The American's Election

The American: Oh, there he is!
Condescending Asshole: Hi. How are you?
The American: I’m good, except for the assignment we have due next week.
Condescending Asshole: Well, at least it is not due until next Friday.
The American: Yes, except that next week is the busiest week I have had since getting here.
Condescending Asshole: Oh, why’s that?
The American: There’s an election next week.
Condescending Asshole: What election? (thinking it was something that personally affected him and would be a hindrance to him completing his assignment for Friday)
The American: The Election.
Condescending Asshole: The SRC [student representative council] election?
The American: No, the election back home.
Condescending Asshole: Oh, do you have like a city council election?
The American: No, the big election.
Condescending Asshole: a school board election?
The American (getting a little agitated): No, the American election.
Condescending Asshole: American idol?
The American: No, the American Presidential Election!
Condescending Asshole: Is that next week?
The American: Yes!
Condescending Asshole: I have heard some people talking about that before. It’s kind of a big deal right?
The American: Yes!
Condescending Asshole: Hum, so that’s this month?
The American: No, it’s next month. It’s the 4th of November. It’s always on the fourth of November every four years!
Condescending Asshole: Oh. Well, that is interesting.
The American: ...
Condescending Asshole: To be honest with you, I am aware of the forthcoming US Presidential election. I was joking, just now when I pretended not to know what you were talking about.
The American: …

Ok, I will level with you. The 'condescending asshole' described in this dialog might have been me. I don’t know why; but sometimes I am a total jackass. By the way, a Scotish friend of mine told me than when he asked the American which state he was from the American said: ‘I’m a raving Republican from West Virginia.’


Later days,

A Nigerian Reason why NOT to vote for Obama

This conversation, which I swear I am not making up, took place between myself and my Nigerian flatmate. Please keep in mind the fact that my Niergian flatmate is a medical doctor.

Nigerian Flatmate: So, how is the American election going?
Me: The most recent polls show that Obama has a pretty substantial lead. It looks like he is going to win.
Nigerian Flatmate: Oh, that is not good at all.
Me (racially profiling): You don’t support Obama?
Nigerian Flatmate: No, I do not and I do not know how anyone who thinks about it logically could.
Me: Really? Why’s that?
Nigerian Flatmate: Well, you know that Obama is an African, yes?
Me: Well, his father was African. Obama was born in Hawaii.
Nigerian Flatmate: No, no, that does not matter. We see him as an African.
Me: Ok.
Nigerian Flatmate: He and I are brothers, you see. He is African; do you understand?
Me: Yeah, ok.
Nigerian Flatmate: Specially, he is a Kenyan. Do you understand?
Me: Yes
Nigerian Flatmate: Now what you must understand is that Kenya and Zimbabwe were both conquered by Rhodesia. People from these two places are very similar and think in similar ways. Do you know who Robert Mugabe is?
Me: Yes.
Nigerian Flatmate: Good. Now you see Mugabe and Obama are brothers. They are both from Rhodesia, yes?
Me: Um, yes?
Nigerian Flatmate: Now you know what Mugabe did to the economy of Zimbabwe? Well it is of course logical to think that if Mugabe and Obama are brothers they will think in the same way. Obama will do to the American economy exactly what Mugabe did to the Zimbabwean economy because they are the same. They are brothers. The American economy will be destroyed and that will be bad for the entire world. Do you see?
Me: …
Nigerian Flatmate: You must agree that having a person who thinks like Robert Mugabe will be bad for the American Economy, yes?
Me: well, yeah?
Nigerian Flatmate: Yes, it is so logical. I have written letters to the leaders of the Democratic Party; but they just do not seem to understand this. I am very worried to have Mugabe as president of the United States.
Me: … I would be too?

