| Tuesday, September 30, 2003 |
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| Crap |
| I spend so much time online just doing a bunch of crap. Even when I have legitimate work to do I still end up just doing crap. Like I'd spend half-hour just reading other people's blogs. I'll read crappy email. I get these newsletters from About.com dealing with web development that I read everyday and still learn nothing because I just breeze through them and don't actually take the time to read them and absorb anything. I'm supposed to be taking part in a message board for my Ecommerce class, and I do, but that's about it.
I really wanted to share some things I read about in today's 'paper' Guardian but I realised they're not in the online version. Like the story about the 12-year-old Romanian Gypsy girl who was married off by her parents. The Guardian story -- I don't know what the international source was -- claimed that the boy's parents, after the girl had initially run away, made quite a show that the marriage was consummated by displaying a bloody bedsheet. I haven't been able to find that particular tidbit anywhere online though. Then there were some other funny shit like what do you call a male ballerina? And, if on Gilligan's Island, why could the Professor build a radio out of a coconut and not fix a hole in a boat? I think i read those in an email before though. If I haven't mentioned this before, UWI now has wireless internet. According to the Campus Pipeline, it's available in the areas south of the library, like in JFK Cafeteria and the SAC. UWI has some issues with the cardinal points though. As far as my map-reading skills go, the SAC is East of the library. And there's a particular building that has rooms separated into two by a movable partition. They number from about 100E/W to 107. Funny thing is that UWI refers to them as east/west when they're actually partitioned into north/south. But this is a university; the centre of learning in the Caribbean. They know best. Ent Trace? |
| 3:45 pm | | |
| Monday, September 29, 2003 |
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| Only in Trinidad |
 Five minutes after WASA fixed a 20-inch main at La Brea Junction, the pipeline burst, spawning a flood and opening a ten-foot-wide crater that almost swallowed Allson Cupid and his car. Now why does it not surprise me that this happened in Trinidad. Anyways, yesterday I went to Miranda's for lunch and then we went to Pricesmart in pouring rain with her family. This whole weekend was really a time to just stay in bed. It was my first time to Pricesmart btw. That's one huge mofo! I also made a great curry goat last night. Meh dhal was extra salty though.
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| 1:38 pm | | |
| Saturday, September 27, 2003 |
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| Court Case |
| ACTUAL AUSTRALIAN COURT DOCKET 12659---CASE OF THE PREGNANT LADY
A lady about 8 months pregnant got on a bus. She noticed the man opposite her was smiling at her. She immediately moved to another seat. This time the smile turned into a grin, so she moved again. The man seemed more amused. When on the fourth move, the man burst out laughing, she complained to the driver and he had the man arrested. The case came up in court. The judge asked the man (about 20 years old) what he had to say for himself. The man replied, "Well your Honor, it was like this: When the lady got on the bus, I couldn't help but notice her condition. She sat under a sweets sign that said , "The Double Mint Twins are Coming" and I grinned. Then she moved and sat under a sign that said, "Logan's Liniment will reduce the swelling", and I had to smile. Then she placed herself under a deodorant sign that said, "William's Big Stick Did the Trick", and I could hardly contain myself. BUT, your Honor, when she moved the fourth time and sat under a sign that said, "Goodyear Rubber could have prevented this Accident"... I just lost it." CASE DISMISSED!!!! |
| 3:36 pm | | |
| Friday, September 26, 2003 |
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| Yummy!! |
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| 11:30 am | | |
| Come, leh we go, to toco ooooooo!!! |
| Wednesday, Republic Day, I went to Toco for the very first time in my life. It was the first time I ever went past Sangre Grande. My eldest sister is getting married at the beautiful Salybia Nature Resort & Spa so some of my relatives went to look for a weekend house since it's like an hour from Tunapuna, so that's two hours from south. I hope they pay me for that advertising. But really, that part of the country was great. We went up to the lighthouse and I climbed down some rocks to where the "blowhole" was. Apparently lots of surfing takes place in that area cus there were people with boards, but the water was mostly calm and not conducive to surfing. Well at least at that time it wasn't. It's a nice rural place to live, but I don't think that hour's drive from any great civilisation is my kinda thing. Maybe in retirement. The night before, I hit my head really hard on a concrete ledge and it swelled instantly. Actually, it's still kinda swollen now.
