I gotta find a (legal) way to pay off my student loans. $3 doesn't even cover a day's worth of interest. Speaking of money, $100 bills in Lebanon are really weird. They're covered with stamps, signatures, dates... you name it. It's all about tracing the bills back to the source in case they're counterfeit. I've seen people actually sign their $100 at a store before giving it to the clerk... you know, as insurance. It's really dumb if you ask me... but that's not the point. I was at the bank the other day making a withdrawal, and one of the bills I received really caught my eye. Can you guess which one?

biweekly
Main Entry: bi·week·ly
Pronunciation: (")bI-'wE-klE
Function: adjective
1: occurring twice a week
2: occurring every two weeks

It was recently brought to my attention that the cute chick I mentioned in my last post is Kristin Kreuk (thanks Wissam and Puneet). I don't watch a lot of TV so I had no clue who she was, but I guess she plays Superman's bitch on some show.

Speaking of bitches, I am really fed up with Lebanese politicians and Lebanon's current situation. I had to park 9 fucking miles away and hike to get to the office this morning. Then I was searched 4 times before finally arriving at our building... and one of the searches wasn't just for security -- I'm sure of it!

What’s the deal with MySpace, hi5 and whatever other “check me out... I have so many ‘friends,’ comments and pictures of me posing for my photo shoot -- I’m so popular!” sites. A while ago I received an invitation to join hi5. I had no clue what it was, so I click the link and sign up with my “for junk mail only” email address. I browsed around for 6 minutes, didn’t think much of it and kinda forgot about it. Then, more recently, another friend sent me an invitation. I thought maybe it was spam, but both people told me they personally sent the invites. So I go back to hi5, try to log in, click on the forgot your password? link, refresh my Hotmail inbox and eventually arrive at my profile. I started browsing through different people’s pages and again decided not to update my profile, organize my gallery or give anyone a five... whatever that is.

A couple weeks ago, someone emailed me a link to his MySpace profile, and from there I jumped from one profile to the next. I knew most of the people I was checking out, so I thought it would be nice to see what they’ve been up to since I hadn’t seen or talked to  many of them in over a year. I usually like to open links in new browsers and then just close off the ones I’m done with. So there I was with half a dozen browsers open, and then the most annoying thing happens. I have half a dozen songs playing, each window is showing between 24 and 173 full-blown pictures and the backgrounds are so colorful and ugly that I can barely read anything on the page. So there I was... highlighting the text so it’s readable, trying to shut off the music (most of which was Rap or R&B) and trying to figure out where to click because my mouse pointer just turned into a fucking hippo! It got so frustrating that I just began hitting Alt+F4 until I was down to just my 4-icon desktop and FreeCell game #16440 (a relatively easy one).

The experience wasn’t completely disappointing though... I did get a few laughs from the girls posing with their backs to the wall... full make-up on... trying to look sexy -- and definitely stupid. So I decided to share some of these pictures with whoever’s reading this. Now, I know a couple of these girls so I sort of want to apologize for being an ass. I was originally going to blur their faces, but why should I? They have these pictures on their sites, and I’m pretty sure it took several shots and a great deal of effort to get just the right look. So why blur them out? By the way, I just realized that the chick on the top left is on my hi5 friends list. I don't know why or how... because I have no clue who she is. But whatever... she seems cute. Anyhow, my favorites are the two on the bottom. The first one is a real genius. The flash reflected in the mirror... the background of a cracked door and a rusted handle... just beautiful. Looks like it was taken at a Motel 6 after prom. As for the fake blond on the right, she may as well have flashed that right nipple -- just to make the picture a little more interesting.

I’m home the other night watching Conan, and I read the following DSTV schedule:

First of all, let me say that I really hate DSTV. The interactive menu is extremely slow, and with the rainy South African summers (practically rains everyday), I can rarely watch a whole show without signal outage. Second of all, the info is too often inaccurate. Tom Arnold and Howie Mandel were not Conan’s guests that night, and he is not “sure to make Saturday and Sunday nights worth staying up for.” What the hell? Conan is supposed to be on every night but Saturday and Sunday nights! Even if he is on every night here, which he is, he would be “sure to make weeknights worth staying up for.” What fucking idiots. The only good thing about watching Conan here is that there are no commercials! That’s why Leno and Conan are only 45 minutes long as opposed to a whole hour. They only have one small ad after the monologue telling you to visit India and buy Time-Life CDs, and then it’s from guest to guest to guest uninterrupted.

Anyhow, so I see the two Poker shows and begin to wonder what they mean by “series of online multi-table tournaments.” So I stay up past my 2:20am bed time to see what it’s all about. It turned out to be exactly that -- an online poker tournament. We’re now watching a computer screen? We’re watching people click? Not even click -- that might be a bit more interesting, though. I like playing poker and enjoy watching the WSOP on ESPN, but this isn't right. I did, however, watch until 3:30.

I guess this is what happens when company B rents out a few hundred cars to company A -- mine's the one on the right.

Speaking of company B, fuck National Alamo. Fuck the Randburg branch (in Johannesburg), specifically. They've really been pissing me off lately. They never return my calls, they don't send me invoices unless I ask for them (usually twice) and all the staff members there have a combined IQ of 73. Last week they made a $340 mistake, and they called to tell me they might have some trouble fixing it since they accidentally closed off my account. I don’t give a shit who closed what off... I’m gonna open them up if they don’t give me my money back.

On a side note, I took the picture above with my S65. Its got a shitty camera, just like every other Siemens phone I've used. I have to say though... this one turned out semi-decent.

I don't know a lot of big words, so I find myself using Word's thesaurus quite often. And when the first three synonyms don't get me anywhere, I turn to Merriam-Webster Online. Now I have the folks over at M-W emailing me a new word to learn every day. Gmail initially thought it was spam, so I had to check the first few words by going to the spam folder. I never told Gmail that the emails from M-W weren't spam, but from the fourth day on, the emails started appearing in my inbox. I don't know if Gmail noticed that I was reading all the messages from M-W and realized that they weren't spam after all... but if that's the case, my hat is off to the Google people.

The S13 Silvia will always be one of my favorite cars. From its pop-up headlights to its simple and practical dash to the placement of its e-brake... I just love everything about that car. Well, almost everything... no cup holders. That may not be such a bad thing though... because considering the way I used to drive my 240, my DP would have ended up all over the back seat.

I really miss my 240, and I wish I didn't have to sell it when I did. I still occasionally search for 240s online... especially on eBay. I recently found an awesome '93 Fastback SE... Cherry Red Pearl. It has to be the cleanest and best maintained 240 I've ever seen -- it even has the original floormats. The current Kelley Blue Book private party value is $2670 (excellent condition), and the suggested retail value is $4075. This one sold for $5860 exactly one week ago. So much for Kelley and his fucking book.

Since you probably don't give a shit about my yearning for my 240, here's something that might entertain you. Since I started working with a German company, I've met quite a few of them (Germans, that is) in the last year. The guy in this commercial really reminds me of one of them.

You know why there are no Wal-Marts in Iraq?
Too many Targets!

Ahh... that's funny. Anyhow, on to more serious stuff. You know all those optical illusions about straight lines and "look, it's Jesus on your wall"? Well, this is one of my favorites. Two reasons... one, it doesn't cause headaches or nausea. Two, I've looked at it so many times, and it still bugs the shit out of me.

So here's the deal. Blocks A and B are the same shade of gray. Hard to believe, but it's true. If you're not convinced, go to Paint and place them side by side. In case you're wondering, they're #6B6B6B.