Alright, i know i haven't written in months - there's so much i wanted to share, yet i told myself i wouldn't write anything else until i finished recounting my Israel trip. In the meantime, however, I wanted to share with you a blog that i recently discovered.

Beautiful photos and the content is great. This guy loves photography, bicycles, cars, shiny things, and consumption.

http://www.atimetoget.com/

Also, he used to like skateboarding - great pics and write-up about the halcyon days of 80’s youth skate culture.

http://www.atimetoget.com/2009/07/acid-drop.html

Dan kicks it in the Land of the Chosen People, Vol. III

I’m writing Volume III of this series as I sit in my aunt and uncle’s yard, with Tom, their delightful pooch, sitting at my feet. Tom is 7 years old, half German Shepherd, half Palestinian, and totally awesome. I, like you, had no idea that Palestinians had their own breed of dog. Interestingly, he was rescued from a shelter. There you have it, a Palestinian given shelter and love from a Jewish Israeli family. Tom also eats all the flowers in the yard and constantly tries to escape, but that kind of kills the analogy, so maybe disregard that. My uncle often refers to the dog as “Tembell”, which is the Hebrew word for “idiot”, I.e. “where’s the idiot now?“ But he says it with affection. Also, to be fair, the dog does seem a bit dim, but he’s happy enough - mostly because he seems, like many dogs, to be skilled at licking his genitals.

By the fourth night, the cabin fever one gets on any family vacation was beginning to set in. My mom’s constant corrections to my Hebrew and reminders to dress warmly, and inquiries as to whether or not I might need some more sunblock were beginning to take their toll. Luckily, that night I was meeting up with Craig, a Canadian buddy who was based in Tel Aviv, for a much needed night of hijinks amongst the clubs and watering holes of that city. “Craig”, whose real name, for security purposes and his insistence on maintaining a “zero online footprint“, shall not grace the pages of this blog, was halfway through a 3-year posting in Tel Aviv. There are few places more inviting than Tel Aviv for a North American single guy, and Craig seemed to be enjoying himself. The evidence of this was perfectly encapsulated by noting the entire contents of his fridge, which consisted of one bottle of beer. That said a lot, I thought. At least someone was doing it right. So we had a fun night out in Tel Aviv, club hopping and meeting the locals, and after a late night and crashing on the couch, Craig dropped me back off in suburban bliss the next morning.

Coming up in volume IV, my sister’s arrival, Jerusalem, and Druze villages…

Dan kicks it in the Land of the Chosen People, Vol. II

I landed in Tel Aviv, and got to my aunt and uncle’s home in Even Yehuda, a town about 30 minutes north of Tel Aviv.

Talk to anyone who has the opportunity to regularly visit Israel, and one of the first things they remark is how impressed they are with the ceaseless construction of new buildings and public works throughout the country - and how this continued campaign of building and urbanization so visibly changes the landscape of the country from year to year. It’s exciting to see, especially considering the dire state of the global economy and the violent regional conflict that continues to threaten the country’s very existence. For sure, Israel has definitely been affected by the depressed global economy, but it‘s not nearly as bad as it is in North America. For starters, the unemployment rate here is still fairly low, at least compared to the epidemic levels of job losses and housing foreclosures in North America. On the other hand, it’s not all roses over here: I can’t remember, for instance, the last time a disgruntled Mexican fired a crude rocket into the backyard of a homemaker in San Antonio, Texas.

My first full day in Israel, I headed with my folks to Tel Aviv and Jaffa, the old city that predates modern Tel Aviv by about 2500 years, if not more. Before I continue, please note that 1) I’m actually going to try to limit my mention of touristy things and information, because that stuff is kind of a given on this trip - Israel is full of important historical shit, and you should buy a book about it, rather than read this blog - actually, you should do both. 2) in the event that I do drop some facts on you about the historical things we did / visited, count on my explanations being either partially or wholly inaccurate - that’s what Wikipedia is for, or maybe a book of facts like the encyclopedia Britannica or a Farmer’s Almanac or a Bathroom Reader.

Having said all that: Jaffa is an old city located within Tel Aviv, and it was an important port in ancient times, used by the Romans, the Mexicans, and Scots, during the time of beaver trapping and the spice trade. It’s more of a town than a city, actually, because it only spans about 4-5 blocks, but the ancient architecture was pretty sweet.

