London, short stories – Part one

Satuday, 27th of November 2004

London, what a wonderful city! My friend Seva and I had decided that we would go there for a couple of days. The flight was booked and so was the accommodation, but sometimes, plans change at the last minute. And this was one of those occasions. The passport of Seva had expired about three months ago. Unfortunately, when he realized that, we where already at the Check-In Counter of Ryan Air and the kind Ryan-Air lady refused to let him check in.

What a pity! We were really caught of guard. But when the woman turned to me and asked if I would still go to London I just replied “Of course” without any hesitation. Thinking about it now, I should have taken an extra minute just to show a little bit more sorrow for Seva.

But he was quiet cool about it. We decided to spend the rest of the time before my departure, smoking a cigar outside the airport, recording a message for his friends in London with my camera and making plans for the next trip to England, of course with a valid passport then.

The flight was very pleasant and upon my arrival in London, I was even more pleased to discover that my hostel, “the Ace Hotel” was superb. It had just opened up a couple of weeks ago, the interior was brand new and the staff was very friendly.

The initial plan was to meet with some friends of Seva, but as he was still in Austria, it was my duty to call them and tell them that Seva wouldn’t show up. They where disappointed, but I was invited to join them for night out in a club called “Ministry of Sound” which I happily accepted. So I met this group of Australians and immediately felt like I’ve known them for years. We danced to House music until early in the morning (very unusual for me) and I wouldn’t even return to my hostel until lunch the other day. I also have to admit that this must have been my most expensive night out – EVER!

Let us pray…

I found this on the web a couple of days ago

…The Christian soldier has someone he takes with him besides his fellow soldier – Jesus. In time of need, we are taught to turn to Jesus, to let Him lead, guide, and direct our path….

Wait a second – “fellow soldier” – Jesus (?!). I never heard anything about Jesus being a soldier and going to war. Reading blogs of people from the USA some might get the impression that they are very religious people. Very often, they ask for prayers, sent to “their boys” in Iraq. Even George W. Bush prays, of course in front of the camera so that everyone can see him… Sorry, but I call this hypocritically. To go to war is the complete opposite of what Jesus tried to tell us. Read the bible again!

I would understand people who ask Jesus that the war is over, that no on is killed, not even those who are called enemies. That no more bombs are dropped and everyone can just go home. Thats the message Jesus left for us.

Congratulations guestbook spammers!

Dear visitors!

Well, someone who has a lot of time on his hand recently crashed my guestbook. Once again… As a matter of fact, he is a about the only one that signs anyway. While I don’t mind that kind of attention, I can’t allow explicit content in my guestbook. So, dear guestbook spammers, today is the last time the guestbook will be functional.

I encourage people that have to say something to send me emails. As for those who have been wondering about the removed articles: My blog crashed also and I had to delete a few recent articles. I will try to restore them, but eventually they are gone forever.

The ugly face of war

Just a couple of days ago, Kevin Sites, a cameraman working for NBC filmed the shooting of an unarmed wounded man lying in a Fallujah mosque. He is running a weblog at http://www.kevinsites.net and his discussion board is loaded with hate messages, calling him a traitor and terrorist, etc.

I wonder why people who write such messages, who probably live in a cosy home somewhere in the middle of the United States, are complaining and sending hate emails to someone, who is just doing his job. After all there is an ugly face of war, and Mr. Sites is capturing it. These people don’t want to see pictures of American soldiers killing defenceless people. They want the illusion that American soldier are the good people. But hey, wake up, there is no clean war. War will always contain killing, rape and torture.

Pervert this might sound and I hate that I have to admit it, but considering that Iraq is still a war zone, the soldier that shot the wounded men in the mosque has done nothing outstanding. Maybe he was just bored, maybe his best friend was killed the other day and he was seeking revenge. But this is what war is also about. Americans should be shown this “real face of war” with all the ugly side effects, day in and day out.

Why did this war start in the first place? Protect the freedom of the United States? What a freaking joke! What was Mr. Bush afraid of? That Sadam was building weapons of mass destruction. It doesn’t matter if Iraq had such weapons, as long as the United States has a couple of thousands nukes just waiting to be used. Oddly enough, not even a single “weapon of mass destruction” has been found in Iraq yet.

We all should be reminded when we go to a gas station to get some fuel that this is what people in Iraq are still dying for. US soldiers and all the soldiers from other countries in Iraq are there to secure economy interests of western countries and for nothing else.

Sweet home Alabama…

I decided to share one of my travel stories today. It was a weird situation, but when I heard the song “Sweet home Alabama” this morning I just had to think about it and smile. The following happened just a few weeks after September 11 2001. Back then I was on a three month trip, traveling around Australia and Thailand.

…I knew the Airport in Darwin, I had been there twice, but this time it was like hell on earth for me. I was waiting at the check-in counter, when a old men passed by, stopped, turned around, looked at me and said: “Where ever you go, you’re not going to make it”

How would you feel about something like that? I was confused, a bit scared, thought about the possibility to not go on the plane, looked at my right site and realized that three guys from Pakistan where standing beside me. I didn’t knew anything about those people, just that that they had passports from Pakistan, but it increased my fears a lot. I have nothing against people from Pakistan or any other country in the world (including Iraq and Afghanistan), but it was just not the right time to see them checking in for the same flight. To make this situation even worse, I switched on my CD player and the first song to start was “Sweet Home Alabama” (singer died during an airplane crash). But, as I’m typing this, sitting in the youth hostel in Bangkok, you should already know that everything went fine. I don’t believe in fate (but I was relieved when the plane finally landed in Bangkok), I don’t trust in old stupid men, I had a nice chat with the guys from Pakistan and I switched off my CD player.