FACT CHECK:
As this is a very serious allegation, I asked my staff to do some research into my Nigerian flatmate’s claims. My staff found that before 1964 the name ‘Rhodesia’ referred to the territory of modern Zambia and Zimbabwe. The pliminary research indicates that Zambia and Kenya are different countries and seems to suggest that my Nigerian flatmate might be factually incorrect. My staff also located a map of Africa and it appears as though Kenya and Zimbabwe are pretty kinda far appart. I did, however, doctor the following photograph and it seems to be some pretty damming evidence. You be the judge.



Before we vote, we need to understand the details about the relationship between Barack Obama and Robert Mugabe. This sounds like a job for Bill O’Reilly.

Later days,

Let us do some maths

I have received a few emails about my last post in regards to my Canadian Mrs. Robinson. This surprised me for two reasons: first, because it would seem that people are actually reading this and second because you all seem to be bad at maths. Now if you recall, she is a middle school maths teacher. Let’s do some subtraction:

I was born in 1986 and Mrs. Robinson was born in 1971. I think that a 5 to 7 year age difference is not a big deal at all and I think that the 8-10 year gap is sort of in a grey zone (no pun intended). Now, Mrs. Robinson is 15 years older than me. If you think about it logically, this means:

She could have changed my diapers
She actually remembers the ‘80s
She could drive a car before I could walk
She had her own breasts when I was breast feeding
She graduated from high school before I started pre-school
She could read before I was born
She wrote her master’s dissertation before I could colour inside the lines
She spoke two languages before I could speak in sentences
She understood the nuances of a parliamentary democracy before I could eat solid foods
She knew that the beaver was the national animal of Canada before I made my first beaver attempt
She was living in an igloo before I was allowed to have ice in my drinks
She knew how to make maple syrup before I could use a toilet
She was saved by Dudley Do-right before I could grow a Snidely Whiplash moustache
She was a lumberjack leaping from tree to tree, as she floated down the mighty rivers of British Columbia before I could spell lumberjack
She can point to Alberta on a map and I still can't do that


Do you see what I’m getting at here?

Later days,

Perth, Part the Second

And so the conference continued. As previously noted, it was beyond dull. It was stupendously dull. It was Home Improvement after Tim Allen stopped using the nose candy dull. It was listening to the audio version of The Audacity of Hope as read by John McCain dull. I could go on; but I don’t want to bore you. Like all things Rotary, this conference as well came to an auspicious and strange end. The district governor, a woman whose arse was so large and wobbled so fiercely that even Hillary Clinton would say ‘dude, get a Stairmaster’, gave her concluding remarks.

She decided to close the conference by talking about the children. She talked about what a difference Rotary can make and went on to say all of the programmes Rotary must be involved with to improve the lives of children so that their future can be a little brighter. And then, and I am not making this up, there was an image that flashed briefly on the huge screen behind her. It could not have been there for more than 5 seconds; and at first glace it appeared as though when she said we need to make a better future for the children there was an image of a huge steaming pile of cow dung sweltering in the African heat; but on closer examination this was not a pile of poop: it was in fact a dead African baby. To be perfectly honest, I can’t think of an image that better highlights her point that we can make like lives of children a litter brighter and give them a better future than showing a picture dead baby. Oh, actually, come to think of it; anything would have been better. Who shows a picture of a dead baby to an auditorium full of people and does not even acknowledge it? She just kept talking, as if there was not a dead baby projected on a 7 meter screen behind her. It would have been better to have shown a clown making phallic balloon sculptures than to just be all like ‘hey, FYI there is a picture of a dead baby back there; but I’m not going to say anything about it, or why it’s there I’m just going to keep talking. It has sure been a good conference, huh? Now, who wants some tea?’ It was disturbing and I didn’t really have an appetite for the lunch the followed. Oddly enough, they did not have a vegetarian option at the meal. They only served dark meat.

