More FB Fun Beta Builds

Rock and roll succinctness in academicese:

"While people may embrace the latest despot du jour and initially perceive radical change, on closer inspection, we must admit that too often regime change does not preclude a paradigm shift. Consquently,the populace reaches a stage in its internal political discourse wherein they make a mass assertion to not be misinformed and deceived any further."
Pete Townsend

"Suffice it to say that we can satisfy our predetermined hierarchical needs by experiencing a surge of adrenaline-like neurochemicals that enrich the brain thus producing a result commonly known as infatuation."
John Lennon

Please, bring me to my knees. I double dog dare you.

Finally got around to seeing my bootlegged copy of "The Dark Knight" One line in particular : The Joker: [to Batman] "Come on, I want you to do it, I want you to do it. Come on, hit me. Hit me!" and I thought, yup, that's Ahmadinejad.

My 200 Iranian Rials Worth

200 Rials of course equals about 2 cents. In the day, it was 7 I.R to the dollar.

My missus was lucky to leave her country 15 years ago. What she left behind was a large family, most of whom, especially the younger generation, struggle as though they live in a poor, developing country. Typically lack of opportunity results in high suicide rates for the under thirty crowd.

The regime must be dealt with harshly, i.e. sanctions including rigid diplomatic isolation while at the same time, the sanctions must not target the quality of life of the majority who oppose to the regime. How this can be done requires more diplomatic acumen than I possess.

Christiane

Knowing on a daily basis what’s taking place in the world has always floored me, and like a train wreck, I can’t take my eyes off scenes of wars, revolutions and famine. I may indeed be negligent of and insensitive to all the suffering in the world. ...But the truth is I can no longer watch Christiane Amanpour knowing she will never be mine.

Wonder what my chances are that one day Christiane Amanpour will share a lane with me at Mid City N.O. Rock n Bowl? Something in the neigborhood of .0000001% I'm guessing.

I hung out with Wayne Kramer in Baton Rouge for a couple of days--rather he let me hang out with him. We have similar tastes. He's got competition.

FB Conversations Revised: Trimming the Fat

Paying for healthcare

I'm down with eliminating government programs and trimming the fat.

First, let's start with the DEA. War over. We lost. Move on.

We might also consider shutting down the Federal Interagency Committee for the Management of Noxious and Exotic Weeds if we're going to eliminate non-essential gubment programs. Oh--and sell American Samoa. Those slackers have been on the dole long enough.

While one can argue we'd be losing an important part of our tuna and cat food industry, there's nothing we can't make up for and get more cost efficiently if we outsource it to India.

Last July, I noticed in New York City that we've started to outsource our manhole cover industry to India, and if we're willing to put American iron forging artisans out of work. . . . time for out'd'box thinking.

American Samoa--$575.3 million GDP. (remember that's gross). So list it, say, 5 billion--chump change for someone like Rupert Murdoch who can afford to wait a few years for a return.

Selling points--south Pacific paradise, nice neighborhood, solid infra-structure including hospitals, prison, public schools, multi-plex cinema, Wi-fi connectivity, and big motherfuckers who'd make great Rugby players.

Toss in Jarvis Island to sweeten the deal.

Buy American.

Now, where was I?

Back to blogging.

There have been very few posts since my Everest base camp trek. Here are my excuses, and I'm sticking to them.

First:
Facebook. An anti-social networking apparatus that helps one excavate the departed. So much has been written about this thing that I not need have my say except to say that I have been as pleasantly surprised to find old friends who have decomposed quicker than I or gained a lot more weight than me, as I have been disappointed to find lassies of yore still looking great, and in some cases, are even hotter now and just as doable (if not more so) since back in d’day when most of them (for this reason or that reason) strongly suggested we were parting ways by cramming my stuff in boxes, leaving the boxes on front porches, revising the answering machine messages from "We're not home" to "I'm not home" and changing locks on the doors.

I do not believe that they've accepted my request to become a Facebook friend because time heals all wounds as much as they want to be sure I haven't moved back into the neighborhood.

I haven't found a more powerful and remorseless devourer of time on the computer since discovering there are a lot of pictures of nekkid women on the innernet.

