You know all those places you want to go but maybe not spend an eternity in? Lots of people want to see the pyramids, but not so many want to stay in Egypt for weeks. And who wants to go with an unfun tour group? Not me.

That's why I'm orgnaizing an Around the World trip with Daniel. The 'with Daniel' part makes it more fun. Let me know if you're interested in being a part. Tentitive date: Jan 2007. Here' s the itinerary I'm thinking about:

Depart from Philadelphia Dec 29 and be in Rome for New years 2007. Visit the Forum, Coliseum, Vatican, and stuff. Then off to Cairo, Egypt. There we will see the Great Pyramids at Giza, Sphinx, I'd also really like to see Abu Simbel and the Museum of Antiquities too. Then New Delhi, India for the Taj and Red fort. On to Cambodia for Angkor Wat. Then Bejing, China for THE WALL, Forbidden City, awesome terra cotta warriors, and other fun. Home after.

Other possible stops:
Paris
Jerusalem
Sydney
Moscow
Bangkok
Aukland
Malta
Jakarta
Canton
Easter Island
Peru
Lima
Caracas

Fun Version:

The Yale Herald and Daily News along with the entire internet and CBS and even FOX News are all covering an interesting student. Sayed Hashemi, the formet Taliban spokesperson you might remember from Fahrenheit 9/11. He had some interesting things to say to a woman about her husband and behavior. Not cool. And now he's at Yale when people from Ireland are having trouble getting in. Irish tourists or Taliban members--tough choice Homeland security. Now I'm not saying there's a conspiracy or anything (afghanistan-bin laden-bush-yale?) I'll leave that part up to you.

Plus they let Paula Abdul onto a Southwest flight without going through security. I don't know about you, but I feel like she herself isn't a so much a terrorist as she didn't pay attention when her bags were packed.

"Did you pack your own bags m'am?"
"I should think not! My valet does that!"
" But you were there when he packed them?"
"Of course not."
"But you know exactly what he put in your bags?"
"Well, not exactly..."
(Airport ticket agent and a british woman who has too much money.)

As churches burn in the south, Scandanavian embassies burn in Syria. So not cool. In support of the right of papers to print whatever they like withthe understanding that if you dson't like it, you won't buy it, I will also be placing the offending cartoon on the top of everything I do until I feel my point has been made. I hope that whoever made it will pardon the use. It's all about journalistic integrity.

When the University of Delaware began offering a carribean steel drum course and community program to incoming freshman students through its LIFE (Learning Integrated Freshman Experience, or some similar title.) Program, I held my tongue. Or at least I didn't broadcast my displeasure. This has just gone too far. Besides imprisoning freshmen within a carribean steel drum community with whom they attend classes, live, and eat meals, the University administration has now seen fit to create a similar program through the University's Summer College program. Now, high school students have the oppertunity to explore the exiciting world of steel drums. Don't believe me? Check. So here's the thing. I'm fine with musical intelligence, but perhaps this isn't quite the music department's dream recruiting program. I do feel strongly that undergraduate appreciation for the fine arts and attendance at musical recitals is far below acceptable levels, but would be shocked to see a correlation between participation in such a program and increased attendance at non-steel concerts.

I'm sure that the study of steel drums has plenty of merit unto itself, but in a day and age when education, particularly in the higher levels has decayed to an unnacceptable level of national shame, perhaps this is not thebest time to begin to borrow from this particular aspect of 60's commune life. Even Thoreau wouldn't have approved. Especially at an institution with such a low tolerance for whimsey, creativity, or dare I say, independent thought, one wonders how such a program slid between the appropriate authorities' sights. Should anyone in the administration wish, I could happily supply a list of programs, departments, clubs, and projects more needy and worthy of funding than the steel drum appreciation class. The basket weaving seminar would also be addressed in my letter. Also the compensation of the university president at $720,522 for the 2003-4 academic year raised serious concerns for many community members.

Two absolute gems for you today. Firstly, my friend Jen got a threatening call from someone who thinks she's messing around with their boyfriend. Which she isn't, mainly because she doesn't know who the alleged boyfriend is. Most likely her number was misdialed by the caller. Anywho, we got all KGB last night and busted out the recording gear, so here's the message for your listening pleasure. There has already been a dialectical analysis of her AAVE (African American Vernacular English) which has placed her as a resident of Philadelphia, Dover, and Wilmington. If you can offer any asistance in this matter, please contact me.

And just because I'm feeling angered with corporate telephone people, here's a fun cheat sheet. Have a happy day.

Also: If you know anything about the snails painted on the sidewalks of Newark, or are interested in writing about how everything is Bangladesh's fault, email or IM me.

Anybody remember those 90's concept videos for the knowledge navigator? Well I do. And Steve made a big jump forward yesterday. We now have a powerbook with a built in camera and a real processor. Yes I'm callling it a Powerbook because MacBook Pro sounds really dumb. My problem: Where's my 12 or preferably 10" notebook. I don't want to haul a huge thing around with me. I'm hoping that this is just a size or heat issue for the new platform but we'll see.

