snowstone

Summer's Lease Hath All Too Short a Date

Overheard in the company canteen: "Well, obviously, sales guys need big-ass lease cars so that when they visit the prospect or customer, it shows that the company is doing really really well."
Why is that? Doesn't it show instead that a sizable portion of the 100 dollars an hour you're paying this bozo is spent on his company-paid, gas-guzzling, penis-extending vehicle, and could be spent more wisely?

Best Engrish Ever

I saw this phrase on the box of a toy in a store:
"Made in Chian."
Unless Chian is some well-known crappy-toy-manufacturing province of South Korea or the People's Republic of China, this has got to be the stupidest example of Engrish I have ever seen in my life.

About to return

Farewell to pebble beaches, clear sea water, fine seafood and warm weather. But also farewell to crappy service, scorpions on the wall, cheapass souvenirs, people who don't speak any language you speak, and sunburns. Ah well, you gotta take the good with the bad.

Things I did not know about Bosnia

• It has 9 kilometers of coastline.
• It got these 9 kilometers from the republic of Dubrovnik (now part of Croatia) when Bosnia was still under Ottoman rule.
• Dubrovnik gave it in the hopes of getting rid of the Venetians who were occupying the coast at the time.
• The city of Mostar is beautiful, but one-legged men are disproportionately present.

Sword Dancing

For the sake of having some culture inserted in what would otherwise would be a beach-and-cocktails holiday, we went to see a traditional sword dance tonight. Apparently once performed throughout the Mediterranean, this involves fairly ridiculously dressed men dancing around each other as they swordfight over a princess. The princess wears a veil and harem-like clothes, which combines with the Red King referring to the Black King as an Arab to produce some historical context to the performance. The fighting itself sounds less silly if you see the sparks flying from what are evidently not wooden swords.

The Anchor Book of Modern African Stories

The Anchor Book of Modern African Stories was my first real confrontation with African literature, and what I've learned is that there is hardly such a thing. There seems to be a sharp divide between North African (read: Arabian) literature on the one hand, and central and southern African literature on the other. The best story in the book is by Ken Saro-Wiwa, a name you may have heard: he was the Nigerian writer who was killed by his government despite extensive international pressure. What the story shows is that a great talent was lost with him.

Stateless Cola

I have just traversed a larger part of the Adriatic, crossing a national border in the process. Now here's the thing. The boat I was on sold cans of Coca Cola bearing the mysterious message: "export product - for maritime consumption only".
What does this mean? I took one such can off the ship. Will drinking it get me arrested? Or is this perhaps a can of Coke without a nationality? More importantly, is it not subject to any law because it is sold and intended to be consumed in international waters? Perhaps the Coca-Cola company found that it had the right to stuff its normally innocent beverage full with all kinds of shady ingredients? Who knows? The full effects of the can will not be felt until some 24 hours after consumption. Will it turn me into a Coca-Cola addict that would make the average crack whore seem stable and well-balanced in comparison? Only time will tell. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a sudden urge for a carbonated beverage...

Halfway there...

We are still connected, even though we are more than halfway down the continent toward our destination. Soon the possibilities of connecting to internet will be less and less likely. Suffice it to say that I am looking forward to a holiday... I will give you all an update as soon as the opportunity arrives.

By the way, non-US keyboards suck. I am blogging this from a qwertz model and I keep mixing up the keys.

Insular Absence

I will be spending the next two weeks in the above location. The fact that my snowstone updates in this period will be rare to nonexistent is solely due to the fact that internet access on this island will be hard to come by, and not all attributable to the fact that I will be basking in the sun, enjoying Mediterranean cuisine, and blocking anything related to computers out of my mind. No siree.

Chatspeare: Macbeth I.vi

Open letter to Regency and Fox

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am the Chairman of the National Association of Correct Punctuation (the NACP or, if you prefer, the N.A.C.P). The NACP aims to improve the punctuation skills of the general public, which are, let's face it, pretty dismal to begin with. Ours is an uphill battle, our attempts to raise punctuation awareness are largely futile. So often are we forced to remain quiet, for fear of being branded nitpickers.
Be that as it may, I feel it is my duty to inform you of a recent punctuation error you have made. This error is so enormous and its implications so far-reaching that I could not stand idly by and let this monstrosity be. Action must be taken, whatever the cost.
First some theory. The English language has two basic mechanism for abbreviating words. One, the writer lops off the ending of the word, turning, for example, abbreviation into abbrev. This process is known in punctuation circles as shortening. Two, the writer removes some of the letters from the word, but leaves the last letter as it is. For example, Mister becomes Mr. This process is known as contraction. Now here's the catch:
Abbreviations are written with a period at the end, but contractions are not.
This means that the correct punctuation is Mr and Mrs Smith, not Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
So you can imagine my horror when, on my way to NACP headquarters in West Hammington, Iowa, I came face to face with a gigantic billboard for your movie:

