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Saturday, April 4, 2009

One year ago I was packing all the stuff I could fit in my backpack, I was so frightened of the idea to have to walk miles while carrying it, the year ahead of me looked quite challenging in that aspect.

I remember that when it all began, we went to Mexico. My legs were shaking uncontrollably from the effort to stand with 45lb of extra weight at the airport while waiting for my mom to pick us up. At the next morning my legs and heaps hurt so bad I had to take pain killers.

Once the real trip began I suffered from the same pain for a while. My neck and shoulders were feeling the challenge too, every time I'd try to lift it by myself I'd fail and ended up asking David to help me, sometimes when I put it on while siting he would even have to pull me up because I could not stand by myself.

Honestly, I never thought I would see the day on which I could put it on without David, a wall, or a chair.

When we checked into our flight from Bangkok airport I realized that my backpack was never that much lighter, nevertheless I could lift it up with one arm and put it on, one day I even carried David's backpack at the same time as mine.

Yesterday I finally unpacked it, but now I am not quite sure if it is freedom or concern what I feel. Finally I don't experience regular leg pain, but I have come to understand that everything I own is not in only one luggage bag anymore. This means that if we don't like it wherever we settle, we can't just check out and take the next plane to some place else.

This is our new start. No more waiting hours in bus terminals or endless train journeys. No more curious stares and clueless faces caused by our words. David often refers to our comeback as "going back to the real world", but is this truly it?? Where a chicken sandwich costs 8 dollars, and a bottle of water $2?

I am sitting next to a kitchen with a fridge full of food, a big part of it will go bad before someone can eat it all, poor people are not siting on the streets waiting for some good hearten tourist to give away uneaten food, not even dogs eat left overs in this "real word".

Teenagers walk around shopping malls socializing, 14 year old girls wear so much make up that they look like junkie hookers skinny, tiny, and underdeveloped thanks to their addictions. Unlike the kids working for a bit of food at the other side of the world, teenagers don't know that this "real world" could very easily disappear. What seems unlikely to disappear is the world on which little 3 year old babies walk around touristic sites collecting plastic bottles to sell and help support their family, the world on which being skinny means to be poor instead of pretty, where young girls date old western guys hoping to have a better life.

I love America without a doubt, I missed it as much as I loved going away from it...but it scares me to imagine how fragile this dream could be. It is very easy to get used to fire places, cozy clean and comfy beds, fresh and healthy food, people that understand and care, but it is so hard to forget about all this being away.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

The wonders of the rain in Vietnam

The sky has been cloudy for the last week or so. Now we are on a train going from Danang to Natrung in Central Vietnam; the rain places drops of water on the window adding a sober and cold look to the country that we’ve come to know as the greenest and wettest so far.

Our train started its journey 2 and a half hours ago, the small difference in price between soft sleeper and a soft seat has given us the opportunity to afford the lu
xury of laying down and reading almost every time. The room consists of 4 sleeping berths with old thin mattresses covered by a white blanket and a stinky pillow. The walls are made of plastic and washed out green colored.

The train appears to be old, perhaps amongst the first trains that were built right after the war was over and with an attempt from the government to draw tourism towards the country.

Through the window I’ve tried to find traces of the war, nothing seems to appear, it is like the whole landscape has forgotten the violence it witnessed as if it was washed down by the rain. Most people seem hopeful and happy; they have a beautiful country that has given them some of the most fertile land any other nation could dream of.

Walking through the local markets you can see the broadest variety of spices, fruits, meats, sweets, and vegetables, the good and bad smells mix in the air and “hellos” follow us as we tour the shops. Every where you see there are big amounts of each item, dragon fruit, passion fruit, tangerines, oranges, bananas, every kind of spice and of course different varieties for every type of fruit and vegetable.

In Hoi Ann no one's business was closed by the inundation of the town, on the contrary, this meant an opportunity for the boat stores to get closer to tourists and offer either their products or services, locals lift their goods on their shoulders and set to walk through the 2 feet deep water.

For a while we were afraid we wouldn’t find it so easy to get along with locals, unfortunately some other tourists have given Vietnam a bad reputation for offering poor services and unfriendly attitudes; nevertheless we have found everything but bad disposition from them, people are always willing to help in any way they can and offer a smile to break the language barrier that sometimes separates us.

So far, our trip
through this beautiful country has been cheaper than China in every way, mostly because we were fortunate to visit during low season, which is renown for strong monsoons. I won’t deny that I am happy to take advantage of the great picture opportunities that the water has created, roads filled side to side with locals on their bikes wearing colorful plastic ponchos, traditional hats that work as umbrellas, and even danger seekers juggling with an umbrella in one hand and their hand on the bike handle.

Cars are scarce in this part of the world, it is the first time we see bicycles being the main method of short distance transportation carrying more than 1 person at a time, as well as motorbikes sometimes holding as many as 6 persons on them.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Staring party: China

Now that we are far from China, my memories start dispersing into a overall picture that is not exactly what China really is. Like so many other people, we were not appreciative of the spitting, nose picking, and staring; however, China is way more than a dirty and polluted country. Nevertheless, as usual, I have an urge to express my complaints. To begin with, let me start off with the staring issue: If I happened to find a magic lamp with a genius and had 3 wishes, one of them would be “I wish Asians to stop staring”. The truth is that even though they mean nothing bad by it, it can create some of the most awkward and uncomfortable situations ever. They stare while you are talking, while you are sitting, standing, lifting your backpack, walking, eating, sleeping, reading, they just won’t stop. A lot of westerners like to read as a pastime, Asians instead of reading stare! They talk about you while doing it, they laugh, and even take close up pictures without even asking.

One afternoon while we were visiting the Tianamen Square in Beijing, a woman pushed her terrified kid towards us, she didn’t intend to make any sort of request, she just shove her kid in our arms and started taking pictures of the screaming child while laughing out loud. It is until you visit this country when you realize that you are part of a minority in the world. They don’t mind being close to each other, looking over your shoulder to analyze your laptop, ipod, book, notebook, or anything personal that you could be holding on your hands. They push their way everywhere, at the beginning it seemed quite difficult to understand their chaos, until one day I decided to act like them. I started by pushing my way around without no one being bothered; in one occasion, and old woman tried to push her way ahead of me between David and I, but I was in no position to loose my husband in such a crowd so I pushed her away, in great confusion the woman stopped and looked at me with one of the most confused looks I’ve ever seen. The subway is the worse, one day an old man ran into the car throwing himself against my backpack and pushing me around, in response I opposed some resistance and again I received that puzzling look not only from the old man, but from all the people in the subway car. Passing to more positive aspects of their culture, I must say that they are mostly very nice people willing to help and amazingly curious.

I can’t even recount how many times a Chinese person who spoke English approached us while
we were having trouble communicating. Young people seem to be forgetting the importance of their culture, but at the same time appear to be more appreciative of values that the western world would consider essential; I don’t exactly view this as something positive, nevertheless is good to see that they are not so eager to exploit natural resources as much as their elders. Most tourist towns have a great charm, the same charm that gets a bit obstructed by the innumerable amount of souvenir shops and travel agencies. Several walled cities still preserve their original walls and architecture. In fact, we were told that hundreds of years ago, Beijing was a walled city just like many of the enchanting small towns we visited such as Pingyao and X’ian. It was almost impossible for us to get out of the beaten track in order to find more traditional Chinese environments, cities with multiple story buildings grow amongst the rice fields, new brick walls extend along the train rails, every single living being is tasted to feed their millions, eyes look forward to explore any opportunity for businesses.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Vietnam: From the motorbike crowd to the green fields

We cross the border into Vietnam with a small delay due to the damage that Chinese immigration officials did to my passport in a long attempt to try to discover fake passports. As we normally do, we hold a frustrating bargaining over the price for transportation all the way to Hanoi, the capital of the country. After agreeing in paying 100,000 Dong (120,000 less than what they initially wanted and knowing that locals pay around 50,000 less) we hop in a minivan for a 3 hour ride.

Hanoi is messy, Hanoi is dirty, Hanoi is overcrowded, and chaotic, but remarkably interesting. The architecture of the place delights our eyes after seeing so many neon light buildings in China, the housing structures are narrow 3 or 4 floor rectangles with pieces of decaying paint stained with dark spots over pastel colors. Clothes hang over most constructions and balconies are decorated with many plant pots, animals, cleaning utensils and old bikes.

Motorbikes come from all directions, I didn’t even notice that the roads have stop lights until we got stuck about 5 min in a corner unable to cross the street.

We remained in the city for about 3 days, not having any urge anymore to visit sights, we occupied our time with walking around taking pictures and sitting by the lake to people watch. We both are relatively tired, it delights us to be able to sit around, take naps, read, and pretend that we have a normal life for a few days at a time.

The people in the capital are great picture subjects, families gather to eat on sidewalk restaurants, taxi bikes follow us around trying to get us to make their day’s pay, the colors of shops and markets are outstanding with their shiny objects, colorful fruits, and spices.

More than any other place, Vietnam is the hub for ripping off tourists, every time we intended to purchase something we would be given prices as much as 10 times higher than they should be, often provoking us to leave without even trying to bargain.

Finally, we decided to take an overnight train to the North into Sapa. The train was ok, not as big and stable as the Chinese ones, but it allowed us a goodnight sleep. We got into Lo Cai at 6 am and took a bus 1 hour into the mountainous town of Sapa. Rivers, mountains, and green rice fields reigned over the beautiful landscape; unattended children and women dressed in their traditional outfits walked along the road making it a perfect place for photography lovers.

