great day

Massively successful day today! I managed to (in no order):
do laundry
wake up in time
make lunch
clean the house
play with Beyonce and Amy
work a solid 8 hours in the field diggin holes
buy essentials (and nothing else*)



and now it is time to relax and it is only 6:30.

How was your day?

and i wore the above shirt today!

*ok fine i bought some sweat pants i didn't need.

one of the most important things about my time in the world was that no one would ever be able to emulate me. well----- it turns out that that isn't true. sometimes you have to JUST brush your teeth. (in the words of bob dylan, "sometimes even the president of the united states of America just has to stand stand naked" that's a lot like REAL life. but not too much like REAL LIFE. sometimes things matter, and sometimes they do not.

post

so this weekend i'm going with some friends to…. north. my final stop in africa will be Nairobi, Kenza. the CS host that we are staying with hasn't seen his mom in 6 years, so we're going to drive up there with him and his oldest child.

i guess the point of this post is to let people know that i'm going on a road trip in Africa. hell yeah!

hopefuly i can see:

some sweet lions

Olduvai Gorge

the Serengeti/Masai Mara

Mombasa

an island

hopefully i can do:

buy an AK

sleep out under the stars (ontop of the van maybe?)

i'll put some pictures up when i can. this will be the last post for a while, but that isn't news is it?

a good one. lots of reading for you to do.

i've just read two of the greatest books of all time. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and On the Road. One of them is more relevant to my current path, or road you could say, but i'll let you guess which one. both however are brilliant. i'm happy to think that my travels across malaysia and australia can be linked in my mind to reading On the Road (row-add. hehe) on trains. and reading Fear and Loathing during the quiet days leading up to the reunification of myself and Dr. Mabeuf before the glorious World Cup. that sounds like a good way to remember things.
both books have put me in very exploratory mind sets. i'm ready and willing for whatever gets chucked at me. i'll dodge, dip, duck, dive and dodge my way clear of any obstacle. in fact- nothing frightens me. i've overcome obstacles within and from without. there is one nagging feeling however, and it is that all this will end. i know i know. i should just tell myself that there is no end! there is only another adventure. but i know two lives. the life i've had on the road for the past year or so and the life i had NOT on the road. when was i happiest? well, if you exclude drinking beer and playing video games with Malcolm on my lap, then yes, on the road wins. but a winner doesn't necessarily leave a loser. life back in the states was great, friends, money, security, dependability, and predictable weather. not bad traits at all.

i usually make fun of backpackers that keep books with them. certainly rob's obsession with his 9 hardbacks is a little crazy. but- these two light weight paperback beauties deserve a second reading, if not more. and maybe someday i'll meet someone who needs to read them. they were both hard to find at reasonable prices, but i managed. Fear and Loathing is NOT something you can pick up at a second hand store (and certainly not in Malaysia). so maybe i'll hold on to these two bad boys. any suggestions on follow up books? maybe catch-22 or something in that vein.



le sigh. maybe i'll just partake of some either and go listen to a wild bop cat blow his horn.
...oh god! the books have taken over!



Pretoria is nice. a little boring, but that is my fault no doubt. i didn't really plan anything beyond my flight here. sure i have a couchsurfing(.org) host to stay with, and a hotel with friends after that. but Beuf and i will be in deep shit when the 24th hits. unless it just works out. which of course it always does. Pretoria is working out, but it is a little dull. again, i could have planned a million things to do, but it is harder to do that now than i thought it would be. this brings me to a huge point.

travel = waiting.

that might be the biggest epiphany of the whole damn thing. sure, sometimes it means waiting in exotic places for exotic people and trains and food you've never seen. but sometimes it means boring. NO- not boring! just waiting. waiting can be good. i've learned to except it and not rush it. being impatient while waiting is a recipe for disaster. i'd rather get dropped into a random city in the world with only a twenty dollar bill than look back on a stretch of time and realize that i was rushing the waiting process. nothing good comes from doing everything at once. the only way to make this trip last is to stretch it out. to WAIT for events to unfold. similar to delayed gratification. this is delayed gratification squared. not only do you delay the specific action- you delay the event that IS the action, thus allowing the time in between the NOW and THEN to happen at a leisurely pace wherein waiting is the main activity. the pros of this system are clear: no money is burned. time seems to stretch on. the cons of course are: slight boredom. envy of those with less time and more money.

yes. less time. they squeeze everything in and every moment is a stupid sunset. but they've played their hand! ah ha! neverland only exists because the clocks don't work! captain Hook broke them all. (in this metaphor captain hook is either boredom or waiting. i don't know which. ask my attorney.) if you can't handle that, then you have to grow up! and people keep asking me, especially lately, now that my "sean sees the WORLD" title has more meaning and is more active geographically, "sean- how do you do it?!"

simple.
1. don't grow up
2. have an innate affinity for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. be able to live on less than you think you can live on a day
3. don't buy junk
4. (i wish i knew this one when i started) don't spend a thin dime your first month. get acclimated to your new life as a vagabond
5. couchsurfing.org. not only for the places to stay, but for the things you'll do and the people you'll meet. mostly those
6. travel light. you don't need all that crap
7. get used to waiting
8. wine is cheaper than beer.
9. write about every day
10. "don't take any guff from those swine"

there are more rules that i live by. rules. i guess. maybe just guidelines to be remembered when i'm feeling preachy. maybe i'll compile a list, a comprehensive list someday. but until then, you'll just have to watch in awe. or better yet, come join me. it isn't really that hard.

