Time Travel
Since my last post I have been to Prague twice, Israel three times, and Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna once. The only common denominator between all these places is the serious lack of good coffee. I just don’t get it – why don’t people understand coffee? (To be fair, there was a Starbucks in Vienna, but it came so late in my travels and after I drank some really gross local stuff that it is almost not worth mentioning).
This is probably not the forum to discuss this, but there was something up with the toilets in Vienna and Budapest that really bugged me out – I think this particular toilet design is the reason why these people are so unhappy and started so many wars over the last 100 years (that or maybe it is because in German the verbs always come at the end of the sentence, I can think of a few English speakers who would probably get violent if English was the same way).
It is nice to be back in Boston, but I don’t understand why Madonna was playing a guitar to put and end to global warming – does she think she is Jimi now?
July 12th, 2007
I just got back from a trip to Mexico and yes – I was in Mexico for Cinco de Mayo.
I wasn’t thinking when I made my plans and it was an accident that my trip coincided with Cinco de Mayo. I was extremely excited when I realized what I did, but also very nervous. I was worried that I would get stuck in traffic, miss my flight home, or not be able to do anything because of the wild insanity and obvious reverie that would hit the streets.
It turns out that I am an ill-informed gringo fool.
As soon as I arrived I asked my hosts if I needed to worry about the upcoming holiday. “What holiday?” They said. “What holiday?” I thought to myself, “You sweet naïve people. Have you forgotten all about your day of national independence?”
I prodded, “Surely you are aware that Saturday is Cinco de Mayo.”
“Cinco de Mayo?” They discussed it amongst themselves. “Oh right, Cinco de Mayo, doesn’t that have something to do with the French?”
French?
“When were the French ever in Mexico?” I thought. “Don’t they realize they speak Spanish?”
Later that night I was giving a talk. I asked the audience about Cinco de Mayo. Their response was the same – first confusion and then talk about the French.
Everywhere I went and with everyone I met, I asked about Cinco de Mayo. It became a big joke, “Silly gringo, ha ha ha, Cinco de Mayo, ha ha ha.” Cinco de Mayo means nothing in Mexico.
I think I was lied to. I was an American in Mexico for Cinco de Mayo, I was excited and nervous, and it is all a big nothing.
It turns out that Mexicans don’t eat burritos* either – what a bummer.
*Burritos are a Tex-Mex treat – from Texas.
May 6th, 2007
I wonder if everyone is as whacked out as I am today. It seems to me that daylight savings time is nothing more than nationally instituted jetlag. Obviously the man is out to keep us hard working people down, and to strengthen our coffee addictions. Not cool.
For those who haven’t noticed, the hour-loss torture began 3 weeks earlier this year due to legislation introduced by this congressman from Massachusetts. I tried sending him an email last year, but he only accepts correspondence from people living in his district. If you happen to live in the 7th congressional district, call your congressman and tell him that his energy saving plan is a sham and that you demand your sleep back. The dark mornings make it bad for school kids waiting for buses, and hard for religious Jews to pray before work.
At least in Israel they are cool with how they time Daylight Savings. They start it right before Yom Kippur (so the fast will end an hour earlier) and begin it before Passover (so you get an extra hour to sit at the Seder and eat Matzo).
March 11th, 2007
I hate daylight savings time (i.e. annual legislated jetlag). I woke up this morning an hour earlier then usual. I was sluggish and unfocused. Only an unusually large cup of coffee saved me and tomorrow will be the same. I am going to be up much later tonight than I want to be as well. It usually takes me about a week to adjust to daylight savings time, sometimes even longer. Secretly, I think I feel the after effects all summer long – it is a painful weight that drags me down (I even suffer from post-daylight savings anxiety after returning from trips to other time zones). I never fully get to normal until we finally set our clocks back in October.
Obviously, daylight savings time is a corporate scam – a tool of the man – supported by big business, and particularly the coffee lobby, to keep the rest of us off-kilter and in coffee shops, blinded and disoriented, purchasing caffeine and no-doze while the MAN (probably still on standard time) messes with our lives.
There is of course, a Jewish solution, a subversive way to steer clear of the oppressive, manipulative thumb of the MAN (I tried this one year and it worked wonders): Structure your year around the cycle of the sun. If you always get up 30 minutes before sunrise, you will never be caught off guard, you will always be productive, and the MAN will have no way to distract you and sucker you into his coffee shops and drug stores.
April 2nd, 2006
