Yes, back from hiatus is your old friend, The Jamison. Things have changed significantly since we last spoke. I returned from Egypt, spent a little time in the ATL, then moved to Baltimore and secured employment. Maggie is settling into her graduate program nicely. So far I’m digging the town. We live in Charles Village, so we’re stocking up on samurai swords.

Anyway, with my return to a more conventional life, I intend to become less of a fixture in my own posts. Certainly you will still be seeing the world through the eyes of the Jamison, but I imagine fewer of the stories will feature me as the key player and will instead become more about commentary and opinion. Items marked “Travelogue” will probably be about less exotic destinations than Cairo, but I’ll see what I can do to keep my adventures interesting. Things are in a state of transition, and I can’t be certain what the future holds.

Lastly, to all of those bitching because they can’t add me on Google Reader. I’m working on it. More to come.

According to a study at Keele University in Britain, swearing not only makes you feel better but increases your tolerance for pain. Researchers had the participants stick their hands into a bucket of ice water while repeating a swear word of their choice. The control group stuck their hands in ice water while repeating a word they would use to describe a table. Guess who was able to keep their hands in the ice water. Look it up if you don’t believe me.

Meanwhile, I have this meditation on swearing to keep you busy.

Sometimes when I’m watching TV and the power goes out, I find myself wondering what the going rate for a soul is in these days of economic hardship. This guy knows the answer:

$45 million to do 3 more years of Idol. Could you say no?

Matt Fraction posted this without comment (more or less) on Twitter earlier today and I can’t help but say my piece.

There’s a whole host of things wrong with this video and song, but I’m going to stick to the one basic question that keeps running through my head: If you look at every girl as somebody’s daughter, and that negates your carnal desires, then how do you have a healthy relationship with your wife?

My other gripe is that it just makes me want to watch Fast Times at Ridgemont High, specifically the scene that features a similar, but much better tune, by Jackson Browne.

Surf Nazis, dude.

As you may know from reading previous posts, I’ve been rereading Chris Claremont’s epic run on X-Men (which became Uncanny X-Men and spawned the entire of X-family titles we now know and love… or hate), so it’s been a fine time for Claremont’s X-Men Forever to premiere. For the uninitiated, X-Men Forever is Claremont’s attempt to write an X-Men comic which disregards current continuity and picks up where he left off. X-Men Forever #1 is, in effect, (adjective-less) X-Men #4.

Many people are justifiably skeptical of this title. For one thing, Claremont’s return to Marvel 10 years ago met with only moderate success. A lot of fans respond to his work as being a bit too wordy for modern comics, and, let’s face it, his vision of the X-Men harkins back to the dawn of 90’s comics, a period now regarded as the industry’s worst hour.

I’m going to take the ride on this one, though, if for no better reason than the fact that I just like Chris Claremont. Ignoring the fact that The X-Men was one of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s least successful titles, which Claremont turned into the company’s flagship franchise, I’ve always found Claremont to be a genuinely friendly individual. I was 17 when I saw him in the gift shop of the Hyatt at Dragon Con, back when he was writing a respectable run on Fantastic Four. I approached him (which took a lot of effort at the time) and said, “I really like what you’re doing on the Fantastic Four.”

He said, “Thanks. Are you coming to the panel?”

“What panel,” I asked.

“It’s going on downstairs in about 10 minutes. You should drop by.”

Of course I did and really enjoyed his discussions of how he saw the Fantastic Four. Keep in mind this was around the time he introduced the character of Valeria Von Doom. During the Q & A, I asked him if he had foreseen during his run on X-Men that all of the X-prophesies, the alternate time lines and such, which were obviously giving editorial a headache at the time would cause so many problems. At first he just said, “What problems?” Which was met by sparse laughter. Then after a moment of reflection he said, “I didn’t really think they would cause any problems because I never thought I would stop writing the book.” The room exploded with applause.

Anyway, I found an interview which Claremont gave to Wizard Magazine right around the time X-Men #1 with it’s Jim Lee pencils and five variant covers was coming out. He has a clear vision of where the comic should go, and you can tell from the interview that he’s optimistic about the future of the franchise, however he quit before the interview saw print.

What can I say? I love the X-men and can’t wait to see what happens with this title. I think us X-fans owe Claremont at least a first-issue courtesy read.

As we took pictures in front of the Red Pyramid, Rania decided to readdress the taxi issue. Nancy felt that the waiting fee was reasonable. I agreed, but said the drivers should give us some kind of discount for the time they spent getting lost. Rania wanted the waiting fee and the lost time wiped off the meter, and since she was the only one among us who spoke fluent Arabic, I told her she had my full support to, “Make a fuss.”

We foreigners stood back and conversed while Rania went to talk to the drivers, but our conversation was soon interrupted by the sound of shouting in Arabic. Rania was letting the driver who drove Maggie and me have it with both barrels while the other driver seemed to be trying to calm the situation. We came over to see if we could help, but Rania was storming over to the nice driver’s car and ordering “Maggie, you and Jamie are riding with us!”

At this point the argument had attracted a crowd including Ustez Muhammad, two uniformed tourist police and one plainclothes officer. Maggie asked had happened and Rania told us that the rude driver said that Maggie and I should have been more polite to him. At first I thought he was offended that I fell asleep on the way to Dahshur, but apparently at some point Maggie had put her head on my shoulder or held my hand and offended the driver’s delicate conservative sensibilities. He was also demanding that we pay him for the return trip to Zamalek even if we didn’t ride with him.

Ultimately Maggie and I found ourselves in Ustez Muhammad’s car, followed by Rania, Nancy and Allison in the good taxi and the offended driver alone in his taxi on the way to the tourist police station. Rania asked me to come into the station with her to lend credibility to her argument. Maggie followed as well, mainly because she just didn’t want to stand in the sun outside while we plead our case in front of the local law enforcement.

