At least one of my neighbors appears to like Bia Dai Viet.

Aaarrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhh!  I am drowning in grading!  (Mostly because of my own laziness/slackness, of course, but I have a ton of grading to do right now and even more coming.)

It’s Sunday morning here now – about 9:38am.  I just woke up and am having some coffee and checking the football scores from yesterday’s games.  More on that in a second.  Thao is off in District 7 participating with her colleagues from her hotel in the Terry Fox 5K run.  She assures me that she is walking, not running.  I assured her that I would be sitting on my ass drinking coffee and playing around on the internet, not walking or running.  (Seriously, I injured the plantar tendon (I think it’s a tendon – anyway, whatever it is, I injured it) in my left foot a couple of weeks ago and have been trying to stay off of it as much as possible to let it get better.  Otherwise I would have been walking/running/hobbling in the 5K too.  And I can say with pride and conviction that whatever I would have been doing in it, I would have been doing it bowleggedly!  Anyway, she got up at 5:45am to head off for that.  She was trying to show me how cute she was in her outfit for the run, but I wasn’t exactly perky at 5:45am.

We went out to a nice dinner last night at a cafe we’d never been to before.  As is sometimes the case here, we were the only customers inside the place.  There were a couple of tables of people sitting outside, but it was on a busy street and noisy so we ate inside.  We had very good service!  I actually had a very good salad – kind of what I think you call a Waldorf salad with walnuts and apples and blue cheese.  Very good.  Before dinner we had gone to get a massage.  We have found a place – the place I’ve mentioned before – near my house that has very good massages for very cheap.  We each got a one-hour massage and the total bill for both of us was 340,000 dong, and that includes tips totalling 100,000 dong.  So that’s about $18 for two hour-long massages, including tips.  Not bad.  I am sore today – I always tell the masseuses that I like it strong and they outdo themselves trying to hurt me, I think.  Sometimes it does hurt, but I grin and bear it.  And then the next day I am always sore.  I think it is good for me, though.  Loosens me up and is certainly relaxing.

Sharla and her friends, Jennifer and Beth, left on Thursday morning to fly to Hong Kong, and then back to the U.S. on Saturday.  They finally got back to Saigon (after the visa incident in Cambodia) on Wednesday afternoon at about 3:30pm.  I picked them up at the airport and got them checked into their hotel, and then we went out to “see Saigon” – which ended up being sitting in restaurants eating and drinking beer and coffee.  We kind of got on a roll, and then it got dark.  So they really ended up seeing very little of Saigon.  Thao met us for dinner, as did my friend Tim.  We had a fun night and I was sorry to see them go – and sorry that I saw so little of them while they were actually in Vietnam.

Sharla was kind enough to bring “two” books over here for me.  One was Wittgenstein’s Mistress by David Markson, which I’ve just finished reading and frankly wouldn’t recommend.  I read it because my favorite author, David Foster Wallace, whom I’ve mentioned on this blog before (R.I.P.), said it was one of the most important books of modern fiction, etc., etc.  Well, I read it and although it was interesting, I didn’t really understand the point of it.  I think it was over my head.  Then I went and read the detailed review of the book that DFW himself had written back in about 1990 after the book came out – and it was even more over my head.  So I don’t know what DFW – or Markson – got out of it, because I don’t really understand it, but I wouldn’t recommend it.  Unless you fancy yourself super smart and able to parse impossible books.

Sharla also brought me the three-volume set 2666 by Roberto Bolano, which I have read so many good things about.  I have started reading the first volume, but haven’t gotten very far into it yet, although it seems to be well-written and interesting.  I am still working on the biography of Mao Zedong, which is very good.  I think I’m a little over 400 pages in and it’s about 700 and something pages long.  I have been reading more lately for some reason, and I’m enjoying it.

I’m still downloading the entire set of “Dick’s Picks” of live Grateful Dead music.  Dick was, I think, the Dead’s soundboard guy for years and years, so if anyone knows what the best live versions of certain songs are, it would be him.  Anyway, someone has helpfully put the entire Dick’s Picks catalog on Bitorrent – all 17 gigabytes of it – and I’ve been in the process of downloading it for about ten days now.  About 74% done.  Should be a few more days then I’ll have it.  Can’t wait.

Thao just walked back in the door (9:54am), so I am going to take a break and go hang out with her for a while.  More later!

I’m back.  Thao is in the shower now.  She had a fun time at the 5K.