Well my first academic casualty happened yesterday. I had a spreadsheet to hand in for 3pm yesterday for 2.5% of my final grade and I didn't finish. I was informed that I was doing the totally wrong thing and I decided to just give up because all that trouble was not worth the 2.5%. At all. I even missed all my morning classes to finish it. Yes, yes, I know I had two whole weeks to do it in. Well I have another assignment due for a different course two weeks from today worth 15%. We'll see how that goes. Speaking of which, I got a B+ and a B in the courses I sat in "summer school". Great huh. Maybe I should've done two courses every semester. And let's talk some more football. Screw you Arsene!! Naps beat Pres again 4-1 last Monday was it? When was the last time Pres even drew with Naps? Not for the last few years at least. Oh how the times have changed. I remember when I was in Form 1 and we played each other in the first round of South Zone Intercol and beat us. And the next year Benedict's did. How the times have changed. |
| 8:41 am | | |
| Tuesday, September 23, 2003 |
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| Cool things about being a man. |
| 1- Your ass is never a factor in a job interview.
2- Your orgasms are real. Always. 3- Your last name stays put. 4- The garage is all yours. 5- Wedding plans take care of themselves. 6- You never feel compelled to stop a friend from getting laid. 7- Car mechanics tell you the truth. 8- You don't give a rat's ass if someone notices your new haircut. 9- Hot wax never comes near your pubic area. 10- Same work, more pay. 11- Wrinkles add character. 12- You don't have to leave the room to make emergency crotch adjustments. 13- Wedding dress $2,000.00; Tux rental $100.00 14- If you retain water, it's in a canteen. 15- People never glance at your chest when you're talking to them. 16- New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet. 17- One mood, all the damn time. 18- Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds. 19- A five-day vacation requires only 1 suitcase. 20- You can open all your own jars. 21- You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. 22- Your underwear is $10.00 for a three-pack. 23- If you are 34 and single, nobody notices. 24- You can quietly enjoy a car ride from the passenger's seat. 25- Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. 26- You can quietly watch a game with your buddy for hours without ever thinking "he must be mad at me". 27- No maxi-pads.' 28- If another guy shows up at the party in the same outfit, you just might become lifelong friends. 29- You are not expected to know the names of more than five colors. 30- You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. 31- You are unable to see wrinkles in clothes. 32- The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. 33- Your belly usually hides your big hips. 34- One wallet and one pair of shoes, one color, all seasons. 35- You can "do" your nails with a pocketknife. 36- Christmas shopping can be accomplished for 25 relatives, on December 24th, in minutes. 37- The world is your urinal. |
| 1:04 pm | | |
| Let's Talk |
| LET'S TALK ABOUT FOOTBALL. It's no wonder I hate Arsenal. Ever since Arsene took over in '95 or thereabouts, they've gotten the worst disciplinary record in the entire league. They showed it on Sunday too. Now Patrick Viera is a great player, no doubt about that. But he just showed exactly what Arsenal is about by kicking up at Ruud. And let's not even begin to talk about Martin Keown. Hitting Ruud behind the neck when the game was over. I couldn't even believe that Arsene Wenger had the balls to call Ruud a cheat after the game when he was clearly jumping away after Viera, still on the ground, wwas kicking up at the family jewels. I would've done the same thing. Wouldn't you have? Even Arsenal's own chairman was calling them stupid. Firetrucking assholes!!
LET'S TALK ABOUT RACE. Now I know that I'm extremely late on this one but I could have foreseen the general events that transpired between Sat Maharaj and Selwyn Cudjoe. I mean, Patrick Manning put two of the country's biggest racists on a panel to discuss race relations in this country. What would he expect to happen? That they would have hugged and became friends? Oh firetruck no. Nigga and Coolie. That is all they know. But I really don't believe that the good Dr. Cudjoe had the gall to say that UWI should implement race quotas so that "Afro-Trinbagonians" could get more places at UWI. That's just bullshit. He's not doing his race any good by doing that because if it were so then those people would have great difficulty being hired. Prospective employers would say that the only reason they even have a degree is because they were given special treatment to enter UWI and it was not on their own merit. In essence, they ain't smart. LET'S TALK ABOUT ME. I haven't been blogging alot lately, I know. I hadn't even seen a computer since last Wednesday, and that's not like me at all, especially since there's free high-speed internet in school. Well I'm severely short on cash. Like severely. I can't even buy lunch. My work's caught up with me already even though I'm actually doing some. Went home this past weekend and I realised that I can't do anything at all while my sister and niece are around cus my niece will just come crawling all over me and be running up and down the house. She's one of those babies who has to tire themselves out completely before they can fall asleep. So while I'm ready to fall asleep at 10.30, she's still running around. Speaking of which, I really need some exercise cus I've been feeling tired at nights now, so much so that I'm usually fast asleep by 11. Tomorrow I make my first trip to Toco. I'm going to Salibia, or as the locals call it -- Sally Bay. My sister's getting married up there in December. Should be a cool "outdoorsy"-type wedding. And finally, LET'S TALK ABOUT THE TRINIDAD SCENE. Yet another firetrucking person has been kidnapped. So has kidnapping really declined Mr. Manning? Is this more collateral damage? And just when are you all going to force Abu bakr to take the tints off his vehicles? I'll wait on that one. |
| 9:59 am | | |
| Tuesday, September 16, 2003 |
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| Finally!! |
| Finally UWI has got it's shit together, well as far as the whole campus network is concerned. We have campus-wide internet again. But the administration is really firetrucking up when it comes to student admissions. I don't know if they realise just how small this campus is and that we're really cramped for lecture space. Like last week I had Financial Management II in a room which could have seated about eighty people when there were over one hundred persons registered for the course. Exactly where did they expect to seat those people? And then Miranda registered for this course called Applied Topics in Corporate Finance which was originally supposed to be done in both semester. Well, lo and behold a rumor begins that there is no lecturer available for the second semester for that course and the Social Science Administration is not informing the second semester students of that fact. Luckily she got her's changed but I'm really sorry for the persons who're doing finance minors and expect to read for that course in the second semester.
