BS

Forgive and Forget

2009-07-05T12:52:20Z

I have lost too many friends and family members throughout my life. So my personal philosophy is to not hold a grudge for too long. I held one against my friend Chris for well over a year, but it was simply because of how I perceived a situation between him and my mother and one always has to take a side.

Another person I was very good friends with, Mark, still to this day holds a grudge against me. Something about me stealing his car, using his washing machine and moving to New Zealand. IDK, we were very good friends for years. But still, when you are a stubborn bastard you will hold a grudge until the less stubborn of people earnestly try to fix the situation.

Here’s my thought process. One holds a grudge and then every time you have an association that reminds you of that person you get upset. I do not like being upset or in a bad mood, so if I make up with those people my thoughts will be primarily good. State of mind is everything, and all we have in life is our perception of reality.

So yesterday I made up with my friends from Prague. The ones I flew here to visit in the first place. They think I wronged them, I think they wronged me. Whatever, it’s all the same now. I mean because of how things went down I know more people than I would have and I have a beautiful place to live in the best area of Prague (I will be uploading photos of my loft as soon as I finish writing this).

We will probably never be as close as we used to be, but we have both agreed to put the situation that went down behind us. It just seems to me that it is better to have friends than enemies.

I went to this Mexican bar (yes one exists in Prague, there was even one Mexican there playing La Bamba and other bad music) with them and a couple of their other friends yesterday evening. Since it was an American holiday they were giving 50% off on all American alcohol and food. So we all got cheeseburgers and some Jim Beam. I thought my bill would be quite high, even with the half off discount but it seems the staff had not been writing down what all we were eating and drinking properly.

So Martin took the liberty of telling them what each one of us drank. Hmm, coulda sworn I drank two or three times that amount. But no matter, perhaps that was a different night :) We left for the night and I jumped on the tram that went back towards my place. Didn’t actually have a pass, and if you get caught without a pass it’s 1000 CZK fine, but that made it a more interesting ride home.

Anyways, I honestly don’t want to drink as much as I have been doing since I have been here. However every person I meet here drinks, and so that’s what you do when you hang out with them. I understand that though since the beer is cheaper than the water. People move here to drink cheap beer and wine.

Speaking of alcoholics, I was woken up this morning by Jason calling me. He was mumbling something in his thick Irish accent that I couldn’t make out. Eventually he asked what time it was and I told him and he said to go back to bed. I did, but got up in another hour or so and walked over to his restaurant which shouldn’t have been open but it was. I walked in and there was broken glass all over the floor.

He made me some coffee, and I went to buy him some cigarettes. He insisted that his staff would clean the place up, that is what they are there for. His poor employees ;). It seems that his wife is out of the country for a week or so, which just gives him more of an excuse to get drunk. He himself could not remember what happened. So I will keep Jason as an example of what not to strive to be. He has a successful restaurant, and is actually a pretty nice guy, when you get his sense of humor…. But drinking that much all the time would cause me way more problems than it’s worth. Besides, I am not Irish enough to keep up on a consistent basis.

“When is a mistake not a mistake? When you have learned something from it”
Ann Uplands

“Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame”
Benjamin Franklin

“Change is the Process of Life Itself”
Neale Donald Walsch

Locked in Starbucks

2009-07-03T13:04:46Z

Had I not come home with maybe 1500 CZK more than I left with the other night I decided that I really needed a phone.

Nobody has been able to get my iPhone 3G to work with a local pre-paid sim. It just site there and won’t activate, and iTunes says it’s not able to. Still, it’s unlocked and at home I use it with T-Mobile so one would assume T-Mobile would work here as well.

Well one would be wrong. So today I spent 1499 CZK to purchase another phone and 400 CZK worth of pre-paid credit. Now I can actually give people my phone number, which is much easier than telling people to email me or call a US phone number. The number is +420 736 779 188, I give that out freely since incoming calls are free in virtually all countries except America so feel free to call. Though I still do not expect many calls since you would have to pay international fees to reach me, though I am awake during Arizona time of 1am-1pm (just add 2 hours for central time) so I figure it would probably be somebody drunk dialing me.

