I Invented Pod Racing

There are two ways I could begin this story, both of which sound sarcastic enough to work.

1) Nostalgic version: In 1999, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (as it is fully known) was released in theaters, to the frenzied anticipation of me and my peers. When I first watched it in fifth grade, I thought it was the manifestation of the concept of "awesome" itself.* Now that I'm not stupid, I've come to realize that Episode I was much less than what I had thought. BUT, there was one element of Episode I that I actually appreciated: pod racing.

2) Actual version: Last night, a few of my friends and I, over more than a few beers, decided to watch Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Actually, we watched The Phantom Edit. Basically, for the next hour-and-a-half we discussed the movie's many (many) faults. There were only two things in the film that silenced our cynical rantings. They were (a) Darth Maul and (b) pod racing.

(The following will for sure be the rest of my story)

Maybe I liked it so much because I invented it.

I know, that sounds crazy. I understand why you might think something like, "Justin, you're crazy. How could you invent a plot device in a highly-anticipated, multi-million dollar blockbuster when you were only a ten or eleven years old?" My answer is simple: Lego.** Perhaps pictures can best explain the breakthough I made in 3rd grade, while playing with my Legos that fateful night, that was responsible for the wildly-popular pod racing.

Take THIS***

And instead of horses, take the rockets from THIS**** (click on it for a bigger image)


And you get THIS


And there you have it. A pod racer. Unfortunately, I don't think there's any way I can prove to Lucas, or a court of law for that matter, that I invented pod racing. As with every other Lego I ever built, I promptly destroyed it in order to salvage it for parts.

* The notion eventually faded, as I gained more perspective (i.e. "taste") over the years. By eighth grade, I accepted unquestionably that Episode I was a bad movie. BUT, when Episode II came out, it was fantastic. Repeat for Episode III.
** The proper term is "Lego," with no "s." There are no such things as "Legos" because "Lego" is just the concept of building a structure with those recognizable, differently colored, stackable bricks. To refer to the toys themselves, you should use the term "Lego bricks." The more you know.
*** Model number 6044, the King's Carriage.
**** Model 6982, the Explorien Starship. This thing was the shit. No matter what outlandish spaceships and futuristic death-weapons we would build, it was always assumed between my brother and I that nothing in our imaginary stories, acted out in Lego, could stop this, my adored starship.

Sexy New Header

As you may have noticed, I have a new header.


Originally, the robot was going to be used for an album cover for Lupe Fiasco's Fahrenheit 1/15 Part II: Revenge of the Nerds mixtape. The "official" album cover is this monstrosity:


Needless to say, I could not let this aggression stand, man. Especially when I have to look at it in my iTunes cover flow every time I want to listen to an otherwise good album. Lupe Fiasco has three Fahrenheit 1/15 mixtapes: the first, Part II: Revenge of the Nerds, and Part III: A Rhyming Ape. The album covers are all pretty bad.

I thought it would be a fun project to assign myself over winter break to remake the artwork in Illustrator as part of a series. I hadn't really decided on what Part I would look like, but Revenge of the Nerds would feature a robot MC stomping around an illustrated city and A Rhyming Ape, which is simply Fiasco rhyming over beats taken from the Gorillaz' Demon Days album, would feature King Kong, with mic in hand, terrorizing the city from the side of the Sears tower.* The idea was nerdy, but that's alright, because that's clearly a theme with Fiasco. Alas, I never got around to it though. No need to let the robot go to waste though.

Below is my original sketch that I traced in Illustrator.


And here's the final product.


I took the photo from the top floor of the Amsterdam public library (A place I've mentioned numerous times before on my blog). I haven't had the need to use Photoshop in a while, so this was kind of a refresher.

* Yes, I know that King Kong originally climbed up the Empire State Building, not the Sears Tower. But since Fiasco hails from a city in the Midwest, the best city in the whole wide, wide world (Chicago), I thought it was appropriate.

For Your Listening Pleasure

Here are a few songs that I've regularly been jonesin' for during my stay here in Amsterdam.

"Black Mirror" by Arcade Fire – In the last two months, Arcade Fire has become one of my favorite bands. "Black Mirror" blew me away the first time I listened to Neon Bible, their most recent album (which itself is phenomenal).

