weird dream last night

I had this dream last night that I was traveling through some weird suburb that looked like an mutant mix of Mexico City and St. Paul (yes the two seem to cancel each other out, but hey it's a dream). I was with my parents and we stopped to eat at this little street cafe. The cafe actually looked more like a tin covered shack with only three solid wall and one main open area where they served the food from. Despite the looks of the place, we stopped anyway and had a few bits to eat. I got up to walk around after being drawn away but a curious and good looking stranger, only to face public humiliation at overhearing my Dad yelling and throwing a tantrum at the restaurant-shack owner about the cost of the bill. The poor middle aged woman, with a heavy mustache and thick eyebrows, offered little explanation to my enraged father. Apparently the bill was like $70 for just some nachos and a few beers. Out of embarrassment, I wandered off with the stranger...although in real life I would be yelling at anyone who game me a bill like that over some chips and a drink! I woke up right as the stranger and I were about to kiss as we stood along a chain link fence covered in vines and lilac flowers.

Mummified corpses found in death rite mystery

Five decomposed bodies, possibly of a couple and their children who died one after another several years ago, have been found in a house in Japan, triggering media speculation on religious death rites.

Japanese police have not been able to identify the partly mummified, partly skeletonised bodies, which were found lying on their backs on mattresses in a house in Omuta on the southwestern island of Kyushu, a police spokesman said. Japanese media said the bodies could be of a couple in their 90s and their two daughters and son who had lived in the house.

"They died between about 20 years ago and four years ago, one after another," the Yomiuri newspaper quoted a relative as saying. "They believed that dead persons would return to life if they were left alone."

Media reports said the family had been seen conducting "religious rituals." Police said an autopsy was needed to determine the age, identity and gender of the bodies.

Falling woman saved by pile of...

A Chinese woman survived a plunge from a sixth-floor balcony thanks to a convenient pile of excrement which broke her fall, local media said. The accident happened when the woman was hanging out laundry on Monday in Nanjing, capital of the eastern province of Jiangsu, the Kuaibao tabloid said on its Web site (www.kuaibao.net). "Workers happened to be emptying the building's septic tank, which had not been tended for a long time and had regularly blocked sewage pipes," the newspaper said. "She probably stretched out too far and fell ... right on to a 20 cm-thick heap of excrement." The woman suffered only slight injuries, the newspaper said. In March, a six-year-old girl broke only her left leg when she fell six floors on to a pile of snow in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.

Good ol' Wednesday

I missed the bus by a hair this morning, which gave me an extra 20 minutes to spend in the new and improved Minneapolis Downtown Library, turns out they have a little coffee bar only a stone's throw away from the bus stop. I wish I had more time (hell a day off would be nice) to spend looking at books. I love the design used on new library, its very open, light and modern feeling...and not in the usual cheap sort of way. Unlike some other public spaces, I would actuay consider spending sometime there reading or studying. I been thinking lately what it would be like to live a lifestyle that's more basic, more "green" for lack of a better word. This might sound a bit romanticized, but I would love to own some land, grow more of my own food and spend more time improving the community I live in...yes I know I sound like some damn hippie, but seriously. Ok, knowing my personality, yes I would get bored pretty quickly even with this "ideal" lifestyle, and probably start plotting my next adventure (probably bitch about it as well). For me, what is comes down to is the guts to change things up and go with it. Ideally having enough money to float around, buy property and back up my personal interest & hobby's....so where is this magical dollar amount. Certainly not in my bank account! (and a personal fuck-you to those that do, only because I'm green with envy) Damn, I better get on the bus and go to work...dum de dum dum....just another day.

Fame hurts Ecuador's "valley of eternal youth"

These days, the famous elders of Vilcabamba are dying at a younger age, the result of the stresses of modern life brought by the scores of tourists and health buffs who flock here in search of eternal youth.

"Before life was tranquil, now the town has turned too big," said the bespectacled Carpio, sitting outside his adobe home as cars blasting techno-cumbia cruised nearby. "The really old ones are dying off quickly."Gangs of youths drinking beer and smoking around the village's main square contrasted sharply with the hardy elders carrying the day's harvest of potatoes, onions and herbs through the steep roads of the Ecuadorean Andes.

Old timers say modern life has encroached on and disrupted the valley's tranquil and carefree lifestyle, which was key to their longevity. Centenarians used to be seen playing cards at the main square or sitting in church, villagers say, but there are fewer now as many have died in recent years. They cited recent funerals of two elders believed to be 118 and 124.

The fragile ecosystem of Vilcabamba has been affected by this tsunami of development," said Jurado, who is based in Quito, Ecuador's capital. "Now these people live at a faster pace and that has affected their quality of life and longevity." Foreign scientists have questioned the real age of Vilcabamba's super-centenarians because most lack official documentation such as birth records. But Ecuador was home to the world's verified oldest person, Maria Capovilla, until her death in the port city of Guayaquil in August, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Vilcabamba thrives on tourism and uses its fame to sell everything from "Valley of Eternal Youth" cigarettes to Vilcawater with the face of a white-bearded elder stamped on the bottle. But local officials said the hamlet struggles to keep a balance between tourism and a healthy way of life. "We are happy with tourists, but they are changing our culture," said Adalber Gaona, the president of the neighborhood association, who said his grandmother died just short of her 100th birthday. "The young are now drinking sodas, smoking and eating junk food." "It seems our own longevity fame is hurting us."