Also I made a direct, easy to remember link for virtually all my pictures since I had somebody who’s not on Facebook ask me to see the pictures of my trip.

http://tinyurl.com/jamesphotos

I got locked into Starbucks last night. I went in 20 minutes before they closed and they didn’t notice me going into the basement so when I left at 10pm I had to yell into the back to get somebody who was closing to notice me and then unlock the door just to let me out.

I suppose it would have been a fun survival story, had they shut off the lights and left me here over night. Though I would probably end up stealing food/coffee and then some camera would get me thrown into a nice foreign jail.

Opened registration on my site. I actually broke it when I first made it and everybody’s had the same password (that they didn’t know). Have since fixed it, so register an account on the main page of thesmartass.info. Right now it doesn’t do much, but it will become needed in the near future to use most of the site.

Anyways, have a kick ass day.

Drink all night, come home with more money.

2009-07-03T12:40:50Z

I went for a jog the other night. On that jog I went to the top of Full-screenPetřín and was going to crash a private party but nobody looked that interesting there so I went back down the hill and on my way back home I decided to stop in and talk to this guy I know who owns/operates a 4 star restaurant. I have a beer, and then another couple beer and am poured some shots.

Eventually well after closing hours Jason decides that drinking at his place was no fun and we needed to go down the street. A beer and a couple oversized shots (slivovitz is awful) later and I was fully expecting to just say thanks and walk home. So far, including his resturant and this place I had spent 200 CZK, which was way lower than it should of been however he didn’t charge me at his restaurant. So Jason was very insistent that we walk up the street to the casino since he had 2 chips from a previous night still.

He cashed the 2 chips which totaled 1100 CZK in value. I wasn’t going to play but he gave me 3 or 400 CZK worth of chips and insisted it was all mine. So we were playing blackjack and I started winning every single hand and he started losing every hand. After the dealer got 21 three times in a row I decided to cash out. However I still had 2000 CZK ($108) left. Well this was fantastic and I was willing to just give it back to Jason, but he wouldn’t have it.

I was totally ready to be done. I mean I was drunk and had gained some money. However this was not good enough to end the night for him. He had to find a Herna Bar (which he said was a nonstop/open all night bar, though I have since found the translation to actually be a gambling house). We walked around the area but when we couldn’t find one so he waved down a cab.

Of course I was paying for everything else tonight (err that morning, since it was already after 4am) and the cab drove us somewhere into the Jewish district to some bar that was still open.

I ordered 2 beers, though I could barely drink my own after all the shots I had had.

We quickly made friends with 2 random people, one of which looked like he could be Jason Statham’s brother. The other was an English girl. At first I assumed them to be a couple but soon found that they didn’t know each other either.

The girl called a cab for herself and was sitting outside waiting for it, while Jason and this very friendly but brutish guy were inside arm wrestling and talking shit. I decided to go hang out with the girl outside until her cab came. Her cab got there and she kissed me and departed. She was rather fun, considering I never even caught her name.

At one point we actually left, it was 7 something and we just started wandering around the city. Nothing was really open, but somehow we ended up at a KFC that actually was. There were all sorts of crazy stories told on the way back, but I didn’t get back to my loft to go to sleep until 10:30am, when I very quickly passed out. Though I was amused since Jason didn’t go home, he went straight to his restaurant to open it for the day.

Ok, I had a lot of fun but holy shit that was a lot of drinking. There is no way I could do that on any kind of a consistent basis, and I do fear that he will be trying to get me to go out every week. ;0

I’ve got the loft

2009-06-29T16:05:13Z

The super expensive fully furnished loft, in the nicest area of all of Prague is mine for $500 a month for the next two months.

Sue will continue to live there until Friday it seems, but then assuming I have paid it will become my top floor loft.

I am advised not to “advertise” that I am only paying what I am paying as that would make them look really bad since they are currently advertising the place for 24000 CZK ($1300/mo).

