Heh

Check out the latest story about Crane-Climbing in Atlanta. My favorite part is the following:

"He was lured down with doughnuts and cigarettes," police spokeswoman
Marion Lee said.

Coffee

The coffee here is awesome! And it has nothing to do with ganja. I am,
after all, on the island of Java, and right next door is Sumatra.
Starbucks gets their coffee here, sends it back to the US, processes and
packages it there, and then it comes back here to the rampant (and
popular) Starbucks stores all over Jakarta.

Today is Memorial Day, which is a holiday for me but hardly anyone else
here. So I've had little to do but go to the mall, drink coffees, and get
wired.

I also learned yesterday from an Italian colleague that drinking cappucino
after lunch is simply not done. It's a morning drink. After lunch, you
have espresso. Am I the only one who didn't know that?

how to make guys look like sissies

There's no better way to make a bunch of tough guys look like sissies than for a woman to challenge them on their own turf. That's what race car drivers who are complaining about Danica Patrick's alleged unfair advantage because of her petite 105 lb weight come off as. And I'm no physicist, but I'm certain that the lightest car doesn't automatically have the most advantage -- weight affects all sorts of properties including road-handling ability (greater weight equals more traction). It sounds to me like these guys just can't handle the thought of getting beaten by a girl!

Aceh photos

I'm back

So I just got back from a week in Aceh. I'm too tired to write much now, except to report that there was a scary earthquake one morning at 6 am. It woke me up and it took a couple of seconds, and then I bolted out of bed, pulling my clothes on as I ran down the stairs several steps at a time. I still have a bruise from where I slammed into the banister. Otherwise, I'm ok but it was not a good way to start a morning! Beyond that big one, the ground trembles all the time and after a while you're not sure if you're imagining it or if it's real. But it seems like Mother Nature isn't quite done with this part of the world yet.

Oh, here's something: a couple of local people in Aceh told me that people put "ganja" in coffee. And, even funnier, one guy claimed that Acehnese use it in meat dishes, as a tenderizer. I couldn't tell if they were putting me on or not about this, because they were cracking up when telling me about it -- but it could just be they've been drinking too much coffee.

This could also be called "foiled."

As I was leaving Dulles, this scruffy dude cut in front of me at the security checkpoint and went through the metal detector, and it went off. So they had him empty some change in his pockets, and it still went off. He had to take off his shoes and his belt, and the detector still went off.

Finally, he reluctantly took out a single foil-wrapped condom and laid it upon the table. I don't know where he was flying to, but he was apparently looking forward to a booty call -- just not a very ambitious one.

After that, they let him through.

Foiled!

Every day my hotel gives me four free bottles of water, which is essential in a city where if you run the tap water over a white washcloth, the washcloth will turn brown. Sometimes four isn't enough though -- I get really thirsty -- and on the other hand, when I don't use all four, they only replace the ones I used. So a few days ago I began stockpiling. I'd hide any unused bottles each day in my refrigerator, and each day they'd bring me four new ones. So as of this morning, my secret stockpile was up to four. Apparently they're on to me though, because I hid another bottle this morning, but today they only brought me three!

napping cat

napping cat
Originally uploaded by alex.DC.

giant cat, napping on the sidewalk (From three stories up)!

shopping mall

So yesterday I took a stroll, no easy feat in this traffic-choked city, to one of Jakarta's shopping malls. They're an interesting experience -- as glitzy as anything we have in the US, if not more so, at the entry level. But as you take the escalators higher and higher, it begings to feel more and more like a traditional Asian street market crammed into a building, with lots of tiny stalls selling everything imaginable. The top floor of this particular mall was crammed with hundreds of little auto parts stores.

Paper clips

I found this box of paper clips in my office in Jakarta, and I had to photograph it.



What do paper clips have to do with the sea? Maybe they look like fish?