I already said I was coming - in the comment section of the first post you made about it. And, yes, yes, I will make a punch, a punch so good you'll have no control over how much you consume of it.

Next - I don't understand why, Mike, that you'd want to make Insult visible on Facebook. If you wanted everyone on Facebook to see an Insult post, wouldn't you just post on Facebook? Eh, I just need to make all of my posts private.

I am sitting in Schiphol, waiting to get on a flight to come home. As I was sitting on a tall stool in a horrible, fluorescent-lighted airport cafe, listening to Michael Buble covers of recent pop songs, and considering the food and drink choices available (hot cheese roll...or hot sausage roll? Shitty coffee or Heineken?), I thought this would be an appropriate time to list a handful of things I have come to dislike about the Netherlands.

1.) The buildings are ugly and full of bright, fluorescent lights.
2.) The whole country is essentially a massive, drained swamp. I like rain, and I like fog, but it's when it's mixed with fresh, maybe salty sea air - that makes it refreshing. The Netherlands gets a sort of thick, fetid foggy wetness which I find irritating.
3.) The Dutch really don't care about what they eat or drink food. They just don't.
3a.) Lunch, for them, is slices of supermarket bread with stuff on it. The stuff might be salami, it might be egg salad, it might be chocolate sprinkles or crushed up licorice candies, it doesn't really matter - they just butter a slice of bread, grab whatever they have on hand, put it on the bread, and shove it into their mouths. Maybe, if they're feeling fancy, they'll make a Toastie by putting two slices of bread together with stuff in between, and shoving that in a panini press.
3b.) They don't really care about beer, either. They just want to drink Heineken. If they want something different, they will drink Heineken Extra Cold, which is Heineken, but served slightly colder than regular Heineken.
3c.) They drink milk with every meal. This may be a reason for #8.
3d.) Summing up, the place is a torture chamber for my digestive tract.
4.) The accent.
5.) No one uses napkins at meals. They don't even put them out, unless you ask for them. They aren't visibly dirty and covered in grease stains, though - I can't really figure out why, because they eat frequently with their hands.
6.) I'd rather walk or drive than bike - bicycling hurts my balls. The Dutch love biking.
7.) What the fuck is the point of a comforter? Why do people prefer a single comforter over an array of sheets and blankets? Sheets and blankets provide you with the ability to control the temperature in the bed, by stripping something off if you're too hot. Why limit yourself to a single piece of covering that is likely to be either too hot or too cold? This is more of complaint about Europe, than specifically about the Dutch, but, still.
8.) They're all too fucking tall. I'm not tall, but I'm above average height in the US. In the Netherlands, I've been in rooms with 6 other people where I'm the shortest person there, and everyone else is like 6'6. I don't like it.
9.) I've heard the same 15 damn Michael Buble covers of Coldplay and Pharrell's Frontin' in every single building I've walked into in the Netherlands since last Saturday.

St00n

It's been a very long time since I've written a rambling, self-indulgent Insult journal post.

I left Boston Saturday evening, arrived in Amsterdam on Sunday morning, didn't sleep on the plane. Get to the hotel on Sunday morning, the stupid Holiday Inn in Leiden wouldn't let me check in until noon, so my plan to go to sleep for a few hours as soon as I got in was foiled. I change in the bathroom, and decide to go into Amsterdam, deciding that was my best hope for staying up until around 10pm. Amsterdam was bad-to-mediocre, as always, walk around, have a few beers, don't eat anything (because the food in the Netherlands is awful).

Monday, I get into the office in Europe, very productive day, that's good. Go out for drinks with a few guys from the office, end up drinking 6 Belgian beers (egads), and only eat a couple of handfuls of nuts before 10pm. I get back to the Holiday Inn, and eat dinner at the "pirate bar" - this ridiculous nautical/pirate themed bar at the Inn (which, overall, is this strange sort of tropical-themed business hotel). I love the pirate bar - everyone I've worked with here loves the pirate bar. It was an oasis. However, as of three weeks ago, the pirate bar was transformed into what I imagine a Dutch guy who runs a Holiday Inn thinks a cool bar looks like, that is, color-changing neon lighting underneath the liquor at the bar, blond formica wood bartop, loud club music. The staff - sarcastic dutch guys - and the clients - drunk british businessmen - have remained the same, so everyone in there hates it.