Of course, the district conference was not all apocalyptic toilets and pictures of dead babies rotting under the African sun, there was a lot of drinking too. For some reason when I drink of Rotarians, they seem to make it a personal mission to get me smashed beyond rational thought. I’m not sure why they do that exactly, I guess they are just nice; it’s not like I have anything to offer them in exchange for the continuous and constant flow of fluids. We had two nights of drinking and a drinking outing. The first night was a rather informal affair and I don’t really remember too much about it, except that I must have seemed stressed because Rotarians kept coming over to me to rub my shoulders. It was a vicious cycle because the more they rubbed my shoulders, the more stressed I seemed to became. I am going to be honest with you, it is strange and not particularly soothing to have a several sloshed Scotchmen seductively stroking your neck. But then again, they were buying me loads of drinks; so it’s not like I was a cheap date or anything.

The second night was black tie, and I am not going to lie, when I wear a tux; I pretty much get eye raped. I don’t know what it is; but old people just seem to stare at me and undress me with their eyes. By stare, I mean there is excessive gazing involved; but mostly they just touch me. My arse literally felt like a pincushion. Like seriously, 10 old ladies pinched me in my nether region. It was … yeah. One walked out of a door and just placed her hands on my hips, said excuse me and walked away. I don’t know what I was attracting so much attention. The Rotary men were all decked out in Kilts and had various kinds of Rotary bling. They all had crazy Rotary gold necklaces and medallions. I’m pretty sure I saw a few crowns and at least 4 diamond encrusted Rotary grills. Their power was hypnotic. I couldn’t look away from the bright shiny bling. Of course, this might have just been because of the absurd number of kilts. I have a pretty serious problem when it comes to kilts because I don’t know where I am meant to look. I find myself staring at their hairy knees and wondering if they are wearing underwear. I don’t mean to be rude; but I just can’t help it. It’s like talking to a big breasted woman: you know you should be looking them in the eyes; but you just can’t bring yourself to do it. A cèilidh* is to me what a wet tee-shirt contest is to a normal guy. I can’t help it; love me for who I am.

As previously noted, there was a lot of drinking involved this night. The night ended with me talking to a 37-year-old Spanish and maths teacher from Canada who was on a different Rotary exchange. We talked for a little while and then I lost track of her. I was sitting in the lobby of the hotel where a Rotarian was teaching me magic tricks (and yes, he was wearing a kilt and sitting cross legged). I don’t know why the Rotarian decided that it now was the time for him to teach me card tricks and I haven’t the faintest idea where he was keeping the playing cards but there we were him teaching me allusions of grandeur and me sitting; hoping to learn the secrets of his kilt. Then, the 37-year-old teacher came up from behind me, ruffled my hair and walked away. The kilt clad magician put one hand on my knee, looked me straight in the eyes and said ‘go to her’.

I will end this entry as a sort of choose your own adventure. You can decide if I stayed with the Gaelic Magician or if I went to her.

* traditional Scottish dance: read ‘kilt central’

Later days,

Johnnyland

I was in class yesterday and came to realise that the UK looks like Johnny Bravo.

Oh Microsoft Paint, is there anything you can't do?

Later days,

Perth, Part The First

Last weekend I went to Perth for my district conference. Perth is such an exciting and well known vacation destination that when I told my Scottish friends that I was going there for the weekend they were all really surprised that I was going all the way to Australia. That’s right; Scottish people are more likely to fly to Australia for the weekend than they are to drive an hour up the duel carriageway (which is what Scottish people call divided highways) to go to friggin’ Perth. So, as you can imagine Perth is not exactly a hopping place. In fact, the tourism board has a sign out front that says ‘closed due to lack of interest’.

I arrived at the hotel with the American who was still trying desperately to cleave to me. I felt a bit like Luke Skywalker with Yoda holding onto my back. In fact, the American sounds a bit like Yoda when he speaks, only the American sounds a bit more pretentious. The American had been assigned to a nice double room and I was down the hall in a broom closet. I felt like Harry Potter, the analogy only intensified when I discovered that the heat in my closet didn’t work. When the American came into my room, because he does not seem to be able to stay away from me for more then 10 minuets, he told me that my room was really cold (because I had not noticed) and he offered to let me sleep in his double room because he didn’t have a roommate. As you can imagine, this sent a shiver down my spine.

