R&R alpha - (day 14/15) - the end is nigh; ney... the end is here

it's october 14th... tomorrow, TheWayne and i would head our separate ways after an awesome time in germany and the czech republic. but it's not QUITE over yet. we woke up to try to hit "mike's bikes" for a bike tour of munich. it was rainy, and we were a bit late, so we missed the tour. as per usual, we walked a lot but my blisters were doing better now, or my brain had just rewired the "agonizing foot pain" nerves to go to my "let's just get drunk" drive. all was better. we walked to the english garden which is a very nice area of munich. relaxed, greenery, beer, food. speaking of beer, we stopped at the chinese tower in the garden for a sausage and some beer. my facebook profile picture was taken from said been near said tower in said garden (man, that pic is a year old? gotta find a new one i guess). after a nice buzz was packed one, we made out way back towards town. we walked around marienplatz center for a bit. TheWayne was looking for some soccer jersey of some sort. i walked around the store for a brief bit but soon got bored, so i went outside to one of the outdoor restaurants in marienplatz and ordered a beer and some potato salad. normally, i wouldn't remark about potato salad, but i do have to say, this was the best potato salad i'd ever had in my LIFE. fantastic! and brilliant me, i forget the name of the place, and i forget the name of the sports store TheWayne was looking in, but if i could find THAT sports store, i could find this restaurant. TheWayne finished his perusing, so we headed off to near nymphenberg. there is a cool lake we walked around for no apparent reason. there must've been a field trip or something as there were hundreds of french kids running around being all... french. a few beers more, then we made our way back to the hotel and cleaned up for dinner. we went out and ate at the hofbraü haus. it is a famous brewery in germany, and the restaurant was awesome! it was just like the hofbraü haus beer tent at oktoberfest but with more room to move. they even had the brass band playing on occasion! i had a great steak, my first white sausage... a generally awesome meal in a cool environment. TheWayne and i chatted up TheAnnabelle (or was it TheAnastasia)... i don't recall. she was our waitress and very friendly. we had a good time entertaining each other. after dinner, we walked around looking for a place to grab a few beers, but were very unlucky this day. we ended up grabbing a taxi home since (we thought) we'd wandered quite a ways. funnily enough, the taxi driver was spanish, and i was drunk enough to think i could remember enough to speak it. i think he was amused by my attempt... hey, at least he didn't drop us in the middle of nowhere. it ended up we were only maybe 6-7 blocks from where we lived, but i take no responsibility for this navigational error. it is widely known that i have no sense of direction.

we woke up the next day with a heavy heart. it had been a great 15 days and now it was back to real life. TheWayne was back to jersey and his IronMan training, i was back to cairo to close out the job there and move on to alexandria. we grabbed a quick breakfast, packed and hopped on the train to the airport. we partook in goodbye beers, then TheWayne bid me adieu with a tear in his eye. i, myself, had to turn away... and order another beer. looking back, i'm kicking myself for not going this year. if TheWayne is up for it (and anyone else), next year, i think we gotta go again. so there it is... R&R alpha, documented on the blogosphere, completed within 1 day of it's one year anniversary. talk about cutting it close. as a friend recently told me... "for god's sake, finish the blog... you have to let go of the past to allow new experiences into your life.", but one thing before i do that...

take a walk with me down memory lane (soft lawrence welk in the background, bubbles in the foreground, soft filter on the camera...)
TheWayne, throwin' one back

Mmmmm. half-meter sausage

Escalators are like moving chairs when you're drunk

TheTav and TheWayne still sleeping in Berlin

TheTav being a drunk, passed out punk... and TheWayne making sure there is photographic evidence of it!!!

TheWayne at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin

me and one of the lines denoting where the berlin wall used to run

TheTav, TheJen, and TheWayne

Da Boys!

Saw this while waiting to leave germany. REALLY?! "meat wagon" is " car rental" in german? AWESOME!

Havin'a good time at the Hippodrom!!!

