Another One to Everyone

Have you ever had a really bad hangover? Have you ever had a really bad hangover and then had to sit in oppressive heat and take blood pressures of smelly people all day? How about this one, have you ever had a really bad hangover, had to spend the day taking smelly blood pressures and then had the tent you are under collapse over you? Welcome to my Friday!

Thursday night was a celebration of sorts. Dr. J, our veddy British doctor, was leaving us on Friday morning and we were sending him off in Cambodian high-style. By which I mean, there were almost clean plates to eat off of and people who had had the foresight to bring their own booze from home broke it out. The misty, finger stained glasses at the restaurant were the perfect counterpoint to our fine Scotch whiskey, and in true Navy style we shot the two fingers of 22 year aged Glen Fiddich. Then the good Dr. broke out his private stash of Bacardi and we got down to a serious goodbye. It was in the midst of telling a story that I realized that my tongue was no longer under my control, and it was then that my friend Thompson and I decided to stumble back to out tents.

Have you ever slept on a spinning cot before? It is most unpleasant. The normal discomforts of camping are nothing until they are combined by a really good, beer, scotch, rum-drunk. I may have thrown up some rice, organ meats, random unidentified vegetables, the four massive Angkor beers I'd had before the scotch and then all the liquor I've ever seen. I may have thrown them up into a water bottle. It may have been an unfortunate water bottle to discover when I woke up in the morning. And when I say it may have been these things, I guess I mean it was so. Not that I am trying to duck responsibility for my actions or anything, I genuinely made the incredibly foolish choices that led to this miserable end, but there were extenuating circumstances… I really hadn't liked being sober the day before.

That morning started at about 0230. After having voided my entire body cavity at about 1030 I fell into a fitful and feverish doze. At 0230 one of the other fellows in my tent lost his iPod earbuds and blasted the rest of the tent with the supremely restful sounds of Minor Threat, or perhaps it was Social Distortion. At any rate, the group that played had a name that brings to mind the overthrow of governments by violent means. They are a loud, obnoxious, spirit-rending musical group and they were played at decibel levels that explain this fellow's general inability to hear orders when shouted at him. Finally we resolved the earbud issue and fell back into the snooze that had been formerly denied.

Within 40 minutes the local roosters started crowing, their internal alarm apparently set several time zones to the left of their actual location. When they ceased crowing the rise of the sun in Alabama there was a scant 20 minutes of rest before some spirited Cambodian mistook our tents for the home away from home of American Idol. He burst into frenzied song for 40 or more minutes, during which time I lay in a stupor of illness and fever. While I prayed that the singing would cease so that I could once more pretend that sleep was possible I envisioned a massacre. I saw myself wielding a bloodied machete, with the blood of a thousand roosters and all amateur vocalists, the world over, staining its blade. If I had had a machete, and had not been so given over to ensuring my continued breathing by intense concentration, what a legend I could have been.

When the local Cambodian William Hung finally ceased his endless rendition of "She Bangs Cambodia" I allowed my breathing to take over and slept the 10 minutes that the local populace allowed before their early morning horn and Caribbean steel drum chorus took over the musical duties. Might as well try to sleep at CBGBs. I wrestled myself from my mosquito netting and stumbled around in the remains of my dinner while using baby-wipes to clean the more egregious filth from the floor and my body. After a miserable shave and morning toilet I ate some MRE bread and jam for breakfast, drank some luke-warm bottled water and started taking morning vital signs.

The Cambodian people are not regular bathers. I have had experience with people who rarely bathe. The detainees in Guantanamo Bay are not, as a rule, the most hygienic of men. This did not particularly bother. They have a spicy smell, those detainees, they are a human curry. A rich mélange of spices and bodily oils. Afghanistani people are the spice of life, however evil and insane they may be. Cambodians, on the other hand, are like an armpit. Perhaps like an armpit that has not learned to adequately wipe its bottom, if your mind can conceive of such tortured anatomy. There is something in their odor that makes one wish for almost any other scent. Pure toilet filth has it over Cambodian peasant in the pure toilet filth is a distinct smell, not a mixture of foulnesses. Perhaps I overstate this, but there is truth in it.

Take this unpleasantness on top of already being filthily sick and repulsed by one's own smells and the day becomes an unpleasant admixture of nausea. It's also impressive how, in a country absolutely rife with skin diseases, parasites, amputated limbs, gross deformities and dengue fever there is daily someone who combines all of these features into so startling a visage that comment is forced from you. In so much as there are general unfortunates and general combinations, and the wearying morass of humanity parades before you without pulling one up short for comment, the ones that really stand out stand out in such a grotesque way. Your hand, reaching for their wrist to check the pulse, draws back in horror and then, nerve overcoming distaste, returning to the sore-encrusted member and squeezing for the heart-thumping pulse. All the while your mind screams for release and your hand shivers at the oozing pustules that are in its grasp. The milky, dessicated eyes that stare, unlevel, out of the too cheerful face, the toothless, rotten gum-landscape of their mouth. Unforgettable, and yet always topped within the day by some horror more grotesque. Dr Treves would have been beside himself here, so many discoveries for the Academy. The poor elephant man would have been only one in a crowd.

Miserable hang-over days are the longest ones, and it proved so on Friday. Though I was sitting next to my dear friend Thompson I still failed to appreciate the day as I have hitherto. Misery, heat, sweat, despair, the four horsemen of a Cambodian hang-over.

In the early afternoon a wind kicked up. When I say a wind kicked up I want you to imagine a scene from Pecos Bill, the tornado that Bill roped and rode was not less forceful than the wind that kicked the patient waiting-area tent off the ground and dropped it back onto the poor Cambodians awaiting treatment. In the second of time I had to react I started towards the people who were being endangered, which I will always feel was a heroic impulse, but our LT called us all to leave the tent area. In the moment of hesitation I was lost and by the time I had turned back to help, all help had already been rendered. I was only able to assist in the tent remediation, and even that I was not much use. My friend Thompson managed to give a local woman heart failure when he scooped her up from her peaceful seat and carried her bodily out of the imagined harm's way. She was never in any danger other than death by Thompson, but he wasn't to know.

