The Roots of Bus-Drivin' Run Deep

When I went to Timnath Elementary School a decade or two ago, I always rode the bus to and from school.
So one day, on a rural road back home, the bus driver pulled the bus aside. Instead of scolding us for shouting or throwing crap, which was the usual motivation for an unscheduled stop, a sixth-grader sitting right behind her stood up. He then proceeded to raise a Rock-'Em Sock-'Em Robots game into the air. He then, over the course of a minute or two, explained the dynamics and the features of the game, and what one had to do to win the game. He had a volunteer man the red robot as he fought with the blue one. After a few seconds of plastic robot-on-robot violence, a red plastic head popped up when the blue robot had emerged victorious. He thanked everyone for their attention, sat down, and then the bus pulled off again.
Now, THAT was a guy with public speaking skills! I realize only now that that was perhaps one of the most surreal moments of my life. At the time, I probably just thought, "Ooh, Wadical!"
Some of my other strange bus moments:
1. Slamming my face against the seat in front of me. At least it was only a one-time occurrence. The sad part was that the driver was only going 5 miles an hour, and he slammed on the brakes to demonstrate the importance of sitting face-forward. And he warned us before he did it that he was going to do it. I guess I didn´t believe him. But, now I realize the importance of sitting face-forward in a bus...OR DO I??
2. The time I was waiting at the bus stop, only to realize that I had forgotten something at home. I ran home, and ran back to find the bus arrived and my Garfield lunch box crushed under its front wheel. The repentant bus driver, bless her heart, tried to make amends by buying me another yellow lunch box and giving it to me on the ride back in the afternoon. Only thing was, it was a Popples lunch box. If I´d have known how to swear then, I´m sure I would have come up with something colorful, but instead I just had to opt for lunchtime ridicule for a few years until I pestered my mom enough to get me a Back To The Future lunchbox.

3. Driving a bus for 6 years. I still can´t believe I did that.

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Another Oddly Average Day

The other day I was in San José yet again, trying to do some more crap for my permanent residency. Danilo, the immigration lawyer I have there, suggested we meet at the Denny´s by the Best Western on the freeway, since it was a fairly common landmark. So, I decided to go inside the Denny´s (sorry Dad) and get a cup of coffee while I was waiting for Danilo. As I was looking through my mound of papers and my passport, I was pondering yet again what it meant to be an American, and what it meant to reside in one place or another. As my mind was kind of wandering, I started to think that I was a bit hard on American tourists in my previous post when I depicted them as lacking a certain amount of class and savvy when traveling in foreign countries.
Then, as if on cue, 2 American couples in their early twenties walked in to the restaurant. Both of the girls were wearing bikini tops, and thier not-fat-but-certainly-also-not-toned bellies were sticking out underneath. I could tell by their voices that they were definitely Americans (or Canadian spies). I then concluded that in my previous assessments of American tourists, I´d not nearly been hash enough in my condemnations.
I mean, c´mon. We all like a nice bikini, but these weren´t nice bikinis; they were kinda skanky (but that aspect of their presentation was amplified by their loser boyfriends, admittedly). And San José is basically in the middle of the country, and nowhere near a beach at all. Finally, Denny´s isn´t the classiest of joints, but for a place that bills itself as a family restaurant, these people seemed a bit underdressed. Once again, I shook my head, Uncle Sam rolled over in his grave, and an American Bald Eagle cried a single red, white, and blue tear.
Anyhow, shortly after the freakshow walked in, Danilo followed, and we discussed my residency documents. He´s going to join me in my fight against El Hombre and his burocracia. My papers basically looked to be in order, so now he´s going to sign up for a date in March or April that he can make an appointment to apply for my residency. Yes, he´s making an appointment for an appointment for an application. How´s that for government efficiency, fuckers?
Anyhow, I asked him if I was anywhere near a part of San José called Escazú, where there was a rumored mall with a rumored international bookstore. I was hurting for reading material for my English classes, especially for my 5th and 6th graders. So he said, "Sure, I can take you to the Multiplaza. My ex-wife lives near there." So he lead me out to the casino in the adjacent building, where his ex-wife Giselle was (I swear) inside the casino, relaxing on a chair next to the slot machines and reading a book about English grammar.
So, my immigration lawyer, his Anglophile ex-wife, and I all drove across town in rush hour traffic to the mall to visit the international bookstore. It turns out they had a few things to do in the mall, so while I looked at the bookstore (score! "James and the Giant Peach"!), they did their things. Afterwards, we met up at a little restaurant, where Danilo bought us a little supper and chatted to me about literature and the German language, which he happens to speak a bit of.
We then dropped off Giselle at her house near Escazú (the whole time I never really figured out why she was even hanging out with Danilo that day in the first place...but no matter, she was really nice), and Danilo drove me back into the center of San José to catch a bus from a station that happened to be two blocks from his house.
So upon further reflection, that was certainly a strange day, but of late, my days seem to be strange. Nothing like talking dog strange, but still mildly interesting, at least. Hopefully you didn´t get too bored reading about it.

