Ok, it's now 6/6/06 here in the Old Country, and that for a couple of hours now. Nothing's happened yet, knock on wood. But I've got my eye on things. I'll let you know if there's any nefariousness out there. I imagine the close proximity to Whitsunday, a holiday here in Germany, has negated some of the more dastardly effects, like apocalypse and such.
Stay tuned!
7 years ago today.
June 5, 1999
Juara Village, Malaysia
We woke up late this morning. well, I did, at least. D_ had been walking around, looking for better rooms to stay in. We decided to leave "My Friend's Place". After a little walking around, we heard about a quiet little place on the other side of the island called Juara Village. The only catch was, we were going to have to walk a few miles over the mountains with our packs on to reach it. Which we set out to do.
We walked from Air Batang to Ketek, and turned left towards the east. About 10 meters into the hike, we came across a green tree-snake, which was crawling across the trail. It looked just like a long leaf, and I normally wouldn't have seen it. I was already day-dreaming and looking at the ground and saw it. We took a short break, and headed across the mountain. The sign at Ketek said 4 km to Juara Village, but a smaller, hand-written sign said 7.
Once we entered the jungle, the trail turned into a two-and-a-half mile stone staircase; which, with the jungle heat and humidity, was a sweaty bastard to climb. It took us about 2 hours to reach the top of the the mountain. There was a cafe there, a small bamboo hut really, but alas! it was closed.
From there it was all downhill, and we started feeling sore in all the places the climb up had missed. At one point, we saw a family of monkeys crawling around on the big electrical cables that connect the two sides of the island. We also saw some very big ants, but luckily none of them killed us.
We eventually staggered into the Village, and it was very, very nice. The beaches were clean and wide, with soft sand. We had lunch right off, and the prices were much lower than on the other side. We walked up the beach a bit, and found ourselves a little bungalow for the night. It was just a little shack, really, but it was clean, and only about Rm15 (about $4.00 US) per night.
Once we got unpacked, we walked up and down the beach. We sat on the pier and looked at the fish. While we were there, a fisher boat pulled in, and all the townies walked out and bought their fish for the evening. It got dark shortly thereafter, and we went to the nearest open-air beach cafe as the Muslims sang their call to prayer. There was no menu, just a Rm10 all-you-can-eat fish and chicken barbecue. I had some nasi goreng, salad and fruit for dinner, while D at a few fish, a squid, and a chicken's arms and legs. The cafe's cats were all over us throughout dinner, as you can imagine.
After dinner, we went back to the bungalow, and D_ took a shower while I wrote.
The One Laptop Per Child Project promises to put an underpowered, ideology-driven computer into the hands of every child. Which certainly sounds noble, if I'm anyone to judge such things.
There are 2 billion children in the world; getting a laptop to each and every one of them is going to cost $200,000,000,000.00, assuming the cost of development and production are not being subsidized to reach the $100 price. Applying the first law of Rubean Mechanics, I'd like to ask a few questions to the people running this project.
Who's going to pay for this thing, and who's going to profit from it?
So, is this thing also going to be available for middle-class American kids, or is it another misguided "White Man's Burden" attempt at European colonial guilt alleviation?
Is it going to be an open-source hardware design, with schematics etc. available to whomever wants to build it, or is it a government money-grab for a small consortium of 'well-intentioned' hardware and software players?
While it may be a brilliant observation, Brian, maybe it's best if not everyone knows you're reading Charles Nelson Reilly's Wikipedia page...
According to this article at the Australian ABC-Online news site, Iranian president Mahuloonmibasjaaja (sp?) Ahmadinejad (sp?) has been asked by the EU's unelected transnational parliament to kindly keep his hairy, raving face out of Europe, at least for the duration of the World Cup.
We call upon the 25 EU member states and FIFA to declare the Iranian president 'persona non grata ad personam' within EU territory, as long as his positions on martyrdom, the Holocaust and the destruction of Israel, and Iran's uranium enrichment activities remain unchanged,"
No word as yet whether Noam Chomsky or Michael Moore will be allowed in.
Via J.F. Beck
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