Awesome Dude of the Week Blog

商鞅

2010-12-23T11:33:00.000-08:00

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Q&A

wasn't he gay?
you're thinking of Lord Long Yang. This is Lord Shang Yang

why are severe punishments referred to as draconian?
the word "draconian" is a shout out to Δράκων, who back 'round 620BC, wrote down all the laws and posted 'em up so they were accessible to all. Prior to this, the laws were just oral ones that were applied and enforced kinda arbitrarily. Dude legitimized everything by publishing the whole set, and significantly increased the number of infractions punishable by death. Hence the term "draconian." Coupla years later, Σόλων revised the laws and made Athens

who was that guy with the silly hat that you said made China?
秦始皇
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making youtubes for dudes who deserve 'em is one thing, but making youtubes for dudes that posterity has hereunto under appreciated is quite another. ADW #4 was my first. Nobody ever acknowledged the debt of gratitude that 'Merica has for the man who took us from quasi-independent vassal state to super-power, but I give credit where it is due. ϷΑΟΝΑΝΟϷΑΟ ΚΑΝΗϷΚΙ ΚΟϷΑΝΟ doesn't even rank on the majority of most influential people ever lists, but he was the 11th one I deemed an Awesome Dude of the Week

. . .

Confucius is my #1 favorite guy of all time, yet here I've done three Anti-Confucionist ADWs. There will be plenty more of 'em from the 100 schools of thought, but suppose 朱熹 should get one soon.

. . .

still ridiculously slow in churning these ones out, but at least I'm getting better at images. Almost everything in this one was either a recycled or slightly modified picture from a previous ADW. Had a few jokes, but am making an effort to curtail the use of LOLcat silliness

. . .

there is a bunch of intro stuff consisting of legends and stories and all that, and the actual laws and philosophy are kinda interesting. I didn't bother to read the whole thing and wouldn't necessarily recommend y'all do either, but anyone who is unfamiliar with the Warring States period should spend 10-15 minutes flipping through The Book of Lord Shang and getting a better appreciation for it

بیرونی

2010-10-14T19:18:00.000-07:00

Q&A
you promised in your previous blog that you were gonna stop flashing pictures of people without saying their names, and then you did exactly that. Who were those guys involved in that "versus" thing?

I'll even give you their names in English and not their native languages:
team περιπατητικός = Aristotle, Avicenna, and Thomas Aquinas
team math/science = Al-Biruni, Ibn al-Haytham, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstien, and Larry Flynt

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since he was the punchline to the first ever ADW, it is only appropriate that he lead off season 2, which had been delayed signicantly due to a combination of laziness and this other youtube video I had to make for a job application . And then more laziness, since the whole thing was finished like 3 weeks ago and it took me that long to get around to rerecording and editing the audio (a process that takes all of 12 minutes). Promised that season 2 would be more rapid-fire and intense, so had to re-record the audio for this one. The first version was alright, but I think excited and outta breath is a better angle for me than lackadiscal and subdued. This one wasn't really excited and outta breath at all, but 'bout time I just published it already and got to work on the next one

the picture of his crater is from Google Moon. They've had Google Earth for some years now, and Google Mars is the newest one. Not content on conquering the world, our friends at Google are taking over other celestial bodies too. (disclaimer: this blog is hosted by Google, as are all my youtubes. And my emails. At the moment Google is still losing to iThings with regards to hip cell phones, but prolly not for long. GO GOOGLE ! ! ! ! !)

season 2 = faster, simpler, sloppier

2010-07-28T18:43:00.000-07:00

been a good while, but reckon it's time to start churning out some new ADWs. The plan for now is to lessen my production values in exchange for an increase in ease and frequency. Managed to put out one a week whilst I had an address, but homelessness resulted in a drop-off in production, and outsourcing myself to India reduced 'em to a dismal average of one per month. Kept getting fancier and fancier with more pictures and behind the scenes features and all sorts of unnecessary stuff. Don't nobody care 'bout that, all folks want is some insight into things we never learned in school. 1st century Greco-Buddhists and the Pope's pirates and inventing paper and the number zero and flaming camels and stuff like that. Plus connections that defy conventions like John Conner being a proponent of Mohism and Napoléon Bonaparte being responsible for so many Miss Universes being boricuas. Ideas and opinions, not production values

check out this video and see what I mean:

that there has pictures, video clips, audio, and pretty much everything I am technologically capable of doing (with the exception of stop-motion stuff). A ridiculous amount of research and confirming and triple checking and editing and blah, blah, blah. Cute and funny, but still far from perfect. Certainly not worth the 8 weeks it took to make it. 8 weeks = too much time to spend making a 5 minute youtube

quantity over quality is the plan for now. Streamlining the operation and relegating witticisms/jokes to the blog. Also doing away with that whole refusing to say names thing that hereunto has been one of the cute/annoying hallmarks of the ADW franchise. Had this whole thing 'bout translations and that which we call a rose by any other name and all that. Also liked referring to dudes by ADW ID rather than by name. That practice ain't carrying over into Season 2

sleeker, meaner, and more hard core = the 2010-2011 ADWs

that other project

2010-04-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

audio ain't perfect, coupla glitches and Cousin Dick's bit has some exploding "p" sounds, but I can always re-record it later. The first couple are basically just me reading the captions from the pics I posted on the myspace and in that facebook album. Had originally thought I'd do something with all the pics I have of 'em together, but maybe I'll incorporate some in later

this should only be a rough draft, hoping to have a bunch of chapters and put everything together on a DVD for everyone at the reunion in July. We'll see how productive/lazy I am over these next few months

. . .

suppose I need to work on my impressions. My Calvin Coolidge and George HW Bush sound almost identical

. . .

didn't even bother saying anything 'bout FDR or lil' George, since I figure everyone is familiar 'nuff with both of 'em. Although the phrase "me and Dub" is amazing. Like on the Cosby Show when Rudy would call her friend Bud. Cousin Dubya is his formal name, but his closest friends/family all know him as Dub

. . .

reckoned the Vietnam War pic I had was too distracting so I swapped it out for something more generic. Perhaps if you were alive during the era and were familiar with the image, it wouldn't have the same shock value, but damn. Raising any kind of controversy would defeat the purpose of this light-hearted video though, so opted to just go with a mundane pic that no one will remember

replaced this one

with this one

. . .

still not sure if Millard Fillmore is a cousin. Some of his ancestors were from Norwich, CT and Ipswich, MA. Our people founded those towns and impregnated pretty much everyone who came through, so is possible that he's another cousin

on hiatus

2010-04-12T02:38:00.000-07:00

Q & A
if you are gonna go through the effort of resizing and uploading pictures to a photo sharing website so you can embed them into your blog entry, shouldn't you have just gone ahead and finished making your lil' youtube video?
this one had been stagnating for a while already and there are other projects on which I wanna focus. Rather than continue to push back it's release date and having this annoying guilt gnawing away at me anthropomorphically, reckoned it was better for me to proverbially put this one on the proverbial back burner[1]

that's it? You only made 4 in the last 4 months and now you're quitting? Is ADW the new LEGOMAN?
maybe. LEGOMAN had a youtube and a myspace and a blog and a gmail account. Fun times and a learning experience. And don't tell me this isn't one of the best uses of a 15 minute coffee break ever:

only thing I really regret was never using all those Rob Schneider pictures I had. LEGOMAN loved Rob Schneider and would post one of his iconic characters in the movies section of his weekly myspace profile updates. I had amassed quite a collection of Rob Schneider photos, and was gonna have LEGOMAN use a still from a film as his movies section and a shot of Rob Schneider on a talk show or somewhere (being Rob Schneider and not a character) as his heroes section. LEGOMAN's infatuation with Rob Schneider was hilarious, and I had a ridiculous stock of Rob Schneider making funny faces pictures

when will you grace us with more ADWs?
no idea. Hopefully soon. I enjoy making these, but I gotta get started on this other project that has a deadline. Everything was just temporary 'til I got settled into my apartment in Mumbai, but that never happened. 2 months later I still don't have a plan, so might as well just chalk this one up as an L and focus on other things. Might be back in a week or two with this 'Merican or might get y'all a Muslim conqueror from the 500 - 1000 era. Whatever inspires me. Don't do hardly nothing outta obligation and I've already missed too many deadlines for those to be relevant
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this one is stuck in development hell. Was actually one of the first ADWs considered and caused me to open my brain and spew an entire tangential blog on the spot. Was hoping to find a better candidate to fill the allotted quota, but reckoned I had a sufficiently creative spin to render all objections moot. Off to a great start, innovated a bit with stop motion animation, and made a pair of pictures worth a thousand words. Check out these scathing images:

take that Maryland and 'Merica

also trashed Moses and big upped Toussaint Louverture. And called out Abe Lincoln for being racist. Abe Lincoln will get spared the wrath for now, but I'll give y'all this quote and let you try to interpret it as anything other than an eloquent way to say "WHITE POWER ! ! ! !"

I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. ... And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

not like that was taken outta context either (you can't take an entire paragraph outta context, an entire paragraph IS context). And not like that was the only time Honest Abe expressed his opinion on the matter. Plenty of quotes and votes and evidence of whatever type you want. Abe Lincoln was racist. Like, really really really really really racist. He'll be exposed for what he was soon 'nuff, but feel free to continue holding him in high regard 'til I get 'round to finishing and publishing this ADW. Hopefully that'll be soon, but I don't exactly have the best track record when it comes to completing tasks I postpone indefinitely. Ask me sometime 'bout that state quarters blog
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[1]have been proverbially doing things to the proverbial whatever since '07, but methinks it's high time I started emphasizing the anthropomorphical in overused metaphors. While coming up with original poetic phrases is unquestionably better, making fun of clichés is way easier. And I can totally justify it as community service because I am dissuading folks from being generic. Following the herd and not forging your own trail and marching to the beat of your own drum is a slippery slope to being a stick in the mud. JK! OMG! LOL!

चाणक्य

2010-03-16T04:56:00.000-07:00

Q & A
why didn't you say anything 'bout him being a Sakaldwipiya from Golla?

why didn't you say anything 'bout him being a Brahmin from Takshila?

why didn't you say anything 'bout him being from Dravida?

hey, isn't that Tom Hanks in the Machiavelli stage play? I didn't know he did theater
good eye. Here is a better picture of him from the play. The role of Callimaco in La Mandragola was actually Hanks' only New York stage performance

thank you for your question. So often all I get are stupid ones berating me for neglecting to mention unsubstantiated claims of ethnicity
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Best of YouTube
most of the videos are just clips from that 47 part television series 'bout him made back in 1990

my favorite has gotta be this one. It's just a bunch of quotes set to cool chant music, but there is a charm in its simplicity and straightforwardness

this one is really odd. A female Steven Hawking voice is reading something while a kid is playing baseball and then there are some candles and this goofy music. Not quite sure what is going on there

some college students sit around drinking, smoking cigarettes, and talking 'bout his book. Not really very interesting, but suppose if you have a thing for Filipino girls . . .

this guy made a cool chart outlining key subjects in the book. Apparently, he has a bunch more stuff on his website. He has a part 2 and 3 video as well

more Filipino college students (or maybe the same ones). Ain't really my thing, but seems like them pervs who are into Asian girls could start internet dating one of these chicks with a few positive youtube comments
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DVD Bonus Features
see how I'm classing up this operation? Videos continue to improve (I hope), but it's the extras that have really been taken to the next level. Had figured my non-canonical ADW youtube account would just be for jokes and stuff, but it has quickly evolved to be so much more

realize I say "record," "reckoned," and "reckoned" within a 10 second span, but I ain't re-editing the audio on a deleted scenes commentary. Shoulda been "record," "figured," and "reckoned." Whatever, imperfect deleted scenes commentary is still raising the bar

next week I might do some outtakes. Or a full behind the scenes "the making of" ADW documentary. Outtakes are hilarious. I get all angry and curse and stuff. Sometimes I repeat a word over and over and over again to get it right. Prolly plenty of funny stuff in the C:\Users\Ian Murphy\Videos\Narration folder. I was gonna delete everything since I don't like clutter (I'm sure feng shui applies to computer hard drives as well), but perhaps I can turn some of my trash into treasure
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Ramblings and Links and Pictures and Stuff

Alexander the Great has received shout-outs in the last two ADW videos. Unprecedented. Plus he was like half of the previous blog. بیرونی had been the most anticipated future ADW since week 1, but now we have a new front-runner. अशोक is swiftly climbing the ranks as well. There were a preposterous number of ADWs and future ADWs in this video. Suppose I should list 'em all with links to their wikipedias and ADW youtubes (where applicable). I could be a jerk and link to the wikipedia written in their language, but I'll just give y'all the English ones

चाणक्य
Μέγας Ἀλέξανδρος

अशोक
秦始皇
Raden Wijaya
Nezahualcóyotl
تیمور
Βελισάριος
ধর্মপাল
ಶ್ರೀ ಕೃಷ್ಣದೇವರಾಯ
Κανηϸκι
Julius Caesar

also throw references to Ἀριστοτέλης, Πλάτων, 孔丘, and 墨子. Most likely they'll all be ADWs as well. 墨子 already got his and 商鞅 will for sure get one. Just look at his Official ADW Teaser

what amazing pose for a statue. All surly and full of contempt. That's gotta be one of the most disgruntled statues ever. He gets to be the Legalism quadrant and since 老子 is a bit too mythical for ADW status, reckon 莊子 will be the Taoist representative. And you best believe that there will be way more dudes from the Hundred Schools of Thought too. Much as I love me some medieval Muslim scholars, ancient Chinese philosophers are still my favorite

張騫

2010-02-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

questions/controversies this video inspired
wait, how do you pronounce Kushan? In the Κανηϸκι video you kept saying Kush-un, and here you are saying Kush-an. Which is it?
it's pronounced phonetically. I was just saying it that way so I could make the joke, "more Kushan for the pushin." I apologize for misinforming everyone, especially since most folks prolly didn't realize I was pronouncing it incorrectly on purpose. Still though, the expansion of the Kushan Empire = "more Kushan for the pushin" is hilarious. And then this picture !!!!! I am too funny! Seriously though, my bad for the confusion

why didn't you mention anything 'bout him marrying a Xiongnu girl?
because it is completely irrelevant. Doesn't really matter how many wives or concubines or whatever anyone had. Or if they preferred dudes or lil' boys. What folks do in their bedrooms is their own business and really has nothing to do with them being awesome. Unless of course there was some funny harem-related drama or dude fathered 110 kids or something, in which case it totally adds to their awesomeness

the Huns were Mongolian?
just a rumor, but a pretty darn good one. And since no one has got anything better, it's kinda the default "no one knows who they were, but they might've been the Xiongnu." Plus everyone was intermarrying and had like 10 wives and their stories were only written by their victims who most likely embellished and imagined everything anyways

wait, what is so awesome 'bout 張騫? Isn't he basically just Christopher Columbus? The first Chinese guy to "discover" the west? If he wouldn't have, someone else would've within the next few decades/centuries
that's actually a very good question. Usually I just get stupid ones. Last week someone asked me 'bout an Orlando Bloom movie. At first I was going to answer you here, but decided to go back and incorporate my response into the final paragraph of the youtube. The final paragraph before the epilogue that is. That epilogue ending was just too cool to change

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for some reason I prefer watching other people's youtubes 'bout dude after I've already published mine. Makes me feel like their peer and not someone trying to mooch ideas/pictures. I think Best Non-ADW Youtube will become a regular feature of the column

this week's winner is easy. You know the video is going to be fabulous when its description is "History of Chona goes back 5000 years"

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had a lil' bit of trouble settling upon his official ADW pic. This was the one I was going to use:

he is all ugly and dumpy and cute. Too small though, and it didn't blow up well so anyone who was watching the youtube in full screen mode wouldn've just seen some pixels. Plus his silly hat didn't completely fit in the frame. There are some statues of him, but they are either generic and lacking in personality or depict him as some type of great military conqueror, whereas I want him to be more of an Indiana Jones/Cap'n Kirk type[1]. This one is kind of a cool lonely cowboy far from home shot, but is totally lacking in swagger:

and this one is just not all at awesome

went with him as a charismatic bad-ass, and decided to include the horse since the fear in its eye juxtaposed with 張騫's calm arrogance adds so much to the effect. Napoléon had the same horse, but he just comes across as effeminate

speaking of dudes who look awful in their iconic picture of them on a horse, check out Alexander the Great:

when it is really small it looks ok, but the more you zoom in the worse it gets

that is horrible. I am shocked and appalled that there ain't some better pictures of him on the google images. His ADW pic has him wearing a lion's head as a hat. Pretty damn cool:

the full statue with his horse trampling one dude and him 'bout to mash this other guy is good stuff too:

suppose I coulda used one of his shampoo commercial busts, but dude deserves a totally thugged out ADW, especially because lately his homosexuality or pedophilia or whatever has kinda overshadowed some of his awesomeness. Genghis Khan can have an unintimidating pic because his reputation precedes him. That he looks like some mild-mannered guy on a bus almost makes him even more awesome:

Μέγας Ἀλέξανδρος, however needs the emphasis to be placed upon his conquering and slaughtering and subjugating and ass-kicking. It wasn't for his sexual prowess that he is known as "the Great"

. . .

these past few ADWs I've had to completely rerecorded the audio. Nezahualcóyotl mighta come out on the first take, but seems like lately there have been lots of rewrites and changes made after the initial recording and editing. Like I'll finish and then go back and do it again. That sucks. I like doing it and having it be done. Unfortunately, now I've evolved to the point where I like it to be done well. Coupla months ago I woulda just uploaded anything to the youtube and been done with it. The fun is in learning 'bout dude and his era or field of expertise and then writing a humorous summary of his accomplishments and setting it to pictures. That is a lot of fun. Having an idea and then finding a google images picture that matches it perfectly. Me giggling as I watch my youtube is more reminding myself of how much fun I had than anything else

now, much as I still enjoy all the creativity, the end result is also important to me. Suppose earlier it was also more a matter of churning out a dude a week as well, wheres now I opt for quality over a consistent quantity. The video you see here is the good one, but I also uploaded the draft one. Put a whole bunch of notes on the description too, not that I think anyone really cares, but I reckon it doesn't hurt to document the process. Kinda like the director's commentary on the deleted scenes portion of the DVD

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[1]um . . . 張騫 left on his mission when he was 57 and didn't return until he was 70. Isn't that a bit older than Indiana Jones or Cap'n Kirk?
stupid questions are supposed to go in the intro, not the footnotes. Plus Indiana Jones was 58 in that horrible Shia LaBouef meets Jar-Jar Binks nuke the fridge movie. And was played by a 66 year old Harrison Ford. Cap'n Kirk was 60 in the Generations movie played by a 63 year old William Shatner. So shut up

Barbaros Hayreddin Paşa

2010-02-08T10:24:00.000-08:00

questions/controvercies this video inspired
how is he responsible for Columbus and Vasco Da Gama and them if he didn't even start being a pirate until years after they left on their voyages?
shut up. Europeans couldn't use the Mediteranian for trade due to piracy. He was the #1 pirate of all time. Maybe Columbus and Vasco Da Gama and them knew what was good for them and pre-emptively starting seeking alternate routes to Asia

um . . . the Knights Hospitaller provided medical care to pilgrims in the Holy Land. Hospitaller = Hospital. They weren't pirates or mercenaries
ok, and the Ku Klux Klan were merely a non-profit organization advocating the rights of a marginalized group victimized by the occupying government. You're an idiot

wasn't the Geoffrey Rush character Captain Barbossa from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies based on him?
no, shut up

um . . . those don't look like Andalusians in the thumbnail pic. You sure those are Muslims fleeing Spain?
ha ha ha, you got me. Those are Rohingya refugees who were denied entry into Thailand. The other google image results for "boat people" were Vietnamese or Hatian or (even you have your SafeSearch set to "Strict") topless ladies with unnaturally large breats. Still though, persecuted Muslims in an old-timey looking boat fleeing an oppressive government (Myanmar) is totally applicable to how dude and his brother got their nickname

