#i recommend the place i work to my friends without trying to be a shill about it so thats how you know its pretty good

[valtsv]

how do you like being a barista so far?

i love it, except for closing down the store, which is a gauntlet of a million tasks that you have to do whilst dodging customer attacks, and the occasional person who will go out of their way to try to wring blood and tears out of you because their coffee didn't taste like the dream they had last night. otherwise, though, it's very rewarding and honestly pretty fun. i actually feel like i'm doing something worthwhile, which is huge in a customer service job.

[irkenheretic]

do u have any favorite iz writers or fanfics ?

i do!!

first fav is @reptile-ruler , their febuwhump stuff is amazing and mishaps is REALLY good, tbh mishaps has a lot of tropes i usually dont like but reptile-ruler does them so well that the stuff i dont like about those tropes isnt really.... there

(for instance i hate zim assimilating into human culture because he just kinda ignores everything about him being irken and the authors tend to treat irk as some kind of Monolithic Badplace... but in mishaps while zim has assimilated he still feels a struggle and still has irken values... the ending of the unwanted visitors (which i wont spoil) is the culmination of that and its amazing)

also the drifters au fucks hard and its one of my fav aus

very close second is @depressed-zimothy! training days is, and i am not exaggerating, exactly what ive always wanted in a fanfic. the red and zim stuff is fucking stellar and there are so many nuances about the characters if u examine the text a little more... i should leave comments on it tbh

also catalyst is amazing and u can see my two essay comments explaining why right there on the fic so i wont repeat myself here (but read the fic first obvi)

firewall is part of @reynaruina‘s ponytail dib AU and it is honestly fucking stellar. i recommend this thing to everyone i know and in my opinion it is THE computer fic. genuinely everyone should read this, even if you dont want to read the rest of the au or even zadr at all. please computer is so good in it. 

in the beginning note there’s a paragraph explaining the basics of the au so you can read with no prior knowledge of PT dib but ill do you one better: the immediate context for firewall is that there was a blackout at zim’s house, and zim and dib were finally starting to get it on with each other during it. computer fixed the lights and turned them back on, and dib saw his reflection in the (off) TV. he gets upset seeing himself and leaves, so zim is angry at computer. and that’s right where firewall starts

please read firewall. im on my knees begging. computer in firewall is fucking sublime and the perfect blend of irritated and dad. literally no other computer portrayal compares. firewall was, is, and always will be The Standard.

read it.

ersatz is another amazing one, the zim angst is sublime and hes never like, a fuckin uwu sadbaby. but you still feel so, so sorry for him and what he’s going through. the author really knows how to pack a punch without exhausting the reader and as someone who specializes in angst i can respect that. (fun facts: i love this fic so much that mirforn, an irken painkiller featured in it, is in ANX as A Loving Reference that i will absolutely credit and also shill for ersatz in the author’s notes)

300 days of zim is really good if you like self-inserts! it’s gender-neutral and in second-person so its really immersive, and zim is just so good in it, he retains all his zimmy goodness but there’s a certain softness (in a way) that makes you fall in love with him

speaking of self inserts, @majentaffy‘s tallest magenta series is a fucking stellar series! red and purple are amazing and its honestly one of the most in-character portrayals of them ive ever seen! though i like both of them, im personally more a fan of the invader red series (also a self-insert series) where red takes zim’s place on earth, basically. both series are gender-neutral and in second-person just like 300 days up there

hit me is a rapr classic. thats really all i have to say about it, most of my tallest-loving friends have read it at some point. i reread it on occasion; its an elite-era fic, and a slight au in this is where they meet. its lovely

begin is a human au i personally really like because it has a lot of hyperspecific headcanons of mine in it but it could be a personal taste thing. try it out tho!

there was also this other human au where purple was a drifter and red worked at a diner and sizz-lorr was his boss. it legit felt like an original short story and this made me go out and fucking find it again. its called hand in unlovable hand give it a try

i read canvas years ago and the ending still sticks to me today. it’s a oneshot songfic where the gist is that red’s hooked on drugs. it sounds like its gonna be bad and melodramatic but i actually really like it, it surprises you. it surprised me, too. it’s first person but it really does sound like red is talking. i’m extremely picky with first person (i never read it outside of this) but canvas does it right. please, please i implore you, give canvas a chance. you won’t regret it, i promise

why didn’t we just shoot him? is an amazing exploration on the tallests’ defectiveness and that’s all im going to say on that

all 4 works by this author are part of the same series, but they’re not in a series tag. i just call the series mudroom, after the first one i read. it’s an acquired taste and PLEASE heed the warnings, but i like it so its here

and last but certainly not least, when the time comes is unique in that when the plot changes i dont groan and go “aww, but i like the old stuff!” it goes to a lot of places but personally it feels like each event is a natural consequence of the previous one. dib’s a bit of a dick in it lmfao and zim so far is going thru a trauma conga line but i respect that it doesnt pretend to be anything its not. its a porn-with-plot with angst and sometimes thats just what you fucken need sometimes

[lizzy-frizzle]

I’m going to start this by saying, I have bias. Everyone does. I do not intend for this to come off as “the thing you like is bad”, but moreso “the corporation that controls the thing you like is manipulative”.

My background; I am a 26 year old trans mom, I have a history with addiction, particularly gambling, and spend most of my time playing video games. I have gone to college for about 3 years for my psychology degree, and while I do not have my degree, I have been studying psychology for roughly 12 years. This is to say, my views will reflect this background. Just because I present this information like I do, does not inherently mean I’m right, though it also doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Try to view things with a critical mind, and know that most topics have nuance.

Ok, so lootboxes, booster packs, gacha games, all of these are gambling. This is not really an argument. You are putting money into a service of sorts, and receiving a randomized result. Be that a fancy new gun, that same boring legendary you have 5 of, or that final hero you’ve been trying to collect. You don’t know the outcome before you give your money. As defined by the merriam-webster dictionary: “Gambling; the practice of risking money or other stakes in a game or bet”

You are risking your money in not getting an item you want. There are ways this is handled acceptably, and ways this is handled poorly. Gambling is also illegal to people under 21 in a lot of places, but places online aren’t quick to tell you why. I don’t have any sources because every source requires a paywall to get any information, but pulling from my own personal experience and what I learned in college, it’s because children are very impressionable. I say “I like pokemon” and suddenly my 2-year old can’t go anywhere without her pikachu. I remember distinctly playing poker with my mom and her friends when I was 12. When you normalize gambling, what it does is lower the risk aversion of gambling. You are less likely to see a threat in playing that card game, because when you are that young you have no concept of money. You don’t know what a dollar is, so why not throw it away so you can have fun. This is...I hesitate to call it fine, but it’s mostly harmless. The issue is with children and their lack of knowledge of money. When I grew up and got a job, it’s a lot harder to tell my brain, “hey, don’t spend that money, you won’t get it back and you won’t get what you want.” Because my brain just acknowledges the potential for what I want. I want to buy the booster pack so I can have the potential to get that masterpiece misty rainforest. I want to buy that diamond pack so I have the chance to get the cute hero. I want to buy that lootbox so I can get the battle rifle that does a cool effect. These are harmless concepts, but very dangerous.

Make no mistake, companies know how psychology works, and will use it to their advantage. MatPat from game theory states that companies have even go so far as to have systems in place that change the odds as you’re losing, and monitor your skill level to put you up against harder opponents, to see the better weapons and go, “Oh I want that!” and entice you to buy more lootboxes. As it turns out I found an article covering what he was talking about, Activision had actually acquired a patent to arrange matchmaking to do just that [x], and the article says it’s not in place, but my trust in companies is not high enough to actually believe them.(honestly, matpat made a 2-part video series about lootboxes, and I’d recommend watching them)

So, companies are trying to manipulate you to buy more gambling products. There’s proof of it. It’s also more blatantly obvious in games like Magic the Gathering, where they release fancier versions of cards at rarer probabilities. To better explain it, from a collector’s standpoint, you want the fancy card cause it has value, it has value because it’s rare, rarer than the other versions, so if you’re on the lower end of the income ladder you buy a pack, or two. After all, you could get lucky and get it. On the higher end of the income ladder, you buy the card outright and hoard it. Maybe sell it off later if you notice the price goes down. From a player perspective, you see a card is being used by tournament players, you want to win more games, so you want those cards, which encourages you to buy products and try to get those cards. That’s predatory behavior. It’s predatory from the company’s perspective because that poor person might not be able to afford the card outright, but $5-$10 isn’t much, plus they always entice you with that Chance. They also further this desire for the cards by making it limited runs, such as the secret lair packs, if there’s a low amount purchased and it’s made to order, or worse, if they limit the order capabilities themselves, that drives up the value, and provides further incentive to buy the cards and packs. This not only creates an impossible barrier between the poor and the rich, but also heavily encourages people buy their gambling pack than people would have in other conditions.

For the record, I love magic the gathering, I’m not saying the game itself is bad, this is just a VERY predatory marketing tactic.

Let’s switch gears. Gacha games. I play AFKArena, because like I said, I have a gambling addiction and cannot stop myself. In AFKArena, you collect heroes, and battle with them in various ways. If you collect more of similar heroes you can rank them up. If I’m to believe what I’ve heard, it sounds like this is pretty common for gacha games. So what makes it bad. In AFKArena you use diamonds to summon heroes, now, you can acquire diamonds by beating specific story chapters, logging in every day, random limited time events, or paying for them with real money. AFKArena hero drops don’t seem that bad compared to the free diamond amount they dish out, which has resulted in me not spending all that much money on it, all things considered ($20 over 2 years). I believe that for a mobile game like this, that’s fair. I get way more enjoyment out of the game than I do most $60 games, so it balances out. However, this isn’t the case for every gacha game, and my trust in companies, as previously stated, is very low. The issue lies in them making the rates for good heroes so low that you HAVE to spend money on the game to really get over a roadblock of sorts. I do think that there is this issue in my game and I just didn’t notice it, someone with a lower tolerance or patience might absolutely have the incentive to drop hundreds of dollars on the game over a month. There are people of all different flavours, and it’s important to keep that in mind when discussing these topics, just because a marketing technique doesn’t work on you, does not mean it doesn’t work on anyone. After all, they have those $100 packs for a reason, you might not be that reason but someone is. That’s predatory.

