Ben and Michele noticed that I have indeed been using British spelling. Surprisingly enough, this isn’t because I’m living in Europe. In actuality, the blame lies solely with that damn English rag, The Economist. “Favourite, Colour, Labour, bloody hell, and lots of other things that I can’t pronounce”. There are several British guys in my office that may be from England but absolutely DO NOT speak the English language. They put together a string of words that I can almost understand, but the sentences make no sense, and they guffaw at every other phrase. idiots. I understand my cheese-eating surrender monkey roommate better than them.

Speaking of the surrender monkey, I’ve put together a bet with him that will enrich me soon enough. That chain-smoking bastard got too drunk last night and bet that he could give up smoking for a week. I bet him I could give up beer and television. The loser has to cough up 2000 crowns ($80 bucks or so).

I’m confident I’ll be buying beer with his blood-money for a good week or so.

The priest was discussing the advent wreath today in mass. He said something like this (and I paraphrase)…

“The four advent candles represent the 4000 years of history during which mankind was waiting for the messiah. Of course, these days we know that the earth is more than 5000 years old, even if some people don’t want to believe it (chuckle).”

Pat Robertson probably would have had a noxious gas emission had he heard that.

Vince Young sucked ass on Friday. Really sucked ass.

I was at Jama pub in downtown Prague at 5pm on Friday, early enough that I could reserve the tv and fight off all drunken british guys who wander through. I felt confident that we would beat the shit out of A&M like we do every year. But it’s been 5 years since they had won – they were due. But couldn’t they just be due NEXT year?

Apparently not. After Texas took the early lead (14-0) I started trash talking with the Penn State fan, Alejandro, who was sitting across from me. But soon I was practically hyperventilating and having severe heart palpitations as the aggies came back and eventually took the lead. By the end of the game I felt so bad that I couldn’t be consoled by my neighbors, even though we had won. Just an awful, awful game. I was so worked up that I actually developed a fever. Terrible.

We have to make it to the Rose Bowl. I wouldn’t be able to take it if we lost to Colorado. I was at the big 12 championship game a couple of years ago when we would have gone to the Nat’l Championship game if we just beat them. Of course those retards won and we went to the Holiday bowl or whatever. Well I can’t go to the game this year, and I’m not going to watch it either. I just can’t take anything else like friday. I’m going to my girlfriend’s parents’ house and I’m going to learn to cook goulash with dumplings. So there.

Celebrating Thanksgiving in Eastern Europe is an awkward thing. Should I plan a party and invite a bunch of expats who bring different dishes? Or should I just find a pub with cold beer and turkey breast?

I find myself working this Thanksgiving, a somewhat sad if predictable state of affairs. I could have had the day off, but what would I do? My mom told me that, in no uncertain terms, I should not cook a bird, as that would be a predictable disaster. Jana is meeting me at Tulip Café for a round of beers and, hopefully, some Thanksgiving food. It’s an American pub, they have to have the stuff.

Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday because of the fact that it’s so unassuming. You don’t go buy presents or decorations – you just bring a round hat made out of construction paper in third grade and stick a feather on your neighbour. The three most important aspects of the holiday are food, family and football. This is the main reason I love it – I sleep until noon then walk into the kitchen and find three women cooking a giant bird. I get a beer, join my dad on the sofa for the NFL pregame show, and wait for the eating. We’re served at three, at a table festooned with nice silverware and cloth napkins. As soon as I’ve had three platefuls of food I avoid conversation and retire to the couch for 4-6 hours of football viewing.

Then, of course, are the turkey sandwiches, probably my favourite food of all. Two of those for dinner and I’ll sleep for the 12 hours it takes to prepare for the A&M game on Friday.

