KingBurgundy.com

Fantastic!

And so the new Lost continues the tradition of answering some questions but somehow leaving you asking twice as many more. Just wow.

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Its time! This week I am totally getting rid of most of this extra hair!

Hurray

Three day weekend incoming. Glorious!

Fun with dentistry is completed as of yesterday night, no more visits to the dentist for 6 months, hurray!

Yaaawn

Went down to the springs for the weekend, hung out with Jason and Melissa and then fully intended to come back to Denver but ended up at Chucks for the rest of the weekend. Came home this morning just in time to head to work, hehe.

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Check out batman with legos!

Kung Fu Hustle

I watched Kung Fu Hustle last night. Its the newest movie by the guy that did Shaolin Soccer. If you haven't seen Shaolin Soccer yet, I first recommend you go see that. If you liked Shaolin Soccer, then you will also love this movie. Same quirky humor and super unusual style. It was really fantastic.

Click below for the latest trials and travails from our Turkish correspondent:

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"The Kebab’s Hittin’ the Fan Now"

It sure has been a busy couple of months since I got back from my D.O.T.Y. victory tour to Seychelles. I’ve been frozen, shot with tequila, flashed, evangelized, judged (twice), accepted (three times) and vindicated (always, in my own mind). Of course, I’ve been pissed off and unpaid too, but that happens so often that I can hardly count them as anything special.

I’ll take that list in order beginning with the freezing. The week after I got back from Seychelles and the beach I was met with Istanbul’s worst snowstorm in years. In Canada, where Laurie teaches in an igloo-school and kids eat walrus head sandwiches for lunch, this storm would have only meant that Dad had to put chains on the polar bear before riding him to work But over here everything was closed for a week, and that included school. My ass spent so much time on the couch that the imprints left on the cushions are so precise that they would be more accurate in identifying me than a retinal scan. A few of the guys from school visited me to watch or borrow DVD’s, but other than that I pretty much went to bed at 4 AM, woke up at 11:00 and ate tuna for three days after my other food ran out. I find it quite ironic that I’d waited years to get a longer break at the semester, and when I finally did I only spent one week traveling to a bunch of islands by mistake. That’s the best signal yet that I need to get out of here.

I did finally get over to Ali’s house a couple weeks after I got back and gave him his blasted tequila and margarita mix. He’d never had a margarita or even tried tequila, so I had to done learn him how to mix one up. We didn’t have a blender but we made due, and after moving on to shots with salt and a lemon, ice just didn’t seem too important anymore.

Celil’s brother, Halil, is on his university’s handball team. They were number one in the second division and were one game away from moving up to the first league next year. I decided to go to their game and watch, but first Celil and I went to Halil’s apartment. We only stayed a little while, but at one point I got up to look out the window because there was a pretty good view of the Soviet style concrete jungle that is Istanbul’s urban sprawl. I happened to look down into the enclosed yard of a “house” and there was an old man dropping his pants. For what I don’t know exactly, but I’d guess that his toilet was outside and he was going in. It hurt my eyes though, and if that wasn’t bad enough, Halil’s team got stressed and lost. I can’t say that my experience or resulting trauma was the deciding factor in their defeat, but I’m sure it couldn’t have helped.

I noticed that last week was Jesus week on one of Digiturk’s (my satellite provider) movie channels. All Jesus all day. They showed every Jesus film ever created, from Chucky Heston overacting in “Ben Hur” to Willem Defoe singing and mincing around Jerusalem in “Jesus Chris Superstar” to Jesus getting his flesh stripped in “the Passion of the Christ.” I had to chuckle at all this, not just because all these Jesus freak films are so ridiculous (except the chariot race in “Ben Hur which is very cool), but because so many Turks are paranoid that “the Christian missionaries are coming to get us,” and here they were dedicating an entire week to the miraculous propaganda that was the life of Jesus. But Turkey has always been a country of contrasts, and that aspect of it seems set to continue for the foreseeable future. As for me, all that religion burned my eyes and I was forced to seek out my new, very secular DVD: “Dodgeball.”

