Sons of the River

My cousin decided to get married next week. if you know her, you'd say that she is one beautiful lady and so nice that she was probably pulled out from a girl monastery to drive a lot of men crazy, and now she is about to break all their hearts.

But the guy whom she gave her hand in marriage, which to everybody's surprise, is exactly the inverse incarnation of her values, thus the metaphor of marrying her is like winning a lottery, because like how a lottery goes, anybody can win it by chance and regardless of anything.

I'm also not quite happy about her choice, her fiance has a reputation for smoking too much, drinking too much and is magnificently prone to bar fights like everything is on defcon1 whenever he is drinking with other strangers. He has a ten year old son too but it isn't much of an excess baggage because the mother took the kid with her anyway. My cousin is pretty stuck to her decision even when I gave my thoughts about the whole thing, she is in love and people in love can't seem to think straight, they'd listen to your advice carefully then thank you for it but later do things otherwise. Its their life anyway, I've seen how it works on my end before.

Anyway this is all about some incident that the couple had last weekend, I was at home past midnight last friday night when my cousin sent me a sms message if I could accompany her to check on her fiance, she said he wasn't home yet from this strip club with his friends. It was a week before their wedding and everybody can say that her fiance must be on a farewell party to bachelor life, so I tried to convince my cousin not to gatecrash into the strip club because it is just a rite of passage of manhood which she should know. But my cousin insisted on going even if she had to go alone by herself, maybe because there wasn't anything much to say farewell to since her fiance has lived his bachelor life to the fullest anyway.

It was unlike my cousin to be insisting on something so badly, you couldn't tell if she was worried or anything because she kept giggling. I couldn't leave my cousin alone to go into a strip club to spy on her fiance too, so I had ariel tag along so that if we went there as a crowd of three, we all could look like that we're going to waste ourselves up.

My cousin drove us to the strip club since it was her idea anyway, her fiance greeted us at the door and he looked delighted like hell. He offered me and ariel a private room but we declined because it was all too embarrassing, all me and ariel did was sit at the corner and settled for beers while my cousin went about her goddam business about being in this goddam strip club. Her finace explained to us that they are just there to have a couple bottles of beer over this deep fried pork thighs with pork skin that taste so great because nobody in town cooks it the way the strip club does. We could have thought of the same great excuse ourselves, just because its a strip club its not all dancing girls but great food too, you just couldn't taste it that much because your senses are focused someplace else.

Its like saying that I'm smoking right now because I'm building a minature scale of the great wall using cigarette boxes.

I also found out that ariel already had a dozen beers when we picked him up, he looked tired and the waitress passed him a hot towel rolled on a plate. With all that talk about tasty deep fried pork thighs and pork skin, ariel almost ate the goddam towels because they looked like steaming chinese spring rolls in the dark.

My cousin soon left afterwards, me and ariel stayed behind hoping to get a glimpse of the girls over at the catwalk as a consolation for everything but hell even the shows were all over. And my cousin's fiance had to complete his program for the night by almost getting himself into a bar fight again. There was this room also full of drunk vikings right behind them whom he probably annoyed, his strip club catchphrase he kept yelling was "son of a river" and the river he referred to was polluted like an open sewer which could literally mean crap, and I suppose if he were yelling the whole line over and over, it can provoke other people, vikings or macho sapiens hearing they have dirty rivers for mothers. The alpha male of the other group approached and sat beside him introduced himself and bought him beer, it didn't look all too friendly. Their conversation seemed harmless if they weren't drunk strangers and you could feel their tone was poking into the other's temperament waiting who would break first.

While they drank they had their boys flanked right behind them in attack formation, me and ariel still sat in our corner which was now in the middle of both camps and had a great view of everything in case war breaks out. The alpha male of the other group noticed us and and said

Who are these two? your henchmen?

He didn't actually say henchmen, I just translated it from a local slang for loyal henchmen that guard and follow you for money or food, just like dogs. My cousin's fiance replied that we were with him and we're just new to the place. That just sent me on death row now that the other war party knows there is a stool pigeon on the other camp, ariel on the contrary will be happy fighting just about anybody. Then he replied.

Get these two beers, they aren't drinking anything there

I again declined but ariel nudged my knee and whispered to take it, because both of us are drinking everything tonight for free.