Perhaps next year I’ll be less lazy and actually put something together for the holiday. But this year isn’t so bad- beer, turkey, girlfriend, pub…and tomorrow I will get to watch the Texas-Texas A&M game.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

In honor of tomorrows impending destruction of the Aggies, I thought I might post a bit of an article that Kyle sent me:

“Even if this team wins it all, the whole deal, in my mind it won’t be the best Longhorn team of all time,” Jenkins said in a recent e-mail. “That’s because this team is led by an alien, not a human, and its biggest threat is a busted play where the alien goes back to pass, can’t find a receiver, then runs over everybody for a touchdown. If Vince Young carried the ball on every play, Texas would win games 85-0. But that’s not a team, it’s a group of undistinguished guys led by a monster from outer space.”

So lil’Steve sent me this email the other day. He’s about to be deployed in the peacekeeping mission in Kosovo.

No…no HD-TV, which is bull*$”#!. But yea me and the other 3 guys in my hut are gonna split the cost for satellite internet, which will be like 80 bucks a month total, but really high bandwidth. The service they provide us there is like 52k. Theres a nice gym with all kinds of workout s&#$, and a pretty good chow hall. So i’ll be eating alot and working out alot. Hohenfels sucks big donkey balls, but especially where my Task Force is going to stay. It started snowing the minute we got here and the f*$&ing mud gets everywhere. I get to spend thanks giving in Nurnburg which is cool, but besides that i wont really get to see anymore of germany. I cant wait to get to Kosovo. The sooner we get there the sooner we get to come home. By the way im getting married when i get back, probably in march or something. When i get to Kosovo i’ll send you a picture of her. I am one lucky sonofb*$&h. Crazy huh…
Anyway, im not sure the next time ill be able to get online so if anything i’ll contact you in about 3 and half weeks. I had a blog but i guess it got hut down due to inactivity. Maybe i’ll start a new one when i get to where im going.
Have a goog thanks giving and Gig ‘Em.
-Lil’ Steve

ummm…Hey Steve, I don’t give a crap about your tv-viewing situation in Kosovo, nor the weather outside your tent. But there was a bit of information in there that you could expand upon…

IMG_2584
Originally uploaded by nickmoles.

Friday night was a pleasantly hazy conglomeration of loud conversation and copious booze. Matthieu and I went to Meduzza, a psuedo 20′s intellectual salon, known for comfy chairs and cheap italian barrel wine. We chatted for a bit, then argued with the welshmen at the next table whether or not removing the pads from american football players would be safe (short answer: no. but they were morons and don’t have giant black guys in Wales).

Afterward we walked back throug the neighborhood to Pizzeria Roma, which is conveniently open 24 hours a day. We had 3 pizzas between the two of us, as well as a couple of beers. As we left I exited earlier than matthieu (who was fiddiling with his clothing – the guy wears like 6 layers of scarves, shirts, and hats) and noticed there was a blizzard outside. i was drunk and hoped that if i ignored it the snow would stop, so i yelled at matthieu to sit back down and not to look out the window.

nonetheless we trudged through the stuff, and I managed to take this cool picture from my window. I miss the beergardens, but their time will come again.

While surfing today, I came across these gems:
1) I spoke yesterday about the stupidity of ‘Intelligent Design’. Now more Vatican guys are coming out in support of my position:

The Vatican’s chief astronomer said Friday that “intelligent design” isn’t science and doesn’t belong in science classrooms, the latest high-ranking Roman Catholic official to enter the evolution debate in the United States.

The Rev. George Coyne, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said placing intelligent design theory alongside that of evolution in school programs was “wrong” and was akin to mixing apples with oranges.

“Intelligent design isn’t science even though it pretends to be,” the ANSA news agency quoted Coyne as saying on the sidelines of a conference in Florence. “If you want to teach it in schools, intelligent design should be taught when religion or cultural history is taught, not science.”

2) I came across this great story today:

GROWING numbers of migratory birds are too lazy to fly all the way to Africa for the winter and are staying in Britain.

