looking at the last date stamp in this blog, i see it's been 2 months and 9 days since i posted.. wtf? recently, in my head, i have had a fair bit of angst. so this will be another ranting post that probably won't make any sense to any one but me.. too bad. as usual, this is about the state of mankind (human kind?) recent case in point. Ben normally stays at my place after returning with the truck and before his flight the next day. The last time this was to happen, i already had Dom in the spare room. It was arranged that Ben stay with Steve and Martin. (turns out most of us knew this, except Ben...)

So, i was not at work the day Ben came back. Steve was in, but left before Ben arrived. Martin was still at work though. Was it *really* that much fucking effort for Steve to say to Martin 'Ben will be at ours for the night, can you please bring him back with you?' instead Ben had to sleep in the truck, and Steve's answer was 'not my responsibility'

you know what, fair enough, it's *technically* not, but dude, for fuck's sake! i'm lost for words.. i just can't get my head around fuck-wits like him that wont put forth the miniscule effort that would have been required so that Ben could be comfortable..

Why is it that chicks (yes, i'm being mildly sexist - don't point out my flaws, i know them) wear, what appears to me, to be seriously uncomfortable shoes?? Ok, heels, sure i assume some of them are fine, but today i saw so much footwear that i could not fathom... shoes that resemble ballerina slippers - how can they feel good for a day of walking? I saw one person with shoes that looked too small for one, and two they had no back, so he heal was not even on the shoe, and half her foot was getting used, since there was nothing holding the foot in.. C'mon someone out there help me understand this anomaly...

Rant #2 - how has it come to pass that 12-14 year old girls are wearing less than the average porn star? Ok, don't get me wrong, i like to look, because until they get close enough (and it needs to be pretty close for me with my bad eyes!) it's so hard to know that they are seriously underage! But what bothers me is the overweight ones that insist on wearing so very little and so very undersized. Please, it just draws attention to the wrong parts and wrong thoughts.. there are plenty of ways to look sexy and smart if you have a few extra.

Title rant: some days ago, i made the mistake of watching CNN (cut me some slack, it's in English!) and there was something about a high ranked security guard that shot himself in the vicinity of the the French president. The report went something like this: 'gaurd committed suicide, the president and wife were ushered into the plane, some woman fainted.

Ok, back the fuck up, was that last part seriously necessary? as if you are sitting there watching the report and this transpires:
REPORT: gun fire incident near French resident
Loser Viewer: oh.
Report: some woman fainted
LV: wtf?!?! she fainted?! OMG that is so much more serious now and epic!! how could this have happened? oh the humanity!! i don't think i can go to work today.

Ok, it's an extreme end of the spectrum, but if you saw the report i did, it might make more sense.

whatever, fuck it, i'm out

Now i'm starting to feel the pain of a weekend of drinking.. :) Poor Ange was throwing up the night before (sorry Ange!! :) ) and she was not well in the morning :) However, i had already promised Darren that i would meet him at The Church. This is pretty much the sole reason he came to London - to show me The Church. He was there at like 10, but i rolled it about 11:40.. which is ok, since it does not open until noon.

What is it? good fucking question, with no easy answer... It started in 1979, and has been going strong ever since. The idea: it is open ONLY on Sundays and ONLY from Noon to 4pm. It was started for Aussies and Kiwis and other travelers to basically drink and be stupid on a Sunday! It's evolved now, and people come in costumes as well. Before the place opened, the queue was already fucking huge. Once inside, by 12:45, it was packed.. i mean packed! you get drinks 3 at a time, in a plastic bag, and by 4pm, the floor is just cans. There are stage shows too to break up the dancing, and they were pretty good.

I don't know how to explain it any better. If you have been to Queensland, Australia, you might be familiar with 'Sunday Sesh' well picture that on speed... with crazy drinking kids!

This place is apparently legend, and is almost a mandatory stop for travelers. to give you an idea, we were chatting up these two girls, and discovered that they had arrived in London at about 10 that morning.. yes, 2 hours before The Church opened, they land, and their first stop: not the Tower Bridge, or Big Ben.. nope The Church! Good on ya girls!

After, we headed to the 'afterparty' (wtf, i can't take anymore!) which sort sucked, so we bailed. Paul was fucked, so he went home, and i spent about 1 more hour with Darren. i see the guy once every 2 years or so! Shitty. had some meager food to hold the beer down, and we parted ways yet again...

Back at the flat, the girls were impressed with my state of being! I guess i hid it well :) we watched Lost in Translation, and right after my shower, i was out cold! It was like 10pm..