We spent an afternoon walking around the place, and ended our visit with a tasty meal at a restaurant overlooking the mediterranean. After lunch, we walked around Nev Tzedek, kind of like Soho or the Plateau of Tel Aviv: it was a trendy neighborhood where hipsters and artists were slowly being run out by young families and well-to-do yuppies. Luckily, for all the coffee shops in the area, there wasn't a Starbucks in sight - so all was not lost.

Dan kicks it in the Land of the Chosen People, Vol. I

Gordie enjoyed talking on his cell phone. Gordie’s full name was actually Gordie Blackberry, Toronto Businessman Hockey Superfan (or GBTBHS for short). I assigned him his nickname 5 minutes after he got to his seat, 2 rows behind mine, on our Toronto-bound plane. Social etiquette is pretty clear on rules for chatting on a cell phone while in a crowded and confined public space: you don’t do it. If you’re already on your phone when you get to such a space, you finish the conversation and hang up.

But Gordie was a champ, not a quitter. Even after all the passengers were seated and ready for take-off, Gordie went on yapping for another 10 minutes - and just to be clear, he was not phoning in the instructions for emergency quadruple bypass heart surgery. Instead, here was a quick snippet of his conversation: “Sure, Colleen, I know the ref made a lousy call, but that’s hockey, y’know? He’s got 3 more games to play and we’re gonna focus on those.” Really, guy who is obviously from Toronto, still talking on his cell phone as if the passengers unluckily strapped in next to you can’t hear your drivel, is that how you feel about your son’s most recent pee wee hockey game (I‘m assuming it‘s your son‘s game - because if it‘s your own , beer league game that you‘re talking about, and you look like you’re - what - in your late forties, then that’s pretty gay. On the other hand, if you’re talking about an NHL game you caught on TV, that’s actually pathetic.)? No one on the plane wants to hear your ceaseless gum-flapping - so turn off your phone, jackass.

I didn’t actually tell Gordie any of this, obviously, but I did secretly hope the stewardess would suddenly lose control of her beverage cart and that the runaway cart might nail Gordie in the legs, and maybe even dislocate his knee. But that did not happen, and in the end I was glad. Not even GBTBHS deserved such a fate. Instead, I thought how cool it would be if his blackberry endured a direct hit of lightinging such that the phone would melt and fuse permanently to his face. He would be a mutant superhero - or maybe just a guy who would forever regret talking so much on his cell phone.

GBTBHS was the first thing worth writing about on my flight to Israel. He was actually on my flight from Montreal / Toronto, after which I would connect to Tel Aviv. My layover in Toronto was 3.5 hours, which would normally be brutal if I hadn’t been so lucky to have scored a pass into the Air Canada VIP lounge. Nothing really cuts the boredom of waiting for a flight - or the agitation of dealing with ass-hat fellow passengers - like complementary wine, cheese, and wifi.

I know what you want to ask, so I’ll spare you the awkwardness and go ahead and answer your question preemptively: Yes, it is totally acceptable to surf for porn in an airport VIP lounge, but - and this is key - you need to have a glass of wine in your hand while you’re doing it. Seriously, beer won’t do it - it’s just not classy enough. Whiskey in a highball is just old man-creepy. But wine works. I can’t explain it but holding a glass of wine cuts through the perversity of the act of leering at internet smut like a hot knife through butter. Go ahead, try it in your own, shared dwelling - the exchange with your roommate or Significant Other should go something like this:

Roommate/Significant Other: Hey - are you looking at porn right now?

You: -glug, glug, glug- I am indeed. There are some excellent things featured on Youporn today.

R/SO: That’s disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself. Wait - are you drinking wine?

You: It’s a Shiraz. Kendall Jackson, actually. Go grab some, I’ve opened a bottle in the kitchen

R/SO: Oh….Actually I think I will if you don‘t mind.

You: sure, go for it, and please knock next time.

And…SCENE.

Enjoying a glass of wine - and not, I will emphasize, a whole bottle (as drinking a bottle by yourself suggests a distinct lack of self control, which would dovetail nicely into the scenario of you looking at online porno in the first place) - really shows you to be a connoisseur of the finer things - a patron of the arts of your choosing, if you will. If having a glass of wine while admiring the nude bathers depicted in a Monet painting is so right, then why is enjoying a glass of pinot noir while taking in a viewing of “2 girls, 1 cup” so wrong? Exactly.

