The first I saw of this was a little more than a week ago. Diario Nacional reported that Operational Police Commander Mateus Fernandes had yet to receive any complaints from residents in Bobonaro and Covalima, where stories were emanating that ninjas were threatening to kill the locals.

However, Fernandes did say he had received a report on the ninjas from the police commanders of Bobonaro and Covalima and that those commanders would take the “necessary action” to deal with the troublemakers.

That same day, the Timor Post quoted Fernandes as saying that the police had thwarted the operations of the aforementioned ninjas.

About this time, parliament called for the Timorese national police force (PNTL) and the armed forces (F-FDTL) to go on a manhunt and find the ninjas. Given how sketchy the details were, this seemed odd.

Then, Aitahan Matak from resistance organization CPD-RDTL came out and denied any involvement in the ninja saga. Clear so far?

More recently, our fearless police commander Longuinhos Monteiro vowed to set up security posts in dangerous areas, reported RTTL.

The police chief went so far as to say that any ninjas foolish enough to take on the L-man and his boys would end up deep-sixed at Santa Cruz Cemetery. So that’s the country’s top policeman completely ignoring any rule of law and announcing he will kill wrongdoers, rather than do anything as offbeat as, I don’t know, arresting them?

There is speculation that this is all a ploy to put armed cops in the districts in the run-up to municipal elections. Longuinhos and Xanana are buds, after all. Would the head of the ruling coalition go this far to secure a favourable result? I have no idea, but he did let an indicted murderer walk free last year.

It’s still not clear exactly what the ninjas have done or why they’ve done it. Longuinhos also came out and said that some of the ninjas managed to escape to Dili. They are certainly living up to their stealthy reputation. To further confuse the matter, RTTL on Friday reported that Ramos-Horta had commended the police for their efforts in capturing the ninjas. So have they been caught? Who knows for sure.

What’s next? A Shinobi-like assault on the president’s home? Or maybe a showdown of shurikens versus bullets. I know who my money’s on.

Addendum: I’m told these ninjas have been around since 2002 and they are, in fact, CPD-RDTL’s boys. Now I’m even more intrigued. Looking forward to getting back to Dili.

I used two main resources to learn things like numbers, pronunciation, simple phrases and so on. First of all, I downloaded all the lessons from LearnToSpeakIndonesian.com. There isn’t much material, but these lessons were a good introduction to Bahasa Indonesia.

Even better than those lessons were all the free lessons I downloaded from LearningIndonesia.com. There are about 50 or so free lessons you can download from that website. Each lesson is about five to 10 minutes long and the “hosts” are an American man and an Indonesian woman. They’re both easy to understand and I picked up a lot from these lessons.

Once you have finished all the free lessons, there are more lessons that you can download for $11.75. I downloaded a couple of these and they were useful for the extra vocab and the listening exercises they contained.

I’m now about four months into learning Bahasa Indonesia and I’m more than halfway through my intensive course at UKSW. Everything has gone fine so far. I graduated from the four-week Upper Intermediate level with a high distinction and scored 91% overall, which I was really pleased with.

I now have a couple more weeks of classroom time. We started UKSW’s Level 4 today. I feel like a bit of a jerk because after the class, I asked if I could go in a class by myself because I only have two weeks, whereas the others have three. I just wanted to go through things a bit quicker really.

Anyway, I recently bought a couple of Indonesian novels from the Gramedia book store in Semarang. It makes for a refreshing change to have something to read that isn’t some kind of text book or a newspaper.

I find myself reading the Nyata tabloid quite a lot because the language used in it is far simpler when compared with regular newspapers. But there’s only so much fun I can have reading about Indonesian celebrities.

The first book I bought is called Orang Miskin Dilarang Sekolah, or A Poor Person Forbidden from Going to School. It’s by Wiwid Prasyeto. A lot of the books in Gramedia were either translations or else they looked like the book equivalent of chick flicks. This one seemed to have a more serious edge to it.

The second book I bought is Sebuah Memoar Cinta, or A Love Memoir. I’m about halfway through it and have found the language manageable enough. What I find most interesting is the way the author describes things like the sky or the weather, often as a metaphor for her own emotions.

I don’t know if either of the books I bought are considered good reads, so to speak, but they suit my needs perfectly.