After the eventual re-setting up of the tent there were many quiet hours of vital signs, punctuated by kids with large upper arms, friendly babies, pretty girls, and the occasional semi-human golem. We saw 987 patients on Friday and it was a long, long day. When the patients were finally gone we all had a medication sorting party until around 8, at which point I took my fence-line shower, read some Paul Johnson and collapsed into bed. The day over, I could finally reflect. Never again, I decided, never again. I don't care how many British doctors are leaving my life forever, I'm not mixing 151 and Glen Fiddich for anyone. And let that be a lesson to all of you. Much love as always and more to come.

Cambodia

To the whole damned lot of you: Well, it's just past the half way point of this Cambodia trip that I'm sure you've been curious about. What? You didn't even know I was going to Cambodia? Well, I've been here 6 days and I have about 5 more to go. It's been a heck of a visit and I have to say that while I might be willing to return to a tourist center, I will not be looking to return to Th'mir Pouk any time soon. The kids are really cute, but cute kids do not a wonderful experience make. I don't care what you've heard to the contrary.

We left from Kadena Air Force Base on Okinawa on Friday the 25th. It was a reasonably pleasant flight over. Only about 4 hours in the air, turbulence-free. We arrive just outside of Siem Reap at about 1100. The airport will be featured on Flickr, when I eventually get back to civilization. It's two hours different, so it was 1300 our time, and we were getting hungry. We'd eaten at about 0430, at Kadena, from a hotbox van; one of those driving junk food things that you see on union job sites. Unpleasant food for unpleasant people, we wolfed it down. We had to do a whole bunch of work at the airport, not the normal customs things, but loading and unloading our own luggage and equipment, getting it all onto trucks.

I almost passed out from something very like heatstroke. It was a close run thing. We started moving these large, flat metal pallets which were very, very hot and I started to get woozy. I stumbled over to a grassy knoll and upchucked. Unpleasant. They gave me some water and made me sit down for a while. I got a little better and it was time to head to the hotel. We drove around, looking at the wandering cows and the incredible number of Buddha statues everywhere.

The squalor, even in the relatively cosmopolitan Siem Reap, was intense. People sitting in filth, cooking in filth, hell, cooking filth in filth, it was depressing. We got to our hotel, which I can't recall the name of, but you'll see it on Flickr and I recommend it if you are planning trip to Cambodia. It is probably the most luxurious place I've ever been or even seen in real life. The photos can't possibly do justice to the feeling of exotic comfort. From the shrine in the lobby to the 50 channels on the TV in the room, there is nothing you can recognize as Western. I watched a kids show about Krishna and a band of demons. All with live action actors and not one thing that happened made sense. Possibly the best 20 minutes in front of a TV ever spent. The salt-water pool is a delight, warm as a baby's bath and so salty that it puts the ocean to shame. The actual hygiene issues involved with a salt-water pool are questionable, but it felt too good to care. The bathroom in the hotel room… I have been without a bathroom for several days now and so I hesitate to let flow the incredible details that seems so fresh in my mind. Let it simply be said that the torrent of complimentary details cannot hope to match the torrent of water that needles into your pliant skin in the shower. I didn't take a bath, figuring I'd hold out till I really want one, i.e. when I get back from my dirt bath. It was a good choice, I have no doubt that the bathroom will once again wow me, but holding off makes the expectation much greater. I don't know what I've missed. I have to imagine that it's great.After a few hours at the hotel, without eating anything, though I did drink my first Angkor Beer, we all met up to go with the Non-Government Operators (NGOs henceforth) for dinner.

Siem Reap at night is impossible to imagine. I told Margaret that it was like something out of Deerhunter, and that's true, but it's so much stranger than that. Being in Cambodia at night is like living a PJ O'Rourke essay. (This is HIGH praise, from me. Coming from other people it might be a negative position. I suppose you'll have to go read some PJ and then decide for yourself.) We went to dinner at a place called Dead Fish. I had heard about this place before I came. Each table is on a separate level, for privacy. It's a neat system, though it really wastes a lot of space. We fit 30 people around a long table on a high level and half of them never got the food they ordered. I felt their pain, I never got my seconds. The food was very good. Kind of like Thai food, which I like very much, but a little spicier, or differently spice. Like when Mom puts too much cinnamon in the chili. You still know it's chili, but the taste is just different. At any rate, the food was tasty, but not filling. There were crocodiles inside the restaurant that you could feed fish for $.50. We didn't do it, but we watched a French couple do it. They seemed to be really happy doing it. We were just happy watching the crocodiles eat the fish. There was a floor show of traditional Cambodian ceremonial dancing, which I thought was dull. Then there was a couple of overweight American kids who came out and sang 90's hits. Since I am all about 90's hits, this went over big with me. My loud clapping irritated them, though. (They have no appreciation of virility in tourists.)

After dinner we decided, and when I say we, I mean my friend Cranston whose bank I am while we're here, to go to Bar Street. It's this crazy little street with lots of , wait for it, bars. It's cordoned off by police, though. They make sure that none of the little kids who beg can come onto the street and beg from you. The first place we went to was called The Temple. Again, there are Flickr images coming, but it was a cool place. We hung out there for a couple hours. We met a guy who works for Homeland Security, which was cool. He was drunk and said some things he probably shouldn't have, unless they were lies. But it was fun all the same. Then Thompson met up with this girl named Annie. At least, I'm guessing that's how she spells it. She pronounced it Annie. She took us to another place.

