Great article in yesterday's Gulf News about traffic in the UAE. Apparently authorities are going to stop issuing licenses to "certain categories" of residents in effort to cut down on the number of cars on the roads.

People who do jobs that don't require university degrees - nurses, cooks, carpenters, housemaids, watchmen, tailors, cafeteria waiters, unskilled laborers, gardeners, bakers, etc - just won't get to drive anymore.

Awesome.

Check out - "No driver's licence for 100 categories of UAE workers."

Interesting article in today's New York Times about Dubai and Iranian art - "Dubai Provides Iranian Artists a Bridge to the World."

So hey, didja see this about Hilary Clinton and this whole Secretary of State business? Some enterprising NBC folks over there are talkin' about Article One, Section Six of that there Constitution thing - "Is Clinton barred from State job?"

Uh-oh.

I personally think Clinton should be exempt because the wording over there reads, "No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected ..."

Gender card, you betcha ...

So right now I bet you're wondering, "hey Josh, whatever happened to those two idiotic Brits who 'shagged' on the beach in Dubai and ended up getting jail time?"

Glad you asked!

Today the Gulf News reports that the Dubai Court of Appeal has suspended the couple's (I use that word lightly, as they had just met that day they snogged on the beach) jail term ... because they've pledged in writing that they're going to get married.

That's freakin' awesome!

So now they're plain-old getting deported back to London where they pledge that they're going to get married in a church.

Again, awesome.

I bet the minute these two fools deplane, they high-five each other, say "Cheerio" and go their separate ways, never to see each other again.

And you know what? I have no problem with that. Two people as dumb as that really should be banned from marrying and possibly reproducing, anyway.

Sex on the beach in Dubai while intoxicated. It still baffles me ...

So I pulled a stupid move tonight. After work I went to my new gym, which is actually pretty smart of me. But at the end of the workout, I decided to just shower at home.

OF course with the driving wind and rain, it took extra long to get home tonight. And then, as I'm driving up my street, I realize how dark it is. Extra dark. No street lights. And all of the houses are dark, too.

Dammit - we've lost power.

So this was at 7 pm. The electricity finally came back at 9:20.

Phew.

Still, being without power makes me really wonder just what it'd be like to live back in the olden days. So the sun goes down at 4:05 and you just end your day? Boring.

Then again, I didn't have television, the microwave or the internet for two and a half hours and I was pretty much ready for bed.

But now the internet's back, so I'll be up for a few hours yet ...

I've always been bad at remembering formatting while writing - which titles get italics, which get quotation marks, which get underlines. You know, MLA stuff.

If you yourself know the right way to do things, you'll probably notice a whole host of errors and inconsistencies in my writing here. Most of the time I'm too rushed to even google for the correct answer. Generally I just guess.

(Yes, the large gasp you just heard is my English teacher wife, cousin, brother, mother and grandmother collectively freaking out. Shoot - even me - I taught high school Freshmen English for four months last year. I'm even ashamed at my laziness. Just thank goodness we have spel chek, or this would be really difficult to read.)

In college, I always had a reference sheet tacked up on the corkboard near my desk. That, and my well-worn copy of the MLA Style Guide. (Or would that be MLA Style Guide??)

Anyway, since I'm so bad at it, formatting in the real world always catches my eye. Pretty much I'm just comparing this writing here to the big kids at Time Magazine. (Time Magazine? TIME Magazine??)

Which is why last week I was aghast at a possible error in that respected newsweekly.

Last week, writer Ta-Nehisi Coates called the largest and most circulated newspaper in the District of Columbia "the Washington Post". I always figured it should be The Washington Post or at least the Washington Post.

Oddly, when you look his article up on the web the formatting is gone altogether, which maybe further proves the formatting doesn't matter on the internet? Luckily it's still a good article. Check out "Obama and the Myth of the Black Messiah".

But this is Time Magazine - they don't make mistakes, do they?

Probably not.

