Hey, all.
There haven't been any new posts lately for two reasons. One, about ten days ago I got caught stealing a tub of yogurt, and got put in jail for about a week. Abu is spending the next few weeks with his extended family in Madagasgar. Don't worry, carpet's with him. But that means no one was able to bust me out early, so I just had to wait it out. As a result, I got a pretty nasty cold, and I've been stuck in my hammock for the past few days. With any luck, I should be all better by tomorrow, for the presentation of the Delta Kihn Awards. My friend Farran had something similar two weeks ago, and he got over it in about three days. So hopefully we'll be hearing more from me in the next couple days. But for now, more tea, pita toast, and rest.
- Aladdin
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Ambulator nascitur, non fit.
It means "Walkers are born, not made".
About a year ago, I visited Maldonia for a few weeks. It was beautiful! One of the things that really surprised me about it, though, was how little people looked around. My first stop on my tour of Maldonia was the town of Ralhontus. Ralhontus has about ten thousand people in it, most of whom live within a ten minute walk of the esplanade. After stealing some food for the night, I took a rooftop tour of the town. Near a small bakery I met a young guy named Tas. I talked to him for a while, trying to learn a little about the surrounding area. You see, Ralhontus is about ten miles inland, along the Deniz river. On either side of the town are large hills spotted with what appeared to be castle ruins. I hadn't heard anything about castles from the traders in the Agrabah market, so I tried to find out a little about them from Tas. It turns out, Tas, who must have been in his early twenties, had never been outside of the town limits. Never! How is this possible? I asked myself. Where do you go for fun? I asked Tas. He didn't really have a good answer. You know, my friends' house. The esplanade. Boring places. There was all this gigantourous beauty around the town, and Tas had never even seen it!
So that brings me to my main point. Do you appreciate what's around you? Not the city you live in, that's probably not that significant. No, I mean the environment you live in. Have you found your inner tree hugger? Here's what I suggest. Get on your carpet, or in your car, or your camel, or your boat, or however you move around, and go. Find a big, open, unadulterated wilderness, and spend a day (not a few hours, I mean a full day) out there. Don't bring your cell, or your GPS, or your iPod or your PDA, or whatever. Be a walker, not a wire. Live.
About a year ago, I visited Maldonia for a few weeks. It was beautiful! One of the things that really surprised me about it, though, was how little people looked around. My first stop on my tour of Maldonia was the town of Ralhontus. Ralhontus has about ten thousand people in it, most of whom live within a ten minute walk of the esplanade. After stealing some food for the night, I took a rooftop tour of the town. Near a small bakery I met a young guy named Tas. I talked to him for a while, trying to learn a little about the surrounding area. You see, Ralhontus is about ten miles inland, along the Deniz river. On either side of the town are large hills spotted with what appeared to be castle ruins. I hadn't heard anything about castles from the traders in the Agrabah market, so I tried to find out a little about them from Tas. It turns out, Tas, who must have been in his early twenties, had never been outside of the town limits. Never! How is this possible? I asked myself. Where do you go for fun? I asked Tas. He didn't really have a good answer. You know, my friends' house. The esplanade. Boring places. There was all this gigantourous beauty around the town, and Tas had never even seen it!
So that brings me to my main point. Do you appreciate what's around you? Not the city you live in, that's probably not that significant. No, I mean the environment you live in. Have you found your inner tree hugger? Here's what I suggest. Get on your carpet, or in your car, or your camel, or your boat, or however you move around, and go. Find a big, open, unadulterated wilderness, and spend a day (not a few hours, I mean a full day) out there. Don't bring your cell, or your GPS, or your iPod or your PDA, or whatever. Be a walker, not a wire. Live.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Something Happy
Geez, that last post was kind of a downer. Let's get something exciting up here, shall we?
Studies show… people are happier on weekends! (link)
There. That's happy, right? It's almost weekend, and, although I don't have to work during the week, I'm feeling happier already. Do you feel happy?
Studies show… people are happier on weekends! (link)
There. That's happy, right? It's almost weekend, and, although I don't have to work during the week, I'm feeling happier already. Do you feel happy?
Greed
I was mulling over some recent events last night when I realized something: human beings are inherently greedy. Ohh, shocker! I know, this is something that has been known for ages. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if looked at from the point of view of greediness, a lot of confusing recent events (specifically, negative events) can be explained. Look at the market here in Agrabah. For those of you not in the know, let me go over what's happened.
