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April 30, 2005
A Brief History of Rhyme
Astrophysicist / Gangsta Rapper Stephen "MC" Hawking's latest output: "What We Need More Of Is Science" = Best thing ever.
Watch "What We Need More Of Is Science"
Posted by houch at 07:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Bold, New City?
The more I think about politics, the less political I become. It's not out of fear. It's akin to watching a film like "Traffic." I don't want to do drugs after seeing that. After hearing the interview below, I just do want to DO politics.
http://www.jacksonsnextmayor.com/meltononkimwade.mp3
If that is the amount of political discourse we can expect from Jackson's next mayor, it will surely add a bit more to the slogan "Bold New City." Jokes aside, I'm appalled by that piece of audio. I literally think Jackson would be better off if Sherman had just burned it all. I'm willing to give up on the city's redemption.
But then again, I say all this with a post-segregation mindset. The racial venom of, say, my grandparents era might tone this down a bit. Certainly though, one could argue that hate gave way to this breakdown in civility.
I really don't know what I'm trying to say.
Posted by houch at 01:06 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 28, 2005
Jesus on the mainline
I was on a message board a few days ago. There were some ads accompanying the text. Evidently, some internet robot trolls the site and pulls up certain ads that pertain to certain text on the site. Here's what I found...
Dashboard Confessional
Official Site: News, Tour Info Merchandise, Web Board & more
www.dashboardconfessional.com
Suicide Thoughts?
Take this quick test to find answers.
www.GodTest.com
Suicide Surveys
We'll pay you $75 right now to complete a simple survey! (aff)
PaidSurveysOnline.com
Tried everything?
Try Jesus He comes through everytime!
aci.on.ca/~applesee
Seriously, you really ought to go to www.godtest.com
Posted by houch at 11:27 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
April 27, 2005
Europa
Let's recap since March 17...
These are the places where I have spent more than two hours (the unspoken, requisite time to have "visited" somewhere):
Edinburgh, Scotland
Stirling, Scotland
Inverness, Scotland
St. Andrews, Scotland
London, England
Paris, France
Aix-en-Provence, France
Rome, Italy
Florence, Italy
Zurich, Switzerland
Luzern, Switzerland
Munich, Germany
Salzburg, Austria
Vienna, Austria
Prague, Czech Republic
Berlin, Germany
Lund, Sweden
Stockholm, Sweden
Copenhagen, Denmark
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Brussels, Belgium
Nottingham, England
Jackson, Mississippi
Corinth, Mississippi
Oxford, Mississippi
See for yourself: Houch's Smugmug(Comments section is available and hoping)
13 countries in a little over a month. In no particular order, I'd like to thank Johnathan Keenan, Scottish cemeteries, that assclown wearing a suit in St. Andrews, Les Newsom, Maureen Rogers, Pastis (worst alcoholic drink ever), Franco, my travel book, the bastard who stole my travel book, Scottish people in Rome, Tobias and Job, Switzerland for sucking, Armin in Salzburg, stereotypically Australian guy who goes to Nottingham who I saw in Salzburg and we both recognized each other but didn't speak even though I was eating alone, the Sudbanhof, Danny Bracken, Zooey, Czech beer, the double whopper, free hostel breakfasts, Alec from Poland, Swedish girls everywhere, Christian Kjellvander (for standing in front of me the entire show, and being 6 feet, 5 inches tall, and being on a compilation CD that I unbeknowingly had), International Herald Tribune, the Eurail organization, the cream cheese danish, and train car toilets (the only place in Europe where bowel movements are free).
Furthermore, last week I realized in the past 365 days I have lived, for more than a month, in these places:
Jackson, Mississippi
Oxford, Mississippi
New York City, New York
Nottingham, England
Atlanta, Georgia (starting in June)
No wonder I have conflicting ideals - and am now rampantly consumed - with the idea of "home." It's probably because I don't have one.
In the next four and a half weeks, I have to research and compose multi-thousand word papers on the following:
- Film-watching as a theological task
- Theodor Adorno's critique of jazz and the culture industry
- New York City as a "Jewish" city
plus, a book review of "Everything is Illuminated"
If you happen to have any, say, 3000 word essays on the aforementioned, I'm willing to pay, just kidding. (No really - in cash, right now.)
Posted by houch at 11:18 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
April 26, 2005
Positively positive
A friend found this in the neighborhood near our campus here in Nottingham. I'll go on the record as "FOR" positive politics.
I'd also like to note that Palmer's is a popular women's lingerie store, present in all of German-speaking Europe. Nothing says scantily-clad women in German quite like me.
Posted by houch at 07:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Rush is right
The following is something Rush Limbaugh said the other day after Al Gore announced he was going to start a liberal media organization. He's really got his pulse on American youth. Especially the politically engaged.
When does he start up this stupid little network? August? Yip yip yip yahoo. You know what Gore said about this? It's going to be liberal. It's going to reflect the point of view of young people.
What the hell is that, Al? What the hell is the point of view of young people? Blow jobs, that's what they're doing out there. They're out there getting oral sex all day long, that's what they're talking about. That's the point of view they can't wait that your boss ...
