I must thank Kyle, again, for a link to this site. Apparently 50 Cent is now a suburbanite.

50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis James Jackson III, bought his mansion in September 2003 for $4.1 million. The sprawling estate has been owned by both Mike Tyson and Colonial Realty founder Benjamin Sisti, who served time in prison for bankruptcy fraud and other crimes.

Has 50 been in prison yet? Maybe? Well, obviously he will be at some point.

The rapper has boasted that his 48,500-square-foot mansion includes 18 bedrooms, 37 bathrooms and five whirlpool baths. Town records show a man-made pond, boathouse and separate servants’ quarters. Two samurai warriors (supposedly left by Tyson) stand guard at the entrance.

I really like that part. Mike Tyson is totally insane. Here are some great Tyson quotes:

-“[He] called me a ‘rapist’ and a ‘recluse.’ I’m not a recluse.”
-”Lennox Lewis, I’m coming for you man. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I’m just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat his children. Praise be to Allah!”
-”My power is discombobulatingly devastating I could feel is muscle tissues collapse under my force. It’s ludicrous these mortals even attempt to enter my realm.”
-[To a female reporter] “It’s no doubt I am going to win this fight and I feel confident about winning this fight. I normally don’t do interviews with women unless I fornicate with them. So you shouldn’t talk anymore… Unless you want to, you know.”
-”I really dig Hannibal. Hannibal had real guts. He rode elephants into Cartilage.”
-”I guess I’m gonna fade into Bolivian.”

We’ve moved from the suburban ghetto to insane asylum, so let’s leave the planet earth, and discuss Michael Jackson. He recently went on a tirade, talking about how the media likes to crush prominent black men. ‘Black’? ‘Man’? Michael Jackson has transcended normal society to the point where race and gender don’t really matter. I mean, does any particular ethnic group identify with this ‘man’? Anyway, check out this Slate article on the trial. I like this quote:

8:36 a.m.: A hush descends as the King of Pop enters the courtroom, six minutes late. He is not looking good. MJ shuffles up the aisle in a haze, moving as slowly as one can while still maintaining forward momentum. He’s leaning against a security guard for support.
As he passes me (I’m seated on the aisle, so he’s literally 6 inches away) two things happen: 1) He stops, teeters, lists heavily to the right, and seems on the verge of collapsing in a heap; 2) I look, for the first time, directly into that famous, refashioned face. From this close, I was sure I’d see jagged, splotchy grafts that didn’t quite take. Perhaps some sort of concealed titanium support structure. But it turns out his face skin still looks reasonably coherent and unified. Disappointing.

8:39 a.m.: Oops, the drama’s not over yet. Michael is getting up again, this time with the aid of two people (one at each elbow). He stagger-shuffles back down the aisle and again pauses 6 inches from my shoulder.
“It’s the left side that hurts,” Michael whispers to his bodyguard. Michael is pointing at the right side of his abdomen. “The right side?” asks the bodyguard. “The right side, the right side,” whispers Michael.
Let me explain just how strung out and godawful Michael looks:
One evening, several years ago, I swallowed two Vicodin in the midst of getting deeply drunk. Then I woke up in my bathtub. I’d passed out while trying to pee, and my fall had snapped the soapdish clean off the shower wall. After staggering to my feet, I caught a wobbly glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror.

I looked better than Michael looks this morning.

It’s articles like these the put a smile on my face every morning.

I’m going to stop working for a while and start blogging. My job is pissing me off a great deal – I don’t understand people’s ability to be such assholes. I mean, we’re all on the same ship, why can’t we politely discuss our differences? Why can’t you suffer a sudden heart attack, leaving a more competant, friendly person on the other end of the phone? Wait, I probably shouldn’t have written that… but it felt nice.

I’m mostly just pissed off that other people are incompetant, and that they respond to my politeness by telling me that i’m a bad person, and that all my worldviews are wrong, and that I will suffer eternal torment for adding to their workload this Wednesday. And that I can’t spell. Why doesn’t blogger have spellcheck?

This is one reason I miss college: if I was having a bad day in college, I could just leave. Classes getting you down? – go lay on the south mall. taking a terrible test on wednesday morning? call in sick to work and go hang around at the Crown with a friend. I have to stay here at work until 10pm, after which I will be drinking alcohol with the girlfriend, which sounds pretty good.

