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Mad Bull's Blog
Archived Log - From 2001/11/18 to 2001/11/24

Friday, 2001/11/23 11:45:08 PM - [Link Back]
Yesterday the credit union I belong to launched a program in which they formed an alliance with the Superclubs chain of hotels and with Air Jamaica. This alliance will allow the Credit Union members to stay at any of the Superclubs properties (in Jamaica, Curacao, Bahamas, or Cuba) with a 5% discount. Air Jamaica also offers a discount on it's fares, and the Credit Union will also be making low interest loans available to the members so that they can avail themselves of this facility. Do I smell a Superclubs trip coming on? Hmmm... The only pity is that I think this alliance has been born out of the problems the Jamaican tourism industry is facing because of the September 11 phenomenon. Tourists are faced with a global economic downturn as well as the possibility that some asshole terrorists may try to attack a plane they're flying on. The predictions for tourism are dismal. To combat this, the hotel chains are trying to increase the number of locals who visit their hotels.

Trust me, Osama bin Laden needs to be destroyed. He has not only attacked America, he has attacked the world! So many of the lesser developed nations of the world have interlocking economies with the U.S. Osama bin Asshole has delivered evil body blows to all of those countries. As a matter of fact, even the developed countries will not escape unscathed, economically, and otherwise. There I am to the left, administering a crushing death blow to Osama... Well, its a good dream, anyway... Some have said that Nostradamus predicted this Twin Towers event, and that Osama is the Antichrist. I dunno about Nostradamus' prediction, but it is not hard to believe that Osama is indeed the Antichrist... or at least one of his more powerful minions.

Anyway, here in little Ja., we can fight the terrorist assholes. We must ensure that our local industries don't keel over and die because of a bunch of maniacs from the east... Plus, I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. So, do I smell a Superclubs trip coming on? Indeed, I think I do! (Hedo III, watch out! I'm coming there to bruk out and get on bad!)

Went to Guilt Trip, last night. Its a great little restaurant up in Liguanea, near to the Sovereign Shopping Centre. I had roasted pork and Natty had jerked shrimp. I tasted them both and can attest to the fact that both dishes were fabulous, exquisite, wonderful! And I could go on... When next you're in Kingston, Jamaica, do yourselves a favour. Check out Guilt Trip.
Later, kiddies...

Thursday, 2001/11/22 07:18:31 PM - [Link Back]
Well, I've really enjoyed the two days off. Work again tomorrow. My company gives us ten days per year in addition to vacation leave. I guess they are really for dealing with emergencies which may come up... The idea is that you can get up to a maximum of ten such days, not that you should take them. When I just started working there many years ago, I used to ensure (like a lot of the other workers there) that I utilised the full ten days. I used to carefully plan how and when I was going to take them. Then I got into the Information Technology Division, and work became interesting. When work became interesting, the number of departmental leave days I took dropped. I'm sure that for some years, I took less than four days. Over this period, I became obsessed with work. I was there till at least 7:00PM every night (often later), and I was there at least half day on Saturdays, and sometimes on Sundays too, and I still think of those days as the good ones.

Those were good days... building applications, writing code, administering servers and databases, networking computers... cool stuff all. I still do this stuff, but not as much as I used to. Now I've gone over to the Dark Side, otherwise known as management. The nature of work has changed, as a result. It is nowhere near as uninteresting as my clerical days, but it isn't the good days, either. And guess what? My departmental leave applications have increased in number... Co-incidence?

Hey, I really like the look of #!/usr/bin/girl. The site's design makes me jealous.

Wednesday, 2001/11/21 11:28:59 PM - [Link Back]
Ok, whats been going on... What do I have to post to this baby? Hmm ... Didn't go to work today. I've been having a pain in my heel. It has been affected by the shoes I wear to work, so I decided to take off a coupla days. (In fact, when I woke up this morning, my heel was ok, but I'd already applied for the leave so...) Yeah, staying home during the week can be pretty cool! I hardly do it, so I forgot... I went out to lunch with my wife and son. Pretty cool. Actually, Natty wanted to go to this restaurant I hate... They are very inconsistent. Today the food is good, tomorrow the food is crap. And the service... oh, don't get me started. But Natty wanted to go there, so I went. The food was... crap. But overall it was pleasant. I got to observe MB. Jr. asking for some food he wanted. (yeh thats a biggie, he isn't two yet.) Plus while we were there, he recognised the number three!!! How cool can it get?

