Well...

Í'm still alive. Not really sick anymore either. Only 1 week to go.

Guess where I am?

Hi everyone. I am here safely in Oaxaca, living it up in a DSL-equipped internet cafe. So I arrived safely, settled into my house, and proceeded to analyze language. It's pretty fun work, but it's hard. We're busy almost all the time. When we have free time, we go on walks or come into Oaxaca City (we're living in a tiny village called Teotitlan del Valle) to use the internet. Like I'm doing now.

We lasted longer than last year as far as getting sick. Two of us got sick (myself included) on Thursday, but we're better now. The food is fabulous, the people are excellent like always, and the tapetes are calling my name. I'll probably purchase a couple from the people I'm living with.

Also, I tried homemade mezcal, and it didn't suck like mezcal usually does. I'll be bringing a bottle of that back for all you work people, because I promised.

Anyway, I'll keep in touch, but in the meantime, here's a little of what it's like here.

I'm off to Mexico

So I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back a-gain (3 weeks). I leave tomorrow morning from Oakland on air-shitty and I come back on August 7 on the same airline. I get in late, so no plans that weekend. It will be a lovely trip, and hopefully I won't get explosive bloody diarrhea. I'll be posting periodic updates here, and hopefully I'll be putting pictures of the trip on here, but I'm not positive. It all depends on how secure the computer labs are with their software (and how much Spanish Windows ME I can wade through).

Anyway... have a nice 3 weeks without me!

I just remembered this

The Goth Shop. I just remembered that this existed. The best line ever: "Circular, domelike case reminds us that Jesus is a lie."

Good stuff.

"gasms for men"

Yes, that's what the subject of a recent email was. It was for one of those herbal supplements that makes you shoot more of your... y'know.... stuff. The reason I'm posting this is because one particular "testimonial" caught my eye. It says this:

Geoffrey ---- 47, Male, UK
What you claim is wrong. My sperm volume didn't 
increase by 500%. It increased by ZILLION %

ZILLION %, thank god. Go Geoffrey!

Backgammon.

So as most of you (I mean both of you) know, I fancy a game of backgammon now and then. So because Mandy's not around to play right now, I've been playing on Yahoo Games a little excessively. I've been able to categorize the people who play there based on trends in the time of day that I play (which this week has been most hours).

Late at night (like after 1am), the Turks and other assorted middle easterners come on and play. Now, they speak the English most of the time, and are incredibly bitchy about their game. If they win, they gloat, and if they lose they quit. I think it's because the first backgammon board was pulled out of the sand or something out there (not racist).

Come the morning, it seems to change. We get the Americans, but they're all under the age of about 16. This is odd, considering backgammon is boring for most children. Now, these annoying little fuckers are aggressive about the way they play and almost always lose.

Throughout the evening though (no, I don't play at work), it's adult Americans and Europeans who are just waking up or who are up way too late. The Americans are probably the worst. They love to chat it up about boring shit. Honestly people, I don't give two shits about your personal lives. Small talk is the weapon of choice on these games, and it is so freaking boring. "So, what do you do?" "I'm an IT guy" "Oh, that sounds neat" "What about you?" "I'm an accountant" "Wow, that's super-exciting," and then the conversation dies.

I think my absolute favorite part of all this though is when people say that it's neat that I'm an IT guy.

Thank god Mandy comes home tonight. I can finally get my life back to normal and start sleeping!