Driving me crazy

For the past three days they've been drilling stuff on the floor above me, driving me crazy. For the past three days I've had the Destiy's Child song 'Soldier' in my head, driving me crazy. If I could get rid of one, it'd be the song. I just can't take the Destiny's Child any more.

Bad move, dude.

The events unfolded on Saturday night, after the pair had been arguing over an impending break up, an Anchorage Police Department statement said. At some point, the two decided to have sex and the man agreed to let the woman tie his arms to a windowsill. But the woman used a kitchen knife to amputate her partner's penis and flushed it down the toilet, police said.

Dude really should have been more careful...

Banana Republics and beyond

A friend of mine once referred to New Orleans as "America's only Banana Republic". This same friend also told me that my life "wouldn't be complete until [I] had 'experienced' a black cajun stripper," but nonetheless he is correct. The Banana Republic, for the uninitiated, is a dictatorship. A very unimportant dictatorship, where the country has no oil, viscious ideology, or threatening television programming. The most obvious are in the Caribbean, and South America. But one feature is the cult of personality, a dictator who has delusions of grandeur. Cults of personality exist in threatening countries too (note North Korea's 'Dear Leader', Libya's 'Comrade Kaddafi', and Iraq's 'That asshole Saddam'.) The cult of personality is often accompanied by a book detailing the leader's crackpot theories, bad poetry, or in saddam's case, a romance novel. Mao had the Little Red Book detailing how to be a good communist, Kaddafi had the Little Green Book, which is simply a list of the variety of ways to spell his name. Now Turkmenistan's Saparmurad Niyazov, also known as "Turkmenbashi", or 'Father of all Turkmen', has written his own two-volume "Book of Spirit". For those who don't know about Turkmenistan, don't worry - it doesn't matter. But here's a map for those interested. Check out this Washington Post article on the subject. Here's how to work that cult:

The president's image adorns vodka bottles and is shown constantly in the top right corner on national television. A 36-foot-tall, gold-leaf statue of the president rotates atop a 250-foot base to follow the sun. The streets of the capital, Ashkhabad, are shut down when he chooses to whiz around town in one of his cars. And he has renamed months of the year after himself, his mother and his book.

Hm...that's why 'Merry Nickmas' never caught on as a greeting on my birthday. I lacked my own banana republic. Now, some of the more Cynical amongst you might point to our own president in this situation. But our president is unlikely to do this:

[Niyazov] also interrupts government meetings to recite his poems, including a session last May when he told his military leadership that he had some verse about the dangers facing the country:

That's the difference between a 'Dear Leader' and a 'Leader of the Free World'. When the 'Leader of the Free World', who has his finger on the 'Nuclear Armageddon' button, starts speaking in verse, you don't sit politely. You run.

The problem with old people

I've been complaining about old people a lot. Prague is full of the foagies. They don't have a european version of the Florida/Arizona axis yet, where we can put the oldsters out to pasture. Instead they clog the streets with their dilapidated dogs. They take up all the best real estate, which is rent-controlled, exiling the young and vibrant to the dull communist outskirts. They take up all the best seats at the pubs, since they get there before work gets out, killing any buzz a place might have with their grumbling and inadvertant gaseous emissions. So: old people. I was reading an article on slate today, complaining that old people took up too much money. They live longer, and we pay a bunch of money for their accumulated new hips and botox so the oldsters can feel 40 again. so they should pay us back:

Medicare has done wonders for old people's health, but the government's budget for health care is far outpacing revenue. The financial reward for that investment is that people can work later in life, paying taxes instead of collecting benefits. And they should.

I'm still percolating a scheme to move all the paleoczechs to sicily. You could build some cheap retirement villages in southern italy/northern africa, and charge the goverment the same cost of their monthly pensions for all amenities. You then agree to do all this if you have a 5-10% share of proceeds from privatization of their awesome flats. Or you could agree to take dilapidated ones (which are often in great locations) for a below-market price, and invest in reconstruction. This is a gold mine. But the old people here aren't going to move, so it's all moot. This is the reason all my twenty-something czech friends live with their parents in proletariat housing. So their grandparents can watch Argentinian soap operas in some of the best real estate in the city. bah. Other stuff: A roundup of happenings in my neck of the woods.