I also went to the dam for the first time in a couple of months. Yeh, I know I said my heel was hurting me, but this morning it wasn't! I haven't been there for a while because (1) its been raining a lot recently and (2) it gets dark much earlier lately too! I ran 2.5KM and walked 2.5 KM, then did some calisthenics... I need to do more of this shit! The government took the decision to do away with the daylight saving time in Jamaica, but I believe we need it. We should implement it around Christmas time, when we lose light early in the evenings. I need to run (or get some other form of exercise) and I don't like running in the dark at the dam ('cause I'm no fool) and the safe places to run after dark are horrible for other reasons. I say implement daylight saving between September and March so we always have bright evening hours to have fun in...

I added a coupla counters to the website. Hey, its been up for nearly four months, so ignore the abnormally low counters, ok? I'm sure I've gotten a few more hits than its currently showing. Alright already!

Dr. D. is back in Jamaica. He went on leave and went to visit relatives in Ft. Lauderdale and Delray Beach in Florida. As I write this, we're sippin' and chillin'... (yeh, I know its Wednesday, but remember, I'm off for a coupla days... Let the good times roll, baby! ) Selah!

Tuesday, 2001/11/20 04:54:58 PM - [Link Back]

Interesting picture, isn't it? Fast cars, fast women... Yeah mon, this is the dream of thousands if not millions of our youth. When I was younger, we had this sort of picture in our heads too, but then it really was only in our heads. We didn't have that many examples of people living those lifestyles... Now these examples abound, perhaps not all of them at the same high scale, but there definitely are examples are out there. Firstly, we have the dons (big drug kingpins), who do lead somewhat the same lifestyles. Then we have MTV, BET and VH1 to turn to as well. They ensure that these images are in your face on a day to day basis.

And what is it that these cable shows offer? Using the words of a Jamaican DJ (Terror Fabulous) they put on show a glamorous, glitterous lifestyle, full of beach parties, fancy sailboats, pretty cars, and lots and lots of beautiful, extremely nubile, young women who really know how to work it, as well as handsome, muscular men for the ladies to ogle and dream of. What we have to watch out for is this becoming one's goal, rather than just a dream, because the only way to attain this dream (for most people) lies in becoming a star (whether of the music or Hollywood variety) or through the distribution of drugs... and most people don't have what it takes to become a star, you know what I mean?.

I remember one of my brother's friends from back when my brother had just left high school. His friend was a really nice guy. Lets call him Warren. Warren was from an upper middle-class background. He went to a high school where all the student were from similar or better backgrounds. He was intelligent and charming. He was able to discuss anything intelligently. I remember that he wanted to be a photographer at the time, and he was good at it too. I remember some of the shots he took, they were great. There was this particular shot of a naked woman that has always remained in my mind. She was touching herself with one finger (really well manicured finger too, if I remember correctly Fattening.... I loved it

But I digress... Suffice it to say, he was very good with a camera. He went abroad to college and we didn't hear from him for a while. He came back to Jamaica a couple of times, and we learned that he had gotten into the fashion industry. He was a photographer who shot models for magazines, and I can remember sitting at the dining table listening with rapt attention as he told us whose picture he had shot, and what it was like to work in that kind of industry, and stuff like that. It was fascinating for me, as it seemed to be a great lifestyle, surrounded by beautiful women and fast cars... Very exciting stuff. Somewhere along the line, Warren got into drugs. Probably he started by supplying the models. He told me that the models always had to be "up", always smiling and looking their best, and to assist them to look that way, as well as to cope with the stress of that kind of life, many of them turned to cocaine. However it happened, he got into drugs big time! I remember going to visit him in Florida once. He was living in a palatial apartment, and was driving a very expensive car. Certain phone calls could only be made from public phones in the Mall. He tried to ensure that the things he owned were not in his name, so as to avoid attention. He was very careful, and so was never caught for drugs. In fact, he did go to jail, but it was for falsification of documents regarding a house he owned, rather than that he was caught for drugs. When he got out, he seemed to go straight for awhile, but it looks like the everyday sufferations we all endure were too much for him. He eventually got back into the drug trade, and was eventually killed.

I guess what I'm saying is this... We all have things we would really love to have. For many young, impressionable guys, that dream is embodied by fast cars, beautiful women and exciting lifestyles... For you, it may be different. Aspiring to your dream is not necessarily a bad thing. But we've got to be careful what we do to get there...
Peace...
By the way, I'm not knocking MTV, VH1 or BET... I like watching those videos too.

