A response to Kyle

Hey look! my crappy guest-blogger finally showed up eight months late. and he only comes to complain about my lack of blogging. how ironic. anyway yes, i have started my new job. but for the past two weeks i've been training two replacements, and have not had access to a computer. this has coincided with the closure of the crappy internet pub. my apologies. blogging will resume shortly.

An email conversation

An email conversation between myself and Sarah Sarah: so maybe facebook is blocked 'cause its a 'dating site', but you can still get on MySpace, right??? Me: nope. what is myspace anyway? Sarah: its fun! but kinda complicated... you can have a blog there... put picts up, little blurbs... find people... i foudn so many people from high school... could u use my link to see mine? Me: nope. 'dating'. and i don't want to see or know about any people from high school. Sarah: its fun to see who got fat. who got bald. who got gay... Me: i like when people get gay. it's always the same conversation: Person a: Hey guess what! Person b: What? Person a: Person X is gay now! Person b: Seriously? Person a: Really! I heard it from Person K Person b: Wow. That's weird. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But just weird. Didn't he hook up with Person W in High School? Person a: Yup. But now he's dating a guy from Alaska. Person b: Wow. Never saw that coming. Sarah: yep! its the best... this is the conversation i had with a girl, annie, who i went to middle and high school and worked with in the shoe department of nordsrams: [Sarah]:Are you still in touch with anyone from Westlake? Annie: Yep, Misti. She's got a kid [Sarah]: woah Annie: yeah, the fat cow finally got laid... speaking of fat cow, tessa's got 2 [Sarah]: I thought tessa was gay Annie: she still is, but she's got two girls and is living with her boyfriend [Sarah]: what? Annie: i don't know...

Does it come with potatos?

The lack of Prague – related posting lately can be attributed to my complete unenjoyment of the city during the dismal mitteleuropan winter. Living in an icebox may be fine for a dead cow, but is quite unpleasant for a poor, shivering Texan. Today’s weather featured gray skies, accompanied with some icy snow. The last few weeks have featured almost no precipitation, meaning the sidewalks were bare except for a few dog-shit infested piles of ice. I’ve enjoyed hopping over the frozen trails of dog piss, which are like little white snakes on an obstacle course. Fun! Something interesting did happen yesterday, though. On the way to work I stopped at the Novy Smichov mall to check out the food court and see if something looked edible. I spotted a new stall called ‘Marmara’, which implied western Turkish food, as the Sea of Marmara is the body of water between the Black Sea and the Med. Turkish food, much like the 2006 National Champion Texas Longhorns: Fantastic. As I arrived at the counter I was disappointed to see their only turkish offerings were Veal and Chicken Kebabs. There seemed to be some sort of broccoli covered in cheese and various other crappy-looking Czech dishes that didn’t look appealing at all. But the biggest problem was the lack of Turkish people behind the counter. I was very suspicious after noticing this omission of Anatolian goodness. With Mexican food, I try to avoid purchasing anything unless the cook is still wet from the Rio Grande. My service at the “Marmara” restaurant consisted of some old Czech woman who looked as though she hadn’t been employed in a long, long time. I ordered my lamb kebab and watched as she placed some crappy looking meat in some panini bread. After slopping some vegetables into the ‘sandwich’, she decided the ‘kebab’ wouldn’t actually fit in the nice paper wrapper, and promptly dumped the thing onto a plate fresh from IKEA. She stared at her creation with dismay, and resignedly sighed as she handed the pile to this poor foreigner. She wouldn’t make eye contact as she took my money. The lesson, as always, is that Czechs with vegetables should not be trusted. That is all.

Crap, i forgot a resolution

7) Learn czech and stop being a lazy bastard.