I feel like I may have digressed a bit here. I'll talk about Israel in my next post.

It's official, we need to start relying less on foreign oil.

http://jalopnik.com/5105716/dubai-prince-gifts-island-to-michael-schumacher

Mexican Adventure, Part III: Scuba: not a sport, but fun nonetheless

Poolside cheeseburgers and shameless gorging aside, our main activity in Cozumel was Scuba diving, which we did over two days. My first day was spent alone with an instructor, as I needed to complete two more beach-based dives for my certification. Luis, my instructor, was a young, cheerful bloke who was passionate about diving and was actually an ex-semi-pro surfer as well, so we had a lot to talk about. He was very impressed with the surfing-specific wetsuit I had brought from home, but I didn't have the heart to tell Luis that the suit was in no way an accurate indicator of my actual surfing ability.

So while I spent my first two dives off of the beach on the first day of scuba, Crystal, already certified, went off on the boat with 5 other divers, where they had hit the jackpot: no sooner had their boat reached their designated dive spot and floated to a halt, that half a dozen dolphins started leaping out of the water, mere feet away from the boat. The group's dive master had begun to go through their plans for the first morning's dive, but when he spotted the dolphins - an extremely rare sighting - the dive master went bananas. He was so excited by leaping dolphins that he ditched his dive safety speech and yelled for everyone to dive in the water, lest they miss the Vegas-grade show. They dove in, and had a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Meanwhile, I was stuck on the beach, practicing breathing exercises and talking about my awesome wetsuit with Luis.

The second day's dive was none too shabby. I finally joined the rest of the divers aboard the boat, and we did see some terrific sea life: beautiful reefs, colorful fish, and one giant lobster. One fish in particular had me chuckling throughout my dive: it was scaled with a diamond pattern, and in the undersea light, the coloring of its scales had a distinctly 1970's bachelor pad, rompus room motif: subdued reds, burnt oranges and yellows, and shimmering quartz. I figured if any fish would evolve to have chest hair and drive a Corvette, it would be this one. I called it the Leisure Fish. I imagined it inviting other fish couples to it's little reef, and after some tasty krill cocktails, they would switch swimming partners at the end of their soiree. It's amazing what oxygen deprivation can do to the mind.

The diving really was good fun. When you finally learn to control your movements and maintain neutral buoyancy, it does feel like you're floating in zero gravity, and it's obviously a treat seeing the fish and other creatures in their natural habitat.

I think scuba is one of those activities that some die-hard devotees will insist is a sport, and not a mere activity. After my admittedly short stint underwater, I can now prove these people dead wrong. Any activity where an obese, 350 lb Texan can seem more graceful underwater than a healthy, physically active 175 lb. man, is not a sport. While I was struggling to maintain buoyancy and constantly adjusting my breathing and weights, the big Texan, one of the other clients in our boat and a seasoned diver, floated through the murky depths with the grace and agility of a shark. It was impressive. Back on land, of course, this husky gentleman moved with the typical, deliberate gait of a man who was trapped in his own cell of corpulence. I know it's a harsh observation, but I'm just saying I can understand why bigger people love Scuba.

Mexican Adventure, Part II

The Park Royal in Cozumel fulfilled its promise to us of affordable pampering amid a mildly ethnic backdrop. The lobby, the showpiece of any resort worth its complementary pillow mint, was impressive, dominated by an enormous, Mayan-style straw canopy. That roof, probably at least 50 feet tall, was impressive. It was, clearly, a nod to the cultural past of the region. It also had me wondering how much “Mayan” was left in the local sensibility. Were human sacrifices really a thing of the past? How was justice meted out​? If, for instance, the management caught me stealing the cashews from the mini-bar how would i be dealt with? would I be ritualistically filleted and offered to the Mayan sun god? I decided it best to stick to the complementary buffet.

Ah yes, the buffet: the anchor that holds together the glue for the gears of an all-inclusive resort. I realize I just mixed and mangled a bunch of metaphors there, but such a mixture of descriptors is the best way to describe the bottomless smorgasbord available to us. There was just so much food.