OK, so this guy named Garamonde had a stall in the market on Seale St. You know, the one where I first met Jasmine. Garamonde decided that he was going to give up the sale of textiles and start selling something new called Silstens. No one really knew what a Silsten was, but they were selling for the western equivalent of $80.00 per cubit (about 0.8 meters). Obviously, they must have been pretty useful, or beautiful, or something, because they were gosh darn valuable. So people started buying Silstens in droves. Problem was, no one had actually seen a single Silsten. What they were actually buying were guarantees for Silstens when the stock became available (in about six months, or so Garamonde told people). As more people bought Silstens, their price went up. Then people realized they could turn a profit on the Silstens they'd already bought, so a big market sprang up for buying, selling, and trading Silstens. The Sultan, who lives up in the palace, heard about this, so he decided to invest in a whole bunch of Silstens. Since they were being bought for the palace, people decided they could charge whatever they wanted for Silstens, as the Sultan has plenty of money.
You can probably see where this is going. Silsten, it turns out, is a type of rope made from plant fibres, and actually worth about about 5% of what people were paying for them. Suddenly, no one wanted Silstens any more. The Sultan, who had invested much more than we previously knew in Silstens, suddenly owed a lot of people a lot of money, and had run out of both credit and credibility. Suddenly, being a street rat seemed a lot nicer than having to pay for your food. I got some heavy competition, and for a while, Abu and I were kind of tight on food.
Things are evening out now, but think about it. This was all caused by greed. If Garamonde hadn't been so risky with his sale of Silstens, and if everyone hadn't wanted Silstens for themselves without even knowing what they were getting into, this whole thing could have been avoided.
Greed is defined (by yours truly) as wanting more than is strictly necessary. Why do you work hard? So you can get more money. Why have more money? It's just gold coins, essentially worthless for their practical use. People only want money so they can trade their money in for (a) essential stuff (like food), which I respect, and (b) useless stuff that is shiny and makes others envy you. Now, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with a little greed. The other day, I found this awesome board game in a dumpster behind a gyro joint. It's called "Sticktion", and involves moving colored blobs around a board and collecting different geometric shape cards. Do I really need this game? No. I got along just fine before I found it. But I do enjoy playing it with Abu on rainy days (I hear tell that we're supposed to get a lot of rain this weekend. For a city in the desert, that's nice, but for a city built on sand and fertilizer, everything becomes mushy and slippery when it gets wet). And I'm really good at Sticktion.
So is that OK? Sure. Here's my philosophy. Greed is acceptable in moderation, but only in moderation, and only when your having of something does not restrict others from having it. If someone was still using that game, I would not have taken it. Only because it was in a dumpster is it OK that I took it. Now, when it comes to survival, take all you can get, but for needless entertainment and personal advancement, let the more needy go first. I may be a street rat, but I'm pretty good at it. Others, like all those in the Silsten problem, had no clue what they were doing. I could have had all the food I wanted, but they needed food too, and as a more advantaged street rat, I should help them out.
Time to go, I'll see y'all later. Remember, Bee true to yourself!
- Aladdin
OK, so this guy named Garamonde had a stall in the market on Seale St. You know, the one where I first met Jasmine. Garamonde decided that he was going to give up the sale of textiles and start selling something new called Silstens. No one really knew what a Silsten was, but they were selling for the western equivalent of $80.00 per cubit (about 0.8 meters). Obviously, they must have been pretty useful, or beautiful, or something, because they were gosh darn valuable. So people started buying Silstens in droves. Problem was, no one had actually seen a single Silsten. What they were actually buying were guarantees for Silstens when the stock became available (in about six months, or so Garamonde told people). As more people bought Silstens, their price went up. Then people realized they could turn a profit on the Silstens they'd already bought, so a big market sprang up for buying, selling, and trading Silstens. The Sultan, who lives up in the palace, heard about this, so he decided to invest in a whole bunch of Silstens. Since they were being bought for the palace, people decided they could charge whatever they wanted for Silstens, as the Sultan has plenty of money.
You can probably see where this is going. Silsten, it turns out, is a type of rope made from plant fibres, and actually worth about about 5% of what people were paying for them. Suddenly, no one wanted Silstens any more. The Sultan, who had invested much more than we previously knew in Silstens, suddenly owed a lot of people a lot of money, and had run out of both credit and credibility. Suddenly, being a street rat seemed a lot nicer than having to pay for your food. I got some heavy competition, and for a while, Abu and I were kind of tight on food.
