What has happened to the Baggy Greens?

I've been completely out of touch with cricket and rugby since moving to Boston. Which, based on how the Wallabies and the Baggy Greens have been going, is probably a good thing - neither team has managed to win a game since I've left Sydney. The Wallabies are dead last on the 3N ladder and probably won't win a game this season, while the Baggy Greens are getting publicly humiliated by England, losing the second Test by 2 runs and drawing the third, and looking like getting completely rolled in the fourth.

The Wallaby demise is not unexpected. Australia's depth in rugby has never been great, and from what I can gather it appears as though we've been completely shafted by injuries this year, losing Larkham, Latham, Rogers, Giteau, Flatley (useless idiot), Sailor, Mortlock, Turinui, Paul, Cannon and Vickerman at various stages of the season. Considering we're playing our second team against the Bokke and the ABs I expect us to get hammered, they're quality teams after all.

But the cricketers' loss of form is mystifying. This was the team that won in India for the first time in ages less than a year ago. We flogged seven shades of shyte out of the Black Craps a few months ago and easily did for Pakistan over Christmas. But since arriving in England the Baggy Greens have been woefully inconsistent - we started poorly in the ODIs but managed to regain form towards the end, then we won the Lords Test easily but have been outplayed in every game since then. We were lucky to only lose by 2 runs in the Edgbaston Test and only some Punter heroics saved us from a defeat in the Third at Old Trafford. Now here at Trent Bridge we look like we've gone from bad to worse, forced to follow on for the first time in 17 years and looking anything but a champion side.

It's mystifying. It's hard for me to comment intelligently as I haven't seen a single bloody game, but it looks like our batting has just completely failed to fire. The bowling has been knocked around by Pidgeon's injury and by Dizzy's complete disintegration, so I can understand why the Poms have been putting up some big scores. But our batting lineup is virtually unchanged from the one which has dominated for years. Guys like Haydo, Marto, Langer, Gilly and Co have just not looked remotely like lasting against the Pom bowlers. Punter has shown some fighting spirit but the rest seem to have folded meekly. I don't know why they can't try and grit it out and fight for their runs rather than trying to flog the bowling to all parts and getting knocked over as a result. It seems to have been a gutless performance from what I've heard.

Anyway, I hope they can turn it around. Doesn't look like it though. They just seem to be raging against the dying of their light, though raging might be a bit generous.

Boston 12 days and counting - nearly settled

Well, I've been in Boston for just under two weeks now and I thought I'd give an update of what I've been up to. Since I got here I literally haven't stopped - there's been so much setup to do and I've been determined to make sure I've got all my settling-in stuff (place, car, furniture, etc) all sorted out before the start of the program. So it's been very full-on, but the plus side is that I think I'm just about settled. Having Dad here to give me a hand has been great, it's cut down on the settling-in stuff. Thanks, Dad.

So here's a rough timetable of what I've done since I've been here:

• Wed 10th Aug - arrived Boston around 7pm. Checked into Holiday Inn Waltham.
• Thu 11th Aug - checked out Babson College, met Martha Snelling and bought textbooks. (Haven't read them yet.)
• Fri 12th Aug - checked out apartments in Needham and Newton. Got on the turps with future Babson classmates.
• Sat 13th Aug - checked out apartment in Chestnut Hill. Went to Church.
• Sun 14th Aug - returned Chrysler monstrosity and exchanged it for a Pontiac G6, still big but not as. Went on an unplanned tour of Boston city (ie got lost).
• Mon 15th Aug - checked out a dump in Newton, the Avalon at Newton Highlands (too expensive and too small) and Windsor Village in Waltham. Decided to take the Windsor Village place. Yay! One big issue resolved.
  
• Tue 16th Aug - signed lease, got the keys, and went to Natick to buy household stuff. Checked out beds. I start to get sick.
  
• Wed 17th Aug - moved out of hotel and into Windsor Village place. Bought a TV, VCR, printer and router. As we had no beds we roughed it and slept on the floor, on mattresses. Not fun. Especially if you're sick.
  
• Thu 18th Aug - cable TV and internet got connected. Bought bed and futon. Took the mattresses home and arranged to get the frames delivered on Sat. Still sick.
  
• Fri 19th Aug - for the life of me I can't remember what I did on this day, but I'm pretty sure it was important. I think we went back to Natick to look at furniture. Actually I remember what it was - I went to the DMV and waited 2 hours to take the test for my learners permit. Yes, learners permit. I pass with flying colours (actually I got every question right, and expected to. I've been driving for 13 years after all!). I still have to take the road test. Thank God Dad's got an Ohio drivers license so he can act as my sponsor.
  