Second reason for not blogging: Last spring/And "No" I just can't let it go:

Almost as soon as I returned from the base camp trek, fit and trim, having taken mind, heart, and consciousness to their deepest levels of non-medicated tranquility to date, I returned to work and was asked if I'd consider taking my E-learning talents to the community college just outside the university's main gates.

I vaguely remember cautiously deliberating the semester-long assignment, telling the director I needed to sleep on it. I got back to her with a shortlist of provisos--and topping that list was a daytime schedule. She agreed. The Community College campus coordinator agreed, so I went.

The following day, I am sure I overheard "sucker!" spoken in Arabic whenever I entered a room, but I do not know Arabic's colloquial equivalent, so I cannot be certain of this.

I was assigned an evening schedule. I pissed. I moaned. I bitched. I wailed "foul", but there was nothing I could do about it. Whatever peace of mind and soul cleansing tranquility I'd returned from Everest with withered like a dream deferred the first week of night time classes.

For the next three and a half months, I would spend my days pacing from computer to TV, shoveling one sandwich and schnack after another into my stomach, expanding my 34 inch waist to an uncomfortable 36 inch gut that I'd spent months working off two years ago, followed by two years of health clubbing just to maintain.

I have enough self awareness to know that the fat pants should not be sent to a charity bin. By June, revisiting my Fat Elvis phase, I took off for my holiday ten days ahead of the wife, ten days I would not be able to recall in great detail, ten days of going full Elvis. Had I been given a two-week head start, I have no doubt that my friend K. would have found my cold and bloated corpse stenching up his guest bathroom.

Today, I'm draggng my fat ass back to the high impact aerobics and boot camp classes where I stand in the back of the class and leer; leering motivates--end of story.

I also started sorting out work stuff, so I went about emptying the contents of my briefcase in order to cram it full of newly photocopied handouts, white board markers and a bunch of other office shit. While doing this, I came across my (literally) weather beaten base camp trek journal which I'd meant to put on this blog months ago.

So.

When last I wrote of the trek, I wrote about having had a few beers in Kathmandu with a Nepali lesbian who was keeping company with the young man who helped me acquire a provision not sold in stores.

Here's where the journal takes up from that entry.

Kathmandu to Lukla to Phakding

December 31 (New Year’s Eve 2008, Phakding Guest House)

I stayed up later than I should have last night, enjoyed meandering through the not-as-seedy-as-one-would think underbelly of Kathmandu night life, the narrow streets and labyrinthine alleys of the touristyThamel district, jam packed with dread locky, tattooed, gap year backpackers who outnumbered tourists in my age and income bracket, I’d say roughly, 100 -1.

I’d begun yesterday afternoon after the pre-trek meeting with the tour operator and Sherpa guide by stocking up on supplies (energy bars, peanut butter, water, powdered Gator-Aid, a first aid kit, stuff. . .) Then at sunset, a rolling blackout rolled through the district and darkness came with flickering candle light and the rumbling groans of deisel-powered generators. I went to the Maya’s Mexican Cocktail Lounge and Restaurant three doors down from the Excelsior Hotel.

I’d missed happy hour by fifteen minutes but the bartender recognized me and even remembered my name and so he cut me a twofer deal anyway. I've known him since my first visit to Nepal back during my blond wife years through the red headed wife years. He hasn’t met my newest spouse, my personal best marriage now going on six years, but one day soon, I am sure he will be serving her up her standard gin and tonic, short on the gin, heavy on the tonic which she nurses for hours and hours before letting me have the last few watered down sips. I wanted to order the usual nacho platter supper and a margarita or two, but the microwave wasn't melting cheese. I ordered something cooked on a wood burning stove.

After dinner, I crossed the alley to an Internet cafe where a generator roared as busy fingers drummed on keyboards and where most monitors displayed Facebook home pages. I wrote an Email home detailing expenses which are always a topic of great interest in this, my longest lasting and most financially secure union of man and woman:

"Hello my long-suffering wife. It's just gotten dark. The power is out, but the Internet cafe has its own generator, so. . .

