I find the arrows irritating as hell, and you used to be able to implement a hack to have them point to the albums in your library. iTunes v8 broke that…
to just remove them completely, run this in Terminal:
defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-store-arrow-links -bool FALSE
Just switch FALSE to TRUE to turn them back on.
i want you to read this twice because that’s how i lived it, and then in turn experienced it. There are three levels here, but only the first two are apparent. The third, which to me is even more terrifying wasn’t discovered until it was over.
i accomplished a mission. I saw stuff, and I had a completely horrible experience (for the most part).
I was expecting something, but not this. This was… intense.
I took the whole thing this time. The bigger one at that. Everything started out like before. Just laughing my ass off about everything and all around craziness.
i then saw it. And i dont’ mean “saw it”. I read a text message and my phone was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. I started to see prisms in the light. I got a text form someone to meet me at a bar down the road. Quick walk to the place really. Maybe 8 or 9 blocks.
i was on cloud 9 and feeling pretty adventurous! I put on a couple jackets (it’s december) and headed outside. As I was walking to the park I saw the prisms even more, and they were mesmerizing. As if NYC isn’t enough, this was NYC on x-mas. So there were lights everywhere and I was having a blast and laughing my ass off. Good times. It was part, “i’m finally seeing something” and the other, which was more overwhelming, was the sheer experience. You can’t see these things unless your there. There’s no special effect or funny glasses that give you this.
i was in another world, and loving it!
I think i was on 5th and A… maybe 4th. Not sure really. But I was sure that the mural painted on the gates of the closed building was freaking me out. That’s when it hit me…”the fear”. It was a physical entity, not a feeling.
i remember thinking, should i continue on to the bar, or go home. thank god i hailed a cab.
i made the cabbie stop at 6th and C and threw my money at him. i think i paid somewhere around $10 for a $4 cab ride. didn’t matter. The Fear was getting larger, and more surrounding.
i kept telling myself that all i needed to do was get home. i can do this… 3 blocks…. i can do this.
i got to 7th st. and realized i couldn’t make it. What put me over the edge was that i was across the street from a police station and i’m tripping balls with no ID and the that’s when it happened. The Fear had morphed into what I now know of as Pure Evil. And it didn’t morph into a different entity, it became me. I was Pure Evil. It didn’t get to my core, but it had definitely gotten under my skin. It made sure that I wasn’t wearing it, but that I had become it, and it was just getting deeper. It was going for the bone. For the core.
I was convinced that i was going to curl up in a ball on the street and totally loose my shit. I was breathing fear, and harboring evil. Right now I’m pissed of at these words… not what I’m writing, but the actual letters and words. They cannot describe the intensity that I was feeling.
i summoned up all that i had, and new it was my only shot, so i had to make it work. i called my roommate. thank god she picked up the phone. i kept her on the phone and she guided me back to the apartment. our friend Robb also helped out by coming to meet me on the street.
i got inside and Pure Evil took over. I was scared shitless. I have never been so afraid of anything in my life. Death is easier to accept than to take on this… thing. This thing that was on … in me.
i went to my couch, and that’s when it hit me. I’m pretty sure I knew all along, but admitting it made it real. I can cope with real.
i was wearing black leather pants, and a black leather jacket and black shirt. I was hot as hell. The sweat coming out of me was the fear being pushed out by Pure Evil.
i knew what i had to do. i took off my jacket, my pants, and my shirt. (thankfully i was wearing grey boxers).
i needed to strip off the evil… i needed to get it off me so that i could then focus on the evil in side me.
i found a pair of white shorts, and a white shirt.
i honestly think that if i didn’t have them / find them, i would have just sat around in my boxers. but the grey was too close to black, so maybe not.
i’m wearing all white. i feel better. a wave of comfort comes over me. this is what i need. unfortunately i was sitting in my bedroom with a burned out light, so i was sitting in darkness. that comfort was being stripped away quickly.
i had to get out of the room.
i went into the living room. black couch, black floor, black paint. The Pure Evil was gaining strength. I moved farther to the kitchen. My WHITE kitchen. Better. From here out it gets hellishly intense dealing with the Pure Evil that’s taking over my mind and body.
i am a little cowering child, but cannot run away from it. This is me.
i then moved into the bathroom where it was even more white. i have a black shower curtain, but i let it stay. i just don’t look at it. Throughout all this my roommate is with me and telling me everything is ok.
i knew it was lame.
i knew where i was, was my home.
i didn’t give a fuck. i was scared out of my fucking skull. Scared of the evil. Please keep in mind that, although now (and somewhat while this was going on) i had a clue, this isn’t a metaphor for anything. This was exactly what i’m saying. Pure Evil.