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Happy Birthday

Hey Everyone,
Just wanted to say happy birthday to my brother Paul! He´s turning 21, although the significance is a bit lost, considering he´s been in Australia studying (and drinking) for a few months. Anyhow, if you have time, go to his blog and post a happy birthday comment. It´s at http://iblogoff.blogspot.com
Or don´t. He might be too drunk to care anyhow...
Happy birthday!
Ryan

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Officially Off The Market

In the above picture, one can see a pensive Angela sitting next to a Ryan who doesn´t quite seem to know how to use a pen. With that pen, I am signing a marriage license. So, Angela and I are officially, legally married, pretty much! Probably! I know, that was fast. But don’t worry, I didn’t elope, and you didn’t miss the wedding. It’ll still be in July, and we’ve still not set a date. What we did yesterday (Tuesday) was just the legal ceremony. As my friend Julien said, “It’s a beautiful thing when two people get married…especially if one of them has to do it for legal reasons.”
I myself didn’t really want to do the legal ceremony until the regular, church ceremony, but when it because apparent that the advantages of doing the legal ceremony now (an expedited residency process, the ability to work and own property, a faster American tourist visa application process for Angela, and a shiny new Costa Rican ID card for me!) were weighed against the disadvantages (no awesome shiny ID card, legal abysses in regards to building a house and working, and possible deportation!), we decided it’d be best to get legally married as soon as possible.
And no, Angela’s not pregnant.
In any case, though, I really didn’t want to get the legal thing done so early, cause it kinda made me feel like some sort of mail-order husband from a poorly-titled catalog like “Men Who Is Northamerica 2005!!” (yeah, I know: it wouldn’t even be the current edition). The ceremony itself was very legal and decidedly un-romantic. But still kind of a fun way to spend an afternoon. Angela and I hadn’t even told most people at work that we were even dating, nor had we told many of our friends that we were engaged. We just figured it was none of their business…plus we didn’t know if we’d get fired. But we had told some people, and we each agreed to bring one of the two required witnesses. I brought Abuela and Angela brought along her friend Carol from her college (family members didn’t count as witnesses, it turned out).
Right after we got to the law office in Palmares, though, the lawyer said that according to some law restriction he found or thought he might have found, he’d need someone to verbally translate the laws and documents for me, even though I understood the written Spanish. I guess he wanted to cover his bases. But, the translator couldn’t also be the witness, and the translator couldn’t be one of us getting married, either, and Abuela doesn’t know English. So, we needed another person to join our group…someone that spoke both English and Spanish and lived in Palmares. After a little cell phone hustle, Angela was able to get a hold of our co-worker Aurelys, a girl that teaches English at the Elementary school part of the Colegio Bilingue. Since she didn’t even know that we were engaged, she of course had no idea about the civil ceremony, and proceeded to freak out a bit, both on the phone, and when she arrived in the office (and likely on the walk from her home to the office, also). She kept saying things like, “Oh my God! What is this! How can I translate this!? What if I make a mistake? I can’t go to jail!” and making the sign of the cross quite a bit. Basically, it was pretty funny.
After I assured both Angela and Aurelys to their satisfaction that I had never been married in any country on earth, and that I had the documents and the sworn testaments to prove it (which was a document that Aurelys had to translate, for the lawyer) Aurelys had to read all of the Family Code regulations that pertained to marriage. Like I said, I understood the Spanish just fine, but she had to do it anyhow. Meanwhile, Abuela nodded off to sleep, and Angela chatted with Carol.
Finally, then, Angela and I were able to attest verbally that we wanted to get married, that we had the full use of our mental and cognitive capacities, and that we weren’t crazy (although since she married me, she might have been lying a bit at this point). We then signed a bunch of papers, the majority of which pertained not to the marriage, but to the fact that the documents were indeed read out loud and translated for this Gringo-assed Gringo. We also signed a paper which might have been like a marriage license, although I guess there won’t actually be a license available, nor will the marriage be legal, for another 15 days to three or four months. “Ahorita,” as they say. I think we may have even signed on for a time share in Pensacola…
Actually, all joking aside, I am very happy to (probably) be legally married (assuming it’s all kosher and the mound of extra papers doesn’t cause suspicion in San José). Angela is a wonderful woman, and for those of you who have met her, you can understand how I would not want to waste one single day before spending the rest of my life together with her. Now I just can’t wait until the real wedding in July!