I met my guide earlier today. His name is Dawa. Dawa says when I come down from the mountain I will leave many fears behind. We shall see. I bought boots for 60 dollars and an extra memory chip and battery for the camera--45 dollars. I picked up other supplies including rain gear and a first aid kit , totaling about 50 dollars. I leave for the airport tomorrow morning at 5:30. I've been told that tomorrow night we'll rest in a village with electricity and Internet, so I will try to write New Year's Eve.

New Years day I will be in Namche where I will acclimatize to the altitude for two days. There will also be an Internet connection in Namche, so I'll write from there as well. After that, for about 9 days, probably little to no communication.

The trekking company has your telephone and Email address. If they contact you, tell them to feed my body to the birds."

After I sent the Email, I dedicated the rest of the night to getting hold of a few grams of a stuff, had a conversation with that Nepali lesbian, then retired to the Excelsior Hotel to watch the last half hour of the DeNiro/Pacino pairing, “Heat” on Star Movies Asia.

This morning I woke up at 5 to meet Dawa, my Sherpa guide in the hotel lobby. The room was cold and dark and stank of cigarette smoke, mildewy blankets and lingering diesel fumes.

I lit a candle provided to me by the desk clerk the night before then dressed in layers—thermal underwear, jeans, flannel shirt, sweater, scarf, hat and parka. Threw on the backpack and felt my way down the stairs in the dark.

Dawa and our taxi driver were waiting for me in the lobby. Dawa was more lightly dressed in a thin fraying, knitted sweater (probably Yak fur) and a much lighter parka, which he hadn’t zipped.

We arrived at the airport in time for our 6:30 flight, but because of the heavy fog, Dawa and I made ourselves comfortable in the local flight departure lounge, which was a large, drafty hall filled with nodding backpackers and their guides, most of us slouching along the walls as all of the chairs had been taken.

We waited three hours before boarding our twin-engine Jetstream-41. As we walked the tarmac to the plane, Dawa told me to grab a seat on the left, in the front row of a dozen rows of seats--one left, aisle, two on the right. The best views would be on the left.

I sat up front, window seat, separated from the cockpit by a pile of backpacks and gear. In the cockpit the pilot; a man sat on the left and his co-pilot , a babe wearing her black hair in a pony tail and a matching black leather jacket sat on the right as he and she went over their pre-flight checklist. Behind me, a chatty tour group from Quebec laughed it up and continued to chatter and chortle throughout the flight, a nervous laughter as the tiny flying tube bounced around the sky, buffeted by Himalayan winds that held us all hostage to fate.

The flight attendant crawled forward and served me a breakfast of sorts—a single caramel mint and a plastic glass of water. Dawa tapped me on the shoulder at one point and pointed out Mt. Everest. It was surrounded by rows of white dreamy peaks that stretched from one side of the horizon to the other and from the distance, it didn’t stand out as “the one”

About an hour after take off, the Lukla runway came into view. It ends at the foot of a mountain and looked to be no longer than the distance between home plate and second base. The implausibly undersized runway begins (or ends depending upon whether it’s a take off or landing) at the side of the mountain, and the twin engine plane sharply pitched to one side as it circled once high over the asphalt before it quickly descended, dropping like a stone safely to the ground.

Before leaving Lukla, we stopped in a guest house and ate eggs and hashbrowns cooked on a griddle heated by burning wood. We were at 2800 meters, about half the elevation to base camp.

After breakfast, we rucked up and began our trek that first wound down 200 meters to the village of Phakding. Though we scooted out boots at a steady, deliberate pace across the rocks embedded in the path, going downhill still took us three hours to reach Phakding. Uphill will be cruel.

It is New Year’s Eve. We arrived at sunset, and I have celebrated the night with small cheese pizza, cooked in a ubiquitous wood burning clay oven, a San Miguel beer and a Courvoisier from a small inflight bottle I had stashed away in my backpack with a dozen bottles, one for each night of the journey.

Attitudes and Platitudes

Five Things to Do in Amsterdam before Going to a Coffee House: Check into your hotel, Unpack your suitcase, Wash your face, have a Heineken in the lounge and ask the front desk for a brochure to see what times the Anne Frank house opens and closes before you forget.

