Yet STILL MORE random blatherings.....
......as I sit outside the Allez Boo in a pissing Saigon rainstorm under a huge-ass patio umbrella drinking an ice-cold (and rather strong, but significantly over-priced) Singapore Sling.....
......as I sit outside the Allez Boo in a pissing Saigon rainstorm under a huge-ass patio umbrella drinking an ice-cold (and rather strong, but significantly over-priced) Singapore Sling.....
...and here it is.
Christ I love Ho Chi Minh City. It's sooooo anti-Hai Phong in about a million different ways, that it just makes my head spin......
I'm down here getting a visa renewal for Vietnam - as I've written here last December, they only give you a THREE-MONTH MAXIMUM visa now in Vietnam, and you get ONE IN-COUNTRY renewal of that visa AT THE CITY WHERE YOU ORIGINALLY GOT IT (e.g. - the airport that you flew into when you entered Viet Nam...thusly, I try to avoid Hanoi and I try to fly into Ho Chi Minh City, because it just gives me another excuse to get outta Hai Phong and go to Viet Nam's closest approximation to anything resembling a real city). After THAT, ya gotta fly back out of then back IN TO Viet Nam to grab a new three month visa.....irritating, believe me.....
Anyways, back to the blatherings, before the now-wind-driven rain causes this netbook that I'm typing on to short out.....
*************************************
Tam and I had our friend Anthony's fiancé Van over for lunch the other day, where I made my renowned chicken wings. Now, Van is from the middle of Cat Ba Island, the first island (and the largest) in the Halong Bay chain. Cat Ba is kinda a rather rural kind of place (except for Cat Ba town, a dot at the bottom of the island numbering a whopping one thousand souls that is a touristy beachfront resort area with all mod cons). Whenever Van comes to visit us, she always brings gifts, like thee freshest of fresh shrimp, octopus, etc. etc.
So, as I was making the wings, I saw something move slightly in this box the size of a beer case that Van brought over.
"What the fuck was THAT?" I thought to myself.....couldn't be one of the dozens if mice that had infested our (now former) house....little large for one of them. So I said to my wife - "Ermmm, Mat Ong? I might be losing it, but I SWEAR that I saw something move around that box over there. It looked pretty large and....."
"What, Hon?? Oh God - that's just the chicken that Van brought over for us!"
"Uhhhh....no, Hon - this fucking thing MOVED.....chickens don't move....unless they are alive, and......and.....an....."
....and I looked in the box....sure as shit - a live chicken! I jumped backwards about ten metres, and sputtered something that I think was something along the lines of "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING DOING IN OUR HOUSE????"
"Honeeeeeeee - Van's from The Countryside, and this is a traditional gift for visiting a friend's house and ......."
Her voice just trailed off....I was in a kind of numb shock.....I mean, I have received bottles of vino, casseroles, 12-packs of Molson, what have you from friends coming over for a meal....but this was my first live chicken that I have ever received as a gift.
I never asked what happened to the chicken afterwards.....I think that Tam's father took it home with him......
*************************************
Just sad how the entire socio-economic situation is currently unfolding in The States....which pretty much reaffirmed my decision NOT to return there with my family in the IMMEDIATE future (MAYBE things will become more balanced and just sometime down the road, but I ain't holding my breath on that one)......
I mean, you get these people (and there are LARGE numbers of them in The States currently) who aren't slow, they're not (to the best of my knowledge) developmentally disabled in any manner, but rather they are purely anti-intellectual! Ignorant is too kind of a term to describe these sorts! These folks do not believe in admiring the ultra-affluent, but instead, they prefer to idolise them! To the point where these morons will nod like donkeys waiting for you to feed them the carrot whenever some tea-bagger fuckwitt screams at 130 decibels - "WE MUST GIVE PEOPLE LIKE THE KOCH BROTHERS AND RUPERT MURDOCH RELIEF FROM THESE OPPRESSIVE TAXES AND STIFLING GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS!!!!" and these brain-surgeons actually BELIEVE THIS!!!
Tax cuts on things like Corporate taxes, Capital Gains tax rates, and such do NOT PRODUCE SHIT FOR ACTUAL JOBS!!! That is thee biggest lie of the whole failed supply-side/trickle-down economics sham!! These people and corporations simply POCKET THAT CA$H!! They do NOT re-invest in their factories or stores or whatever and create expansion and thusly, the need to hire more people.....that is THEE BIG LIE!! How ignorant do people have to be to not realise that a vote for somebody like Michelle Bachman is NOT going to bring back that job they just got laid off from at the screen door factory!!