This other place was off Bar Street and a lot less… it was a whore bar. Apparently Annie asked for no money at the end of the evening and Thompson still has his passport and both kidneys, so maybe she just likes to hang out there, but it was something else. They don't have strip clubs here, it's not acceptable behavior. They DO have dancers though. These young girls who act like they are about 8, but look like they are older, if you see what I mean, dance around fully clothed; at least, fully clothed for them. The big question of the night was which of them were actually men in drag, it's shockingly difficult to tell with your basic Occidental face. I was coerced into a little dancing with one of them, but it was my usual awkward dancing and I think she got the worst of it. It got a lot of Cambodian laughs, but was not successful as a form of seduction, on either of our part. We stayed there for a while, until I finally was just done.

I gathered up half our party and took off, back to the hotel. We had to be up at 0445, so being out passed 1100 wasn't on for me. As it was, I got to sleep at almost 0100. I was sleepy when we got up the next day and boarded our bus for Th'Mir Pouk. This turned out to be a bad move on my part. Roads are something that happen to other people in Cambodia. The basic design of a road here is a pothole with no paving for miles. Several times I thought my coccyx was going to be fused to the metal of my seat. Most unpleasant. After 5 hours of miserable driving we finally found ourselves at the appointed place. Now, a few of you might have heard that we'd be performing our medicine inside of a Buddhist temple, and indeed, that was the plan. However, it turned out that our advance party had counted its chickens before they hatched and we were not going to be able to use the temple.

We are using the local governor's compound, instead. This is a little bit of a blessing, as it means that there are police around all the time and we don't have to set up our own guard system. That's nice because it means that we can sleep all night, instead of only in shifts. The downside is that there is no way to keep people out. (Don't ask me why not. There are gates and everything, and did I mention police? Yeah, I have no idea how that works. At any rate, it's a pretty nice place. Not great in so far as normal amenities that we enjoy in the West. The toilets are all bucket affairs. After you do your business and bag your toilet paper/baby wipes, you take a bucket of water and pour it down the spout until it finally flushes. Not pleasant. There is no shower capability. We use bottles of water and the back fence line.

Directions for a water bottle shower: Take 3 or 4 bottles of water, wear skimpy shorts, dump one bottle all over yourself, get every area wet. Soap up, don't drop the soap in the dirt! Use the other bottles to rinse the soap off after you drop it in the dirt, walk, covered in soap, back to the tent with the water and get more so that you can rinse off. Endure the taunting yells of your friends, also catcalls. Repeat every other day, when your own stink overwhelms you. Take care to avoid random dogs, chickens, children and Cambodian locals who would like trip you, watch you shower, or just plain lounge near you.

It took us most of the early afternoon to set up our tents and when we finished there were already 200+ locals outside, just waiting to be seen. So we took the late afternoon to see patients. I did vital signs at the start. It was fun. We had to see the 200+ before dark, so we had to move really quickly. The vital signs team had to keep ahead of the triage officer who had to keep ahead of the doctors who had to try not to overload the pharmacy. It was a mildly complicated process, and I enjoyed it. We ate our MRE dinner and went to bed, exhausted. In fact, I Think it might have been the most exhausted I've been in years, probably since boot camp. I did not dream. Wake up a little before 0600 and for many an MRE breakfast. Your intrepid author managed to go without food, though. MREs are foul at the best of times and not to be countenanced first thing in the AM. I require a soothing cup of tea and perhaps a quiet period of reading and a contemplative poop. These, unfortunately, are not an option in the field. I settled for sitting and making fun of my fellow early-morning risers.

A full day of seeing patients, I think we saw over 700 that first full day. The vitals team and I learned a bit of Cambodian and I entertained the crowd at lunchtime with all the hand motions and faces I could think of. The "living hand" thing didn't go over as well as it always did with me, but then I would be the first to admit that I lack the stage presence of a Chico Marx or a Bruce Campbell. The kids here, as I said, are adorable. Utterly, utterly adorable. I think that there is something in the water here though. The little girls are unutterably gorgeous, as young teenagers they have a grace that is not found in Western teenagers. But by the time they are in their mid-twenties they look like life is over for them. I was saying the other day that if this is how everyone used to age, in the old days, then no wonder they married so young. It's shocking, honestly. I have seen a couple of twenty-something girls who are still pretty, but there is a feeling of tenuous timing, as if their days are numbered and everyone knows it.

Several days went just like that, showers when possible, the bucket toilet, vital signs and vital signs and vital signs. We are all ripe, the smell in the tent where the enlisted guys sleep is something like what you'd imagine medieval moat to smell like. Spirits are pretty high though. We are all getting along well. There are two restaurants nearby. We have adopted one of them as our home away from home. I go every other night. We have Angkor Beers and Lohk Lahk. (Or it might be Lahk Lohk, we have not had a satisfactory explanation.) We ate frogs there the other night and bugs that they caught around the lamps. It was pretty special. The fruit! That's what I needed to tell you about. First of all, you have never had a real mango. I don't care where you think you had a mango, you're wrong. Real mangoes are sold, hot off the tree, at stands on the side of the road in Cambodia. And there are mangostines, I have no idea if that is the correct spelling, but they are delicious. There are many different kinds of things that are similar to gnapes. I guess frogs don't count as fruit, but those were good too. So far every growing thing we've eaten has blown us… away. At any rate, like I say, there will be more coming, there is still half a story to tell and part of it will take place in Siem Reap. Hopefully some of it will also be taking place at Angkor Wat. There will be photos and fun details for people in specific. Look forward to more.

That guy is a doggone legend

Ok, so I never read the book. I am slightly ashamed to be reviewing this whole thing based on the information I have, but I read a comic book adaptation of the book. It was pretty good, it was by Steve Niles and I liked it pretty well. I have no idea how it turns out in the book, really.

I just read wikipedia's article on the subject and it quotes Stephen King as saying that if Richard Matheson didn't exist, he wouldn't either. Obviously Matheson has a lot more to answer for than the several poorly made attempts at filming his original vision. I suppose we can't take him to trial for creating Stephen King, but I can always dream of the day that someone is punished for that crime.

