This is the trouble with crowdsourcing.

I have been asked to write about the relationship between men and women. In order to do so, I am forced to call upon my many years experience as a male and attempt to relate the relative truths and gleanings from this experience into a form which will elucidate and provide the invaluable insight which this topic requires and deserves. The effort has been extreme, but I finally believe that I might impart this wisdom - the sum total of my understanding of the relationship between women and men.

 

What happens when we are ALL in?

I think that the Great Military Minds sitting in the hallowed halls of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels clearly owe a debt of gratitude to our illustrious Prime Minister for his steadfast refusal to sign up.

Kostunica, in telling the world that he is against Serbia’s joining NATO, is actually positing himself as a safeguard of the alliance’s continuity. If we were ALL members, then who would we oppose? Who would the alliance bully into submission? From whom would NATO protect us? If we were all members in this heretofore rather exclusive club, how could we be the envy of the rest of the world – if the rest of the world also carries the club card?

I have been interested in trying this experiment for several weeks. [Kosovo] The fact is that I would like to write about a number of things this afternoon. I have about 36 topics sitting in the in-tray waiting to bespatter with my curmudgeonly opinions and complaints. [Kosovo]

Of those topics, four are about the traffic on the highways which has become a nightmare IN ANTICIPATION of the much hyped road works. [Kosovo] Seven of the topics relate to government – but how boring is that?  [Kosovo] Our new government has not triggered the much anticipated scandal-mongering spree from our glorious Yellow Press yet, and far be it for me to change the diapers of that particular tar baby. [Kosovo]

When the umpire shouts "Play Ball!" at the beginning of the game, the players react by standing still. Nine guys waiting to bat. Nine guys standing ready in the field. A lot of standing.

The World Series of Baseball is underway between the 2008 champion Philadelphia Philies and the 26-series winning New York Yankees. And while I do not think I am the only one in Serbia to be watching the Series, the club seems to be rather small...

 

Having now invested a significant amount of cash into the Delta Money Pit (this is the technical term for the garage where my perfectly operating car has been transformed into a terminal patient), I am now investing my time.  

Yesterday, as a kind of joke, I was informed that my car was "ready" to pick up. Two weeks ago I had stupidly brought it here to have a check-up – oil, filters, and yada, yada, yada. I should have immediately seen the sodomy in their eyes when they said I had to leave the car for two days even to get an estimate.  

We lose time when we sit and wait for the phone to ring. We lose time when watching the water boil for coffee and tea, looking for the keys, standing in queues. This blog will take me an hour to write - and where will that hour be tomorrow when I wake up and find that we have moved into summer time?

In the fall, when we gain an hour moving back into normal time, most of us use it to sleep. Either that, or we get up artificially early and say to ourselves that we have a much longer day in which to be Productive! But the change usually happens on Sunday so the extra hour is generally used in idleness...

When I arrived in the office this morning, my esteemed partner and colleague said, “Thank God you were not on the list.”

Of course, this set the wheels spinning. It does not take much, admittedly, but spinning they were set nevertheless.

He was referring to the Great Blic List of 50 Most Powerful Foreigners – published today – from which my humble foreignness was inconspicuously absent. In reality, the lists that I could hope to be on would be more like

List of 50 Bald People

List of 50 Big-Mouthed Complainers

List of 50 Inconsistent Bloggists

List of 50 Foreign Curmudgeons

List of 50 People who Really Do Not Belong on a List of 50 People Published in the Press

"And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." (Luke 2:1)

This is generally regarded as the beginning of the Christmas story in Western Christianity. Caesar Augustus, needing to revamp the Roman budget to maintain his supply of bread and circuses, sent out this emergency decree. I think he used Facebook, but this is an unconfirmed rumor.

ow, a long time ago, in beginning of the Age of Information, there lived a boy named Vook. He had a nice shiny suit of clothes, always brushed his teeth before bed, and was very proud of the things that he could say.

Everyone across the land would smile and beam when they heard him speak. He could say "no" when most folk would have said "yes." He would not just play with anyone - and he would tell them the reasons. Vook was the apple of his Papa B.'s eye. Papa B. would send him out into the world and ask him what he saw. And Vook, proud and pleased, would come back and tell him all about it.

There was a time (he said, adopting an avuncular, if not grandfatherly, tone) when travelling by airplane was something of a prestigious or luxurious experience. The little tiny soaps in the bathroom were novelties. The bathrooms, while we are the subject, were kept clean. The stewardesses were lovely and smiling and charming. And the whole experience was rather pleasant...