I feel like I’ve gotten off track, let’s get back on the rails. Where was...gambling...predatory…ah, kids. So my biggest issue, is that Magic the Gathering is marketed towards 13 year olds. Not directly, but the packs say 13+. AFKArena and any mobile game for that matter, can be downloaded by anyone with a phone for free, with minimal mention that there’s microtransactions. AAA title games like Destiny 2, Overwatch, Fortnite, etc. are probably the worst offenders. A kid spent $16,000 of his parents money on fortnite in-game purchases, and that’s not the only time this has happened [x] [x] . More often than not, what happens is, the kid wants to play a video game, like halo on xbox, or destiny, or something, they ask their mom for their credit card, and the system saves it. I mentioned before that kids do not have a concept of money or its value, so giving kids unlimited access to the credit card is going to result in this kind of thing happening. I’m not blaming the parents for not being hypervigilant, sometimes you are really busy, or disabled, or whatever the reason, and you don’t notice the system just saved your card. I’m not blaming the kids cause their brains are literally underdeveloped. I blame the corporations, because they make the process as easy as possible to prey on kids and people with gambling addictions. (as a personal anecdote, I found that if I want a magic card in MtG:O, I’m way less likely to try and buy it if I have to get up and get my card, I’d recommend not saving your card if you suffer from gambling/addiction problems)

So after all of this evidence, how can anyone still view these things as anything but predatory? The answer is simple. You’re told they aren’t. Businesses spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on really good marketing, and public relations. I tried to google why gambling is illegal for people under 21, and got nothing, I got a couple forums asking the question, and a couple religious sites saying it’ll make them degenerates. I try looking up sources to prove the psychology behind these concepts, but they are locked behind paywall after paywall after paywall. Businesses and capitalism has made it so incredibly hard to discover the truth and get information you need, and it’s on purpose. They want you to trust that that booster pack is a good idea. They want you to spend money on lootboxes (look at all the youtubers that shill out for raid shadow legends, or other gambling games to their super young fanbase [x]). They want you to lower your guard and go, “well, it’s a video game, how can it be predatory?” “it’s a card game with cute creatures on it, surely it’s not that bad”

But it is. So why did I make this post? I dunno, my brain really latched onto the topic, I see so many people enjoying gacha games, but I’m worried that it’s going to ruin lives...I just want everyone to be informed and critical of what is going on.

[popculturebuffet]

Blacksad: Somewhere In the Shadows Review

Hello you beautiful people! I have a WEIRD relationship with Noir. It’s weird because i’ve never really dived into the films of type, though I really should, But as a kid I absolutely LOVED the tracer bullet arcs in Calvin and Hobbes, where everyone’s favorite hyperactive and imaginative six year old would plant himself as the hero in a noir pastiche.. ironically like myself Bill Watterson was also not a huge noir buff and just relied on Cliches but hey, it worked. 

Still love these. So from fourth grade on it imprinted a lifelong love of a good bit of detective noir. Not enough to you know, get me to read any traditional noir books or watch any noir tv shows or detective procedurals but I still love a good mystery from time to time and some of my favorite comics such as Howard the Duck by Chip Zdarksy and Peter David’s second run on x-factor run on the genre while having fun with it’s cliches. 

I also love anthropormphic animal stories. Dunno why, I just do, so once I found out about Blacksad, a comic that combines disney quality art from a former disney animator with gripping, adult noir that rips your heart out... I couldn’t resisit trying it. Telling the tale of John Blacksad, a cynical private detective and the cases he steps into via gorgeous, straight out of a disney storyboard art, the series is by  Juan Díaz Canales (writer) and Juanjo Guarnido (artist), the latter a former Disney artist who worked on several Disney films, meeting in the 90′s while working on licensed works and hitting it off, leading to this series.  That’s.. really all I could find about the making of the series in English. The only other fact is the series is designed for first release in France, which has a huge comics market, hence the various volumes being called “Albums”, with them later being released in Spain and then english, currently in the latter through Dark Horse Comics, who last year collected the current 5 albums and some side stories into one big volume. And with Dark Horse having infrequent sales including Blacksad on comixology it’s easy enough to pick up all 5 volumes in one complete package on digital for 9 bucks, as it is right now. Seriously I’m not trying to shill for Comixology or Dark Horse, I just love these comics and suggest picking them up. The creators DO intend on new volumes... it’s just both have been busy with other work so they’ve been stuck in development hell since 2013. However given there have always been, if much smaller, the biggest being 5 years, gaps between the Albums, I don’t think the series is dead quite yet and with Dark Horse fully backing it, taking the series from only two volumes getting translated to both translating the first four AND translating the fifth within a year of it’s release, we’ll undoubtly get the next one quickly. The series has also spawned a game, Under the Skin, which i’ll probably also cover some day as i’m dying to play it, but i’m waiting for a sale because it’s around 30 bucks and I can wait. It’s also been nominated for an Eisner three times to no suprise and has had fans in Stan Lee, Jim Steranko, Tim Sale and Will freaking Eisner. Yes the GUY the awards were named after liked the series.  So yeah, I love this series and highly support it, but the thought of covering it hadn’t occrued to me.. in part because I already had three comic retrsopectives going, my looks at The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, Scott Pilgrim and New X-Men, and simply because I just hadn’t thought of it till Kevin, frequent patron and comissioner of the blog whose paid for tons of reivews, suggested covering the second Album, Arctic Nation, which has our hero searching for a missing little girl he feels has been taken by the titular white supramacist movement.. and if your wondering “Wait how the fuck does that work their animals”, John is black coded due to his black fur, while the white suprmacists are all Arctic Animals.. a touch I really like as I’d honestly never thought of that as a metaphor but it fits like a glove, especially given that most white furred arctic mamals are pretty agressive looking. So yeah I’ll be covering that one next month for Black History Month, among many other things, but I felt I wanted to cover the series in order and since again, it’s only the second of five and I had a free space on the schedule. So without further adew, join me somewhere in the shadows and under the cut as we enter the world of one John Blacksad. 

We open as you’d expect for a Noir with a heady narration and a murder. John was brought in by Smirnov, the chief of police and an old aquantice who serves as his Commissioner Gordon. Since the victim is John’s ex, he was brought in to see if he knows anything and as you’d expect warned not to look into it further, as John dosen’t buy this was a simple robbery. His response is exactly what you’d expect. 

I mean.. what did you expect? You called him out of bed to see his former lovers corpse, KNOWING he’s one hell of detective, dosen’t give up on things easy, and would probably be curious. For him to say “Cool gonna go smoke some reefer and take in a looney tunes short at the theater, call me when you find the murderer?” Also  this series takes place in the 50s. Because of course it does. 

So John goes back to his office to brood, reflecting that the office feels like the remains of an ancient civlization because “It seems to be all that remains of the civlized person I used to be”. Hell of a line. 

We then get his backstory with the victim, Natalia. She’s a famous actress, who John first as a younger man when hired to investgate some death threats she’d received with a boquet of flowers. John shows off just how good he is at his job in just a few panels. 

IT not only shows in just a few panels just how ferocious our hero can be when needed and how good he is at his job, easily having tracked down the man responsible and scared him shitless without breaking as sweat, but how fucking gorgeous the art is. I meant it when I brought up the old disney comparison, as Steranko even mentioned in his introduction to the collection of the first three volumes how it looks like animation cels on the page. IT’s utterly breathtaking and ONLY gets even more lush and beautiful as the series goes on and perfectly fits the noir stylings with it’s realisim, making it’s animal characters feel utterly human and real while still keeping their animal traits in perfect detail. 

John impressed her, and as we see in the next page under his narration they not only had really steamy passionate sex, and why yes we do see them naked even if the bits are covered it’s still very much nsfw and we saw Natalia’s naked corpse earlier, so that ship had already sailed anyway, with Natalia taking him on both as her lover and her on staff detective and the two were much in love.. until the fame apparenlty got to her judging from the visuals, and the realtionship fell apart. 

Before we move on i’d like to talk about the narration which CAN be a bit overwrought here or there and is a bit overused.. but does have it’s mometns of being utterly effective as with above, contrasting John’s statments about a sucessful job and being hired on.. with the beginnings of his and Natalia’s relationship and their passionate lovemaking. IT’s not BAD and it works for the setting, but it can be distracting, but thankfully the series levels this out as we go and they learned from it so no harm done. Just the kinda thing that happens early in a series life when the creators are getting a handle on things, so no harm done. 

But naturally John isn’t going to take the love of his life, responsible for the happiest days of said life, being brutally murdered lying down and is going to find the bastard who did this. So he goes to an old friend, Jake Ositombe, a championship boxer and Nat’s former bodyguard who he recommended to her. Given we see him knock the shit out of his opponent without the slightest effort, yeah good call. Also yes we share the same name and no it’s not weird to type about another Jake, adventure time sorta.. knocked that out of me. Jake dosen’t know much since she fired him a long time ago as one of her lovers hired private security, and the last one he knew of was a guy by the name of Leon.  John, naturally, easily finds the guy’s apartment, Leon Kronkski, a screenwriter.. but also rules him out as the guy lived in a humble apartment and clearly didn’t have the cash to hire his own hired goons. 

He does find a clue, a matchbook for some place called the Cypher Club.. and another when the man’s sweet  mouse landlady shows up, who John charms by pretending to be Leon’s friend and flashing a big smile, finding out a msyterious man with “big bulging eyes”, took him. This scene also to me is great in subtly showing off John’s skill. While the previous flashback showed how badass he is, shoving a gun down the throat of a stalking wannabe murderer with pure rage in his eyes.. here we see a lighter approach, how despite his serious and dour nature.. he easily slips into being cheery and looking like an average joe off the street. He bluffs the landlady not because the plot says so.. but because like any PI he’s just that good at slipping into whatever roll he needs to get the info he needs. He can be his dour self or a charming happy go lucky guy without missing a beat. 

