pere·gri·nation

what is everyone complaining about?

2007-06-28T22:21:00.000-04:00

i'm not a fan of potential change that global warming could have on the climate, mainly because it could surely make it difficult to learn how to cross country ski; my main goal for next winter. but i admit i LOVED the weather in NYC over the last couple of days. it was scorching and muggy on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by the general urban dampness that came after the massive thunderstorm last night. i'm serious. i was loving it. that said, i am excited to head down to Richmond, Virginia this weekend to watch Chach race in the "I Love the Tavern Triathlon" with Trowler, and our Richmond friends M & I. sadly, no, i won't be participating in this one. instead i will once again cheer Chach on from the sidelines.

but that wiley wife of mine did manage to rassle me into running the Atlantic City Half-Marathon on Sunday, October 14th with fellow teaching friend of her's, and possibly a special appearance by my father in-law! he runs a 10K in Nice (in France, if you weren't aware) every year and he is supposedly interested in running with us.

for those of you interested in gambling and not running, we will probably book our hotel in mid August. stay tuned!

also on tap for the summer are several other expeditions...

July 7th: the Tour de France in London, England. the post-Lance Armstrong Tour is wide-open this year and the Prologue will take place in London for the first time, as well as for the last time as they are reformatting the race for 2008. someone will actually be crowned a champion this year, which makes for a perfect opportunity to get into this underrated sport if you haven't already. definitely check out Tour coverage on Versus; after a few stages, you'll be a believer. plus, it's a great excuse to sit in front of the TV, eat creamy French cheese, and drink copious amounts of red vin. how much more convincing do you need?

July 27th: we may keep to our Francophone theme in July and visit Quebec. or we'll screw the Canadians and drive 4 hours through horrible weekend traffic and spend the weekend in Bethany Beach, Delaware. either way, the calendar is marked for fun.

August 18-25th: our yearly sojourn to Colorado will include mountain climbing, elk sighting, more wine drinking, and a search for property so we can finally build the weeHouse we've always wanted.

climb every mountain

2007-06-06T12:15:00.000-04:00

(time got away from me. my apologies for the late post.)

up the volcano

i was about 1000 feet from the top of Mount St Helens (MSH) when i stumbled and slipped in someone else's snow post-hole for what seemed like the umpteenth time. right then i came to the conclusion that accomplishment was totally overrated. Chach and our climbing partner Dave were about 50 feet ahead of me; i could just yell up and tell them that the altitude was really getting to me or that the hotspots on my feet were truly forming into blisters. then i'd walk down about 100 feet to a nice, comfortable bed of exposed rock and ash that i'd passed about 10 minutes ago, set myself down, take off my boots, nibble on some gorp, and maybe get some sun like normal East coasters do on Memorial Day weekend until the other two-thirds of my group came back down. it wasn't the fear of not being able to climb this beast of a volcano that pushed me to continue on - i've never been afraid to not achieve in my life - but agony of potential self-loathing induced by the mockery of friends when Chach told to them that i decided to stop while she cavorted happily on the summer would be too much to bear. so, i grasped the head of my ice axe and trudged forward.

most mountains i've climbed have relatively indirect trails that weave in hairpin curves with a final uphill scramble the last couple of hundred yards to the summit. it seems that one must take a different approach to tackling these Cascade volcanoes: find the trailhead; walk a few miles on flat, improved trails until you hit the treeline at the slope of the mountain; hike straight up via the shortest route through snow - and in the case of MSH, ash - for 4 grueling miles until you reach the top. think of it as spending 6 hours on a stairmaster wearing a backpack.

armed and ready for bears

post-holin' up MSH

down the side of MSH into Washington and N. Oregon

man against mountain

classic alpine hiking (chach in front, zain in back)

skiers on MSH avoiding a small avalanche

atop MSH

fortunately for us, the weather was ideal so we took our sweet time getting to the top, even though our group was definitely the last to hit the trail that day. we were able to pack light and we didn't need to haul any nasty equipment like ropes and crampons to tackle the glaciers. we arrived at the summit on a relatively cloudless day (for the Pacific Northwest) with clear sky to the south toward Oregon and Mount Hood and a unobstructed view of Mount Adams to the east and Mount Rainier to the north. the real highlight, however, is the gaping maw of MSH's crater and the steaming lava dome that has risen since the eruption in 1980. it's difficult to imagine that the eruption and subsequent landslide - the biggest in modern history - removed a chunk of the mountain that was almost as tall as the Empire State Building and, of course, many, many times more massive. you can't walk too close to the edge of the crater because of the dangerous snow cornice that slopes over the precipice. in fact, as we were summiting we passed a hiker who "almost shit herself" when she plunged through the snow up to her thigh on top. when she extracted herself from the hole she noticed nothing but eerily light-blue snow beneath her, meaning that below that snow there is light, and light means the only thing between that snow and the bottom of MSH's crater is 1000 feet of air. prudently, the steps made in the snow by other hikers were well off the edge.

success! standing near the cornice atop MSH

taking care NOT to stab each other or fall off the edge

not the ideal place to test if the snow is thick enough to handle your weight

the lava dome inside MSH's mile-wide crater

looking north toward Mount Rainier

looking east toward Mount Adams

down MSH

after spending some time on top of MSH, taking pictures and adding layers (you exert so much energy hiking up the glacier, you need only shorts, gaiters, and a light shell, but once you reach the top, the fact that you are standing on a snowfield quickly sets in) we headed back down the mountain in the only reasonable way - on our asses. since we didn't have skis (nor did two of us know how to ski at Dave's level of expertise) we followed the paths of other hikers and glissaded down the mountain in our snowpants.

Chach losing control

Chach regaining control

lava tube spelunking

there isn't too much to do once you've climbed MSH except relax, grab a bite to eat at Jack's Restaurant - the same place you purchase your climbing permit and log in and out of the climbing register, or find some local teenagers to booze with on a Friday or Saturday night. so, we set up camp near the trailhead and woke up on Sunday morning to hike the Ape Cave, a 2000 year-old lava tube that sits on the southwestern flank of MSH. the caves are self-guided in the off-season, so all you need is a good light source, sturdy boots, and time to kill as you clamber about in the pitch blackness over boulders and loose rock for about 3 miles. there were a surprising number of kids in the cave, as well as the odd cigarette butt and beer can, so we figured that the Ape Cave is not only a popular place for a family excurison, but also a prime spot for sordid teenage partying.

down into the Ape Cave

stumbling around without adequate light

a sinkhole about a quarter-way through the cave

if i was a geologist, i might think this was an interesting find

relaxing in the City of Roses

Portland is one of those cities that your crunchy, granola-eating, Phish-loving hippie friend from high school or college probably moved to after graduation. upon arrival, he (or she) probably settled down into a relatively unstressful job as a gearhead at a local bikeshop or a salesdude (or dudette) at REI; finally cast-off the trappings of their droll East Coast life and went Freegan; headed back to school at one of Portland's numerous educational institutions and is still working his (or her) way through health science courses; or decided that even Portland was too big a place to live and headed down south toward the Emerald Triangle to pick marijuana for a living. anyway you slice it, Portland is almost entirely ultra-liberal, independent, young, and very, very, very white. but we had a good time checking out the southeast corner of Portland (there you have your disaffected East coast hipsters who have carved a small community for themselves out of American Apparel stores, high-end organic restaurants, and bars that strictly serve microbrews) with our friend Dave.

as for next year? maybe we'll do Hood, Rainier, or Adams. anyone interested in skiing down one of them with us?

the mighty weekend warriors after conquering the mighty MSH

alert my next of kin

2007-05-22T16:53:00.000-04:00

on Sunday May 18, 1980, a moderately-sized volcano in the Cascade Range called Mount St. Helens blew its lid, sending forth a pyroclastic surge that devastated everything in its path. the eruption was THE preeminent event for modern geologists Neocene-era North America; like the equivalent of a NYC socialite's coming-of-age party. that same day young Zain, your faithful author of peregrination, was propped up near a window sill gazing out at the Seattle suburbs when a light dusting off ash began to fall, turning my parents' late-70s model Toyota Celica from a shiny banana yellow to a dull smoky gray.

this Sunday on May 26, I will visit the site of that tremendous explosion and conquer nature by climbing up and standing on the crater's edge of Mount St. Helens. you can see what's currently going on at the mountain by checking out the VolcanoCam. as you can see (if you did indeed click on the link) there is quite a bit of snow on the lower edges of the mountain. therefore, our trusty climbing partner Dave will supply us with ice axes and spikes for the climb through the snow.

the National Park Service website suggests we bring climbing helmets or hard hats in the case of volcanic ballistics or rock fall. if you're thinking, "clearly, this mountain is still active. why are these idiots so intent on climbing it?" we say it's almost like a game of uphill geologic capture-the-flag, except instead of tagging you, the mountain could hurl giant superheated rocks in your direction.

here are some stock pictures of what Mount St. Helens looked like in the past:

supposedly idyllic in the 1970s

really angry in the 1980s

moody and grumbling in the 2000s

the best book you'll never read

2007-05-17T16:52:00.000-04:00

if you enjoy: high-adventure, cultural exchanges, caravaning, hunting rabbits, geese, wild boars, and mountain goats, travelling with an amicable Swiss companion, dealing with Chinese customs agents, avoiding Bolshevik mercenaries, screaming at Turki animal handlers, haggling with Uighur bazaar merchants, crossing the Himalayas, or dining with English noblemen in the hill country of Kashmir, then by no means read News from Tartary by Peter Fleming - it's far too romantic, as 1930s travel novels go, and it will make you want to immediately quit your day job and cross the nearest desert you can find by caravan. of course, if your job involves any of the pleasures listed above, then by all means continue what you are doing - you're pretty much halfway there.

Fleming (pictured below) was refreshingly honest when writing about his travels, and was quite the antithesis of what was expected of an English gentleman of the 1930s (see Gosford Park for more detail on that.) Fleming was one of those people who was comfortable wherever he slept, satisfied with whatever he ate (more so when he hunted and cooked it for himself,) and relatively patient with the maddening bureaucracy that plagued travelers in China at that time. however, he was still embarassed to show up in the presence of British nobility in China or India without proper attire and he hauled a dinner jacket with him for 6 months across the vast Tibetan plateau. when the time came that he actually dinner clothing, he found the suit had been rotted through after one of his servants had accidentally dropped his pack while fording a river.

my question is, how can i convince someone to pay me to do something like this for a living? i would gladly sign on for such an expedition. it's a shame that the Golden Age of British exploration is over. nowadays the majority of people just armchair caravan with a few clicks on Google Earth.

and please - if someone can buy me the jacket that he is wearing in the picture, i'd be eternally grateful. don't worry, i have my own pipe.

back by popular demand: part two

2007-05-01T12:00:00.000-04:00

the next part of our Swedish expedition took a peculiar turn. we knew that Stockholm was our final destination for the weekend, but which path would we take out of Göteborg? going back the way we came was out of the question because aside from the points of interest (POIs) along the side of that road, it wasn't a very exciting drive in the first place. we did manage a sneak preview of the quainter aspects of the Swedish countryside, and we caught sight of some impressive modern windmills that dot the landscape between Västerås and Göteborg. other than that, we needed some fresh sights and new POIs to maintain our interest as we headed toward Stockholm. we soon found both in the hunt for Bronze Age carvings along the Bohlusian coast.

little red men

we said goodbye to Hotel Vasa we drove north out of Göteborg along the coast. our first destination was a wildlife park in the Bohlusian hinterlands that supposedly had an interesting menagerie of Nordic wildlife, appropriately called the Nordic Ark. as it turned out, this Swedish "safari" would have taken a solid two hours out of our day, therefore we opted to miss the reindeer and arctic foxes and instead we walked along a sprawling, crystal-clear fjord for a little while before we found our first set of carvings.

the carvings were about a kilometer from the wildlife park, hidden under a cluster of trees. their location was marked by a "R" which signifies rune and points in the general direction of where the rock is located. the smooth granite on which these carvings lie blend into the landscape quite well, and it's only when you are practically on top of them that you see the intricate little shapes and figures that represents the history of a civilization 3000 years old. the carvings are shallow - no more than a milimeter or two deep - and have been painted red by the Swedish historical society that protects the carvings today.

most of the carvings depict warriors wielding long swords and shields and, interestingly enough, long phalluses (or is it phalli?) figures of women are rarely carved in the rock, except in the case of grief or disaster where they are shown to be kneeling and crying. one particularly famous carving, however, shows a man and a woman, naked, and kissing. this is generically named "The Kiss" but it shows that Bronze Age Scandinavians had no pretenses about carving lewd pictures on their rocks. who knows? maybe the archeaologists are wrong and the carvings don't represent the cultural story of these ancient people. instead, maybe some angst-ridden Bronze Age teens got together and decided to vandalize a bunch of local rock outcroppings. other depictions include boats, the sun, cups, and cute little whales. the smallest carvings are no more than an inch tall with the biggest being an early representation of Odin at over 2 meters tall.

megaskrov and megaslott

we reached our fill of carvings in the early afternoon and headed back to Stockholm through some rough country that skirted the Norweigan border. we made a few stops on the way; one, at a Swedish rest stop called Frasses that had clearly ripped off its menu from McDonalds. take a look at their website: that is a Big Mac clone on their homepage. but we didn't really care because the food was excellent (i recommend the Megaskrov) and they offered all sorts of tasty seasons and sauces for their fries, including one called Rhode Island Dressing, which is clone of Thousand Island. we also hit up a large slott (castle), something we'd been trying to find for three days, in the city of Örebro. Slott also happens to mean manor house in Swedish, and while manor houses are interesting, they don't inspire thoughts of rugged, hardy, medieval Swedes; a strong, stone castle, however, does.

the capital of Scandinavia

Reykjavik is too remote. Helsinki is too modern. Oslo is way too expensive. Copenhagen? too quaint. Stockholm, on the other hand, has what it takes to be the champion for all of Scandinavia. it's the biggest city in terms of population in all of Scandinavia, mixing old world history with sleek modernity, and small town charm with an ultra-hip social scene. it's accessible and efficient (although let us be honest; there are no inefficient Scandinavian cities) and it's a perfect destination from which to explore the rest of the region. in short, Stockholm is marvelous and it only took us three days to come to that conclusion.

the one glitch was that we didn't actually stay in Stockholm. Tobias booked a Scandic hotel through Orbitz that was supposed to be in the city center. unfortunately, Orbitz had the wrong address for the hotel and hence, the wrong map on its website. the Scandic Kungens Kurva was actually in a suburb called, surprise-surprise, Kungens Kurva, which is about 10 kilometers outside Stockholm. at first, we were a little disheartened, but our mood collectively improved after we discovered that the hotel had a pool and sauna as well as the most complete breakfast spread yet (complete with caviar paste.) there was also a large hotel bar and convenient access to the Stockholm Metro.

now, if you only have three days to spend in Stockholm like we did, how would you spend your time in the most efficient, Scandinavian way possible? we started, appropriately enough, in the Gamla Stan, which is the heart of the Stockholm and holds all of the major museums, palaces, and quaint, ochre-colored buildings that you expect to see when you go to an old city. it also had a bustling tourist-oriented street filled with tacky souvenir shops, overpriced speciality stores, and pushy restaurateurs looking to herd visitors into their establishments by the dozens. we hit the side streets instead and took pictures of the narrow alleyways, occasionally popping our heads into a shop selling old maps. on one such trip, we found a store that was absolutely filled with antiques and trinkets from the Soviet Union. you could by military and civilian medals by the hundreds, flags from the Red Army or Soviet Navy, guns, knives, swords, maps, binoculars, currency, (i bought an envelope filled with small denomination Uzbek sum, the likes of which i never saw in Uzbekistan) belts, hats, books, and postcards. this store also had a few items that were seemingly plundered from Nazi Germany by the Red Army during the Second World War, and were later purchased in Russia by the proprietor of this shop. among those items was a bust of Adolf Hitler, some Reichsmarks, and a few pairs of field glasses belongs to officers of the Wehrmacht, each chillingly engraved with the swastika.

beside the beautiful Stortorget (see the pics below) the coolest event in Gamla Stan was the changing of the royal guard at the Stockholm Palace. Chach equated it to a Monty Python sketch as the little blue-clad soldiers shuffled around the palace square. i thought it was quite well orchestrated as a new company of soldiers took the place of the old ones in a ritual that involved one of the best marching bands that i had ever seen. not only were they close to perfect with their performance, they played a few jazz tunes along with their traditional military reveille, much to the delight of the crowd.

another must-see is Stockholm's city hall. it was designed by a brilliant, but very fussy architect named Ragnar Östberg who constantly changed his mind about the design of the building. the hall is home to the famous Nobel Banquet and is held in the Blue Hall, which isn't actually blue because he decided near the end of construction that the red bricks were far more beautiful, and therefore he canceled the paint job. it also has a Golden Room, which actually is gold, and contains 1 million gold-painted titles that cover the walls and pillars. one of the reasons for his wishy-washy behavior might be attributed to the fact that he was a Swedish nationalist and he wanted everything to match and complement with ruthless Swedish efficiency. perhaps this is why it took 12 years to build. nonetheless, it is an astounding piece of architecture.

the last night we hit a very hip club named Berns to see one of Tobias' fave musicians, Bobby Bare Jr. most young people in Stockholm dress like they just walked out of an H&M and there was no exception at Berns. in fact, Bobby Bare Jr and his bandmates were probably the most casually dressed people there, along with Chach, Tobias and me. Bobby took swigs off bottles of Jack Daniels and Miller Lite in between rawkus rock n' roll songs and everyone was most pleased, especially the drunk hipster Swedes in the audience who got a little too excited and stole Bobby's tambourine. well, i don't think Bobby wasn't too pleased with that. like most city dwellers, Stockholmites (ites?) love to go out, when they do, they dress for it. there are practically no dive bars in Stockholm and most drinking establishments are either ultra-sleek or have some sort of interesting theme or decor. take Koh Phangan, for example; a Thai restaurant in the Södermalm district. the minute you walk in, you feel as if Thailand and Jamaica united as one country and decided to celebrate with a rave in college freshman dorm room. the decor is heavy on blacklights, Bob Marley posters, glow-in-the-dark tape, and tiki torches. reggae music blares through the thatch-roofed bar and benches in the dining are arranged over koi ponds and inside tuktuks. the food was top-notch - possibly the best and most unique Thai i've ever had. food critics use the word "transcendental" a lot. whatever that means, i think Koh Phangan hit it.

we left Stockholm on a snowy Monday - the only snow we had during the entire trip - and headed out to tour the Stockholm archipelago, which is a popular holiday destination for Swedes. we also headed to Sigtuna on our way to the airport and cursed ourselves for not finding this gem of a town sooner. it was filled with the ruins of ancient monasteries and castles, just waiting for some sturdy tourists to explore their grounds. after stomping around some ruins for about an hour, we headed back to Arlanda International Airport, said goodbye to our trusty Volvo, and waited anxiously for 5-star luxury to take us back across the pond.

one last highlight: we had absolutely crystal clear skies as we flew over Greenland, something that is rare as the North Atlantic is almost always obscured by some sort of cloud cover. Chach and i had some beautiful views from our window and i managed to snap a few photos at 40,000 feet of glaciers calving into their fjords. enjoy.

fjord near the Nordic Ark

our first set of carvings

a 40 foot Bronze Age carving at Tanumshede

a whale

a depiction of a stone ship setting ceremony

the home of the Tanumshede Rock Carvings - a UNESCO World Heritage Site

the Örebro Slott

Stockholm Gamla Stan

the changing of the guard at Stockholm Palace

how could you not want to live on this street?

or this one?

the most famous photo op in Stockholm at Stortorget

the Riddarholm

inside the Golden Room in the city hall, home of the Nobel Banquet

a medieval monastic fortress in Sigtuna

a glacier off the coast of Greenland

back by popular demand: part one

2007-04-23T14:32:00.000-04:00

it's finals week, and my loyal contingent of law school friends demand something to read.

ask, and you shall receive.