I went to a party at Molly’s house a few weeks after I was back. While I was walking down Istiklal Street (the main party and bar street of Istanbul) to her house, I noticed a bunch of people running out of a side street in a panic. My first reaction was that either someone had a gun or else there was a drunken riot going on. Turned out to be a couple of guys with clubs beating the hell out of each other. One man finally got the other turned around and then went to town on his back. When a couple of other guys tried to intervene, the one doing the heavy beating turned on them. When he did that, the one who had been getting the worst of it took off. So did the rest of us before Club Man decided to find someone else to take out his frustrations on.

A few days after that I was riding the bus and a man fell over and started having a seizure. A couple men grabbed his arms and another held his head off the floor so he didn’t bang it. The driver stopped, a little kid cried, some foam from his mouth splashed on my boot and a few minutes later the guy came around, got off the floor and then got off the bus and walked away as if nothing had happened. The bus driver got us all moving again and I went back to reading my book. Minor inconvenience.

I went into the seventh level of hell, otherwise known as the Grand Bazaar, to get some stuff for people back in the States. Over the years, I’ve learned that if you look mad as hell and don’t make eye-contact, most of the vendors won’t bother you. But at one point I came across a scene that made me laugh quite a bit. Near one of the entrances was a large crowd of men screaming at each other and into cell phones. They were speaking so fast I couldn’t catch any words except numbers, so I asked a shopkeeper what was going on. He told me that it was an unofficial money exchange. A sort of street currency market. It made the New York Stock Exchange look tame by comparison, and I can only guess that the cops standing a few feet away were getting something more than just entertainment value out of it themselves.

I got my acceptance letters from both the U. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Minnesota State. Those were my first and third choices, respectively, so now at least I don’t have to get a paper route next year to have something to do. I haven’t heard from the other two schools I applied to yet (U. of Minnesota and Marquette), but it doesn’t really matter too much. I’ll go to Wisconsin to study international relations because, even if the Jesuits at Marquette do accept me, they’ll still want 20 grand per year and would probably also want to perform an exorcism once they met me. Although I’m happy to have gotten into at least two schools, what I’m most proud of is that I did it even though I never spent one second studying for that Satan-spawned standardized test that is the GRE. I took it here in Istanbul two years ago on three hours sleep and, while I did ok, my performance was certainly not indicative of what I know I can do if I want to. What I did do was work very hard on my formal essays and promote myself to the political science departments by sending photos and some of my travel stories, along with some strategic personal e-mails to professors just telling them how things were going over here in Turkey. My contempt for standardized tests knows no bounds, and I’m happy to have circumvented one yet again.

I went to Eminonu down on the Golden Horn with Ahmet last weekend after tennis. Just getting there took over an hour because of the traffic, and then parking was another adventure. And people ask me why I don’t have a car. But we had fun, and I even bought street cheese for the first time. I call it street cheese because it’s sold on the street by men who smoke cigarettes and put the butts on the counter while they’re cutting their big blocks of cheese. As you might imagine, the smell was overpowering. I tried this village street cheese that Ahmet was buying and it was pretty good. I like village cheese, but can usually only get it at Hasan’s house in Karatas. So I got some and haven’t gotten dysentery yet. Ashes in my teeth, but no illness.

That concludes the non-Darussafaka section of the letter. The next part is more on the continuing saga of scandals and infighting that marks my life in this den of iniquities. Our school was in the paper twice, and not for good reasons. If you enjoy sordid stories of senile old bastards and nationalist heads of departments, or just have lots of time on your hands, then read on. If you used to work in this pit, then grab a drink and try to remember whatever good times you may have had.