The book is pretty tense, well like I say, the comic adaptation was pretty tense. The way the main character's neighbors were on to him from the first and just waited and haunted him was a good setup. The antagonistic relationship with his former buddy on the block made me really pleased and reminded me of when I used to fight with our next-door neighbors, the Rayles. Nice kids, two girls and little boy. I can remember beating the boy up, sitting on his chest and punching him. I think he'd bitten me. Anyways, a belated sorry to Bobby Rayle and I hope that he never becomes a vampire and hangs around outside my house for revenge.

I also liked how much he drank in the book. It appealed to the lush in me. I also thought that it made a lot of sense. If all my neighbors were camping out in front of my house every night I'd probably want to get pretty trashed as well. My current neighbors are mostly Okinawan and I think that if they became vampires it'd be pretty terrifying. I'm not sure I'd be able to tell if they were vampires or not. They already hang out behind the house all night, how would I be able to tell if they were also eating people? They left a dead goat in my backyard last week. I mean, what would the signs and symptoms of vampirism be, and how would they be different. This is the sort of dilemma that culture shock brings.

My point, and I genuinely DO have a point, is that this particular movie version is pretty rotten. I liked how scary bits of it were, and I liked the first 25 minutes a whole, whole lot. But then little things started to bug me. Why was Emma Thompson in this movie? Why did the vampires look like CGI monsters? What's the satirical value of monsters that are nothing like people? Useless. And what the hell is the whole thing with the heroic value of Bob Marley? How nonsense is that? Bob Marley? Is Hollywood really scraping the bottom of the barrel for heroes or what? I have no idea what album it was that Will Smith claims is the best album ever, but since it is a Bob Marley album I have to say that I suspect he is wrong. Not only wrong, but wildly, hilariously inaccurately wrong.

There is a great scene, really scary and intense, where he is driving around and sees someone standing in the road. It's great, the whole scene that follows is wonderful. But it is ruined by the stupid CGI effects that look ridiculous, no matter how many time we see them. They look like they are Beowulf's cousins that suffer from alopecia. It's just sad.

Vern said that he waited through the whole movie for Will Smith to say something like, "Why's it always gotta be a black man gets eaten by the vampires?!" And while it wasn't quite THAT bad, I saw what he meant. I think that Will Smith, while I will always love him for his Fresh Prince shtick, both in his albums and his TV show, has kind of painted himself into a corner as an actor. It's too bad, as I think that he is pretty good, but just like Keannu Reeves always appears to be about to say, "Dude!" Will Smith always seems like he is about to try to out Martin Lawrence Martin Lawrence.

Access Woes

Have you ever used Microsoft Access? It is making me frustrated. Or, to put it another way, These Pretzels Are Making Me THIRSTY!

I'm working on a database, well on creating a database, that needs to be able to do approximately everything for an entire battalion of people. Boy, is it a pain in the tuchus. I am not the most technically proficient guy in the world. I'm ok. I have some amount of skill. I can figure things out and I used to be able to make startling leaps that denied all actual knowledge in my head. ("What does this mean, Pitrone?" "Umm, it means that when you were 7 years old you were able to stand on your head?" "How did you know that!?")

Unfortunately, as I get older I find that my ability to make ridiculous leaps is waning. So now I am relying on my native cunning and what skills I have squirreled away over the years. It is not enough.

So if you're out there reading and you have lots of Access ability and want to help out your country and your blogger, please get in touch.

HEY, INTERNET, STOP BEING SUCH CYNICAL EFFING DOUCHEBAGS BLOG-A-THON!

These are a few of may favorite thing that I am minorly, secretly, ashamed of. I know better than to love either one of them, but I can't help myself.

Andy Capp Hot Fries: These are basically plasticene rectangles with no food content whatsoever. They are of no value as food. But I love them. They are spicy and delicious. They are FunYuns for lovers of spicy food. When I was 14-16 I went to a home-school co-op in a small town about 20 minutes from my house. My Mother would pack up my brothers and I every morning and drive us out to Thompson, Oh for "Co-op." We would then get our heaping helping of socialization for the week, and we did. I made friends there that I have kept for the past 14 years, so it had real value. The day was split up into periods and we had to be at different classes at different times. All the classes were taught by home-schooling mothers. It was a good time, I learned a bit, but not as much as I probably was supposed to. I think I was probably getting too old by that point.

I'm bringing this around to Hot Fries, I promise.

There was an hour for lunch. Usually we packed our lunches, and as a not wealthy at all family, we usually had things that no one would be terribly excited to eat. But I started to have pocket money at about this time and I would walk, with my brother and our friend Alex Gardner, across the Thompson Square, to a little mini-mart, and buy Andy Capp Hot Fries. I have no idea how I originally chose these little treats. There must have been something about the packaging, thought I never liked Andy Capp as a character. (I disliked the air of spousal abuse that is such a great part of the strips humor. I know, I'm a prig.) But I just remember that I loved them. I would open the package just the slightest bit at the top. Then I'd crush down then fries into crumbs and tip the bag back over my mouth, taking half the bag at a crunchy, chewy, spicy gulp. It was delicious and it made me happy each time I did it. I would occasionally buy more than one bag, to save one for when I got home. But instead I'd always eat the other bag after the first.

To this day, when I see a bag of Hot Fries it takes all my effort to keep from purchasing them, and I frequently fail. I have never understood Andy Capp, and I think of Hot Fries as an incredibly white-trash snack, but I love them.

Zombies: Is there anything of worth about zombies? I mean, honestly, anything? I don't think that there is. They are the id of American popular art. I can't think of a redeeming quality that zombie stories have. When Pandora opened the box of troubles, there remained hope. Zombie moves begin with all hope gone, and end without hope returning. (The exception is 28 Days Later, but that isn't REALLY a zombie movie. It's a horror movie with zombie-like beings. In contrast, 28 Weeks Later IS a zombie movie. It knows that there is no chance of returning the planet to a livable status quo post-zombie. It teases us, at the start, with the idea that zombies have been eradicated, but we know it isn't true. Further, it shows that zombification is not like hypnosis, you will do things as a zombie that are against your most basic intentions as a human being. Zombie nature is the farthest form of human nature, the worst of the worst.)