Okay, what else.  Ole Miss beat Miss. State 45-0 in the “Egg Bowl” this year, so that’s good.  And Miss. State’s coach, Sylvester Croom, “resigned” afterward.  Ole Miss went 8-4 for the season and won their last five games.  They are projected to play in the Cotton Bowl or Capital One Bowl.  Both of those are New Year’s Day bowls – so a big step from last year’s 3-9 record and, of course, no bowl game.  GA Tech beat UGA 45-42.  I didn’t see it but it had to be a wild one.  What a huge first season coach Paul Johnson had had at GA Tech.  The Dawgs were, sadly, a bit overrated this year as they suffered crushing losses to Alabama and Florida, and then the embarrassment of being beaten at home by their archrival GA Tech.  And now it looks like their quarterback, Matthew Stafford, and star running back, Knowshon Moreno, will likely be going pro.  Oh well.  I’m sure they have plenty of talent stacked up behind them.

I bought my first two paid (not free) applications from the Apple App Store.  I bought a camera utility called Camera Bag ($0.99) that lets you tweak photos you take with the iPhone camera with various effects.  I really like the “Lomo” effect that I used in the photo of Thao smiling in the post below.  I also bought the Ocarina app that lets you play your iPhone like a recorder by blowing into the mic and using your fingers to play it like a recorder, or maybe even like an ocarina.

Other than the grading, school is going well.  I’m enjoying teaching again, and every semester I do it, I know the material better and think I cover things a little bit better.

Oh, I ended up not going to the Thanksgiving buffet at the hotel here.  I ate and drank so much Wednesday night with Sharla, et al., that I just didn’t feel like doing it again the next evening.  So I went to the gym instead.  Of course I haven’t been back since, and that was Thursday.  Still having trouble getting motivated to have a regular workout schedule like before.  Not really sure what’s up with that.

I can’t believe it’s already December tomorrow.  This year has really flown by.  Thao just told me that we go to Bali in only three more weeks.  We’ve started doing some research about different things to do there, etc., and are really looking forward to it.

Okay, that’s about all I can bore you with right now.  I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving and a nice long weekend.

I’m out.

That’s my friend Katie and her two boys, Indo Seven (grimacing) and Suwannee Moss (looking sweet)!  I am not sure why they’re both Robin with no Batman.  Maybe they couldn’t agree on who got to be Batman so Katie and Travis (Yo!  SBT!  What up?!?) made them both be Robin.  Or maybe some of their friends had the Batman thing covered already.  Anyway, great photo and Katie has to be in the running for the coolest mom ever!

Meanwhile, here in Vietnam:  My friend Sharla and her friends Beth and Jennifer are supposedly coming back to Vietnam today at 2:40pm.  I’m meeting them at the airport and we’ll get them all checked into their hotel, etc., before heading out and about in HCMC.  I’m bummed that their return to Vietnam was delayed by a day due to their visa issue.  Means I’ll see them a lot less than I thought/hoped.  Oh well, at least they weren’t sent back to Korea like some people I know have been.

We’ll cruise around HCMC a little bit and go out to dinner with Thao tonight.  They are supposed to fly out to Hong Kong tomorrow – and then back to the U.S.  I wish they could extend their trip and stay a couple of days longer, but it’s unlikely.

[Update #2:  Damn!  How did I forget to mention that Ole Miss beat LSU on Saturday to go to a record of 7-4 for the season with one regular season game left to play?!?  If they can beat Mississippi State (boo!) this weekend, they'll be 8-4 and more than likely playing in the Cotton Bowl on New Year's Day!  Not bad for a team that hasn't won more than 3 games in any of the last 3 seasons.  7-4 is already better than I expected them to be - so it's all just gravy at this point.  Also, they're the only team to beat Florida this year - and I expect Florida to be the eventual national champion.  I think Florida will beat Alabama for the SEC Championship, and the national championship will likely be between Florida and Texas (although I think Florida and Oklahoma are playing the best football of anyone in the country right now, Texas beat Oklahoma earlier in the season and the way the Big 12 and BCS systems work it seems most likely that Texas will play Missouri for the Big 12 Championship and, if they win that, will play for the National Championship.  See how convoluted this gets?  Here's an idea:  Let's just have a playoff like every other sport on the planet.  Go Rebels!]

[Update:  I forgot to mention that Friday afternoon I did go and meet with the community service coordinator at that other school here in town.  She was very helpful, and it looks like there will be some good opportunities for us to work together.  Now I've got to gauge student interest at my school and hopefully the first step will be to organize a student club that can volunteer to help out that other school with its volunteer projects once or twice a month. Then after a while that will hopefully lead to us organizing some projects on our own.  Should be good.]