Annoyed by the behavior of two old tourist women being rude to locals and complaining about everything they could regarding the $2 USD ride in a third world country, we were happy to get off. Sapa appears to be more touristy than we expected, yet gorgeous. We walked around town looking for a hotel, after being harassed by a young woman with a big smile for around 20 min she convinced us to follow her way to a hotel, for only $15USD we get a big room with a fireplace and an incredible view clean of any obstruction towards the mountains. 4 days later I am sitting in the same room comforted by the electric blanket on the bed, the town is entirely covered by a thick fog that causes the humid cold to get into our bones and ruins our view.

We were lucky to have one nice day, which we occupied by renting scooters and driving them to the neighboring villages. We were amazed by the amount of unattended children that play by the roads giving us the perfect opportunity to take portraits without someone trying to sell us something. When we rode into one of the villages in a valley, 2 local women dressed with their traditional clothes talked us into giving them a ride back up to the main road, I had rode a scooter only 3 times before, and this was the first time I rode manual, but just to think that she would have to walk hours uphill in a shitty road was enough to be brave and try. It wasn’t as difficult, she was tiny and the road didn’t allow us to go fast anyway. Her name was Mai Ta, she is only 16 years old and plays a crucial role to help sustain her family, she has no money to buy a motorbike, that’s why she hopes that every time she needs to leave her village to make some money someone like us comes along and gives her a ride. We dropped our passengers off at their destiny and drove off for a couple more hours.

Tomorrow we will take another overnight train back to Hanoi, where we will transfer to another one that goes to Danang, and a bus to a port city called Hoi Ann.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Overnight journey

I woke up to the hissing sound of a bus door opening; my face was covered with a light scarf, some Asian words were yelled to the outside as I uncovered my face to discover a foul smell that perhaps was the reason for which I had covered myself. I am laying down under a thick blanket, I look outside the window as I usually do, not to recognize where we are because I am barely ever in a place I know, but to see if I can find something that will stick to my memories.

Many times I’ve woken up like this, not knowing where I am for a few seconds, trying to find something familiar in my surroundings, I look around to make sure David is with me, he is still sleeping in the sleeper on the left side below me with his hood on and covered with a blanket just like the one I had. As the cold humid weather hits my sticky face I can recall that we are somewhere in China on our way to hit the border with Vietnam.

The bus door closes and the vehicle continues its way, it is a bumpy road, the same kind that has rocked me to sleep many times before. Dawn gives the landscape a very gray and cold look, my blanket and scarf are damp and the window is covered with moisture.

I tried to look at the time, but my 3 dollar watch that I had purchased in a street market in Hong Kong got stuck at 4:45 am. I have no idea of how long I’ve been sleeping or at what time we got in this ride. I can recall that the night before we had got in a different bus overloaded with families and a very strong smell of urine, we had made sure that the travel agency where we booked the trip guaranteed that we would have regular seats, lesson that we had learned by experience. People were sitting on hard tiny stools in the bus isle, we were told that the bus would stop in Nanning 4 hours later to shift buses and continue our way to Pinxang. We got in the bus at 11 pm, and last time I could see the time we had been driving for 5 hours already.

We stopped in a sketchy bus station where we got off; half asleep we followed by instinct the other 80 passengers that were leaving. For half an hour we waited in a dusty corner that had a few seats while covering our faces to avoid the urine smell that had coated our backpacks and the other unidentifiable smells that poisoned our surroundings. A middle aged looking woman stayed nearby to stare at us, smiling at her we realized how used we were to that type of behavior.

As a big surprise to our tired bodies, a bus with sleepers picked us up. An old bold man with a big smile that smoked around 4 cigarettes in less than 20 min spoke to us in Mandarin in an attempt to explain what will happen after getting off our next bus, while lifting my backpack I turned around to face our observant whose baby was waving us goodbye as she grabbed his hand, I could see in her wondering smile that she wanted to talk to us, but the language barrier as usual stopped that conversation.

We haven’t been somewhere long enough to learn the language, always on the move we have only learned to follow our instincts and got quite inventive in using signs. It has been 10 continuous months of travel now, preceded by a couple of years of often moves.

We met for the first time in Mexico City while David was traveling, went to Cuba and back to Mexico, then we parted ways, he went to Europe for 6 months and I moved to VancouverCanada. Many months later we found ourselves traveling together again through the States and all the way to Costa Rica and Panama, finally we moved to Portland, Oregon. 10 months later bored by the routine and eager for new complications we moved to NYC where I got a normal job and we both had a normal life interrupted by a couple of weeks in Brazil. 1 year and 2 months later we hit the road again, from Belize to Guatemala, Mexico, California and on to our most exhausting and long trip.

All that we own is packed in two big and heavy backpacks and each other’s company, not knowing what we are looking for, we travel to see and experience, amused by our capacity to stand extremes in situations completely foreign to the lives we used to have before we met each other.

After I recollect in my mind where and when am I, and how did I get there, I sit up and put on my headphones to listen to the same play list I’ve played every time we take a bus or train since we arrived into China; this is the best way for me to remember in the future how I felt in what I consider stages of my life, a band called Mercurio and Molotown reminds me of when I was in junior high; aerosmith and metallica when I was in highschool; Satoshi Tomiie and old disco remixes remind me of the early years in College; Phsycodelic trance and Cold Play of my early 20s; Feist takes me back to Canada and North Cali; Mika to NYC along with Fergie; “The Bula song” of Fiji, and so forth…Now David Gray, Phill Collins, and Cat Power the ones who will take me back here to make me feel exactly like I do in this bus, to smell the same smells, have the same emotions in my heart and feel the same uncertainty of this wondering around.

Monday, November 24, 2008

So many places got lost on my undedicated will to write a blog. Nevertheless I still have quite vivid impressions of every country we have been.

A country which I didn’t even know existed until a couple years ago, but quite famous amongst Australian tourists and tasty for its French colonial past. The capital, Port Vila, is often referred to as the most beautiful city of the South Pacific and we found no reasons to contradict the statement.

The main reason for which we visited Vanuatu was to go to the island of Espiritu Santo to dive the wreck of the SS President Coolidge which was a luxury liner which was converted to a war carrier during WWII. Being 675ft and only a few hundred feet offshore, the Coolidge is one of the most attractive dive sites within the underwater community.

After our WWII history detour in the wreck, we flew into the island Tanna, where a volcano with the same name is still active and attracting visitors from all over. Tanna was a whole cultural shocking experience on itself, we booked a reservation with a local run hotel which consists of huts. Our hut was ok, but its quality wasn’t up to its price (60 USD) considering that it didn’t have a bathroom.

Our first night in Tanna was a nightmare, as I was getting ready to go to bed, David said “uh uh” looking at the ceiling, when I raised my head to look up I found a 10 inch hairy grey spider. Unfortunately our ugly friend wasn’t alone and trying not to scream I left the hut in a hurry and went to ask the receptionist to help us deal with it.

The lady in charge was laughing at us saying “spiders no problem, they good with you”, I asked her if she had them at her place and she answered yes, still we couldn’t deal with it and as we explained that we were not used to that kind of company she grabbed a broom and a can of insecticide. She successfully murdered one of them, the other one ran away out of sight, she left with us the insecticide which I grabbed on to strongly. After that we were continuously looking up and more spiders started coming out of their hide high under the effect of the spray, I freaked out and started spraying the poison all over the ceiling, more spiders came out along with many cockroaches.

We couldn’t handle it, we went to the reception and explained that even if we accepted company, we couldn’t be in the hut anymore due to the strong smell of the insecticide. The lady talked to somebody who talked to somebody else and finally gave us a key for a bigger hut with a bathroom and mosquito net over the bed, smiling she told us how some other tourists have preferred to sleep on the floor of the dining room under similar situations. We did not find it funny, we were been lodge on a stick hut for as much money that it would cost us to sleep on a motel in the US.

Carefully, we searched the new room to make sure we wouldn’t be attacked during the night. Finally asleep, the sound of a plastic bag being moved woke me up, the place was in complete darkness, the energy generator was shut every night at 11 pm, David used his flash light to discover a big rat trying to get to a bag of cookies next to our backpacks. After thinking about it carefully, we guessed that the rats eat insects and as long as we were covered by the net and hide the cookies we would be safe. Safe we were, but our guest was loud enough throughout the night going back and forth to her nest located in one of the palm tree walls where could hear her little cubs.

At least the volcano was amazing, we were so close to it that we could see the whole from where the lava was being constantly expulsed. A few kilometers around it, the landscape consisted of several mounts of ash.

Solomon Islands

As in the rest of the countries of the South Pacific, the Solomon Islands is populated by jobless starers. Literally, people sit around all day doing nothing just staring at everything and eating beetle nut.

The capital, Honiara was quite a shocking place, dirty, smelly, ugly, and hot weren’t the problem. As we were walking trying to find any charm to it, we observed several red blood colored stains on the streets, suddenly a bright red spit crosses from above us and we see a man sitting on a high up chair chewing something that looked bright red. More disgusted by it than anything we returned to our overpriced shit hotel where we hid for the whole day.

The next day we flew into Ghizo, the most famous diving destination in the Solomons. Eventhough Ghizo isn’t remarkably nice, it looked like a paradise after being in Honiara. There we were lodged in a not so bad hotel and booked a couple of days of diving. Sadly, we discovered that a year ago a tsunami had hit the area killing 90% of the coral, leaving a horrifying marine landscape of death coral structures everywhere we looked. Fortunately, we were told that most of the coral species were growing back. We were taken to a wreck called “Toa Maru” a Japanese destroyer from WWII, this ship still had all the coral growth making it look like a normal coral reef that happened to have an amazing wreck underneath.