Needless to say this week's Michael Kinsley article "How Many Blogs Does the World Need?" calls that large and very highly circulated newspaper in the District of Columbia "the Washington Post" again.

Weird. Did we just witness a huge shift in formatting? Do I still have my Time Magazine from two weeks ago to compare? Does this even matter to anyone else?

Wow, so one of the guys at Ain't It Cool News just gave Disney's Bolt a positively glowing review. Some clips:

"Bolt is easily the best film Disney has made since their silver age resurgence in the late 80’s and early 90’s."

"It’s not just Pixar level – it is playing at the BEST OF PIXAR level."

"[D]espite the fact that you almost know the story by heart even before you see it, it keeps you off balance with its wickedly sharp sense of humor."

Read the whole thing here: "Massawyrm says run, don't walk to BOLT!!!"

Have you seen this promo for season five of Lost yet?



Not a whole lot of new footage, it doesn't seem, but the part with Hurley and the gun and Hurley and Sayid on the floor looks new.

And what flashes at 1:35 and at 2:25?

I'm trying to stay away from any spoilers about this season, so I'm not going to google it. You can, at your own risk ...

But the biggest mystery to me is who are "The Fray", and how much did they pay ABC to co-star in this ad?!

Bill Nemitz, columnist for the Portland Press Herald, had a good piece the other day about the Oak Hill General Store in Standish, Maine and their "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool."

Check out "Don't honor hateful signs with silence."

I guess there's one at every local paper.

The crazy right-wing writers.

In my hometown Bridgton News paper it's this guy Tom McLaughlin. Each week his column spews hatred and bile about the "liberal media", "Islamofacists", and "feminists". The gist each week is pretty much the same - how he's awesome and everyone else is an asshole.

Of course most of the time his writing is so broad, the uninitiated might think he's joking, that he's parodying the parroting pundits of Fox News.

But sadly he's not.

Anyway, the other day I picked up the local The Times Record paper for mid-coast Maine. The back page of the first section is the "Commentary" page, and that's where I met Diane Simmler.

Let's just say she's cut from the same red, white and blue cloth as Tom McLaughlin.

But because her rants are in a bigger paper, they also get up on the internet tubes.

Thus I present: Diane Simmler's "A sad day in our country's history"

In case you don't want to read it, here are a few of my favorite bits:

"We are about to be enslaved by a new breed of government and society."

"The good have been mocked and the evil have been praised, worshipped and now elected. True heroes have been picked apart and connivers couched and protected by teams of media elite."

"We have now chosen a future of mystery and uncertainty all in the name of hope and change. As flowery as his words sound to all who have voted Democratic, our president-elect's "values" are an abomination to our American ideals. Those who have been researching and learning the truth realize that this contest's outcome is the first step toward converting our democratic republic to communism. Wait and see. You've unleashed an unknown force that even you will tremble from in days to come."

Awesome!

I have to wonder, do you think that Tom McLaughlin and Diane Simmler know each other? Are there annual hatred conventions where they learn the new topics and buzzwords? How to most effectively sow fear, uncertainty and doubt?

Or are these writers bitter and mean precisely because they live alone, with radical thoughts that drove away their neighbors and families and childhood friends?

Maybe it's option three - that Tom McLaughlin and Diane Simmler don't actually exist. In reality they're made up people - fronts for a Karl Rove-ian cartel to try and radicalize the country through our poorly copy-edited local weekly papers.

Either way, I like to think of them as Colbert-ian satirists. What can I say? It helps me sleep better at night pretending that these people don't actually exist.

So Disney's new animated flick Bolt opens next week. Tonight A.O. Scott's review just came up on the New York Times website (it's technically dated tomorrow.)

He liked it.

Phew.

One of his lines really struck me, "What keeps 'Bolt' fresh is an unaffected exuberance, a genuine sense of fun, that is expressed above all through obsessive attention to craft."

