Partying Like it's 1993: Ah, the Clinton years. I missed almost all of 'em; got home just in time for the splooge stain. However, I do remember way back when here in post-commie land sitting around a special computer-machine, with two or three people standing over my shoulders, staring at this incredibly slow communication device called "e-mail." It was usually some unholy abuse from Layne, or a forwarded joke from a family member, or an urgent plea for peace from an ex-college professor ... and it would take forever, coming through on the one dedicated machine. Often, the chokepoint -- Compuserve or something? -- would just seize up altogether.

Here in Romania in 2004, there are Internet cafes all over the damned place (well, at least in Bucharest; this weekend I was in a southern Wallachia village with a donkey-to-Internet cafe ratio of about 100 to 0), but the results are the same, because of spam. My webmail server basically told me my first week here to get stuffed after stacking up with 5,700 e-mails (5,685 of which were crap); so instead I downloaded them on Eudora over 56K modems, using some newfangled Spamnix program, and now the program just shuts down arbitrarily & otherwise acts like a peasant on Harvest Day after two bottles of absinthe. I have 1,983 weekend e-mails, 99% of which are utter crap, and it looks like I won't be able to read any of them until a week from now.

So: if you are a spammer, you will rot in hell. I include in this category of sub-humans the administrators of sites like Opinion Journal's Best of the Web, who are completely unable to remove me from their master list, no matter how many times I threaten to send a Renault full of haughty, French-looking surrender simians into their offices, waving bananas. (Which reminds me to once again complain about California Congresswoman Diane Watson, whose hapless staff is literally unable to remove me from their fax press release list, which has sucked dry my toner cartridge and wreaked havoc with my answering-machine apparatus.)

Ah, nothing more exciting than a man talking about his telecommunications! Just a long way of saying -- I might not get to read your e-mail for a while, which is yet another reason not to send me any in the first place. If it's important, drop a note to Emmanuelle. More soon, or not. Back home the 28th.

06/21/2004 02:26 PM  |  Comment (3)

My Favorite New Non-Romanian Political Weblog: Bush supporters might not like it as much as I do.... Make sure to buy a button!

06/17/2004 02:25 PM  |  Comment (4)

Hello From Bucharest! Hi boys and girls, Matt here, from the lively and surprising capital of Romania. I'm in one of approximately 477 Bucharest Internet cafes (approximation mine), a couple hundred meters from our apartment. They're blasting Eminem in my ears right now, which I don't mind. As is customary when I'm in Europe, I A) have already eaten in a local McDonalds (which I never do at home), though I didn't try the "McPorc"; and B) have seen more music videos in 24 hours than I have in the past 365 days of occasionally trying to figure out which Americans MTV channels still play the things. What's surprising in Romania is that there are multiple Romanian music channels, filled with pretty damned good locally produced videos that go far beyond the usual Central European 1979-era visual style (guy playing Casio in pastel room). Plus, they've got explicitly political rap, which is pretty good (one band ... Ca$$a Locco, I believe, had this elaborate video where the three white-boy rappers were political candidates for the PDS, a take-off of the despised governing party PSD ... it's a long story). Anyway, the kids here seem to be pretty all right, according to my extremely scientific research.

You'll want to know about the stray dogs. Yes, there are a few ... thousand. Found mostly on dimly lit back streets, in the courtyards of grim commie housing blocks (which also frequently contain churches ... weird country, this), in empty lots that have become open-air trash dumps ... but not necessarily the high-traffic pedestrian areas. And there's less dogshit on the streets than in Paris, as Emmanuelle has noticied. I had envisioned it'd be a bit like Mexico -- half-starving whippets walking around with crazed expressions -- but these are definitely former pets, or their descendants. German shephards, English sheepdogs, that kind of thing. Saw one demented shephard yesterday who spent his time on a busiesh street, chasing each car that drove by, trying to bite the doors, etc. But mostly they only bark when in packs, and the only packs I've seen have been ... well, in the courtyard of our commie housing bloc. So every night we hear what sound like 200 hounds of hell braying to Satan, and then you look out and see six and then renew your appreciation for the power of the Echo....

Sorry, the Euro-disco is getting to my brain. I wanted to say -- if you've sent me e-mail since Monday afternoon, I haven't read it. I'll try now, but I'm guessing there are several thousand messages on my server, which makes me sad in the heart. So please, only send me stuff that's real important, not the fact that you've made a post on your Internet website or whatnot. Alienatin' you from 5,000 miles away, suckaz!

Oh yeah -- I won't have much time here to read the comments on this website, so please do try to keep your rabid historical re-enactments of the Iran-Contra trials to a tasteful minimum, mmmK? Those of us who were outraged by the illegal behavior then (and by the exhumation since of several vintage '80s National Security liars) are not brain-crippled communists who heart Castro, and those who love them the Reagan are not (necessarily!) baby-eating Afrikanners. This has been my public service contribution to the "debate."

Ooh, now they're playing Warren G, talking about the LBC, the G-funk era, the East Side Motel, etc. Regulators!!!! OK, check out Emmanuelle's Buzznet site for Bucharest pictures later today, and go Lakers!

06/11/2004 02:40 AM  |  Comment (25)

Good Morning, Portland! At a ripe 7:20 a.m., I will be live on Daybreak With Larry George, on KUIK 1360-AM, talking bollocks about how cities shouldn't subsidize pro sports stadiums. You can call in and heckle me, if you'd like. Of all the cities in the world, of course, it had to be Portland, Oregon, home to two dozen of my closest relatives, including those who would most likely disagree with me, perhaps passionately. My late grandfather was a charter season-ticket holder to the Trail Blazers & went to every home game for something like 25 years in a row. My Dad grew up a Portland Beavers fanatic, etc. UPDATE: Scratch that. Reagan tribute trumped denouncing corporate welfare queens.

06/06/2004 11:03 PM  |  Comment (10)

Hi! What are you doing down here?