And NOW The Republican Party wants to end the tax CUT on the payroll tax, which currently assists those in the $0.00 to $110,000 annual income bracket - a bracket that needs SEVERE assistance right about now. And when they actually GET this tax cut, THEY spend the money, which leads to the economic phenomenon known as "The Money-Multiplier Effect"....and THAT is thee way to grow an economy....not supply-side/trickle-down fallacies......
....just very distressing.
*************************************
A father's worst nightmare occurred to a friend of mine the other week. Gotta fone call at 7:25AM a couple weeks ago. Now, I don't care if the fucking house is on fire, I do not physically move at 7:25AM (unless I have a flight to catch or I'm still awake from last night….and THOSE days are fading fast)….but the ringing on my cell fone was persistent. Muttered something like "Jesus fucking Christ - this had better be good….." and finally answered it....
(NOTE - Cell fones in Viet Nam don't have voicemail. It's NOT a technology issue or anything of that sort. You just CANNOT GET voicemail here…..it's a cultural issue. You cannot even buy an answering machine for your landline here. Some sort of Asian/Vietnamese thing where they really dislike the idea of leaving messages, sooooo……..)
"Ernie, Ernie" I heard in a thick accent that I knew well……it was Michael the Nigerian.
"Mikey…I mean, what the fuck, man, it's seven - twent….."
"Ernie! She's gone and she took my kids with her!!!"
I shot up and stood straight up in bed in about half a nano-second. Whooooa….fuck - THAT will wake you up….even if you're on four hours of sleep and a screaming hangover (like I was that morning)!!!!
"Mikey? WHAT THE FUCK are you talking about??" (It was one of those things where you KNEW what the fuck he was talking about....but you simply did not want to acknowledge it....and you were hoping that his next response would be something like - "APRIL FOOLS!"or something like that)
"Vicki! She took Philip and Theresa and she didn't come back when she was supposed to and NOW she's not answering her cell fone and....."
"Mikey! MIKEY!! BACK UP THE FUCKING TRUCK!!! Now, come on - we can only pray that there wasn't an accident or something like that! Come on....there has GOT to be a simple explanation for this and..........."
No.....
I knew there wasn't......
Their relationship had been on the rocks now for quite a while (at least the past 18 months or so)....I pretty much figgered THAT out when Michael pretty much was being the single parent to his kids and Vicki went off to France for some job of some sort and Michael just absolutely refused to talk about their relationship, Vicki, and anything about her, really, other than she's "just working in France".......
.....so, a few days BEFORE this phone call, Vicki had returned to Hai Phong to visit.....things went well for that time, then Philip and Theresa and Vicki all disappeared suddenly.
As it turned out, Michael LOCATED them a coupla weeks later, but his mother told him to back off......leave them be.....let Vicki have the children.....calm down.....it will prolly work out best for them for now......things like that! That made absolutely zero-fucking-sense to me......but he heeded his mother's words, and left them be......
....I didn't ask.
More blatherings in about a week or so.....going to head to The mountainous rain forest in the foothills of the Southern Himalayas forra couple of weeks in the end of September.....I'll post before then!
-E-
*************************************
Tam and I had our friend Anthony's fiancé Van over for lunch the other day, where I made my renowned chicken wings. Now, Van is from the middle of Cat Ba Island, the first island (and the largest) in the Halong Bay chain. Cat Ba is kinda a rather rural kind of place (except for Cat Ba town, a dot at the bottom of the island numbering a whopping one thousand souls that is a touristy beachfront resort area with all mod cons). Whenever Van comes to visit us, she always brings gifts, like thee freshest of fresh shrimp, octopus, etc. etc.
So, as I was making the wings, I saw something move slightly in this box the size of a beer case that Van brought over.
"What the fuck was THAT?" I thought to myself.....couldn't be one of the dozens if mice that had infested our (now former) house....little large for one of them. So I said to my wife - "Ermmm, Mat Ong? I might be losing it, but I SWEAR that I saw something move around that box over there. It looked pretty large and....."
"What, Hon?? Oh God - that's just the chicken that Van brought over for us!"
"Uhhhh....no, Hon - this fucking thing MOVED.....chickens don't move....unless they are alive, and......and.....an....."
....and I looked in the box....sure as shit - a live chicken! I jumped backwards about ten metres, and sputtered something that I think was something along the lines of "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING DOING IN OUR HOUSE????"
"Honeeeeeeee - Van's from The Countryside, and this is a traditional gift for visiting a friend's house and ......."
Her voice just trailed off....I was in a kind of numb shock.....I mean, I have received bottles of vino, casseroles, 12-packs of Molson, what have you from friends coming over for a meal....but this was my first live chicken that I have ever received as a gift.
I never asked what happened to the chicken afterwards.....I think that Tam's father took it home with him......
