'Cus I'm only interesting in snippets...
About me:
* Seeker of the peace
* part time chandelier cleaner
* a legend in my own time
* oppressor of champions
* soldier of fortune
* world traveler
* all around good guy (good girl)
* international lover
* casual hero
* philosopher
* wars fucked
* beers wrestled
* equations solved
* virgins enlightened
* revolutions quelled
* tigers castrated
* orgies organized
* bar quaffed dry
* governments run
* test rockets flown
* life president of the liquitarian society Hawaii
life is a waste of time, time is a waste of life, get wasted all the time, and you’ll have the time of your life!
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Thoughts as I soar 10 billion miles above the ocean to San Fran:
During any other situation in my life I would laugh at a person in disdain if they attempted to unload such a pathetic little parcel of stale pretzels on me.
Put me in plane though and it is as if they have presented me with smack laced fruit of the gods. I become a crazed pretzel fiend devouring my bounty and licking the packaging as I savagely eye my neighbors salted cardboard pieces.
(Source: hawaiiansdonotblog)
Let me set the scene:
It is the 2014 summer olympics in Sochi, Russia.
A newcomer on the Olympic scene, Frank, approaches the diving board. He is decked out in his saggy speedos (only slightly concealed by his stately beer belly) and matching water wings.
With a bit of assistance from his coach he safely mounts the high board and stands for a few seconds with a zen-like calm. He then nods at the crowd for one last photo op before bouncing once, twice, three times… and OHHH he slips!!! He topples down and finally hits the water with the mother of all belly flops, complete soaking the judges with a tidal wave of water.
The judges all give Frank a big fat ZERO… except for France, who appears to have given him -6. Wasn’t aware that was possible.
Ok now picture my blog as Frank.
(Source: hawaiiansdonotblog)
I learned all the important stuff in life when I was a child
- Garbage bags make for pretty shitty parachutes.
- If you want something start by asking for something far more extravagant. Start with a Pony… end up with a kitten. Result.
- Nobody likes a tattle-tale. Your time will come.
- Bad words are the funnest ones to learn. (Language teachers this is an easy way to keep your students entertained)
- The dog is not a suitable Hide and Seek playmate. Fucker wins too often.
- VCRs do not eject Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches. Especially if you use crunchy peanut butter.
- Don’t nod on the phone.
- Grape juice + orange juice ≠ grapefruit juice.
- Fashion is wearing what you like. If that means wearing green dayglow tights, a checkered cowboy hat, a tutu and a slinky as a bracelet then so be it. Work it.
- Poo jokes are always funny… doesn’t matter what the situation is.
(Source: hawaiiansdonotblog)
The Origin of the childhood song ‘Ring Around the Rosie’
This nursery rhyme is often misattributed to the the ‘bubonic plague’. It sounds like such an interesting explanation that it is no surprise that this myth continues. I have often been told: “OH it’s all right there in the lyrics….”
That is an interesting notion which in itself kills the theory being as how there are NUMEROUS versions of the song that even with an acid filled pocket full of imagination couldn’t be linked back to disease.
The song was originally set down in print in 1881 in Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes. Now although these rhymes do get created and passed down through oral tradition, it would be ridiculous to expect such a rhyme to have been passed along for the 600+ years that would have been necessary for it to be about the “Black Death” without it ever popping up before and being noted as a popular rhyme. It would antedate Canterbury Tales and we would have seen Middle English ‘ring around the rosie’ rhymes, of which there are none.
On top of this, the symptoms described in the song do not fit with those of the Great Plague. A red mark was not a sign of the plague, so a ‘ring of rosie’ holds no connection. Secondly, bodies were not cremated in the time of the plague (‘ashes, ashes..’), that is a relatively recent practice.
“BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN THEN?” You ask?
Well setting aside the fact that putting meaning to a children’s rhyme is a rather ridiculous practice… the most likely origination they have come up with relates more to Dance then to Disease. There were dancing bans in the US as well as Britain amongst protestants in the eighteenth/nineteenth century. To get around this, adolecents would instead have “play-parties” where they frolicked around in circles without musical accompanyment.
More likely it’s just a bunch of nonsense invented to go along with a silly kid game. Kids understand that…. it’s only adults that feel the need to push forth some dark conspiracy.
Sum up what you love about traveling in 30 seconds, GO!
I was actually asked this question last night. The best answer I could give is this:
What I love most about traveling is that there is absolute no way to describe the joy it brings to me in under 30 seconds. What truly monotonous travels you must have if you can actually explain it to someone with such a concise amount of words?
So few words will never grasp the feeling you get when you first set foot on soil so foreign to everything you have ever known.
It can’t tell of that nervous energy that runs through you when you have to step up and provide for yourself in a country whose language sounds more akin to something that would come out of an aliens 4th mouth than anything you thought you would experience and have to tackle here on earth.
