporary furlough pass prior to Home Leave when Hubby and I will Wander off to Dubai for the June long weekend. I for one am desperately looking forward to this chance to get the heck out of Dodge for a few days.

The only down side to our escape plans is that Cheapo… err… Hubby says we can’t fly business class since it’s more than three times the cost of economy. Hmmph! Sounds like a minor detail to me! He; however, has pointed out that the theme of any good getaway in Dubai includes a copious amount of shopping so we would be better served not flying business and putting that money toward five star dining and six star shopping.

By now, of course, I know better than to set much stock in either my short term or Hubby’s long term plans. The best laid plans of mice and men had a lot more going for them than any of those made in the flakey Typ0-Hubby household. Of course since neither men nor mice have been known to enjoy a good shopping excursion I think I’ll stick to my plans and hope for the best. After all they never said anything about the plans of a woman in need of retail therapy.

Quarter-gate

It’s possible that this may be one of the saddest chapters in Canadian/American diplomacy. Of course it is also highly possible that any American in a position to do so will deny that the events that lead up to this post (and to the article below) ever happened. You see, several months ago, the US accused Canada of espionage via pocket change. Oh yeah, you read that right: pocket change. Don’t worry it gets better.

It turns out that this nefarious pocket change was actually just a quarter –a twenty-five cent coin – with a poppy in the middle that the Canadian Mint had put out in honour of Remembrance Day. The idiot Army contractors even put the evil quarter under a high-powered microscope to discover just what new technology the vile Canucks had come up with.

The contractors in question said that their coat pockets had been empty in the morning and then they found the mysterious coins in their pockets later in the day. They described the evil quarters as “anomalous” and “filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology.” For those of you who haven’t seen a quarter or a poppy this is entirely possible – for a two year old hyped up on sugar and Ritalin.

I’ll let you read the article and form your own opinions. Either way, I thought that this one was way too funny not to share.

(I just hope that those contractors didn’t notice the highly suspicious looking local animals during their stays. They could have found out about our trained Kung-Fu Polar Bears or Evil Undercover Spy Puffins that form the vital backbone of Canada’s national defense. Shhhhh!)

'Poppy quarter' behind spy coin alert
By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind a U.S. Defense Department false espionage warning earlier this year about mysterious coin-like objects with radio frequency transmitters, The Associated Press has learned.

The harmless "poppy coin" was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors traveling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP.

The silver-colored 25-cent piece features the red image of a poppy — Canada's flower of remembrance — inlaid over a maple leaf. The unorthodox quarter is identical to the coins pictured and described as suspicious in the contractors' accounts.

The supposed nano-technology actually was a conventional protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the poppy's red color from rubbing off. The mint produced nearly 30 million such quarters in 2004 commemorating Canada's 117,000 war dead.

"It did not appear to be electronic (analog) in nature or have a power source," wrote one U.S. contractor, who discovered the coin in the cup holder of a rental car. "Under high power microscope, it appeared to be complex consisting of several layers of clear, but different material, with a wire like mesh suspended on top."

The confidential accounts led to a sensational warning from the Defense Security Service, an agency of the Defense Department, that mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.

One contractor believed someone had placed two of the quarters in an outer coat pocket after the contractor had emptied the pocket hours earlier. "Coat pockets were empty that morning and I was keeping all of my coins in a plastic bag in my inner coat pocket," the contractor wrote.

But the Defense Department subsequently acknowledged that it could never substantiate the espionage alarm that it had put out and launched the internal review that turned up the true nature of the mysterious coin.

Meanwhile, in Canada, senior intelligence officials expressed annoyance with the American spy-coin warnings as they tried to learn more about the oddball claims.

"That story about Canadians planting coins in the pockets of defense contractors will not go away," Luc Portelance, now deputy director for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, wrote in a January e-mail to a subordinate. "Could someone tell me more? Where do we stand and what's the story on this?"

Others in Canada's spy service also were searching for answers. "We would be very interested in any more detail you may have on the validity of the comment related to the use of Canadian coins in this manner," another intelligence official wrote in an e-mail. "If it is accurate, are they talking industrial or state espionage? If the latter, who?" The identity of the e-mail's recipient was censored.

Intelligence and technology experts were flabbergasted over the warning when it was first publicized earlier this year. The warning suggested that such transmitters could be used surreptitiously to track the movements of people carrying the coins.

"I thought the whole thing was preposterous, to think you could tag an individual with a coin and think they wouldn't give it away or spend it," said H. Keith Melton, a leading intelligence historian.

But Melton said the Army contractors properly reported their suspicions. "You want contractors or any government personnel to report anything suspicious," he said. "You can't have the potential target evaluating whether this was an organized attack or a fluke."

The Defense Security Service disavowed its warning about spy coins after an international furor, but until now it has never disclosed the details behind the embarrassing episode. The U.S. said it never substantiated the contractors' claims and performed an internal review to determine how the false information was included in a 29-page published report about espionage concerns.

The Defense Security Service never examined the suspicious coins, spokeswoman Cindy McGovern said. "We know where we made the mistake," she said. "The information wasn't properly vetted. While these coins aroused suspicion, there ultimately was nothing there."

A numismatist consulted by the AP, Dennis Pike of Canadian Coin & Currency near Toronto, quickly matched a grainy image and physical descriptions of the suspect coins in the contractors' confidential accounts to the 25-cent poppy piece.

"It's not uncommon at all," Pike said. He added that the coin's protective coating glows peculiarly under ultraviolet light. "That may have been a little bit suspicious," he said.

Some of the U.S. documents the AP obtained were classified "Secret/Noforn," meaning they were never supposed to be viewed by foreigners, even America's closest allies. The government censored parts of the files, citing national security reasons, before turning over copies under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

Nothing in the documents — except the reference to nanotechnology — explained how the contractors' accounts evolved into a full-blown warning about spy coins with radio frequency transmitters. Many passages were censored, including the names of contractors and details about where they worked and their projects.

But there were indications the accounts should have been taken lightly. Next to one blacked-out sentence was this warning: "This has not been confirmed as of yet."

The Canadian intelligence documents, which also were censored, were turned over to the AP for $5 under that country's Access to Information Act. Canada cited rules for protecting against subversive or hostile activities to explain why it censored the papers.