Remember, it was like 3-4am when we finally crashed out from Fri night. i had already promised Paul that i would meet him for climbing at 11am, on the other side of the city. Silly me! Ange wasn't going anywhere (!) she had a 22 hour day the day before :)

Can't remember the last time i was climbing, so i expected some problems. there were, but i got though some easy climbs first to warm up, and since i was with Mike and Paul, two more experienced climbers, they pushed me just enough to do some bigger climbs. I need to find a climbing partner over here now.. sniff

Went for a decent lunch afterwards, and i headed back to Ange's to prep for the party (Bex's birthday) at the flat. Showered, dressed up, all ready. Just waiting for guests.. so again, me and 4 girls sitting in the lounge chatting.. Well, it was more like me being a fly on the wall in a girls locker room! :)

The party was epic! Everyone that showed up was sooooo cool and friendly, it was like i knew them all already. Paul and Mike showed up and my other best mate Darren arrived as well. He was visiting home (Cardiff, Wales) from Christchurch, NZ for a few weeks, and made the trip to London because i was there for the weekend. Awesome.

The party went on and on, and as far as i could tell, there were no problems. Ange brought out some outstanding dip, that apparently is famous amongst the group. i can see why! i don't think it lasted 5 minutes! Nicole (a Kiwi) described it as 'sex on toast' but me being slightly buzzed and feeling cocky, took the piss out of her and changed it to 'six pieces of toast'... it probably doesn't work in text, you need to know the Kiwi accent and slang i suppose. But i wanted to write it down for myself for posterity...

Another great day in the big smoke.

This day was more full on, so i will break it into Short and Long versions for the sake of your time.

SHORT: -wake, toast, shower, metro pass and off on my search for vinyl. There is a small shop right near Ange, and it actually had one i was after! Sweet.
-bussing and tube-ing around most of the day, following a map and list i had printed off before i left. 2/3 of the places were no longer there, and the rest didn't have anything i was looking for. Still a fun adventure!
-Spent a lot of time in SoHo, where i found a Japanese grocery. they had Pocari Sweat!!! bought a couple cans and a bottle of vitamin drink. Fuck i miss Osaka...
-Met Paul for dinner at 6:30. His idea: Japanese! hahaha. it was soooo good. Told him about Pocari Sweat, and since the restaurant was across the street from the grocery, we went back to buy some more!
-Met up (Paul and i) with Ange and friends on a floating bar, had one there and then Paul said we should go meet his friend Mike. Fine, i had a Tube pass. Get to the destination, and turns out Mike has bailed... Paul buys me a drink, and we head back to the girls.
-Paul is tired, so heads home, Most of Ange's friends do the same, so it's me and 4 girls that head to Silent Disco.
-One guy can learn a SHIT load from hanging out with 4 girls!!
-Lucky i was with locals, we got one bus and it took us the whole way home! it was about 3am by now though! and our search for food was a bit fruitless.. ended up with shitty packaged stuff from the petrol station...

LONG: the long version is not much more, just an elaboration on the Silent Disco really. Bex (one of Ange's flatmates) does some PR work for this company, so she had 4 free tickets, which meant we split the 5th one 5 ways. 15 pounds, 5 people, 3 pounds each.. damn cheap! Upon entry, you get your headphones, with a 3 ways switch - off, 1, 2 and a volume control. There are two DJ's playing at the same time, but you can only hear one at a time. Just choose channel one or two!

This has many interesting aspects. 1) everyone looks so strange dancing around with headphones on. 2) if you are dancing away to channel 1, there's a good chance the person you are trying to dance with is on channel 2!! 3) when you take off the headphones, just to see what happens, you hear half the crowd yelling out lyrics on one channel, and half the crown yelling out lyrics on the other channel!

I could ramble on and on about it. it was fucking hysterical really, yet so good at the same time!

Interesting note: Ange and i went up to get drinks for the group. the service was absolutely shitty and so slow! we finally make it to the bar, and there is a girl to my left and a guy to Ange's right. the server says he is off to get ice, and will return. The girl pipes up that she wants only beer, so he gives her a miss-pour for free. She flatly states she does not want this one.. excuse me? free beer bitch! so i take it. the guy to the right orders 7 beers, turns out only 5 are needed. he gives 2 to Ange. we finally order (needing only 2 vodka/cranberry now) and another miss-pour from a different bartender appears for free. Sweet. All in all, we paid for 2 vodkas, and got 4 free beer! At a London disco. unheard of!