But, zombies are glorified evil. They are the most base, the most evil, the least redeemable or redeemed of all the villians. In zombies we see America, we see our values, our civilization and our desires perverted and destroyed... with NO hope. That is what is rotten about zombies. (If you'll allow the pun.)

But I love them. I love them staggering and slow or lightning fast. I like to see them eat humans and tear us apart. I like to see their heads explode from bullets, axes or LPs. I enjoy everything about zombies and I harbor happy little fright fantasies about the zombie menace becoming real.

JJ Abrams created the film Cloverfield in order to create an American monster. I read an interview where he talked about being in Japan with his son and noticing the Godzilla is everywhere. (I am in Okinawa, Japan right now and I have no idea what he is talking about in this interview, but I guess it must just be mainland Japan.) At any rate, he wanted to create a uniquely American monster. A monster that we could relate to our culture, a monster that is a satire for Americanism, for our form of patriotism and our national notions. He created some damn monster, I didn't see the film, but I haven't seen it grasp anyone like Godzilla seems to have grasped Japan. I would argue that the gap he was trying to fill is already filled by zombies.

Zombies are our satirized selves. They tell us about our consumerism, our fascination with media and our ability to rationalize. They tell us that we are a hair's breadth from a terrible future.

They remind us of the need to deny our natures.

People talk about their nature all the time. They talk about being born this way or that. They talk about finding themselves. They talk about the purity of the natural state. They are talking about being zombies.

In our natural state we use everything as a latrine, we eat whatever we can get, raw. We are filthy, naked, cold, and miserable. The desire for betterment and the denial of self, the denial of nature, that is what makes humans better. In zombie movies the people who are selfless are the ones who cause good things to happen. Those who are self-centered, those who seek their own desires, those who accept themselves as they are and do not strive for betterment, those are the ones who become zombies and cause the most damage.

Zombies teach us about life and nature. Zombies teach us about civilization and the need for self-abnegation.

At least, if you think a WHOLE LOT about them, they do.

If, for instance, you are the kind of person who wants to rationalize their love of a hipster fad. If you are the kind of person who likes to talk about great zombie moments and thinks the George Romero is a great master of ideas. (And perhaps has the entire tag-poem for Monkey Shines memorized.) Then you might have a really good reason for liking something with no discernable value, like zombies.

Anyways, thanks Final Girl, for letting me write about my guilty pleasures and tell the world how much I like things I probably shouldn't.

That Old Boy

If you want to watch a movie that made Margaret gag, then I recommend this one.

This absolutely has to be the best incest/revenge, comedy/torture drama I have ever seen. What a great/insane film.

The basic premise, which starts out the bax with a bang, is that a man is kidnapped, held for 15 years and when he is released he is tortured by a Big Brother-esque villian that sees his every move and is always one step ahead of him. It's kind of like a reverse Ocean's Eleven, Twelve or Thirteen. Instead of our wildly stylish and clever protagonists being one step ahead, always out thinking and out planning the bad guys, it's the wildly stylish and clever, incredibly evil villian.

There are plot twists and there are teeth pried out with hammers. There is a wonderful fight scene with 20 guys attacking one. There is a tongue removed with scissors. It's a winner, a visceral thrill ride that is said to have inspired the Virginia Tech shooter. So, if you've been thinking about going insane and shooting up your school, this could be the movie for you.

Across The Universe

I watched this film with Margaret the other day. At least, we watched most of it. I was excited to see it because it's directed by Julie Taymor, who is one of the most interesting directors alive. She love puppetry and wild imagery, she choreographs and designs costumes and scenery. If you've ever read any of Paul Johnson's histories that speak on art you will see that set design is a major chunk of art. Many of the great landscape painters were also set designers.

At any rate, I was excited about it. I am not a fan of Rachel Evans Wood, and I kind of suspected that the film would be pretty trite. A hippy-view of the 60's fueled by Beatles covers... not the greatest plan for a movie I've ever heard. I figured that if anyone could pull it off, it would be Julie Taymor.

At any rate, the film itself.

A lot of people here in Okinawa talked the film up to us, they told us it was really good. Before we saw it they would ask us what our favorite song in the film was, things like that. I have no idea how it got such a military following, but it has one. So one Saturday we popped it in.

The first scene is the ostensible hero, Jude, (Jim Sturgess) singing Girl. It's a nice scene, understated, kind of quiet and interesting. From there you have a ten minute montage of early 60's scenes to various Beatles songs. Not a new idea, but nicely done. Hard to tell what is being said in a few places. Hard to discern the ideas that are being shown, but they are being shown so prettily that you give it a pass.

As the film goes on the pastiches are more and more lovely and more and more chaotic and difficult to decipher. But that's not an issue. I would watch a Cremaster type manic dream, if it was directed by Julie Taymor and had her majestice imagery. But the characters grow more and more self-centered and less and less relatable, until we eventually turned it off, shortly after Bono showed up and depressed us.

The film is INCREDIBLY stupid in parts. The names of all the characters cribbed from Beatles songs. There is Sadie, Lucy, Maxwell, Jude, Dr. Roberts, on and on. There are the usual sops to anti-war protests and the musical revolution of the time. There is a haunting picture of the Watts Riots, but it takes about 5 seconds and then moves into some hippy glorification.

I was incredibly turned off by the characters. I tuned them out and despised them. But over the last couple of days I have been thinking about them. I think that perhaps their point was to be rotten. Maybe their irritating self-centeredness isn't some sort of miscalculation. Maybe it was a reflection of how irritating and self-centered the time really was. Maybe it's a satire on the whole hippy/Baby-Boomer self-absorption.