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looked up how to pronounce the Turkish alphabet so I could try to get his name right, but kinda surprised that of all the youtubes folks have made 'bout him no one talks. Mostly just music and pictures and text. I like this one the best

at 5:33, this is by far the longest youtube yet. It also has over 100 images, another record. Originally this one was going to be a rush job, as I had internet drama for a few days and really wanted to get in a January ADW. Coulda cranked it out and together with the year in review one woulda had me 2 blogs for the month. Instead decided to take my time and just let it get finished when it got finished. I have a lot of fun researching and writing these (not so much fun the editing) and seemed a pity to waste the joy stressing 'bout a self-imposed deadline. My stats can be skewed, I don't care

missing my deadline meant I stopped caring and it wound up taking me an entire week ere I finally got around to finishing it. Originally was too lazy to even rerecord the poor audio, but for whatever reason whenever I tried to save it (publish movie), it kept skipping the first half of sentences. So I rerecorded the entire thing. Bleah. I want an intern or somebody. Labor here in India is cheap, see if I can't get me someone to edit and do all the annoying tedious tasks for me

. . .

most everything I found relating to him read just like the wikipedia article, but apparently there is someone else out there doing what I do albeit in blog form and with an emphasis on violence. My Awesome Dudes can be scientists/inventors, religious folk/philosophers, emperors/kings, military conquerors/strategists, or whomever I deem sufficiently interesting. My colleague over at Badass of the Week has chosen a much narrower scope on which to focus

I heartily applaud him for his project and wish him all the best. Here's his Hayreddin Barbossa one

. . .

initially had him ranked better "than pretty much any pirate before or since," but figured I should do a lil' research to verify that entirely unsubstantiated claim. Turns out I was wrong. Really wrong. There is no other pirate who even comes close. His brother, the original Baba Oruç, is prolly the second best pirate of all time. All the other pirates in history combined don't have half the resume of this guy. I'd provide some links or drop some names, but no one even deserves to be considered his peer. Seriously, don't ask the google for a list of pirates. You will be disappointed. While the Puerto Rican Robin Hood and a few others certainly deserve their statues, most pirates are nothing more than breakfast cereal mascots

. . .

everyone who has ever uttered the phrase "war on terror" needs to watch Rambo III. Laurence of Arabia is a better movie, but Rambo hits a lil' closer to home since it is the Mujahideen he inspires to be awesome. Rambo III is without question the #1 Taliban recruiting video of all time

ADW 2K9 year in review

2010-02-01T12:58:00.000-08:00

so while making this video was good times and I am quite pleased with the results, it also served to remind me how much I hate editing videos. I tend to be more of an ideas guy, some good and mostly bad, but big picture stuff is my specialty. Can rock details and be meticulous as well, but tend to get bored after a while. Which is why I still have yet to post that state quarters blog from April 2K9. Editing videos sucks. Or at least it does using Windows Movie Maker

all in all, ADW had a pretty good inaugural year. Obviously lots of mistakes and sloppiness, but reckon the youtubes've achieved an equilibrium with which I can be content. Sound quality was without a doubt the most annoying inconsistency. Some of 'em are barely even audible, others have too much static or an explosion/silence when I say a word that begins with the letter p. Most of those issues could be easily rectified if ever decide to rerecord/remix any of 'em, but that ain't gonna be happening any time soon

also glad I finally ended the long-running youtube thumbnail drama. When you embed a video, the image that appears before you push play is called the thumbnail. Youtube lets you chose the thumbnail from one of three images, supposedly capturing what appears at the 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 marks of the video. 'Cept it often messes up the timing and gives you images that are not from the 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 marks. Usually you can just re-edit the video and add a second or two to either the beginning or end and get a new set of thumbnails. Since I often have jokes and tangential references that really shouldn't be the official ADW youtube image, it is important that I get an appropriate thumbnail. Best one is for sure the official ADW pic of dude with his dates. Worst is the official ADW pic of someone else. Still from movies or jokes/tangential references without context are also completely unacceptable. Editing and uploading a video that is already finished ain't no fun at all. 'Specially when you gotta do it a whole bunch of times. Quite infuriating when it takes longer to get an appropriate thumbnail picture that it did to do the research, write the script, and make the video

(click on it for a bigger picture, the blogspot only supports tiny images)

Youtube didn't give me the option of using Raden Wijaya's official ADW pic until I added an extra 2 minutes of dead time to the original video. It kept wanting me to use Gajah Mada's future ADW teaser or Daniel Day Lewis versing Leonardo DiCaprio or a bombed out Beirut. These images all perfectly illustrated something in the video, but made no sense at all as a Rayden Wijaya thumbnail. Eventually I opted for the monsoon winds pic. Stressful and completely unproductive to versus the youtube over thumbnail images. Also uploaded 10 墨子 and 16 تیمور videos, but didn't feel the need to document my doing so for posterity

. . .

might shy away from, if not completely abolish the quota system. Realized I messed up by following Βελισάριος with Nezahualcóyotl in the 5th installment of the "other" quadrant. 'Merican following the European was precedent, but forgot I had swapped out the African for a European because couldn't find sufficient info 'bout any አክሱም dudes. 2 Europeans, 2 'Mericans, and 0 Africans in the backwards tribes and castes category. So much for quotas. Plus, aside from some Sapa Incas I gotta translate from the Spanish to the English wikipedias, don't really have that many more worthy 'Mericans. And Africa is even more hurting. Providing youtubes to under-recognized folks remains the objective, but I refuse to belittle the awesomeness by including any tokens

. . .

surprising the number of dudes whose lives straddled eras. Tried to stick the tweeners in their period of floruit (like my dates are 1979 - 20??, but my fl. clearly puts me in the 2000 - 2500 category) and that helped a bit. Stil have a coupla that achieved awesomeness over multiple 500 year spans, but whatever

obviously I have too high a percentage of medieval dudes. I'll try and increase the number of old-school brothers, but as my infatuation with golden era Islamic scholars is unlikely to diminish, doubt the graph will change all that significantly. The numbers for the most recent cohort are fine, since they should be 'bout half those of the others according to the "Gotta have at least a coupla hundred years of perspective ere you can be deemed awesome" rule I expounded upon in the first non-canonical ADW. While the difficulty of finding information is often correlated with the old-timeyness of the dude it is regarding, I'll try and get some more BC folks (and not just Chinese ones) in the MMX

Nezahualcóyotl

2009-12-22T10:59:00.002-08:00

from henceforth the tangential questions pretaining to the video will be answered now instead of a week later:
1. wait, wasn't Itzcoatl the leader of the Aztec Triple Alliance?
he ain't on no 100 peso bill

2. who's translation of the poem did you use? That's not quite the same as what the wikipedia says
I translated the Spanish on the 100 peso bill into English. No idea who translated Nezahualcóytl into Spanish from whatever language, but I translated the Spanish into English. And my translation is perfect. Suppose I should correct the errors on the wikipedia, but I just don't care. Not really all that big of a deal that folks completely changed all the punctuation from the original

3. wait, you have 110 kids?
no stupid, I am one of the few dudes who'll admit to enjoying being emasculated by the smell of flowers (lilacs are my favorite)

_________________________________

first image that comes to mind when I think of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar is Charleton Heston, but reckon each actor only gets to be one historical figure. Plus Ethpaña got plenty of ADW caliber statues of El Cid from which to obtain a thugged out profile pic

quite proud of the15th centurty warrior slash king slash poet reference to ಶ್ರೀ ಕೃಷ್ಣದೇವರಾಯ. Apparently the youtube was too, since they selected that as this video's thumbnail pic. Silly youtube thumbnail selection. Tried my darnedest to beat ém, but since I lost the versus, figure I might as well join 'em

this'll most likely be the last ADW of the year. Fell off pretty hard since leaving South Beach, but still managed to get in a few every month. India started off a bit slow, but once I get me some USB internet in January I'll make up for it. Jokes next week and then that'll be all for a while

_________________________________

here go them paragraphs I promised in response to the previous ADW question:
wait, wasn't Issac Newton the first guy to do gravity?
nah, folks new 'bout gravity long before Newton's time. Aristotle had this whole Happy Gilmoresque theory of objects having a desire to return to their natural place, and while racist Europeans were content with that for a good 2000 years, other parts of the world decided not to partake in the ignorance. بیرونی translated last week's ADW thusly:

"All heavy things are attracted towards the center of the earth. [...] The earth on all its sides is the same; all people on earth stand upright, and all heavy things fall down to the earth by a law of nature, for it is the nature of the earth to attract and to keep things"

one of Dem موسى‎ Boyz foreshadowed Isaac's law of universal gravitation and ابن الهيثم was all 'bout centers of mass and magnitude of acceleration due to gravity. الخزيني‎ 'splained all 'bout force, mass, and weight and broke down the specific gravities of a bunch of stuff. Mikołaj Kopernik, Galileo, and Bobby Hooke were big into the gravity as well

ब्रह्मगुप्त

2009-11-30T15:49:00.000-08:00

only one question this week, but promise I'll get y'all an answer several paragraphs long

1. wait, wasn't Issac Newton the first guy to tell everyone 'bout gravity?
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the google images didn't have any pictures, but the Hindi wikipedia came through. Might be the most sensual mathematician portrait ever. I didn't include his perfectly sculpted muscles in his official ADW ID, but if anyone wants to fantasize 'bout a 7th century underwear model with an IQ of 257, can't do much better than this guy. I don't think anyone will be able to compete with SRK as Ashoka, but ब्रह्मगुप्त overtakes بن خلدون as the sexiest ADW to date

. . .

not sure if all the Schoolhouse Rock cartoons sucked, but I would not recommend that you click here to watch the youtube of My Hero, Zero. Better to remain nostalgic and disagree with me based on your memories. Perhaps this clip was just a particularly uninspired one, but I can think of far better ways to waste 3 minutes of time. Like watching this followed by this. That there is a WAY more entertaining use of 3 minutes

____________________
questions from last week regarding issues I avoided
1. wait, who was his father? Sure his mama didn't get knocked up by someone else?
oh, who cares. Just more proof that bastards and adoptees can grow up to do anything their lil' illegitimate hearts desire

2. why didn't you mention anything 'bout his ironic death? He had doctors making him immortality pills and wound up dying from mercury poisoning
get outta here. Stuff like 蓬莱山 has nothing to do with anything. Pretty much every megalomaniac dictator goes through a cheating death phase. Punchline here was that the folks he sent to get the elixir of life from 安期生 never returned because they knew they'd be killed

3. didn't he basically spend the last years of his life trying to find the elixir of life?
I already covered this in the answer to the previous question. Plus his empire continues to grow and expand and increase in awesomeness more than 2,000 years later. Let's not underestimate his legacy. HE MADE CHINA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

秦始皇

2009-11-25T10:06:00.000-08:00

_______________________
questions regarding issues I avoided
1. wait, who was his father? Sure his mama didn't get knocked up by someone else?

2. why didn't you mention anything 'bout his ironic death? He had doctors making him immortality pills and wound up dying from mercury posioning

3. didn't he basically spend the last years of his life trying to find the elixer of life?
_______________________
some things said he was born in Hendan, but couldn't confirm it to my satisfaction so I chose to err on the side of caution rather than error. Chose to err on the side of sloppy sound editing when I rerecording the last lil' bit because I didn't much care for the punchline I had in the original. ADW2.0 is all 'bout being a week late because you spent an excessive amout of time not publishing so you can tweak some minute detail. Someone needs some interns, STAT!!! Redid the ruloph pic. Made his nose redder and the names of the other deer a lil' clearer. Also had some burned alive pictures, but decided not to include them. Featured dead hookers in a previous one, but those were more comedic due to the pictures being of actresses pretending to be dead hookers and not actual dead hookers. These were actual people getting burned alive. Reckoned that while people don't mind hearing tales of death and destruction, some might be squimish at witnessing it in action. Didn't want the shock value to distract from the education, so I opted to leave out. Plenty of folks get burned alive though. We had a pretty famous one a few years back in Texas, and several hundred women have been burned alive in US occupied Iraq. North Korean military and South African mob violence and drug dealers in Rio too, but those tend to be isolated events, whereas more chicks have been burned alive under our watch in Iraq than were scholars under 秦始皇's reign

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answers to last week's angry questions from people whom I offended:

1. what do you mean he didn't convert people? He converted the King of Georgia at swordpoint
not like ბაგრატ V really converted to Islam, that was just a farce so he could get himself released
2. why didn't you say anything 'bout kurash 'rassling? It's not an Olympic event, but is kinda a big deal in the Asian games. He was a proponent, you shoulda shown this oft-overlooked sport some love
you're right. The video was running a bit long though, and I opted to emphasis his contributions to chess over 'rassling. Don't regret flashing a picture and telling a joke at the moment, but I might a few months from now. In which case I'll issue you an apology and promise to do a remix just like for ਗੁਰੂ ਨਾਨਕ ਦੇਵ

تیمور

2009-11-16T09:33:00.000-08:00

__________________________
angry questions from people whom I offended:
1. what do you mean he didn't convert people? He converted the King of Georgia at swordpoint

2. why didn't you say anything 'bout kurash 'rassling? It's not an Olympic event, but is kinda a big deal in the Asian games. He was a proponent, you shoulda shown this oft-overlooked sport some love
___________________________

the original youtube of this clocked in at just under 5 minutes, making it by far the longest one yet. There were some parts I coulda cut, but I like one take and done. Been having major drama with my youtube thumbnails though, and after 5 uploadings (editing the length of the video to change the random images that youtube allows me to use as the thumbnail) I still couldn't get a resonable image. Certainly annoying, especially since such a high percentage of the video is his ADW ID

never re-edited or done a second take before, but reckoned it was time for that streak to come to an end. Been slacking on the ADWs as of late; couldn't finish 墨子 in Miami or Boston, and did Βελισάριος drunk, which turned out less than ideal. Figured since this was the first of the promised ones that came to fruition, it was high time to class the operation up a bit. Turns out that I had his dates wrong when I flashed him as a future ADW too. 1370 was when he founded his dynasty, not when he was born. I'm sure I've made lots of mistakes (mispronuncing the Kushan empire was on purpose), but this is the first embarassing one across which I've come

flawlessly spliced a few bits from the original recording into version 2.0. The camels versus elephants bit was more emotional and comedic the first time around, as were his warnings from beyond the grave so I used those. Reworded a few passages as well. Basically just tightened the whole thing up a bit. Still couldn't get the correct thumbnail picture though, even after a record-setting 17 edits and uploads. That is just ridiculous. The youtube proved even more stubborn than me though, so after 6 days of failure decided to settle for the chess board. Losing a week of productivity ain't really worth the satisfaction of having the correct thumbnail image appear when the video is embedded

. . .

the standard go to picture of wheel-chair dudes being hard-core is prolly a still from that movie Murderball, but I opted for something a lil' more personal. Other than me and Matthew McConehey, pretty much the only people who play on the myspace are aspiring rappers. I like the myspace infinitely better than I do the facebook, and in a futile attempt to prolong its relevance I approve of all friend requests from aspiring rappers. I get 'bout a half-dozen of 'em every week, and rarely do I bother clicking on their profile page as increasing their friends count fulfills the extent of my giving back to the virtual community. This one dude intrigued me though. In his thumbnail picture it appeared that he was smoking a blunt. You can't smoke blunts in myspace profile pictures. That is so bad-ass. I clicked on his profile to view the picture in a larger size, and in addition to his numerous tattoos (including facial) and ubiquitous shots of him posing with his boyz throwing up signs, he is proudly smoking a blunt. What a thug. He's also in a wheelchair. Needless to say, MAJE$TY DA $TREETKING has been my #1 friend on the myspace for a few weeks now

. . .

since this turned out to be the first ADW 2.0, appropriate that I old schooled it and used a picture from the very fist video . Also recycled a camel from a previous one. Emassing quite the collection of stock photos

. . .

obviously the poisoned tusked elephants were Elephas maximus and not Loxodonta africana, but the only raging Asian elephants I could find didn't have tusks. The ones that محمود الدین ناصر‎ had were also wearing chain mail. While my intention is to diseminate knowledge rather than ignroance, hopefully an unarmed stampede of the incorrect genus nonetheless served to illistrate the improvosational skills of تیمور

__________________________
zingers for the militants:
1. dropped tha ball on not big upping Thracian people. Sparticus, both emperors in your youtube, son of Ares, the Illiad, Herodotus ranking 'em #2 behind India in population, from Skudra to conquering Persia with Alex the Great, shoulda kinda mentioned some of that
less you got some kinda proof, I'ma say he was Illyrian. Born in Illyria = Illyrian 'til you gimme something better

2. um . . . Persians owned the Byzantines. What are you talking 'bout?
I totally mentioned that his military achievements came with lil' support. He was completely outmanned. No way he coulda won. Victory + stalemate = them settling for extracting tribute. If Palau played Brasil in futebol and beat 'em 1-0 in the home game and tied 'em 0-0 in São Paulo, that for sure counts as something their coach can put on his resume

Βελισάριος

2009-10-23T14:49:00.000-07:00

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militant people who will get zingered in next week's mailbag responses:
1. dropped the ball on not big upping Thracian people. Spartacus, both emperors in your youtube, son of Ares, the Iliad, Herodotus ranking 'em #2 behind India in population, from Skudra to conquering Persia with Alex the Great, shoulda kinda mentioned some of that

2. um . . . Persians owned the Byzantines. What are you talking 'bout?