Five Truths: Beauty, It's in wine, nothing is forbidden, Jimmy Rodgers started it and cold pizza is a breakfast treat.

Five Books: Five Books I Read in Adolescence That Probably Warped Me: Myra Breckinridge, In Cold Blood, The Sand Pebbles, The Complete Marquis De Sade and Crime and Punishment

5 Things I don't leave the house without! Sense of humour, A sense of the absurd, sense of cosmic irony, A sense of feeling that I've forgotten somthing and My horrible sense of direction.

Top Five Kama Sutra Positions The Monkey, The Cat, Crushing Spices, The knot of fame and the Clinging Creeper.


One truth: Wikipedia + Edit>"Find on this page" has sounded the death knell of thoughtful analysis. You may repeat this out of context.

Be devoted to something despite the consequences.

Leo O'Bannion: "So you wanna kill him?" Eddie Dane: "For starters." Miller's Crossing.

Wanna put this on EBay: Any six figures a year corporate types out there who want to leave it all behind and follow your bliss into the noble art of teaching?--leave a message on my wall. Let's talk life swap.

The high tomorrow will be 38 C. Fifteen years as an ex-pat and that "C" still means nothing to me. I think it will be hot but I'm not sure.


More specifically, you can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, many people a couple of times, a few people several times, plenty of people a great deal of the time, and a gaggle of people as much as necessary, but you can't fool all of the people without a strong lobby.

Unsolvable mystery: When will Crocs go out of fashion?.

My Facebook One-Liners and B.S. Part One: May - September

I'm editing posts and looking for as many sentences that have the breath of some life in them, always with an eye on drafting a paper-based thing.

This blood sucking spare time sapping Facebook has left my blog hanging out to wither and dry in the digital world's merciless desert sun .

So, in the meantime, while my blog is on life support, before I consult a blog death panel to see if I should pull the plug, I'm going to assemble what I feel are some of my favorite, original profile status and other comment one liners. Perhaps one day, I'll extend, and expand on themes.

If Ramadan is a time for reflection, then why don't more drivers use their rear view mirrors when changing lanes while speeding maniacally home from work? (badda bing)

I'm told I look younger than my age. Here's my the secret. Settle for complacency. If it gets the job done and the results are anywhere between mediocre and par for the course, then you've won the day. Go through the motions at work, ...take nothing home; hope to score a Seinfeld you've never seen. I guarantee you'll find a very brief interlude called happiness somewhere between drinks one and two.

"Would you vote for an openly gay candidate for president if you agreed with his or her other positions?" wouldn't cast a vote based on how someone gets it off. T'aint none a my biness. I wish there was an "I don't give a flick " icon. Power to the peeps all I'm sayin'. I did however vote twice for an Ivy school educated Rhodes scholar cum lecherous hillbilly. But he tried to keep his licentiousness closeted.

Here's how one fasts during Ramadan--eat breakfast in the dark, stay busy at work then come home, sprawl on the sofa and watch Aminal (sic) Planet till you hear the cannon blast singaling Ifthar. Works for me. Break fast on health club days.

Fifity is not the new thirty. Do the math. Look in the mirror. Try to remember the names of everyone you've slept with. Fifty is pre-sixty. From where I'm perched, women in their forties are jail bait. Whenever I'm in my tweens, (between marriages) when I ring up for rent-a-friend, I request mid-thirties.

Gimme a semi-tropical setting a lax controlled substances laws, a couple of guitars and a dive to sing in--I would retire there most contently.


My wife has a high tolerance for my bullshit. If single status ever comes round again, I ain't buyin-I'm just goin stick to hourly rentals.

Weekend gone. Morning. Day one. Bitter coffee. No toast. Why am I not living on a barge in Amsterdam?

5 Things That I Have Been For Halloween: 1. Preggers Nun 2. Ghost Custer 3. Al "Arence (Lawrence of Arabia--must have been a portent 4. cigar smoking ballerina 5. Castro

For better for worse I can get my head around, but nothing in there about "eh, could be better" or "eh, could be worse" Howz'bout for better or worse and all that in between stuff plus times of manic exhilaration and general malaise?

