Something more important

I know you are all desperate to hear the second installment of my diatribe on (anti)American culture, but you’re just going to have to wait a bit. Something far more critical has come up.

While planning how we would spend our rocking Friday night, it came to my attention that Mary Ann has never seen The Last Starfighter. Being the good sport that she is, we have contributed a few bucks to the Lebanese video rental industry and are well on our way.

Furthermore, she has also accepted my invitation provide us all with a review of the movie after she is done.

The world awaits…

It’s so nice to be loved.

Good Luck Karen

Unless it is something funny, or something I really feel passionate about, I try to avoid political posts. Today’s subject drifts dangerously close to politics, but I’d actually like to wrestle it over into the area of culture. Specifically, American culture.

For the last few days, Karen Hughes has been visiting various folks in the Middle East doing PR for the United States. From what I’ve seen, she is coming up against many of the disconnects and misperceptions that contribute to present state of affairs. Generally speaking, she seems to be handling things quite well.

There are a whole host of interesting issues that could be dealt with here, but I’d like to focus on a comment made by Steven Weisman in his recent write-up for the NY Times.

Many in this region say they resent the American assumption that, given the chance, everyone would live like Americans.

It isn’t just this region. From my personal experience, it applies equally well to Germany, Austria, France and Russia. Even people who have very positive opinions about America don’t necessarily want to live like Americans. In the case of Europe, the majority chooses to pay high taxes for a large and paternalistic government.

This is generally the point where I’m suppose to enlighten you all on how much America sucks and how you poor products of the inferior American education system just don’t understand. However, I’m not going to do that.

Instead, I’m going to radically change the subject to anti-American snobbery. As this post is quickly getting too long for an enjoyable read, I will defer this next installment to a future post. Tune in next time for my theory on American self-perception that I call:

"Going Round the Twist"

I have an announcement to make

I was rained on today.

While this might not be considered a significant event to all those of you who don’t live in Lebanon, it’s pretty noteworthy out here. This is the first time it has rained here since one brief spattering in July. Thus ends the longest rain-free stretch in my life to date.

I blame the vast, right-wing cabal of Zionist, infidel, Christian, Republicans and their evil leader, Ralph Nader.

When in the course of human events…

…the British go completely out of their minds.

No wonder we dumped their tea overboard. Sheesh.

Learn something new every day

I had no idea that suctorial was a real word.

Adaptation II

It was a dark and stormy night…

Well, it was dark anyway. It was around 9pm and a friend and I were headed down an apartment stairwell when the power went out. I was a bit taken aback by this, because there was absolutely no way to see the stairs.

That’s when I learned a little Lebanese trick. My friend whipped out his cell phone and pushed a button so the display would light up. It wasn’t much, but it was definitely enough to see the stairs and get out without any problems.

The downside of this is that my enjoyment of StarTrek has been marginally decreased. Now, whenever a distraught starship captain barks out an order for “Emergency Lights!”, I’m going to visualize the deck crew whipping out their cell phones for a Nokia powered solution.

Tipping standards

I’m not used to tipping waiters in cheap fast food restaurants. Frankly, I’m not used to having waiters in fast food restaurants. However, I recently had just such a situation come up. Quite unexpectedly, this guy did the following tip-worthy things:

1. Brought the food to our table.
2. Asked us if we wanted ketchup (which typically has to be requested in other places like Europe)
3. Refilled our drinks.
4. Brought Stella a balloon.
   

Even in a place where I would typically expect a waiter, this guy had done a good job. So, I decided to leave a tip. Much to my surprise, he actually followed us out of the restaurant to give back the money. The conversation went something like this:

Me: I didn’t forget the money, I left it there for you as a tip.

Him: No, I couldn’t possible.

Me: Why not? You did a good job, and clearly deserve to get a tip.

Him: Well, it’s my job.

Quite a bit different than the way things work in the US isn’t it?

Adaptation

Moving to new countries almost always involves a change in diet. Sometimes it’s deliberate, and sometimes it happens without you noticing. Recently, I have noticed that our yogurt consumption seems to have gone up by exponents. At present, we are eating about 2 kilos of yogurt every 4-5 days. Plenty of Lebanese dishes do involve a lot of yogurt, but still....

I have no idea of how this is happening. It’s not like we each chomp our way through a towering bowl of yogurt each morning, but nonetheless, it keeps getting eaten.

Mary Ann Quote

If you were a cartoon character, you would be Stitch.

Public Service Announcement

This anonymous baby (which may or may not be related to me) would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that proper lumbar support is essential to good ergonomic seating.

heh heh

A new twist on 1-900 numbers...