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The One Dance I Can Do Well

After writing the entry about my visit to the U.S. embassy the other day, (yeah, I know, I’m posting these at the same time, but I sometimes write these things on my computer at home and don’t get a chance to come to the internet café and post them until later) I was thinking about what it means to be an American. Also, Angela is taking a class on American culture, so I had to think about what it meant to be American to help her with a presentation on an aspect of American culture or values. I suggested “pride plus embarrassment.” I thought that it would provide for a nuanced discussion about many facets of American-ness in the 21st century, but then I realized that basically no one in her English class had even been to America, so they probably wouldn’t realize what the hell I was talking about. She didn’t at least.
I explained to her that in many ways, Americans are very proud and patriotic. I even downloaded Lee Greenwood’s song, “God Bless the U.S.A.” (yeah, that one). I explained how it was really popular around the time of the first gulf war, and that it had a second wind a decade later during the resurgence of patriotism after the September 11th attacks. She ended up leading a discussion on that song and patriotism in general, and I guess it went over pretty well.
But I still keep thinking about the other part of that dichotomy, though: the embarrassment. Any of you that’s traveled on a train in Europe in the summer likely knows the feeling. You’re sitting there, minding your own business, trying to blend in and possibly make like the locals, when—like a banjo emitting a twang from the other end of the car—you hear a voice: the voice of your Fellow American! It would seem logical that this voice would be comforting and remind you of home, but counter-intuitively, it can also make your face turn red and make you want to get off the train at the next stop.
The voice can be from any American, really. It might be a middle-aged couple from Decatur complaining to another middle-aged couple they just met (let’s say they’re from Phoenix) about the fact that they have to walk down the hall to use the bathroom in their hotel. Or, it might be a college guy with a shirt proclaiming his university of choice and a matching ball-cap turned sideways, talking to his “bro” about how they totally got fucked up last night at the “Hoffbrow House” and tried to hook up with some chicks from Australia. Or, it might just be a man speaking VERY LOUDLY in English (so the foreigner will understand him) to the train conductor about how he didn’t know he needed a ticket for this particular train, so he shouldn’t have to pay, and especially not THAT much.
All three of these examples are just archetypes, I know, but all three of them make me a little embarrassed to be an American. I feel bad to say it, but I also know I’m not the only one out there that feels this way.
I know that, among people who travel a fair deal, especially while studying, that many times foreigners don’t want to be recognized as foreigners, and would rather blend in. Maybe they’re trying to learn a new language, or maybe they’re trying to have a true cultural immersion. Either way, though, it’s not necessarily an advantage if they’re identified as Americans. I tried to explain this to Pablo (the Colombian soccer player who lived here at Abuela’s house for a bit), but he didn’t really understand. He said that any time he met a Colombian in another country, he was always happy to see them, to talk to them, to find out where they’re from, etc. And I’m sure there are Americans like that, too. I’m just not usually one of them. I wouldn’t even approach a group of people that were obviously Americans when he and I went to a bar one evening. In fact, I actively tried to avoid them the whole night, in case they also didn’t want to be “outed” as Americans. I came to call it the Fleeting Gringo Dance.
I even have to do this dance sometimes with the locals. Costa Rica’s a pretty chilled-out place, and it’s actually pretty warm towards Americans, the United States, and visitors in general. This country is kind of an anomaly, because that’s not always the case. In Argentina, Mexico, and many countries in Europe, when people find out that I’m an American, the first thing they often do is complain about something my government is doing. Or, they also like to tell me exactly what America and all Americans are like (even if they’ve never been there). Sometimes I know what they’re talking about, and sometimes I don’t. The point is, though, that we are usually instantly identified with groups of people according to our cultural, religious, or national affiliations, and sometimes, it just gets old. That alone is sufficient reason for me to dislike Bush—his very existence makes my life harder because I get hassled in foreign countries (and that’s not necessarily a one-sided political statement; the same thing happened with Clinton, too…I remember a group of my fellow classmates at my German high school incredulously attacking me and Josh verbally because our country was trying to impeach a president for getting a blow job).
Anyway, I’m getting off track here, but this has all been on my mind for some time. Please feel free to post any comments you might have relating to this. I know that a lot of my friends that might read this are Ex-pats, Eurotrash, or Fellow Travelers, so I just wanted to hear any thoughts you might have on this topic. Or, if you prefer, you can look for me on the dance floor of international relations.