We didn't get to finish our last bottle though, my cousin's fiance gave us a hint that we needed to leave the place, it was a good idea because he had to keep himself in one piece until next week for the wedding. They all went home while me and ariel sat on the side of the road for a piece of smoke, we didn't ask for it but the god of war was five minutes late with his goddam miracle. In a snap, all of the electricy around went out including inside the strip club and everything was pitch black at 3 in the morning. Hell it should have came earlier when all of us were still at the strip club, everything could have gone flying and smashing and you'd find me under the couch when the lights came back.

Chaotic Facelift

What kept me busy during the lent weekend

Gaddafi on the Finish Line

When you're having jogging as your regular exercise, you'd probably been to these charitable events they call fun run where you get to jog with a lot of people and have an excuse to give money for a cause, like dog rabies, nuclear fallouts, save the artic, end of days... the list could go on because they can think about anything that highways are closed more often for people running for something. I could run for a cause or two, considering the creativity people come up with to run for, there'd be some cause that would be of my concern soon enough.

I have been jogging regularly for a couple of years now but I always want do it alone. Peter has been asking me to join a couple of fun runs with him before but I never did, he probably knows that I wouldn't want to be in the middle of a crowd where people in running shoes go socially phony with everybody else at the starting line. But last week I gave thought of this coming fun run he told me where the pot money would be donated to the fire department, peter works part time driving a fire truck and I used to work in the fire department office, and I know how badly the whole system needs a good funding the same way peter feels about his fire truck.

So I gave it a try.

I got at the starting point a little past five in the morning, peter was surprised to see me show up at the scene thinking I was wasted the night before after having some beers but I only had four bottles, I felt pretty much fine that morning anyway.

The fire marshal gave the opening speech since the whole fun run thing is about fire trucks and burning houses and I think he should work on his speech tone when he talked because he sounded like a total drag and nobody was listening. I knew nobody was listening because we were all caught by surprise when he just shot his blanks from his pistol to start running without even hearing him make the countdown, people just scampered and pushed me over to run. I have jogged for years and I know you had to accelerate slow to get yourself running for kilometers, but at this fun run everybody bursted into top speed all together on one hell of a stampede of their lives. Me and peter were supposed to run together but I lost him and I had to forget about momentum and sprinted shoulder to shoulder with everybody else.

About half a kilometer later, somebody behind me yelled

Hah... this is actually exhausting!

I was relieved that they started bailing out that early, the others who couldn't fake running anymore gave up when the route went up on a flyover. I never jogged on an uphill slope before but it reminded me of how hard gravity works.

The road to the finish line became less swarming with running people thereon, I could spread my arms and spin and wouldn't hit anybody anymore, but I wouldn't do that, I'd look very stupid because I was on the middle of the road and a lot of cars stuck on the other side are watching me. Even running on the middle of the road was stupid enough, I'd end up in other people's stories how I got them late to work that morning by screwing traffic.

I ran peacefully to the finish line where peter was already waiting , he was pumping his fist trying to say hurry up or something like that. I shrugged my shoulders because nobody was catching up or cutting on my lane. You see if you were on the first 150 people who got to the finish line, they'd give you a shirt for all the trouble and sweat you made that morning. I knew I made it to the list so I didn't hurry, I wasn't making a headcount but it was some kind of an intuition I had.

I was the 123rd runner to finish but I was surprised that they wouldn't give me my prize of a shirt.

I just made it to the first 150!

They said that they'd only give 120 pieces to men and the other 30 to women.

Nobody said that the other 30 didn't need any pair of testicles to finish!

In fact none of their goddam promotions weeks before ever said anything about that at all. It must have been a disclaimer clause the size of ants at the bottom.

The ladies shirt can fit me, I wear small sizes!

But they wouldn't budge like barnacles on a rock and I gave up arguing because I was running out of air after running all those goddam kilometers for nothing. All they gave me was some paper for a trophy I could show off that I finished the whole route. Hell it didn't even have my name on it, so I just wrote muammar gaddafi and maybe to cheer this libyan megalomaniac up after his whole government is starting to go down the drain.

Peter later told me that his whole laptime is at 23 minutes, mine at 26 minutes and his wife at 44 minutes, he was pretty much after beating the clock. The couple asked me if I wanted to go grab something to eat for breakfast, but gaddafi wasn't so hungry after missing out on the goddam shirt.

Biblical Bloopers

I have finally finished this book good omens I got last october, it's a good novel actually, and its pretty funny. Its about a devil and an angel who were sent to earth during the bible's version of the creation of the universe in order to tempt or guide mankind according to which side these beings were on.