Help me out--there was Larry Moe and Curly, but who was Curly Joe? At the same time, let me get something else straight: what's up with the Father, the son and the curly ghost--er, holy ghost?

Never mind. According to Thomas Aquinas, Shemp is the Holy Ghost.

Childhood Olfactory Paradise: The smell of a baseball glove and chewing gum, chlorine at the public pool, my grandmother's window unit a/c--big as a Sherman tank and just as noisy, Dad's 'sketti sauce, playdough, Barq's root beer,... my parents L and M second hand smoke, candy corn in October, school cafeteria fish sticks, Mom's perfume on her way to a supper club with Dad.

Whoever said "Marriage is our last, best chance to grow up" would have to amend this belief if he'd ever been a fly on the wall in our home when a debate rages over watching "Oprah" or "My Name Is Earl", which both come on at 9.

Sex and death--it's not that the former's drive has taken a dip. I used to think about it 24/7. But the latter has hijacked my daydreams thus crowding out thoughts of the former. Hence, the randier thoughts have competition. "Vitanda est improba siren Levitra"

Been back at work a couple of weeks and I am already thinking about a change of scenery and other alterations.

"And in the end, the love you take. . ." is proportionally tied to the amount of life insurance you have. Nothin' personal. J'est biness.

Re: A Tom Waits song--Round heah, getting behind the mule is a bedouin past time. Camel in a pinch.

Whats your hidden talent? Answer: artist. I always figgered "pimp". Unfair test. Didn't ask about crushed velvet suits or platform shoes.

As a decide-a-phobe, what I know instinctively but fail to remember is the imperative that decisions must not made before identifying the difference between impulse and careful calculation. I need to find a home. Thailand? Yes? No? Cambodia? Uh huh. ...Un uh. Texas hill country? But of course. No wait. Kathmandu? The one. Except for. Sacramento county? That's it, not. Maybe. New Orleans? Obviously. Lemme think.

Hard to believe Laura Nyro and Britney Spears are both XX chromosomes or that they would have anything in common. A forgotten masterful singer/songwriter.

Happy birthday to thesbian Steve Guttenberg . The world would have continued to turn without him.


There comes a time when we must put an end to investigation and indecision then go with our gut and react accordingly. Unless you own a gun. Then please, by all means, take your time, a whole lotta time and continue to investigate before making a decision.

"I do not avoid women. . . but I do deny them my essence" General Jack D. Ripper (Dr. Strangelove)

I don't mind the eye bags and waning taste buds as much as I worry that I seem to have more answers than questions.

arse gratia ars

Another feline has adopted us. That's 8. What have I done to deserve all these one-sided, unwilling-to-make-a-commitment relationships?

It's freedom of speech, not freedom of listen" Steve Colbert

Please close your office door if you are eating any eggy sammich.

We want to see the twins because yours are all different--like meatloaf recipes or snow flakes. As for what we have, well, give or take a few centimeters, they all pretty much look the same.

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this rent free three bedroom villa!.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. . .don't worry, I'm right behind you.

Waking up in your own bed is over rated.

I s'ppose it's been a fruitful holiday because I'm just about ready for work to start. Two weeks into the work year, I'll have a side order of mashed potatoes with those words.

I don't ♥ NY. I can take it or leave it, like a vestigial part of body. So, I "\," NY. "\," kinda looks like an appedix.

Nothing--jet lagged. Need sleep. Bring me a cat.

Seen the Taj and Mt Everest, may as well get around to the Statue of Liberty--um, because it's there?

Went to BB Kang's Lucille's. Wasn't as "down home" as it should have been. The headliner that night was the guitarist from poison. We ate on the free music side. Security at the Statue of Liberty was twice that at JFK. They make you stand in a booth that blow dries your hair looking for explosive residue. Went into the statue base. Saw up her skirt. It was "riveting".

I think I got the pig/bird/gecko flu--a new strain.

This Master Cleanse, well, it does that and more. I've gotta 700 page bio of Lennon to keep me company.

Christmas in July. Found a July American Esquire for the plane ride back to Dubai. British Esquires are OK--Tilda Swinton exposes are always fun, but frankly, I could care less about what Sir Alex Ferguson has or hasn't learned.

