How to Get to Guatemala In Five Days Without Flying

Preface: This is an adventure from three years ago. Although I majored in Latin American Studies and wrote my honors thesis about Guatemala, I had never been there. To right that wrong, 13 years later, I visited the Central American country. I coupled it with an overland trip as a part of my quest to cover the entire Western Hemisphere by public land transportation.

I land in San Diego. I neglected to do any research about the nascent drug war in Mexico. When I ask the nice old lady at the airport information desk about buses to the Mexican border, she informs me that 40 to 50 people are shot everyday in Tijuana, the town on the other side of the border from San Diego. I later learn that while I was in Tijuana, the undertakers had run out of coffins. Continue reading →

Making Dreams Come True

“We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because…he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”
– Buckminster Fuller

What does a day in your dream life look like? How does it begin and end? What mark does it leave on the world?

Continue reading →

Breaking Bad Open Thread: “Live Free or Die”

It’s here, yo. It’s finally here. The arrival of the fifth season of Breaking Bad feels more bittersweet than anything since we’re marking the beginning of the end. Any theories regarding Walt or Jesse’s fates you’d like to throw out there?

In a recent GQ interview, Aaron Paul promised the cold open of the season premiere gets crazy. Let’s find out just how crazy in 3…2…

Warning! Everything after the jump will be a spoiler. Everything. Continue reading →

This Week in Assholes

Well it has been another busy week for the world’s assholes. Don’t these people ever take a damn vacation? I guess not, so let’s get started.

Our first asshole actually technically commenced with their douchebaggery last week, but the fallout and fail has continued into this week. Let’s give a nod to comedian (?) Daniel Tosh, who suggested that a female heckler at a California show should be gang-raped by other audience members. What a fucking prick. Of course he followed this by the customary non-apology on Twitter.

Ah, the dead baby defense. Genius, Dude. Tosh doesn’t even really understand what the issue is because on top of being an asshole he is also a complete moron. He also can’t seem to see the difference between making a rape joke and suggesting that his audience members rape somebody. Suggesting that humor can be used to deal with dark and unpleasant topics is irrelevant in this case because Tosh is too shitty of a comedian to think that much about his art anyway. Continue reading →

Seeing Something, Saying Something

There are incidents so overwhelming and horrific that it is nearly impossible to step outside of them and develop any understanding of what occurred. But it is imperative we do just that. When natural disaster strikes we scramble to rescue and recover and then must assess our preparedness and responsiveness. It’s how we gain control over our environment and perhaps mitigate the impact of future disasters. It is tempting, after the trauma of rescue and recovery to turn away and step into the sun, step into the light. But we are more than our emotions we are also our intellect. Continue reading →

Recipe Sunday: Paella


Paella is a labor of love. It is a traditional Spanish dish that combines seafood, pork, chicken, and rice. This recipe does not pretend to be a traditional Valencian paella, but still results in a hearty and delicious meal with plenty of leftovers. Continue reading →