Top ten things I will miss about New Zealand - 10

Here they are folks, in no particular order, the top 10 things I will miss about NZ.

Number 10-

The Haka.
Nothing strikes fear into the heart of foes like a real Haka. The best thing about it is how much respect it gets. Anywhere in the world you find yourself, the Haka is respected by fans, players and especially the All Blacks* themselves.
Being in a bar with Kiwis, in NZ to watch the All Blacks play was a special feeling.

More on Māori culture here here and here.

Stay tuned tomorrow for number 9.


*I saw my favorite AB coming out of a comic book shop in Wellington. It was so cool. He also walked through my pub one Thursday night. I was covering the bar for a friend who was smoking ( I was on the piss ) and these three guys walked by. Turns out they were All Blacks. I would have let them drink for free all night if I would have known. But oh well. Any New Zealander in America would have made the same mistake if Kobe, Peyton and Derek Jeter walked by. I also saw him play the Highlanders the next night. I tried to get his autograph, but he was to busy being a bad mofo for that.

i miss video games. here's why:

Command & Conquer
This was the first time in my life I cared about a story more than I cared about myself*, or my own story. I hated NOD and Kane. I knew that my mammoth tanks were the ultimate force on the battlefield and I trusted them more than I trusted most things in real life. Spin me around 1000 times and I can still beat the first 3 levels without losing a single rifleman. In subsequent releases they've tried to capture the same feeling, and I think they might have done it a few times, but I had grown older, like Wendy in the Hook movie, I had grown older. You can't fall in love for the first time again. I already cleared that level. I already got that one Tetris piece I needed to drop.

Heavy Gear
HG inspired me more than any other game ever has. I used to draw gears on my school books and my homework. It was a great game. Live action cut scenes and badass mechs? Sign me up. I played the hell out of this non-linear and customizable game.

Half-Life
Where to start? This game defined a generation (and is still doing so) of games. It did for games what The Dark Knight Returns did for comics. It made them adult. Edgy. More than a stupid little spaceship blowing up asteroids. This game put you in the role of Gordon Freeman. Gordon. My friend. My alter ego. Gordon and I were a team, I would protect his every ounce of health because it was my own health. Sometimes I would end the game with 95% of my ammo. Why? Because I didn't want to waste it. I said earlier that you can't fall in love for the first time again, but HL is a different kind of love. Not so ephemeral. Permanent and epic. That game made me laugh, cry and tremor.

Half-Life 2
When your favorite band comes out with a shitty 3rd album, that hurts. But when they deliver the goods, that is a special feeling. You know that you've put your heart soul and trust into a group of people that can be trusted with it. This game invented new technology. And the story??? Really? The story is more than my being is. Ask Andrew. I had a $100 bill on my wall for months. MONTHS! Just waiting for the delays and bullshit to be over so I could go and buy this game at midnight. And I did. With rabbit and Sam. Then I took the game home and played it for 24 hours straight, skipping work and class. Then I passed out only to wake up and start again. Ask Andrew.

Team Fortress (HL mod)
This was big. I remember like it was yesterday the night that Hart and I finally got to play Team Fortress online for the first time. It was free. It was against other people. Online. *WE* were playing online against other people. Hart's mom had a 28k modem and that was faster than my Dad's 26.4k. It was amazing. I'll never forget that.

CS** (HL mod)
I played Counter-Strike professionally while I dabbled in college. cs_assault is my favorite map. Including real maps. If you don't think I have the balls to come off the bridge and into the big door, then you're about to get some lead in your head.

Final Fantasy Tactics
I spent at least two summers in high school playing this game. My friends were experimenting with girls and beer, but I was playing FF Tactics***. I don't know for how long, because it stopped counting your hours at 99:99:59. So that's 100 hours. And god knows how many saved games I had. This game really formed my near-superhuman ability to save my games. I can save hit the quicksave button faster than I can remember how old I am.

Neverwinter Nights
The frozen north.
"RAGE OF THE RED TIGER!!"

Warhammer Age of Reckoning (WAR)
I tried other MMOs before, but nothing grabbed me like WAR. It was adult and it was badfuckingass. It was also big because I was trying to save money, and not go out, so I just paid $12 a month and didn't need to leave my room. This game saved me so much money, not to mention that it is to WoW as Zima is to a four horseman. They'll both do the job, but one of them will take your wallet after you pass out. And Zima is for little kids. Besides, my Chosen was fucking badass. I could tank that bitch-ass boss all day long. This MMO made me really care about titles, armor, guilds and all that. Not to mention that I got to play it with my broseph, drujo.

