Hamish call your Mother

I don't know Hamish, but apparently he is in Prague. His parents do not know this and have put out an international missing person's report. My bet is that he crossed one Charlina too many and now swims with the fishes, indicating that I am an incredibly poor gambler.

Artificial light is everywhere at the moment. Fluorescent lightbulbs, computers, heaters, false prophets etc are all blindingly bright. But not warm at all, damnit. In two weeks I've gone from leaving Uni at 3.30am to arriving at uni at 3.30am. Not a very bright lad, but such a trooper.

Am looking out for the advertisements that will ask me to tutor at a hall next year. That will be good. Free food, accommodation, warmth and fat fat internet cable. ohhh baby.

In between bouts of work and sleep I've seen some interesting things on the box. Not interesting in an educational manner - just... odd. For example, late night on Fox News (and Friends) I heard the following exchange:
Ben Stiller look alike: The markets are waiting to see what will happen in November. They're afraid of Kerry. Kerry is a socialist.
Other guy: You can't call Kerry a socialist! That's un-American.

Kerry is a socialist? He's going to repeal the tax cuts Bush gave to the richest 2% and keep the rest of the tax cuts in place. That's not going to do anything to save Medicare, education or the elderly. It does sound good, because the richest 2% wouldn't vote for him anyway. Most countries would probably align Kerry as being centre or even centre right. He's liberal on some social issues, but his affirmation of Bush's tax cuts and plan to increase the military are certainly right wing. I am a little astounded to hear him being labeled alongside Castro as 'socialist'. Has political commentary in the US sunk so low that political names are thrown at each other irrespective of factual accuracy?

To call that comment un-American is almost as jaw-droppingly surreal as the socialist comment itself. I'm not sure if anyone outside the US knows what 'American' means anymore - we all have our own ideas based on our perceptions, optimism and cynicism. I thought 'America' was symbolic of freedom and liberty at one time and presumed that was how they saw themselves today. But to say that calling Kerry socialist is un-American - that goes against that presumption.

Calling the Kerry a girlie-man is ok, however. Fantastic. We can now study the Eastern bloc through homophobic cliches and bigotry.

And finally I saw the answer to the age old question 'what would happen if the world's biggest rubber band ball was dropped out of an airplane a mile above the earth. A helicopter crashed into power lines during the filming. Cue interviews with crew. Being scientific and all, the team at Ripley's simulated the experiment with a big drum filled with water (to give it rubbery properties) and pushed that out of the plane. It hit the ground and went bang. Questions were asked. Would the rubber band ball go bang? Or crater? Or explode? Viewers were left what would happen if the presenter fell out of the plane. Given her qualifications, one can only presume that she would float gently to the ground before flashing her eyes and opening her mouth at the camera to indicate that she was either a) surprised b)excited or c)a goldfish. 17 cameras were located in 17 different areas (we only saw footage from 2). They pushed the ball out of the plane. It fell to the ground. Presenter was surprised and excited. It hit the ground at 400mph, created a crator, bounced and exploded. Presenters qualifications bounced also. Good. Kerry could nationalise them, if they haven't been so already.