Venial Sin

Home – Foxblocker.com – Shut The FOX Up! Go here NOW, and purchase one of these things. Seriously. How cool is that? [Courtesy of Rotten Ryan]

This is going to sound awfully bourgeois of me, but it must be said. Almost all of the people whom I’ve encountered in a working atmosphere, if they’ve been only locally educated, have massive attitude problems. Really. This isn’t an issue with their educations. Occasionally, in fact, I find that they’re extremely well-educated, or have at the very least, taken better advantage of their education opportunities than many of the trust fund babies I know who’ve gone abroad for university. [...]

You know, each time I see my sister-in-law staring at me just a little while too long, or with a hint of suspicion while my nephew sleeps on top of or romps around with me, it breaks my heart just that small bit more.

I was reading Edmund White’s The Farewell Symphony a few days ago (again), and came across a passage that suddenly opened up a certain hidden door: “The idea of playing hard to get struck me as inexplicably perverse in a world where gestures misfired, voices gave out, and everyone was shy. Heterosexuals, who revolved in a closed circle of friends under the brilliant scrutiny of their parents, who turned like the gleaming horses in an indoors training stable, could be [...]

Today, I’ve broken my own personal best record for an uncle-to-nephews ratio, of 1:3. My brother’s in town along with his wife and child, and while we were at dinner tonight at my cousin’s house, I had kids all over me. As far as my cousin’s kids are concerned, I’m their uncle, regardless of the actual blood relationship, so by the end of the evening, I had one on my shoulders, another one piggy-backing and my brother’s son was hanging [...]

March 23rd is “Pakistan Day”, yet another one of this glorious country’s many ill-defined national holidays. I can’t for the life of me tell you what it’s supposed to celebrate, but that’s simply because no one else really seems to know either. However, in an effort to keep the spirit of Pakistan alive, every bloody radio jockey on FM 89, a radio station aimed at the affluent, English-speaking, certain-neighbourhoods-living, insisted on speaking in Urdu (badly) all day long, and played [...]

I’ve been lazy about updating, I know. So to make it up to you, look over on the left sidebar. There’re two links there: “Unforgivable Sins”, and “Original Sin”. Go read those if you’re truly bored, and by tomorrow, I’ll have something new up for you, really.

So, yesterday, I’d had enough. Pakistan’s “premier” mobile telephone service provider, Mobilink (fondly known as “Maybe-link” amongst the populace) decided to crash and burn painfully, so I went over to the newest entry in the mobile market, Telenor. For the last decade or so, Mobilink’s had a virtual monopoly on the market, and has taken shameless advantage of that. So, when Telenor came in with really good rates and other fun things, I decided that brand loyalty was for suckers [...]

I’ve spent most of today trying to figure out exactly HOW dashing I could potentially look in this… …because last night, I got admitted to law school in the UK. Go me. Now, while I thoroughly enjoy the thought of myself in garters, fishnets and heels, all concealed under a voluminous black robe, what really tickles my fancy is the idea of conversations such as the following: Opposing Lawyer: Your honour, I object! Sin: How can you possibly object?!? I [...]

In an effort to dispel the tension that was filling the room, Diplomat brightly suggested that we should get going, and so we did. In the car ride over, he and I discussed, debated, and finally agreed upon two things. (1) We had no idea who the host of the party we attended was, and (2) Tuxedo was utterly a three-beer-queer. There was also the unspoken agreement that were he to imbibe the necessary three beers, whichever of us was [...]