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My Country ´Tis Of Thee...

On Monday of this week I spent a few hours in the United States. I accomplished this not by hopping on a supersonic Concorde jet to lunch in Laredo, Texas, but rather by simply going to the United States’ embassy in San José. They say that an American embassy is actually American soil, regardless of the fact that it’s physically in another country. I don’t know if that’s true, though, and I don’t really care to find out. But I’ll still treat it as a fact.
So anyhow, I was in the U.S. the other afternoon going on a wild goose chase for a Costa Rican work permit. The school that hired me sent me to the U.S. embassy, despite my protests that the U.S. embassy would have nothing to do with giving out Costa Rican work permits. That kind of task, I argued, would more likely be taken care of by the Costa Rican Ministry of Migration and Foreign-ness. But still, sometimes you have to go to stupid lengths to prove a point if your protests fall on deaf ears. Plus, it was a beautiful day, and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend it than waiting inside a sterile, over-secured complex filled with huddled masses longing for freedom (and the huddled bureaucrats longing to deny it to them).
After a long trip just to get to the embassy, I took my number and sat down for a while. I talked to an American lady who was in the embassy to get additional pages put in her passport. She had an impressive travel resume and an impressive name to match it: her first name was Bushnell, and one of her middle names was even Bird. And this wasn’t one of those nicknames that stay within your family; all four of her exotic (or maybe just odd) names were official and on her passport. She was really nice, though, and she told me about some development projects she’d been working on in Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.
Finally, after a wait that only turned out to be around a half hour, my number was called and I went up to the bulletproof teller window. There was a microphone and a speaker to allow the two parties on each side of the window to communicate, but not very well; I had to continually turn my head back and forth like a moron so that I could hear when I the microphone crackled, and to look at the person just two feet away from me when I was talking. It’s weird to think that even though this is the first impression that many Costa Ricans would get of the United States’ government, there is still a line of people waiting to try to get there.
So, the lady told me (of course) that the U.S. government had no jurisdiction over Costa Rica’s internal affairs, and that I’d have to take my inquiry to the Ministry of Migration and Foreign-ness. So I asked her if I could also get some more pages in my passport. Might as well not waste a trip to the U.S. by coming back empty-handed, I figured.
And from there the story just goes on and on. Basically, the Costa Rican folks were neither helpful nor friendly, but that’s understandable, since they work for the government. The situation is still being sorted out for the work permit, and in the meantime I’m still trying to get my permanent residency. So far, though, the fight against bureaucracy is still going tolerably well (and at this point, don’t just knock on wood; beat the living shit out of some wood for me, cause I might need all the luck I can get).

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Prepare The Wedding Sack

Many of you know this by now, but I wanted to announce that I got engaged a week or so ago! Pretty cool, eh?

