(A tour with Maxi: VBZ and Radio 24 are helping to raise funds for the new elephant park in the Zoo. Come for a tour around the city in a Tram pulled by Maxi, one of the Zoo’s elephants. Departures at Bellevue, 1st of April 2009, 1-2pm.)

Does Yarra Trams ever do anything like that? huh? huh?

(PS. if you’re worried about animal cruelty, or whether a several-ton elephant could actually pull a several-ton tram, check the date on the sign.)

For your amusement, here are the complete, unabridged, faithfully copied instructions for The Shin Woo Digital Pedometer.

Digital Pedometer Step Counter
The efficiency of 10thousand pace checker
It takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes to walk 10 thousand steps and the distance is approximately 7km. Of course, it is not easy to walk for about 1 and a half hour a day. So, if you walk for average 30 minutes more than usual, you will walk nearly 10 thousand steps a day including the steps that required for a daily activity. To help for understanding, it is as belows;

A. Daily caloric intake from foods is 2,500~3,000Kcalorie.
B. Metabolic consuming calory is approximates 1,500Kcalorie.
C. For the remaining 1,500Kcal, you would consume by exercise.
D. In the case of salaried man, intake energy is remains 300Kcal compares to consume energy of daily life.
* If you walk 10,000 steps, can consume 30 calories. The basis is as following. : There is the person who is 65kgs.
- The person want to consume 1 calorie, he has to walk 30 steps.
- General people’s step is 65cm, And if he walk 100 steps per minute, he can walk 3.9km/h. So, If he walk 90 minutes, he can consume 30 calories. But, women can consume 90% of men’s consumptive calories.

The Using Method
1. Please put it on the waist belt.
2. Push the bottom of ‘CLEAR’ which is left side of product. It is going to set up ‘00000′ after pushing the bottom.
3. If you want to change a unit, just push the MODE bottom.
4. You can check your consumptive calorie and km of Miles (distance) per volume of exercise if you push the MODE bottom.

Caution
1. Do not drop it, or give a shock.
2. Do not make to wet or soak by water.
3. Please put it on correcitly when you put it on a belt, (reference the picture)

The method of battery exchange
1. Open the cover and separate it.
2. Push out the battery by any pointed thing and than exchange it.

Well, that clears that up.

On the weekend in London I learnt that the punctuation symbol “?” has a pronunciation: “isn’t it”. As in, “Who’s going to Cardiff, isn’t it.”

This time in photos:

At the Opera house

The new and the old Macbooks

Snow in Zürich

This blog was originally intended as a way to keep distant friends and family informed of the goings-on in my life, in acknowledgement of the fact that regular email updates were unlikely to happen. Since then, it has somewhat strayed from this intent, partly because I have simply written about anything and everything that came to mind, but mostly because I have simply not written.

In an attempt to remedy this situation, here is a list of things I have done recently:

• bought a folding bicycle and started riding to work
• started using the gym at work
• bought a guitar and taught myself 4 or 5 chords, and on a good day even to play different chords consecutively
• bought a cheap display-less GPS device, and started geotagging my photos
• upgraded the iPhone to firmware 2.0 and lost all my nice applications (but got different ones in return, so I’m not entirely unhappy)
• started swing dancing again
• travelled to Spain with S (Barcelona, Costa Brava)
• put flower and herb pots on the balcony, and almost killed (some of) them by going to Spain for a week
• put a barbecue on the balcony, and used it exactly once – it’s far too big for just one person
• read a book about the interesting and complicated relationship between the Swiss and the Germans (a psychoanalyst’s wet dream)
• started classes to learn Swiss German (against the advice of the aforementioned book)
• started (but not finished) filling out a Swiss tax declaration
• started (but not finished) filling out an Australian tax return.

I’ve often noticed that you can get a good handle on the difference in mentality between Melbourne and Sydney by checking the “Most viewed articles” box on www.theage.com.au, and comparing the most read articles in the SMH and the Age. Since I first observed this, they’ve kindly added the brisbanetimes and WAtoday to this box, allowing my daily Zeitgeist to cover most of Australia’s population.

Of course, anything involving sex, celebrities and crime scores well on all papers. But most days, you can see a pattern where Sydney readers care more about sensationalist superficial stuff than Melbourne readers, and Brisbane readers invariably love reading about sex. (The WAtoday was added too recently for me to form accurate prejudices.) But today’s excerpt was particularly revealing:

Martin: Oh look, there’s the Euro fanzone, let’s go inside and see what they’ve done with all that prime real estate.
Fat-Necked Security Guard: No.
Martin: Huh?
FNSG: Your camera. Too big. (Security guards talk in short sentences.)
M: What??
FNSG: Too big. Too professional.
M: Please tell me you’re joking.
Another FNSG (they also hunt in packs): Do you have ID?
M: You mean, my passport?
AFNSG: No, your media pass.
M: *shrugs and walks away* fine, I wasn’t likely to drink any of your “official beer” anyway (sale of all other brands is banned), but I guess if you won’t let me, then the issue is closed. There’s plenty of other places in town to watch the game with just as good an atmosphere, and without a “sponsors only” dress code, a ban on good beer and arbitrary cameras, and whatever else the power-hungry UEFA demands next.

(actually, I didn’t say that last bit, I only thought it. It was still good though.)

Today’s evidence:

• The front page of the Palo Alto Mercury News praises the AMGEN Tour of California bicycle race as having (and I quote) “more cowbell”.
• At the next table during dinner, a young man entertains his date with a detailed explanation of how he has his work mobile and home phone set up to forward calls to each other so that he only has to check one voicemail box. And then moves on to a explanation of Mean Time Before Failure, and how hard drives work. And she seems to be enjoying it.
• The local cafe has a list behind the counter, listing Things That Do Not Go In The Bin, which includes, as well as “recyclable plastics” and “drinking straws”, not only Chuck Norris but also Your Mom.

I feel like I have left the real world and am now living inside The Internet.

(it’s kinda cool.)

Yup, I’m back in Silicon Valley, for a slightly longer stay this time (4 weeks). Wasn’t so long ago that I was here last, but I’m still stunned by how bizarre it is. Got asked today by a kid on the street if I had MySpace. WTF?? (He liked my hat.) And this morning in the SF Muni I ran into a guy I had last met when I was visiting a uni in Germany about a PhD position. (Turns out he works in Palo Alto now.) Yup, this place sure is crazy.

Meanwhile, another sunny day in San Francisco, top of 19 degrees. I like spring.