18 July, 2008 | 6 Comments

Today is my sister’s b-day. Happy Birthday! You know you’re old when your younger sister is 33. Crap.

Sis wanted Victorian taxidermy for her birthday, but that’s a little out of my price range, so an Amazon gift certificate it is. I know this isn’t as good as a stuffed dead animal, so to quell the disappointment, on my way home I stopped at Peyton and Byrne and bought her some porn. If your sister can’t buy you porn for your birthday, then no one can. Click below to see it, but only if you’re over 18.

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18 July, 2008 | 4 Comments

Just when I begin to worry that too many of my fellow Americans have lost their minds, Jon Stewart saves the day.

Obama’s campaign responded to the NY’er cover by calling it “tasteless and offensive.” Jon Stewart thinks they should have responded like this:

“You know what your response should’ve been? It’s very easy: Barack Obama is in no way upset about the cartoon that depicts him as a Muslim extremist. Because you know who gets upset about cartoons? Muslim extremists! Of which Barack Obama is not. It’s just a f*cking cartoon!”

See the whole video here. The joke about Wolf Blitzer is a must-see…

16 July, 2008 | 7 Comments

tomorrow i leave for the south of france. call me crazy, but i figure if i can get the first photos of knox and viv, then i’ll be able to pay off my student loans and buy my own flat and stuff. fingers crossed.

For my Democrat readers: Please note this post contains no satire, irony or wit. There’s nothing to offend you here. Please move along.

15 July, 2008 | 3 Comments

Yesterday, I wrote about how Obama considers it a smear when people say he’s a Muslim. Well, above you can see the proof, taken directly from Obama’s official website. “The smear” is that “Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim.” You’ll notice it doesn’t say “Muslim extremist” or “Muslim fundamentalist.” It just says “Muslim.”

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14 July, 2008 | 3 Comments

Obama’s campaign responds to the controversial New Yorker cover that has everyone buzzing today: “The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”

Oh, boo hoo!

From ABC News: “This is as offensive a caricature as any magazine could publish,” says a high-profile Obama supporter, “and I suspect that other Obama supporters like me are also thinking about not subscribing to or buying a magazine that trafficks in such trash.”

Trash? Liberal bloggers are also frothing at the mouth, which is beyond disappointing…and just a bit scary. Here’s an idea: Why don’t you all get a big bonfire going and burn every issue of The New Yorker you can find. I’m sure the Republicans have some lighter fluid you can borrow.

It’s not surprising that HRH Obama and his media supporters are upset about the cover. Most of the liberal media have their noses shoved so far up Obama’s ass that they haven’t seen sunlight in months. How dare the New Yorker publish a provocative, satirical image of the Obamas! We can’t have any sort of intellectual culture in America! Americans are just too stupid for that! Everything must be dumbed-down to a Fox News level of good vs. evil stupidity. The New Yorker’s editors’ attempts to defend the cartoon and justify it are highly disappointing. No no no! Just shut up, you bunch of weenies. Stand up to the Obama machine by waving the Constitution in their faces.

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14 July, 2008 | 2 Comments

I went to see this film, which is the true story of Barbara Daly Baekeland, who married the heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune. The morally bankrupt American socialite’s big claim to fame was having an incestuous relationship with her homosexual son and then being murdered by him. I’m pretty sure the subtitle of this film is, “Be grateful your family isn’t this crazy.”

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12 July, 2008 | 3 Comments

“Few men since Flaubert have offered such sympathy to women whose lives are hell.”

–Kurt Vonnegut on The Easter Parade

I stayed up until 5:00 this morning to finish reading this novel. This is a big deal, since I haven’t been able to read a novel since returning from my trip. I start books, then abandon them. I also haven’t been writing. It’s been a rough few weeks.

The Easter Parade affected me in a powerful way, which was a bit of a shock, actually. As I was reading it, I was pulled along, but the characters started to get on my nerves. It’s the story of two sisters, Sarah and Emily. Though it’s a short novel, it spans about 40 years, from the 1930s to the 1970s. Yates is a master realist and we mainly get various episodes of the sister’s lives, primarily Emily’s life. Sarah’s life is truly heartbreaking, though you don’t know it until you’re deep into the novel. The story is told mostly from Emily’s perspective and focuses a great deal on her heavy drinking and many love affairs. After a while, it was like — Okay, we get it. You’re a drunk and you like to sleep around! I was getting annoyed with the repetitiveness of it.

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11 July, 2008 | 1 Comment

It has a fabulous first line:

“Neither of the Grimes sisters would have a happy life, and looking back it always seemed that the trouble began with their parents’ divorce.”