The devil and the angel eventually became friends after 6000 years on the job because they got used to seeing each other for that long. And both of them also developed a fondness for earthly pleasures, the devil had a thing for a good ride, music and wine while the angel liked a lot of books and tea. Then judgement day is coming and both of them now doesn't want to part with their great life on earth and they try everything to stop the four horsemen, the armies of heaven and earth and the end of days.

There was this one part in the novel about the angel loving all sorts of books, hence he kept a small bookshop for himself. He'd love to collect bible misprints too which were enumerated in the novel's footnotes, because for an angel it was like poking fun on your superiors. I had a good laugh about the idea of a bible gone wrong but it wasn't until I finished reading the novel when I read through some internet article that those bible misprints in the novel does exists! And they are picking up quite a fortune at ebay, probably because people would want to have hard copies of god making mistakes, and no amount of miracle can save him from these books.

Say what? Some of the more famous bible misprints include:

The Wicked Bible (1631): In exodus 20:14 the word "not" was omitted making the seventh commandment read "Thou shall commit adultery". Though never mentioned, the printers were probably burned at stake. A copy now sells at $89,500.

Unrighteous Bible (1653): In corinthians 6:9 the word "not" was omitted before the word "inherit" thus read "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of god?"

Sin On Bible (1716): John 8:11 reads "Go and sin on more" rather than "Go and sin no more".

The Fool's God (1763): In Psalm 14:1 the word "no" was omitted before "god" making the line read as "the fool hath said in his heart there is a god".

Judas Bible (1611): In mathew 26:36 judas tells jesus after the last supper "Sit ye here while I go yonder and pray" which should have been jesus' line to judas.

The Standing Fishes (1806): In ezekiel 47:10 "fishers" was replaced by "fishes" making the line read as "And it shall come to pass, that the fishes shall stand upon it from engedi even unto eneglaim".

Denial Bible (1792): In luke 22:34, philip instead of peter is the apostle who would deny jesus.

Vinegar Bible (1717): The chapter heading for Luke 20 reads "The parable of the vinegar" instead of "The parable of the vineyard". A copy now sells at $5,000

Affinity Bible (1927): Contains a table of family affinities that includes the line "A man may not marry his grandmother's wife".

Printers Bible (1612): In Psalm 119:161 "printers" replaces "princes" to read "Printers have persecuted me without a cause" (the bible got this one right)

Arachnophilia

I've kept my black widow spider for a month now, and the other worse thing that could happen besides from getting bitten is the goddam thing now laying eggs inside the jar ready to multiply. It must have been pregnant and ate its husband for breakfast when I caught it a month ago, and I feel like playing god when I got the natural order of things and a thousands of lives right on the top of my hand if these eggs hatch and escape and these spiders mess up our local ecosystem because of me.

Then neurotoxin would become a new household name here and backwater towns will have invented a new name for a spider demon god for their silly superstition after all those spider bite deaths, and maybe some unlucky indigenous species will get extinct to kingdom come with the black widow spiders now on the food chain.

It reminds me about this crazy scientist who bred european bees with african bees perhaps on some kind of experiment on honey, but instead he got himself these killer bees that go berzerk on people for even just staring at their hive funny. His experiment got loose and the goddam insects are swarming up and killing people to the north american continent, like a biblical plague moses came up with that caught ramses with his pants down a thousand years earlier.

I really think you should get rid of it, seriously

My brother kept asking me to do the spider and our family a favor the past few days, he's worried like hell and I couldn't blame him, he's the most likely collateral damage to any accident I end up with at the house. Take that goddam hepatitis virus that thrashed my system more than a year ago, he was the first person who caught it from me afterwards and he'd probably be the first spider fatality if I don't get bit by my spider first.

My spider has laid about four egg sacs so far though I only make it keep just one egg sac at a time, usually the most recent it laid so that I can have more time to think about breeding it before it hatches.

The goddam truth is, I just have this silly penchant to keep all things nonsense and unusual, like coke cans and these stupid thoughts I've written all these years, and what makes my black widow so unusual that death is just a spider bite away.

Kids, do not try this at home.

Jar of Death

If there is a god, he/she probably wants me dead on my birthday, because it sent me a black widow spider crawling up my shelf to get the job done, and nothing can say death more discreetly than a black widow's venom, which is more so powerful like scotch whiskey that a rattlesnake's venom would only taste like cheap beer.

Everybody was in doubt about the spider being a black widow because they are only endemic to north america and its unlikely this one is here for a christmas vacation or for my birthday. But if you were listening to your biology class, black widow spiders are best described as jet black spiders with a red hour glass mark on their underside.



And here's a very clear shot of my birthday visitor.