Of course we're going to have to wait two years for them to stop them from killing all the old aps, it's the unix switch all over again. Plus we have to buy the darn applications all over. Sorry, but if I spend $1000+ on an ap, I shouldn't have to pay for the new binary. On the whole, this seems like a good thing, but I'm not thrilled with the idea of 15" and at least a year of checking for errors.

I had reservations fromt the beginning about GMail and its auto-reading of messages for ad content. Especially crepy today. My friend Katie is in Chile. She's coming home soon. Gmail knows this as well as I do because its read the same mesages from her I have. Ergo, it offers me discount airfares between the US and Chile. Creepy? I think so.

So there have been a lot of fantasy movies pulled from the pages of some of the great novels lately, Lewis was bound to get hit eventually. First off, let me say that Lewis was an author who happened to be Christian, not a Christian author. The Chronicles of Narnia in film or print does not resemble an alternate gospel in any form. Most people who don't know about his religous background manage to miss any allegory completely when they read the books. The film was really wonderful. Tilda Swinton, Liam Neeson, and James McAvoy all shined in their roles. They were well complimented by the younger cast members (ages 8-17) who were really quite spectacular. Those looking for another Lord of the rings Peter Jackson-style orc shoot-em-up will be dissapointed. Lewis's writing was always more about people involved and gives a much more terse account of the major plot events. That being said, Disney could apparently not resist the appeal of WETA workshop, and outfitted more centaurs and satrys then it seems to me were ever in all of Greece.

I'm not sure if it is just his style of writing, or the length of the book, but I felt like I got more out of this movie than films of either the Lord of the Rings series or any of the Harry Potter's. I, being a purist, was a little upset by some of the additions Andrew Adamson made, but completely forgave him when some of the more 'dated' lines were carefully edited. (The screenplay is now more feminist than the books were.) Aside from a few choice lines I would have removed, the whole thing was really quite wonderful. It didn't have the rushed quality all of the other recent book-film adaptations have had. Most everything was as it should have been. Go see it as son as you can.

If you're interested, it's about a pair of twin girls who are singing racist songs, but the part I found really fascinating was where "Lamb and Lynx decided to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina — the white ones.

The girls' donations were handed out by a White Nationalist organization who also left a pamphlet promoting their group and beliefs — some of the intended recipients were more than a little displeased.

After a day of trying, the supplies ended up with few takers, dumped at a local shop that sells Confederate memorabilia."

I'm so incredibly proud that there are people in our country that have lost everything, but are willing to refuse to accept any help from racist propagandists. America is awesome. (I'm choosing to ignore for the moment that we have racist propagandists, I'll get angry about that later.) And for the moment, satan's twins have been banished from Bakersfield to an "all white community in the Pacific Northwest.

"Two sisters were injured today at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade as it traveled through Times Square after a gust of wind sent a giant balloon crashing into a lamppost along the crowded parade route, knocking the lamp onto spectators below."

As All State commercials warn us about the dangers of deep frying our Thanksgiving birds, the New York Times reports on a much more unique form of holiday tragedy: poorly trained balloon handlers.

Apparently somone almost died in 1997 from a runaway balloon, leading Macy's to promise better training in the future. This year, the world seems poised for another dangerous balloon accident. Paraders, beware!

In other news, I watched Titanic this week, and I may be a few years late on thei badwagon, but it was a really bad movie. Horrid script. I can't believe it did so well in the box office.

Happy Holidays

Seriously, I don't know what they were thinking with this. BBC should be ashamed, and I'd expect nothing better from the Bushies anyways. What is an inspirational/close-up photo of Condoleezza Rice's face going to do to make peace in the Middle East? Wouldn't a picture of her meeting with important leaders, or even ordinary leaders be more relevant?

So here's the three logical options I've come up with. Folks in the White House must have been thinking along the same lines.

1. She, like many people in the Middle East, has a name that George W. Bush had trouble learning to pronounce.

2. Of all the White House staff, her skin tone most closely matches that of the various ethnic groups in the Middle East.

3. Since she's had so much skill fixing our relations with every other region on earth, why not try here? They can't strike out everywhere, right? The law of averages has to work for them at some point.

I'm sorry, but that picture got to me and I've watched 20-some episodes of West Wing this weekend.

Democrats in US rack up victories--BBC

Stinging Defeats for G.O.P. Come at a Sensitive Time--NY Times

Yay!

There is no end to the wonderful writing on that show. It makes me proud to be a liberal. They get out so many great ideas that no one could ever talk about in the real world (universal health care, happy endings) and manage to find a way to make everything work.

I've been incredibly busy lately, but will try to update more frequently. Hopefully we did well in the elections tonight. I found a new friend who cared as much about the giant squid photos as I did, so I'm in a chipper mood from that. I hope everyone elsee is experiencing similar joys in their own private realities.

So much for capitalism. Here's the moral of the story: If you do something better than the French (or British, and other less attractive European nations), your product will be banned. There are now quotas in France that prevent "too much" American culture from coming in. Did I miss the closing of the free world? If you want to subsidize your own cultural activities, that's fine. Have a ball. But it's really not okay to go around limiting access to art because you don't like who made it. This is absurd. Maybe the single worst violation of human rights this year, and I say that as someone living during the "burn the constitution" years in America. Really massively uncool.