This video was shot on Atauro island in November during Timor-Leste’s first international sport-fishing competition. The competition was ironically part of the drive by Ramos-Horta et al to promote Timor-Leste as a country of peace, somewhere everyone should want to visit. Atauro island is about 25 kilometres off the coast of Dili. Timorese police officers beat this man down allegedly just because he held up a sign saying “Fishing Group from Maunroni Village”.

There must be more to why they set upon this man, surely. Right? This can’t have happened because he held up a sign. Right?! Regardless, no matter what the story is behind this attack, nothing can ever justify such behaviour by members of Timor-Leste’s joke of a police force.

This video has surfaced fresh off the back of a Timorese police officer allegedly shooting to death a 25-year-old Timorese man during a fracas at a wedding in Dili. There are a few things that struck me about this video. Firstly, watch the imbecilic way the police officers try to subdue the man. How on earth can police officers like that be entrusted with guns?

Secondly, there are UNPOL officers in the background. They do nothing while the Timorese police officers swarm around one man. Come on, UNPOL. Haven’t you been training these guys? We keep getting press releases about how successful the police handover has been thus far, and yet incidents like this keep cropping up.

At 1.15, am I right in thinking that one of the officers hits the man with the butt of a rifle?! The victim was armed with a piece of cardboard! Have any of these co-called protecters of the nation been punished, sent on indefinite leave or fired? Of course not.

I’ve seen for myself the way police in Dili deal do “crowd control”. It’s appalling. They use batons, fists and feet. How else can you label them except as animals? They are aggressive, thoughtless and reckless. Are you proud of your paramilitary force, Longuinhos?

It’s like the law that every song in Indonesia has to be about love in some shape or form, which is fine by me because it means lyrics are reasonably easy to understand.

The first Indonesian song I got into was Puspa by ST12, which is a tune everyone in Timor-Leste adores. More recently, ST12 did this track called Biarkan Jatuh Cinta, which I rather like.

My favourite band at the moment is this Tatu-esque pop duo called The Virgin. They’ve been getting lots of attention recently. They must be a marketer’s dream. One is billed as the “tomboy”, while the other is the “girly” girl. Mulan Jameela did a great song with Mita from The Virgin called Cinta Mati.

Everyone’s favourite adulterer Krisdayanti still hogs headlines and airtime, but I find it difficult to enjoy listening to any of her music because she seems like an attention-seeking *****. I cannot imagine how the separation with her husband has affected the pair’s children. I’m sure Raul Lemmos, KD’s new partner, also has a wife in Jakarta. Actually, I’ve lost track of this bizarre love-web.

The children only have to switch on a television to be confronted by music videos by both their mother and father cashing in and singing about the separation. What dignity! One of Kris’s more ironic songs is Aku Wanita Biasa, or I’m an Ordinary Woman. Obviously.

At the other end of the musical spectrum you get groups like String with this not-so-instant classic called Honey Bunny Sweety. String are kind of like the Spice Girls all over again. Some imaginative A+R guy has taken five girls who can’t sing, can’t dance and can’t follow choreography, and he’s made them into a pop group. It’s a work of genius because the ringtones sell like fresh durian.

I’ve yet to really get much beyond the pop and indie scenes. I’m sure that given how big the country is and how thriving Jakarta is that there are producers making electronic music. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction.

Living in Timor-Leste, I was, at first, keen to learn Tetum. I bought the language book everyone seems to have and I ploughed through the first half-dozen chapters, but after that I became lazy and always found other things, mostly work, to do instead.

With this cloud of shame looming over me, I took up the challenge of learning Bahasa Indonesia, partly because it’s spoken in Timor-Leste, but most of all because I’m aiming to gradually move myself into Indonesia, part of which includes hopefully doing my masters in Southeast Asian studies later this year.

As far as the language goes, I started in September by downloading free material from a couple of websites. This helped me pick up the basics by myself. Work took a backseat for a few weeks as I spent much of my time going through various exercises.

At the end of October I went to the IALF Language Centre in Bali and did a couple of weeks’ one-on-one tuition. It was expensive, but gave me a better understanding of how the verbs work. At the end of it they gave me a certificate and said I’d passed their Level 3, although it isn’t accredited. IALF also does regular classes, two hours a day over four weeks.