So with that he goes to the studio leon worked for where his boss.. is a walrus j jonah jameson?

But yeah J. Jonah Walruson wants pictures of spider-man.. moving pictures.. but he can’t film them with his star dead and his screenwriter indefintiely gone, with the same bulging eyed man having told JJ he’d be gone indefintely. Nothing suspicious about that!

So naturally John’s next plan is to find the guy.. who is already after him as you’d expect with both a knife to slash at our hero with and the fog covering him so he can hit and run. But unluckily for him .. well i’ll let john say it...

John  headbutts the myserious snake, who only managed to get his coat before and tries to interogate him.. but gets a quick jab to the gut and the guy gets away. 

We soon meet our big bag, who has a big speech about insects and things being usefufl.. and once they stop being useful.. they become dead and collectable, telling the snake man to back off John.. and sending his right hand man to go take care of the Snake who apparently took something from the office. Realizing his numbers up the Snake Man goes to a lizard bar, picks up a package from a friend and runs out the back, knowing he’s being followed.. and we get some hints there’s also racial tension between lizards and mammials here as the bartender, said friend, has the entire bar circle around the guy preventing him from following our mysterious bulging eyed man. 

Meanwhile John goes to the Cipher Club, a wretched hive of scum and villiany. Given Nat was a glamorous movie star, it’s very clear she was here to hide from something or someone, and the bartnender, a wild pig. 

No not you sweetie. The wild pig tells John leon was indeed here and a local rat, in both senses of the word, offers to take John to him.. though understandably John is supscious of the guy he just met in a seedy bar taking him anywhere except to get some heroin. Did Heroin exist yet? Questions for later. But he’s got a case so he follows. Though suprisingly the guy DOES actually come through and it’s not ENTIRELY a trap: he takes john to a tomb for Noel Krinsok.. an anagram for Leon’s name. Unsuprisingly he’s dead. And also unsuprisingly, two hired goons

Show up. As I said not ENTIRELY a trap but it’s obvious given the rat split moments before that our mysterious big bad knew where john would be headed next, and thus while giving him a clue, also set him up to get his head knocked in. And while John is badass.. these guys are a bear and a rhino,  both stronger, bigger, and with suprise on their size, as well as a tombstone to knock john’s head into. They easily beat him senseless and hope he got the message, though john gives a defiant fuck you before being punched out for it. He returns home, feeling like he’s aged 20 years “But no one respects the elderly anymore”, PFFT, and heads home to his rathole, not literally this time, apartment to lay on his cot and think as he gets some rest. 

And while the trail for Leon is cold. our mysterious murderer accidently tipped his hand: only someone with a LOT of money and influence could make a man disappear like this, and it tracks with what we’ve seen so far. The guy has multiple henchman and despite being a big star with plenty of clout, Natalia had to hide in a dive bar just to get away from him and even THEN clearly wasn’t so lucky given she and her new lover both wound up dead.  But Blacksad has bigger problems.. he wakes up in a jail cell.

Turns out Smirnkov had him arrested.. but for his own protection as the case is getting too hot and while he was late on that front given John’s face is hamburger, it’s clear from his tone and demeanor that while he may of been harsh with John earlier.. the two are old friends, and the Chief is simply worried about him winding up dead, and John takes you know being thrown in prison in stride. Which while not a bad scene it is a BIT suspect that a black coded character was thrown in jail for nothing and it’s treated very lightly and as a simple protection between friends, though given they wouldn’t think of coding john like that till next volume, I brush it off as accidental implications in hindsight. 

Smirnkov though also called John here.. because he needs his help. Since Natalia’s Murder Case is pointing very high up, so his superiors have ordered him to bury the case and as he puts it “the bastards know where to squeeze”. And given in volume 3 we learn Smirnov has a wife and children, it’s very obvious where they squoze and to the volume’s credit while we don’t know that yet it’s VERY clear from Smirnov’s body language they went after some form of family. So while he has to give it up.. John does not. So he brought him to jail to offer a proposal: John goes after this son of a bitch and nails him to the wall.. and Smirnov will FULLY protect John no matter what he has to do.  Now naturally given the rightful reckoning for police that’s been going on for almost a year, this SHOULDN’T play well. You have an officer outright telling an outside party that he and his boys will cover up his crimes. But.. honestly even in that framework.. it still works. That’s because.. the system has failed here. The higher up and more corrupt cops put pressure on the honest and hardworking family man Smirnov to stop a legitimate investigation into a horrible murderer.. because the guy is rich. And even now we’ve seen time and time again how rich assholes effortlessly escape the consequences of their action: How our own president who actively asked other nations to interfere in our election escaped his first impeachment trial, but hopefully not the second, aquitted. How Jeffery Epstien took YEARS to bring down with his years of ellicit parties involving innocent women and children he fucking enslaved. How Bill Cosby got away with all kinds of sexual assault for decades. The rich are often literally above the law in this country, so having a down on his luck detective, who retroactively himself is a minority, go after him with the full support of an actually GOOD police officer who genuinely believes in these people being held accountable but is held back by his family’s safety.. it works. John isn’t able to skirt consequences BECAUSE of a corrupt system.. but because the system’s so broken and slanted in the rich’s favor, that the ONLY option an honest officer like Smirnov has is to go outside it. And when asked WHY he’s doing all of this, Smirnov merley replies

... I got chills, their multiplyin. So John plans to find the bulge eyed snake after a hot shower.. only for the guy to hold a gun to John’s head, having been waiting for him and wave the murder weapon, in a baggie around, the item he had retrieved, feeling John’s trying to replace him as number two. However before he can do anything our snake  pal is shot full of holes by the rat from before, who John dispatches with his own gun. 

So the Snake starts to expire.. but feels a kinship with John “We are nothing right cat? Spent so much time waiting for the right chance and when it happens it all falls to pieces”. The Snake explains his roll in things: He was one of the private security our big bad hired to guard Natalia. But being supscious he also hired the rat to follow her around, and thus found out about her affair, brutally torturing and murdering Leon and shooting Natalia in the head. And we finally get a name as our snake friend tragically expires. 

The snake’s death and tragic dying moments are something I forgot about.. but damn if their not really good writing, taking a character who before was seemingly just a murderous goon.. and comparing him to our hero. Another working class joe, and one who just caught up with the wrong asshole at the wrong time. He easily could’ve been john in another life and vice vers and it’s a good parallel. 

So John’s nightmares finally have  name and he naturally goes to confront the guy since he has an almost literal get out of jail free card. Turns out Smirnov is the richest man in town, and has his own big tower. Huh.. sounds familiar, and John simply sneaks his way up and once Statoc’s guards from before hear him rustling about.. sneaks up on them and clocks both one at at time with a fire extinqusher. 

Statoc warmly welcomes our hero inside, and has the fucking lizard balls, as he’s some sort of lizard himself, to offer John a JOB

I mean he’s clearly lost a lot of his goons and most of them were incompetent. He fails to realize that John can’t be bought, is here for vengeance and has no intention of selling his soul to some rich asshole who killed someone he loved for the creepiest and most asinine reasons imaginable. He says john’s Concisence is why he can’t pull the trigger and that he lacks “cold blood”.. before we cut to the next page, where John’s shot the fucker in the head and left a gaping hole where his lack of a brain was. 

And again what makes this work is the aftermath: John is clearly shaken, having ONLY been able to pull the trigger beause of Statoc’s smug grin and clearly not taking the sight of Statoc’s dead body bleeding out well. And while Smirnov keeps his word, covers for him despite the two guards clearly providing an iron clad argument against john and knoiwng thier blatantly covering this up.. he’s not happy about it. 

This is WHY the narrtive still works. Statoc stacked the law against the bad guys. .but despite this being a necessary evil.. it’s still an evil and subverting teh law at this rightly leaves him not in a great place mentally. John himself isn’t even if he plays it off as otherwise, as we get our final bit of narration and one hell of a closing line. 

Final Thoughts:

Somewhere in the Shadows is a bit rough around the edges, leaning a bit too heavily into the noir pastiche and Blacksad being a harboiled detective, something the next volume would ease up on. That being said.. it’s still a masterpiece, with gorgeous art and masterful pacing. While it’s the shortest of the stories, like those after it the pacing is sublime and never feels like it has any down moments or stuff that could’ve been cut, and the mystery keeps you on edge the whole time. Having forgot a lot of the details since last read I was on the edge of my seat the entire story and loving every second of it. Somewhere in the Shadows is the perfect starter for the series, introducing an important charcter in Smirnov and the noir nature and giving us a case personal to John so we can see who he was before, what he is now.. and what he WILL be for the rest of the series. The moment that MADE him into an even harder man than the one we follows here.. when he took a life in cold blood. A masterful story, seriously check it and the other volumes out, on comixology, in stores, great stuff. Next time we look into john and as I said, he’s taking down some racists and we also meet his sidekick weekly for the first time. As for me tommorow I dive back into my Tom Luictor retrospective but hit pause on our boy for a bit to take care of some of the larger plot.   Until the next rainbow, it’s been a pleasure. 

[ladyherenya]

Books read in October

Twenty novels (including two audiobooks), three graphic novels, one novella and two rereads: more books than are pictured above. I can’t remember the last time I read so much in a month. Maybe when I was high school?

It was a combination of factors: Rainbow Rowell’s latest books became available at the library, I realised that Meg Cabot’s Heather Wells books are murder mysteries, and I made the very exciting discovery that I could get Ellen Emerson White’s previously-out-of-print novels as ebooks.

Favourite cover: Life Without Friends.

Reread: Bryony and Roses by T. Kingfisher, Hold Me by Courtney Milan (and then The Road Home).

Still reading: Mapping Winter by Marta Randall and When We Were Warriors by Emma Carroll.

Next up: Warrior of the Altaii by Robert Jordan.

(Longer reviews and ratings are on LibraryThing. And also Dreamwidth.)