Tobias, Chach, and i spent the first week of April touring Sweden. as usual, when i told people about our destination, i saw a lot of puzzled faces, inevitably followed by the question, "well, that's...interesting. why would you go to Sweden?"

why go to Sweden? the simple answer is, "why not?" the more complex explanation entails explaining to their inquisitive little heads the wonders and joys of travel at anytime of year to any destination. just because it isn't a particularly popular or well-known tourist spot for early April, it was still a fascinating journey. now, i wouldn't necessarily advocate mid-summer touring of Baghdad (maybe in a few years), or perhaps a sunbathing expedition to Brighton Beach in December, but there are plenty of places around the globe that are just as awesome to visit offseason as they are at peak season. i've written about a few of them already: Guatemala, Belize, and Iceland; the latter of which we went to in the dead of the Arctic winter and was one of my top five trips of all time.

now, practically speaking, the flights were cheap, it was Chach's spring break, and Tobias, our trusty new travelling partner, was looking for a vacation (he hadn't gone on one in, like, 5 years). so on April 3rd, after a fantastic 7 hour flight on Malaysia Airlines - one of only four 5-star airlines in the world - we landed at Arlanda International Airport, loaded up the old Volvo S40 Flexifuel, and headed out onto the open Scandinavian highway.*

*this isn't a figurative description. Sweden has a fine network of highways and byways that are very much devoid of major traffic outside the cities. Sweden is about the size of California, but with only about a quarter of the population.

Viking mounds and burial grounds

by the time we got to Uppsala, we were excited, but running on vapors, having not slept much on Malaysia Airlines. the problem with Malaysia is there was too much On Demand entertainment to take advantage of and too much unlimited red wine to drink. therefore, sleeping was not an option on the way over. i had way too many movies to catch up on.

we walked sleepily around the Viking burial mounds at Uppsala and casually explored the museum devoted to former inhabitants of the area. there isn't much left in the way of Viking artifacts or ruins. most are contained in the museum or were extracted from the mounds in the 18th century. the museum explains how the Vikings saw the world. they had a complex belief system that was rooted in Norse mythology and paganism, worshipping gods and giants like Odin, Vidar, Loki, or Freyr. of course, dying in battle was the ultimate honor for a Viking warrior, so they did a lot of pillaging and looting on their way through the British Isles, Eastern Europe, and even as far away as modern day Iraq. however, dying in battle wasn't good enough for Vikings. after being escorted into Valhalla - Odin's heavenly hall - by hot Valkyries (female shieldmaidens,) they will eat and booze it up for an eternity until Ragnarök, which in Viking eschatology is the mother-of-all-battles. and people wonder why it took hundreds of years to subdue the Vikings under Christian rule? who wants to go boring old Heaven when in the Viking afterlife you can drink mead out of bullhorns and eat mutton off the bone served by gorgeous Norse giantesses, and then are guaranteed one last chance to lop someones head off at the end of all things?

from Uppsala, we quickly made our way to Västerås, which is Sweden's sixth largest city, and found ourselves in the Klipper Hotel where we had a quick Thai meal, shopped for provisions for the first leg of our road trip, and quickly fell asleep for 12 hours.

runes, runes, runes, and problems pumping petrol

on the road to Göteborg, we made a group decision to stop at Points of Interest along the way and absorb some of the local culture, as well as stop at spots that were a little further removed from the normal tourist trails. our first big stop was at the Ramsund carving, which is an important depiction of the Volsunga saga and the story of Sigurd, a famous Norse folkhero.

in the midst of all this rune-hunting, i noticed that the gas in our tank had reached a perilously low level. we pulled into a rural Preem gas station and spent about 20 minutes awkwardly trying to figure out how to pay for and pump gas, since there wasn't an attendant in sight. we spied on some natives from the backseat of our Volvo and tried to copy their actions at the pump, but to no avail. finally, a young man pulled up to the station and started pumping gas. after he finished, i cautiously approached him and ask him in mangled Swedish, "Do you speak English?" to which he replied to me, in English, "What?" upon hearing that, i reaffirmed his "What" by saying, "oh, so you do speak English." his reply, of course, was, "of course!" i'm not sure why i was surprised. the Scandinavians (including Icelanders) have an uncanny handle on the English language. not only do they speak it fluently, but they often have a British or American accent when speaking it.

i recommend the lodging at the Hotel Vasa

if you have a chance to travel to Sweden, visiting Göteborg (pronounced in Swedish something like Yer-te-bair) should be a top priority on your places-to-see list. it has the biggest port in all of Scandinavia, a fantastic "continental" feel, and more shops, restaurants, bars, and museums than you can absorb in a mere three days. it's also one of the cheaper destinations in Sweden, which means a lot when you realize the dent Scandinavia puts on your credit card after a few days of travel. we checked into the Hotel Vasa, after fruitless attempts to find a cheap and conveniently located hotel anywhere else. not only was the staff helpful and friendly, but they had a sauna and steambath on the premise, parking, and a fantastic breakfast spread complete with my new favorite breakfast item, caviar paste. this delectable breakfast spread comes in what resembles a toothpaste tube, from which you squeeze the contents on to toast, bread, or hard crackers. if anyone has any idea of where to find this stuff in NYC, please comment immediately. and according to a study i just online, it's also pretty good for you. so, recap: caviar paste made from cod. it's orange. smells very fishy. amazing on crackers.

we all live on a Scandinavian submarine

Göteborg was one big highlight reel. (it wasn't that the rest of the trip was average or even dull by comparison, but after Day Two in this lovely maritime city, we were hard pressed to think even Stockholm could be as impressive a place. far from ruining a big surprise, those thoughts were quickly negated.) we woke up early for a quick breakfast of caviar paste, fresh rolls and assorted cheeses for me, and the same thing minus the paste for Chach and Tobias, and headed directly to the Maritiman, which is Göteborg's fantastic outdoor ship museum. we spent the next three or four hours crawling around the holds of several large cargo ships and tugboats, manning the helms of some coastal patrol boats, and exploring the depths of the Smaland destroyer, a Swedish naval vessel that looks formidable, but i doubt ever fired a shot in anger during its service. by far the most interesting ship was the submarine Nordkaparen. i had never been inside a submarine before and i quickly understood why the maximum height of its crew can't be more than 5'9. Tobias, Chach, and i would not have made a good crew with the cramped wire bunks, the one-and-a-half foot diameter passageways that connect the ship, and the fact that there were no vegetarian options on the galley menu.

we smelled the metal in our noses and on our hands for the rest of the afternoon after climbing up and down ladders and opening hatches on the ships all morning. but, it soon dissapated upon dinnertime where we dined at Smaka; an upscale Göteborg restaurant that offers a variety of traditional Swedish comfort food. i had smoked reindeer on dark rye bread topped with fresh salmon roe as an appetizer; it's best described as the closest thing to swedish sushi. Tobias had a red onion and tomato salad, which seems to be a popular starter above the 50 degrees north. i'm not sure why this dish has persisted in northern climes throughout the years considering tomatoes are only in season in the spring and early summer. while it was a light start, Tobias redeemed himself by ordering the quintessential Swedish dish, meatballs with mashed potatoes and lingonberries. i asked for the homemade blackpudding with fried pork and lingonberries, to which upon my request the waiter looked at me with a bemused smile and ask, "you know what that is right?" i nodded in serious affirmation and he smiled again, complimenting me on my choice (or my bravery.) if you aren't sure what blackpudding is, it's basically animal blood cooked with a filler such as barley, oatmeal, or bread until it congeals. you can also add meat as a filler to make the pudding more sausage-like. while it sounds disgusting, it is quite flavorful because of the spices that they add while cooking. Chach didn't partake in this meatfest (traditional Scandinavian cuisine is not very veggie-friendly) so we stuffed her with some street falafel before dinner and then she had dessert at the restaurant. i can't excatly recall what she had, but it was delicious and the lingonberries surprised us all by really complementing every dish we ate; from pork, to meatballs, to the black pudding.

and for the record, Chach's falafel was slightly above average. the lack of eggplant as a garnish is a big turnoff, in Chach's opinion.

middle ages runestone carving in Uppsala

a gorgeous afternoon in Uppsala

quaint Västerås

Sigurd's saga at Ramsund

Zain at Ramsund

a mortal blow to Sigurd's enemy. ie, a loss of his head

Sigurd's mighty steed

quaint Sweden

gas problems

a small Swedish stonehenge

downtown Göteborg

manning the patrol boat

all ahead full

right full rudder

Sweden's defense against Norweigan inflitrators

shells aboard the Smaland destroyer

Chach in the sub

two jolly submariners

the Maritiman museum

our little sub that could

resistance is futile

2007-03-07T09:44:00.000-05:00

most solicitors of faith don't look at me as a very attractive target for conversion. with my arabic name and dark, rugged, good looks; christian missionaries generally consider me as unsaveable. rabbis accost me once in awhile and ask if i'm jewish (like the hasidic at Vostok in Boro Park last weekend) but when i confess my w.a.s.p-y/paki background, they often just pat me on the shoulder and quickly excuse themselves. i'm really fascinated by buddhists, but the monks i see are few and far between in NYC and are usually surrounded by a gaggle of college students from NYU. mormons elders are just about everywhere, and i sometimes hit them up for conversation when i'm bored, but they normally just point me in the direction of a local temple and then look for a more wretched soul to save.

however, i've come to the conclusion that just about every muslim from Minneapolis to Medina is trying to convert me to Islam.

this morning as i was checking my email i received a message from Arshad Mahmood. i have no clue who Arshad is, but he sent me a powerpoint and in the subject line of the email was "1 Minute for Allah." the message wasn't traditional spam in the sense that someone named Shahid Iqbal (no relation) forwarded it to Nadeem Yousef, Nadeem forwarded it to a person named "Mo" ( most likely a Mohammed) and Mo forwarded it to Arshad. so, it was more like a chain letter; like spam, equally despicable.

so, i scanned the powerpoint for viruses and opened it up. i won't go into detail, but the general message was that i should open up to Allah and accept him into my heart; oh, and by the way, here is a list of some of the more severe consequences if i don't. (by the way, if anyone is interested in looking at the presentation, contact me and i'll gladly send it along.) and the twangy arabic music playing in the background of the slide show really complemented the overall message of "convert or perish."

a few months before this incident, i was in a car service coming home late from work on night and the driver kept eyeing me through the rearview mirror as i was talking to my mom on my cell in the backseat. i hung up the phone when we were about five minutes from my apartment and again the driver eyed me in the rearview and exclaimed, "ZAIN. GOOD MUSLIM NAME. " i was a little flummoxed as to how he actually knew my name, until he told me that he had both my first and last name in his computer for the pick up. he went on to question me about my background:

"did your parents have an arranged marriage in Pakistan?" no? but your parents are both Pakistani, yes? no?!? then where is your mother from? (he immediately assumed that my mother was not a Paki married to an American; granted, he was right) your mother is from the Midwest? then your mother converted to islam? NO? then your father raised you as a muslim? NO?!? then what are you??"

i told him that for all intents and purposes i was an atheist, but i found many religions and philosophies - such as Buddhism, Taoism, or Anton LeVayan Satanism - to be interesting in their own rights. this was NOT a satisfying answer for him. on one hand, he was appalled that my father did not instill a sense of muslim brotherhood into me at a young age. but on the other hand, he wasn't surprised as went on to explain that my mother's "judeo-christian" values probably dominated (read: corrupted) my chances at a healthy islamic upbringing. for about 30 minutes we argued over these points in the car at the curb of my apartment. overcome by hunger, i told him that i would take his words into consideration and start to make my way out of the cab. just as i opened the door, he grabbed a hold of my shirt and said. "brother! there are muslim centers everywhere! go to one, ask for a Qur'an and read it with an OPEN HEART!" funny. you never hear any of these people, whether they be christian, muslim, or jewish, say "read it with an OPEN MIND." or maybe that's just me.

here is the short, short, version

2007-02-21T11:57:00.000-05:00

weekend recap: 3 1/2 hour delay at Kennedy, 4am arrival SFO, Burke chooses the wrong airport, traffic, California dining in the OB, a drive through SF, undergrads and irish car bombs, dice games with Dickman, Booker loses his keys, overnight on the couch at Dickman's, keys found next to cupcakes, drive to Tiburon, lunch at Sam's, 9 drinks for Booker, awesome calamari, Burke almost bursts, across the Golden Gate, tired in Berkeley, Zachary's Chicago-style, sleep, breakfast with Sharon, drop off Burke at the airport, behind the scenes tour of the SF Aquarium with Chach's friend Erin, late lunch in little Italy, drinks with Jenni, redeye flight, dead at work on Tuesday.

and to top it all off, Britney has lice and is out of rehab, AGAIN.

pictures, and much more, this weekend!

cursed?

2007-02-08T12:31:00.001-05:00

last weekend didn't turn out at all the way i expected.

first my cross-country skiing trip, something i had been looking forward to all of last week, was cancelled due to lack of snow. it seems that any resort within a 3-hour drive of NYC has little to no ground cover and the 10-day forecast doesn't look any better. and if i can't ski, this will have a major impact on my training for the 2014 Winter Olympiad.

since i didn't have to get up at the ungodly hour of 6:00am for my ski trip i hung out with Mozo on Friday night at Faces and Names, a mediocre midtown watering hole that has sports bar appeal and grub for the men, and loungy backroom decor, poptinis, or various other "in" cocktails for the ladies and metrosexuals. after that, we met with some of Mozo's friends and went to Papillon for snails, uncooked ground beef topped with an egg (that's escargot and steak tartare, to you sophistos) and wine. i also managed my first peek at a trading floor that night, which i have to say was quite fascinating. the view from the floor for Mozo's 49th floor office of Manhattan is far superior to my 7th floor view of nothing. plus, i like the fact that people have more than one screen to a desk.

Saturday was a wash, but i woke up Sunday feeling refreshed and itching to watch the Super Bowl at Arik and Melissa's house in Brooklyn. after a delightful breakfast of toast, eggs, and half a grapefruit, Chach and i settled in to watch The Passion of the Christ. now, the reason i put it in my Netflix queue is because i wanted to see what all of the hype was about. having not attended Sunday School, or even church for that matter as a young boy, i had numerous doubts about the plot and the character motivations. it was around the crucifixion i began to question the whole thing, so i decided to fast forward it to see what happened at the end.

maybe it was the gratuitous blood and gore that prevented me from understanding the motivation of the main character, but it was right around this time that i felt a bit of nausea come over me. by the time the movie ended, we had a couple of hours before we had to leave for the Super Bowl fiesta, so i decided to lie down for a little bit and see what developed. around five o'clock, my stomach decided that breakfast was no longer welcome and this development forced me to have Chach cancel our Super Bowl plans. and for the next three days and nights after that, i was laid up sick.

now, at first i thought the obvious: Chach tried to poison me. she prepared breakfast that morning and could have easily pulled an Alexander Litvinenko on me. but then again, she prepared all of the food at once and could have easily poisoned herself too. plus, Chach doesn't seem like the poisoning type.

later, i thought it was the stomach flu, as it does seem to be going around. however, that seemed too obvious, and also rather boring.

now i believe that because i more or less mocked The Passion as i was watching it, it was God's will that i become ill, adding insult to my already injured and ailing weekend. only one thing came to mind when i came to this conclusion; in the immortal words of Homer Simpson:

Our Lord is vengeful! O Spiteful One, Show me who to smite and they shall be smoten!

Alaska:Iditarod::NYC:_________?

2007-01-29T16:39:00.000-05:00

the answer: the Idiotarod.

if you aren't sure what an Idiotarod is, or you think you've heard of it before, but really aren't sure how it works, below is a quick glance at the essentials:

1) shopping cart (it can be disassembled or reassembled in whatever manner the team likes, but all of the essential parts to a shopping cart must be present, ie., no missing wheels, handlebars, or racks.)
2) a Party of Five people, or more
3) a theme. ours was the Little Red Riding Hoods and we had a wolf attached to our cart. (see the middle of the second-linked video below)
4) booze. this could be considered optional, but lets face it; running buck-wild around the streets of NYC dragging along nothing more than a beat-up shopping cart and donned in less than optimal running gear takes liquid courage.
5) courage. see above.

the first thing i noticed as we exited from the subway station in Greenpoint on our way to the starting line was the presence of NYPD's finest just about everywhere; on horseback, in patrol cars, and even in a helicopter circling overhead. a noticeable tension hung in the air, as people aimlessly pushed their carts around the center of Greenpoint. this tension was exacerbated by the fact that no one really knew where the starting line was. in an attempt to throw off the fuzz (or a ploy by the event organizers to get everyone's adrenaline pumping) the start was moved at the last minute to another park about 10 minutes from the original starting line.

when Chach and i finally reached Team Little Red Riding Hood at a little park in on the corner of Franklin and Dupont, we saw a throng of shopping carts, police vehicles, and teams in full costume (bananas, Cosbys, Wonder Women, SCUBA divers.) last year's winner and 2007 Idiotarod organizers, Team C.O.B.R.A., herded racers into position. after a few photos with the team and some last-minute preparation, someone in the crowd blew a whistle or set off some firecrackers. it was then that all hell broke loose.

to be honest, i'm going to sell out and not explain what exactly happened. instead, check out these cool links (with great video) that Mozo sent out today here and here; also, this one i found on the Gothamist. Team Little Red Riding Hoods make an appearance in the very last slide.

little red hoods

a gang of bike toughs and their warty phallus

preparing for the SWAT

they came from Canada...

Ghostbusting Brooklyn

Jamacian carting

the above pic (and the two following) show a minor war that broke out between a militaristic team in US Army fatigues and Kim Jong-Il's team (complete with Tyvek jumpsuits, used for work in a nuclear reactor, or something.) the Army attacked the supporters of Kim Jong-Il twice with supersoakers, dead fish, honey, and mayonnaise, but the North Koreans held their ground with flour and fanatic loyalty and cheered their Dear Leader as he thumbed his nose at the retreating battalion. Kim Jong-Il!! Kim Jong-Il!!

the Chippendale Team should have won MVP, considering it was their 6th hour outside in 30 degree weather, wearing nothing but black briefs

put him in a bodybag!! yeah!! (The Karate Kid? anyone?)

an unusual goat. you might even call it, weird.

and so ends Idiotarod 2007 in NYC. Mozo is already pumped for next year, and even has plans to crash the DC Idiotarod in March with her own brand of Brooklyn sabotage. if you are interested in joining her, contact her at: superhumanstrength.blogspot.com.

the adventure continues this weekend for your heroes, as Chach and i embark on our first-ever cross-country skiing trip with the Adventure Society of NYC. this, of course, was in preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympics which were going to be held in Kazakhstan. i still have hope for Sochi as the first Pakistani biathlete. oh yeah, Borat made an appearance at the Idiotarod too:

Jagshemash!

customer for LIFE

2007-01-24T21:30:00.000-05:00

a few weeks ago after the whirlwind that was New Years, Chach and i settled in for a night of Indo/Paki/Bengali food, courtesy of our friends at Roti Boti on 21st Street and Astoria Boulevard. Chach, being the dynamo that she is, glanced over at me - as if a lightbulb had burst over her head - and exclaimed: i LOVE mint ice cream with my Indian food!! can we have some??

