I’m finally over my weeklong season-shifting illness but my allergies have come out of hibernation due to the simultaneous blooming of every plant in Nepal, leaving me a sniffling, sneezing wreck. I have always ranked spring as my least favorite season for this reason and Nepal unfortunately offers no reprieve from the widespread allergens in North Carolina. All of the roads are being widened around Shehrish’s home, which means countless buildings and homes are being toppled, leaving the air with an acrid tinge of concrete and dust. I still run almost every day but the air is becoming unbearable. Sneezing out grayish-black colors cannot be healthy; suffice it to say I look forward to the clean air of the USA.
Tomorrow marks my last week at the school and I am sad that my tenure will be over as I really enjoy the job and the children that I teach. I have done my best too not get attached to the kids but still feel like I will miss them dearly. My public speaking abilities will be put to the test on Friday as I have been named the MC of the school’s sports day, with all of the Harry Potter-like houses competing in marching and races. I’m worried as to how I will perform as I’ve never had to speak extemporaneously for so long and American humor doesn’t always translate. I YouTubed some track and field coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics to try and get a better feel for how to do it. Fortunately if I bomb I won’t have to return and be made fun of by children.
I’ve done my best to stay up to date with all things America while gone and have closely followed TV, politics, sports and music. It’s been interesting to observe things without really talking to anybody about them and I’m curious to see how my perceptions match up with reality. I think most people get a better understanding of events/stories from bouncing thoughts off of other people and I have been unable to do so while in Nepal, only being able to provide my laughable interpretations of Hindi film and music to my friends. Below are my thoughts on what I perceive to be currently relevant in America. Oh, and I don’t really watch movies but did see about an hour of the academy awards this year, taking away two things: Billy Crystal got really bad botox and Billy Crystal is no longer funny (was he ever?)
TV:
I have heard the most about Game of Thrones and Walking Dead from the internets throughout the last year and am currently halfway through the former. The medieval fantasy genre never really appealed to me; I do like Lord of the Rings but found the movies a bit monotonous until I read the trilogy. I don't know if it’s the antiquated English or the seemingly endless horseback jaunts through forests but anything medieval usually sets my brain into full-blown ADD mode. My initial impression of Game of Thrones is that it feels like fan fiction written by a sixteen year old whose primary interests in life are fantasy RPG's, movies chock full of gratuitous violence like Braveheart and 300 and explicit pornography. *Spolier Alert* Over the first six episodes I have witnessed a horse decapitation, an eight year old being breastfed and Tommy Carcetti from The Wire ‘tutoring’ a pair of prostitutes while metaphorically musing on the meaning of life. It's safe to say that I don't really see the appeal to anyone over twenty. I might give Walking Dead another chance when I run out of other things to watch but was bored after the first three episodes. I need more than zombie gore to stay entertained.
Breaking Bad and Mad Men are both fantastic (I've written about them previously) but another current show that I'm completely in on is Homeland. I recently got the first season on my hard drive and plowed through the first eight episodes in a couple of evenings. Internet piracy let me down for the first time in over a year as the torrent I got only has two thirds of the season, but the remaining four are nearly downloaded and I can't wait to finish it. I would recommend Homeland to anybody that I know.
Politics:
Ugh. Being abroad for the last year has further opened my eyes to the widespread banality of the American political climate. It's impossible to get a neutral read on anything from the American media as every major news source seems firmly locked on partisan reporting; reading the same story on Drudge/HuffPost is like night and day and the 'bipartisan' sources are just as bad. I've sworn off following the tit for tat red herring talking points from both the left and right but am shocked that this Trayvon Martin story has become politicized. I have no idea what really happened, as every story is painted entirely different from the next. I guess anything can be looked at as a potential upswing in the polls but twisting this story feels like a new low. I don't keep up with polling numbers but it feels like Obama is a stone cold lock for a second term. The assortment of GOP candidates that showed up for this race makes John Kerry from '04 seem as likable as Kennedy or Reagan. It would be nice for a sensible republican to emerge and for political discourse to take a turn toward a more civilized path but I expect the rhetoric from both sides to only heighten and for Barack to limp in to a second term. I wasted a lot of energy on politics in 2008 and will never do it again. Call me a rube, but following American politics is no different than following a bad soap opera, from Weinergate to whore/slutgate to Birthergate and all of the other 'gates' I'm forgetting. Four more years..
