CPDD

Ahhhhh the College of Problems of Drug Dependence, hang out in foreign locals with a bunch of binge drinkers. Sweet.

So anyway I drove up to Quebec last friday. I got stuck in customs for about an hour, but not too bad. I figured Canada would be beautiful and interesting, but right over the border Canada kind of looks like Ohio.


I wanted to go through Montreal, cause I hadn't seen the city. It was a beautiful city on one hand, and disgustingly ugly and industrial on the other. I got a little lost, and was just sticking my head out my car window on the street and asking the other drivers for directions. I was expecting people to respond to my lack of French rather rudely, however people responded quite politely in their french accents to keep moving forward and I would bump into the road I needed.

After being stuck in a traffic jam in Montreal for about 2 and a half hours I decided to put the peddle to the metal and get to Quebec fast. People drove like maniac's on the highway from Montreal to Quebec. The speed limit was 100 km/hr (~60mph), and the flow of traffic was approaching 150km/hr (~95 mph). At one point I was doing about 85mph and I saw that behind the car that was behind me a cop with it's lights on was speeding up. Was this cop here to pull me over for going 85, or the guy in front of me for going 95? No he just wanted us out of the way so he could go 105.

I got lost twice in Quebec when I got there (the city planners available in the 1700s were just not that good... no foresight). Finally after just parking and hunting for my hotel by foot I checked in. I found that my cell phone would not work in Quebec so in order to phone the girlfriend back at home I needed to hunt down a phone card (press one for english a french voice tells you), and got an over priced burger.

The conference itself was a good deal of fun. The group I'm from has few younger people so I was sort of left to make friends on my own. Two people in particular helped me out by letting me trail along and drink with the cool kids. A little moderation held me to only one hangover.
I snuck out to the mountains on Tuesday, ended up climbing up to the top of a gigantic water fall, which was really cool. Covered in sweat and wearing a T-shirt that has two dogs humping each other on it I bumped into a lab from UNC who was having dinner at my hotel. The group's senior researcher asked me to have dinner with them. Slightly embarrassed about my smell and appearance, I accepted, but snuck up to to shower first. So thanks for buying me that delicious duck breast.

I gave my first talk on the Wednesday before I would like to say it went smoothly... but alas. The first computer it was on was displaying the talk fluorescent yellow, so I switched it over to a windows machine. After a minute hold up I started the talk... the moderator promptly shut the computer turning it off. After three minutes of trying to turn it back on I moved back over to the mac, the problem being that the AV cable wasn't a tight fit. Outside of an occasional fluorescent pink flicker the talk then went off without a hitch. When done I sat down and there was so much adrenaline pumping through my veins that I felt like I had been slipped some speed.

All in all a good trip.

Quebec

So I went to a conference in Quebec Canada. Well Quebec is odd... Let me explain and give evidence.

1. Look at this gigantic dog, it was just on the side of the road. What the hell?

2. Same road about 5 kilometers (Canada folks... they use the metric system) away. There are smurf huts.
















3. What exactly is a cyclorama? Why of Jerusalem? Why is this mosque like structure right next to a gigantic cathedral? (BTW this is about .5km from the smurf hut.)

4. In the old city there are people dressed up like zombies or ghosts walking around. Occasionally they lead large tours of 12 year old children around the city.


5. What does this street sign say and who hurt that french kid?






6. I'm not sure if it's law, but apparently every man and woman in Quebec City over 12 and under 40 must have a tattoo.

What scares me the most

I watched the Republican debates... and what scared me more than anything was Mayor Giuliani. I know there are gay bashers, abortion killers, pro-death penalty, and some down right silly views on social issues. I feel that the American people will not let those ignorant numbnuts take away our rights. But Giuliani...

Giuliani in this debate mentioned, and mentioned passively, that the US military needs to learn nation building. Has he been watching what is going on? Has he had his head in the sand like some sort of idiotic ostrich? Nation building is a bad idea. We should not be running around the world and trying to set up pro-US governments. Not only is this next to impossible but this is one huge chunk of why the rest of the world hates us (and yes Mr. Giuliani our actions caused the hatred that lead to the events of 9/11... no one is saying it was justified, no one's saying it's OK that it happened, just that our actions around the world affect people).

In the debate in south Carolina, Giuliani displayed his ignorance about the reasons why the middle east hates us. Any person who believes that the middle east hates us because of our "freedom", the way we treat women (as if we treat them so fucking good), or because their religion dictates that they kill all infidels (as an uncle and I argued last summer) is an idiot. The reason why people hate the US is because we stick our noses in everything. No one cares about Canada. Everyone likes Canada. That's cause their below the radar, they stay out of shit. Come one who hates the swiss (well actually I kind of hate the swiss) The Islamic fundamentalist angle has more to do with the people in charge using religion to get what they want...America out of their countries so they can get the other things they want... money and power. The US is a tool the criminals who run these countries use to control their population and oppress them. Giuliani's idiotic notion that the actions that the US government has taken (A small list: overthrowing a democratically elected government of Iran in the 50's cause we wanted more oil, giving guns to Afghanastan which they used to shoot their own people after they fought with the Russians, giving guns to Iraq which they used to shoot their own people after they fought with the Iranians, setting up military bases in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq) has had no impact on the views of people in the mideast is one of the most dangerous ideas being presented in this presidential election.

a little rambling but I think you get my point.