sometimes jamon remindes me of mork and mindy, but i'm not sure why. my aunt mary ann used to make this killer ham, soaked in its own fat and coated with brown sugar and cloves (i hated cloves and hate even more clove cigarettes, joder). i remember waking up in the middle of the night to make a ham and cheese sandwich from the leftovers, just hours before waking up to go hunting with dad and greg. there was this guy in town who was a rich mafioso type. he could be the link between a logging contract and my uncle. one day while i was there, he was over for dinner and we were having ham and a bunch of other stuff for the packer game. he sliced off a huge slice of ham for himself, and i was all like, holy shit look at the size of that slice, but no one said anything. the next day after hunting, greg and i and dad and cousin john were all talking about the hunt and then the party the night before. greg said something along the lines of "did you see that larry guy?" and i said, "yah, he really knows how to slice a chunk of ham." and greg said, "did you see that too? that was a larry slice!" and from that day forth, any big-ass slice or anything was a "larry slice". my point being, that ham really kicks-ass if you make it right.

but you can't find ham in the US like you can in spain. joder. the ham here is outrageous. they have ratings for ham like we have for restaurants. 5 j's or "cinco jotas" means the bomb. 4 j's is just killer and 3 is barely low enough to make una bocdilla. there really is no 1 or 2. there's just 5, 4 and 3. 5 is made from pigs who ate only on acorns, while 4 pigs ate from acorns and meal made from acorns and the 3 pigs ate from meal made from acorns. mmm, jamon.

The Greensboro News & Record ran a column last week on Rep. Howard Coble, co-sponsor of the P2P Hacking bill. A very good one, it suggests that people across the internet, not just in Coble's district, write to him and explain why the P2P Hacking bill is a bad idea.

So it might be a good idea to fire off a quick email to Coble and Berman, politely explaining to them why Congress shouldn't authorize a Hollywood vigilante mob.

http://www.news-record.com/news/columnists/staff/cone04.htm

"Already Coble's office has received a trickle of complaints from constituents who feel the bill gives too much power to the entertainment industry. "We have heard from people who say that this gives companies access to their PCs. People resent that and don't want it," says McDonald.

What if that trickle turned into a flood, not just from the North Carolina Piedmont but from all around the country? It would be a watershed moment in the Internet's rise as a force in American democracy. (And the Web is all that democracy has going for it just now in terms of putting the heat under Coble and Berman, who are both running unopposed by major-party candidates this year.)

Doing this campaign right will be a test for the Internet community, which tends to flame first and ask questions later. Anyone who sends e-mail to Coble (howard.coble@mail.house.gov), Berman (howard.berman@mail.house.gov) or other members of the committee should be respectful and aim to educate, not harangue. Just explain why the powers granted under this bill are creepy and invasive and unfair to the average person, and request that Congress seek a better way to fix the problem of copyright protection."

Have you heard the latest? 19 lawmakers (among them someone that represents
most people on this list, Dianne Feinstein) are asking Ashcoft to consider
jail time for those trading copyrighted files. That's JAIL TIME for sharing
copyrighted works.

http://www.forbes.com/technology/newswire/2002/08/09/rtr691988.html

It's just insane in so many ways, I don't know where to start.

I'll be writing my esteemed senator a letter today, though one thing is for
certain: I'm never voting for her ever again.

still raining. i saw dianne today walking with erna in barri gòtic. i was right in front of the harlem jazz club when i saw her. i knew it was her before i could even see her face. it was freaky. the feeling i had in my stomac was a mixture of excitement, dread, nervousness. you know the feeling. it was all i could do not to cry in front of her. it was awkward and strained. erna kept looking at me as if she expected me to grow horns at any minute. she wasn't looking at me, she was watching me, observing me. it was creepy. dianne asked me how the ferrets were doing. i said they are well. she asked me i was working on any projects and i told her about loquo. she asked how that was going and i kind of shrugged my shoulders and said fine. there's more, but it's all the type of small talk in which people engage when they want to escape really quickly. she did say that she might have known that i would be out walking in the rain. this struct me as odd. maybe she heard about my famous exploits this year of walking in the year while completely wasted. i said i was going to get something to eat. and then i said, well i'll let you guys go. erna said, bon apetite. dianne said later. i said nothing. i didn't even think of looking back when we parted, but now i kind of wish i had. i feel as if i have just done battle with a daemon and got my ass kicked.

