Okay, I'm not going to be sitting around on here tomorrow, since I have to work, it turns out. My supervisor had to go to the hospital for some respiratory thing, so I will fill in for him tomorrow.

I was going to try and write a Blog here tomorrow for every person on my Friends list, what I like about all of you all, thankful for etc. etc. Which prob woulda been IMPOSSIBLE, but anyway, now I really won't have time to write all that... but maybe I can get to it in doses soon, anyway, since... well, I don't blog much nowadays, eh?

I was going to tell all of you to shop at Walmart on Friday, since the American Family Association was going to boycott them that day since Walmart contributed money to a couple of gay/ lesbian rights causes.... but now Walmart has semi-caved, issuing some half-assed statement that they will try to stay away from controversy, and the AFA has cancelled its boycott. So now, instead, I urge you- please KILL a member of the American Family Association. Kill them, in cold blood. All 23 of them, if possible. Use a gun. Or fork. Or tractor. Whatever you have at hand. Kill them, and kill their fucking "family". Please. Do it for me. And the gays. And Jesus- he'd want you to, too. Thank you.

Hopefully, on Friday, I will have tales of making killer mashed potatoes, dinner-partying with philippetheotter and neighbors, Marion Barber III getting points for me in fantasy football, listening to library CDs at work, and completing a four-star-level sudoku puzzle. Hopefully, you all will have tales of the dead AFA members. See you then. Enjoy, darlings.

I will try to have a good Journal / Blogogoggggg on T-day (the American Thanksgiving, to those abroad and our neighbors to the north), so try n look here then or Friday.

Wednesday - I saw a couple of films with yetimike. Musical Brotherhoods from the Trans-Saharan Highway had a lot of footage of street musicians at night fairs in Morocco. Some great stuff, on banjos and other stringed instruments with battery amplification and lots of drummers on hand-drums, bongos, n such. Very lively stuff, much fun. Sumatran Folk Cinema was more varied, about the music but also TV, ads, and some current events in Indonesia. It was okay too, but I preferred the straightforward musical presentation in the first film. I would've gotten on here sooner to write about it, but it won't be sold on DVD for a year, so if you're in one of the cities where it is shown (they mentioned Baltimore, I remember) you should check it out.

Thursday - Went to a play, Genet's The Maids, at the Back Door Theater on Hawthorne. Sort of a gender-crossing thing (obeying Genet's original plans for the play), with two maids, becoming mentally unstable, plotting to kill the bimbo-rich-woman of the house, and all roles played by guys. Mixes comedy, drama, and wellll The Bizarre of course. Good fun.

Haven't been up to much besides burning some more CDs, figuring out how to empty and re-format my empty hard drive, and since I didn't get anyone on my MySpace offer of doing stuff last night I just borrowed a couple DVDs from Mikael/ Les, who've been sick- got Masked and Anonymous (which was okay) and The Big Lebowski (which of course I've seen before).
Lebowski really helped me back in '98, and still does. I can watch it when I feel like a loser, when my life doesn't have much progress or momentum (especially in the vocational department) and say "Well, neither does Dude's life, and he's doing okay." Really, I NEEDED that message when it came out, and still do sometimes. The Coen's silly mystery movie has actually provided one of the best and most vital "messages" of any film that I've seen, certainly more than any "important" Oscar-winning message movie.

Thanks to brokenbeatnik and GregWeed (not to mention the usual phillipetheotter going-on) for great old times this weekend. Biggest Friday partey evar, me finally hitting a bad karaoke match-up Saturday (it wasn't hard for me to finally find myself out of my range), and the medium-sized bash with the big-sized Mediterranean cookery at the Weed/dovienya place (with the mystery entrance ways).

Yeah, so I did go out every night. I'm just not finding much to blog about otherwise. I feel like I'm in that mode where the end of the year is racing up like a meteor attached to a shinkansen which is on crack, some baaad Thailand crack. Do you all get that time-rush feeling at year's end too? I think it is exacerbated by 1) the cadre of year-end holidays, 2) other things, like school semesters, that run roughly parallel, 3) the calendar-change brings up the whole "time" concept in a way that, say, April-turning-to-May does not.

I thought Borat was okay, but this Great Historic Social-Commentary Movie hype I've seen in reviews is getting out of hand. I was surprised, and a bit disappointed, how much of it is fictionalized, rather than like the TV show (which provides much more social commentary simply due to the greater amounts of non-fictional interviews in it). And it's funny, provides some great lines for sure, but is not THAT great. Don't get me wrong, it is good- but I dunno if it's better than the completely-overlooked Beerfest (which also trades well in bad behavior, shock humor, and broad social/ethnic stereotypes, btw).

