rafael pyton

Aubrey de Grey, the bearded druid of biogerontology at University of Cambridge, is an inspiration to those (like me) who thinks that life is far too short. In fact, Dr. de Gray goes so far as to predict we will soon live to be 200 to 1000 years old. This is not fiction. I repeat, this is not fiction. Better yet, this means that when you are in the early thirties, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Wooohoooo! I was just feeling old yesterday; now I’m suddenly a baby.

I can almost taste the fountain of youth. Bring on the eternal life! I intend to outlive God himself!

The Ghost Rider Gallery has opened! All aboard. Mind the gap. Come with me for a digital ride along memory lane. This way, please. I’m not posting a link here, so just turn your round head to the right, and gaze upon Pages - The Ghost Rider Gallery. Therein lies the path to the pictures, as Hamlet would have said.

Courtesy of my lovable little bro, the maori from Chch, NZ.

How delikat! Finland and Sweden meet up for the mama of all Finals, the end-all be-all, the perfect storm, the battle of Galactica, the Judgement Day, the Thrilla in Manila… or the Thrillerino in Torino. It is live and let die and kill or be killed, all at the same time. Could this be the day when Finland finally steps out from the shadows of Sweden?

3-2, and olympic gold in icehockey goes to Sweden.

Real time: Right now, I hear Tre Kronor sing their national anthem. I see the big white-blue lions crying in interviews. I see the yellow on blue being waved, everywhere. I see… no, I don’t see our flag, not even a painted chin. The difference between winner and loser could not be bigger.
What is that thing dingling from the lions’ neck? Silver cruelty, what a despicable disappointment of an excuse for a metal. It turns you into a bitter hater. I feel my veins turn into ice… the same ice we were crushed on. Gold lost, not silver won.

But we shall roar again.

Nessum Dorma. As Luciano Pavarotti wraps it up in Torino, Italia, I wonder and ponder this riddle - why does the Finnish 2 minutes seem so much longer than the Swedish 2 minutes?

It certainly appears that time is, indeed, relative.

Shia or sunni? Talk about being (USA) stuck between a rock and a hard place…

This amused me for 11,3 seconds this morning (yes, I timed my chuckles). Some guy in Wisconsin recently tried to open an email-account at Yahoo!, but no matter how hard he tried, he just could not get it the way he wanted it - by using his surname, Callahan. The reason turned out to be the letters a-l-l-a-h inside his surname, or ‘god’ in Arabic.

Obviously I immediately imagined (and you can see how my mind works now) what Harry Callahan, a.k.a. tough cop Dirty Harry, would have done in the same situation. I’m betting he would’ve reached for his piece, (the heaviest handgun in the world), and locked his streetwise eyes on the computer, “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, DO YA PUNK!?”

I am so easily influenced by my surroundings; I was watching Magnum Force yesterday, Dirty Harry the day before, and today I will most likely watch The Enforcer, and then I’ll save Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool for next week. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I am a boisterous owner of a bulldozing kit of a damn dirty dvd box - The Dirty Harry Collection, complete with a smoking Magnum .44 pictured on the front and back side of the box.

Things are-a-brewing, and I smell a shitstorm. This post is a sequel of “the flip side”, simply because I was wondering what Iran is trying to achieve by re-examining the history of the genocide of the Jews during WWII. Frankly, I can not wait to see what kind of conclusion this international conference on the Holocaust will reach - and the reaction it will cause, of course.

I am a huge fan of myth-busters… but just how are you supposed to explain the missing millions of Jews?

Iran and point man Ahmadinejad are rather hot at the moment, with wild statements, nuclear plants and Holocaust conferences. I am not very good at maths, so I am not going to put 2 and 2 together, but rumour says it comes out as 4.

(Right now somewhere in the world there is a tiny country with quivering yarmulkes).

British writer David Irving goes to jail for three years for something he said 16 years ago, and I get that Pluto feeling again. But when you are denying the Holocaust, you get a pack of bitter old Jews after you, and they are like pitbulls… they just can’t let go.

Let us be reasonable. It should be easy enough to prove that the Holocaust did indeed happen, and that it was the opposite of pleasant. That is that. Can we please move on? History sucks for other people than Jews, too.

The timing was infallible, as usual, considering the unlikely pair of the infamous Mohammed cartoon & Irving’s version of Holocaust; apparently the West is not the best. Hypocrisy is a beast that always bites back.

Once in awhile you discover gems from the past, but this once-in-awhile concept of time just seems to happen less and less frequently these days, so I am absolutely thrilled when it actually does. History: I remember reading about the British cult film “Withnail & I” in a Q magazine in the early nineties, and being impressed by the praises heaped. I had not heard a word about this film before - and not really afterwards, either… neither had anyone else - it seems to be a closely guarded secret of the British Isles. But I never forgot about it, and I am glad I didn’t. More than a decade later I buy it on dvd from play.com.

Withnail & I came out in 1987, produced by G Harrison. (Bless you, George). It is about two unemployed actors in London, late 1960s, who drown their frustration in booze, pills and lighter fluid. When Withnail’s Uncle Monty offers his cottage in the country, they escape the squalor of their horrible flat. They soon realize it is a mistake.
Withnail & I is hilarious, but at the same time insanely intelligent… and the craft of acting is wonderful, with every face in complete synchronicity with emotion, all the way along the watchtower. There is deep beauty in this light misery. Just listen to the British accent of Richard E. Grant (Withnail), every syllable licking your ear, confidently and elegantly wasted. It also comes with a matching soundtrack.

Buy it and do it now. Bruce Robinson’s semi-autobiographical tale is art, pure art, a supersplendid riot.

Remember the time Al Gore ran for presidency? And won… but still lost. Hihi. Never mind the technicalities; dare I say that was a great day? I mean it. That day changed the world for ever, and not in the way you think I mean. Al Gore is the politician of all politicians - easily the biggest insult of insults that I can come up with. Therefore and without further ado, it is with a gigantic smirk on my face that I present you the one and only, the notorious… SUPERHUNKY!

Superhunky vs. Al Gore

For those of you who does not know who Superhunky is, (ie: 99,99% of you… how you disappoint me!), he was the legendary editor of the immortal Dirt Bike magazine, and I grew up reading the words he preached. Frankly, I used to laugh my t-shirt wet reading him. Superhunky, a.k.a. Rondo Talbot, a.k.a. Mr-Know-it-all, a.k.a. Rick Sieman, was also a freedom fighter in the truest sense of the definition, always sticking it to the Man, always battling the injustices of the Law. Few have done more for the dirt-rider-without-name than Superhunky, and I am proud to be a rebel soldier of his tribe.

Rick now lives and rides in Baja, Mexico, where tequila is cheap, and dirt bikes are loved. On occasion he still sticks it to dorks like Gore. And I adooooore him for all I’m worth!

from the moment they met
like the sweetest violet
he declared love until death
o yes to the everlasting breath

Happy Valentine’s, girls.