New Years Resolutions

I recently reflected upon the opportunities of improvement for myself during this fresh year of 2006. Shall I promise myself longer showers? Better footwear? Improved cognitive abilities? A total refurbishment of my dietary habits that could potentially lead to a more pleasant fragrance emitted from this body I call home? No, probably not. but I came up with a few: 1) Better diet. 2005 saw me wallowing in my own impending czechdom - glorious and repeated meals of schnitzel and potatoes, multiple beers, copious servings of sleep that led to a pink, round, and slothful nickmoles. No longer! I have pledged fealty to the ultimate american failure: The Diet. No more breaded and fried - only raw and tasteless for me. I haven't had schnitzel in weeks. The all-night pizza joint one block from my front door has only been visited a handful of times. The other day I arrived home late from work, ravenous and salivating. Yet I managed self-control in front of my meager food supply - I ended up eating a can of corn. And I even chewed it, as opposed to inhilation. This, my friends, is definitely an improvement. I know that my battle against my beer belly will end in glorious failure - but it will be grand and valiant and, most of all, documented online. For the internet is the epitaph of all faded glory and celebrity avoided. stay tuned. 2) Exercise - At least 4 times a week. And not just muscling up - real improvements in endurance and health. After two weeks of running I've already ended up with shin-splints. So we'll see how that goes. 3) More efficient internet-surfing - No more flipping through sites 5 times a day in a vain search for a new article posted during the last long, boring bout of working. More efficiency! Check my favorite 40 sites only 2-3 times a day! And, since football season is over, this will be easy enough. By August I'll have forgotten these resolutions anyway, so I won't feel bad when I read 10 articles a day about the 2006 National Champion Texas Longhorns. And I'll delete this post so no one can go back and cite it... 4) No more tearing corners off of my papers, then rolling them around underneath my fingernails. Those of you who have seen me in person (meaing all 3 of you who read this website) know exactly what i'm talking about. 5) I will resolve my stomach problem - I have an on again/off again relationship with my stomach. Bach in Summer 04 I was diagnosed with H. Pylori, a nasty little bug that causes ulcers. Since then I've had 3 antibiotic treatments that have almost fixed me all up. But some symptoms persist, most of which are unpleasant to discuss. My doctor is a bit zonked out - he must be self-medicating a bit. So i resolve to stop being lazy and actually find a new doctor and get this taken care of. there. i said it. 6) I resolve to not have too many resolutions - because this is enough. some people seem to put together a list of 25 things to turn themselves into a shoe-in to become the right hand of Christ when they depart this nasty, sinful world. I simply resolve to make myself easier on the eyes of those who have the privilage of sharing a beer with me. And so we will see how successful this little experiment is.

Anti-Americanismus

Heh, yes very amusing. But note that people only do things like this because we're the most important country in the world. After all, no one does a 'Czech view of the world' or Korean or Canadian, 'cause no one gives a shit what the Czechs or the Canadians think of the world. UPDATE: And Americans know that Ireland isn't part of Her Royal Majesty's Realm. After all, 30 percent of americans are descended from those red-headed, patato-eating Papists.

Oops

This picture is of a Texas touchdown. Can you identify the problem? (thanks, Kyle)

Abusing the american legan system.

This woman should be ashamed of herself.

Rich countries and crappy countries

My worthless co-blogger, Kyle, asked me once (maybe - or i could be making this up) why several countries in Africa are so damn poor when they have so much wealth. The short answer: they suck. The longer answer can be found here.

2006 or bust

Holy crap, I completely forgot about this whole ‘blog’ thing. But now’s about the right time to end my little ‘vacation of the mind’ and return back to doing something productive and difficult, like making fun of Michael Jackson. What can you expect of your intrepid pseudo-reporter during his ambitious 2006? Well, I’ll drink some beer, which I’ll be sure to document in mind-numbing detail. I’ll probably find some funny article about how drinking is good for your fingernails, then pontificate for a good six paragraphs about how vegans suck. Travel to some small Czech town isn’t out of the question, so expect pictures of cute little mitteleuropan churches and festivals. I’ll get pissed off about some political regulation and angrily denounce Moldovan national farm policy, making little sense to myself and even less to my general readership. But my primary goal is to find interesting things in my life to write about. For example: today I woke up, went to the gym, worked, and soon I’ll go home. That’s boring as all hell. I’m sure something interesting happened today, but I’ve completely forgotten it, because my primary goal is to ignore everything and hurry home so I can read my book and get 10 hours of sleep. This is bad, though – I should document the weird peculiarities that I encounter during my time on this Earth. So this will be my mission during 2006. And for all those who have complained about the lack of blogging: sorry. If you have complained about the lack of blogging and don’t have your own blog: screw you, you lazy bastard(s). It’s 2006 – get a blog. And shave off that mullet…and no more flannel shirts. Oh and my prediction for 2006? bald and bearded...remember that.

It Finally Happened

First National Championship in 35 years. Greatest game of all time.