See, Bolt was directed and co-written by one of my friends at Disney, Chris Williams. And I think "unaffected exuberance" and "a genuine sense of fun" are two phrases that fit him perfectly.

(Chris also came up with the story for The Emperor's New Groove, which is pretty exuberant and fun, too).

I'm glad to see some of Chris' personality made it into the movie.

Oddly, even though I left Disney four-and-a-half years ago, this is the first movie to come out that I never saw in production. Heck, I even got credit on Meet the Robinsons which came out last year, and by then I'd been in Dubai for eight months!

But Bolt is all-new to me.

And that's part of the reason that I'm so excited to see it. A bunch of my friends have been working on this thing for years, and I finally get to see what they've worked so hard at.

That's why I really liked the end of that quote - the call-out to animation being a craft. These writers, artists and managers are craftspeople. Disney's magical pixie dust is just a marketing ploy. The inside of the animation building has no magic - other than the people.

True, sometimes it can be tough to separate the actual movie from the riff-raff surrounding it - the toys, the fast food kids' meals, the theme park attractions, the spin-off direct-to-video sequels, etc. Scott (jokingly?) calls this machinery the "Disney-Pixar industrial complex".

Thus it's nice to remember the people who spend three or four years of their lives working on a cartoon movie.

So when you go see Bolt in the theater, watch all of the credits. Sure, it'll take six or seven minutes. And true, my name won't be there. But maybe it'll help you gain an appreciation of the craftspeople behind the funny talking animals you just watched for the last 75 minutes.

Argh. Yesterday I found out I didn't get another job - this one technically and internship - because "I didn't have enough experience".

Not enough experience.

For an internship.

...

I think I'm going to go hang myself now.

Did you see this crap?

Secret Service Investigating Store's Anti-Obama Sign

I'm starting a new pool, how long before the Oak Hill General Store in Standish burns in an unsolvable arson?

Betting starts at a buck.

Let's hope someone wins.

So my Jetta, which I've had since February of 2003 (with a brief respite September of 2006 through July of 2008) just hit 95,000 miles on my morning commute yesterday.

I tried to take a picture with my phone, but it had to change right as I was approaching the Washington Avenue exit of 295 - a rather twisty and turny section of highway. All I ended up with was a few blurry shots and some upset autos behind me.

I promise at 100,000 miles I'll pull over and take a nice, pretty picture to share.

I think I've mentioned this before, but somehow in our most basic of basic-basic cable we still manage to get the Travel Channel.

Anyway, tonight at 10 pm Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern comes to Maine!

Full debrief tomorrow.

Today is cartoon character (and corporate symbol) Mickey Mouse's 80th birthday. On November 18, 1928 the short film Steamboat Willie premiered. And the rest, as they say, is history.

For the complete story about the creation of my former boss, check out the documentary The Hand Behind the Mouse.

Happy Birthday, Mickey!

Holy cow! The Irving station on Western in South Portland is now at $1.98 a gallon!

So it's been almost two weeks since the election. And you know what I haven't missed? The incessant parade of election television commercials.

But you know who probably does miss them? The television channels.

I don't know if this year was an aberration, or if my two years overseas dulled my memory, but for the few weeks leading up to the election it seemed like four out of five television ads were for a campaign. And not just Obama or McCain, I'm talking senators, representatives, and ballot initiatives.

"Vote no on one."

"Vote yes on one."

"Casinos no."

"Casinos yes."

"Fed up with taxes?"

"Want more taxes?"

"Tom Allen's friends from away ..."

"Susan Collins, an independent voice in Washington ..."

That was my favorite one. Susan Collins is a Republican senator from Maine, but in all of her ads she stressed her "independence". Probably just to counter her competition, who dug up ever photo she ever took with George W. Bush.

The Democratic senatorial campaign for New Hampshire did the same thing against Senator Sununu. (For some reason a few of our channels weren't just content with Maine campaign ads, they also brought us New Hampshire ads, too.) Eight or ten black and white photos of Bush and Sununu waving at some rally, back in the good old days before wars and approval ratings sank that presidential ship.