I forced myself to vomit. A lot. I vomited until everything was clear. I was literally cleansing my body from the inside of the Evil.
i know it’s easy to see the self-preservation, and animal instinct acting on pure survival, and that this evil I’m referring to are the mushrooms i ate, and my body (not me) is doing what it knows to stay alive. I poisoned myself. My body said, “fuck you asshole” and came up with with great inventive way to get rid of the toxins. I even saw this connection while going through all of it, BUT it didn’t matter. Reality was gone… waaaaaay gone. I had succumb to this Evil, and I had to play along.
i also drank a shit ton of water. i needed to stay cool. i even dropped some onto my feet. i washed me feet at one point too. there was black fuzz from my socks on them, so obviously it had to go.
i also had the thought about my hair. having black hair also freaked me out. Not only that, but for some reason I decided…really just let myself grow a beard (what I can grow anyway). So i now have long black hair, and a beard-ish thing going on. i resolved this by keeping it back, not looking in a mirror, and always looking up. almost as if i was looking for help. i knew i wasn’t going to get anything, but looking up kept me a little bit more relaxed. umm… no. not relaxed… that doesn’t happen. just less terrified. that’s better.
I think looking up also helped with the fact that i have tattoos.
i’m not even going to think what i would have done if i saw them. they did freak me out though… i just pretended they didn’t exist. please keep in mind that my roommate is still with me the whole time. there were a couple instances where she left when we thought i was doing better.
i knew it was “childish” (that word is there for me to remember something else about tonight), but i needed her there to tell me it was ok, and that everything was normal. i think that if i was forced to have gone through this on my own, i may have literally snapped and never come back…
i went through more vomiting, and more water later, i’m starting to feel ok. and now cold.
i decided it was time to brave a lesser white room.
i left for the kitchen. not so bad really. a little disturbing… the Pure Evil was gone, but now The Fear had returned. He liked to remind me what was up.
i kept Him in check and grabbed a red blanket and headed downstairs.
i was doing good.
i was feeling slightly normal again.
i felt the fear… he was winnning.
i went back upstairs and into the bathroom to start the process all over. the red blanket wasn’t cutting it. Thankfully i had a white bathrobe on the door in the bathroom. YES! White AND warm. Perfect!
i hung out for a little while longer and tried my best to overcome The Fear.
i did it.
i left.
i went to the kitchen. heart beat rises slightly, but i reassure myself that it’s ok, and that I’m in control.
i go into the living room and don’t even LOOK into the darkness that is my bedroom.
i could almost hear the Evil that I shed in there screaming…writhing in agony. It wanted me.
i went downstairs.
i overcame The Fear.
i was warm.
i was calm. And a wise “little” woman looked me in the eyes and told me…
i am jesus.
#
# #Was watching a new Henry Rollins Spoken Word tour DVD. He started to talk about travel, and he hit it. He described almost to the “T” why and how I travel:
“As I’m working away, I see Christmas looming closer and closer. I want to do something eventful for Christmas, I’m not going to put a tree in my apartment and put lights on it. I’m just too fucking lazy and apathetic. And so I just need to go somewhere for Christmas. I do not believe in going somewhere on a holiday or a vacation just to sit in some place where the skin will damage my poor pale pasty white skin, and I don’t want to live in a hotel doing the same thing when I’m home, watching MacGiver on rerun. I want something that will educate me. I want to out into the world and learn a thing or two. I think we as a species; we need to travel more. All of you need to leave your country on a regular basis. Trust me your country will still be here when you get back. I just think it’s important for people to go to countries where they’re not familiar, where they definitely look like they’re not from there, they need to eat food that they cannot pronounce the name of, listen to music that they can’t understand, and shake the hands of everyone and say crazy things like, “Hey! What’s going on?” I think we need to do this more often, thus we become xenophobic, living a boring, flat-lined, fucked up life. This is why I travel. To get cultured. So where can I go get cultured for Christmas? Well, I don’t want to do it in Florida, or Hawaii to get cultured on a hammock, with a “cervesa” and a laptop burning a design of an apple into my chest. I want to go someplace else.
