Basques and Perfume

Hi. I didn't want to desert you like that, but for one reason or another I have not felt much like writing for the last couple of months.

I am enjoying school and learning stuff dude, which rocks. I am also getting good grades, which is awesome as A's are not something I got to experience during most of my secondary education. I find that if I stay focused and keep a healthy perspective, good grades seem to follow..

I am still employed as a dishwasher/cook which is awesome. I have been cooking a lot recently, which although gives me a greater sense of job satisfaction and a greater size of paycheck is a lot more stressful and comes with a lot more responsibility. Still, I enjoy what I do and the people I do it with.

For fun, I have continued playing music. I love playing the tenor banjo very much.. More people should have them.. The ukulele too is never far from reach, much like most of the instruments I own. I am starting to record more.. If you would like to hear any of it, just drop me an email and I will see what I can do. Aside from music, my rifle and I have joined a local shooting club, and I am glad I did. There is something very therapeutic and almost philosophical about spending an hour or two sighting in a scope and blasting paper targets with expensive hollow points, before disassembling and cleaning every part of your firearm.

As for my reading, there has not been much of it. Most of my time usually allocated to fun reading is spent in the study of management textbooks, and as these are better than nyquil for curing insomnia, I don't even absorb as much of them as I perhaps should.

Yesterday I voted. Unfortunately, everyone I voted for lost.. Still, my write in choice for president of Anthony T. Casey did not really have too much of a chance, as he has seen a significant drop in the polls since his mother and co- workers withdrew their support in favor of Barry Obama and John McMaverick respectively.

Did you know that the Basque language is completely unrelated to any other language, or family of languages? They must be like aliens dude..

Actung Actung!!! DAS IST VERBOTEN

Oh hey. I have been thinking about Germany lately. There are two reasons for this: The first is that I recently read an article about rampant anti German sentiments in Britain, and the second is that I am currently watching Allo Allo, which is a British sitcom set in occupied France during WWII. I find this very interesting indeed, as I once lived in Britain, and like all my friends, I grew up with a strong dislike of the Bosch.

Just like every other school boy in England, I learned several anti German songs, but one in particular stood out. It was awesome; a song that was sung whenever Germany, Germans, War or Hitler came up in a conversation. It is a catchy little ditty; the words of which imply that certain leaders of the Third Reich were missing body parts essential to human procreation. Whenever the English met their German counterparts in the beautiful game, another song was sung by every red blooded Englishman and woman, the words of which go as follows: "Two world wars and one world cup, doo dah, doo dah, two world wars and one world cup, oh dah doo dah dae."

When I went to school, the whole politically correct nonsense had not yet invaded history classrooms, which were without fail decorated with several Churchill posters, displaying the man himself standing in front of a squadron of spitfires with words like "This was our finest hour" scrawled across his Chestertonian midsection. The teachers would run audio of Churchill speeches, and the take special care to insure that we would never forget what had happened 50 or so years ago. Still even with all that, forgetting would be impossible. If you walk down a street in my dad's home town, you will still see bombed out houses, bombed out office buildings and bombed out churches that have been left as a reminder of past wrongs. Every Christmas, it has long been a tradition in many British households to get the family together and watch the Great Escape on BBC2.. Also, if any young Britain was uncertain of what had happened, it would simply take a comment to that effect to trigger hours upon hours of stories from grandparents. You see, in a country in which the events of WW2 quite literally struck close to home/ struck homes and those events are still in the living memory of so many, it would really be impossible for someone with more than a 10 second memory to ever forget.

So how do I feel about all this now that I am an American who thinks Europe sux? Well, I have to say that in my house, Germany and Germans are still the butt of at least 2 jokes a day. In fact, whenever I don't like someone, I make them German in my head, and if I must imitate their voice, it will be my best attempt at a German accent. But is this bad? Yes and no in my opinion. For the no, it is quite stupid to stereotype the inhabitants of a whole country as being Nazis, loving rules and regulations and being hyper efficient. Also, it makes it dangerous and scary for Germans in Britain who just want to go to school or spend money. For the yes, it is best to learn from the mistakes of the past, because a Fourth Reich is more than 1 too many. Also, dislike of the Germans is one of the few things that still holds England together as a country. Still, constantly living in the past and letting old rivalries fester is a bad thing. However, if you want to dislike Germany/ the Germans for newer fresher reasons, there are plenty of resources available to meet your needs.

medium is not a compromise, but a loss by anyone's standards.

Oh hey.

Yesterday I mopped the Casey kitchen floor for fun, but I was disappointed as it was not fun at all. However, at work a few minutes ago, mopping the floor was fun.. This is because mopping the floor is the very last thing I do before locking up the kitchen, and so there is a real sense of accomplishment when the job is done. You see the same activities have different outcomes in different situations. For example, if I were to jump up on a pew in the middle of church and violently strum out pinball wizard by the Who; chances are that it would not go over too well. However, if I were to perform the same activity, minus the pew and plus the mirror in the hall when no one else was in the house, I would not feel quite as awkward... except... I just.. told you about it...

Well I was surfing around on the tubes a minute ago, and I came across a video of an old Italian talking about life in Hoboken NJ in the 50's and 60's. What was interesting was that he mentioned many neighborhood characters that I know about/know/knew. For example, my mother's uncle and owner of Leo's Gandevous, Leo DiTerlizzi. Also, the guy who wore squeaky shoes; the guy who's mother used to shout out the window not to forget his hairbrush and Stumpy; the guy with one leg shorter than the other who used to clean shellfish in the basement of Leo's. All interesting nostalgic stuff.

So I bought my first instrument from a newspaper.. A tenor banjo.. It is awesome. I drove over to Vermont to take a look, and a week later I went back and bought it. It is an Irish tenor banjo, but the previous owner had strung it up jazz style with light strings and a higher tuning. The difference between a tenor banjo and the American sort, is that a tenor only has 4 strings instead of the American 4, plus one drone string. The difference between a jazz banjo and an Irish banjo is that the Jazz version is meant to be strummed rhythmically, whereas the Irish model is for single note picking. It also has very heavy strings, and is tuned an octave below the mandolin.. It has a very low gritty sound, and is almost the equivalent of a distorted guitar of Irish traditional music.. I paid a very low price for a very good model in very good condition..

Well, my classes are going very well. At the start of the year I was worried that working 6 nights a week would get in the way of homework.. It turns out that I need not have worried, as a much better/more lucrative solution to this potential problem has presented itself; I simply do my HOMEwork at WORKwork. I have at least an hour every night where I do nothing but hang out and eat free food with my co workers, so why not put this time to good use? Well, I have been doing this exact thing for 2 weeks now, and it works wonderfully. I simply set up a small office behind my dish machine using some milk crates, and I am actually paid to do my homework.. AWESOME!! It is sort of like that Seinfeld episode where George sleeps under his desk, but better as I am earning college credits on the clock.. I can also say "Get out of my office!!!" If I am disturbed, which is awesome, because it makes me feel like I have an office........