so this was originally gonna be the Awesome Dude of the Week blog (I'd embed the hyperlink for you, but the myspace is intimidated by my revealing of Muslims as more than towelheaded suicide bombers.  Perhaps Rupert Murdock put Bill O'Reilly in charge of censorship), but I kinda have a tendancy to ramble and it sorta evolved into something that goes far beyond the limited scope of ianm1121.blogspot 4.0

been very conscious of distributing the Awesome Dudes of the Week according to my arbitrary quota system.  I find great humor in well-meaning affirmative action and contrived classification.  Like Chinese people in South Africa being "black."  First they were just Chinese, then they were "coloured," then Taiwan Chinese got to be "honorary white," and now pre-1994 Chinese South African citizens and their descendants are "black"  

labels are stupid.  Have yet to run into any disparities with mine yet, but just to illustrate the comedy:

can't really disagree too much with those.  Mongolian v. Chinese, but dude was Emperor of China.  Totally qualifies him as Chinese.  Timur was a Turkicized Mongol in Persian Uzbekistan.  Kinda a lot of ethnicities there, but he was Muslim so that one is settled.  Akbar was Muslim too, but he was  Emperor of India so he gets to represent India.  With me thus far?  Alright, how 'bout Babur?  Directly related to Genghis and Kublai Khan through his mother, so he is of Chinese descent.  He is also related to Timur from his father's side, which makes him Muslim.  Plus he was Muslim and he was born in Persian Uzbekistan, so he should be Muslim.  Self-identified as Timurid and Chaghatay-Turkic though (and you thought Tiger Wood's Cablinasian was multi-cultural).  Ok, so he was a Mongolian Turkish Persian Uzbeki, that is still Muslim.  Yeah, but he founded the Mughal dynasty.  Emperor of India makes him Indian.  So he is legitimately Chinese, Muslim, and Indian.  And a blood relative of all three of the dudes pictured above

fortunately, I have an "other" category, but that is reserved for Europeans (non-Andalusians of course), 'Mericans, Africans (again, just the non-Muslims), and SE Asians ('cept for the 200 million Mohammedans in Indonesia).  Suppose Japanese and Koreans can be "others" too, as can anyone who pays jizya.  Is Bruce Lee an "other"?  How 'bout Cat Stevens?  Norah Jones?

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while my distribution of dudes across eras and fields is still kinda haphazard, geographically they are looking pretty nice.  Of course Greenland will most likely remain empty, as will the Pacific Ocean and other regions lacking in recorded history.  I'ma do my best to mix it up, and am open to recommendations from the fanclub, but ain't gonna do any token ADWs 

easy to associate people with the place of their birth, but often times that ain't necessarily where they're "from."  Let's take our most recent presidential election as an example as to how place of origin can be difficult to ascertain for the jet set.  Vice President Biden was born and spent his first 10 years in Scranton, but his family moved to Delaware and that's where he attended high school, university, raised his family, and commuted to DC via Amtrak.  Joe Biden is from Delaware.  Cousin Sarah was born in Idaho, but her family moved to Alaska when she was a baby.  Graduating from Wasilla High School, being Miss Wasilla, serving on the city council and being mayor = she is totally from Wasilla.  Cousin Barry was born and raised in Hawai'i (and Indonesia), but as an adult carpetbagged and married into the South Side of Chicago.  John McCain was born in Panama, bounced around as a military brat, attended high school in Virginia, college in Maryland, had various military assignments, lived in Vietnam for a while, then Florida, and finally left his wife and the Navy to shack up with some rich broad in Arizona.  John McCain is from Arizona and has been representing the state in Congress for over 25 years, but he didn't move there 'til his mid-forties

most of the ADWs have similar discrepancies between their place of birth and the hood they represented as adults.  The only controversial decision I really had to make was ibn Khaldun.  I gave him to Tunis, since that's where he was born and raised, he did live there for a while as an adult, and it is the location of his most popular google image search result statue.  Gave Zhuge Liang to Chengdu, since that was the capital of Shu Han and he was loyal to Liu Bei and it just seemed like the right thing to do

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this blog then starting to transition into applying that whole rotating quota deal to the allocation of other hobbies/usage of non-devil idle time.  Since I am way past my self-imposed deadline however, I'll just deposit that part in the vault and compensate for it by giving y'all part 5 in the series of police/military/immigration officers adventures

so here go a few more of my dealings with police officers in various places. New York and Mexico were covered in previous blogs, and I recently recounted my adventures in Korea and Brasil as well as my respect for the University of Maryland campus police 

