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Published: January 15th 2007
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The first script for the Karate Kid originally called for Daniel LaRusso to have spina bifida. I missed the Sports Show at Bartle Hall this weekend. What a great event that was to work, all the free concession food you could handle, almost no work, and the tips galore. The best was the time me and Bob bribed one of the guys selling conversion vans with a hot dog and sat in there watching the Arizona/Minnesota playoff game, whatever year that would have been. Jake the Snake before he was helping tank the dastardly Denver Donkeys. A few interesting anecdotes from the trip coming back from Bogotá. Colombians don’t find mooning to be as hilarious as I do. Nor do they have a real verb for the action.* What exactly is the age when you aren’t supposed to find that funny anymore? I’m well aware that I’m well past the age, I’m just not sure how far past. We got pulled over for speeding. No bribes allowed, had us all harkening back to the good ole days of widespread corruption. Oh wait, that’s still around. One of the towns we passed through made the news recently as a government official who
escaped from the rebel base where he has been held for several years walked five days without food or water to arrive there. I climbed the waterfall again, went cliff diving, spent some time up in the nearby mountain town Minca and am trying to start a Yakuza** gang but we’re seriously short on Asians around here. Explains the terrible sushi I suppose. I think we all learned Wednesday night that KU is going to win the national title. I’ve had houseguests all week, which are enormously fun and enormously tiring, especially here. Been to a lot of new beaches, got a little closer to having skin cancer than I was a month ago, and watched one of my guests get punched by a 70 year old taxi driver for slamming his cab door, extremely entertaining. I occasionally go to the pizza place at the base of my building and have a beer or two with the owner Frank (from Cameron, Missouri) a Brit and a Frenchie (preferred nomenclature). They are still a little bitter over the revolution and 1812 but less than grateful about World War II (I’ll thank you for them Grandpa). I don’t know that I should
Piero signing his ticket
The cop didn't think me taking this picture was very funny, but could see I'm not someone you mess with. let the maid visiting make me put pants on. I like bananas but never buy them for some reason. I spent the last weekend of my break going north into the state of Guajira (see map) which is one of two of the 23 departments that chose not to reelect Uribe president last year. Needless to say, I’ve never been because it’s not the type of place that is especially welcoming to foreigners, in fact it’s the only place in Colombia I’ve been where I didn’t see another non-Colombian. I obviously survived, and took a lot of nice pictures I think. The place is a desert for the most part, no real trees, a lot of grassless dirt and a beautiful opening into the Caribbean. I ate a lot of free ranging - and turns out delicious - goat, as other livestock don’t do well in that heat. We visited a salt mine (which impressed me enormously for some reason), bought some cheap bootlegged Venezuelan gas,*** and for the first time ran into people who don’t speak Spanish, but an indigenous dialect Wayuu.**** There’s something comforting about seeing heavily armed military personal stationed every three kilometers along the highway. We
The Wichita Yakuzas
I got beat in, I can't speak for the others. almost reached the northern most part of Colombia and spent a few days on a beautiful beach in what was characterized as the only 5 star accommodations, allowing me to fall softly to sleep among the chatter of rodents and rattling of the corrugated tin roof. The poverty is abject to say the least, goat herding desert kids rushing your car asking for water, a strange juxtopositioning with such a beautiful place. Anyways, I made it home alive, I start school tomorrow and plan to stay home for at least the next month.
Random song of the week: You’re the best, by Joe Esposito from Karate Kid.
Album of the week: Going old school, Love of Hopeless Causes by New Model Army’s been getting a lot of airtime lately.
Movie of the week: Little Miss Sunshine is excellent. So is buying DVD’s off the street for 2 dollars. “You wouldn’t steal a car…” Those adverts didn’t work on me obviously, plus no place in town sells real DVDs so it’s steal or starve…. for entertainment.
“I think most people are good at more things than the world gives them the opportunity to do.” ~ Ethan Hawke
"The
Trip Map
Blue was after Christmas, Purple last weekend. next time you get your kids in the car turn off the radio and tune into them. I think you just might find that your kids are boring as hell. They got nothing to say, I mean they're kids! Then turn that radio back on, pump up the volume and know that you're not missing a damn thing!" ~ Conan
"I'm a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.” ~Raise High the Roofbeam Carpenter, JD Salinger.
*They said
Mostrar el culo/la cola/las nalgas which means basically show your ass, not the same.
** The term "Yakuza" comes from a Japanese card game, Oicho-Kabu, and means "good for nothing". Similar to baccarat, the values of the cards are added together and the last digit of the sum is taken as the score. The worst hand in the game is a set of eight, nine and three, which gives a sum of 20 and a score of 0. In traditional Japanese forms of counting, these numbers are called Ya, Ku and Sa respectively, thus the origin of the word "yakuza". The yakuza took this name because the Ya-Ku-Za hand requires the most skill, the hand is the worst that a player can receive based on luck of the draw, so only a consummate expert could have enough talent to counteract his bad luck and still win with such a hand. The name was also used because it signified bad fortune, presumably for anyone who went up against the group.
***The buy cheap gas in Venezuela, bootleg it across the border, then sell it out of 5 or 10 gallon plastic gas cans for much cheaper than you can buy it at a gas station. Just a few Americans giving ole Chavez the finger.
****An Amerindian ethnic group of the La Guajira Peninsula in northern Colombia and northwest Venezuela. They are part of the Maipurean (Arawak) linguistic family. A really sad article about the violence they face in that part of the country. http://gsevenier.online.fr/DenverPost-Massacres%20Colombia.html
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