Otherwise, the semester hasn't started that badly for me. I'm actually doing some work and expect to graduate this year. Although I suspect that my average in 22 separate courses might be in the range of 45 when I finish, which would give me a "Pass" accounting degree. This has me contemplating pursuing the ACCA since the only job I may be able to get when I graduate would be an entry-level accounting job or maybe teaching. I won't be a professional at anything unless I do that most likely. But than again I hate accounting; it's the reality of the situation I'm looking at. Also if I wish to make any future moves abroad I most likely will need some sort of certification to show that I'm employable in anything but McDonald's. Hey maybe I can go to cooking school, since it is something I like doing. I'm soooo happy the Champion's League is restarting today. Last night I watched Leed's just get demolished 3-0 by Leicester City of all teams. They were pathetic. That was the first Premiership match I've seen since the season began. I had already looked at some of the Bundesliga matches since their season started before England's. Haven't seen a Man Utd match as yet, just to see how young Ronaldo and Kleberson are doing. I'll also love to see a Chelsea match. |
| 3:20 pm | | |
| Saturday, September 13, 2003 |
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| Firetrucking UWI |
| If you're wondering how come I've not been blogging alot since I "got back", it's not because I've been spending all my time with Miranda engaged in other activities. UWI's campus-wide network has contracted some sort of worm which managed to disrupt the entire network. There's no internet, no access to online student records; hell I've not even been registered as a student for this academic year as yet. And there's an introductory ecommerce course that I wanna take but I need to get into the WebCT to do so, but that ain't gonna happen soon. They spent the entire week attempting to fix the problem but the people at Campus IT need to go to approximately 2200 computers across campus to get rid of the worm and set the computer to get anti-virus and Windows updates. But I ain't hurting my head.
Well Miranda and I have reached a milestone in our two and a half year relationship; well at least I have with her. I gave her the password(s) to my email, which is something she gave me a long time ago. No big deal really. I'm just a private guy sometimes, with some things anyway. That was one of them but I've gotten over it. |
| 12:02 am | | |
| Wednesday, September 10, 2003 |
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| Flash Mobs |
| Ever since I heard of flash mobs I've wanted to do it. But apparently they're getting a dash of danger. According to Flashmob.com, Flash mobs are sudden gatherings of people at a predetermined location at a predetermined time. People in flash mobs usually perform according to a written script, then disperse quickly. Flash mobs can be for many purposes but most groups stick to having fun. Author Howard Rheingold calls them the next social revolution. According to a Wired magazine article, the first European mob took place in Rome on July 24, when several hundred people entered a bookstore and passionately demanded copies of books that had never been published and didn't exist. In August, 40 people in Berlin simultaneously pulled out their mobile phones and screamed "Yes, Yes" in the middle of a busy street.