I like the idea that there was an intentional argument in this film. I like the idea that Rachel Evan Wood's incredibly dull, one-dimensional performance intentionally illustrated the dull, one-dimensional character of the 60's.

I would like to ask someone who was there, was part of the "counter-culture movement" to watch the film and let me know. Any takers?

Pretty Funny Stuff

For those of you who write blogs:

HEY, INTERNET, STOP BEING SUCH CYNICAL EFFING DOUCHEBAGS BLOG-A-THON!

One day, and one day only: Tuesday, March 18.

The amazing Stacie Ponder, over on Final Girl, the best horror blog on the internet invites us all to write about something that makes us incredibly happy. Any have anything to write about, but no blog? Write it here on a comment.

Uh-mazing

With my usual faultless timing, I watched tonight a film that people raved about months ago. I am adding my voice to those raves. The King Of Kong, or A Fistful Of Quarters is superb. Besides having one of the most loathsome villains to be seen on the screen in ages, it also has one of the best analogies ever, watch out for the Obi Wan Kenobi explanation, it is splendid. Absolutely heart-wrenching and hilarious, the entire effort feels staged, except for the wonderful wife of the hero, who is never less than supportive and loving. Run, don't walk.

The Age Old Trade-Off

I realized this week that I no longer have acne problems like I have for years and years. The upside of being 30 is that the acne seems to mostly vanish. The downside is that I now have thick, grey hairs growing out of my ears and nose. It makes me wonder if God is a little bit of a groomer monkey. He likes us best when we have to focus on physical flaws and tear things out of our bodies or squeeze stuff out of our faces. It doesn't appeal to me, but I guess I am not the target audience.

Yes, that's right, in the past few days I have turned thirty. It happened without my even noticing, almost. One day I was a free-wheeling, fun-loving fellow in my late-twenties, next thing I know I reach a day when there is grey hair in my ears and I am 30. How does it happen?

Again, I have to point the finger at God. It's one of those ineffable plan things. Apparently age must teach us all lessons or something. I'm not clear on the exact details, but I am sure there are some.

What else is happening that I can tell you all about? What is our news, here in Okinawa:

Margaret is slowly going stir-crazy while working on her thesis. She has come to hate the sight of comic books, except for Bill Willingham's Fables, so good thinking there, Rob. Probably don't let her downstairs at your house with matches and gasoline, though. She is also preparing to paint the old table and the new chairs that we're going to get today. We're entertaining this Sunday and we're trying to get the house together for it. I think it will be a lovely time.

I spent the 4 days after my birthday in the field. There were huge tents to sleep in and no showers and smelly bodies and ridiculous training exercises that taught no one anything. I suppose that's how the military likes to do things. A waste of time is still time spent, and that's what the tax-payers are paying for. My job looks to be getting better, though. I am, without any real effort, well-known for my ability to work with computers and I will be using my old friend, Microsoft Access, to build some databases for Charlie Co. Hopefully this will work out well and I have not forgotten everything I know about Access. I have been sold big, I can't afford to let everyone down.

Today we are going to the Okinawa Aquarium, to see the whale sharks. It ought to be wonderful, and after we get back we'll be posting the photos we have from the past couple weeks. You'll all be updated via image. Be excited!

O+M

Why have these two not combined previously...

With a girlish scream of delight at the wonderful symmetry of joy!

An Update

Sorry it's been a while, but we somehow put the neighbor's internet out of commision and have felt reluctant to ask them to let us back on, now that it is fixed.

We're doing very well. I have started work, kind of. So far I have gotten up early in the mornings, but not really done any work. It's been a lot of fun, let me tell you. I'm spending a lot of time in the library, wishing they had more books.

Yesterday was the first day I was allowed on a computer at all, and it wasn't able to get onto Blogger. Since that seems my most effective tool for getting in touch with people, I wanted to wait till I could use it. That day has come.

Yesterday evening we walked around trying to catch these huge turtles that are in a sewage ravine by a power plant, but no dice. There is a good photo of Margaret looking really grossed out by a sea-slug/sea cucumber, but I don't have it with me, so just imagine it for now.

We are doing really well. When we have internet we'll be doing better, but there are no complaints as of right this minute. We have to find a cheap car, hopefully this weekend.

How are all of you?

Margaret says to tell her family that she is alive and well and will be making phone calls the moment she is able. Sorry to everyone who hoped to hear from us sooner, we're just not making it easy on anyone right now, what with not having a phone or internet. But we still love you all, we promise.

Many little unimportant, and one pretty sad, things...

The sad thing first: Heath Ledger died. That's kind of sad. I liked him in all the movies I ever saw him in and I suspect I'll like him in movies I haven't seen yet. He seemed like a fun guy to know and I know he's got a daughter that he's leaving behind and all. Sad. I know that my side of the family is rolling their eyes at this point, but it makes me unhappy. I'm crying, but that's mostly because Margaret just made me cut a bunch of onions. (Well, it's all because of the onions. I knew the news for hours before and the onions are making me cry. Now I'm over-protesting.)

Other than that, I have some links, some recommendations and some observations.

For Tom Pitrone, a link to an interesting and positive take on One From The Heart.

For my brother Rob I have the Hellboy trailer, you may have already seen it, but I want your feedback. Margaret says the final monster scene is too much. Thoughts? (Anyone else can chime in as well, of course.)

I strongly recommend the following two Christian Bale films: 3:10 to Yuma, and The Machinist. Both are spectacular, The Machinist is so heavily dread-filled, without being at all a horror movie, that it is almost terrifying. Margaret managed to see a cat outside our window while we were watching it and then couldn't sleep till I got up and checked everything out and made sure that there were no imaginary intruders. (I recognize that this might not be high praise to many of you, but to those on my wave-length here, it's a good'un.)

