5) Send her a sexy picture. You can use this one as a guide:
4) Write her a love poem. This is an excerpt from a poem I wrote some time ago: When I saw the soap suds going down your asscrack, I knew there in the communal shower that you were in trouble When you allowed me to lube you up, We both still knew that you would bleed from the heavy friction, But you loved me so that you still took it
3) Prepare her a special meal:
2) Send her a romantic song:
1) But before you even get to sending her awesome stuff, you need to come up with an opening line that immediately captivates her and lets her know that you're serious and that she's in for a treat:
I like beer. The simplicity of that previous statement can't be easily quantified. I like it because, as John Lennon said, "reality is for people who can't handle drugs." Personally, I believe that drugs are for people who can't handle beer.
Now, some people can't seem to stomach cheap beer, but I believe that as long as it can be legally sold in a container, it's good enough for me. There are already plenty of wine reviewers out there, but not enough beer reviewers. Well, I wouldn't call myself a beer connoisseur. I'm just a guy who's monetarily-challenged and whose life goal is to find a beer so cheap, that drinking it saves me money.
For Science
Of course, what country you're in is going to affect beer availability, so I can only vouch for one location at a time. Since I'm currently in Amsterdam, I'll vouch for the beers available here. Part of the selection process involves a very scientific process I have developed myself and which is called, "buy 5 euros of a single brand and drink it all." My review of that beer won't go into detail concerning the palette or the aroma or any of that fancy crap. Instead, I'm going to write about a beer only if I think it delivers enough bang for 5 euros.
I've already "tested" nearly every brand of beer in the Albert Heijn, the Vomar, and the Dirk van den Broek supermarket chains. Two beers stood out in the José Abreu Cheap Beer Challenge -- which has been on-going without rest for quite a prolonged period of time now -- and those two beers are: Gulpener Gladiator, and Holtland.
Gulpener Gladiator has an alcohol content of 10% and is about 2 euros a liter. It has a sugary kick and slightly bitter aftertaste. Don't expect any more details, it simply taste like something that a man should be able to handle. For 5 euros, I started the New Year's puking over a balcony. Gulpener Gladiator is what I call a "mid-range down-on-his-luck-alcoholic beer," given the sometimes prohibitive price of 2 euros a liter. I began the new year with Gladiator, and I'm inclined to say that so far it has been rewarding in that I began writing again after a half-year hiatus, but also painful in many ways, and not just for my stomach. Gulpener Gladiator giveth pleasure, it also bringeth pain.
Gulpener: creative fuel for my third novel
Holtland is "recycable"
Holtland, on the other hand, is what I describe as a "down-on-his-luck rock-bottom-alcoholic beer." It's 76 eurocents a liter, but only 4.2% alcohol. However, given that it's a third as cheap as Gulpener Gladiator, Holtland is hands-down the best way to get some much needed calories. And, given its watery taste, Holtland goes well with almost any food or item deemed safe for human mastication.
Moreover, Holtland comes in a "recycable" [sic] steel can, so you could probably get some of those 76 cents back. Also, since it's steel, the beer itself is likely to have a high iron content -- something much needed for an alcoholic.
I don't always purchase beer, but when I do, I prefer a very cheap brand. On most days, I'll have a Holtland, but on days when I'm going to a fancy bar and need to smuggle in some beer, I prefer Gulpener Gladiator.
One of my favorite Dominican artists is Amarfis, who calls his band: "the attack band." Though Amarfis sings about everyday themes, and is far from a religious singer, he is unique because he embraces Afro-spiritualism in his fast-beat merengue. Amarfis' lyrics are more suited to a voodoo ritual than a salsa floor, but somehow he has managed to successfully incorporate Afro-religious lyrics into a modern, danceable rhythm. One Amarfis song that truly embodies the Dominican Republic's Afro-spiritual, musical heritage is the song Yemayá. Yemayá is a Loa, an intermediary for God, in voodoo.
Yemayá: quítame lo malo y tíralo en el mar (coro)
Fui donde una bruja
Y me dijo, "Amarfis, tú estás saladito."
La bruja me dijo, "te quieren hacer daño."
"Hay muchos envidiosos que te quieren abajo."
"Te daré una cosa que te cuidará."
"Para el que te tire, no te haga mal."
Aléjalo de mi (coro)
A los envidiosos. A los falsos.
Y a todos esos Judas.
Y para el merenguero que me quiera hacer daño,
Dios se la pagará!
Cuidate!
Yemaja: take the evil from me and cast it to the sea (chorus)
I went to a witch
And she told me, "Amarfis, you're under a spell."
"There are many jealous individuals who want to see you down."
"I will give you something that will protect you."
"So that whoever may speak ill of you shall do you no evil."
Cast them away from me (chorus)
To all the jealous ones. All the fakes.
And all the Judas.
And for the merengueros that wants to hurt me,
God shall repay you!
Take care!
Another Amarfis song that I personally enjoy is Papá Bocó, or Papá Candelo, another Loa in voodoo. Candelo always says, "Bonswa a la societé."
I was my high school class' valedictorian. I was supposed to give a speech to the 150 or so students in the graduating class and their family members. For my graduation, however, I was in another country.
To say that I had an extreme fear of public speaking would be an understatement. I was petrified of having to write something and recite it in front of a crowd, so I simply decided early on during my senior year that I wouldn't bother going to graduation. There was the excuse of money, and more conveniently that I was to meet the Dominican vice-president in recognition of my academic achievements at around the same time I was to graduate.
