Subterranean Beefworks

Just in case

Here's some helpful information for people planning to visit Iceland.

Health Precautions
Tap water often smells sulphurous, but is potable all over the country. Food is prepared under stringent health regulations, so health hazards are few. Visitors in winter should guard against hypothermia, while those travelling over snow and ice during summer should use a block to prevent sun and wind burn.

Health Services
The public health service is excellent. There are over 40 hospitals providing 3600 beds. Staff are well-trained and will be familiar with English (their medical books are probably in this language). Visitors should have travel insurance to cover unexpected health problems, particularly if they are planning risky outdoor activities.

Personal Safety
Iceland has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. If it does occur it is usually petty and alcohol-related. Visitors will seldom feel threatened in any way, but it is sensible to take the usual precautions with money, passports and valuables. The emergency telephone number for police and other services is 112.

Etiquette
Tourists will find Icelanders a very friendly people who do their best to make visitors welcome. They are proud of their country and its lack of pollution. Litter is almost nonexistant - even a cigarette end is hard to find. Please respect this tradition.

Language
Icelandic is a Germanic language and most closely associated with Faroese and Norwegian. It has changed little from the days of the Settlement, so that Icelanders today are still able to read the Sagas which were written 800 years ago. The alphabet has 34 letters, including a number of extra vowels and consonants. The grammar is extremely complicated. The Icelanders go to great lengths to protect their language from outside influence and develop their own words rather than use English words such as 'computer.' Fortunately for the visitor, Icelanders are excellent linguists. Danish and English are compulsory in schools and many students also speak other languages.

Mead, Rowland. Globetrotter - Iceland. New Holland Publishers. UK Ltd. London 2001.

On perceived moral obligation

NASA plans for the unthinkable

I become increasingly incensed the more I read about NASA's increased emphasis on safety for Space Shuttle missions, for it seems the more I read, the more ridiculous their plans become. Because of a tragic accident, the extremely impressive track record of NASA has been completely forgotten, and the agency faced, of all things, dismantlement. Thankfully, that hasn't happened, but only on the condition that they go about their research like newly rehabilitated convicts, distrusted and scrutinized from every angle.

Now, somebody decided it would be an appropriate gesture to go above and beyond the realms of all things reasonable. In what seems to be an effort to quell wide-spread lack of trust in what the Agency has done for decades, a new policy has them keeping another shuttle on deck while one is in space. If they realize the main shuttle is stranded in orbit, their plan is to send *another* shuttle up to retrieve the astronauts.

Every angle of this is stupid to me. Everybody wants heros nowadays, and I'm sure the entire country would be shitting itself with pride and patriotism if a shuttle rescue was pulled off. But it disgusts me that the most couragious agency in the United States has been forced by our government to consider themselves inept cowards, foolishly devoting unimaginable amounts of resources to patching a hull that doesn't even need patching. In all the countless shuttle launches, two craft have been lost. Challenger was lost during liftoff. Columbia was fatally crippled at launch. The odds of a scenario fitting this contingency are far too minuscule to spend what must be billions to prepare for. But probability aside, to instate a rescue policy is just endangering the lives of four more people who will have to contend with a rushed shuttle launch, a landing complicated by seven extra people in their craft, and other difficulties brought about by such an unprecidented mission.

NASA employs some of the most couragious people we have ever known. They know there is always the chance of meeting their end somewhere between launch and landing. I think they should be permitted to die without the deaths of their comrades on their conscience. I find it unacceptable that in pursuit of American moralism, we are willing to send off more to die in an effort to save the doomed. I think it is nothing more than a superficial desire to seek some presumed moral high ground, something to place us above other more utilitarian nations, and something over which we can weep with tears of pride. In reality, we're just asking to lose more of our best.

lots of symbolism

It's rare that I remember a detailed dream, but that happened this morning. I'm recording it here because I want to remember it.

There were 3 people in the dream other than me. A girl, about 5'3" with really soft blonde hair, straight, which fell to just about the middle of her neck. Her face was really bright and happy, and when she smiled, you could only see the ends of her teeth. The other two characters were her grandparents, two face-less old people who seemed to care a lot for her and were quite protective.

I don't remember the circumstances that got the girl and I involved with eachother, but I remember she seemed really thrilled about me. It was almost a given that we were really into eachother and just decided to go for it. One scene of the dream was us walking down a long hill in the middle of the road (a road from reality that is usually quite busy) with her grandparents in tow, a comfortable distance away. They were walking in an embrace, pleased with what had developed between her granddaughter and myself. The girl and I were walking down the hill and she took my arm and put it around her shoulder. I guess that was all the validation I needed, and from that point on we were really comfortable with eachother.

The dream had us doing some other stuff, I think a restaurant was involved or something. Eventually, it was time for me to get back to my place. We were in my old neighborhood in Clarks Summit (with a few liberties taken by my imagination on the layout) and a stern rainstorm had begun, complete with a bolt of long, jagged lightning across the sky. I was about to cross the road so I could head up my street to home, when suddenly my legs gave out. In the rain, I was struggling with paralyzed legs trying to cross the road in the rain, when suddenly, the girl appeared again, prepared to help me get across.