"Mathematics" by Mos Def – This is one of those songs that you hear and love, only to realize you've had it in your collection (read: iTunes library) for years. Pandora actually reintroduced me to this song and I've been obsessed with it since. There's no official video, so this one will have to do. It's a quirky little montage clip.

"Lucky" by Radiohead – Another older one. I never really paid attention to this song, one of the last on OK Computer, before I heard it used in an episode of Six Feet Under. This video's kind of a downer (and Thom Yorke looks weirder than usual in it). So here's the clip from the show. Even though it's in Spanish, I'm sure you can figure it out.

I'm still wading through the giant selection of CDs that the Amsterdam public library has. I'm due for another trip soon. I'm thinking Clipse and maybe some Bob Dylan (after seeing Watchmen on opening night).

Catching Up

So, it's been a while. I guess you could say that I've had a serious case of writer's block. That, and my blog has been in blog-limbo for at least a month. I abandoned my old Wordpress blog (addictedtotheshindig.wordpress.com) and got a blogger account for a few reasons. I never really liked any of the Wordpress themes. Considering that I've never gotten around to learning enough html to do anything (that is, beyond making text bold or underlined), I decided to go with the host that makes it easier for me to have the appearance that I want (that is, a white background and a header). I'll be tinkering with it for a while, but for now my project is to create a big beautiful header up top.

ANYWAYS (courtesy Chuck Klosterman) here's a truncated recount of what I've been up to for the last month or so. I have:

1. Been to Belgium. Brussels and Bruges, to be precise. Our bus left from the south of Amsterdam at around 8 on a Saturday morning and arrived in Brussels around noon. We then took a train to Bruges where we spent the rest of the day walking around, eating chocolate, buying waffels, and drinking Belgian beer. The weather was overcast, and there weren't that many people out. That night we tried to find a place to eat for under 15 Euro, and let me tell you, it's impossible. Unless, of course, you eat at Quick, the premiere French fast-food establish, like we did (Belgium, being between France and the Netherlands, is equally influenced by both). Overall, I wasn't too impressed by Bruges. Other than our hostel, the Bauhaus Inn, which had a lively bar as well as a DJ that played some much-needed American pop music, the city didn't have much going for it. I guess I'm supposed to see the movie In Bruges in order to get the full experience. It's still on my to-do list.* Brussels, on the other hand, was awesome. The weather was perfect, people were walking around the city, and the buildings were covered with enough graffiti to keep my camera working all afternoon. To top off the nearly-perfect day, we ate some pretty cheap Thai food. I missed my spicy chicken Pad Thai.
   Check out Sara and Alex's posts about Belgium as well.
   