Papua New Guinea

More people sitting around not doing anything. The problem here is that even if they get a job, everyone has the duty to give money to their relatives ending up with nothing anyway, plus their food grows everywhere and the land is plenty, why would they work?

Beetle nut is widely chewed here. This weird nut in combination with mustard sticks and lime (pulverized burnt sea shells) is chewed to obtain a red color substance that you must spit right away to avoid getting the runs. The outcome of this is a 10 min head rush that makes you sweaty, gives you red stained teeth, your mouths gets watery and in a long run it causes mouth cancer.

PNG is a beautiful country in terms of nature, still the prices for tourism are terribly high given the fact that the infrastructure for the same purpose is not even well developed like in other way cheaper and nicer destinations like in South East Asia.

In Madang, we dove some pretty amazing sites and visited villages where people still leave isolated from the advantages that our times have to offer. We found these places amazing, locals are expert gardeners and their villages are like huge beautiful gardens with cute houses here and there, they eat off the ground and are very good hearted.

PNG in a country characterized by mountains and valleys, it wasn’t until the 70’s when people discovered villages in the highlands that had never seen foreigners and didn’t know of the existence of other countries. In the highlands there are still village wars and in 1997 a rare disease caused by cannibalism killed a woman and her child.

The people here are quite proud of their cultural heritage and in attempt to draw tourism they organize festivals and “sing sings” where they dressed up in elaborated outfits and make up to sing and dance with the sound of their drums.

Food and shopping. If you are into one or both of these things, you’ll love this place.
Just imagine a gigantic mall with outdoor areas and housing in it and you have Singapore. The perfection of the place gives you a feeling of being in the future, everything works, everything is clean, and everything is new.

The souvenir shops are occupied by shirts making fun of their strict system, you are not allowed to chew gum, dance on the street and J cross, drugdealers or drugholders could be sentenced to death if the government considers it a pertinent punishment.

Singapore is the most affluent country in South East Asia, being the most important port in the world, it has available for sale any sort of merchandise you could ever dream of. Singaporeans also love food, and they know very well how to cater it, there are food courts and restaurants everywhere you look with all sorts of flavors and cuisines from all over the world.

Bali has been our Indonesian experience. Of course we visited areas more to the west, but found ourselves yearning the laid back character of Bali.

After being in Jogyakarta for a few days, exploring the amazing temples of Borobudur and Pranganan, we headed back to Bali.

Tulamben was my personal favorite, with one of the best sites to do muck diving, we spent about 7 days total.

We also spent 8 days in a liveaboard in Komodo National Marine Park, one of the most popular diving areas in the world. Here we would dive 4 times a day in strong currents and eating delicious food that our chef would prepare 3 times a day to keep us strong to face the challenges of diving here.

Kuta is a tourists’ mekka, almost every girl, thin or fat hangs out on the streets on tiney bikinis. Shirtless surfers carry their boards everywhere, scooters get in your way, locals harass you to buy stuff. Still, it is cheap, pretty, fun, and good. It was in Kuta where we both began to learn how to surf.

Beautiful and tasty, Thailand has very well earned its reputation as one of the nicest tourist destinations. Most of the south East Asian countries made us wander why the hell did we stayed in the overpriced Pacific Islands.

Our stay here was too short to truly enjoy its charm, but we are planning on going back in a couple of months.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

South Pacific I: Fiji

I have been trying for the last 2 months to come up with the right words to write about our trip through the South Pacific without any success, but I’ll do my best to accurately describe our impressions.

Even though the simplicity of the place can be synthesized to slow and backwards, our experience was way more complicated.

Long before the trip, we gathered every vital item required for our survival such as mosquito repellent, medicines for all sorts of stomach ailments, water purifier, etc. What we didn't have was a guide to help us deal with the huge and sometimes frustrating cultural differences, which could be better called “the culture shock”. So far the implications haven’t gone any further than developing our innermost dark sense of humor.

After 2 days in Tonga we were more than happy to board a plane to Fiji, where everything seemed possible, people were smiley and tourism is important. Once at the airport, we noticed the most remarkable characteristic of Fijians, they are incredibly friendly and they will go out of their way to make you feel welcomed.

The Queen of the Yasawas

For the first two weeks in Fiji, we purchased a ferry pass to island hop in the Yasawas, a chain of islands located on the northwest of Fiji. Mosquitoes, bulas, vinakas, and so reigned, as well as tourists and overpriced accommodation.

There is where we met Queen, a Fijian male who honors his name with pride, character, and looks. Queen was the host at Sunrise Resort, one of the village run hotels in the Yasawas.

The self proclaimed Queen Latifah’s lost brother, is always eager to show his “skills” such as singing, dancing, story telling (which include only stories about himself) and dog style swimming.

With the purpose of entertaining his guests, Queen has accumulated a vast repertoire of acts. One of the most popular ones is “The Turtle Island Escape”. Turtle Island is one of the world’s most famous resorts for celebrities.

According to Queen, slavery was the employment style of choice at the expensive resort, and after a few songs with his badly intonated voice, the story of his escape was the starring performance during dinner. From Oprah drinking Kava, to Jonh McCain following him to his new home, Queen proudly told a story of injustice, glamour, and greed.

Queen is not only a singer, dancer, storyteller, and dog swimmer, he is also a Hero. Besides being the example for many Turtle Island escapes, he also saves lives. One day, he went with a group of backpackers to explore a cave that consist of 3 relatively easy accessible chambers. The first chamber connects with the second one through an underwater tunnel that requires good swimming skills to cross. -Normally, I stay greeting all the local people around the cave- he said – but this time I felt something was wrong, something told me I had to go in the cave – Trusting his gut, Queen penetrated the cave and everything seemed fine, when he tried to dive through the tunnel that leads to the second part, he saw two Asian girls fighting for their lives, desperate, helpless, they were drowning, they didn’t know how to swim.

Without giving it any thought, Queen swam towards them and pushed them through to the surface saving their lives, and now he has two Asian friends that will always be thankful for his heroic action.

Soon after he told us the cave story, Queen was very excited about swimming and decided to provide swimming lessons to one of the guests. As he appeared in the water, it took us a while to define what our eyes were seeing, he had a sarong wrapped around his torso covering his chest accompanied with a well matched purple wrap to hold his hair and gave a demonstration of his perfect “dog swimming” technique.

Our last day at Sunrise Resort arrived, and of course, Queen cannot let his longer-term guests leave without a deserving going away show. The day of our departure he presented himself as the dancer and vocal of an improvised band formed by his staff. With flowers in our ears and plenty of pictures, we left Sunrise with the promise of sharing his story with the world.

Fijian ADD

In Fiji, Language didn’t represent a problem to us since English is their national language. Nevertheless, ADD appeared as a big personal inconvenience amongst Fijian people. Most Fijians have perfect short term memory, they are capable of repeating exactly what you said right after you said it, but it will take about 10 different explanations before they grasp the meaning of your sentences.

One day we were trying to cancel a hotel reservation in one of the not so nice Yasawa Islands, we walked into the reception and 3 nice ladies were there to assist us. After we explained that we had a reservation with them for 3 nights next week, they repeated our words and then said "but you still have to pay for tonight"; very patiently we repeated that the reservation wasn't for that night, it was for the next week and we needed to cancel it -it is for the 31st, today is the 26th- we said, once again they said we needed to pay for that night. As our words and patience to explain our situation started to wear down, I thought that perhaps their English wasn't that great after all, but no! They would repeat exactly what we just had said and still didn't make sense to them. Eventually we started enunciating everything slowly as if we were explaining 4 year olds how to add...10 explanations and 20 min later they understood it and replied in perfect English "ok, no problem, if you want your deposit back you need to contact your travel agent"....

Bula! Bula!

We always do our best to learn some local words, and this time wasn't the exception, the regular greeting is "Bula" for which you reply "bula", to say thank you'll say "Vinaka" for which you have to reply "Vinaka". But that's not as simple as it sounds, they have a few Bula songs, they have the tourists' Bula Dance, they have the locals' Bula dance, and most of their songs say something like Bula Vinaka, Vinaka, or Bula...we spent 5 weeks in Fiji, and every single day I woke up with the Bula song playing in my mind, every time we went to a new hotel they made us perform the bula dance, everywhere we went they'd say "Bula, Bula; every time I went to bed I had the Bula song in my head...Now we are in Indonesia and I still get glimpsing memories of the Bula song every once in a while.

Fiji Time

Fijians have a very cunning phrase to justify delays and mistakes alike; this is “Fiji time”. Fiji time is very simple, just say “Fiji time if you are 1 hour late, Fiji time if after stating 3 times that you are vegetarian they served you meat, Fiji time if they don’t understand you, Fiji time if they forgot your name after being asked for it 6 times (no exaggeration), and why not? Fiji time if you punched one of them in the face after saying “Fiji time”.

Diving Fiji

After the Yasawas, our journey through Fiji was far from over. We took a plane to Vanua Levu, the second biggest Island in Fiji. There, we stayed in a town called Savu Savu, which David says is one of the most beautiful places he’s ever been to and I agree. Green hills emerge from the calm ocean with colorful little houses and beautiful gardens.

Savu Savu is located in a small peninsula surrounded by a few small-inhabited islands and other peninsulas that protect it from strong currents; unlike the Yasawas, Savu Savu has regulations for fishing and protection of the reef life, which makes diving the area completely astounding. The marine landscape there is so beautiful that during our first dive at a site called “Dread Locks” I felt like crying. SCUBA is my favorite sport and in 13 years of being certified I had never seen such beauty. Soft coral galore as well as hard coral, nudibranches, crystal clear water, big fish, small fish, colors, etc.