Still waiting to hear back on my proposal to the tour guide company about me designing their websites in exchange for getting their lawyer to fast track my work visa. If that works out to be honest, I might just end up living in Europe for quite awhile. I mean it looks like a really fun job and where can you are encouraged to let your personality show… Not sure where to get job like that in the states…

At this point it’s too early to tell. Even my cheap price makes my trip harder as I will be using most of my money to pay for rent. I found some places that were cheaper but the location on all of them sucked. This way i get my own loft in Malá Strana where I already know a few people and am learning the area really well.

To think, a week ago I was at $-25, which caused me to actually be at -95 since I got charged to overdraft fees. Stupid banks…

I mean it’s not that I have a lot of money now, because I don’t… However as I see it things can only go up from here.

How many calories in cigars and wine?

2009-06-29T08:34:43Z

Breakfast: Bunch of Grapes

Lunch: Food for Thought
If you want to know yourself,
Just look how others do it;
If you want to understand others,
Look into your own heart.

Supper: 3 Full Glasses of White Wine (2 of them courtesy of Nice people)

Late Night Snack: Cigar (gave 2 of them to poor people and hung out with them smiling and nodding while they talked to me in German, until one of them determined that I was a connected Mobster and stopped asking for money)

Hired?

2009-06-28T15:58:47Z

Okay, after many emails back and forth with the company owner who runs the free (tip only) tours.

I basically got hired… Not sure it will do me much good though as they won’t hire me until i get a work permit which here takes 3+ months and isn’t guaranteed. I could have their lawyers rush it for 1000 Euros, but if I had 1000 Euros laying around I wouldn’t need to work anyways.

Though he says he will pay that back if my visa is approved and I work for him for 6 months. Not really an option right now to have it rushed. Will apply the slow way and when it comes in, it will probably be after I have already gone back to America.

To be honest this is the “easiest” way to become a tour guide anyways. Most people have to take official classes for a year or two and then pass a big fancy test to be a licensed tour guide. These guys hire people as free-lancers, and don’t really take responsibility as they don’t employ them. It really is a genius idea though. Pisses a lot of expensive tour companies off.

Anyways, I sent him a couple other ideas. Off the internet for now. Ciao

The Place to Stay Solution?

2009-06-28T11:57:06Z

Paying for a place in July has been a mystery. I had just wrote that I would probably go to Poland because the hostels in Poland in July are a bit cheaper than the ones in Prague. In one way that would be interesting since I would get to see more of Europe, but I don’t really know anybody in Poland and I would once again not be able to earn any income there.

So I had a thought. My friend Sue is leaving Prague for 3 months. She has been trying to find somebody to sublet her apartment for that time, but has not found anybody. Her rent is 20,000 CZK a month which is way more than I can afford. I suppose it’s worth it since her place is in very nice area and it’s fully furnished.

Still, she spoke to her landlord and the landlord said that the last place took 8 months to find somebody else to rent it. I figured it like this. I could pay up to 9,242 CZK a month ($500) for rent including utilities. Now a place that charges more than twice that wouldn’t like my offer very much, but if made a good sales pitch they will realize that is far better than getting 0 for it for a couple months. l

I will say that I will pay that much in July and that much in August, however if they find somebody to rent it for full price I will leave as long as I am given the rest of the month i am paid for. So if they find somebody in July I will be out by August 1st.

Sue hasn’t had a chance to talk to the landlord since I came up with this idea. It’s quite possible the landlord will say, no I need at least $X, but then Sue might be willing to cover the difference since she doesn’t want to lose her place.

It’s a beautiful attic loft with 400 year old wood beams in it. Has it’s own laundry, kitchen, tv (not that I would use it), furniture, dishes etc…

Now, if that plan works I decided that I would become a tour guide. Peter told me I should, and so I’m sure he will give me a good recommendation to where he works. I have already learned my way around town and memorized a bunch of things. So I started today to start memorizing history of the places I am going and visiting.

