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| just a quote from anime |
| 10.30.04 (3:29 pm) [edit] |
"Why do we build these walls around our hearts?
Beneath that tough exterior,
Love is like a shy-child,
waiting to come out..."
Spoken by the character Jimmy Kudo.
from TV-series anime, Case Closed.
Clearly shows we must all watch more Anime.
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| adventures of a hitch-hiker |
| 10.24.04 (2:38 pm) [edit] |
Someday I would like to try it out, but then again we live in troubled times. Anyways read this article...
Last of the hitch-hikers
By Kevin Connolly
BBC News
Whatever happened to hitch-hikers? Safety fears have driven most of them from the roadside. So what would it be like to be a modern day hitch-hiker crossing the United States?
Remember the days before budget airlines, cheap car hire and student rail cards? Seeing the world without breaking the bank back then meant hitch-hiking - trusting to luck, and to the kindness of strangers to see the world for free.
Hitching probably had its roots in the chaotic years that followed the end of the World War I in Europe.
France and Belgium were awash with allied soldiers, and the first motorised armies the world had ever seen were using their new fleets of vehicles to shuttle men and supplies around the continent.
It was the easiest thing in the world for men heading off on leave or returning to their units to flag down buses and trucks and hitch a ride.
The habit stuck, and a wonderful free system of transport was born.
The heyday of hitch-hiking probably came in the 1970s - car ownership had become widespread, but the fear of the stranger which is such a feature of modern life, hadn't quite taken its grip on our imagination.
Solitary travellers
To a depressing extent these days, we are prisoners of irrational fears - our actual chances of being murdered by a stranger are incredibly small, and yet we are inclined to view anyone outside our immediate circle of acquaintances with suspicion, as though they might bore us to tears, or beat us to death. Or both.
We have also become a solitary and isolated bunch in many ways, a people who like to travel cocooned in the privacy of our own cars, with our own CD selection providing the soundtrack to our journeys, and our lives.
The original idea of The Last Hitch-hiker (BBC Radio 4, Sunday 24 October) was to see if it was still possible to hitch around the world. I experimented last year in France - and this summer I did it all over again in the United States, travelling from Miami to New York.
I arrived in Florida at the same time in August as Hurricane Charley, and for a time, I felt about as welcome. But gradually my luck changed and I ended up being conveyed up through the old south on to the very heart of Manhattan by an engaging cast of characters.
The world you see from the roadside is a very different world from the one you experience as a conventional tourist.
Then, after all, you tend to meet only bar staff, airline cabin crew and amusement park ticket sellers.
I was rescued from the gathering storm on that first night by two Florida police officers who were charming but clearly mystified by the determination of British tourists to attempt to get value for money on holiday even when it means venturing out into hurricane force winds.
Drivers' fears
As my journey unfolded I found myself discussing Iraq with soldiers who'd served there, and gun control laws with motorists who turned out to have firearms concealed in the glove compartments of their cars.
I even ended up setting off a firework the size of a wheelie bin in the company of an eye-patch wearing youth counsellor. All I can say is that it seemed to make sense at the time.
Almost without exception I found American drivers to be courteous, friendly optimistic and engaging. When I hitch-hiked through France, by contrast... well, let's just say I probably happened on the French in a bad year.
So who picks up hitch-hikers in the US these days?
There would have been more drivers ready to give lifts if it had not been for Aileen Wuornos, the "hitcher from hell", who had roamed the highways of Florida in the late 1980s, shooting dead men who gave her a lift.
Even though the state's correctional system has long since given her a lift into eternity, she lingers in the memory of motorists, making them reluctant to stop for strangers.
Without her I'd have been safer, drier, less sunburned and in New York two days earlier.
Elvis, Mickey and the cops
But there were drivers ready to give me a lift. There was a tired-looking young national guardsman who had been in Iraq and was now slowly readjusting to life at home.
"I get it. You've got two problems. You're in an old movie, and you're looking for a ride back to the 1950s," he told me.
And there was a pick-up truck driven by a Korean Elvis impersonator. He was a portly, middle-aged guy with a pile of black hair that looked as though it had been fixed in place with popcorn toffee. He was wearing mirrored sun glasses and a gold chain as thick as an anchor rope.
When hurricane warnings came on the radio he pulled out a silver-plated pistol and talked about "shooters for looters". Later, he told me it was a fake.
The next lift was from a large, middle-aged woman in a tiny two-seater car, wearing a Minnie Mouse top. She was going to Disneyworld.
"America would be a better place if Disney ran the whole country, then you'd see a difference," she said.
Of course, she's right. There would be no mouse traps and country clubs would be full of golf-playing dogs in plus-fours.
'Spot of bad weather'
With the growing threat from the hurricane, the next lift was with the police, who had been advising British tourists to take shelter and not to ignore the warnings as "American hysteria over a spot of bad weather". They spoke in those low, rumbling bass voices, presumably issued on the last day of police academy to give them a reassuring air.
They were kind enough to focus on how stupid other people had been to stay outside when a storm was coming.
They had found a family heading out to play crazy golf - and had told them that being outside in the storm would be like driving at high speed through a car wash in an open-top car, while people threw building rubble at you.
They left me at a hotel and went back into the stormy night to continue the work of rounding up British holidaymakers.
The Last Hitch-hiker will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4, on Sunday 24 October at 1740BST.
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| 99 images to pass time |
| 10.10.04 (3:13 am) [edit] |
Well logged onto my fave site, HowStuffWorks and found a news link about a new gun that is the size of your credit card! Which in turn led me to the 99 images link, am hoping the link still works. 99 images
Surprisingly my exams have got to me before they have even begun. I just dont feel like logging on the net anymore, have this heavy sense of guilt goading me to spend my time studying instead of surfing... Although I do sit at my computer for hours playing Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Finished this awesome game tonight. Am such a slacker :)
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