Think about that, for a minute - all of those poor photo-researchers, out of a job until the next big election.

And the gruff voice-over actors, too. All on unemployment now.

Even, and this is small potatoes, the folks who print the cardboard signs for the sides of the roads. No outstanding orders.

It'd actually be staggering to know just how much money was pumped into the economy due to the election.

And now - no commercials. All we have is local car dealers looking seriously stressed. And that Marden's lady hawking her smoke-damaged wares.

So sad.

Oh no way, how did I miss this? In October the Boston University Institute for Dental Research and Education Dubai (BUIDRE) announced that the UAE Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research awarded initial accreditation to all five of its postgraduate programs.

Press Release here.

You'll remember that the BUIDRE (which is the best acronym ever) wasn't certified last November, when I was jumping through an asinine number of hoops to get all of my paperwork settled for my MBA.

That was the day when the fat Emirati bossman at the friggin' Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research told me in the most cliched lackadaisical, arrogant way, "Boston University is not on our list".

At the time I wrote a long but restrained posting about it (see The UAE Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research).

What I really wanted to do was something more along the line of Anthony Anderson in Harold and Kumar (parental advisory - he swears. A lot.):



Anyway, I still kind of feel that way about the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research now - even one year and four days later.

Perhaps one of these days I should write down how I really felt about my time in Dubai. That, or spend years in therapy.

So anyway, congrats to BUIDRE. And best of luck to its students. Especially ones who are going to have to get paperwork approved by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. The bastards.

One of my buddies sent this along this week - How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You.

My favorite?

Sprinting at light speed out of any room you enter:
When your cat does this, it's actually a failed ambush.

A-ha! I'm onto your scheme now, Kitty!

So did you see anything about the U.N. conference on interfaith dialogue this week?

I'm a little confused by it myself. Take this Washington Post article about Wednesday's proceedings (emphasis mine):

Second paragraph:

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, the event's chief sponsor, opened the meeting with a call for greater understanding in the Middle East, saying that religious and cultural differences in the region have "engendered intolerance, causing devastating wars and considerable bloodshed."

Fourth paragraph:

The conference provides an opportunity for Saudi Arabia, which prohibits the public practice of non-Islamic faiths, to present a more tolerant image on the world stage. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers in the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, were Saudis.

Um, can someone translate "hypocrisy" into Arabic for the head of the House of Saud? Thanks.

Dudes! I just bought gas for $2.07 a gallon!

Sweet!

That's $2.02 a gallon cheaper than it was four months ago, when my head nearly popped off of my body (see Fifty-three dollars of gas!).

Yes, it appears that the Mobil station on Western Ave in South Portland is in a price war with the Irving station down the street.

And in this oil war, we the consumers might actually win ...

Sorry for the complete lack of updates this week. I've recently taken up a temp job because we're broke. Beyond broke, actually. We were broke two months ago.

Anyway, I wanted to thank everyone for their kind words about the passing of my family's dog. I had notes from all over, Ohio, Northern California, Southern California, Massachusetts, Maine. One of my cousins wrote a very nice poem. I even had a pet sympathy card in the mail. How nice is that?!

Apparently I broke the news to many different people in Naples and Casco, too. My folks were amazed when family and friends started calling to offer sympathy - before my parents had the chance to call them to tell them what happened! It's not unlike when I broke the news about Chris Sanders being fired from Disney Animation. Cutting edge journalism, here.

Anyway, there were a couple of other things that I wanted to mention, but now I'm at a loss as to what they were. (Still not used to getting up this early in the morning).

Well, let's look at the news. Did you see that there's a camel in New Jersey (of all places) who is 10-0 in handicapping NFL games this year? Apparently she picks the Patriots over the Jets tonight.

