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Got a photo of me on a donkey. Finished San Diego (I mean, like, really finished it, yah know?), glimpsed at L.A. and tried to do what I do best in NYC. Man, what a place!

35 hours of travelling later, and I'm back home.

Have almost finished reading The Iraq Study Group Report. I wish these guys would write something about "how we got here" as well as their "where we go from here."

Lost a sock, heading to TJ

I lost a sock. Now I am faced with a great dilemma; chuck the remaining sock? Hmmm.....

On a high note, Tijuana tomorrow. Gotta go find me a donkey. And some cubans to smoke. Oh man, I am gagging for a decent cigar.

Stu's Travel Tip 2

Travel Tip 2. Catching a cab in the USA: When jockeying for the front seat in a taxi in America, don't call out "shotgun!" Over here it also means something quite different...

A list of things I experienced in San Diego

* Listening to Lazy Line Painter Jane by Belle and Sebastian.

* Smelling like apricots. Need to wash sometime.

* Watching cars race around the Gas-Light district in down-town San Diego.

* Tasting luke-warm coffee that is surprisingly decent.

* Sensing the cool air tickling my lower back. Need to pull my pants up sometime.

* Feeling... well... dunno. Contemplating negative probabilities.

Stu's Travel Tip 1

Airport lounges. The place where you should most feel like you are travelling, but most where you feel like you're getting no-where, and that time is being usurped from your life.

Travel tip 1. Getting through security;Either make sure your belt has no metal in it, or that your pants fit well.

I just don't get drunk with my father enough. I resolve in the New Year to do it more often. I might even take him out to a lovely little speak-easy and smoke a cuban cigar with him. Good times.

Miss my flatmates. Especially annoying them early in the morning.

I'm an anti-Jew!

I've been having way too much fun posting. Sure sure, I caused a bit (a lot?) of trouble, but I guess that's the freedom of the "intra-nerd" for you. Give any idiot a PC and suddenly he/she has got opinions. Case in point, me.

So obviously I copped a bit of flak, firstly for being an arsehole. Sure, I guess I wasn't going to let some idea stand for "the truth" without evidence. Or without intelligent, accurate dialogue, at least (don't come looking to me for that though!) .

But I'm just stubborn with my opinions, and I'm rather pedantic when it comes to supporting an argument with "facts." Heck, I'm a relativist; there ain't no objective truth, there is only beliefs, and strengths of argument.

But more interesting, there was a flippant remark I made. And it seems to have drawn quite a response. People have trundled out their old knee-jerk response, and let fly. I guess when one walks into a close-knit community and start to challenge the status quo, then ranks close.

Reminds me of a book by Philip Roth called The Human Stain. And that it holds an interesting and relative parable pertinent to my current situation.

You see, there is this English literature professor, who also happens to specialise in Ancient languages, such a Greek. And every day during class he does roll call. One day near the middle of the semester, he calls two names that he has been calling since the start of the year, and who have never been present. And he turns to the class and say "Who are these spooks ?"

And all hell brakes loose. Because not only is it a term describing "ghosts" or "spirits", it is also a racial slur against a black person. And, as the professor latter finds out, these two students not present were black.

So he has a law suit pressed against him, and he loses his job, his wife later dies and he is all alone. All because of a single word.

Spooks.

There are further twists to that story that I won't even mention; suffice to say, it allows the ideas of "racism" and of "anti-semitism" new interpretations.

Antisemitism.

Which American can read this article and not, at the least, have some wavering in their support for Israel?

I like Seinfield. Mad About You wasn't bad. Hell, I love Woody Allen. But if I don't agree with the the Israel lobby , or AIPAC , does that make me anti-semitic?

What happens when one day someone realises the religious and/or political and/or cultural background of another human being; should they recognise that?

To even say someone is Jewish; does that make me antisemitic?

Some will even say they know what I was thinking when I made that post.

I'm a seal

I went for a swim. Oh glorious water, sliding over my body like the slippery fingers of a svelte Swedish masseuse. I am built for the water. Well, built kinda like a fur seal is. Slightly hairy and a layer of blubber.

A rant - The War on Terror

I had this thought the other day.

So, the other day I realized more people died in one month in Iraq (3000 innocent souls) than everyone who died during 9/11. So why continue the fight? Retribution?