Sport:
I've watched primarily soccer, definitely not American at all. But how much do people love the NFL right now? Following other American sports during the NFL season was almost impossible due to the nonstop, ad nauseam coverage of NFL and Tim Tebow. I always casually follow NCAAF but only remember Alabama beating LSU this year. Even during the offseason the NFL has dominated the headlines. It almost feels blasphemous to admit that I don't care about the NFL as much anymore and haven't for the last few seasons. The regular season is a back and forth chess match between good teams and the playoffs feel more and more like a crap shoot, with whomever throwing hot winning the Super Bowl (see the NYG, who won this year as something like 25-1 underdogs). I loosely followed baseball but only remember the Tigers making a run and St. Louis winning it all. I have kept pretty good tabs on the NBA but only really know the Knicks; StarWorld India shows three Knicks games a week and one random game. I knew about Jeremy Lin before most when he would pay garbage time minutes and remember commenting to Shehrish how weird it must be for an Asian American Harvard grad to mesh with NBA players. The Knicks are pretty brutal to watch all of the time but the overall talent in the league is amazing right now. LBJ, Rose, Durant, Westbrook and CP3 all make me giddy.
Music:
I don't have much to say as I don't really keep up with anything mainstream, but I have gotten back into rap over the last year and am really into Drake and Lil Wayne. My last dance with rap was when I was 12-13 years old, listening to DMX yell and bark at me and 2Pac giving instructions on how to be a thug. I guess not much has changed in terms of how I can appreciate rap but I'm more drawn to it now for its cleverness instead of the shock value. I have grown weary of almost everything on my 8 GB iPod over the last year, especially The Beatles. I could go the rest of my life with no Beatles and be perfectly fine. When I get back I'm replacing everything that isn't rap except for Sigur Rós, Explosions in the Sky and maybe Radiohead. Let me in if you're listening to anything new that's good as I'm completely out of touch with the music scene.
Two more weeks in Nepal and then I’m back to the States. Nepali friends in the USA, contact me if you need or want anything from Kathmandu. I’ll have space in my luggage. Go Wildcats, Kidd-Gilchrist is my man.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Sunday, March 18, 2012
The United States and Food
*THis has nothing to do with Nepal. Deal.*
Shehrish and I were watching Swansea City play Fulham last evening on an incredibly boring Saturday night when I randomly stated that I wanted to eat rocky road ice cream. Ice cream is available in Nepal (including Baskin Robbins) but we never eat it. We then somehow got onto the subject of the 50 states and Shehrish boldly claimed that she could name more than I could. Confident I could rattle off all 50, we both made lists until we could think no more.
After about 15 minutes of racking my brain, I was stuck on 46. I combed through sports leagues, settings of TV shows/movies and so on but was unable to get the remaining four. We subsequently compared lists and the states I couldn't think of were Missouri, Nevada, Kansas and Connecticut. The first two are inexcusable whiffs, as I've been to St. Louis and Las Vegas before. I should have gotten Kansas and Connecticut as well due to their basketball teams and it being March Madness, but 46 isn't too bad. Try it yourself, it's harder than you think. I later did the capitals for all 50 states and nailed a very respectable 42 of them. Mad credit to Mrs. McDougal(d?), my fifth grade social studies teacher who was a capital fanatic.
We then returned to the subject of food and what American cuisine I need to abstain from to avoid immediately gaining weight. Even though I was vegetarian for about a year around 2009 I still found plenty of fattening foods to eat. I feel like returning to the States from an Asian country is similar to how one gains the freshmen fifteen in college: an unfortunate aspect of adjusting back (or to) a new lifestyle where your food options are limited and soda(pop) or Natural Light replaces water as the predominant liquid consumed. We went over food and restaurants we liked and in the spirit of March I started to make a bracket before quickly realizing that it's impossible to compare McDonald's to Olive Garden etc. We divided restaurants into categories and compared/contrasted various aspects of them. I was amused as to how much disagreement arose but will do my best to convey both of our thoughts about the categories. I ranked them from best to worst, giving my opinion more importance than Shehrish's as I have more experience and have eaten in more areas of the USA than she has. Also, we left out restaurants that are exclusive to Winston-Salem to not make the blog too specific.
Mid Level Chains (best to worst)
I have to preface this by saying I'm not a fan of any mid level national chain, but we compared them regardless. It was a REALLY boring Saturday night. I remember a fraternity house argument where we argued about whether or not Red Lobster was trashy, and some people got really heated and accused the Red Lobster haters of being pretentious and elitist. In no way am I above these restaurants (except the last two), I just usually opt for other things.