Al made sure that's become the number one sport in high school today. So, I guess you're going to have a BJ network out there, Al, is that what you're going to do? You're going to call your network the oral sex channel out there, start competing with MTV?
Posted by houch at 07:13 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 21, 2005
Bad publicity?
This is the last paragraph in TIME's cover story on Ann Coulter...
The officialdom of punditry, so full of phonies and dullards, would suffer without her humor and fire. Which is not to say you don't want to shut her up occasionally. Not long ago, I went to church with Coulter—Redeemer Presbyterian, an evangelical congregation in Manhattan. The actor Ron Silver had also tagged along—Coulter brings lots of people to church, including, at one time, an ex who is Muslim. Pastor Timothy Keller spoke of the importance of allowing one's heart to be "melted by the sense of God's grace because of what he did on the cross for you." After he finished, I asked Coulter whether she had managed to convert her Muslim boyfriend. "No," she answered, her heart apparently not melted: "I was just happy he wasn't killing anyone." With that, she threw her head back and laughed.
Posted by houch at 11:36 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 18, 2005
May to August 1942
I don't know ho wn uch of this autobiographical stuff I have already scribbled. I don't have the pluck to read all that baggage. And I'm in danger tha tmore and more increasingly will I repeat myself. What is even worse, the facts and experiences may, must and will be differently told as regards the details.
No matter. It only proves that the events to which I return were important. In recalling we unconsciously prevaricate. This is obvious, and I say it only for the benefit of the most naive reader.
A frequent daydream and plan was a trip.
That could have happened, even quite easily. My poor four-year-old Iuo-Ya from the times of the Japanese war. I wrote her a dedication in Polish.
Painstakingly she tried to teach her dull pupil Chinese.
Of course, there ought to be institutes of oriental languages. Certainly, professors and lectures.
But everyone must spend ayear in such a village in the Orient, and pass such an introductory course under a four-year-old.
I was taught German by Erna. Walter and Frieda were already too old for that, already grammatical, influenced by novels, handbooks, schooling.
Dostoievsky says that in time all our dreams materialize, only in such a degenerated form that we don't recognize them. I can recognize those dreams of my pre-war years.
Not that I went to China but that China came to me. Chinese famine, Chinese orphan misery, Chinese mass and child mortality.
I don't want to pursue this subject. To describe someone else's pain is like stealing, preying upon misfortune, as if what he already had wasn't enough.
The first newmen and officials from America did not conceal their disappointment: it wasn't all that terrible. They were even looking for corpses, and in the orphanages, skeletons.
While they visited the Children's Home, the boys were playing soldiers. Paper caps and sticks.
"Apparently, the war hasn't upset them," said one, ironically.
"That's so now. But their appetites has increas and their nerves have become numb. Things are beginning to improve. Here and there even toys are to be seen in shops and plenty of candy, from a single pence to a whole zloty's worth.
"I saw with my own eyes: a small child scrounged up ten groszy by begging and then promptly spent it on candy."
"Don't write that in your paper, friend."
I once read: Nothing is easier than getting used to another's misfortune
- Janusz Korczak, "Warsaw Ghetto Memoirs"
I read that passage in a Subway shop with two grocery bags before meeting a friend for cookies and coffee in the library. And to think my "misfortune" was overpriced bananas, crumbs and a broken vending machine.
Posted by houch at 08:22 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
April 12, 2005
In the scandinavy
I'm a poor update, in general. This continent of web and text travels nowhere near as fast as the trains I now call my home. (The one from Berlin to Hamburg rolled me along at about 200 miles per hour...) Anywho, last update was Munich. That was too long ago. Salzburg and Vienna, Austia both ensued. I discovered Prague, perhaps the greatest city of them all, at least the real city of lights. A night in Berlin, followed by train and ferry to Sweden, where I made some new friends, who were really friends of a friend. We ate tacos and shrimp, drank beer and attended Swedish rock concerts. Now, after wandering the streets of Copenhagen, I wait for a night train to Amsterdam, where post-impressionism meets fountains modeled after penises.
Not all who wander are lost, I think Tolkien once said. Call it wanderlust.
Hey, I like this keyboard. Now I can properly spell Kierkegaard's first name, "Søren." That passes for excitement here in Copenhagen.
Posted by houch at 04:26 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Yes...
This is funny for a number of reasons, all of which I cannot divulge...
http://www.stoutonia.uwstout.edu/2004-2005/stories/041202/et_02.html
Posted by houch at 08:11 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
April 02, 2005
Munich münchen
I caved in.
About an hour ago I ate the first American fast food meal I can remember eating since I came to Europe in January. (This is excluding Subway, because I think in terms of culinary and dietary quality, one cannot lump it in with said "fast food.") The double whopper was worth it.
All in all, Switzerland was expensive and boring. Boring is what happens when you go to a mountain town on a cloudy day.
In a few minutes, I'll get on a train for Salzburg, searching for Mozart's muse. After that it's Vienna and Prague.
In unrelated news, my web site tracking software tells me that in the past month, people searching for these queries have somehow ended up on my site...
big breasts porn
the dog on thunder and houch
tattoed breasts
gospel song entitled shadow
dwarf porn
picture's of my chemical romance
Please tell me what happened.
Posted by houch at 01:23 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack