You just knew that when the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, was going to be visiting George Bush in Washington, Sacha Baron Cohen would not be far behind. Or should I say, Borat Sagdiyev would not be far behind.
Today, in Washington D.C., Borat held a press conference right outside the embassy of Kazakhstan. That's pretty ballsy considering the government of Kazakhstan has been on Cohen's case for months for distorting their image to world. Cohen is on a whirlwind tour of the US to promote his new Borat film.
There are two videos from the press conference. The first part you can view above. The second part can been seen here. If the audio is too low for you, there is a transcript of the event. It makes for a good read. Here's just a sample of what he had to say:
"Jagshemash, my name Borat Sagdiyev. I would like to comment on recent advertisments on television and in media about my nation of Kazakhstan, saying that women are treated equally, and that all religions are tolerated - these are disgusting fabrications. These claims are part of a propoganda campaign against our country by evil nitwits Uzbekistan - who as we all know are a very nosey people, with a bone in the middle of their brain."
Though I don't hate working in a large, downtown-style office building, I'm now of the opinion it wouldn't be so bad if I never worked in one ever again.
I currently work in a large, 20 story multi-tenant office building in downtown Vancouver. I've been there less than two months. Waiting for elevators is the suckiest part. If you get to the lobby around 9am, there's tons of people waiting to get to the upper floors. There's even lineups so that you won't necessarily get in the first elevator that comes. I can just imagine how bad it is when the rainy season starts and everyone is jammed in there with their soggy coats and umbrellas.
Then sometimes you get these weird looks in the elevator from the rest of the tenants in my building. The other companies that use this building are accounting firms, lawyers, you know, traditional business types. In a typical elevator car, you'll see men in business suits and ties, women in pant suits and dresses, and then guys in ripped jeans and t-shirts that shows you how to do a combo in Street Fighter 2. Guess who works at EA?
I wonder if the "suits" ever talk about us?
Anyways, I prefer working in two different extremes. One is the smaller office building. The old Backbone office was four floors in a relatively small office building. We had the entire second floor. It was cozy and intimate. Better yet was the small office building that only had one tenant, which was what Backbone now currently has.
The other extreme is the large campus that covers several acres, exactly like the EAC facility in Burnaby. There's lots of space where things aren't cramped because that's how office buildings are. There's also room for expansion if needed. Because there's no sharing of space with other tenants, there is a much more cohesive feel to the environment. No running into Mr. Joe Accountant in the elevator.
I've come to appreciate my friendship with Ron, a former co-worker of mine. At first, I thought he was just an angry Chinese guy but I had it all wrong. After countless philosophical discussions about many, many different subjects, I found that his observations about life and society are wise ones.
Let me share with you just two of his irrefutable truths.
The one first came about after we both had sat down for some particularly good Wakamidori Sencha green tea. With the leaves still swirling in our cups and the aroma of the Far East permeating in the air, talk quickly turned to subject of choice. More specifically, we began to wonder why women, in great numbers, appear to make such poor choices when it comes to men. As I poured Ron another cup of tea, it was no clear no amount of math would help us solve this problem. Soon after, Ron supplied not an answer, but at least a truth from which we could work from. I'll never forget when he said:
"At any given moment, somewhere in the world, a hot girl is being serviced by a complete moron."
His words rang truer than any peer reviewed proof in the Journal of Applied Mathematics. Yes, it was a hard, cold reality but isn't accepting the truth the first step towards... something or another?
The second irrefutable truth came about when we were in China this summer. After an ardous hike we had just reached the summit of Huang Shan or Yellow Mountain in the province of An Hui. As we rested, the vantage point afforded us a spectacular view of the XinAn River. Naturally, the conversation turned to the subject of zombies. Also, if you're going to be discussing zombies, what logically follows is why guys get stuck in the friend zone with women. What's worse than getting your penis getting chewed off by a zombie? Well, it's when your lady friend doesn't even know you have one. We then started to talk about what each of us would do in zombie movie situations, for example in Dawn of the Dead (2004).
Ron thought about it for a while and then he had this to say:
"Even if I was the last man on earth, Sarah Polley would proably say something like 'Oh, we can't re-populate the earth, sex would ruin our friendship. You're such a good friend.'"
Could anyone dispute this? The simple answer is no. I know for a fact several women would say this to myself and many other guys too. That statement stood out for me as one of the highlights of our trip, possibly even rivaling our hijinx on Huaihai Road when we stumbled into Shanghai looking for square hamburgers.
Well, there you have it, just a few nuggets of wisdom from my friend Ron. Stay tuned for more!
I'd like to share with you one of my all-time favourite Dave Letterman segments. In this piece, Dave takes over a shift at the drive-through window at a Taco Bell.