Big day one.

I was off to London for a long weekend to catch up with a few friends, and just to get the hell outta here for a wee bit.

-left on time from Lyss to get the plane in Basel. watched a bit of the 1/4 final Euro Cup football (soccer) match between Germany and Portugal.
-sat beside a very cute German girl on the flight, we got told to keep our voices down because people were trying to sleep. bah! She was very nervous about the game, but football ain't my thing. Before we left the plane in London, she was on the phone to her mum to find out the score. Germany won. 3-2
-no trouble getting the train to the city, but it was not going to stop at the station i wanted anymore. Something about 'engineering works' as they call them, so i managed to get a 'Tube Replacement Bus' and it actually took me to my semi-final destination, so not so bad in the end.
-As i was getting to Finsbury Park, Ange called to say they were at the station already, coming home from an Alanis Morrisette concert. Good timing! except Finsbury Park has two bus ranks, and i could not find them.
-Got the next bus to the stop she told me to go to, and all was good. Total travel time Lyss-Ange's house: 6.5 hours...

It was awesome to see her again! it's been 2 years since i have, and she looks great! we chat for a bit, but her and flatmates all need to get up for work on Fri morning, she went to sleep and i read a bit before settling on the futon for a well needed sleep!

NOTES: Big city is sooo different. on the bus trips i noticed 2 groceries open, countless food places, and a hairdressers.. yes. Midnight, and you can get a hair style... wtf.

Yup. Pretty much sums up a lot of shit right now...



you will notice the next few entries have sequential dates of entry. This is not a reality, sorry. I was trying to catch up, and instead of having an novel of an update, i split them up and just put random dates on them. If i remember when something actually happened, i did put it with the correct date.

No, you sick, sick moo-cow! not like that!

What I mean is anal retentive, or perhaps more like OCD. It’s all these little things I notice. Like in the pic I have here. The way I hang my laundry, it has to always be the same - socks on one side, underwear on the other, then shirts, pants, and then whatever else. Or my dishes, I wash them in the same order each time, and when they are set out to dry, it pretty much looks the same each time too!

I don’t know if these are just routines, or something deeper, but it does feel weird if these simple tasks are not done the same way each time (is that a good indication of a condition?) :)

Another China-esque rant. This might be a long one. It’s about the Olympic torch, and the debacle that became of the worldwide relay. I’m not an idiot, I know how protesting works, you protest to draw attention to an issue. I’m here to rant about the methods.

1) You really think that the guy (or girl) with the torch – that special athlete that’s so proud to carry that historic torch for his country – you think that person can free Tibet for you? ‘Ok ok, gimme back my torch and I’ll free it for you. Please?’ No, that poor bastard is just so happy and proud and some on the verge of tears for having such an honour of carrying the torch, and you (protestor) go and fuck with that.

Indeed, your task was a mild success, people took notice, made world news, blah blah. I just think there are more effective (and perhaps less damaging) ways of going about it.

San Fran (I didn’t see the whole thing) but the build up at least was a good way of protesting. Climbing the GG Bridge and using banners. Not disruptive, got attention, job done, no?

2) If you want to fuck with something (like the torch) do it right FFS! Don’t work alone; get a team of committed protestors. Watch videos of other protests. Be prepared you fucking Boy Scout. One sacrificial patsy goes for the torch, a shit load of security take him down, next protestor – bam! Same thing. Either all the security is busy with guy A and you have a free pass, or you get taken out as well. Eventually security will get thinner and thinner and your goal of getting the torch is complete.

If all you want to do is be a moron and get a beat down, by all means, work alone.

There is your anarchy lesson for the day: learn to be a good anarchist, or learn to be a good protestor; I don’t like when people do a half-assed job of important shit… really grinds my gears.

/rant on

Before this post I had seen 2 news reports (not right after each other, about 10 days apart) about 2 different subjects. However, both times I was transfixed into watching for the simple ‘train wreck’ that was unfolding. Specific details are eluding me right now, but the first one was some British reporter (think the segment was called Hard Talk or something along those lines, so you know it’s gonna be one-sided) talking to a Chinese businessman about how China has basically a virtual border. Meaning some web sites are not accessible inside China.

The thing was the interview really didn’t have much to offer, except this fuckwit of an interviewer berating this guy for this censorship, and comparing China’s actions to the Western world way of thinking. Whoa, back the fuck up here bro. Last I checked the West had some pretty serious censorship too, and judging from what I have seen on MTV recently, there should be more in some areas and less in others. Plus, who the fuck are you to berate this guy, implying that the Ways of the West are the ones to adhere to??