Our school entered a team in a Scrabble tournament sponsored by the Military High School over on the Bosphorus. It’s a great old building and campus right on the water. To get ready last term, I held a Scrabble tournament and chose the team. This term, two days before the tournament was to begin, I asked Kadbitch if she had reserved a service bus. She said yes, but then informed me that I couldn’t go because I was a foreigner and they didn’t want a foreigner inside the school. Yes, Tobin the master spy might take pictures of cadets playing ping-pong with his stealthy button-cam. This, of course, led to another predictable fight where I learned that I wasn’t specifically banned, but it would be helpful if I just backed-off. The answer was also a predictable no. I’m such a pushy foreign devil. Once again, poor nice Sema was a witness to all this. It ended when I stopped fighting with Kadbitch and took my well trodden path upstairs where I quite literally went over her head and told Kudret, the de-facto head of the school, that I was going. He said ok (anything to avoid confrontation), and then later Kadbitch was upset even more because she thought I had bad-mouthed her to Kudret. I told her that was her game, not mine, and two days later I was on the bus with Sema going to the academy. She told me she was happy I pushed the issue, and then tried for the next twenty minutes to convince me to stay next year. I really appreciate the few people like her around here, but how can anyone willingly stay in an atmosphere where the person who’s supposed to be looking out for you and helping things run smoothly is instead trying everything in her power to make you look bad and keep you out of everything. At any rate, we did pretty well (the soldiers were quite welcoming to me and I got to be a judge), and Hasan and two other kids are through to the third round. Hasan has actually won both his previous games and has really gotten into Scrabble, going so far as to make a word-study system for himself. When he decides to do something, he really does it well, but getting him interested has always been the trick.

Turkey has been taking a beating in the world press of late, and Darussfaka has been taking it on the head in the national press. I’ll deal with Turkey first. On February 16th, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal named Robert Pollock wrote an article called “The Sick Man of Europe…Again.” He was referring to the old nickname for the 19th century Ottoman Empire, but the subjects of this article were quite recent. He had accompanied Undersecretary of Defense Feith on a trip to Turkey and was appalled at the stories about Americans that he heard and read both in government circles and in the local papers. I’ve rarely seen a country slammed so hard in print as Turkey was slammed by Pollock. He detailed completely fanciful stories that have, by and large, been at least tacitly accepted by a good deal of the public at large. To name a few of my favorites: US soldiers are raping and murdering women and children in Iraq and leaving their bodies on the street for the dogs; the US is selling Iraqis’ organs for transplant; Israeli hit squads are targeting Turks for assassination in Iraq with US complicity; the US caused the tsunami in the Indian Ocean by testing nuclear weapons; the US could have warned villagers in every country bordering the Indian Ocean that the tsunami was coming but chose not to because many of the dead would be Muslims; and my number one favorite: the US knows that an asteroid is heading for Earth and will impact in North America. Therefore the US is trying to colonize the Middle East so that all Americans can move there and be saved. So I hope all you nasty Americans reading this are stocking up on sunscreen and have a taste for falafel, ‘cause you’re all coming over here pretty soon. That column stirred up weeks of controversy and retorts by Turkish pundits and columnists, most of which were highly defensive. What I found interesting was that, instead of addressing the stories Pollock put forth as being completely absurd, they tried to spin it so that the US was actually responsible for so much bad stuff that it should expect this kind of thing. I can always accept criticism, but I can never accept illogical and unreasoned arguments made for no other reason than sensationalism or political gain. That’s what these stories are. As I’ve told many people here, if you want to hate the US or Americans, fine, but do it because of something believable, not because some idiot told you an idiotic story and you were stupid enough to believe it.

Last week was Women’s Week or day or something like that. A group of people held a rally, but they exceeded area that had been set aside for them. In addition to this, some radical fringe group was holding up posters calling for the release of Apo (Turkey’s number one terrorist, now being held in prison. For a comparison, imagine bin Laden was captured and people walked along the street calling for his release). This group started pushing police, who responded in a predictable manner by beating the hell out of them all with clubs. The international media was looking on the whole time and that night it was the lead story on both CNN and BBC. Of course, those opposed to Turkey’s membership in the EU jumped all over this, and it’s still a hot topic in the papers one week on.

Now for poor old Darussafaka. Last week, an illegal gambling ring was busted up. That in itself is nothing too untold. However, this one was operating out of the top floor of our sports complex. The school board rents that complex out, but is still supposed to manage things and keep an eye on the renters. But the board of this school consists of a bunch of senile old men who are all back-stabbing geezers out to enrich their friends and have a good time at the school’s expense. The school rented the complex to a highly questionable (neo-mafia) group and then sat back and did nothing. What this group did was to rent an apartment about 500 meters away, install a roulette wheel there and then link it via a closed circuit television camera to the sports club. I’d heard rumors about gambling there for over a year, so there’s no way that the board, even in all its incompetence, never heard. But nothing was done, and after the police busted it up, there was the school on the front page looking like a cheap bookie house.