We spent a week in Savu Savu and got our Advance Diver certifications and then moved to Taveuni. The town is not as beautiful as Savu Savu, but diving is just as amazing. Our time in Taveuni wasn’t that enjoyable due to a nightmare experience with the diveshop of our hotel, Aquatrek Divers. I won’t get into details because I don’t want to feel angry. It is enough to say that they pretty much abandoned me in the middle of the ocean with one of the strongest currents we’ve been in and the dive guide didn’t notify anyone that I was missing. Luckily I was lost for only 35 min and the situation didn’t go further than being terrified and David yelling at the staff.

A few days in Taveuni were enough and then we took a ferry ride to Levuka, which is a very pretty little colonial town. Our hotel room made us feel like we were at the end of the 1800’s and our time there was quite enjoyable as well as diving, but nothing remarkable.

To finish our trip, we went to Bega Lagoon, a very famous spot for shark diving. Shark diving here is something to see, they don’t use cages, and the sharks are from 8 to 18ft long bulls, tigers, nurses, lemons, greys, and white tips. Brandon, the founder of Bega divers, the shop that began this shark feeding operation, explained that in order to achieve the right environment to dive with such a big group of sharks they have to begin with a few months preparation period previous to diving so that the sharks get used to the divers’ presence. For many years now, they have been successful with 0 rate of attacks and thousands of happy customers.

Once into the dive, every fear for sharks that even experienced divers could have somewhere deep inside disappears at the sight of such a professional operation. A staff of at least 6 guides surrounds the divers and makes sure that everyone stays in a safe place. Since I had the camera, I had a personal diveguard, who took me around to locate me at the most convenient spots to get good shots. Before the dive, Brandon told us that the chances of seeing the Tiger shark were low so I wasn’t expecting to see one, but there she was at the touch of my hand. She swam right above my head thanks to a good piece of tuna that the guides were holding out. I touched it, and I still can’t believe it, it was like a dream, but my pictures show it was not.

David was just as amused, he stayed at a higher spot where he could move back and forth more freely and got the opportunity to touch one of them as well. The view down there is overwhelming, a conglomeration of thousands of fish surrounds the feeding spot and the sharks break through the crowd showing who is the boss and get close, they do not mind us, they look at you straight in the eye and when they do that, you realize that they know you are there, and that they can snack on you if they please.

Bega was the perfect closure to our 5 week stay in Fiji and became one of the places in the South Pacific where we will have to go back at some point. Sadly, one day after the shark adventure willing to have more encounters, we had to pack our stuff and go back to Nadi, where we to take a flight to our next country, Vanuatu.

ODD Facts

- All through the SP David was a star, groups of kids usually gathered behind him staring at his tattoos. During a hell-like ferry ride, teenagers took turns harassing him, one by one they’d go and sit near him and stare, not talk, just stare.

- You do not need to go to the circus to see a bearded woman; many Fijian women seem to be proud of their facial hair.

- Carbolicious. The Fijian diet is nothing fancy or balanced, it was common to eat ramen noodles with potatoes on top of white rice for every meal, sometimes we were lucky and got curried corn beef. This was the menu for the all-inclusive plan at the $100 per night accommodation in the Yasawas.


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Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The first generation of Giants Torture Series T-shirts are in production

I posted a bunch of designs on my websites at and Luckily I had some screens prepped and as a few orders came in I was able to ship the first expedited order today so that one person in the country, Minnesota somewhere, will be able to wear a Torture Series shirt during the game. The extras and samples are going to be distributed through my kids. I still want to go into the city and pass out free t-shirts, but I know I just won't have the time to do my work and have that kind of random fun. I'm just glad to have gotten a few orders to make me have to shoot the screens and get into production. Luckily I also had some extra Orange shirts in stock.

To expand on the concept I wanted to make a Giants candle and a Shrine with these other printing techniques. I also have to delay those concepts in favor of using the same artwork that I did for screen to make photo fresco prints to display on the Truck Gallery in Sausalito where many people catch the ferry to games in the City. I spent part of the evening mixing a batch of colors that I can use to fill in the framed print with an emphasis on Orange and glow in the dark. The black is made with atomized steel pigment which should show as rust if I choose not to coat the final product. I'll link to these later as I get them mounted on my truck before gametime.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

It's done, the Giants have won and now the real torture begins

The final pitch with two runners on and the Phillies sent Howard in who hasn't had a hit in the series? WTF? It worked out for the Giants as Wilson struck out Howard to seal the deal. Now the Torture series can continue. This designs seems appropriate as the number of pitchers did not guarantee that Wilson was going to be the pitcher at the end of this.

Don't Torture Me I'm Local SF Giants T-shirt World Series

Crap, I lost my last post. No reason, just the season. No time to fix, but basically the shirts are practically designing themselves, starting with "Don't Torture Me I'm Local", check out the other Giants Tortue T-shirts here: Only 3 more hours to game time and I even posted a free t-shirt, you pay the shipping, for good luck. b out

It's on! Top of the 6th Inning and tied 2-2, not without drama.

Here is the latest t-shirt design, launched on CafePress at: Fear the Beer'd, which makes fun of the Fear the Beard t-shirt that has become popular as a slogan for the closers. This game already has the bullpen in control of the Giant's pitching effort.

Friday, October 22, 2010

A Day Off from Baseball - But Never a Day off for T-shirts - Torture Series 2010

I've been listening to the SF Giants trials and tribulations the final part of the season and now through the playoffs. It's been a trip, literally, and torture has been the word most commonly used to describe the experience for fans who want the team to go all the way. Each game has had ups and downs that make the game theatrical to say the least. Now I am focusing in on a t-shirt to commemorate the World Series that will be coming to San Francisco as they win the National League Championship by renaming the games to the "Torture Series" shirt shown above. I'll be posting this design on various shopping carts and websites over the next few days, as well as, offereing them for Free as long as you pay the shipping via USPS in order to use up a bunch of shirts I have in the warehouse. Check it out as I develop of list of Torture slogans to go on the back of the shirt too.

Here is the CafePress version of the "Torture Series" t-shirt.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Greenspan Bernanke Wrong

Admitting your wrong when you break something or do something stupid is one thing, but being wrong in a significant way on the economy is quite another. Alan Greenspan admitted some errors when testifying to Congress about some aspect of his policies on deregulation. Here is a shirt to commemorate this statement.

Friday, October 1, 2010

T-shirt Printing added to every product on my website - New Format

I am testing a new format for adding t-shirt printing online to a shirt order. Over the years I have developed a published custom t-shirt printing price list based on Levels 0-10 with each level representing a different quantity of shirts for the total order. In this way I can give discounts for bulk t-shirt purchases and since everyone is used to Levels from video games it seems like an intuitive way to show potential customers the discounts they get on custom printing as they order more shirts. Typically I use a price grid table format, but this is confusing for many customers. I have now found another way to add printing to the bottom of every item on the website by formatting a list of the levels and posting them under every t-shirt on the site that is printable.

Link here to the T-shirt Printing Pricelist Guide.

This is annoying to look at first because it looks like a long list of similar items, but I hope that it will draw each customer that is interested in printing to look below their items and check for the cost of printing without having to call. I can build discount pricing into the shirts themselves with a pricing formula without having to send the customer to a different page for ordering the printing. Now it is time to test this procedure so I can get back to printing tee shirts instead of designing web pages.

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Network Administration & Monitoring

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Network Monitoring can ensure your network is always reliable and available — even during off hours or when your engineer is not on site.


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Funky Emotions

FUNKY EMOTIONS is a seven piece live band from Slovakia, playing the greatest funky-soul-disco hits from bands such as Kool & The Gang, Earth, Wind & Fire, James Brown, Jamiroquai, Simply Red, Sister Sledge, Donna Summer, Daft Punk, Maroon 5, Bruno Mars…etc.

Since 2007 they have been spreading their energy at a variety of events such as club gigs, private events, parties, balls, fairs and festivals.

If you are not looking for huge party sound, but still want to enjoy the voice of wonderful singer Lenka Piešová, listen to their acoustic version COLORS OF SOUND.


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Trinity University Press

Terra Firma: Trinity University Press blog

My Dinner with Timmy

by Barbara Ras on

I’m with Gregg Popovich. If I could choose to eat dinner with anyone it would be Timmy. That’s what Coach Popovich said in an interview, going on to describe Tim Duncan, as quoted by the San Antonio Current, as “the most real, consistent, true person I’ve ever met in my life.”

I confess, when I moved to San Antonio fourteen years ago, I didn’t know who the Spurs were. That changed so fast, and so wholeheartedly, that I almost experienced whiplash. Wow. I fell in love with basketball, but I fell in love with basketball because I fell in love with the Spurs. My conversion to utter Spurs devotion was so passionate that it was contagious. My husband—not previously a sports fan—caught it too.

And we loved Tim Duncan the best. Watching the games, we’d sit there chanting, “Give it to Timmy, give it to Timmy!” Whenever there was discussion in our house about who should cook or who should wash dishes, our familiar mantra was quoted: “Give it to Timmy!”

During games I watched Timmy closely. How could he do that inconceivable back dribble into the paint, turn, and shoot it off the glass for a basket? I may be making up words that have nothing to do with the moves, but I know “shoot it off the glass” is a phrase that’s pure poetry.

And yes, it’s corny, but I’m going to say it, because when you love someone, corniness doesn’t count: Tim Duncan was poetry in motion.