Tuesday morning, I wake up at 4am after sleeping for three hours - can't fall back asleep, eventually try to use the swimming pool, for some reason, maybe because I think it will help prevent a hangover. Either that worked, or my tolerance is higher than it ought to be, since I probably should have had a pounding hangover - instead I just felt mildly shitty all day. I realize midday that I also have a cold with a sore throat. In the last two years, I have been genuinely or even mildly sick twice - food poisoning in the Netherlands a year ago, a cold in the Netherlands now. Any time I get a sore throat, I get worried it's strep, also (strep can kill me if untreated)...never actually is strep, though. Work was productive. I had dinner at a coworker's house, one of the guys in the warehouse, which was nice if awkward. I spent most of the dinner trying to make conversation with a 6 year old Dutch girl that knew 20 words in English, and trying to play with barbies and puzzles with a 3 year old Dutch girl (who would grab my hand and shout "PUZZLEM!" after each of the four times she finished her nine-piece Dora the Explorer puzzle). I get home early but end up staying up until 2am answering work e-mails.

Wednesday, still have a cold. Work goes well. Go out for dinner after work with the boss at the office - to the same place I got food poisoning last year. It goes well enough, though the satay sauce seemed weirdly fishy. Still can't really sleep.

Today, still have a cold. Go back to Schiphol, to get on my flight to Vienna. While I'm waiting, I drink a Heineken at Schiphol Sport Bar, and I'm pretty sure I see a guy at the bar that played a bully in some random kid movie from the 90s, like the Wizard...he had a british accident that seemed to fade in and out. Just didn't like the look of the guy. Flight is fine, get into Vienna, walk to my hotel, which is more like a studio apartment in an old traditional european-hotel-style building. It feels like a character's apartment in an old movie - enough decoration to exhibit what would seem like some sort of individual character, but not enough for that character to be definable in any way. Walk around, cold bothering me, foot bothering me, eat some mediocre schnitzel. I buy tickets to an opera on Saturday, because I want to try it, and Vienna seems like a good place to do that. I am reading a good book. It's from a series of books that NY Review of Books publishes - modern classics. I like them because when I buy one, I get a guarantee that I'm reading something 'worthwhile', without having to worry that the book is too obvious of a classic to actually read in public. It's called Boredom, written in the 50s by an Italian, about a shitty Italian painter with money who decides he's really bored, his boredom, and his relationship with this 17 year old girl with the torso of an adolescent, but "magnificent bosoms, full, firm, and round" that have an "adult quality" again noticeable in "her powerful, solid hips". I like it.

I decided to stay in the hotel tonight, to try to get a full night's sleep. I was speaking weirdly quietly all day - I think I do this the first day I'm in a country where people only mostly speak English. On the way home, I buy a cigar. I go to the open air market in Vienna (called the nachtsmarkt) and buy blue cheese, bread, a bottle of wine (Austrian Syrah), and salami. Then, I buy prosciutto and a roast pork cold cut from this friendly older Austrian guy. He asks me where I'm from, and responds to my answer of "Boston, America" (?) by saying "Do you know Anthony Bourdain?", and telling me about how much Bourdain liked his food shop, and showing me the plate that Bourdain signed. I get home. The Austrian Syrah is a kosher wine that is terrible, and when I look the price up, I find out that I got overcharged for by 200%. I fucking hate terrible wine, and I really hate being overcharged for terrible wine. I consider whether the wine-seller might have cheated me on this wine because he's anti-Semitic and thought I was Jewish and would like the wine because it's kosher. I do some work, and then say fuck it and go out again and get a new bottle of wine. I walk about a half-mile to a better wine store, spend a half hour looking at wines, google like 20 of them, and decide on a Ribera Del Duero with good reviews that doesn't seem overpriced (and two bottles of Underberg).

I get home, spread out a pile of food on the table, open the wine, turn on the TV, decide to post about the week so far on Insult, and start eating. The meats and bread are terrific, but the wine is ridiculously good after a bit of air - medium-full body, sort of a toasted bread with caramel smell, intense acidity, tannins, but all balanced, long finish. Ahhh, I love good wine. Holy crap - I unwrap the cheese, and...I like stinky cheese, but this blue cheese is over the hill... it smells like someone spilled a barrel of ammonia in the FIlthhole. May or may not take a walk and smoke the cigar. Either way, going to get a good night's sleep and then kill Vienna tomorrow.

St00n

It would appear that a large number of drivers have begun using those GPS navigation things to get them from point A to point B nowadays. For that other forum I post on, the users were overjoyed to have received their TomTom or whatever and I've been reading articles about them on various news/tech sites.

