Made it from Stuttgart to Istanbul, and I'm now waiting for my next flight out (arrived at 11pm, flight out is at 7:40am). Istanbul airport has free wireless, comfortable seats, and is open all night. The duty free zone is about the size of my home town and probably generates more money.

Riding on a plane flying in to Turkey is similar to being in a bazaar. Talk about a ethnic group who can't stay in their seats and are always jubilant to see each other. It seemed as though everyone on the plane were family.

The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Ben Affleck's Brother is excellent.
There Will Be Blood - Superb. I was holding out, hoping for some good in him in the end.

Hurray for multi-country power adapters! I can now plug things in in 130 countries. So far, I've crossed 2 of those countries off the list.

Forget coffee and nicotine, I'm living on gummy bears and marzipan for the night.

Marzipan, horse-drawn carriage ride, gummy bears, slot car racing, Munich, Stuttgart, Mercedes museum, 300 SLR - amazing, Flying in to Israel after IDF strikes on Gaza - a bit scary (but haven't flown in yet), Gluhwein - FANTASTIC, Bill Bryson - still good, weather = cold.

I arrived at the SFO airport around 11:00am. I checked in, made my way through security, and then setup camp near the closest power outlet to my gate. I debated whether or not to bring a laptop, but I did in the end, and I'm happy for it. I have music, movies, and games galore.

Once I settled in, I started to watch Lawrence of Arabia. I'm fasinated by nomads and deserts. The cinemotography is fantastic, and the dialog between characters must be in the top three of all movies ever written.

I managed to get WiFi access. It took only 50 minutes. This is what happens when IT people are bored in the airport. Oh, by the way: if you use a laptop in an airport, be sure to TURN off your file sharing. I found plenty of people unknowingly sharing files. I didn't open any files, but it was interesting to see how naieve people are to computer security.

Last night Laura and I made a Christmas Nativity.... Enjoy!

Mary, Totoro as Jesus, and HellDiver as Joseph.
Robots as shepherds watching over their lambs, played by Ninjas.
Wiseman: Bloo, BBQ (G.I. Joe), Robot.
Gifts: Cactus, I Love New York Hello Kitty key chain, and a Dragon from China Town.
Angels: Gabriel, the Pope, and Gabriel

The Robots (shepherds) and Ninjas (sheep)

Mary, Totoro (as Jesus), and HellDiver (as Joseph)

Wiseman: Bloo, BBQ, and a cool robot Laura got for me.
Angels: Gabriel, the Pope, and Gabriel - all purchased from a quarter vending machine.

Christmas draws near, and once again things have settled down enough for me to return to my blogging habit. I always get behind because I have too many things I want to write about. Enough complaining out of me.

For Christmas I'm headed to Stuttgart, Germany. Traveling on the 23rd of December is hectic, and I managed to luck out and find a non-stop flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt. As long as I can get to the airport and on the plane, the rest should be fine. I feel sorry for anyone going through Chicago, JFK, or Denver this week.

I'll spend almost 6 days in Germany, and then I'm headed to Israel! I found a ticket the fits my vacation perfectly. So I'll be celebrating New Year's Eve in Tel-Aviv or Haifa or somewhere. This time when I go I've got plenty of friends to visit - and some new ones to meet.

It should be an excellent trip, though coming back will be long and arduous:

1.) Depart Tel Aviv at 6:00am.
Arrive at Istanbul at 8:35am.
2.) Depart Istanbul at 2:45 pm.
Arrive at Frankfurt at 4:55 pm.
3.) Find a hostel for the evening.
4.) Depart Frankfurt at 9:00am.
Arrive in Amsterdam at 10:10am.
5.) Depart Amsterdam at 12:20pm.
Arrive in Washington D.C. at 2:59pm.
6.) Depart Washington D.C. at 4:20pm.
Arrive in San Francisco at 7:27pm.
7.) Go to sleep and go to work the next morning.