Off to BKK airport tomorrow then home to Dubai, praying tonight for a yellow shirt/red shirt skirmish that will shut down the airport allowing only women and children to leave. It could happen.

Voted 'no' in the outlawing handguns poll! But I would support a nationwide ban on idgits owning handguns which means background checks, written tests, range qualification tests; at least make it harder than, oh, scuba diving license.

On our way to see the other traditional Thai dances tonight. None will involve ping pong balls or alternative methods of smoking a cigarette.

The Guest House is overrun with Bible thumping NGOs today. The mo'fo's woke me up at 7 this morning singing hymns in the garden breakfast courtyard. Where's a den of lions when you need one? Yo', water walkers, maybe you haven't noticed but Thais are already devoted to a religion, and a pretty darn good one at that (all people, even cats and dogs eventually go to their heaven)

What in the hell does "No woman, no cry" mean anyway and why does every Asian lounge act play this damn song?

Me: According to receipts, I've been to Phnom Penh in recent weeks.
K: uh, yeah, that's where u get the bus to Thailand, right?
Me: I remember a bus that drove nearly back to Siem Reap before dumping my human remains in Poi Pet. Oh, and you picked up a jeep of some sort. How long was I in Phnom Penh?

Tours are for chumps. Yesterday, I was at my chumpiest.

Attended the Asalha Puja; candles, chanting and wat procession. We stayed dry. Just afterwards, the sun set and the rain came down; soaking all the fried bug fast food sidewalk cafes. I lit candles for health, prosperity, love and a higher metabolic rate.

Ya got your good NGOs and you got your dumb as a bag o hammers NGOs. The d.a.a.b.o h. NGOs have come to teach young ladies how to sew in a sweat shop for a dollar a day. The good NGOs are realistic and teach the young ladies that if they're gonn...a do it for 20 dollars an hour--which will more realistically support an extended family, then be clean, carry condoms. Hope the The d.a.a.b.o h NGOs hold condom workshops.

New Afghanistan Strategy: So, this is the plan? We're gonna pay the Taliban to not grow poppies, give em AK 47s to join tribal militias. What? Rahm Emanuel must have found the plan on Cheney's hard drive. One: They aint gonna stop growin poppies an' two, they'll use the Ak 47s to bus' caps on any do-good-nick NGOs who try to teach their daughters how to add and subtract, which only makes 'em all uppity and worthless as child brides.

In less than a week, we went from looking for a property investment to rethinking property investments to deciding that stuffing a mattress is maybe the '09 thing to do.

Is there a law in the UK after 60 that you have to leave your wife, marry a 25 year Thai dolly and shave your head?

BKK tonight after an 18 hour bus ride today, airport in the morning to meet my Mina, hop a car to the coast (Hua Hin) to look around for a hat hanging place There must come a time in a man's life when sprawled on the sofa in front of the Travel Channel is a big night in. Hope to see oceanchild, seashell eyes, windy smile rock around in around in NYC in July.


In the dark, took me peels and had a shot of Purple Drank, was half asleep, worrying about the competency of the Khmer staff at a Phom Penh hotel to give a proper wake up call, woke up, checked the time; 11:00 PM on my watch, from a certain stupified angle looked like 5:30 AM, which would have been thirty minutes past my wake-up call. Grabbed my backpack and dashed downstairs to break the desk clerk's balls for not waking me up-- I'm gonna miss my 6 AM bus!--then he said me, sir, it is only 11 PM. Well, Time magazine did say the Killing Fields had lowered the national IQ. Apparently so did the shit Exxon put in the the Mississippi river water I drank for many years. Went back upstairs, swallered some more peels, washed down with Purple Drank, searched the TV for a rerun of Generation Kill, konked.

Travel day. Hope I can get a pedicure (no happy ending required).

Phnom Phen tomorrow. E-Coli today.

Nana Plaza on a balmy Thursday night. Trying to find balance mixing Red Bull with mah yawny Purple Drank medzin.