Until next time...

a roundabout story

here you find another "cowbirds in love" comic, though i don't find this one extremely funny. the reason i post it is the story that goes with it from the author. click on the picture to go to the page and read his story the frame.

when i read that story i had a bit of a flashback, and found i was laughing at myself. when TheMom had her first heart attack, us kids were kinda stuck fending for ourselves a bit. granted i was either a sophomore or junior in high school, there were some things we just didn't do... like grocery shopping. i can still picture it vividly, going to the kroger's with TheYoungerSister and TheGirlfriend(AtTheTime). we grabbed the buggy and split up going around the store getting what was on our little piece of the list. my job was to get lunchmeat for the house. i never paid attention to when TheMom bought lunchmeat, but i figured i was smart enough, i could figure it out. i took a number and waited in line, and soon it was my time to order. i told the lady i would like some bologna. she asked "which kind" to which i just pointed to one, and then "how much?"... **crickets** for some reason, i didn't think about how much, and i couldn't recall how much TheMom got at one time, so after a panicked few seconds, i said "5 pounds, please". the lady looked at my a bit strangely, and asked if i was sure. i told her "yes, it's for the week," and she went to it. i was kinda not really paying attention as she cut it, until TheGirlfriend(AtTheTime) rounded the corner, eyes wide, seeing the massive tower of bologna that the lady was stacking up on the counter. it was maybe 12" tall (though, if you can't tell, i wasn't the greatest at scale back then). TheGirlfriend(AtTheTime) ran down the aisle, chuckling the whole way trying to get the lady's attention to tell her that was enough meat. i may have imagined it, but i think TheGirlfriend(AtTheTime) and the lunchmeat lady's eyes met, and together they silently thought... "DUMB BOYS!"

meat is murder

i have a question to my vegetarian friends... and on that note, i have no vegetarian friends, so could you pass this link on to them so i could get their opinion. from this article it seems we may be only 10 years away from test-tube meat. that is meat that you would buy, cook and eat, that was grown in a laboratory rather than fed on a farm and slaughtered. this meat would be able to be adjusted to be healthier, have more of the good fats and less of the bad fats, and would decrease the need for grazing land and in the worst case, buildings cramped full of animals solely for business.

i saw this a report on this on CNNi before i saw the article. studies show that livestock produce nearly 18% of the greenhouse gases that might be affecting our climate. the entire fossil fuel industry (cars, power plants, etc) only produce 13%. that's right! cow farts are doing more damage to our environment than that gas-guzzling SUV you have. if we can culture healthier meat in the lab, we'd significantly reduce greenhouse emissions on a level not even fathomable by environmentalists trying to fight fossil fuel emissions.

so, the question is: vegetarians... would you begin eating meat? would you eat THIS meat? it's no longer "meat is murder"; it never had a face, as is the reasoning for some, AND it would be better for the environment to have people eat more lab-meat, thus making it more cost-effective. if not, what excuse would you have not to? dietitians typically don't say to completely remove red meat, but to limit it to like one serving a week, and as far as i know, there are no health risks associated with chicken at all (we're not talking salmonella here, though that would be significantly decreased since chicken factories that help spread that would be eliminated). would you eat lab-chicken? i'm just curious.

i would. i don't see a problem with it at all. healthier, better for the environment. seems to be pretty much a win-win as long as the cost isn't too much.

i've been dubbed

yesterday, i made my friday trip to ThePC to meet up with the hash group. once there, we had a few beers and realized that there wasn't really enough to people to run the hash, so we "hashed" to TheKiwi's place where he had some lamb chops he wanted to cook. the turnout is low lately because a lot of the people are away on summer holiday or R&Rs. we've agreed that we will definitely run next week, as that will probably be the last time most of us will be together until sometime in september.