A few days ago, one of my co-workers came in with a large bowl of Laffy Taffy. In some sort of sad irony, his son is allergic to most candy. I'm not sure about you, but I love Laffy Taffy. I particularly enjoy
the banana flavored ones. And over the last week as I've been eating Laffy Taffy, I've been reading the jokes. And I've discovered this: a lot of children aren't funny yet (or even at all). And the last thing I need while indulging in
the glory of artificially flavored corn syrup, sugar, palm oil, and
soy is for a little kid's poor sense of humor to rain on the parade of
deliciousness I'm enjoying.

The worst joke I found is this:

Brandon R., of Florence:

Q: "Which garden has the most vegetables?"
A: "Flash Garden."

Problem: You're probably too young to be making jokes about Flash
Gordon or to be abusing drugs, so this poor joke is most likely due to
a low IQ. I'm sure the joke was a riot on open-CB day while riding the
short bus to school.

Amazing: As I was writing my retort to his poor joke, I switched to Google and typed in "Flash Garden" and this is an honest to goodness screen shot of what came up. Notice anything?

This joke is so bad that it has created internet traffic! There is now a definition of "flash garden" in Urban Dictionary, the Wonka company officially responded to the joke, and FOX News reported on the joke. That made my day. I am going to frame this Laffy Taffy wrapper and hang it up in the apartment.

Here are some other poor jokes submitted by Brandon's peers:
Katrina F., of Opelousas:
Q: "What doesn't get wet when it rains?"
A: "The ocean."

Problem: The ocean does get wet when it rains. However, it is doesn't become relatively more wet when compared to objects that aren't bodies of water that are exposed to rain. You need to restate your joke in the proper context: "What does not change its relative degree of wetness when it rains?" Even then it isn't funny unless you change the punch line to "Your Mom."

Anthony B., of Walnut Creek
Q: "If a snake had feet, what would you call them?"
A: "Snakes instead of sneakers."

Problem: First, you explained your joke by qualifying it with "instead of sneakers." You must have faith in the ability of your audience to infer the connection. Second, your joke is wrong. Third, it isn't potentially as dirty as Katrina's joke. Fourth, it should read "If a snake wore shoes, what would you call them?" Jokes need semantics. Your only future in comedy is to mimic Carlos Mencia by becoming an overweight Honduran, stealing jokes, and then making fun of a race you're not part of. Start eating more candy and submitting less jokes, Chubby.

Dawn D., of Manhattan
Q: "Why didn't the duck cross the grill?"
A: "He didn't want to be a roast duck."

Problem: Though you can roast a duck on a grill, technically it is considered "indirect grilling" due to the use of the drip pan (without the drip pan the duck will burn). You need to spend more time fact checking your jokes. On the other hand, I think you're above average in intelligence and you were trying to get the audience to make an allowable connection between setup and punch line. Good effort. However, try to remember that you're only in third grade and most of your target audience can't even make a poptart yet, and a few might not even be toilet trained fully. Also, a male duck is called a drake, dick.

That was pretty clever, wasn't it?

I am not concerned about maximizing the shine and bounce of my hair, and I don't have long flowing
golden locks. Never the less, I always shampoo my hair twice. I'm not addicted
to the scent of Garnier or whatever shampoo I happened to grab the last time I bought a bottle.
Instead, I'm addicted to laughter, because every time I wash my hair I laugh a little bit and think to myself "Recursive function!"

"Lather, rinse, repeat." See!

I explained this to Laura the other night, and that is how she came to know what recursive functions
are.

Sometimes shampoo and conditioner come packaged together. I think if you have the piece of mind to
purchase shampoo, you'll probably remember the conditioner. Instead I believe we should help the
mendicant population smell a bit better. Let's package bottles of body soap with vodkas
and whiskeys. It will be called "Olfactory's Saving Graces: You forget 'nam and we forget you smell."

