Crouching Breadstick, Hidden Turtle
I've just realised that where I live, in a house in Reading with three friends (and several 'lodgers') I'm completely cut off from the world! I don't read a newspaper, we don't have terrestrial television for the news, WWIII could break out and I'd be none the wiser.
So I started watching the news in my lunch break at work, but I didn't learn anything I wanted to know.
I was in The Rising Sun with Andy, Alex and this bloke Rex, talking psychotropics. This woman comes up to us and asks for a light. She's weird. Rex glances at her. "Speaking of LSD..." he trails off. He appears to know the odd woman.
"Can I have a light?" she says.
So Rex goes off to find her a light. She fixes the rest of us with a wildeyed stare, then comes out with:
"Excuse me? Excuse me? Excuse me? Excuse me? Excuse me?"
We grin, and are unsure precisely how to react. Luckily Rex comes back rather promptly, having been unable to find a lighter."I'll ask the DJ," he suggests and goes off again. The woman is quiesent for a moment and then her gaze becomes penetrating once more as she sees Rex heading for the DJ booth.
"Leave him alone! He's busy." and she wanders off.
I'm not sure why that stuck in my head so.
__________________________________________________
I'm going on a brief holiday to Amsterdam on Monday 13th with Mick and Simon, friends from university, Sarah, a friend of old, and a five of her mates from uni whom I also know (Andy, Jo, Mark, Lorraine, other Andy). I'm planning my three days carefully, a winding route of coffeeshops, canals and visits to the museum of deformed foetuses (they have a cyclops baby there!). And I'll write up an account of what transpired when I get back. Hell, they have the internet in Holland now, I could post FROM a net-coffeeshop. DoubleHell, there are webcams in the coffeeshops, you could SEE me writing a post FROM a coffeeshop OMFG
The weed I'm looking forward to smoking most is: 'Greyberry' from Grey Area
The hash I'm most looking forward to smoking is: 'Moroccan Cream' from Tweede Kamer
The deformed foetus I'm most looking forward to seeing is: The Cyclops baby
~I WANT A SNES~
This make the tally THREE. Three times I have been to Amsterdam. Three times I have been to Greece. Seven times I have been to France. One time I have been to Germany. One time I have been to Malta. One time I have been to Egypt. One time I have been to Italy.
I have never been to America, Japan, or the city of Rome. These things I regret.
Alex told me an amusing story about when he went to Amsterdam at 16 on a school trip. On the coach back, all the kids had bags of weed left over. The coach driver announces over the PA that they're about to go through customs, and anyone with anything they shouldn't be carrying should put it in a large black bin bag with which he proceeds to walk the length of the vehicle with. By the time he reaches the end, the bag is STUFFED, and he slings it into a skip by the van.
They pass customs without even being searched, and everyone who put their weed in the bag is gutted. "Bet some of you think it's fuckin' Christmas," mutters the driver over the PA. They can see clearly, on the other side of customs, another coachload of tourists about to pass through- and they're right by the skip, with it's precious payload! Alex and the entire class of kids gets up and start hammering on the windows, pointing vigorously and yelling "LOOK IN THE SKIP!!! LOOK IN THE ******* SKIII-I-I-P!!!!" but of course, the other coach can't hear 'em.
's a funny image though, viewed from inside the second coach. Hundreds of kids, all hammering and yelling silently on the other side of glass, their spit misting the glass, their hands greasing the glass, a frenzy the purpose of which one cannot fathom. The skip? Are they pointing to the skip? Crazy kidz.
THEN I started talking to Alex about the fact that he's gotta be in court the next day on charges of drunk driving.
"I wasn't even drunk at the time." he protested. "Well, I wasn't drunk any more. I was post-drunk."
I fixed him with a glare. "So what you mean to say, Alex, is that you didn't actually have a beer in your hand at the time of the accident." Prompting a guilty laugh from Alex.
Dumbass. Alex is my friend but I think he is bloody stupid for driving whilst drunk. I've told him this, but he won't stop until he loses his license. --if ANYONE in the world can drive whilst drunk it's Alex- he has a prodigious resistance to the substance and I've seen him drive proficiently whilst drunk, but he's still bloody stupid for doing it.
Sometimes, like when I read my friend's LJs about Renaissance Faires and such, I regret not living in America. There are other times, however, when I
(an American couple, disembarking a return flight from Amsterdam)
"My wife and I discussed this very issue after our last trip. While neither of us got hassled, the dog smelling us as we waited single file in the jetway sure is a helluva way to be welcomed back to the land of the brave and the home of the free.
The U.S. has the great heritage of ideas about natural law being put to practice. We pride ourselves over the lack of nobility, etc.
But we have become far less practical as a society about preserving our rights from unwanted government intrusions. Notice my choice of words: far less practical. The Dutch government is intrusive, no doubt, and poised to become more so, in some folks' opinions. But it seems more practical about intruding to tax and regulate, rather than to outright criminalize. The ripple effect of the US approach in the war on drugs is to create a "Bill of Rights"- free zone where the DEA et. al. seem to operate these days.