anyways, back at TheKiwi's we drank beer, talked about the hash, told stories about our jobs here in egypt and where we've been before. before we started the grilling, TheEweTrollop called for a hash circle. we all agreed it was a good hash, brisk but not exhausting. TheKiwiMike was called into the circle and was called out on FINALLY making a hash (and he made the one we didn't run). then i was called into the circle for the naming ritual. normally, it involves sand and "water from the nile" but none were readily available in the apartment. i was told to kneel, i had to drink for being too competitive on the run that day. then, with an icy heineken poured over my head, i was dubbed...

suck me sack

it might be "suck me zac", but i'll find out officially when the newsletter comes out later. either way, i'm not exactly sure how it came about. i know the night before, we were at TheSpitfire, and i think i was making fun of my name (zachary) with a horrible chinese accent. one of the guys misheard me, and i think he heard "suck a me", and minutes of hilarity ensued from that. that's my best guess on how it came about. we do shoot ourselves in the foot, don't we?

i'd love to elaborate more, but i have to work up the nerve to call TheEweTrollop. i we were invited over for chili tonight, but i'm not exactly sure, and i do hate the phone so.

over and out.

---suck me sack

the hash booze cruise

two fridays ago, the hash group had dwindled a bit. many are away right now on their summer R&Rs, so it was down to just TheEweTrollop, TheKiwi, and me. TheEweTrollop had been trying to organize a small boat outing, so thursday, he calls me up at work and asks if i'd be interested in going sailing the next day rather than hashing. i thought it was a good idea, since i had a good time on the big boat in australia. he also invited me to dinner that night at TheKiwi's place. after work, i cleaned up and found my way to TheKiwi's. he has another younger kiwi roommate now, TheKiwiMike. TheKiwiMike was grilling some steaks, TheKiwi was making a salad, TheEweTrollop and i were supervising from a safe distance with beer in hand. the meal was good, but pretty much any free meal is good. the meat was a bit overcooked but TheKiwiMike was concerned about meat-borne diseases here in egypt. we talked, bullshat, dissed each other, drank, and then went out to ThePC. TheEweTrollop had some friends coming in and they were going to meet us there. TheKiwi and TheKiwiMike found a THIRD unknown kiwi at ThePC and struck up a conversation with him. TheEweTrollop and i took his buddies to another dive bar in town, TheSpitfire. there, TheEweTrollop caught up with his friends while i caught up with long lost full bottles of beer. i talked briefly with an egyptian teacher at the american college who noticed i was speaking a bit of arabic. i watched a few scenes from "open water 2" which i didn't take as a bad omen until i realized we were going boating the next day. far too late in the evening, we left the bar and went our separate ways to meet up the next day for the trip.

i arrived at the meeting point right on time. TheEweTrollop and TheKiwi were already there ready to get in the boat. TheKiwiMike hadn't made it as he didn't leave the bar until the bar asked him to leave around 6AM. the two kiwis even did so well as to piss off the stranger kiwi about something or other than i couldn't be bothered to care about. well, before i get too far into this story, i think TheEweTrollop documented the boat trip best in TheDeltaDrivel (the hash newsletter for the alex hash). check out that link for the rest of the story. and for more pictures, you can check out my flickr set.

ah, good times.

a favor from my peeps back in oHIo

i just found this, and because it's free, i'm asking you a favor. maybe after a journey to kahoot's or a night out on the piss, if you happen to cross the middle line near a white castle... PLEASE, someone try one of these for me and tell me how they are. i know i'm a freak, and i like white castle. i also like BBQ pulled pork. there's an extremely remote chance that i'll be done here in egypt by 30-june, but that means i just miss the free deadline by a day with travel. PLUS, you can re-use this coupon once every day from now until then (if it turns out to be good). let me know, please, someone, help a brotha out. you can even get me one and try to mail it, but i'm guessing customs would confiscate it, er no... get a few and super-freeze them for me. yeah, someone do that! you guys rock.

decisions

i've taken the first step down a path that i fear there's no turning back from. it was tough but had to be done. there's so much that has to be done that we just don't want to do. it's exhausting. in other news, we had burger and margarita night at TheMech's place last night. it was fun. it was good to smile again for a bit.