I saw some pretty great headlines on Yahoo News lately. One was "Barbados Faces Invasion by Giant Snails." I think they meant, say, 10 to 12 inch snails hurting crops, but obviously 200 foot ones would be neater. Then I saw "Piracy Fines to Increase in Vietnam." Turns out they don't mean Captain Kidd or Blackbeard, but rather software copiers. In a side note, the fine for piracy in Vietnam is 100 million dong. That's 100 million dong.

I finished Rory Stewart's The Places In Between. I guess that's, wow, two books down for me in 2006? I dunno who here is interested, so I'm not gonna do a long typed excerpt. I learned a lot, though. Interesting to see the hospitality or aggression, beautiful sites or horrid weather and war-torn sites, he runs into.
Did you know the religious make-up of Afghanistan? The Taliban were (or, with their resurgence, I should say "are") Sunni Muslim, as are most of the people in the west and south regions. The Hazara people in the central mountains, who physically have Asian/ Mongol-descended physical features, are Shia Muslim... as a result, they suffered the worst under the Taliban. The Taliban burned orchards, stole livestock, held mass executions, and bombed/ burnt villages much more in Hazara areas. In most other areas, the Taliban rarely had influence and were seen neutrally or even favorably.
Sunni Muslims are, as you might guess from the Taliban, a more ascetic, bare-bones version of Islam- no worship of saints, idolatry, or mysticism allowed, and the stricter social rules. This kinda conflicts with what you might expect, from Iraq being Sunni and relatively modernist under Saddam Hussein.
To me, one of the most interesting things of the book was seeing, as Rory went from ethnic group to ethnic group and town to town, which places had a good or bad opinion of (among other things) Russia, the Taliban, the U.S., the Karzai government, and so on. It turns out that past or present collaboration with any of these may or may not be acceptable, depending on the place. In some areas, it would be perfectly acceptable to have collaborated with, or given recreational business to, the Russian invasion forces of the 1980s. Also, there were some warlords who went any way the wind blew, collaborating with Russia, then the Taliban, then with people who were (more or less) U.S. allies (although, to most people Rory met, the U.S. was at best an abstract concept, with most people never having travelled far outside their village and no radio/ TV/ print media).

Glad to have seen brokenbeatnik around (karaoke tomorrow), and hope to see hansel tonight before he leaves town. I can't say as I spent a HUGE amount of time with them, but he and Eddie are extremely boss folks, and I can def say I'd love to see them and Canada some day next year.

Still need to see Borat. You might wonder if Rory Stewart ran into any Borats in Afghanistan. Noooo. He said people would mention the beauty of Persian women for dinner conversation when he was in Iran, but Pakistani and Afghan villagers of all cultures didn't discuss women.

Things went pretty well tonite.* Freakin A.


*I meant for recovering from crap and hanging out with the great folks, but for the Democrats too, but I mainly meant for the former, since I'm nonpartisan.

ps - more funn at video

I've got a bad-ass cold going on. Cold, flu, whatever- when you get a handful of crappy symptoms, it's all the same. I had to work anyway, since... I get no sick leave, or annual leave, or any leave. At least my fever and headache seem under control from ibuprofen.

Last night went to Pirates o t C 2 with howdypardner. We hadn't hung out in a bit, and it was great to see her, a de-light. I can see people's complaints that the movie isn't as personality-driven as the first, that there's less funn dialogue; it was mostly about the action... but it's hard to judge either way, since it's really serving to set up #3, as people also told me. It should've been shorter, mostly. About 2 1/2 hours. 20 minutes could've been zapped.

Friday night, went to a quietish evening at Mikael/ Les's. I guess I've been fighting these cold symptoms for days. Decided to not go to Joan Jett/ Eagles of Death Metal, gonna miss a great karaoke chance with brokenbeatnik tonight, sadly. Yeah, and I really DO want to drink and sing, and see him... but I'll have to wait at least a night or two. Being sick and not gettin much sleep has me feeling rough as crap.

Sorry this entry is so boringly autobiographical and factual. I will try to make up scandalous junk next time. Ah, my kale is steamed. Time to kick back, imbibe lots of vitamin C, and watch NFL.... still, shame about missin the beatnik. Here's hoping for Tuesday.

I was gonna write about the Oregon election stuff, but I'm afraid to now. I'd probably just look stupid. Suffice to say, I'm torn on some ballot measures between my youthful idealism and my allegiance with conservative types that govt. programs, spending, and involvement usually don't add up to helping anything. My basic attitude about how the world works right now is 1) big businesses primarily care about making money, and things like employee wages and health care and the environment don't matter, usually, 2) the government (including both major US parties) cares about making big businesses happy; they are, after all, the ones who fund the parties, 3) people love war; all these different people in different countries with wildly disparate cultures and virtually identical religions (despite their prejudices and protestations to the contrary) just looooovvvve looooovvvve going to war.
You could say I feel cynical.

