Blog outage

Our home internet connection was so happy to see us, it promptly keeled over and hasn't been heard from since. Thus, I haven't been able to blog. I'm hoping to either get the current cable line working or have a new DSL line installed soon ... but "soon" is always relative here.

Meanwhile, here's a picture of a guy with a banana cart. You see these often around Palmerah Market; I think they pick up loads from the wholesalers and deliver them to smaller streetside operations. These look like big cooking bananas and some smaller "milk"bananas for eating.

So bad it's great

The daughter's scary cheekbones resemble the mom's, but the green hair must have come from the other side of the family tree

My friend Michele took us to the Museum of Bad Art, outside Boston. I've been wanting to go there forever.

Where does the waterfall come from?

It's a small collection, located next to the men's room in the basement of a historic movie theatre. The paintings mostly come from garage sales or garbage heaps, although some are donated by their humble creators.

This little girl appears to be clutching the tail of a petrified rabbit-cat

I think Chad really related to the feelings of the blue man in the multicolored shirt

The great thing about these paintings is how human they are. You wonder what strange impulse gripped the artist. What did s/he think the final product would look like, and how did it all go so terribly wrong? If you've ever tried to create stuff, it's a familiar experience. It's better to have painted a ludicrous blue man, though, than never to have painted at all.

Our triumphant return, and donuts

We're back! Man, Jakarta is hot, especially after a month in the northeastern U.S. More on the trip later, but I'm too sleepy to post something new so here's a Junk Food that I started working on before we left.

With a donut craze in full swing, and outlets popping up all over (Dunkin Donuts, Krispy Kreme, J.Co., ICrave), some places go to extremes to differentiate themselves. Hence, the smoked-beef-and-cheese donut.


I've been eyeing these for months at ICrave, but somehow the moment for a beef donut never seemed to come around. I finally tried one just before we took off on vacation.


The donut is only slightly sweet. The smoked beef (a popular sandwich meat) is barely noticeable. But the cheese is a problem. It's the plasticky kind that peels off in a sheet or, if you make the mistake of eating it, instantly cleaves to the roof of your mouth. What it does well is to glue the beef bits onto the donut, which I appreciate; you wouldn't want them ending up in your shoes, or on the floor of the glitzy shopping mall, where they would present a hazard to high-heeled ladies on their way to Gucci and Versace.

Basically, this is a big salty-sugary-fried blob. It wasn't terrible, but it's not something I'm in a hurry to eat again, now that I've finally dislodged the last bits of cheese from my hard palate.

A big pile of junk ... coming soon to your town!

So we're off to the US tomorrow to catch up with family and friends. With less than 24 hours to go, the apartment is a mess, I've only just started to pack, and I've somehow acquired a mountain of trivialities to distribute around New England: Chiki Balls, Seaweed Cheetos, Kopi Susu candy, silly video clips, and notebooks with strange sayings on the front ("You and a friend are pleased at measure. Can you make a good friend with me?")


Of course, I do think nothing says "I've really missed you for the last year and a half" like a Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Beng-Beng. But if you're expecting to see me within the next 30 days or so, consider yourself warned. As for the blog, I probably won't be writing much for a bit. See you later!

Pop Quiz

A trash-picker makes his rounds shortly after the Jakarta flood in February

1. Is it immoral to eat three times a day if some people only eat once?

2. Is it immoral to pay $40 a month for a fancy gym if, from the window of said gym, you can see people living in a garbage dump?

3. When Marie Antoinette said "Let them eat cake," did she tell herself: "I'm doing my part. I'm promoting the local cake industry. A rising tide lifts all boats"?

Moon over Singapore

Here's another from the archives. I like this picture even though nothing in it is properly focused. I guess that's what happens when you try to photograph something 238,855 miles away with a cameraphone.

Men at work

Here are some photos from the vast Kopi Susu archives, taken a few months ago on our first language-school trip to Yogya.

I'm always fascinated by construction sites. This one used a lot of bamboo, which is cheap and very strong.

Not everybody was happy to get their picture taken, though.