thirstythong

“But the most significant derivation from the meaning of as ‘water’ is the concept of people who have gathered near a body of water to grow rice for one another, and founding a stable community, sharing rain and drought, plenty and famine, peace and war: from ‘water,’ its basic meaning, has come to designate ‘the homeland, the country, the nation.’ It is in this ultimate exception that the monosyllable nuoc reverberates throught the deepest and farthest recesses of the Vietnamese collective unconscious and stirs there the most potent feelings. The nation’s fateful course, marked by ups and downs, is figuratively rendered as a ‘tide of water’ (van nuoc) with its ebb and flow. The highest virtue demanded of a Vietnamese is that he or she ‘love the nuoc‘ (yeu nuoc).” –Huynh Sanh Thong (no relation)

The Scene of my Almost Death

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It started coming down like the armageddon, prompting us to retreat back to the fortress, to wine on home-brewed Trung Nguyen coffee and feast on Chez Guido (don’t ever get the deluxe burger, ever).

With the trusty Macbook from 2006, madame requested respite from the dungeon heat we call trapped Hoach humidity. Like the knight I am, I scurried up and back down the tower, to retrieve the wind for madame. In return, the powers of the fortress almost zapped me to kingdom come. Most certainly it wasn’t the Macbook, as I used the same construction as the evening previous. Perhaps it was the downpouring armageddon, mixed in with whatever wizardry meshed within these walls, that blackened my hands like I have sinned (debatable), that flashed life before my eyes. It was in that light that all these moments would have evaporated into atoms, into spell. And here I am, staring at madame, 3 devoured peach pits, reading and e-mailing the blog ruminations of a Pilipino game developer.

Let us all be grateful, eat peaches, drink Trung Nguyen, all hail destiny and the universe.

Like the Wu-Tang, Vietnamese power outlets ain’t nothin’ to **** with.

Surge protectors, they’re like condoms for your existence.