Watching video games
I love to watch people play video games. It relaxes me. Hart and Dru could never get why I felt like that, but they're bros, so they went along with it. Happy, no doubt, to have the controller in their hands. Watching Dru play CS was my college education. Watching Hart play Twisted Metal or Zelda, or Resident Evil was my adolescence. I miss that a lot. Almost as much as I miss being Gordon.

Runners Up:
Empire: Total War (one turn could last an hour)
Killer Instinct (first console game I owned)
Goldeneye 007 (duh)
Chuck Rock (that's for you Josephine)
Deus Ex ("I spill my drink!")

....what did i miss?... something for sure....


Video games are one of the things I really miss. My life in the states always had video games. Here it is a lot harder. They are expensive, and downloading games is almost out of the question. Not to mention that I don't have my desktop computer to run them on. My desktop machine was always my first priority. I didn't want a car, I didn't want to save my baby pictures from a fire, it was always time and money that could go into my next video card. My mac laptop will cut your face off, but it can't run some things at all, and other just not good enough. But, it is just temporary. I'll be a gamer for life. Plenty of time to run through all these games a few more times.




*that's not actually true. The Tick comic books deserve at least a tie in that role. I realized that my sense of humor was being forged with every new comic I read.
**this link and the team fortress one are kinda vague. the versions of these games that i played are so out of date that an advanced google search is required, and I'll leave that to you. i just wanted to show an overview.
*** worth it!

A few notes on hostels.

They can be great places to live, or they can suck. Just like anything else. Here are a few general hostel tips.

- free internet. it isn't hard or expensive to offer free internet, but old timers don't get that. I will almost never stay somewhere that doesn't have free internet, or internet I can steal.
- you'll never find anything worth while in the free food basket, but don't stop looking. i've heard of people finding good cheese and bread!
- bottom bunk. just bottom bunk. bottom bunk. bottom bunk. bottom bunk. bottom bunk. bottom bunk. bottom bunk. bottom bunk. bottom bunk. bottom bunk.
- rip any CDs (or DVDs if you can) that you find laying around. you never know when you'll get a gem
- parking is usually a bitch.
- just say that you're staying for a night, and maybe more, that way if the place sucks you can just leave after one night.
- learn German. everyone will be German
- notice what tone the signs on the walls have. are they too 'big brother' or are the adverts about free food and activities?
- the location in the city doesn't mean anything, walking is just another part of traveling life
- do they offer accommodation in exchange for work? do it.
- make dinner early, the busiest time in a hostel is dinner time, when dozens of people you've never seen come home from work to make elaborate meals that use 4 burners and the oven.
- the more people are already in bed when you goto sleep, the fewer people you have to listen to when they come in and wake you up to goto sleep.
- never buy tea bags, they are always free and plentiful in hostels
-never reach excitedly for a book on the 'take one leave one' shelf. if you do, it will be in German. approach it as if you don't care what language it is in, and that you've already read it a few times, but want to see what this version's cover illustration looks like

lots of things

most importantly, i just got home from hanging out with JT for the first time since october 06.
he's living the life in the dorf, in case you are incapable of reading sidebars.

lots of things came from tonight:

1. he listened to my request for a Batman comic in german. i am now the proud owner of "Der Batman". pictures/scans to come soon, i fucking promise. I'm sure he had dozens of people request things from Germany, and to be thought of is very nice.
2. i'm so jealous. the things he talks about remind me of my best times. just a normal day to him is equivalent to a vacation to me. i'm sure that the newness wears off, but i would like to live my vacations for my regular days, even if they don't seem so spectacular to him after over a year of living there.
3. everyone has down times, even people that you maybe have on a pedestal. and maybe they even deserve the pedestal. but they also get shitty times. no one's life is perfect....so can i be honest with myself in wanting a perfect life? it doesn't make sense to want what you can't have.
4. number 3 makes me want to keep in better touch with a lot of people. i would love to be in more efficient contact with lots of people. not much is keeping me from that. if a loved one has a problem, it shouldn't matter that they are in a different time zone. it shouldn't be from june to now that i hear about the details. sean, you need to be more proactive in many, if not all, of your friendships.
5. i still want to live in germany. see all of the above. (and below)
6. i finally bought JT a few beers. he bought me tournament fees, dinners, beers, gas, hotels, jerseys, and so much more. the last time he was in Nac. i didn't have a full time job. now i make a reasonable salary. i can buy him a few beers. that means a lot to me. for anyone on the internet that decides to read this. just know that i became more of a man today.
7. i'm going to bed. lots more swirling in my head. from all angles. hopefully some of it will fit into type.



p.s. ok, there were three words i said to myself when i was hanging out with JT, listening to his stories. two i don't remember and will probably not remember. but they were in a similar vein as 'colloquial' . JT's stories were so funny and continental(??) i guess that the best way to say that.
our stories were so boring. about new fast food restaurants and small town gossip. he talked about Morocco and women and beer and things that i think i care more about than the new wingstop in nac.