Dominated (13 pts)

Yesterday I received an invitation to the weekly Kent-Luli Scrabble Hoe-Down & Cook-Off Jamboree. This is not an event in which I would be seeded; were this a tennis tournament such as Wimbledon, I would play the role of the plucky English player, full of hopes and dreams, doomed to die a sacrificial lamb at the hands of Leyton Hewitt. Nonetheless, it promised to be a far more entertaining evening that what I would have done otherwise (head home after work, try to beat my own sweating record), and so I confirmed my entry and yallah'd my way there that evening.

Sadly, I was indeed out of my league. While Kent, Luli and Annika pondered for a few minutes each round whether they could boost their 20pt scoring word to something closer to 30, I remained master of the single-digit words, trying desperately to figure out how I was going to use the three Ds and a V that made up half my letters. Round two saw no improvement, even with the arrival of Nisrin and our unification, Devastator-style, into a gestalt AIESEC US alumnus jauntily named "Chrisrin". Needless to say, we placed poorly; I blame Kent for not letting me use completely legitimate words like "Jiveo" (the act of injecting heroin into one's eyeball, or so I claimed).

At least if crushing my opponents wasn't on the cards, there was at least ample room for humor in my ineptitude; upon saying that I was so bad that I would have received a medal for participation were this 4th Grade, Kent corrected me, saying that I was barely worth solid minerals and would have more likely received a ribbon instead. Ouch.

Upgraded from "Plague" to "Hangin' In There"

Health is like trousers - you take it for granted but if it disappears all of a sudden, then you're gonna know about it.

Three weeks since moving to downtown Cairo and I've fallen ill twice - first time I slept for a solid day and lost a weekend, second time I missed a day and a half of work. I like being healthy, I like being fit, I like being able to do stuff when I want to; being ill and not being able to enjoy doing random stuff sucks.

So, Egypt has been kicking my ass the last few weeks; the answer, clearly, is fruit and peanut butter. A quick flex of my Arabic muscles garnered 2 kilos of apples and oranges, a stop at the store supplied the rest. Time for some good habits, habits that at no point include the words Koshari. It is sad how much I'm looking forward to eating my fruit when I get home tonight.

Random Thoughts from the Past Week

- Wow.
- Ocean's 13 is better than Ocean's 12.
- Getting kicked in the face is better than Ocean's 12.
- Where did my weekend go?
- Mike Tyson's Punch Out is hard.
- The odds of me doing that again would be 1 in 1296.
- I wonder if the DVD guy has Spider-man 2...
- Sun = hot.
- Dude - no means no.
- Shit, it's not strawberry season anymore.
- Oh shit I did it again.
- How do you say "no olives or eggs"?
- Blah.
- Anchorman/mango juice parallel - "It's got bits of real mango in it, so you know it's good".
- If they were saying "Brains" instead of trying to sell us stuff, we'd be in a zombie movie right now.
- Traveling to-do list: Siwa, Sinai, Alexandria.
- How long until Futurama is back on TV?
- Egyptian music video plot 1 (of 2) - young, attractive man pursues young, attractive, coy woman (male singers only).
- Personal to-do list: learn how to say standard/favorite foodstuffs in Arabic
- Egyptian music video plot 2 (of 2): young, attractive woman dreams of ideal life (female singers only).
- I miss rain.
- Fantastic 4/Pirates 3 this weekend?
- I could really do with some pizza right about now.
- Christmas.
- Those camels look pissed.

(Ideal respectfully pseudo-stolen from Mixmaster)

The Weekend: Something that Happens to Other People

Made it through the first week in the new surroundings pretty much unscathed - there's plenty to learn still but I think I'm getting my way through ok. Sadly, any plans I had for the weekend were shot by me contracting the plague sometime early on Friday, meaning that between 4am Friday and Noon on Saturday I was asleep for about 28 hours. Feeling better now, although I'm sad that I missed all the weekend goings on, which included Geet's Goodbye Karaoke and a trip to the pool at a swnky nearby club. That latter one might have been for the best though - while I did bring swimming gear with me, the combination of a) said shorts being large and baggy and b) me losing a lot of weight since leaving home has meant that they've taken the appearance of hip-hugger capri pants. Not good.

Changing Places, Changing Faces

Today was the first full day in the new apartment - plenty of getting used to the area and unpacking, plus some fan shopping and backgammon playing for kicks.


Just about got everything set up, now I'm just mattress hunting to avoid the bedbugs and I'll be all set. Other than that it's just been a case of getting ready for work tomorrow; bearing in mind that I haven't had a haircut since I was in New York in February that required a trip to the barbers next door. Observe:


The subject; ugh.


OK, better (nice flag, btw); proceed to phase 2...


There we go - back to a cross between Clark Kent and That Guy from the D&D club at your High School.