By the way, Pop, I’m available to join you and Timmy at Sandbar anytime. We’ll talk about books and wine, and maybe you can explain to me, after countless others have failed, what the f-- is a pick and roll?

by Char Miller on

After living in Southern California for nine years, I should be used to fire season—and the fact that there is something called fire season—but I’m not.

My wife and I moved to the Southland in late summer 2007, and within the month we saw some of the region’s most horrific firestorms consume vast stretches of chaparral-cloaked foothills, deep canyons filled with alder and oak and, at higher elevations, thick stands of pine and cedar.

From the Mexican border to the Santa Ynez Mountains east of Santa Barbara, wildlands—and more vividly, the many homes and trailers that had crowded into these spectacular terrains—went up in smoke. Journalists were not wrong to proclaim this a fire siege.

Dumbfounded, I began to write a series of essays about the tragic loss of life, the acrid air, and the bewildering sense that the world, and a lot of the neighborhoods my students came from, were on fire.

Many of these pieces appeared in On the Edge: Water, Immigration, and Politics in the Southwest, and when the book entered its final stages of production, I was relieved. It almost seemed as if its publication would put an end to my having to confront such a disturbing subject, on the ground or in print.

And then the next fire season rolled around, and the one after that, and the one after that. With each wave of fire, nature burned through my wishful thinking and my writerly conceit that somehow I might have the last word.

The natural world’s capacity to dislodge us from our imagined safe havens—places material or intellectual—is one of the central themes of my new book, Not So Golden State: Sustainability vs. the California Dream. It’s no surprise that fire is one of its key subjects, but how we approach it as a biochemical fact, a political reality and a policymakers’ conundrum, matters a great deal.

“The West does not always flame out every summer; it just seems as if it does,” I write in the book’s introduction. “And not every fire is a smoke signal of distress, though many of them are. Picking through the region’s fiery terrain is a tricky business, then, as tricky as trying to extinguish a roaring blaze in the baked heat of August.”

Trying to capture fire’s complexity, its erratic movements as it chews through a forest and the public imagination, led me to write about some of the West’s most fearsome conflagrations.

The 2009 Station Fire roared through 250 square miles of the San Gabriel Mountains, filling the Los Angeles basin with a thick shroud of smoke. Water-dumping helicopters and fire retardant–laden jets made sortie after sortie. Every day a massive pyrocumulus cloud absorbed the sky, an eerie sight; and every evening I was transfixed as politicians, pundits, and the public laid waste to the firefighting agencies’ strategies and tactics.

Bigger still was the 2011 Wallow Fire, which burned an astonishing 841 square miles in Arizona but nary a structure—a result of many people’s newfound appreciation for how to build defensible space in their homes and communities.

These large stories dovetailed with a much smaller one, the thirteen-acre Foothill Fire that in 2013 swept through the Bernard Field Station on the northern edge of the Claremont Colleges where I teach. The once-charred landscape is now a living lab for faculty and students to analyze how a coastal sagebrush ecosystem recovers.

These blazes, regardless of their size, had their origin in human action: an inattentive hiker let his campfire blow up into the Wallow, an arsonist ignited the Station, and chop-saw wielding water company workers sent a shower of sparks into the field station’s tinder-dry brush. Fire, in short, is mostly a people problem.

Yet each of these, and their many analogs over the past decade or so, has also been fueled by a climate-changed environment. Collectively they serve as a signal flare: the landscape is in distress, and our addiction to carbon has intensified its vulnerability.

Multiple reminders of our complicity erupted this June. The Fish and Reservoir fires in the San Gabriel Mountains sent a massive plume of smoke over eastern Los Angeles County and beyond; ashes swirled in the air like tiny snowflakes and covered our car. In the southern Sierra the Erskine Fire—pushed by howling winds—raced across 36,000 acres in thirty hours, killing several people. Even the small Marina Fire in the eastern Sierra has much to tell us about fire’s regenerative processes.

Framing these fires is the news that more than 66 million trees are dead in California, a result of drought and wood-boring beetles. The significance of this data is hotly debated. Some believe the die-off will be responsible for catastrophic conflagrations; others, myself included, suggest that dead trees alone do not a catastrophe make. What is undeniable is that the story of fire in California and across the rest of the flammable West is unending.

Lesson learned.

American University Presses Conference 2016

by Steffanie Mortis on

I couldn’t fully articulate the feeling that this year’s Association of American University Presses conference left me with until the day after it ended, when I visited Philadelphia’s Rodin Museum.

My friend and I wandered through the main exhibit, taking in The ThinkerThe Kiss, and various bronze busts. As we were leaving, a docent announced a short gallery tour beginning in five minutes. My friend and I looked at each other, shrugged, and decided to stay, and I’m so glad we did.

The docent explained Rodin’s creative process—how he asked his models to move freely so he could study their anatomy, facial expressions, and personality. Some of his subjects, especially the political figures and other notable people he portrayed, were uncomfortable with this scrutiny, but Rodin’s main objective was to convey his subjects’ character, and to do this he had to study them closely.

The docent identified the works that make up The Gates of Hell, Rodin’s seminal piece based on Dante’s Inferno, and explained how each work has added layers of meaning when it functions as part of the whole. She pointed out the seam lines where molds were joined to make the cast. Rodin purposely left these lines, along with thumbprints and other marks—usually viewed as flaws and eliminated during the sculpting process—to pay homage to the artistic process.

The hour-long crash course on Rodin gave me a deeper appreciation for his art in the same way that the AAUP community—full of people with similar challenges but different ways of approaching them—filled me with admiration for the book making process.

I steeped myself in engaging sessions that tackled the terminology of copyediting, manuscript preparation guidelines, the delicate art of acquisitions, and ushering a project through to publication. I participated in discussions about issues specific to university presses, such as fundraising strategies and the peer review process, with acquisitions editors, digital marketing specialists, consultants, designers, press directors, editorial assistants, and newcomers like me.

I was heartened by the common question threading these discussions: How will university presses incorporate changing technologies to publish relevant books—whatever form they take—that will continue to reach their intended audience? I’m encouraged that, as a whole, university presses are expanding traditional publishing models to incorporate delivering information in nontraditional formats. We’re all adapting our views of the industry to evolving modes of education and communication.

When we came to The Three Shades in the garden outside the Rodin Museum, the docent suggested that we walk around the sculpture slowly. “Notice what is the same and different about each figure,” she said. “Notice how your perspective influences your perception.”

No matter how much you enjoy the work you do, it’s easy to get caught up in the minutia of daily tasks. My time in Philadelphia and at the AAUP conference allowed me to take a short walk around university publishing from different perspectives. I returned to Trinity University Press with a deeper appreciation and renewed enthusiasm for the work we do—both process and product.

Meet the Intern: Jeanette Gutierrez

by Jeanette Gutierrez on

Hi there! I’m Jeanette, the summer marketing and sales intern at Trinity University Press.
For two years I've been employed as a student worker at the Trinity library. As the spring semester came to an end, I decided I wanted to devote the summer to gaining experience more relevant to my major, which is English. I love working at the library, and Trinity University Press felt like a natural extension of that.

I’m sure it doesn’t come as a surprise that Im a bookworm, but I also love film and photography . . . which brings me to my minor, film studies. I'm especially interested in film adaptations of novels because I find that this admirable art form fuses two of my passions.

I was mentored as a high school student, and that experience helped shape me. For the last six years I've volunteered with Boy With a Ball, a nonprofit mentoring organization, and I really enjoy giving back to my community. TU Press also connects me with the community in that we publish books that bring to light the region's social and cultural issues.

I’m the social cultural chair for Trinity’s Latino Association, which promotes education about Latino culture. The fact that TU Press publishes books about southwestern culture is a natural extension of my work there. My internship is a great way for me to learn about the publishing world and to gain experience writing and blogging, and in social media. Here we go!

Calling All Undergrads!

Hi! I’m Danielle Trevino (far left), the new graphic design intern at TU Press. Even though the spring semester has ended, I still spend the majority of my time on campus. If I’m not working at the press, I’m probably working in The Contemporary’s office.

What is The Contemporary, you ask? Well, it’s a student publication based at Trinity University. We publish opinion pieces and essays by college students on current affairs, events, and social issues. We are currently transitioning from a student organization solely at Trinity into a nationwide startup. This summer our team has the opportunity to further develop our publication and work toward our goal of creating a unified platform for undergraduate thought-leaders across the country.

We strive to create a marketplace for ideas so that all undergraduate voices can be heard and informed ideas and opinions can be formulated. The only qualification is that authors must be undergraduates. All current affairs topics are welcome, and students from universities anywhere in the United States are welcome to submit.

Additionally, were looking for students interested in appearing as regular columnists (as opposed to onetime submissions). Please reach out if you’re interested.

We know everyone has opinions, and we want everyone’s voice to be heard. Conservative, liberal, politically apathetic, bio major, poly sci major, English major—were open to all. We want to be the apex for publishing differing opinions locally and nationally.

If you’re interested, here is our second edition, our website, and a bit more information about us. Submit via email. Be in the know: like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and add us on Snapchat.


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Baba ramdev yoga book pdf

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Friday, October 31, 2008

"With The Thoughts I'd Be Thinkin' ...

...I Could Be Another Lincoln!"Forgive me if this is old news to some of you but I got a chuckle out of this "Oz" parody.

Thanks to Rustmeister's Alehouse.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Dude Builds Lamborghini in His Basement With A TIG Welder

I don't know what to make of this.

Jerusalem's Museum of Tolerance . . .

. . . to be built on site of ancient Muslim cemetery.

That spinning sound you hear is Simon Weisenthal.

The museum's Muslim opponents found unexpected allies in their struggle: Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who aren't known for their sympathy for Arab causes but who care about preserving graves.