If I'm ever forced to live on the street, I'm going to save up for gin and tonics. Whose with me? I might still
be poor, but at least I'd have class. And if I ever met someone with vermouth, we'd raise our
classiness, raise our glasses, pretend to be James Bond, then get together and call ourselves an
institute. Later on we'd invite Paul Simon to join us. We might have better luck getting Garfunkel
though. He probably lives on the street already and he definitely doesn't have anything better to do. Whereas
Paul is still busy leading a career.

I give homeless people coupons for olives instead of money. At least then they can make proper
martinis. If a martini can't brighten up the day, then nothing can, except washing your hair twice.
So in a way, I guess I'm substituting shampoo for martinis.

function shampoo(int x) {
 if (x > 0) {
  lather();
  rinse();
  shampoo(x-1);
 }
}

I need to preface this post with two things:

1. I always feel bad about telling this. But at the same time it cracks me up.
2. This is not me on a political or religious soap box.

In high school I joined 35,000 other youth from across the nation in New Orleans for a
3 or 4 day Methodist Youth Convention. I had a good time and some excellent memories from
the trip. Each day followed a similar format of: various activities, small groups, a little
bit of tourism, and several times during the day we'd all gather in the Super Dome for
large events.

The large events always featured a motivational speaker. One evening a young
woman who had survived a late-term abortion spoke to us. As you might guess, surviving a later-term
abortion doesn't do wonders for your health, physical attributes, or attractiveness.
But she was alive, and I don't care what religion you are, surviving a late-term abortion
is a definitive miracle.

The most accurate description I can give you is that she looked like a platypus in a wheelchair. Nothing is correct on a platypus or was on her. (I had to make that image because even with safe mode turned off, "platypus in a wheel chair" has no relevant Google results.)

She rolled on to the stage, settled in, and told her story. I'm not sure what it is like to wake up
so unwanted in a world that your mother tried to steal your life from you. But it has to
be an emotional roller coaster out of our comprehension. And if that happens you will need faith in order to cope.

At the end of her testimony, she looked at the crowd and in complete seriousness
stated that
"I am waiting to have sex until I'm married."

Out of 35,000 people, no one saw that sentence coming. It was the most dark comedy moment I've ever witnessed. She said it with conviction, as though
each day she pushed through a line of able-bodied men trying to tap her plat. And it makes me
laugh because it was an unexpected moment and every person had the same thought:
Talk about optimistic.

People might have thought "She has to wait." But no one had thought "I bet she is waiting," or "I wonder what her sex life is like? There must be a line for able-bodied
young men somewhere around here."

Before you decide I'm terrible, I hope by some odd grace of words you saw the very
bitter-sweet humor in this story. I will risk sounding lame, but each time I think
of the story, I hope for she found someone to love, marry, and be intimate with at every level. He is a better man than any of us - if he exists.

One of the ways I'm most like my father is that I'm interested in too
many things at once. Often I get a great idea, and then it gets bumped
out of the way by another new idea. Soon I have 20 ideas and none of
them see fruition. Take this blog for example. I often lose myself in
the number of ideas I have for posts. Right now I have about 15
different posts in the work that span roughly 100 ideas, none of which
are very related.

But I promised a friend to make a specific post, and that is what I'm going to do tonight.

Everyone enjoys a good letter or opening a package that arrived in the mail. Over last week and a half, I've happily received 3 incredible packages from my loyal fanbase. In this post, I've promised to cover one package by itself (I'll blog about the other 2 packages later).

I've followed the blog and artwork of Rejcel for quite a while. Over the last few years I've started to amass an excellent collection of art. And on November 10th, 2008 my collection expanded as I became the proud owner of this amazing piece of art...

Impressed, 30x30, acrylic on canvas

I'm glad Rej agreed to part with this painting, and I'm very glad to own it. If you're at all interested, I encourage you to drop by her website or blog. I recommend you start with her paintings. (Rej, the lighting in the apartment is only good during the afternoon - when I'm at work - I'll post a good picture of it in the apartment later).

