Vive la Republique

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand it's done. I've nailed down a great place in the south of France for one week this summer, just 3 hours from Barcelona. Daytrip, here we come.

Now I've managed to cover the first three weeks of holidaying, and I have an apartment in Prague that's almost, just almost mine... I can feel the taste of it, my preciousssssss...

Quote of the Day

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
- Anatole France

Quote of the Day

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that wouldn’t work.
- Thomas Edison

Quote of the Day

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
- James Bovard

Happyyyyyyyyyyy

I'm so happy! Happy, happy, happy! Albie and Court booked tickets last night and are definitely coming to Europe, wheeeeeeee!

As of now the travel plan has them arriving in Geneva Monday 6/28, leaving from the same place Wednesday 7/21. They'll start out with a few days in Geneva (Albie's old hometown), then probably go to Venice for a couple of days before coming down to see me in my spacious apartment just south of Florence. We're staying in Italy till July 10th, probably taking day trips all over the place.

From July 10-17 we have a one-week gap to fill, it'll probably be France (where I can safely go these days, the country having elected a president who doesn't suck ass on a daily basis). Then Albie and Court are off to Paris for a few days before going home from Geneva, while I take off to Prague for my last two weeks of rental.

Quote of the Day

When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.
- Mark Twain

Quote of the Day

Critique is easy, art is difficult.
- Destouche, French writer 18th century

Quote of the Day

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
- Martin Luther King

Viva Italia

I've gone and done it! Wheeee! For a blissful two weeks this coming summer I will be renting an apartment in this villa in Umbria - literally on the border with Tuscany. Sometime during the second week (probably) I will be joined by Albie and Court, my friends from San Diego, and we're planning some day trips to Florence, Pisa, Rome and Sienna.

From Umbria we'll go to Venice and probably Vienna, before ending up in Prague - if I can manage to get my grubby little hands on a nice place there. If not, we'll go rent something in France instead. At least that's the plan for now, so from experience it's a 100% certain that's not how things will turn out in the end...

Quote of the Day

If I had permitted my failures, or what seemed to me at the time a lack of success, to discourage me I cannot see any way in which I would ever have made progress.
- Calvin Coolidge

Quote of the Day

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.
- Richard Feynman

And no sooner...

...had I written about my holiday angst than a completely new plan presents itself, all bright and shiny. My old friend Albie & hubby Court, who I went to Grand Canyon & Vegas with last summer are probably coming to Europe this year! Wheeeee!

So the Master Planner, the numero uno in sage travel budgeting, your own hero, THE GHOST is in full swing, planning out a 3-week trip. Finding the cheapest airfare, budget hotels in Paris and Geneva, Venice and Vienna, accomodation in Tuscany and Prague, trains everywhere... oh yeah, baby you know I can find it! Mad props for da man with da plan, give it up for yo' dawg Ghost!

Getting antsy

I'm starting to get antsy. The travel bug is biting ever earlier, especially since I'm staying home for the winter break. It started yesterday and I ain't going nowhere this year. In preparation for the summer holiday I've been contacting various rental agencies in Prague but nothing seems to be available, or it's not of the right rental period or in the right price range or I'm just not getting any replies. Argh!

The trips to the US are getting costlier by the day, as are the car rentals. The cheap trip I got last year doesn't seem to be on the horizon this year, and unless some company comes up with a campaign soon, my plan B is shot too.

Plan C is to take advantage of the weak Euro and go traveling in my own car somewhere. France, Spain, Italy... who knows.

Is it too much to expect a fuckin answer from the Czechs within next week? Head, meet desk.

Quote of the Day

One cool judgment is worth a dozen hasty councils. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat.
- Woodrow Wilson

Quote of the Day

An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.
- Albert Camus

Quote of the Day

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.
- Don Marquis

Quote of the Day

Bachelors know more about women than married men do. If they didn't, they'd be married too.
- H.L. Mencken

Quote of the Day

Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
- Bertrand Russel

Numbers

This morning I weighed in at 116,6 kg - unchanged in the past 3 weeks. I haven't started exercising again (where are you bastards when I need you?), so I guess that's reasonably good news. When I get on the bike sometime tomorrow (inshallah!) and hopefully in the coming days, I hope to stabilize somewhere close to 110 kg by Easter. Yay.

Quote of the Day

Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.
- G. K. Chesterton

Quote of the Day

Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Quote of the Day

Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man.
- Sophocles

Quote of the Day

One nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people.
- Lucille S. Harper

Quote of the Day

All that can be done for you is nothing to what you can do for yourself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote of the Day

To find out a girl’s faults, praise her to her girlfriends.
- Benjamin Franklin

Quote of the Day

Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?
- Charlie McCarthy

Quote of the Day

"It is said that the civilized man seeks out good and intelligent company, so that by learned discourse, he may rise above the savage, and be closer to God. Personally, however, I like to start the day with a total dickhead to remind me that I'm best."
- Rowan Atkinson in "Black Adder"

Gasp, pant, splutter

I've just shuffled away a HUGE mound of snow that fell of the roof last night and deposited in my driveway. I'm soaked with sweat, out of breath, warm and ice cold at the same time... Next year I'm buying a fuckin' snowblower, that's for sure.

West Wing

Having a ridiculous amount of spare time on my hands (don't tell my boss), I've devoted January to the viewing of West Wing, the show about a fictitional US president and his staff. I'd watched the six first seasons and a few of the episodes of the seventh before, but over a span of several years. Seeing the whole thing in less than a month, often a whole season in a weekend really brought home what a wonderful show this is. It's got everything - humor, drama, excitement, intrigue, action, romance. It's so fast paced there's hardly a boring moment in seven seasons of script, and all I can say is that at the end I wanted it to go on and on and on.

Quote of the Day

Bishop of Bath and Wells: "Never have I encountered such foul mindless perversity! Have you considered a career in the church?"
- From Rowan Atkinson's "Black Adder"

Quote of the Day

"They do have one redeeming feature: their wallets. More capacious than an elephant’s scrotum and just as hard to get your hands on."
- Rowan Atkinson in "Black Adder"

Quote of the Day

George: Oh, sir, if we should happen to tread on a mine, what do we do?
Edmund Blackadder: Well, normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump up 250 feet into the air and scatter yourself over a wide area.
- Rowan Atkinson in "Black Adder"

Quote of the Day

"Baldrick, I'd like to say how much our association has meant to me over the years, but as we both know, that would be a complete and utter lie. So I'll just leave by saying 'Sod off, and if I ever see you again, it will be twenty billion years too soon!'"
- Rowan Atkinson in "Black Adder"

Quote of the Day

On special request, this week is designated "Black Adder week"...

"They do say, Mrs Miggins, that verbal insults hurt more than physical pain. They are of course wrong, as you will soon discover when I stick this toasting fork in your head."
- Rowan Atkinson in "Black Adder"

Quote of the Day

"Baldrick, you have all the artistic capabilities of a cluster of colour-blind hedgehogs. In a bag."
- Rowan Atkinson in "Black Adder"

I - the pinnacle of evolution

I've always suspected it, of course, but now there's solid evidence - grumpiness is a sign of advanced civilization: "Researchers now believe that being aggressive, intolerant and short-tempered could be a sign of a more advanced nature." If so, I am one of the most advanced people on the planet, is all I can say.

Quote of the Day

When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.
- Victor Hugo