Ray-Gun Maestro Zaps Steampunk Convention

Weird and unearthly handguns. From Wired.

A whole gallery! From Wired.

And In Summation . . .

Three hundred thirty-three years ago today, Gottfried Liebniz first wrote the integral symbol. The calculus notation which he introduced is still in use today.

From Wired.

Puns about his hair are hereby solicited; I got nothin'.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Sarah Palin's "Glass Ceiling" Speech

I watched the whole thing, about 25 minutes. She is a gifted public speaker.

From The Daily Beast.

Thanks to Breda for spotting this.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Pop Quiz

Q: Other than being musicians, what do Franz Liszt and Prince have in common?

Answer here.

Desperately Slamming Sarah

The siege guns of the New York Times were pounding over the weekend.

Frank Rich in "In Defense of White Americans" (the title is sarcastic) hammered Republicans, and McCain and Palin specifically, for catering to racism.

Maureen Dowd chimed in with "A Makeover With An Ugly Gloss", about how Palin has been transformed from "Caribou Barbie" to "Valentino Barbie".

Guest columnist Judith Warner fired a salvo in "No Ordinary Woman", asking if Palin was qualified to be Veep.

On Friday the editorial board endorsed Obama for President, calling McCain's choice of a running mate, "irresponsible."

Even Paul Krugman was dragged into the fray with an Op-Ed: "Americans were supposed to identify with a hockey mom who was just like them."

And the news division did their bit with "Emphasizing Frugal Tastes, Palin Addresses Clothing Issue".

UPDATE: Missed one - this morning reporter Adam Nagourney lobbed in "Second-Guessing The Vice-Presidential Pick", which ends like this: "Still, if nothing else, Ms. Palin does seem poised to do one thing for Mr. McCain: Deliver him the very Republican state of Alaska, and all three of its Electoral College votes." Pretty low-down snarky for a newspaper that likes to be called "America's Newspaper of Record."

Whew! Like I said, I don't believe the Gray Lady ever spent this much ink on Hitler and Mussolini combined.

As Palin said in the news article: “The double standard here,” she said. “Gosh, we don’t even want to waste our time.”

Sunday, October 26, 2008

NRA Range Session

This afternoon after work I drove to the NRA range in Fairfax, VA to work on a few problems. I try to always have a goal in going to the range. Today I had two goals: 1) to investigate the cause of the many failures-to-feed by the EAA Witness at the bowling pin shoot in Indy last month, and 2) to sight in the little scope on my Marlin 70PSS 22-LR camping rifle.

Last week I cleaned the 10mm Witness and applied Brownell's "Action Magic II" to the feed ramp. This is a two-step process which involves heating the part (just warm to the touch) and applying a liquid from a bottle with a needle-applicator. The first application will be fully "cured" in 2 hours, then the second part is applied. This appears to be dry graphite powder. Oddly, the first step is called "Part B" and the second is "Part A". Today I fired 50 rounds of Double Tap and Remington ammo and had only one FTF. I think part of the problem is "limp-wristing" the gun, so I will concentrate on that in the future. At the bowling pin shoot last month I had half a dozen FTFs in a row, several times, so this is definitely an improvement.

The little scope is made by Leapers and it isn't much but it does have a mil-dot reticle. I would like to use this to play around with range-estimating, bullet-drop-compensation, etc. at short ranges appropriate to 22-LR. Way-cheap fun, compared to doing the same thing with .308 or .30-06. So I sighted it in at 25 feet, then 50, then 75. Maybe I can use this gun to shoot "pin-heads" at the next bowling pin shoot. This gun is also called the Marlin Papoose; it uses 10-rd magazines and disassembles into a cloth zip-up bag about 18" long.

After shooting I phoned-in my regrets to the Indy Gun Blogger Fest at the Broad Ripple Brewpub. Roberta X reports sixteen attendees, including so many of my favorites: Brigid, Tam, Red, Shermlock, RobD, Ahab, Old Grouch, Baby Troll Blog, James, Breda and Mike, and, of course Roberta herself. Damn, I wish I could have been there this weekend: bowling pins, gun show and blogfest! One damned fine weekend in Broad Ripple! Ah, well. Maybe next time.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Blahnik Meets Beretta

Actually they're not Blahniks and they're not Berettas, either. But this is for all of those gunnie gals who say, "If I don't get a pair of those shoes, I'm gonna shoot somebody!"

Via Boing-Boing.

"Sarah Palin Draws Large Crowd In Beaver"

Beaver, Pennsylvania, that is.

That's the headline at the KDKA-TV website.

Better hurry, before the Senior Editor gets back from lunch.

UPDATE: Got a screen grab:

OK, let's get with the puns; I'll start: "Man, Sarah Palin can do anything!"

UPDATE: Oh, come on, people, get with the program! Here's another:
"My ex-wife could do that."

UPDATE: Do I have to do everything myself? OK, last one:
"Well, if you help me find the keys to my Jeep, we'll drive out of here!"

UPDATE: OK, just one more:
"I'd like to see a male candidate do that!"

Good Newt!

Elsewhere, Roberta X laments the shortage of good newt. Well, that situation may be about to change, and for the better!
It's a corollary of Gresham's Law: "Bad newt drives good newt into hiding."

Thursday, October 23, 2008

That's fear of xenos, innit?

Satirical posters and magazine covers - no one is spared:

Lots more here.

From the Panopticist.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Madeleine P. Cosman, Dead at 68

Quote: "Ms. Cosman also leaves behind a vast library of illuminated manuscripts and a large collection of handguns."

The bestest obit ever published by the New York Times; it's so good, in fact, that Ms. Cosman came back from the dead just to read it.

Here's the second-bestest:

Sheb Wooley, Who Sang of Purple People Eater, Dies at 82

Yeah, OK so they died a few years ago, that's not the point. The point is that their obits are still a scream, and you know how much the NYT loved to publish anything positive about (egad!) handguns, or about Purple People Eaters.

Deathstar Pumpkin

And lots more crazy pumpkin carving in the L.A. Times.

Funny As Hell!

From Breda.

That's More Like It!

Quote: "...overturning the D.C. gun ban was a clear example of principled judicial engagement."

That's much better!

More on Posner and Wilkinson, in The New Republic.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Those Idiots At The New York Times!

Much ado about nothing, but here's the article, and my comments in brackets:

The New York Times

October 21, 2008
Ruling on Guns Elicits Rebuke From the Right

WASHINGTON — Four months after the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess guns, its decision is under assault — from the right.

Two prominent federal appeals court judges say that Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion in the case, District of Columbia v. Heller, is illegitimate, activist, poorly reasoned and fueled by politics rather than principle. The 5-to-4 decision in Heller struck down parts of a District of Columbia gun control law.

[I've read several Second Amendment decisions in the last decade or so, and Scalia's was no better or worse than most. My favorite is Judge Sam Cummings' in the Emerson case:].

The judges used what in conservative legal circles are the ultimate fighting words: They said the gun ruling was a right-wing version of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that identified a constitutional right to abortion. Justice Scalia has said that Roe had no basis in the Constitution and amounted to a judicial imposition of a value judgment that should have been left to state legislatures.

Comparisons of the two decisions, then, seemed calculated to sting.

“The Roe and Heller courts are guilty of the same sins,” one of the two appeals court judges, J. Harvie Wilkinson III, wrote in an article to be published in the spring in The Virginia Law Review.

[Nonsense! There is no comparison between a specifically enumerated right and an implied right.]

Similarly, Judge Richard A. Posner, in an article in The New Republic in August, wrote that Heller’s failure to allow the political process to work out varying approaches to gun control that were suited to local conditions “was the mistake that the Supreme Court made when it nationalized abortion rights in Roe v. Wade.”

[Ridiculous. The judiciary was not created to facilitate legislatures passing laws which unmistakably violate the clear text of the Constitution. If the courts are going to give the legislature that much power, why have an appeals process at all? Why have a Constitution at all?]

Sharp criticism of a recent Supreme Court decision by federal appeals court judges is quite unusual, though these two judges — both Reagan appointees — are more outspoken than most.

Judge Wilkinson, who sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., was recently considered for a spot on the Supreme Court. Judge Posner, of the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, is perhaps the most influential judge not on the Supreme Court.

Not all conservatives agree with the critics, of course. Robert A. Levy, a libertarian lawyer who was a principal architect of the victorious strategy in the Heller case, rejected the comparison to Roe.

The two sides in the Heller case claimed to rely on the original meaning of the Second Amendment, based on analysis of its text in light of historical materials. The amendment says, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

The more liberal justices said the amendment protected only a collective right tied to state militias, thus allowing most gun control laws. The more conservative justices found an individual right and struck down parts of a District of Columbia gun control law.

[To be more precise: all nine Supreme Court justices agreed that it was an individual right, they just disagreed on the extent to which the legislature could regulate that right.]

In Judge Wilkinson’s view, the upshot of the court’s extensive historical analysis was that “both sides fought into overtime to a draw.”

Others said the quality of the combat was low. “Neither of the two main opinions in Heller would pass muster as serious historical writing,” Jack Rakove, a historian at Stanford, wrote on the blog Balkinization soon after the decision was issued.

[The most persuasive historical work had already been done by Cummings, Levinson, Tribe, Silberman, et al.]

The strong reaction from the right after Heller was preceded, with a sort of symmetry, by liberal support for an individual-rights reading of the Second Amendment. For much of the 20th century, the conventional view of the amendment had been that it only protects a collective right. (Warren E. Burger, after retiring as chief justice in 1986, called the individual rights view “one of the greatest pieces of fraud — I repeat the word ‘fraud’ — on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen.”)