I hate the damned things.

FIRST: What the hell did these people do before their GPS that made it absolutely necessary for them to purchase one? I really don't recall 'Murricans getting lost en masse prior to the turn-by-turn revolution. My dad is awesome because he can get anywhere with just his physical maps.

Oddly enough, I hear about more people getting lost or not being able to find some place with the GPS than before. "Oh, sorry I'm late, the damn VZ Navigator gave me bad directions."

SECOND: A new pattern of driving has emerged as a result of these things, which I have decided is called, 'Moron Maneuvering.' The GPS device has to do some communication up and down with either a cell-type tower or a satellite, so naturally the directions it gives aren't going to be instantaneous. After you turn on Main Street, it takes a bit of time for it to register that and then give you your next set of directions.

The folly in something that sounds so innocuous lies within what it causes drivers to do. Most people are exceeding the speed limit most of the time. I get the sense that GPS owners are going too fast to really let the thing properly guide them so what happens is that they will just stop as soon as the thing tells them it is recalculating their route. Literally, they will simply stop and fiddle with the thing. Only once have I ever seen someone pull over to mess around with the GPS.

While that is bad enough, there is a different - and more dangerous - behavior, which has probably arisen from these already lousy drivers getting burned too many times in the past by their speed: they are listening to where they need to turn next and then slowing to a dangerous crawl at every street or light they encounter. You can tell this is happening because they crane their necks to look, too. Some will realize they should have turned on a street and are too far, but they'll turn anyway. Others will ride in between lanes on the highway until they are certain of the off-ramp they are supposed to take. In both of those prior examples, the drivers will continue along their paths, irrespective of other drivers.

I've had to modify my own driving as a result of this stuff. I've learned to read "car body language" to see if that person up ahead of me is GPS'ing. Are they going to get into this lane or are they going to get off the highway? The number of jerky movements left or right has zero association with the outcome. Do I go around the person slowing down to see if the "immediate left on Carson street" is the street they've already passed and risk them accelerating into me? Nope - I just wait behind them until they've run through the proper cognitive responses.

Meh.

I dont even feel like i have to say this because im sure we all know it, but mike is not picking up girls every night to then not bring them home......Meh!

my day starts at 6:30am, my alarm goes off, i wake up to the radio such a much more pleasent way to wake up then some sonic ear peircing rattle jolting me out of bed, why i waited this long to start doing this i have no idea but it makes my day start off way less stressful.

i roll out of bed around 6:50 and take a shit and then shower, usually getting out around 7:09, it just works out that way more often then not, even when i think i took a longer shit than normal. after that i get dressed and leave my house around 7:20 i get to the office around 7:50 go get a coffee at the market next door and wait for the kid with a key to get here. i leave here sometime after 5 and get home sometime before 6 i then either go to the gym or out, i never stay home, too stressful.

my weekends lately have been long and taxing, out till 3 or 4 all kinds of fucked up, sleeping untill after 12 saturday and sunday.

i dont talk to girls

i dont get to play music as much as i like

i hate the radio

i dont read as much as i would like, and im not really inspried to read anything at this point, after completely covering the Kerouac catalog i kinda dont know what to read, im thinking about picking up the wheel of time series again, or maybe rereading the Dark Tower..

all the toys i want or too expensive

i really want to get out of my parents house, but i need a roommate, i dont make enough to live alone, but i dont really care to live with anyone in know, and i dont want to live with a stranger.

i do not speak with women

i hate my car

im happy im not as bald as i thought i would be by now

i wanna start buying nicer cloths

i wish blood and i could hang out more

i got a look at 4th ed and it makes me wanna cry and vomit at the same time

haveing hugh in branford for the last year has made my life significantly better

the last few days with stoneman have been awesome

.......and i guess thats it for now.

948 "we all over the world"

Hmm... stories about what we are doing. This could be interesting to see what you guys think of the person I am now.

My days consist of a fairly simple routine, which I've been doing since about May now. Wow, three months went by quickly! Anyway, I tend to wake up around 6:00am. Even if I'm working a later shift, my body usually just sort of stumbles into consciousness around the same time every day. I do approximately thirty push-ups (some days it's more, it really just depends on when my arms tire out) and then approximately 50 crunches. I have breakfast; most days I have a bowl of cereal with soy milk. The cereal is usually either Grape Nuts, Raisin Bran or Cheerios, but sometimes I'll grab one of the childish ones. On some days I make myself some eggs over easy, a couple of strips of turkey bacon and some toast. I have a full glass of orange juice every morning for sure. I then shave, if necessary, and take my shower.