Failure

So no skiing this weekend. I failed to purchase ski pants, and instead spent saturday sleeping, then cleaning my apartment. It's pleasantly clean now, though, which should shock my roommate when he gets back from Thailand. We made an agreement to clean the bathroom once a month, and I've kept up my end of the deal. In other news, I'm at an internet pub right now. Right across from me are a terribly mismatched French couple. I'm not attracted to french women (too uptight), but i must admit the female half of the couple is attractive. The male half looks like a land whale. it's not often you see this sort of thing, but when you see it you just have to stare. What is the motivation? Is she insane? Does he have hidden positive qualities? Is God repaying a debt to this man? The girlfriend is in Moravia visiting her parents this weekend, by the way. This means I have absolutely nothing to do, which is why I'm at Jama by myself. I will be seeing Blade: Trinity tonight with my friend Devin, though. I view this as a very, very slow motion car crash. I know the movie is going to suck. I know it will be stupid, but there's just not too much I can do to avoid it.

Zitra Vikend

I'll be heading to Moravia this weekend, for some home-cooked food and skiing. Luckily I have nationwide access to the socialist medical system. In other news, I am bored. Because of this, I've been learning about Czech political scandals. The fun thing about scandals in this country is that they're so small and cute. Big countries have Iran-Contra, Jaques Chirac, or the entire history of Russia. Czech Republic, now that it's thrown off it's totalitarian shackles, has strange apartment-funding scandals involving the prime minister. Check out this post on the subject. Note: The scandal rule does not apply to Switzerland, due to their large stash of hard currency. My friend brian has finally decided to start blogging again. check out his blog. I think he has an excellent career in front of him as the natural successor to Barbara Walters. He's like a black hole of human interest stories. I'm looking forward to his eventual mutation into a whiney, elderly woman. That reminds me, am I missing any interesting developments in American culture? I remember reading that blogs were the next big thing, but none of my friends seem to have one. Are there any ridiculous boy bands on MTV these days? Will I return to the US to find everyone wearing some bizzare clothing trend? Is everyone still speaking stockbroker-ebonics, or have they moved into Asian hip-hop parlance? Please let me know.

On Snow

A big cottony mass of snow descended on this city last night. I was greeted with a crunchy pack of almost-virgin (freshman-year) snow as I walked to the tram stop this morning. By mid-day the sand had been deployed, turning the sidewalks into a dirty, slushy mess. The snow will turn brown by the weekend, and black within a week. Eventually it will half-melt, then freeze, turning the sidewalks into a speed skating course. Naturally, with my coordination and sense of balance, this is quite inconvenient. Then, we'll have one or two glorious days in the 50's, and the whole cycle will start again, not to end until the cold drizzle of April begins. The only reason I put up with this is that a czech beergarden in June is a good substitute for heaven on earth.

Sideways

Oh, I didn't like the movie Sideways. I don't like movies where dudes cry in front of each other about their relationships. The girlfriend was pleasantly surprised, though. She immediately accused me of disliking it because of the aforementioned focus on 'relationships'. This is true. I was looking forward to a buddy movie with wisecracking and drinking. I guess the lesson here is to beware of a buddy-drinking movie involving wine. I'll focus on the beer ones. And, of course, untranslated Russian Vodka-buddy movies. Those simply have no parallel.

On Language

I am definitely not a polyglot. My grasp of the English language is only slightly less tenuous then that of the Leader of the Free World. But the fact that English is spreading like an STD makes me happy. Next time I'm in Ulaan Baator apparently I'll be able to order some roast goat. But I am learning a foreign language right now - Czech. This goes hand in hand with most of my stupid moves - I'm going to learn one of the most useless foreign languages on the planet. I mean, even Czechs acknowledge their language is useless. But it's fun, and I live here, so i'm going to take the plunge. One thing that never made any sense to me was the fact that Czech and Slovak were different languages. They could all understand each other. Hell, they were one country for 80 years. But apparently the youth has decided that mutual incomprehension is the wave of the future. This is okay with me - truthfully I wasn't going to understand slovak anyway. But due to my romantic relationship, I am going to end up with the accent of a Moravian shepherd. Bah.

Bad Blogger

Yeah, that's me. I've been busy being sick and kinda bored with winter. I need some new inspiration in my writing. I think summer will reap a great harvest - I see long evenings spent sitting in beer gardens talking of bullshit. The kind of bullshit that is normally forgotten, but now finds itself onto the myriad blogs of the internet. Besides porn, the true purpose of the internet is the evangilization of stupidity. Anyway I'm about to go see that movie Sideways. Kyle told me I would enjoy it, as it detailed two older guys who we will inevitably become. I no longer fight against some of these facts: soon I will like wine and will be an asshole about it, I will be fat and bald and awkward, and...well I haven't seen the movie yet. But point number three will receive a good detailing tomorrow. Keep your eyes out! Oh, I have my passport now. So I am going to leave the country at some point. Although everywhere is cold, cold, cold...where the heck will i go?