And this was in the news a few weeks ago, but apparently American University in Dubai has been in talks with USC to create a journalism school. This article points out a few of the flaws with the Mohammed bin Rashid School for Communication - mostly how they say they won't "discriminate on the basis of race, religion, gender, color, age, physical or mental disability, national origin, veteran status, marital status or any other category protected by law in employment or in any of its programs and/or activities."

Of course that's complete bullshit because the Jewish people aren't looked kindly upon in dear old Dubai.

Lastly, does anyone else think it's odd that Michael Crichton died only a week before Anthony Edwards returns to ER? I'm pretty sure that's one of the listed signs of the apocalypse.

Okay, I have to go get ready for my day. The sun's going to be up at 6:32 am, and if I don't beat him to the shower, that bastard uses all of the hot water ...

So a year ago last week a staff reporter for the Portland Press Herald named Justin Ellis wrote a story about Liz and me and Dubai (see Portland Press Herald).

Ever since then Justin and I have kept in touch. In July I even guested on his "youth culture" blog at the Press Herald (see Another Site to Write).

Well, on Thursday Justin had a front page story in the Press Herald that I wanted to drop a link to. I thought it was clever and funny and poignant.

Here's Justin Ellis' "An aspiration no longer out of reach".

As you know, we brought two cats home to Maine from Dubai. One, Lilly, was from Maine already (shout out to Harvest Hills Animal Shelter) and the other, Kitty, was a stray tiny kitten which Liz found near one of her apartments in Dubai.

As you also might know, especially from recent events, that I'm more of a dog person than a cat person. Growing up we had always had dogs, and never cats.

So not only was being married and living in Dubai new for me, even the pet thing was.

The good thing is that Kitty is rather clever. Once I in Dubai caught him trying to turn the knobs on the tub to get a drink of water. Seriously. That's a pretty good leap, remembering that last time I turned the knobs and water came out of the spigot, and then trying to reproduce the effect himself.

He also uses his paws to pick things up, like popcorn kernels. It's seriously just a hair away from prehensile thumbs.

But then there are the times that Kitty just doesn't know any better.

In Dubai our neighbors Michael and Katherine had a dog. She would bark quite often, we could hear here right on the other side of a rather poorly constructed concrete wall. It never phased Kitty - he wouldn't budge. I guess he'd never met a dog, let alone know that they're supposed to be his mortal enemies, so he just didn't know.

I assume it'll be the same when Kitty faces snow for the first time. Dang, I wish I could take him outside for that. It'd be hilarious.

Anyway, there are very few times when Kitty is downright stupid. Last night was one of them.

Picture a rainy autumn night, we'd just had dinner and were watching Jeopardy. Oh, and we had a few votive candles lit on the coffee table. Kitty was milling about, he tail getting ever closer and closer to the flames.

"Watch out homeboy," I warned him, "Or you'll scald your ... holy shit, Liz, his tail is smoking!"

Yes, Kitty caught on fire last night.

No, it wasn't a stop-drop-and-roll situation, he was really only lightly singed. But the bizarre part is that Kitty didn't know what the hell had just happened.

Obviously he felt no pain, as Liz had to shoo him away from the flames. After that he climbed on the back of the couch and sat down. Then he proceeded to smell the cushion right where his tail had been.

He could smell something had burned, that something wasn't right, but didn't know it was him.

Liz, God bless her, kept grabbing his tail and pushing it towards his nose.

"This is what burned! This!"

But he didn't get it. He was smelling the air, the cushion, Liz's hands ... but not his tail.

I guess it makes sense, all of the hair on our bodies is dead, with no nerve endings, so I wouldn't know if my head was on fire until I smelled the awful stench of burning hair.

Eventually he figured it out and was licking his tail. But I bet you a year's worth of kitty litter that he doesn't have a clue as to what caused his tail to catch fire.

Sometimes he's not so clever after all ...

Interesting article about two pitchers from India trying to crack professional baseball in North America: Dreams From India

Man, I wish I was still teaching in Dubai so I could show this story to all of my Indian students who loved cricket but hated baseball.