(click to enlarge)

Translation:

Phonesex lady: Call me! I’ll do things that even your wife doesn’t do…

Wife: You’re not really going to call!?

Man: I’m ordering the chopped roast beef with red cabbage, what do you want?

Conservative heaven

I was just contemplating several of the key values of Republican Conservatives:

1. Low Taxes, small government
   
2. As little interference by government into our lives as possible
3. Personal accounts in Social Security

This brought me around to thinking about my life as a UN employee:

1. Virtually exempt from paying taxes, practically no government services
   
2. US laws don’t apply to me
   
3. No Social Security benefits, entirely self-funded retirement
   

Hmmmm…

Scenery

As I am wandering around with a camera today, I’ve decided to give you all a behind the scenes look at some parts of my life. First, my little corner in our ivory tower outpost of the New World Order. This is where we plot to take over the national parks of the United States in our secret bid to rule the world through low-cost lumber sales.



I’d like to point out a few things not readily visible in the picture. Arrow #1 is pointing to where I have draped my sweaty t-shirt over a small set of drawers under my desk. Arrow #2 is pointing to the secret hiding spot for my sneakers. Arrow #3 is pointing to the locked case where I have stashed all the secret security devices that have been issued to us for various ‘don’t get killed’ purposes. Don’t ask what’s in there because then the security people would get cranky that I’m providing information on our countermeasures to all the terrorist spies who read my blog on a daily basis. You can’t be too careful.



This is a picture of some Middle Eastern deserts a colleague brought in for the office today.

Weird things for sale in Beirut

This has got to be the biggest Cadillac Fleetwood I have ever seen in my life.  I have no idea how this could possibly be driven in Beirut traffic.  On the other hand, if you get a flat tire, it comes with a complimentary Mini Cooper in the trunk.  Simply push a button and you’re back on your way again!

After I got back to the computer I saw that Stella got her darling little slimy fingerprints all over the camera lens, which gives the picture that funky halo effect in the middle of the frame.  Ah, the delights of parenting.

Maybe velcro is the answer

I seem to be having a bit of trouble dressing myself these days. Because I like to walk to work, I typically bring more appropriate shoes in my bag and pull a Mr. Rogers-style transformation after I arrive. Yesterday, I forgot to bring socks.

Today, just as I was leaving the house, the button popped off my pants. Mary Ann has assured me that my belt should hide this problem, but that I should check from time to time to make sure everything that needs to be zipped up still is. So far, she’s right.

Box under a bridge

My inbox has just been graced by another security warning. I have been strongly urged to avoid two specific areas. Geographically, they translate into:

#1 Where I work
#2 Where I live

That settles it! To increase the safety of my family, we will move into a cast off refrigerator box under a bridge.

Leave the pin in next time

Naturally, everyone has been a rather concerned about the expolsion this morning. However, the mood is starting to change as more details are coming out. Specifically this:

"...police investigators on the scene were later quoted as saying Alaili was toying with a hand grenade he brought into the office at midmorning when it went off in his hands. He was rushed to the American University Hospital, where he died shortly afterwards."

What an idiot. Who takes a live hand grenade to work? Sounds like someone is a candidate for a Darwin Award.

lurp

Looks like there was another bomb this morning. From the last two incidents it seems that the methodology is changing a bit. Instead of relatively deserted industrial areas, these folks are starting to switch to more heavily populated areas during busier times of day.

One more to the list

Although I am sure you will do a credible job feigning surprise, I have an announcement. Mary Ann is a better parent than I am. While you probably don’t require further proof of this fact, I do have one more piece of evidence.

Mary Ann can feed Danielle a full bottle without waking her up.

That’s right. Fully unconscious feeding. I have no idea how this is possible, but it is. I am witnessing it at this very moment. Mary Ann is one talented woman.

Another one

There was another car bomb last night in our section of the city, but not our neighborhood. We're all fine.

Does he need a hall pass?

Please, please, please let this picture of President Bush be a hoax.

Maybe it will be reincarnated as a stereo

Today my office computer was officially pronounced dead. In the meantime, I'm working on a temporary machine from the IT department. This machine is far better because it more focused on quality. For example, it helps out in several ways:

After you type a word, the computer pauses for several minutes to truly contemplate the deeper meanings of the word and how to best display it on the screen.

If you want to visit a website, the computer will provide you extra pondering time to make sure you are mentally prepared to view the page.

Print jobs are rendered in a loving, patient way, which helps the paper understand that it needs to be truly dedicated to being the best paper it can possibly be.

In the meantime, I will investigate these strange objects lined up on the other side of my office. I have been told that they are similar to archaic data storage devices know as "books" which were stored on "bookshelves".