Unfortunately, the shock of not being able to use my legs tore me out of the dream and I realized it was all fiction. It was nice to experience that full, undoubted acceptance though.

Geist der Arbeiter

As an additional note on the last topic, I believe it is difficult to fully respect people who go to great lengths to criticise music that is already widely regarded as terrible. Myself included.

Caveat:
Unless the genre in question is ska.

···

My favorite kind of food is the kind that working class people eat. People who work hard need food. They need hearty, plentiful meals that are piled together in a pot or skillet, heated, and served with a scowl. Potatoes with meat. Vegetables with meat. Meat, vegetables, bread and beer. Beer potatoes meat beans bread butter gravy...piled onto a plate that cannot be placed on table, rather, hoisted.

My friend cooked a St. Patrick's Day dinner for a small group of us and it hit just the nerve I'm talking about. When I got there, I joined her in the kitchen to see the final moments of two large beef briskets corning in pair of pots on the stove. I loved what I saw. The meat looked saturated, juicy, and even a little tormented after bathing in brine for over three hours; in another pot, the second brisket sopped in a womb of boiled cabbage. To pad the stomach we had a potatoes, carrots, and mounds of the unapologetic cabbage. I felt as though I could only justify eating this meal if I were returning from a long day in the fields.

The news in brief, it appears that I've finally found my ambrosia when it comes to trance music. The Israeli adaption of Goa, as interpreted by groups like Infected Mushroom and Astral Projection, is everything I demand in electronica: tense, non-abrasive leads, melodic, wandering middle-ground, and an aggressive low end that punches you square in the chest on every beat. Such sweetness.

Bitch cluster

The title of this entry has nothing to do with the content that follows. I just thought of it before I started writing.

I am preparing to present the most porous, hypocritical, and irrational argument this website has ever seen. There has definitely been some PHI shit on this site, but what I am about to do is paint myself in such a way that no one will ever doubt just how far into shameless, earnest hypocrisy I can go. So without further ado, I touch my brush to the canvas.

Most people listen to bad music. I am not one of these people.

My initial impressions of those I meet, and in turn my initial respect for them, is based largely on the music they listen to. I believe that a seasoned taste in music is a very good indicator of a person's uniqueness; thus, if it turns out that Yellow Card and Death Cab for Cutie are what strike the strongest chords with a person, I don't feel it is completely unreasonable to assume that this person is want for character. As will be elaborated later, devotion, let alone tolerance of such bands is indicative of "taste laziness," in other words, an unwillingness to expand the horizons's of one's preferences. If Unwritten Law is your favorite band, one can only assume you just haven't tried to see how much better it gets.

Before getting into what is so tragic about the existance of Maroon 5, I need to bemoan a few groups or genres in particular so you know what I'm talking about. I've mentioned four bands already, but most things I dismiss as trash can be described pretty discretely. At the forefront of bad taste is a band whose singer rides the upper vocal register the way people do when they yell for help from within small locked spaces. Hoobastank and their foul, juvinile opus "The Reason" is one such example. How do these singers intend to hold the attention of a discerning audience if all they do is alternate between "doleful wail" and "not-so-doleful wail?" How is it that they *do* hold people's attention?

My next point is forced upon me by the mention of Hoobastank. The second grand foul of bad music is a name for the band that makes me want to burn down toy stores. Hoobastank? The word sounds like regional slang for kittens' turds. And they share the guilt with many. Smashmouth. Death Cab for Cutie. The Goo Goo Dolls. Good Charlotte. Marcy Playground. Further seems Forever. Jimmy Eat World. Blink 182. Every mention of these names and I die a little bit inside.

To me, it isn't warrented to enumerate why certain music is bad. Some works I just find uninspired, tepid, and ephemeral. Fine. But what gets me riled enough to write an entry about it is that people not only tolerate such drivel, they embrace it. They buy posters, patches, and sweatshirts to show how much they appreciate being wimpered at by greasy rock-clowns surfing a resilient trendwave.

I fully acknowledge that faulting someone for their taste in music unreasonable. However, I stand by my assertion that if a devout fan of Autopilot Off were to just look for something else, they would be ashamed of themselves for wasting so much of their time identifying with the tormented yammering of a ficticious stage personality.

I weep for the tastes of others. I sigh as I sigh for birds that fly into closed windows because they don't know any better. I don't care what type of music a person likes or what gets their blood flowing. But I feel that many people do themselves a terrible injustice by lapping up whatever the recording industry places on the floor for them. Whatever color the dish is, it's still just lukewarm water fit only for curs.

Unwelcome guests

I added another link to the Visitworthy section on the right of this page. It's to my Audioscrobbler page, which I hope will expose me to some new music. An open source project, it tabulates whatever I play in winamp and creates an impressive little histrogram that enumerates my musical tastes. It's social too, so people who also want to use it can befriend me and we can, uhh, do stuff with our music or something.