And so on one evening on my way to the movies, I come up with where I’m going to go for Christmas. I’m like, “ohhh, this is fantastic!” And the idea of it terrifies me, “I could die. I shouldn’t go there. I have to go there!” And I don’t understand this thing with me. This Psych 101 thing. I get this idea to go somewhere, and the next thing I hear is my voice, “If you don’t go, you’re a pussy. If you do not go to this place, you do not deserve to eat. If you do not go, you are fucking worthless.” And it becomes fairly obsessive.
[...]
Next thing I know, I’m in my home away from home, Los Angeles International Airport. I go from Los Angeles to Heathrow International airport, and from Heathrow for my Christmas break…aaahhhh. Inthralling, sparkling, urbanite, cosmopolitan, Islamabad Pakistan! I just figured a guy could learn a thing or two.
[...]
Once I got there, I do what I always do. I dropped my bag, grabbed my water, and started pounding the streets walking around. I have a plan when I do all these trips. The first half is, “I’m Going!” The second half is, “I have no idea, not a fuckin’ clue what happens next.” And that is the difference between being a tourist, and being a traveler. A traveler doesn’t know where he’s going. The tourist doesn’t know where he is.
And so that’s what I like to do. I like to walk through cities, and say crazy things like, “Hi, I’m Henry. I’m from America. I’m really glad to be here.” And see what happens.”
Parallels Desktop 4 has a major issues with the OS X process prl_vm_app consuming 100% of a cpu core. This obviously causes all kinds of issues.
Here’s a fix I found on the Parallels forums:
Here is the detailed steps I used:
- shutdown the winxp vm
- right click on the vmname.pvm file and select show contents
- edit the config.pvs file with a text editor
- find the Hardware/Chipset/Type section of the XML and change the value to 1 from 0
- save the file
- start the vm and select cancel to all the new hardware setup windows
- wait until they stop (usually after the ’some hardware did not install properly’ message)
- open add/remove software in the vm and uninstall parallel tools (this took foreever for me)
- reboot the vm when it completes (it will ask you)
- again, cancel all the new hardware setup windows
- delete any ‘prl*’ files in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers (including the prl_* files)
- in the parallels virtual machine menu select install parallels tools and wait until it completes (may take a while)
- if prompted to insert the xp service pack 3 CD, just browse to the C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers directory and it will find the file it needs (I was actually prompted this way for two different files both times I’ve done it)
- reboot the vm when prompted
- enjoy the return to the version 3 speed
CAUTION: I’m just telling you what worked for me, your milage may vary… make backups!
ANOTHER NOTE: Uninstalling parallels tools and reinstalling took over 30 minutes for me; be patient.
.: Adam
So 8am comes around, and I’m all like, “wassup…”
I walked downstairs and took full advantage of the free breakfast. Had a plate full of ham, toast, rolls, cake, and glasses of freshly squeezed OJ. Mmmm… so good. I always wondered why at pretty much every hostel I go to I get free breakfast of some kind, all for somewhere around $10/night. Yet, when I go to a hotel anywhere in the states and drop $100-$400/night, I get maybe free coffee. I don’t even drink coffee! So lame.
I digress…
While mowing down the food, I was browsing through a book someone left on the table, “Time Out: Rio”. I’m a fan of Time Out New York for things to do, so I checked it out to see if there was anything that would catch my eye to do while in Rio.
Hiking…nah, Fishing… nah, Crazy parties… it’s only 8am, Hang Gliding…BINGO!
I left my dishes in the kitchen and headed to the front desk to see how much hang gliding would be and if they could hook it up. The chick at the counter told me that it’s about R$200 and includes the taxi to and from the place. Sounded like a plan so I agreed.
There was a small hitch… she couldn’t get a hold of the hang gliding guy. Not in any hurry, especially considering how early it was, I headed back up to my room to apply the sun block. I was going to the beach!