It can’t describe looking up and seeing ancient architecture whose wonders had only ever leapt out at you from the pages of a book, until this moment.
It can’t tell the stories you learn on the road from like minded people from every part of the globe that come together to shoot the shit with you over a pint of lager in the middle of nowhere/everywhere paradise.
All I can do in 30 seconds is tell you the name of a cheap airfare website and advise that you get out there and figure out your own joy of traveling.
(Source: hawaiiansdonotblog)
Are you an Atheist?
I don’t know about calling myself an atheist because I feel that once you start to label yourself and your beliefs that is when things start to go array.
I did try to give religion a look when I was younger because I was taught that you can never claim that something is not for you unless you at least give it a chance. I think my mum was just talking about eating my broccoli… so I am sure she was surprised when I decided to attend a few different churches with a few different friends.
I think the point where religion first lost me was the concept of hell. I can’t think of anyone I would throw into a fire for even 2 seconds, let alone for all eternity, no matter how bad they’d been and no matter how angry I was with them. In fact, we would be quite rightly morally outraged if anyone did any such thing. Torture for the purposes of punishment could never ever be justified. How much worse to inflict it for ETERNITY, and for ALL crimes, no matter how trivial?
Going by the same feeling though I refuse to hate someone for being religious.. because although I have MANY problems with the way religion has been used as a force to bring down those that are seen as different….. I want to believe that at it’s core there has to be a bit of love in it. I respect the need to feel connected and I think that is what religion has provided some people. I do wish those same people could take it more as a basis to just be kind to each other instead of a platform bigoted beliefs.
capeesh?
(Source: hawaiiansdonotblog)
The time of day where the whole world turns into a beautiful black and white movie. All you see are silhouettes of everything.
I love how simple everything seems…. all the harsh features of life are washed away.
An attempt to explain Donnie Darko:
I think the easiest way to explain Donnie Darko is to think of it in terms of say the movie ‘Groundhog Day’.
Donnie has been living his life in a loop similar to in Bill Murray’s film. THis concept is explained in a fake book out on the web called ‘The Philosophy of Time Travel’ which is written by the old woman in the movie.
You get a sense during the movie that the main characters almost know that they have experienced everything that is happening, before… not because of memories but because of feelings.
At the beginning of the film Donnie is laughing because he senses what has happened. He sense’s that he has been able to have cheated death in the previous time paradox… and lord knows how many times before.
It is not until he puts the artifact that should be in place in the future (where the loop starts and ends) back that he will be able to end this continuous loop.
The damning thing he realizes is that he is that artifact that will reset it. It is the only way that he can save Gretchen and end the loop. The only way he can end the loop is by being there when the piece of the airplane crashes into his bed.
Beautiful movie.
(Source: hawaiiansdonotblog)
Yeah it’s possible to fall for someone you have never met… I just suppose it depends how you define ‘falling for someone’. I think I fall in love 17 times a day visually. Kind of like how Russell Howard says every time he gets on a train something magical happens and he feels like running around singing ‘Will you be my wife’ chucking his pubes about and screaming ‘WIFE!!!’
… but that’s just visual (or me feeling randy and sexually frustrated).
When you have only ever met someone on the internet falling for them is purely a mental thing. (besides the odd photo or skype session set up in front of the perfect lighting in hopes that the person doesn’t notice your snaggle tooth or hunchback) You are able to build your interest in them without it just being in the distribution of pubes sort of way.
Of course there is the fact that on the internet you are not REALLY getting to know the real them.. you are only getting to know the little bit they let come across, and they can lie.
Unfortunately the same is true in real life isn’t it?
Just like love at first sight can only completely be realized when you have really got to know them… any sort of feelings for someone can’t really be cemented until you get to be with them face to face. That doesn’t mean a person hasn’t started falling though has it?
All that being said, it never worked out for me… it’s all shite…. go get a vibrator. Haha.
Before you recoil in horror, or attempt to set up your firing brigade, let me explain.
~Hold on a minute… I just need to set up my soap box… and there we go~
I am here today up on this incredibly attention seeking (and frankly poorly built.. I need to stop constructing these things whilst inebriated) soap box to defend my use of the word cunt.
When I let the word slip in mixed company I am sometimes informed that that term is offensive. Excuse me? To whom? Last time I checked my bits they were ALL lady… and they don’t appear to be horribly upset by this single syllable word. Actually my Vajajay seems a bit confused by the fact that someone (and more often than not a MALE someone) would think there is anything wrong with it’s nickname. Does my Vagina offend you in some way? Does it owe you money? Did it forget to return your playstation?
I was actually once told by a gentleman (and I use the term loosely) to PLEASE refrain from using that utterance in his presence. He requested that if I insist on it’s usage.. maybe I could just substitute the word ‘trout’ instead. TROUT??? Excuse me. My Vajajay just finally got offended. Sit down. And don’t you dare tell me again what is offensive to MY womanhood.
