Posts Tagged ‘Blogs’

Bear with me over the next couple of days as I let fly a few ideas “out loud.”

At the risk of sounding completely bent, I’ve decided to go for it with these sorts of posts for a bit because I’m convinced that in going public with these, others might be inspired in turn.

The Calling:

Life’s like a the act of funneling. Not funneling a keg of beer down your throat at a frat party, but think of the actual shape of a funnel and what happens to a liquid as it enters the wide end and shoots out the narrow neck.

You kick off your early, formative years having all sorts of wonderful possibilities at your disposal, and this is represented by the wide end of the device: you sample jobs, you drink richly from life’s experiences, you even live in different neighborhoods or cities over the course of your early life as you slowly traverse your way along the funnel’s rapidly-narrowing mouth towards its spout.

The spout is representative of the pinnacle of your existence, where you’re supposed to be and where, self-actualized. Along the neck, your room for maneuver is limited because, well, you’ve passed life’s point of no return. There’s no turning back now. There’s only one way to move forward, and that’s up. Back the other way is nothing but a slide.

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Chris Brogan posted a snappy weekend entry yesterday called “Numbers That Matter” which got me thinking about several numbers in my own life that matter. He asked us to add our additions to his short list in his comments section, but I thought I’d take a page out of Everett Bogue’s playbook and do exactly as he suggests.

Rather than go through reams of comments – plenty of them controversial time sinks and nonsensical – Bogue recently implored his readers to opine on what he has to say over at their own blogs. He claims, ironically-enough, that this way he’ll actually read the things his readers have to say (ostensibly because they’re RSSed – which means he actually wants to read about them).

Here are some of my own numbers which count:

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(“On the spot guidance”: an enfeebled Bam Bam plays shuffleboard with his new residential model dinkytoy)

September promises to be a humdinger of a “historical” month over in DPR Korea according to recent a South Korean news report.

Bam Bam, aka Kim Jong-il, the country’s much-maligned headman and pictured above waving around his oversized plaything, will be convening an all-senior Korean Worker’s Party (KWP) Congress in the autumn. The last time this happened was in 1966. Something must be up.

You think?

The rarer-than-the-Holy-Grail fall confab, according to ROK experts, will be an attempt by said ailing North Korean leader pygmy fascist to shore up his hardline ideological support for the eventual leadership succession which all NK observers now claim is a foregone conclusion. Transfer of “hereditary power” to Kim’s Swiss-educated youngest son, Kim Jong-un (Eun), aka the “Youth Captain” is happening, and sooner than we think.

Jong-un, the heir apparent, is alleged to be a dead ringer for his daddy-o’s temperament and affect. The apple of Kim’s fatherly eye is currently being fast-track groomed to take up the cudgel in defense of the oft-maligned nuclear peninsular statelet as Kim steps down due to health reasons sometime during the end of this year (that is, if untimely death doesn’t relieve the planet of his rancorous presence sooner).

(Is this Kim Jong-un? Anyone?)

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(Biljana, Nikola D., and another gigantic dude who Nikola challenged to a Muay Thai battle – then we all made nicey-nice)

Dan Harris recently assembled this great post about why the Chinese national soccer team can’t play footy worth diddly.

Basically, the gist of it was this:

• the Chinese are too independent-minded in their sporting pursuits (egs. badminton and other racket sports, weightlifting, gymnastics) to be good involving a group approach to the game.
• the Chinese are best at sports using repetitive physical motions which can be practiced to precision and replicated on the court, field, etc.
• China’s education system seems to stress excellence at all costs fostered in a highly-competitive marketplace. As such, teamwork isn’t something the education system encourages and so overall team performance is hampered. China is not a team society (anymore), alas.

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(the Ruskies are comin’, the Ruskies are comin’~)

It’s no secret I’ve been wanting to learn the Cyrillic character set for a while.

So I recently found the right occasion to do so right here in Belgrade on the twice-good Tuesday the 6th, and now I can read it. Just like that. The charset is no longer a mystery.

Thirty-three pesky little letters.

An hour to nail the entire alphabet, with about three more required for practice reading (1000 Russian words) with a diligent emphasis on improving my accent (I’ll make a video of me reading Russian so you can hear for yourselves).

Since I’m not bad in Czech for a non-local – especially compared to several dumbfuck American or British expats I know in Prague who still can’t string two proper Czech sentences together after living there for nearly a decade! – and since I’m formally trained in Czech grammar, I’ll succeed in Russian handily.

Incidentally, all Slavic languages find their roots in the tongue and alphabet bequeathed to them by the good Greek monks Cyril and Methodius. For that reason, mastering Russian grammar won’t be nearly as challenging (thank G.od!) as honing the Czech one was.

I’ve already gotten over my Slavic lumps (wink, wink), so to speak…

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(“civilized” Europeans fighting off the invading Ottoman Turks)

Belgrade, Serbia, Former Yugo, baby!
Captain’s Log: 13h
The fun never ends around here. Any night of the week is partytime.