–The Easter Parade by Richard Yates

10 July, 2008 | 7 Comments

Literary blogs are buzzing this week with the news that Jhumpa Lahiri has won the Frank O’Connor short story prize — a major literary award worth £27,000. The fact that she won isn’t surprising, but what’s making news is that the judges announced they will not produce a shortlist of books that will compete for the top prize, as is the norm. No, they’ve bypassed the shortlist and just given the award to Lahiri for her new collection, Unaccustomed Earth. Apparently, no one could match her brilliance, so why bother having a shortlist. This means that the writers who would have gotten valuable media exposure from being on the shortlist will now get nothing. The judges claim they didn’t want to put other writers through the stress and suspense of being shortlisted, when it was a foregone conclusion that Lahiri would win. As if anyone on the shortlist would have been stupid enough to think they were going to win with Lahiri there. At least they could have gotten a little publicity for their work, which is important given that short stories are largely ignored by readers and the media nowadays — those short stories not written by Lahiri, that is.

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8 July, 2008 | 3 Comments

From a Telegraph article titled: Toddlers who dislike spicy food ‘racist’:

“Toddlers who turn their noses up at spicy food from overseas could be branded racists by a Government-sponsored agency.”

I honestly don’t think it’d be possible to make this stuff up.

8 July, 2008 | 1 Comment

Courtesy of William, who is dismayed that it now costs $70 (£35) to fill up his jeep with gasoline:

“I’m still floored by how much it cost to fill my tank…And we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars to fight that war in Iraq and we can’t get any of the oil? Isn’t this why we went over there?”

Excuse me while I wipe the tears from my eyes. I haven’t laughed this hard in ages.

6 July, 2008 | 7 Comments

Waterloo Sunset: After the Rain

Today is my friend Anita’s 50th birthday. Anita, I wanted to take a photo of a brilliant Waterloo Sunset for you on your birthday — with a bright sky and yellow rays of light. As you can see, Mother Nature offered something slightly more gothic. [I actually went to the bridge last night as well, just as an insurance policy, but the sun was not even visible at all. It may be summer...but this is London!] It had been raining earlier this evening, as you can see, but the storm passed around the time of the sunset. I’ve called this After the Rain, because I think it’s an apt metaphor for what this birthday means for you.

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4 July, 2008 | 2 Comments

It’s the 4th of July, but I don’t feel like celebrating. Right now I’m too ashamed to be an American.

I’ve been reading about the case of LaVena Johnson, which is making the rounds in the blogosphere and left-wing media. Who is LaVena Johnson? From Salon’s blog:

In July 2005, 19-year-old Johnson became the first female soldier from Missouri to die in Iraq. She was found with a broken nose, black eye and loose teeth, acid burns on her genitals, presumably to eliminate DNA evidence of rape, a trail of blood leading away from her tent and a bullet hole in her head. Unbelievably, that’s not the most horrifying part of the story. Here’s what is: Army investigators ruled her death a suicide.

This article by Ann Wright details much more extensively the injuries Johnson suffered and how it is impossible for her to have killed herself. Johnson’s death was initially ruled a homicide, then quickly changed to suicide. The case is closed. This young woman volunteered to serve in Iraq. In return, she was beaten, raped, mutilated, murdered and set on fire by other soldiers. Rather than bringing her killers to justice, her superiors and by extension the government of the United States is complicit in her rape and savage killing. Is this what America stands for? And to think, we’re in Iraq now to bring the people democracy and teach them how to be “civilized.”

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30 June, 2008 | 8 Comments

I want to buy a new computer. My current laptop is exactly three years old and it’s starting to slow down. I even get the blue screen of death occasionally and the whole thing shuts down. Being a computer moron, I don’t really know if this is a worrisome development or not. I know it can’t be good. I’ve known so many people whose computers have crashed at the 3-year mark, causing them to lose everything. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. To be honest, I also fancy a newer, faster computer. This one takes ten minutes to boot up! And it’s very heavy and not comfortably portable at all.

The computer I have now is the best I’ve ever owned by far. It’s a Dell Inspiron 6000 and has been utterly fantastic, except for the drawbacks I just mentioned. [I know other people with Dells who have not been so lucky.] But I am seriously thinking of switching to a Mac, something I SWORE I would NEVER do! It’s the end of the world!

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29 June, 2008 | 2 Comments

Tonight we went to a crowded bar on Brick Lane to watch the Euro 2008 final, Germany vs. Spain. If it were up to me, we would have just stayed home and watched it while sitting on the sofa with a bag of Doritos. But hey, that’s me. The bar was filled with Spanish people, who turned out to be a pretty blood-thirsty crowd. They cheered when the Germans got injured and were screaming things in Spanish and spilling beer on my new shoes. Thank heavens Spain won or the place may have been torched. You know, football is just le boring. Thank heavens the game is only 90 minutes long. As it was, I spent way too much time admiring my new hairdo in the ladies loo.

