The second part of the Malaysia pictures are up. Bird haters beware.

“There are no comedians in Iran how would you know ? ?”
“I was the funniest one in school”

Oh yeah this is gonna be a winner.

The first rule of Write Club is that you can talk about Write Club.
The second is that you have to finish your part within 3 days or you lose your chance.
The third part is that you have to cc everyone else who has contributed to the write club story.
The fourth part is that only one person can add to write club at a time.
The fifth part is that you and only you get to pick the next person to write in write club.

Ali sat down by the pool and looked at the small iron door set in the ground, the hinges were a bright orange rust color standing out from the dull red of the door. His mom said that in the olden days they used to come by every week and fill the hole with water and that was their drinking water for the rest of the week, they would also put some of it in the pool and use it again and again to wash the dishes or take baths when it was still clean enough to do that.

But now they had pipes that brought water and they could even warm it up by turning on the heater 15 minutes before they took a shower. So what was down there now ? Ali couldn’t help but wonder. It was just a door, but it had never been opened as far as he remembered and at 7 you remember almost everything that happened around you. He had been specifically told to stay away the door of course that meant that he was going to see what was beyond it, but he had to wait.

“Ali I am going to the grocer, watch your sister while I am gone”

It’s a good thing Negar was too small to do anything since Ali was not going to be doing much watching. As soon as his mom was out of the door he took off for the garden in the back where the door was. He even remembered to grab his dad’s oilcan since he was sure the hinges were going to be stuck.

It sounded a bit like something screaming but after waiting a bit and kicking a few times at the hinges the door was suddenly opening. He couldn’t see anything beyond a few leaves that were stuck to the sides of the door, he leaned in a bit and realized too late that he had been too eager in his oiling of the hinges, his hand easily slid along the door and before he could stop himself he fell head first into the hole.

There was a moment where everything seemed to hold its breath, Ali desperately thought that maybe the Universe could overlook this tiny event, maybe Gravity would have more important things to take care of but if you let 7 year old boys get away with looking into dark empty holes then who knows what will happen, the Universe shook its head, Gravity said tsk tsk and Ali fell.

“plooop” is the appropriate sound for a small skinny 7 year old body to make when it meets the hard ground and the Universe and Gravity held their ears up waiting for it. When it failed to arrive the Universe gave Gravity one of those looks and Gravity sheepishly looked back and shrug its shoulders. They both turned to look and were relived to see that Ali had landed into a large pile of half decomposed leaves the gardeners had racked into the hole year after year. The Universe and Gravity fought to keep a smile off their faces after all they were unfeeling and cold, they obeyed the laws of physics without question even if it meant things had to go “plooop” sometimes.

Ali got out of the stack of leaves and looked around, there were passages down here, no one had told him about the passages. They never told him any of the good stuff thought Ali as he absentmindedly pulled an earth worm out of his ear. 7 year old boys being immune to the icky factor of worms.

Negar has the second part of the story coming along soon.

First off this is a fantastic blog I found via Niki , Mariam cooks the type of food I only dream of being able to cook. DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK IF YOU ARE HUNGY, that means you Shirin and Nasy

Second, I am moving to Taiwan in 3 weeks. Restless would be a good word to describe how I’ve been feeling lately, I would have preferred to stay in LA and do nothing for the rest of the year but there is an oppertunity to do something with a friend and in a way this motivates me to get off of my ass. There are a lot of other reasons for the move beside fun, but fun is what I will be concentrating on. I don’t want to talk about US foreign policy or how I feel about the way my taxes are being used. Suffice to say I didn’t feel good about it so I am not going to be working in the US.

You are all more than welcome to stop by and visit in Taipei.

Women are not allowed to burn buildings!!!

In a 3rd world country far far away …

You just know the chief wants to beat them all.

I bet if they were farming rice this would have never happend.

It’s been a while since I cooked with the oven so I thought going with something new might be interesting. This was pretty easy to make and tasted darn good a combo I always love.
Hardware:
Oven pan
Aluminum foil
2 small pots

Software:
Salmon
Baby potatoes
Fresh corn
Medium onion
Mushrooms
Mojito sauce

Add the corn and the potatoes to the two pots of boiling water and after 20 minutes start on the salmon. Chop up the onions and the mushrooms, use the aluminum foil to create a small box that you fill up with the onion/mushroom mix. Add salt and pepper and finally put the salmon on top. Top it all up with about ¼ cup of Mojito sauce and put the whole thing in the oven pan. 18-22 minutes at 450 degrees will be enough. Voila in less than an hour with minimum prep time you have a delicious meal.

The first part of the Malaysia pictures is up. Wenyu there is a picture of a medium sized spider in there, don’t be scared.

And this is funny :
“Great paintings, for example, get you laid in a way that great computer programs never do. Even not-so-great paintings – in fact, any slapdash attempt at splashing paint onto a surface – will get you laid more than writing software, especially if you have the slightest hint of being a tortured, brooding soul about you. For evidence of this I would point to my college classmate Henning, who was a Swedish double art/theatre major and on most days could barely walk.

Also remark that in painting, many of the women whose pants you are trying to get into aren’t even wearing pants to begin with. Your job as a painter consists of staring at naked women, for as long as you wish, and this day in and day out through the course of a many-decades-long career. Not even rock musicians have been as successful in reducing the process to its fundamental, exhilirating essence”

Our story starts on the back of an order sheet from a chinese restaurnt in the chinatown district of KL. 4 days are booked in a jungle trek where I can meet the locals. I like the locals they do local things and I hope to go local along with them. I am afriad, afraid of this trip ending, the fear hit home hard and fast like a big rail this morning at the Malaysian Tourism Center (MTC) when I realized I didn’t have enough time to book both the jungle trek and a diving trip. It was one or the other and I had been in Malaysia for less than 24 hours how could I already been running out of time ? I only have 2 weeks left on the trip, short of discovering some super-natural powers to turn time back there is nothing else I can do, I have to finish the trip but I will come back to see the islands I didn’t get to visit, the sites I didn’t get to dive and the mountains I didn’t get to climb. I am gonna see the guy in the Ronaldo jersey who makes a kick ass chinese doughnut, the girls at the Hillary bar and the 2 elephants wandering the streets of Bangkok late at night.

I feel like an addict who has been given the key to the hospital supply room, I am surrounded by change, different foods, different cultures, different languages it’s an intoxicating mix and I want more of it, more time to take it in, properly digest it and move on. My story was just interrupted by a Buddhist monk who had earlier tried to sell me a good luck charm, he came by and gave it to me for free saying I could give him some money or not. He thought I needed the good luck charm more than him. I gave him 20 ringts so that he could donate it to a good cause like praying for my soul. I always enjoy knowing someone somewhere is praying for me, my soul can use all the prayers it can get.

I will change my path, jump into the unknown without knowing where, when or what. Part of the path is putting yourself in a better position so that your children can achieve even more than you. I am going to try the reverse, my children will be the lowest of the low lower than even the Scots. They will be rice farmers somewhere, working on a shitty plot of land. They will live and they will die and on their crappy grave they will write they died happy. Now my time is nearly up and it’s time to end this post. I wish you the best and happiness such that only the rice farmers have.

My favorite vacation spot, hope you like the monkeys and the fishes.