The same as any good pyramid scheme, you always have to be enrolling people at the bottom. The same as Social Security, it’s a mass of good people all paying for somebody else. Nickel-and-diming these Good Samaritans is just my own personal social safety net.
‘Ponzi Scheme’ isn’t the right phrase, but it’s the first that comes to mind.
-Choke, pg. 79
The short answer – back. Back to the UK. Like “Back in the USSR,” but not.
Not only is this a great feat of LEGO engineering, but displays a remarkable technical prowess in general.
Lego Technic Super-8 Movie Projector from Friedemann Wachsmuth on Vimeo.
Blackwater has apparently sprung up in the deserts of the United Arab Emirates, building an 800-strong, multi-national, $530 million private battalion for the U.A.E. to do basically whatever they want.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/world/middleeast/15prince.html
In Viaggio
Originally uploaded by Francesco Campanale (Brave New Account)
I’m living my own yuppietwentysomething college student dreamscape this morning, without actually planning it that way (which I suppose is the anti-yuppie experience).
It’s Saturday. I got up at 7 this morning to put the finishing touches on my Marvell essay due today (yes, I have tutorials on Saturday this term, a little painful). It’s a true English morning – solid dark grey cloud cover that would be sinister at home, but here is just the flamboyant sky’s attempt at severity. There is a constant patter of rain, though I have noticed the rain is heavier in the Springtime compared to the Fall/Winter ‘spit’.
The water doesn’t get the finches down, though. They’re chirping away for better or worse. I’m in the dining room sipping my fancy sounding Lavazza coffee. I finished my essay, now I’m listening to some anonymous classical music on BBC Radio 3. My musical analysis: distinctly Saturday morning tooting horns. A Panera soundtrack, if you will.
I could certainly be faulted on the fact that my favorite travel/living abroad moments are the ones in which I’m doing nothing. But it’s that way everywhere I go. But, it’s kind of like passion versus love; the passion of foreign attractions and sights is great for a while, but it can’t really be sustained. The true measure of a foreign locale is how good the doing nothing is.
This is pretty good. Yep. I could do nothing in England.
The weather in England does not disappoint the American stereotype of day after dreary day of soft gray cloud-cover, interspersed with what I call ‘spitting rain’, so misty that it often times is more like fog that has lost its battle with gravity. Other times it’s as if the air were so saturated that it periodically sweats out moisture throughout the day. I’ve spent the last six months living the English life. It’s no wonder these people are obsessed with the weather; you find yourself looking at endless gray in the hope of divining the probability of their turning against you whilst you’re out and about. Does that roiling bit look like rain? Better bring an umbrella just in case. I see something that may be construed as blue – maybe sunglasses are in order! (this normally proves to be misplaced optimism).
Yes, the umbrella, the rain coat, the hat. These are the ubiquitous holdings of every English denizen. Often deemed bits of foppery by Americans, little badges of honour denoting absolute Englishness like an American flag lapel pin, I now know that living here really does require these things, and you become quite attached to them. Emily and I have amassed a small umbrella collection in our time here. Cheap minis bought on the street in Canterbury (mine stays permanently housed in the right pocket of my coat, along with my gloves), slightly larger collapsible versions peppered throughout our bags and reusables, and our beloved full-size that we bought second-hand at the Gloucester Green market for £3.
But, on our return from Budapest, we must have made a wrong turn somewhere. Maybe over Brussels the pilot nodded off, nudged the controls leftward, and now we are somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. Whatever the circumstances, we seem to have stumbled upon some sort of edenic paradise where green foliage greet you like sunbursts, trees and shrubs are encrusted with delicate flowers, and the air is charged with such vibrancy that it has nearly erased any memory of that dark, dingy winter. The once-glorious Georgian Spring now pales in comparison.
The indoors are no longer our refuge. Our first week back has been a string of long days basking in the back yard. I feel transported to Summer vacation, when every day feels like a holiday. Even the royal wedding, an event I care no more about than reruns of Friends, seemed like the perfect excuse for a garden party. Of course, in English fashion, it did manage to rain. But even that was different. Sitting at a coffee shop in Summertown with some friends, I was shocked to see the first real rainstorm since leaving America. The rain drops actually pelted, rather than spit.
For the past six months I’ve wondered how they do it – how they can survive winter after winter, gray after gray, and still be cheerful. But now I see, it is Spring’s fault.
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