*************************************
Just sad how the entire socio-economic situation is currently unfolding in The States....which pretty much reaffirmed my decision NOT to return there with my family in the IMMEDIATE future (MAYBE things will become more balanced and just sometime down the road, but I ain't holding my breath on that one)......
I mean, you get these people (and there are LARGE numbers of them in The States currently) who aren't slow, they're not (to the best of my knowledge) developmentally disabled in any manner, but rather they are purely anti-intellectual! Ignorant is too kind of a term to describe these sorts! These folks do not believe in admiring the ultra-affluent, but instead, they prefer to idolise them! To the point where these morons will nod like donkeys waiting for you to feed them the carrot whenever some tea-bagger fuckwitt screams at 130 decibels - "WE MUST GIVE PEOPLE LIKE THE KOCH BROTHERS AND RUPERT MURDOCH RELIEF FROM THESE OPPRESSIVE TAXES AND STIFLING GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS!!!!" and these brain-surgeons actually BELIEVE THIS!!!
Tax cuts on things like Corporate taxes, Capital Gains tax rates, and such do NOT PRODUCE SHIT FOR ACTUAL JOBS!!! That is thee biggest lie of the whole failed supply-side/trickle-down economics sham!! These people and corporations simply POCKET THAT CA$H!! They do NOT re-invest in their factories or stores or whatever and create expansion and thusly, the need to hire more people.....that is THEE BIG LIE!! How ignorant do people have to be to not realise that a vote for somebody like Michelle Bachman is NOT going to bring back that job they just got laid off from at the screen door factory!!
And NOW The Republican Party wants to end the tax CUT on the payroll tax, which currently assists those in the $0.00 to $110,000 annual income bracket - a bracket that needs SEVERE assistance right about now. And when they actually GET this tax cut, THEY spend the money, which leads to the economic phenomenon known as "The Money-Multiplier Effect"....and THAT is thee way to grow an economy....not supply-side/trickle-down fallacies......
....just very distressing.
*************************************
Had a party for my daughter's one year birthday party a coupla months ago....Emily is thee best Father's Day present I could have ever gotten.
*************************************
A father's worst nightmare occurred to a friend of mine the other week. Gotta fone call at 7:25AM a couple weeks ago. Now, I don't care if the fucking house is on fire, I do not physically move at 7:25AM (unless I have a flight to catch or I'm still awake from last night….and THOSE days are fading fast)….but the ringing on my cell fone was persistent. Muttered something like "Jesus fucking Christ - this had better be good….." and finally answered it....
(NOTE - Cell fones in Viet Nam don't have voicemail. It's NOT a technology issue or anything of that sort. You just CANNOT GET voicemail here…..it's a cultural issue. You cannot even buy an answering machine for your landline here. Some sort of Asian/Vietnamese thing where they really dislike the idea of leaving messages, sooooo……..)
"Ernie, Ernie" I heard in a thick accent that I knew well……it was Michael the Nigerian.
"Mikey…I mean, what the fuck, man, it's seven - twent….."
"Ernie! She's gone and she took my kids with her!!!"
I shot up and stood straight up in bed in about half a nano-second. Whooooa….fuck - THAT will wake you up….even if you're on four hours of sleep and a screaming hangover (like I was that morning)!!!!
"Mikey? WHAT THE FUCK are you talking about??" (It was one of those things where you KNEW what the fuck he was talking about....but you simply did not want to acknowledge it....and you were hoping that his next response would be something like - "APRIL FOOLS!"or something like that)
"Vicki! She took Philip and Theresa and she didn't come back when she was supposed to and NOW she's not answering her cell fone and....."
"Mikey! MIKEY!! BACK UP THE FUCKING TRUCK!!! Now, come on - we can only pray that there wasn't an accident or something like that! Come on....there has GOT to be a simple explanation for this and..........."
No.....
I knew there wasn't......
Their relationship had been on the rocks now for quite a while (at least the past 18 months or so)....I pretty much figgered THAT out when Michael pretty much was being the single parent to his kids and Vicki went off to France for some job of some sort and Michael just absolutely refused to talk about their relationship, Vicki, and anything about her, really, other than she's "just working in France".......
.....so, a few days BEFORE this phone call, Vicki had returned to Hai Phong to visit.....things went well for that time, then Philip and Theresa and Vicki all disappeared suddenly.
As it turned out, Michael LOCATED them a coupla weeks later, but his mother told him to back off......leave them be.....let Vicki have the children.....calm down.....it will prolly work out best for them for now......things like that! That made absolutely zero-fucking-sense to me......but he heeded his mother's words, and left them be......
....I didn't ask.
More blatherings in about a week or so.....going to head to The mountainous rain forest in the foothills of the Southern Himalayas forra couple of weeks in the end of September.....I'll post before then!
-E-