Now, let’s get to the answers of the most frequently asked questions:

1- Yes, to Angela.

2- I’m not sure myself how I was able to get a girl like that, either.

3- Yes, I swear that she said yes…I’m not making this up. For more details on how this came about, read the previous post.

4- We don’t know when the wedding will be, but we’re aiming for July, possibly in the first week. It’ll be here in Costa Rica. Details will follow as soon as possible.

5- Sure, you can come.

6- Yes, you should get a passport.

7- I’ll be living here in Costa Rica for the foreseeable future. We’re fixing to build a house in Berlin and live happily ever after.

8- The title from this posting is a reference to the Borat movie.

9- Here’s a picture of the happy couple:

So, to all the people who have congratulated us, thanks very much! We’re both very excited that we found each other and that we’ll be able to spend the rest of our lives together!

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The "What´s Goin´ Down" episode of "That´s My Momma!"

On January 17th, I arrived back in Costa Rica after my cold-assed hiatus in Colorado. I was welcomed back by warm embraces and warm weather, and things were going great. A day or two after I got back, I went to Angela’s house in Berlin with the intention to propose to her. I was assured in my mind that she was the one for me, and that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, and I was confident that she’d say “yes” when I asked her to marry me. Still, I was a little nervous, partially due to the fact that I needed to ask for her parents’ permission and blessing. As a teacher, I’m used to public speaking, but I almost never do it in Spanish. Mainly, I just didn’t want to come off sounding like a Neanderthal Gringo to my future parents-in-law.
When I got to her house, though, I gained courage from a strange source: a can of paint. Rest assured, my dear reader, that I in fact did NOT do a bit of huffing before I proposed to my future bride; however, when I looked into Angela’s room, I noticed that she’d painted it a bright-ass, garish hue of neon green. It was a tone that was only one or two degrees of green away from the bright-ass, garish green that I had painted MY old room in Colorado recently. For some strange reason, that helped encourage me even more. With additional back-up from Angela, I went out to the porch to ask for her parent’s permission and blessing. They said yes, and that they’d be happy to welcome me into their humble family, and that two good people like Angela and myself deserved each other.
I went back inside, only to find that Angela was in the bathroom (apparently it took me a while to gain the courage to ask her parents, and one can only hold it so long). When she came out, her parents had by then come inside, and I guess they assumed that I’d already asked her, since we were standing together in the kitchen. In any case, after sweating bullets for about ten more minutes, I finally got a chance to be alone with her, and I asked her to marry me. She said yes, and we were both incredibly happy. We celebrated that night by going to the Carneval procession of the giant Fiesta week in Palmares, where we watched from the side of the road like newly-crowned royalty, being entertained by a parade of dancing groups, giant masked figurines, and a series of tricked-out Honda Civics with gull-wing doors and booming stereos.
The next day, we began to prepare for a visit from my mom, who arrived on the 20th. The evening my mom arrived, Angela and I went to pick her up at the airport with healthy dose of happy anticipation, a rented Nissan Sentra, and a colorful sign reading “Phylis Sitzman!” With all three of those elements in tow, we were assured a wonderful week of traveling and getting to know one another (And let us here give a special thanks to the car, which let us avoid riding on buses radiating the scent of diesel exhaust and old cheese). My mom got to meet Angela and Abuela, as well as many members of both of their families, and all of them treated her to a warm welcome and some wonderful food. I think that she had a great time, from what I can tell…and part of that may be due to the fact that—literally without exception—everyone that met my mom commented on how young she looked.
While she was here, we went to Berlin a few times, we drove to La Fortuna to spend two nights visiting the volcano and engaging in some good tourist fun, and we also went all around San Ramon seeing what there was to see. I was very happy to see that my mom and Angela got along splendidly, and that everything went off pretty much without a hitch. So, here are a few pictures that we took when my mom was here. Some were taken by her, and some by me:

Here´s one of Abuela, my mom, and me.

Here´s a picture of Ángela on one of the Hanging Bridges of Arenal, near La Fortuna. I went there with her and my mom for two nights to do some sightseeing and walking-around type of stuff. Ángela´s not so big on heights, though.

