30 Gays of Night

In spite of Denmark's knee-jerk distrust of everything American, some of the good stuff is squeezing through. Witness last weekend's relatively widespread celebrations of Halloween, a holiday with dubious origins but a magnificent future in this country. Everyone knows the only thing Euro-gays love more than dressing up is binge-drinking, and Halloween gives them a way to combine the two and pretend that such a thing is legitimate adult behaviour.

The following are pictures from our own demonic festitude last weekend. Everyone in these pictures is fueled exclusively by sugar cookies, cosmopolitans and the desperate wish that their country doesn't adopt other American holidays like Valentine's Day. Enjoy.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Random thoughts from the last two weeks

• Denmark is a small enough country that everyone seems to get the flu at the same time. I knew sickness was inevitable last week when my boss, my roommate and about five of my friends were all wheezing as one. I spent Monday to Thursday in 'Misery'-caliber bedriddenness, coughing meekly and feeling guilty about the felony neglect of my dissertation.
• I've been positively obsessed with the 1960s workplace drama 'Mad Men'. After 13 relentless hours of misogyny, racism, adultery, skinny ties, chain-smoking, pregnancy denial and Nixon references, I feel like I understand my parents and my grandparents a hell of a lot better.
• I bought a new bike. I probably spent too much money, and I ended up buying one that says 'Turbo!' along the side, which makes absolutely no sense on a person-powered machine, but whatever. My morning commute has gone from 18 minutes down to 11, mostly because my chain no longer falls off after every curb, bump and cigarette butt. Subsequently, I no longer have Mechanic Fingers at work, yet another upside.
• I found a store near my house that sells sweet potatoes! I know I shouldn't be this excited about root-veg, but carotenoided Americana is serious fetishry 'round these parts. Again, I probably paid too much (Turbo!), but sometimes you just gotta chomp on some tubers. 
• I read the other day about a proposed 'Blue Card' scheme for Europe, which would allow non-EUers (me!) to get a EU-wide visa if they score a legit work contract, allowing them to estabish residency, receive benefits and move around the EU for work, just like real Europeans, wheee. The proposal strikes me as fair, reasonable and completely necessary for the birth-reluctant EU of the future. Which pretty much means it won't make it any further than the intern-'bicle at the European Parliament.

Meanwhile, this is funny:

And so is the story behind this:

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

How to ruin the ‘Dumbledore is gay’ news

Ross Douthat, e-cockblocker of all things:

It seems like a case of J.K. Rowling trying to retroactively bestow a level of adult complexity on her characters that they don't possess on the printed page. A writer confident in her powers wouldn't feel the need to announce details like this after the fact, and a writer who understood the strengths and limitations of her creation would recognize that trying to smuggle this level of psychological realism into the Potter series is a fool's errand that can only diminish her achievement – by reminding adult readers of what it isn't (a serious work of realistic fiction, I mean), rather than letting them enjoy it for the gripping, inventive children's fantasy it is.

OK, so you hate Dumbledore and you hate gayness and you hate children and books and laughter and strawberries and stories. Do you have to be such a dick about it, dude? Geez.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Finally, some good news from Saudi Arabia

“Under the government's interpretation of Shari'a, magic was regarded as one of the worst forms of polytheism, and is an executable offense.”

 

 

Yes!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Proof that western civilization is doomed

This is an actual product. A fucking shaving razor with a light on it. If the terrorists want us, they can have us.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Sweet and Saudi

So I'm writing a quickie report on Saudi Arabia for work, and I've spent most of this week marveling at the towering fucked-upedness of this country that supplies one-quarter of the burning liquid we fill up our cars, boats and Segways with. Look:

Women are not allowed to testify in court for the following reasons:

1. Women are much more emotional than men and will, as a result of their emotions, distort their testimony.

2. Women do not participate in public life, so they will not be capable of understanding what they observe.

3. Women are dominated completely by men, who by the grace of God are deemed superior; therefore, women will give testimony according to what the last man told them.

4. Women are forgetful, and their testimony cannot be considered reliable.

Other depresslets include:

• "Saudi Arabia also engages in capital punishment, including public executions by beheading and stoning. While some are also executed in private by firing squad, many executions are popular public attractions."
• "In 2005 a severely injured Indonesian maid filed a complaint against her Saudi employers, claiming they had tortured her. The maid was subsequently sentenced to 79 lashes."
• "Adultery can only be proven by the testimony of four reliable witnesses. It is punishable by death by stoning."
• "In November 2005, a court sentenced Mohammad al-Harbi, a high school chemistry teacher, to 40 months in prison and 750 lashes after he reportedly discussed the Bible and praised Jews."
• "Bars and nightclubs are illegal. Movie theatres are also illegal, although they may be permitted to exist on an oil company compound. Private parties are permitted but they often segregated by nationality, sex, or language in order to reduce the risk of being raided by the police."

But the real jewel in the 'I don't wanna live there' crown is the result of a 2006 investigation of Saudi Arabian textbooks. The Wall Street Journal and Freedom House found the following education-bites in current Saudi teaching materials:

• "It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and His Prophet, or someone who fights the religion of Islam."
• "A Muslim, even if he lives far away, is your brother in religion. Someone who opposes God, even if he is your brother by family tie, is your enemy."
• "The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus."
• "Activity: The student writes a composition on the danger of imitating the infidels."

 

And for the first-graders: Mad Libs!

"Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ______________ is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ____________."

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Speaking in a foreign language: Helping me be a dick since 2007

I had the following interaction in Danish at a cafe today:

Sketchy dude: Hey man, I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm an artist, and I thought you might want to look at my paintings [thrusts stack of paintings toward me].

Me: No thanks.

Sketchy dude: Look, I just need some help, man, I made these paintings, and –

Me: No.

Sketchy dude: You can just look at them, you don't even have to –

Me: I'm studying right now. Thanks, but no.

Sketchy dude: [leaves]

 

That's right, I'm an asshole. Maybe it's something to do with the English language, but I usually make excuses with random-walker-uppers, like "I would, I don't have any money", "I'm in a hurry", etc. For some reason, though, in Danish I just act like the fucking Terminator. No courtesy, no excuses, no mercy. 

Thank God I managed to become 1.5-lingual in a deeply introverted language. If I spoke Italian or something, that interaction probably would have gone on for hours, and would have ended with me inviting the Hobohemian to live with my parents.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Why I’m glad I don’t live in Moscow: Reason 10,441

Today was the first day of snow.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Out-of-context lyrics from the latest Radiohead album

"I’m an animal

Trapped in your hot car"

 

"Fingers in the blackbird pie

I'm tingling tingling tingling"

 

"What's the point of instruments

Words are a sawed off shotgun"

 

"You'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking"

 

 

"I have no idea what I am talking about"

We know, Thom, we know

 

"I get eaten by the worms

Weird fishes

Picked over by the worms

Weird fishes

Weird fishes

Weird fishes"

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Why small-town tourism bureaus shouldn’t make MySpace pages

This might be the saddest thing I've ever seen in ones and zeros.

First of all, why the fuck does Dunedin, New Zealand, a Denmark-caliber small town in the middle of sheep country need a hip, scrolling Teenager-Flypaper webpage anyway?

Second, is the phrase 'pimping now' ever necessary?

Plus, they might wanna, um, take a look at their 'comments':

Wow, between easily available marijuana, my cool new eNZey slang ("No, I can't eat dinner with you and Dad. I'm Pimping Now!"), and the seductive temptations of the Rhododendron Festival, how am I ever gonna get any work done?

Read and post comments | Send to a friend