If I can manage to get the place to rent for 2 months and then become a tour guide I would work 3hours a day, for 3 days a week and the pay would be cash tips which seem very high for knowledgeable guides since they are taking 35+ people with each guide.

That would be a lot of fun. I would make money and friends everytime I worked and would not have to worry about the rising cost of places to stay.

Anyways, the landlord hasn’t talked to us yet, will probably be a couple days before I can give more information but I am optimistic on my chances since I don’t see how the landlord would be losing out.

Pařba ve Vegas (The Hangover)

2009-06-27T10:09:35Z

Feeling happy that I had a little bit of money again, I mean not much but still… I went and decided to go to a movie with my friend Susan. I was not about to sit and watch some girly French film (Coco Chanel), or an American chick flick (New in Town) so I gave Sue a choice of 3 movies that I was willing to watch.

I’m not “interested” in Sue for anything more than friendship, so there is no reason for me to try to impress her by going to a girly movie, though it seemed obvious that those were the types of movies she liked (the last movie she saw and liked was Mama Mia).

I showed her trailers for 3 movies and she decided that she could survive a somewhat raunchy comedy. So we walked to the nearest theater, which happened to be in a western style Mall. Tickets there cost 169 CZK, which is about what it would cost in America, but that makes it really high here since everything else costs less than our prices.

When you go there you have to pick what area you want to sit in and they actually give you an assigned seat, which is rather obnoxious. Other than that I would say they are doing it smarter though, as each movie has somebody in front of the theater to check your ticket so that you cannot attempt to go to 2 movies on one ticket.

Gotta say, EXTREMELY funny movie. I really liked how everybody got drugged with roofies and couldn’t remember anything and how the people the meet fill them in on what happened the previous night. I was laughing my ass off at the end of the movie when they showed pictures from their trip.

So again, highly recommend the movie The Hangover.

Started walking back from the theater when the daily random rain started and was coming down hard. I carry my laptop everywhere with me so we ducked into a bar to avoid the rain. Got a menu and though I didn’t like their beer (budwiser or pilsner urquel) I was really impressed at their giant menu full of cheep food. I didn’t get anything then as I felt I had already splurged too much that day, but I will keep that place in mind for another day.

Left the hostel today (that I have just lived at for 3 weeks) and they are letting me store my luggage there until I go to my next destination. I think I am going to crash on Sue’s couch for the weekend and help her with moving stuff as she is going somewhere (theoretically France and then Croatia, but it’s really hard to tell with her since she changes her mind daily and she may just stay in Prague illegally for another month).

I don’t really want to stay there as she is super concerned about the water bill getting higher, but I haven’t talked to Jirka in a few days and I don’t want to just assume I can show up and crash on his floor for the weekend.

After this weekend I THINK I am going to take a train to some random place in Poland and then just start walking when I get there until I find a place to stay. Good plan eh? Okay perhaps I should find a place first as my backpack is way over stuffed and will be annoying after awhile of just walking if I don’t find a hostel to stay at. I was going to buy a tent and start camping in July but I want to learn more about where I am going before I start doing that. Besides I need to find free wifi so I can work on making my website(s) kick ass and take names.

Still, the last few days have been really good. I met really nice people and have been very fortunate with how things have played out thus far. I really do need to call and wake up my father to explain to him that, though I am still low on funds I’m still not coming home until September 1st. He won’t understand, but then again he know better than to argue with me. :)

The Reappearing Girl

2009-06-27T09:37:53Z

On what was it, Wednesday night I met this really awesome girl from Croatia in my hostel and we decided to go out for a beer. I was on my last 131 CZK, (but that should be more than enough to buy some beer since most places are 25-30 CZK a beer) but beer is cheaper than water here.

Walked to a pub I know that has fantastic quality beer for dirt cheep, but it was super packed and quite hot and smoky inside. So we just wandered around places for awhile until I decided I could get a good beer at the Irish Pub near my hostel.

Not thinking to ask the price of the beer I ordered a beer I had not had before, it was similar to guiness but not quite that thick. So I had another. The girl only had one beer, and it was one of the czech beers which were better priced.