In the majority of the english speaking world (read The ‘English Common Wealth’) this is a far less ostracised piece of vocabulary. Perhaps this falls on the fact that it is not used as a purely female oriented word. It is used by men or women towards anyone… and often not in a bad connotation. In Australia you will hear multiple times in a pub a guy explaining to another guy: “AHHH he’s a good Cunt!” meaning nothing fouler than “I feel that that gentleman has some rather redeeming qualities!” Obviously, it is also used in a negative fashion… but brings forth no more animosity than the word ‘asshole’ or ‘dickhead’. It is not meant to put the feminist movement back a millennia.. it is just a handy (albeit vulgar) slang term.
But I embraced the word Cunt before I ever left these puritan shores.
I think I first decided that this was the word for me in Junior High when my best friend let me borrow a book. The book was called:
“In her first book, Muscio encourages women to reclaim the word “cunt”, rejecting its negative connotations and reincarnating it as a symbol of women’s power and strength. She invites women to disregard the derogatory messages they receive about their bodies and their womanhood: both “the anatomical jewel,” as she terms it, and the essence of femaleness.”
Muscio was not alone. There are many women that carry with them that now somewhat dreaded placard of “feminist” who refuse to let a word make them feel poorly about themselves. As if we are not strong enough, as if we are smart enough, as if we are not proud enough to realise that a word is just a word and it can never be used to hurt us unless we allow it to.
A word is just a word, but a CUNT is a cunt… and that’s pretty FUCKING great.
You are a virus of the mind masquerading as a human being.
The left side of my brain.
(Source: hawaiiansdonotblog)
Oh and I should note that the only “similar social collective identity” I have experienced was while travelling.
I did not find it within the borders of my country. I found it when I had finally broke those borders down and explored this big ol’ chunk of planet earth. I found it when I discovered that a person can build a tribe of like minded people based around this concept of being nomadic.
It’s not a new concept… but it is one that we seem to have lost for a while. It has regrown through a section of the population that totes bulky backpacks, smelling of the road and quickly discovering how great it is to not have to identify yourself with such a tiny set of kilometers.
Within minutes of meeting a person on the road it is as if I have always shared the same passport as them… even if our languages don’t match up. Quite often this feeling far overwhelms the ones I have felt back home.
So yeah.
I return to my corner.
(Source: hawaiiansdonotblog)
What’s happening in Libya is not acceptable and cannot be ignored.
The Qadhafi regime is turning helicopter gunships on it’s people. Snipers are taking down demonstrators in the street. This is not a civil war. This is a government brutalising it’s people to an exponential degree in a mad attempt to keep its evil system of control afloat. This is a massacre of a people seeking escape from a life that has become scarcely more than a continuous struggle for survival in a life void of rights.
Ignoring the events in Libya is justifying a murderer that has not JUST started playing this game recently but has been playing these homicidal tactics for decades.
People are risking their lives in Libya to get out what little news they can of what is happening to their people.
Do not let their attempts be in vain. Let them know that we are all behind them by spreading your outrage up to your governments. Make your politicians work for you in speaking out against Qadhafi’s regime.
“Travel advice?!?! What… from YOU???”
I get a lot of messages in my ‘Ask hole’ from followers looking for advice about traveling. The best advice I can give you is:
Just do it.
I ‘hmmmmed’ and ‘hummed’ about traveling for so long that it took approximately 3 gazillion years longer than it should have to kick my arse out the door into the great wide world. Stop thinking that you need to know everything before you get out there. I have been doing it for 3 years and only now do I finally accept that I know nothing. That is the best part.
You need to figure it out as you go. Traveling isn’t just about the pretty places you are going to see… it is (pardon the hippy bullshit that is soon to follow) about growing as a person. It is about learning who you are. It is about realising that you are going to be wrong 97% of the time. It is about learning from those mistakes.
I could tell you exactly what to do so that you become a cookie cutter image of the backpacker I am… but that would be largely a bunch of hot air. Every single traveller is different. From the weekend Jetsetter to the travel bum there are any number of right ways of traveling. Everyones right and everyones wrong.
You guys will need to get out there and see which one you are. You will need to get out there and fail and succeed… just do it in your own way.
JUST DO IT.
All that being said I have decided that I would like to write a little bit more about my travels. You guys can take this group of mind rubbish writings however you like:
- Another bit of friendly information you can add to the pile of travel books in the corner taunting you;
- motivation to go on a trip ‘round the world;
- motivation to crawl under your bed and whimper;
- some light reading;
- another thing clogging up your dashboard;
- OR the labyrinthine, sprawling… frankly psychotic thoughts of an attention seeking, self important blogger.
I think the first topic I am going to write about will be “THE BACKPACK” so expect that soon… you know… once I write it.