Now, for those non-Rotary people out there, allow me to explain what a district conference entails. Representatives from all of the Rotary clubs in the district (between 300 and 600 of them) descend upon one small town to discuss their plans for the year. Saturday and Sunday consist of two ‘plenary sessions’ each morning. I made this mistake of thinking that these were some sort of plenary sessions wherein qualified members of the group would come together to plan the year. This assumption proved to be incorrect. These sessions were not about making plans, or looking into the future; these sessions were literally about nothing. I am not exaggerating. There were 12 speakers in total and none of them actually said anything. They were basically a the gibbering pack of tree apes that said nothing, nothing, nothing, and said it loud, loud, loud.

I have come to expect this sort of behaviour from Rotarians and for me, the real surprise came in the bathroom whist I was urinating in the urinal. I have done this many times before. As many of you know, I am a frequenter of public toilets and when I am not on my knees; I am often using the urinal. But this urinal was unlike any I had ever seen before; this was an apocalyptic urinal of the future. Above the urine receptacle was a flat screen TV and I am not making this up: on the screen was the computer generated image of an overweight black man wearing jeans and a wife-beater waking around a barren desert wasteland. He didn’t seem to have any real goal; he was just walking around towards nothing. I found myself entranced, fondling my penis in an attempt to make it appear as though I was stilling making pee pee so that any Rotarians who happened upon me wouldn’t think I was strange. In retrospect, might have appeared odd; but I was transfixed by the TV and I could not imagine what it was doing in the convention’s toilet. After a few minutes of my mock urination (mock urination, by the way, would be a really cool name for a rock band) the man reached a cliff where he stopped and looked out over the abyss. He looked like a fat black Hank Rearden. When the future had nothing left to tell me, I zipped up my trousers and left the toilet. It was a vision of the future I will not soon forget.

Later days,

Meeting The American

You know when you meet someone whose voice is so annoying that it sounds like Dick Chaney gargling a bucket full of nails and then spiting them at your face? Well, I met such a person last week. We were in a group of politics students discussing a presentation we had watched. We had twenty minutes to put together a response and present it to all of the postgrad politics students and the faculty. Before we started our discussion we introduced ourselves to the group and told everyone where we were born. The nail gargler said he was ‘from America, specifically, the United States’. He went on to explain that he does not like it when people say they are from America when they mean to say that they are from the United States because ‘America’ could mean Canada, Mexico or even Latin America. I am wanking off like 4 imaginary penises right now. Don’t ask me why (or how to explain the mechanics of it); but it just feels like the appropriate gesture. Seriously, who says that? Would a Canadian ever say: ‘I'm an American from Canada’? Ok, that might be a bad example; but a Mexican would never say: 'Hola, I am an American'. Well, maybe they would; but someone from Chile would never say: 'I'm American'. People from Chile would say they were cold. I know where the guy is coming from and it makes sense; but if that is an arrogent thing to say, the only thing I can think of that would be more arrogant than an American saying they are from America would be an American pointing out how arrogant it is to say that they are from America. I feel pretty secure in saying that this guy is a douche: a douche from America, an American douche if you will.

Now you might be asking yourself, why am I wasting your valuable time talking about some American douche from one of my classes? Well, first off reading my blog is not at all a waste of time* and second this is not just any American douche; this is a Rotary douche. You can all imagine my surprise last week when I turned around at the Birmingham Link weekend to find the douche I thought I had left in Glasgow standing behind me. That’s right, he too is an Ambassadorial Scholar and as such, he has decided that he and I will be BFF.

Together, American Douche and I went to Perth (Scotland, not Australia) this weekend for our district conference and you can only imagine how much I enjoyed myself. I will describe the district conference in my next posting which will include, and not be limited to:

1) Geriatric molestation and Mrs. Robinson
2) Aborted African babies
3) Apocalyptic urinals
4) Armoured chickens

*That is not true.

Later days,