/rant off

PS: with some of my rants, I don’t have all the facts, but some things piss me off something fierce and I spew forth some feelings that could be way outta line, but I need to get out.

So. Some time ago, i posted about a short story by Haurki Murakami, that a good friend MB showed me. I knew of Murakami before this, but that's not really important. Another friend had read the story i posted about, like it, bought the book, and apparently bought me one as well, and posted it off to me. (awwwwww) Here is said book:



Now here is the post date on the envelople:



W ... T ... F ... ?? 7. yes 7 weeks - to the day - for it to arrive! srsly? And it's not like the book OR the package is fucked in any way. It appears to have been sitting on a desk somewhere for 6 weeks and then the normal 1-week delivery time! It’s not like it has stamps from 18 different countries either. And for sure, the addresses on it are perfect, and perfectly legible as well.

As if my faith in mankind is not shaky enough to begin with, this makes me loose faith in human competence…

At work today, there was only 4 of us. 3 mechanics and the team manager. quiet day. our new work bays are upstairs this year. one method of getting there involves passing a window. Through this window, you can see to the mezzanine, where the team manager works. Many times, we will knock on the window and communicate with hand signals (window does not open) to avoid the long walk downstairs and then back up to the mezzanine.

We had a great idea all day, and at 5pm we put it into action. We had Sylvan stand on a small rolling platform, with his ass out, me pushing the trolley and Roman knocked on the window. The view from the mezzanine would have been this slow moving ass across his line of sight!

And the look on his face was priceless for the immaturity we displayed in order to get that reaction! Epic.

don't know how it got to be 14 days since the last entry, but alas. Yesterday was a pretty good day. i got out there and caught up on some shit i needed to do for the past 3 weeks, and i felt Swiss like. hustleing and bustleing around before everything closes. Since most things shut at 4 on Sat, and the rest at 5. By 5:30, it's a ghost town.

Hours later:
it's so quite now.. eerie.. the only sounds are the sizzling of the hot coal and the occasional bubbling of my Hukka pipe... i'm going to sit back, close my eyes and think...

hours later:
channel surfing, and i come across some show replaying the facts and events of the Challenger explosion. That was 1986 (pretty sure) and i remember seeing it live at that time. Now 22 years on, i see it again, and much shit flows through my head. I notice i am getting the 'i remember when' events in my head, and i can't help but feel like my parents, and the 'where i was when Kennedy got shot' memories. Just another sign of aging i suppose.

new problem is that my thoughts flow fast, and not everything makes it to paper (or screen), only the essence of the thoughts, and even though it makes sense to me, it might not to other readers, but i don't have the linguistic skills needed to transfer the meaning of the thought to the screen.. I wish i did. i envy friends like MB and AW that manage to write so perfectly, and always seem to say exactly what i am thinking, yet do it in a lot less words than i could!

Since the company i work for rents the flat i live in, and i just pay the rent, many other people have lived there before me. every now and then i will clean out some more shit that has been left behind over the years. Today i find this. Note the posting date of this entry, and then note the expiry date on the flour... Damn.

Random. After the day of boarding with Carmen I brought her to the hotel in Interlaken, it’s not far out of the way, and I’m nice that way. Just as I was leaving Interlaken, I noticed a hitch-hiker. Why the fuck not. So I stopped to help her out. Explaining my German is shit. She explained that she spoke about 5 words of English. Whatever, you want a ride, get in. I almost considered the ‘suck cock or walk’ but figured that only works in movies… :)

‘Where you going?” (I’m writing it in English, but I made a strong attempt in German) ‘Thun’. Great, that’s on the way. After a short way, her destination changed to Munsingen. No worries that’s even closer and easier to get to. Closer to Munsingen her destination changed to the psychiatric hospital in Munsingen. Wtf? Who the hell did I pick up?!? It’s ok, turns out she is going there for rehab, and not for ‘crazy person’ reasons – whatever those might be.

Here’s where it gets a little more bizarre (can it?) when she said she was going to Munsingen, I told her cool, I have a friend that lives there (true). Later when she told me she was going to the psych hospital, I was stunned by the 2 degrees of separation. I told her the friend that I know in Munsingen works at the psych hospital… eerie. Turns out the hitch-hiker does not know my friend (different ward) but since I was in Munsingen, I called that friend and went for a drink to tell her about it. After I described the guest, my friend claimed (and I believe her) to have seen her around the hospital.

Small world.