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there was a bus strike in Peru and we couldn't get from Puno into Bolivia.  It was day 3 of the strike, so even if it were to magically end immediately, all the buses were already sold out and it would be several days before any seats would become available.  There were plenty of Peruvians content to live in the bus station 'til the labor dispute got resolved, but we weren't that patient/stupid.  No one was trying to help us, but we knew damn well that there were minibuses or shared taxis or something that could get us to Bolivia.  Everyone in the bus station thought that it was best just to wait the few more days or weeks or whatever for the strike to end, so we took turns watching the bags while the others would go outside to see if we could find anyone with an IQ higher than their shoe size 

turns out there was a minibus station less than 2 blocks away.  A minibus is a cheap Japanese minivan that country people fill with chickens and vegetables and stuff that they buy and sell in markets.  It would take us several minivans and the better part of the day to reach the Bolivian border, but it would be an adventure and way better than camping out indefinitely at the bus station.  The day consisted of plenty of National Geographic people and memorable moments and appreciation for not being born in the rural Altiplano.  On something like our third bus in our fifth hour of traveling some police stopped the minibus.  We figured they wanted to advise the driver of upcoming hazards or check his licence and registration or something, but they just asked us tourists for our passports.  It's not unheard of for police in Peru to ask tourists for their passports and then when they have your passport they ask you how much money you have and then they ask to see it and then they tell you that all your money is counterfeit and they have to confiscate it.  If you try to fight with them or explain that your money is not counterfeit, they remind you that they have your passport and maybe they'll give it back to you and let you off the hook this one time if you stop talking.  Folks who have been riding with live sheep and chickens all day are not however, that type of tourist.  My girlfriend and I cursed them out in Spanish while our companions used their native languages of Korean and French.  Needless to say, they realized their mistake and rescinded their desire for bribes pretty quickly 

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I don't know how police scams work in Thailand, but I wasn't 'bout to learn.  There are lots of tourists doing lots of drugs in Thailand.  There are also lots of tourists doing underage children.  Not sure why the Thai government continues to allow/encourage the second one, and I don't know or care what the penalties are for the first.  I was returning to my Bangkok hotel when a coupla cops jumped out and tried to search me.  I didn't have any drugs on me and I wasn't 'bout to either.  They were quick to reach for my pockets, but I was quicker to slap away their hands and tell them "NO!" in a voice that they had never before heard a tourist use.  They didn't speak much/any English, but I calmly and very firmly explained to them that I didn't have anything in the bag of stuff I had just purchased at the convenience store and proceeded to take out each item individually.  The cops were confused at my behavior and one reached for my pocket again and got his hand slapped harder this time.  I reached my hand into my pocket and pulled out my money.  Then I counted it for them.  Then I pulled out the rest of the contents of that pocket and showed them everything.  Then I checked my pocket to make sure it was completely empty and then I told the officer to search that pocket.  He did and then went for the next pocket.  I didn't even need to slap his hand this time, just step back and glare at him.  I replaced the contents of my first pocket and proceeded to remove the items from the next one.  When all the pockets were carefully emptied and then allowed to be quickly examined I thanked the officers for their time and stared at them 'til they scurried away 

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in Chile I had the cops called on me, but was blackout drunk and don't remember anything.  I know they were there though, since my girlfriend was quite upset that instead of studying for her chemistry mid-terms the next day she spent all night pleading with police officers to not arrest me.  I got evicted from the apartment, but that wasn't a big deal since my slumlord didn't want to lose me as a tenant and found me a cheaper apartment two days later half a block away with better roommates 

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made friends with this elderly couple on a bus going somewhere in Myanmar.  They live in Australia, and were back home visiting family they hadn't seen in years.  They invited me to come stay with them and I accepted.  Their family was happy to see them and loved all the gifts and were quite impressed with having a token white guy to gawk at as well.  Lots of food and jokes and good times.  The next morning we went to the local police/military office to let them know that there was a foreigner staying with them just so no one got suspicious.  I might've been the first dude not from there to ever stay in that village, and my presence would no doubt soon be noticed.  Myanmar is a cool place and the military junta seems pretty chill when unprovoked.  Suppose we provoked them though, because these ones were real jerks.  These military dudes were of pretty junior rank and weren't 'bout to overstep their bounds by sending any type of requests for approval to their superior officers.  First they made us give them our information and bizarre things like father's name and occupation and a bunch of other questions that I was careful to answer consistently, but not completely honestly.  After that ridiculous ordeal they sent us on our way.  A few hours later we were called back and told to submit various forms and photocopies in triplicate.  It was more than a lil' difficult finding a working photocopier machine in rural Myanmar, but we returned with all the requested stuff.  Then they told us that we didn't have everything and we should come back tomorrow.  There were plenty of unpleasantries exchanged and threats made, but the police/military dudes eventually gave us so many hoops through which we had to jump that we gave up and conceded defeat.  I had to stay in the $4 tourist hotel in the city and the brother-in-law who worked as a motorcycle taxi would come every morning to pick me up and drop me off every night 