My flash mob won't probably be much different. It might just be a group of like 50 people gathered in the atrium of Gulf City mall and making cooing noises for like 30 seconds and then dispersing just as suddenly as they appeared. But knowing the Trinidadian propensity for humour and not keeping a straight face, half of those people might just break down laughing in the middle of the thing or either couldn't get the guts to do it. Then again, with TSTT's propensity for firetrucking-up at the wrong time, getting everyone to be at the same place at the same time with the correct instructions might be the biggest challenge. Might be fun to try though. I'd love to see who the first bunch of idiots would be to do a flash mob in Trinidad. |
| 8:13 pm | | |
| Tuesday, September 09, 2003 |
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| My first day |
| I can't remember what my first day of UWI was like. I only remember that I wore a white polo shirt, my baggy jeans and sandals. I can't remember if I had classes, if I met anyone new or even where I had lunch. I remember the previous day clearly though. I was forced to travel from south to Curepe on Sunday morning with a suitcase and a big totebag with most of my belongings. See previous post of having nothing at all in south. I remember the taxi also shutting down right at the Couva flyover and having to walk to the top to get a taxi to go to Chagaunas and being mightily afraid of not only being taken for a tourist and promptly being robbed, but also of one of those huge trucks running right into me while breaking the corner. Then when I finally reached to my sister's place I was forced to wait outside for about five minutes for her to come off the phone and come down and open the door for me. And that began the following three years of total academic decline.
So I have the bestest girlfriend in the entire world. She had me convinced that she was returning from her three-month vacation in Miami this Wednesday and everyone else knew except me. So she came back on Sunday night and as soon as she stepped off the plane on Sunday night, guess where she went? I almost had a heart attack. It was pounding. And to top it off some of my cousins were over at my sister's too so they witnessed the whole surprise thing. I got Reefs!! YAY!! So you can guess that the first two days of this week were particularly GREAT for me. So the fourth year of my three year Accounting programme didn't start off so bad. Then again, I haven't gotten to the academic part as yet. I missed all of this morning's classes because I went to the bank and then had to go finalise my registration. And more great football news. Naps defeated Princes Town in a 4-3 thriller last Friday which I missed because I had like zero dollars this weekend gone. I mean zero. And I spent a substantial proportion of my month's allowance on school fees this morning too. Sucks. Happy belated Clarence, and early birthday Frank :-) |
| 8:18 pm | | |
| Thursday, September 04, 2003 |
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| What's going on? |
| The internet's been really shitty today. For the entire day the connection's just been sputterring. I couldn't log into my Yahoo! mail and I was lucky to get into Blogger earlier. I couldn't even get into my MSN and I was supposed to meet Miranda online this afternoon. Blogger has already eaten this post once and I really would not like that to happen again. I even left school to go to the cybercafe I usually go to and it's the same thing here. Although, they have Hotbar on the machines so I think that's part of the reason it's been going on here too. The trappings of a third world country. Roll with this:
In the dead of summer a fly was resting on a leaf beside a lake. A hot, dry fly who said to no one in particular, "gosh...if I go down three inches... I will feel the mist from the water and I will be refreshed." There was a fish in the water thinking, "gosh...if that fly goes down three inches I can eat him." There was a bear on the shore thinking, "gosh....if that fly goes down three inches...that fish will jump for the fly...and I will eat him." It also happened that a hunter was further up the bank of the lake preparing to eat a cheese sandwich. "Gosh," he thought, "if that fly goes down three inches...and that fish leaps for it...that bear will expose himself and grab for the fish.. I'll shoot the bear and have a proper lunch." A wee mouse by the hunter's foot was thinking, "gosh....if that fly goes down three inches...and that fish jumps for that fly...and that bear grabs for that fish...the dumb hunter will shoot the bear and drop his cheese sandwich. A cat lurking in the bushes took in this scene and thought, as was fashionable to do on the banks of this particular lake around lunchtime "gosh...if that fly goes down three inches...and that fish jumps for that fly...and that bear grabs for that fish and that hunter shoots that bear...and that mouse makes off with the cheese sandwich....then I can have mouse for lunch." The poor fly is finally so hot and so dry that he heads down for the cooling mist of the water. The fish swallows the fly...the bear grabs the fish...the hunter shoots the bear...the mouse grabs the cheese sandwich. The cat jumps for the mouse...The mouse ducks... The cat falls into the water.......and drowns. The moral of the story is: Whenever a fly goes down three inches, some pussy is in danger. |
| 5:48 pm | | |
| I Love This Game!! |
| Naparima College sounded an ominous warning to all comers for the 2003 Secondary Schools Football League season when they scored two goals on either side of half time to beat Presentation College 4-0 at the Manny Ramjohn Stadium, Marabella, on Tuesday to retain the Turton-Osborne trophy. I'm just ecstatic!! I hope we can retain this sort of form for the entire season, but if we don't, beating Pres. this badly is good enough for me. I can't even remember the last time Pres. managed to draw against us. I remember last year we just annihilated them 6-1, even if they scored the goal of the game with a 25-yard screamer. But as I've read, we don't have the services of Wendell, Forbes, Shai or even good ole' Jan who left coaching us to look after his own coaching school. Well at least he has the ambition to do that. I also hope that when we reach the national Intercol finals again that noone even comes close to mauling us like the 6-0 we got from St. Anthony's last year. Noone expected us to actually win that match, but c'mon, not to lose that badly either. I don't think for the entire time I was at Naps and since I left that we ever had a scoreline against us like that. And to think it would come at a time when we actually had a strong team. But that's the past. We beat Pres. YAY!!