Somehow, we must take our country back."
So I started watching the news in my lunch break at work, but I didn't learn anything I wanted to know.
I was in The Rising Sun with Andy, Alex and this bloke Rex, talking psychotropics. This woman comes up to us and asks for a light. She's weird. Rex glances at her. "Speaking of LSD..." he trails off. He appears to know the odd woman.
"Can I have a light?" she says.
So Rex goes off to find her a light. She fixes the rest of us with a wildeyed stare, then comes out with:
"Excuse me? Excuse me? Excuse me? Excuse me? Excuse me?"
We grin, and are unsure precisely how to react. Luckily Rex comes back rather promptly, having been unable to find a lighter."I'll ask the DJ," he suggests and goes off again. The woman is quiesent for a moment and then her gaze becomes penetrating once more as she sees Rex heading for the DJ booth.
"Leave him alone! He's busy." and she wanders off.
I'm not sure why that stuck in my head so.
__________________________________________________
I'm going on a brief holiday to Amsterdam on Monday 13th with Mick and Simon, friends from university, Sarah, a friend of old, and a five of her mates from uni whom I also know (Andy, Jo, Mark, Lorraine, other Andy). I'm planning my three days carefully, a winding route of coffeeshops, canals and visits to the museum of deformed foetuses (they have a cyclops baby there!). And I'll write up an account of what transpired when I get back. Hell, they have the internet in Holland now, I could post FROM a net-coffeeshop. DoubleHell, there are webcams in the coffeeshops, you could SEE me writing a post FROM a coffeeshop OMFG
The weed I'm looking forward to smoking most is: 'Greyberry' from Grey Area
The hash I'm most looking forward to smoking is: 'Moroccan Cream' from Tweede Kamer
The deformed foetus I'm most looking forward to seeing is: The Cyclops baby
~I WANT A SNES~
This make the tally THREE. Three times I have been to Amsterdam. Three times I have been to Greece. Seven times I have been to France. One time I have been to Germany. One time I have been to Malta. One time I have been to Egypt. One time I have been to Italy.
I have never been to America, Japan, or the city of Rome. These things I regret.
Alex told me an amusing story about when he went to Amsterdam at 16 on a school trip. On the coach back, all the kids had bags of weed left over. The coach driver announces over the PA that they're about to go through customs, and anyone with anything they shouldn't be carrying should put it in a large black bin bag with which he proceeds to walk the length of the vehicle with. By the time he reaches the end, the bag is STUFFED, and he slings it into a skip by the van.
They pass customs without even being searched, and everyone who put their weed in the bag is gutted. "Bet some of you think it's fuckin' Christmas," mutters the driver over the PA. They can see clearly, on the other side of customs, another coachload of tourists about to pass through- and they're right by the skip, with it's precious payload! Alex and the entire class of kids gets up and start hammering on the windows, pointing vigorously and yelling "LOOK IN THE SKIP!!! LOOK IN THE ******* SKIII-I-I-P!!!!" but of course, the other coach can't hear 'em.
's a funny image though, viewed from inside the second coach. Hundreds of kids, all hammering and yelling silently on the other side of glass, their spit misting the glass, their hands greasing the glass, a frenzy the purpose of which one cannot fathom. The skip? Are they pointing to the skip? Crazy kidz.
THEN I started talking to Alex about the fact that he's gotta be in court the next day on charges of drunk driving.
"I wasn't even drunk at the time." he protested. "Well, I wasn't drunk any more. I was post-drunk."
I fixed him with a glare. "So what you mean to say, Alex, is that you didn't actually have a beer in your hand at the time of the accident." Prompting a guilty laugh from Alex.
Dumbass. Alex is my friend but I think he is bloody stupid for driving whilst drunk. I've told him this, but he won't stop until he loses his license. --if ANYONE in the world can drive whilst drunk it's Alex- he has a prodigious resistance to the substance and I've seen him drive proficiently whilst drunk, but he's still bloody stupid for doing it.
Sometimes, like when I read my friend's LJs about Renaissance Faires and such, I regret not living in America. There are other times, however, when I
(an American couple, disembarking a return flight from Amsterdam)
"My wife and I discussed this very issue after our last trip. While neither of us got hassled, the dog smelling us as we waited single file in the jetway sure is a helluva way to be welcomed back to the land of the brave and the home of the free.
The U.S. has the great heritage of ideas about natural law being put to practice. We pride ourselves over the lack of nobility, etc.
But we have become far less practical as a society about preserving our rights from unwanted government intrusions. Notice my choice of words: far less practical. The Dutch government is intrusive, no doubt, and poised to become more so, in some folks' opinions. But it seems more practical about intruding to tax and regulate, rather than to outright criminalize. The ripple effect of the US approach in the war on drugs is to create a "Bill of Rights"- free zone where the DEA et. al. seem to operate these days.
Somehow, we must take our country back."