The beauty of the all-inclusive resort is you can eat whatever and whenever you want. It took me a few meals – or “sessions” as I liked to call them – to realize that I could bring bizarrely assembled plates of food back to my table, and the waiters would not judge me. That is a key difference between a buffet layout and a proper, sit-down establishment. Just try piling on your own, brought-from-home chipotle sauce on your "steak frites" at your local French bistro, and your snooty French waiter will shoot eye-daggers at you until you cease and desist such nonsense.

At this resort buffet, conversely, there were no such restrictions. I ended up trying to see how many different foods I could smother in guacamole, and I found the sky was the limit. Guacamole soon became a sort of all-purpose lubricant, not unlike WD-40, that could help me transition from one food type to the next. Indeed, nothing quite diffuses the acidity of a citrus salad and readies the palette for seafood pallella like a generous helping of guacamole.

But the dining bonanza did not end at the restaurant. Instead, it reached it's climax when we learned, on day 3 of our stay, that it was actually possible to order a cheeseburger, nachos, and a lime daquiri (full disclosure: 6 lime daquiris) without ever having to exit the hotel pool. In fact, I soon discovered there was no reason to leave the pool at all, as after daquiri #5, I decided that the closest urinal, located in the restroom 50 meters away from where I was floating, was simply too far, and that the chlorinated pool would do just fine, thank you. I'm not proud of this, but let's be honest: pride goes straight out the window when you order that first poolside cheeseburger. Indeed, the Park Royal had us in it's lime-flavoured, death-grip of sloth, and we were only too happy to comply.

If you'll forgive the random analogy, our all-inclusive resort experience reminded me of Kobe beef. This is the Japanese beef that is coveted for it's unrivaled tenderness and rich flavor. The secret to Kobe beef's deliciousness is in how the cows are treated: in short, they are treated exactly like guests at an all-inclusive resort: The cows are raised on a steady regimen of plentiful, delicious food, beer (yes, beer) and are encouraged to do as little exercise as possible, so as to keep their muscles soft and tender. Complementary massages are also part of the deal. Sound familiar? Let's not forget the mandatory wearing of colored bracelets within the resort, akin to being tagged like animals under observation. Still, did I mention how good that guacamole was?

Coming in Part III: Scuba Diving

Mexican Adventure, Part 1

I've never been one for beach vacations. There are countless other holiday options that pose more attractive than the prospect of spending a week in the hot sun, splayed out on the sand like a beached whale, exposing my near-translucent epidermis to the sun's unkind gaze. Having said that, I believe such a holiday to be a rite of passage for the upwardly mobile North American – just as it is standard, office cubicle procedure for said North American to have photos of such a vacation festooning one's office cubicle.

So, with my main motivator being to upgrade my office décor from motivational poster purgatory to a collage of idyllic beach shots and candid photos of me and my girlfriend sipping on fruity bowls of booze, last week we embarked on a 9-day trip to Mexico, where we'd travel through the Mayan Riviera and a good chunk of the Yucatan Peninsula.

Things got off to an inauspicious start on the night of our trip. Flights to Mexico out of Montreal had become increasingly expensive in comparison to flying there from other cities in the Northeast, so we opted to fly down to Cancun from Boston. Our flight would be at 10am, a sensible hour...if you live in Boston. We threw logic to the wind, however, and decided to drive down to Boston from Montreal at 2am on Friday night/Saturday morning, after we had both logged full days of work, a brisket dinner at my grandmother's house, and farewell drinks earlier that night.

The obvious downside to this idiotic travel plan was that, despite having the equivalent of Red Bull intravenous drips attached to both our arms, my girlfriend and I were both dangerously exhausted for most of the 5 hour ride. The upside, of course, would be a cheap flight out of Boston, and repeated moose sightings throughout our drive down. The reality of this last advantage, of course, was that there weren't any actual moose spotted, but rather the delirium of our shared fatigue had manifested itself into hallucinatory wildlife sightings. Indeed, by hour 4 of the drive, we had counted 5 moose, 2 jackalopes, and, curiously, a polar bear riding a pteradactyl. Thanks, Red Bull.

After a couple of flights and layovers, we finally landed in Cancun. From there, we cabbed to Playa del Carmen, and from there we caught the ferry over to Cozumel, where we would stay at the Park Royal all-inclusive resort.