I just got sidetracked by something truly horrid. In the winter, there's a problem in the Bethlehem area with the brown marmorated stink bug. Though basically harmless, Halyomorpha haly are about as likable as people who sleep in your car without permission. They don't fair so well in the winter months, so they find their way into the warmth of human dwellings, proceeding to laze around indefinitely, exploring lampshades and pelting their crispy exoskeletons against walls and ceilings. To all appearances, they come across like they just need a place to stay for the night, which is fine by me. They can hunker down in a corner for a day or two, if it will make things easier.

It takes about a day graced by their presence before their personality shines through. Before long, one notices that they flaunt their lack for anything to do. They make sure you see them gradually creep their way across a wall, only to pause once they hit a corner, then turn back or go in some other arbitrary direction. It is a premeditated, deliberate, and purposeful effort to piss me off. Of this I have no doubt.

I can tolerate them, for a little while. They're perfectly welcome to use my room as a jungle gym as long as they don't intend to overstay their welcome. Unfortunately, just like their annoying counterparts, the fish and the visitors, they stink after three days. It's only so many fly-bys and failed wall landings before I am compelled to say something.

The most humane solution I've found that still preserves my desire for some sort of retribution is to capture them in a container and put it in the freezer. They came into my room to escape the cold. That's fine. But they took advantage of my generosity and my patience by acting like inconsiderate dicks. For that reason, they get in abundance the very thing they wanted least: chilliness.

At first, I just put them in my freezer to stun them so I could just throw them back outside later. They are robust creatures, they can usually handle it. But as is often the case, I forget about them and they expire in cold, calm, darkness. They eventually get thrown out when I remember them, or if I need the container to catch another freeloader.

What sidetracked me was that I remembered one that I put in about a month ago. He was in a little yellow plastic egg that used to hold a bouncy ball, his legs all gnarled together in insectile rigor mortis. Taking him out, I was compelled to smell inside the egg, because, you know, he's a stink bug.

I very nearly threw up. Mother nature has chosen the most unique, undefinable odor for these creatures, such that when you catch wind of their foul oderiferous defenses, it's as though a hidden part of your brain awakens, a cluster of neurons whose sole purpose is to make you feel briefly miserable. It is a smell somewhere in the vicinity of rotten nuts mixed with sour milk that has just been drained from a deep necrotic wound, a primitively gross smell that conjures fundamental evolutionary repulsion.

I guess it serves me right. This sort of thing was never good for karma. But then again, the same could be said about making yourself a difficult guest. I won't mention any names.

Things I think about before I sleep

There hasn't been a whole lot to say of late. I temporarily took down the last post because I wrote it after I had been drinking, and somebody who might be interested in paying me for web-design might have been reading the site. That work didn't pan out, so the last entry is now available again.

So last entry. I'm going to Germany this summer, for a year. Whenever I say that to myself, a little bit of bile creeps up my throat. There's two sides to this experience that pull my mind in opposite directions, making it somewhat of a stressfully exciting opportunity. Pulling in one direction, there's the undenyable sweetness that two governments are footing the bill to have me go over to Germany and be awesome for a year. It's an opportunity that could be turned down only by a complete yogurt, and I'd like to think that I've out grown my yogurt phase. The experience itself is everything I haven't experienced before, which is exactly what I feel I need before I get any older. Fear, confusion, and discomfort, especially in such plenty, are what make for good stories to tell offspring.

On the other hand, the experience itself is everything I haven't experienced before, framed by the over-arching truth that I will be "stuck" in another country for an extended period of time. Two weeks in Jena showed me just how humbling homesickness can be; twelve months makes me wonder what I'll come up with when it comes time to cope. By no means is it lost on me, the difficulty a family endures when their kid is across the world, living in under a different system of life. Law is different, money is different, women are different, hospitals are different, thugs are different, strangers are different. There's a great deal I haven't sorted out about this, but I have to before I go.

The one thing I don't like about this whole thing is how strongly it smells of finality.

Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you...

It has been a hell of a long time since I've posted anything here. Truth is, a lot has happened. I wanted to let things accumulate so I would have a big juicy burst of material to post.

Unfortunately, though it is true that a lot has happened, I have forgotten most of it and only have two things to say here.

First, I am posting in the throes of celebratory inebriation. Why the celebreation? read on.

Second, I won.
I was selected for the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange program and I will be very very probably be going to Germany on a fully paid scholarship for a year come this August.

ahhhhhhh yes. every 18 hours or so, the fact that i have been presented a fucking extraordinary opportunity slams me in the base of the skull and i become elated.

a year, paid, in germany. GOD AHHHHHHHHHHHH

So yes.

There is little else to say man. I got it and now the rest of my next year and some months will be overshadowed by the fact that I will be confronted with something that scares the shit out of me, and at the same time, enriches.

this post sucks, i'll make something better tomorrow.

the crux is this: you're going to see a lot more of me from here on in. i have a 90% complete website that was left unfinished because i lost motivation. now, because my success in germany depends somewhat on a portfolio of my work, you will see a finished personal website soon.

also, once i'm in germany, this weblog will take a turn for the interesting. i will have a very good digital camera and innumerable reasons to write here. i will be quite prolific, and for those that read the site more than once, i think you'll be pleased.

that's it my babies. sit tight for some awesome shit