Me, my girlfriend and the gay surfer

About half a year ago I was in Mexico with my former girlfriend. It was a last minute decision and we booked the flight only 16 hours prior to departure. Well, things turned out very well for us and it was a very nice trip and there is this one funny story that I want to share with you.

Our first two stops were Mexico City and Acapulco and from there we took a bus to Puerto Escondido. Puerto Escondido was described as a remote beach-paradise by Lonely Planet. Unfortunately this couldn’t have been any further from the truth… But back to the bus ride. The bus was a mess, we where sitting in the last row, right next to the toilet and air-condition wasn’t working properly. So there was an incredible heat and terrible smell for almost the entire six hour bus ride. Luckily we never had to use the toilet…

I like to talk to foreign travellers and started to talk to the guy next to us, it turned that he was a student from Australia and going to Puerto Escondido to do some surfing. Somewhat two minutes into the conversation he told me that he was gay. I was a bit confused but nonetheless, kept talking to him. A bit later I told my (now ex) girlfriend that the Australian just told me that he was gay. She looked at me in disbelief and started laughing. We did not bother too much about but eventually took actions to make clear that I wasn’t gay at all 😉

Well, at the end of the trip I said good bye to the Australian guy and left the bus with my girlfriend. We walked up to the taxi and where already putting our backpacks in the trunk when the Australian guy, out of the sudden, started to run towards us. He asked me if he could get my email address as he would be in Europe later this year and it would be great to meet me again. I was somewhat surprised (and so was my girlfriend) but handed him one of my cards, thinking that I would never hear from him again. Well, I was wrong about that, he arrived in Europe two weeks ago and is currently in Amsterdam. And he wants to meet me! Well, he is not going to be in Austria until January…

Oh, by the way, I just recently finished the picture book for Mexico – click here if you are interested!

Size does matter

Currently I get (and instantly delete) about a hundred spam emails each day. Most of them are about how I can enlarge my penis. Size, and especially how to increase it, must be something very important for us men those spammers assume. It’s no surprise in a world where everything needs to be bigger then something else that even the most private part of men must face competition. And why shouldn’t there be a competition? After all, most men tend to like bigger breasts, so it should be just fair for a woman to go for a bigger penis. The problem for woman is that men usually can hide their pride behind layers of cloths. Woman who care about size can only guess the size and usually have to deal with it when it’s all to late.

Durex just recently started a survey to find out what woman consider as “the perfect” size. Something the world sure needs to these days. Maybe they find out that the perfect size is actually below the current “average” of 14,5 centimeters or exceeds the 20 centimeters, which is the maximum woman can choose in this survey.

So, what is going to happen once Durex tells us the perfect size? Will woman put a ruler in their handbag and if they find a interesting target of the opposite sex, measure if he actually meets the international standards of perfect size? And what if he doesn’t?

Questions like the perfect size don’t need to be answered in public. Men and woman should be confident about their bodies and the size of certain body parts. Do we really need to be told what one million people thought about what would be the right size. It’s something that should be reserved for a very personal level and should only be a topic between two people who are together.

The 11th Commandment: You shall not take the pill!

This very interesting article was on Yahoo yesterday…

Druggists refuse to give out pill

By Charisse Jones, USA TODAY

For a year, Julee L. stopped in a CVS pharmacy near her home in a Fort Worth suburb to get refills of her birth-control pills. Then one day last March, the pharmacist refused to fill Lacey’s prescription because she did not believe in birth control…

… The American Pharmacists Association, with 50,000 members, has a policy that says druggists can refuse to fill prescriptions if they object on moral grounds, but they must make arrangements so a patient can still get the pills. Yet some pharmacists have refused to hand the prescription to another druggist to fill….

I’ve never heard of such a case in Europe, it is almost the opposite here, I know woman who where not informed about the side-effects by their doctor and the gynecologist was actually surprised if they opted against the pill for health reasons.

This is just my point of view, but pharmacists who refuses birth control because of moral concerns should find another job. They not only sell pills for birth control, but also medication that can be used for suicide and of course drugs that can cause addiction. Just as unmoral as birth control.

The more interesting question would be: Is to refuse a prescription because of religious concerns just the beginning,? Where does it stop? What if Kmart decides to ban pills from all their stores because of religious concerns. What if there is a law established that forbids using birth control at all?

The truth is, that this doesn’t matter. Because people always have and always will use contraceptives. No matter how hard they would be punished. Just like during the time of prohibition more alcohol was consumed then during the time it was legal to buy liquors.

The 50th anniversary, that isn’t one

I have written 50 articles for this Blog. Well, actually I count 55 today, but in the early days I used articles that I wrote for www.cyberexorcism.com and I don’t count them. Initially this blog was planed as collection of funny stories about problems with software and hardware, but once I started writing, I realized: Why not write a bit more, why not just write about everything that is on my mind. Of course I could write a diary that no one else can read, but thats not my cup of tea, I tried it a few times and it never worked for me. To write a blog is much more challenging.

In 20 years from now I hopefully still have this collection of entries and enjoy reading them. Memories fade out and we get a different point of view, but once we start to write thoughts down, we put them in a fridge and keep them the way they where. Our point of view shifts, but its interesting to look back and compare it with memories from the past.