[Warren Burger made that comment in Parade Magazine, not the Yale Law Review.]

But some prominent liberal law professors, including Laurence H. Tribe of Harvard, Akhil Reed Amar of Yale and Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas, have concluded, sometimes reluctantly, that the amendment in fact protects an individual right. Professor Levinson’s seminal 1989 article in The Yale Law Journal captured the tone of the enterprise. It was called “The Embarrassing Second Amendment.”

In an interview, Professor Levinson said, “The result in Heller is eminently respectable.” But he added that he understood why some conservatives were upset. “People say the Roe court was too interventionist,” he said. “So is the Heller court from that perspective.”

Judge Wilkinson’s basic critique is that the majority, like that in Roe, used an ambiguous text to impose its policy preference on the nation, at great cost to the democratic process and to local values. He assumed, as most experts do, that the decision would apply to the states.

[The text is imprecise, but not ambiguous. The drafting and ratification processes left no doubt, however, of the meaning of the Second Amendment.]

“In both Roe and Heller,” Judge Wilkinson wrote, “the court claimed to find in the Constitution the authority to overrule the wishes of the people’s representatives. In both cases, the constitutional text did not clearly mandate the result, and the court had discretion to decide the case either way.”

[False! The text clearly establishes the authority.]

Judge Posner built on themes in his recent book “How Judges Think,” which argued that constitutional adjudication by the Supreme Court is largely and necessarily political. The Heller decision, he wrote in The New Republic, “is evidence that the Supreme Court, in deciding constitutional cases, exercises a freewheeling discretion strongly flavored with ideology.”

[Too many jurists rule in favor of Prudentialism, i.e. "Irrespective of the text of the Constitution, how can my decision in this case contribute to a better society?" The Scalia decision favored a strict textual analysis.]

Indeed, Judge Wilkinson wrote, “Some observers may be tempted to view Heller as a revenge of sorts for Roe” or “a sort of judicial tit-for-tat.” As Judge Posner put it, “The idea behind the decision” in Heller “may simply be that turnabout is fair play.”

Mr. Levy, who helped win Heller, said some conservatives wanted almost all decisions to be made by the political branches rather than the courts.

“But these are constitutional rights,” Mr. Levy, now chairman of the Cato Institute, a libertarian research group, said of the rights protected by the Second Amendment. “They are not rights consigned to the legislature.”

[Levy is my hero! No, wait, Gura is my hero! No, wait...]

The analogy to Roe, he went on, is misguided. There is no reference to abortion in the Constitution.

The Second Amendment, by contrast, indisputably protects a right to keep and bear arms, though there is sharp disagreement about the scope of the right. Mr. Levy said the natural reading of the amendment, one supported by historical materials, was that it protected an individual right.

[Spot on! The First Amendment is infringed every day. A witness can't lie under oath and then claim protection of the First Amendment; that's perjury. Lying in court, under oath, is a crime. But telling a lie just about anywhere else is not a crime; just look at the editorial page of the New York Times, for example! In the same way, Scalia wrote, laws may be passed regulating the Second Amendment provided that they are narrowly tailored. So, for example, a law forbidding a person from keeping a handgun in their home is unconstitutional, but a law prohibiting concealed carry in a courtroom or legislature or voting place would probably pass muster.]

In his article, Judge Wilkinson wrote that he “readily agreed” that Roe “involved the more brazen assertion of judicial authority.” But he added that the Roe and Heller cases shared a number of common flaws, including “a failure to respect legislative judgments,” “a rejection of the principles of federalism” and “a willingness to embark on a complex endeavor that will require fine-tuning over many years of litigation.”

[But the "legislative judgements" were unconstitutional on their face; there was no other rational choice for five honest, thoughtful men. It may take many years of litigation to sort out Second Amendment rights, but that is primarily the fault of the Federal courts, who refused for decades to hear Second Amendment cases and refused to acknowledge the "standing" of petitioners until Dick Heller came along.]

Judge Wilkinson saved particular scorn for a brief passage in Justice Scalia’s opinion that seemed to endorse a variety of restrictions on gun ownership. “Nothing in our opinion,” Justice Scalia wrote, “should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

[What's the problem? Acknowledging that the Second Amendment is not an absolute? What did they expect, that Scalia would allow prison inmates to possess firearms in their cells? This is just quibbling.]

Whatever else may be said about the Second Amendment, Judge Wilkinson wrote, those presumptions have no basis in the Constitution. “The Constitution’s text,” he wrote, “has as little to say about restrictions on firearm ownership by felons as it does about the trimesters of pregnancy.”

Mr. Levy, too, said he was not a fan of the passage. “I would have preferred that that not have been there,” he said. “It created more confusion than light.”

It is too soon to say much about the legacy of Heller. But Judge Wilkinson said that Heller, at a minimum, represented “the worst of missed opportunities — the chance to ground conservative jurisprudence in enduring and consistent principles of restraint.” At worst, he warned, “There is now a real risk that the Second Amendment will damage conservative judicial philosophy” as much as Roe “damaged its liberal counterpart.”

[That's why Levinson called it "The Embarrassing Second Amendment"! You judges are now going to have to clean up the mess you've made.]

[Incidentally, regarding the Emerson case, what has happened to Dr. Emerson in the last few years is shocking. You can read about it here:]

Maybe if Scalia had thrown out GCA '68 and the NFA, bag and baggage, I might agree that he had committed "a brazen assertion of judicial authority", but the Heller decision? That's the way it should have been all along.

Gun Suicide Rate Said To Decline

A Beautiful Gun

Xavier has a post on a dehorned and nickel-plated 1911 from Clark Custom.

Wow! Check it out.

Monday, October 20, 2008

The Story of Adele H

In 1851, Victor Hugo was forced to leave France and take refuge on the British island of Guernsey. While there, his daughter, Adele, fell in love with a British officer, Lieutenant Pinson, of the 16th Hussars.

In 1862, the American Civil War had led to blockades of southern ports, cutting off supplies of raw cotton to Britain's mills. Britain decided to rattle her sabre to show her displeasure, and the 16th Hussars were dispatched to Halifax, Nova Scotia. This was intended as a warning to Washington: allow shipments of cotton to resume, or Britain might intervene on the side of the Confederacy.

Adele pursues Lt. Pinson to Halifax, traveling under an assumed name, "Miss Lewly".

Adele is a very beautiful young lady. But she is also Bat. Shit. Crazy.

She explains to her new friends that the man she is looking for is, variously, the fiancé of her niece, her cousin, her sister's brother-in-law, or the son of their village clergyman.

One morning she passes a British officer. She spins around and follows him. She taps on his shoulder and he turns around. And look who it is! Yes, it's that French scientist-guy from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

When they finally do meet, she frantically, desperately begs him to love her.

Then she screams that she will ruin him and his military career.

Then she offers him money to love her. All in about thirty seconds. It's quite a scene.

Her condition deteriorates.

His unit is transferred to Barbados, and she follows him there.

But her deterioration is now so severe that when she meets him for the last time, she doesn't even recognize him.

Nearly destitute, she is taken in by an ex-slave, Madame Baa, who helps her return to France. Adele spent the last 40 years of her life in a private clinic in Saint-Mande.

Victor Hugo died in 1885. His last words were, "I see a black light." His body lay in state under the Arc d'Triomphe and the next day two million people lined the route of the cortège to the Panthéon. He shares a crypt with Emile Zola and Alexandre Dumas.

Adele died on April 25, 1915. Fifty years earlier, as she was about to leave Guernsey, she wrote in her journal, "This incredible thing, that a young girl should step over the ocean, leave the old world for the new world, to join her lover, this thing I will accomplish."

Friday, October 17, 2008

Well, isn't this a near-perfect convergence for many of us?

According to American Rifleman:

The Yavapai Amateur Radio Club of Prescott, AZ will operate a special-events amateur radio station, K7NRA, from the 2,000-acre campus of Gunsite Academy on November 17, 2008. Commemorating the 137th birthday of the NRA, the station will operate between 0800 and 1600 MST on 7.250, 14.250 and 21.335 MHz. A unique QSL card will be forwarded to those stations contacted during the event.

More info at

What, no CW?! I'm crushed. That's all they had 137 years ago! Well, folks, get those SSB rigs ready. Roberta, I just know you must have an all-tube balanced-modulator sideband rig in your collection.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Why Do I Shoot?

Roberta X asked.

One of my early childhood memories is my first visit to the school library, in first grade. Most of us couldn't read, so we went right for the picture books.

Now, most of your guys, I guess, went right for the National Geographics. And, to tell the truth, as a six-year-old boy I had also taken comfort in the pages of those yellow-edged magazines. But on this particular occasion I was drawn to a book of high-speed photographs: balloons bursting, drops of milk spattering, and, most fascinating of all, bullets frozen in flight.

I could hardly believe what I was seeing: bullets, the fastest thing on earth, stopped midway through cutting a playing card in half. I had to find out more about those things.

Another influence was a now-long-forgotten TV show called "Yancy Derringer". This was in the late 1950's, I believe. The title character was an 1880's Mississippi Riverboat gambler, who was actually an undercover policeman. And whenever there was trouble, it seemed that a derringer just materialized in this guy's hand like magic. He must have had half a dozen miniature pistols hidden on him, and it's a wonder that he didn't "clank" when he walked. I thought that he was the epitome of cool. Explains my fascination with small, concealable handguns.

My dad had a little .32 pistol; I think it was Spanish. But I was forbidden to touch it. He let me watch him clean it and that's where I first encountered the ambrosia-like fragrance of Hoppe's #5 Nitro Solvent. It still brings back good memories. And got me interested in the beautiful inner workings of guns.

