Anonymous

I don’t even know if anyone even reads this anymore.

I don’t have cable, so I’m watching the State of the Union address on cbs.com.I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea, but they have three – three fucking twitter feeds on the site accompanying the video.

The comments that are being posted are some of the most ignorant, racist and angry comments I’ve ever seen. It’s easy to be a douchebag when there’s no accountability. It makes me really sad.

Really sad.

Snow in Manchester

Last night I fell asleep to the brown of hibernating trees and internet woes and woke up to the pristine white of a new snowfall and a number of rapidly blinking green lights on cable modem. My first thought upon seeing the first real blanket of snow was “Manchester looks way better covered in snow” followed quickly by “I really want to go snowboarding” which was then followed by “I hope the plow in the parking lot doesn’t hit my car”. I know, 8am and I’m already firing on all cylinders.

I’m a little behind the times when it comes to news these days; I’ve become so jaded by the cable networks and all the extremist blogs (on both sides of the aisle) that reading the news has become a painful ritual of sorting out all the spin, leading headlines and writer’s opinion that seems to manifest itself in the majority of content out there. I also find myself becoming numb to the insanity and idiocracy that has become this country’s legislature – all the way from Congress to state and local systems. It took me as a surprise then, when I learned that a gay marriage bill failed to pass in New York last week; I wasn’t even aware the issue was up for a vote in New York. After the surprise wore off, I felt.. “meh”. I wasn’t shocked to hear that something as heated as gay marriage didn’t pass, and I wasn’t outraged. If anything, it made me a little sad. But not too sad, because I’ve gotten used to hearing the legislature do stupid things like this.

The justification that I hear often is that legalizing homosexual marriage is a mistake is that it will become a “slippery slope” (I hate that phrase) and will lead to a push for the legalization of bestiality and other forms of human/non-human marriage. I don’t understand how the jump is so easily made out of the species. I don’t think that the state should ever recognize a marriage between a man and his animal or furniture. Marriage is a people thing. It is a display of willful ignorance to equate homosexual love to anything other than heterosexual love.

This leads directly into the other major argument I hear against gay marriage: that it defiles the “sanctity of marriage”. Sanctity of marriage. That phrase gets thrown around a lot, but I am not sure if it is being used correctly. The word “sanctity” has strong ties to religion, Christianity in particular. This leads me to believe that a number of opponents are using the Bible to define marriage. That would be great, but if an argument is to be made using a few lines in the old testament – primarily the book of Genesis, then I present to you a talking donkey in Numbers 22:28. Furthermore, taking a lesson also from Genesis 30:37-39, should you paint your livestock, they will give birth to painted offspring. My point is that there is a lot of bizarre stuff in the Bible, and if part of it is going to be considered as infallible truth, than the whole should be as well. Thus, I don’t consider arguments made solely from a Biblical perspective to hold much water. I propose a more reasoned approach.

The literal meaning of the word “sanctity” is “the quality or state of being holy or sacred”. Taking this a step further, the word “holy” means “exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness”. Now, I know there were a few iterations just there, but I do not believe that the connotations and subtle differences in words was lost. Putting it all back together, the phrase “sanctity of marriage” would seem to mean that marriage is an institution which is exalted and worthy of complete devotion. That makes sense to me. I haven’t found the “but only between heterosexuals” part yet, but I’ll keep looking, and I’ll post something new if I find anything.

Them Crooked Vultures

Who would win in a fight, Dave Grohl or God? Trick question, Dave Grohl is God!
Quick update for anyone who cares:

Jobs
Cicso: NOPE!
Sears: NOPE!
RPI: NOPE!
Best Buy: NOPE!
V-Brick: still waiting…
Northeast Utilities: still waiting…

Classes
New Product Development: A
Creating and Managing Enterprise: still waiting…
Accounting for Reporting and Control: final exam in two days

Life
Finally got cold enough out that the snow is sticking, blowers in the car have stopped working again, so I had to wait ten minutes before the windshield would stop frosting over. Heat in the apartment is on pretty consistently these days, I’m not looking forward to the next gas bill. Luckily, our electric is way down from the summer months, largely due to a faulty air conditioner, so it won’t cut too much out of my food budget. Overall, life is pretty good.

The guns… they’ve stopped!

You don’t have to turn around, Darth Vader hit the pyre a long time ago. In a galaxy far far away.

Also, the guns have started again. (Probably because they don’t need to worry about Vader.)

Think about it. Also, I was recently in both Italy and China. Pictures.

Holy Sh…anghai

So. China.