When I think of Cancun and the surrounding beach side towns, I think of drunken Americans and Canadians, making asses of themselves in impossibly large hats. I doubted I could confirm the validity of this stereotype, as it was still the low season and the boozing gringos had not yet invaded en masse. Fortune smiled upon us, however, because as we waited for the ferry in Playa del Carmen, we did spot one not-so-elusive North American boozer: easily visible through the large, open windows of the legendary Senor Frogs nightclub, our specimen was the size of a Macy's parade-float, hoisting a colorful glass not much smaller than the telescope I received for my Bar Mitzvah, standing on a chair and singing along to the Britney Spears tune that was playing in the club; a true bon-vivant, this guy. As I watched him gyrate and air-guitar his way to glory, I knew that Brad (i decided to name him Brad) and I were on divergent paths for the night; within 2 hours I would likely be fast asleep in my hotel room, and this bro would likely be vomiting into his sombrero. Vaya con Dios, Brad.

Coming soon in Part II: tales of pool abuse and Kobe beef

Non-lethal technology…OLÉ!

If you’re sitting in the waiting room at the dentist’s office, thumbing through old copies of Popular Science, you will quickly learn 2 things: 1) If you agree to send a certified cheque (or money order) to a P.O. box in Akron, Ohio, it is apparently possible to build your own, totally safe, working jetpack for $399, and 2) for decades, governments and private defense contractors have been hot on the trails of developing various, futuristic, non-lethal weapons. These are weapons whose use would, when put in the hands of trained military and law enforcement officers, greatly reduce the number of casualties on the battlefield and on North American city streets.

There have been lots of different weapons explored, and each of them, if you`ll excuse the cliché, have less in common with science than with science fiction: You've got your standard stun guns, your laser guns, your immobilizing goop, your heat rays, and, my favourite, the nausea ray. This last one is not really a ray and more so just a powerful flash bulb that, when pointed at an assailant, will temporarily blind him or her, induce vertigo, and, if all goes according to the $1-million plan, will make them immediately vomit on the spot. To be fair, such a device sounds more like the product of the ultimate prank machine than a battle-tested alternative to a taser gun or rubber-bullets (what’s next, the nuclear powered whoopee cushion?). Having said that, I guess a ‘perp’ blowing chunks is a perp who is easily subdued, and that’s what counts in these things.

I thought of the puke ray last night as I struggled to make my way through the tapas I had ordered at a local Spanish restaurant. I don't want to be sued for slander, so I won't mention the restaurant's name, suffice it to say it was called Red Room, in Spanish. Fuck it, it was Sala Rosa on St. Laurent boulevard. I was out for dinner with a friend, and I had recommended the place based on a previous, positive dining experience. We ordered 5 tapas, which included chorizo (greasy), calmari(simultaneously rubbery and soggy), rappini(so-so but not terrible), tortilla (quite good), and sardines (horrible!). The plates all came at once, which I appreciated, as it feels like you have the whole meal gauntlet laid out in front of you, and you can plan your food assault accordingly.

Things had started out well enough as I took bites from all 5 dishes. It was around the time I took a second bite out of the sardines, however, that it felt like someone had zapped me with a puke ray. It wasn’t only nausea that I felt, but a brief sense of incapacitation. I was in mid-sentence and then I just froze: as if the puke ray was hunting me and I believed it would leave me be if I remained motionless. My dining companion immediately sensed my discomfort, especially because I had stopped speaking, mid-sentence. “shit, are you gonna puke or something?” she asked. “No,” I assured her, as I took deep breaths (those familiar deep breaths tantamount to puking). Sure enough, seconds later, I was fine again. I had lost my appetite, but the compulsion to blow chunks had completely subsided. Sure, it could just have been the sardines. Indeed, they were disgusting enough to have had such an effect. But then how did I recover so quickly? It was a puke ray, my friends. Trust no one.


FS

"In Russia, zero gravity weightlessness adapt to YOU!"

Unbelievable pictures of the Russian Space program. Are we ready to admit that they've pretty much spanked us in the Space Race?


http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/the_baikonur_cosmodrome.html#photo6

When you see these photos, it's not hard to understand how those wretched, commie-era bread lines were a harsh reality for tens of millions of Soviets - all the badly-needed money and resources were pissed away to the glorious cosmos!

What a bunch of a-holes.

FS