You forget how large a 30x30 painting is until you get it out of the box.

Before I throw away a box, I always test if it might make a good Pope hat.

Note: After I wrote this up, I just noticed that the Lamborghinis are very similar but are different. Notice how mine has the ports along the lower part of the door.... damn. Oh well, it is still an excellent post.

Jalopnix.com featured an article about a man who built a Lamborghini Countach in the basement
of his house. The article stated that it took him ten years to complete the car, but I think
it took him longer. Why?

Exhibit A

Please take special notice of the calendar in the background. It happens to be an 18 month calendar
from 1991 through 1992. How could I possibly know this?

Exhibit B

Because I purchased (and still have) the same calendar at the Scholastic Book Fair in 1991 at the age of ten. It
doesn't mean he didn't start building the car in 1998, but on the other hand, what adult in their
right mind would still have a 1991/92 calendar hanging in their basement seven years later?

In the last post I wrote I proved that I have an uncanny ability to not mail Thank You cards.
The rest of this post doesn't have to deal with my undiagnosed fear of the United States Postal
Service, but it does have to deal with treasures - such as the Lamborghini calendar - that
I found while cleaning my room before I moved to San Francisco. I used to be a pack rat and
some of these artifacts atest to that fact.

My First Date

I think Brandi owes me $3.50 because I had to buy a ticket for her cousin as well. At the age
of 14 dates are odd enough that having a cousin along doesn't change much. I remember awkwardly holding
hands (with Brandi, not her cousin) after I nervously asked "Is it okay if I hold your hand? It is okay
if you say no." The date went well and later we married
at the school fair.

One year later movie prices had risen by $0.25, and I must have done something wrong, because I saw the re-release
of 101 Dalmations by myself.

The Glory of Ag

Your school's year book probably featured the homecoming football game and the school play. However, we didn't have
a football team or a school play. But we did have agriculture class. When the year book staff started throwing away
old pictures, I salvaged this because it says a lot about going to a small rural school.

The Ancient VHS Collection

I still own the complete TMNT animated series on VHS.

Spending Spree

My brother's American Express card from about 15 years ago.

Pimp my Game, Boy!

Carefully decorated with stickers out of an early Nintendo Power issue.

We're Cooking with 1200bps now

I still remembering surfing Prodgy on a 1200bps Hayes modem.

Bit Shift Left, ftw!

A binary calculator I made at a summer academy.

Expired Dairy Products

Posters

I have original movie posters for all three Star Wars movies and Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Back when she was a very tame sex sybmol.

If only I had a way to go back and get posters for the other episodes.

I hate to post the day before the election because tomorrow the internet will molt and a collage of new posts will wallpaper the internet about the election outcome. I hope this post doesn't get overlooked in all the madness and celebration.

After Laura writes a letter, she never fails to ask if I'd like to write a post-it note to
include on the letter. She asks this because I have a capricious character that is perfect
for writing post-it notes. Maybe I wrote about it before, but I once wrote a Valentine's Day
card that discussed that the world's population of bears is at critical low because they
don't have genitalia and can't produce.

(They work for Exxon, which is I wrote "Keep loving oil")

I'm okay at writing letters, but I'm terrible at mailing them. I am the worst at mailing
them. Here is a case in point. Before I moved to San Francisco, I returned home and rummaged
through all the belongings I've stashed at my parents' house. Among the items I found...

Thank you cards from my high school graduation. These aren't once I received. These are ones
I wrote for other people to receive. I wrote the card, placed them in envelopes, licked the
envelopes shut, addressed them, stamped them, and then failed to put them in a mailbox.

For eight years.

I should have taken these to the post office, paid the difference in postage, and sent them
out. But I'd hate to break a haven't-mail-these-yet streak that easily. Afterall, it took me
years to not mail those. So I did what I can do best with letters: absolutely nothing - but only after I took the time to photograph them and blog about them.