Nobody said a peep about my ridiculous Ryan Phillipe (or "Phillippe") musings, last blog. Fair enough. They were mostly for weird-humor effect, and I suppose it could bring up scary visuals... but you weren't supposed to picture me being all sexed up. I admit, that's scary. It was Ryan that you were supposed to picture nakey. So that's not so scary, right?

I finally got an iPod. 21st century, here I come.

I think I have a cold. The true Oregon weather is out, but I can't complain. it's not like it rained all summer, or much in October.

I have been musing a Member Name change. I dunno if, in almost 4 years, I've ever used anything other than "Cheech." I might've put "loserCheech" some time when I felt utterly maudlin, but I can't remember. Anyway, I was thinking of calling myself CoachBelichick. This would be a sort of positive thing- me identifying with a winner, a true star, the man whom Jim Rome refers to simply as "Hooded Sweatshirt." At events, you could refer to me as my actual name, or "Coach." I have smoked more pot this year than any in my life, but I still don't consider myself a pot smoker, so I still feel a bit odd about the "Cheech" name, that it might give people the wrong idea. (On the other hand, what is "the right idea"??)(btw, I know Bristow won't like this name already.)

Anyway, I don't feel so bad. That's just what's goin on now. I hope to go to BORAT with bankerboy.

Not much goin on.

KALE STALKS
I've been steaming fresh, leafy greens from farmer markets for half a year now. When I got collards or kale, I always used to throw away a large part of the stalks, i.e. the stem part that is not leafy. I dunno why I got into this practice, but I got to thinking- when I bought frozen chopped collards, the stems would be chopped up and mixed in with the leaves. So last night, I made gigantic-leaf kale with the enormous-ass stalks broken up in it, and I have to say that I think I will MARRY kale stalks soon. They taste better than baked potatoes... or French fries. Yes, I went there. Better than fries. Someone needs to open a steamed leafy greens restaurant... and none of this crappy pig-parts-in-collards, like Big Daddy BBQ. I DON'T WANT SWINE in my leafy vegetables. Damn it!

I ADVERSELY TURNED RYAN PHILLIPE BISEXUAL, TELEPATHICALLY
I was sitting around work yesterday, in the morning, kinda staring out the window and thinking about what other jobs I might have, theoretically. I was mulling sex work... if, of course, I had been born someone hot. My thoughts were along the lines of, "If I was.... I dunno.... say, Ryan Phillipe, I could be a bisexual gigolo. Yep, I'm sure if one looked like Ryan Phillipe, the bisexual gigolo market would be easily attainable." Roughly 4 hours later, I see that Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillipe have SEPARATED. Coincidence? Maybe. I'd hate to think my thoughts of a bisexual gigolo vocation* would have broken up a (relatively) long-term Hollywood cute-perky power-marriage.

PHYSICAL AND MENTAL CRAPPINESS
bankerboy has proclaimed this "The Season Of Crap," and I seem to jibe with that, since at any point in the last 1 1/2 weeks I have felt either physically or mentally crappy. Saturday, I was gonna go to a Kirsten Dunst/ Sophia Coppola vehicle with adiospardner, but started feeling so sick and tense that I thought I had food poisoning like last Saturday, when I apparently had a hangover and food poisoning (no, I do not think it was simply a hangover. I've had some of those and know what they're like), so I went straight to bed and figured, what with (what with?) Daylight Savings Time, I would get a full night's sleep and feel fine. The next day, though, I felt ridiculously tired all day... after 8 hours of sleep. So last night, I deliberately stayed up late since sleep didn't seem to "work" lately, got maybe 5 hours of sleep, and feel fine tonight.

BEEN BURNING SONGS FROM LIBRARY CDs
Bellamy Brothers, Buddy Holly, Grateful Dead, Jesus & Mary Chain, Bill Haley & the Comets, Christopher Cross, Bread, Del Shannon, Pere Ubu, Hall & Oates, Run-DMC, that type of thing.

A FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT
it's not inside-out, but front-to-back, cuz inside-out
is wiggidy-wiggidy-wiggidy WACK

WASTE TIME
is what you've done if you read all of this. Sorry.

(*not to be confused with a "bisexual gigolo vacation," which is a whole 'nother premise)

I weighed the merits of long, self-examining blog-spiel about my angst and restlessness, and the many things I've been doin lately, versus another annoying YouTube-video-as-blog which will appeal to extremely few people....





I know, I know... but it's that damned drum machine. It has me hyp-mo-tized