All that pales in comparison with the article that came out the next day (Friday, March 11, Milliyet). The headline written in three inch letters was “Las Vegas Tour With Orphan’s Money.” There was a picture of the school, and an article that detailed an official government report of corruption and malfeasance by the board of directors. The principals grabbed up any copies of that newspaper they could find, but the cat was out of that bag, and it’s been discussed to death ever since. Seems that cronyism and misappropriation was endemic by those nice old men running our little orphan school here. Yeah, big surprise. We’ve been paid once in the last three months and these jerks have the gall to say that everything is hunky-dory. The worst thing put forth is that members of the board took a trip to Las Vegas (among other places), and spent over $25,000 of the school’s money getting unlucky at the craps tables. We have trouble getting money to send kids on exchange programs, but I guess that’s because they’re not going shopping. Ostensibly the trip was to purchase discounted furniture for several of the many retirement homes this board has built, all in the name of “helping the children.” I could have done the trip with a couple of people and taken care of everything for a few grand at most. I wouldn’t have been able to travel first class like they did, or stay at the Bellagio, but I think I still would have had fun. Not the board. So the headline was actually true for once. That same night, Kudret called a meeting of all the students in the dormitory in order to deny everything. The thing is that it’s an official government report that even Ahmet can’t completely dispute, as much as he’d like to. It’s the culmination of a year-long inquest into the school. Ahmet had even warned Kudret not to have a meeting, just let it go, so when I told him about it over tennis today he wasn’t too happy. But Kuidret’s just a lap dog and not too smart. He lied to the kids, as do all these old men who use the students, this school and its reputation for furthering their own interests. Now that reputation is toast, and because this place survives on donations, that’s going to hurt. I may never get paid now, but that’s ok. If the money’s not in our accounts by the end of this month, I’ll just start my farewell tour of Turkey a bit earlier than planned.

And now I’m spent and it’s time for bed. I didn’t bother to check for mistakes in this, so if you find any, chalk it up to an unpaid English teacher. What more can you expect?

Zelda

Check out this video for the new Zelda game.

So awesome. Nintendo still hasn't said much about its next system, but they have now announced wireless internet built in as well as backwards compatibility with current gamecube games.

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Nothing too exciting going on. I finally built the last of my bookcases and got them set up and am making some serious progress on unpacking and making the place properly liveable. Its only been a year. :) Maybe I'll actually get some photos up finally.

This weekend heading over to Chris & Jen's again for Dinner on Sunday and the rest is tentatively up in the air, but looks to be busy.

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I watched a movie with Mathew Lillard and James Earl Jones called "Finder's Fee" last night. Much better than I thought it would be. It had been sitting on my counter from Netflix for months and is finally on its way back to them.

BSG returns in July

Well hello there leaked production schedule:

March 28-July 19: Filming on the first 10 episodes
July 20-August 16: On Hiatus
August 17-Dec 6: Filming on the final 10 episodes
Sci-Fi AirDates: Beginning in July

So yes, thats right, season 2 will be 20 episodes. It will be split in typical Sci-Fi fashion with a long hiatus between the first 10 and the last 10.

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The latest episode of Lost was fantastic of course. <3 Hurley. Of course, in typical Lost fashion they revealed a whole lot but somehow we end up with even more questions(or more...LOST...haha) than before. Now the long wait till the last 6 episodes. The first of the new group will focus on Locke! -- Btw, did you notice the "box company" reference in this episode???

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My brother Joe has some new art available at www.sparklingseahorse.com which you should be checking out anyway!

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I went drinking with Linda and some others last night. Linda will be leaving the country soon. :( Last night I got invited to a party/celebration of Holi(an indian celebration of spring/color). That should be a blast and I'm much looking forward to it.

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I'll try and take some photographic evidence of my current hair status in the near future. Its really not excessive at this point, its just excessive for *me*.

Hair

Yeah, longish hair and frizzy beard is totally getting to me. Not sure I can put up with them very much longer. I think at the very least I am going to cut off the beard in the very near future. Aaaaargh.

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Fun with dentistry is almost over. On the 23rd I should be going in for a permanent crown and cleaning and then be all done. Hurrah.