They may also be cuneiform tablets. I've heard they have a lot of those in Beirut.

Also available in blue and blue.

In my line of work, classifying the benefits of certain activities in terms of cost effectiveness is very popular. From time to time, things come up that are difficult to express in financial terms. These folks seem to have raised some interesting points in their analysis of the Cost Effectiveness of Clothing Suicidal Inmates.

These thoughtful folks have such valuable insights as:

• Clothing prevents the need for treatment of hypothermia
• Staff gets a break from noise and demands when inmate sleeps

Last but not least:

• An opportunity for a new beginning upon awakening

Clearly, this company has the interests of their customers at heart.

The way it goes

From the New York Times:

The General Assembly vote ended three weeks of tense talks at which regional rivalries and national ambitions succeeded in scuttling attempts by a majority of nations to act in the broader United Nations interest. The continuing debate exposed in high profile the kind of indecisiveness that the document was supposed to address.

"There were governments that were not willing to make the concessions necessary," Mr. Annan said. "There were spoilers also in the group, let's be quite honest about that."

I wish more had been accomplished, but that's pretty much the way it goes in a collaborative organization. It reminds me of Winston Churchill's famous comment:

Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.

You're welcome

Back in good ole Deutschland, the locals occasionally saw fit to speak English with me. This was not surprising, because for the first few years I was there, my German sounded much more like something you would expect to hear out of the Swedish chef on the Muppets. I was grateful that these folks had made the effort to learn English and use it with me. In these cases, I made it my habit to thank them at the end of the conversation for having spoken English with me. Yes, yes, I know it wasn't necessary – the privilege of speaking with me is its own reward. Still though, I was trying to be gracious. It's part of the package.

Anyway, so here I am tooling around Lebanon, and not speaking a whole lot of Arabic. The thing I'm wondering about is the advisability of thanking people for speaking English with me. Technically, English is one of the official languages here, so is it really something I should thank someone for? Pretty much everyone here speaks English as a second or third language, so I've come up with a ground rule:

If the person has to try hard to speak English, thank them. If they can speak English better than George Bush, let it slide.

Thus far its working pretty well.

Well, wadaya know...

I've never seen one of these before...

A LADA 4X4.

Does this count as an SUV?

Ready, Set, Go!

The first family member to respond to this post gets to pick the area code for our new phone number.

ugh

I so dearly hope that this, and this are in fact some kind of hoax.

(Safe for work in my opinion. But initial reports claim that your network admin might not agree. Better safe than sorry.)

Hidden meaning

There seems to be some confusion on my listing of diabolical vengeance choices in a recent post. For the uninitiated, I will take a brief moment to explain the nuance. The key point is that most gifts men give to women are actually terrible insults in disguise. Surprisingly, hundreds of years have gone by without women realizing the truth. This is because of the brilliant cover-up campaign we men have been waging to convince women that we are clueless simpletons who have no concept of subtlety.

I have decided that the ruse has gone on long enough. Here is a list of several common gifts and their true meaning:

Flowers: Here honey, I saw this beautiful living thing that reminded me of you, so I killed it and now you get to watch them slowly die.

Perfume: Frankly, you don't smell all that great.

Jewelry: Because you just aren't pretty enough on your own.

Chocolate: You will be unable to resist the momentary pleasure, only to find out that years of suffering through leg-lifts and wacko cactus-root diets will be unable to rid you of the unsightly cellulite that I am knowingly cursing you with.

Now you know the truth.

Overcompensation

Everyonce in a while, Mary Ann and I review our budget to see if there are expenses that we could reduce. In the last month, we've been chopping out some of the food budget. For example, even though the prices are rather low compared to what we are used to, we can save about $2,500.00 per year if I bring my lunch to work instead of buying it there.

That's all well and good, and I fully support it. However, I think things might be getting a bit out of hand. As plaintiff's exhibit A, I submit the following quote:

Mary Ann: I really like that with a loaf of bread and a head of cabbage I can eat lunch for a week on 750 Lira (50 cents).

Frankly, I think this is going a bit far. It's not exactly nutritious, and hardly had any calories. I think that not-so-deep-down, Mary Ann would be quite happy to return to the days of a $30.00 monthly food budget. Fortunately, it is my sworn duty to prevent this from happening.

Because they are pros at that

For some reason or another, it has become very common among the NGOs around here to use the following phrase:

"Pro-Poor Policies"

To quote The Princess Bride, “Why do you keep saying that? I do not think it means what you think it means.” Let's re-try that same grammatical phrase with a different noun and you tell me if it really means what you intended:

Pro-Israel policies
Pro-Iraq War policies
Pro-murdering babies in witchcraft ceremonies under a full-moon policies

Get the picture? The prefix “pro” means that you are trying to encourage something, to make it happen more. As far as I am aware, none of the people where I work are going to fund a project to actually create more poor people.