It’s Monday night – Monday is like my Sunday since I work Saturdays and then have Sunday and Monday off.  I did go to work today though – I have a ton of grading to do.  I finished grading my Industry Projects class’ first assignments Sunday and today.  I still have my Business Enterprise I (business plan development) first assignments and ComLaw midterms to grade.  So the next week will be busy grading.  I will be glad when it’s over!  I also worked Sunday and Monday this week because I want to take most of Wednesday off.

My friend Sharla and two of her friends are here.  They came in last Thursday night and I picked them up at the airport at about 10:20pm.  After that, we got them checked into their hotel.  They weren’t ready to go to bed, so we took a cab into the city and went to the Rex Hotel rooftop for some traditional post-arrival in Vietnam beers.  But much to our – or at least my – chagrin, the guy at the Rex Hotel rooftop bar told us that they were closing in 30 minutes.  What?!?  The one non-”club” place I knew of that was open all night and now it closes at 12:30 or 1:00 or something?  Whatever time it was.  We had two rounds of beers there – then got another cab and asked him where we could go.  He knew of a restaurant that was open all night long – called Din Ky – so we went there.  It was fine.  In addition to another couple rounds of beers, the girls were hungry so they ordered a bunch of food – including some barbecued squid that was delicious.

Anyway, we hung out for a while and I got home at 3:00am.  And I had to get up at 6:00am.  Let me say this:  3 hours of sleep doesn’t do it for me anymore.  I was a wreck all day Friday.  I came home early Friday afternoon and slept for about 3 hours.  Then I also went to bed early – about 9:30pm I think.

Sharla and her two friends also had to get up early that next morning – if they ever even went to sleep – as they had a 7:00am flight to Phu Quoc Island.  Then yesterday (Sunday), they were flying back from Phu Quoc to the mainland and making their way up through the Mekong Delta and back to Saigon.  Spent last night in Can Tho, I believe.

They came back to Saigon today but I didn’t see them as they were pretty much just getting on another flight over to Siem Reap, Cambodia to see Angkor Wat tomorrow.

They will finally be back in Saigon tomorrow night (Tuesday night), and I’m picking them up at the airport and then we’ll go out to eat, etc.  They’re going to come watch me teach my law class Wednesday morning (they’re all 3 lawyers so it won’t be as boring for them as it might be for some), and then we’ll just hang out all day Wednesday as they leave Thursday morning for Hong Kong and then back to the U.S.

Anyway, other than that, not much going on here.  Did a little exercise over the weekend.  Went out to dinner with Thao a couple of times, etc.  Nothing major.

Today, Monday, I went in and finished up the Industry Projects grading then went to the gym.  I’ve pulled the plantar muscle in my left foot and it hurts like hell, so I’m kind of limited.  Today I just walked on the treadmill for an hour.  Oh well, better than nothing.

That’s all I got.

Lately this blog has turned into nothing so much as a place for me to talk about technology that I think is cool, politics (before and after my self-imposed moratorium), and other random stuff.  Isn’t it supposed to be about living in Vietnam?  Do I even still live in Vietnam?

Yes, I’m still here.  I don’t really have a good excuse as to why I haven’t been posting as many posts and photos of stuff over here.  I guess the main reason is, as I’ve said before, my life has gotten pretty stable and uneventful over here.  I get up and go to work in the morning every day just like when I was back in the U.S.  I’m not saying I don’t enjoy it – and I’m not saying it’s still not incredibly interesting – but it’s kind of become the norm for me over the past year and four months, so I don’t have that wide-eyed view of things that previously led me to take photos of my lunch every day, etc.

So what is going on?

Well, today was Teacher’s Day here in Vietnam.  It sounds corny, but it’s actually a big day as they really value/respect teachers.  They had a very nice ceremony at the school today and I got some nice gifts, cards, and flowers.

Tonight I am going to the airport to pick up my good friend Sharla and two of her friends.  I’m basically just going to pick them up at the airport and get them settled into their hotel room here in Saigon because they don’t get in until 10:20pm (on the same flight that James and Erin were on from Seoul before they were briefly diverted back to Seoul – I’ve already told Sharla that flight is cursed!) and they fly out around 7:30am tomorrow morning to head down to Phu Quoc Island.  Unfortunately I can’t go with them because we have our first midterm in Commercial Law this Saturday, and I bailed on it last semester to go to Phu Quoc with James and Erin – funny that both Phu Quoc trips my friends have taken have occurred on exactly the same weekend – the end of week 5 – in my semesters.  Anyway, after Phu Quoc Sharla and co. are off to the Mekong Delta and Cambodia.  I won’t see them again until Thursday night when they will return to Saigon and spend a couple of nights here before flying out to Hong Kong on Saturday.