Monday, 2001/11/19 10:06:22 PM - [Link Back]
Ahhh, peace... Natty's gone out, and I'm here with MB Jr. I was trying to do some situps and crunches, but MB. Jr. would have none of it. He was standing in my stomach, sitting on my head, holding on to my legs and generally getting in the way. He asked to watch Barney, but Natty went out with the video. I told him that I'd find Scooby Doo (big mistake) but it wasn't on... Kids don't like when Daddy fails them, do they? I have since been able to distract him with that Muppet Show thingy, the one with Kermit aand Ms. Piggy. He's never seen it before, and he's fascinated... Cool! I've gotta tell Natty about that. Television is such a big part of our lives, now its my only chance of getting any exercise. Who would have thought?

I hardly watch TV myself, I spend too much time on the net. But when I do watch TV, I like funny shows, like Wings, or Frazier. I also like things with sword fighting (like Highlander) or some of the karate movies (Jet Li is absolutely wicked!!! (great)) or shows which involve fighting. I fantasize about using these techniques when I become consumed with road rage, a common affliction for me, due to the fact that everyone here has bought their license but me... Thats me (to the right) in one of my fondest dreams, kicking the "bad guy driver's" ass (Heh heh heh)

Well, the weekend was quite ordinary. I stayed home with MB. Jr. Friday night, while Natty and her crew painted the town red. I stayed up late, browsing the net. I got up early and hung out with MB Jr. again. I was really tired Saturday night. I simply couldn't stay up to watch the meteor shower, which Sheggy told me was "awesome"! (bummer) Sunday I didn't do much either. But thats how life is, if it was always sweet, it would get boring. (or at least, so I am told. I'd like the opportunity to test the validity of that hypothesis, wouldn't you?)

Anyway, Redhead told me that she liked my page... I thought she was simply being polite, till I saw this... Thanks for the Big Up!, baby! By the way, I loved the post on her site here. Since I just found out (courtesy of the Redhead) how to link to a particular post within a page, let me show you my favorite post at the slut's home too... Ok, thats enough for tonight. Enjoy the reading I've set for you, kiddies...

Sunday, 2001/11/18 12:20:38 PM - [Link Back]
There's this joke about Shabba (a Jamaican DJ, or what the Americans call a rapper, shown to the right) being interviewed on the Arsenio Hall Show (the what Show? Yeah, I know, most people missed the fact that he had a show, but he did... Really!). He was being asked about the sports we play here in Jamaica, and they asked about Hockey. Shabba replied "Hockey? In Jamaica we don't play hockey... we eat hockey!" and I guess he puzzled a lot of people. Know this: Many Jamaicans say hockey for ackee... Thats what he was talking about.

Yessir, looks like its ackee season again. See how it looks nice on the tree in the picture to the left. Rest assured, its even more irie in your plate. For the non-Jamaicans (and indeed, the non-Caribbean people) in the house, ackee is simply irie (great) with Sal'fish (Salted Codfish). Jamaicans love it so much that it was made our National Dish. And guess what, many don't know it, but it also goes well with bacon and/or ham, in fact, I prefer these options to the Ackee and Sal'fish. Jamaicans are probably the only people in the world that eat ackee. Most of the other people in the Caribbean think we're crazy to eat it, because when the ackee looks like those in the picture, they are deadly poisonous. In fact, because of them being so poisonous, the United States used to ban ackee from being imported, and quite a few people got rich from illegally shipping ackee to the U.S., because whereever there were large Jamaican communities in the U.S., (Florida, New York, Washington, Boston) ackee sales were brisk. (And you thought that there was only one thing illegally shipped to the U.S. from Jamaica? Yeh, right!) If you allow the ackees to ripen, the red part opens up and the yellow inner pods with the shiny black seeds are displayed. At that time, the ackee is no longer poisonous. The
"-ous" word used to describe it then is "delicious"! The U.S. has relented... Ackee is no longer barred from U.S. shores. For those of you who're interested, email me... If you're nice, maybe I'll post the recipe. By the way, ackee is such a part of our culture that some people used it as their domain name. Check out Ackee.com

By the way, Shabba was wrong. We do play hockey in Jamaica...

Oh yeah, saw that Ms. Nigeria won the Miss World Competition... Have a look at her. Didn't think our girl was going to do well (Regina Something) Take a look at the winner and runners up. I believe we've had better winners in the past. The last three years have been disappointing. From the past winners of the Miss Jamaica World, my top five includes Cindy Breakspeare, Lisa Hannah, Sandra Foster, Alison Barnett and Janice Whittingham, with these others bubbling under the top five : Sandra Cunningham, Cathy Levy, Michell Moodie and Erica Aquart. Check them out here and shout me back and let me know if y'all agree. Later, my peeps.

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