On the way home on the bus, we were those people who everyone turns around and stares at. How embarrassing.

28 June, 2008 | 4 Comments

This post is super long, but I wasn’t able to write about Prague from the road, as I did in Budapest and Amsterdam. [Can I just say these Czech words have given my international keyword a workout? I didn't even know half of these accents existed. Bloody hell.]

Okay, so I wasn’t too excited to leave Budapest, because, you know, they have such good food there and such gorgeous men. But alas, it was time to pull up stakes and head to Praha. I visited once before in 1997, very briefly. I didn’t like Prague too much back then, but I chalked this up to being tired at the end of a long backpacking trip and having some sort of stomach ailment — not ideal conditions for visiting any city. Over the years when I’ve told people I didn’t really enjoy Prague much, I have almost always received the same reaction — one of shock, horror, disbelief. I didn’t love Prague? What was wrong with me? You’d think I’d said I liked to strangle kittens in my spare time.

So I looked forward to returning to Prague again 11 years later. I liked Prague much better this time, but I have to admit I still don’t love it. I have very specific reasons for not loving it, however, which I will explain in a moment.

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27 June, 2008 | 1 Comment

A shock at Wimbledon yesterday, as 20-year-old Alla Kudryavtseva, the no. 154 ranked player, beat Maria Sharapova.  Bwahahaha!  Not surprisingly, Sharapova was all dressed up in her designer clothes, since her looks matter more than her game.  Kudryavtseva, on the other hand, is not one of the “glamour girls” of tennis:

“It’s very pleasant to beat Maria,” she said. “I don’t like her outfit. Can I put it this way? It was one of my motivations to beat her.”

I love it.

26 June, 2008 | 3 Comments

Buy it here. [Hat tip Bitch PhD.]

And check out this video if you need a laugh - a news reporter totally loses it on camera. [Be warned it's filled with the f-bomb.]

25 June, 2008 | 1 Comment

Since I had easy internet access in Budapest, I already wrote a bit about my visit (here and here and here). Still, there are a few more things to say.

Tomorrow I go to the London office of my Hungarian dentist to have my stitches removed. Overall, I was pleased with the dental care I received in Budapest, but this is a multi-part procedure that won’t be wrapped up until the autumn. I hope everything continues to go well. Dentistry is a big industry there — you see advertisements for hotels that say “get your teeth checked while you’re visiting” and things like that. The clinic I went to caters to Brits and it was full of patients. If anyone is thinking of going to Budapest for dental work, you can contact me for advice/referrals.

So back to Budapest. I was there for three whole days and two partial days. During this time I had dental work and was feeling generally unwell because of the antibiotics. Still, I really loved Budapest, so that’s saying something. I think it was my favorite stop on the trip. [Perhaps Amsterdam would be tied with Budapest if my accommodation there had been nicer]. I’m very picky about where I stay and the Hotel Erzsebet (Hungarian for Elizabeth) was fabulous. It’s a business hotel, so it’s not charming. Just judging from the hotel room, you could be in Miami or Manchester or anywhere else. But I wanted comfort and that’s what I got. Pay movies (which I didn’t watch), wi-fi (which I had to pay extra for, but at least it worked), a nice bathroom, a/c, a comfy bed and spacious room, a very central location and a full breakfast included each morning, all for less than $100/£50 per night. There are also two totally fabulous restaurants on this street, Károlyi Mihály, including the restaurant directly across from the hotel (can’t remember the name) and the one on the corner, Centrál Kávéház.

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23 June, 2008 | 4 Comments

Just a quick note to say I made it home safe and sound. Whenever I return home from a long trip unscathed, I feel I should kiss the ground upon my arrival. So many things can go wrong while traveling. While I did have a few glitches along the way (more than usual), it was nothing major and everything worked out fine.

Quote of the day #1 - announcement on the Amsterdam to Brussels train:

“Hello ladies and gentleman, please be aware that luggage thieves are currently operating on this train.”

Quote of the day #2 - an idiotic American tourist at the Eurostar desk in Brussels:

6:45 p.m. “Hi, I am supposed to take the Eurostar back to London tonight, but I have no idea what time my train leaves. I hope I haven’t missed it. I don’t have a ticket, only a reference number.”

That idiotic tourist would be me.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about being home, but I will enjoy the few small comforts I’ve missed. I am going to take a nice long shower now. In Amsterdam the past four days I’ve had to share a bathroom with gross people. Urgh, I hate that. Then I will get into bed and finish reading the biography of Anne Frank I bought while in Amsterdam. I’ve been glued to it all day through more than five hours of train travel.  I only have 40 pages left. I have a lot to write about Anne Frank and my trip. More soon…