it's raining in august in barcelona. i'm getting really baked. i love the taste of hash, i've remembered, or rather, i've rediscovered. i'm drinking my favorite wine: un tinto joven de la region Toro, Fariña 2001. el toro primero, marceración carbónica. i'm studying this wine, btw. it's amazing. 4 con 95. not bad. the same wine in california would go for 50 or 60 bucks. i'm installing qmail for loquo on a freebsd machine:

qmail-1.30
relay-ctrl-3.1.1
tcpserver-0.88
checkpassword-0.81
checkpoppasswd

listening to trey anestasio live. chalkdust torture accoustic encore.



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From: Helen Larsen
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References: <4.2.0.58.20020806212224.01b06008@hotmail.com> <4.2.0.58.20020806212224.01b06008@hotmail.com> <20020806130006.A11091@legolas.mpaa.org> <4.2.0.58.20020807183544.01b13158@hotmail.com>
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dear mpaa:

my son downloaded a copy of the lord of the rings (lotr, as he likes to call it) episode i. we've been watching it on the television and the quality is quite good. well, that is, except for the message at the body of the screen, which reads:

<snip>
i've watched it so many times now, that i hardly see the text at the bottom. i first noticed it the last time i watched it around the time that gandalf fell in moria.
</snip>

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we gather in big cities because these places are best for being alone. we used to travel to the mountains or to the desert to remove ourselves from the trappings of the world, in this age, it is quite easy to remove oneselves from the world while living amongst the people.

we shop at different stores throughtout the city, take different routes each day, move from place to place, so as not to become too familiar with anyone. some of us even live on the street, with the homeless, the addicts, the insane. they are the truely advanced ones.

depressing is when the only thing in your inbox is a CERT advisory and emails from yourself. sigh.

i saw that woman again today who works at the blackhorse and the wellington arms. she also works at the fastnet pub in barceloneta. they have a killer english breakfast. i think i'll make it a sunday tradition. she's a strange one. she has a melancoly air, as if smilling is very difficult and not really all that necessary. but when she does smile, it's beautiful. this pessamesitc quality was shattered when i said, "see you around" and she said, "okay, see you later" with a lot cheer. it's funny, because we bump into each other all the time. the last time i saw her was at the café on the corner of ronda sant antoni y sant pau, kitty corner to mercat sant antoni. ubaldo and i were walking by after lunch one day and there she was. i wanted to stop but i didn't know her name and felt uncomfortable about approaching her. i still don't know her name. i thought a lot about how to ask her while sitting at fastnet today, eating my breakfast. but in the end, i could not think of a smooth way of going about it. i also noticed that the blond waitress who also works there was paying particular attention to me, and while exchanging glances with her as i paid the bill, i kind of forgot to ask the other her name.

i had a dream the other night where i was doing many pullups with ease. someone was watching me, but i don't remember who it was. i didn't remember the dream until the next day when i saw [wrote "was" first] a boy doing pullups on the scaffolding outside his building. the physical feeling i remember from the dream was the ease with which i was doing pullups and how straight my legs were, toes pointing straight to the ground. it reminded me of the training i had from a friend who studied gymnastics. he taught me how to stand on my hands, where you had to keep your toes pointed straight up wards to maintain your ballance. and it works.

today on npr i heard that the navy is trying to raise the gun turret of the armored civil war battle ship the monitor. i wrote an essay on the battle of the monitor and the merrimac back in grade school. i was totally into the whole battle. it was the first time metal warships were used in battle. the monitor kicked the shit out of the merrimac, which was bigger and more heavily armed, but the monitor was more maneuverable and had a gun turret of two cannons that swiveled. the monitor sunk in a storm shortly after the war.

i was walking down sant pere mes baix yesterday on my way to the bodega when i heard a little girl singing. she was in her apartment singing through the intercom to the people on the street. the song: the pokemon theme song.

i love living in catalunya. i love barcelona. i would not want to be anywhere else in the world at this point in my life. i certainly do not want to live in the US, especially during this epoch of facism. but there's nothing like listening to weekend edition on a saturday or sunday afternoon. when i hear the theme music i'm almost moved to click on the donate button.