Um, hi?

Wow, look at this mess. I leave for a fortnight and what?

I haven't posted in a while because:

1) I was sick all last weekend with some nasty variation of the flu.
2) I only recently came out of mourning for Debbie and Bianca's elimination. (I'm rooting for Uchenna and Joyce now. Go them.)
3) I was lazy.
4) I forgot.

So, did y'all have a nice Easter?

I am DONE with The Amazing Race 4EVAH!

Well, not really. But I sure feel like it.

Debbie and Bianca got eliminated last night :'( This sucks. My favorites always go out early. When they won the first leg, I totally thought they would do well. sigh.

At least it's better than last season. This time my favorites got 9th. Last time they got 10th. But in the fifth season they got 6th.

sigh. Will an all-female team EVER WIN????

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day. yay. I'm 1/8 Irish (comes from my great-grandma). The rest of me is 1/2 Polish and I think 3/8 English. Of course, everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's Day. I can say one phrase in Gaelic; I think it translates to "Dublin city". Bailleacleagh or something like that. Wait, I just found it thanks to Google: Baile Átha Cliath.

Not much else to report. . .

I don't like my picture. I'm changing it.

ta-DA!

Vous aimez?

Edit: I forgot to post the link to Astaire's website. Here it is: http://www.astairemusic.com

This is going to be a big post.

Hi.

Yesterday I was riding the bus home from school. I noticed this cool little skyway that connected these two buildings in a hospital complex near our house. So at about 6:00 PM, I set out with only my trusty digital camera as a mute yet somehow cool sidekick. I didn't get a good picture of the skyway, so I won't show it here, but I'll post the rest of the pictures I took.


Speed limit sign near my house.


Houses on top of a hill.


Footprints. Lots of them.


Footprints. Two of them.


The parking garage of the hospital. I thought it looked cool.


Colorful houses. Not as colorful as I would've liked.


Stop. I would've cloned out those little nubs at the bottom-left corner if I could get my image software to work.


House. It looked really cool when I took it, but the picture's a little too blurry.


Sticks against sky. My favorite picture of the bunch.


The river by my house.

When I got back, I found out that my parents had brought home pizza. Fortunately, the pizza was still warm.

Pizza Hut is my favorite pizza chain. Actually, I like Pizzeria Uno's too, even though there aren't any around here (we usually eat there when we visit my grandma in Milwaukee). Papa John's crust is really dry and they come with those little green peppers on the side. I hate those things so I don't eat the slices that they touch. I feel bad when I see so much pizza go to waste.

World66 is a cool place. It's like an online travel guide that people can edit themselves, like Wikipedia.

Here's a map of the countries I've been to:


create your own visited country map

Sad, huh?

Here's what the map of Europe will hopefully look like after my trip next summer:



create your personalized map of europe

The countries are Austria, England (not a country, I know), France, Germany, Italy, Scotland (not a country either), and Sweden.

We have to go to England and Austria because that's where the conferences that make this whole thing possible are. We have about two weeks of travel time in between too. We're pretty sure we're going to Paris, and we're going to stop off at Rome after Austria. My dad wants to go to Scotland (southern Scotland is supposed to be boring, though). I would LOVE to go to Stockholm and either Munich or Berlin. Pretty much just hitting the big cities. When I'm in college, though, I think I'd like to spend my summers in Europe.

On a final note, I have found a new song that I adore. It's called "L-L-Love", by Astaire. Astaire is these two Brazilian-American siblings, Bruce and Erica Driscoll, who "craft sexy Europop with a Brazilian undercurrent", according to iTunes. "L-L-Love" is the Free Single of the Week on iTunes, so I gobbled it up as soon as I saw it. I normally hate pop, but this is 1000x better than any of that diva crap that we hear on the radio every day. I downloaded the rest of the album too (it's called Don't Whisper Lies). There are only 5 songs total on the album. The other songs aren't as good as "L-L-Love", in my opinion, but I still love them.

Whew.

I just got spammed in French.

How stupid are these Nigerian 419 scammers? They know barely enough English to get by. Why do they think that people are going to understand them in French, of all languages?

Yes, I know that French is a major language in West Africa. But still.

Lemme see if I can translate it.

Original message:

Dans votre compte Bancaire

Cher le Directeur,

S’il vous plaît veuillez m’aider à loger ce US$9.5M dans votre compte bancaire, car c'est avec un grand intérêt et la confiance que j'ai en vous, bien que nous ne nous soyons pas réunis avant, l'un, l'autre ne nous sommes pas encore rencontré.
Avant que je prenne votre adresse et vous écrive ,j'ai prié au-dessus, demandant à Dieu de me diriger vers une confiance digne qui m'aidera au-dessus de mon problème.