By the time Rania, Ustez Muhammad, the plainclothes officer and the offended driver had filed into the captain’s cozy office, there was only enough room for me to stand in the doorway, arms crossed and wearing a stern gaze. The captain was typical for a high-ranking officer in Egypt, overweight but authoritative, parked in the most comfortable chair in the room. He kept a passive demeanor as Rania and the driver plead their respective cases.

When they finished, the driver stormed out of the office, and the people in the office invited me to come sit by the captain. Maggie came inside and sat next to Rania, who took my phone to call City Cab and speak with customer service. Ustez Muhammad and the plainclothes officer started passing around cigarettes, which I accepted if for no other reason than to identify myself with the gang. I was too hot and thirsty to actually want to smoke.

While Rania shouted into the phone, the captain and I discussed the difference in prices for American luxury automobiles between the States and Egypt. Finally Rania handed the phone to the captain, and I looked for a way to discretely dispose of my cigarette. Once the captain finished on the phone, Rania told us we would have to give the offended driver 100 LE ($18.19).

After thanking the authorities, we all packed into the good driver’s car and took off for Lucille’s, my favorite restaurant in Maadi. On the way, Rania told us that City Cab had assured us that the rude driver would be losing his job, which wasn’t what we wanted to see, but he probably doesn’t need to be working with a foreign clientele anymore. If you spend enough time in Egypt, you’ll hear plenty of foreigners say that these people are all in league to cheat tourists at every turn, but I can say in this instance that they did the right thing.

Oh, and I saw this in Maadi and feel it needs to be shared with the world:

Define irony: local paper misspells the word “best” in the headline for an article praising the test scores of the local schools. I took a screen shot just in case they get around to fixing it, but they even repeated the error in their Twitter feed.

Take a look at the New York Times article I linked to the picture above and tell me that society hasn’t gotten a bit too panicky for your tastes. Big news of the conversion of television signals from analog to digital has been around for well over two years now. During its last year, the Bush administration broke off a sizable chunk of change (sizable for you and me, not compared to the rest of the federal budget) so you could get a $40 coupon from the government to buy a little box which would convert signals for your TV if it was unprepared to receive a digital signal. The Obama administration pushed back the change for fear that too many people were unprepared for the switch, but the deal finally went down yesterday.

Here’s the problem: if you bought your TV in the last 10-15 years, it’s ready to receive a digital signal. Nielsen claims 2.8 million homes were completely unprepared for this change and another 9.5 million were only partly ready. I don’t know if there’s one American left outside of the advertising industry who actually believes Nielsen’s ratings anymore, but these 11 million Americans (.33% of the population) have to live like that Australian family on the Simpsons episode where Bart calls Australia to find out if the water goes counter-clockwise when they flush the toilet, and they must look like that family from The Hills Have Eyes.

More thought and planning went into preparing for the digital conversion than FEMA has ever put into hurricane relief, and this is only television. Most importantly, this is making sure that people who haven’t bought a TV in the last 15 years and don’t have cable keep watching television. Have we considered that maybe these people aren’t worth the effort? How much money do you think people who are tuning in Idol every week on a pair of rabbit ears contribute to the economy?

Meanwhile, all that panic which the affiliates worked overtime to curb? The busiest outlets got about 600 calls. For once, we can say a lot of time and money was wasted counting on the ignorance of the American people, because when it comes to watching our stories, we don’t mess around.

PS - To my girlfriend’s parents: Even though you haven’t bought a television in the last 10 years and don’t get cable, I still heart you.

I promise I’ll lay off Stanhope for a while after this, but I think this one bit may contain the meaning of life. Keep in mind this meaning of life applies only to men, and you have no business listening to this if you or the people in earshot are offended by obscene language or explicit situations. Now that only my friends are here, listen to this:

On the ride to the Red Pyramid I noticed the meter had gone from 120 LE ($21.82) to 140 LE ($25.46). Considering how long we had left the cabs waiting, I was relieved to see the waiting fee was so low, but I made a mental note to complain to City Cab’s customer service if this driver charged us full price for getting lost earlier.

As we ascended the much more attractive paved path leading to the Red Pyramid’s entrance, Rania told Maggie how displeased she had been to see we were charged a 2-hour waiting fee even though we had only been gone for a little more than an hour. I tried not to think about it as I marveled that the Red Pyramid is in every way as impressive as the Pyramids at Giza, even though the individual blocks from which the structure is constructed are smaller.

Descending the shaft was much easier, since it came equipped with luxuries like steps and light. At the bottom, I crawled through the typical 1m x 1m x 10m shaft into the antechamber. There I noticed that this pyramid contained the familiar pyramid musk from airborne moisture, topped with a smell that became increasingly identifiable as urine. I tried to ignore it, focusing instead on the stepped ceilings which are like a smaller version of the grand hall in the Great Pyramid.

The last antechamber was a vast room with a huge wooden staircase leading to the burial chamber. The urine smell became even more intense, so I resolved to breathe through my mouth and get a look at the burial room as fast as possible.

Unlike the burial rooms of Khufu and Khafre’s pyramids, Sneferu’s is a relatively small room. You’re confined to one side by a railed wooden platform, as the floor is covered in rubble and lacks any sarcophagus that I could identify.

Right as I was about to leave, Allison and Nancy and Maggie arrived, so I hung out to snap a few pictures, then, like the Pharaoh’s soul, I raced out of the burial chamber as fast as possible. Relieved to escape, I asked Maggie what the deal was with that smell. She told me the prevailing opinion at the SCA is that it must be tourists using the burial chamber as a toilet because Egyptians don’t visit Dahshur.