After my shower, I check my e-mail and such. If it's a work day, I make my lunch. Lunch is usually a sandwich - either ham and turkey breast with veggie cheese on wheat bread or tuna on potato bread - then a serving of fruit (I usually have a good stock of grapes, apples, bananas, plums, and peaches) and either some carrots or celery. I drink water exclusively with lunch. If it's a work day, I also assemble what I'll be bringing with me. On my days off, I get changed to ride my bike and go for a two-hour ride around Long Beach.

If I'm going to work, I hop the Metro blue line to Wilmington Station, then catch the Metro green line over to Douglas Street station. If I feel like getting a lot of reading in, I'll take the Metro local 232 instead.

On my days off, once back from my bike ride, I usually work on my story for a bit. I'll wash any dirty dishes and make my bed. I might read a bit. I'll occasionally go pet the neighborhood stray cats. If any laundry needs to be done, I'll do that. I clean my bathroom a lot, too - the shower doors, the toilet, the mirror, the sink, etc. I'll make myself lunch (described above) and then mess around on the internet or watch whatever Netflix has brought me.

If I get hungry between lunch and dinner, I'll usually snack on some strawberries or blueberries but I may have some chips and salsa. I buy whatever fruit juice is on sale and usually drink that with my snacks.

I work on the updated Insult and a project for work a lot. Dinner varies but I keep it simple. Most of the time, I make some chicken with either rice or vegetables. Sometimes I'll get some beef or pork and make some interesting stuff. Other times, I'll have some pasta (if San Marzano tomatoes are on sale, I'll make my own sauce, too). I have a glass of red wine with dinner and then water otherwise. I don't tend to have dessert... every now and then I'll buy Soy Dream and maybe have some of that. I usually end my day with a cup of rooibos.

If I go out for dinner, I usually pick up a girl. A lot of the time, though, I won't bring her home with me.

At the end of the night, I do approximately 30 more push-ups and 50 more crunches.

Tomorrow is grocery shopping day, though. But first, I have to go to the Torrance courthouse (which will probably take up a good portion of my day).

I haven't written in a while.. basically forgot all about insult. My life is busy. My life is good. My life sucks.

I wake up every day at around 5:55am. My fucking alarm is set for 0620h or 0755h depending on what's going on. But my god damn body will not let me sleep past 0555h undisturbed.

I try to fall back asleep, I should try just getting up at that hour and go for a jog... but no, I lay in bed until 20 minutes before my train departs, take a military shower and get dressed. I catch the 0646h or the 0724h train. It takes under a minute to get to the station. Still not fully awake, I stand at the platform waiting for the never-on-time train. The train is pretty full when I board, so I have to sit in the retarded third chair with a low back... when we get to New Haven most of the shitheads get off the train, so I get myself a window seat.

Sometimes I'm on the laptop, but lately I've been listening to tunes on my iPod (or now, iPhone) to Stamford. A lot of fuckers get on the train in Bridgeport, sometimes they smell bad. It sucks when it rains.

The arrival in Stamford is always a clusterfuck. Half the passengers are rushing to get to shuttle buses and they're all pretty rude New York types. I am going the opposite direction to them, so it's fighting through the mob to get to the empty street to the office.

Work is fine.. stressful deadlines, lots of meetings, annoying recruiters calling all day trying to recommend morons for the openings on my team.. I leave at 1750h (5:50pm if you're lazy) for the 1801h train. The station is pretty packed with folks going home, and half the time I don't get a seat until Bridgeport (the first stop on the express). So I stand near the doorway with the rest of the folks who don't want to sit between two fucks on the hot train. Most of the people reek of beer and booze. After so many months, I still can't get over how fucking drunk people can be so early.

But it's starting to make sense. I should be going to bed at 2100h or so to be up so early. I am not ready to call my life quits and go to bed so soon after arriving home, which is around 1920h. By then I'm starving, not surprising considering the unsatisfying lunch I get each day at 1300h.

Exhausted, I rarely feel like making myself food. So I go out. On a good night I get to spend time with the girlfriend. Other nights I become a step closer to being one of the alcoholics on the evening train.

So, as Caniprokis pointed out last night, I've got it good... but I'm fucking stressed out all the time, I can't figure out how to unwind. I've had a headache for over a week now. I feel better bitching about it here... school was like this, which is why I fucking created this site in the first place 9 years ago.

