It was the 4th of July… I didn’t realize it until about 11 pm when I called my mom and she reminded me. I spent my entire 14 waking hours without seeing another human being. Not even on the T.V. (I didn’t turn it on.) This is not an atypical day for me… Am I a freak?

I did see 3 cats though.

Why do I hate ham, but I love bacon so much?

The Karate Kid.

The Karate Kid.

The Karate Kid.

The KARATE Kid.

Would “The Kung-Fu Kid” be such a terrible title for a film? Especially for a film that doesn’t have anything to do with Karate?

Did they ever realize that, despite the fact that yes, this was an almost identical copy (rip-off) of the original film that actually WAS about Karate, that people might not be accepting to the use of the word Karate in the title of a film about Kung-Fu? Offended, even? What about all the people who spent their lifetimes dedicating themselves to learning Karate? Or the millions of people who conversely spent their lives learning Kung-Fu? Were they completely ignorant of the fact that these 2 martial arts were developed in 2 completely different countries? And of the fact that the Japanese and Chinese typically don’t even like each other? I guess we don’t have to expect much when the film’s producers are two spoiled African American movie stars and the film is coincidentally starring their offspring.

Ok, so it’s obvious that this is a sequel to the original Karate Kid films. But couldn’t it still be called “The Kung-Fu Kid?” I think people would still get it, that it was a sequel, or remake or whatever in Todd’s name it was. They would still get it, because there was nothing different about it than any of the other films. No need to call it “The Karate Kid” when there is absolutely nothing about Karate in it; subsequently insulting both Karate and Kung-Fu.

Don’t waste your time with this movie. If you want to see it, just go rent the original. It will be easy to find in your video store — it’s called “THE KARATE KID.”

Yeah, right, Google Chrome. The INSTALLER downloads in seconds, but I’m on about 12 minutes of waiting for the installer to download the… uh… INSTALLER? Still not even actually installing yet.

Today was feigning rain but so HOT. I can’t figure it out…

Anyway, I was out on my balcony and I saw some birds collected at the side of the building across from mine. I realized there was a gecko scurrying frantically about trying to get away from them as they were all trying to eat him right from off the wall. It was awesome! Nature at it’s best…

Finally One of the birds succeeded in nabbing the gecko in its beak and flew away; and all the other birds went after him. I guess they are like jackals and all scrap it out for a piece of the kill.

It was pretty cool~~

I don’t know how they work. But I think helicopters are totally cool.

I had some MP3′s of old Pink Floyd albums that I downloaded like 5 years ago but I never loaded them to my iPod because they were just one big file of the whole album. Since I like to listen to songs by random (not albums by random) I didn’t want to have them in my playlist.

Anyway, I found them again in my iTunes and decided to see if there was a torrent where I could get the files as individual songs, and of course there was. So I got Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Works, and Animals. Man there is some great Syd Barrett-influenced psychedelic songs there. I forgot how awesome Pink Floyd used to be…

Yesterday I had another busy day. Ben laughed at what I call “busy,” but any time I leave my apartment qualifies as busy for me.

I woke up with a cold. I thought Thai people were just being pussies when they complained about the rain and getting sick, but I guess it really does happen. Even though it’s still 90 degrees. So I had to take some cold medicine to stop sneezing. Then I showered and went out.

First thing I did was head down to Sukhumvit to pick up my pants. On the way to the subway I checked again to see if I could get my passport photos, but the friggin’ place was closed again. After I arrived at Sukhumvit station I was waiting in line to go out through the gate and there was this old farang (farang means “westerner” in Thai) with a giant golf bag who was trying to get out. He kept putting his token on the card reader where you pass your monthly card to get out. He didn’t realize that for the tokens you had to drop them in the little slot to get out. The person in front of me wasn’t helping him either. So I moved to the next gate where there was only 1 student going through, so I thought I could get through faster that way. Then I realized he was just standing there watching the old farang fumbling with his token (he had finally figured out that it needed to go into the slot, but when he tried he must have dropped it because it went rolling on the floor.) I almost told him to hurry it up (one of the few things I can say in Thai); but finally he stopped gawking and went through, and I was able to get out of the metro station while the farang was still stuck there with his giant golf bag. I hope he’s a better golfer than subway-rider.

So I got my pants and tried them on and they were perfect. Just the right size for my big new belly. Of course the guy tried to sell me a suit again, but I told him I would come back when I had enough money for a suit as I was just starting out on my job search and was short of cash at the moment. He said OK and asked me to be sure and tell all my friends about his place. As if there aren’t a million friggin custom tailors in Bangkok who are all exactly the same in quality and price.

Since I was near my favorite Mixican restaurant, I decided to drop in for some Quesadillas. They were awesome. I wish I could make them at home but still haven’t found anywhere to buy tortillas… sigh… Anyway, these 2 pruny farang ladies walked in and sat next to me. One of them asked me what I was eating… ok, i know a lot of Mexican food looks the same… but asking someone what they are eating when it’s a quesadilla is about the same as when they are eating pizza. I told her what it was and she said “It looks messy!” I told her she could eat it with a fork if she wanted and she replied “But eating with your hands is half the fun!” Right… half the fun, because you get messy. Come on lady, what do you want? Then she asked me what was good there and I told her everything is good except the fish tacos. “Oh, that’s what I wanted to order…” she said. Crap! I wished I had just told her everything was good. She didn’t bother me again for a few minutes until finally she asked “Is the tortilla soup good?” I told her yeah, it’s awesome. I hoped it wasn’t, and there’s a good chance since most places don’t really have good tortilla soup. Finally they left me alone.