A more horrible spectacle could not have affronted me. I stood there, aghast at the sheer enormity of your mistake. After I had entered the NACP offices and Mrs Jenkins had made me some tea, I somehow collected myself. But then it slowly dawned on me that this punctuation error was appearing in huge posters all across the country, nay, all over the globe! Yes, everywhere on our planet, the false message that "Mr" and "Mrs" should somehow end in a dot is being reinforced as we speak. You, Regency and Fox, have done incalculable damage to the punctuation skills of millions, no, billions of people.
Is it too late to undo the damage? No, it is not. There is yet time to stem the tide of mispunctuation. The t's can still be crossed, and the i's dotted, so to speak. So I implore you, before it is too late: please rectify this terrible, terrible flaw, and repaint your movie poster all across the globe. If you do not take this action immediately, the damage will be irreparable.

Thank you for your time. I hope to hear from you soon.

Your sincerely,
cronopio
Chairman, NACP.

AVP: Alien vs Predator

Apparently, some students came up with the idea of having the aliens from the "Alien" series do battle with the predators from the "Predator" series, with some helpless humans stuck in the middle. Unfortunately, the result is more like the "Predator" series: lots of action and fighting, but very little plot. What plot there is is more in the way of ancient pyramids, buried monsters and warrior rituals than anything particularly original. The action scenes are good enough; they are also the only reason to see the movie. On a rented DVD, I might add.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

As short as the original Terminator movie, part 3 of the naked-killer-robots-from-the-future saga was not wanted by James Cameron, the director of parts 1 and 2. That said, the movie does fit in with its predecessors, combining action-packed chase scenes and a relentless and seemingly indestructible killer machine with a grim view of the world and humanity.
"T2" seemed to have wrapped up all time paradoxes neatly by making sure that the technology from the future that people will use to create the technology from the future, was destroyed. So Terminator 3 provides a slightly different perspective. As the T-101 (Schwarzenegger) explains to a now-adult John Connor, "the war is inevitable". In this case, the superior robot is in the form of a female (it is never explained why). It's kind of hard to top the robot from T2, with its shapeshifting abilities and "memory metal", so the Terminatrix doesn't even try to offer much more.
So is "Rise of the Machines" milking the franchise? Yes and no. It is definitely the least of the three episodes, but it still makes for entertaining viewing and it doesn't make a joke out of the general idea and philosophy of the series. What we have here, it seems, is simply a very devoted fan with a humongous budget. That's all nice and good, but he's not James Cameron.

Chatspeare: Macbeth I.v

Can you recommend a good place to eat goat's brains?

If you've ever been a tourist, there's a good chance you've used a foreign phrase book. You know, these little pocketbooks that tell you how to say some of the most inane things known to man. Often, such phrases are ridiculously inappropriate, and thank Internet for someone collecting them on a Web site. I would comment on this weird phenomenon myself if I didn't know Dorothy Parker's 1931 review of the book The Ideal System for Acquiring a Practical Knowledge of French by one Mademoiselle Gaudel. Mrs Parker says it best:

Now you know perfectly well that at my time of life it would be just a dissipation of energy for me to learn the French equivalent of "Either now, or this afternoon at five." It is, at best, a matter of dark doubt that I shall ever be in any position in which it will be necessary for me to cry: "Although the captain is far from here, I always think of him." It is possible, of course, but it's a nasty wrench to the arm of coincidence that I shall find occasion for the showing-off of the phrase "Her marriage took place (eut lieu) on the 2nd of April, 1905"; or that it will be given me to slide gently into a conversation with "I admire the large black eyes of this orphan." Better rest I silent forever than that I pronounce: "In this case, it is just that you should not like riding and swimming"; or that I inquire: "Are you pleased that they will bring the cricket set?"; or that I swing into autobiography with the confession: "I do not like to play blindman's bluff"; or that I so seriously compromise myself as to suggest: "I propose that you breakfast with me and afterwards look for our friends."
The future is veiled, perhaps mercifully, and so I cannot say that never, while I live, shall I have occasion to announce in French: "It was to punish your foster-brother"; but I know which way I would bet. It may be that some day I shall be in such straits that I shall have to remark: "The friend of my uncle who took the quill feather bought a round black rice-straw hat trimmed with two long ostrich feathers and a jet buckle." Possibly circumstances will so weave themselves that it will be just the moment for me to put in: "Mr Fouchet would have received some eel." It might occur that I must thunder: "Obey, or I will not show you the beautiful gold chain." But I will be damned if it is ever going to be of any good to me to have at hand Mlle Gaudel's masterpiece: "I am afraid he will not arrive in time to accompany me on the harp."