I got a lot of material for IALF, which I carried on using after I’d finished studying there. I also bought myself a couple of books, including Bahasa Indonesia: Book Two by Yohanni Johns, which is particularly useful.

I started buying newspapers and watching a lot of television. The channels in Indonesia show Western movies with Bahasa Indonesia subtitles every day. So I’ve been reading my books and watching films and listening to Indonesian music.

With the basics nailed, I’m now in Salatiga, Java, doing a six-week intensive course at Satya Wacana Universitas Kristen’s Language Training Center. The course is accredited by the Australian National University (ANU) and it seems to be regarded as one of the best around for Indonesian language.

I took a placement test and was put on the Level 3 (of six) course, which is equivalent to ANU’s 2A. We get about 72 contact hours over four weeks and there are quizzes, tests and a field assignment. We just finished the first week and it was hardcore.

Most of the other participants here are ANU students. They’re all about 18 or 19, I think, so I feel a bit old (I’m 27). Most of them know each other and they’re all pretty lively.

I’m not so interested in the course’s cultural activities or the social side of being here. The only reason I’m on this course is to improve my language skills. Saying that, I’m enjoying the learning process and find myself itching to get to class every morning.

The course is rather expensive compared to others (AU$2,685), but the fee includes accommodation with an Indonesian family and all my meals. I don’t have to pay for anything really expect 2,000 rupiah each way to school and back by angkota.

The house I’m staying in is modern, I have my own room, the family are great and I’m very well fed. I will be here until February 13, but I’m still contactable by email if needed.

Him: Hey. You want look?

Me: I have no use for a bow-and-arrow.

Him: Use for decoration. See. Looks good.

Me: I don’t even have a home to put it in. What would I possibly do with it?

Him: It’s good for killing cat, see? You can use to shoot cat.

Me: But I like cats.

Him: OK. See you.

There are investigations ongoing, so it’s difficult to make a judgment, but a Timorese police officer shooting someone dead is terrible news. Another person was shot and injured. The fact that the police have guns is bad in itself. And this is the police force the UN is handing back after “training” them.

If you live in Dili, you will have seen the way some Timorese police officers deal with volatile situations. They sometimes fire warning shots, or else just hit people with batons. I remember being at the finish line of the Tour de Timor and seeing officers kick people, even children, out of the way.

What kind of precedent does this set for the Timorese people now? They see their national police force using guns and shooting people. Of course, we don’t know the full details of the situation that unraveled that night. Maybe the PNTL had guns pulled on them, but violence in that area is more likely to involve rocks or maybe knives.

Not a good way to end the year. No word yet on who was killed.

Addendum: The pieces are starting to come together. It sounds like there was a brawl at a wedding and police fired live rounds into the crowd. A 25-year-old man called Kuka was killed.

It will be interesting to see how Longuinhos deals with this. He does seem to think he is in control of a military force, after all.

Earlier this month, Tempo Semanal reported that a PNTL officer shot shot a youth in the chest at a party in Dili. The same story went on to say that the Timorese police force had requested more weapons, a request that was turned down by the government.

The idea of putting guns in the hands of inexperienced, untrained, immature police officers is frightening. There needs to be tighter gun control. I don’t want to hear about investigations into this or that, or empty promises — they need to get guns off the street.

This is a real test for the PNTL and the UN. Just recently, Atul Khare was talking about the importance of police accountability and disciplinary measures against officers who violate the penal code.

Addendum two: A slightly edited account from Dili:

Many in Dili were prepared for possible clashes this morning at, during and after Kuka’s funeral, funeral procession and his sad burial. The prime minister was in lockdown with immense security around his home on and off all day. The PNTL have so far kept their distance. President Jose Ramos-Horta has condemned the tragic and unnecessary killing of this young, talented and deeply loved university student and vowed there will be consequences for those PNTL involved.

There seems to be a huge drive to get money pouring into Dili for the building of hotels and for new businesses, which will ultimately benefit only a few people. Dili is still very small. There are few jobs, especially in the civil sector. As the cost of living rises and Dili’s population continues to increase, it will become more and more apparent that Timor-Leste’s most developed city is no closer to being able to effectively support its own people.

Young people go from the districts to Dili to study or find work or both, but there are still very few opportunities for them, even with all this new investment and development.

Sleepy Dili, capital of East Timor, doesn’t have much going for it. Its tallest building is just three storeys.

