The title is a reference to 'bigger cages, longer chains' -a concept that has been on my mind lately.
Anyway, I was trying to think of solid reasons to ever be involved in a 'serious relationship' should I ever have that desire in the future. The only thing I could come up with in my 30 min walk this morning was this: guys love awesome beards and hilarious mustaches, girls hate them, or at the very least would rather you not have them. Basically, your chances of meeting a girl with a kick ass beard is pretty slim, but all your guy friends will respect you so much more for the time and dedication that it took -something the fairer gender seems to overlook. BUT, if you get involved in a serious relationship you can have the most awesome beard and all you'll get is an occasional 'please shave that thing off', which is far outweighed by your drunken friends compliments on your sweet stache. Basically, a girl won't leave you because of your facial hair if the rest of you is awesome, but a girl won't get to know you if you look like Charles Manson's slightly cooler brother.
So there you have it, another thing to put on my list of
Reasons to get married:
1. you can both go to the same place in the peace corp
2. food sharing
3. bigger beards, funnier mustaches
In arabic most of the descriptive words/adjectives come after the noun. For example, you always say 'maya kabir', meaning 'water large' instead of 'large water'.
So we're planning a party and my french roommate, Sabrina, wanted the song 'eye of the tiger' but she didn't know what it was called so she tried to hum it. Then my roommate Maher said, 'oh! Tiger Eye'
Shortly thereafter my jordanian roommate, Hassan, convinced him that it was called 'old grey' tea, not earl grey.
I stayed home today to write 3 articles.
It is now 742 pm and I have written: 0
Loads of laundry done: 1
Naps: 1.5
Chocolate bars eaten: 2
This feels like college all over again.
I was catching up on Medium Arcana and I just realized what my friend Matt V. is doing. Matt, a frequent commenter, lawyer, adult, and all around great guy is creating fake flyers and posting them up around new mexico. This is seriously one of the best displays of high level humor I have seen in a while. If you're not Matt V. and you are reading this, ask yourself one question, "What am I doing to impress jimifoster?" If the answer is 'nothing' then you need to get up off your butt and create something hilarious. Click on the pics for full size.
From his site:
One of my top three favorite movies, Oldboy, is about to be tainted by Hollywood. Apparently Steven Speilberg wasn't content with ruining Indiana Jones and has set his sights on the best revenge film of all time. If that's not bad enough, he wants Will Smith to play the lead role! I honestly can't say anything that negative about Will Smith, it's difficult not to like the guy really, but not in this role. This is an extremely dark movie that explores the depth of depravity that a person can experience when it comes to seeking revenge, and that is not Will Smith. That is also not something that I think Steven Speilberg can direct either, this is going to be dumbed down and I'm sure the fight scene with the hammer will be taken out.
I'm a sucker for Girl Talk and I've never been a fan of the elitist mac attitude, so this video speaks to me. I've also had 4 ipods break on me within their warranty period and I've never had a pc that I couldn't fix cheaply and without a 'genius' (unless you consider drew or dave genius', which you might). I will say that the mac ads are much better ads as they are comical and present a logical argument as to why you should buy their product. This is just a guy talking about gettin sweaty.
Anyway, Girl talk is explaining how he has to cover his laptop with saran wrap b/c scenesters love to spill sparks all over the place.
I had the great pleasure of watching a brilliant movie last night. Persepolis presents a deeply personal coming-of-age tale about finding one's place in the world. Based on her bestselling graphic novel, Marjane Satrapi teamed up with underground comic book artist Vincent Paronnaud to co-direct this animated big screen adaptation. Marjane is an innocent nine-year-old living in Iran in the 80's, who finds comfort in music by artists as diverse as ABBA and Iron Maiden. It's amazing to see what people will fight to cling onto in the midst of an oppressive regime, a revolution, and a war. I can promise you will be happy that you watched this movie.