If you want to promote pro-poor policies, I recommend talking to these people, who have done a fabulous job in that area.

I love the way the Internet brings people together

We have decided to try out a new service in the VoIP market. This will allow us to get a phone number anywhere in the US or several EU countries, and when you dial the number, it will get routed to our computer. This means that for some lucky area code out there, we will be a local call, instead of international.

The trouble is, we don't really want to choose that area code ourselves. We bandied about several different ways of selecting the number, but they each stood a reasonably high chance of pissing someone off. So, the plan of the moment is to make this a competitive process.

I've decided that within the next 36 hours, I will post a “ready, set, go” blog entry, and the family member to respond to it first gets to pick the area code. Note that I have switched personal pronouns. I've done this because Mary Ann doesn't like this idea very much. She thinks I am setting the contest up this way in a shallow attempt to punish her family for my perception that they don't really read this blog very much. I'm sure you will all be relieved to know that I have decided not to get cranky with her for being right.

She also claims that she is going to cheat by sending out an email notification to her side of the family as soon as I fire off the starter pistol. She is welcome to do this, because I have had far too few opportunities to come up with vengeful plots lately. In fact, just thinking about it now is helping to stretch my long-neglected devious side. This won't be some kind of easy vengeance like a nice this. No, it will be something far more diabolical like this.

By the way, I am also available for handing out free marital advice upon request. Well, actually, I pretty much give it away without requests. In fact, I am the world's leading authority on everything my parents and siblings have ever done wrong in their marriages, and how to make it worse. I'm also expanding my expertise into her side of the family, but frankly there are fewer marriages there, so it isn't as interesting. As a result I have been forced to diversify into such fields as career mistakes and management of credit card debt.

Which brings me back around to the main topic of this post, the wonderful opportunity for calling at cheap and easy rates.

I expect the phone to start ringing any time now.

Idiot Idiom of the day

Me: “...so anyway, he spilled the beans.”

Colleague: “What do you mean 'beans'? Does this mean the magic beans of Jack?”

Is it security or stagnation?

There are certain career tracks in the United Nations that have the possibility of ending up with a lifetime contract. Without going too far into the details, you have to pass a very competitive written test, oral interview, and have an approximately 2 year probationary period. If you get through all the hoops with flying colors, you will be given a job for life.

If you had that chance, would you take it? I know that kind of touches on the idea I brought up before, on the subject of working for the UN in general, so let's not get into that subject. I'm thinking more along the lines of knowing that you would be working for the same employer for your entire life. Would you want that kind of a future?

Of course, in my case, a lifetime contract would last for about 45 seconds. As soon as certain members of my family found out that the grandkids would be permanently globe trotting around Third World countries, they would have me killed.

I need to do more rummaging around on our trips

Discovery of cuneiform tablet supports stories about Sidon's past

Parenting moment

We went back to Stella's favorite park yesterday. Right at the entrance, there was a little girl standing there looking a little bit sad. Stella walked right up to her with a big smile on her face and said:

"Hi!”

The other little girl just turned away.

Stella's happy, smiling expression melted away to be replaced by a mixture of confusion and sadness.

I don't want Stella to experience people being mean to each other. I don't want her to feel rejected. If those things must happen, and I know they do, I want to teach her how to deal with it and not loose her positive, happy outlook on life.

Trouble is, I'm not really sure how to do that.

6 1/2 years...

...and I just found out Mary Ann has never seen "Green Acres".

What a tragically deprived childhood.

Clearly her parents did her a great disservice by not showing her that true happiness is to be found by husbands dragging their wives away from large American cities to places with dodgy electricity and questionably running water.

Oh, wait...

Never mind.

Idiot Idiom

My slip-up of the day:

Me: "Do we have a ballpark estimate on the cost for the project?"

Colleague: "Huh?"

Quote of the day

From my barber:

"You have a lot of white in your hair that wasn't there last time."

I can think of two positive things about this. First, at least he wasn't talking about dandruf. Second, at least the hair is still attached. I will be more than happy to swap color for coverage any day.

They're good for another week

When I arrived at my sister's wedding, I realized that I didn't pack the shoes had planned to wear. Fortunately, there was a mall nearby, so I was able to pick up a new pair fairly quickly. The shoes were relatively nice, but nothing out of the usual way. Had the poor shoes know what they were getting into they would have all jumped off the counter and scurried away under the furniture like shell-shocked cats.

