The thing is, we probably discover new things every day. I mean think about the past couple of days: Steve Jobs died. He discovered (or at least paved the way for inventing) new ways of interacting with technology as well as said technologies themselves. New things. New ideas. New ways of relating to them.
My discovery of the day were these.
No, I don't envisage ever needing them for myself but the sheer fact that they even exist is mindboggling. In "my" part of the world*, one would probably just use a piece of cloth. Or a small towel. Here, in the great land of the USA, we have specially designed contraptions just for this purpose.
* a phrase that is increasingly losing its meaning now that I've lived in the US for almost as long as I've lived anywhere else. Still. I'm trying to make a rhetorical point here.
7.10.11
Bits and bobs
More conversations.
1. The cashier at the local international food supermarket (the place has pretty much anything you can think of. Really. In all my years of living in different places, I've never seen such a well-stocked "global" food market than this) today thought I was from Malaysia. I guess a combination of "Indian" (bhujuri, kurkurey, daal) and Thai/Southeast Asian (mama noodles, mi goreng, laksa paste, tamarind candy, frozen fish balls) = Malaysia?
2. "Hey I remember you! I've got a couple of other things to recommend", followed by a discussion of the past weekend and things to do this upcoming weekend.
This was from the (only) bottle shop in town. I'm not sure what it means if the bottle shop guy recognizes you when you've only been here for just over a month.
3. DDT was a conspiracy invented and propagated by the UN who was (is) worried about India's productivity. The US doesn't like the UN because it does this kind of thing and tries to oppress (a different word was used but I can't recall it right now ) smaller countries.
Yes, the latest bit of wisdom I had the pleasure to hear.
4. Tonight, I start my second volunteer gig, working at the local arts theatre. I'll be there just before the midnight movie begins. What is it, you ask? The Room.
1. The cashier at the local international food supermarket (the place has pretty much anything you can think of. Really. In all my years of living in different places, I've never seen such a well-stocked "global" food market than this) today thought I was from Malaysia. I guess a combination of "Indian" (bhujuri, kurkurey, daal) and Thai/Southeast Asian (mama noodles, mi goreng, laksa paste, tamarind candy, frozen fish balls) = Malaysia?
2. "Hey I remember you! I've got a couple of other things to recommend", followed by a discussion of the past weekend and things to do this upcoming weekend.
This was from the (only) bottle shop in town. I'm not sure what it means if the bottle shop guy recognizes you when you've only been here for just over a month.
3. DDT was a conspiracy invented and propagated by the UN who was (is) worried about India's productivity. The US doesn't like the UN because it does this kind of thing and tries to oppress (a different word was used but I can't recall it right now ) smaller countries.
Yes, the latest bit of wisdom I had the pleasure to hear.
4. Tonight, I start my second volunteer gig, working at the local arts theatre. I'll be there just before the midnight movie begins. What is it, you ask? The Room.
6.10.11
Burning my boats. Or is it bridges? Or buses?
Eh. If I'm to be in trouble, might as well be for a good reason post. Things I've heard in the past couple of months:
- You are not American so you won't really understand 9.11. Maybe you shouldn't talk about it.
- Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and he moved them...to Syria or even Iran.
[after being shown evidence that SH never had WMD] Just because we didn't find them doesn't mean he didn't have them. He just hid them really well and gave them to terrorists.
-Why are we reading this? [a fiction book]. This is not real. I think we should be reading DoD documents and real policy.
- Iraq and Al Qaeda were allies [when told they weren't]. They want to make it seem as though they are not allies but they are.
- We should stop giving money to other countries [when told the USA actually gives very very little as percentage of GDP as foreign aid]. We should stop giving anything. We need that here. [when shown the Cost of War as well as bilateral aid to Israel, Pakistan, etc]. Those are strategic interests so we need to continue that or even increase it.
- The UN is willing to kill some groups for the greater good. [When told the UN might do this but the USA has done it too on more than one occasion]. The UN usually starts things and then the US has to go clean things up.
- You are not American so you won't really understand 9.11. Maybe you shouldn't talk about it.
- Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and he moved them...to Syria or even Iran.
[after being shown evidence that SH never had WMD] Just because we didn't find them doesn't mean he didn't have them. He just hid them really well and gave them to terrorists.
-Why are we reading this? [a fiction book]. This is not real. I think we should be reading DoD documents and real policy.
- Iraq and Al Qaeda were allies [when told they weren't]. They want to make it seem as though they are not allies but they are.
- We should stop giving money to other countries [when told the USA actually gives very very little as percentage of GDP as foreign aid]. We should stop giving anything. We need that here. [when shown the Cost of War as well as bilateral aid to Israel, Pakistan, etc]. Those are strategic interests so we need to continue that or even increase it.
- The UN is willing to kill some groups for the greater good. [When told the UN might do this but the USA has done it too on more than one occasion]. The UN usually starts things and then the US has to go clean things up.
I've heard of one of those but...
I've never seen one.
This is the Things that Happened When my Friends Visited post.
1. The above statement was made twice. Once, when we walked into the local games store to find a game to play while we watched football and MMwhatnot (UFC?). The idea was that we'd be bored in a pub for 7-8 hours so needed a distraction. Since the only board game I own is Risk, it was decided we needed a smaller thing we could carry around.
Let me add it was raining and cold so we didn't really want to carry around a big board game. Or that was the decision. So, we went to this shop and found a group of lads (yes, no girls) not in uni gear, all ready to play Magic the Gathering.