• Sat 20th Aug - went car-hunting. Found one the first day - a 2001 VW Jetta VR6. Put a downpayment on it. Then back home to wait for my futon and bed frame to be delivered. It was supposed to be between 4 and 8pm, and true to form the delivery guys came at 7:50, just when I was starting to think they weren't going to show.
• Sun 21st Aug - church, then I went back home and crashed for the arvo. I think the sickness all caught up with me and I was buggered. Woke up to go to dinner.
• Mon 22nd Aug - can't keep a good bloke down. The car payment went through, now they just need to do a service and sort out the insurance. Went to Staples and bought a computer desk and a chair. Waiting on a writing desk, bookcase and printer cart to be delivered Thursday.

It's been a bloody busy week and a bit, but it's nearly over. Tomorrow I'm going to New Haven, Connecticut to check out IKEA as they're the cheapest place to buy stuff, and I'll try and haul as much stuff in my car as possible. I just need a coffee table, bedside table, TV stand, temporary shelving for the closet, and I reckon I'll be fully sorted.

Speaking of temporary shelving, it is impossibleto find IKEA style portable shelving here. In Sydney you had places like IKEA, Freedom, Fantastic and Howards Storage World which all stocked those temporary shelves. Here they only have Home Depot, and most of their stuff is semi-permanent (ie you affix it to the wall). Maybe I just don't know where to look, but it's been bloody hard to find.

Anyway, I should mention something about Boston. It’s pretty bloody hot here at the moment – it’s about 90 F (35+ C) and very humid. Apparently I should enjoy going around feeling sticky as in a few months it will be so cold I won’t be able to sweat (it goes down to -20 C in the dead of winter here). The people are generally friendly enough (though customer service in Sydney is still better) but they talk funny – they don’t pronounce their “r”s (bit like Ozzies) but they have long nasal “a”s and “o”s so the word “Lord” comes out as “Lahd”. Apartments comes out as “apaaahtments”. Think of Fran Drescher in the Nanny and you’re really close. Seeing as I don’t have either an OZ or a Bostonian accent I really stick out.

Driving here is a nightmare as you CANNOT buy a street directory and streets appear and disappear from maps. Interstates and freeways aren’t too bad, but if you’re driving in the city be prepared to get lost – often. And the drivers here are crazy. No wonder they don’t have yellow turn indicators on American cars anymore, it’s because nobody bloody uses them.

And getting a Massachusetts drivers license is sheer hell. The rules here basically ignore the fact that I’ve got 13 years of driving experience in Australia as I have to take a written and driving test to get a Mass licence. Unfortunately I need to produce my own vehicle for use in the road test, before I can get my licence. Even more unfortunately I can’t buy a car without a Mass drivers license, so it’s a catch-22. And if that weren’t enough, I need to have a residential address before I can do either! Basically, they make it hard for you. At least I can drive a year on my OZ license at it will probably take close to that long to cut through all the bureaucracy.

Anyway, this is heaps. I'll stop now but will check in later.

I'm in Boston

G'day everyone, I'm in Boston now!! Arrived last night at about 7pm after a marathon flight from Sydney via Manila stretched out over a few days - I reckon I was on the road for about 30 hours including waiting time in both Nagoya, Japan and Detroit, Michigan. Even though we were in the Northwest Lounge in Detroit having to wait five hours for our connecting flight to Logan, the minutes positively crawled by - we were at the stage where we just wanted to go to bed.

So far the city looks great, what little I've seen of it. Reminds me more of Melbourne than Sydney with all the old Victorian buildings. I checked out my university (Babson College) today and geez the campus looks beautiful! Am meeting up with a bunch of people in my class tomorrow night to get on the turps at some pub in Boston.

Did a wee bit of driving around to get a feel for suburbs, tomorrow I'll check out some apartments. With the interstates it's fairly easy to get around quickly as long as it's not peak hour - big difference from Sydney where you have to use arterial roads all the time. The rental car company boffins were supposed to give us a midsize car as I didn't want a big one, but they screwed up and upgraded me to a Chrysler Pacifica - a seven seater SUV beast. It's MASSIVE!!!! Bloody hard to drive and see where the end of it is.

Anyway, I will be sporadically online depending on how this wireless network at my hotel holds up, it's been on and off for much of today. But I thought I'd update my to-do list that I started below:

1. Housing - starting to check places out, hope to finalise by next weekend
2. Laptop - ended up getting a Sony VAIO. The screen has fecked up after less than three weeks!!! Have to get it fixed.
3. Removalists - getting EzySend to ship my boxes via air once I have a permanent address
4. Packing - all done (obviously)

One more thing - it's bloody hot here today - 100 F (whatever that is in C). I thought it was supposed to be cold here?? Just a couple of weekends ago I was skiing in -15 C blizzard conditions at the top of Mount Perisher in the Snowy Mountains, now I'm broiling to death. Oh well.

Seeya for now, will check in later once I've sorted out accommodation and things. Will post some pics as well as soon as I figure out how to do it!