Mein-y Kampf-mas

I'm sorry for not posting a lot recently. I've been busy, so back off.

Anyways, I picked up this old postcard at a second hand shop here in Prague. It's Santa Klaus, which is kinda strange because in the Czech Republic they teach their kids that it's the baby Jesus (not Santa) who sneaks around giving gifts to kids. The card itself pretty innocuous and kinda festive, until you turn it over, and then uh-oh:

In this photo (L to R): Happy little Czech children, Santa Klaus

In this photo (L to R): Hitler

Mugabe to World Leaders: "Bitch I thought I told you to shut your dirty bitch mouth, bitch"

So it sucks that there's still stuff to post about this dude, but our buddy and President of the Failed State of Zimbabwe Robert "Fuckhead" Mugabe is back at it again. There is so much shit going down in his country right now that it's impossible to talk about it all, but it's also impossible not to say anything about it. So here's a brief summary of the tip of the iceberg.

Firstly:  Mugabe's government has now gone on record insulting heads of state all over the world who have criticized its tyrannical dictatorship, stating it hopes "this is the last time they open their dirty mouths on Zimbabwe." As of today, Mugabe is inexplicably (and inexcusably) backed by the African Union in his refusal to leave office and is using this opportunity to all but dare the rest of the world to overthrow him, saying through his spokesman, "we won this country through the barrel of the gun and we will defend it the way we won it." No doubt that's hardcore, but it's the stupid kind of hardcore, more like post-screamo-core than anything. So this isn't the first time Mugabe and his crew have challenged world leaders. He's been noted in the past for, on separate occasions, telling former UK PM Tony Blair and American Ambassador to Zimbabwe Chris Dell to both "go to hell." He also once called Blair a "gangster" who had "gone insane." I love that. I'm sorry but to me it's really funny when politicians are that candid on record.

Secondly: Apart from widespread starvation, which is more or less commonplace and therefore no longer surprising in this country, Zimbabweans have a couple of terrifying disease outbreaks to keep their minds off their mess of a country. FAQ TIME!

Q: Which diseases? A: Cholera, the last outbreak of which in North America occurred in 1911 (and has now infected over 11,000 Zimbabweans), and ANTHRAX. Like, not your fancy "biotech-lab-cultured-post-9/11-white-powder-to-Sen.-Tom-Daschle" kind of anthrax, but rather the "your-livestock-is-dead-because-you-can't-feed-it-and-death-surrounds-you-because-there's-no-firewood-to-boil-water-with-and-you-are-literally-forced-to-eat-raw-the-spore-ridden-rotting-corpses-of-your-cattle" kind of anthrax.

Q: Who the fuck gets anthrax nowadays? A: I don't know. It's insane. But the real answer is 3 people, so far.

Thirdly: These internal and foreign policy calamities all come just days after George "Fuckhead" Bush finally spoke out against Mugabe, saying something like "DUR, he's bad...time to go," which, coming from the spittled mouth of the most powerful subhumans on the planet, is supposed to mean something. So who the hell knows. Barack Obama has yet to make a comment, so this would be a good opportunity for him to step up and at least say something.

At the same time, although it sounds selfish, the paper money bathing fantasy I keep writing about (see 'Zimbabwe' tag below) seems to become more and more realistic every day, even after Mugabe knocked ten zeroes off the currency a couple months back. In reaction to months and months of exploding hyperinflation (and really, who could have guessed that knocking ten zeroes off the currency would NOT effectively solve the nation's financial crisis?), the government has now unveiled its latest obscenely large bill, at the denomination of $200,000,000. This is the second time around that they've released a bill at this amount, so maybe this'll be it. Maybe this is as high as they'll have to go, and they won't release a $1 billion bill in the next month or so. Maybe. Probably not though. I don't think it's unreasonable to say it won't be long until they're back to the $100 billion bill and I'm washing my stanky crotch in cash money that is worth less that the dirt it's covered in. 

Lastly: Under Mugabe's orders, as if all this bullshit weren't enough of a strain on the Zimbabwean people, his troops have now begun to spark and fuel a huge blood-diamond industry by looting diamond mines, killing indiscriminately, and generally fucking shit up all over the place.

BOOOOO. Next post will be positive and happy, I promise.

Jiří Šlégr saves the day

Over the course of about two full seasons in total with the Vancouver Canucks, Jiří Šlégr chalked up a total of 77 points. Not bad, but not amazing either. I remember he could pass like a madman and exhibited classic European grace on the ice, but not much else. But now I will love him forever because he saved my ass about half an hour ago.


So I've had an aboslutely terrible morning today, spent mostly at the Prague foreign police office trying both to get my Czech business license and to help Deidre stay in this country legitimately. Anyways, my Metro pass, which had been valid for three months, expired two days ago. I was taking the tram without a valid ticket, or 'riding dirty' as we call it, towards a Metro station where I was planning to renew my pass. I stand up to get off at my stop when a Metro officer flashes his badge in my face and demands, in Czech, to see my pass. We get off the tram together and I am about ready at this point to either bolt or commit a good ol' desperate murder-suicide.

Now the language barrier in this country is a huge problem for me. I can ask for things, and communicate at a basic level, but to explain that I am a legal EU citizen who A) has had an absolute nightmare of a morning and is thus somehow deserving of his mercy and B) is LITERALLY on his way to renew the shit the officer wants, is to say the least beyond my level of Czech speaking proficiency. I fumble my way through some basic Czech and look in his eyes like he's just killed my family for no reason. He is getting pissed. He thinks for a second and looks at me stone faced, telling me, in English, "No ticket - no pass - you - police," while gesturing in the direction of the police station down the road.

So I take off my backpack to pull out some money to pay the guy and he notices my huge old school Vancouver Canucks patch. He starts talking in Czech about osoby on the Canucks, like people on the Canucks, and I excitedly follow what he's saying, like "Fuck yeah man, Jiří Šlégr, on je český! A Petr Nedvěd! On je od Liberec!"

He turns and looks in the other direction and says to me, "Tak jo, hezky den," which means something like "Alright then, have a nice day." So I walked away in total disbelief, and now I gotta go renew my pass. WHAT THE FUCK! ha ha HA!

NWSFLSH: Man Shoots Breeze, Self

This is why I pack my nine in a holster.

Disgraced football star Plaxico Buress was behind this beautiful excerpt from a police report (thanks Pat):

"...informant observed defendant holding a drink in his left hand while fidgeting with his right hand in the area of the waistline of his pants as he entered the upper VIP area of the Latin Quarter Club... Informant then heard a 'pop' sound and defendant stated in substance, "Take me to a hospital." Informant then observed defendant's legs begin to shake and as defendant's legs were shaking, informant observed a pistol fall out of defendant's pant leg to the floor. Informant further observed that there was blood on said pistol."

Tremendous.

Apart from having a name that sounds like a dildo manufacturing company, Plaxico has had problems in the past. Last year he stormed out of a strip club, insulting female patrons and refusing to pay his $2000 bill because "no women were paying any attention to him." Asshat.

Ace Ventura Jr. ...wait, what?

Either this idea sucks or I'm just pissed I've never had my own straight-to-DVD movie deal.

You suck, kid. Stand up straight, you idiot.