I swear we're becoming just like Jamaica. The coke on the beach is causing quite a ruckshun in Moruga. People getting beaten and kidnapped by thugs and the police like they don't even have any concern for what's going on. They just keep saying "Whoever has cocaine in their possession will feel the full extent of the law yada yada yada..." Instead of harrassing poor people on the highways they should be on the beaches and villages in Moruga and Mayaro where the people are bringing harm to themselves by keeping the coke. It's a shit-load of money though. TT$400,000 a kilo. And they've found like over a hundred kilos so far. Not a bad business :-) No just kidding. I'd never touch the stuff, although the Columbian drug lords don't use it either; they just sell it. It's bad for business if you snort all of it. So I've heard anyway. But when are we in Trinidad going to be so mature as to actually acknowledge the legitimacy of decriminalising marijuana? Or in the local parlance: Legalise the herb. Anyway, this is a country in which it's actually illegal for anyone to have anal sex. Heheheh...I said "anal". |
| 3:51 pm | | |
| Wednesday, September 03, 2003 |
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| No TV |
| I never realised how dependent I am on the televizzle for entertainment. My sister's TV just stopped working on Tuesday evening; everytime I try turning it on it just makes this funny *poof* sound and smells like something burning inside. I wonder if there was something burning inside? [That's me trying to be facetious.] Nothing shows up on the screen. Well I made up for any lack of sleep for over the past year or so in the mean time. I also listened to Avril Lavigne's "Let Go". My sister had the cd a few months now and I liked the songs she released like Complicated and Sk8er Boi but the others are cool too, like Losing Grip. It's also an enhanced cd and there's the video for Complicated and a "day in the life" short video. Her Canadian accent comes out strong in it and she gets teased for it. She's real cool, quite unlike that skank Cristina Aguilera. I just had to mention that. Avril's cute too, but in a bad-ass kinda way. Everyone's a friggin critic.
There's also no food in the house, not even bread. I ate the last of it at like 5 this afternoon. That was lunch. And I had dinner at 11. I doubt tomorrow's gonna be any different. [I have Avril's accent going through my head]. I was reading an article at Askmen.com about What is a sensitive man? The writer makes absolute sense. I mean, we're not insensitve; we just differ on what we need to be sensitive about. We have a better capacity to let things go sometimes. Sensitive New Age Guy my ass! |
| 11:55 pm | | |
| Tuesday, September 02, 2003 |
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| The newest digs |
| So this is the latest version of my blog. I know the pic's a little hazy and stuff but it'll have to do till I get a better one. You like? The links all work I think. And If anyone wants me link them, let me know. |
| 11:26 am | | |
| Owa tanna siam!! |
| I did the dumbest thing today. And yes, I'm back. I was of the firmest opinion that school would be restarting today, since secondary school was reopening and all. So I left south yesterday to brave the onslaught of my sister's stinging tongue. Her English boyfriend is here too but he was much nicer about things. I guess they were playing "Good cop, Bad cop". Anyways, I went to sleep early last night (11 o' clock) so I could get up and not be all tired and come to school early cus I was supposed to have the accounts course that has been the monkey on my back for the last two years at 8 this morning. I walked to school at 7.15 this morning. Entered campus and realised that not only was I the ONLY student there, but that there was no school this week. And here I was all bright and rearing to go and there was no fucking class. Owa tanna siam!!
So I'll be looking for a new place to live come December because apparently the sister I'm staying with is now engaged to be married sometime in early December before my exams begin and will be moving to England before they're over. And I'd still have another semester of school; hopefully it'll only be one semester after this. My budget for an apartment I think is in the range of $600 a month. I might just be able to squeeze into a nice 4x4 room with that. I wonder where I'll put the hottub? I saw that over the lovely 41st Independence weekend four people died in car crashes. I thought I would've been one of them the way the taxi-driver was swerving on the highway and the speed he was going at. And apparently, on this beautiful twin island republic, the ONLY way to get things done or get noticed is to block the roads. Even better, block a major highway. |
| 10:13 am | | |