Unless you are color blind and your idea of an hour glass looks like a hammer and a sickle, it can be just one of those obscure spiders messing the corners with cobwebs. I did consider it to be those occasional freaks of nature accidentally born with an hour glass birthmark and for the other spiders to make fun of, that was how I thought it was when a second black widow came out from the other corner to say hi.

How they got here was the bigger whodunit, but since I guess this was the work of some gods to get rid of me, they could have sent them through some portal from hell because those gods can open up one from anywhere. They could have sent a pair of poison dart frogs, stinging wasps or box jellyfishes to do the job, but it would take less than five minutes for the frogs to hold back croaking, or buzzing and get caught, much less have the jellyfishes fit into my drinking glass.

I already got the message once, they didn't have to repeat it, so I just pressed flat the other black widow and sent it back to hell. I kept the other one inside a jar and it freaked my old man with me carrying that thing around. Though he still had his own reservations, he said the spider could be one of those cheap con artists of their kind, impersonating a deadly specie so that the other spiders wont go pushing it around if they knew what the red hourglass meant. If it is just a phony black widow then it already did a great job because it got me into the trouble of catching bugs for it while it sits on the bottom of the jar in peace, but at least I had evolution happening under my shelves shorter than a thousand years.

One way to conclude that if the goddam thing is a black widow is have it bite somebody and see what happens. I could take a shot at it, for all I know maybe I'd turn into spiderman overnight at the first bite with all those spider powers and everything. I'd bet I'd get to have the black widow powers too, that I get the chance to eat up every girl I screw with.

Every Damn Day

There's this really good bakeshop at the airport that serves very cheap japanese noodle soup, I don't know if it tastes the least japanese because it doesn't even have anything japanese to call it like hiroshima pokemon or yakuza but I don't give a crap, it does taste good at five in the morning when I take the first flight out of town when my jaw and throat are too sleepy to be working on solid food at that time before daybreak.

I was about to get my soup at the airport yesterday morning but I bumped to this girl at the airport and funny, it was exactly two years ago when we were on the same flight.

(2008)

It reminded me that it was her birthday too, hell I have this strange knack for remembering dates. I forgot all about the goddam soup and ended with a conversation with her, I swear I was interested in her two years ago: she's pretty, she's nice and she could carry a great conversation, she's those girls who'd ask questions and listen, not like some girls who'd ask you about something for the heck of the conversation and pretend to listen and end up asking the same stupid question 15 minutes later, that almost killed me. Anyway that was two years ago, now she's married with a little daughter and that sucks, father time does rips reality to pieces with his scythe as he treads along.

I only brought one bag when I left home this time, and its those bags with wheels and a long handle to drag it with that makes you look like an all expensive stupid traveler all together. Hell I didn't want me looking like that, I only took this bag with wheels because I knew it was the christmas season and I feel traffic will be screwed like a clogged drainpipe that I might end up walking with it if I get stuck up anywhere on the road.

Traffic was pretty smooth to my hotel anyway, at least according to my directions to the taxi because the driver wasn't so familiar with the roads. He wasn't faking it though, earlier I heard him call some lady over his mobile phone, his wife probably and they were talking in some kind of remote dialect that sounded like it came very very far from here, I couldn't even make out their conversation no matter how I listened to it. I only heard 'christmas' and '19th' and it must be some big fat lie that goes like 'I'll be home for christmas on the 19th' that you'd tell your wife while working away from home when you wont even make it on christmas eve.

I gave the taxi an extra 20 buck for the ride, he didn't ask for it but I could be paying maybe another 50 bucks more on the taxi meter if I left him to figure out the roads by himself.

I had a lot of things to finish at work but I was able to pull everything off on schedule, and I had more than enough time to kill for the rest of the day, what I thought I'd do was get myself something new to wear for christmas, there's enough christmas sale to go around anyway.

There was one shirt I saw two weeks ago that I wanted to buy now, it had bold letters up front that said

EVERY DAMN DAY

Which said everything I felt in general, and almost in whatever order you'd say those three words. I didn't buy it two weeks ago before I flew back home because I felt fine and happy in a strange way, but now I'm back to being depressed and miserable that I had to have that shirt.

I got another shirt which I bought 5 minutes after I saw it, it had a silhouette of a stormtrooper up front and I have yet to have a star wars shirt for myself. It only had the stormtrooper up front and it didn't have any words or anything, and people would get the point that you like star wars with that shirt on and nothing more, unless you bought that shirt by mistake, or you're actually wearing the whole stormtrooper armor and everything and they'd call you a star wars retard.