it's almost 5 pm...

do you know where your children are?

If you're one of my parent's, the answer is no. At least not for all their children. Some of us are hiding in the already-dark evening of a foreign place, typing on borrowed time on a computer far better than their own.

So my money's dried up for the moment, and therefore it was a quiet little weekend. Big up to Jess for cooking for everyone this weekend. And I better say thanks to Andrew, too, since he cooked a little himself and I wouldn't want him to read this and cry. Anyway, hopefully if I get some money from home or my stipend works out well, I might be heading away this weekend before my final, serious, studious crunch.

Then it's home for a month before my wild and furious europe year continues.

MUSIC: (in my head) duran duran: ordinary world

student riots!!!

Today was the anniversary of the student riots in 1939 and 1989. Screw the nazis and commies, freedom rules!!

So that's all you're going to get about that for now. Maybe there'll be a history lesson later, but for the moment you just need to know that I had today off. Coupled with having everything tuesday off, that makes for weekend #2. And I took advantage.

Last night I had chicken stuffed with everything you can imagine for dinner. It was delicious. Then I went and met up with a posse of two americans, an englishmen, and a lovely scottish lass to drink and kill time until the show started. What show, you may ask. Why, Kid Koala, of course. By the way, keep your eyes open for his live in Brno recording. It was dope, phat, and totally raw off the heesy (sic).

He scratched in Close to me, and a Bjork song, and weird science, and ballroom blitz and a fair shake of his 'good friends' radiohead. I hope he actually does put out the show as a cd. It would make my day, that day, far in the future as it may be. Unless I get married or win the lottery that day.

So today, for the sake of continuity, I'll tell you what I ate. It was the mountaineer's chicken cut, totally wrapped up in a potato pancake. This is the second time I've ordered mashed potatoes at this place and been given something radically different, by the way. The first time was mushroom rice, and tonight, I enjoyed some fine french fries because I lack the requisite vocabulary to complain.

After that I came and downloaded Jump Little Children songs and sang along like a total sap. Anyone who hasn't heard JLC's close your eyes is a bastard. or ignorant. do yourself a favor, though, and go listen to it, since you're no longer ignorant and that makes you....

anyway, after that I went with Kelsey, a lovely girl from Arizona and her roommate (whose name I will now butcher) Kasha for a jazz show. The guys on stage weren't what I'd call jazz musicians, but they were really good. The drums and bass were sadly relegated to their rhythm section rock status quo position, so it was a guitar and sax show. The guys playing the aforementioned lead instruments were, as previously stated, awesome. But the guitar work, especially, seemed far more rock-y than not. Impressive and enjoyable, no doubt, but not jazz, I think.

So after that I spent some time hunting for the other international kids before finding them at Die Fleder Maus Haus. Drank some beer there. And I was wearing a suit, so a couple of Polish girls, Goshka and Ola (spelling aside) exhausted there store of synonyms for 'wonderful' to describe how I looked. Very flattering. I spent the rest of the night drinking and talking with some fellow amerikaners, Tom, my roommate, Cass from AZ as well, and my fellow north carolinian Katie. We went to a different club where, despite my best efforts, I was bested in Foosball, then the power was lost. Everyone seemed to be rushing out to catch the night bus, so I thought I'd better hurry, chugged my beer, and split.

If anyone's worried that I may have drunk too much tonight, be aware that I've only been home for about half an hour, and I seem to be having very little problem forming coherent thoughts. Don't worry about me.

MUSIC: jump little children: close your eyes

this one's for...

This one's for Kim. Granted, I don't know who kim is, and neither do you. Unless you are Kim, in which case it's a fair bet that you know who you are, though not certain. Life being an ever-changing and unpredicatable mess, as it were.

But the whole reason for this post, for those of you who follow my blog and it's comments, is to give Kim a way to actually contact me so that I can respond and let Kim know what she's in for in Brno. So my address is middieamerica@hotmail.com.

Beyond that, it's been an interesting weekend. Though more for me than for you, I think. Got a fair amount of sleep, hung around, watched some futurama, ate out, drank. lived like a king, more or less. Today was my only day of class until Thursday since I always have tuesdays off and wednesday is the anniversary of the student riots in 1989. As a result, I'm a little tipsy. Note to Kim, I'm not really as lame as this post makes me out to be. Get in touch, and I'll respond when I'm at my sober and wittiest.

MUSIC: the postal service: the district sleeps alone tonight.

Which homestar runner character am I?

Which Homestar Runner character are you?

this quiz was made by jurjyfrort

triumph over evil

or at least a triumph over my computer. Now I can put new pictures up and type to my heart's content at any hour of the day in the relative comfort of my grungy room.

The weather's finally turned cold, I'm fighting a nasty cough, and george bush has a second term. That is, at least, the most recent news in Brno. I was on a tram at one point (well several points, but one in particular) during my websilence, and it was full of czech kids about my age or maybe a little younger. They had spread bubble wrap down the aisle and were taking turns doing somersaults down the tram as it barrelled around the streets of Brno.

A Czech man showed up at the sports bar where I was watching the last game of the NLCS with some other americans. This is nothing unusual. What is unusual is that it was the same czech man I had met after the scorpions concert, and he insisted on buying us Johnny Walker because we were Americans. After he left, some australians found out I had been avoiding the local liquors and were roundly disappointed. I tried to disuade them, as I had had a few beers already and the Johnny Walker, but it didn't quite work out. They still managed to get some Slivobite forced on me. So be careful if you come visit. The hospitality can be dangerous.

I ate in a restaurant in Ostrava called at the helm. it had portholes and the bar was shaped like a boat.

Everyone is really excited about my computer (more specifically the DVD player in it) being back from the land of the dead.

Last night I watched American football. You have to say American here when you're talking about football, as I'm sure you can understand. Anyway, I was going to see the Pittsburg/Philly game because my family is aligned with the steelers, and a lot of people here from the US are Philly fans. The philly fans didn't show, however, because their train was late getting back from Budapest. Perhaps it was for the best since they got totally decimated. Respect.

There was a dude from georgia at the bar, though, and he was totally weird. He heard Tom, Richard, and I speaking english, and finally turned around and, I suppose by way of introduction, said, "do any of you gentlemen know where I can find a good risk party in this town?" Nothing lewd about it, of course, he was talking about Risk, the game of world conquest. No, 'hey, are you americans?' or 'I couldn't help noticing you were speaking english.' just straight into the 'I don't know you, but met me make a bizarre request to play a twelve hour board game with you'.

He asked us if we had been to dragon con in Atlanta, and we all didn't know what he was talking about. Of course, I know what dragon con is, but that's as far as my knowledge goes, and I thought it best to plead ignorance, pay our bill, and get the hell out.

So that brings you more or less up to date. Anything else you want to know, comment or e-mail. I'm going to go drink thera-flu (thanks dad) then put on my scarf and gloves (thanks mom) and set out for food.

MUSIC: david bowie: changes

this is the quality of light here at three PM. ridiculous. take note, america, of the tram tracks and wires, indicative of excellent public transportation. 

a street 

big crowd.... this is the brno airport.