So oddly enough, Brunswick has it's own Shambhala Buddhist center. Last night they had an lecture about meditation, so Liz and I went.

It was all fine and good, but not really what I'm going to talk about today.

The interesting thing is that there was a woman there with a guide dog. A guide dog who looked exactly like my family dog who was put down only one week ago (see He was a Good Dog).

And when I say "exactly" I really mean exactly. Well, other than the fact that Sebastian was graying ("distinguished" is what my father would call it). Anyone who hadn't seen Sebastian in his mature years would say, "hey, why the heck is Sebastian a guide dog? Is that a good idea?"

I mean, this guy was the exact dimensions as our diminutive doggie. His (her?) paws were small, too, so he (she?) wasn't a puppy, either. Just a small dog.

It was rather shocking to see Sebastian's clone. It made me pretty sad, too.

Huh.

Hey, don't Buddhists believe in reincarnation?

I guess Sebastian's only been gone a week, though. That seems a little quick to me.

But hey, what do I know?

Four years ago I lived at my brother Daniel's house in Bridgton. This was, of course, pre-Liz and pre-Dubai.

On November 3, 2004 with the election between Kerry and the incumbent Bush too close to call, I went to bed. When I woke up, I was in a foreign country.

And I mean that literally. At some point in the night, when the television pundits called it for Bush, my brother took down his American flag out front, replaced it with a pirate flag, and seceded from the United States of America.



I'm not making this up. The (albeit limited) press release sums it up nicely:

> Daniel Edwards declared himself the president of
> Danmark, raised the Jolly Roger pirate flag in place
> of the American flag at the entrance to the new
> nation, and went to bed cranky.

True, my brother never did issue his own currency, and kept paying his US taxes. The Duty Free Liquor Store that was planned never materialized, either. But the pirate flag flew high for four years.

Until some point last night.

I haven't seen the official news release yet, but I was just emailed a photo which speaks for itself ...

President Obama.

Wow.

Fox News just called Virginia for Obama. That's 220 projected electoral college votes. When he wins California's 55 votes, he's got it.

President Obama.

Wow.

Of course, Ariana Huffington called the election forty-five minutes ago.

But still, wow.

Well, here we are, on the precipice of history. Tonight (or tomorrow, perhaps) we'll know who'll end up the 44th President of these United States.

It's pretty exciting.

And scary.

Of course, being a loyal Red Sox fan I always have to hold my breath until the last out. (What was the line from Lost? "It's fate. Some people are just supposed to suffer. That's why the Red Sox will never win the damn Series.")

Well, now that we've won the World Series twice maybe fate doesn't have it in for me. Maybe Obama can win this thing tonight (or tomorrow, perhaps).

Liz and I did our part and voted this morning at about 10:45, then drove over to the Cooks Corner Starbucks for our free cup of coffee. And then no more politics until tonight.

Yes, this morning we swore that we're not going to turn on the television until 6 pm, because it's too easy to get sucked into the vortex of punditry and spin for hours on end. It seems like we've been in that vortex since January. It gets old.

Granted, I just read a half dozen articles about the election - how Ohio and Florida are the battleground states, how Virginia hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, but has Obama ahead in most polls, how Missouri has picked the winner each election since 1904 (save for a 1956 lapse with Adlai Stevenson), how there are actually six counties in the country who've picked the right candidate since 1960, how Obama won the early-voting town of Hart's Location, New Hampshire (sorta like the fictional Hartsfield's Landing from The West Wing) ... my mind is already spinning.

Yeah, part of me wants to just take a sleeping pill now and get up at 6 am tomorrow to see what happened.

Sometimes I fear fate.

But don't worry, I'll probably be glued to Brian Williams and the NBC News crew all night long. Might as well fire up some popcorn and have a few beers.

We'll either be celebrating victory, or drowning our sorrows ...