Aloha, I have returned from England. My body is 5 pounds heavier, and my wallet is a couple-hundred pounds lighter.

I had several fun and interesting meetups with various blogger-friends during the 2 weeks I was there. First off, I enjoyed a traditional Sunday roast in South London near the Borough Market with The Cartoonist and Konstantin. We eschewed recording a podcast this time due to the extreme noise levels in the pub.

The following Tuesday, I joined a whole host of London Tiki-lebrities at Sugar Cane in Clapham Junction: Tiki Chris, Tiki Racer, Trader Jim, Cheekytiki, Sian the Exotic Tramp, and Will Kane. The drinks were great, and Sugar Cane's manager, Justin, comped us several platefuls of excellent puu-puus. Trader Jim lavished both issues of his Tiki fanzine, Pocketiki, upon me, and Tikiracer gave me a print of his original artwork. Cheers, fellas! Tiki Chris also filmed us individually introducing ourselves and our websites, which you can view at his 'blog [Link]

Finally, I met up with Tiki Chris and Trader Jim again at the London Trader Vic's last Thursday for a few Navy Grogs and Mai Tais. Chris had a wee hangover from the previous evening, so he nursed it quietly while Jim and I did most of the talking. James is an old punk like me, so we had a lot in common. It's funny how most punks seemed to migrate to Exotica over the years. We called it quits around 9:30pm and managed to escape with a bill just slightly over £100; it would've been less, but I just couldn't bear to part with this cool Vic's free Mai Tai coupon! I'm going to frame it and hang it over the bar.

That's all the news that's fit to print about this trip. I'm off to the basement now to start running off my extra poundage on the treadmill.

Aloha,

Mr. BH

Posted by MrBaliHai at 7:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I'm off to the Peoples Paradise of the United Kingdom for the next 2 weeks, and will only have Internet access from work, as I refuse to pay the extortionate fees that my hotel charges for daily connectivity (£25/day!). Consequently, blogging will likely be non-existent until I return.

You kids stay out of my tiki bar and don't throw any wild parties while I'm gone. I've counted all the rum bottles, and if anything's missing when I get back, there'll be hell to pay!

Posted by MrBaliHai at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Back in 1966, I flew Aeroflot between Moscow and Leningrad with my parents, and it was indeed a most memorable, if not exactly enjoyable, experience: we suffered through terrifying turbulence that caused the borscht to slop out of our bowls and into our laps, and ugly Babushka stewardesses covered with hairy moles, who looked like wicked witches straight out of fairy tales (except for their pillbox hats and white gloves). And yes, they really did have wooden tables like those shown in the ad.

[Link: John-C's Flickr Set][via Schadenfreudian Therapy]
[Link: Moscow Postcards: 1966]

Posted by MrBaliHai at 8:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

To my surprise and disgust, I was informed by the ticket agent that in addition to those miles, I would also be required to cough up an additional $160, thanks to a huge increase in the UK Air Passenger Tax, which took effect last February; this is essentially a "Carbon Sin Tax", which is predicated on the questionable assumption that since I'm taking up more room in biz class, I should be penalized for creating more greenhouse gases.

Now I'm no "Global Warming Denier", as some of the more quasi-religious environmentalists I know like to put it, and if given the option to voluntarily purchase some sort of offset, such as the ones various airlines like Quantas offer on their website, I'd happily contribute, but this tax really fries my crumb because it completely ignores the reality that sending me to the UK to teach allows my 9 British students to avoid having to travel to the US in order to take my class, so instead of making an oversized contribution to climate change, I'm actually helping to reduce it!

Gordon, let me share a little secret with you: taxes like this will only hurt the UK in the long run. Businesses are going to get sick of your stealthy pickpocketing and tell you to go get stuffed while they transfer their high-paying jobs to countries like China and India that don't give a rat's ass about carbon emissions. As a matter of fact, tomorrow I'm going to be in a meeting, suggesting to my company that we move our future training classes to the Continent.

It's bad enough that I have to put up with shitty, 3rd-world airports like Gatwick, overpriced British food, and cities full of drunken, belligerent yobs. You should pay me to fly to your crappy little island.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 6:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

You can view my meagre selection of trip photos over on Flickr. I'll be posting more when I awaken further.

[Link: Melbourne Flickr Set]

Posted by MrBaliHai at 2:45 PM | Permalink

G'day Gooftonians,

I'm relaxing in my hotel room after a long, hot morning of flea marketing around Melbourne. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything besides a souvenir outrigger canoe from Tonga that was far too large to fit in my suitcase, but I still had fun looking. I think I'll head over to Der Raum later this evening for a cocktail or two before dinner. Tomorrow, I start working for a living again.