____________________

I actually don't think they were chanting "Εν Τουτω Νικα" during the riots, but still. Can't nobody be mad at me for setting the Nika riots to this guy's soundtrack. Off by a dozen emperors and a coupla hundred years, but I doubt anyone else is gonna find a more appropriate heavy metal song and set it to rioting Simpsons

_____________________
last week's proverbial peanut gallery that wouldn't let me off the hook for avoiding these pressing issues in last week's video:
1) why didn't you mention something 'bout his father being from the शूद्र caste?
shut up
2) why didn't you mention something 'bout his father being from the ক্ষত্রিয় caste?
shut up
3) wait, why did you spell क्षत्रिय in Bengali?
shut up
4) weren't they Punjabi?
shut up
5) or descendants of sun-worship Persians?
shut up
6) enough with the ethnicity, I wanna know where you got your languages of the world rankings. Or did you just kinda make 'em up?
there are no accurate numbers on this, so any ranking is subjective. Since I am smarter than most of the people who make the rankings, I have no problem coming up with my own. Chinese is still #1, and while English is increasing (mostly amongst those who do not speak it as their primary language), most of the hundreds of millions who speak English as a second language are less fluent than are the hundreds of millions who speak Chinese as a first. The Spanish numbers are some of the most predictable, whereas the Hindi/Urdu ones are anybody's guess. Way more people in India/Pakistan that anyone wants to admit though, so they get the nod there. Russian below French and Portuguese since it is declining in population. France below Portuguese for the same reason. Folks in Africa, but no one else needs or cares 'bout it as a Lingua Franca. Still more relevant than German though, so Deutsch got bumped from the list
7) I appreciate your overview of Bengali highlights, but why didn't you mention something 'bout all the smoking hot women?
sounds like you need to get yourself on the mailing list
GOL Bengali people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
8) wait, how is he responsible for mongroves and tigers?
the word is spelled mangroves

ধর্মপাল

2009-10-14T12:32:00.000-07:00

the proverbial peanut gallery demands answers. I avoided these issues in the video, but some folks just love themselves some controversy:
1) why didn't you say something 'bout his father being from the शूद्र caste?
2) why didn't you say something 'bout his father being from the ক্ষত্রিয় caste?
3) wait, why did you spell क्षत्रिय in Bengali?
4) weren't they Punjabi?
5) or descendants of sun-worship Persians?
6) enough with the ethnicity, I wanna know where you got your languages of the world rankings. Or did you just kinda make 'em up?
7) I appreciate your overview of Bengali highlights, but why didn't you mention something 'bout all the smoking hot women?
8) wait, how is he responsible for mangroves and tigers?
__________________________________

the wikipedia mentioned that after conquering the Pratiharas he boasted he was "Uttarapathasvamin or Lord of Northern India." I wanted to color in the map and write that bad-assed title on the new oval of purple Pala Empire that he conquered

getting that name in Bengali was a lil' difficult though. Had to Noah Webster it up a bit and learn me some Sanskrit and Hindi, but I got it. None of that easy clicking on hyperlinks or asking the google or the wiktionary. Old school internet and searching on sites of questionable legitimacy to get some answers. Plenty of bad/useless information out there, but after some thugged out brainstorming I got it. Then a few days later I got some of my people in India to confirm it. That's how I roll

Here go my winning sources:
1
2
3
4

much thanks to the Majumdar family as well

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Answers to last week's quiz
Shandong is the undisputed #1 source of Awesome Dudes of the Week, with twice the number of ADWs born there than anywhere else in the world. There is however, another state than can lay claim to birthing even more if future ADWs are taken into account. From whence comest a triumvirate of dudes?
Uzbekistan, which in addition to having the most Awesome Dudes, also has a ridiculously high ADW per capita (1 per 9 million current denizens)

墨子

2009-10-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

quiz
Shandong is the undisputed #1 source of Awesome Dudes of the Week, with twice the number of ADWs born there than anywhere else in the world. There is however, another state than can lay claim to birthing even more if future ADWs are taken into account. From whence comest a triumvirate of dudes?

gotta admit that I was proud of myself for instantly relating Mohism's stance against fatalism to one of the main tenets of Terminatorism[1]. Most folks prolly wouldn't associate the works of James Cameron with any of the Hundred Schools of Thought from the Warring States Period, but fortunately for y'all I am way smarter than pretty much everyone on the planet. That I got John Connor telling Ahnold "There is no fate but what we make for ourselves" with Chinese subtitles is beyond even my own lofty expectations though. That is just insane. All hail the king of fusing ancient Chinese philosophy with early 90's pop culture. In your face Family Guy manatee jokes

notes

this guy made a Terminator monster ballad. Pure genius. The lyrics are all there if you click on the (more info) thing

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Answers to last week's quiz

1. with a picture shout-out this week, who ties بیرونی as the most referenced person in ADW history?
Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαίος. Reckon once you get your second recognition in another dude's video that qualifies you for future ADW status. The threshold for inclusion will likely increase in the future, but since two mentions at this points means you've appeared in over 15% the youtube bios, that is pretty darn impressive. Course, بیرونی caught his 2nd after only 5 vids, giving him an insane 40% appearance rate. Still though, congrats to Egypt for having a son rank amongst the most mentioned

بو علي، الحسن بن الحسن بن الهيثم

2009-09-22T21:13:00.000-07:00

quiz
1. with a picture shout-out this week, who ties بیرونی as the most referenced person in ADW history?
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y'all almost caught jokes this week, but I punked out at the last minute and opted for the typical medieval Muslim scholar. Lots of interesting non-academics, but that whole racist propaganda of "The Dark Ages" followed by "The Scientific Revolution" just pisses me off. How you think things just magically jumped from Aristotle to 1543? Attila the Hun, the bubonic plague, and then the Renaissance? No one thinks there might be something missing there?

. . .

I wanted to see if I could find a pro 'rasslin'esque picture that would do the name "The Physicist" justice. Most people don't think of physicists as bringers of pain, but if there were a pro 'rassler named "The Physicist" I guarantee you he would be a bad guy who would just punish people. He'd be a really big nasty ogre who would pummel little guys using torque and centripetal force and all sorts of cool finishing moves. The google images gave me plenty of pictures of scientists, a bikini chick, some jokes, and finally an album cover for what looked like a heavy metal band. It was exactly the picture for which I was looking. The band's name was Devin Townsend, so I typed that into the google images. I don't know anything 'bout Devin Townsend, but I hope when I tell my 14-year-old son to turn down that music, he will be rocking something similar. What parent wouldn't be proud of their pimply lil' virgin for blasting this guy

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answer to last week's question

Mongols = "the most powerful empire in the history of the world" Really? Sure 'bout that one?

who you got? No one inspired fear like the Mongols. No one had a bigger empire. No one wrecked shop as quickly. No one cared less 'bout governing or converting people. They just straight thugged out and conquered. Plus they introduced the plague to Europe. Pax Mongoliana = the spread of the bubonic plague across the Eurasian landmass. What other empire spread disease like that? Spain smallpoxed the mess outta 'Merica, but they can't touch the Mongols. Alexander might be #1 of all time, but he was just a one hit wonder. Romans had some longevity, but they needed lots of campaigns and centuries to establish themselves. Plus they did sissy things like build aqueducts and have parades. The early days of Islam were pretty phenomenal, with Muhammad and them controlling Portugal to India, but they have that whole no booze and no swine thing working against them. You can't claim to be the baddest-asses ever if when offered a bacon double cheeseburger and a beer and you say "yeah, that sound delicious, but my religion kinda forbids those things"

Mongols win. How many Romans were in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure? You think there is an action figure of Julius Caesarplaying drums for the Wyld Stallyns?

Rayden Wijaya

2009-09-17T16:54:00.000-07:00

Mongols = "the most powerful empire in the history of the world" Really? Sure 'bout that one?

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soooooooooo much drama trying to get a picture this week. There are no pictures of this guy. None. On a google image search for any of his names. There is some statue with lotsa arms, but that ain't dude. Pretty sure if he had bonus limbs that woulda been mentioned at some point. The best is of this kid's facebook profile. He likes pizza and Metalica and Ashley Tinsdale and Oreos and Ashton Kutcher and sleeping and Vin Disel and pizza and sleeping. Dislikes include mosquitoes, "battery low," and text messages comprised of single words. He came really to becoming the official ADW ID of his namesake, but then I found someone had posted these:

dude said he felt like the statue's eyes were always following him. It is an intense statue, which makes for a perfect ADW ID. Just had to figure out which of the two angles I liked better (the third picture was too dark) and choose my zoom setting. After careful deliberation, I went with straight ahead and extreme close-up. Someone else appreciated the pics and posted this:

I agree, mantab ini indeed. His lil' smiley dude does a cheers thing and blinks at you too

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Infrequently Asked Questions Answers
Q. did the non-Sri Lankan fourth Buddhist council really happen? Étienne Lamotte says it was just a legend
A. that 5th one ain't recognized either outside of Myanmar, but I kicked it with the largest book in the world when I was in Mandalay

Q. hold up, the Indo-Parthians weren't Buddhist, they were straight up Persian Zoroastrians
A. yeah, and the Indo-Greeks were white folks from Europe. What's your point? Lots of religious diversity and fusion of stuff, but don't tell me An Shigao and An Xuan and them weren't Parthians. What'd I say? "Basically if you're a Buddhist, Aryan, Indo-anything and your kingdom slash empire was located within greater metropolitan North West India, you'se from North West India". So shut up. Plus you are supposed to ask a question. I asked you two in an attempt to offset your failure to comply with establish ADW blog precedent

Κανηϸκι

2009-09-11T20:08:00.000-07:00

Infrequently Asked Questions
1. did the non-Sri Lankan fourth Buddhist council really happen? Étienne Lamotte says it was just a legend

2. hold up, the Indo-Parthians weren't Buddhist, they were straight up Persian Zoroastrians

OTHER PEOPLE ACTUALLY MADE HOMEMADE YOUTUBE BIOGRAPHIES OF THIS GUY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
it's been a while since I had some peers/competition. Nothing like learning all 'bout a dude and encapsulating his life in a silly 3 minute video full of stolen and uncited pictures and then watching other people's versions of the same thing. The hippie kids over at opensourcebuddhism have 3 relevant videos (1, 2, 3). They all pronounced the name of the empire phonetically, obviously failing to realize the comedic potential of purposefully mispronouncing it. Betcha had they done one on Krishnadevaraya, they coulda said the name of his empire without giggling uncontrollably too

. . .

dude's lack of dates annoyed me a bit, but I've been doing lots of recording dead people's vital stats over on The Extended Fam Project and I've reluctantly had to settle for question marking decades. Sometimes the dates of birth and death aren't known, but usually you can get 'em circa within a few years. For rulers, often times their dates in power are easier to ascertain (kinda like how you can catch a floruit for normal people), but this guy's stats are pretty elusive. Comfortable question marking decades, but not centuries, so I had to punk out and list him as circa. Ain't hating on Harry Falk, but if Robert Bracey is skeptical[1] so am I

. . .

the North West India one is the first map I've made. If I felt like trying just a lil' harder, I'd take a screen shot from the google maps and shade in parts of it. I always ask the wikipedia for the modern names of historical places and then consult the google maps. If you use the "Get Directions" thing you can plot multiple points. Not sure if anyone other than me would ever ask, but the google maps could not calculate directions between Kucha, Mathura, and Balkh. My lil' North West India map ain't really based on much as I just decided to simultaneously be bold and blatantly disregardful of having any sort of evidence to back up my claims. Whatever, not like my non-Muslim youtube videos get more than 50 views anyways

. . .

wanna be made to feel really, really, really ignorant? I'd recommend taking a few of these Silk Road quizzes. I mixed up a coupla the European ex-USSR countries on the modern states one, but aced everything else. Them other quizzes kicked my butt. Never even heard of half the places. Don't laugh, half is impressive. If you wanna feel humbled, give these a go

notes

[1]Robert Bracey runs a website called kushan.org. He cares way more 'bout correct dates of things than I do. It took me a coupla these articles ere I stopped caring. How many can you get through?
1
2
3
4
5
6

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responses to the hecklers:

1. c'mon, like you've never had an opinion regarding something 'bout which you were only vaguely familiar?
didn't say couldn't have, said not entitled

2. why didn't you use the borrowing arrows with thatched boats and the empty fort stragegy stories to segue into them 36 stratagems?
c'mon now, these are whimsical lil' Awesome Dude of the Week youtubes. No way I can even proverbially scratch the proverbial surface of that. Plus it is beyond awesome and therefore outside the jurisdiction of this blog

諸葛亮

2009-09-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

preemptive criticism from the proverbial peanut gallery:
1. c'mon, like you've never had an opinion regarding something 'bout which you were only vaguely familiar?

2. why didn't you use the borrowing arrows with thatched boats and the empty fort strategy stories to segue into them 36 stratagems?

more drama with choosing the official ADW pic. The one the committee liked best was lacking color, but after much consideration and several failed attempts to improve its faults, it was declared the winner. Here go the final four

. . .

not saying you actually gotta read the book (I know damn well you don't read books and prolly haven't even been to your local library in years), but at least familiarize yourself with some of the main characters. Don't have to read Shakespeare to know Romeo & Juliet or "to be or not to be." Even non-practitioners of Judaism-based religions should know 'bout Eve & the snake & the apple, Noah & the ark, Sampson & Delilah, Moses & his commandments and all that. If you have an education that qualifies you to work outside of the food service industry, you should at least know the names of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Not telling you to put down the Stephen King/Danielle Steele, but if you watched that Matrix movie and thought anything other than "wow, they sure used a lotta special effects to tell a really bad version of Plato's cave simile" then you ain't smarter than the average bear

and don't hate on Keanu Reeves. He is a great actor. If you don't believe me, watch him in Bill & Ted or Steve Martin's Parenthood. Not saying he's Laurence Olivier, but he was the 2nd best California surfer dude actor of the late 80s/early 90s

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answers to last week's quiz

1. if there are slightly less than an extra 6 hours in a year, doesn't adding a leap day every 4 years still result in some discrepancy?
yup, that's why we add a leap day every 4 years 'cept when the year is divisible by 100 (1700, 1800, 1900) unless the year is divisible by 400 (1600, 2000). Could do a 128 year cycle thing or something with years divisible by 4000 to make it even better, but it's still a while off ere any discrepancies will arise

2. why wasn't Al-Biruni mentioned in the list of astronomers?
he already got shot outs in multiple other dudes' videos. The point was folks before and after, not an exhaustive list of everybody. Plus I left out Tycho Brahe and Kepler and a bunch of other people. The real reason though is because I'm racist and only recognize the contributions of Europeans. And people who I creatively interpret to be Europeans. Like Ptolemy was Greek. I don't care if he was from Egypt, Egyptian people still count as white Europeans. As do folks born in Turkey (Hipparchus). And Babylonians. Plus Uzbekistan used to be part of the Soviet Union so that totally makes Al-Biruni a white European too

3. week 1 = Persian Uzbeki, week 5 = African Berber whose family immigrated from Spain, week 9 = Turkish Sabian. Are we ever going to get an Arab ADW?
you're an idiot

البتاني

2009-08-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

Quiz
1. if there are slightly less than an extra 6 hours in a year, won't adding a leap day every 4 years still result in some discrepancy?

2. why wasn't Al-Biruni mentioned in the list of astronomers?

3. week 1 = Persian Uzbeki, week 5 = African Berber whose family immigrated from Spain, week 9 = Turkish Sabian. Are we ever going to get an Arab ADW?

had an incredibly difficult time trying to find a suitable picture for his Official ADW ID. There are only two pictures of him on the google images (under any and all variations of his name in English and Arabic) and both of 'em suck

suppose they are alright, but certainly not worthy of iconic status. ADW is an exclusive organization and members are expected to maintain a standard of decorum. Since the only two pictures of him in existence are a coupla bad drawings, figured I'd just go 'head and make my own picture

based on all both representations of him, the look we were going for was husky dude with a beard and a turban. First thing that comes to mind when I think of husky dudes from back in the day with beards is Guan Yu. Now, no one would ever confuse a second century Chinese general with a ninth century Arab scholar, but I needed a husky dude with beard. Everyone knows that Guan Yu looks like this: . All I needed was that with slightly more pixels. Figured I'd just cut and paste a turban on a Guan Yu head and call it a day, but to my shock and disappointment, there weren't hardy any good pictures of Guan Yu on the google images (in English, Chinese or traditional Chinese). WTF!?!?!?

best I could find are these shots of 巴森扎布 from last year's John Woo movie (apparently 狄龍 went for a more metrosexual look in the other one)

the first one is too bloody, the second too surprised, and the third has an SUV in the background. That wasn't a problem though, since I was gonna cut and paste his head anyways. Found a good background and was starting to look for clothes, but by that point it kinda stopped being fun

while he is far and away the dumpiest Awesome Dude of the Week, I don't yet feel obliged to provide posterity with a better artistic rendition of him

____________________________
answers to last week's quiz

1. wait, how was he a mestizo? Doesn't Español + Castiza = Español?
c'mon, let that one slide. One of his youtubes said it perfectly: "1/4 indio de sangre pero 100% indio de corazón". Of course he is really more like 1/32 or 1/64, but still. If these people qualify as black under our one-drop rule, then he can certainly be claimed by whoever needs him to advance their cause

2. why isn't his name spelled Tupaq Amaru?
the answer to the first question is 'bout as far as I'll allow the truth to be stretched to comply with anyone's racist political agenda

Ocho = Túpac Amaru II

2009-08-18T19:48:00.000-07:00

this week's quiz
1. wait, how was he a mestizo? Doesn't Español + Castiza = Español?

2. why isn't his name spelled Tupaq Amaru?

so this one is actually more 'bout other people/organizations that have the same name, but whatever. They are forever inextricably linked and do form a pretty bad-ass team. Ere this one evolved to include so many folks, had intended to flash some other same name duos,

but since they are only tag team partners, it wouldn't really be fair to pit 'em against the entire Túpac Amaru army

this week also marked the first time that I corrected dude's wikipedia page. Nothing major, and the articles are only Start-Class, but still. Just so happened that this coincided with my insane genealogy researching, so I rattled off a few citations.[1] Absolutely unnecessary and completely over-the-top, but whatever

the most monumental innovation this week was that I learned how to download and crop and insert youtube clips. Last week I learned how to do screen captures, and figured that would be sufficient, but apparently now I am capable of inserting humorous videos as well. Did a google image search for "rape and pillage" but surprisingly was unable to find anything comedic. "Pillage" "riot" "mob" "revolution" and all them resulted in similarly disappointing results. None of the Reginald Denny pics were really all that iconic either. Then I had the genius idea of using pre-reformed Bobcat Goldthwaith and his gang from the Police Academy movies. Still no google image results. Spent a bit of time substantiating my vague recollections of his character (who's name I learned was Zed) and realized that he didn't make an appearance 'til the first of the six sequels. Found a very appropriate clip from the original film though. I really like the Police Academy movies, and their cartoon used to be on DC20 weekday afternoons right before Ninja Turtles. Anywhoo . . . here is Jonesy's official website [2]

my encapsulation of T.A. Shakur's life is pretty good too. Don't mention the Panthers, but I got Baltimore School for the Arts, the inspiration for a coupla his roses that grew from concrete, his discovery in Marin City, C. Delorus Tucker, the lifestyle, and conspiracy theories regarding his death. Plus facial tattoo Mike Tyson to smirking Dick Chaney has gotta be best one of the best cuts in film editing history

notes

[1] also cited the same things on Túpac Amaru's page. Someone had actually changed the great-grandfather versus great-great-great-grandfather thing on II's page a few days prior to my correction

[2] was pretty sloppy drunk while reading Jonesy's official website, but the following nonetheless caught my attention:

"and featured in him in the famous EVENING AT THE IMPROV (witch we all known now as the Comedy Improve Clubs)"

using witch in lieu of which is phenomenal. Too, to, and two aren't nearly as funny. Neither are there, they're, or their. Lots of homophones, and it would be really, really, really, funny to purposely consistently use the incorrect one. Not sure I am diligent 'nuff to start doing that, but if I ever do, all credit goes to Jonesy

____________________________
answers to last week's quiz

1. Was he of Tulu, Telugu, or Kannada descent?
you know, I believe this is the first time that anyone has ever brought up the subject

2. How do you pronounce the name of the empire?
perhaps the reason he is not more well known is part of a vast conspiracy to keep 12 year old boys ignorant of this answer. There are an infinite number of jokes begging to be invented and told on school buses and around lunch tables

#7 = ಶ್ರೀ ಕೃಷ್ಣದೇವರಾಯ

2009-08-09T03:17:00.000-07:00

1. Was he of Tulu, Telugu, or Kannada descent?

2. How do you pronounce the name of the empire?

if anyone ever wants to be a horrible parent, I suggest this site. Those have gotta be some of the worst stories ever. I just did a Ctrl F for Krishna Raya, but I wouldn't doubt that the others are equally awful. If you want some Tenali Rama, you're better off getting it from this guy (the Birbal ones are good too)

