Category: Chillin’

massively attacked

I laid down on my bed for a few minutes to watch this Massive Attack DVD that I brought from Japan. The beats were on and my mind went into caramel dreams mode… next thing I know, I’m laying in a pool of sweat and drool, and I’ve just had the best nap in recent memory – I even fell asleep on my stomach, and that like never happens (I also fell asleep on top of a pile of crap on my bed so I woke up with shapes of a pen, the TV remote, and several CDs imprinted on my body).
There are certain DVDs that have this tranquilizing effect on me, so I’m careful to hoard them and use them only when necessary. If I actually get through one of these DVDs, they never have the same effect on me again, so I have to be careful and use them wisely. Right now, there are 3 left in my metaphorical pill bottle:

  • Wave Twisters: This is actually my brother Adam’s DVD and he used to claim it was one of his favorites… The thing is, I told him about how it makes me sleepy and how I’d tried to watch all the way through at least 4 or 5 times, but he couldn’t understand why (it is interesting; it just puts me asleep partway without fail), so we tried watching it together, and… He fell asleep, too.
  • Letters from Iwo Jima: I cannot for the life of me get past the first fifteen minutes of this flick without falling asleep. I don’t know why. The subject matter is extremely interesting to me for several reasons, one of which is that the story concerns a war fought between my own country and that of my grandparents and whenever I think of that war, I wonder about how it must have made them feel living in America after having left Japan for good (oh yeah, they were probably more concerned about sleeping with rattlesnakes and giving birth in horse stables). Anyway.
  • Massive Attack – Collected Bonus DVD: I’m going to be very careful not to watch this one when I’m totally awake, because of the quality of slumber it just provided me. I love going to sleep with music on, but haven’t been able to do it regularly since I was in college – mostly because with all the stress working in Japan, I needed relative silence in order to sleep. I may experiment with my favorite trip hop albums to see if I can start sleeping with music on again. One thing I remember very clearly about sleeping with music on is that it enables very lucid dreams and REM states for me. Yes, I think I’ll try it out again.

How about all of you? Can you sleep with music on? Does certain music act as a sedative for you? How about DVDs?

No fireworks this year

I’d like to say it was an intentional gesture to teach the students in my public speaking class the Gettysburg Address on the Fourth of July, but the truth is that I completely forgot about it. Dammit. For a sick pyro like me, forgetting about fireworks and barbecue is sacrilege.
In other news, we have decided to build a new house.
Happy Fourth!

Pot

Highlight of my weekend: Being told “wow, you really live out in the country” by a visitor from Wisconsin whose biggest complaint seems to be the complete lack of cheese wheels here.
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A close second: kidsincorporated.us (I don’t remember what channel we got Kids Incorporated on at home but that goddamn song is stuck in my head for another twenty five years now for sure)

Do I need a Boston Terrier?

Please tell me.
I saw this photo and fell in love with her:

The thing is, her markings are dirty and she looks like she has an eye problem. Check out the page of photos her sellers put up here.
Another issue is that I really don’t want to support a puppy mill by making a $200 purchase from them, but there seems to be no good breeders selling Boston Terriers in Thailand.

Recent Observations

I just saw a big house gecko bite another on the neck, and it wouldn’t let go. Finally the one being bitten managed to escape, but the big one chased it all the way across the wall. I wonder what that was all about; it’s not like there’s a shortage of bugs to eat around here or anything.
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For the English camp, we stayed at a campground in a nature preserve, up in the mountains. We stayed in bungalows maintained by the forest rangers, who wore tigerstripe and treebark camouflage, and watched over the entire preserve with high-power binoculars. Once a day or so, they would hear a message on the two way or see possible poaching activity, after which a couple of them would fetch long arms and jump in the back of a pickup to go investigate. I saw an AR-type rifle, a sawed-off pump shottie, and an FN-FAL. On the last day, a colleague said he could hear shooting out in the woods after we saw a group of them take off to investigate.
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Today I bought an old motor scooter for 1,000 baht from a Japanese girl going back to Japan. It has a dubious history, no license plates, and no registration. It also has a Finding Nemo theme airbrushed all over the cowling (which itself is metallic gold). Steady pimpin’, yo. Oh, also, this is the second used scooter in a month I bought for exactly 1,000 baht from a Japanese girl leaving Sarakham. Strange coincidence. Even stranger, there is a distinct possibility that there may be a third soon. More on this later.
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Yesterday, Nam bought a fresh pack of durian at a night market we visited. Although I was worried about carrying it in my car, I figured what the hell since she loves the King of Fruits so much and we were only five minutes from home… Oops. Even though I bought two huge garlands of fresh-cut jasmine and left them in my car overnight in addition to a new car deodorizer thingie, this morning, the hot interior of my car smelled unmistakably durianesque. I set the aircon to vent, drove to work with all the windows open, and managed to get rid of most the smell. So. I came back from work in the afternoon and got a call from a student who just came back from working at a candle factory in Rayong (you should read that link, I was inspired when writing it). He had a present for me, he said. Can you guess what it was?
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That’s right, after all that defunktifying in the morning, I had another very ripe durian in my car, and this time in the scorching afternoon sun! The worst part is, I had several errands to run (like getting an alignment at a garage on the other side of town) and couldn’t take it home right away… I fear my car will never smell of leather again. At least Nam seems to dig it, though.