The Princess Who Flew with Dragons by Stephanie Burgis: Princess Sofia is unimpressed when her sister’s latest plans involve sending Sofia on a diplomatic mission to Villenne. Sofia wants to stay in her room and read, not remind everyone that she struggles to be a perfect princess. But in Villenne she discovers unexpected opportunities to attend lectures and make friends. And when calamity strikes, it’s up to her to save the day. A solid adventure about friendship and what it means to be a princess, a philosopher and a person all at once. It’s the sort of book I’d like to send back in time to my twelve-year-old self.

The “Uncommon Echoes” trilogy by Sharon Shinn: Set in a world where many of the nobility have “echoes” -- identical copies who follow them, more substantial than shadows but not capable of speech or independent action. Or so people believe. Begins with Echo in Onyx.

Echo in Emerald: After a story about an ordinary woman pretending to be an echo, here is a woman pretending her echoes are ordinary people. Chessie has the ability to shift her consciousness between herself and her two echoes, enough to give the impression that they are three different people with different personalities and jobs. Usually she keeps to the lower classes, but one day she’s asked to deliver a message to a noble who is investigating a recent murder.(Another inversion, another case of themes and variations, as the first book is about trying to conceal a murder.)This builds upon the first book, deepening our understanding of the political context and of echoes. Chessie’s experience of identity is fascinating.

Echo in Amethyst: A story about echo who slowly gains sentience and independence from her original is a good idea in theory, a logical progression for this trilogy. But it turned out to be a massive misstep. The echo belongs to a woman who is abusive towards her echoes and rude towards nearly everyone else. The echo spends a long time incapable of being anything other than a passive observer of unpleasant people. I skimmed bits and seriously considered abandoning this. Not recommended -- but the first two books standalone sufficiently that you could read just those without this series feeling naggingly incomplete.

Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell, illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks: Super cute! All through high school Josiah and Deja have worked together at the pumpkin patch every September and October. Tonight is their last shift. Deja is determined that Josiah is finally going to speak to the girl he likes. Nothing goes to plan. This is a story about changes, chances and choices. It’s also a love letter to everything Josiah and Deja love about the pumpkin patch -- which includes their relationship. I really liked the characters, and the artwork does such a wonderful job of bringing them, and this place, to life.

The Spies of Shilling Lane by Jennifer Ryan (narrated by Jayne Entwistle): Unexpectedly entertaining, a cosy mystery full of excitement, danger and character growth, set against the backdrop of the London Blitz. Mrs Braithwaite, divorced and deposed from her position as head of the village Women’s Voluntary Service, tries to find her missing adult daughter. Mrs Braithwaite is a very forceful personality. I really liked that she is not only challenged to reevaluate her attitudes, she discovers that qualities like bossiness and tenacity can be great strengths. Large, loud and assertive middle-aged women are so often been relegated to irritating or comedic minor characters, rather than getting to be protagonists.

An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson: Isobel has spent years painting portraits of the fair folk. She knows to speak courteously, make bargains carefully, and avoid jeopardising her family’s safety. And then she meets the prince of the autumn court. I have mixed feelings. I really liked Isobel, with her practical streak and her passion for painting, and liked the way she describes her experiences. The people she’s closest to are quickly established as interesting, complex and individual. However, this story leans heavily into a portrayal of the fair folk which I don’t find very appealing. A matter of personal taste rather than quality.

Artistic License by Elle Pierson (aka Lucy Parker): I wasn’t sure what to expect from an early self-published novel about an art student and a security guard in New Zealand, especially as the London theatre world is a big part of why Parker’s other books appeal to me. But Queenstown is such a scenic setting and the characters immediately felt like the sort of people Parker writes about. I particularly enjoyed Sophy’s internal dialogue, and how she and Mick become very protective of each other. They’re so mutually caring! In hindsight, this book could have been stronger... but I liked the characters and their interactions. Sometimes that’s enough.

The Printed Letter Bookshop by Katherine Reay: A story about cross-age friendship and forgiveness, about three different women working together in a bookshop. Madeline, a lawyer, has inherited the bookshop from her aunt. Janet is angry and has an ex husband, adult children who rarely speak to her and old friends she wants to avoid. In the middle is Claire, aware of the shop’s precarious finances and trying to juggle work with motherhood. I’d nearly finished this when I realised it’s classified as “Christian fiction”. I really liked how it is about forgiveness and messy, complicated relationships. Not a perfect book, but it surprised me.

The “Heather Wells Mysteries” by Meg Cabot:

Size 12 Is Not Fat: I discovered that this series isn’t just chick lit, it’s murder mystery chick lit about a former pop singer now working as an assistant director for a college dorm. (Talk about misleading covers!) When a student is found dead, Heather is convinced that it wasn’t an accident but murder. At times Heather reminded me of Mia from The Princess Diaries, which I found fascinating and frustrating (some attitudes are more understandable coming from a teenager than from a woman approaching thirty). Anyway, Heather is kind and humorous, I liked the setting, and the mystery had enough twists to satisfy me.

Size 14 Is Not Fat Either: More of the same, except that this time when a student turns up dead, it’s obvious to everyone that she has been murdered. Instead of trying to convince everyone of the need for a murder investigation, Heather is trying -- unsuccessfully -- not to get involved in it. I like how supportive Heather’s friends and colleagues are. Her father has been absent (in jail), her mother and her manager ran off with Heather’s money, and her long term boyfriend was unfaithful, but she’s still got people in her life who care and who are there for her. And I did enjoy some of her song lyrics.

Size Doesn’t Matter (US title: Big Boned): I was relieved that this time round the murder victim is not another female student. Yes, murder is horrible regardless, but there can be something particularly unpleasant if a story keeps only killing young women. I definitely don’t want murder mysteries to be all grim and bleak, but I prefer it when murder mysteries aren’t this light-hearted. This isn’t a criticism, just a realisation about my personal taste. I kept reading to see some resolution in Heather’s love life. (I know, priorities). I’ve no idea the woman on the cover is wearing a wedding dress. Marketing is weird.

Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell: Simon, Baz and Penelope set off on a roadtrip across America to see Agatha, who Penelope is convinced is in trouble. Rowell is so good making me care about her characters and their relationships. I liked how this is a journey of discovery -- exploring a new country, finding out things about the world they live in and learning more about themselves. I enjoyed reading this but wasn’t so enthusiastic about the final act (it becomes a story about vampires) or the conclusion (busy setting up for a sequel, it leaves emotional arcs unresolved). Expectations and personal preferences, I guess.

Life Without Friends by Ellen Emerson White: I was so excited when I discovered that this had been released as an ebook. A decade of wanting to read something may be an unfair amount of pressure to put on any book, especially on a teen novel from 1987, but I was not disappointed. White is so good at writing smart, acerbic teenage girls dealing with trauma and intense emotions, like guilt and grief. And Beverly’s relationship with Derek is so believably awkward and tentative and hopeful -- two people with their own flaws and fears making the effort to get to know each other. It’s, like, everything I want from teen romance.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers: A team from the 22nd century explore four habitable worlds in orbit around a red dwarf star. It’s a fascinating glimpse into what the future might be like -- what space travel and other worlds might be like -- and a thought-provoking meditation about space, science and life. When it comes to the characters, there’s something quite elliptical about it -- which is fitting, given that Ariadne is writing this account for a specific purpose. It left me feeling unsatisfied, but I think that’s because there are particular things I’m looking for and this novella intentionally -- and effectively -- focuses on something else.

The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl by Theodora Goss (narrated by Kate Reading): The Athena Club return to London from one extraordinary adventure and are plunged into another. Their teenaged kitchen maid Alice has been kidnapped, Sherlock Holmes is missing and there is a plot afoot to impersonate the queen. This story has adventure, teamwork, mystery, unexpected twists, more cameos by characters from popular Victorian fiction, and commentary on late Victorian concerns (like empire and eugenics). My favourite part was the Athena Club's interactions when they interrupt the narrative to discuss their lives together, highlight what they think is important or argue about what Catherine included. They’re a team, a household, a family.

All Emergencies, Ring Super by Ellen Emerson White: A teenager asks Dana, a former actress working as a building superintendent, to investigate a building fire. This was curiously lacking in tension --- until things became intensely personal. By the end, I was seriously disappointed that there isn’t a whole series about Dana solving mysteries. I like that Dana investigates by doing research at the library, making use of her acting abilities and enlisting support from friends. Her friendships are one of the highlights -- smart, difficult people who are honest with each other is an interesting dynamic. And the way White writes about the aftermath of trauma is compelling and thoughtful.

The “Echo Company” series by Ellen Emerson White: I read all five books in two days. They’re fast-paced and some aren’t particularly long -- they were published by Scholastic in the early 90s -- but that is only part of why I read them so quickly. They are compelling and unexpectedly fascinating.

Welcome to Vietnam: Eighteen year old Michael Jennings is conscripted to fight in Vietnam -- and I really wanted to see him to find his feet, make friends and survive. I can relate to how much he cares about his dog, and his sense of humour makes him an entertaining character to spend time with, even though he’s been thrown into a terrible, terrifying situation. Even knowing what wars can be like, I was still surprised by conditions the soldiers faced. I was also surprised by how interesting I found it all. It left me thinking about a lot.

Hill 568: Michael has made some friends (and some enemies), he’s grown accustomed to some of the realities of life on the frontlines in Vietnam, and he takes on more responsibility. White’s characters are lively and, in spite of the situations they’re in, often humorous. That humour is a huge part of why this is an engaging story, like an antidote to the horrors of war, but it also serves to emphasise that all those horrible things are happening to a bunch of ordinary young men barely out of school. This book made me laugh, and made me worry about the characters.

‘Tis the Season:  Twenty-one year old Lieutenant Rebecca Phillips is a nurse working in the ER of an evacuation hospital in Vietnam. Although already dealing with grief and difficult family relationships and a nightmarish workplace, she’s a bright, upbeat person who goes out of her way to entertain others. Self-appointed “Court Jester”. During the Christmas ceasefire she goes out on a medical helicopter -- and everything goes to hell. There are more medical details than I, a squeamish person, really prefer, but once I got to know Rebecca -- and also once her circumstances became tense and terrifying -- I was very, very invested.

