Those crazy Canadians and their buns...

May 14 1990

Have you ever been in one of those situations where you said something as a joke, but were taken seriously, and then you think if you tell the person you were only joking that they'll feel stupid - which you don't want to do, so you have to make whatever it was you said actually true? Don't go down that path - it will come back and bite you later and then your friend will feel even dumber when some rat-fink rats you out!

So my Swiss/German friend recently came back from 2 months in China, Tibet, the bathroom, and other places. I accidently gave her a really old stale Swiss bun and told her it's a Canadian tradition that when a friend goes away for a long time and returns, you give them a rock, but rocks are heavy and hard to find in cities so the tradition has evolved into stale buns. Well, she believed me since I never lie. So now I have to make it true. So two other Canadians here have done the same thing and told her they think the tradition comes from the Indians. Gaston and Monagan wimped out and didn't give her the buns they were supplied with. Anyway, so she had them on her shelf for awhile because she was so thrilled about it.

Um, I've been told maybe she'll be hurt if she finds out it's not really a tradition, so you guys are just gonna have to make it a tradition. She asked me what you do with them. (they are too old and hard to eat). I told her if you have lots of friends and get lots of buns, you can make a castle with them in your living room, and that I know a girl that made a table out of them given a staple gun. Anyway, I was ratted out and her itty-bitty feelings were hurt. Hopefully you'll learn from my mistakes. Don't try humour in a humour-free zone like Hell (Switzerland).

Terry Jones just quit his job at PCS in Munich (which sounds like a fabulous job) and wandered by here. He was here for 2 days, and being Australian naturally got into trouble with the Grand Poobah janitor at ETH when he tried to break in and then started throwing stones at Monagans window. He's pedaling his way to Spain I think, and in September is going to try the PHD thing again, only at Indiana U this time. You should see him. He's got real long hair and a scraggly beard. Very different from the buzz-cut he had last time I saw him. He was telling me about he got picked up by cops on the German Autobahn after being dropped off while hitchhiking. You aint supposed to do this. He played dumb tourist, so they put him in the back of the car, which might have been a Porsche, and the cop is doing 220 kph with a leather padded steering wheel, and driving gloves, while Terry is playing with the policeman hat in the back. Weird police car....

During Oktoberfest in Munich, they have these big tents, which I think he said hold 10,000 (?). Some have signs saying 'No Australians', who have a slight reputation of being rowdy. (They probably have a reputation of gross exaggeration too. or else can't count)

There may be some big changes here in my job, for the better. Mr Mathematica has taken over as 'Mr UNIX decision maker', and he uses UNIX and knows UNIX and likes UNIX and spent time in America. So assuming he's got the pull to make things happen, he's gonna get the scummy users away from me, get me source code, get me some hardware I want, hire more people and other neat stuff. I'm waiting to see Mr Mathematica and Mr Maple (Gaston Gonnet) slug it out for mathematic language supremacy.

I wanna car. or a motorcycle. Or a skate-bord. I've spent a couple of hours watching kids on their boards and I'm starting to learn the secrets of the Universe. I keep hearing about how cheap cars are around here. Where?!?!

I just stopped taking German lessons after doing 3 months of intensive courses. I missed most of the 3rd month. I need a rest. I still don't know anything. I've got some pictures of Swiss people being weird. I'll bring them back with me.

Canadians need a VISA to visit France. Americans don't. I haven't been fined in a while. My bank account is starting to grow. I found something that resembled a real hamburg today. It was called a Pickburger. It tasted great. I ended up with a stomach ache.

I'm waiting for my boss's boss to get outta the Army so I can try to fish him into paying most of the expenses for me to go to USENIX in Anaheim. I don't think they'll let me go on vacation. Everything is always breaking.

We've only got 1 female assistant left. The 2nd last one quit and went into marketing at NeXT in California.

My hair is starting to grow back now that I'm over the initial culture shock. Its almost over my ears now. I had a nightmare the other day. I was in a dairy in North America trying to buy hamburger buns, and all I had was Swiss money.

Hotdogs here are interesting. Instead of a bun that is slit open, it's the same shape bun only drilled out in one end that the compressed-sawdust simulated-meat slides into after dropping your mustard and stuff in. So there's no mess. The meat-stuff is crunchy and I hate it.

I think it's the tourist season now. There are billions of people around and the obnoxious quotient has gone down. hmmm... I had interesting things to say when I started this letter, but I cant remember them now.

oh well. gotta go, ciao