Chach was dead on: what this meal needed was a little mint ice cream to soften the blow of the fiery Bengali spices that would soon be churning around in our stomachs. i ran down to the local bodega, procured a pint of Ben and Jerry's Mint Chocolate Cookie, and ran back home, much to the delight of Chach's rumbling belly. however, upon opening the pint, i discovered (to my horror) that the ice cream looked as if it had melted and was refrozen. the minty peppermint flavoring and some of the chocolate had congealed to the side of the carton like some mutated York Peppermint Pattie. the ice cream itself had that hoary texture that one might find on a Christmas window display. the cookies were nowhere to be found, but i suspected that they were lurking at the bottom of the in a heap. undaunted, i grabbed my favorite bowl and attempted to salvage the mess. as i dug into the ice-y cream with a spoon, the bottom of the carton slipped on our marble counter top, causing a chain-reaction in which i lost control of my grip on the spoon, knocked my bowl off the counter and toward the floor, upon which it shattered into 11 pieces. i wouldn't have been so upset if the bowl had the bowl not been from Uzbekistan and had it not been a wedding gift from the Volunteers in our group. i was as shattered as the bowl and quite annoyed that Ben and Jerry's would allow such a shoddy product to make it to the freezer of a local store. so, i wrote them a letter explaining what happened and that i merely wanted my $4.50 back for the ice cream. i would just have to go back to Uzbekistan to find another bowl.

today, i received a package from Ben and Jerry's. enclosed was a check for $4.50, a coupon for 55 cents off a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, frozen yogurt, or sorbet, and this:

along with this:

you wouldn't get customer service like this in Soviet Russia, i'll tell you that. i am officially a Ben and Jerry's customer for life.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

scuba diving, mint ice cream, and haute Indian cuisine: at 66° North

2007-01-17T15:47:00.001-05:00

one of the more enjoyable aspects of travel, especially while exploring an entirely new place, is how much you can learn in a mere 72 hours. the 72 hour vacation, like the one Chach and i took to Iceland this past weekend, is highly underrated and should be more popular with the younger jet set who crave time off from their busy schedules, but also can’t afford to take a week-long vacation. with some thoughtful planning, one can pack a slew of activities into a 72 hour vacation, which in the end will make a weekend seem like a much longer journey. (incidentally, our next 72 hour vacation will happen over President’s Day weekend with a trip to scenic San Francisco and Oakland, California; home of Booker, the Exploratorium, and my old elementary school in Piedmont, Wildwood.)

Chach and i were so overwhelmed with questions about Iceland, that by Sunday we harassed the evening hotel concierge for information about renting, employment, and apartment swapping. the patient concierge informed us that she had just started at the hotel that day and most of her time outside Iceland was spent living in Barcelona. she explained her situation in a slightly disappointed tone, and she seemed to be the only disgruntled Icelander that we met on our trip.

but, through simple observation, we learned a great deal about this sparsely populated Scandinavian paradise. here are some of the more interesting facts on the place that made the Vikings want to settle down peacefully:

1) a hot shower will smell slightly like turned egg salad

Iceland runs almost entirely on geothermal energy, and it hopes to be the first country to completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels; every gas station also has a hydrogen filling station attached to it.

2) young Icelanders speak English as well as, if not better than, most young Americans

it’s possible that Iceland is just populated by young, gorgeous, Nordic-Americans. as unlikely as that is, we were taken aback every time we spoke with a young Icelander because of the quality of their English-language skills. if Iceland ever decided to invade the United States, they would have quite the special forces unit on their hands, considering every one of them could blend in to any urban environment and disappear effortlessly. be on guard, folks.

3) fact: Icelanders eat and drink like college freshman

the national food of Iceland? it isn’t Hákarl, it’s pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, sandwiches, and anything cured with salt. on weekends, they take drinking to the next level by dropping vodka shots into pints of beer and chasing that with the locally-produced schnapps, Brennivín mixed with Coca-cola. Icelanders lead the world in per-capita consumption of Coca-cola.

4) fact: Icelanders have the second highest life expectancy in the world

the average age for both men and women is a staggering 80.18 years. second only to the Japanese. it’s possible if Icelanders cut out the salt, the average life expectancy would shoot toward 90.

5) everything in Iceland is cute

Chach wanted to put in her two cents about Iceland’s “cuteness” factor.

6) Þingvellir National Park is a scuba diver’s paradise

at Þingvallavatn in crystal-clear water, scuba diving enthusiasts can explore the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at a balmy 1°-3°C. it is also rated by scuba divers as one of the top 10 places on Earth to explore. suck it, Caribbean!

7) Iceland is expensive

a meal for two at one of Reykjavik’s better Indian restaurants will cost us $90. this price is near average. beer is at least $8 and entrees start around $25. a bargain pint at a local watering hole will cost you between $5 and $6. no wonder everyone eats cheap hot dogs and hamburgers all day long. the mint Magnum ice cream bars are, however, worth the money; even in the cold weather.

8) on January 14, the sun finally rose above the horizon by 11:30am and set by 4:30pm

it is bizarre to see the sun at it’s highest point around 2:30pm, just peeking about the mountains.

9) the air is as clear and invigorating as i’ve ever known

see #4.

10) even snowfall in Iceland makes the national news

third story to appear on the national news? the fact that Reykjavik received about 30 centimeters of snow overnight and that local children were out in droves building snowmen, forts, and attacking unsuspecting tourists with snowballs.

now, look below and check out some pics!

picturesque Iceland

2007-01-17T15:46:00.000-05:00

enjoy these pictures from The Land of Ice
aka
Muzstan
aka
Iśland
aka
Iceland:

Leifur Eiricsson - the true "discoverer" of North America

Iceland has a thriving film industry. if you are interested, check out:
Noi the Albino (the movie that influenced this journey)
The Seagull's Laughter
and the smash cult hit, Reykjavik 101
(check 'em out on Netflix)

downtown Reykjavik

and the cigarette ban in Iceland starts in June of this year (in restaurants and in bars)

on the road to Þingvellir National Park

around 11:45am

the Þingvallavatn

the snow-whipped landscape of the interior

the bearded American Viking conquers the inland

snowplowing, Icelandic style

our trusty little vehicle, which was stuck in the snow outside Þingvellir. luckily, a band of Icelandic snowmobilers helped us dig out

we are climbing this mountain next summer. any takers?

the Lögberg - the site of the first parliamentary democratic government, the alÞing, founded by the Vikings in 930 AD

the Mid-Atlantic Ridge - to the left is Europe, to the right is North America

Icelandic balancing act

the ripped landscape of the Mid-Atlantic ridge

the Almannagjá, where Icelandic justice was carried out by drowning adulterers

Öxaráfoss - the waterfall of the Öxará river

the only trees we ever saw in Iceland

the site of some of the best diving in the world

3:30pm

bundled

the Reyjavik harbor

an artistic representation of the Viking ship, as opposed to the real thing

the house we plan on buying in Reykjavik

Hallgrímskirkja

moonscape outside Keflavik airport

the Blue Lagoon

our unfortunate farewell to Iceland. we shall return!

new years? overrated? balderdash.

2007-01-06T15:47:00.000-05:00

it hardly seems like it's been six days since 2007 reared it's ugly head from the birthcanal of 2006. methinks it's probably because it feels like mid- to late-spring in the New York metro area today.

Partly Cloudy and Windy

69°F

and there is your current temperature. i believe the record high (63 degs in the 50s) was shattered by a balmy 70. global warming? i think not. this is a merely a sign than little El Niño is back, and with a vengance.

and on a day like this, how can you not resolve to better yourself for the New Year? Chach finally managed to push me out the door and into the gym to "Resolve Better." so, today i signed up for a membership at Astoria's branch of New York Sport Clubs.

***

in less than one week, our 3-day Icelandic journey will commence. to celebrate, we watched 101 Reykjavik last night and ate Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi food from a charming little place called Roti Boti. only afterward did we realize that 101 Reykjavik was classified on Netflix and Wikipedia as a "gay romantic comedy." now, before all of you rush to your nearest LGBT video store to pick it up, be warned that there is really only one couple in the movie that fit the specific homosexual description (a lesbian couple,) and there seems to be a trememdous amount of heterosexual-fucking going on - for what is supposed to be an LGBT film. there is also a ton of full frontal nudity on the part of both sexes. who knew that the Icelanders were so...liberated? in America, this movie would only get play on Skinimax. sad, considering it is quite a thoughtful film.

the film also portrayed young Icelanders as hard-partying drunkards. i hope that we can keep up with all of them on the runtur, or a similar pub crawl. on that note, enjoy some pictures of us boozing it up over New Years at Arik and Melissa's lovely Brooklyn garden apartment.

you WON'T be disappointed.

true story

2006-12-20T23:59:00.000-05:00

"During the 2005-06 school year, 28 kindergarten students in Maryland were suspended for sex offenses, including sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexual activity, according to state data. Fifteen of those suspensions were for sexual harassment."

- The Herald Mail, Hagerstown, MD

(pic courtesy - Natalie Dee)

murine cuisine

2006-12-19T14:10:00.000-05:00

yesterday, Booker and i were throwing around ideas for a place to have a group vacation over President's Day weekend in February. we figured Hawaii, Vegas, Cancun, Puerto Vallerta or Puerto Rico would be good bets.

fear not Booker. i found a place today online that has a touch of the exotic, a dab of hopelessness, and a sprinkle of the insane. lets Ski Zimbabwe! (and as the article suggests, they have fantastic seasonal cuisine.)

items of disinterest

2006-12-18T16:42:00.000-05:00

i found four items of interest that may or may not interest you.

number 1: top ten ways to destroy the Earth. if you are an evil genius bent on ransoming the Earth for a couple billion dollars, but have lost the inspiration for how to carry out your plan, then does Live Science have some ideas for you. my personal favorite is #4: Meticulously and Systematically Deconstructed, which is what i imagine the Vogons did when they were assigned to carry out destruction of the Earth in order to make way for an intergalactic superhighway. (and if don't get that Vogon reference, then that means you haven't read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy yet, and you too deserve to be meticulously and systematically deconstructed.)

number 2: vegetarian = higher IQ. you can imagine from who i first heard this story. yes, it was none other than Chach herself. admittedly, she is fairly intelligent; for a girl vegetarian.

number 3: time-wasters: especially for you law kids; if you are finishing up your Crim exam and are desperately looking for something to do in your newly found spare time. of course, you may not want to do anything that requires thinking and instead may want to pick up the latest copy of US Magazine, flip on the old TiVo, or take the mutt to the dog run. or get drunk. whatever. to be honest, i only played the spelling game and then i promptly lost the direct link. if someone is interested in researching further, please do. we’ll all be here, waiting for your reply in the comments section.

number 4: death of a Turkish icon: the founder of Atlantic Records died last week and he was mourned in Istanbul by none other than the famous Tarkan and the infamous Kid Rock. how bizarre.

by the way, i seem to have stumbled on the new blogger formatting tool. it allows you you label posts and creates and easier format with which to speak to the world. become a blogger today and join the fun. anyone for blog about seersucker?

your weekly ancedote

2006-12-11T16:33:00.000-05:00

well well well. i seem to be under heavy fire, especially by some of the more die-hard readers of peregrination, for not updating The Blog with interesting and relevant stories about life as a New Yorker. instead, i've descended down a path filled with rants, nonsensical and uninteresting rehashings of international news stories, or simply not writing anything of value. for this, i apologize. i have made a promise to myself to double my efforts and make peregrination the saucy, gossip-filled, cutting edge blog that it once was. now, the next two stories that i'll share with you aren't necessarily saucy, gossip-filled, or even cutting edge; they are simply vignettes of how bizarre people truly are. and, if you don't find them enjoyable then you can, as the French say, " sucez-le."

in fact, here's a thought, folks. let's have a weekly posting about New York. much like peregrination's Movie of the Month or the Martini's 80's Song of the Week (or Month.) we can give it a cheesy, uninspired name like, "Manhattan Musings" or "Gotham Gibblets" or even something like "En-why-see Explications."

or how about "Borough Briefs"?

Borough, because maybe i'll give an account of me getting lost in the South Bronx one week or eating at Pastis in Manhattan the next.

Briefs, because at heart everyone loves tighty-whiteys. especially Booker.

and without further ado:

Borough Briefs #1

this isn't so much a brief, really, as much as it made me wonder exactly why people operate the way they do. i walked into the company kitchenette this morning to fix myself a cup of tea, and i found two other ladies making coffee and settling in for the day. all of a sudden, i hear a screech and turn around to find that the bottom of one of the ladies' styrofoam cups had disintegrated, spilling coffee all over the table and the floor. the other lady and i quickly grabbed some paper towels and attempted to help her mop up. then, a curious thing happened; she cleaned herself up, and instead of cleaning the rest of the coffee that she spilled all over the place, she proceeded to make herself another cup of coffee and then casually walked away as if nothing happened. the other lady and i looked at each other, stunned that the woman decided to leave the mess where it was. my fellow witness offered that maybe she was going to find another pair of pants to wear or possibly put her fresh cup of coffee down at her desk before helping to clean up her disaster in the kitchen. however, when i came back to the kitchen 45 minutes later after my meeting to refill my own cup, the mess was still there; untouched by this mystery woman who obviously thought that a cleaning crew would do it for her.

Borough Briefs #2

i witnessed this a few weeks ago on the W train one morning on my way to work. it scarred me so much that i'd like to share it with you. too bad i didn't have my camera.

we just arrived at 42nd street, Times Square and this portly gentleman stumbled into my car. when i say portly i don't mean John Candy portly; what i really mean is Jon Brower Minnochesque morbidly obese. it's possible he was in the process of losing weight, because he was actually holding his pants up with one hand and maneuvering for space with the other. he still looked like he could tip the scales at 450lbs (that's 4-and-a-half BILLS, people.) the train made its stops at 34 th and 28th streets, and as we pulled into the 23rd station, the train lurched at the last minute and came to a sudden, grinding halt. because it came to such a short stop, the corpulent passenger had to grab the bar with both hands, lest he lose control and roll on to the floor. in taking this bold action, the poor, bulging man forgot that while he could prevent himself from falling flat onto the train floor, gravity would not stop to save him from embarrassment as his pants dropped straight to his ankles, exposing the white meatiness of his thighs to many of the passengers on the train that morning. he was surprisingly nimble in his efforts and just as he steadied himself, he circled his arms down, pulled his pants back up to his waist, and waddled off the train. most the train erupted in a chorus of murmurs and snickers. i, personally, felt a little sympathy for the dude; however, i also don't think that was the first – nor will it be the last – time that happened to him. unfortunately, for the stunned, elderly, little Greek man who was sitting next to me on the train all the way from Astoria Boulevard, all he could say to himself over and over until i got off at the next stop was, "Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God."

update the blog, he says. hey, i got one for you: DON'T YOU HAVE SOME STUDYING TO DO?

2006-12-07T23:35:00.000-05:00

now i can't even remember what exactly i was going to write about. i think that, maybe, it had something to do with:

the CIA?
Christmas? (or the Holiday Season, as some like to put it)
work and my working conditions?
Iceland?
law school?
Fark.com?

my brain is absolutely drained of all fluids from sitting around all day doing nothing (see 3rd bullet.) therefore, Kurt, Xtine and i are going to the New York Historical Society this weekend to brush up on our Gotham history and to stimulate ourselves with something other than pornography, booze, and self-depreciation.

on tap for December? a sneak peek of coming attractions for this most joyous of months:

Napanee: The Sequel!!

Boy's Night Out aka "The Prime Porterhouse Punchout - Will Wolfgang's Steakhouse Really Stack Up to Peter Lugars?" (if you were wondering, Wolfgang's is currently ahead in terms of sheer ostentatiousness. seriously, click on the link above and turn your sound way up.)

The First (and quite possibly, Last) Annual Nieuw Amsterdam Moveable New Year's Feast (if you weren't on the guest list, i apologize. i didn't have your email address. yeah, something like that.)

that does it for December. pics of Kurt, Xtine and i freezing our asses off on the Upper West trying to find this historical society to come...

and young readers without books in Harlem!

2006-11-19T00:56:00.000-05:00

that last post wasn't initally going to be a build up to a plug; but, if you are feeling sort of gross after reading the ridculousness about the Playstation 3 aftermath in the last post, here is a way that you can help some kids who won't have an opportunity to buy Playstation 3s this year (or let's just hope that their parent(s) are prudent enough with their gift-giving.) with your help, you can enjoy giving the gift of reading!

Chach is currently working at a middle school in East Harlem teaching ESL. it is a high-need school and they lack educational materials like "books" and "computers" that a lot of us take for granted. she recently completed her first successful grant for half of her bilingual library: beginning English books that will help her 6th grade class. she is now looking for a few more generous donations so she can build the other half of her bilingual library and help her kids attain literacy in Spanish.

please check out her grant on the donorschoose.org website. she only needs $448 to complete the grant!

we know that it's a tough time of year to make extra expenses, because of traveling, gift-giving, and the inevitable expenses that come with the holiday season; but please keep Chach and her poor little qualify-for-federal-lunch-eatin' students in mind if you are out on the town with friends or co-workers, enjoying some warm libations on a chilly November or December night. just before you order that "one for the road", consider instead donating that drink money (and tip) toward her grant.

not sure what to get the newest member of the family for Christmas? you know, that little baby that everyone is ga-ga over? instead of a plush bear or plastic toy that the little tike will just drool all over, consider a donation in the rugrat's name for Chach's school. hell, if you donate enough, maybe she'll name a portion of the bookshelf after the wee-one! just remember, an investment into the future of other kids is an investment into the future all kids!

turkey. stuffing. cookies. pie. it's all so carby, so fatty, and so, so tempting. and like those dweebs in line for the Playstation 3, you really can't help yourself. maybe instead of bringing a box of Entenmanns to that holiday party; splurging on that tempting appetizer at a holiday dinner because, you've think to yourself, "Christmas comes only once a year"; or springing for the extra-large popcorn, large Coke and Sour-Patch kids at the cozy fall-flick the day after Thanksgiving; you could instead donate the money to some needy kids in Harlem who just want to learn to read in their native and second language. otherwise, those extra $$$$ are just going to end up on your hips, or on your ass, or as cellulite on those legs. you aren't going to go to the gym because there just isn't the time during the mad holiday season. and let's face it: the bottom line is you could really stand to lose some weight anyway.

please donate now!! feel free to get in contact with me for more details through the comments page.

and just remember, friends, what LeVar Burton always says: Opening Books Opens Minds!

there are starving people in China!

2006-11-18T14:11:00.000-05:00

on Wednesday evening, i was walking near the corner of 14th Street and Broadway near the Union Square Circuit City and i saw a line of about 30 dorks huddled near the entrance. i wasn't sure excatly what was going on until i noticed a small corkboard covered with news articles from local dailies annoucing the long-awaited release of Sony's Playstation 3. i was taken aback - no, shocked - when i realized that these nerds weren't going to wait just one night in the NYC cold and rain but two nights until Friday at 8am when Circuit City would open it's doors to sell the limited amount of units that Sony initally released to them.

on Friday, the news reports started flowing in, especially on Fark.com which seemed to cover this mess in detail:

"Police used pepper balls to contain a crowd waiting for the Circuit City at Tysons Corner Mall to open Friday morning" -WTOP, Washington DC

"Close to 200 anxious PlayStation 3 fans at a Best Buy store at Garden State Plaza rushed the store Thursday night, triggering a heated skirmish between fans and police. At least one person was arrested for disorderly conduct." - The Bergen Record, New Jersey

"Two armed thugs tried to rob a line of people waiting to buy the new Playstation 3 gaming console early Friday and shot a 21-year-old Massachusetts man who refused to give up the money in the chest and shoulder, authorities said." - CBS, New York

however the Pulitzer prize winning story comes out of Orlando, Florida, where the Local 6 News team put together a fascinating slideshow about this story:

"A crowd of as many as 600 people who rushed the front doors of a Central Florida mall to get one of 16 available Playstation 3 game consoles became so unruly that the group who received the devices had to be escorted out of the area by officers..."

my favorite picture caption from that photo gallery: "I've been circling around since like maybe 11 p.m. last night," shopper Joe Dweeb said. "People were (hiding) in the bushes and people were hiding under the dock. This is chaos, man."

even our neighbors to the north, The Canadians, got in on the action, adding their uniquely creative touch:

Bert Loser and Vikram Egghead waited in line for two days to buy a new PlayStation 3 only to take it to Dundas Square and smash it to bits with a sledgehammer.