2. Started a new blog. After seeing a Mercedes McLaren parked in front of a swanky hotel in Belgium, we lamented about how we wished there was a blog for automobile aesthetics, a Sartorialist for Cars, if you will. We call it The Cartorialist.
3. Written two-and-a-half papers, given three presentations, and taken two midterms.**
4. Been trying to figure out my life for the summer. The Affordable Housing Internship through UEP didn't work out, so now I'm scouring the web for a paying internship. Normally I wouldn't be picky, but with a) the economy and b) the way Amsterdam is pillaging my bank account Viking-style, I need some cash flow come summer-time. Some of the LACAC internships look interesting, especially the one with the Eagle Rock Center for the Arts, in which I'd be helping to plan the Eagle Rock Music Festival.
5. Had my dad and my brother come visit me, seperately. It's surprisingly difficult to come up with stuff to do for a week at a time. With one or the other, I went to the Heineken Experience (I was brewed!), the Van Gogh Museum, the Rijkmuseum, a cool little comic book shop near the edge of the City Center, and the Red Light District (kind of a requirement for tourists). I know I'm forgetting a few places.
6. Saw Girl Talk. That was a wacky night.
7. Started reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. I'm in to it.
8. Finished Six Feet Under.
9. Been the recipient of a citation by the Amsterdam Police. I was biking on a road between Keizergracht and Herengracht, where apparently, you're only allowed to travel by foot (unless you're a tram, then you can freely barrel through that section of street). Here's how the story goes: Alex, Sara, and I actually start out by walking down the block. After the tram passes by, Mr. Manthei decides to get on his bike, defiantly proclaim "Fuck walking," and proceeds to pedal down the street. Sara and I follow suit. A few seconds later, at the end of the block, I see Alex is pulled over by a cop, and a few feet behind him, so is Sara. Now, at this point, I think that the two cops have pulled them over for a routine identity inspection.*** As soon as I see this, I get off my bike, and walk it over to Sara, thinking that it's no big deal. The male cop walks away from Alex, towards Sara and I, and Alex walks off around a corner. Both cops, male and female, start talking to us about how they are going to give us tickets for 35 Euro each, for not walking. The male cop starts talking to me.
   Cop: Do you live here?
   Me: Yes? [sic] I'm a student and I'm staying here until June.
   Cop: Why are you riding your bike here?
   Me: I didn't see the sign.
   Now, in my defense, the sign technically said that the street was pedestrian-friendly, not that bikes were prohibited. There is definitely a sign for this, but it certainly wasn't posted. If I had been smart enough, I would have told him this.
   Cop: Do you have identification?
   I pull out my University of Amsterdam ID, which we have been told will work in situations like these.
   Cop: I'm sorry, but do you have your passport?
   Me: No.
   For obvious reasons, I don't carry my passport with me. If I was smart I would have told him this as well.
   Me: I have an American driver's license. Will that work?
   It does. I give it to him and he starts taking down my information. Here's where the culture gap starts to show.
   Cop: Your birthday is 11-05-1987?
   He, of course, means May 11th, 1987, because that's how the rest of the world writes dates. My birthday is, of course, November 5th, 1987, because that's how America rolls. I tell him this.
   Cop: Why is your birthday wrong on your identification?
   Me: We write it backwords in the U.S. We're weird.
   The cop and I chuckle about how weird the U.S. is.
   Cop: What's your address here?
   Me: Prins Hendrikkade A-12.
   I, of course, mean A-12 because that's how we pronounce the letter "A" in English. He, of course, thinks I said "E-12" because when he insists on speaking English (not my idea, to my credit), he doesn't think about how the Dutch pronounce the letter "E" as an "A" when they sing the alphabet. So, I'm pretty sure he wrote down my wrong information. Which means I may or may not be recieving a citation in the mail in six to eight weeks. After this whole ordeal, we meet up with Alex, who didn't get a ticket. How, you ask (like I did). "I just told him I was a tourist." If I had been smart enough, I would have told him this too.

The sun's starting to come out, and I'm ecstatic to say that I can bike around the city without four layers on.

* I don't have a to-do list.
** The papers were on "the role of the gaze in gendering public spaces in Cairo," the usefulness of the "modernizing paradigm" – the idea that the city is the site of the new and the rural is the site of tradition – in analyzing the urban experience, and some 500-word thing on some health program in Thailand. The first two are for my ballin' Urban Anthropology class. The last one is for my Health and Development class. I hate that class.
*** The Dutch don't like foreigners (read: ethnic immigrants), so cops are known to "randomly" check identification in the street. I've never actually seen this happen. I thought I did, though.

Flickr Page

I have a Flickr page up an running. I've got some of my graphic design stuff on there (I'm in the process of adding it all) and that's where you can see all of my Amsterdam photos. Check it out.

flickr.com/photos/popaganda

Classes

Word on the street (by "the street" I mean "my mom's email to me") is that I'll be receiving my new laptop (and by "new" I mean "my old-school Powerbook Ti") on Wednesday via UPS. Hopefully it means that I'll be updating the blog more frequently. Unfortunately, being sans-laptop means most of my blogging for a while will just be in an effort to catch you up on my life over the last three-and-a-half weeks.

So, let me tell you about my classes. This semester, I'm taking four courses: Dutch, Health and Development, Violence in Peace and War, and Urban Anthropology. The latter three are all UvA courses, and since they're taught in English, they are open to international students like myself. Dutch is put on by CIEE, so it's only for the American students on my program. Classes are around three hours long and take place once a week. This is kind of a double-edged sword. On one hand, it's pretty nice because I spend very little time every week in class. On the other hand, three hours can be an excruciatingly long time if you don't want to be there.* Because UvA is a de-centralized campus, my classes take place all over the city – which is great because it makes you learn Amsterdam quickly.