75 years on, it's still hilarious.

The Will & Grace Drinking Game

Want to get so drunk you'll pass out under the table? Then line up the tequila shots and let's do the "Will & Grace Drinking Game"! Here are the rules:

• Whenever Karen makes a reference to her breasts, take a shot.
• Whenever Jack diverts the topic back to himself, take a shot.
• Whenever Grace whines about her personal life, take two shots (you'll need them).
• Whenever Will produces his satisfied "It's great to be gay" smirk, take a shot.
• Whenever anyone refers to Will as a woman, girl, or uses a woman's name to refer to him, take a shot.
• Whenever Karen instructs Rosario to do something horrible and/or humiliating, take a shot.

Bonus!

• If Grace (or Karen, for that matter) is shown actually working for more than 5 minutes, empty the bottle.
• If either Jack or Will is seen kissing a man on the mouth, report to your local physician. The drink has made you delusional.

Jason Burke: Al-Qaeda

The first non-fiction book I've read in a long time, "Al-Qaeda" is a refreshing insight into the history and future of radical Islam. The book shatters a number of myths and offers a sobering prospect of a future that is a lot less simple than Dubya and his staff would have you believe.
The book itself can be pretty daunting in its endless enumerations of power shifts and makings and breakings of alliances between endless radical factions. Most chapters bravely begin with a concrete scene ("We drove into Kandahar around noon") but inevitably deteriorate into a detailed family tree of Islamist splinter groups ("Opposing the Sunni states was a second axis comprising Iran and their Shia proxies among the Hazara factions within Afghanistan.")
That said, there is much to discover here, such as:

• Al Qaeda is much more an ideology than an actual organization, especially after 9/11. The bombs in Bali and Madrid were planted by people who were in no way in contact with Bin Laden or his associates, and their arguments differed both from each other's and from the 9/11 attackers'. The fact that Madrid was not a suicide attack is also a "break with tradition". The problem is not finding the terrorists who were behind 9/11 (many of whom were caught), but realizing that terrorism has changed from something local and factional to something scattered and unified.
• Bin Laden did not get most of his money from his family. When his father died, most of the man's estate went to the eldest son. Rather, Bin Laden got (and gets) his money through charities, from donations by mostly Saudi Arabian businessmen.
• There are no terrorist demands to meet. Asking what the terrorists want is absurd, not because they can't be reasoned with, but because they are too diverse. The only thing that more or less binds the terrorists from Bali, Madrid and London together is some abstract notion of a 'cosmic struggle' between the Arab world and the West, a convenient scapegoat for everything that is wrong in the Middle East. Bin Laden can be credited with coming up with this abstract goal, that manages to bring together groups that normally would want to kill each other, such as the former Baatists (ex-Saddam Hussein people) and foreign mujahideen (radical Muslims) in Iraq. As Burke wryly notes, the Baatists supply the money and weapons, and the mujahideen supply the willingness to blow themselves up.
• From the perspective of terrorism, 9/11 marked the end of an era, not the beginning. The WTC bombing in '93, the attack on the US Embassies in Africa and the bombing of the USS Cole, all fall into the pattern of suicide attacks using big explosives on very symbolic targets. In contrast, post-9/11 attacks are marked by non-suicide bombings using small devices.
• Al Qaeda did not go out to find, recruit and brainwash its terrorists. Rather, would-be terrorists volunteered for training, or prepared attacks completely independently and only contacted Bin Laden to ask if they could attribute said attack to him. The willingness of young men, often guided by an older mentor, stems more from deep dissatisfaction with the West. War in Islamic countries only serves to reinforce the notion that the West is evil.
• Osama bin Laden had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein. In fact, when Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1993, Bin Laden proposed to the Saudi Arabian government to supply an elite group of Islamist fighters to fight back the secular invaders into Iraq. He was horrified to learn that the Saudi had employed the help of Christian soldiers, from the US, instead.