"I did it for the thrill and to see people's expression," Egghead, a 17-year-old part-time student said yesterday after the public smashing of the PS3 he bought from Best Buy.

"It was like a social experiment to see people's reaction. It held up pretty well. It took about 15 hits to break it." - Edmonton Sun

Tobias is right, this idiocy wouldn't happen in Uzbekistan.

Tobias: You know thousands of fat little 12 year olds are whining all day long that they want a PS3 and their rich suburban parents will spend thousands of dollars on them to shut them up. This shit wouldn't happen in Uzbekistan

Zain: you are damn right about that. Uzbek parents would tell those kids that there is plenty of broken glass and rusted metal in the junkyard to play with until 7pm, when their favorite 15 minute long state-run kids show comes on the old Soviet-made black and white television set. and that's only if there is actually power that day. there is always the possibility that it will be diverted to run the hotels so the tourists can watch BBC or charge their digital camera batteries in comfort. and if that happens, the Uzbek kids should be so lucky to sit in the dark.

and from what i noticed the dweebs outside the Union Square Circuit City didn't really look like they were rich or suburban. in fact, most of the photos that i've seen from Florida, Connecticut or New Jersey, the people look like they've have a lot of practice waiting in welfare lines, medicaid lines, or lines at McDonalds. you would think that they could maintain some semblance of order for a $600 video game console. but, no. you actually shouldn't think that because these people are morons.

just in case you forgot who we were

2006-11-13T23:00:00.000-05:00

zain. chach. (we both got haircuts, by the way. you can't really tell with mine.)

this is filler until we explore the exciting world of envelope stuffing on Wednesday, live from Kurt's LES tenement.

i mean really. does anyone want to hear tales from the day-to-day, ho-hum world of cancer drug marketing?

let's please end this ridiculous notion of "democracy"

2006-11-07T19:45:00.000-05:00

i was checking out the early returns on some of the major news websites tonight (the New York Times, Drudge, FOXNews, the BBC, the Daily-Record of Harrisonburg, Virginia) and i'm really beginning to wonder why we - as in We the People - are allowed to choose the clowns who run this country.

one of the first sites I checked out was FOXNews, and this was their leader around 7:45pm:

Indiana Hands Lugar Victory

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., is surrounded by family members as he waves to supporters.

well done Indiana, congratulations Senator Lugar, and an extra special pat-on-the-back to FOXNews for bringing us this breaking coverage. it must've been a real Skirmish in South Bend against the Democratic candidate who probably put up a good fight, but in the end couldn't shake the foundations of Lugar's campaign.

oh yeah, right. that's if he would have actually had someone run against him! i guess if the Libertarian party would have mobilized their base tonight for the dude they put up against the senior senator from Indiana, then Lugar probably would only squeaked by with 75% of the vote. but hey! it's still early in the midwest. anything can happen.

now, i don't have anything against Senator Lugar. he seems like a fine chap and i probably would have voted for him if i lived in Indiana. but their lies my question: am i competent enough to choose the people who lead our country? are Americans, as a whole, really qualifed to go to the polls and actually choose the men and women who make desicions for the majority? i mean, i know some people, acquaintances and even friends, who have the physical capacity to pull levers, push buttons, punch holes, or fill-in-the blank so to pick a candidate. but some of these same people are so devoid of intellect, so moronic, so utterly hopeless, mildly "retarded" to put it bluntly, that i ask myself, "can i put my faith in their ability to rationally and logically choose the right person for the job?"

case in point. here is something i just heard on NPR:

"polls showed that almost 50% of New Jerseyians did not know that Bob Menendez was the incumbent in this race"

so, if my math is correct, that means that 1 out of every 2 Garden Staters don't really know what is going on when it comes to the fate of their state for the 2006 Election. i'm very curious to know how many are going to see Edward Forchion's name on the ballot tonight and vote for him for US Senator because his platform is based on legalizing marijuana. i know i would.

another thing that annoys me are people who vote for national issues over local issues. since when did the average American become an expert in domestic and foreign policy? shouldn't Americans be encouraged to take baby steps toward choosing candidates who will make national and international policy decisions by first understanding what they hell is going on in their own communities? a basic understanding of geography would also help:

how do we solve this mess? i've taken this opportunity to roughly draw up a few points that would assist in untangling our country from the Farce of Democracy:

make it illegal to keep your vote a personal decision that you don't have to share with anyone. we should be forced to tell others who we voted for. this will encourage others engage in post-election debate over the issues and allow people to grill a person on the issues in order to see if they truly knew what they were doing when they closed the curtains in their voting booth.
make people register to vote one month before the election. when they do, they must take an IQ test, a current events quiz, and a basic questionnaire about the main candidates and their platforms. they may elect to answer additional questions about third-party candidates for extra credit. this will effectively eliminate rubes who think it's their "right" to participate in the electoral process. it shouldn't be a right. it should be a privilege of the intelligent and the informed.
allow voters to check a box that says, "i refuse to vote for any of the candidates because i believe they will not adequately or competently represent me in Congress." if this "choice" wins over 50% of the vote, then the candidates running for that race will be thrown out, and a general recall election will be held within 30 days.
force candidates to renounce dirty campaigns. this will eliminate the nonsense that engulfed the New Jersey and Virginia races.

to sum up, i offer you the quote of the night. Chach comes back from the voting station in Manhattan, beaming because she got a chance to vote.

Zain: so, who did you end up voting for?
Chach: that is a secret.
Zain: come ON. Hillary? Cuomo? a gaggle of bleeding-heart liberal commies?
Chach: well, i did vote for Eliot Spitzer!
Zain: oh yeah? why?
Chach (with a mischevious smile on her face): i dunno. probably because he is Jewish?

triple chins

2006-11-04T11:40:00.000-05:00

the title of this latest post looks like it could have come straight from the Martini, no?

our original plans for Friday night (Greek food and possibly visiting a Czech bar in Astoria) changed into cooking a sumptuous feast for the eyes and mouth, and a nightmare for the arteries and colon. luckily for me, my superior knowledge about what antioxidants offset certain types of gastrointestinal diseases will undoubtedly allow me to continue to eat gloriously delicious foods (such as the ones you'll see below) well into my 90's. see, i plan for the future by drinking copious amounts of natural cranberry and pomegranate juice during the day, as well as one bottle of red wine a night. what's your panacea??

to cook ribs quickly, first fill up a pot with water

add lager. one bottle of Corona and one bottle of Stella Artois

add one rack of pork baby back ribs and boil for 45 minutes to an hour. Fresh Direct will deliver the ribs to you vacuum-sealed for easy storage, so you can have spontaneous feasts like this any day of the week! (NYC residents only)

skip about five steps and, presto! they are ready for the oven. make sure you cook an appropriately fatty side dish, such as the baked macaroni and cheese you see here

avoid drinking the leftover beer and water mixture from the rib boil

while the food is in the oven, have Chach and Kurt dance to the music by the Dixie Chicks, Whitney Houston, Britney or some other equally annoying pop hit (but not counting Shakira. she is hot. yo creo en Shakira)

have Chach make you a sensible salad and garlic bread

conveniently forget about those other dishes for now and immediately start on the main course; because remember, you DON'T win friends with salad

that's one tuckered-out Man of Steel

2006-10-31T20:57:00.000-05:00

sometimes, even the mightiest superheroes just need a nap in dad's arms.

happy halloween, new york.

clean. family. fun.

2006-10-29T01:33:00.000-05:00

i'll need a minute or two so i can recover from the events of today. so it has come to pass that my travels into, out of, and around New York have become increasingly strange -much to my liking indeed. tonight's adventure from Queens, to Flushing, to Setauket, to Manhattan, and back to Queens again involved:

a 12-course meal
a performance by Chinese maestroes
a performance by a Gōngfu master (that's Kung-fu to you waiguoren)
a trip to a ultrahip punkish Long Island bar/Curry Club - The Velvet Lounge
being accosted by drunk revelers on the LIRR
an intolerable twenty-five minute wait in Times Square for the N train
another accostment - this time by a drunk Latino from Colorado who claimed he was off to Iraq on Monday "for [his] adopted fucking homeland"
fighting through a mob of 500 people who were all waiting, laughably, for shuttle buses back to Astoria because the N/W trains were out of service for the entire weekend
the near-beheading of newly arrived New Yorker by a 3x3 foot road sign off the Queensboro bridge

anyways. all this and more when i have the strength to recall the details of the night in full. even though they are fresh on my mind, the time (2:49am) makes things fuzzier by the second.

therefore, i ask you now to enjoy these clean, wholesome pictures from the Fall Frolic, courtesy of "M" and "I" at their lovely estate near the capital of THE Commonwealth.

i miss the seasons.

the one man band from Scotland

cracklin' autumn fun!

a firepit that was personally welded by "I."

just any other day for "M" and "I." but for Trowler, this is truly roughing it.

if i have an opening for a secretary, then i'll have my people get back to you

2006-10-05T13:33:00.000-04:00

saturday. september 30th. 8:20pm-ish. Steak Frites on East 16th. the cast: Zain, Chach, Tobias, Lis, Mozo, Kurt, and The Flying B (TFB). the dinner: steak tartare and sauteed mushrooms. the service: Mozo sent her steak back once, almost twice; the white russian was too much russian and not enough white; and the irish coffee was somewhat bland (though Kurt enjoyed his.)

enter: little old lady. TFB and i were having a conversation about the november elections and at the same time i was flagging down the waiter for another Grolsch. i quickly order and turn back around to notice that TFB is engaged in a short conversation with little old lady. after a few minutes, he leans over to tell me that little old lady had risen from her seat, which was practically halfway across the room, and told him that his cell phone was flashing (not buzzing or beeping or set to earthquake mode, but flashing) and that he might want to attend to it. it seems that little old lady was just trying to be nice. however, because TFB had been attentive to his cell phone's buzzings and flashings up to this point, it seemed a little silly that he would need a reminder from a perfect stranger to attend to it. but we figured she was from Missouri or possibly Saskatchewan and these experiences were new to her, and left it at that.

tuesday. october 3rd. early afternoon. Trevi's Deli off Union Square. i had a hankering for a ham and swiss on rye with onions, lettuce, and spicy Guldens (the only worthwhile spicy brown mustard out there these days.) i am one of three people in the deli. the man in front of me has his cellphone clipped fashionably to his belt, along with an assortment of other electronic communication instruments. i hardly notice that one of his devices starts to vibrate. however, the woman standing behind me does and proceeds to walk around me and tap him on the shoulder. she alerts him that he is "buzzing" to which he replies coldly, "i know." smiling, satisfied, yet clueless, she moves back to her original position on line. i order my sandwich and pick it up only to find out that they had put tomatoes on it instead of onions.

wednesday. october 4th. 6:10pm. N train to Astoria-Ditmars. i'm lucky enough to find a seat, as is the strange-looking person sitting next to me. almost the same deal as in the deli: a dude has his cellphone clipped to his belt and is standing less than a foot away from where we are on the crowded N. his cell phone starts flashing and buzzing - not ringing. as he is moving his hand to unlatch it from it's cradle, the man sitting next to me reaches up to tap the other dude on the elbow to say, you guessed it; "excuse me sir, but you seem to be buzzing."

what do i make of all this?

a) it's possible that people in NYC are just so gosh-darned nice (and our lovely out-of-town visitors on their best behavior) that they just want to make sure that their fellow New Yorkers are answering their phones.

b) people are so goddamn obsessive compulsive these days that they can't bear to see another person's portable wireless device demand attention in such a way that it kills them if the owner is ignoring said personal wireless device. therefore, they must alert the guilty party that, for their own sanity, to please answer the phone or reply to the text.

c) people have taken to micromanaging out of their offices and homes and into the streets. i guess this sort of dovetails with option b.

this has happened to me on a few occasions in the past. and i must admit that i've done the same thing to friends. but usually, it's because i'm being nosy and i want to know who is calling them. the fact that strangers are helping strangers cope with the fast-paced, technology driven world we live in must be a sign of the impending apocalypse.

raw. real. midtown.

2006-10-04T08:29:00.000-04:00

my new phone has done a splendid job of capturing photos from the early stages of my life in NYC. it's not as quite as adequate as i'd like for say, my first visit to Yankee Stadium or capturing the magnificence of Mozo's building. but it has done a fantastic job of showing the gritty nuances of the N train (see post from September 15.)

i think the following shots taken from Kurt and Zain's birthday extravaganza show the beauty of lovely Port Authority, the Subway, and Siberia Bar. to some, these pics also show what Saturday night looked like through the eyes of some of the revelers in attendance - especially near the end of the night.

it's possible, maybe even probable, that the person in this last photo was dead...

a win for Astoria

2006-10-03T22:53:00.000-04:00

i'm not going to go into much background about the past two and a half weeks, yet. what i've been doing with my life in NYC will eventually reach the cozy confines of pere.gri.nation.

i was coming home on the glorious N train last week, feeling grumpy about the fact that darkness was setting in earlier, and thinking that sooner or later i would be facing the commute that everyone dreads: getting to work when it's barely dawn and coming home well after dusk.

but then i discovered as we were pulling into the Astoria Boulevard station, that there was a little red door on top of my roof that i hadn't noticed before. as the sun was quickly setting behind the Manhattan skyline, i ran home to grab Chach and we raced up four flights of stairs to discover an unlocked, alarm free door that led to this:

rooftop party anyone?

promises and promises

2006-09-15T00:07:00.000-04:00

no, it's not a coincidence that Kurt updated his blog the same day i do. we are in it for the ratings.

so, it seems that our broker neglected to tell us that the N train happens to be the worst subway line in all of NYC. according to straphangers.org, the N "tied for worst out of the 22 subway lines rated." (it was tied with the W, which happens to share the same line as the N, but is only a weekday train, i think. i really have no clue.) in 6 catergories the N ranked lower than average except in the "cleanliness catergory" and in the "average breakdowns per miles traveled." from this, i gather that when i start work on Monday, i may have to wait forever to get to and from work, but at least i'll get there without contracting some sort of disease and possible without a mechanical failure. fantastic.

let's give it up for the N, R, Q, W anyways. they may get a bad rap, but at least i'll be able to get on the N at Astoria Boulevard and go to Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest next year without ever having to give up my seat along the way. but on the way back, after i'm gorged with X number of hot dogs, they might have to lower that cleanliness rating in case the ride is...bumpy.

hello, NYC!

2006-08-31T12:01:00.000-04:00

and so it came to pass that your hero, Zain, finally made it to New York City. after a tireless struggle in which he communed with rockers and married couples (Mt. Pleasant, DC;) visited strange and distant lands (Uzbekistan and its environs;) and suffered for a year in a primitive and roach infested, post-modern 1950's renovated hotel with no air-conditioning (Adams-Morgan;) he settled, with partner, in Astoria, Queens.

i'm telling you all: Queens is the new Brooklyn. it has culture - Greeks, Italians, Pakis, and even Cyprians across the street; urbanity - the Triborough bridge is gorgeous from our window at night and the raised tracks for the N and W trains are a quaint and rumbly reminder that Manhattan is only 15 minutes away; and a sense of prosperity that is noticeably lacking in Washington DC - the fact that for every 10 vagrants in Adams Morgan, i have yet to notice more than 1 in a 10 block radius of our apartment in Astoria.

lovely.

so, there you have it. the only missing part of the equation is the lack of a job. however, i feel optimistic about solving that little problem too. after all Queens is the Land of Opportunity. and why worry when you can see this gorgeous chick right from our doorstep everyday?

goodbye, DC.

2006-08-25T22:59:00.000-04:00

hello, Astoria.

more on this fascinating development as soon as possible.

is this for real?

2006-08-18T08:32:00.000-04:00

call me crazy, but how did this kid get to be 18 so fast?

and now it's time for....

2006-08-14T22:27:00.000-04:00

former Paraguayan dictator General Alfredo Stroessner

HOT or NOT??

from the Red Line to the N Train

2006-08-03T12:06:00.000-04:00

Chach and i have been feverishly searching for apartments in New York for the past week. it's been a struggle since we are spoiled by the spacious confines of our massive, roach-infested Dorchester House apartment. we don't want to have to pay twice the rent for half the space in a roach-infested Manhattan apartment. granted, moving to anywhere in Manhattan is a step up from living on 17th and Euclid in Adams Morgan.

that said, we have decided (temporarily) to shift our focus to the 3rd best borough in New York City: Queens. Chach and i feel that Queens is the neglected sister of bratty Manhatttan, cooler-than-thou Brooklyn, outcast Bronx, and disowned Staten Island.

who knows? we may end up hating Queens, specifically Astoria where our search begins, and move back to the most cramped apartment we can find in the East Village. but for the time being, i will be touting Queens as the next Park Slope, Harlem, or Brighton Beach. (well, the last one at most is a long shot.)

to honor our new home, i will now quote Queens' favorite sons, Prince Akeem and Semmi from Coming to America:

Prince Akeem: Is it just me, or does every woman in Queens have some kind of an emotional problem?

Rev. Brown: [at Black Awareness Rally] But you know, when I look at these contestants! For the Miss Black Awareness Pageant, I feel good! I feel good, because I know there's a God somewhere! There's a God somewhere! Turn around ladies for me please! You know there's a God who sits on high and looks down low! Man cannot make it like this! Larry Flynt! Hugh Hefner! They can take the picture, but you can't make it! Only God above, the Hugh Hefner on high, can make it for ya!
Semmi: [in audience to Akeem] Apparently these are the best women Queens has to offer. Pick one and let's go home.

Prince Akeem: Fascinating. Semmi, look at this. America is great indeed.
Imagine a country so free, you can throw out broken glass on the streets.

Landlord: All right, here we are. There's only one bathroom on this floor, so you're going to have to share it. We got an insect problem, but you boys from Africa are used to that. And another thing, don't use the elevator. It's a death trap. This is the place I was telling you about. It's real fucked up. Got just one window facing a brick wall. Used to rent it to a blind man... damn shame what they did to that dog.

Semmi: But where in New York can one find a woman with grace, elegance, taste and culture? A woman suitable for a king.
Prince Akeem, Semmi: Queens!

Prince Akeem: Good morning, my neighbors!
Voice: Hey, Fuck you!
Prince Akeem: Yes! Yes! Fuck you, too!

Saul: Heyyy, it's the boys from Africa, how y'all doin this evenin'?
Prince Akeem: Sir, where can one go to find nice women here?
Saul: You gotta get out and look, they ain't just gonna fall on your lap.
Semmi: We've been to every bar in Queens.
Saul: Well, that's where you messed up, son, you can't go to no bar to find a nice woman. You gotta go to a nice place, a quiet place like a library, there's good women there and 'erm, church, they're good girls.

Cab Driver: [Akeem steps in front of the cab, causing the cab to screech to a sudden halt] YOU DUMB FUCK!
Prince Akeem: Take us to Queens at once!

i second that motion! Queens ho!

an old-fashioned Dutch bijeenkomst

2006-07-31T21:37:00.000-04:00

this past weekend was my 10th high school reunion. in a word: fantastic. it's amazing how little people change throughout the years (Mozo has a good posting on her personal growth) and it's also amazing how people can just fall back into conversations and friendship, even though they may not have seen each other for 7 or 8 years (and in some cases, 10.)

as soon as Chach brings her camera down to DC this weekend, i'll be sure to step it up on the picture front.

so, what's going on this month? nothing, really. a lot of job and apartment hunting for New York City. Chach does a triathlon in Culpeper, VA, this weekend. i also plan to schedule some time to hang out with my new best friend from ASH, Rebjon.

by the way, i took the train up and back from Washington to NYC this weekend (the latter journey being a long story that i would rather not type out because of laziness.) anyways, i've noticed that just because people are not sitting in the "quiet car" they think that it gives them carte blanche to talk on their cellphones AS LOUD AS HUMANELY POSSIBLE. i wish the management at Amtrak could change policy to ban cellphones because "they interfere with the diesel equipment." it would sure save all of us from the torture of the father who insists on screaming at his son to give the phone back to mommy.

it's like...