3:10 to Yuma, Bale manages to make being quietly heroic both sympathetic and frustrating, as anyone who has ever attempted quiet heroics can attest that it is. Also, does Russell Crowe ever do a BAD job? Maybe in that romantic comedy with Salma Hayek? I can't remember that I ever watched that, but he doesn't seem the type to shine there. Perhaps the better question is, does Christian Bale ever give a bad performance? He really classed up that dragon movie he was in. And I think he was even good in Newsies, though all I really remember about that is a kid named Crutchie.

As for the questions that keep popping up about my work, let me just say that there is no great news in sight. I think that my friend Cornelius and I are thinking about taking over the office area. We will be the Adminjerks, but at least we'll have work to do pretty regularly. I don't know, I spent the day there today and it was depressingly dull. The suggestion from Cornelius is to make myself as useful as I can, but I don't know how useful that will be. I suppose I can teach R.A./H.F.G. house painting techniques, or refreshers on why it is important to alway have a lawyer...

Margaret's family, shame on you! Margaret just told me she's never watched Malcolm in the Middle, for shame!

As to the rest of our life, this is the proposed vehicle style:

Though Margaret is angling for this:



But fortunately there are Disney characters on there and you all know how I feel about that. I am putting my foot down.

That Ol' Library of Congress

They's gone and put up a whole host of photos on Flickr. Click the photo for the link and enjoy the photographic history.

In case anyone forgot...

There is now a FIFTH season of the wonderful QI available for... um, watching.

96 Hours+ of Liberty and our views.

Sorry for the delay. We haven't had any access to any sort of internet or phone for a few days now. We've moved into our house, the fabled New Covenant address that we had hoped for. It's gorgeous and due to the kindness of our upstairs neighbors we now have internet access. We're going to be getting fiber optic internet access, but as everyone tells us pretty regularly here, things take longer in the East than they do in the US. (Except getting apartments, we accomplished that in about 4 days.)



So, let's see, what all things can I tell you? So much has happened in so little time.

I'll try to start at the beginning. We went to the housing office with our paperwork for the apartment, in order to see if I had set it up correctly. There was supposed to be a couple of different types of downpayment, but our friend and helpful housing agent set us up so we don't have to pay them till PSD reimburses us. (Which they have done, supposedly, yesterday. I should really check that out...)

Ok, checked it out and it's fine. The question that remains is how to pay it to anyone. We get paid in dollars, which then have to be transformed to Yen, but that's complicated due to the rambling, changeable exchange rate. You never know what you're spending on anything, really. We can usually guess that Y100 is equal to $1, but it's always a little different than that. It's really a mystery, though. How do I write a check for Yen? Is it possible? No way to know today, I suppose.

This is the view from our back porch. It's amazing. Obviously this photo was taken on a cloudy day, but it's GORGEOUS today. I'll try to get a picture of it, hang on.
There you go. It's great!

The whole thing is pretty special. I was thinking this morning that everything is working out so well, that there either needs to be a big fall or maybe God is trying to show me that everything CAN work out well for people who are honest. It's probably just grace towards Margaret, but I am a lucky side benefitter.

Below is the letter I sent home, and to many of you, so it won't be news to some, but people whose e-mails I can't find, you might like it.

To one and all, whether you cared or not, I am terribly sorry for not getting in touch with any of you for the past several days. (Though some of you have been out of touch with me for far longer. That's the difficulty with this sort of long-range, wildly random, e-mailing. Those folks with the telegrams, they knew what they were about.)

My wife and I are in Japan. Well, we're in Okinawa, it counts though. Lovely place, there are some photos of it up at my blog, if you have the chance to look. There will be more up before too long. Margaret is planning on getting a Flickr.com account and there will be links to it sent to everyone, when we know what it is.

We got here about two weeks ago and we already have a place to live and all of our stuff set up. Yesterday we bought a couch and carried it a mile down the street together, before our upstairs neighbor came and picked us up in his minivan thing. (That's a point, all the cars here look like Hot Wheels. It's pretty cool. The highest speed on the whole island is about 50 MPH, so the cars don't have to have a lot of pep or be particularly impressive. As a result, we love every car that goes by. Our next purchase will be a vehicle and Margaret has her heart set on a van-like contraption that has 13" wheels.)

Our house is gorgeous, all wooden and, as Kanye West would say, Japanese-y. The drains attach directly to the sewer so they pong a bit sometimes, but there is a trick with bleach that seems to work well. Our view is incredible, the ocean is directly outside our back doors. We could, if we so desired, throw our furniture into the ocean. (We don't generally desire that.) The hot water heater is a little kerosene boiler that has to be turned on a few minutes before you want to use the water, but that's pretty cool, too. The whole place is wonderful.

A mile away is a store that we have affectionately titled, "The Everything Store." For those who know what I mean, it's like Conley's. For everyone else, it's a mixture of Wal-Mart, Home Depot, a grocery store, a Best Buy and a Pier One. Possibly the coolest store ever. We discovered it a couple days ago and have not gone a day without visiting it since. Everything is in Japanese, which makes every trip an adventure. In direct contradiction to what everyone was telling us on the way here, no one speaks English. We're as foreign as can be, which is really, really strange. Little kids look at us like we're some sort of bipedal dogs. The adults are barely more solicitous. It's pretty amazing.

Right up the street from us is a Family Mart, which is sort of like a 7-11. For reasons that, since we haven't learned a lick of Japanese, are a deep mystery, the teenagers who work there start talking, a series of rote phrases from what we can tell, the moment anyone walks in the door and then continue to chatter off slogans until the various, and also seemingly rote, cashier slogans as you leave. It has become sort of a game, trying to figure out what they might mean.

"Hello foreigners, welcome to our plus-good store with the fantastic prices and the expensive beer!"
"Enjoy your time in our frightening bathrooms, do your best to aim at the hole in the floor accurately!"
"Thank you for spending our comical coin money at our super-wonderful and extra glossy cash register, please place your money in this tray and keep your gaijin hands aways from mine and have a nice day!"