Here´s one in front of a cloud-covered Arenal Volcano in our garbage bag-y ponchos.

Abuela and my mom in front of a giant painted Oxcart.

Abuela and my mom in front of a giant leaf.


And--for no real good reason--here´s a picture of my family´s dog, The Other Dog, wearing a diaper for some reason. I have no idea what the story is behind this picture, but I came across it when I was getting pictures off of my mom´s memory card.

That´s it for this posting. Thanks for reading, and to my mom: thanks for coming for the visit!

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Dispatch From Hoth

First of all, I'm wondering what the shit is going on with this weather. Seriously, though; what sort of place has daily HIGH temperatures of 9 degrees? This is farenheit we're talking about here, kids.
In any case, I'm in a pretty good mood right now, because I was in Denver trying to get paperwork sorted out in various administrative buildings all day long. Normally that's a sure-fire recipe for a terrible mood, but things went pretty well. Basically, I'm trying to get established as a permanent resident of Costa Rica, and that takes a ton of paperwork from the US, all of which needs to be notarized. Then the notarized papers need to be authenticated by the Secretary of State of Colorado. Then that authentication needs to be verified by the Costa Rican consulate. In any case, gathering these documents is a process that by most logical calculations should take around two months, and possibly one month if you're really lucky and really dilligent. I started yesterday around noon. I really hesitate to say this, but it actually seems that around 30 hours later, I may have gethered all the papers I needed and am ready to take them to the consulate. Wow, God must like me. God must REALLY like me. In fact, due to the nature and volume of my good fortune today, one must forgive me for wondering if God in fact has an actual crush on me.
Let me tell you, though, it took some major ass kissing across the board. I even told the lady answering the phones at the Costa Rican consulate that I'd make her a batch of cookies, and I called in to register an actual compliment for a guy working the window at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (and talking to his boss sped up the document processing time from about 5 days to around 5 hours). Those are just two examples, but all day, I was on my best behavior, and people were rewarding me for it. At a place I went to get an investment record, the receptionist even gave me an office, a phone, a mug of coffee, and a parking space to use for as long as I needed it today. Wow. Denver, you stole my heart, you ol' charmer you.
To top it off, since I was downtown, I called my friend Julien again, and he invited me to a free lunch at his office. It was a lunch meeting, and the group was a branch of the Toastmasters, which from what I gather is a sort of public-speaking club. I got a free catered lunch, plus I even gave some short remarks to the group about the viability of the Smart car in light of its introduction to the American market. Seriously...you can't make this shit up.
So it was a pretty great day. It wasn't cheap, though. Each document cost a pantsload, and each document will eventually cost an additional 20 bucks at the consulate. Still, I feel like I'm in one of those credit card commercials:
-Parking Downtown: $2/hour
-Releasing a certificate of good standing with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation: $13.
-Authenticating a notary seal at the Secretary of State: $15/document
-Even possibly beating the odds and coming out ahead in a struggle to conform with the rules of multiple bureaucracies: priceless.

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Lovey-Dovey

A few people have mentioned that I've not posted too many pictures of my girlfriend Angela. So, here's a few of her and me:

I like this picture of her and me on her birthday. She looks happy to be with me.


This one was taken on a sort of plateau near her house, where there are a bunch of TV and radio towers. The towers are the only thing that most people know about the little area of Berlin.


In this picture Angela is trying to use wax to remove the hairs of a poisonous caterpillar that she accidently touched. It didn't really work, and she had a bad rash on her arm the next day, but for the time being, it made a nice picture.


This is a picture of me and her in her house. I'm the one with the crazy eyes.


The gratuitous kissy picture. I used to hate seeing other people's pictures like this, so now it's my turn to persecute others.


The two of us on Abuela's bench. You can't see it in this picture, but the bench is chained to the porch because her last one got stolen. It was even lifted over her metal barrier fence with spikeys at the top. I guess if you want a bench that badly, as far as I'm concerned you can have it.


We refer to this picture as "our movie poster." The movie will be called "Las Torres de Berlin." It'll be huge.