2006-07-20T00:31:00.000-04:00

...dive in to the molten magma, drinkin' a hot toddy as a refreshment in the Sahara, ran out of Gold Bond, favorite pictures melted, why the hell don't i have air-con in a swamp like DC, Texas chili, Riyadh in high summer, 4 showers a day, maybe all of that mid-east oil is good for our energy consumption, go go Israel, tepid tap water, sweating while standing still HOT outside.

luckily i haven't run out of Gold Bond.

HEAR YE HEAR YE!

2006-07-14T09:58:00.000-04:00

BOOKER'S REIGN OF SLAVERY AT TFG ENDS TODAY!!

the terror is over. burn those memos. delete that user account. change your cell phone number. take an advil. take three advil. have a Ketel One and tonic. order a burger. Booker, you are a free man.

now, just in case you get the idea that you would ever want to work in a place like that again, let's take a trip down e-mail memory lane...

Booker: bored. bored. bored. who can work in this weather? it's like pitch black out. just depressing.
-on winter, December 17th, 2003 during a DC snowstorm

Booker: ARE YOU AT WORK
-on almost every other day, to anyone who would listen

Tobias: who is this rant aimed at?
Booker: mostly it's self-loathing since I ate an entire dominos pizza yesterday.
- on obesity in America during flu season

Booker: i am also in a bad place, every poll i'm working on this week has been utterly fucked up. - on problems at work

Booker: as promised i have absolutely nothing on my calendar for tomorrow: i mean NOTHING. i actually planned to spend some time in the afternoon putting up decorations (there aren't many) and perhaps enjoying a nice glass of wine. or five. god, working at home can be nice sometimes.
- on working from home

Booker: i was just looking at the weather, it is looking to be cold and blustery and snowy on saturday, so i think you should come friday. plus i am basically planning to blow off the entire day (my boss is out of pocket at a conference all day) so we could have fun and drink beer during the day.
- on playing hooky

Booker: i heard a most interesting statistic on 60 Minutes last night, apparently the avaerge length someone watches an adult movie in their hotel room is 3 MINUTES. for real.
- on trivia

Booker: i am crashing and burning on a deadline for tomorrow morning, it's going to be a late night. ugh.
- on late nights

Booker: whoa, late day. whahaha. i am divided between going to my hotel, getting salad, chilling, maybe meeting Trowler later, and finding someone to get boozed up with.
- on after work plans

Booker: I can't wait for this wedding. I am going to get totally hammered and make loud comments about having the biggest dick at the party.
- on wedding plans

Trowler: are we really having this conversation??
Booker: what would you rather talk about, my new cable setup some more?
- on ludicrous conversation topics

Booker: i forgot to tell you guys, yesterday before meeting kurt smoochie and i got a
quick drink at some place on the lower east side and elijah wood was there with some girl, he looks just like a hobbit in real life too.
- on celebrity spying

Zain: it's good to see that we are both getting some very constructive work done today as far as our social schedules go
Booker: more likely, i press send/receive about a million times an hour just waiting for that elusive "friendster message" to come in.
- on monitoring social websites at work

Booker: GOD FUCKING DAMN IT
- on rage

Trowler: Booker has a big mouth.
- Trowler, on Booker's big mouth

Tobias: Just got out of the meeting and it was pretty rough. the clients were questioning what we were doing pretty heavily. i think i am going to go home to cry
Trowler: let it out Toby. don't be afraid of your feelings
Zain: i think i'm going to be sick
Booker: is this the matrix? am i HERE right now?
- on supporting friends

Booker: tell me, buddy boy, have you done ANYTHING today?
- on wondering whether anyone else is working as hard as he does

Booker: Stupid cheap Americans. I bet if someone did a competition that you had to walk around on all fours and oink to get a free scoop thousands would lineup. Stupid
fat cheap Americans. What was that Simpsons where they have a KBBL-sponsored
competition in the beginning - who can do the craziest thing or something like that? Homer pops all the kernels he stuck to himself? Moe dresses like a little boy and has a lolly?
- on ice cream, fat Americans, and the Simpsons

Booker: well. barring any unforeseen complications, i think i've just about wrapped up my work for the day. of course: whenever i write that, i end up getting slammed.
- on wrapping up work

Booker: i am in a process of self-discovery and evaluation, perhaps as part of that i will strip away my cynicism and cruelty, which after all is just a fairly thick wall of self-defense right?D-Fed is back in the office. she was NOT happy about K. another cherry on my sundae.
- on self examination

Booker: I HATE YOU BOTH WITH A BLINDING RAGE THAT IS GOING TO LEAVE ME BLIND AND I WILL HAVE TO SPEND MY REFUND ON LASER EYE SURGERY TO REPAIR THE BLINDNESS FROM MY BLINDING RAGE
- on being screwed over by friends

Booker: I would like to nix mcdonalds, wendys, hardees, arbys, and roy rogers. it might be nice to have something decent for once instead of the slop we ordinarly throw down our throats. i'm amused we're having this discussion at 9:30am!
- on eating plans

Tobias: I am also. I think that all of my friends are on there. There are only so many times I can look at my friends profiles and unless we start sending messages to strangers what is the point.
Booker: that is absolutely the point. plus i can't escape my bitter suspicion that everybody else on that stupid site is being inundated with messages from hot new potential lovers.
Tobias: well maybe you should step up to the plate for once.
Zain: you will never believe this, but i just got a message from a Random.
- on Friendster taking over work

Tobias: I will gladly partake in an email chain that discusses Booker. I would like to assure you that we do not discuss you at all during our email chats. We do sometimes talk about Smoochie and Trowler - on leaving Booker out of the conversation

Tobias: why dont we all just simply ignore him?
Booker: because i have just a little bit of empathy for the guy
Tobias: fine, than you can be his friend. in fact, why dont you give him a call and hang out with him. zain and i will go elsewhere
Booker: YOU'RE REALLY STICKING IT TO ME
- on keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer...

good luck Booker. but first, Stetsons awaits!

travails on the turnpike

2006-07-12T10:49:00.000-04:00

the road from Washington DC to New York City follows what is arguably one the most developed areas in the world. traveling on this stretch of Interstate 95 includes passing over, under, through and on such engineering feats like the Delaware Memorial Bridge, the Harbor Tunnel, the Lincoln Tunnel, and everyone's favorite - the New Jersey Turnpike; not to mention the numerous options for gas, food and rest. barring any traffic problems or lengthy toll queues, the trip takes about 4 hours and 5 minutes (according to mapquest) but choosing one of those options for a convienent rest-stop that serves a quick, hassle-free meal, along with being close to the highway, is a adventure all in itself.

Booker and i were traveling southbound on the BosWash corridor last Sunday after spending Saturday night in New York City. the mission of the trip was to watch the World Cup; to get a little boozy with Mozo, Smoochie, BumpE, Chach, Arik, Melissa, and the Gays; and to move the rest of Booker's personal effects out of his Upper West Side residence. while the social part of the weekend was successful, the actual work on Sunday failed because of the co-op's rules regarding moving on the weekends. Booker wasn't able to muster the energy to stand up to the Lithuanian doorman and we were forced to drive back to the DC at 7pm empty handed.

as we weren't really interested in Bob's Big Boy or Cinnabon on the Turnpike, we decide to wait until Maryland to grab some grub. however, the key to exiting the highway is to recall from past trips whether the fast food chain is directly off the ramp or several miles down the highway. at North East, MD i made the mistake of choosing exit 100A for our dinner. the McDonalds wasn't right off the highway, but about 4 miles down the road along a nondescript row of gas stations and local car dealerships. we parked in the restaurant lot and entered to use the bathroom. i emerged a minute later to find Booker in a stare down with a hulking twenty-something who was wearing a soiled wife-beater and jean shorts, several homemade tattoos, and a cast on his left arm. we quickly exited, trusting our instincts to order in the drive-thru. the line was about six cars long. of course, this being a McDonalds, it would be a quick wait, right?

ten minutes later there was only one car between us and the microphone menu. a massive red Ford that was waiting behind us started honking and then revving its diesel engine, it screeched past us and the cars in front. the driver shouted a booming "fuck you!" directed at the order window and tore off down the highway. the teenagers in the Grand-Am ahead of us finally started to order their food off the dollar menu. (five Double Cheeseburgers, no onions...) and our spirits improved. we were closing in. they finally pulled away and as we reached the window the microphone inexplicably went dead. one minute...two minutes...three minutes. until...

teenager #1: "hello, welcome to Mcdonalds may I take your order."
Zain: "hi, can I get a Crispy Chicken Club Extra Value Meal?
teenager #1: "you want a sandwich."
Zain: "uhh, no the Meal. a Club?
teenager #1: "so you want the sandwich."
Zain "umm, no the Club Meal. number six, i think?"
teenager #1: "ok"

[pause]

teenager #1: "ok anything else."
Zain: "yeah, a Sprite with that and then...
teenager #1: "ok anything else."
Zain: "a Oreo Cookie Sundae. then, can i have..."
teenager #1: "ok anything else."
Zain: "YES. a number four.
Double Quarter Pounder with cheese."
teenager #1: "ok"

[long pause]

teenager #1: "anything else."
Zain: "yeah, i'd like a chocolate milkshake
instead of the drink."
teenager #1: "ok."

[longer pause]

woman #1: that will be $13... [voice trails off, microphone cuts out]

we finally pulled up the window and Booker and i peered inside. the chaos of about ten teenage boys and girls running this McDonalds, apparently with little to no adult supervision, explained why the line was backed up into the street. the oldest teen approached the window, favoring her left arm which was covered in some sort of gauze.

teenager #2: "hello and welcome to McDonalds and thank you for waiting and please don't mind the cloth on my arm."
Zain: "not a problem."
teenager #2: "here are your drinks."
Zain: "great, thank you."
teenager #2: "we'll have the rest of it out in a few seconds."
Zain: "no problem."

[a pause]

teenager #3: [to teenager #2:] "Jesus, what the fuck happened to you?"
teenager #2: "Percy was handing me my tea and it slipped from his hand and burned the shit out of me."
teenager #3: "what a fucking klutz."
teenager #2: "are you going to the Slipknot concert this weekend?
teenager #3: "i'd love to go but...[drowned out by teenager #4]
teenager #4: "WHAT ELSE IS IN THAT ORDER?"
teenager #2: "OREO COOKIE SOMETHING...SHAKE?"
teenager #4: "SUNDAE!"

[unintelligible chatter]
[honking from behind our car]

teenager #2 "ok, sir here is the rest of your order (handing us the bag) and here is your Oreo Cookie thingamajigy..."
Zain: "great. thanks. how much?"

[transaction]

teenager #2: "thank you sir and i'm very sorry about the wait! have a good evening!"

at this point after about 35 to 40 minutes of waiting, my spirits brightened a little bit. it was probably the aroma of the chemical processed smell that wafted under our noses from the greasy bags. or maybe it was her friendly apology. but i decided to be my normal pleasant self and say:

Zain: "not a problem, thank you! and take care of that arm!"
teenager #2: "thanks a lot! have a good evening!"

then, the straw that broke the camel's back. just as i had made an illegal u-turn so to get us back on to 95 as soon as possible, Booker made a startling discovery:

Booker: you have GOT to be kidding me.
Zain: what?
Booker: no straws? no napkins? no ketchup? no SPOON for my SUNDAE! how the HELL am i supposed to eat this, huh? riddle me THAT!"
Zain: you'll probably have to fashion a spoon out of the fry box.
Booker: "this is BEYOND the PALE."

and fashion he did my friends. Booker did mention, though, that the sundae tasted a little bit like it was infused with fry greasy.

did i mention that teenager #2 shorted me on the change?

коммунисты инфильтрировали блок

2006-07-06T14:56:00.000-04:00

Booker, Tobias, Zain, my extended family, and our next door neighbor were participating in some good old Fourth of July cheer on Tuesday when some joyless bitch about four or five doors down made an attempt to ruin our fun.

we had just set off the last of the sparkling fireworks fountains - the grand finale of our family celebration - and were in the midst of cleaning up (again, i must stress this to the readers: midst of cleaning up) when this woman emerged from the smoky night and asked our poor neighbor (who happened to be the victim of this woman's pent-up aggression merely because she was the closest target within waddling range,) "who is responsible for this? who are the homeowners here?"

i piped in from behind the confrontation and told her in that we were having a small block celebration and that my parents (who happened to be less than 20 feet away) were hosting a party. upon hearing this, the woman retorted, "well, i think you all need to be more considerate of your neighbors. we've had problems with you people before. we don't want to see a lot of trash on the pavement in the morning"

needless to say, i was stunned. you people? considerate? morning? the scolding continued by mentioning the singular "past problem" which were roofer's trucks that had been parked on the street overnight while our house was having tiles reshingled. "but that was over a year ago!" our next door neighbor retorted incredulously. at this point, our accuser started to fidget uncomfortably, realizing the stupidity of her argument (a possible graduate of TJ Skool of Law) and retracted a bit by muttering, "well, i just wanted to make sure this mess was going to get cleaned up." at that i said in my coldest tone possible: "seems to me like what we are doing right now. plus it's just common sense. happy 4th." with that, she heaved her mass up the sidewalk and back into her dungeon.

she didn't say anything about the smoke, the noise, or the fireworks going off. it was only about the mess that we were, again, in the midst of cleaning up. in fact, we were going so far as to grope around in the dark for errant sparkler sticks, smoke bomb duds, and matches, instead of waiting for the light of dawn.

so, as for her weak and unfounded accusations which were unpatriotic - especially on the 4th - and a detriment to the values of our quaint suburban golfing community, i have only one thing to say to that disgusting blob: GO BACK TO RUSSIA

marzipan anyone?

2006-07-05T17:02:00.000-04:00

my Aunt and Wajat told me yesterday that my grandfather, affectionately known as Big Daddy, used to eat excatly seven peeled almonds everyday.

in following this strange Pakistani tradition, we update it using modern technology: the almond meter.

Almond Count: 7

it's not digorno...

2006-06-30T16:02:00.000-04:00

it's lunch.

and what a wonderful lunch it was. Ant sent me what had to be a pound of cured meat from France. the cured meat, with grapes, wine, and the World Cup: it's almost laughably un-American.

the post Lance Armstrong Tour de France...

2006-06-30T08:14:00.001-04:00

...is not off to a good start.

these two guys were the closest to being able to beat Armstrong. does this just make him more of a superhuman? but if the allegations are true about Basso and Ullrich, does it make Armstrong look more and more suspect??

we need unionbreakers like Grandpa Simpson

2006-06-30T08:02:00.000-04:00

the Local 202 Jackhammer and Groundbuster's Union conference that started literally right outside my window this morning at 6:30am is driving me insane NOT because of the hammering, but because the guy actually doing the jackhammering sounds like a complete novice. in my experience, jackhammers are used on concrete and i don't believe they work very well on metal.

i could be wrong. this is why i need a camera to start documenting these exciting details of city life.

speaking of the post-title, Last Exit to Springfield is possibly one of the best episodes ever (rated number one by Entertainment Weekly just before the Simpson's 300th)

Homer (inner monologue): Why is Mr. Burns being so nice to me?
Mr. Burns: And if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.
Homer (inner monologue): Wait a minute. Is he coming onto me?
Mr. Burns: I mean, if I should slip something into your pocket, what's the harm?
Homer (inner monologue): My God! He is coming onto me!
Mr. Burns: After all, negotiations make strange bedfellows. [laughs and winks]
Homer (inner monologue): [screams]
Homer: Sorry, Mr. Burns, but I don't go in for these backdoor shenanigans. Sure, I'm flattered, maybe even a little curious, but the answer is no!

sho' me ya grill

2006-06-29T23:39:00.000-04:00

i was at work today and off i started writing a post about Death. i mean really. Death! i was going to write about the Holocaust and Death and US soldiers in Iraq and Death and how i had a dream that i was a Nazi about two nights ago killing everyone i laid my eyes on. no joke. it was f-ed up, scary stuff.

so, i'm taking a short hiatus from all of this utterly depressing nonsense... i'm going to settle happily into my Star Wars book from the library, maybe pick up a piece of manga or two like Love Hina and open some new doors...

...and after seeing this spectacular Youtube video (she and her cohort Daniel are, by the way, my new favorite video bloggers) the other day, i think i am going to start my own video blog. tonight G C and i talked about it and she is totally psyched.

first thing to do? sell the spy camera and buy a sturdy, every day digital camera-corder. maybe also a button-hole camera. also, get permission from friends to post a few of current videos on Youtube (Booker reading the law school manuscript at U of M.) and plan the first-ever video blog of me doing something interesting. i'll also need a digital editing program to make the vids look fresh and not retarded like most of the crap that you see out there.

that was really depressing. so here are some Tikal pics!

2006-06-26T21:27:00.000-04:00

so, i was going to post about the Guate y Belice trip last week after Chach and i got back, but i the internet was acting strangely, and i fell into a bout of self-imposed depression. as you know from my last post, i've been reading a lot of Holocaust literature: Sophie's Choice, The Pianist, Night, et cetera. i finally received the movie versions of the first two this weekend and after i watched them i was lamenting to myself about the state of the world then and now. then, this torrential rain came, which was sorta depressing but it also reminded me how fun Tikal was (minus the bugs.)

therefore, enjoy these pictures of what was once a great Mayan civilization. and ignore Colin's comment about Angkor Wat and huzzah for the authoritarian!! the Mayans could have cut my heart out and ate it anytime they wanted. as long as they would have memorialized me on one of their walls as a sacrifical victim: (or was that the Aztecs?)

well. now that i think about it, i would have probably wanted to do the actual cutting out of the heart, instead of being the hapless victim. especially after remembering this pic. but i digress.

this is the Ciudad de Guatemala. notice the rain clouds to the left. that would be a constant theme in Guate. constant. as well as consistent swarms of mosquitos.

Antigua Guatemala. the old colonial capital of Guate. the unfortunate thing was they built it in between three volcanoes. so when they erupted it wasn't pretty.

M_____'s backyard, Chach, and more rain. they also had an abundance of tropical fruit-bearing plants.

my favorite recipe glazed into a wall tile in the kitchen.

peeking out from the clouds, Volcan de Fuego y Acatenango

el Templo de las Inscripciones. lotsa ancient Mayan blood split here folks. and lotsa modern mosquitos for the feasting.

Chach next to some ruddy tree.