Je me nomme M. FABRICE KPOTO, nationalité Ivoirienne, j'ai 18 ans, seul enfant de feu AMADOU KPOTO,qui était un magnant en OR et en CACAO à Abidjan Côte d'Ivoire. Il est mort empoisonné par ses associés d'affaires sur un de leur séminaire d'affaire à Accra Ghana, le 19 oct. 2003. Avant sa mort le 29 novembre 2003 dans un hôpital privé ici Abidjan, il m'a sincèrement appelé sur son lit où il m'a avoué avoir un somme de $9,5 m dollar Américain (NEUF MILLION CINQ CENTS MILLE DOLLAR) qu'il avait déposé dans la Banque ici Abidjan. Il m'a mis en garde, "c'est à cause de ma richesse que j'ai été empoisonné par mes associes".Il m'a conseillé en suite de chercher un étranger dans un pays de mon choix où je peux transférer cet argent et l'utiliser pour l'investissement dans une affaire profitable et sans être au courant des ennemies. Cependant j’ai honorablement besoin de votre aide sur cette voie.

(1)Fournissez un compte bancaire auquel ce fonds servira de transfert.
(2)Pour la confidentialité de cette transaction veuillez me répondre
à ce Mail: xxxxxxxxxxx@yahoo.fr

D'ailleurs, je suis disposé à vous offrir 20% de toute la somme par compensation pour votre effort. En outre, vous pouvez indiquer votre option pour m'aider pendant que je crois que cette transaction serait conclue dès la réception de votre réponse.
NB/ Cette transaction est risque free car c'est mon USUFRUIT.

Je vous enverrai aussi tous les documents nécessaires concernant ce fonds dès votre engagement.

Merci et Dieu vous bénisse dans l'attente d'une suite favorable.

M. FABRICE KPOTO.

My translation:

In your compte Bancaire (bank account?)

Dear Director,

If you would please veuillez help me loger this $9.5 million dollers in your compte bancaire, car it's with a big interest and secrecy (?) that I have in you, bien que nous ne nous soyons pas réunis avant (something about us not doing something), l'un, l'autre ne nous sommes pas encore rencontré.
Avant que je prenne votre adresse et vous écrive ,j'ai prié au-dessus, demandant à Dieu de me diriger vers une confiance digne qui m'aidera au-dessus de mon problème. (I can't get any of this. He seems to be a Bible-thumper, though.)

My name is M. Fabrice Kpoto, and I am from Cote d'Ivoire. I am 18 years old, the only child of the late Amadou Kpoto, who was a tycoon in gold and cocoa in Abidjan. He was poisoned while meeting with his business associates in Accra, Ghana on October 19, 2003. ON November 29, 2003, in a hospital here in Abidjan, he sincerely told me sur son lit où il m'a avoué avoir a sum of $9.5 American dollars (NINE MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS) which he had placed in a bank here in Abidjan. Il m'a mis en garde, "c'est à cause de ma richesse que j'ai été empoisonné par mes associes".Il m'a conseillé en suite de chercher un étranger dans un pays de mon choix où je peux transférer cet argent et l'utiliser pour l'investissement dans une affaire profitable et sans être au courant des ennemies. Cependant j’ai honorablement besoin de votre aide sur cette voie.

(1)Fournissez un compte bancaire auquel ce fonds servira de transfert. (?)
(2)For confidentiality in this transaction, please respond at this email: xxxxxxxxxxx@yahoo.fr

D'ailleurs, je suis disposé à vous offrir 20% de toute la somme par compensation pour votre effort. En outre, vous pouvez indiquer votre option pour m'aider pendant que je crois que cette transaction serait conclue dès la réception de votre réponse.
NB/ Cette transaction est risque free car c'est mon USUFRUIT.

Je vous enverrai aussi tous les documents nécessaires concernant ce fonds dès votre engagement.

Thank you and God bless you for your attention d'une suite favorable.

M. FABRICE KPOTO.

*yawn* I've seen this story before.

It's funny how these people write the thing out in French but specify the dollars as being AMERICAN dollars. Oh, but of course.

Aha!

Imageshack won't let you upload files greater than a megabyte. Mystery Solved.

Anyways, here are the pics I know you've been salivating to see:








My favorite is the one with the three ducks. That's some quiddity there, y'all.

Debbie and Bianca didn't do too well last night :( Sixth place. Even though they got put on the later of the two flights to Chile, they still rawked and beat out other teams on that flight. And Romber got first. GOD.

On an unrelated note, here's a slice of spam I got on one of my throwaway Gmail accounts:

(no subject)
From: (unknown sender)

The message was completely blank as well.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek

I should post here more often.

yY, Debbie and Bianca got first on the Amazing Race. *unconditional love* Plus Ryan and Chuck, my picks for first boot, are out. I'll miss them, though. They were cool.

My uncles -- one lives in Illinois and one in Wisconsin -- and my aunt came down to visit us today. And we went to the park and took pictures with my new. . . DIGITAL CAMERA!!!~1 I know you're so excited to hear that. We basically exchanged gifts because we couldn't get together on Christmas break. And we sorta made plans to meet at Six Flags Great America this summer. I want to go to Seattle, Toronto, and mayhap Quebec this summer too.

Anyway I know you read this thing just for the pictures so here they are (warning: big):


Cars on the street.

Edit: Grr, Imageshack is toying with my heart. For some reason it won't let me upload any more pics. Hopefully it'll be working before you guys die of boredom.