I picked up my iPod, a book, and was off! I walked a block up and plopped myself down in the sand. It was the perfect temperature out. Hot, but the breeze from the ocean kept you from sweating like crazy.
Here’s a couple photos of me chillin…
And this was my view for about 2 hours…
It was fairly early still (maybe about 9), so the beach was pretty empty. After a little nap, I decided to head back to the hostel to try and get this hang gliding thing hooked up.
When I arrived, the girl said that she had tried a few more times, but was unable to reach him. I’m used to having to do everything myself, so I just told her to forget about it, and I’ll take care of it. Thanked her for her help, and went up stairs to use the Internets. I found 2 hang gliding groups in Rio, and wrote down their phone numbers. I was planning on using the front desk phone to make the calls, but that would have been too easy. The numbers I wanted to call weren’t reachable by that phone, so I had to use a pay phone. I saw them everywhere, so I wasn’t too concerned. There was a little bodega thing around the corner that I get beverages from, so I headed there to pick up a phone card. I bought a “20″ for R$4.50. More than enough.
What luck, there was a pay phone right next to the stand =). BUT it didn’t work. Well… it said it was working, but none of the phone numbers were going through. So either I was retarded, or the phone was messed. Onto the next phone! I wound up trying 2 other phones before I found one where my number went through. Lucky for me, it was on a busy street, and the speaker was so low I couldn’t hear hardly anything the guy was saying. Mix that up with some Portuguese and bad English and you have a recipe for getting no where.
So, to the next phone I went! It worked, and it was loud! Yes! Feeling pretty proud of myself for getting through all this I tell the guy I want to go hang gliding and where to pick me up. We just had to work out a time and price. Then he tells me that his phone battery is dying and he’ll have to call me right back. Click. FUCK! I’M AT A PAYPHONE! THERE ARE NO CALLBACKS HERE. Dammit.
Ok… I have another guy I can call, so I called them, “Just Fly Rio”. They had a ton of good feedback online. Works for me! Now that I’m at a good phone, and with my phone card, I have Paulo a call. He picked up. We had a friendly chat about hang gliding. I agreed on a price, but I didn’t catch what the reasoning was (bad translations), but he said that we had to go right now, and he was sending a cab to pick me up. He asked for my hostel name, and then I heard it… Beep beep beep. And then nothing… wtf? My call was just disconnected. Oh well, I’ll just call him right back. Well… I would have but my calling card was empty! Apparently the “20″ on the front of the cards has NOTHING to do with the amount of minutes that are on it, considering I talked for maybe 5 minutes total to 2 people. I ran back to the bodega to buy another “20″ … whatever the hell that means … and then ran back to the phone to call back Paulo. I gave him my hostel name and he said the cabbie would be there in 5 minutes with another guy that also going hang gliding, so be ready.
I ran back to the hostel to drop off all unnecessary items, swapped my flip-flops for my boots, and exited the hostel. Marcus, the cabbie, was there waiting for me. In the back was Lucious from Sao Paulo. He was in town for the weekend as well, just to go hang gliding.
On the way to the hang gliding place, we chatted about Rio and pointed out every hot chick we saw on the beach. Good times =)
As we rounded the corner, I saw a bunch of hang gliders in the air circling over the mountain and beach. Soon I was going to be up there. Crazy!
We arrived at the beach and the Marcus took us to meet up with Paulo. We said our good-bye’s and then headed into a little building where we had to sign a waiver (or something). Not sure. It was all in portuguese and it was so packed I couldn’t get anyone to tell me what the hell I was signing. It looked like a waiver…
So I signed it with a false name, and scribbled some fake address here in Rio. I handed it to a guy behind the counter and he handed me a piece of paper with more scribbles on it. I was to take this with me (he made the “put it in your pocket” motion). Now that I feel safer about how legitimate this all is, let’s go jump off a mountain!
Lucious, Paulo and I jumped in his car and took a ride up the mountain. His car was definitely not made for that trip. The incline was so steep that the car kept slipping and sliding backwards. Every so often, he would have to put on the parking break and to a break torque just to get up and around a corner. I had my hand on the handle of the door incase I need to get out in a hurry. You know. Like if the car just happened to slip are the wrong time and start to go over the edge of a cliff =). All in good fun though. We were all laughing about it the whole way up.