However, the most important aspect of my excuse -- at least to myself -- was that most of the students in my graduating class were virtual strangers to me; at least 50 were heldovers from previous classes. My freshman year, there were over 600 students in my class. I saw with my very own eyes how that number dwindled to less than 100 over a period of 4 years. One Dominican friend, Nairobi, broke his neck in a motorcycle accident. A couple of friends simply disappeared. Another forgot his box cutter from work inside of his bookbag and was expelled under the school's zero tolerance policy, despite our school being vocational and his good record of handling tools inside of the school far more dangerous than a box cutter. I lost faith in the education system's inflexible tyranny that day.
Other friends were arrested -- by the armed police officers always present in the hallways -- and transferred to special schools, but most simply failed out. I've seen almost none of those friends who didn't make it past senior year, highlighting the reality that 5/6th of the class was not there by the end of our 4th year. Beyond classmates I saw personally fail, the mathematical reality of the complete failure that schools in the Bronx represented was something that always made me want to run away.
When the final days to register for graduation started approaching, and I had to finally decide if I was to truly skip my graduation, I gave myself two choices: I could either speak angrily about the anger I felt, or simply never return. In the end, I never even bothered to pick up my high school diploma, and often have nightmares where I learn that I failed and never found out about it. Besides that, I feel that it was probably better for me to allow many years to past before I reflected on the reality of my educational experience in the Bronx.
There were a lot of good teachers, but they were often overworked and distracted by students who simply didn't want to learn. It's not easy to resist constant social pressure, so I can understand that after a long time many teachers would eventually also lose the will to teach. The reality is that I picked up most of what I know outside of school. I guess that when you spend all of your free time behind a computer and on certain websites, you pick up a lot of what you need in life, especially the sarcasm.
But I guess in life I needed to be motivated, and that was something that didn't go around much in the Bronx. There was a general feeling of doom, that we would end up in prison. To say that we were treated like criminals would be an understatement. My school had many armed guards before Sandy Hook -- ten years ago -- and it didn't feel safe. It felt like an oppressive police state. Every morning we were subjected to x-ray machines, metal detectors, pat-downs if the metal detector went off, ID swipes, and possible punishment if we did not wear our identification at all times. To cut cost, the machines were turned off at ten and students were prevented entry after that, meaning that since my classes started at ten, arriving even one minute late would force me to be absent the entire day.
During my junior year, a student brought in a drano bomb, causing it to explode loudly in one of the classrooms. Though no one was hurt, a SWAT team swarmed the school in full force and the entire student body was subsequently prohibited from bringing in any type of bottle or food item. It was at around the same time that Bloomberg decided to monopolize the vending machines in school with a single company's high-sugar products, but it's not like I had any money to buy food inside of the school anyway, so it doesn't matter. What really irked me was the food ban. As a vegan, I couldn't eat any of the food in the cafeteria. Hell, I probably wouldn't feed the food they gave me to a dog anyway, much less a person.
So, I was bitter, and I was afraid of talking in front of a crowd. In the end, those two elements coalesced to keep me from going to my high school graduation. All I wanted to do was scream at the injustice that I felt at being treated like a criminal and starved on a daily basis. They told me some time ago that they were shutting down my school, but from the way it looks over here, there are many more like it springing up all over the country. Zero tolerance, barred windows, armed guards, and police state equipment won't make American schools as successful as the ones in Northern Europe. On the contrary, they will perpetuate the cycle of violence and victimization that has characterized America's history of racial and gender inequality.
When I was in South Korea, I was acquainted with a Dutch individual who worked as a teacher at the Dutch embassy. This individual had an interesting operation in his Itaewon apartment: he had some 40 plants growing and ready to supply his people. Eventually he was caught, and the South Korean government was not at all too pleased, to say the least.
The South, fortunately, has a mild punitive system compared to the North's brutal gulags, but it is not easy to predict exactly how the North would react if they found a plantation in a foreigner's house. We can't predict simply because there are too few foreigners living in North Korea, but it seems like they don't do much to the locals.
High cannabis use seems to be one of the North's best kept secrets. North Koreans are very well aware of the negative perception that East Asians and many around the world harbor against the plant, and are always very careful to suppress outside knowledge of the country's rampant love for the crop.
Cannabis is generally seen as a cheaper substitute to the already massively cheap North Korean cigarettes. Citizens reportedly use copies of the Rodong Sinmun, the state newspaper, to roll joints. I had long suspected that cannabis use was a very high possibility in the North, considering the high use of meth and the harsh penalties handed out for its use. I believed that the government would also likewise oppress all cannabis users, but travelers to the North have reported entire roads lined with cannabis plants.
However, don't start packing your lighter and President Kim Il-Sung pin just yet. The North won't let anyone travel without a guide and a minder, so you won't likely get to see what life is really like for the average North Korean. Though repressed in almost every way, the people in The Democratic People's Republic of Korea have one freedom that their South Korean counterparts don't have: the freedom light up a spliff after a very relaxing 16 hours at the Socialist Utopia Reeducation Center.
The two countries do seem to have one thing in common, however: most pharmacist will just give you whatever you want if you ask for it in English. A friend who traveled to Pyeongyang reported that he was able to get a very nice dose of morphine just by asking for it at the pharmacy. A perplexed woman at the counter simply bowed her head and handed over whatever he politely asked for while saying, "doctor in Canada give."