After that I went to go back across the street to the subway and saw a guy at the top of the stairs just standing there doing nothing. As I got to the top step, there was a girl who i realized was also just standing there, but she wasn’t looking in the same direction of the man. Then I looked around and realized that everybody in the entire BTS station was just standing there doing nothing. Then I realized there was music playing from somewhere. It was really weird, everyone just standing still like zombies. I asked the girl why nobody was moving and she didn’t look at me… she just replied “There is song play.” Suddenly the song stopped and everyone jumped back into action, returning to the normal hustle-bustle of riding the BTS. Later I found out it’s the National Anthem and happens every day at 6 pm. The strange thing is… I’ve been to Thailand 8 times and lived here for over 6 months now and it was the first time I ever got caught in that.

Just after that I was going down the escalator and saw a girl coming up in the opposite direction. She must have been 6’4″ and 250 pounds, and had the face of a totem pole. She was wearing a T-shirt that said “I only like CUTE boys.” Uh…. good luck, sister.

On my way home I decided I better try and find a photo shop in the IT mall and just get my passport photos there. I asked around and finally someone pointed me to a small camera shop. I went in there and there was at least 7 people working. I told one of them I needed passport photos and he pointed to a guy who was already busy helping another customer. Say what? It’s a CAMERA SHOP. They’re telling me there’s only one guy who can operate a camera out of 8 people working in a CAMERA SHOP.

So I had to wait for this twerp for about 10 friggin’ minutes. He took my photo in about 5 seconds and then informed me that it would be 30 minutes before my photos would be ready. 30 F$!&ING minutes??? Can any photo expert tell me what would cause a printer to need 30 minutes to produce an 8×5 print? Reed? Cate? Anyone???

Well, I still had to buy toilet paper so I went out and had a smoke and then hit the supermarket. On the way back I browsed through the video game store and found an X-Box 360 for $280 (comes with 5 games.) Man, I really want to buy one…

I went back to the photo shop and waited the last 10 minutes of my purgatory and nobody even paid any attention to me. Finally I got up and pulled out my receipt and motioned at the guy who had taken my pic. He nodded and went over to the machine and sure enough – there was my print, sitting there just like it had been for the last 25 friggin’ minutes. He cut it up for me and I was out of there as fast as I could go.

Today I went to 7-11 and the photo shop across the street was open.

It’s World Cup fever here in Thailand and I’m imagining the rest of the world… all I can wonder is… Why?

Soccer is the most boring sport to watch in the world. It’s worse than baseball. Worse, even, than golf. Just a bunch of guys running around a giant field kicking the ball back and forth… for 90 FRIGGIN MINUTES. I was stuck watching it at McDonald’s while I was eating my Big Mac. It was the most boring thing I have ever witnessed. 90% of a soccer game involves one of the team members kicking the ball back to his goalie, who then launches it across the field or just kicks it right back to the guy who sent it to him. If not, it’s just 2 guys kicking it back and forth, half the time not even kicking it toward the goal, but BACKWARDS toward their own goal. The final score of a game? 1-0 or maybe 2-1; nobody ever gets above 5 for sure. So 1 or 2 goals in 90 minutes. Wow… I’m enthralled.

Sitting there in the McD’s among a crowd of Thai businessmen, students, and yes — even cops — watching this thing made me want to pull my hair out. And to make it all worse was the sound. It was turned way up… but you couldn’t even hear the crowd (as if they had anything at all to be making noise about,) all you could hear was this whiny drone of horns buzzing; and the barely audible Thai commentator narration. I felt like I was stuck in a beehive.

Really… that’s what soccer is like. It’s like being trapped in a beehive for 90 minutes listening to them buzz, and watching the bees arbitrarily scurry back and forth doing absolutely nothing interesting.

I had to get out of there, the buzzing was making me psychotic.

There is also non-stop soccer-oriented advertising happening that is bugging the crap out of me. It’s on the TV, before the movies, and even on all the big TV screens around Bangkok. They are all each playing a variation of the same Ole Ole Ole song, but it’s really just the same song over and over. I guess soccer fans just love monotony.

I know there will be people out there talking about how soccer is exciting and there actually IS a strategy happening, and that the wait for an unlikely goal is worth it.

Yes, I like to play soccer. It’s fun when you’re out there. But please spare me the 90 minutes of boredom and later just show me the one goal that happened during the game.

So I put my discarded Wingers bones into a sack on my balcony, because I didn’t want any little creatures sneaking into my room to get at them. Today I threw the bag out and noticed a gecko scurrying away as I lifted the bag. Then tonight I have seen about 10 different geckos hanging out on my balcony. Usually I see like one a week. So I guess they discovered the mother-lode in my sack and now all the geckos think my balcony is the party place! I’m thinking they will go away after a few days now that the fun-bag is gone…

Another funny/cool thing: There were 2 geckos on the wall, and one was big but the other was really small. They were about 6 inches apart and just staring at each other. Suddenly the big one lunged and like a flash they were fighting each other! I thought the big one was going to eat the little one, but then the little guy darted around the corner and the fight was over. I was disappointed… would have been cool to see a gecko get devoured by another gecko!