I wandered all over the city on foot and via tram yesterday. I visited Luna Park (pictured above) at St. Kilda's Beach, then had a nice squid and sausage salad on rocket at a cafe along the Esplanade, I also walked around the Docklands area. In downtown Melbourne, I checked out the Shag prints at Outré Gallery, and dug through the piles of pop-cultural detritus at Minotaur.

Melbourne is a quirky town. A little ragged around the edges, with a vibe that I can only describe as "hippie-industrial," but it's got a peculiar charm that makes it interesting enough to command my attention. I'm sort of regretting not hiring a car so I can venture a bit further afield than the end of the tram line, but with the crowds of tourists on summer holiday jamming up the local highways, it's probably just as well I'm sans wheels.

Unfortunately, I seem to have packed the wrong USB cable for my digital camera, and a replacement would set me back $30, so you'll just have to wait until next weekend to see my photos. Believe me, you're not missing out on too much.

So until then, I give you all the Australian salute (brushes away flies from face)

Posted by MrBaliHai at 7:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I've been very busy getting a bunch of work projects finished off before I leave for Australia tomorrow morning.

To get there, I'll be undertaking a grueling marathon of flights from Minneapolis to L.A., then on to Auckland, New Zealand, finally arriving in Melbourne sometime on Thursday morning. Altogether, I'm looking at around 20 hours of flying with another 12 hours of layovers. Here's hoping I don't wind up with deep-vein thrombosis from all that sitting around in in cattle class and uncomfortable airport lounges.

I've never been to Melbourne before, and it looks like a fun town, so I should be able to locate some interesting things to do while I'm there. As an added bonus, it's midsummer in the Antipodean hemisphere and Melbourne is currently cooking at around 90 degrees Fahrenheit, which sounds pretty damn good compared to the schmuddel wetter we're currently experiencing here in Wisconsin.

I was briefly very excited to find out that there's an actual Tiki bar in Melbourne, and even more psyched to discover that it was only about a mile from my hotel. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm was short-lived after e-mailing the proprietor, a very nice chap named Kevin Clark, who dashed my hopes by telling me that they'll be closed for renovations during my visit. Bugger.

In other alcohol-related news, I'll be contributing to a new 'blog called Cocktailians, along with a couple of other crotchety old Metafilterians, Vidiot and Chico Bangs. I had hoped to make my first entry something about Polynesian Pop Down Under, but I guess I'll have to drink my way through to a different topic.

Bon Voy-a-gee, as the Wabbit would say.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 5:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Looks like I'll be doing a hell of a lot of travel over the next 4-5 months. Here's a breakdown of my itinerary:

London: 09.16-09.29
Sunnyvale, CA: 10.22-10.26 and 12.03-12.07
Melbourne, Australia: 01.07-01.19

It's been more than 7 years since my last trip to Australia, and this'll be my first trip to Melbourne, so I'm pretty excited. I'm also relieved that I don't have to spend another 2 weeks gambling with my health in Kuala Lumpur.

As always, you can follow my travels on my Indy Junior Flash Mapping Module.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 7:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Here's a totally candid shot from our dinner at Piratz Tavern last week. L-R: the Lovely Christy, Cap'n Hai (with one ear extended, listening for incoming cannonballs), Long Rupe Silver, Cutlass Vern, and Johnny Doubloon (who needs to update his friggin' 'blog with a Hot Rod Hula Hop report awready). Photo by the fabulous Ms. Doubloon.

The A/C was out that night, so the place was muggier than Blackbeard's nether regions, but the grog was strong, and the food was good. Afterwards, I enjoyed an excellent Rum Barrel back at Rupe and Christy's pad.

Posted by MrBaliHai at 5:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I'm off to the Washington D.C. area for a week. While there, I plan to get together with some of my Tiki Central drinkin' buddies at Piratz Tavern (warning: painfully slow Flash site), a theme restaurant in Silver Spring, Maryland. No, I won't be wearing an eyepatch and saying "Yarrr!" while I'm there, but apparently the waitstaff will. I tend to view theme restaurants the same way I view Ren Faires...with a mixture of bemusement and annoyance...but I'll try to keep an open mind.

In other news, since I started posting at PCL, I've noticed a rather precipitous drop-off in site traffic at the Goof, a trend I find a bit worrisome considering how much time and effort it's taken me to build up my readership, and since I haven't stopped posting here, I find it kind of puzzling as well. Hopefully, it's a temporary phenomenon.

Avast, ye landlubber scum, I'm weighin' anchor!

Posted by MrBaliHai at 7:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)