How can anyone justify the war going on over there? All up estimates range between 30,000 and 300,000 total deaths due to the occupation. There is even the possibility of 1 mill deaths due to American forces. Woah, crazy numbers.

And guess what? Saddam Hussein is guilty of killing... wait for it.... 143 people. And he's going to the gallows. (Please note: all figures I got from Wiki, so I was able to change them to suit my arguement (that was a joke.))

And what happened to bringing liberty, democracy, etc and other such wonderful western concepts?

So just as "the War on Terrorism" (war on a process) became "the War on Terror" (war on an etheral concept or state of being), the administration is no longer bringing such concepts as "democracy" to Iraq, just "stability and self governance".

Funny, there was probably alot of that "stability and self governance" crap going around in Iraq before the US came in and crapped everywhere....

Here endth my leftist rant....

Preparing for international success - USoA

I just dug this thread up from somewhere. God knows why I'm evening typing stuff here. I should be working. Or at least doing a better job of pretending that I'm working.

My work should involve writing a talk for an international conference on the brilliance of myself. It should start with

"Good evening, lesser beings of both gender. It is I. Yes, that's right, me. Ok, ok, you can stop clapping and cheering and stuff. There are things I want to say here tonight.

*sigh* Look people, if you want to bask in my glowing glory, that's ok, just try and be a little quiet about it so others can here me....yes, I have things I want to say.....well, if you all really liked me, wouldn't you be interested in what I had to say?....ok, fine, then you can all sit here and be noisey and basky and stuff, I'm going home, to where at least my flatmates will listen to me.

Seems like making a speech to the adoring masses might require more work that I first anticipated. Perhaps I'll just stick to crunching numbers and doing pretty graphs in Excel. At least my flatmates will still listen to me.

Still that same day...

Ach, I'm such a sad person, for someone who is so happy. Does that need translation? I'm cheery, and if I were looking into the window at myself, I'd condescendingly giggle at the ridiculous smile on my face. Which is there for no reason.

Then I'd wonder how I was hovering outside my window at work. Two stories up. I guess it's better than hoovering that up high. The walls don't have carpet on them outside. Strangely enough, there is carpet on the walls on the inside. Which makes hoovering the walls oh-so-much easier. And relavent.

Can one really giggle at one's own smile? Is that some kind of logical paradox, a conundrum wrapped in a paradox sooo tightly it creates a massive gravitational field that warps space-times-space, which creates a wormhole, that causes a loophole, which is fed through a eye-hole, of a storm, so that the whole world collapses in on itself and destroys the universe?

Or does it just give one hours of unadulterated innocent pleasure in front of the mirror?

Vote? I say 3-to-1 it's the other way. That's right, the other way.

The next day

I didn't even read that... thing I wrote before. Suffice to say, I'm sure it was sh*t, and I'm not going to read it again. Out of sight, out of sight.

The last post I read, by someone else by the way, now that, THAT was about me. So glad someone else can nail me better than me.

I feel soooooo much like a car wreck right now. I was going to stop posting, but bugger that. It's coffee-cig-B&S-dancing-my-office time. And THAT'S all about me.

Or also the janitor if he walks in on me.

Which band, I now wonder....

Life is like a simile, and yet it's actually a metaphor.

I came up with that quote. And I'm drawn to it because I was thinking of metaphors.

I don't get some people. Ok, sometimes I get them, an sometimes I don't. Sometimes you don't see them for a while, and they make these decisions, these judgements, that just don't make sense.

Yup, I'm talking about someone in particular. Hey, what else am I going to talk about here? The mafia?

I'm going to see a band in a few minutes. And the whole time I'm there listening to someone else's music, I'm going to try to pretend that I'm interested, and I'm not thinking about something else. Someone else.

I guess I'm kinda cut decisions were made for me, without me. No talking, discussion, nada.

Should I be angry? Dunno. Well, it aint no thrash metal band I'm listening to, so anger won't really be an option.

This is going to be more of a melancholy, remorseful gig. And me sitting in the centre of it and chain-smoking.

"F*ck this shit." That's a song by Belle and Sebastian. ANOTHER band I'm going to see alone. Or as alone as you can get surrounded by several hundred other screaming adoring fans.

F*ck the star-story. I got a thousand more where that came from. But, you know, you can have the story, or live with the story teller. And that's a decision for the reader to make.

And they're all amateur ornithologist at that. (J.D.Sal reference, for those beat and in the know)