I am, once again, in moravia for the holiday. Not much is happening here, as my gf commented upon earlier. I think she’s happy she lives in the city. although she’s currently watching the czech version of ‘american idol’, so i question her membership amonst the hip.

Anyway, interesting things are happening here in the CR. No colorful revolutions, but there is a mild political scandal. The prime minister is a total retard, and apparently someone has been investigating the fact that he couldn’t afford his apartment on his salary. this has led to months of news articles (right next to the pictures of naked women – yay eurtabloids!) featuring a colorful set of characters – uncles, confused bumbling idiots, the wife who may own a brothel. Back to my point – people have been buying billboards all around the country saying things like ‘i am ashamed of my prime minister’. I saw one yesterday by the road – it’s pretty impressive. Imagine driving down I-10 and seeing a giant ‘George Bush Sucks Ass’. Wait – i think that was there…

well i must get back to my doing nothing in this small town. i’ll be back in prague on monday, so happy easter to ya’ll.

The last time I had a paid vacation day was…um…that 8 months where I did nothing. Since working for Honeywell I have not taken a single day to chill out. That is, until today. I slept in, I wasted time watching TV, I chilled at a coffee shop. Soon I will drink beer (actually, I have already begun). And I’m being paid. That’s grand, my friends. That’s grand.

Hey so how many people actually read my blog? I don’t know, as I don’t have a counter like I did on the old website. Let me know by leaving a comment below. Don’t be lazy – sign up on blogger and say ‘hi’.

I have a contributor! The infradgiable Kyle Sonnonstine (infradgiable: 1)In a manner of being vaguely kyle-like 2) Uncontrolled male lactation) has sent over this gem. . I wonder if he sent it directly to me after reading the headline, “Workers vote to end 13½-year strike at world’s largest walnut plant “, excitedly thinking of adding content to the world-famous blog ‘Outsourced’. Or if he savored the article, like a cheap, yet flavorful wine, whose discovery adds an air of contentment resented by the wider, uneducated world. Anyway, onto the article:

STOCKTON – Workers at the world’s largest walnut processing plant voted Tuesday night to end their more than 13-year-long strike. …
“Nobody ever thought it would take this long,” said Lucio Reyes, the union’s secretary-treasurer. “The company didn’t expect it. We didn’t expect it. I think it was worth it in that we did accomplish something. Both parties now realize we have to work together. Everyone should be feeling good about this.”

Well, what can I say about this? There are obvious questions about ‘walnut processing’, but those are beside the point. The question is who thought they were important enough in the walnut-manufacturing process that the company would care if they went on strike? I mean, you’re not exactly skilled labor. Anyway, any pay is supplemented by free walnuts, which I think should count for something.

Teamsters International President James P. Hoffa called the strike one of the union’s “epic battles” during a rally at the plant in 2000: “Someday they will look back here, at the land of John Steinbeck and ‘The Grapes of Wrath,’ and say … ‘The workers at Stockton’s Diamond plant, they are the ones who stood up,’” Hoffa told the workers.

Yes, you really have made a difference. My standing as a worker in the exploitive capitalist system has been further strengthened by all your nut-related labor actions. Considering that the strike hastened the development of “automated machinery had made many of the laborers’ jobs unnecessary over the years”, perhaps you should have ended your strike about 13.5 years ago.

And what the hell? How do people manage to stay on strike for 13 years? I mean, they didn’t exactly build up a nest egg working at the walnut factory.

On a further note, couldn’t this be outsourced? Specifically to eastern europe, where you can hire lazy american expats to protest against the unfair wages at a california walnut factory. I know plenty of people that would jump at the chance (or lethargically stumble, in the case of the stoners) to protest something. Whatever the American protesters are being paid could be halved, saving the union millions. And hell, outsourced walnut strikers would get much more sympathetic media coverage here, in the land of the fallen proletariat.

But outsourcing is evil, don’t forget.

20041011texas.390
Originally uploaded by nickmoles.

Sometimes I miss Texas.

Although not enough to leave. After all, Prague isn’t such a shabby place.