. . .

finally got the audio to record at a volume that I like. You wouldn't think that recording 3 minutes of dialogue would be very difficult, but that's because you underestimate how much of an idiot I am. Next time I'll be sure to record the entire thing without any words that begin with a "P" sound. My attempts to say "poet" and "apparently" and "pretty ignorant" were an utter disaster

I also shoulda said empire/emperor once or twice more. Thought I had a good mix of emperor versus king, but realized that the lesser king was more frequent. The internet provides fairly inconclusive data on this guy, and I had intended on keeping with the vagueness by alternating between titles. Unfortunately, from this video it seems as if I determined he was merely a king and not an emperor. The only time I say empire is in a sentence talking 'bout relations with Portugal, and that could easily be interpreted that the empire to which I was referring was the Portuguese and not the Vijayanagara. Totally thought I was being more inconsistent with regards to his regal status

. . .

from making this one I learned how to do a screen capture. I couldn't find all the stills from movies that I wanted on the google images. Searched and searched and searched, but couldn't seems like there are lots more iconic images in my brain than on the internet. Now I can just ask the youtube and then screen capture it. My screen captures are all out of focus and blurry, but whatever. It's the thought that counts

one of the pictures I most wanted was from this Korean movie Musa. Sweeping costume epic with a high body count = my kinda film. I had forgotten just how awesome it was though. So many slow motion shots of dudes making angry faces ere charging into certain death. I loved this movie when I saw it in the theater without subtitles, but unlike most action movies, it is actually better when you understand what they are saying!!!! Most of the time though it is either gratuitous violence or people staring intensely and preparing themselves to rock out in yet another display of gratuitous violence. Plenty of comic relief too. Everyone should see this movie[1]

. . .

abruptly ended this one with a shot of the aftermath of Dresden, just to remind everyone how destructive and often completely pointless war really is. Totally bad-ass and cool, but destructive and often completely pointless

. . .

had to take out the scene from Glory. That along with Musa was the impetus for learning how to take screen captures of youtubes, but Denzel and them marched into their inevitable death carrying guns. The Hindus didn't have any guns. The Muslims had guns, but I wanted a picture of the Hindus nobly strutting into certain death and had I used Denzel and them to represent the Hindus carrying guns that coulda confused folks. An even better non gun having march into inevitable death versus an army with guns was that movie Zulu. Unfortunately, there are no good screenshots of that battle. That part where both armies were singing was awesome though. Way better than the actual fight scene, which just didn't make any sense. The Zulu army ran 100 yards in .04 seconds and then stood there patiently while they slowly, slowly, slowly got picked off one-by-one by dudes who had to reload their guns after every shot and never ever ever didn't kill a Zulu with a single bullet. Rumor has it that back in 1964 the movie was seen as giving the Zulus a lot of respect, but white people during that era also thought that it was good manners to lynch negros

notes

[1]usually I get mines from the toudu, but I'll give y'all a youtube for this one. Decent film quality and no distracting Chinese subtitles. Kinda annoying in that it is in 13 parts, but if you watch it in playlist form it is pretty seamless. Always good to support folks uploading stuff to the youtube. Make sure you give it a 5 star rating and leave a comment too

________________________________________

Answers to last week's quiz

1. How could he invent paper if it had been been in use for hundreds of years before he was even born?
shut up, he invented paper

2. Couldn't origami and paper airplanes and what not be made out of papyrus too?
no, papyrus cracks if you fold it. You have to roll it in a scroll

3. You can make paper outta hemp, right?
yeah, but you're better off getting some of the indica and smoking it

#6 = 蔡伦

2009-08-01T09:59:00.000-07:00

Quiz

1. How could he invent paper if it had been been in use for hundreds of years before he was even born?

2. Couldn't origami and paper airplanes and what not be made out of papyrus too?

3. You can make paper outta hemp, right?

once again I made the best youtube biography of a famous person. My favorite thing to do after uploading my video is to see what the Related Videos are. Then I do a search for my guy and see what other people have done.

this one has gotta be my favorite (fast forward to 1:06 for the biography part). This one is like a trailer for a movie or something. Maybe it is a commercial for a documentary. This one has the best music. Everyone else has cool background music in their videos. There are lots of youtubes 'bout papermaking, but this one has gotta be the best. Making paper is a lot of work. I mostly use the back of grocery store receipts when I need paper, and after watching these folks I'm not gonna start making my own any time soon

. . .

being a eunuch means that your parents castrated you so you had the opportunity to get a good job. Working for the emperor was pretty much the best job there was. Even mopping floors or cleaning the bathroom or whatever was way more lucrative than almost anything you could do outside of the palace. Lots of honor and respect to your family too. People were also castrated after being taken prisoner in wars and raids and stuff. Some transgender folks nowadays claim eunuchs as their own. Like they are the ancestor to all he/shes. Perhaps I just can't relate on account of my lack of gender identity issues, but that seems kinda silly to me

A dude without testicles is just an amputee. A 3-legged dog is still a dog and them guys from that Murderball movie were pretty hard-core. Having a glass eye or a pirate hook for a hand doesn't change anything. Not like losing his private parts made this guy any more docile. Implanting fake plastic boobs or getting a mastectomy doesn't make someone more or less of a woman. Plus childhood castration is like neonatal circumcision or being named Seymour in that it was a decision your parents made for you

. . .

at a mere two and a half minutes, this ADW is a bit shorter than most. Thought of adding in a paragraph 'bout how China managed to keep the process of paper-making a secret for a good half millennium, but I kinda like how this one jumps from aristocratic back-stabbing to the Cat in the Hat to porn. Seemed like introducing a bunch of history and geography woulda bogged it down as well as taking attention away from the dude we are supposed to be celebrating. Anywhoo . . . apparently paper ain't something you can reverse engineer very easily. The Koreans learned how to make it 500 years after the fact and they showed the Japanese. Muslims got it around 150 years later and went nuts. Lots and lots of paper mills and industrialization. They exported some to Europe, but Europe prefered to be racist and live in the self-imposed "Dark Ages." Good call there to resist Arabic influence. In 1221 some jack-ass king even went so far as to declare that all official documents written on paper were invalid. Finally, a few hundred years later, non-Muslim Europeans finally decided that paper was pretty cool. Here in 'Merica we had our own paper that we developed independently, but suppose all that got destroyed when them Eurotrash dudes came with their tight pants and smallpox in the name of God and the King

. . .

Answers to last week's quiz
1. Which country (unmentioned of course) had the most sons to which shout-outs were given this week?
Uzbekistan ( تیمور and ابوریحان محمد بن احمد بیرونی )

2. Which of the celebrity gangstas of our era has served the most jail time (Suge Knight, Tupac, Snoop, or Martha Stewart)?
Suge Knight = 5 and a half years
Tupac = 11 months for that rape charge, plus he got sentenced to 15 and 120 day stints for other stuff
Martha Stewart = 5 months in prison and another 5 months with that ankle tracking thing
Snoop = a coupla years for cocaine possession, but that was before he was famous. Spent a night in a London jail after an incident at Heathrow airport, but I don't think he has served any time since being a celebrity. Lots of probation and fines and posting of bail and was banished from England and Australia, but no hard time means he ranks behind Martha Stewart

ibn Khaldun might've actually not served more jail time than these 4 combined, I'm not sure. Still though, his thug credentials are pretty legit

#5 = ابن خلدون

2009-07-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

ADW Quiz

1. Which country (unmentioned of course) had the most sons to which shout-outs were given this week?

2. Which of the celebrity gangstas of our era has served the most jail time (Suge Knight, Tupac, Snoop, or Martha Stewart)?

I love ibns so much. My sons are totally having ibn-something as one of their superfluous middle names. I just gotta think of a cool agnomen for myself of which they can be the ibn. Or maybe me and their mom will have a cool portmanteau like Brangelina. Knox Leon Jolie-Pitt is a pretty stupid name. Had they named him Knox Leon ibn Brangelina Jolie-Pitt, that woulda been way cooler

I promised to diversify the Awesome Dude of the Weeks and think I've done a pretty decent job of it thus far. Here go the first 5 with the places they've impacted. I didn't intentionally insult Inca people or West Africa or 75% of the population of Brazil, so I don't wanna get angry emails berating me for saying they don't have medicine of social sciences there

this video is the first to refer to a future dude of the week. Flashed pics of potential dudes before, but calling out a nameless person with his dates in an official ADW teaser is unprecedented. This also marks the second time that Biruni got himself a picture, making him the most revered person in the history of ADW

there was also a raging debate amongst the staff over which picture would be used for ibn Khaldun's official ADW ID. Initially the young, sexy one was prefered, but it was the wrong size. The old man pic of him fit perfectly, plus his selection as an ADW is due to the Muqaddimah[1], which he wrote during his white-bearded era, so it was more appropriate as well. A small yet vocal minority protested and resized the sexy pic. Even though the dates look cooler when written in white, ultimately the sexy picture was chosen instead of the old man one

not quite sure why I hate alchemy so much. Glad that Paracelsus has been forgotten and am confident that even if someone would look him up they would shake their head and wonder why he was ever taken seriously. Absolutely no question that Robert Boyle won that versus. We had us a Scopes Monkey Trial, but folks still get offended 'bout teaching children science in science class. Glad to see one of the previous millennium's smartest people nonchalantly mention evolution as if it were common sense[2]

was surprised to only find two similar biography things on the youtubes. This one and one in French. The French one also has a part 2. The youtube totally came through though when I typed "ADW" into its search engine. Mine come up if you type in "Awesome Dude of the Week," but I wondered who had dibs on the acronym. Turns out the answer is Dwayne Wayne!!!!!!

notes

[1] here go a translated version: http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ik/Muqaddimah/

[2] here is an excerpt where he explains to Mike Huckabee and all the haters how evolution works (taken from http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ik/Muqaddimah/Chapter1/Ch_1_06.htm). Scroll down 'bout a quarter of the way or just do a Ctrl F for "monkey"

One should then look at the world of creation. It started out from the minerals and progressed, in an ingenious, gradual manner, to plants and animals. The last stage of minerals is connected with the first stage of plants, such as herbs and seedless plants. The last stage of plants, such as palms and vines, is connected with the first stage of animals, such as snails and shellfish which have only the power of touch. The word "connection" with regard to these created things means that the last stage of each group is fully prepared to become the first stage of the next group.

The animal world then widens, its species become numerous, and, in a gradual process of creation, it finally leads to man, who is able to think and to reflect. The higher stage of man is reached from the world of the monkeys, in which both sagacity and perception are found, but which has not reached the stage of actual reflection and thinking. At this point we come to the first stage of man after (the world of monkeys). This is as far as our (physical) observation extends.

ADW #4 = Napoléon Bonaparte

2009-07-16T00:35:00.000-07:00

there were a few people I had in mind for the first "other" dude (trying to rotate between 1/4 Persian/Arabs dudes, 1/4 Chinese dudes, 1/4 Indian dudes, and 1/4 "other" dudes). Had been kicking around the "Napoleon is responsible for the United States being awesome" theory for a while though, and this seemed like a good venue to express my extremely dubious claim. And it certainly legitimized my argument by tossing out obscure characters from the Ninja Turtles, Miss Universe stats, and unnecessarily insulting both Thomas Jefferson and Al Gore

still manage to drop some knowledge along with the ridiculousness though. Unless you grew up around there, there is absolutely no way you'd ever heard of the Pig War. Everyone knows the Cuban Missile Crisis, but this one was way closer to actually happening. And the story behind it is absolutely hilarious

best thing 'bout this one was that I got a ringer to pronounce Napoléon Bonaparte. Tired of flashing that rose by any other name pic, and this was an easy one. Couldn't quite get my over-the-top Pepé Le Peu accent right though. Recorded dozens of me exaggerating Maurice Chevalier, but then I had a stroke of genius and figured I could get a real French guy to say it. Took a surprising number of youtubes ere I found someone talking. Most of 'em were either just words flashing or music and re-enactments of battles and stuff. This was the first guy I got and the combination of his speed and those notes playing in the background were just too funny

ADW #3 = ਗੁਰੂ ਨਾਨਕ ਦੇਵ

2009-07-15T22:08:00.000-07:00

this one might offend some people as it is 'bout the creator/founder of a major religion. Totally wasn't being rude at all though, just a light-hearted introduction to Sikhism for lots of folks. I accurately depict Sikhs as athletes and super-models and taxi drivers. Translated the 3 pillars in terms to which everyone can relate and respect. Don't tell me that "love God" ain't a succinct and non-confusing way to explain Naam Japna. Kirat Karni = "do things to make your grandma proud" is slightly more controversial, but is nonetheless pretty phenomenal. And Vand Chakna as "be a good neighbor" is perfect

Lots of bonus points for me for using a picture of Sonny and Preeti Caberwal too. Coulda chosen someone easy like the prime minister of India or a thug like Udham Singh, but the intention of this was more of the Sikh next door aspect. Which is also why I chose not to perv it up

I don't think Ruth Bader Ginsburg has ever ruled on kirpans (the "swords" that #10 Guru Gobind Singh made everybody get), but for sure she'd think they were totally cool. The Canadian Supreme Court thinks kirpans are fine, but I wasn't 'bout to use a picture of the Canadian Supreme Court. You'd think a country like Canadia would have something like a Supreme Court that isn't completely pathetic and embarrassing, but never ever ever underestimate the embarrassing patheticness of Canadia. Why am I so insulting of the Canadian Supreme Court? This ain't a comedy skit or a Christmas joke, THIS IS WHAT THE SUPREME COURT OF CANADIA ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE!!!!!!. Just another reason that all their hockey teams deserve to be moved to places like Texas and Florida and Arizona

ADW #2 = 明成祖

2009-07-02T10:01:00.000-07:00

by week two I was already finding it difficult to meet my loose quota of trying to maintain a balance between 1/4 Arab/Persian dudes, 1/4 Chinese dudes, 1/4 Indian dudes, and 1/4 other dudes. Originally had someone else in mind for the second installment, but I might've set the proverbial bar of awesomeness too high with the first one. The only other guys who seemed sufficiently cool enough to follow him were other ibns. Granted I got Euro-ibns and Afro-ibns and Arab-ibns and Central Asian ibns, but I can't make an exception and put two of 'em back-to-back this early in the game. Already have a few new youtube friends and I don't want them to get the wrong idea. There will be plenty more ADWs that will appeal to their particular interests, but I ain't limiting myself to any particular culture/religion/time period (although I gotta confess that them 10th-13th century ibns are my favorites)

had to dig deep and pull out one of the big guns for this one. Several GOAT emperor dudes from which to chose, but this guy has such an over-the-top resume of awesome feats that making a youtube for him was easy. Barely even did more than casually mention his accomplishments as well, since I didn't think there was really much need for elaboration. First 30 seconds are his name, then his dad gets the next minute or so, 45 seconds on dude himself, then it's just castration and dead hooker jokes

hadn't even realized it 'til I was already almost finished with the research, but I had written a story involving 明成祖 back in the day. When I wrote the blog 2 years ago, the Chinese wikipedia page to which I link at the end didn't have an English counterpart. It was a pretty hilarious punchline back in September '07. I assure you that when I wrote it, there was no way you could fact check it without knowing the story better than I did. Even now try asking the google keywords like "9 generations" "chinese emperor" "usurper" and hate me for not allowing you to verify my bedtime story. Dissemination of knowledge is a good thing, but the improvement of the internet does take some of the fun out of mischievous antiquated jokes

from a technical standpoint, this one was a vast improvement over last week's. Only one really sloppy sound goof, and it is only awkward for a few seconds. A coupla mistakes (whatever the oral equivalent of typos are), but no big deal. Soooooo much better than the other one as far as editing and all that. Recorded the entire thing in a single take and only cut-and-pasted in one other audio bit. This one took me a total of 2 days start-to-finish, which is a significant improvement over the month that it took me to do the first one. Lots more pictures too, although I'm still having trouble with the youtube video thumbnail thing [1]"

notes

[1] had thought that the still picture used to represent it was taken from the halfway point. Youtube gives you a choice of 3 frames, supposedly they are taken from the 1/4, 1/2, and 3/4 marks of the video, but from my experience that is not the case. Of the 7 videos I've uploaded to youtube, only 2 of them take the picture from the halfway mark and only 1 uses a picture from either the 1/4 or 3/4 point. So basically of the 21 thumbnail images I have, only 3 of them are from when they should be

Awesome Dude of the Week = Avicenna

2009-06-26T01:41:00.000-07:00

I was having a lot of fun learning 'bout la gripe porcina/Mexican pig flu/the H1N1 outbreak when I came across the word epidemiology. Clicked on the link and pretty soon had a new favorite person

I had made my first video thing a few weeks earlier and was intrigued 'bout experimenting with a new medium in which to express my creativity. The Batman picking up girls thing was originally only going to be an audio track, but I couldn't figure out how to convert it. I just set my camera to video mode and talked into it. Figured it'd be really really easy to make that into an MP3 or whatever, but the google said I needed to download some program or something. Coulda just recorded directly into my computer microphone, but the sound quality on it isn't too good. Whenever I use the skype I have to hunch over the keyboard and yell into the thing from 2 inches away. I coulda prolly rigged up the Madonna head-set I have and spoken into that, but as I had already recorded a near-perfect (fumbled the words "evil supervillains[1]" a bit) version on the camera, figured I'd just go with that. Since the video was of my feet and the floor, I just grabbed some things off of the google images and slapped 'em up over the audio. The result was way cooler and far funnier than had I just used the audio track. Thus the dawning of a new era

this first Awesome Dude of the Week video took me an embarrassingly long time to finish. Completion of the script kept getting delayed on account of laziness and lots and lots and lots of distractions while doing fact-checking. I always seem to have at least 3 dozen open link in new tab windows open, almost all of which are tangential to something and contain multiple links to other stuff. My curiosity combined with a penchant for wasting time meant that I missed lots of self-imposed deadlines. If I were making a Hollywood movie I woulda been way behind schedule and way over budget. Fortunately for me I wasn't, so I had zero budget and no schedule. I reveled in this and gleefully procrastinated for weeks (ask me sometime 'bout that state quarters blog)

as far as the technical details go, this one kinda sucks. The audio was recorded in lots of segments, but most of the transitions are pretty seamless. That whole my voice getting really really quiet all of a sudden part is the most obvious and awful exception. Shoulda delayed a few of the pictures a bit too. Still though, for a first and worst video, it ain't that bad. Plenty of lessons learned too. The details are irrelevant, but in the future I'll do like I did for the Batman one: first get inspired, then write out a script, then record it, and finally add pictures and stuff. Of course I might get ideas for different aspects in a different order, but I can always save the images or videos or audio files or whatever and add them at the appropriate time. Which is after I finished recording the audio. Discovering this was a painstaking process that I do not intend on repeating

nonetheless, I had a lot of fun researching and goofing off and making this one. Obviously the first, and perhaps most subtle joke, is in the intro: "Today's awesome dude of the week . . . " That's funny. Not this week's awesome dude of the week, but today's awesome dude of the week. Ha ha ha, betcha no one woulda ever caught that either had I not just proverbially spilled the proverbial beans[2]. Flashing the quick picture of Sushruta, Charaka, and Galen was meant to confuse as was my subtle reference and verdict on who won the debate between him and ابوریحان محمد بن احمد بیرونی. Just trying remind everyone of their ignorance and fan the flames of the necessity for plenty more ADWs to come

tossed out some controversial nationalistic stuff too. Not so much a dig at Iran as it is a shout-out to the Soviet Union and approval of China's 中華民族. I'm not gonna lie or hide or stretch the truth, but I do reserve the right to say "Dude was born and raised in what is today Uzbekistan." and refer to him as a Persian Uzbeki

notes

[1] referring to someone as an evil supervillain might seem kinda redundant, but unless you are are a pretentious aristocratic the adjective is of the utmost importance. Evil means you are a bad guy. 'Mericans thinks terrorists are evil. Terrorists think 'Merica is evil[3]. Evil is all a matter of perception, but it is important to know to whom you think it refers when throwing up gang signs

while evil denotes which team you represent, villain or villein is merely an indicator of your social class.

villein
1 : a free common villager or village peasant of any of the feudal classes lower in rank than the thane
2 : a free peasant of a feudal class higher in rank than a cotter
3 : an unfree peasant standing as the slave of a feudal lord but free in legal relations with respect to all others

not sure exactly what a thane or a cotter is, but reckon a supervillain or supervillein would fall somewhere between Toussaint L'ouverture/Spartacus (born and raised in slavery) and Fidel Castro/Kevin Costner's Robin Hood (born and raised as wealthy landowners). Good examples of a supervillein or supervillain would be the real Robin Hood or Mel Gibson's Braveheart (the real Braveheart's daddy was rich as were his brothers). Those are good supervillains. Evil supervillains would be lower-middle class people who try to take over the world (Adolf Hitler is a perfect example of an evil supervillain or evil supervillein)

[2] spill the beans = http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/329900.html

[3] some terrorists don't care 'bout 'Merica and are in the IRA or ETA or various other things, but they are stupid. Any terrorist worth their salt [4]hates on 'Merica. What kinda supervillain/supervillein versus the local school board or the county zoning commission?