I haven't really found out what I'll be doing for work yet. I start on Tuesday morning, so I'm hoping it's good. I am a little worried from what I am hearing. It sounds like work here mostly consists of not doing much at all. Apparently we take a lot of classes on nonsense and then wait to be deployed. I want to do something a little more meaningful, but I guess we'll have to see how that works out.

How are you?

O+M

Amazing, Amusing, a Hope and a Hope

So, check THIS out:

We went and got all the stuff lined up to get our off-base housing. It looks good, we went out today and looked at a few places. We found THE place. We found a place, within, more than within, our price range. I did one of the smartest things I've ever done in this sort of situation. I had two lists of apartment listings, one from a month ago. I highlighted all the places that hadn't rented and then picked the ones that we might want from that list. What we ended up with was this place that's a second-floor apartment, it's approximately 20 feet from the beach. It's gorgeous. Really, really Japanese seeming and cool. All wood, two bedrooms, perfect. We were biased towards it from the first though, the building is called The New Covenant building. How's that for a sign?

Anyways, we'll have to see what the deal is tomorrow, but start praying for us. Margaret loves the place and I'd love to get it for her. Money is a little scary, but we'll figure it out.

Oh, and Margaret got her Okinawa license today, too.

Day Two and Photos

This morning we woke up around 8. Margaret fell asleep last night at 7 or so. We had made a dinner of pasta and bacon, with egg and garlic. It was pretty tasty, shaky cheese from the local shoppette rounded it out. It wasn't terribly Japanese, but it was kind of homey.

We got up and got dressed this morning, Frosted Flakes for breakfast.

I got a hold of my sponsor to find out what we're going to be doing today. (Answer, nothing.) and what I need to do/get ready for tomorrow. (Answer, lots of stuff.) And then Margaret and I went out to see what's around here.

It's pretty great, honestly. Everything, seriously everything is foreign. It's got to be one of the strangest feelings ever. There is virtually no English anywhere.

Ok, I just got the pictures up, so I'll try to explain a little. There are photos from the plane flight, where we went over Alaska, apparently? It's a mystery to me how that works, but I guess we did. It looks cool. There's the obligatory, Margaret thinks it's cool photo. There are a lot of pictures from today. We were walking and we found a big, huge, sand baseball diamond. There were all these little kids playing baseball. It was really cool. There is a picture of the terracing across the street from the baseball diamond. I liked number 13, who was kind of lerpy and didn't really want to be there. Margaret liked number 9, who was hefty and was completely off sync with the rest of the team. It was funny.

The photos of the gas station are to show that even in Japan, small-town gas station attendants have mullets. But also, look how small/narrow that carwash is! The cars here are so skinny! It's crazy.

More tomorrow, I'm sure.

Japonisme

When I was little Kate had a book of that name on the shelves and I used to take it down from time to time, I think it was about the influence of Japanese culture on French art, and I'd think that Japan sure would be a crazy place to visit. Well, as of yesterday evening, I live in Okinawa Japan. So far it's pretty military. We've seen two airports and been around a base, but the Pacific Ocean looks pretty wonderful and Margaret and I got some shells and things from the beach at the base we're staying at, so it's a start.

A little background, we got on a flight out of Cleveland on Tuesday afternoon, the 2nd of January, 2008. Our flight was supposed to be at 1:44 in the afternoon, but we got to the airport around 10AM, just to be sure that we got our rental car in on time and so on. (You ought to have seen me trying to navigate my 100+ pound seabag from the rental car to the rental car counter, in the snow and ice, wearing cowboy boots. For that matter, you ought to have seen Margaret trying to walk and drag two rolling suitcases, with the snow and ice, wearing cowboy boots. We were a little worse for the wear by the time we got on the shuttle to Hopkins.)

The flight was delayed out of Cleveland, due to the snow at O'Hare, so we sat around for a LONG time, talking to random people, and then, randomly, Joe Bromley, who was waiting for a flight out as well. When we got to Chicago it turned out that our connecting flight, to Seattle, had left already, so we waited a long time to get on the next one, maybe. We met a really nice guy who had just come in from Frankfurt Germany, he said that 8 days ago they'd told him there were lots of seats on the plane, so we were a little hopeful, and then there were seats, we even got to sit together. (Thanks guy from Frankfurt! Leonard Szymborski, by the way, if you ever run into him in the airport, say hi!)

In Seattle we got our luggage, got to a hotel and then got hold of Joe and Lisa Park. We went to this great place right by the airport called Roasters, which was super nice and had GREAT beer selection. Joe and Lisa, by the way, have matching tattoos that no one in their family will comment on. They are nice tattoos, though. They say something like, "If lost, please return to Yahweh," but in Hebrew. Joe and Lisa are well, and lots of fun. They look great, too. Really well and happy.

We got up super early the next morning and got a shuttle to the Seattle Airport, which was actually just right around the corner, and the really knowledgeable shuttle driver told us where to go for our flight. Then we haggled with the flight folks, so we could get our really heavy bags on the flight. Then we waited at the Seattle Airport for a LONG time. Thank God for Hudson News stores. Seriously, Hudson, your News stores are a life saver! Good work, Hudson!

The flight to Japan was LONG, very, very, very LONG. It wasn't bad, we had a pretty good time, and we hadn't really slept much for the previous few days, so we avoided most of the jet-lag, but it was a LONG flight. I read all of C.S. Lewis's Horse and His Boy, to Margaret. We also listened to a lot of The Godfather, on her iPod.

Arriving in Japan was nice. There was a sponsor there to help us out, HM3 Phillips, she is cool. She took us to the Commisary this morning, to help us get started and get some juice and things. Margaret and I have walked all over the base we're at, Camp Courtney, but I think that we'll try to live at Camp Foster and then I'll work at Camp Something With An H.

But we're well, and this blog, for so long neglected, should show some renewed signs of life, so check it out.