Week Six

12,767 kilometers away and even Australians think Sarah Palin is an idiot. Now nobody thinks she's a George W. Bush kind of idiot, but an idiot nonetheless. Who knew words such as "idiocy" and "inanity" could translate across borders? The fact Australian teenagers are emailing their Australian friends SNL YouTube clips, however, points to a much larger problem: Aussies are infatuated with media-generated images, videos, articles and graphs devoted to making fun of Americans, our politics and our culture. What that really means, I think, is that Australians want to be Americans.

In fact, one of the most surprising revelations about living in a foreign country is the amount of front-page news devoted to the United States and our news. Obviously a lot has been happening in the forms of deadly hurricanes, stock market crashes and elections, but even O.J. Simpson is cover story-material from Sydney to Brisbane to Perth. So not only am I answering questions on my neighbor Mischa Barton, but I am also asked for my opinions on O.J. Simpson and Beverly Hills 90210, meaning this is apparently 1994 again. Luckily, neither of them made it.

Now I can't blame Australians for constantly keeping tabs on the U.S. We're pretty cool people. America is so trendy that even Australia's markets are trying to copy ours. The shopping centers here are filled with Quiksilver, Ralph Lauren and MLB baseball caps, and 98.4% of all cars, lobbies, foyers, bars, pubs and department stores play "See You Again". Even Australia's people are trying to morph into Americans, becoming the fattest people in the entire world.

How flattering!

Well, week six is almost in the books and other than watching overly-creative commercials and weight loss investigations, I did venture out and go to my first Australian shopping center. I decided to replace my jeans that were stolen with a brand new pair, the most expensive jeans I have ever purchased (and will ever purchase) at roughly $83US. No, I don't understand why anyone would pay more than that for a pair of jeans. The shopping centers here are the same as the ones in the States, with food courts, douche bags and trophy wives, except they won't call them "shopping malls" or "malls" or even "centers" here - just "shopping centers".

So congratulations to SNL for making debates and interviews interesting again and congratulations to Sarah Palin for making SNL fun to watch again. Syracuse had a bye week so the Official Greg Robinson Should be Fired stance is temporarily on hiatus. The Angels won tonight but are a long way away from facing the Dodgers, so please keep God's Angels in your prayers. And did anyone win their Palin Bingo game? Six weeks down, 46 to go.

Week Six Summary
Weather: unpredictable
New observation: Daylight Savings Time kind of blows when you're springing forward.
New activity(ies): Shopping centers
New food: Bratwurst filled with food-poisoning. Geschmackvoll!!!
New word(s): Full as a goog!
New people: I finally met some Americans who helped me mock Australians! Snap.
What I miss: Stephen Colbert, Fiery Habanero Doritos, Yank Sing, Pac Heights, loud girls from New Jersey , Matisyahu, my stereo, Angels games.