Templo V. it doesn't look it, but it's monstrous.

the Pizote or Coati. raccoon-like and more graceful than their banded cousins, three of whom we saw digging through a pile of garbage in San Pedro in Belize. more on that later.

umm...don't climb? two people supposedly fell to their deaths climbing this thing during the rainy season of 2005. hence, the sign. however, the foot high security rope probably doesn't discourage a ton of people from actually trying to take it on.

do you see Chach in the faaaaaaaaaaaaar center corner? near the bottom?

they weren't pretty, these Mayans.

spider monkeys. i wasn't too impressed.

slippery.

and here is where my geekiness really shines. from this vantage point, George Lucas set up a couple cameras to film a scene for Star Wars: A New Hope (that's number four in the series.) if you skip forward to the Battle of Yavin scene, you will recognize this exact perspective.

ahhh. you can almost sense that a swarm of X-wings could pop out of the forest at any minute for their attack on the Death Star...

the jungle is pretty. but i honestly don't know how the Mayans did it. it was muggy as hell.

scorpions. i'll take mosquitos over these guys.

this was pretty breathtaking.

leaf-cutting ants. Chach didn't think these were very impressive compared to the jungle's root system. that's right. i said root system. who goes into nature to study roots besides a botanist? botanists and Chach.

again, more rain. did pneumonia eventually kill the Mayans? or was it war for drier climes? maybe they made one too many sacrifices and ran out of people? does anyone know a good book on the Mayans? is anyone surprised that i didn't come down with malaria after tromping around this infested jungle?

miscellaneous blah blah blah blah

2006-06-19T23:34:00.000-04:00

there is probably no greater sports ceremony (save Olympic medal presentations) that evoke more emotion and awe than the unveiling of Lord Stanley's Cup. sorry Chach and Lis. i'm know you and most of Canada wanted to see the Oilers win, but this year the Cup stays in Carolina. maybe the Leafs or the Flames will have a shot in 2007?

in other news, we concluded our first book club meeting tonight. Trowler set this idea in motion months ago and tonight at Cosi in North Dupont we discussed the naive Stingo, the maniacal Nathan and the tortured Sophie in William Styron's masterpiece, Sophie's Choice. and believe me, if you don't think softcore pornography and the Holocaust can neatly mesh together in the same book, just flip through till you see the name Leslie Lapidus.

next up? Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward (set in Uzbekistan, incidentally.) if Chel picks another wrist-slitter after this one, you may see this headline in your local newspaper on or around July 17th:

Book Club Commits Mass Suicide in Washington Area Starbucks

i promise to have some light-hearted pictures of Chach in a bikini tomorrow, from the Guate-Belize expedición.

journey without maps

2006-06-06T23:21:00.000-04:00

Chach and i are headed to Central America tomorrow for a 10-day trip to Guatemala and Belize. for now, our plans include Guatemala City to see Chach's friend M_____, Tikal and the Jaguar Tikal, and then across the frontier to Caulker Caye in Belize. more from the heart of the ancient Mayan civilization soon...

naptime

2006-05-30T08:46:00.000-04:00

Chach and i walked out of our apartment this morning at 6:10 to go to our downstairs gym only to find a person sleeping in the hallway, practically right next to our door. she had a bedroll under her head and various pieces of rolling luggage stacked in the corner of the hall. i came back up at 6:50 to find her still lying there, but now furiously taping away at a Crackberry.

when i left for work around 7:30, i noticed that she was sitting up and reading a book. i wonder if she'll be there when i get home tonight?

this reminds me of a story when my friend Hippie Dan and i hung out with some NGO workers in Urgench one night. we stayed with a German man who had a beautiful house complete with a dunking pool, sauna, and numerous guest bedrooms. after hanging out in the sauna, eating Russian garlic kielbasa and drinking beers for half the night, we found out that we weren't invited to crash in the guest bedrooms because he was flying back to Europe in the morning. stuck at 2am in downtown Urgench, we decided just to hop in a cab back to Khiva and hope that Chach would wake up, as she probably chain bolted the door. sure enough, when we arrived, the door was bolted and Chach was fast asleep. after making a number of phone calls from the office, not to mention throwing pebbles at our bedroom window, we decided to make the most of the evening and camp out on the doorstep. after a fitful sleep, i awoke to a drunk police officer shining his flashlight in my face. i groggily explained that i actually lived in this house and that my wife was asleep. he brusquely pushed past me and banged on the door three times. sure enough, Chach's head peeked out the door and let us in at 6am.

moral of the story? never get drunk and snack on Russian garlic kielbasa at 3am. you will have quite the stomach-ache the next morning because of it.

FW: a tale of Eurotone

2006-05-26T12:05:00.000-04:00

i sometimes give the characters in my blog aliases. not necessarily because i'm trying to protect their identity, but just because the misadventures these idiots get into (myself included as one of the idiots) are so insane that that it just seems wrong to describe Cort eating pizza off the sidewalk or Toby not going to work because he was hungover from kickball the night before.

oops.

i always ask permission to write about or post stories about my colorful coterie. but there is one man i know who is above shame, ridicule and derision. his name is Anthony Solazzo - a friend of Tobias' from Watchung Hills Regional High School located in the scenic township of Warren in Somerset County, New Jersey. a true renaissance man and possible savoir of the Italian race, Anthony (or Solazzo as he is affectionately refered to as) is a scholar, a cook, an athlete, a scoundrel - yet also a gentleman. sometimes the rube but never the full-blown buffoon. he could almost be described as a modern-day pirate. any other inquiries about the full scope of what this man represents can be directed to the authors of peregrination.

with that, i give thanks for this latest masterpiece that you are about to receive (by the way the following story is mildly explicit. if you are a weakling, then i advise for you to get over it and read on anyways:)

Gentlemen

A number of you have inquired about life here in France, and I thought that I’d share an amusing anecdote that took place quite recently. It’s a bit long, but I think it’s worth the read because it is a true story.

For those of you who don’t know, here in France they have vending machines that allow one rent movies. They are outside of video stores, and the way they work is, there is a computer screen and a slot for a credit card. You simply insert a credit card and select a movie from the list. When you want to return the video, you simply re-insert the same credit card, and place the video in the slot. You can rent the video for 2 hours or 2 months, and you pay for as long as you have it. And, as they are open 24 hours, the convenience is unbeatable.

Now, because I only receive 5 television channels, all in French, watching TV has become more of a language lesson than an amusing form of relaxation, as I have to concentrate very hard to follow what’s going on. So, you can imagine my
excitement when I discovered these little video vending gems, and I could once
again return to mindless movie-watching bliss, as many of the titles are American films. However, as great as my excitement of this discovery was, it was nothing compared to the elation I felt when I realized that, along with Action, Drama and Comedy, there was a category entitled “Pornographique”. I assure you, nothing gets lost in translation.

Here it was, the perfect crime…an entire catalog of rentable porn at my disposal, totally free of the shame normally involved with dealing with a human, third party in these matters. Say what you will about the French, but in matters involving all things sexual, they are far more advanced than us. Well, not knowing where to start, and wanting to move quickly to avoid any passers-by looking onto the computer screen to see what I was up to, I chose to select the titles alphabetically.

As I’m sure you know, in alphabetical lists, titles starting with numbers are placed at the beginning, and my first rentals were entitled things like “18, Finally”,“2+2 = Fuck”, and “3-ways to Heaven”. The plot-lines were a bit thin, but I wasn’t watching them for the articles anyway. In less time than I’d care to admit,I made my way through the numbers, and reached the titles starting with “A”. And this is precisely where the wheels fell off the bus.

After a long night alone, I made my way to machine toreturn my latest selection. I inserted my credit card, put the movie in the slot, and that’s when the machine decided to malfunction. Instead of spitting out my receipt, it simply said that I had not returned the video. I removed my credit card and tried again, but still the same result. The video was in the machine, but it didn’t realize it, and if I didn’t solve the matter, I would continue to be charged for it.

As my attempts with the machine were all in vain, the stark realization of what I had to do left me in panic-mode. I paced outside the store for what seemed like days, waiting for all the customers to leave, and I could speak with the employee one-on-one. When the last customer left, I made my approach.

Now, although I have been in France for nearly a year, my language skills are far from exceptional, and I can communicate at about the same level as a 5-year old. I have become comfortable with the fact that when I go out my door in the morning, I will be regarded as the village idiot who says things like, “I need take coffee on morning because I die if no have” and, “I no want fuck, but thank you” (to the hooker in town.) But now, here I was, eye-to-eye with, thankfully a young guy, about to explain a very complex situation, involving very adult matters, with the working vocabulary of an elementary school student.

I did my best to describe the situation, consciously leaving out such details as the category or type of film that I had rented. The guy gave me that all too familiar, puzzled look that French people give when you are trying very hard to speak their language. A look that gives one the impression that they are speaking much worse than they really are, and forever discouraging you from trying to make improvements, as learning the tongue seems helpless. I was, however, able to make my point, and just as I was patting myself on the back for a job well-done, the inevitable happened…the guy looked up at me and asked, “What was the title of the video?”

There are several things that I will regret never knowing the answers to before I die, including the possible existence of Atlantis, whether or not blonds really have more fun, and the exact number of ways there are to skin a cat. However, there is nothing I will regret more than not knowing how well shame and self-disgust were so well personified by the look on my face when I responded… “Anal Fuckathon”. Like I said, nothing gets lost in translation.

I was frozen with self-loathing, but the guy didn’t laugh or even crack a smile. At first, I believed that he must have been fighting to hold back from bursting out in complete laughter, but I realized that it was more likely that he was held silent by something else altogether. I mean, in his eyes, here I was, some strange guy who had been pacing outside the store all afternoon, seemingly a mental midget who can barely communicate, who knows nothing more than how to satiate his sick taste for anal fuck films. I’m sure it was his fear of what I might do next that kept him straight-faced and well-focused on resolving the matter at hand.

Thankfully I didn’t have to say another word, and he went outside to the machine with my credit card and fixed the problem. He said I wouldn’t be charged for the extra hours that the movie was sitting in the machine, but I would have been happy to pay for a month’s rental just to be done with the matter. I left the store with my head hung low, vowing never to put myself in that position again.

However, as I made my way home, one thing kept nagging on my mind. The film ended leaving so many plot lines open, and I was desperate to know how they would end up. So, it wasn’t long before I went back on my word, and was back at the machine renting part 2 of the series. Well, I just had to know;
would she get it, in the end?

-A. Solazzo

sniff, sniff. it brings one to tears.

they love Barbaro

2006-05-22T12:21:00.000-04:00

it seems that every news website that i've checked out this morning headlines with Barbaro, the winner of the Kentucky Derby and favorite in the Preakness Stakes until he had a gruesome injury.

i was wondering what all of the fuss is about until i saw this article a few minutes ago on NYTimes.com.

again i ask, what is all fuss about? maybe i'm just not a horseman, otherwise i would understand. maybe if my parents would have bought me a pony when i was little, i would know the pain that everyone else feels. i could have named it Cassie and it would've eaten sugarcubes and carrots out of my hand. then it would nuzzle it's muzzle against my head. and i could've taken it for long rides across the Blacksburg countryside.

no, wait. that was someone else who had a horse. but if you know who this someone is, send him a card with a picture of a pony on it. he could use some cheering up these days.

congratulations on your break-up

2006-05-22T11:57:00.000-04:00

i would like to take this opportunity to extend my congratulations to the people of Montenegro, who decided over the weekend that they would like to be free and independent from Serbia.

let's face it. they have been autonomous for a long time now. it's time, Serbia, to let them go. i know you are probably upset, but it's for the best, really. plus, at least you have some support on the BBC.com chatboards:

CONGRATULATIONS...FINALLY SERBIA IS FREE!
Stojan, Australia

life. death. salami.

2006-05-22T11:27:00.000-04:00

Chach and i took a nice bike ride Sunday afternoon from Adams Morgan down the Rock Creek toward the Memorial Bridge. you see, Chach bought a brand-new bicycle from Hudson Trail Outfitters in Rockville because she wants to start doing trialthons; so we took my fat orange Cannonball and her new canary-yellow Felt for a spin.

aside from seeing the weekend warriors pound it out on the trails, we saw part of the Dragon Boat Festival of DC, and amazingly, a F-117A Stealth Fighter out of Andrews AFB soar across the Potomac (and through the flight path of the commerical jets coming into Washington National Airport.) that thing looks like, in the words of Chach, "a flying manta ray." has anyone else ever seen on of those in flight? i mean, there are only 54 that exist in the world.

Chach also had her first spill off the Felt as she was trying to navigate her way through a thin part of the trail under the Memorial Bridge. she suffered several scrapes and cuts from the fall and described the feeling afterward as "excellent."

deciding to avoid the crowded trails of Virginia, we veered toward the Mall and made our way to Eastern Market, where we dropped in on Salerno and Lauriexon and discussed law school, Italy, and cured meats. they plan on going to southern Italy this summer on vacation where the goal will be to drive from village to village for the sole purpose of eating and drinking wine. fantastic.

slightly off topic, my birthday is September 8th. please consider the following articles for gift ideas. this one is about recreating the perfect ham and the other is about dry-cured sausages.

(by the way, we also ate brunch at Woodley Cafe before the bike ride with Tobias and Lis. it only took them 10 minutes to figure out that we hadn't been waited on. well above average, for them.)

support your (insert local institution here)

2006-05-19T11:53:00.000-04:00

two things that i've been doing a lot of lately are frequenting my local library and writing. i work right near the former and they have an excellent section devoted to high school and college level reading lists. so, i've been taking advantage the classics that i've missed out on. as for the latter, most of the writing has been personal and not very blogworthy (as of yet.)

i used to love buying books, but i found that i would purchase one and then it would sit on my bookshelf for an eternity before i got around to reading it. this wonderful "borrowing" policy that libraries have force me to "return" the book after a certain amount of time, lest they "fine" me a small fee for my negligence.

keeping to the realm of reading, i've also joined a book club - a fad that seems to be more and more pervasive these days amongst pseudo-intellectuals and/or dilettantes in their mid to late-twenties (like myself.) Trowler came up with the idea and our first book will be Sophie's Choice by William Styron. i get to choose next month and right now i'm leaning more and more toward Oracle Bones by Peter Hessler; he also wrote a book about living and teaching during his Peace Corps experience in China called River Town. i listened to him read a few excerpts from Oracle Bones at Politics and Prose last week and slipped him some of my writings as he signed my book. we had briefly corresponded over e-mail a few times before and after the Uzbekistan trip, so i'll let you know what he thinks of the pieces (good or bad.)

wake up with Java

2006-05-13T09:30:00.000-04:00

i opened CNN.com this morning and i must say that this is a pretty spectacular looking picture.

however, i'm sure that the people on Mount Merapi are thinking the opposite.

by the way, Happy Massacre Day! a Tiananmen Square-like crackdown happened a year ago today in the city of Andijon in the far east of Uzbekistan. PCVs were evacuated and general chaos ensued which eventually led to the downfall of Peace Corps Uzbekistan. incidentally the United States and the West did little more than slap Islam Karimov's hand over the massacre. i guess as long as you are actively participating in the war on global terror, dictators have carte blanche to terrorize their citizens in case they become unruly. ignore what happens in someone's own backyard as long as the global effort is sustained, right?

Chach is going to stand outside the Embassy of Uzbekistan today with a sign that says, "Honk if you think Karimov's a jerk." let's just hope she doesn't get arrested before Mother's Day lunch.

my fear

2006-05-10T20:58:00.000-04:00

well, it didn't take long for the Fates to throw that last blog entry right back in my face. i forgot that i do fear something. i fear for our future.

below is a simulated SAT practice essay that i acquired from a high schooler who was supposed to write about success. we forgot the original question, because this essay swallowed it and spit it out as what you will read below.

Success is one of the greatest feelings there is, like hearing a crowd chant your name after a music performance. [To get it] takes a lot of work and sometimes this can be overwhelming. What I'm trying to say is that not matter what if you truly want something, do what you got to do, but [illegible word] and know what you can handle and what you can't.

Have you ever had a friend who wanted to do something or had some dream and thought they were so good that they would always brag about what they are going to be or how they are going to live but never pursue it. [Then] you know a victim of procrastination or someone who like to put the important stuff [off]. If this keeps happening and he isn't slapped out of this soon he will fail in the end like a track runner never crossing the finish line. To get anywhere in life you need to have determination and a [stake] to run after.

(interesting so far? yes? no? keep reading because it gets better)

Enthusiasm as explained by Charles Schwab is all you need to succeed in life. This has traces of facts in it but not fully: Enthusiasm is a good asset to have but if you don't show potential or at least any interest or no drive whatsoever that enthusiasm is just a liability, it looks good but it is no help at all. I remember in the third to ninth grade I would tell everyone I would be a rap star, but never really got to business. Everybody around me was doing something and I was doing nothing at all. Finally all of this finally hit me while I was freestyle battling at school. I know [because I was] better and I did beat him, but when he said, "You claim that your name would be in lights so bright is going to be force down no matter you can't touch me. how come you can't me one CD while and my crew all ready made three." I will forget that day and just because of that line I gave him the match, even though everyone said that I cooked him like a fried chicken.

(ready for the grand finale?)

I have one more jewel (more advice) for the readers, and it is very important so listen extra carefully; do not get cocky or tempermental I repeat do not get over cocky or tempermental or you are heading out the circulatory of life right through the butthole into a toilet bowl that only the impenetrable can get out of. I [don't have] Superman lives so have sincerity and be humble. No one likes a know-it-all especially if you talk big about something but can't produce. This only brings you enemies and fake idiotic friends (most of [them] probably wouldn't hesistate to backstab you) all waiting to flush you out the game. So make friends not enemies. Don't be cocky.

I stated in the beginning success is like laying on a beach with family, friends, and your favorite celebrities chillin', and sipping on Shirley Temples or you and your girl in a dark room. However you picture it, it is something incredible, just walk through the tunnel ready, with the right tools and a good mind-frame, you should see the light soon.

now i only wish that i kept my highschool essays.

hiding under the covers, shotgun in hand

2006-05-09T12:28:00.000-04:00

i recently watched Bowling for Columbine for the first time; Michael Moore's epic about guns, the media, and fear in America. i was fairly ambivalent toward the movie in general, but i think he was dead-on about one thing: people in America are terrified.

they are terrified of everything; from their tyrannical bosses or misappropriating company time to choking on a foreign-made candy. i had a woman yesterday tell me she was afraid of the coffee machine because she was afraid it would explode if she pressed the wrong button. people are afraid of germs, of bees, of Dubya, and of black people. people have even been known to be afraid of me on the metro. ME? i'm the last person who would probably fuck someone up.

this led me to wonder how often people board the Metro everyday thinking that it will be their last? they will be sitting near a exit, reading an article in latest banal copy of the Washington Post Express about how the Department of Homeland Security just raised the terror alert to "Orange" when an Middle-Eastern-looking man sits next to them with a briefcase and a wearing a trenchcoat. they probably grip the railing a little tighter and think (two more stops to Dupont, two more stops to Dupont, one more stop to Dupont; take all of these other people after i get off, just let me live.) just as sweat starts to form on their forehead, the train makes it to their stop and the person exits, thinking to themselves, "i survived another day."

you may think this is a lot of rubbish. or you may think, 'yeah, it's true people have phobias and fears, but it's not that rampant.' but just take time to listen to people throughout the day and you'd think that we were living under Stalin. people are jumpy and nervous, as if the secret police will arrive at any second and drag them off to the gulag. it's like we are living in the Dark Ages again, where supersition, myth, and hysteria ruled. take a look at The Onion's homepage once in a while and then compare it to the front page of CNN.com. like Tobias once said, the two are more comparable everyday. it's absolute lunacy.

the number two question that people ask me when they found out i was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan - and this is well before i ever tell them i was evacuated - is "were you ever scared?" (the number one question being, "did you like it?" but more often than not the question sounds more repulsed as if the subtext was, "did you actually like living in a god-awful country like that?") the thought process probably goes "Uzbek? hmm. that sounds foriegn and i don't like it," to "'stan??' well, that sounds like one of those other 'stans' like Pakistan, or Afghanistan, or Iraqistan. nothing good could come from one of those countries. nothing but disease and bad water."

parents come to Sylvan frantic that their kids have a C or even a B in math. and if you think mean concerned or discouraged i dont; i mean absolutely stark-raving frantic. completely terrified. reasonable thought exits their bodies and they become this shell of a person who can't possibly think of where else to turn.

obviously, the media doesn't help the situation either. just reading through some websites this morning, i saw two different internet ads for natural disasters and the upcoming thriller about bird flu. bird flu? i remember a couple years ago right around Thanksgiving, the local Fox News affiliate (and frontrunner for panic-inducing programs in the area) had a piece on the dangers of turkey fryers. the 10 second dramatization montage showed a flaming oil drum of grease spill out onto a wooden deck, and then spatter all over some unfortunate person's clothing. the narrator asked the audience, "what is the most deadly way to celebrate the holidays? inside the world of turkey frying...tonight at 11." i would proffer that not acting like a complete retard would probably lessen the chances of being horrible disfigured by hot turkey grease, rather than inducing panic amongst the populace that the Thanksgiving feast they go to could end up being their last.

the big question is, how do we quit this fear? how do we bring our anxiety levels down to a point where we don't have to be liberally prescribed zoloft or prosac the moment something goes wrong? instead of running to Montana, how do we get over these fears of global warming, illegal immigrants, pit-bulls, cell-phones, subways, paper cuts, carpal tunnel, bosses, supervisors, career changes or saturated fat?

to whom do we write letters? Rupert Murdoch? Rumsfeld? i don't think so. Booker has the solution.