Plenty of scholarly theories have attempted to demystify the reason why Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks behaved the way they did during the rash of Balkan wars in the Former Yugoslavia. Experts have been asking this question for the better part of a decade and a half, and such speculation will likely rage forever onward until they simply exhaust the discussion.

I remember a great conversation I’d had with a visiting expat bud from Budapest in the Prague metro. He told me something about the Balkans which somehow gave the entire conflict, genetically-speaking and certainly from an evolutionary perspective, such instant clarity in a way I’ll not soon forget. Within the span of a single sentence, I finally grasped why the war raged on as violently and as long as it had, in the absence of European and US/UK interventions.

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(President Obama and Veep Biden – can’t you just feel the love?)

Travel around Europe often enough and you get a keen sense of what locals’ different attitudes are towards personal space.

Do they like reaching out and touching you or do they attempt to distance themselves from you as far and as often as possible?

Some cultures are inwardly-looking and insular. For example, I’m thinking of Germany and Austria, and most of the border regions in the new-fangled “Czech Republic.”

Others are more welcoming and adoring, roll-the-red-carpet-out-in-front-of-you kinds of places.

Some societies in Europe prefer to keep a safe (and wide) “reaction threshold,” so its citizens have more time to react to your (G.od-forbid) bold attempts to be social, while others don’t mind closing that gap and do so willingly and often.

Of course, you can classify the entire European caboodle according to region and the manner in which they deal with personal space. So let’s slot their willingness to get closer or further away from you as being in the Narrow, Medium, or Wide camps, shall we?

Since I’m presently in Belgrade, let’s compare the society I don’t know to the one I do. Let’s compare Serbs to Czechs (and, ew…Slovaks), using the following grid as a guide to the perplexed on how to navigate the rocky shoals of these two (or three, counting the Slovaks) long-standing neo-Slavic cultures, mixed as they are with the blood of other cultures which they have somehow appropriated as their own.

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If anyone hasn’t heard the big news, I’m back in Belgrade for Round Two of the Magical Serbian Road Show.

As is always the case here in the #exYU, one tends to hit the holy ground running. And if last night’s hurrah times are any indication, my “second coming” in Beograd ain’t gonna be any different.

(Nikola Denic in the darkness of Belgrade’s nightlife)

Yeah, I know. It’s a fucking hazy shitty picture I snagged,  but pictured above is none other than the ab-ab gentle colossus, “Knez” Nikola Denic, reclining at the sexy and hugely popular Belgrade splav (or floating nightclub), Freestyle (note to Nikola’s Slovak girlfriend: he wasn’t touching anyone, didn’t do anything other than suck back some beers, and was an overall well-behaved cat. One Slovak’s word to another, dobre?).

Duke Nikola is indeed a gentle giant and emphasis on the word gigantic (standing at a stentorian 2m high into da sky!). He’s also totally responsible for getting the other two of us into that big mess we got up into on the Danube and Sava Rivers and there’s plenty of dish to tell.

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(Sylvester Stallone at 62 years of age – my L.ord!)

I’m not obsessed with body stuff. Honestly, I’m not. Issues I certainly have, just not those kinds of issues.

I don’t dole out what I eat – measuring out proportional amounts of carbs, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and the other shiteree the health magazines drone on about.

I don’t always eat on time. I don’t always eat the right things. I don’t always consume the proper amounts. I drink lots of coffee and chomp on plenty of chocolate – save for this week when I’m on a complete cocoa-fast (why, you ask? Just for the sport of being able to lord over my appetite, and for no other reason. I was seeking a challenge. So this is what I came up with).

On the other hand, I don’t eat garbage and other junky shit, if that’s what you’re asking (were you even asking?).

I don’t eat fast food, fried anything, heavy meat (so rarely, Halley’s Comet even comes sooner), crunchy chips, or other salty erection-softening chazerei.

I mean, I will eat that shit if it’s presented to me while at someone’s humble home (don’t want to be rude now, do I?), but I never make a habit out of it. Neva’ eva’.

I drink booze once a week – usually quite a large number of beers for a teetotaling guy like me – and that usually happens on a celebratory Friday night (or Saturday day) – with very few exceptions, unless there are Minor Occasions during mid-week or someone has the mega-balls to invite me out for some cold ones on, say, a doubly-good Tuesday.

Just about the only other time I drink off-schedule is if I’m summoned to do the business with one of my special friends, for which alcohol usually acts as the customary prelim anxiety-buster.

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(I Will Always Stand On Guard For Thee!)

(remember that whole “Axis of Evil” b.s.?)

 
Happy Birthday Canada!

Old gal, you don’t look half-bad for a 143-year old MILF! I send you a wet kiss and my best b-day wishes from way over here across the Kiddie Pond. Just trace your finger down and to the right along the European phallus. I’m down here somewhere along its shaft, in the Sketch.

Well now. Right on, eh! Why don’t we do something commemorative for Canada Day, eh? How about a combined post which encompasses elements of my present dual existence, both Canadian and European?

Good idea, eh? Ready? Steady? Allons-y!

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