What else, what else . . . I’ve been pretty busy with school because of this Commercial Law midterm this Saturday and some assignments in my other classes that are also coming due about now.  I’ll be glad when this week is over with.

My Vietnamese classes are still going well – getting better and better, I think.  My teacher liked that essay I wrote (and yes, Melissa, I was sucking up) and now tells me I have to write an essay every week.  This week I wrote one about a normal day in my life here in Vietnam.  Next week it’s “hobbies, interests, wishes, and plans.”

Oh, one thing I’m very excited about!  I’ve mentioned on this blog before that I’ve volunteered at a shelter for homeless children here a few times.  But it hasn’t really been structured and I haven’t done as much of it as I intended/should have.  So tomorrow I have set up a meeting with a woman who is the community outreach coordinator for another school here in town.  I want to learn from her as much as I can about their program, what they do, what causes they help out, how they are funded, etc.  (For example, I know they volunteer time at several orphanages, the homeless shelter, and the cancer hospital, but I’m not sure what else or exactly what they do for those causes.)

After our meeting, I’m going to do one of three things:  (1) Best-case scenario, I’m going to try to get our school to start a similar community outreach coordinator position – to be filled, of course, by me.  I would propose reducing my teaching load by half and doing the community outreach stuff 50% of my time; (2) mid-range scenario, I’m going to start a student/staff club at the school that is dedicated to community service, and organize at least monthly volunteer days or fundraisers, etc.; or (3) worst-case scenario, if I can’t get either of the above done, I am at least going to start volunteering my time to more causes through the program run by the woman I’m meeting with tomorrow.

The bottom line is I spend way too much of my time here playing Xbox, watching movies, reading, taking naps, etc.  This country has been very good to me over the last 16 months, and there are a lot of people who are truly in need – the least I can do is get off of my ass and pitch in a little bit.  I’ll keep you posted on what develops.

I hope everyone is doing well!

I know you people are probably sick of hearing me talk about Google – hell, I’m sick of talking about Google – but the company continues to amaze me.  This is going to sound really stupid, but sometimes it’s like they read my mind.  I remember back in 2004 trying to find an old email in either Outlook at work or on my old Yahoo account and thinking “Google needs to come out with Google search for email.”  Then shortly thereafter they announced Gmail.  Voila.  (I may have mentioned it before, but I actually paid $20 on Ebay to buy an early invitation to Gmail so that I could secure the address I wanted.)

Anyway, since then they’ve improved Gmail tremendously with the addition of built-in chat and, most-recently, built-in videochat and audio calls – all right from Gmail.  They also completely redesigned Gmail’s programming to make it considerably faster, increased the available storage (which is essentially infinite as it continues to grow every day), and added too many other features to mention each of them.

Just this week – like two days ago – I was thinking “Man, I love me some Gmail, but I am so sick of this pale, sickly light blue color scheme.  I’m just tired of looking at it.  I wish Google would let me change Gmail’s color scheme.”  (And I’m aware that there are Greasemonkey and Stylish extensions for Firefox that allow you to change the color scheme – I’ve tried them and they seemed like they really slowed Gmail down so I always switched back for the sake of speed.)

So I woke up this morning and saw that Gmail is in the process of rolling out themes for Gmail!  Woo-hoo!  I don’t have them yet – they’re rolling them out to all Gmail users over the next couple of days – but some of you may already have them.  There should be a new Themes category in your Settings menu when you have them.

Some of them are kind of stupid and frivolous – like the Ninja theme, etc. – but a couple of them look pretty sharp and a lot more businesslike and easier on the eyes than the old default theme.  I like this one called Shiny:

And here’s a shot of a bunch of them – maybe all of them for now, not sure:

The second theme in the top row also looks like it may have promise – the dark navy and orange one.  I can’t wait to get these so I can check them out!

Okay, enough Google.  For now.  I wonder what they’ll announce tomorrow?

(Oh, today they also announced that they’re shuttering their short-lived virtual world experiment, Lively.  Never heard of it?  There you go.)

[UPDATE:  No, I do not own any stock in Google.  Why not I have no idea.]

