As it turns out, yet another association has been made towards me in that I apparently stimulate urine production. This happens more so with one fellow than anyone else I've noticed. If I get up to go to the bathroom, he's right there behind me, ready to go as well, maybe one out of every three bathroom breaks. But, before you think it might be some badly thought-up attempt at friendship ("Helluva day for a piss, huh?") or his coming on to me ("Man, these stalls could easily fit two. At night. Maybe naked."), I need to point out that he's a duck and cover urinist.

For the ladies, this is going to be a foreign concept as you only have stalls in your restrooms. But in the men's restroom there of course is the option of urinal or toilet stall. While it seems obvious that anyone with only a need for #1 would use the urinal, there is a large subsection of men in the US who will always run to the stall for business, terrified in the thought of standing next to another man (with a partition I might add) when they need to pee.

I should point out that in addition to his duck and cover antics, he'll also wash his hands, leave the tap on, reach over for a paper towel, and then use said towel to turn off the tap. Of course he doesn't use the towel to then open the door outside, although many do as shown by the waste bin next to the door to toss their used door handle towels (Johnson & Johnson is missing a marketing opportunity with this one). I need to add that often he and many others don't bother to use soap.

I am at a loss as to how this twisted up approach to hygiene works in the US. Where did the logic come from? How did germaphobia sweep across this verdant land? And will there be a day in the distant future when two straight men can comfortably piss next to one another?

I'm not really sure when it happened. I'm not even sure if the tonnes in question are US or Metric although I assumed metric as it gives a greater overall weight when invoked. All I know is that since being back from Africa, it's shit-tonne all the way.

On a certain level, I appreciate this new quantifier as it is much more accurate than "load" which was nebulous to say the least. One man's "load" could be another's "dump" after all. Now at least we know that the item in question is being compared to shit that is in the amount of 1,000kg and hey, that's pretty useful.

The asterisk is notated below by stating that "CDC" stands for the "Center for Disease Control". I'm not exactly sure why they bothered as those who aren't going to know what the CDC is aren't probably going to be paying attention to this sign and will continue carrying pink plastic bags and coughing without covering their mouths. Those who do know what the CDC is already know this little nugget about coughing. I guess that in the end, they just had empty space to fill as no one is buying billboards these days and this looked better than a beige spot, begging to be marked up by one of those darned pesky whipper snappers.

To some degree, I assume we have more of this to look forward to as the newer generations are being told that they're basically entitled to whatever they want and they have no concept of ownership due to their parents buying them everything. Ah, the millenials, I look forward to you. Of course, this only applies to my sublettors. The rest of the thieving in my life of late has come from plain old opportunists. They saw something they could take and they took it. In the case of my laptop, being that it was four years old, it probably wasn't the most worthwhile thing there was and I'm still rather bummed about that as it saw me through three continents and 15 or so countries. Kind of sad to lose such a stalwart traveling partner.

Naturally the thief logic is that you can afford to replace whatever they take because if you couldn't, you wouldn't have it in the first place. If it's not that logic, then it's something else that allows them to justify taking it if they're not feeding some kind of addiction. And that's about all you can do about it is look on and shrug given that the police never find small stolen items and there just seems to be a growing and willing army of thieves out there to take whatever things you might have. It would be great if one of my suitcases, bread knife, cookie book, and multiple items of clothing would somehow turn out to not have been stolen, but I don't in any way have my breath being held and am looking more towards replacing what is now missed, somewhere down the line when I can actually afford it.

Suffice to say, I hate the gallery opening. Naturally, this is drawn from the childhood trauma in having attended endless (easily more than a hundred) openings at the behest of my parents. As a kid, these suck given that you're just sitting around wondering why the hell anyone cares about this crap on this wall that you've seen your parents making for the last six months. Mainly you're just hoping that some other kid shows up, equally bored as you so that you can sit in the parking lot and try and trump each others' boredom stories or throw rocks at something.

I've realized that as an adult, gallery openings are actually far, far worse given that you often end up going to them of your own free will. I have to say that in general, the progression of art in the US is dead and it is so proven by the fact that most any piece in a modern gallery will require either a) a dissertation next to it explaining the artistic meaning or b) the actual artist next to it to explain the artistic meaning. This is not fun and it barely qualifies as art; more like guided tours.

And of course there is The Scene which I've actually never known a single person to be part of. I don't really know who these The Scene people are and despite knowing a ton of artists, none of them are in The Scene. I suspect that The Scene is some kind of roving band hipster miscreants that drift from opening to opening, meandering in the obscurity of it all, foraging on cheap wine and crackers, and procreating amongst themselves to raise a new, even more obscure generation of The Scene.

This my friends has all changed with the move to having 3D films. Now, "triquels" are simply given a 3D at the end and shabam, 'nuff said. Movie companies are loving this crap as it's revitalizing franchises that were otherwise thought dead when a good title couldn't be thought of after a rather lackluster sequel. Ah James Cameron, bless you and your Avatar moving for bringing this new option to us.

But, while the series is good, the book is a great deal better in that it reads a lot like the War of Roses. There are a lot of characters in the narrative, but they are convincing people to say the least. Unfortunately it's sad that 250,000 people had to die in order to make the story come to life. The book really talks about each person in greater detail, but it is true that in the series they have actual interviews with the actual heads of state during the war. They decided to avoid the use of talking heads "analyzing" the war and instead use the real participants which definitely brings the situation to life. Still, the book is more convincing and if you have time to read all 300 pages, do it.

I do agree with the note on the Wikipedia article which mentions that some of the BCS was translated in a misleading manner in the series. Of course, you need to actually speak the language to pick up on this, which is unfortunate. Still though, they don't take sides and give a quite honest account which is amazing given that the British largely sided with the Serbs through the war.