Saturday 31 July 2010

Knife child

So I just went out side on a bit of a DVD hunt. (I was trying to find a film called Idiocracy).

Any way I was stood in one of my usual DVD shops on the river and as I'm looking some Book selling kid comes in trying to hit me up for some change.
Now I'm not into giving cash to kids in the street because I don't think its going to help anything.
So I tell him no good.
Anyway I thought he left so I carry on looking.
Turns out the kid ain't gone. he's right behind me and lets me know he's still there by shooting me repeatedly in the back of the legs with a pellet gun.

Naturally I ain't into it.
So I spin round and grab the gun from out of his hands.
The kids giving it "give me my gun back"
so I'm like "You need to apologise and until you do you don't get it back"
The kid's like "fuck you I kill you" And walks out the shop.

A few moments later he's back in brandishing a 6 inch kitchen knife "I kill you" goes this kid as he comes at me. I don't reckon he actually meant it, he was probably just giving it the big un but just to be safe twisted his arm up a little took the knife of him and choke slammed him on the floor.

Worst thing is the DVD shop ain't even got Idiocracy. Proper let down.

Thursday 29 July 2010

Lisa S

When I'm at home I like to do a lot of different things.
Two of these are watching TV and using the Internet.

I like to both at once because sometimes I'm waiting for something to load/stream/buffer and sometimes it's the adverts/commercials/nothing good's on.
So it kind of balances out.

Now out here both can be a bit difficult.
Internet is generally slow due to a lack of decent broadband.

And TV can be difficult because of the small number of TV channels that are in English.
Generally it comes down to a choice of 6

HBO
A version of the popular American Channel. The Wire, Heroes, etc.
Things you probably downloaded or bought the box set of.

Star World
The predominant force behind English language TV in South East Asia. American Idol, How I met your mother, America's next top model, etc. The 1st channel I ever saw that had the same presenter for everyone of its shows/links/adverts/idents.
The incredibly hard working Lisa S.

The DVD Channel
Cambodia's only feature in my regular channel hopping. Basically this channel broadcasts a selection of the latest Pirate DVDs.
DVDs that were most likely purchased in one of the shops on the riverside.

Star Movies
That's right same company as before. This time all movies and movie related shows. Thing is though once again all the shows/adverts/idents hosted by Lisa S.

AXN & MAX
Actually 2 completely different channels. But they are next to each other numerically and I can never remember which shows are on which.
These 2 just fill in the blanks left by Star World and HBO. Total Wipeout, House, So you think you can dance, etc.

V
Music channel playing alternating videos of the same 3 Korean Girl Bands with the occasional Boy Band to keep it interesting. Never really stay on this channel long. Only included it here because once again all the links/shows/adverts/idents courtesy of Lisa S.

So what you might notice is that 50% of my TV watching potentially involves Lisa S.
Now before I came here I had never heard of her and I wanted to make a blog about her for people back home to read.

and when I started this blog it was originally gunna be about how lackluster she is sometimes and how I don't understand why the use her so much because she's not really that good.
But then I discovered something.

Lisa S isn't on the Internet.
Well at least not like she is on TV.

it is infact surprisingly difficult to find a picture of Lisa S on the Internet.
This freaked me out. I mean I know not everbody's got pictures of them on the Internet. My Nan for example.
But I'm also pretty sure that my Nan doesn't present 68 simultaneous hours of TV 7 days a week.
And that's when I realised the inescapable truth.

Lisa S is obviously a registered trademark of Star World.

Maybe even more than that. Maybe it's much more sinister.
Maybe Lisa S has somehow been put in the position where by she is no longer an employee of Star World's but she is now infact their property.
There are no pictures of her on the Internet because Star World's legal team made them all disappear.
And if they are in fact that powerful, just imagine what they could do to my web-presence.

Due to this inescapable fact I'm not actually going to put the one picture of Lisa S I found. (Actually unable to view the page it came from without "registering" and to be fair I just don't like the word.) Here's a link

I'm genuinely a little bit worried that what I say is the true so if you don't hear from me for a wile then maybe they got to me too.
For now I'm just gunna put Star World on. To see if Lisa S is trying to call for help with her eyes.

Monday 26 July 2010

Babore Chigai

Due to the fact that my job and my house are actually in very different places, I am forced to go outside at least twice a day, (more if it is one of the days when I also need to eat food).

Now this in itself doesn't seem like such a problem.
Although the additional factors attributed from living in one of the worlds dustiest sun traps, as well as owning the smallest petrol powered motorbike ever invented by man, do tend to make it slightly more of a struggle.

Now one thing that I will recommend to anyone who is planning to spend any amount of time on the road is decent eye protection.
Partly for the sun, after all squinting can severely lower your ability to see shit and as the majority of the local population seem to have no great attachment to signaling or lane discipline this can be problematic.

But the eye protection is also useful for trying to cut down on the amount of dust that's going directly into your eyes as your driving.
See in the west we are well aware that if you get your eyes full of dust this might be the cause of an eye problem. The same is not necessarily true out here.

See the other day for for whatever reason I had to go outside. In doing so had forgotten to put my sunglasses over my face before starting out on whatever arduous journey I had decided to undertake.

Needless to say upon my return as I was sat at my work desk inspecting my reflection in the
permanent sleeping computer screen that occupied about 60% of my desk, I realised I might have a problem. Or at least the tell tail warning signs of a future problem that would probably come to light at some point in the next few days.

Bad news.

Now back home I'd have referred to it as a sty.

Out here it has another name. A name that indicates the cause but not the cure.

Babore Chigai.

That's what the Chemist told me.
The direct translation means Stares at Dogs.

"You watch Chigai boom boom?"
enquired the chemist.
Apparently the reason I had this problem with my eye was because at some point in the recent past I must have watched 2 dogs having sex.

I refuted the Chemists assertion but did have to admit to the fact that several days prior when I'd been enjoying some down time at Wat Phnom I had indeed seen 2 small furry animals making the beast with two backs.

Not dogs though, Monkeys.
And to be fair I imagine that if you'd seen these hairy little bastards going at it hammer and tongue then you also would have cast an inquisitive eye over them.
(I mean their hands look like people hands.)

The Chemist took this as conclusive proof and gave me a small bottle of what I can only assume were her own tears.
Accompanied by instructions to drizzle the viscus liquid into my own eye as and when I see fit.

The most important thing was that under no circumstance should I watch any more animals having sex.

The way I see it is that the Chemist is not the boss of me and what I do in my spare time is none of her business.



On a related note the university I work for has decided to start monitoring Internet downloads as of Monday.

Saturday 10 July 2010