Booker: IDIOCY
that is what you should write about
how stupid people are

that's not such a bad idea. educate people about how stupid they are. once they come to that realization, maybe then we can get something done.

i got nothing

2006-05-05T11:48:00.000-04:00

i have pictures from Chach's birthday, (it was May 1st) the Darfur Peace Rally, and from the University of Michigan trip which now seems like an eternity ago, but because of the slow dial-up internet at work, i have nothing my friends. nothing.

perhaps i will find the motivation tomorrow. in the meantime, we are having dinner with this friend of my mom's, Ellen, who has a radio show on the left coast.

midwestern adventure: part 2

2006-04-28T10:40:00.000-04:00

a little ways outside of Chicago on Saturday we made a pit-stop in Lake Station, Indiana. middle America always makes for some quaint and interesting pictures. but outside the friendly confines of Chicago, we were hesitant to make much of a scene. the staff at Burger King were especially nervous when i started taking pictures inside the restaurant of the poster you'll see below.

abortions for none! little American flags for everyone!

the tweenage girls behind Booker and Chach thought it a little odd that us city-slickers were taking pictures outside the biggest hang out in town...

...of course, their suspicions were confirmed when we decided to have our pictures taken in front of the "cows" on the Dairy Queen lawn. it was shortly before we walked to the car when Booker gave them a big grin and a wave that the Lake Station authorities were probably alerted to our presence.

who performs Passion Plays in this day and age, anyways? obviously, some of the staff at the local Burger King (the second most popular joint in town.)

tattoos and womenswear. all in one building. who says midwesterners don't let their hair down? by the way, for all of the Christian iconography that we saw, we noticed an equal amount of temptation in the form of tattoo parlors...

...local idolotry...

...and liquor store after liquor store after liquor store. we also saw a pawn shop across from the DQ convienently located next to another liquor store which was across from the memorial to killed feti and a local church and to the police station.

hallelujah!

midwestern adventure: part 1

2006-04-27T11:26:00.002-04:00

the point of the trip is moot, considering Booker has come close to selecting a law school and could make a personal announcement here on this blog about it at any moment. however, the sights were interesting and we got some cool pictures out of it.

Chicago, Illinois. Second City. the Windy City (except, don't say that to any of the locals, who will promptly cut you off by saying that Chicago is only the 13th windiest city in the US.) we arrived at Midway and stayed at the W Lakeshore. Booker and i raved at the waterfall behind the concierge and the moonlit corridors. Chach complained that she couldn't see anything. upon meeting Booker, we had some drinks in the ultra-hip WAVE restaurant bar, met fellow Uzbek refugees Boris and Natasha, and headed out for some real Chicago-style chops.

we ate our veal chops and filet mignons (which incidentally, Booker said was the biggest piece of meat he had ever eaten) covered in blue cheese at Tavern on Rush. never had we seen so much midwestern cleavage and in our lives. thinking that we were transported into the middle of Times Square on a Saturday night, we quickly headed out to the much hipper Boystown courtesy of Natasha to find out what the nightlife was like for the non-breeder. wandering from one gay bar to the next, we decided to settle on something a little more seedy. Natasha pointed us toward a bar named the Lucky Horseshoe, where the paint was chipped, the Filipino busboys were the stage dancers, and the magician had just finished his act. after a pleasant conversation about Chicago with a former NYer, we meet a dude who was supposedly going to a party later on that night filled with 30 or 40-something high society ladies eager for a young early 20-something to help them pass the time away - most likely in the way of guzzling manhattans and necking in the bathroom.

waking up, we took in the Magnificent Mile and Northwestern Law in all their glory. Chach bought drab pants at the North Face shop in John Hancock Center and also proceeded to lock herself out of her dressing room, much to the shagrin of the shopkeep. Booker ogled at giggly tweenage girls from behind a mannequin while Chach tried on more pants. Booker insulted a "Mo" at J.Crew by making a snide comment about his popped-collar. the "Mo" wasn't happy and made it clear by giving us the icy-cold shoulder when we stepped up to make our purchases.

as for the rest. see some pictures below.

The Magnificent Booker and Chach

The Magnificent Mile

the Magnificent John Hancock Center where Chach tried on magnificently drab olive and gray capris

The Magnificent Booker again outside Magnificent Northwestern Law. sorry guys, but you are officially out of the running.

Booker: well i just officially said NO to northwestern
Zain: WELL. GO BLUE BEARS

magnificent.

a vegan nightmare?

2006-04-25T14:03:00.000-04:00

there are a lot of things that i love to eat. i don't know if this monstrous artery-clogging, fat-filled creation tops the list. but with a few gourmet substitutions and additions, (an italian sausage instead of a hot dog, blue cheese instead of cheddar, onions, and maybe a wheat roll just to give it the appearance of healthy) it could move into the top 5.

therefore, May 16th is the tentative date that Salerno and i test the Hot Dog Rollup. we'll need some medical staff on hand for the event. anyone else interested?

Chicago/Ann Arbor update to come...

welcome to hell, 1L

2006-04-21T12:26:00.000-04:00

this weekend Chach, Booker and i are headed to the Windy City and Ann Arbor, Michigan to put and end to Booker's constant obsessive/complusive behavior of which law school he should choose to attend. we hope to come back with reviews from Northwestern Law, Lakeside W, a Chicago-style chophouse, Gary Indiana, University of Michigan Law, the Four Points Ann Arbor, Autbar, among other various journeys and sidetrips.

again, this will hopefully put an end Booker's obsessive behavior with the US Postal Service, law school rankings, the Selective Service, waitlistings, Boalt, Biglaw, the University of Michigan Outlaws, and law school discussion after law school discussion after law school discussion.

mantenger Adams Morgan limpio!!

2006-04-20T09:40:00.000-04:00

my neighborhood in DC, Adams Morgan, looks more and more like the DC Municipal dump everyday. and it's not just the typical aftermath of Friday and Saturday nights that the place is littered with street pizza, beer cans, the odd high-heeled shoe, or the random Trojan wrapper; it's almost everyday - especially on the corner of 17th and Euclid. the lack of civic pride is astounding. trash is strewn along the street in any direction from the interesection; CVS bags, Popeye's containers, Pepsi bottles, athletic shorts, oversized bras, thong underwear, tampons, roach clips, etc.

a block up at 16th and Euclid, the streets are kept rather clean. 16th Street is a major thoroughfare that leads directly to Lafayette Square and the White House and the apartment building along it keep the grounds clean and orderly. however, the trash has seemed to creep our way as of late, and last night was no exception:

upon closer inspection, it seems that the trash was probably the result of some domestic dispute, where the dude was probably thrown out on his rear. and it seems she was nice enough to throw the couch out with him. but i'm still trying to find an explanation for the tiddlywinks strewn near the US Postal crate.

Booker has something to say...part 2

2006-04-18T13:24:00.000-04:00

remember that pizza that Booker ordered for lunch about an hour ago? let's see how he feels about it now. this is what he had to say in public:

i got through HALF that bitch. and i'll polish her off tonight for dinner. she never had a chance.

but let's peek in and see what he says in private:

Booker: god i feelsick
Booker: i feel real sick
Zain: how sick?
Booker: pepto sick
Zain: mylanta sick?
Booker: ohhhhhhh oh oh oh

Booker has something to say...

2006-04-18T12:17:00.000-04:00

the Kong pizza is gonna fucking ROCK MY WORLD

might i remind the audience that Booker IS working from home today - like all days, alone. there are no co-workers that will share this monstrosity with him. no D-Feds, no McClucthens, and no Yuleiberrys.

Filet-O-Fish, anyone?

2006-04-17T11:43:00.000-04:00

so, it seems that erstwhile Longhorn/Big Mac intellectual and soon-to-be Texan emigre Melissa forgot to cash in on one of the ultimate benes of her undergraduate scholarship award: a FREE Extra Value Meal at McDonalds: her comments are as follows:

SO, I was going through some boxes of photos/crap I've saved throughout the years because i need to get rid of a bunch of shit before the move. To my surprise I found the attached letter from an undergraduate scholarship i received. I'm very upset that I never claimed my FREE Mickey D's meal. And I was in Houston this weekend! however, the real question is: if McDonald's is giving me a several thousand dollar scholarship, what is so taboo about extra value meals #2, 6, 7, 8 and 9? Are they TOO expensive? And why am I so limited in my McDonald's location? I'm saving this baby for the next trip to Houston!

Booker (thanks to him for the item) and i had the same questions. why must a multinational corporation be so cheap as to limit one of their scholars to Value Meals #1, #3, #4, #5, and #10. maybe the Filet-O-Fish is an ideal sandwich for this particular Hacer scholar, but earning a Big Mac or Double Quarter Pounder merits a little more work. i want to get to the bottom of this scheme. Melissa, Booker and Zain demand answers. something is fishy in the Fast Food Nation.

fantastic

2006-04-17T09:41:00.000-04:00

this is an excellent, cheerful story for a gloomy Monday morning in Washington DC. especially when you consider all of the other news from today.

and the fact that i love pigs helps a lot too.

going ballistic

2006-04-13T07:04:00.000-04:00

it seems that Iran is either 16 days, according to the US State Department or "years", according to the CIA, away from making a nuclear bomb.

i'm glad that everyone in the US government is on the same page regarding this issue. it's especially important considering the minute Dubya sees this info, i think we'll be invading Iran in about 15 days.

don't jive talk me!

2006-04-11T13:24:00.000-04:00

James Joyce's Ulysses makes more sense to me than this piece on Barry Bonds. i can't believe Chuck Klosterman gets paid to write this jibber-jabber.

sports news is now finally reaching the pinnacle of absurdity. maybe ESPN should merge with Fox and CNN to create a conglomerate information company that at the merger is totally useless and so inane that it will cause the person's brain to melt in agony of having his or her brain molested like this.

send them back to Montreal

2006-04-11T09:53:00.000-04:00

spring is back in Washington DC. walking through Woodley Park, Dupont, Georgetown, or Downtown, people are outside; eating and drinking, relaxing and enjoying. two weekends ago, it seemed almost every outside seat at every restaurant from Foggy Bottom to Bethesda was occupied. however, there is one "business" in the DC that seems to have no chance of filling up their outside seating.

for a city that wants to be a baseball town so badly, the DCites don't seem to show their enthusiasm all that much. as i was waking up this morning, Chach told me this morning that there were 9,000 available tickets for today's Washington Nationals home opener at RFK Stadium. 9,000 seats. can you imagine, Boston? what about you, LA? i won't even ask New York. according to an article in today's Washington Post, they expect only 42,000 (RFK seats 45,250.) the article also talks about how "stormy" the offseason was for the Nationals, blaming the stadium plans, the inability to land any big free agents (save Alfonso Soriano, who will probably be sorry he ever came to cavernous RFK) and the fact that they are owned by Major League Baseball.

this is ridiculous. they are in the second year of a transition period from horrible ownership at then end of their days in Montreal; they are closing in on a ridiculously overpriced, waterfront stadium; and they draw home games with Braves, Mets, and Phillies who are in NL East (not to mention the Florida Marlins, whose fans have more of a right to air their grievances, especially after the offseason they went through.) from the sound of it, you would think that DC regretted ever having the Expos ever moving here.

DC fans, officials, and sportswriters are already bitching and moaning, as if they were the Chicago Cubs or the pre-2004 Boston Red Sox. please. enough already. this team doesn't have a chance in hell of ever being compared to those storied franchises.

but, maybe i'll be wrong. maybe Tobias will text me in a couple of hours saying that the game was a nailbiter, the house was packed, and that the beer was cold. however, if things are looking this bad already, what will happen if the are past the All-Star break and 20 games out of first place? will they just quit the season? maybe Congress will get involved. maybe the DC Council will blame the city's baseball apathy on gentrification. maybe the Democrats will blame the Republicans on not encouraging revenue equity. maybe the Republicans will blame the Democrats for the publicly-funded stadium. maybe the great Commonwealth of Virginia will sit back and look at the mess over the water and think, "wow. we were right not to get involved."

in any case, i'll be in New York City in less than a year. i hope by the time i get there, i'll be rooting for the Mets against the Las Vegas Gamblers, fresh from their move from DC, in a doubleheader, instead of for the Mets against baseball's Most Pathetic Whiners.

our fair Harvard

2006-04-05T22:06:00.000-04:00

i wonder what the percentage of people who get in say, "man. i REALLY don't know about this. Harvard?"

i'll bet it's higher than you think.

we interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin

2006-04-05T15:40:00.000-04:00

i've found that working and blogging don't mix. especially when you have a dial-up connection in the office. the pictures just don't seem to want to upload.

so, instead of two wonderful stories about rejection and the potency of spring, i bring you an amusing tale from none other than our favorite friend, Booker.

Booker: i am kind of annoyed
i called delta today to discuss something
about my bnagkok trip
and they managed to cancel ONE of my flights
so now
I am waitlisted!

Zain: waitlisted again

Booker: for a flight from Singapore to bangkok

Zain: why don't you take a sampan from sinagpore to bangkok

Booker: I am ALWAYS WAITLISTED

Zain: or a ferry

Booker: SHUT IT
Zain: why don't you DRIVE
it can't be that far

Booker: it's far
500 miles

Zain: 1249 miles
by train
a 48 hour jounrey
if you went first class, it could be interesting

Booker: i am flying business class
that's good enough
WELL i WAS flying
i hear good things about singapore airport
maybe i could stay there two weeks

Zain: i'm researching a first class train ticket for you

Booker: delta has the WORST VOICE RECONGITION system i have ever used
booker says: "yes"
the computer voice says: "I think you said you wanted to check ariival
times. Is that right?
booker says: "NO!"
the voice says: "I'm sorry, I didn't understand you"
booker says: "MAIN MENU"
the voice says: "I think you said, you wanted to check your skymilles
balance. Is that right?"

Zain: LOL

Booker: so I decided to get sneaky
booker says: "YES!"
the voice says: "Will you be flying domestically or
internationally?"
at this point I hung up

Zain: one word: quality.

thank you, Hawk and Dove

2006-03-31T09:44:00.000-05:00

thank you, Hawk and Dove. thank you for being DC. thank you for showing me again why DC is a total dump.

thank you - to the homely waitress for being so surly.

thank you - to the kitchen staff who, when i ordered my vegetarian greek salad, decided not "86" the Greek salad even though the essential ingredient was missing - feta cheese, which was the reason i ordered it in the first place.

thank you - to all of the inane Capitol Hill staff assistants, jabbering away about money wasted on liberal causes or money wasted on conservative causes or which Republican staffer slept with which Democratic staffer. may i take this moment to vomit all over your new J.Crew espadrilles or your Kenneth Cole loafers?

thank you - to the owner of the Hawk and Dove, who decided to place about 15 televisions in a space the size of a broom closet. as if we aren't stimulated enough by the conversations around us, we are forced to stare stupidly at sports, CNN, or QVC.

thank you again - to the kitchen staff AND the surly waitress who served us a plate of ICE cold onion rings that weren't even left under a heat lamp. nice effort, everyone.

and finally, thank you again - to the surly waitress who threw our bill at us as if we were a trio of migrant workers, and then proceeded to charge us 18% gratituty. i'm sure you thought that was more than adequate for your two minutes of work.

now i know the place to go if i ever want to experience a little DC nostalgia.

fun with babelfish

2006-03-30T15:58:00.000-05:00

i receive a lot of e-mails at work that are in Chinese characters. i saw this one today and, along with what looked like a phone number, figured it could be a prospective student. after translating the text through babelfish.com, i am convinced that this is no student:

Our company existing receipt (ordinary commodity sale,
increment duty, shipping industry, advertising industry, service industry, architecture industry, vehicle sale receipt and so on) May the preferential benefit service generation open; The company absolutely guaranteed the receipt real is reliable, after your firm may first confirm the receipt to pay money; If intending please promptly relates with me: Li Jianmin. Telephone: 13.682337561 billion. Wishes your business good! All things victory Italy! In in the bilateral reciprocal benefit mutual benefit foundation, is willing us hand in hand to cooperate.

All things victory, Italy!

the day the collective gasped

2006-03-30T09:59:00.000-05:00

April 26th will mark the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, and BBC is publishing an online picture diary from reporters who are going back to the site to find out what is happening 20 years later.

along with the rest of the Soviet Union, i think Chernobyl is fascinating; from the initial denial to the eventual admission, to the clean-up effort, to the problem today. for a geography class in college i watched a video called Chernobyl: Chronicle of Difficult Weeks which was a documentary made by Soviet officials about the clean-up efforts. one of the most amazing scenes was a group of Angolans and Cubans flying overhead in a helicopter, talking about how they were coming to help the Motherland.

for pictures, check out Elena Filatova's website. she supposedly took a motorcycle through the exclusion zone and made this photodocumentary - although some say she was just part of a guided tour; a tour that Chach and i plan on taking one day. maybe i'll feel the radiation as we are walking around the site. though i hope not:

from eyewitness accounts of the firefighters involved before they died, one described his experience of the radiation as "tasting like metal", and feeling a sensation similar to that of pins and needles all over his face.

grim.

i have a question

2006-03-29T21:26:00.000-05:00

why aren't there solar eclipses every day?

can someone explain the science behind this? you would think that if the Moon is orbiting the Earth, that it would block the sun at some point in it's journey.

i probably should have studied harder in that astronomy class at JMU, instead of falling asleep during the planetarium lab.

veggie tales: entry three

2006-03-27T09:54:00.000-05:00

if this scientific theory about pigs becomes a reality, you can guarantee that i'll never go vegetarian - on a bet or otherwise - again.

in fact, i might just open a restaurant in NYC devoted to eating cloned swine.

i'll call it New York Pork.

this story doesn't need a catchy title

2006-03-25T12:49:00.000-05:00

caught off my guard while working this morning, i heard some distressing news. after a fit of rage directed at Booker where fists were almost thrown in poor Booker's face, one of my "friends" co-opted a story that i was going to blog about. however, unlike some, i am a gracious in defeat. instead of trying to add a witty or charming spin to the story, (or even trying to claim that i had exclusive "rights") i'm going to simply post it straight as i heard it, unedited and uncensored. (names have been changed, however, in respect to the parties at hand.) in an exclusive Googlechat interview with Booker yesterday, this is what was transmitted:

Booker: i am not long for this city
lol
i have a blind item for your
blog it involves some visitors from TX

Zain: ok
shoot

Booker: actually i have to get clearance before it's bloggable
but the story is good
So arik and melissa are out last night
they go to the event which is nice
then they meet their friend Ray at an open-bar event afterward
no diner
melissa drinks too much
they are out
melissa is too drunk to take PATH back to hoboken
you will recall they are staying in bunny mauer's place in boken
so AM hails some gypsy cab
gypsy cab gets LOST
in Hoboken drops them off at some random street

Zain: yeah

Booker: MELISSA passes out on sidewalk

Zain: lol

Booker: arik is looking around wildly
hails random stranger
random stranger arrives to give them rive
ride
(!)
Melissa vomits in CAR

Zain: LOLOLOL

Booker: they get to bunny's apartment
vomit all over melissa's coat etc
arik puts her in bed

decides to clean up
jacket that melissa was suppsoed to wear today at events
oops phone!
ok
SO
arik puts water on jacket
THEN the jacket is all wet
he decides jacket should dry off
decides best way to do THAT is to put in the
oven and turn the oven ON