BKK to Poi Pet (aka Toi Let) in the morning where I'll death hagggle over a car to Siem Reap. I'm expecting my annual shouting match 15 km from the border where the van stops at restaurant whose owner runs a visa scam, sells 'em for 10$ more than one pays over the innernet. (Last year he saw me coming and told the driver to just take that asshole on to the border; hope he still remembers the asshole).

Will be in BKK in the morning only to try to get the hell out of BKK as soon as humanly possible.

Don't think Shirin Ebadi will have time to go skinny dipping this summer--revolution comes first. I wonder if Jody Williams will be traipsing through Khmer minefields this in July?

Time to unleash Iranian women on the Revolutionary Guard--Iran's deadliest secret weapon.

One more day till I begin my semi-annual toxification and mote'a' scooter maintenance program.

The Cat Shelter is open. We have already have enough orphaned kitties to open a Chinese restaurant.

Cambodian Tourism Idea: "For twenty bucks the Phnom Penh mayor will cut you and your dick loose for an afternoon in the Phnom Penh morgue".

Laotian Tourism Ad Idea: "We're successful, civilized commies. It'll cost you a lot more than twenty bucks to have fuck with our children".

More time. Less space.

"Never wear anything that panics the cat." P. J. O'Rourke.

"A happy childhood is the worst possible preparation for life." Kinky Friedman.

It is not fair that only straights have to endure a legally binding, state sanctioned relationship contract.

Every country needs its own Mexico--an unkempt, lawless border country. The US has Mexico of course. Thailand has Cambodia. Iran has Afghanistan. Canada has the US.

Looks like I'll have to cross "skinny dipping in a lake with Aung San Suu Kyi" off my summer to-do list, guess I'll see what Shirin Ebadi has goin' on. It is comforting knowing there are others out there who stalk Nobel Laureates. Bet you fi' dollar the guy who swam the lake was carrying a copy of Catcher in the Rye.

Come home, come home. Ye who (walk on all fours, spit hair balls, claw my furniture, bite, scratch and draw blood) are weary, come home, softly and tenderly calling. . .

Acid peels and Botox if you can afford them, but the best way to stay young is to have more questions than answers.

If it's water, the glass is half full. If it's a scotch, the glass is half empty.

Body aching. . .can't wiggle toes. . .must. . .have. . .cheese burger.

You don't wanna piss off a mountain. That's what my sherpa guide tol' me.

I've done the math and it's quite possible I will be outlived by some of my pets. If I go first, I hope they put my remains in a very nice cigar box.

If heaven exists, what would I like to hear God say when I arrive at the pearly gates? "Sometimes I make mistakes. James Lipton for example."

Wish someone would invent a pill that makes you feel as good as you do after a 10 k run and a shower. I'd buy one.

"(Fill in the blank)" is easier than finding a decent Mexican restaurant in the UAE.

I have a scar on my left hand. It's been there since I was six months old. I still need to glance at it to tell left from right. That's only the tip of the iceberg of what I haven't learned.
I'm gonna temporarily unblock the next pop-up ad just to see where it's going.

My bench mark for a civilized society is the one whose language has no irregular verbs.

Cats are morally ambiguous and make no apologies for it. I can appreciate that.

Advice to travel journalists on the Travel Channel and Nation Geo Adventure--if you are concerned about tourism invading some off-the-beaten-path paradise, which you invariably say you are--Don't report on it!

This time next month, we're off to property hunt in the thick mountain forests near Chaing Mai in Northern Thailand or the beaches and mountains of the south in Hua Hin. We may also gave Pattaya a look/see simply because we have guest room privileges there; either way, I'm going to have be hog tied and dragged back here in August.

I disagree with people who say "You're never too old to 'blah' 'blah' 'blah' " I can think of a lot of things one shouldn't do past a certain age that are creepy. Flirting comes to mind. Clubbing is another. So is wearing t-shirts with band logos.

Normal is a cycle on a washing machine. But so is agitate.

Lust in your twenties. Love in your thirties. Volunteer to do the dishes on occasion after forty.

Before I die, just for kicks, I want to jump on a bandwagon.

Why does Animal Planet still show "Crocodile Hunter"? We all know how the story ends.

.