I was 13 years old when I fired a gun for the first time. It was at summer camp. My parents sent me to sailing camp in North Carolina for a month and they had a rifle range and a dozen .22 bolt-action rifles. I spent hours there and earned an NRA Marksmanship badge. I loved it.

When I got home I begged and pestered my parents unmercifully to get me a .22. I went over the Sears catalog again and again, drooling over their rifles. Finally they caved and bought me a nice little used Savage 20-gauge shotgun. Dad thought I might enjoy it more than a .22 rifle. Well, we went to the hardware store and bought a box of clay pigeons and a spring-loaded gadget to throw them with.

We went clay pigeon shooting a dozen times or so, but most of the utility from that gun was just the responsibility of owning it. I put a hasp on the lower shelf of my bureau and locked the disassembled gun in there. So I was a fourteen-year-old boy with a gun in my room. That was in 1965.

But clay pigeons had to compete with school, football and ham radio, and then college. The little 20-gauge stayed locked up for decades.

In 1990 a co-worker asked me, out of the blue, if I wanted to go skeet shooting. And I remembered the little shotgun. So I took it out into the light again and cleaned it. And when I shot it, I realized one of the reasons I had put it away: it doubled! It had two triggers, but pulling the first trigger fired both barrels; apparently the recoil released the sear and the second barrel fired within a millisecond of the first, virtually simultaneously.

But I adored skeet shooting and I made up my mind to get a gun that was appropriate for skeet. I ultimately bought a new Beretta 686, a 12-gauge over-under with 3-1/2 inch chambers. I got some custom chokes for it, and started shooting twice a week; I worked nights so I could go mid-week. There was just me and this guy who was training for Olympic skeet; he was amazing to watch. In spite of all of my practice I never shot better than 19 out of 25 and I felt that my vision just was not acute enough for moving targets. By that time I had accumulated several other shotguns, including a Benelli Super Black Eagle, a Parker Repro, two old A.H. Foxes and a Beretta 687 20-gauge O/U with a nickel-plated receiver and .410 tubes from Briley. I really miss shooting .410 at skeet; THAT was fun! You GOTTA reload if you shoot .410; you can save a fortune - 12 gauge, not so much.

I sold all of the guns in 2002 to pay my divorce lawyer. *sigh* Oh, well. In the years since I have accumulated a dozen new guns and not one of them is a shotgun! Go figure. I really miss the 687, though; THAT was a pretty gun!

Oh, WHY do I shoot? Sorry if I am rambling. When I was 25 I read Atlas Shrugged. That really spun me around. I became a libertarian and have remained one.

Many years later I read Boston's Gun Bible by Boston T. Party. That introduced me to the concept of an armed libertarian, and got me interested in the civic duty of gun ownership in a free society.

I carry concealed whenever I can; been licensed in Virginia since 1999. I'm a member of VCDL and I support their efforts to make open carry more accepted in Virginia, but open carry is not for me. Part of the protection from carrying a handgun is the ability to surprise a goblin by suddenly producing a gun from concealment. The surprise factor alone is probably enough to end most dangerous confrontations without a shot being fired.

So my interest in shooting is for individual self-defense, as an impediment to government tyranny, and the Swiss concept of a citizenry trained at arms. I also have this annoying streak of resistance to authority; I want to do whatever will annoy my masters. And owning guns, particularly handguns, does that quite well!

Here are the answers from:
Roberta X
Hell In A Handbasket
Maddened Fowl
Sharp As A Marble
William The Coroner
A Keyboard And A .45

Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been ...

The Volokh Conspiracy has a fascinating post on Obama's links to the discredited ACORN voter registration effort. Here's an excerpt:
FURTHER UPDATE: Here are Obama's exact words about ACORN, from the debate transcript: "The only involvement I've had with ACORN was I represented them alongside the U.S. Justice Department in making Illinois implement a motor voter law that helped people get register (sic) at DMVs." It's all over the blogs, with links to sources, that Obama was a trainer for ACORN. The Obama campaign itself changed its "Fight the Smears" website from stating "Fact: Barack was never an ACORN trainer and never worked for ACORN in any other capacity," to "Fact: ACORN never hired Obama as a trainer, organizer, or any type of employee." That's an implicit acknowledgment that Obama worked for/with, but was never officially "hired" by, ACORN. It was a pretty brazen, and seemingly unnecessary, lie by Obama, but McCain didn't call him on it.
A very sneaky lie! He was a volunteer trainer for ACORN, but he was never "hired". Typical Harvard lawyer!

Like when Obama's spokesmen answer questions about guns:

"Barack Obama supports the Second Amendment and the right of hunters to own firearms."
"So, Obama's going to require a license to own a handgun?"
"Barack Obama is not going to take away a single rifle or shotgun from an American hunter."
"So he IS going to take away handguns, is that what you mean?"
"Barack Obama supports the Second Amendment."

And so forth and so on. Exactly what Gore and Lieberman tried in 2000, and Charleton Heston called 'em on it. But this year the Dems seem to be getting away with it.

Muskrat Love

From The L.A. Times.

I Swear This Is My Last Post On This Subject!

ABC News reports:

Must be Sweeps Week.

"Why Don't You Pick One Up And Smoke It Sometime?"

Well, I would, but it's a little crowded right now.

Edie Adams, the TV pitchwoman for Muriel Cigars, dies at 81.

Obit in the NYT.

A post on Linda Lovelace and now Edie Adams? As Groucho Marx once said, "I like a cigar, but I do take it out of my mouth once in a while!"

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Jerry Springer? Meet Linda Lovelace

Yes, it's a new opera based on the life of Linda Lovelace, the star of 1972's Deep Throat.

I saw the movie at the Biograph theater in Richmond, Virginia (!) in 1972. The audience was 75% female. For a lot of them I think it was a feminist thing. They checked everybody's driver's license on the way in. I was barely 21 years old, so it was a guilty thrill for me to hang out with the grown-ups.

A few days later a local judge swore out a complaint, heard it in his own courtroom, and issued an injunction on exhibitions of the movie.

The judge's order only mentioned Deep Throat, so the Biograph stood up for the First Amendment by saying that next Saturday night they would have a double feature of The Devil And Miss Jones and Beaver Valley. And admission was free! They thumbed their nose at the judge and said that as long as they didn't charge admission, the law couldn't touch them.

The place was packed that Saturday night, including dozens of police officers. But the first movie was a 1940's black and white romantic comedy, and the second was a Disney nature short.

The Devil In Miss Jones is the porno movie.

Palin Has Motorcade Pull Over To Buy Diapers

"Just the diapers, thanks. And each of these nice gentlemen would like a box of 40 Smith & Wesson."

At the Wal-Mart in Gallipolis, Ohio. Monday afternoon.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Defcon 15 - Basic Physical Security

This is a year old, but I just found it, thanks to The Clue Meter.

Hilarious and no-holds-barred seminar on firearms and self-defense. 49 minutes long. I'm not sure their advice is all good, but excellent panel discussion and Q&A.

Best part: Ex-cop describes how he introduced his wife to shooting. She was very recoil-sensitive so he started her out with a .22 revolver. Then one night while he was on duty a guy broke into their house, and the husband was the responding officer. He says that he found her in the bedroom, "clutching my Dirty Harry 44-magnum." Later he asked her about her sensitivity to recoil, and she replied, "Fuck him! I was gonna blow his fucking head off!"

Friday, October 10, 2008

Which LOLCat R U?

Your result for The Which Lolcat Are You? Test...

Lion Warning Cat

51% Affectionate, 55% Excitable, 36% Hungry

You are the good Samaritan of the lolcat world. Protecting others from danger by shouting observations and guidance in cases of imminent threat, you believe in the well-being of everyone.

To see all possible results, checka dis.

Take The Which Lolcat Are You? Test at HelloQuizzy

Gracias a Clue Meter.

Packing And The Friendly Skies

Deconstructing Silverman

In the Jerusalem Post.
I think Sarah Silverman is wonderful and hilarious, but sometimes she pushes the envelope.

That Does It!

I'm selling the widows and orphans and putting all my money into a leveraged supermarket coupon futures hedge fund.

"Let Me Sleep On It ..."

Meat Loaf hospitalized, released.
Dude is 57. Yeeeee!

Brigitte Bardot calls Sarah Palin a 'disgrace to women'

The London Telegraph.

(That's Bardot on the right.)

U.K.: Cats Protection charity faces losing £11.2 million in Icelandic banks

London Times.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Risky Business

Poor Joel is Home Alone.

So he checks the personals. "Submissive Sarah"?
Maybe some other time.

Jacki is not quite to his liking, but Jacki recommends Lana.

This is Lana. "Are you ready for me, Ralph?"

"That'll be $300."
"Can I send it to you?"
"Can you send it to me, Joel?!"

Meet Guido the Killer Pimp (Joe Pantoliano).

Great line: "I don't believe this. I have a Trig mid-term
tomorrow and I'm being chased by Guido the Killer Pimp."

"I like you, Joel. Don't you know that?"

"Let's get high and get some ice cream."

If I had to choose between ice cream and
grass I would choose the ice cream every time.

Shopping for mattresses.

The camera just loves her.

The face that sold a thousand Ray-Bans.

Marlena Dietrich lighting, a la Josef von Sternberg:
see the little shadow under her nose?
Brings out the cheekbones.

"Banquet On A Bun?" I'll say she is!

Ahhh... I remember when I was 25.

I had forgotten how hot the "Love on a Train" piece was.

These two are just blistering the paint off the walls.

And that music!

Soon it will be time to say goodbye.