and the winner is...

wilfred w. shizkoph, ceo of the color red, and his personal secretary, the lovely ludmilla the 5 card thrilla, would like to announce the winner of our february sweepstakes.

in a surprise draw, the original winner was a Mr. Barazan Ibrahim Hassan. Mr Hassan, known by the "inner circle" as the arab charlie murphy, was offered a full package holiday to the historic city of da Hague, where amongst other points of interests, the world's largest potato chip will be on display until april 2005. Mr. Hassan was initially overjoyed with this invitation, especially as he is a great enthusiast of all things sliced and fried. however, unfortunate events have arisen, and for inexplicable reasons, Mr. Hassan has decided to remain in his home country, Pie-rak. Therefore, the color red held a second drawing in which a militaryman's name was pulled. The color red would like to congratulate general delic of gdetito?slavia on his acceptance to visit da Hague, and wish him a lovely vacation. Please send our greetings to Mr. Pillosovic, a previous winner.

Please check again at the end of March for the next winner of the illustrious color red sweepstakes.

of cesspools: an ode to willy loman

an intriguing part of life in Capult is the urban walk. the sidewalks, where existent, are covered in trash, mud or dust (depending on the weather), shit, generators (the electricity crimister, Ishmael Khan,a former warlord/governor reeled in from Herat, hasn't quite figured out what price Capult must pay into his coffers. thus the city is run on lawnmower engines), exhaust, kebab-stands, tea-stands, dvd kiosks, beggars,kalashnikov-bearing policemen, phone card-peddling boys, blue-burqa-ed hamburgerlers, brown snow, did i mention shit?, everything but westbeefs (who are nervously peering out of their environmentally friendly suvz stuck in traffic). needless to say, one is constantly weaving through crowds and hopping over deep abyssmal holes. the streets themsleves are lined like bowling alleys with two-foot wide moats, filled with all of the above plus the most mythical creatures. it is my greatest fear that i will descend into one of these cesspools and risk the devastating embarassment of having to remove infected pieces of my body on the spot, before commando crawling on my remaining stumps back to my house. thus far, i remain intact.

willy loman will have to wait. i have to make myself scarce

a premature thought and a canadian voodoo-bot

now that i am gainfully employed, finally, i no longer feel the excess dangers of laziness, leisure and general lethargy creeping into the marrow of my fickle bones. a shame really, for if there is anything at which i truly excel, it is the above three lovely 'l' words. however, my laziness shall now be put to use and transformed into the fantastic science of procrastination. an act of utterly different design when one is receiving the binding thank-you-note of the rat race, e.g. a wage.
thus, a blog.

i'll jump into it. last night was my first foray into the seemingly colorless world of ex-pat shindigs. a world of overt pretensions and an utter lack of nuance. the ratrace chatter is unavoidable, but amusing to the newcomer. one is asked basic questions ranging from, what are you doing here? to, why are you here? and if one happens to come across a more skilled conversationalist, how long have you been here? one is tempted to create stories, however they seem to be greeted with even less interest than the original. despite the intrepid nature one assumes prevalent in those westbeefs willing to camp out in gamestan,imagination seems to have been lost with the removal of shoes at high-security airports.

it's most enjoyable to meet people who work for acronyms. i haven't a clue what one stands for, but find myself nodding knowingly and even gravely at times, when approached by a honking acronymchik. perhaps i will move for my organization to be shorten to A at a future meeting.

fortunately the most verbose Taj arrived with his entourage of goons, including the half-court squire. The most verbose Taj moves about gamestan with a tommygun protruding from his hip at all times. somewhat comforting for an infidel from the land of capone. he politely unloads the drum for parties, but one can still see him dancing amongst crowds of flushed english gals in floral dresses at various events about Capult. the half-court squire is a figure of remarkable conversational ability. i rather rudely landed him on a profileless norte americano, who's own conversational ability was so poor as to make one contemplate the most verbose Taj's decision to unload his weapon. however, the half-court squire managed to extract a conversation revolving around voodoo practices in the upper regions of the hindu kushion from the profileless one. despite lacking a third dimension (or was it a second?), the profileless one passed on a spell of her own, which fortunately involved her disappearance.

now, for one final note, i must point out that the half-court squire arrived in full regalia, including a three piece suit and tennis shoes. a look last seen perfected by the one and only Will Smith of the mid-1990s. a most impressive statement. respect due.