Growing up in Southern California, where everyone has a car, you wouldn’t really come across the scene above. Things might just have been easier if they’d bought a smaller tree.

I’ll admit what all two readers of this blog (which probably are simply Mark and I) have already noticed, how there hasn’t been much in the way of posts coming from me. When I started this, I had more time since school-wise not much was getting done and that left me with loads of time aside from work.

Recently, I’ve been very busy with school-related things, which has seriously cut into my time. Combined with the change in weather, I don’t go outside as much anymore as say during the summer. Hell, I haven’t even been to Margit Sziget in a while, which presented its fair share of amusements.

Perhaps I need to find a new direction for what I want to do with this blog. It’s quasi-personal, but I don’t feel like updating you on my daily ongoings, not just because I’m that private, but also because I lead the boring life of a grad student and describing how many pages of my own work I edited today is really not that exciting for even myself.

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I suppose for the Mancunians it’s no suprise that the A666 goes to Salford…

While over in the UK last week, my girlfriend took me to see Antony Gormley’s “Another Place” art installation on Crosby Beach.  No, that guy standing in the picture above is not really a guy, but a six foot tall rusted cast iron figure, complete with rusted cast iron penis, and is one of about a hundred or so figures stretching over two miles and looking out into the Irish Sea.  Apparently it’s proven effective, as Irish migration to the UK has slowed recently, although I’d like to think this is probably the result of the Irish economy eclipsing the British one.

As you can see in this photo, the figures aren’t entirely attractive, and taken all together as they face the sea, the installation leaves you with a desolate feeling, no doubt helped by the autumn sun low in the sky, the clouds overhead, and the 60 mph winds picking up sand and blasting you in the face so that at least a few layers of skin were stripped away during our visit.

I suppose you can always bring up the question of what art is, and whether or not this is art (my rule with visual art is that if I could have made it, it’s not art).  The statues serve primarily as a tourist attraction these days or as dangerous obstructions for people who’d actually prefer to use the beach for water sports recreation. If nothing else, the damn things are just a wee bit creepy.

Leaving for the UK about a week and a half ago, I stood at Budapest Ferihegy Airport’s Terminal 2B and looked at the departure table, and saw that this had to be the most depressing departure table I’ve seen in a long time.  I hear Odessa’s not so bad though.

There have been various rumors that John McCain is such a maverick that he deliberately is running a bad campaign to make sure Barack Obama wins.  Kind of loony conspiracy chatter, but nonetheless amusing.

But after reading some other stuff online, about how McCain wanted Joe Lieberman as his VP candidate and the Republican National Committee wouldn’t go for it, he perhaps picked Sarah Palin because he knew the RNC would accept her, but the majority of American people wouldn’t, kind of in a “if I can’t run my own campaign to win how I want to, I’ll make sure to take you down with me” plan.

Or maybe I’m just beginning to join the tinfoil crowd too…

Today I popped out to grab some milk and since it was just one or two things, I went in to the local Plus, which is something of a black hole when it comes to customer service. Although I’ve not seen the woman cashier who’s got more testosterone than most guys and is a real bitch to everyone in a while, I can’t exactly say the service has improved much.

An example of that was how today, when one of the employees was going to go on her break and wanted to buy some smokes and a thing of juice, she cut through the line of people and was rung up by the other cashier. Okay, she’s an employee, but I know from my wonderful days in retail that that’s just something you don’t do, like yell at the customer and say “You’ll forget and be back soon enough!” Yes, I’ve seen that.

That’s part of the reason I go shopping at Tesco. While I’d prefer to support a Hungarian chain, Tesco just has a better range of products (being a hypermarket) and the customer service there is indifferent, not rude. I know that’s hardly an endorsement, because it’s not meant to be, but given how so frequently the employees of a store make it seem like they’re doing you a favor (no asshole, my coming in and spending money there is what keeps you employed) it just gets frustrating.

What’s quite rare is the occasional friendly person, which is quite jarring, to the point that you’re almost thinking if you’re on a hidden camera or something. It’s rare, and I always try to be friendlier in the hopes that the person stays that way instead of morphing into a ball of hate, which quite a few are.

Things are improving, and I’ve found a few places where the customer service people are actually quite friendly, but those places are still not found frequently enough.

Since I go running out at Margit Island and went out there this summer to try and get something resembling a tan before heading toward the pale shores of Albion, I’ve come across quite a few things that are rather odd or just bizarre.  Not sure what it is, but something about that place attracts the weirdos.

• There is a woman toward the southern end of lover’s lane, who shouts at the wind.
• The incredible noise-making baritone guy.
• An old guy who goes running about an hour before sunset runs wearing thick black mitts on his hands.
• The guy who doesn’t know how to politely perv in public.
• Topless sunbathing in clear view of passerby on a main Budapest road.
• Karl Marx.
• Urban regeneration.
• A guy selling the Hungarian version of the Big Issue, aka the homeless magazine, harassing people trying to sunbathe.
• The most impressive mullet outside of the NHL. Ever.
• Some dude playing his guitar, trying to get girls interested, while sitting on a bench, in the pouring rain.
• Guys perving at the people at the Palatinus swimming complex through the fence by the running track. I slowed down, but I didn’t stare.
• Foreign tourists with their trophy wives who are about twenty years younger and have had enough plastic surgery to keep a polystyrene factory running for another year.
• Girls handing out fliers for something. I really don’t know what they were for. I was distracted by their shorts, which is being a bit generous in terms of how long they were. Okay, that’s not weird. It’s just cool.

If I get together more things, I’ll let you know.

Don’t you hate when those unwanted Soviet relics get in the way?

Okay, I promise pretty soon I’ll actually start posting random thoughts and other things as opposed to just pictures.  Blame work and the thesis.

Located in Dob utca near Mummus, but completely unrelated to it, is Budapest’s very own second-hand sex shop. Many words come to mind, such as gross, nausea and disgusting. Got any of your own?