[4] worth one's salt = http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/worth-ones-salt.html

simple.es.tr.wikipedia

2009-03-31T15:06:00.000-07:00

nothing too exciting happened on the Simple English wikipedia this month. Kinda uninspired since they canceled the tournament, plus I moved to Miami and was quite occupied with boozing it up in my new locale. Created the tallest building in the USA list and filled in a few of the blanks. Did some work with the skyscraper categories too. I'm thinking that April will be an ambitious month, especially if my real estate woes mean I have to curtail one or possibly even two of my highly anticipated out-of-the-country sojourns. Up next (after I finish the last of the USA skyscrapers) are lists for Hong Kong, Shanghai, and China. Not sure if all of that will be finished ere May rolls around, but we'll see. Hopefully I'll be off gallivanting in new places and have better things to do than play on the wikipedias

someone on the Spanish wikipedia wanted to delete another of my skyscraper stubs. They said it was too short and blah blah blah. Someone added a few sentences to it and it was spared from deletion. I think it is pretty funny that my entry for Millennium Tower was deemed unacceptable, while my dozens of other stubs like Key Tower, Aon Center (Los Angeles), and Park Tower are just fine. Even a wiki as developed as the Spanish is still pretty hurting in its inconsistency.

without question the most interesting thing that happened was my receiving of the following email:

Sayın Ianm1121,

Wikipedia'daki Kullanıcı mesaj:Ianm1121 başlıklı sayfa
00:41, 29 Mart 2009 tarihinde Vikiçizer tarafından yaratıldı. Geçerli
sürüme http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kullan%C4%B1c%C4%B1_mesaj:Ianm1121
adresinden ulaşabilirsiniz.

Yeni bir sayfa.

Açıklaması: Vikipedi'ye hoş geldiniz!

Sayfayı değiştiren kullanıcının erişim bilgileri:
e-posta:
http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96zel:E-postalAt/Viki%C3%A7izer
Viki: http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kullan%C4%B1c%C4%B1:Viki%C3%A7izer

Bahsi geçen sayfayı ziyaret etmediğiniz sürece sayfayla ilgili
başka değişiklik uyarısı gönderilmeyecektir. Uyarı ayarlarını
izleme listenizdeki tüm sayfalar için değiştirebilirsiniz.

Wikipedia uyarı sistemi.

--
Ayarları değiştirmek için:
http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96zel:Watchlist/edit

Yardım ve öneriler için:
http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yard%C4%B1m:Contents

how cool is that? Turkish wikipedia wants me to do something or help them or be their friend or something. I might be a skyscraper consultant. Pretty exciting stuff in the wikipedia universe

no more 2009 Wikicup Tournament of Champions

2009-02-26T17:10:00.000-08:00

those silly guys over at the Simple English wikipedia couldn't even keep together the 2009 Wikipedia Tournament of Champions past the first round. I was leading my pool and would have advanced to the second round, but whatever

all I really did in February (other than partying and enjoying spending winter in the Caribbean and rocking out at Carnival) was create the list of tallest buildings in Chicago and fill in the top few. Getting the hang of the list creation and will do ones for Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Dubai. I'll prolly do ones for the United States and China too. That would get me most of the way done with the top 200, which was my original goal when I started on the wikipedia a year and a half ago. Still a long way to go, but the end is in sight. A few more and the Simple English will be in the top 5 of all language wikipedias as far as skyscrapers go. Not all that phenomenal an achievement in and of itslef, but if I can single-handedly versus all the languages of the world and come in behind only English, German, and French, then I'll take it. Plus I can rank up the Spanish and Portuguese ones whenever I want too. Or Italian or prolly a few others. I'm pretty much a one-man multilingual wikipedia skyscraper juggernaut. I've never been a juggernaut before, but it seems an apt title since the word derives from the Sanskrit Jagannātha, meaning master of the world

2009 Wikicup Tournament of Champions

2009-01-30T20:26:00.000-08:00

2009 Wikicup Tournament of Champions
took me 'til the end of the month to start, but I created alist of the tallest buildings in New York City and filled in a few blanks that were on the top 200 page I made a while ago. Added a link to the new list on the other New York skyscraper pages too and edited the Empire State Building one a lil'. Not too productive, but enough to put me in 2nd place in my group. Not sure how they're counting though, they only gave me points for minor edits when I quite obviously created stubs that were over 300kB and a new article that was nearly 5000kB. Whatever

the Simple English wikipedia is really not very good. It's mostly just stubs and dead links. They have some articles, and a few editors, but anyone hard-core is on the English one or the one in their native language. Still though, I'ma keep on plugging away. Can't really complain since I'm not even a star on a hurting wiki. Yet . . .

December

2008-12-28T15:13:00.000-08:00

only played on the wikipedia a lil' this month, as moving to Trinidad and adventuring around took precedence over nerding it up on the computer. 40 hours a week on the internet for work still leaves plenty of time to delve deeper into the wiki world though

I found these other guys who are running a parallel list of places by area. Their table is far superior to the one me and my buddies at the E+m² have, but they are irrelevant. The only articles that link to their pages are their other pages. They are a self-perpetuating set of hyperlinks. A perfect example of a waste of energy. One of the main reasons that I've been so slow (aside from sheer laziness) to contribute heavily to the wikipedias is fear of squandering my time and efforts. These dudes have heated debates amongst themselves on the talk pages, but their hard work will continue to go unappreciated. Suppose it is still better than killing orcs and being a level 73 elvin mage or whatever they'd be doing with the internet otherwise, but it is depressing to see wasted potential

in other news, the wikipedia has a tournament where the more things you write and edit the more points you get and you can advance to the next round and there is a bracket and a wikicup champion. I signed up for the Simple English tournament (I am representing Trinidad & Tobago) and wrote a coupla stubs just to get back into the habit. There's no way I'm gonna win the tournament, but my objective is to not finish in last place. Look for me to curtail the English and Spanish wikipediaing, at least 'til I get thrown out of the tournament

1 E+12 m²

2008-11-29T14:48:00.000-08:00

I've always had a thing for maps and charts full of statistics and almanacs and rankings. Realized one day that I was embarrassingly ignorant of Africa. Started out by just drawing the continent with borders for all the countries. I challenge any of you to take a blank piece of paper and draw Africa. Your map will be awful. Maybe you'll be able to roughly place Egypt and South Africa and maybe a few others, but no way you'll even get more that a dozen of the 53 with any accuracy. After a few times you can get pretty good though. Once I could draw a nasty map of Africa I started learning and comparing the land areas and populations of the countries. That was almost 4 years ago though, and I haven't played with any of the flashcards since I moved out of that apartment

A few weeks ago I found some underperfected wikipedianess that is right up that alley though. It is a list ranking of all sorts of stuff based on size. Countries and states and provinces too. I had made some charts versing the big Brazilian and Australian ones with Canadia's best of and Alaska, but without the Russian and Chinese ones it was a pretty dumb game. I had almanacs in 3 languages, but none had stats for all the contestants. Fast forward a few years and now everything is but a hyperlink or two away. They got planets and moons and oceans and deserts and all sorts of stuff these wikipedia charts. Still missing a lot though, which is where I can be of assistance

I added Chad, Mali, and Mauritania on the E + 12m² page. Apparently folks had been neglecting the African countries on my flashcards. I also added Krasnoyarsk Krai (Russia), Tyumen Oblast (Russia), and South Australia. Corrected the numbers for Canada, Western Australia, Greenland, Queensland, Xinjiang, and Northern Territory too

Then I created links to the E + 12m² page on for Greenland, Alaska, and Bolivia, and corrected the ones for Indonesia and the Brazilian states of Amazonas and Pará. Coupla them are featured articles too. Hadn't really used the English account since Dec 2007 and first day back I'm editing featured articles. Tried to add the E + 12m² link on other articles that didn't have it, but there is template drama. Everything has it's own special template with all sorts of things that get confused. I can do countries and Brazilian states, but couldn't get Chinese, Russian, Canadian, or Australian ones. Not trying to edit their Infobox templates, so their km² isn't hyperlinked like everyone else's

Still though, it was a pretty decent return from hiatus. The E + 11m² article has a lot more missing information/mistakes as there are a lot more things of that size than there are one order of magnitude larger. It shouldn't be that hard though, I'll prolly get in a few here and there over the next few weeks

I also unified all my accounts. All the various wikipedias are independent, which meant that prior to May 2008 you had to have separate accounts for everything. If I wanted to upload a picture for an article I wrote in Spanish, I had to create a separate account to upload the picture to the Commons. Then if I wanted to put that picture on the English wikipedia I needed to create another account to do that. So stupid. You always had the option of logging in anonymously and editing things as your IP address, but then you don't get the glory of contributing. I don't even have a profile page for most of my wiki accounts, but still. Not even sure what all a unified account entails. It feels like a big step up in legitimacy though, which is for what everything wikipedia-related should be striving

tryin' to bring sexyback

2008-11-03T15:40:00.000-08:00

last week I was staying in Brooklyn and a friend recommended walking 'cross the bridge into Manhattan. So many people died and got "the bends" during its construction, gotta love feats of engineering with high body counts. Anywhoo . . . one of the signs from its centennial celebration in 1983 pointed out the various skyscrapers of the skyline. Recognized the name of one of 'em and proclaimed "hey, I know that building! I wrote the wikipedia entry for that building." Chuckled a bit and walked over the river. Downtown has lots more old and interesting things than does midtown, midtown architecture tends to be more of the giant rectangular style than the stone and gargoyle stuff in older areas. Was quite impressed with the carvings and metal stuff on this one building and then saw the name. "Hey, I wrote the wikipedia entry for that building too!" There weren't any pictures of all these cool details on the wikipedia though, just a crappy generic picture. Now here I was standing before the building that doesn't have any good pictures on the wikipedia. No excuses, I gotta start wikipediaing again. Had a buddy in Dubai who I tried to recruit into taking pictures of some of the Dubai skyscrapers that don't have good wikipedia pictures, but he declined. Now here I was in New York not taking pictures for the wikipedia either. And I had been in Chicago and not taken any pictures there either

haven't worked out since Puerto Rico either, but I'ma start overachieving again on at least one front ere I head back down to the Caribbean

Wikidrama: the navigational templates versus

2008-05-27T20:20:00.000-07:00

Navigational templates are lil' boxes on the bottom of a wikipedia article that link it to other articles sharing a common theme. They are for the most part redundant with categories and lists, but they look pretty and lead to more right clicking and result in lots of Open Link in New Tab. Because they are easy to make, look cool, and link to articles you like/think people should click on, folks make a lot of navigational templates. That's why I make 'em. I even put pictures on mine. My navigational templates rock.

The creation of navigational templates has been getting completely out of hand. Some articles have a ridiculous number that serve more to confuse/overwhelm than to provide meaningful encyclopedic content. Check out the comical number of navigational templates for soccer coachSven-Göran Eriksson. A backlash of anti-navigational template deletionists have been overcompensating for this proliferation. Wiki folks tend to be sensitive and highly protective of their creations, and when legitimate navigational templates got caught in the deletion rampage, shit got kinda crazy. Wikipedia's open and democratic nature leads to bickering and counter rebuttals worse than you can imagine. Thousands of these guys versing thousands of these guys. Trust me, you don't want to get involved with any of these dudes.

Not sure who's gonna win the versus, but I'ma keep making navigational templates 'til the whole thing gets resolved. Been putting off making lists for some reason, but I need to get on that in order to hedge my bets and be sufficiently redundant that I won't be upset if everything gets deleted.

first encounter with a vandal

2008-04-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

There's this dude (who logs in from multiple IP addresses) who likes to go around falsifying heights of skyscrapers in Mexico. Not quite sure why someone would chose to spend their time doing that, but the wikipedias attracts some strange folks. I wasn't trying to start any fights or appeal to any authorities or anything, so I just undid his stupidity and added some comments to the talk page. It was my first time contributing to a talk pages and doing so made me feel like an upstanding member of society.

Unfortunately, that was pretty much the extent of my contributions for April. I could make excuses (and not having electricity for 3 weeks is a pretty damn good one), but I am the only one responsible for my lack of productivity. Still plugging along, albeit at a slower than expected pace. Finally updated this blog though. It had been idle since November. Was hoping to have my wikiprofiles updated as well, but didn't get around to it. Maybe May will be the month. Will May be maybe the month? Maybe May be maybe be May maybe maybe maybe

Categories and Templates

2008-03-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

I am now completely inside the Matrix. Simultaneously creating everything in Spanish and Simple. I am awesome. Arbitrarily set the proverbial bar at 250m+ and have conquered New York and Chicago. Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Dubai are next. Then I'ma knock out all the rest of the buildings in the US.

My templates rock. Wanna thank my man Nimbus 08 for inspiring me with the idea of adding a picture to the templates.

Categories are pretty insane too. If ever go completely Howard Hughes paranoid bonkers, that's prolly where you'll find me. Lots and lots of potential for thinking too much there

simple.wikipedia

2008-02-26T19:51:00.000-08:00

started starting on the simple. Simple English wikipedia sucks. Depressing the number of dead links, stubs, and terrible articles. I'ma do what I do though and benchmark the skyscraper stuff with the best of 'em. I'll be doing the spanish simultaneously as well. It's a very small corner of the universe I've staked out, but my rinconcito kicks ass in its legitimacy.

Was plugging away at the history of the tallest building in the world 'til I got caught in the whole habitable floors v. architectural detail debate. Was going back and forth between giving it to Ulmer Münster or the Park Row building for a while and then it stopped being fun so I quit. Coullda written the definitive answer as the internet consensus is split and no one could have contradicted a well-articulated stance on the issue, but I just didn't care enough. The whole episode kinda soured me for a while and left me indifferent to everything.

I have a tendency to get bored easily. When inspired I am capable of doing anything, but once derailed it can take me a while to get going again. Lack of urgency is one of the biggest things I have to overcome (in wikipedia and everything else in life). Without a deadline, I get distracted to the point of inactivity. I need to be in a routine. Routines are great for me since I am a robot. I need to eat breakfast in the morning (and coffee and a muffin is NOT breakfast. Without 500+ calories and 20+ grams of protein I'll be grumpy 'til lunch), but other than that I am extremely flexible. Sleep schedules, physical activity, illness, external stimulation or lack thereof all have negligible effect on me. I'm down for whatever and rarely even notice my circumstances. As such it is important for me to put myself it good situations, otherwise I'll be content to wallow in my own filth in perpetuity. Once in a while wallowing in filth is fun and even healthy, but perpetuity seems a bit much.

This month I moved to Puerto Rico and had to get adjusted, but in March I should have my work, food, gym, beach, and other such things down to a science. Then I'll be free to over or underachieve in peripheral areas as much or as little as I please. I'm calling March to be my big wikipedia coming of age month.

Anexo:Rascacielos más altos

2008-01-26T19:48:00.000-08:00

previously I had only been creating stub articles for dead links. I fixed bad links and created redirects. I was meek and timid and did nothing that could in any way be considered offensive. I never objected or did anything when someone edited one of my articles, even if they deleted a relevant link or something. After doing this for a while, I decided to make a decisive move and use all my acquired knowledge and internet stalking for good.

I basically rewrote the entire list of tallest skyscrapers on the Spanish wikipedia. Took me a while and there is plenty of room for improvement, but all in all I am quite proud of myself. I'ma have to update the list periodically to keep it fresh and I need to add some other stuff, but I was very pleased that no one objected to any of my deletions or additions. With my first major edit under my belt, I now feel like an official wiki dude.

Unfortunately that was all the interneting I did in January. Had a lot of loose ends to tie up as I was leaving the school at the end of the semester and moving to Puerto Rico, so my cyberproductivity was curtailed severely. I even killed off LEGOMAN, which hurt even more than I thought it would. Oh well, suppose I can only simultaneously half-ass on but so many fronts.

Think I'ma forgo the Portuguese and just get to work on the Simple English. Starting with the skyscrapers and then there are lots of potential projects.

Wikipedia:Meetup

2007-12-26T19:42:00.000-08:00

met the folks who make the wikipedia. An eclectic assortment of eccentrics to say the least. Most of 'em were cool kids, but there were a few who I am glad exist primarily in wikipedia form. One of the things I love most 'bout the wikipedia (and libraries and parks and other public places)is that everyone is welcome and no one, no matter how dirty/weird/scary, has any more right to be there than anyone else. I find non-discrimination against the unorthodox to range from pleasantly refreshing to hilarious. I thoroughly enjoyed being peers with them wiki folks.

Not the highest girl to guy ratio and I wouldn't like our odds in a gang fight, but some interesting opinions were shared and a few took the opportunity to vent long pent-up frustrations with what they assumed to be sympathetic ears. It was an enlightening evening and I am very glad I attended. Met a bunch of editors and administrators and someone from the Wikimedia Board of Trustees. That's right, within weeks of joining up with the wikipedia I was having drinks with one of the 7 board members.

Learned lots of insider information, heard rumors and gossip (wiki folks love wiki gossip), got some questions answered, and felt an overall sence of warmness and pride at being a member of such an unintentionally exclusive society.

es.wikipedia

2007-11-26T13:48:00.000-08:00

now I don't like excuses, but I did go from working 12 to 52 hours a week and was out of town both of these last weekends for Thanksgivings in Michigan. Let's chalk November and December up to transition months. I know that's kinda lame, but it's still a whole lot better than what you're not doing.

I was starting to get into a groove with the Spanish building stubs . With the English ones I had to start from scratch, but with the Spanish I could mooch off of the other wikis. My info was still coming from legit sources, but sometimes I could get pictures from the other language pages. I say sometimes, 'cause not all the wikis are fully integrated. If you post something on the German one for example, it is only accessible to people from inside the de.wikipedia. In order to make things universally available, they must be posted in the wiki commons. I wasn't quite sure how the wiki commons works, and figured I'd wait until I did some more of the much needed gruntwork in the Spanish section, but then the English guys upped the stakes.