The thing is, that my sister ended up having a traumatic marriage followed by divorce. Given that I am now so wise and mature, I will resist the opportunity to point out yet again that I was highly opposed to him. I would not say something like that again because I have moved beyond the desire for horrific vengeance. How have I done this you ask? Well, I started writing down all my evil plans in keep-a-journal-to-get-it-out-of-your-system style. Unfortunately, someone stole the book. I know this is true because it surfaced recently under the new title Al-Qaeda Training Manual.

All this marvelous progress has been put in a bit of jeopardy lately from an unexpected source. My shoes. Yes, indeed, my shoes are a big problem. The thing is that I still have the same shoes I bought at my sister's first wedding. In fact, I am wearing them at this particular moment. As good as they were back in the day, they aren't exactly going to last for too many lively tap dance routines, if you get my drift.

The left sole is starting to separate from the upper half of the shoe. The leather is cracked in quite a few places. My shoes are starting to reach the limits of what can be achieved with glue and shoe polish.

The thing is, I don't want to get rid of these shoes. I can whine and whimper about how hard it is to find shoes that really fit, but the I'm not hanging onto these shoes because they are so great. I'm hanging on to them because they remind me of a good spot just before something bad happened. Kind of like saving a video game right before the nasty monster so you can go back to that point and do it differently.

Either that, or I'm just to cheap to go out a buy a new pair of shoes. I don't particularly like shopping and it is really hard to find shoes that fit.

Mary Ann is going crazy

Things started out normally enough. Way back in the Mesozoic era when we were little single people, Mary Ann was capable of eating a bowl of breakfast cereal more or less like a normal person. Unfortunately, those by-gone days are an ever-retreating memory.

It all started in Germany, when Mary Ann found a silverfish in the last third of her bowl. I don't recall if it was alive or not. That minor detail pales beside the mental picture of her spitting out all the cereal in her mouth over a quite respectable target zone, and proceeding to dry-heave and shudder for a few minutes. Naturally, I was in 'protect and support' mode, but there is only so much that male companionship can do for one when one has almost eaten a nasty bug.

This experience left scars. For several months, Mary Ann would only eat cereal dry and out of the box after looking at each mouthful to ensure there were no bugs hitching a ride to tummy-land. Admittedly, the amazing swimming silverfish was fairly traumatic, so I accepted this as a relatively normal response.

Unfortunately, the PTSD seems to be getting worse. Every so often, she comes up with a weirdish sort of opinion, such as her violent feelings toward the character named Randall in the movie Monsters, Inc., or as it is known in our household, “Monsters, AG” (German version). Anyway, she hates him, and that's the relevant point.



I've tried to be helpful by pointing out that it could have been much worse. She could have been like this poor British guy who found one of these in his house:



According to the newspaper, it hitched a ride from South America on a fruit shipment. Hmm, enjoy that bunch of bananas there. I'm sure theres not a horrible poisons bug with huge claws ready to scamper out and attack you.

Oddly, she did not find this reasoning very soothing.

I had hoped she was moving beyond the cereal issue, until last week, when I noticed that she was eating cereal out of two bowls at the same time. Upon closer inspection, I found that she had one bowl full of dry cereal, and one bowl full of milk. She would take a spoonful of cereal out of bowl #1, and then scoop up some milk out of bowl #2, thereby creating the finished product:

1 spoonful of bug-free, highly crunchy cereal.

The poor dear even concocted a cover story. She claims that this is The One True Way Of Cereal, because each bite with be perfectly crunchy, no matter how long you take to eat it. Of course, I know that 'eat it' is code for 'minutely inspect each particular granule of cereal for lurking silverfish'.

I on the other hand, know that The One True Way Of Cereal requires that the whole bowl of cereal be left for several minutes before eating. This ensures that all crunchiness has been obliterated, thus avoiding the dreaded scratchesontheroofofyourmouth syndrome. Clearly anyone who eats cereal any other way has obviously gone round the twist.

Fortunately, I have a master plan for ensuring that these psycho-tweaks aren't passed on to the kids. For example, I have made deliberate efforts to go swimming on sparsely populated beaches while Stella looks on from the shore. I do this even though I am certain that sharks are going to attack me and eat me in front of her at any moment. Which, come to think of it, would probably be counter-productive in the phobia avoidance campaign.

At any rate, it hasn't worked yet because Stella doesn't like the swimming in the ocean. Either that or the little troll knows that I hate it and is just toying with me because she is a sadist. She's probably thinking “Hmmm, how long can I get Daddy to stay out there setting a good example and building character?”