Stand Down: This has some tense moments, but otherwise feels a bit lighter -- a welcome change of pace after everything the characters have been through. Michael spends a lot of time moping over correspondence (or lack thereof) from a nurse he’s met once -- but in context, that’s very understandable. He so desperately needs something positive and hopeful to focus on. I like that Michael’s and Rebecca’s initial interactions aren’t easy, because that feels realistic in the circumstances, and because it’s a positive sign that they’re able to get through awkward conversations; it sets them up to be honest with each other.

The Road Home: I stayed up stupidly late reading this, on a school night too. White is so good at writing about dealing with the aftermath of trauma, and about smart, difficult people making an effort to build relationships -- friendships as well as romances. This follows Rebecca’s final six months serving as a nurse in Vietnam, and the months afterwards. It’s about the things that get her through the war (letters, friendships, alcohol) and the difficulties of adjusting to life back home. I love how this book deals realistically but hopefully with so many things. I have a lot of feelings and favourite passages.

Applied Electromagnetism by Susannah Nix: Two colleagues who travel interstate to do a job with a deadline find themselves under extra pressure due to complications of bad weather. I liked all the references to Olivia and Adam’s nerdy interests, and I thought the discussions of Olivia’s ADHD and her experiences as a woman in STEM were interesting. Otherwise nothing jumped out at me as deserving of criticism or praise, it was all just okay. Less humorous than I expected from something book described as “romantic comedy”, but that was okay. (And maybe someone else would find it funny, humour is such a your-mileage-may-vary thing.)

The Tea Dragon Society by Katie O’Neill: I love the concept of tea dragons and a tea dragon society. And the dragons are really cute! But the way people’s expressions are drawn in this graphic novel didn’t quite appeal to me and I think that coloured how I felt about the book as a whole. And it’s not a very long story, so it doesn’t have so many opportunities to win over a reader who isn’t enamoured with the illustrations. I’m sorry, book, I’m sure there are other readers out there who will appreciate you!

Runaways: That Was Yesterday (volume 3) by Rainbow Rowell and Kris Anka with Matthew Wilson: Follows on from Find Your Way Home and Best Friends Forever and involves the reappearance of someone from the Runaways’ past, the appearance of children of old enemies and Christmas. I read three volumes of the original Runaways comics last year -- and this volume really left me feeling like maybe I’d appreciate it more if I’d read those more recently or else if I’d read more of them. Or maybe it was just that it focused a lot on a character I don’t like as much? But, I still liked it. I definitely would like to read more.

[tourguideexpert-blog-blog]

How to Fit Two Weeks' Worth of Clothes in a Carry-On and Other Travel Tips

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How to Fit Two Weeks' Worth of Clothes in a Carry-On and Other Travel Tips

Jessica Nabongo was born and raised in Detroit after her parents immigrated from Uganda. Since then, she has lived everywhere, from Japan to rural Benin, charting her travels in her blog, Catch Me If You Can.

Nabongo turned her passion into a business when she started Jet Black, a boutique travel company that focuses on encouraging tourism to throughout the African diaspora—Africa, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. But she isn’t desk-bound, despite her clients’ demands; working remotely, so far she’s logged 75 countries and counting of the world’s 195.

Nabongo visits a leather tannery in Marrakech.

Photographer: Elton Anderson

Nabongo’s airline of choice? Delta. “I usually do 120,000 [miles] per year, but this year, as of last week, I’m already at 90,000, so I’m going to do closer to 250,000 [in 2017].”

Don’t trust the photos on a hotel’s website when you can do this instead.

I use the geotag feature on Instagram—it’s my new method of checking out hotels. You find a hotel that has four or five stars, and you’re looking at the pictures on the website thinking, This is amazing. But I want to see what [guests] are posting there. When I was looking for hotels in Zanzibar, for instance, many of [the geotagged photos] didn’t look like their pictures on their websites at all. People had geotagged them, and I could see it wasn’t a very nice beach.

Checking on the geotagged Instagram photos from the Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti in Tanzania will tell you what it really looks like.

Photographer: Andre Perry

You can always avoid checking your carry-on, even on a full flight.

On a recent trip I traveled between Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Djibouti, Qatar, and Bahrain with my handy-dandy Away bag. I love the way it rolls and charges my devices [with a built-in battery]. Depending on the region of the world you are in, [airlines] can be pretty strict about the weight of your carry-on bag, often asking to weigh it. Generally the maximum is 14 kilograms, or 30 pounds, which somehow for me is never enough. So when I approach the counter and they say I have to weigh my carry-on, and I know it’s too heavy, I say, “Actually, it’s camera equipment, so I can’t check it.” Airlines don’t want liability for electronic equipment. It works every time, even if they tell you to check it at the gate. And it is  true, as I have a camera and a lens in there. It’s just the  isn’t camera equipment.

How to fit two weeks’ worth of clothing in a carry-on.

The first thing I do before packing is write down a list of where I’m going, and I put in the climate as far out as I can tell [from weather reports]. I count up the number of days and count out my underwear to make sure I have enough. Then I lay out all my bottoms and my tops, then use Flight 001 spacepaks for them. They are absolutely the best thing on the market. I’ve tested them, trying to pack without them, and it doesn’t work. Using them, though, I can usually get two weeks’ worth of clothes to fit in a carry-on bag. I recommend the number 2, 3, and 4 models. And I use a long wallet from Flight 001’s T5 collection to keep my boarding passes and my passport together.

Nabongo says the best thing about Bali is that "every city is different. Ubud is all about relaxation and being one with nature. The energy is serene and calm, yet so very alive."

Photographer: Elton Anderson

A two-point plan for scoring the best flight deals every time.

Every morning I read flight deals like they’re my I check The Flight Deal, Secret Flying, and Airfare Spot. If there’s a place I haven’t been, I allow them to dictate where I travel next—like when I went to Bali, because I found a ticket for $450 from L.A. And Chase Sapphire Reserve is the best thing that’s ever happened to me; it blows the American Express Platinum card out of the water for anyone who calls himself a real traveler. It comes with a membership for Priority Pass, which is at over 1,000 lounges around the world. Sometimes, when I fly a small regional airline, it’s given me access to lounges in places like Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar. And the rewards system is insane. I have not paid for a plane ticket in four and a half months because of Chase. The annual fee is $450 per year, but you get a $300 travel credit every year, so if you charge a flight from New York to L.A? Boom! You get a $300 credit, so now the annual fee is really only $150.

"When in Kampala, be sure to stop at National Theatre in the city center," Nabongo says. "It's my favorite place in East Africa for shopping. Visit my aunt in stall 14!"

Photographer: Sarah Waiswa

Where to shop in Africa.

I am obsessed with the National Theatre in Uganda [which also features local artists’ work], because your money goes so much further with the exchange rate of the Ugandan shilling to the dollar. If you’re going to Kenya, I highly recommend stopping in to Kampala on the way and going there: The craftsmanship is amazing, on everything from bags to serving utensils. I love walking around a city [in America] with one of the bags, which are practical and fashionable.

Embrace the rain—for the right reasons.

I always recommend traveling at the end of the rainy season. I’ve done this in East Africa, the South Pacific, and Southeast Asia. I just Google “rainy season” plus whatever country to find out. Most recently, on that trip to Bali, I went toward the end of the rainy season. The lodging is cheaper—I’d estimate around 30 percent cheaper, on average—and I love taking pictures without other people in them! I got lucky, as I spent two and a half weeks in Bali, and it rained the day I arrived but never again. And I always travel with this footwear: little hunter green ankle booties from J.Crew, which are easier to walk in [than knee-high Wellington boots], take up less room in your case, and are really cute. And I have a pair of bright yellow rubber Chuck Taylors, which are waterproof.

Take that, St. Barts or Ibiza. The best island you’ve never heard of? It’s in Africa.

Nabongo says Lamu Island is one of Kenya's best-kept secrets. "There is a lot of local tourism to the island, but most outside visitors travel to Mombasa and Diani. The food in Lamu is incredible, the people are super nice, and the sunset dhow boat rides can't be beat."

Photographer: James Anthony

Lamu is a quaint, quiet island off the coast of Kenya, which all my Kenyan friends told me about. It’s a short flight from Malindi, where most tourists go, and like much of the East African coast, it’s largely Muslim. I went during Ramadan, so it was extra quiet, very calm and peaceful. We stayed at Forodhani House, which is really good for a family or a group of friends. But if you want more of a hotel, try Majlis. The architecture and culture of the island is a mash-up of Swahili and Arabic influences. Like Zanzibar, it’s a spice island, dating back to the old trade between the Arabian Peninsula and India. So the best part of a trip there is the food—the best samosas I’ve ever tasted, and I grew up in a home eating a ton of Indian food, with a Ugandan mother who makes samosas. I already told her, “Mommy, you’ve got to rethink your recipe.”

How to chop onions without crying, wherever you are in the world.

When I graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science, I spent an extended stay in Benin, working with a small Italian NGO. We were living about 250 kilometers from [the largest city] Cotonou, in one of the world’s poorest countries, so you can imagine what life was like. We lived with some nuns in a convent, because there was a cave nearby where people came for pilgrimage. The convent was the only place in that area with electricity and running water, but not hot water. One time, when I was cooking my own meal, I was struggling with chopping onions, and my eyes began to water. One sister, from Nigeria, handed me a matchstick and told me to put it between my teeth, flammable side out, and it would prevent my eyes from watering while cutting onions. To this day, I always put a match in my mouth when cutting onions, and it works like a charm.

  Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/

[amcbrooks-blog]

How to travel around (when you don’t have a helicopter)

New expats frequently ask me where the best places are to live in and I always recommend trying to live the same side of town as you work. Scroll down and you’ll understand why. does not have a public transport system as such (it’s all privately owned) but there are many different ways of travelling to and around the city. Here’s the muzungu’s introduction to the different types of transport and a few personal recommendations.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ll know I’m always up for a new adventure so I’ve tried all the different methods of transport across .