My whole wikipedia foray is a comically ridiculous undertaking, but inspiring in its scope of ambition. Figured I was charting new territory and anticipated blazing trails wherever I reckoned they should go. Obviously no one had standardized stuff, and after filling in the blanks that was gonna be my thing. I was gonna initiate a tsunami of organization that would sweep through the languages of the Americas (minus French due to irrelevance) leaving only a homogenized presentation of information in its wake. Then some English guys started a skyscraper team that has the potential to compete with my megalomaniac fantasy. I don't have enough street cred to join 'em, and their existence jeopardizes the implementation of my master plan.

It prolly won't matter, and if I own the Spanish and Portuguese I can still defeat them in a versus for the Simple English. This competition was nonetheless unsettling, and combined with my wiki time being culled resulted in an unproductive end to November.

I'll try to regroup and formulate a more aggressive gameplan in light of these recent developments. Depending on what's on there at the moment, Puerto Rico in its entirety might get wikicommoned. I don't fancy myself much of a photographer, but perhaps being the source of google image search results is my destiny. I know this November entry is kinda hurtin, but January's might be phenomenal. I may, in true wikipedia fashion, get sidetracked by so many other interesting things that the original objective lies buried beneath a train of thought wreck.

Wikipedia

2007-10-26T00:48:00.000-07:00

So it begins.

I love the wikipedia in every non-sexual meaning of the verb. I own more reference books in more languages and they compose a higher percentage of my total material possessions than anyone ever. You don’t even want to know about me and my 2001 Almanac. Or the 2003 one. Prolly wouldn’t even believe me if I did tell you. And once you realized that I wasn’t exaggerating you wouldn’t be incorrect to have me hauled off in a straight jacket.

Whatever, I’m sure you got some quirks too.

One of my favorite things ‘bout wikipedia is that you can read the article in other languages. Listening to multiple opinions is always a good idea, especially when the validity of the information you are receiving is completely unknown. Usually English is the best/longest/most thorough of the user generated things, but sometimes you get an all-star who wrote a thesis in another language. The wikipedia can also be used as a translation tool. Just type in whatever you want in English and then look on the left side where they have the page in other languages. This is how I stumbled across simple English.¹

Simple English is English written on a Forrest Forrest Gump level. They break it down as: “Articles in the Simple English Wikipedia use fewer words and easier grammar than the original English Wikipedia. The Simple English Wikipedia is also for people with different needs, such as students, children, adults with learning difficulties and people who are trying to learn English. Other people use the Simple English Wikipedia because its simple language helps them to understand unfamiliar topics or complex ideas.”

Awesome. I support the cause. Got me plenty of experience ‘splaining stuff to kids and folks with limited English abilities too. I am very qualified to be a contributor to the Simple English. Their lack of articles and dearth of weirdoes provides plenty of room for me to conquer. Mwah ha ha ha. I had always figured my initial foray into the wikipedia was going to be translating Spanish articles into ‘Merican. I was also gonna learn Portuguese by translating it into English. A pretty ambitious language acquisition technique to be sure, but one based on practical implementation with immediate gratification. And I would be contributing to the dissemination of wisdom that has been for too long sequestered into isolated ghettos of mutually unintelligible vernaculars. ‘Cept I am way to lazy to get into that habit. Was ‘possed to have been studying Portuguese for the past several months now, but aside from an occasional visit to globoesporte that hasn’t happened. If I wind up going to Brasil in December I may regret my summertime sloth, but at the moment I lack the motivation of necessity.

Simple English provided the impetus for me to register with the wikipedia and dip my proverbial toes into the waters of the World Wide Web upon which I had been so adeptly surfing. Made a correction and then clicked on a tutorial editing page and clicked ‘til I emerged in the metapedia. Metapedia is hardcore. It’s where the dudes who write the propaedia hang out. If you don’t what the propaedia is, you’ve prolly never awoken from an alcohol induced state of unconsciousness and found yourself to be in the midst of cross-referencing sources across centuries. Metapedia is hardcore. I was elected ambassador from the Simple English realm, but quickly realized I need to first become at least a medium sized fish before properly repping my relatively miniscule pond.

Figured I’d pay my dues on the biggest baddest one and then translate ‘cross the ‘Mericas to build up all kinds of cred. If I got English, Spanish, and Portuguese on my resume, my gravitas in the Simple should be unquestioned. A few snags were encountered on account of what I humbly assume to be my unprecedented badassness, but this issue was quickly resolved. Like I said, earning my keep through bootstrap pullage. The glamour lies in the willingness to perform thankless perfunctory tasks. Starting out by writing articles that were red linked. Of the top 200, 27 were red linked when I embarked upon my cleanup. Created an ideal stub template and have been filling in the gaps. Not editing other people’s sorry-ass stubs yet, that will be cleanup 2.0. First I’ll de-red link the lists in Spanish and Portuguese. Not sure if I’ll do the Simple ones then or hold off until cleanup 2.0 sweeps away the filth of Augean stables. I’m talking conquest. Perhaps I’ll ease into it, just kinda depends.

As updating the pretentious yuppie blogspot has long been a bane, might as well up the stakes and turn this into my wikipedia memoir. ‘Least ‘til my wikipedia entry becomes the ultimate masturbatory retinue.

________________________
¹ While I was discovering the most macho twin names ever: Zakil and Zakar. Call ‘em the Zozo boys. You can’t get any more testosterone-laden than that. And just wait ‘til you find out what those words mean.

2007-09-26T07:24:00.000-07:00

“I invited you here to tell you that you are a big jerk and I hate you. You are a bad man and everyone should hate you and not listen to what you have to say.”
“There are no homosexuals in Iran”

And thus began the week of ridiculousness. Once a year the United Nations stops being a worthless bunch of bureaucrats in a crumbling building and becomes a circus. I love the circus. Hugo Chavez tells jokes and gets applause like Michael Moore at Cannes. For some reason Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is very important and Fox news guys want to lynch him. What great fun!!!

Meanwhile, real developing stories include monks in Myanmar and Kosovo independence. My money says no to both. If the junta starts slaughtering people, no one would care. Kofi Anan and George Bush and Tony Blair all called Darfur the “G” word, but George Clooney is the only one who still remembers. Myanmar’s increased fuel prices pale in comparison to everything in Zimbabwe, but that is drawing less media attention than OJ Simpson. Kosovo could cause all kinds of problems for nations not interested in having an oppressed minority gain sovereignty. Russia, Turkey, Iran, and little guys like Macedonia and Cyprus can easily recruit a few more against US-Euro backed Kosovo and make it in everyone’s best interest that nothing happens. So much for democracy and freedom and all that.

The circus is what we all want to see though. The UN is pretty much useless when it comes to actually doing anything, but when they open the floor up to the empty rhetoric of charismatic leaders aflush with petrodollars it is the Greatest Show on Earth.

Superconducting Super Collider

2007-08-21T21:32:00.000-07:00

what an awesome name. Super is used twice in the span of three words. Not since the Mario Bros. Mario Mario and Luigi Mario has there been so much repetition. Particle accelerators are pretty cool. I don't really know what they do, something 'bout Steven Hawking and his GUT, but they sure have cool names like Bevatron and Tevatron and Superconducting Super Collider. The Superconducting Super Collider was gonna be the superest of 'em all, but it cost too much and got shut down. Not quite as embarrassing as the Ryungyon hotel, but check out this quote "Abandoning the SSC at this point would signal that the United States is compromising its position of leadership in basic science." Awesome, now we know precisely the moment when we lost to Singapore.
I say we build more really expensive physics stuff. Space exploration and tourism is cool and I'm all for that, but we should also build enormous circles where we mash stuff together and make black holes. Tell me you don't want your tax dollars going to build this:

I Loves All My Chil'ins

2007-07-31T15:00:00.000-07:00

I ain't never cheated on nobody or had no affairs 'cause those are breaches of commitment resulting in severe deductions of karma points. Things was getting kinda serious between us, but we had agreed that it would remain a very open relationship. Sometimes jealousy demands exclusivity, but in our case that was not going to be an issue. A gentlemen never tells, so I'll leave the undisclosed complexities up to your imagination.

Basically, I'm too much man. Gotta lotta love to give and being in my prime have an obligation to bring that pleasure to as many unsatisfied individuals as possible. Had known this for a while, but was procrastinating 'cause I knew how much work it'd be. Sowing the oats is the easy part. Then you gotta water 'em, make sure they get enough sunlight, and protect them from harmful weeds and insects to ensure they grow up healthy and strong. While a lesser man might just plant his seed and leave, the righteous stays for the reaping.

Now don't you think for one moment that my dedication to husbandry in any way inhibits my hunting skills. I don't go after the weak gazelles either, vulnerability has never been attractive to me. I only feast upon the most succulent of prey, and have devoured a diverse assortment of meats.

I'm also an amazing gardener. I've got the stamina required to dig deep into that fertile soil. Deeper than most, I'll be sure to extract all the nutrients. Now I don't have all the fancy tools and admittedly my techniques are simple, but they are time-tested and always get the job done. Well, not always, but that happens to everybody.

I ain't the settling down type. Least not yet. Maybe some day I'll be sitting on a rocking chair on the front porch, but not today. The world is my oyster, and be it an aphrodisiac or not, I'ma go forth and multiply. Y'all might attempt to justify your own pathetic existences by hating on me, and if that's what you need to get through your day so be it. Say what you will about deadbeat dads, but my offspring love me more than yours do you. I might not always be there, but I still provide for 'em. Just 'cause you come home every night doesn't mean you are enriching their lives. A mere fraction of my brilliance is worth more than the perpetual tediousness of your presence. I can swoop in, turn on the charm and give 'em a fond childhood memory they will forever cherish. You keep grinding that axe though, really admirable that.

So there you are blogspot.com. It ain't much, but you've always known you weren't my favorite. I'll continue drop by at least once at month and rock your world, but the myspace she gives better lovin'

10 Years On

2007-06-18T15:11:00.001-07:00

Fate, mysterious temptress that she is, scheduled my 10 year high school reunion for the week after my homecoming party. While the homecoming concluded the most recent chapter in my Book of Life (Chapter 7: South East Asia), the reunion serves as a synopsis of the previous ten years and is an opportune moment to reflect on the work in progress. It’s been an intriguing mix of comedy, adventure, romance, and tragedy. We’ve seen the character of the protagonist develop, relationships grow more complex, and the importance of events come into focus. What will transpire in the pages to come? Which preciously introduced characters will become significant and who else will we meet? Will the plot continue in the same direction or is a major turning point in the story fast approaching? Will the novel grow redundant or is it just starting to get good? It’s been an interesting read thus far, full of twists and unexpected storylines; I’m looking forward to reading on . . .

I am infinitely wiser and more experienced than I was 10 years ago. I have loved and lost and learned to love again. I have discovered more about myself, the world around me, and my place in it. I have been tried and tested, have made and learned from my mistakes, and have come to understand and appreciate so much of the advice offered me.

Despite all this, recurring doubts flash across my mind.

Am I satisfied with my life? Have I achieved what I had hoped to upon graduation? Would my former self be proud of what he has become? Would the idealistic teenage me be impressed or would the jaded teenage me be ashamed? Do I even care? Do I value the opinion of this pimply faced teenager, or are his expectations merely the daydreams of a naïve child? Priorities change, so much of what was important to me then seems so frivolous now, and so much of what I then took for granted I wish I had appreciated more.

How do I remember this first decade since leaving the proverbial nest? What have I achieved? What do I regret? And how will I look back on this period when the time comes for the next reunion? Do I even think about the 25th reunion? Who will I be in 2022 at age 43? How important is it to me that I meet the approval of this elder me? What do I hope to accomplish for him in the next 15 years? How will he judge my choices? Do I care? Am I living for the me of tomorrow or the me of today? Or to rekindle the aspirations of the youthful me of 1997? Or to make proud the me that will attend the 50th reunion in 2047?

To which self am I faithful? Are these the glory days I will fondly recall or the wasted years I will bitterly regret? Am I progressing? Am I stagnant? Have I gotten off track? Am I going in circles? Am I going backwards? Where am I going? Is that where I want to be, where I wanted to be, or where I will want to be? Why am I going there? Whose desires am I fulfilling? Whose desires should I be fulfilling?

Wendell, Quello, and Bob

2007-06-14T22:41:00.000-07:00

I’ve been bombarded with an overwhelming number of requests from loyal readers urging me to use my criminology background to uncover the true story behind the Cinnamon Toast Crunch spokesmen mystery. For the truly ignorant, there is a breakfast cereal called Cinnamon Toast Crunch. From 1984 until 1992 it was made by three chefs who would bake a loaf of bread, cut it into slices, apply a cinnamon-sugar spread to the slices, and then toast the breads in a magical oven. This is how they made Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Then, suddenly, there was only one chef. Wendell was always the dominant one, the Diana Ross to Quello and Bob’s Supremes, but no explanation was ever offered as to why the trio was disbanded. Almost immediately rumors of foul play were insinuated. Some suspected a jealous Wendell of taking out his partners; others thought executives at General Mills were responsible and forced Wendell to continue making television appearances against his will.

Unbeknownst to many, the glamorous life of cereal mascots is one fraught with danger. Perhaps not for the superstars, but for every Tony the Tiger and Cap’n Crunch, there are dozens of Boo Berries and Crunchosaurus Rexes. Even longtime cereal stalwarts Snap, Crackle, and Pop were unable to save their brother Pow. The turnover at brands like Cookie Crisp, Coco Krispies, Smacks, and Apple Jacks is truly heartbreaking. While a lesser tier of Buzz the Honey Nut Cheerios bee, Toucan Sam, the Trix Rabbit, and Lucky do fairly well for themselves, the introduction of a new product or changes in consumer preferences could at any moment render them the next King Vitamin. Veterans like Sonny the Coco Puffs bird and Sugar Bear the Super Sugar/Golden Crisps mascot have been fortunate, but have been living on the edge extinction for years.

Cereal politics are ugly, rivalries intense, and billions of dollars are at stake. This part of a balanced breakfast is not for the meek of heart. I’ll spare you all the sordid details of the Cinnamon Toast Crunch affair, but let’s just say it wasn’t the most amicable of splits. Cereal mascots, like the models with whom they consort, ingest almost nothing but cocaine and booze. It is a thrill ride that far too often ends in tragedy. Wendell was actually the heaviest drug user of the three, but after he became a Jehovah’s Witness in 1991 a deep rift developed between the chefs. As their friendship deteriorated, so did their cereal’s market share. With General Mills’ corporate espionage sources discovering rival Post’s plans to introduce Waffle Crisp by the mid-nineties, an important decision regarding the direction of Cinnamon Toast Crunch needed to be made. In one of the most controversial and underhanded moves in industry history, a series of 4 commercials were recorded without Quello and Bob’s knowledge. These Wendell solo spots ran the entire length of the high cereal summer season, after which Quello and Bob were released from their contracts.

Mascots from across the breakfast spectrum went on strike as a display of solidarity to the two slighted chefs. Everyone from Aunt Jemima to Mrs Butterworth to Rastus the Cream of Wheat Guy came out in support of the bakers. Grocers across the country were unable to restock their shelves with breakfast foods, which led to increased sales at Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks. It took years for morning home dining to recover, and its popularity has yet to return to pre-1992 levels. The fallout from the incident haunts the industry to this day.

As for Quello and Bob, the transition from celebrity to civilian was understandably difficult. Fortunately Quello has conquered his demons and, after a few relapses, has been clean for years now. He and his wife Monica run a spa in Indiana (http://www.quellobellospa.com) and are expecting their first child. Bob wasn’t so lucky. His body was found in a Motel 6 outside of Reno days before his 32nd birthday. Autopsy results showed 43 toxic substances in his blood.

HAPPIER DAYS

So Skinny!!!!!!!!!!

2007-05-28T17:51:00.001-07:00

I weighed myself in Thailand and I clocked in at 75kg (165 lb). I usually go for 'round 84 (185) and stopped going to the gym when I hit 90 (198), feeling undeserving of so easily almost attaining long aspired for dream weight of 200 pounds. This 165 was after a few days of binge eating in Yangon and Bangkok too. I BULKED UP to 165. That's crazy. I can feel every bone in my body save my femurs and them 3 little ones in the ears. Got a crucial 6 pack and well defined shoulders, tris, lats and all that even though I can prolly only curl 12 pounds and bench 60. Body fat is so much more important than muscle though, look at Brad Pitt in Troy and Fight Club. 35 pounds makes a big difference in both of us.

If there's ever a place to gain weight it's Hawaii. See if after a week there I can't stop buttoning my pants through a belt loop. Bring on the plate lunches!!! Macaroni salad 'til my clothes fit me again!!!!!

The Relaxing Lawn of Rakhine Gone

2007-05-20T23:55:00.000-07:00

People in Myanmar are undoubtedly the friendliest in the world. Good thing too, imagine if you had a nation of unemployed loiterers who weren't friendly. That would suck. Fortunately that ain't the case, and multiple times a day one is forced to marvel at how good-natured and kind everyone is. I figure once you're welcomed into someone's home people everywhere tend to be warm and open, they just don't seem to distinguish between the hospitality you extend to a guest versus that to a random person in the street here. Still though, it's always nice to hang out with/be adopted by a family for a few days.

On the bus met an older Burmese couple who live in Australia and were visiting family here. They invited me to join them on their homecoming and I was happy to tag along. Hopped in a taxi (of the pickup truck sort. Suppose they got cars with the word TAXI written on a rooftop sign too, but far more prevalent are motorcycles, bicycles, and pickup trucks. You'd be surprised at how many dozen people you can cram into the back of a little Japanese pickup. Those were buses and not taxis though) and headed off to wherever it was they were taking me. There is always that brief moment of "wait a minute, am I going to die?" whenever you find yourself following people you just met into unknown places. Especially in strange countries where you don't speak the language. There tend to be more serial killers on television that in reality though, and the fact that I don't live in a cheesy horror movie also decreases the likelihood of anything bad occurring. I'll post pictures (I've got bazillions) when I get back to 'Merica, meanwhile here are some insights into what happens when a giant white guy drops into a Burmese family's village compound:

As a preposterously tall foreigner, inquiries regarding my height are fairly common. I answered, one thing led to another and two guys started arguing about which one of them was taller. They stood up, faced each other, and everyone starting shouting their opinion. The whole thing was pretty ridiculous so I intervened and lined them up back to back. All the commotion ceased as it was evident to everyone that the taxi driver was a few millimeters taller than the fat guy. This debate being abruptly settled, a conversation praising the genius of the back to back method of height comparison ensued. Apparently in Myanmar judging who is taller has always been a difficult task because when face to face the disputing parties disqualify each other on grounds of chest swelling, raised eyebrows, improper neck angles, hairstyles, and other such height falsifying factors. Shoulder to shoulder yields many of the same disputes and is more a source of controversy than an arbitrator. Not so with this novel back to back approach. A mutual third party must officially declare the winner, but so foolproof this solution that any observer would arrive at the same conclusion. My failure to take credit for inventing this revolutionary technique was taken as proof of my modesty and further endeared everyone to me.

. . .