Link to download the movie with english subtitles
Link to the graphic novels
In a move that rebrands science as the new alchemy, Scientists have figured out how to turn tequila into diamonds. I've always said, tequila is the classier of liquors, or at the very least, makes me classier. Remember that scene in Rumble in the Bronx where they race motorcycles across the tops of parked cars in NYC? One time, in the upscale part of Cairo, I got so classy at a party I reenacted that scene, sans motorcycles or asians.
Anyway, who wouldn't want a mezcal cut with superior clarity and a worm in the diamond? I bet Debeers is upset that their nonrare source has become even less rare with neoalchemy. OH! I'm going to get one of those worm diamonds and put it in my wizards staff and cast spells of drunkeness (level 5) and stomach aches (level 12).
Party Wyzzzard!!!
While we're kind of on the subject of guilty pleasures, I love graphic novels. I'm 28 and I still read one a month, at least. So when it was announced that my favorite graphic novel, The Watchmen, was being made into a movie, I got terribly excited. So much so that I've checked out the directors website for storyboard updates and to see photos of the set design, etc. I know this makes me sound like the opposite of cool, but I promise that it is an amazing piece of literature and I hope that the movie is half as good as the graphic novel. Anyway, the new trailer came out recently and it looks so good.
Here's the trailer
Here's the graphic novel scanned (bittorrent)
I just remembered a story my friend told me the other night. She lived with a guy in Barcelona and he never wore any clothes. There was no romantic involvement, it just started a few days after she moved in, he stopped wearing clothes. My favorite part was that he would sometimes wear sunglasses and knock on the bathroom door in the morning just to say hello. My least favorite part was that he would clean around the house without clothes. This guy also liked to walk around the streets with a megaphone shouting random things, usually in clothes.
Sometimes you hear about someone and think that you're not living to your fullest potential.
Mc Chris is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. I can't say that I stand behind any particular album as 'good', but he has some songs that I really enjoy. This is off his new album, it's called Pizza Butt.
I would like to take a moment to give the comments their day in the sun. These are some of my favorites comments I've received in the last week.
On the post Scorpion Bowab -
The ball-grabbing sounds right up your alley. You should probably get hip to blood feuds, too. They may even be big in Richmond by the time you come back to visit. -Can't type sandwich
On the post Halloween in Egypt's Capital -
life in general
pokinatcha
on the cover
and a little bit of teenage politics
good
-john upton
On the post Tonight
"There are things that I assume will jiggle forever"
Wait, like that animated gif of that frolicking green dinosaur thing with the four sets of boobs?
I know you know it.
Just like you know about sunglasses that come in magazines. -Natalie
and
You could have said that you were just there to buy the band's demo CD and excused yourself. -Cantypesandwich
In reference to the Japanther Review
I've been meaning to let you know that your Hamburger(Hotdog) blog helps me get through the day.
I also completely agree with your Japanther review. -Chris
On the post Coming Back to America
Yeah, but we're gonna medium party to the MAX!
-DrewGood
and
Don't stay too long or you might be forced to join the armed services and perform a 2 year stint before being allowed to go back to your foreign job you hippy. We miss you and welcome you in our home. Both our toilets, as you may remember, face north... so in case you've switched from being a Protestant, we've got you covered. Safe travels homie. Love and stuff. -Antonious Maximus
...well, for a little bit anyway.
dec 12th - fly into dc. i'll have a layover in amsterdam and be post 18hr flight so friday may be a take it easy night unless something awesome is happening.
dec 13th - Fun times in DC! Hot tubs, sparks, general good times.
dec 14th-21st - party hard in richmond. bikes, friends, drinkfour, general danger.
dec 21st - dec 29th - party medium in vb, hang with the fam, dance nights with drew
dec29th-jan4th - wide open. it'd be nice if great wolfe lodge happened again.
jan 4th - fly out of dc
When i convert my money to USD i will basically have none so if you want to take me out to lunch, dinner, or buy me drinks/nerds ropes it would be much appreciated.
I love you all.