⦁ Walking ⦁ Cycling ⦁ Boda boda motorbikes ⦁ Cars ⦁ Taxis and special hires ⦁ Matatus ⦁ Buses and coaches ⦁ Train ⦁ Helicopter!

Walking in

If you’re within walking distance of where you work, then lucky you! My organisation office was in the spare room of my home for my first few years in Uganda and I was saved the hassle of fighting through ’s traffic. I had no idea how lucky I was!

You wouldn’t think this was in would you? Morning view across the wetlands below Bukasa, Muyenga . A morning walk is the perfect way to start my day

Walking my dogs through the back roads of Bukasa and Muyenga were some of my happiest times in Uganda. Here’s a favourite walk of ours. Once you’re in town however, walking is an altogether different matter.

Pavements along Road are good. Very occasionally the streets are closed to vehicles (this was during the City Festival)

It’s only in the centre of town and around the central business district (CBD) that you will find decent pavements. In other parts of town, pavements may suddenly end without warning (if they exist). Drainage covers may be there today and gone tomorrow so always tread carefully. If you have kids, forget bringing the buggy to . You won’t be able to push it very far.

Cycling in

I know very few expats who dare to cycle on ’s crazy streets. I used to cycle when I lived in London but here we have little awareness of cyclists or their safety. You wouldn’t find me cycling around unless it is down by Lake Victoria or on the quiet hills of Kololo or Nakasero. Save your biking for weekends in Lake Mburo or Fort Portal. (Did you know there is an annual mountain bike tour in Karamoja?)

Boda boda motorbikes

These are undoubtedly the quickest way of getting from A to B and the city couldn’t function without them. Boda boda drivers are our best friends, our Mr Fix It, frequently our saviours – just choose with discretion. They can be a real menace too. Read my blog How to ride a boda boda.

Rush hour boda bodas Jinja Road

If you take a boda boda, do yourself a favour and wear a helmet. Don’t just accept a lift from random guys driving past either. Get to know riders from your local boda boda stage or download one of the ‘ride hailing apps’. I use the Uber app all the time in . Their boda riders are registered and bring you a high quality helmet to wear.

Driving a car in

Lots of people prefer the comfort and privacy of having their own cars. I bought my car from expat friends and enjoyed the independence of it for many years. What I didn’t enjoy were the many hours sweating in traffic jams at Jinja Road. Neither did I appreciate being pulled over by the traffic police for some minor offence they had just cooked up when they spotted a loan muzungu. (They pick on Ugandans too, I know!)

The weirdest occasion was one Christmas Eve when I was driving through the industrial area. The traffic policeman ahead of me motioned me to pull over. “What have I done?” I asked him innocently. He walked around the car.

“I’m pulling you over for having a faulty rear brake light” he said.

“How could you see that when you were standing in front of me?” I asked him.

“For us, we have special powers” came the reply.

Driving in – not for the nervous is a popular post by a former expat.

Taxis and special hires

This is where it gets confusing!

Private cars, like Uber, which we now have in , are called ‘specials’ or special hires.

When a British person like me thinks of a taxi, this is what I see:

Black London taxi cab

Matatus

In however, ask for a taxi (pronounced taxiiiiiii) and someone will point you to a matatu or minibus. The crowded old taxi park in downtown is an experience in itself! It can be pretty intense.

Diary of a Muzungu (plus new mattress!) squeezes into a matatu in the Old Taxi Park

The 12 seater minibus taxis (generally white with turquoise ‘go faster’ stripes) are the cheapest way to get around but the routes can be annoying as you have to go into the centre of town to get out to the other side. People often walk a bit, take a matatu and then take the second one or jump on a boda boda for the last part of their journey.

Matatus are very cheap. There are no price lists, no receipts and no timetable. They have set prices but the conductor (who sits by the sliding door and takes your money) will frequently try and overcharge you if you’re a muzungu. It is inevitable but you will quickly get to know what’s a fair price. Most routes charge 1,000 shillings (equivalent to 20 British pence or 30 US cents). If you’re not sure how much to pay, fellow passengers will usually help you out (and scold the conductor at the same time!) Travel with loose change or small notes if you’re using a taxiiiiiii in .

Matatus are good if you are on a tight budget, have a good book to read and can go to work very early (or arrive home very late). Play with your expensive phone at your peril. Thieves are known to put their hand through taxi windows and snatch phones when you’re stuck in traffic.

British TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson and the Top Gear team drove through . Here they were looking for a way to get out of the old taxi park!

The downside with matatus is that they frequently get stuck in traffic, especially around the taxi park and Clock Tower roundabout. It’s not uncommon to sit for one or two hours without moving. Their drivers are often aggressive. Also, you have to be careful of your belongings on these crowded minibuses as there are lots of cunning pickpockets. One friend was relieved of her laptop in a matatu. She had no idea she was being robbed until she got out of the taxi and opened her bag to see her laptop had been replaced by bricks!

If you are using a taxi upcountry, expect to fit a lot more than 12 people in!

Nairobi’s matatus – famous for their graffiti decor and pumping sound systems – are bigger than Uganda’s vehicle of the same name

Note: Uganda’s matatus are twelve-seater minibuses, slightly different from Nairobi’s matatus which are buses, coaches or ‘coasters’ (slightly smaller than a bus).

Buses and coaches

Within city, Pioneer are the only bus company that I know of. Their buses are new, well-maintained with fixed routes, fixed prices and even tickets! Oh how I wish the city had more of these.

I usually take the Link bus between to Fort Portal

If you want to travel outside , upcountry or across one of Uganda’s borders, buses are safer than matatus,  which have a particularly poor safety record. My preferred bus companies – who I use regularly – are Mash, Link and Jaguar Executive Coaches. Other people also recommend Oxygen, Coast and Modern Coaches.

Train

If you are lucky enough to live in Kireka or Namanve, you can even get the train into town! The downside is that the service is infrequent although it does have a daily timetable and it’s very cheap. Click on the image to read more about ’s commuter train service.

Rift Valley Railways passenger train – early morning view from the train window

I simply love trains. Read about my train travels across East Africa:

On the right track – my first Ugandan train ride

More ‘lunatic’ than express – an epic adventure on Kenya’s (in)famous train to Mombasa

Of romance and railways. A guide to booking Kenya’s Standard Gauge Railway train and a comparison between the train journey and the bus between Nairobi and Mombasa.  

Helicopter

I once crossed Jinja Road by helicopter!

Helicopter pilot David Guy (flying over Murchison Falls in this photo)

When I was a volunteer, I got to know the pilot of the helicopter stationed at International Hospital Muyenga. I begged him for a ride (not thinking there was any likelihood of it).

One morning he called me. “Can you get to the hospital in fifteen minutes? I have to transfer the helicopter to the grounds of the Serena Hotel to pick up a private client. You can hop in if you want to?”

God I was excited – but no sooner had the helicopter lifted off the ground than we were landing again… and that sums up my travel experiences in helicopter!

What’s the muzungu’s preferred way of travelling around ?

These days I’m a big fan of Uber and use them every day I’m in .

I love talking to Uber drivers – everyone has a story

Although Uber isn’t ’s only ride hailing app, it does offer the most flexibility and for tourists and new expats, it’s a recognised brand that you may already have installed on your phone. The system works exactly the same way as it does ‘back home’ but cash is always preferred by drivers. Few of them accept credit cards which is understandable. Very few shops in Uganda accept credit cards – we just aren’t there yet.

View from my mobile office in ! My work day starts once I’m in Uber

What’s great about their service in is that Uber have both cars and boda bodas. When I have time, I’ll take a car. This gives me a chance to schedule my meetings, check my email, do a Facebook update (and do my make-up (!) of course). Uber is my mobile office, regardless of the weather or the heavy traffic. When I’m in a rush, I order an UberBODA from the same app. When I’m in , I won’t get on a boda unless I have my helmet. The great thing with UberBODA is your driver will arrive with a helmet for you to borrow (meaning you don’t have to carry your helmet with you all day long). I love the flexibility this gives me.

What are your tips for travelling around ? If you’re coming to live in Uganda for the first time, read Uganda for beginners – an introduction for new expats.

If you’ve enjoyed this blog, feel free to share it and sign up to my occasional newsletter.

The post How to get around (when you don’t have a helicopter) appeared first on Diary of a Muzungu | Uganda & East Africa Travel Blog.

[menswearmusings]

If You Think You Should Never Meet Your Heroes, You May Have the Wrong Heroes

One of my favorite bands, Metric, sings “They were right when they said/ we should never meet our heroes.” I have to say, in my case, I unequivocally disagree.

Two weeks ago I took the opportunity to meet one of my heroes, Antonio Ciongoli, creative director of my favorite menswear brand Eidos. He was going to be in Michigan for an event at AK Rikks, a very well-appointed menswear shop in Grand Rapids that carries the brand. Glen Allsop, the photographer who has worked with Eidos from the beginning, was the main draw. He was selling a collection of prints and photo books from the trip to India that served to inspire the Spring/Summer 2017 Eidos collection. Much of the proceeds from each sale would be going back to the village in India they visited. Antonio and the other man behind the brand, Quentin Clemm, were on hand to tell the stories behind the collection and show off the clothes.

I waffled back and forth for a long time on whether I’d go. From Nashville, it was way too far. But it happened to be during a week when I was in Cincinnati for work, so I was faced with a 5.5-hour drive instead of an 8.5-hour one. Still, an 11-hour round trip was a big proposition for what I feared might only be 20 minutes of small talk and a handshake. “Would there be a ton of people there, I’d be one face in a crowd, we’d shake hands, and then he’d move on? Or worse, if I’m one of only a few, would we run out of stuff to talk about after half an hour?” Antonio himself finally convinced me after some back-and-forth on Styleforum. 