Zain: LOL

Booker: fast forward 15 minutes
arik passes out
fast forward 2 hours

Zain: no WAY
oh my god

Booker: ARIK awakes to billowing smoke
smoke detectors in hallway
arik and half nude melissa stumble outside

Zain: jebus H christ

Booker: after ARIK makes attempt to put out COAT FIRE with fire
extinguisher

thus ruining bunny's kitchen
fire epartment arrives checks out situation
arik attempts to pretend it is smoking pizza box in oven
fire dept leaves neighbors stare angrily at arik and half-nude melissa
they pass out
fast forward 12 hours
melissa is lying in bed as wespeak
msising ALL her events
clening service coming at 4pm to clean kitchen

Zain: well, if that isn't an introduction to NYC for the mauers,
i don't know what is

Booker: VOILA!
WHAT A BOOZEBAG

me:
BOOZEBAGS

Booker: apparenlty arik was in beter shape
although what possessed him to use the oven as a coat warmer is beyond me

Zain: well
obviosly i don't think i could tell that story any better

Booker: so
adding it all up: cleaning service, ruined jacket, vomit in random car, taxi to
hoboken

Booker: you'll have to change names to proteect the gulty

me: of course arik and melissa

Booker: hah
i don't think melissa will be drinking much tonite

the things you hear

2006-03-24T14:42:00.000-05:00

i was at the Bethesda Metro today around 1:20pm, enjoying my half-day and anticipating lunch (see below) when i heard a cellphone ring. picking up a few feet from me was a diminutive punk-rockesque strumpet. she could not have been older than 17. and this is about how the conversation went:

diminutive punk-rock strumpt: hello?
...
dp-rs: hey there sweetie, how are you?
...
dp-rs: well, actually i'm good right now, you know? i picked some up the other day.
...
dp-rs: yeah, well you know tommorrow is my birthday, so it's gonna be like sex, drugs and rock n' roll, you know?
...
dp-rs: well, yeah if you can meet me in one hour at ********** i could use probably about $20 or $30 worth, but now more. just like a dime or so. but i won't be there more than a hour so you'd have to make it here quick.
...
dp-rs: yeah, i'll be on the metro in fifteen.
...
dp-rs: i have, like, a couple lines of coke left. probably about four. and then my friend bought me some shit for my party, and i can't wait to fuckin' try it.
...
dp-rs: yeah well i was....

the Metro pulled to the station right about here, so the rest of the conversation was unintelligible.

ahhhhh. the youth of America!

that ain't sanitary

2006-03-24T14:34:00.000-05:00

i was just eating my vegetable fried rice from O'Tasty - a ghetto little Chinese carryout place near my apartment - and i found a one-inch piece of wood mixed in with the veggies.

i suppose this is a sign telling me to eat at higher quality places for lunch.

i suppose i should also say i picked out the wood and kept on eating.

a matter of clarity

2006-03-24T07:08:00.000-05:00

from: Zain
to: my next door neighbor

dear Sir:

the sign hanging on your door which says, "Did not prescribe to get the Wash. Post!" is incorrect. what you mean to say is, "I did not subscribe to the Washington Post" just to clarify, medicines are prescribed to you. newspapers are not; except maybe in the case of state-countrolled papers in authoritarian countries like Burma, Belarus, or Burundi.

Best regards,
Apartment 3**

What IS this?

2006-03-23T20:44:00.000-05:00

Amstel190 rules the UK. she also rules the Netherlands and we once ruled the proscenium arch together in the American School of the Hague's production of The Miracle Worker.

maybe we can do a ten-year reenactment at the reunion, ja?

read her blog. so far, it rules.

from national, to international, to the stars

2006-03-23T13:32:00.000-05:00

hmm. an interesting article about what George Lucas thinks of Hollywood's culture.

and i agree. in fact, all students should be required to study abroad. give them a passport and a compass, drop them off in the middle of Burkina Faso (or as i fondly remember it, Upper Volta), and let them study their way home.

speaking of the devil...

2006-03-23T10:18:00.000-05:00

this is a funny little tidbit from the Smoking Gun, forwarded by Booker himself. seems that Dick Cheney is not quite as big of diva as J.Lo. but it must be pretty nice have a cadre of people making sure that you have your 4 cans of Diet caffeine-free Sprite.

what would your downtime tour "rider" request be? i think mine would look something like this: (Chach are you taking notes??)

Furnishings: various couches, settes, and lounge chairs for the guests (brown, dark blue, or green.) No hard cushions and NO IKEA FURNITURE. room should be spacious, but cozy. coffeetables should be within ample reach of the couches with side tables available for drinks, cocktails and snacks. please send us a floor plan of the room one week before arrival with furniture specs. throw rugs of Turkmen or Afghan make. pakistani rugs also acceptable. rugs should cover from wall-to-wall. NO Iranian or Persian rugs! One large refrigerator.

Music: will be provided by guests. a computer port should be provided with speakers that are compatible for an iPod or Dell. high-speed wireless access is essential and should be tested beforehand. DirectTV is also required as is TiVo setup.

Drink: 2L Ketel One, 2 1.5L Skyy, 2L Stolichnaya, 15L Canada Dry Tonic Water, 5L Canada Dry Club Soda, 24 Amstel Lights, 24 Corona. 20 fresh limes. 20 bottles of assorted French and Italian reds and whites (please consult a local sommelier for details on the best locally available wine and contact the manager.) freshly squeezed orange, lemon, and grapefruit juices. organic cranberry and apple juice. Horizon Organic milk and Chocolate milk (for Tobias.) assorted miniature cans of Coca-Cola soda products (Pepsi products are not acceptable.) 1 case of Fiji Bottled Water. this is a template list. other drinks to be provided on request up to the date of arrival.

Food: 1 platter of each: assorted and freshly sliced proscuitto, cappicolla, mortadella, salami. cheese platter of blues, goudas, bries as well as cheddars and provolones. a fresh cracker and bread tray. a fresh vegetable tray. a fresh fruit platter (no honeydew or cantaloupe.) a sushi and sashimi platter to be made one hour before arrival. (in winter, the cold-cut tray should be replaced with a sausage tray; weisswurst, knockwurst, bratwurst, sauerkraut and spicy mustard.) this is a template list. Other food to be provided on request up to the date of arrival.

by the way, this bit of wishful thinking was brought to you by a dead day at work.

Inshallah, you will be blessed by ME

2006-03-23T09:19:00.000-05:00

Salerno's and my favorite dictator, the Turkmenbashi Saparmurat Niyazov (who i think has a really cool Turkic name) is guaranting divine salvation for all who read his book.

narcissism at it's finest my friends.

veggie tales: entry two

2006-03-20T14:35:00.000-05:00

so, i've been on a vegetarian diet for almost three weeks and i've had several thoughts about it:

1) it's fun to be an elitist...but that's about all: example - i was in Chipotle about a week ago after working late, and i decided to pick up a burrito. switching from my usual barbacoa soft tacos, i looked at the menu and made my decision. the guy ahead of me ordered his to go: a steak burrito, with extra guacamole. i piped in next; with the man right ahead of me and in earshot, i said with a disdainful voice, "i'll have the vegetarian burrito, extra guac." it didn't elicit the response that i had hoped for.

2) the lack of veggie options on menus is staggering: example - i went to Capital City Brewery with Chach, Trowler, and Kristy two weekends ago and there was absolutely nothing of interest on the entree menu to order, save the token "portobello mushroom" sandwich. i ended up having the spinach and artichoke dip as well as some nachos; the latter being an unexciting choice as i had to 86 the chili (see below).

3) you get weird looks ordering vegetarian as a guy: example - dovetailing number 2, i order my nachos at CapCity and ask if they have vegetarian chili. he sort gives me a look, puffs out his chest and says, "nah dude, we don't have that here. you'll have to go to Hard Times Cafe to get something like that." anyway, i have heard similar stories from Tobias who has frequented a Wendy's, only to order a Feta Wrap while his workmates ordered humongous burgers, or something like that.

4) cooking has become a lot more boring: example - cooking, as in dinner, has become a lot more boring. plus i find my sandwich options for lunch (sandwiches being my favorite type of food) to be severely limited.

5) i really don't feel a lot more healthy by avoiding meat: in fact, i was almost sick to my stomach the other day when i found out that my dad will cook a sumputious, mouth-watering butterflied leg of New Zealand lamb for Easter dinner, which falls on Saturday in our house, and therefore within the 40 day fast. in general, i think fasting for a spell can be a good idea. however, i don't think that my human body was designed to give up meat entirely. i don't care what PETA says. why deprive oneself of rich creamery butter? or chewing bacon instead of gum?

6) i also don't like what this is doing to my reputation: my M.O. is meat-eating. i like a nice filet of steak, enjoy a fresh Maine lobster, and savor fatty tuna sashimi. give me wursts of any kind with spicy mustard and sauerkraut, or proscuitto, cappicolla and italian submarines. i eat dark meat on Thanksgiving turkeys, light meat on Peruvian chicken, and the gizzards out of a cornish game hen. venison, rabbit, pheasant or quail are all game in my book. others in Uzbekistan pushed the 1 inch cubes of fat from the kebabs onto the side of their plate and looked at it with disgust. i say, you are pushing aside the flavor! if it has tentacles or fins, i'm definitely in. ungulates, watch out - you make me salivate. if you have a snout, i won't count you out. and if you are human, then...hmmm, pass the cumin...

and to end this ode, my favorite Homer Simpson quote: "i love pizza, i like bagels, i eat hot dogs with mustard and beer, i'd eat eggplant, i would eeeeeven eat a baby deer."

stepping it up

2006-03-20T11:59:00.000-05:00

well, it's been a while. but i see that some of my other fellow bloggers haven't been updating as much either. as for myself, i just started a new job last week, which has been taking up a considerable amount of my time, so the blogging may continue to be sporadic for a week or two until i settle in.

and with that, i must update about some stories that will come out of peregrination in the following weeks after i settle.

1) a NEW roommate: in which this blog will point out all of her peculiarities and faults in the order i observe them.
2) a trip to Massanutten and nostalgia in Harrisonburg, VA.
3) another trip to Guatemala and Belize, with plenty of historical background on Tikal.
4) the end of Veggie Tales on Easter Sunday. (with which i am pissed about because on Saturday night my dad is cooking a heavenly rack of New Zealand lamb, of which i will not be able to partake in.)
5) my invitation as a KEYNOTE speaker at my old high-school in Fairfax
6) Las Vegas?
7) and much, much more!

playing the waiting game

2006-03-14T10:09:00.000-05:00

too angry to comment himself, Booker had this to say about being waitlisted at law school yesterday in an exclusive Googletalk chat:

Waitlisting: for people who aren't good enough unless we really, really underestimated ourselves

just remember our bet from highschool. if you end up going Crimson, it means a steak dinner at Ben Bensons.

why Brokeback got hosed

2006-03-06T12:07:00.000-05:00

Booker sent me an interesting article on why Brokeback was shafted for the ultimate prize at last night's Academy Awards.

i, like many, was surprised that Crash won; which in my opinion wasn't that good at all.

only in DC

2006-03-03T16:17:00.000-05:00

this is entirely appropriate for Overheard in DC at DCist:

Red Line between Woodley Park and Cleveland Park,

"man who the hell cares what them terrorists do. as long as i get my cut, y'know what i'm saying?"

find your ride

2006-03-03T14:04:00.000-05:00

i would love to buy one of these Volkswagon GTI's and make friends with my fast. this is what i call good advertising.

veggietales: entry one

2006-03-02T20:13:00.000-05:00

Alison related an ancedote that i forgot about when she heard i was going veg for 40 days:

OH my god, Zain. remember when we went to Patel's and we, like, ATE all that delicious Indian food that her mom cooked and we were, like, WOW, this is FUCKING awesome? and rememeber we, like, went to Amphora after that and you ordered eggs with a side of SAUSGAGE? how the hell are you going to be a vegetarian for 40 days? you are going to soooo withdrawal, dude.

maybe she's right. but let's hope that i can exercise some sort of self restraint. it's not like i'm giving up smoking or anything. (which, by the way was ridiculously easy. i don't think smoking is addictive at all.)

sin meat-eaters, sin

2006-03-01T23:36:00.000-05:00

goodbye Fat Tuesday, welcome 40 days of wandering in the wilderness - meatless. that's right. Zain, the non-Catholic, non-Christian will be giving up meat and going veg with a few excommunicated Catholics: Trowler - who always comes up with these harebrained schemes, and Tobias - the former altar-boy wunderkind.

so, mixed in with the rest of the posts, the next 40 days will consist of scattered entries about Tofu instead of Steak Tartare, Falafel instead of Fried Chicken, and Sweet Potatoes instead of Sausages.

and per Trowler's and my agreement last night, we will send each other a list in the morning of what we ate the night before. since this will be based on the HONOR SYSTEM (i'm talking to you Tobias) i expect everyone to play by the rules.

as for my "Last Supper" i had the following on Tuesday:

Spaghetti Carbonara with Bacon (spaghetti not pictured)

Linguine in a Red Clam Sauce

One bottle of red wine (also not pictured. i drank it too fast)

good luck to all participants.
anyone feel like making it interesting?
Booker, there is still time to repent, you sinner. we'd be happy to have you!

8th grade fun

2006-02-28T19:56:00.000-05:00

i thought i was horrible at math. seems that i'm not as bad as i thought. maybe Sylvan really does make learning fun.

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

thanks Colin (who created the original post).

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

and as you can see above, Chach did exceptionally well. maybe the fate of our education system is in good hands. Columbia University is lucky to have you!

what did you get?

my life is fun

2006-02-28T10:34:00.000-05:00

for C-Fish's birthday last Friday, Roondog organized a trip to Top Golf - a driving range in Alexandria. at first you may think, "a driving-range? isn't that just for golfophiles?" well, Top Golf is no regular driving range. spread out over several hundred yards, each tee is within range of several targets that you can aim for. these targets - ranging from 6 feet to 20 feet in diameter are setup like bulleyes that are laid flat on the ground. if your shot lands in the target, a microchip at the center of the ball will relay a message to a computer at your tee and tally a score. hitting dead center is worth the most points with the outer edges being worth less, and so on. the targets are designed so that you can chip a shot in from as close as 10 yards or drive the ball 250 yards away as well as your choice for numerous targets in between. Top Golf has a bar (beer and wine only) and tee-side beverage and drink service. also for the kiddies, there is a miniature golf course, which i plan on taking full advantage of during my next trip.

so what. 50+ people getting boozy at a driving range. what's the fun in that? for one, you play against each other, which adds to the excitement. and another is, there is plenty of fun involved when the theme of the party is to get dressed up as your favorite Caddyshack player (or favorite golf-costume in general.) below are some pictures of the duffers in full golfing gear.

by the way, the first round scores were as follows (the highest scorer hitting a 148):

zain (tied for 3rd place) - 92 points
c-fish (7th) - 69
colin (tied for 10th) - 55
roondog (13th) - 55
tobias (23th) - 41
trowler (34th) - 28

i didn't find a score sheet for the second round. admittedly, mine took a nasty tumble as i only scored about 20 the second time around.

where golf is the tops

Zain teeing off for Team D'Annunzio

Trowler with Annika Sorenstam-like form on the backswing

Tobias, styling his all-too-tight Black Watch golfing togs

Cap'n Judge Roondog Smails

C-Fish and Trowler, looking like the Bushwood elite that they are

"We're going to put it right on the line. There's been a lot of complaints already. Fooling around on the course, bad language, smoking grass, poor caddying. If you guys want to get fired. If you want to be replaced by golf carts, just keep it up." (Caddyshack, 1980)

hockey mad conclusion

2006-02-27T10:31:00.000-05:00

in one of the last events of the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, the Swedish men's hockey team beat Finland by a score of 3-2. the leading pictures from two Stockholm dailies were:

and from a Finnish newspaper? you'd think the world was about to end.

the last event of the games was the 50K cross country race which is like the marathon of the Summer Olympics. appropriately enough for this XC skiing-mad country, the race was won by an Italian, Giorgio di Centa, who also was part of the team that led his countrymen to a victory in the 4x10K relay - which is a HUGE event for the Italians. so, di Centa received his medal and got to hear his national anthem in front of 30,000 people at the closing ceremonies last night in Torino. not a bad way to finish at all.

and now we wait for Vancouver 2010.

this most likely ends all blogging about the Olympics for now. we now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

we hardly knew ye

2006-02-26T10:30:00.000-05:00

Don Knotts

1924-2006

i'm totally gonna get laid on this humanitarian mission to Uzbekistan

2006-02-23T12:30:00.000-05:00

did i say that, or something like that before i left in January 2004? somebody i'm sure can confirm...

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/45589.

Chach, you were the one handing me the water-bottle off the truck, weren't you?

this is random...

2006-02-23T11:49:00.000-05:00

...especially after my Olympic rant.

but does Dubya need a visa to visit another country? how about his staff? who carries around his passport? does Charlie or his real-life equivalent do the job? why have they never covered this on a West Wing?

i just read this article about some scientists who were complaining regarding US visa policy, and all of these questions came to mind.

the Olympic spectacle

2006-02-23T11:24:00.000-05:00

from Bode Miller's tireless quest for a gold medal (according to the media, not him), to Lindsay Jacobellis' snowboard flop just before the finish line, or the speedskating rift between 1000m gold medalist Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick (and the the rest of his team), something is amiss in these 2006 Winter Olympic Games. there was even a minor flit between the Italian ice dancing couple who fell at the very end of their program on Sunday night, dashing their chances for a medal. controversy with ice dancing? is something in the air? or is this just another case of the media exacerbating drama for ratings? the latter seems most likely.

the latest "Skategate" isn't a case of Harding/Kerrigan II, but between the two speedskaters, Davis/Hedrick; the first a young black Chicago native with something to prove - which he did in the 1000m; and the other, a brash Texan who has made it abundantly clear that he was annoyed with his fellow speedskating for bailing out on the US team when they had a chance at gold. Davis claimed, rightly so, that racing in the team-sprint the day before his event would hurt his chances to win gold. so he didn't and the US team didn't get so-so silver or shameful bronze; as they were booted in the quarterfinals. Hedrick was pissed because, with Davis not participating, it dashed his chances for 5 medals, a la Eric Heiden. the way Hedrick whined and complained, you'd think it was a case of black-on-white crime. you're probably wondering, who cares? and you are right. who the hell cares. but, NBC, ESPN, CNNSI, seem to care. and they want you to care too.

on top of this, the NBC coverage haven't excatly had a lot of their signature heartwarming stories like Olympics past. cheesy as those pieces sometimes are, it's nice to have a daily dose of a tale like Kenyan cross-country skier Philip Boit; who in Nagano in 1998 finished dead-last, but was greeted at the finish line by gold-medalist Bjorn Daehlie, who shook his hand. the experience was so moving for Boit, he named his son after the Norweigan. of course, there have been a few this time around, such as speedskater Joey Cheek's humanitarianism and all-around sportsmanship; or the thunderous applause for Turkish figure skater Tugba Karademir, who - coming from a country with only two ice rinks - put on a solid perfomance in the women's short program. but no; NBC chooses to cover failure over trimuph, divas over sportsmanship, and controversy over compeition. they also barely show any medal ceremonies, which in my opinion is one of the most moving parts of the games.

maybe you prefer the prissy drama that involves many American sports these days, such as Terrell Owens versus Donovan McNabb, Kobe versus Shaq, or Barry Bonds versus everyone else. but are sports that inane these days that we have to stuff the edges with fluff and garbage that should be saved for inane magazines like US or In Touch?

now, this isn't to say that the Olympics haven't had their share of drama and that the media hasn't taken advantage of it before. however, it seems that NBC and the rest of the media have finally lost their magical touch in bring the Olympic spirit to these games.

well, i guess we can be thankful that the Olympics aren't show on Fox.