Things are evening out now, but think about it. This was all caused by greed. If Garamonde hadn't been so risky with his sale of Silstens, and if everyone hadn't wanted Silstens for themselves without even knowing what they were getting into, this whole thing could have been avoided.
Greed is defined (by yours truly) as wanting more than is strictly necessary. Why do you work hard? So you can get more money. Why have more money? It's just gold coins, essentially worthless for their practical use. People only want money so they can trade their money in for (a) essential stuff (like food), which I respect, and (b) useless stuff that is shiny and makes others envy you. Now, don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with a little greed. The other day, I found this awesome board game in a dumpster behind a gyro joint. It's called "Sticktion", and involves moving colored blobs around a board and collecting different geometric shape cards. Do I really need this game? No. I got along just fine before I found it. But I do enjoy playing it with Abu on rainy days (I hear tell that we're supposed to get a lot of rain this weekend. For a city in the desert, that's nice, but for a city built on sand and fertilizer, everything becomes mushy and slippery when it gets wet). And I'm really good at Sticktion.
So is that OK? Sure. Here's my philosophy. Greed is acceptable in moderation, but only in moderation, and only when your having of something does not restrict others from having it. If someone was still using that game, I would not have taken it. Only because it was in a dumpster is it OK that I took it. Now, when it comes to survival, take all you can get, but for needless entertainment and personal advancement, let the more needy go first. I may be a street rat, but I'm pretty good at it. Others, like all those in the Silsten problem, had no clue what they were doing. I could have had all the food I wanted, but they needed food too, and as a more advantaged street rat, I should help them out.
Time to go, I'll see y'all later. Remember, Bee true to yourself!
- Aladdin
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Morning Walks
Have you ever taken a walk along a beach? Well, I haven't. Not to many beaches here in Agrabah. But there are lots of dunes, and I hear tell from the traders that beaches have lots of dunes. This morning I got up early, and, since it wasn't too hot (we're having a blissful cold spell right now), I decided to take a walk on the dunes just beyond eastern Agrabah. Man, it was beautiful. I got to the Percival Dunes just before six, and I had breakfast on the top of the highest one (looked like a few hundred feet high, but I'm terrible at judging distances) as the sun rose. Wow. One of the traders in the market once told me that most westerners have never seen the sun rise. Never? Have you, yes you, ever seen the sun rise? Not in the city on your drive to work, but in nature. In the wild. It's an experience you must have before you die.
I went back to my roof not long after, because once it gets past 10:00 its too hot to be traveling in the desert without a camel. When I got back, Abu and Carpet were playing Mahjong together, and Abu was kicking Carpet's tassels. You know, I've never won a game of Mahjong against that monkey. I've also heard that most westerners have never played Mahjong. I looked online, and the closest thing I could find was a solitaire version. Beware, it's highly addictive. Play here.
See you later!
I went back to my roof not long after, because once it gets past 10:00 its too hot to be traveling in the desert without a camel. When I got back, Abu and Carpet were playing Mahjong together, and Abu was kicking Carpet's tassels. You know, I've never won a game of Mahjong against that monkey. I've also heard that most westerners have never played Mahjong. I looked online, and the closest thing I could find was a solitaire version. Beware, it's highly addictive. Play here.
See you later!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Welcome to My World!
Hey, you found Aladdin's World! Welcome.
My name is Aladdin. Not to many people out west know what life's like here in Agrabah, so I thought, rather than star in more direct-to-video sequels, I'll just tell you about it here on my blog. Posts should come on a somewhat regular basis, unless the guards catch me and throw me in jail for a week or two. Topics? They'll range from the weather here in Agrabah (hey - that cloud looks like a dune. So does that one! Wow. Lots of dunes…) to political ramblings about you western countries to the latest and greatest in internet timewasters to me trying to get out of homework for my Econ class at AWH (Agrabah West High).
See you in a few, and remember: Bee yourself!
My name is Aladdin. Not to many people out west know what life's like here in Agrabah, so I thought, rather than star in more direct-to-video sequels, I'll just tell you about it here on my blog. Posts should come on a somewhat regular basis, unless the guards catch me and throw me in jail for a week or two. Topics? They'll range from the weather here in Agrabah (hey - that cloud looks like a dune. So does that one! Wow. Lots of dunes…) to political ramblings about you western countries to the latest and greatest in internet timewasters to me trying to get out of homework for my Econ class at AWH (Agrabah West High).
See you in a few, and remember: Bee yourself!
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