I like how this writier is making a value judgement about the birds. They’re ‘lazy’ just because they’re not going to africa anymore. Maybe a mix of global warming/drought in afrika/addiction to beavis and butthead reruns are the cause? No, no, it’s just that today’s birds have been pampered too much and can’t make the effort to get down to the Congo like their hard-working parents did.

3) I had to post this: Drunken elks attack old people’s home
My favorite quote:

There have been previous problems with elks: a female elk recently attacked three joggers in Norway. Last year another elk in Sweden stole a bicycle from a garden, which it regularly visited to eat the roses. An elderly couple had used the bike to fence off their garden; the elk disappeared with the bike hanging round its neck. The bike was later found bent and damaged beyond repair.

This just proves that we really aren’t that far away from our animal friends. Or at least I’m not.

4) The headline:”Pub Has its Own Nursing Home….”

A nursing home in Ireland has hit on a cheering way to keep up the spirits of its elderly patients — by providing its own pub.

St Mary’s Hospital in County Monaghan, near the Irish border with Northern Ireland, believes ready access to a good pint may help its patients — average age 85 — actually live longer.

Yes! A czech person was just telling me today how plum brandy is very good for me…but all czechs say that about all czech food/alcohol. They think a night at the pub is the equivalent of a vitamin shot and a marathon.

5) News on the balding front. Important information for people such as myself.

6) The cultural impact of beavis and butthead.
My favorite quote:

To truly appreciate Beavis and Butt-head, you have to watch from a similar place, a Zen rock garden of peaceful imbecility. There’s an almost Beckett-like purity to the tedium of Beavis and Butt-head’s serenely empty lives; in one short, “Killing Time,” the boys wait out the two hours until something good comes on TV by staring at the gas meter outside Butt-head’s house. “Time sucks,” Butt-head finally observes. Beavis’ response: a chuckle, then silence.

Just reading that made me laugh.

Hot dogs are already the confection most famous for containing things unnamed and unmentionable. How bad is this…

Snoop has proven he can spread himself thin and still win. But like comic book superheroes, super rapper Snoop has a sidekick to help him out: his entrepreneurial 26-year-old brother, Bing Worthington. Together, their endeavors include Snoop Dogg Clothing, Cadillac Snoop DeVilles, Snoop Dogg skateboards and now, foot-long frankfurters.

You guessed it: Snoop Doggs.

Umm…I’m just gonna take a guess here and say that, after 15 years in the rap business, snoop’s ‘dogs’ ain’t the most clean and hygenic thing on the market.

“There aren’t any celebrity hot dogs out there,” he said. “Who’s the competition? Ball Park?”

This man knows nothing about the hot dog business. Everyone knows the Jews have the best rolled meat. Hebrew National is king – best damn hot dogs in existence.

I won’t touch a hot dog unless it’s been blessed by a rabbi. Biatch.

If anyone noticed, today is my first Blogiversary. I have completely failed in my initial hope of creating a ‘politically balanced and insightful commentary on the dangers and advantages of outsourcing’. Instead you get ham-handed attempts at writing about Prague, links to obviously stupid news stories, and Michal Jackson jokes. I feel like there are a number of reasons for these failures:

My command of the English language: Definitely falling. Remember: I spend a significant portion of my day with people who can’t pronounce the letter ‘W’.

Immaturity: The other night I got home from work and watched the 11pm ‘Beavis and Butthead. This is the exact same thing I did when I was 13. Some things really don’t change.

Slang: Disconnected from the American slacker homeland, I’ve acquired a weird old-timey twang. And I don’t use the word ‘crunk.’

Work: I spend all day using logic to figure out financial problems*. This doesn’t exactly get the creative juices flowing, and makes everything I write sound like a book report.

*Please note this sentence is 100% false.

Nonetheless I appreciate everyone taking the time out of his or her busy days and reading my web ramblings. Hopefully I’ll improve, probably I’ll just keep writing the same old crap. If you’re happy with that, keep coming back!