happy easter to all the churchly folks

i didn't even realize it was easter until i saw all the easter vids on myspace and the easter messages on facebook. is that bad? i just started a book today, "the complete idiot's guide to world religions", and i'm dragging myself through a couple chapters of the bible every couple weeks. oh, the joy of learning.

anyways, i just popped in to say, last night i weighed in at the gym, and i've lost 16.3 pounds since i've started recorded which just over a month ago. jules and i decided i was allowed to have a "gift" or a "break from my diet" for one meal once i'd lost 15 pounds, because i'm ALL about the positive reinforcement. i don't even like ice cream that much, but walking past the baskin robbins is tempting just because i know i CAN'T have it. so tonight, i get to have a 1/4 pounder with cheese meal from mcdonald's DELIVERED. i'm so excited. now THAT is bad, being excited to get to have a cheeseburger that isn't even really good, and some greasy fries (i won't eat all of them). i don't get to skip the gym since there's no NASCAR race on today, so gym, mcdonald's, some billiards, and bed. i'm getting a migraine (i get tunnel vision and after-images more than intense pain), so i need to run, take some headache meds quick.

something to whet your appetite

i'm writing a rather large post about my trip to the pyramids at giza, but with getting the pictures where i want it and being as humorous as possible, it's taking a bit of time, so until then... i give you this.

when i arrived in egypt, i weighed 275lbs. until jules got here, my weight didn't fluctuate because i was still living my normal lifestyle of eating out, not exercising, and drinking. when jules arrived just shy of a month ago, i was still 275lbs; this was when i joined the gym, and she started enforcing the diet i couldn't do on my own. when i finished my workout at the gym yesterday, i weighed myself, and to my surprise, i'm already down to 264lbs. it's not THAT tough, but i do have a hard time with wanting little snacks here and there. i'm dying for a mcdonald's cheeseburger. i didn't even really like them that much before my diet, but the fact that there is one right at the end of my street, and i CAN'T have it, kills me. plus, their single cheeseburger, you know, the kind you can get on the $.99 value menu or in a kid's meal is HUGE! it's probably bigger than a U.S. quarter-pounder. anyways, i've been telling jules that i'll fail my diet if i have to go cold turkey, as that is the common failure method of most diets. so, i've gotten jules to compromise that when i lose 15lbs, i get some junk food as a reward. nothing crazy, maybe just a cheeseburger or a meaty pizza, something to get rid of the craving and reward my child-like desire to receive praise and recognition for doing what most people do naturally.

until then, jules (and me on a rare occasion) is cooking dinner every night. i thought of the idea a bit too late to get all our meals, but i wanted to photograph what we are cooking. jules has looked up a load of egyptian recipes, and a lot of the time, we are just flying by the seat of our pants. this first picture is something jules made a few nights ago that was pretty much random. she has severely limited my meat intake, so she kindly offered to make me some beef. she likes "fresh" peas (which i think is ridiculous because it all tastes the same to me), so i asked if we could make cream peas. MMMmmm. she obliged and was even nice enough to add some pepper cheese, red bell peppers, and yams (which i was EXTREMELY wary of, i hate the idea of yams and sweet potatoes). the meat we have is really tough, so we simmered the hell out of it. we added stewed chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, yams (again, i was thinking ICK!), onions, green bell peppers, garlic, and at the last minute, i thought to put some red wine in it to thicken the sauce a bit. after cooking for ages, we ate, and it was magnificent. i'm still in the "fatboy" state of mind, so i'm always wanting large portions and seconds, but she is helping me to say no, and save some for lunch, etc. our dinner was accompanied by an impressive shiraz, and btw, the yams turned out to be not nrealy as nasty as i had inticipated.