Well, everyone here speaks mandarin, which means that I can’t communicate verbally with anyone here. Sometimes it’s a non-issue, say, at the grocery store, you pick out what you want and you hand them some money. Other times, like when you’re at a restaurant, the communication barrier becomes nearly impossible to get around. When the menu is written entirely in pretty little characters, there are no pictures and your waiter doesn’t speak a word of English save “Hello”, there is little choice but to find another place to eat.

So far I haven’t been disappointed with the food. I’ve eaten at three proper restaurants and once from a street vendor. The vendor was by a wide margin the cheapest, and probably actually closer to the top in terms of flavor as well. The other three places were nice enough, and the food is so inexpensive. I haven’t found many of the little local shops for food yet, but so far, I haven’t spent more than 4oRMB on any one meal, and I’ve been filled up to the point of being satiated every time. To put this in perspective, 1USD is trading for roughly 7RMB at the moment. That means that my 40RMB meal was just about $5.50. I’ve been here for nearly two days at this point, and haven’t spent more than 20USD.

What else… there are lots of Asians, and they’re not all short. At a bus stop, they all line up very nicely and wait for the bus in the order they arrived at the stop in, unlike America or Italy where it’s a mob to get on the bus first. People are generally pretty friendly when they’re not looking at you like you’ve got three heads. I found a park today, it was really, really big. Inside were two groups of people that were singing at the top of their lungs. It got even more bizarre when one group started belting out Handel’s Messiah. I also came across a Gelato place. Odd.

China is worlds apart from anywhere I’ve ever been before.

Red Eye

As I write, I am currently 35000 feet above sea level, in seat 44D on Emirates Airline flight 302. Twelve hours ago, I was on the ground in Rome. Soon, I’ll be on the ground in Shanghai. I’ve consumed four cups of coffee and gone to the bathroom five times on this flight. My goal is to power through the jet lag, basically treating this whole situation as an all nighter. The plan is to stay awake until 9 or 10pm Shanghai time, sleep through the night and hopefully wake up at a reasonable morning hour.

Rome was interesting, to say the least. It was a bit too touristy for my taste, I’d prefer to have been somewhere that the menus weren’t in both Italian and English. Granted, many of the places I frequented were Italian speaking only, there was enough English dull any sense of immersion. There were three places I went on a very regular basis, and they were all on the same block: Tuodi, the grocery store; the pizza place right next to Tuodi; and the caffe on the corner across the street from the pizza place.

Once the honeymoon faded after the first week or so, reality began to set in. There are only so many things you can make with pasta, basil, olive oil, tomatoes, mozzerella and proscutto.

I walked through St. Peter’s square (it’s really a circle) that it was old hat after a few weeks. The Colosseum is really just an organized pile of rocks that thousands of people got killed in. I’m glad I got the chance to see it, but it’s not really a structure that has the ability to keep my attention.

The two places I am very glad I went to were the beach resort town of Sperlonga and the Tuscan town of Montepulciano. Sperlonga was beautiful, clear blue water and sandy beaches that went off into the distance. The old town was built on a cliff above the water, and exploring that area was, simply put, really fun. It reminded me of an old adventure game I used to play called Riven; the narrow passageways and steep, winding steps were reminiscent of the style of that particular game.

Montepulciano had a similar feel to Sperlonga, except instead of a view of the Mediterranean, I was treated to a stunning panorama of Tuscany. The city is shaped like an elongated U, going uphill one way and downhill the other. The only street was barely wide enough to fit one car through, and it served as the main pedestrian thoroughfare as well. Little shops and cantinas lined that road, and I visited quite a few of them.

Rome, in comparison, is dirty, smelly, and crowded. Apparently there are no laws against public urination… Suffice to say, I’ve had enough of Rome for the time being. Pizza, panini and kabobs get old after a few weeks. I will miss the cappicino: it’s the best I’ve ever had, and the gelato: it was fresh tasting and refreshing, and the flavors actually tasted like their names. Strawberry gelato tasted like a fresh picked strawberry, likewise with raspberry, mango and coconut.

Leaving Rome was easy. Unlike a good number of people on this trip with me, my luggage was ten kilos under the limit of thirty, making my check-in and boarding process significantly easier. The flight from Rome to Dubai was about five hours long. We departed from Rome around 3:30pm and landed around 11:50pm Dubai time. I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around that math. It doesn’t work out, but that’s what happened. We spent two hours exploring the Dubai International Airport – that place is huge. Really, really huge. I didn’t get a chance to see any of the city or the desert because it was dark the whole time. It’s currently 12:04pm Shanghai time, which means I’ve still got three hours of flight ahead of me.

Air Emirates is be far the nicest airline I’ve ever flown. Both flights have been on Boeing 777-300’s, so each seat has a display built into it. They’ve got a selection of about 300 movies to choose from, in addition to tv shows and games. The food is by a wide margin the best airline food I’ve eaten – granted, I have somewhat limited experience in that area.