Anyways the bill came and each one of my beers was 76 CZK and hers 46 I think. Still, I almost shit a brick as I felt like a total bastard having to ask her for a few crowns to cover my share of the beer….

Well, we had a fantastic long conversation that night while we were out, hitting about a million different subjects. I love when I meet somebody who can keep up with me and all my crazy ideas.

Before leaving the bar I ran into a guy I know (Peter, the Scottish tour guide) and he was totally smashed. He was going to give me his phone # to help me out when he could, but he was moving so slow that I was again annoying the nice girl I was with while talking to him. I tried to speed him up and he bought me a shot.

I was sad to see that the girl I was with had to leave the next morning since the hostel was booked for the night. She was amazingly fun so I tried to get her to stay and watch a movie, but she had to go.

Figured that was it, though I woke up this morning *Saturday* to discover that she was in my room. Which was fantastic, though I should have gotten back to the hostel earlier that day so I would have been able to watch that movie with her as both of us were departing this morning. Or I could have taken her on a proper date, seeing as how I actually had some money today.

She doesn’t really believe in social networks or anything, so it will be difficult to stay in touch. A couple years ago I would have said they were all rubbish as well, but now I have found them to be really helpful ways to keep in touch with people that would be otherwise not communicated to.

I could post a picture of her now, but she would probably not appreciate that. Hopefully she will write or something as I told her to come visit Arizona (Sedona is the most beautiful place in all the states and it’s only 2 hours or so from where I live).

It’s all good…. Except the music at Starbucks

2009-06-24T11:00:28Z

My money is at 0 again after paying for my hostel through Friday. However that is because I was nailed with 2 different over limit fees all at once… So that was another $70 down the drain. Bloody vampires/bankers. After Friday, I don’t have a place to stay yet but I believe I know somebody who would put me up for a couple days now. Jirka (a person I met here) is currently being awesome and holding my big suitcase that I brought and intended to leave with Martin/Jo when I would go travel. So now I just have laptop and a big backpack, which is way easier to get around with if I start traveling.

What’s with the music selection at Starbucks… It’s been Mexican music all month. Well there has also been some Ray Charles, Leonard Cohen and a couple other things that i do like, but even those are getting old now. I guess here they just have the “June CD’s” to play.

Come July I do think I will start traveling again. The number of people I will know in Prague will decrease, and the price of the hostels will go way up for the tourist season. At this point I am thinking I might go to Poland. Still can’t rationalize going to Sweden or Switzerland like I had wanted to since they are rather expensive.

Oh, yeah I will travel because I turned down the English lessons. Seems I was mislead in how it works. They aren’t really private students. They are from a school, that just doesn’t care if you have proper work permit. However they only pay once a month, and the first month has a one month delay before you get a paycheck. Then it’s only 1.5 hours a week worth of work. Now when I thought they were private students that was fantastic. Students would meet up with me and I would converse with them in English and then they would give me a few dollars for the assistance. Well, that’s now how it is.

I had a big ass multiple paragraph writing here, but it seem that everything I was writing violates Google’s terms of service for adsense (disclosing how many clicks I was getting, how much I was earning, and suggesting forcing people to click ads… all violates TOS and can get me banned).

I am not motivated by money, but it sucks to not have any. So right now I am going to find a way to get by on nothing, and see if I can’t just get enough to travel to other countries while I am here.

Still, I am starting to see that even without forcing clicks, there is a lot of potential income for me in making cool websites. I never even had a banner on the site until I came here and ran out of money. It just mucks up the design. But whatever, people are used to them. Just wait until I finish the shiny new anime/tv sections and get the profile that will merge the social networks together up and running.

Well even if I don’t get my money from the website, pretty soon it will be July and I will get my monthly Mini Cooper payment, and I should be able to stretch it out pretty well if I am here or in Poland, and if I get some new features and do start to make money from website I will then go all over Europe and get all sorts of good stories and experiences to share. Woot.. So it’s all good and I’m not giving up and coming back.