Dutch:

I'm just going to start out by saying that knowing Dutch is not a necessary part of living in Amsterdam. As such, I originally didn't want to take the class, considering how many other interesting-sounding classes there were (i.e. Ethnic Diversity in Popular Culture and Terrorism in the News). Too bad Oxy requires its students to take the course, even though everyone knows it's technically pointless. To tell you the truth though, I'm glad I'm taking the class. The professor (Bonny) is hilarious and it's pretty cool to be able to order a beer at a bar in Dutch ("Mag ik ein biertje graag"). I'm always really happy with myself when I can throw down some Nederlands (the proper way to refer to the Dutch language) at the Albert Heijn and have the cashier mistake me for Dutch. If I'm going to live in Amsterdam, I want to take the time to actually be a part of the city

Dutch is unlike the rest of my classes in that I have it twice a week, Monday and Thursday, for two hours at a time. We spend the first half of class learning grammar and vocabulary (as one is wont to do in a language class) and in the second half, Bonny teaches us practical things about Dutch culture. So far, we've had an in-depth discussion about how to find what we're looking for in Dutch supermarkets (and no, they don't have applesauce), what kind of glasses we can expect our beers to come in at a bar, and gossip about the royal family. Riveting.

Health and Development:

Initially, I was really stoked for this class. The class description on the UvA website made it sound like a course on healthcare and poverty, which could definitely apply to my UEP major. What I didn't know (and apparently neither did any of the other American students who signed up), is that the UvA has a very specific definition of "development." From what I can peice together, development revolves around super-impoverished, rural villages in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and the study of it is pretty anthropological in nature. Basically, this class isn't a discussion about healthcare systems and how poverty affects ill-health (you know, all that fun UEP stuff). Instead, it's about how to convince African villagers to take precautions to prevent HIV, and what role the medicine-man plays. It's on a very micro level. I guess we have some interesting discussions in class, but I was really expecting (and hoping) for something else. Oh, and did I mention that it's four hours long? Yeah, that definitely doesn't help. In this instance, I actually wouldn't mind being lectured to for that period. But unfortunately, for the final two hours, the class breaks up into smaller discussion groups, and then we regroup to share with the entire class. This style of teaching, in the which the professor doesn't have enough interesting or relevent material to fill the alotted time, is one that I absolutely loathe.

Violence in Peace and War:

This class is legit. It probably won't count for anything (maybe I could get it to count for a Sociology class), but it's super-interesting. We basically take an inter-disciplinary look at what causes people to be violent. Each week, we look at violence from a different perspective: We looked at the philosophical definition of violence (Hobbes, Rousseau, Freud, etc) and we will look at the issue psychologically, neuro-biologically, sociologically, and crimonologically (yeah I just used that word). I'm still forming an opinion about the professors and my class-mates. I'll keep you posted. I have it every Thursday from 15:00 to 18:00.

Urban Anthropology:

Honestly, I had no idea what to expect from this class. The last time I took an anthropology class was in high school, and that was taught by (who we assumed was) an acid-head who admitted to eating lead-paint-chips as a kid. This class has probably turned out to be my favorite. I still haven't figured out what the class is about, but I think that's a testament to how many different, but interesting, topics we've covered. The first class we talked about "the city" as an ideal, and what kind of philosophical and literary connotations it has (i.e. it's a place when you can forge your own identity and make a name for yourself). The last class we had was about Soviet modernist urban design. We talked about everything from Marxist philosophy to the use of baroque architecture in government buildings in Moscow to history of a failed steel-town in Siberia that was supposed to compete with Gary, Indiana. It's pretty crazy but I love it. The only downside is that Urban Anthropology is at 9am on Fridays, which is probably the worst time for anything, ever.

Right know, I'm chilling in the Amsterdam public libary – the Oba, as it's called – listening to live piano-playing and sitting in a fourth-story window that looks south over the entire city. Life's good.

*Last week I got hella sick. I sat through the four-hour class with a fever, and every part of my body hurt. I never wanted something to end so badly.

You can pay for school, but you can't buy class

"Hey, kid..."

So, iCentre got back to me about fixing my laptop. For a mere 79-Euro diagnostic fee (read: not mere), they concluded that my Macbook Pro is 700-Euro worth of broken. I'm pretty sure they included the cost of fixing my screen, which hasn't been working for a while – but not impedingly so. Since I don't speak Dutch, and the invoice is in Dutch, I have a hard time telling. Unfortunately, my hard drive is broken too, which is harder to get by without.