the second picture is one of my creations. i'm a simple man. when i'm hungry, i'm hungry, and i don't want to wait, so my recipes are pretty quick and dirty. this day, i made buffalo chicken strips. i'm not allowed to have the breaded, fried, chunks o' chickeny goodness you find at your local BW3 or wing place. still, while working in rhode island several years ago, i found a pizza place called "nico's" that just put regular wing sauce on cooked boneless skinless chicken breasts that were cut into small bite size pieces. they were GREAT. just about the only thing i ate while i was there was those and the local deli made great subs with "hots", what they call a special mix of peppers. at the grocery store the other day, almost like a light from above, i found a bottle of "frank'd red hot BUFFALO sauce". i thought i heard angels on high, it was that good. so for dinner i made the nico special. i cut up chicken breast and parboiled it while i warmed up the sauce. i added a bit of sriracha hot sauce, heinz extra hot sauce, garlic, cayenne pepper, and a wee bit of butter. threw the chicken in the sauce, cooked a bit more, and *PRESTO* my part of dinner was ready in like 10 minutes. jules suggested we could have celery as a side, but we needed bleu cheese, so she decided to make homemade bleu cheese dressing, it was fantastic. bleu cheese, lite mayo, vinegar, a bit of sour cream, garlic, parsley, worcestershire sauce, and some heinz extra hot sauce. that meal was washed down with an egyptian-brewed american-style lager made by a dutch company, heineken, that goes by the name of stella. strangely, all the beers i found here are made by companies that are subsidiaries of heineken.

i didn't mean to make this a menu or recipe post, i just want to let you know, that despite my bitching aobut being hungry, jules starving me, etc. i am eating well. jules is an amazing cook, and we are pretty good at impromptu. that's all for now, back to finishing my pyramid post.

gettin' healthy

i hate it, it's killing me (er, rather, the opposite, but it FEELS like it's killing me), but i have to do it. i joined the gold's gym in town about two weeks ago, just before jules arrived. since jules has gotten here, she's been regulating my caloric intake = starving me. i no longer get a sandwich from the petrol station on the way to work for breakfast. now i get a tomato with some feta cheese. lunch is no longer pizza and sandwiches, i get a salad with salsa for dressing and sometimes soup. for the first time in my memory, i had nothing but vegetables for dinner the other night (peas, brussel sprouts, and beets with goat cheese). it really wasn't as bad as i made it out to be, but i like my meat, and i miss it. mcdonald's and other restaurants of the like are out of the question until i lose 15lbs, then i get a celebratory meal. since i've been doing this i've lost 6lbs (maybe i'll keep a weight tracker... i'm not proud, my first weigh-in at the gym was 125kg, that is, 275lbs... but i carry it well, all belly, no ass). we've been eating lots of veggies and chicken, no fast food, minimal "processed" food (i don't understand her blanket disdain for processed foods). i'm pretty good at the gym. 30 minutes on the elliptical without being out of breath (but i strangely get out of breath on a stair-climber), then 30 minutes or so lifting. jules joined up with me on sunday. i'm trying to go 4-5 times a week (thursday and friday are definitely out as they are "the weekend") jules is going to try to go 2-3 times a week and do yoga the other days. she makes dinner for me for when i get home which is nice. this living together thing isn't too bad, so far.