I’m looking forward to China, though I’m not exactly sure if I’ll be able to post this right away. I’ve heard rumors that the Great Firewall of China blocks word press, blogger and other blogging websites, but I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.

Italy

Roma: The land of caffeine and alcohol.

Rome is incredible.I’m going to try to mention things that I found fascinating and different from life in the northeast United States.

When we arrived, the first thing I noticed was the graffiti everywhere. It was actually really disheartening, seeing what could have been pristine architecture covered in filth. Now, after spending just three days here, I don’t even notice it anymore.

Since we’re staying in the La Sapienza (college) district, there are a ton of places to eat and drink, and lots of them are open pretty late – but the best part is the prices. It would appear that the average college student in Roma is just as broke as the average college student in the US, and as such, the cost of food from a trattori in La Sapienza district is as low as half that from one near, say, the Vatican.

Espresso is ubiquitous. From the apartment, there are no less than seven caffés within a two block radius. It’s quickly becoming a tradition to get up early from class, walk to a bar and order a quick caffe latte (espresso with milk and steamed milk). It’s a really cool process: you have to go to the cashier and pay for your drink, then you take the receipt to the bar and show them, and they make your beverage. There are no stools at the bar; espresso drinks are typically consumed in a rather hasty fashion. One might be a bit apprehensive at first because espresso in the US is usually served hot enough to burn your throat, but it’s fine because here they’ve got the temperature thing down to a science. Drinks are served at the perfect temperature, every time. Since espresso is considered a morning drink in Italy, it’s generally not ordered after 11am, and you’ll get a pretty strange look if you try.

There are pizza places everywhere, they’re even more prevalent than caffés. My guess is that they’re the Italian fast food. Pizza in Italy is much thinner than American pizza, and the flavors are much more delicate. Most feature some sort of combination of cheeses and sauces, I have yet to see a pepperoni pizza here.

For lunch, I usually stop at a bar and order a panini for a few euro. Panini here are similar to panini in the US, except here, they’re way better. The bread is much thinner and the ingredients on the inside are much simpler. Today, for example, I had a mozzarella and tomato panini, made with fresh tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil and olive oil. It was fantastic, and just enough food to satisfy without feeling satiated.

For dessert, it’s only a short walk before one finds a gelato shop. After my first bite of mango gelato, I knew that I would have a difficult time getting by without it, and I am not looking forward to traveling to a place that doesn’t serve it. I’ve had lemon, coconut, mango and raspberry gelato so far, and I’m going to try every flavor before I leave. No worries, there are only about fifteen of them at most places. The raspberry gelato was by far the best; it tasted like an actual raspberry in ice cream form. It was not like the US, something that says “raspberry” on it tastes like whatever chemical they decided raspberries taste like. This stuff was real raspberry. Amazing.

Wine. Oh, wine. It’s cheaper than water. Okay, maybe not, but it’s close. I’ve shared two bottles with Steve and Ana, and both have been really, really good. There really isn’t too much else to say. I’ve been having a glass or two before bed to help sleep: my days are usually so crazy that my brain is working overtime and it’s tough to fall asleep without a little help. Just to bring it back to price: I just bought two good bottles of Chianti (marked DOCG) for three euro and sixty cents. Yeah, that’s $4.86USD.

So far classes have been fine yadda yadda.

A few friends and I are going to take a day trip to Sperlonga this weekend. Lots of people in the group have their eyes set on Munich or Paris, but I’d rather spend more than a few days in those cities. Besides, who can say no to beaches and cliffs for twelve euro?

England

Disembarked the ship today, and it couldn’t have come sooner. Nearly the whole cruise felt like a hangover mixed with a bad dream. 23 hour days, combined with a heavy workload and the constant motion of the ship created a monster of a problem for my equilibrium and my sleep schedule. The food, while very tasty, was very rich and heavy nearly every night. The people were just about as shallow as they come, and most conversations held were incredibly boring. There were a few exceptions, however, and they occurred when I talked to the crew. One of the photographers was born in India and was on the ship because he needed a bit of cash before he went back to school to get his MBA. Overall, a cruise on the Queen Mary 2 is not something I’d readily repeat, as we were twenty-two of the only young adults on the ship, and as such, there were a very limited amount of activities tailored to our demographic.

England, from what I’ve seen of it, is gorgeous. It was, of course, cloudy when we arrived, and there was a spot of rain on the bus ride. The mix of old stone buildings and modern hotels is a curious one, but I rather enjoy it. The only thing that really stood out as a major difference was the whole driving on the left side of the road thing. When you drive on the left, all the doors on all the buses are on the left as well, and this threw me when I looked for a door where I expected it to be and found none.