I got the text from my mom at 7am my time, "Obama won." I also got another text from America that had a similar sentiment. Then I wake up to find that he received almost twice the amount of electoral votes and that the democrats have control over the house and the senate.
Also, this is like my friday, I have tomorrow off of work.
What a great day. Great job America. Great job.
It stinks that I'm so many hours ahead during election day. By the time that the polls close in california it'll be 10 hours later here. I do get to leave work early to attend an art exhibition on Obama and the election parties will have no choice but to run til the break of first call to prayer.
One thing I forgot about the super shady bars is maybe the best and most important thing: you could spit anywhere.
I'm not saying I did, but having that kind of freedom is reassuring.
My old roommate, Nick, has a constant problem with his name. Nick in arabic means the same thing as the 'F' word. This can be humorous when we're out and about.
Tonight he took me to this amazing dive bar he found. The beer was cheap, they were playing the 'football' game that I wanted to see, and they give you a free salad and these bar peas you that you eat. Anyway, we watched the game and had a couple of beers in one of the only legitimate dive bars that i've been to here.
Then nick told me to go look upstairs. I seriously didnt know what to expect, but after the game we both went upstairs. It turned out to be a brothel! It gets better. Imagine a medium sized room that looks like a backroom party at a mexican restaurant. At the opposite end of this rectangular room there is a keyboard player. In front of the keyboard player, about 15 feet away from you, is the vocal entertainment. Its a guy that walks with those arm cane things, so he only had one connected to his arm and the other held the microphone. Why didn't he have a mic stand? We were immediately greeted by the 'sweet ladies' and who i assume were the pimps. I had no idea what to do, but fortunately nick got us out of there without either of us having to buy overpriced beers. so that was weird and shady.
Then we went to a shady bellydancing place. There are 2 requirements to be a belly dancer in a shady bellydancing place here: 1. Must have belly 2. Have never seen anyone belly dance. ever. It was gross and terrible. When the music sped up I actually dry heaved. There were things that i assume will jiggle forever.
On the bright side, it looks like Egypt will win the Africa Cup this year.
I wasn't really in party mode, but the party was a 2 min walk from my house so to not go would have been lazy. The big party of the night was put on by the marines from the us embassy, but i didn't feel comfortable supporting that situation. Anyway, there's not much to say, I went as 'guy that throws stuff at the world bank.' Next to me is my roommate nick, who went as 'guy that bought weird sunglasses and fake gas mask' and Maher who went as Zorro. My favorite costume of the night was my friend Karem who came in a full KKK outfit. It's pretty hilarious watching an egyptian dressed up as KKK dancing with a Sudanese refugee, that his boss is dating. Oh, and I had a conversation with someone about which MxPx albums were 'good'.
I should have left for work 30 minutes ago, but I'm listening to the album and felt I should post something about it.
Japanther - Tut Tut Now Shake Your Butt
The long/short of it is that its a really good, solid album. I could use more japanther in my japanther album though. It has 11 tracks, 4 of which are non music tracks, leaving you feeling its more of an ep than an lp. That's just japanther though, they are a combination of fun punk and performance art. This time they teamed up with Crass co-founder Penny Rimbaud and produced a more focus, but still unpolished, album. I really enjoyed the last lp, Skuffed My Huffy, but I'd say that this album is mildly superior and my favorite release by this band so far.
Of the songs that are on there, I think the standout track is Radical Businessman. I wish i had the know how to put the song up but maybe you should just go to a show and if you like it, buy the album. They play on Nov 7th in Richmond.
I didn't really know you could vote early without any reason at all in a lot of states. I got to vote via mail and I guess it worked because my horse is winning the race. I just read the poll numbers and it seriously said that McCain is up by 21% among NASCAR fans.
I feel like all the time I spent following politics was a waste. I could have just as easily waited until the last minute, found out who had the NASCAR vote, and voted for the other person.
McCain - The uncharismatic 72 yr old leader of uneducated middle America who has a 1 in 3 chance of dying in the next 4 years and leaving Palin in charge.
Please don't forget to vote.
Please.