Sick Days

So I had some nasty virus for a few days. I spent my time stewing in bed, feverish and bored. Highlights: 1) On Fat Tuesday some parade went right by my window. That was very surprising. Mostly Czechs danching, with an uum-pah band. Apparently there was a concert later by our local church, but since it was -20 or something outside only 30 people were there 2) Eurosport. Like ESPN, but incredibly lame. I watched 4 hours of ski flying on Monday, and I have decided it's really, really boring. Good show for the feverish, though. They also had a marathon day of Welsh Bowling on tuesday, which outside of my fever haze I just can't speak about without becoming angry. So blogging will return. Check out this amusing article.

Update

Hey I've been sick for about 5 days - sorry no posts. I'll get back to it soon.

General Lunacy

Check out what's on sale at Amazon these days. Update: Check out the "JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank" and check out the reviews.

Nick's Travel Tip # 3

Don't go to any country that we've bombed in the past 5 years(Note: This only applies to Americans. If French, extend to 50 years and switch gender) Everyone in Europe has been very friendly with me. People want to discuss politics, but for the most part that's a jolly experience over a pint or two. But for some reason I went to Montenegro* in 2002, where locals jeered me, moneychangers ripped me off, and the police tried to extort money from me. It's the only place in europe where I was actually concerned for my well-being. *Note: Montenegro is a part of the Former Yugoslavia. It sided with Serbia, and is still in a federation with that country currently named "Serbia & Montenegro." It is a shithole, don't go there.

Signs that my Girlfriend is Awesome

I'll be going to Jana's today after work, to watch a movie and eat some home-cooked food. It'll be like in high school, when you invited a girl over to watch a movie with you. Except we'll actually watch the movie. What movie will we watch? Well, I suggested 'Jackass', and received this response:

Oh, i was just thinking about the Jackass but i thought that you would say ‚it’s stupid‘ (and you’d be probably right). Is it funny?

I have come to two conclusions: 1) I have seriously fooled the gf into thinking I'm a respectable human being 2) My gf wants to watch 'Jackass'. Awesome.

Warning: Unsubstantiated Rumor

So this is a weird but amusing rumor. As I am not in any way a journalist, and have never claimed to be bringing you anything near journalistic truth (note: I am not Dan Rather), here's something amusing:

Wheeler then turns to the recent success of Ukraine's Orange Revolution, which ushered in the democratically elected Viktor Yushchenko after his supporters virtually shut down the government in protest of the first presidential election, which fraudulently resulted in the victory of Yushchenko's Russian-backed opponent. "Eastern Ukraine is heavily ethnic Russian. The main industry is coal. The miners are rough, tough, and hate Yushchenko for wanting to take Ukraine away from Russia and toward the West," writes Wheeler. "It was arranged for more than a thousand of them to be taken from Donetsk, the capital of the coal-mining region, by bus and train to Kiev, where, armed with clubs and blunt tools, they would physically beat up the Orange Revolutionaries. Such mass violence was not only to disperse the demonstrators but serve as an excuse for the government to declare martial law, suspending the Ukrainian Parliament (the Rada) and elections indefinitely." Now comes the secret weapon: vodka. "When the miners got on their buses and trains, they found to their joy case after case of vodka – just for them. When they arrived in Kiev, trucks awaited them filled with more cases of vodka – all free provided by 'friends' of the Donetsk coal miners. Completely soused, they never made it to Independence Square. Too hammered blind to cause any violence at all, they had a merry time, passed out and were shipped back to Donetsk." Wheeler's column goes on to explain who provided the liquor: teams of Porter Goss' CIA working with their counterparts in British MI6 intelligence. Writes the intel expert: "Just take a moment and reflect on how stone-cold brilliant this was. The forethought and planning it took, the innovative thinking. Bush doesn't send the Marines – he sends the vodka! – and achieves a democratic revolution. This is the sort of thinking, these are the sorts of tactics, that are going to be applied now for 'ending tyranny in our world.' Military force will be used only as a necessary resort."

That's great.

Beer Tales

I know this blog should probably change its name to something beer related. But there are just so many amazing stories out there about beer.

Man hides out to scull kegs January 24, 2005 - 12:42AM A Czech man is being taken to court after he hid in a restaurant bathroom until the employees had left and then hooked up beer kegs directly to his mouth. Cleaning staff found him drunk and lying on the floor of the bar at the restaurant in the city of Brno, about 200km east of Prague, the CTK news agency reported. "He had broken the door of the cooling mechanism ... and detached the hoses leading from the keg, squashed them in his mouth and literally filled himself up with beer," CTK quoted a police official as saying. The man will be charged with damaging property because he caused 8000 crown ($450) damage to the beer cooling box. Reuters