The most obvious economic activity is the purveying of SIM cards and pirate CDs of ‘jiggy-jig’. The harbour is full of ships, but only because some dopey official misordered an import of rice. When a dozen boats arrived from Bangkok laden with the stuff, there weren’t enough warehouses. So it stayed on the ships. Expensively. All year.

I haven’t been in Dili for a while, so I’m assuming there are once again loads of ships off the coast, as there were before. There haven’t been enough warehouses for some time. I think at one point they were shipping in concrete to build them so they had somewhere to put the rice.

But East Timor, one of the ten poorest places in the world, does have one thing going for it; a parliament so dysfunctional that it can’t agree how best to invest the growing stash flowing in from oil and gas fields off its south coast. And because few East Timorese politicians can bear the sight of each other, let alone decide what to do with nature’s bounty, the $5 billion in royalties East Timor has saved up since the Timor Sea fields came onstream in 2004 is automatically shunted into boring old US Treasuries throwing off a guaranteed 1.35 per cent.

The tone of the article is quite funny, but surely there is at least some agreement on how to spend the money. There is a budget every year, after all. Speaking of the budget, the finance ministry released its Q3 execution report recently. I haven’t read it myself, but La’o Hamutak has, noting a number of budget line changes.

Many of these are interesting, but the largest is on page 42: a shift of $70 million within the Ministry of Infrastructure allocation for Capital and Development from the Heavy Oil power project to Pakote Referendum. The budget line for Construction of the “New Electric Generation system, transmission lines and supervision” has been cut from $87 million to $17 million, while the Capital line for the Office of the Secretary of State for Public Works has been increased from zero to $70 million, giving that office a total budget of $70,072,000.

And…

As we have written before, La’o Hamutuk believes that the objective of the State should be to provide services and benefits to its citizens, and that simply counting the percentage of money which has been spent is not a meaningful measure of how the Government is doing its job.

The Spectator article then goes on to praise the Timorese for the success of the Petroleum Fund in the face of the global economic crisis. The article also makes note of the transparency of the fund, which is actually not as transparent as people think, as La’o hamutuk also noted in its analysis of the Linaburg-Maduell index.

Timor-Leste score is “less than SWFI’s suggested ‘minimum rating of 8 in order to claim adequate transparency.’”

The real-life story that the movie Balibo is based on was always going to overshadow the film itself, but no-one could have predicted how much of a talking point this would all become.

Despite being banned by censors in Indonesia, Robert Connolly’s Balibo is already freely available for the throngs of travelers who visit Bali. Copies of the DVD are stacked innocuously next to the likes of Paranormal Activity and Avatar at pirate stores all over the island. The same is said to be true in Jakarta.

Officially released on August 13, the movie tells of the fate of five Aussie-based television journalists who were murdered in Timor-Leste in 1975 by members of the Indonesian military who were in the early stages of invading the country.

Coaxed by a perpetually well-dressed, youthful Jose Ramos-Horta (Oscar Isaac), beer-guzzling Australian journalist Roger East (Anthony LaPaglia) flies to Timor-Leste to uncover the fate of the young journalists who, unbeknownst to him, are already dead. As the Indonesians land in Dili, East is also murdered, but not before managing to growl a few “Mongrels!” at his executors.

The Balibo movie is based on a true story, but it doesn’t literally depict how events unfolded, as consulting historian Clinton Fernandes told the Jakarta Globe.

“It is a true story in the sense that it telescopes events that would have taken much longer,” he said.

Indonesia’s banning of Balibo has only served to generate more publicity for the movie. Indeed, the call for justice for those six journalists is so loud that the rest of the world would be forgiven for not realizing that about 180,000 Timorese died during the Indonesian military occupation of Timor-Leste between 1975-1999.

It all went a little kooky earlier this month when former Indonesian army lieutenant Gatot Purwanto, who has ties with the government of Timor-Leste, made headlines when he admitted to Tempo magazine that the Balibo Five were executed and burned to hide evidence of the Indonesia’s invasion, contradicting the previous story that they were killed in crossfire

Purwanto, who said he was there in the border town of Balibo when the five were killed, also claimed the Indonesians were provoked by gunshots coming from the house where the journalists were hiding.

On a side note, Purwanto played a role in the Santa Cruz massacre in 1991, when 271 innocent Timorese were slaughtered by Indonesian troops in Dili.

