Have you seen Little Miss Sunshine?  I highly recommend it.  I watched it on a date once and reaped a Thai flag.  Not the most challenging one.

There’s a scene where the grandpa is talking about drugs.  He says that young people would be mad to do it, but old people would be mad not to.  They’re going to Read More

Most civilized people have certain convictions about themselves. They think that they would never harm or kill another out of pure spite. They think that they would always be loyal to their wife (this one is mostly for Americans). They think that they would never steal. They think that they are not especially selfish, capricious or arrogant.

And these things are probably true of most of them, most of the time. But what choice do they have? How often is forty-something Joe Average seduced by a Read More

The first thing you notice about South East Asia is the dirty old men. Men aged 50-plus (and I mean plus), fat, balding, bespectacled men in tent-sized Hawaiian shirts, men who would not look out of place playing lawn bowls at a Gold Coast retirement home or mowing around the jacaranda in Mount Waverley. Enjoying the Wednesday parma and pint at the local RSL club with their nasal-voiced, leather-skinned and blue-rinsed wives. You know the kind of men I mean. The kind who say ‘How’s your strength?’ when you walk past because they need your help lifting something. The kind who still say ‘Jap’ and ‘wog’. The kind who, when in mixed company of their own age, converse exclusively about their operations and the recent operations of others.

These salt-of-the-earth men strut the streets of Phnom Penh and Phuket with girls in their early twenties, girls whose professional genius disguises even the most subtle indications of disgust. What I find most odd about these gents is their complete lack of Read More