And cows aren’t quite this idyllic…

Happy St. Hangover day to everyone! I successfully celebrated St. Patrick’s day with a pint of Guinness, so I have fulfilled my Tribal obligations. I went out last night with two guys from work, Craig and Aidan, who are Scottish and Irish, respectively. I arrived at a Czech pub around 10, to a large table of folks, most of whom I did not know. This included the aforementioned Celts, along with their Czech girlfriends. And Aidan’s girlfriends’ brother, who was passed out on the table.

We drank a few pivos, then struck off for some good Irish drinking. Aidan and Craig both managed to piss off their girlfriends, because they were intent on staying out as long as possible. This led to incessant text messaging and grumbling on their part, but it was good in the long run. We cut off the fat from the group, and had a lean drinking team of the 2 guys, me, and the severely wasted Czech brother.

The first place we went was Martin’s, an Irish pub right down the street. To our astonishment, it was closing at 11:30. Please allow me to bold that: An Irish pub was closing before midnight on St. Patrick’s day. We implored them for a Guinness, even brandishing our ‘authentic Irishman!’, to no avail. So Aidan decided to lead us on our quest for a Guinness.

We walked for about 10 miles to find a place, at which point I thought my head was going to explode, I needed a beer and a urinal so badly. Molly Malones is where we ended up, and it was quite agreeable. We shared a pint of Guinness, and generally enjoyed the ‘Riverdance’ music playing over the speakers. Then they closed at 1.

That’s right: A crowded Irish Pub, on St. Patrick’s day, closed for absolutely no reason at 1.

After this we wandered around for a while. We walked into a nonstop pizza joint – and we walked right out when they told us that their prices were double what was on the menu. We ended up at Popocafepetl, where we finished celebrating our Celtic heritage with a variety of drugged teens, odd-looking foreigners, and an extremely wasted 30-year old woman who was dancing wildly for about 2 hours.

Good times.

rockinprague
Originally uploaded by nickmoles.

So I’m wasting time on the internet, when I come across this article about the movie ‘Spy-Hunter’, with the Rock. I like the Rock, and have ever since he got in the wrestling ring and yelled ‘If you SMELLLLLLLL……what the ROCK…IS…COOKIN!’. That doesn’t really make any grammatical sense, but believe me, it was awesome. The guy had more charisma than every other wrestler combined, which makes it weird that he’s been so crappy in movies.

Anyway, this isn’t an ode to the ROCK. I came across the picture above, and said ‘What the hell?’ Isn’t that PRAGUE? This is the essential problem of the movie industry – you don’t realize how many movies are actually filmed here. I guess it’s how the people in NY or LA feel, seeing Tom Cruise in some crappy action movie walking down the same street they take to get to the grocery store.

I’m tired of seeing things exploding in Prague. I’m tired of seeing Vin Diesel stop a biological weapon from going off next to Charles Bridge. I’m tired seeing Tom Cruise and various spy-like activities taking place on charles bridge. I’m tired of seeing Van Helsig and his vampire hunters walking under the Charles Bridge. And NOW, I’m apparently going to have to sit through watching the ROCK drive a futuristic car over the Charles Bridge (Which is PEDESTRIAN ONLY, PEOPLE!!) followed by a Tank, which appears to have set fire to a number of STONE STATUES. And blown up a church. This movie is going to feature a russian arms dealer as the baddie (just a guess!) who doesn’t like that the ROCK is messing with his turf.

I hope the ROCK gets out of the car and throws a large piece of wood at the tank, like he did in the trailer for that movie I didn’t see.

Oh yeah, for the article go here.

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=19672

http://images.southparkstudios.com/games/create/

Weather in Austin wasn’t particularly consistent. One day it would be a sunny and pleasant 70, the next a cold and rainy thirty. This, as always, provided constant entertainment. I, in particular, remember blue-tinged fratboys in shorts and sandals wandering through a blizzard. And those girls that would put on overcoats when it dropped below seventy.

But here in Prague it’s a bit more consistent. Read: cold. For the past two months it’s literally been frozen. Sidewalks covered in snow, the air a harsh slap as soon as I went outside. Sunday was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Today it is about 60. Think about that – that’s a 40 degree jump in 3 days. It hasn’t been sixty here since October or so. I’m ecstatic, and can barely stand to be at work today. I’m looking forward to my lunch break so that I may go outside. I need to get addicted to something, so that I can hang around outside the building in the warmth. Maybe since smokers can take smoke breaks I can take beer breaks. Hm, maybe I won’t bring that up with management…