When we reached the top, a little brazilian guy grabbed the hang glider bag from the top of the car and ran up about 4 flights of stairs to the edge of the mountain and started to assemble everything.
There were a ton of other hang glider people already up there and ready to jump. Apparently, there was a hang gliding competition going on, and we got there during the 2 hour lunch break. This is why Paulo stressed that we had to go immediately. I guess I was pretty lucky. If I wouldn’t have called at that moment, I would have missed out completely.
While the one guy was putting together the hang glider, I met the guy that I would be flying with “Zero”
He didn’t speak any English really, just added to the thrill of it all. I didn’t really want to have a firm understanding of anything anyway. I just wanted to hope my Portuguese was good enough (I know about 4 or 5 words… I’m fine). With some pointing and watching, I got my body harness on right (I guess…I’m still alive anyway), and popped on a spiffy looking helmet. Not sure what a helmet is going to do if I fall the 1,700 meters straight down into the natural foliage or sand, but hey…why not =)
Now that the harness was on, it was time for a quick photo-op on the wooden platform that we were going to jump off of.
I was supposed to make that “I’m flying” stance, but I figured I already looked retarded enough as it was with my helmet. You do get a good view of the mass of nothing we were about to jump into though. It was a straight-down drop at the end of that thing (didn’t have a chance to look until I actually jumped off though).
After the photo, we walked over to the side and he explained to me in a very detailed manner what we’re going to do…”Run! Don’t Stop!”. After repeating those words a couple more times with a little more Portuguese thrown in there for good measure in case I happened to pick it up while sitting on the wall a minute ago.
After that lengthy discussion, he hooked a giant tent of a hang glider to my back, then hooked himself in. Put my left arm on his back, and my right arm on the red strap. I knew exactly where to put my hands in part by his fluent Portuguese and grabbing my arms and placing them there. The stern look which clearly meant, “don’t let go” was also conveyed. I noticed a wire running between my legs and asked if I should move either myself or the wire. Obviously I needed to improve my translations abilities. I opted to move the wire. I figurer I had a 50/50 shot of either getting split in half after take off, or pulling some sort of safety wire. Meh…
I guess in Brazil, kicking a wire sideways means, “Run like hell off the edge of a mountain, and make sure it’s a surprise to the guy that just kicked the wire.”
At the edge of the platform I hear one last, “Don’t stop” and then there’s no more ground. I was flying! Took a couple seconds for it to sink in, but throughout the whole thing, I was never nervous, just disoriented the whole time. Great technique to get people to jump I guess. Yeah… totally done on purpose. This guy is probably some great Brazilian psychiatrist and I just had some serious mental Judo done on me so I wouldn’t think anything was…off.
Anywhoo… This is me flying! (There was a camera attached to the end of one of the wings).
All in all, I think we were flying around up there for about 15 to 20 minutes. Totally unbelievable, and I would love to do it again! But only with someone I trust, obviously.
After some circling around, and a couple, “Hey look, we’re gunna run right into that mountain / tree / other hang glider / bird, WOAH! Hahahah… jk,” we headed towards the beach for our landing. This was the fun part. To have explained ahead of time that we were about to basically do a free-fall straight down towards the ocean and pull up at the last second and stop abruptly on the sandy beach would have taken all the fun out of it. I enjoy thinking that my hang gliding buddy has just decided to kill himself and take out some gringo in the process while laughing hysterically the whole time. This guy knows how to party!
I grabbed one last quick photo with my arial buddy before jumping back in the cab and heading back to Ipanema.
When I got back to the hostel, I took the CD of photos I just received and emailed them to myself as a backup. I didn’t want to have them lost / stolen / broken. Then it was time to head back to the beach! I stopped by a bakery for a couple Ham and Cheese roll / sandwich things that were buttery delicious and headed to the beach for a stroll.
This was the Rio I heard about. Tons of chicks everywhere (most of which have great bodies), they are all wearing thongs (unfortunately, even the not-so-hot ones were as well) and a lot of them had some pretty big tattoos on their sides or legs. Kind of shocking actually.
