In the spirit of immersion in the Turkish language, lately I have been going to www.turkishclass.com. It appears from their message boards that the main reason anyone bothers to learn Turkish is to speak to the handsome Turkish boyfriend they have acquired over the internet. People post various snippets of English or Turkish to be translated, and invariably these are snippets like “Another day of my life passed without you.” (siz bir gun, daha gecti omrumde). Turkish men are known for their romanticism, possessiveness, and the ability to fall in love instantly.

Needless to say, this is not why I am going to Turkey. 🙂 The reason why I’m going has more to do with breaking out from the rut I may perhaps be in, get some perspective, and learning the language has become a reason in itself to go — I want to TALK with someone in this cool language I’ve been learning! What would be great is if Portland had a Turkish community with some cafes where I could go hang out and listen to people talking. But no, alas.

Good:
Veronica Mars
NIN new cd tracks 1, 5, 6
Sopranos
Coldplay’s new single
My new monitor
Dairy Queen
Jen giving me leftovers
The Turkish language
VMware

Bad:
Flaky co-workers
Working on weekends
Rain getting in open sunroof (DOH!)
Drag-racing Suburbans
Yardwork
TeX
The inability to keep a fish alive

I’m really hating my job right now. I hate working weekends.

Now, I’m just thinking a month in Turkey. Picked up the Lonely Planet book on Turkey and am starting to familiarize myself with the language. Languages are fun!

Too good to pass up.

Here’s my current thinking:

Aug 5 – 19 Chill at home
Aug 19-26 Dublin
Aug 27 – Sep 3 Prague
Sep 4 – 11 Istanbul
Sep 12 – 24 more home chillin
Sep 25 – 27 Atlanta
Sep 27 – 30 Cincinnati

Still, so many people resist believing in evolution. Where does the resistance come from?

It comes, I’m sorry to say, from religion. And from bad religion. You won’t find any opposition to the idea of evolution among sophisticated, educated theologians. It comes from an exceedingly retarded, primitive version of religion, which unfortunately is at present undergoing an epidemic in the United States. Not in Europe, not in Britain, but in the United States.

Let the fucking woman die already.

Went to the track yesterday. My co-worker Jesse is a member of the local BMW car club, and they were having a track day at Portland International Raceway (PIR). I was just going to go and see the cool cars go fast but a guy there had an extra helmet (I need a big helmet) and so I was able to ride along in Jesse’s ’87 Mazda RX7 with him. Jesse had taken his 328 to the track on many occasions, but this was the first time with the RX7, which I understand can hold its own at the track, and that he had acquired solely for use on the track.

I don’t have any pics from in the car, since I was holding on with both hands. 🙂 I think all of us have gone fast in our car on the highway, but it is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT going around a track’s curves in a car.

Jesse was still getting used to his new track car so we weren’t going that fast. However, on lap 3, the brakes faded, and that led to a sequence of events that ended with us leaving the track in a great cloud of smoke and bounding across the grass infield! The car suffered only some minor damage to the undercarriage and little bits of grass were sprinkled about the interior. Due to the dodgy brakes we took it in for evaluation anyways. Apparently such occurances are not rare but was still quite something to experience.

The consensus of the gathered crowd of auto enthusiasts was that the brake lines needed to be bled. I was unfamiliar with this procedure, but it turned out to be pretty easy. We added new brake fluid (under the hood) and then worked the brake pedal to move it thorough the brake lines until the bypass valves at the wheels no longer contained any air or squirted out old fluid.

By then it was getting past the time I needed to leave, so I took off. But I took some good pics of the assembled cars. There were a HELL of a lot of Porches, as well as BMW M3s, and a smattering of other street cars. Some notable cars were three Lotus Elises, very nice, as well as a Noble kit car and a new Porche GT3. This is Jesse’s car. Here’s a shot of some cars on the track.

This is a chicken with a beer can up its butt, drawn by me.

Thanks to Jen for thinking to save it. There seems to be a karmic link between me and chickens.