anyways, i digress. this picture is from a dinner we were invited to last night. our driver invited us to dinner with his family several weeks ago. the first time we had to cancel because i had to go to alex and jules was going with me, and the second time, we had to cancel because TheMech decided to have a barbecue on the same day. so last night was the rain check, though TheLead ended up having to meet up with some people that are basically who we report to for this site. TheLead invited TheMech to go. this caused a bit of a food overage. originally, there were going to be 6 people: me, jules, TheElec(trical), TheLead, TheMech, and their driver. then they told our driver that two more would be coming totaling eight (so our driver's mom bought more food). THEN since TheLead and TheMech went elsewhere (and their guests as well) eight guests became three. we arrived, met his mom, dad, 4 brothers and 4 sisters, sat down and talked a bit, then the feast above arrived. WOW! one things i don't like much about visiting families in foreign countries is their insistence on stuffing all the guests to the gills and then insisteing on just a bit more + dessert. being on my diet, jules let me ave a bit more than i should've but when the hosts piled 3 chicken cutlets and 2 pigeons on my plate, i knew hat me be a bit out of hand for my shrinking stomach. i'm gonna try this... in the picture above you can find (clockwise, starting at the left): kofta, sliced tomatoes, a load of grape leaves with rice, roast beef (in the green pot), samboussek (behind the beef), more grape leaves, a type of rice called "freek" (?), baba ghanouj, rice-stuffed pigeon (egyptian viagra is the lore), more freek, meat lasagna with bechamel, and four game hens. after that, they offered us the sweets were brought them as a gift. it was FAR too much to eat. there were two large trays of lasagna in the kitchen, there were probably 8 pigeons, googly, just far too much food. we are going to be eating it at work for lunch for days. all the food was amazing, his family is incredibly nice, it was a thoroughly enjoyable time. still, we had to cut the night short. TheElec had to get back to the hotel to call his fiancee.

when we got home, we got ready for bed, i kicked on the TV and satellite to see something i haven't seen in such a long time... a NASCAR race LIVE on TV. i ordered this sateliite specifically because it has LIVE NASCAR. so at 10:30PM, i turned on the TV and watched an hour of the pre-race for the las vegas race. i made it through an hour of the race before i noticed i was dozing around 12:30AM. the race was on until 3:00AM. i'm going to try to get a nap next sunday night, so i can stay up late to watch the race.

well, back to work. i gotta get in the mindset to go to the gym, blah, but they tell me it's good for me.

my thanksgiving in south texas

it was cold. like, for me, good weather. wearing my short-sleeve polo shirt, i was comfortable, i think they said it was maybe 45 degrees. the texans were bundled up like eskimos. down jackets, winter coveralls, facemasks, hoodies, the works. it was kinda funny. i actually had a lot of work to do mapping rotor damage since we are planning to pull the rotor today. i was out in the cold, cloudy air all day sitting on cold steel, making some bucks. around 1pm, the customer graced us with a thanksgiving lunch pictured here they also had baked potatoes that i was too full to eat, and i had some pumpkin pie (they had apple too, but again, stuffed). if you can't tell, that is a 16+ oz. steak, corn, texas toast, and a lovely salad. we ate, we got drowsy, we watched some football online LIVE with a cool webpage one of the guys onsite knows, then we went back to work. a full 12 hours was put in, then i went home. i got a bit lonely/bored at the hotel. i thought of all the families eating together, and KNEW there'd be nowhere for me to grab a small meal. i drove past olive garden, hooters, chili's, nothing was open but whataburger, so i had a whataburger meal, whatasized. i hardly ate the fries, but i was thirsty, and i wanted to see if i could say "whatasize me" without laughing... i admit, i smirked.

that was that. today it is about the same temperature, drizzly, and windy, so TODAY, i'm a bit chilly. like i said, i packed for warm weather. i have my micro-mesh sweat-wicking polo shirt on = lots of little holes that let the wind cut right through ya. i had to come back in to the office to put my coveralls on, just to get a bit warmer. today we pull the rotor, today we make 2.5T again, no complaints here. back to work. hope everyone had a good thanksgiving.

happy thanksgiving

i'm working, the site is giving us steaks for lunch. i've looked around a bit (certainly not exhaustively), and the only place i can find that's open for dinner is the titty bar. hmmm, not really a classical place for thanksgiving dinner, but i'm sure i'd find something there to give thanks for. hah.

i had the chance to come home for the thanksgiving weekend. my manager was trying to get me home traveling on wednesday and coming back saturday. i reminded him that wednesday is the busiest travel day of the year, they'd probably lose my bags, etc. and i told him if i'm still here around xmas, then i MIGHT take him up on it. i want to try to be home for xmas and new year's to see the family and jules, maybe jules' family as well, we'll see. so he let me stay, i'm making double-time-and-a-half today and tomorrow, so in effect, working these two days is over a week's worth pay alone. NICE!!! christmas money.