About 2 hours of walking around in the sun was about all I could take, so back to the hostel for more chillin in a hammock with a book. My second favorite thing to do in Rio =)
Somewhere around dinner time, the cool Australian chicks asked me to join them for food. I was hungry so I joined up with them and we headed out. We just hit up a local joint around the corner. Good food, chill atmosphere.
Cool Australian Chicks:
(She’s got black-mouth from Acai…hahah)
After dinner we headed to Ipanema beach and walked toward Copacabana just talking about whatever. I mean seriously, do you need a reason to hang out on a beach in Rio? Hell no.
Between the two beaches is a giant rock hill that goes out into the ocean. There was also some crazy waves breaking right next to it. This seemed to attract all the surfers. We chilled on the rocks and watched the surfers / sunset. I managed to take a cool HDR photo of it with my little point-and-shoot camera. I wasn’t sure how well it would come out, but I was happy with it.
Once it started to get dark, we headed back to the hostel. I wanted to do more “chillin-in-the-hammock” =).
I’m not sure when, but I wound up falling asleep. I was woken up by my Australian friends talking with these two dudes from Iceland. One of them said something about hookers. I guess my subconscious was interested enough to wake me up to find out more. Turns out it was a mis-translation for “hooks”. The things in the wall holding up my hammock.
I woke up somewhere around 10. I know this because everyone else had Capadinas (butchered the spelling on that one) in their hands. It’s the drink of brazil. Contains a sugar liquor with lime and other yummy stuff. AND… I just missed getting one. Bar-thing closed at 10. Dang-it.
The chicks were trying to get me to come to Lapa with them, but I really wasn’t in the mood for that style of party, and I wanted to try and check out these supposed metal-bars again. Now that it was getting closer to 11, I knew they would at least be open.
I took a cab again to the first place. This time I didn’t need a map or my little piece of paper with all the addresses on it. Made me look like less of a tourist… hahha, yeah right. I got dropped off about a block away and walked over to the bar that looked pretty cool from the night before. There was a HUGE line out in front (easily 50+ people), the people were all very normal too. Dressed in their snazzy weekender party clothes. The music coming out from the place was NOT metal. This place was lame. Onto the next one!
20 minutes of walking through some back alleys of Rio thinking, “what the hell am I doing here…this is just stupid”, I cam across the next place that was supposed to be a metal bar. AGAIN, same crappy people and same crappy music. Super lame…
There was another bar I could have checked out, but the first two were the highly recommended ones, and the third one was a little bit farther out and I would have had to walk through a favela to get there. I contemplated it. I even stood at the edge of the favela. But the looks from the dude that seemed to be guarding it said, “I don’t think so”. I gave up at this point and walked back to a lit road, then from there to a road with cars. I then followed that one to a main road and hailed a cab to take me back to the hostel. I wonder if I’m retarded, or comfortable putting myself in situations like this. I think the more I travel, the more I feel I can get away with these things. Oh well…
Back at the hostel, I grabbed my book and finished a couple more chapters. Then, to keep my routine, I went to bed. I think it was only around 1am.
Yesterday, I said “screw it” and went out to the bar to be social. Dive back into the game. I didn’t have any intention to hook up with anyone, just make my connections around the city again, and see if i still “had it”.
Our first stop was Nice Guy Eddies to meet a friend of Mikes. She was really cool, and in a really good band. It was a sports bar, and I was like, “shit… time to go”. Welp, Bobby (the chick) put Slayer on and gave me a couple shots of Jager. Happy =).
When I complained that I was promised pasties and a thong, the other bartender smiled, threw her clothes at me and jumped on the bar and gave me a show. Damn =)
I also found out that a girl (waitress) wanted to have sex with me in the bathroom. LOL!
I then went to a rooftop party and made a complete ass of myself! Hahahah…
Today, I woke up around 5 and swore I wasn’t going to drink tonight… fail.
Long story short, I wind up at Doc Holiday’s and have a photoshoot with a bachelorette party, got invited to a stall for coke from another chick, and another girl that was all into me! DAMN!
I don’t care if it’s beginners luck, someone set this up to help me out, or it’s totally legit. I’m enjoying being me =)
.: Adam