This 4 year old girl really liked me and we had a lot of fun goofing around. One day she had a new toy. Now before you judge, please remember that these are country folks living in what is far from a wealthy nation. The only other toys I saw were a little car and two rubber bands. From what I could infer these she shared with her 7 year old brother. Her new toy was a beetle. You could watch it curl up, set it on a chair, flick it across the floor, all sorts of fun games. I pretended to eat it, but she didn't believe me for a second. I showed her how to do it and we had a good time pretending to eat it and then cough it up, pull a beetle out of your nose, out of the other guy's ear, hours of fun. Later that afternoon the whole family was sitting around when she pranced in showing off her new toy. No one was much impressed and paid her little attention. So she ate the beetle. "SHE ATE THE BEETLE!!!" "No, she ate it?" "Yes, she ate it!!" "That beetle she was playing with?" "Ate it?" "She'll be sick" "She'll be fine" "Ate it?" "Popped it in her mouth and swallowed it." She was quite happy to be the center of attention and to have gotten everyone with her prank. I had never before seen let alone imagined a more successful performance in all my years of pretending to eat stuff.

. . .

Not quite sure how the family hierarchy worked, but there was most certainly a ranking. The Australian couple were at the top, and as their prize souvenir I was too. We sat on chairs instead of the floor, we got fanned by pretty girls, we got to eat first, all sorts of perks. I thought dude was kind of a jerk about it, but maybe that's how alpha males in Myanmar are supposed to behave. Getting to eat first was cool though. I got to have all the local delicacies and more fresh fruit than you can imagine. Lemme tell you, people who live in fruit orchards have lots and lots and lots and lots of fresh fruit. It got got to be a bit much though, as the women folk whose duties consisted of cooking and serving food took tremendous pleasure in watching me eat. I generally have a healthy appetite, and when my taking seconds makes people happy I will do my best to oblige them. The first few days were alright, but when my gorging failed to keep pace with their expectations I would be encouraged to "sa, sa" (eat, eat) and when compliance was unsatisfactory was commanded quite aggressively to "Sa!! Sa!! Sa!!" certain items. I tried to vary my consumption so as not to favor any particular chef and would end every feeding pleading to be allowed to move on to the multiple course fruit eating session that served as an interlude before dessert. Never before had I so wanted to correct the imbalance of disparity, but as Myanmar is wont to imprison those seeking to alter the status quo, thought it best to continue suffering in overindulged silence.

All in all it was a great week. If any of you are heading out to Myanmar (yeah, right) I'd be happy to recommend a host family 11 hours south of Yangon 'bout 30 minutes east of Mawlamyang

Myanmar Wins

2007-05-07T21:47:00.000-07:00

Found a picturesque lake with a little wooden village. Wandered through a vegetable market. Strolled down a dirt road and came across an enormous temple with thousands of people worshiping. Some teenage laborers directed me to some pagoda and the people there saw I was thirsty and gave me water. Met a gang of children, took dozens of pictures, and was the honored guest of their impoverished shantytown. Stopped to rest at another lazy lake with electricityless wooden shacks. And that was just the first 3 hours of my 13km stroll from the airport to downtown.

Street stalls sell various pig gut delicacies. Saw a film at an old school one screen movie house where the rich people sit in the balcony and the poor folks sit below. There are monks everywhere: every kid has a shaved head and there are lots of teenage Natalie Portman bald girls too. Our bus broke down and while we waited for them to repair it, some guys invited me to share their whiskey. Lemme tell you, whiskey inspired broken down bus friends harassing the pretty girl selling grapes is priceless.

Made friends with a crazy monk and hung out with him all day. He invited me to stay in his monastery, but as I had already paid for a hotel that night we agreed to meet up the next day. I was late though, and he prolly thought I blew him off. Spent a few hours looking for him, but I guess it wasn't meant to be.

After politely declining to see his paintings and traditional handicrafts dude checked over his shoulder, slid up beside me and whispered "I elso have de rhoobie." What do I look like, a jewel smuggler? What am I going to do with a ruby? Still though, it was quite flattering. I've had shady guys offer to get me women and drugs, but I feed honored to have moved up to gemstones. Thanks Myanmar, bonus points for classing me up a notch on the contraband goods hierarchy.

The friendliest people, the best looking women, the most cultural stuff, and more weird/gross food than you can imagine. Myanmar (not Burma) ranks #2 right behind the El Dorado of Paraguay

Perhatian Island

2007-04-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

I didn't come to South East Asia to hang out with Euro backpacker kids, but turns out that what tropical island paradises are full of. I was hoping for topless island girls or large breasted mermaids, but it was just lots of Jack Johnson and overpriced booze. Not really my scene, but I ain't a hater. Spent several days and waaaaaay too many ringgits lazing on the beach, playing volleyball, burying each other in the sand, snorkeling, drinking buckets with straws, and doing all the status quo stuff expected of 20 somethings on white sand beaches.

Good times and glad I did it, but a far cry from the 38 hour bus rides and explosive diarrhea that are the hallmarks of an Ian vacation. I'ma skip the full moon parties, magic mushroom milkshakes, and spring break hedonism of Southern Thailand and head straight to Burma. Military juntas, imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winners, closed boarders, restricted provinces, Myanmar sounds like my kinda place. I'll be posting from Bangkok while I sort out visa stuff, but prepare for another long blog hiatus. Even if they do have the internet and even if this site is not one deemed inappropriate for the masses and blocked, I'd be scared to write anything less than completely flattering about the government and the fine job they are doing in Myanmar. As great as a story as it would make, I'ma do my best to stay out of Burmese prisons.

Crazy Giant Animals

2007-04-23T07:41:00.000-07:00

Now I'm a city kid and don't get that much exposure to flora. Pigeons, rats, cockroaches, and people's pets are pretty much the only animals I encounter on a regular basis. Still though, I like the zoo and know lots of stuff 'bout lots of critters. I didn't know anything about Malaysian jungle science fiction enormous mutant animals though. Inch long ants. Yes, one inch. An Ant. Insane. Super gianourmous spiders too. Stuff that is supposed to be big and is isn't really all that crazy. Orangutans and Komodo Dragons in Sumatra were was big as I knew they'd be. Kangaroos are too big, but everything else in that petting zoo place in Australia was just what I expected. Saw a huge centipede, but I'd seen them before in the Smithsonian's Insect Zoo. I was pretty obsessed with the inch ants, but not so much so as to be inspired to write and entire blog.

I don't like scary movies 'cause I start thinking and worrying about monsters and stuff. For a few days I won't sleep well and don't like being in unlit, uncrowded places that are conducive to being gotten by monsters. Monsters ain't real though, and I know my fears are irrational and unjustified. Being scared of something real is different.

Was strolling around the hillside ocean view chalets (a chalet is a fancy word for a hut on stilts) where I was staying admiring the gorgeousness. A lady came on her porch saw me and we shared our awe for the spectacularity of where we where, then she asked me if I'd seen the lizards. I replied that I hadn't and she told me that they were huge: 2-3 meters. I smiled and nodded as she was older and clearly crazy and/or really stupid. There is no such thing as a 3 meter lizard. That's ridiculous. Maybe she meant to say 2-3 feet. She prolly got startled by one and overexaggerated its size. That's fine, but a 9 foot lizard is just preposterous. Later while eating breakfast on my porch I saw a lizard. It was good sized, head and body as big as a cat. With the tail it was prolly 2-2 ½ feet. Maybe 3. Certainly not 9. Silly lady.

A few minutes later I heard something off to the side of the porch. I looked over and DEAR LORD!!! It was surreal. Humongous on a scale that doesn't even make sense. Like Giantworld on Super Mario 3. Tried to get a picture, but the thing heard me and got the bejeezus scared out of it. Too big to be agile and quick like the lizards that crawl on walls and ceilings, dude stumbled, slipped and fell in a ravine, and ran under a neighboring chalet. Didn't measure, but if I had to guestimate I'd say 6 feet. Maybe 5'3" or maybe 6'8" I dunno. Wasn't the length so much as the girth though. I'm a 34 inch waist and it wasn't no smaller than me.

Found out later it was a monitor lizard. The internet doesn't have anything impressive to say about Varanus salvator, but whatever. I got photographic evidence of the other ones http://s175.photobucket.com/albums/w121/ianm1121/

Malaysia wins the award for world's most ridiculously oversized animals. And I didn't even make it out to Borneo, that's prolly where King Kong and Mothra and them come from

Develop: under-, -ing, and -ed

2007-04-23T07:31:00.000-07:00

I experienced Malaysia as the the model of progress and as backwards little brother. Went from being impressed with its cleanliness and sense of security to noticing its litter problems and fearing pickpockets. All in a matter of two weeks. Crazy how quickly you adapt from one reality to another. Got me thinking about what is taken for granted at various stages of development:

Bathrooms

Underdeveloped countries - One of the most interesting things you'll experience. Lots of lots of stories for the folks back

Developing countries - Kind of a crapshoot. Sometimes you have to pay a few coins. Sometimes you have to pay for toilet paper. Sometimes you can sneak past without paying. Just kinda depends.

Developed countries - Bathrooms are just bathrooms, what are you talking about?

Crossing the Street

Underdeveloped countries - What an adventure!! For some reason traffic lights aren't too popular. Just kinda pick and time and go. In addition to the cars, trucks, and buses that you're used to; there are horses, dogs, bicycles, motorcycles, scooters, and all sortsa stuff zooming around. Best to do like a little kid and hold somebody's hand. Or walk next to an old lady, she's been doing this for years.

Developing countries - Jaywalk everywhere except crowded intersections where you use the crosswalk like everybody else

Developed countries - Drivers are busy talking on cell phones, fooling with their CD/DVD players, putting on makeup, eating, drinking, and other such non-driving activities. Everyone drives really fast, keeps 2-5 car lengths away from everything, and slams on their brakes and honks if anything other than a red light distracts them from their non-driving activity (there's a squirrel, some guy looks like he might be thinking about jaywalking, the car 60 feet in front of them started to merge into their lane without signaling for 45 seconds beforehand). There are accidents all the time, but nobody cares because they all have insurance.

Communication Barrier

Underdeveloped countries - Unless you're some place where you're paying in dollars, nobody speaks your language. You speak theirs. Sometimes because you are a dumb foreigner they SPEAK LOUDLY. IN SHORT SENTENCES. SO YOU UNDERSTAND. But you don't. This can either be very frustrating or very funny. I recommend going with option B. Smiling and nodding, pointing and grunting, facial and hand gestures, that's all you really need. If you have pictures of your family that's always a big hit. A map of their country is nice for you to show where you've been and where you're going.

There's a fairly high likelihood that someone will want to play the do you know game. It goes something like this:
"Sah Co-na-li"
"Yes, Sean Connery"
"Da Bi-ools"
"Yes, the Beatles"
"Mi-aw Jo-an"
"What?"
"Mi-aw Jo-an. Ba-set"
"Ah yes, Michael Jordan"
It's pretty annoying, but remember that your are making their day and doing your part to make the world a better place through cross-cultural exchanges.

Once in a while you'll get someone who speaks English and they will talk your ear off. Be prepared to offer your opinions on international politics, explain everything about your country they don't understand, and listen to their theories on everything. You'll learn a lot, and can be certain that every word you said will be repeated for friends and family for years to come.

Developing countries - Learn the basics: hello, thank you, how to order food, and numbers so you know how much stuff costs. If you ever find yourself in a situation where this is insufficient, try to smile and nod it off, and if that doesn't work just run away. Otherwise you cause drama. They are self conscious about their lack of language ability and so are you. At best this means awkwardness and mutual embarrassment. At worst it means a random person will be enlisted to translate and a large crowd will gather. The onlookers won't offer to help, nor will they joke around and lighten the mood as that is something only ignorant people who like in shanty towns do. Developing country folks just stand there transfixed, suddenly made very much aware of their worthlessness. Too economically advanced to heckle and enjoy the humor inherent in the situation yet too curious to ignore it and walk away. The whole exchange makes everyone present very insecure and for those being observed the experience can be a scarring one.

Developed countries - Everyone speaks English. If they don't, try the next person. Don't bother flipping through your pocket dictionary and mispronouncing things. Stick with hello, thank you, food, and numbers. Old people and folks who don't get out much might think your attempts to speak their language are cute, but they're not. Take that gumption and earnestness to a less developed country, they love foreigners being interested in their culture. Just speak English here. Not slang or idioms, but clearly pronounced standard English.

Buying Stuff

Underdeveloped countries - "Hello my friend!" "Okay, yes?" people will appear from everywhere. Lots of confusion that some attempt to remedy with helpful arm grabbing. Everything is offered and everything promised, a crowd of loiterers lingering about takes notice, the entire universe is focused on you and your infinite amounts of rich country money. "Okay, yes?" "My friend, my friend" Don't ever show up at the bus station unsure of the name of that city and consult your map/guidebook. Always know exactly what you want and how much it costs. Then go fight everyone who disagrees with you. If they can rip you off it means their kids won't go be bed malnourished that night, so be ready for battle. Hesitation is the weakness they pry upon, stick to the game plan and do not be deterred. Always remember that they are professionals, this is their job and despite what they tell you they won't sell anything for a price that doesn't yield a profit.

Developing countries - At first glance the myriad of touts aggressively vying for your attention may seem similar to the shopping experience in poorer nations, but then you realize they are all peddling the same thing at the same price. Occasionally someone will take advantage of your ignorance and scam you, but for the most part you pay the same as everyone else. Market forces have set the price and there are currently twice as many vendors as necessary. Attrition is inevitable, and you as the consumer decide who stays employed. Whichever $2 dinner special you choose will be equally delicious, they only difference is which food stall owner's kids will get to go to college.

Developed countries - All major credit cards are accepted

Sumatra

2007-04-07T16:13:00.000-07:00

I had kinda of a vague idea of the route I’d take this trip. Figured Hawaii to Sydney to Bali across Java up Sumatra to Singapore and through Malaysia and Thailand to Bangkok. Nothing concrete, no dates and no tickets. If I like a place I can stay for a while and if I meet someone cool I can tag along with them. Just going with the flow and seeing what happens, that’s how I like to travel. Some folks plan everything out, reservations and to do lists and schedules to keep. Striving to meet self-imposed deadlines seems like a stressful way to spend a vacation to me though.

All I knew about Sumatra was volcanoes and orangutans. I wanted to see Krakatau and ride on a bus for a long time. And see an orangutan. Those were my only requirements. Krakatau costs a lot though. About half a week’s budget just for the admission fee. And its far from stuff. I’d take 2-3 days. And I only had a little over a week left on my non-extendable visa. So Krakatau’s out. Figured I’d spend a few extra rupiahs and fly from Jakarta to Padang to maximize my remaining few days in Indonesia. ‘Cept that didn’t work out. So I got my first long ride on a bus.

Must’ve slept through the Padang stop, but I got off at the next town. After 38 hours on a bus, I wanted to stretch my legs a little so I did some sightseeing. The one cool thing was closed ‘cause of damage from the earthquake the week before, so I went to the old fort/zoo. I like zoos and met some kids there. Only one spoke English, but no lingua franca was necessary to appreciate pythons eating birds. After the zoo we all went to eat some Padang food. Pading food means put a whole bunch of bowls full of stuff on your table and you grab what you want and shovel it and some rice into your mouth. With your hand. Your right hand though, ‘cause you wipe your butt with your left. Eating Padang food is fun. Not as much fun as pythons eating birds, but still. Had figured I’d spend the night in town and head to volcanic crater lake the next day, but the guy who spoke English was going to visit his parents and my volcanic crater lake was on his bus route. So I hopped on his minibus and a few hours later checked into a lakeside bungalow. One of the most beautiful sunsets I’d ever seen.

The next morning after strolling through rice paddies and electricityless huts in the jungle, I was stopped by a guy teaching an English class by the lake. He was an outdoors type who taught the kids the English names for all the local plants and animals. Sometimes he would take his class on hikes and clean up the trash people left behind. I was a most welcome guest speaker, and the kids had a blast asking me questions. That afternoon I met up with the teacher, and to show his appreciation for helping him out, he took me up to a waterfall in the jungle. Then we hung out at his parents’ elctricityless hut, drank some tea, and ate the nastiest bananas I’d ever had. They weren’t sweet at all, tasted more like potato or yucca or something. The next day I headed out to the other famous crater lake.

Within 16 hours (a blink of an eye in Sumatran bus time) I was checking into my Batak cottage. This lake was huge. Huge. So big it has an island in it. An island the size of Singapore. A country sized island inside a lake in a volcanic crater. Sumatra is awesome. Hung out there for a few days until the urge to spend another dozen hours on buses careening over potholed mountain roads became too much to bare. Orangutans at the orangutan rehabilitation center, and then on to the big city where I was supposed to catch a boat for Malaysia. Turns out all the cool stuff in Sumatra is way way way north of where you’d catch a boat to Singapore.

Arrived in town and started to shop for a hotel. I never paid more than $3.50 a night, but these places were asking 5 bucks. The audacity! I was hot and had been riding buses all day so I headed to an air conditioned shopping mall to cool off. Met some college kids who wanted to practice their English. Last time that happened, I had a pair of Beijing tour guides for a week. This time I scored free room and board for 3 days. The last night was the 30th anniversary of my host parents. We all sat on the floor and ate with our hands. After dinner we had a Cosby family moment with their 2 daughters and 4 sons each giving a little speech about how much they loved their parents and how appreciative they were to be a part of the family. Least that’s what I thought they were saying. That was the gist of my speech and it was well received.

Wound up overstaying my visa a little and even using my best tricks was unable to convince the immigration guys that it really was only 30 days. I had few of ‘em going for a while, but eventually they got out a calendar and counted the days. Had to pay a healthy fee, but no regrets. ‘Cept maybe for losing 430 pictures. That kinda sucked. Oh well, y’all don’t get any accompanying photographs until Malaysia is all.

more airport drama

2007-03-30T13:58:00.000-07:00

I promised on the myspace that there would be more airports, but domestic Indonesian flights are pretty cool, They are set up like bus terminals (in capitalist counties that have more than just Greyhound that is) with each of the airlines having a counter where you can buy tickets minutes before the plane leaves. In lieu of security, they make everyone pay a departure fee and everything is very efficient and stress free. Plus there is the sexy dying factor. Planes crash in Indo all the time, I heard 75 in the last 5 years. It’s only about one a month, but news from one crash carries on for a few weeks and by then a new one has happened so there are always grieving widows and officials promising to investigate this tragic instance. I’m hereby declaring Indonesia the country with the best news. ‘Merica, Brasil, and Colombia all have plenty of folks killing each other and kids accidentally getting shot, but here there are always earthquakes, volcanoes, planes crashing, boats sinking, floods, and that mysterious underground mud that is eating entire cities. The weather here is awesomely destructive, and poor building standards combined with lack of oversight contribute to the devastation.

Sumatra is a big, big place and with only a few days left on my non-extendable tourist visa, I had to hurry. Tried to get some corruption in my passport, but dude at immigration was furious I had an airtight visa he couldn’t fix with a bribe. Coulda gotten a doctor’s not saying I was unfit to travel (that’s what former South American dictators do when they want to avoid extradition), but that seemed like too much effort. A plane ride would hurt the budget a bit, but it seemed like the right thing to do. I had an idea what I wanted to pay and an agency in town offered me the price for one of the shadier airlines. Wasn’t sure I’d make it to the airport in time for the departure though, so I passed. Got to the airport at 12:45 and started shopping. One of the first places had a 3:45 flight for a little more than I wanted to pay. If I have to haggle with people and navigate a new city in a language I don’t understand I prefer it not to be dark outside. As this plane wouldn’t arrive in time for me to see, I asked a few other places. Some were already sold out, some were too expensive, and some had too high of a death rate. Having satisfied my bargain hunting instincts, I went back ready to drop several days food and lodging expenses on a plane ticket.