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Straight Up Ballin'

So the other night I went to a professional basketball game. As many of you know, for me, this is about as severe as beating up a cripple or eating a raw koala bear, in terms of things that are wrong and I would hope to never do. As with most sporting events, I just have real trouble justifying wasting hours of my time watching a bunch of overpaid diva bitches run around a field or court while I sit on my ass and get stupider and fatter. But the tickets were free, and I went with my friends Julien and Martha and this Polish guy named Woyzeck. It's hard for me to admit, but it was kind of a good time.
I met Julien at his work, which happens to be in the Qwest building, which I think is the tallest building in Colorado. We got to go up to his office, which is part of some company that does strip mining and other evil things (how odd is it that strip mining is so bad and strip dancing seems so right?). Still, I love skyscrapers, and I got to see a cool view. Then the three of us went to the Nuggets game, the tickets for which Julien had won from a company raffle. We even got free parking and Woyzeck bought me a beer.
I guess the Nuggets won, but I'm not sure how important that is, because I wasn't even sure if the teams are in pre-season or post-season or anything like that. And during most of the game, I just talked to Martha about all the hoochies mama in the audience. I think that professional basketball is one of the few sports (aside from foxy boxing) where many of the female audience members get all slutted up and floozied out before attending. So basically, while everyone else was watching the game, me and Martha were engaging in catty gossip and talking shit. Someone's gotta do it.
So, I'll still probably refer to basketball as "hypesketball" for quite some time, but it's not so bad as I imagined it, after all.

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Sky Gods and Blood Diamonds

Well, just when I thought there was no real hope for Leonardo DiCaprio, he goes and makes "Blood Diamond," a thoroughly good movie. Just when I was settling into hating him forever. Who knew that all it'd take would be a fake Zimbabwean accent (which, against ALL odds, didn't make me hate him even more)? Good work, guy, but you still look a bit like a shih-tzu with that facial hair, you tool.
Speaking of entertainment in general, I wanted to mention that Annie and I were wanting to form a band from the Scandinavian TAs in our office. We'd've called it "The Faded Sky Gods," in honor of a group of Scandinavian dieties we had to lecture about. Our first album would have been called "Bitch's Lucky Day," in honor of what an uninsured driver said to his sister once when she rear-ended him. Damn New Mexico. I guess none of us really played instruments, either. But hey, that's rock n' roll...

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The Curse of Matt Damon?

It's been a week or two since I've posted anything, and now that I do, it occurs to me that the titles of many of my posts end with a question mark.
In any case, I came here before you today to complain about three of Matt Damon's recent films. Now, I like Matt Damon, so don't believe me to be a hater. Quickly after "Good Will Hunting," it became clear that between Damon and Ben Affleck, Damon had most of the chops, and Affleck was a bit of a tool. And many of Damon's movies have been good, like the Jason Bourne ones. But I submit this to you:
1. "Syriana" was pretty crappy.
2. "The Departed" was pretty crappy.
3. "The Good Shepherd" was pretty crappy, too.
I seem to be the only one that holds these opinions, though. Which is odd, because I usually like pretty much any movie, just like I enjoy pretty much any music. So I was wondering why I didn't like any of these three darlings of the filmgoing society. The way I see it, "Syriana" tried to make an elaborate point but got caught up in its own convoluted story, "The Departed" relied way too much on cell phone technology and Leonardo DiCaprio to tell a story, and "The Good Shepherd" was just pretty boring. But then I realized that Matt Damon was the common link between these three movies, and I became quite concerned.
I suppose that we will all have to wait with nervous anticipation to see what he churns out next.
And I have no idea why I just wrote an entire post about Matt Damon.

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It's In The Upper 70's in Costa Rica Right Now...

Since the real purpose of a blog is to whine about what's going on in your life, I'll whine about the weather here. Here's a picture of my poor car being consumed by snow yesterday morning. But now it's out and the four wheel drive on the ol' Boobaru is kicking some ass. Unfortunately, the two wheel drive on all our neighbors' cars is kicking my ass, since I keep having to help dig out and push their cars to the main roads.
Whine whine whine. Oh well.
Stay inside and enjoy the weather from the comfort of your own home, if possible. And cancel the "mayday" from my previous posting--I got the tonic water and limes just fine.

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