The event itself was simply an afternoon meet-and-greet opportunity—see the beautiful photos, meet the man who shot them, enjoy the beautiful clothes, meet the man who designed them, enjoy a glass of wine, shot of espresso, or cocktail on the house, and oh yeah buy something, too. My wife and I arrived around 1p.m. My close friend from college Adam works at the store, but he was getting tech support at the Apple store so he wasn’t there. We thought, “should we wait until the event officially starts at 2 to go in?” Without my friend as a crutch, we were nervous. But we went inside anyway, and of course there was nothing to worry about. Small plug for AK Rikks here: their hospitality is exceptional. Immediately we were greeted, offered a drink, and asked what they could help us with.

Antonio, Quentin and Glen were getting a tour of the place, Tom the sales associate told me. In the meantime, he showed me around. I told him I was interested in Ring Jacket, which nobody near me in Nashville carries. So we went upstairs, walking right past where the VIPs were. I casually waved at Quentin and Glen, but Antonio’s back was turned, talking to the store’s manager. I tried on some jackets, trying hard to play it cool. My menswear idol was literally 10 feet away from me, but he was engaged in conversation. Finally the whole group stood up and walked towards me, and we were introduced. It was somewhat surreal. Here’s a guy whose work is so important to me, and whose personal style influenced my own tremendously, in the flesh! It had the potential to be one of those moments like when you feel you know someone you’ve seen on TV because you watch their show every night, but of course meeting them in person is bizarre because you are just one of unnamed multitudes who watch them.  

So this moment, pregnant with potential for elation or disappointment, for personal connection or alienation, for making the 11-hour-round-trip worthwhile or not turned out to be pretty… normal. Antonio is just a good-natured guy. He’s energetic and enthusiastic about what he does. He is easy to talk to. He is relatable. And of course I should’ve known that. He regularly posts on Styleforum, and he and I have in fact communicated there more than a few times. He gave me great recommendations for places to eat, shop and sightsee in Italy 2 years ago. When the buyer at my local Nashville menswear shop Haymakers saw him during the market buying season a year ago, he asked about me (she related to me later). And even more monumentally, just a few weeks ago, he sent me a video wishing me a happy 30th birthday at my wife’s request.

Maybe if my hero were Ralph Lauren, the moment would be different—after all, neither Eidos nor Antonio Ciongoli are household names. But as it was, he was excited to meet me in person, too.

After we shook hands and talked for a minute, he and Glen continued on the tour, but Quentin stopped to talk. “Love the ‘gram, by the way,” he said half-ironically. Now there’s a compliment. Quentin is not the face of the brand as much as Antonio is—but he’s a very stylish guy, with handsome features and a great personality. To be recognized and appreciated by him is huge to me. We talked for the next 45 minutes or so until the other two were done with the tour. He gave me a peek into their world of suppliers, buyers, designers, and manufacturers; the relationships, the challenges and the personalities. At one point he responded to a question I asked (I can’t remember what), “Well it’s kind of a long, complicated answer; not sure if you want to hear that.” Dude, I drove 5.5 hours to hear this story, lol, I have nowhere else to be.

The rest of the afternoon flew by. I worried it would be a crowded event with many guests for the hosts to attend to. It turned out that we had several hours of one-on-one time to get to know them, hear their backgrounds, ask questions and share in our common enjoyment of menswear. Antonio told the story of their trip to India, explained his thinking behind some of the seemingly more bizarre aspects of the collection and made me excited for the future of the brand. 

Glen is an absolute pleasure as well—a very relaxed, congenial guy who instantly relates to everyone. We talked photography, print making, religion and art. We determined that Antonio should do a “greatest hits” collection some season instead of designing all brand new stuff, so I could get my hands on my personal white whale—the perfect denim workshirt from the SS2015 collection.

I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. It was well worth the 11-hour round trip. If there’s an event near you where you’re able to meet these guys, I encourage you to do so—they are very interesting to talk to, friendly, and highly engaging.

One more thing: when Antonio finished with his tour, he came down to where I was talking with Quentin, looking at Glen’s photo books. Antonio reached into his bag to get something—a gift he had promised to bring me if I came to the event. I said earlier that he explained to me some of the more bizarre things in the collection this season. He told me that he hasn’t lost his mind, that he too is a normal guy who wants clothes he can actually wear, and so if there are clothes that seem odd, know that he wouldn’t have included them in the collection unless he had a good reason. A few weeks ago I had lightly ribbed him in a blog post I wrote on Styleforum, saying: “I was lucky to get on the Eidos train before it became more about Indian pajamas or whatever […] (and thankfully, Antonio still throws us tailoring fans a bone).” He good-naturedly responded, “You really need a pair of Indian pajama pants to round out your wardrobe…” 

So of course the gift he brought me was a pair of the Indian-inspired “Agy” pajama pants. He told me he wanted me to have them because they’re so comfortable that I would become a believer—to illustrate his point that bizarre as they may seem, they have a place in the collection. He explained that Eidos began with Napoli attached to the name, but he intentionally decided to drop that a year ago or so. The suits and sportcoats Eidos makes showcase what he feels is the best tailoring tradition in the world, which he believes every guy should have: that of Napoli; soft-shouldered, relaxed, stylish and comfortable.

In the same way, he knows there are other parts of the world with equally historic clothing and style traditions that he wants to discover and share. This collection draws a line between the Neapolitan foundation of Eidos and the culture and traditions he witnessed in India. I can dig it.

I guess to recap for full disclosure, I was given free Indian pajama pants from my favorite brand. Does this make me a shill now? So much for journalistic integrity, I suppose…

My outfit that day includes: Propercloth linen-cotton stripe shirt; American Eagle selvedge jeans; Eidos sportcoat (similar); Meermin chukkas

Photography by my wife, Dana Moss.

[classicfilmfreak]

New Post has been published on http://www.classicfilmfreak.com/2017/03/23/david-copperfield-1935-starring-freddie-bartholomew-madge-evans/

David Copperfield (1935) starring Freddie Bartholomew and Madge Evans

“So relentlessly pursued over air and housetop, and vice versa, I have thwarted the malevolent machinations of our scurrilous enemies . . . in short, I have arrived.”—Micawber

To film historians and those movie fans with a broad viewing experience, 1935 represents the beginning of the crescendo that continued through the next three years and climaxed at the pinnacle, 1939 and its still unmatched concentration of great Hollywood films.  For, after all, 1935, in a seeming creative surge after 1934, produced Mutiny on the Bounty, The Informer, Les Misérables, A Tale of Two Cities, The Lives of the Bengal Lancers, Captain Blood, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Top Hat.

And David Copperfield.  For a year, producer David O. Selznick had pestered his then boss Louis B. Mayer, head of M-G-M, to allow him to film Charles Dickens’ novel.  Mayer believed Dickens scholars would condemn any deviations from the original and viewers unfamiliar with the novel would be bored.  Even when Mayer finally granted permission for the film, he wanted to cut it after it was made.

As for the mogul’s objections to any changes, he should not have worried: Selznick was known for his fanatical fidelity to literary classics.  Six months after David Copperfield, Selznick would release another Dickens film, A Tale of Two Cities, recycling at least six of Copperfield’s stars.

Brilliantly directed by George Cukor, but inexplicably not Oscar-nominated, David Copperfield was the first American film for young, ten-year-old Londoner Freddie Bartholomew, who is endearing in the film without being cloyingly sweet.  All the stars, especially Basil Rathbone, Jessie Ralph and Roland Young, represent the exquisite, ideal casting throughout the movie.  Edna May Oliver, with her comic eccentricity, could have easily stolen the show if awarded a larger part.

It’s W.C. Fields, however, who gives the most memorable performance.  Charles Laughton, originally assigned the role of Micawber, bowed out, feeling he wasn’t doing it justice and recommended Fields.  Unable to do an English accent, Fields was at least compelled to adhere strictly to the script and eliminate, for the first and only time in his films, his notorious ad-libbing.  He proved ideal for the part, though he retained his unhurried, protracted delivery, with those rolling tones out of the side of his mouth.

Beyond this already amazing, diversified cast, there are other favorite old actors who enliven the screen with their sometimes eccentric, yet always flexible performances, acquiring, in the process, the quirky names Dickens often assigned his characters: Herbert Mundin as Barkis a vicar, Una O’Connor as Mrs. Gummidge, Elsa Lanchester as Clickett, Ivan Simpson as Littimer, E.E. Clive as a sheriff’s assistant and Arthur Treacher, regarded as the “perfect butler” and frequent guest on The Merv Griffin Show in the 1960s.

None of these actors appear in the following synopsis of the film:

Much to the annoyance of an aunt-to-be, Betsey Trotwood (Oliver) is indignant when the recently widowed Clara Copperfield (Elizabeth Allan) gives birth to a boy after Betsey had insisted the baby would be a girl.  She storms from the house, although she will later be David’s guardian.  The young David (Bartholomew), for the moment at least, will be raised by his mother and the kind nurse Peggotty (Ralph).

Later, Clara is courted by the domineering Mr. Murdstone (Rathbone, his character reminiscent of the overbearing husband to Anna in Anna Karenina, 1935).  Peggotty, who dislikes Murdstone from the start, takes David to visit her family.  The boy learns how the nurse’s brother, Dan Peggotty (Lionel Barrymore), had adopted both the orphan Little Em’ly (Fay Chaldecott) and her cousin Ham (John Buckler).

When David returns home, he discovers that Murdstone has married his mother, discharged the nurse and replaced her with his sister, Jane (Violet Kemble Cooper).  Murdstone admonishes Clara for complaining about Jane and strikes David for not knowing his school lesson, even locking him in his room.

Clara dies in childbirth and Murdstone packs David off to London where he lives and works for a while under the kindhearted Wilkins Micawber (Fields), who is always in financial straits.  He is later arrested and placed in debtors’ prison, its horrors a frequent theme of Dickens.

David soon makes the dangerous journey to Dover where, once again, he has to adjust to a new environment and another person of authority.  Now it’s Aunt Betsey and yet another relative, her cousin, the simple-minded Mr. Dick (Lennox Pawle).  He soon finds that he likes Betsey.