“Pool”
“What?”
“Padang, Pool”
No, no, no, no, how can it be full? I was in here only 15-20 minutes ago. This sucks. I did another lap, but there was nothing that afternoon or the next day for less than a ridiculous amount of money. Oh well, suppose a 38 hour bus/ferry/bus ride will be more interesting anyways.

Being Famous

2007-03-30T13:55:00.000-07:00

Now I’ll admit that I’ve been a jerk a few times and mistook an innocent “Hello Mister” from someone desiring a reciprocal “Hello” and a smile for the attention getting “Hello Mister” from a taut who wants my money. Make eye contact with one of these dudes and they might follow you for half a block. The worst when the scent of blood is in the air and a whole gang of the vultures descend. Tremendous split second judgment is needed to differentiate between the “excuse me” of a high school kid whose buddies nominated him to be the one to ask if I’ll take a picture with them and the “excuse me” from someone attempting to strike up a conversation in broken English in hopes that I will then be more likely to purchase some of their overpriced tourist crap.

Occasionally I ignore and once in a while the “I know you ain’t thinking ‘bout robbing me” instinct kicks in and I aggressively eye somebody, but usually I’m pretty good at taking the imitative and providing a smile and a head nod of acknowledgement to whoever is staring at me. People have every right to ogle exotic things that insert themselves into their dialy lives. I blogged more extensively about this on the myspace a few weeks ago, but basically if a midget, a naked lady, or an elephant is walking down your street it is human nature to gawk at this curiosity. I am such a curiosity to many in Indonesia, and am appropriately scrutinized. By breaking the fourth wall and interacting, the starer’s role changes from that of observer to participant. Eyes widen and stoic faces erupt into smiles as a breakthrough cross cultural connection is made. Score one for team globalization. Getting pretty good with working class folk, loiters, and the elderly, but my bread and butter demographics remain children and adolescent girls. I am not yet the 21st century’s Fred Rogers, but I’m good with kids and have broadened the horizons of many as iconic individuals did for me when I was a wee lad. Being a teen icon is my forte though. A skill honed over many hours working in a Korean middle school, I have made young women’s hearts skip beats on several continents. For some reason, it is even more of an ego trip making chicks in headscarves swoon. It’s like I’m some kinda extra level of forbidden and the repression makes having a crush on unattainable dream man all the more intense.

Balinese Culture

2007-03-11T06:57:00.000-07:00

Being the cultural guy that I am, I attended "The Best of Classical Dance of Bali." There were guys playing xylophone-types things and then a dancer came out. She did lots of stop and jerk movements, especially with her head and fingers. She would also do this crazy owl thing with her eyes. That was my favorite part. Then two of her friends came out. One of them was pretty cute, but they were wearing lots of clothes. In Sydney there was this Indian restaurant that would show Bollywood music videos. Now them's my kinda dancing Hindu women. Maybe if these Bali dancing chicks accumulate enough karma points they can get reincarnated as one of them. The girls left, and next this dragon came out. He danced around for a while, but not like Chinese New Year's Dragons. He was more of the move-your-head-up-and-down school of dragon dancing. Then this Planet of the Apes guy came out. He would taught the dragon and get him all riled up. I wanted the dragon to eat him, but Dr Zeaus was too elusive. After the dragon left these 4 kings came out. They danced around for awhile and then some super king maharajah guy came out. He wasn't as cool or as well dressed as the kings, but they all heeded his authority. Then the super king maharajah guy's wife came out. She started doing this sexy dance and – wait. Is that a dude? BOOOOO!!!!!! I hate transvestites, even if they are a part of The Great Mahabharata Epic. The transvestite finally left, and fortunately a whole bunch of dancing girls came out. They weren't scantily clad, but at least they were women and not mustachioed men in a dress. The girls danced for a while and then the transvestite cam back out. BOOOOOO!!!!!! BOOOOOOOO!!!!! He danced and the girls all watched respectfully.

I was starting to not like the show when out came the comic relief. These guys were hilarious, especially their leader. They were like pirates or monkeys or something. They were goofing around and having fun until these two demon guys came out. They subjected the pirate monkeys and were really mean. My buddies revolted and plotted numerous coup attempts, but the demons foiled all their wily schemes. Eventually the demons started to pray and fell into a deep trance. That's when the dancing girls came back out. The three pirate monkeys left with the 6 yellow girls (YEAH!!!!!) while the pink girl stayed behind. She woke up the demons, who weren't at all upset to see their pirate monkeys gone. They were much more interested in the pink girl. Unfortunately, neither was willing to share and a huge fight broke out. During the melee, the pink girl slipped out, again confirming Russel Crowe's theory from the Beautiful Mind movie that if you go for a backup dancer everyone goes home happy whereas if multiple people try for the Alpha female no one gets her. Worked for the pirate monkeys. Kevin Federline was a backup dancer and look at him. Some backup dancer was married to Jennifer Lopez too.

Anyway, one demon kills the other and then this ghost comes out. I woulda put money on the demon, but I guess the ghost had special powers. He killed the demon and then the dragon came back out. The ghost tried to fight him, but was no match. The dragon was whopping up on the ghost then suddenly they stopped fighting and stood next to each other. Then the dancing girls and the pirate monkeys and the kings and everybody came out and took a bow.

Even though it would mean nearly doubling my daily expenditures, I might shell out the $5.50 and see another show tomorrow. This time I'ma ask for one with no transvestites

. . .

the next day it was monsooning and the jungle hut where I was staying was too far without a boat. The day after I went and saw a fire dance one. No music, just a bunch of guys chanting. I loved it when they would start the kecak. Especially the fat guy. He would jiggle everywhere. I couldn't get enough of him. Just so no one accuses me of being culturally insensitive, check out their overview and tell me if it is any less rambling or more sensical than my description of the other performance.

Aussie Fauna

2007-02-25T18:42:00.000-08:00

Australians aren't too good with words. For some inexplicable reason they call raisins "saltanas" have words like "arvo" and "mozzie" and a neighborhood called Woolloomooloo. That is just ridiculous. Silly Aussies. Whoever made up the animal names is a hero though. I hope they are one of the mysterious not famous guys on the money.

Koalas
not quite as bad as pandas and manatees, but right up there. How good of an idea would it be for a person to eat exclusively cannabis leaves? I guess you'd always be high, but the lack of nutrients is not at all healthy. If you get some fruits, vegetables, and protein along with the marijuana then you have a drug problem/addiction. If all you eat are cannabis leaves, you are an idiot. You can't just eat cannabis all day long. Nor can you be on a strict diet of coca leaves, tobacco leaves, or eucalyptus leaves.

Kangaroos
see wallabies below

Wallabies
these are the good kangaroos. Small enough to be cute and active enough to be interesting. Big Kangaroos are like other big herbivore without natural predators. Moose, buffalo, and yaks are dumb and boring too. Kangaroos are best in cartoon form; real ones are only good at being roadkill. Taste good though. 33 grams of protein to every 1 of fat. Wallabies should be in zoos and kangaroos should be livestock.

Dingos
No animal is closer affiliated with a verb and object than dingo, eat, and baby. Just not exotic enough to live up to my expectations. Maybe if they were blue or had horns or something, but as dogs with large perky ears they are a real letdown. Easily the most disappointing animal in Australia. Hyenas are the wild dog thing that are most conducive to devouring human infants and deserve the reputation given to dingos. The word "dingo" implies a whimsical creature that elicits laughter. These guys fail to live up to the hype. It's like someone named He-Man Thor Terminator who is a meek and timid little man. Big thumbs down on the dingos

Tasmanian Devils
slightly more ferocious than a chihuahua. So much anger and frustration in these little guys. You just wanna tickle their bellies and baby talk them "who's a wittle devil? who's the wittle devil? Yes it's you. Yes it is. You're the wittle devil. Yes you are. Ah yes you are"

Wombats
they seem pretty cool. The two I saw were just sleeping, but they are really big and look like pretty chill animals. I'm willing to vouch for 'em

Emus
sooooo overrated. Being a large flightless bird is cool, but only if you are the largest and flightlessest bird around. Ostriches win because they don't have any competition. Emus are kinda like JV ostriches, which is fine. On the seal with a kangaroo, that's cool. Australian and iconic. Until you realize that THERE ARE BETTER BIRDS IN AUSTRALIA!!!! Emus are kinda big and sorta brown. Little tiny heads with a pea brain and no personality. Pretty much the most generic bird around. Size is the only thing they got going for 'em. 'Cept there are bigger birds in Australia. Emus have a fantastic PR department. Whoever has been doing their marketing is a genius, but the gig is up. Emus aren't that cool and I'm telling the world. Here are Australia's true all star birds:

Jabirus
awesome. Big and ugly and colorful. Everything that a zoo bird should be. We saw 'em being fed and the lady threw a mouse that the jabiru caught in its mouth. Let's see an emu do that.

Southern Cassowary
YES!!! The biggest, ugliest, and most bizarre bird they got. A dinosaur mohawk bone thing and a gross turkey neck. These birds are in motorcycle gangs and have tattoos. So hardcore. Eagles and hawks can be majestic all they like; a Southern Cassowary would destroy them. Ostriches outweigh Southern Cassowary and are a lot more famous, but they wouldn't mess with these guys either. Gotta love penguins, peacocks, and hummingbirds, but Southern Cassowary are the best at being big and scary. They are the bird you would least like to run into in a dark alley.

Echidnas
winner!!!! Pictures don't do 'em justice, but these little guys are hilarious. Pygmy hippos are still number one, but if I ever become an eccentric billionaire I'm for sure having echidnas in with the prairie dogs.

Best story goes to the platypus. The aborigines never hunted them because of this legend:

The animals were gearing up to have a big versus. The birds went to persuade platypus to join their team. “C’mon, you got a beak and you lay eggs, you’re one of us,” they argues. “Uh, lemme think about it” was platypus’s reply. A few days later the mammals approached platypus. “Fur and mammary glands make you one of us,” they said. “Uh, I need a few days to think it over” platypus responded. Not long after, the fish came to call. “hey, you swim real nice and do all kinds of stuff underwater, hunting playing, and what not. We’d be honored if you joined our side.” “uh, yeah maybe. I’ll get back to you on that.” Platypus consulted with fellow monotreme echidna as to what side should be joined. Echidna advised platypus to call together representatives from the three warring factions and announce the decision before the assembled species. Platypus put out word that a decision had been reached, and asked that a ceasefire be declared so everyone could be present for the announcement.

The press conference was well attended, with each party confident platypus had chosen to join their team. “Brothers and sisters,” platypus began “the birds with whom I share egg laying and beak having, the mammals who share my fur and milk producing capabilities, and the fish who share my love for the water, you are all my brothers and sisters. As such, I cannot choose amongst you, for we are all children of the great gods.” No doubt aboriginal diplomats loved telling this tale whenever their Capulets and Montagues began fussing and fueding.

Now I don’t know what happened with the animal war or why so much effort was put into platypus recruitment, but points for whoever made up that story.

good on ya, mate

2007-02-19T16:59:00.000-08:00

I reckon travel agents are 'bout as useful as dog psychologists. Perhaps back before Al Gore invented the Information Superhighway they were like milkmen or the guy who delivered coal to your house. Granted I'm smarter than the average bear, but still. I flew DC to Honolulu, Honolulu to Sydney, Sydney to Melbourne, and Melbourne to Bali all for $600. Someone should put me in charge of something.

Australia is so American they have an Outback Steakhouse in Sydney. That doesn't even make any sense. Other than driving on the wrong side and having stupid accents, Australia is the least foreign of any foreign country (Canadia doesn't count). They do need to change the flag and the money though, why would you have someone else's monarch on your currency? Commonwealth, schmommonwealth.

The Australian national dish right now is kebabs, but I'm working on it. I'm up to Vegemite marinated Kangaroo on the barbie. I'll keep everyone posted on further developments. Speaking of Vegemite, how 'bout this Vegemite lore? In the early days, the Aussie upstart was competing against Marmite from England. Marmite was king of nasty tasting yeast spreads, but the Southern Hemisphere geniuses named their product Parmite in one of the greatest marketing campaigns ever. Ever. their slogan:

"Marmite, but Parwill"

get it?!?!?! get it?!?!?!? Ma might, but Pa will. That won Australia their first Nobel Prize in Literature.

notes from the Aloha State

2007-02-08T16:12:00.000-08:00

I love restaurants with dingy bathrooms and black & white autographed celebrity photos on the walls. Carnegie Deli in New York, Gino's in Philly, and Ono Hawaiian Foods in Oahu. Mostly beauty pageant winners and football players (Hawaii is a great place for football players to come from), but A-listers included: Sulu from Star Trek, that dude who throws his hat from the James Bond movie, and Chuck Norris. I don't know if Chuck Norris is really Hawaiian, but still. Any restaurant Chuck Norris approves of is alright in my book.

. . .

over my Loco Moco plate lunch at L&L (http://www.hawaiianbarbecue.com/ ) I continued to research my Hawaiian Livability Project. Apartments are comparable to DC ($800-$1400 for studios/one bedrooms) and group/roommate things are cheaper ($400-$800 per month). Food and rent are covered. And these statistics are based upon national chain grocery stores and newspaper classifieds, if local ethnic markets and craigslist type things are consulted no doubt cost would decrease even further. There are an infinite number of lazy $8-14 an hour jobs and plenty of decent paying ones in bars/restaurants/hotels/tourism. Basically, if you are anything less than completely satisfied with your current lifestyle, sell your car, quit your job, and buy a one way ticket to Honolulu. I'm serious. If you're a US citizen and you've got 2 grand (which you should after selling your car/getting back your security deposit) that'll cover the plane ticket and start up costs. Somebody should give me a reality show called "Give Me A Better Life: Hawaii" where I take 24 year old Dairy Queen employees from South Dakota and within 6 months have them wooing well-heeled Japanese tourists in Waikiki.

. . .

It had been onshore for the past several days, but rumor had it that today should be better. Even if it's not in the morning, by afternoon it should glass over around 4. This was coming from a dude from the Big Island who had been at North Shore for three months now, so all the Aussie surfers listened astutely. Surfers are good at imparting wisdom upon one another and in just one night I learned of the difference in clothing necessary between surfing in 11 v. 10 degree water (this is in Cromwell mind you) and the wave conditions in the desert north of Perth. Being that the surf had been atypically less than stellar since any of the guys in my cabin had arrived, plans were made to be up at 6am and therefore very little drugs or alcohol were consumed.

I could care less about the surfing though, 'cause I was going to watch my first Super Bowl since Korea 5 years ago. Woke up at 4am to watch pregame stuff, had a class from 7-8:30 where I taught about alcohol purchases, the drop in the crime rate, and the cultural impact of Super Bowl advertisements campaigns. Made it back to my apartment for the end of the game. AFKN doesn't show commercials though, so instead of the Budweiser frogs I got the Green Berets song and ROK commander advising against drinking and driving. The lack of US military presence in South America caused me to miss XXXVII (Brazil), XXXVIII (Peru or Bolivia) and XXXIX (Brazil again). Last year attended a Super Bowl party in Virginia, but my patriotic consumption of booze resulted in me passing out by game time. This year I assembled a selection of the weirdest food Hawaii had to offer: Marlin Jerky, Li Hing Watermelon, Li Hing Ginger, Udong with Steamed Fishcakes, and Poi. Stayed conscious for Prince, but 1.5 liters of vodka precluded me from witnessing Kevin Federline.

Ye'ah Ha'wa'i'i'i'i!!!!!!

2007-01-31T06:38:00.000-08:00

"Our estimated flight time is just a shade over 5 hours and it looks like it'll be a smooth one. You folks picked a great destination. In Denver it is currently 19 degrees, Chicago is 21, Minneapolis is 11 and even Miami is a chilly 65 degrees. The current temperature in Honolulu is 75 degrees."

They even had a contest where you win a grand prize of a Mauna Loa gift set. Invented words with lots of vowels!!! Yeah!!! only a quarter of the seats on the flight were taken so everybody got an entire row. The flight attendants were all middle aged men who really enjoy being flight attendants. If you flirt with them they give you free drinks.

In the Honolulu airport the men's room icon is wearing a Hawaiian shirt and their "Pardon the Construction" sign was a guy wearing a hardhat, a lei, a tool belt and flip flops. Promise I'll take pictures when I fly out next week.

People always talk about how expensive Hawaii is, but I largely attribute that to them being idiots. Granted, some things are outrageously priced: milk was on sale for $4 a gallon (usually it's $6.80), eggs were $3 a dozen, and a loaf of generic Safeway brand white bread was $3.50. Yet flour is as cheap as it is on the mainland. As are pastas, canned and bottled products, meats, dried beans, and most other things. Ramen noodles are 37 cents (6 for a dollar on sale) and never bought milk or eggs (or produce) at the grocery store in DC. I went to the Korean owned Latino market a few blocks over because everything fresh was half to a quarter of the price. I"ll do some more research and keep everyone posted of developments because I know you are all enthralled with the prospect of dramatically reducing the minimum necessary budget allocation percentage of food purchases in Oahu.

Chose to walk rather than take the bus on day one, but rest assured that a comprehensive report on the state of public transportation on Hawaii's most populous island will be forthcoming.

A New Chapter

2007-01-21T08:19:00.000-08:00

Or perhaps merely a segue from the previous to the next. No plans yet, just waiting for opportunity to come a knockin’ or for inspiration to strike.

Been in the US for almost 2 years now, living and working in DC for a non-profit exactly like I wanted. Did all the young American things I had to do: happy hours, craigslist, Jumbo Slice; and took advantage of taxpayer funded stuff to do in the nation’s capital: international film festivals, Smithsonian programs, embassy events. This country is pretty alright, and DC is a nice city full of ambitious do-gooder Lisa Simpson types. ‘Cept for that whole “winter” thing, I really like it here. I’ll definitely be back.

Time to gain a little more perspective though. Once you know all the regulars on the covers of supermarket tabloids and find yourself having strong opinions on matters that are so specific as to be untranslatable, its time to broaden the horizons. When CNN starts sounding like respectable reporting and not jingoistic propaganda, you know you’ve lost your edge. ‘Bout time Stella got her groove back.

Got a buddy in Sydney so I’m gonna start there (after a brief sojourn in Hawaii). Not sure what happens after that. Perhaps a quick SE Asia jaunt. Maybe I’ll be enticed to set up camp for a while somewhere. Might discover a hitherto unknown passion or skill. Figure I’ll wander around ‘til something feels right

blogspot.com

2007-01-20T12:21:00.000-08:00

Hate is an ugly thing, so here I am.

Just as riding the subway with office drones during rush hour instead of taking the bus with paint bespeckled dudes before dawn hurts my soul, so too does joining the ranks of the pretentious yuppies on the blogspot.com

Dunkin Donuts over Starbucks, Wal-Mart over Whole Foods, and myspace.com over blogspot.com. You can keep your Jeffersonian universal education preceding universal suffrage, 'cause Internet 2.0 is all about Jacksonian democracy, baby. Youtube and idiots like me writing the wikipedia (don’t worry, I haven’t started yet).

I’ll try to wipe my feet and abide by the high standards you classy folks have here at the blogspot, but I feel like Turbo and Ozone at Kelly’s parents’ house. I belong with Kevin Federline and the Monster Trucks over on the myspace

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be”. Yeah, well we don’t have slaves no more either TJ.