Amster-DAYUM, son!

Greetings from Amstery Park, NJ. Some reflections on this great Dutch city for your enjoyment:

- Everyone here is attractive, slim and under the age of 50; all the men wear blazers and all the women look like they would dominate in bed.

- The one man I noticed over the age of 50 was wearing a tweed blazer with light blue jeans, a pink woven undershirt, a poofy red scarf and matching red socks with very nice brown shoes. His hair also made my own father's mop look like a crew-cut.

- Everyone here is very determined to get where they're going--cyclists will opt for a crash before they wince at intersecting traffic, I have not seen a car slow down once, and all the well-dressed men and women look like they're en route to the final stage of their spy mission.

- In spite of the above point, people are generally friendly, although one is likely sooner to experience the apocalypse than a waiter give you the time of day.

- The newspapers here make the Epigram look like the New York Times. Mind that I cannot read the content, but the oversized tabloid papers are just hard on the eyes.

- Couples will sit and smoke on a patio with seemingly nothing to do in the middle of the day. It's Wednesday, people!

I think that's all for now. More on this zany adventure as it develops. Tonight, jetlag sleep; tomorrow, windmills!

I Love the Internet part 231541 of 7325429

Not the Liberian Dictator

Check out this video.

After Heather Munroe-Blum speaks horrendous French for a while, she switches to what I can only assume is even more horrific Japanese. But then skip ahead to about minute 50 and Charles Taylor (the McGill philosopher and political scientist, not the Liberian dictator) and a U of T science dude have a sweet conversation about the "rift" between the humanities and sciences.

I liked it.

Dubai - Where the blogger bar is in arabic.

It's been a while. I've been living my life way too happily for the past few months but since all that has gone away, it's back to this. I only write when I'm unhappy. Or just bored as sin. And being bored as sin makes me pretty unhappy so I guess they go hand in hand.
It's around 40 degrees here every day. I've been to two different malls since I got here 3 days ago and haven't spent more than half an hour outside - all together. There's fucking sand everywhere. No trees. I haven't smoked a cigarette in 4 days. It's not making me happy at all.
Today I went out and bought a bunch of graphic novels just so there would be something to do. That and watching TV shows. But seeing as Grey's Anatomy ended yesterday and Lost ended on Wednesday, this obviously isn't a very permanent arrangement.
Nobody I like is in this stupid sandbox. Probably because all of them were smart enough to realize what a fuckhole it is in the summer.
My mom is happy to see me again. I'm happy to see her again too but I'm also miserable as hell just being here. And I can't tell her that because she hasn't seen me in 4 months and that would be a dick move.
I can't sleep at night. I stay up till 6am because of the jet lag. The nights are the worst too. Plus, once I do get to sleep I have ridiculous dreams that for some stupid reason scare me enough that I have to wake myself up and then keep myself up so I don't start dreaming about the same things again. So I've been sleeping about 3 hours.
Fuck this.

spaghetti's gone cold

today i'm going through my old artwork in an attempt to find something that i can include in my portfolio.

it's funny how every little thing holds a memory. there is a lot of stuff that, at the time, i thought was pretty good. looking back on it though, from two years in the future and with an unbiased eye (or at least with a more unbiased eye), most of it's shit.

i think if you're not constantly hating your past self, you're not growing anywhere.