Next, David goes to live with the wealthy Wickfields.  The alcoholic Mr. Wickfield (Lewis Stone) shares his home with his clerk, Uriah Heep (Young), and Wickfield’s young daughter, Agnes (Marilyn Knowlden).  By the time David returns from his studies in Canterbury, now a young man (Frank Lawton), a grown Agnes (Madge Evans) clearly loves him, but he ignores her.

In his absence Heep has gained a position of authority, and Micawber, now out of prison, has become his reluctant employee.

Having moved to London, where many a Dickens youth (Pip in Great Expectations, Oliver in Oliver Twist) grows up and makes his fortune, David attends a ballet performance with his friend Steerforth (Hugh Williams).  In an adjacent balcony, he meets and falls in loves with the empty-headed Dora (Maureen O’Sullivan), whom he later marries.

In the meantime, Steerforth elopes with Em’ly, who had been engaged to Ham.  When Steerforth later abandons her in Italy, Ham searches for her, only to drown while trying to rescue her from a sinking yacht.

Uriah Heep, one of Dickens’ wickedest villains, has gained enormous power through his double-dealings, but Micawber exposes his crimes to Aunt Betsey and Mr. Dick.  By the time of Dora’s death, David realizes Agnes is his one true love.

Although this film synopsis omits many of the characters/actors—even with the ones included it’s a challenge to keep family relations and friends straight—far more characters in the novel have been excluded from the movie.

The film is reminiscent of today’s melodramatic soap operas, reflective of the novel’s seemingly endless series of misfortunes, tragedies, deaths and the inevitable Dickensian coincidences.  This tone is partly due to the manner of the novel’s first appearance—not as a ready-to-read, self-contained novel, but published in a serial form of nineteen one-shilling installments from May 1849 to November 1850.  In each episode of thirty-two pages, Dickens had to create a climax and, at the same time, leave the reader hanging at the end, craving the resolution in the next issue.  Following its serial appearance, the complete novel was published in 1850 by Bradbury and Evans, London.

Dickens said David Copperfield was his favorite among his novels, probably because it is the most autobiographical of all his works.  It was the novel Sigmund Freud, a life-long Anglophile, gave to his fiancée and which David O. Selznick’s father, an emigrant from Lithuania, used to learn English.

In the film version of Gone With the Wind, to assuage the fears of the nervous ladies, Melanie Hamilton reads David Copperfield’s opening line: “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”  The ladies’ husbands were away in the night, in Shanty Town, settling scores with the offenders of Southern womanhood.  In Margaret Mitchell’s novel, however, the book is Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.

In London’s The Guardian, in his list of the one hundred best novels in the English language, Robert McCrum ranks David Copperfield No. 15.  First is John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678).  Not surprising perhaps from a British scholar and a British publication, British writers prevail until No. 10 and an American, Edgar Allan Poe and his The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4wl2st-5Sg&list=PLnknDfcrWBc8qWjSjfgfY0ouDj0q7WcEd

[tourguideexpert-blog-blog]

How to Fit Two Weeks' Worth of Clothes in a Carry-On and Other Travel Tips

New Post has been published on https://travelqia.com/trending/how-to-fit-two-weeks-worth-of-clothes-in-a-carry-on-and-other-travel-tips-2/

How to Fit Two Weeks' Worth of Clothes in a Carry-On and Other Travel Tips

Jessica Nabongo was born and raised in Detroit after her parents immigrated from Uganda. Since then, she has lived everywhere, from Japan to rural Benin, charting her travels in her blog, Catch Me If You Can.

Nabongo turned her passion into a business when she started Jet Black, a boutique travel company that focuses on encouraging tourism to throughout the African diaspora—Africa, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. But she isn’t desk-bound, despite her clients’ demands; working remotely, so far she’s logged 75 countries and counting of the world’s 195.

Nabongo visits a leather tannery in Marrakech.

Photographer: Elton Anderson

Nabongo’s airline of choice? Delta. “I usually do 120,000 [miles] per year, but this year, as of last week, I’m already at 90,000, so I’m going to do closer to 250,000 [in 2017].”

Don’t trust the photos on a hotel’s website when you can do this instead.

I use the geotag feature on Instagram—it’s my new method of checking out hotels. You find a hotel that has four or five stars, and you’re looking at the pictures on the website thinking, This is amazing. But I want to see what [guests] are posting there. When I was looking for hotels in Zanzibar, for instance, many of [the geotagged photos] didn’t look like their pictures on their websites at all. People had geotagged them, and I could see it wasn’t a very nice beach.

Checking on the geotagged Instagram photos from the Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti in Tanzania will tell you what it really looks like.

Photographer: Andre Perry

You can always avoid checking your carry-on, even on a full flight.

On a recent trip I traveled between Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Djibouti, Qatar, and Bahrain with my handy-dandy Away bag. I love the way it rolls and charges my devices [with a built-in battery]. Depending on the region of the world you are in, [airlines] can be pretty strict about the weight of your carry-on bag, often asking to weigh it. Generally the maximum is 14 kilograms, or 30 pounds, which somehow for me is never enough. So when I approach the counter and they say I have to weigh my carry-on, and I know it’s too heavy, I say, “Actually, it’s camera equipment, so I can’t check it.” Airlines don’t want liability for electronic equipment. It works every time, even if they tell you to check it at the gate. And it is  true, as I have a camera and a lens in there. It’s just the  isn’t camera equipment.

How to fit two weeks’ worth of clothing in a carry-on.

The first thing I do before packing is write down a list of where I’m going, and I put in the climate as far out as I can tell [from weather reports]. I count up the number of days and count out my underwear to make sure I have enough. Then I lay out all my bottoms and my tops, then use Flight 001 spacepaks for them. They are absolutely the best thing on the market. I’ve tested them, trying to pack without them, and it doesn’t work. Using them, though, I can usually get two weeks’ worth of clothes to fit in a carry-on bag. I recommend the number 2, 3, and 4 models. And I use a long wallet from Flight 001’s T5 collection to keep my boarding passes and my passport together.

Nabongo says the best thing about Bali is that "every city is different. Ubud is all about relaxation and being one with nature. The energy is serene and calm, yet so very alive."

Photographer: Elton Anderson

A two-point plan for scoring the best flight deals every time.

Every morning I read flight deals like they’re my I check The Flight Deal, Secret Flying, and Airfare Spot. If there’s a place I haven’t been, I allow them to dictate where I travel next—like when I went to Bali, because I found a ticket for $450 from L.A. And Chase Sapphire Reserve is the best thing that’s ever happened to me; it blows the American Express Platinum card out of the water for anyone who calls himself a real traveler. It comes with a membership for Priority Pass, which is at over 1,000 lounges around the world. Sometimes, when I fly a small regional airline, it’s given me access to lounges in places like Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar. And the rewards system is insane. I have not paid for a plane ticket in four and a half months because of Chase. The annual fee is $450 per year, but you get a $300 travel credit every year, so if you charge a flight from New York to L.A? Boom! You get a $300 credit, so now the annual fee is really only $150.

"When in Kampala, be sure to stop at National Theatre in the city center," Nabongo says. "It's my favorite place in East Africa for shopping. Visit my aunt in stall 14!"

Photographer: Sarah Waiswa

Where to shop in Africa.

I am obsessed with the National Theatre in Uganda [which also features local artists’ work], because your money goes so much further with the exchange rate of the Ugandan shilling to the dollar. If you’re going to Kenya, I highly recommend stopping in to Kampala on the way and going there: The craftsmanship is amazing, on everything from bags to serving utensils. I love walking around a city [in America] with one of the bags, which are practical and fashionable.

Embrace the rain—for the right reasons.

I always recommend traveling at the end of the rainy season. I’ve done this in East Africa, the South Pacific, and Southeast Asia. I just Google “rainy season” plus whatever country to find out. Most recently, on that trip to Bali, I went toward the end of the rainy season. The lodging is cheaper—I’d estimate around 30 percent cheaper, on average—and I love taking pictures without other people in them! I got lucky, as I spent two and a half weeks in Bali, and it rained the day I arrived but never again. And I always travel with this footwear: little hunter green ankle booties from J.Crew, which are easier to walk in [than knee-high Wellington boots], take up less room in your case, and are really cute. And I have a pair of bright yellow rubber Chuck Taylors, which are waterproof.

Take that, St. Barts or Ibiza. The best island you’ve never heard of? It’s in Africa.

Nabongo says Lamu Island is one of Kenya's best-kept secrets. "There is a lot of local tourism to the island, but most outside visitors travel to Mombasa and Diani. The food in Lamu is incredible, the people are super nice, and the sunset dhow boat rides can't be beat."

Photographer: James Anthony

Lamu is a quaint, quiet island off the coast of Kenya, which all my Kenyan friends told me about. It’s a short flight from Malindi, where most tourists go, and like much of the East African coast, it’s largely Muslim. I went during Ramadan, so it was extra quiet, very calm and peaceful. We stayed at Forodhani House, which is really good for a family or a group of friends. But if you want more of a hotel, try Majlis. The architecture and culture of the island is a mash-up of Swahili and Arabic influences. Like Zanzibar, it’s a spice island, dating back to the old trade between the Arabian Peninsula and India. So the best part of a trip there is the food—the best samosas I’ve ever tasted, and I grew up in a home eating a ton of Indian food, with a Ugandan mother who makes samosas. I already told her, “Mommy, you’ve got to rethink your recipe.”

How to chop onions without crying, wherever you are in the world.

When I graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science, I spent an extended stay in Benin, working with a small Italian NGO. We were living about 250 kilometers from [the largest city] Cotonou, in one of the world’s poorest countries, so you can imagine what life was like. We lived with some nuns in a convent, because there was a cave nearby where people came for pilgrimage. The convent was the only place in that area with electricity and running water, but not hot water. One time, when I was cooking my own meal, I was struggling with chopping onions, and my eyes began to water. One sister, from Nigeria, handed me a matchstick and told me to put it between my teeth, flammable side out, and it would prevent my eyes from watering while cutting onions. To this day, I always put a match in my mouth when cutting onions, and it works like a charm.

  Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/