well, i gotta get back to work, just wanted to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving who stopped by. i'll post pix of the thanksgiving steak after lunch.

joey "jaws" chestnut... american hero?

i'll be writing about the salt lake city trip soon, it's just tough, sorry, but i will.

until then, i'll keep you busy with some hilarity. some of the BTBz got together earlier in the week and we ended up kind of accidentally watching the 2007 nathan's hotdog eating contest. takeru "kobe" kobayashi was the favorite despite being "day-to-day" due to jaw arthritis and a removed wisdom tooth. his main competition, joey "jaws" chestnut, stood by his side as they competed against a slew of other competitive eaters from other specialties (boiled eggs, strawberry shortcake, french fries, etc). earlier in the year, chestnut had beaten kobe's record set last year at nathan's (54-1/2) by eating 59 in 12 minutes. in the end chestnut bested kobe and set a new nathan's and world record of 66 hot dogs to kobe's 63. 66 dogs in 12 minutes is like 1 every 11 seconds, bun and all, PLUS they drink water/juice/etc to wash it down. that is just insanity.

now that i'm done with that recap, here's the part i wanted to talk about... the announcers. announcing a hot dog eating competition has to be the kind of thing they give to interns and guys who are waiting to retire. i don't know, but i'm guessing there's not a lot of prestige to it. they informed us that if you have a "reversal of fortune" (you can probably guess what that is considering the massive amount of food ingested so quickly), you are disqualified. it's funny that had to come up with a euphemism for a bodily function that might occur during the competition.

still, the funniest was the commentary that the announcer was giving. here are a few of my favorites. keep in mind, the competition was on independence day.

• This would be the greatest moment in the history of American sports if Chestnut can bring the belt home to Coney Island


• He [Chestnut] may have indeed changed the course of this nation . . . Chestnut is a true American hero


• ... the entire free world is focused on these two men


• and my favorite... you google "hero" tomorrow ... "American hero", you're gonna get Abe Lincoln, possibly Neil Armstrong, Taylor Hicks, and then this man, of course, Joey Chestnut

i think this guy is confused, taylor hicks is an american IDOL, not hero, and likening a competitive hot dog eater to real american heroes like the men and women fighting for our armed forces is just abominable (that's for BTVJGJHo at the BTBz).

either way, that announcer certainly was entertaining.

drugs... WOW

THIS is what my college days should've been like. i an afford it now. JVo, J-Rod... mid-life crisis anyone? let's go to STATE SCHOOL!!! hah, that is nuts, but i love stream of consciousness conversations. certain schizophrenics do that by the nature of their disease. some cool writings come of it at times.

btw 1: i updated the clock up to to my local time (so TheMom doesn't wake me up again), and updated the map at the right showing the plant i'm exiled at.

btw 2: before coming to work today, i got the buffet at the hotel (the groceries close too early for me to get anything on sunday). i only ate a bit and asked to get the rest as a "take-away". they did, and i had to sign a disclaimer form! hah, for some reason, i had to sign that whatever happens to the food or me after i leave the premises is my fault. strange. it WAS carved prime rib... maybe i just signed away my "mad cow disease" rights 50 years in the future, damn!

they're made of meat

i found this webpage sometime in college and thought it was funny. it is a short story by terry bisson having the title of this post. it's an off-the-wall way that some alien species might view us. you can check the original link here, and from there you can get to his main page. if you are feeling adventurous, you can find a short movie based on the short story on YouTube by the the same name. hope you like.

"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."

"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"

"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"So ... what does the thinking?"

"You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."

"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"

"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."

"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"

"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."

"We're supposed to talk to meat."

"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."

"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

"Both."

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"

"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"

"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."

"That's it."

"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't remember?"

"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."

"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."

"And we marked the entire sector unoccupied."

"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."

"They always come around."

"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone ..."

the end