If you have an iPhone, you should go to the Apple App Store and download the new, free Google Mobile App that I posted about below.  It is awesome! 

Once you click on the application, you just hold the phone up to your ear and when the accelerometer in the phone detects that it’s at your ear, it makes a noise to let you know it’s ready – which is pretty much instantaneous – and you say whatever it is that you want to search for.  Then when you stop talking or remove the phone from your ear, it makes a different noise to let you know that it’s now searching, and then your search results pop up. 

I tried a bunch of different searches, ranging from simple things like “Vietnam” to what I imagined would be difficult things to understand like “Demopolis, Alabama.”  It nailed them all.  I’m not saying it’s going to be 100%, but it’s pretty damn impressive. 

I hope this means that Google is really making some progress on voice recognition, because I’ve thought for a long time that the lack of a viable voice recognition system is the main thing holding us back from huge developments in computing devices and interfaces.  If anyone can do it, Google probably can.  (Does that last sentence even make sense?  Is that like saying “I guarantee you that I can probably do it.”?)  Anyway, get the app.  It’s great!

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=665847

Below is the complete
email conversation that Adelaide man David Thorne claims he had with a
utility company chasing payment of an overdue bill.

From: Jane Gilles
Date: Wednesday 8 Oct 2008 12.19pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Overdue account

Dear David,
Our records indicate that your account is overdue by the amount of
$233.95. If you have already made this payment please contact us within
the next 7 days to confirm payment has been applied to your account and
is no longer outstanding.

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles

From: David Thorne
Date: Wednesday 8 Oct 2008 12.37pm
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Overdue account

Dear Jane,
I do not have any money so am sending you this drawing I did of a
spider instead. I value the drawing at $233.95 so trust that this
settles the matter.

Regards, David.

From: Jane Gilles
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 10.07am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Overdue account

Dear David,
Thankyou for contacting us. Unfortunately we are unable to accept
drawings as payment and your account remains in arrears of $233.95.
Please contact us within the next 7 days to confirm payment has been
applied to your account and is no longer outstanding.

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles

From: David Thorne
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 10.32am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Overdue account

Dear Jane,
Can I have my drawing of a spider back then please.

Regards, David.

From: Jane Gilles
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 11.42am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Overdue account

Dear David,
You emailed the drawing to me. Do you want me to email it back to you?

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles

From: David Thorne
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 11.56am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Overdue account

Dear Jane,

Yes please.

Regards, David.

From: Jane Gilles
Date: Thursday 9 Oct 2008 12.14pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Overdue account

Attached

From: David Thorne
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 09.22am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Whose spider is that?

Dear Jane,
Are you sure this drawing of a spider is the one I sent you? This
spider only has seven legs and I do not feel I would have made such an
elementary mistake when I drew it.

Regards, David.

From: Jane Gilles
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 11.03am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Whose spider is that?

Dear David,
Yes it is the same drawing. I copied and pasted it from the email you
sent me on the 8th. David your account is still overdue by the amount
of $233.95. Please make this payment as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles

From: David Thorne
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 11.05am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Automated Out of Office Response

Thankyou for contacting me. I am currently away on leave, traveling through time and will be returning last week.

Regards, David.

From: David Thorne
Date: Friday 10 Oct 2008 11.08am
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

Hello, I am back and have read through your emails and accept that
despite missing a leg, that drawing of a spider may indeed be the one I
sent you. I realise with hindsight that it is possible you rejected the
drawing of a spider due to this obvious limb ommission but did not
point it out in an effort to avoid hurting my feelings. As such, I am
sending you a revised drawing with the correct number of legs as full
payment for any amount outstanding. I trust this will bring the matter
to a conclusion.

Regards, David.

From: Jane Gilles
Date: Monday 13 Oct 2008 2.51pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

Dear David,
As I have stated, we do not accept drawings in lei of money for
accounts outstanding. We accept cheque, bank cheque, money order or
cash. Please make a payment this week to avoid incurring any additional
fees.

Yours sincerely, Jane Gilles

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 13 Oct 2008 3.17pm
To: Jane Gilles
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

I understand and will definately make a payment this week if I
remember. As you have not accepted my second drawing as payment, please
return the drawing to me as soon as possible. It was silly of me to
assume I could provide you with something of completely no value
whatsoever, waste your time and then attach such a large amount to it.

Regards, David.

From: Jane Gilles
Date: Tuesday 14 Oct 2008 11.18am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Whose spider is that?

Attached