Shirley Shackleton is the wife of Greg Shackleton, one of the five journalists killed in Balibo. She called Purwanto’s original and subsequent statements part of “what now appears to be a blatant attempt to provide an alibi for his commanding officer’s part in a deliberate crime against humanity merely to confuse an Australian Federal Police investigation into the Balibo murders”.

The debate rolls on with twists and turns, but did anyone actually watch the movie, you know, as a movie, for fun?

And is it blasphemous to say I wasn’t bowled over by Balibo?

The development of the Balibo Five and their story seemed constricted to the point of being lost. I didn’t believe that they wanted to stay in Timor-Leste while all around them were telling them to go. I didn’t feel like they wanted to put their necks on the line for some kind of greater cause.

Ultimately their deaths were significant, but in the movie they seemed like five young guys on some kind of thrillseeking mission. The movie didn’t give the characters any kind of motive for putting themselves in the firing line.

I also wasn’t convinced by Roger East’s swerve from desperately wanting to go home and nearly drowning Jose Ramos-Horta to choosing to stay on in Dili knowing that he would probably be killed there.

When LaPlagia was wading through the river trying to find his way home, I half-expected him to look up to the sky and see Ramos-Horta’s face in the clouds peering down at him, uttering words of encouragement.

The Balibo movie has become important because it thrusts into the limelight the deaths of the Five and Roger East. It’s good that this issue is getting attention, certainly.

However, the movie gave little attention to the Timorese plight except in the closing scenes, which I thought were well done, but not particularly compelling. Compare this to the TV drama Answered By Fire, which had me on the edge of my seat, charged with anger and sadness, eyes full of tears.

I know a lot of people put a huge amount of effort into making Balibo as historically accurate as possible, so I don’t want to slate the movie. I’m not criticizing the historical merit of it, but I was expecting to draw emotion from the movie.

I wanted to be outraged when the journalists were slaughtered, but their naivety in the film made it difficult. Again, I’m looking at this purely as a movie. I expect to take some flak for writing this, but those are my first impressions.

There is perhaps some irony in Ramos-Horta being shown so riled up and emotional in his quest for justice for the people of Timor-Leste. Ask him today and he will tell you with some passion about the virtues of amnesty for perpetrators of crimes against humanity committed during the occupation years.

I thought LaPlagia put in a solid performance as Roger East and Isaac’s Ramos-Horta was convincingly cocksure. The Timorese cast in the movie were exceptional, so hats off to them.

I’ll probably watch Balibo again in the next few weeks. In the meantime, anyone who wants more background information need only go to Google News and search “Balibo”.

I was called into the house and given a plate of rice, salted fish, chopped tomato and sambal, and that weird, bitter, green vegetable people love over here. While I was eating, five of the village boys and girls came into the house looking for someone. Before I knew it, there was a sound system blasting and the children were involved in a traditional dance class.

After I’d finished eating I went outside and looked around. There were puppies all over the place. I sat down and continued my afternoon drinking session while the dancers shuffled about.

It could have been a scene in Timor-Letse. It was eerily reminiscent of my experiences on the eastern side of the island of Timor. Even the music was the same. The people looked the same. The houses were the same. The table with a single glass and a plastic water bottled full of liqueur was the same.

I hadn’t seen another foreigner for about a week. Everywhere I went, people gawped at me as if I were an alien. Foreigners do visit Rote Island, but it’s usually around March time or else in October when there’s a big surf jam. The majority of tourist movement is around the beaches.

I went to the beaches on stunning, clear days and was more or less the only person there. I saw no bars, discos, nightclubs, backpackers or anything at all really except for a few shells and some seaweed.

That night, while riding back with friends to the place I was staying, we stopped off to buy some “special” sopi that a man made in the back of his house. While I was sat in the front room with half a dozen children and a few old people, a woman of about 20 poked her head thought the front door and just for moment I caught sight of her before she quickly retreated and ran round the back.

She looked like a Western woman, with pale skin and short, scruffy blonde hair. The image of seeing her for that second or two was striking. I found out that her father was Australian and her mother Timorese. She had a beautiful face, although she was chronically shy.

To all intents and purposes she was Indonesian, but there in the middle of a jungle village on a tiny island, she was an unexpected sight, much as I was no doubt.