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Colombia is a country where the news is worth watching.  Brasil, Mexico, and 'Merica are pretty good for murders and stuff too.  Indonesia has the best news since every week there is an earthquake or a volcano or a plane crash or something else disastrous with a high body count.  Colombia is the only place I've been where it felt like danger was always lurking though.  Not in a scary way so much as a don't be an idiot and listen to advice or something bad will happen and you brought it upon yourself sort of way.  Anytime you ask 'bout taking a bus somewhere people will tell you the last time that people were killed on that route.  "That one's fine, nobody's been murdered on that route in something like 20 years" or "yeah, maybe that one isn't so good.  Usually that one gets hijacked at least once a week" or "during the day it's fine, but you prolly shouldn't go at night."  Half of Colombia is controlled by the FARC and if you look at a road map entire regions don't have any roads.  You wonder if it is a mountain or lake or jungle or something, but the map doesn't have any roads listed because no one is responsible for what happens to you if you go there.  Just stay on roads listed on the map and everything will be cool.  Oh, if you're going to go to that city you should take an airplane 

the airport in Bogota is full of donut shops and military dudes with giant guns.  This was several years ago and perhaps folks have since gotten over their obsession with purchasing donuts in the duty free section.  I hope they still have the dudes with the guns though.  I've seen scary-looking uniformed dudes with giant guns in other airports, but you know the Colombian ones aren't there just for show.  One of these evil henchmen looking guys was standing in front of these two ladies.  The ladies' friend though it would be funny to sneak up behind the ladies and surprise them.  He did and one of them screamed.  He thought it was funny and the ladies laughed and confessed that he sure did get them good.  Dude didn't realize how close he came to being riddled with 800 bullets.  The enormous scary man with the giant gun had an amazingly quick reaction time, but was also quite adept at exercising discretion.  Guarantee you that wasn't the first or last time he whipped out his gun and pointed it at someone's head at point-blank range 

not long after I had an encounter of my own with one of these dudes.  Me and the girlfriend were chatting and preparing for our flight back home after a wonderful vacation.  I'm not sure how tall he woulda been without his boots and hat and giant gun, but he appeared out of nowhere and towered above me.  "DEDONDEERÁ!?!?!" he screamed.  I failed to react swiftly enough so he demanded my passport.  Handed it to him and he scowled as he flipped through the pages too fast to actually read anything.  "WHEREYOUFROM?!?!?!" he screamed.  I told him United States/Estados Unidos and pointed at my 'Merican passport that he was holding.  He did not appreciate that answer at all and took a step closer to me so he could look straight down at me and I had to tilt my head all the way back and look straight up.  "WHATYOUJOB?!?!?!" he screamed.  English teacher/profesor de ingles I stammered.  He didn't like that answer and rifled though my passport again.  Not finding what he wanted he peered deeply into my soul and slowly asked "YOU TROUBLE MAN?!?!?"  I assured him I wasn't and he screamed "DROGAS?!?!?! COCAINA!?!?!?!" I shook my head and told him no no, vacation while showing him my girlfriend.  She nodded in affirmation and he gave me one last penetrating sneer before throwing my passport at me.  That dude was so cool.  Me and my girlfriend giggled 'bout him the whole flight home 

 

so I had meant to write and post this some weeks ago, but just never got around to it.  Suppose I've been too busy hanging out at the topless beach and goofing off on the internet.  Miami stopped being new and exotic a while ago, and while still lots and lots and lots of fun, merely walking down the street is no longer inspiring

whenever ridiculousness becomes normalcy and awesomeness is taken for granted, it is time to move on.  Complacency and moss-gathering ain't for me, so it is time to once again proverbially hit that proverbial road.  Got a wedding in October, so September will be my last month here in South Beach

last year had a wedding in October and then I went up to New York afterwards.  That was a really good idea.  Was having a great time, but unfortunately hadn't registered for an absentee ballot and didn't want to miss out on casting my historic vote for our nation's first Hawaiian president.  Free from the responsibility of hooking up Cousin Barry with a job promotion, I should be able to hang out in the Large Apple a lil' longer this year.  Wanna check out Boston too.  Hopefully Al Gore's much ballyhooed "global warming" will finally kick in and it'll be a mild autumn.  Most likely will have a shindig in MD/DC celebrating my first 3 decades on the planet, and then head up to Michigan for Thanksgivings with grandmas

living here has been an absolute blast, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find myself 'round these parts again in the future.  Got the beach, a near infinite number of bars/clubs/restaurants, a park, all the amenities, and more silliness than imaginable within a 5-10 minute walk.  Not sure how jobs are in this "economic downturn," but rent ain't at all expensive and there are plenty of things on craigslist and lots of dollar stores/cheap shops around in case I ever had the urge to spend money on anything other than groceries and booze.  There is also a major city 3 miles away just over the bridge.  I only leave my island to go to the airport, but it is nice knowing that the downtown of an international metropolis is a 15 minute bus ride away

I'll prolly start taking lots of pictures and waxing philosophical in these next few weeks, but the reality that I'm giving all this up to wander around semi-aimlessly has yet to really kick in