And the good news is...There is no good news...

An English teacher once told me that it is effective to start a piece of writing by using a rhetorical question, but you all knew that, didn't you?

See what I did there?^

And again.^

Anyway, all of the above is irrelevant. What I've noticed over the last few days is that whenever you turn on a news channel, regardless of location, it will always be bad news. Always. Well, at least ninety-five percent of the time.

Sky News, CBS News, Fox News, BBC News, whatever it is, wherever you are, they never have anything positive to say about the world. I mean, I understand that the economy is buggered, there's wars and the occasional murder, but tell me something that's going to boost me, not demoralise me. The recession upsets everyone (even the ones who don't know what it is) so why upset them further?

I try to avoid watching news these days, especially American news. It so unbelievably biased and full of all sorts of propaganda. I'm not saying British news isn't biased because Sky News is just whatever Murdoch gives the green light too, but when something is a bit "propaganda-rous", we tend to notice it, whereas Americans do not. The smart Americans know they are being fed lies, however, the not so smart ones still think the war in Iraq is to do with 9/11. "Stupid towel-heads!"

Back to my original point, give me some good news! The only good news you ever give me is small stuff like a small dog saves a caterpillar from a wasp. (Fictional story there).

The last time I heard good news on TV was when I heard that Fernando Torres was having problems scoring for Chelsea, and to be fair, that's never going to change...

Have I become accustom to American things?

So there I was last night, drinking a Sol beer, when I realised that I wasn't in America anymore. Apart from the weather, nothing made me actually notice I had left. Maybe this is because Dubai is sort of "westernized" but I was shocked by my own ignorance.

This makes me wonder, have I become too used to American things? I mean, it was the beer brand that made me notice, nothing else. I was expecting to look down and see a Bud Light or something else in my hand.

So am I going to freak out when I turn on the TV and see some soccer football coverage instead of constant basketball/hockey/baseball/american football highlights? Or when I ask people if they own a gun and they say no?

Was I destined for the states? I'm scaring myself now, I need to watch an episode of Teletubbies to set me straight...

The American In The Airport

So I'm home in Dubai now, lapping up the sun. I spent almost eight hours in airports alone over the last twenty-four hours, and the one thing that really caught my eye was how bad Americans are in airports.

Maybe I was just with some idiots, but this wasn't just a few, this was at least thirty or forty Yanks that could not understand how airports work. The main reason behind this is most likely down to the fact that a lot of Americans do not really leave their country. Most of them tend to drive to places in different areas of the country, and I'm not sure if it's true or not, but I heard an interesting statistic that under fifteen percent of Americans actually have passports. If true, that's crazy.

If you're in an airport waiting to board a plane to start your "vacation", as the Yanks say, try to avoid and queues with our trans-Atlantic friends in. I hate to stereotype, but I have not met one American capable of working their way through an airport without doing something stupid or making a scene. One woman I saw today just walked through the security scanner with all her jewelry on, her belt on, her phone in her pocket. She removed the items when told, but then reached the other side to discover she needed to take her laptop out of her bag for the scan. These are airport basics people!

The day I do meet a airport-compatible American, I will drop this whole subject, because this is surely not what the whole American population is like. Is it?

Big City Life

Well, this is my first entry from anywhere other than Pennsylvania. I'm reporting live from "The Big Apple". No, not Infinite Loop (hi-five if you got the Apple Inc. reference) but New York City.

I do love this place, there's always something happening. I wouldn't want to go to college here just because it'd be way to much hassle with transport and stuff. I suppose that's why so many people walk, which conveniently brings me into what I want to talk about: walking. Sounds fun right?

Walking is brilliant isn't it? I'm kidding, it's not one of those pointless "blog-for-the-sake-of-blogging" things. What interests me is the speeds of people walks. I swear every New Yorker and their mum had over-taken me over a two block distance once I started walking off the bus!

They probably have places to go, but if you all slowed down, then it would make no difference, am I right? It's something to do with ratios or something like that. But immediately people of the Internet will say: "Then we wouldn't get things done as fast as we do." to which my response would be: "China is already raping every other country, so let's just let them have it."

An alternative could be to have everyone run everywhere. I mean, the walking speeds are equivalent to jogging speeds already, so why not notch it up to sprints? Maybe I have just found a way to cut down obesity rates in America?! Take that Jamie Oliver! 1-0!

Anyway, I love NYC. So here's a picture I took:

The Road To Dubai (not the golf).

It all starts tomorrow morning folks! I leave the campus at 6:15am to go to State College and then it's a long bus ride up to New York City. I hang there until early Sunday morning when my flight leaves for Dubai with a one hour stop-over in London, Heathrow Airport.

I really can't wait to get home to see all my friends and family. In a weird way, I'm going to miss campus life though. Yeah it can get boring at times but it's a laugh, and that's what I was looking for in a college.

So thank you people of the Mount. I've loved my first semester - well the soccer football and the people anyway.

I want the next semester to fly by so that I can get playing again and get more goals. We ARE making play-offs next year! I'd like to wish good luck to the two seniors, Luke Fragello and Kevin Wheelden, who had their final season this semester. I'd also like to say good luck to my striking partner in crime, Na'im Bashir, who's transferring out. Finally, a big thanks to Coach Ali for being a great manager and setting us in the right direction. The team can go far under you're influence, I hope you're still shouting at us from the sidelines next year! Good luck guys! Never forget the famous Mounties!

Boiler Room Basterds

See Me Live!

This is almost scary!

My room-mate and I have set up a 24/7 channel that will broadcast our room! Obviously we are not going to run it 24/7 but we could if we wanted to.

But basically, we can chat to people watching and it's just kind of cool to stream on the Internet.

So if you fancy watching, the link is: www.ustream.tv/channel/boilerroombasterds

Boiler Room Basterds is the name of the account. The name originated as our room is located right above the boiler room, meaning our room gets real hot sometimes.

It won't be running during December as neither of us will be here, but be sure to check this out in January!