After we got back home my friends cracked open the special sopi. I don’t consider myself a hardened drinker and I get drunk easily, but I can drink and do shots and I’d had a lot of practise drinking tua sabu with my friends in Timor-Leste, so I wasn’t expected anything out of the ordinary.

Tua sabu is usually about 60 or 70%, I believe, and we often mix it with beer. But this sopi… holy cow. I’m sure it was about as close to drinking pure alcohol as I’ve ever come. It wasn’t so much an after taste as an afterburn that lingered in my throat.

I’d read stories about people going blind or else dying after drinking arak, so I decided to play it cool and just do one more shot before going to bed. I think we paid 20,000 rupiah for a 1.5-litre bottle full of the stuff.

Of course, drinking arak is nothing special. You see tourists drinking it with the surfer boys in Bali all the time. But this stuff was home-brewed on Rote Island, away from the masses.

I would probably struggle to live on Rote Island as there isn’t a whole lot to do or eat, but for a change of scenery, it was like all the parts of Timor-Leste I love without any of the bits I find frustrating.

On a side note, I will be in Bangkok December 27 until January 1, then in Bali until January 4, then in Salatiga until February 12, then in Bali again until about February 20, after which I assume I will go to Timor-Leste for a while and then back to Kupang. Should I be blessed with a little bit of luck, I might then be in London for a year from September.

There are around three thousand East-Timorese with Portuguese nationality living in United Kingdom, mainly in Northern Ireland, Manchester and Oxford.

I knew there were a lot, but didn’t realise quite how many. It certainly makes sense for there to be some sort of consular agency there.

In Kupang, West Timor, the people look and dress the same as in Dili, East Timor. There are lots of kiosks where people go to buy coffee or biscuits or cigarettes. People get about by traveling on mikrolets, the only difference in Kupang being that there are seemingly millions of the things and the drivers have a fondness for the Black Eyed Peas.

There’s a KFC in Kupang, although it looks decidedly out of place. The roads seem relatively flat and the temperature is about the same as in Dili. There is, of course, little in the way of a visible UN or aid-worker presence, which is refreshing. In fact, I haven’t seen any foreigners at all since I’ve been here, although I’ve yet to venture to the more popular areas.

People are certainly surprised to see me out here in West Timor. Most of the locals seem positively baffled when they catch sight of me. I tend to be equally baffled as I’m really not sure what I’m doing here, although I’m enjoying it nonetheless.

Judging from the small glimpse I’ve seen of Kupang, people don’t seem much more well off than in Dili. These are only superficial observations, of course, but it would fit that the people of West Timor deal with many of the same kind of struggles as the folks in present-day East Timor.

Even the airports in Kupang and Dili are similar. There’s certainly a lot of scope for exploring this place and delving a little deeper. At the moment I’m on Rote Island, which is about four hours off the coast of Kupang.

Yesterday I went to my first West Timorese wedding. Again, it was the same kind of shindig as I’ve seen in Dili, although nobody drinks alcohol in this particular village.

I’ve been offline for a good few days now so if anyone has been trying to get in touch with me, that’s why I haven’t been responding. I’m behind on a quite a lot of work now and have much catching up to do.

I didn’t realize it’s only a week until Christmas. I have no idea where I’ll be on Christmas Day, or New Years Eve for the matter, but I don’t really care this year.

One thing I am certain of is that from January 4 until February 12 I will be in Salatiga, Indonesia, attending a language course. After that I will be back in Dili for three months or so trying to wade through the long list of stories I’ve penciled in.

Anyway, more to come later.

Due to a series of telephone and email threats, this blog will shut down effective immediately.

It will however return.

The DI Team

This is bad news.

The fool tried to park in the middle of the road and got shouted at. The got off and he then tried to move his bike, pulled the throttle too hard and did a rather comical wheelie about 10 metres up the street. I don’t know how he didn’t fall off.

He then pulled into the bit where all the bikes are parked, crashed into the motorcycles on either side, knocked his own bike over and then picked it up as if nothing had happened.

The muppet shouted to a man passing by, “I paid your dad 50 bucks to XXXX in his mouth in the Philippines.”

This charming individual next went into McDonalds and came out to proclaim to the world that he and his girlfriends had bought three triple cheeseburgers and a fillet-o-fish.

“Let’s get more beers,” he yelled.