Once we arrived at Heathrow, we discovered that couldn’t check our luggage until three hours prior to the flight we found ourselves stuck with nothing to do for four hours. I fell asleep on the floor. When we had gotten into the terminal, we had another few hours to wait before we boarded. The flight was unremarkable, and we arrived in Roma without incident.

Now to explore the city!

I’m on a Boat

First impressions of my classmates are generally all positive. We met today for the first time as a full group, and everyone is pretty likable. Every person brings a very unique personality, background and skill set to the table, and so far, everyone has been very laid back while simultaneously focused. My classmates are all here to learn, and it’s a very refreshing atmosphere. As an undergrad, I my classmates were often fiercely competitive, and the ones that weren’t just considered the whole class thing to be a bother. The attitude of any given class in general was normally negative, and some professors, quite frankly, didn’t seem to give a shit about the students. A student posing a question in class would often be greeted with a chorus of groans from the rest of the class, as a question would simply prolong the class that most didn’t want to attend anyway. Here, the two professors that instructed the first class have already memorized most of the names of the people in the class, are extremely approachable, and are likely to join us for a drink after dinner.

I generally like to fall asleep to some sort of white noise, but the ship brings it to a whole new level. My room is situated to the aft of the ship, and as such, it tends to vibrate because of the proximity to the engines. The gentle hum of the engines, combined with the vibration and the sway of the ship, in total darkness, creates an… interesting experience. I tossed and turned a few times, but I managed to get a solid seven hours of rest. Since we’re traveling across the Atlantic, we’re operating at 23 hour days as we pass through different time zones. Suffice to say, my biological clock is confused.

The seas haven’t been rough, and it’s been a pleasant temperature outside during the day, albeit a little chilly at night. I don’t think I get seasick, though at times I’ve been a tiny little bit queasy. I’m still discovering places I haven’t seen on this ship; it’s so big. I’m not sure what I’m going to do tonight; there’s a black and white formal dinner at my restaurant, but I don’t have black dress pants, and I’m not about to rent a pair at 50USD a night to have dinner when there are other options available. I think I’ll go sit in a hot tub at the back of the ship, watch the sunset and sip on a basil and ginger Collins.

Hedonism and Tranquility

Today I woke up on my girlfriend’s couch on Long Island. Tonight, I will be falling asleep to the gentle sway and dull vibration of the Queen Mary 2, somewhere on the dark Atlantic. It’s quite an… impressive ship. At fourteen decks tall, it’s far more imposing than I imagined it. My first thought upon seeing it up close was “Jesus Christ, that thing is floating?” As astonishing as it is from the shore, it’s even more amazing once on board.

Upon my first footsteps onto the boat, I was greeted immediately by music. A few steps further into my journey, I found a pianist, playing at a grand piano in the main lobby. The six-story main lobby. One of four grand pianos I came across during my preliminary investigation of the ship.
I found an art gallery, probably a few hundred paintings in number, all of which are to be auctioned off in the coming days. I discovered no less than ten fully stocked bars, four restaurants, several high-end retailers, and six pools. Nearly every vertical surface is covered in pearlwood. It feels elegant without feeling too extravagant.

Now that I’ve mentioned that, I feel so out of place here that it’s uncomfortable. It’s probably safe to assume that my classmates are some of the only people my age on the ship, aside from the crew. The service is scary: I was eating at the King’s Court (a 24 hour buffet style cafeteria) and I asked one of the crew where the tray return was. He looked at me as if I had two heads, so I repeated my question. He said in a very matter-of-fact-i-can’t-believe-you-asked-that-question tone, “Just leave your tray on the table and we’ll take it.” It’s tough to shake years of being indoctrinated to clean up after yourself.

Dinner was worse. As I was sitting down and reaching for my chair, I felt it being pushed into the backs of my knees. My waiter was pushing my chair in for me. Thoroughly freaked out, I proceeded to look around to see if this was the case for everyone. As I was looking around, the waiter was already on his way to my napkin, and placed it on my lap. What? My arms work!

In all the confusion that is this ship, I was able to find peace. Once the sun went down, everyone cleared out of the aft outside decks. I went to the very back of the ship, and there was nothing; just the wash of the ship, the wind in my ear and the reflection of the moon on the calm waters of the Atlantic. Another man, apparently seeking the same solitude as I, came out to the deck after I had been there a few minutes.

Regarding the view, I said “That’s somethin’.”

He replied “There’s nothing really quite like it. It’s unchanged, Magellan saw it, Columbus saw it, we’re seeing it.”