Let me tell you how interesting this is: it was a "Football weekend". It was a weekend in which my uni played one of its biggest rivals. And yet these lads were not only not in the usual uniform that pretty much everyone in town--whether young or old--wore but were hanging out in a tiny shop waiting to play Magic.
Not only that, the person in the shop happily showed us their (very small) selection of board games, tried to sell us Settlers of Cataan by saying it's the "best board game ever" (Friend 1's reaction: as soon as they say that, there's something wrong with the game). Friend 2 was ridiculously excited that the tiny selection included a game called Power Grid with which he was familiar.
We didn't buy any of the few games they had. On the way out, Friend 2 said the above statement regarding "game geeks". Which was funny since, after a few drinks, Friend 1 and Friend 2 start quoting the Big Lebowski (or Dr Strangelove or...after a few more drinks, Talladega Nights!). Geekery in all its varied forms.
The second time this was said, we'd just had drinks with a couple of other people. Once they left, Friend 2 went, "well, I have a question." Friend 1 and me were pretty sure what his question was but we were wrong. Instead, the phrase was repeated, followed by "So was X a hipster?" [general answer here was we didn't know which was followed by whether we actually knew any hipsters]
2. Other things that happened:
The lads built a fire outside and kept it going in freezing cold and drizzly conditions. For hours. My suggestion that we could move into the nice, warm, cozy house instead of faffing about in the cold, miserable, wet outside was treated with scorn. Horror even: "But we want to burn shit" was the rather pained response.
3. Buffalo Wild Wings was pretty fantastic. They not only had giant TV screens but also trivia (meaning board games weren't really necessary after all). We played trivia against each other, against some random person (we couldn't figure out who it was) and against the computer. We vaguely paid attention to the football.
4. hiking: I complained the whole way. Nothing new there. Apparently two of my main complaints were a) do we fucking have to climb that fucking mountain and why the fuck does everything look the fucking same? [good thing we didn't run into kids on our way up. We ran into plenty of other folks on the way down but there was no one going up] and b) I feel we have been walking for hours...what do you mean it's been 20 minutes?
Definitely nothing new there.
It was an excellent weekend. I realise how much I miss my friends. I miss people to hang out in the house and talk to and burn shit up. I miss people to do stuff with. I mean my colleagues are probably nice enough but they aren't that keen on hanging out (and vice versa). I suppose the answer is to actually start going out on my own and finding people to hang out with but that is too much like work. And I have plenty of that to do.
This is the Things that Happened When my Friends Visited post.
1. The above statement was made twice. Once, when we walked into the local games store to find a game to play while we watched football and MMwhatnot (UFC?). The idea was that we'd be bored in a pub for 7-8 hours so needed a distraction. Since the only board game I own is Risk, it was decided we needed a smaller thing we could carry around.
Let me add it was raining and cold so we didn't really want to carry around a big board game. Or that was the decision. So, we went to this shop and found a group of lads (yes, no girls) not in uni gear, all ready to play Magic the Gathering.
Let me tell you how interesting this is: it was a "Football weekend". It was a weekend in which my uni played one of its biggest rivals. And yet these lads were not only not in the usual uniform that pretty much everyone in town--whether young or old--wore but were hanging out in a tiny shop waiting to play Magic.
Not only that, the person in the shop happily showed us their (very small) selection of board games, tried to sell us Settlers of Cataan by saying it's the "best board game ever" (Friend 1's reaction: as soon as they say that, there's something wrong with the game). Friend 2 was ridiculously excited that the tiny selection included a game called Power Grid with which he was familiar.
We didn't buy any of the few games they had. On the way out, Friend 2 said the above statement regarding "game geeks". Which was funny since, after a few drinks, Friend 1 and Friend 2 start quoting the Big Lebowski (or Dr Strangelove or...after a few more drinks, Talladega Nights!). Geekery in all its varied forms.
The second time this was said, we'd just had drinks with a couple of other people. Once they left, Friend 2 went, "well, I have a question." Friend 1 and me were pretty sure what his question was but we were wrong. Instead, the phrase was repeated, followed by "So was X a hipster?" [general answer here was we didn't know which was followed by whether we actually knew any hipsters]
2. Other things that happened:
The lads built a fire outside and kept it going in freezing cold and drizzly conditions. For hours. My suggestion that we could move into the nice, warm, cozy house instead of faffing about in the cold, miserable, wet outside was treated with scorn. Horror even: "But we want to burn shit" was the rather pained response.
3. Buffalo Wild Wings was pretty fantastic. They not only had giant TV screens but also trivia (meaning board games weren't really necessary after all). We played trivia against each other, against some random person (we couldn't figure out who it was) and against the computer. We vaguely paid attention to the football.
4. hiking: I complained the whole way. Nothing new there. Apparently two of my main complaints were a) do we fucking have to climb that fucking mountain and why the fuck does everything look the fucking same? [good thing we didn't run into kids on our way up. We ran into plenty of other folks on the way down but there was no one going up] and b) I feel we have been walking for hours...what do you mean it's been 20 minutes?
Definitely nothing new there.
It was an excellent weekend. I realise how much I miss my friends. I miss people to hang out in the house and talk to and burn shit up. I miss people to do stuff with. I mean my colleagues are probably nice enough but they aren't that keen on hanging out (and vice versa). I suppose the answer is to actually start going out on my own and finding people to hang out with but that is too much like work. And I have plenty of that to do.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