I don't have any outlets to vent. I'm angry. So I hope I keep ranting, I feel better venting the above already... it's all stupid shit, and you probably don't give a fuck, but it'll probably keep me from kicking the dog tonight.

I am sitting in a Paris airport (Orly Sud) on my laptop using wifi, about to fly to Munich. I'm going to be there for the weekend...and by the time I'm done with it, Munich isn't going to have any sausage or beer left. There are a lot of Germans that are going to be very sad and thirsty on Tuesday.

I saw Iron Man on Wednesday (yes, that's right, it came out in France before America, I got to see it before anyone in the US did, that's how dedicated I am). It was awesome. It kind of lost something because the dialogue was all in French, but I just made up cool shit for Robert Downey Jr to say in my head, and it was still good. Movie theaters in France are very comfortable (the seats are like big recliners), but they don't serve beer in the theaters. Also, everyone gets there very early (at least they did for Iron Man), and the previews go on forever, like a half-hour.

All I can say is: go see Iron Man. Aaron, check Insult and tell me what you thought of it, goddamnit.

STOOOOON vs Ze Germans

Well, a cold fucking weekend in Connecticut sure picks up my spirits. I left California less than three months ago, and haven't been here even two and a half months yet. I shouldn't blame this prudish state.

Last night was actually sort of fun. I got some much needed energy from some family friends at dinner, and went out with Stone to New Haven and met up with a few pockets of people. The Playwright in New Haven was sort of an eye opener. I hadn't been there on a Saturday before, typically because I'm against paying a cover to go to a bar/club. But you get a lot for only $5. We got in quite late, and everyone was a lot more spirited than I, but it was still worth going in to see that there are still girls out showing off the goods. I don't know how they do it... going around in thirty degree weather with no jackets... but I'm glad they do.

Anyway, I had something else to write about when I started this and I forgot what... bleh.

I had a good time in the city yesterday. I'm totally exhausted today. I didn't sleep a whole lot or all that well last night, but it's worth a little pain to go out there for a change. The weather was good too, tho it did get cold during the night.

A friend from school is part owner of a new bar in the lower east side called Revolver NYC. It was their official grand opening last night, and I think they have a few kinks to work out still even though they've been open 3 weeks already. I'm testing writing on my blackberry, so I'll write more another time.

I'm writing to bitch about spilling sauce onto my pants. I didn't mess at all yesterday, but gd does it drive me nuts. I guess I'll never grow out of being messy.

L8

New Years is the next holiday coming up that I enjoy. I haven't spent a New Years in Connecticut since 1999 and I don't want to be here for that. I don't know when I last was around for Halloween, probably ten years ago.

I dressed up on Wednesday night as a South African rugby team player from 1999. Fortunately I didn't feel too cold outside, despite the excessively short shorts.

The first stop of the night was a house party in town. The thought was to pregame there before heading into New Haven for some bar hopping. The folks were dressed up there, but it wasn't really good times. The crowd was way young, they were all around twenty one years old. Anyway, we didn't stay long.

So now we were in New Haven earlier than planned. I realised when I saw the first hot she-devil of the night that this is probably the last time I'll see sluttily dressed girls out and about until I get back to Los Angeles or until Spring comes. Halloween is a great holiday.

I saw a bunch of the same costumes everywhere I went. Little Bo Peep, stripper girls, she-devils, and way more hot referees than I've ever seen before. Now I know what happens to these girls after they work one night as a "Miller Girl". I wonder who makes these referee outfits, they had different liquor brands on them (some had no brands) but they all were well formed and tight. Fewer guys were dressed up, and I only saw a couple of common outfits. Besides the ever common dress wearing dudes, dressing up as folks from Life Aquatic and Royal Tenenbaums seemed to be the thing this year. And also the ever lame generic "Fed" getup. Secret service mostly, but a few FBI lookin' schmucks too.

I love the psychology behind costume wearing. Really though I love how girls get to act as slutty as they want on Halloween without any flack from it. That's what Las Vegas is like year 'round, and the Sunset Strip in Hollywood too. Any good tourist getaway has that sorta freedom, and that's where I want to live.

All in all though, CT people are quite prudish. The grindin' action on club dance floors here is very different to what I'm used to from college, LA, and Vegas. New Haven is a college town, but the Yale crowd isn't all that fun really. A lot of the same type of folks around, it's weird.

Anyway, I'm heading into Manhattan this afternoon which should be fun.