Outback: Even at my most corpulent I would avoid Outback Steakhouse because the entrees are so blatantly unhealthy, but we both agreed that it stands at a notch above its competition. The Bloomin' Onion is what I first thought of and Shehrish mentioned their bacon cheese fries as her favorite. Suitable appetizers before eating steak or ribs; I've probably had Outback between 5-10 times in life and have left stuffed and feeling gross every time. But man is that Bloomin' Onion tasty.
Chili's/Applebee's: Shehrish thought Applebee's should have been ranked higher. I find them to be facsimiles aside from Chili's chicken crispers, basically chicken fingers that are probably fried two or three extra times giving Chili's a slight edge. I'm not even sure if the themes differ; I recall that Applebee's is all American nostalgia and think that Chili's is the same but could be wrong about that. I once stopped at an Applebee's for a beer after spending almost two hours during Christmas time in line at a Best Buy and sat next to a belligerent Santa Claus who started chatting me up for the better part of an hour about his life story and when Jesus saved him. It was a valuable lesson to never enter a drinking environment in the middle of the day, especially during the holidays. I don't know why I remembered this commercial but I'm glad I did. Pretty much summarizes why not to eat at Applebee's either:
Buffalo Wild Wings: I don't really think of this place as a real restaurant but they do have a full menu aside from chicken wings. The chicken wings are forgettable and the rest of the menu is atrocious. I ordered some steak ranch wrap thing one time and found it unbelievably salty. The upside to BWW is they have 60+ TV's. Shehrish and I made the bold decision to go to one on a Saturday night after seeing an advertisement for a UFC fight being aired at BWW. We lived nearby, I was flirting with UFC fandom at the time and Shehrish is usually game for new things. We arrived to a packed house around 9pm when the main event didn't start until 11 or so. I have never been more scared of a crowd in my entire life. UFC PPV cards really bring the nut jobs out of the woodwork and we entered into an environment of big, drunk, stylized t-shirt wearing military maniacs who got rowdier with every fight. Rednecks and alcohol are a lethal combination. I had to intervene on a couple of occasions as Shehrish likes to talk to anybody and I was scared for her safety. The atmosphere was most frightening around main event time when everybody was at their peak of intoxication. The fight was over in less than a minute and I have never been more thankful to pay a tab and escape with my life. My flirtation with UFC ended on this particular evening.
Friday's: Utter crap. I've probably had it more than once but only remember one time in Indiana when I ordered a cheeseburger or something and it made me sick. I remember this guy being their spokesman for awhile and will never eat there again. I feel like most people put Friday's on a higher pedestal and I've never figured out why.
Ruby Tuesday's: Terrible; only included to show that it is a notch above the lowest of low....
O'Charley's
(leaving the mall around lunchtime)
Kyle: Hey, let's try that O'Charley's, I've never eaten there before.
Shehrish: It looks terrible. You hate places like that.
Kyle: Yeah, but let's try it anyways. You never know.
I should have known. Shehrish couldn't eat her $12 shrimp dish and I struggled through spinach artichoke dip before also giving up, which I never EVER do. The fact that O'Charley's is able to do business is disgraceful. Perhaps the other mid level chains came together and agreed to make a restaurant so bad that it makes their food seem better in comparison. If so, then O'Charley's is a success. The painfully forced Irish theme added to my misery; if I were from Ireland I would be horrified at how Irish culture has been so exploited by Americans (by the way, Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody). Never go there.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention my affinity for Bennigan's, which we couldn't compare as Shehrish has never been to one. I don't remember how the food is and haven't been to one in probably ten years but I did see Scottie Pippen eating at one when I was seven or eight and have had a soft spot for it ever since.
EDIT: Just Googled it to see if they still existed and realized it's fake Irish themed...
I rambled longer than planned, burger joints/sub shops/'high' level chains and miscellaneous lists coming soon.
Shehrish and I were watching Swansea City play Fulham last evening on an incredibly boring Saturday night when I randomly stated that I wanted to eat rocky road ice cream. Ice cream is available in Nepal (including Baskin Robbins) but we never eat it. We then somehow got onto the subject of the 50 states and Shehrish boldly claimed that she could name more than I could. Confident I could rattle off all 50, we both made lists until we could think no more.
After about 15 minutes of racking my brain, I was stuck on 46. I combed through sports leagues, settings of TV shows/movies and so on but was unable to get the remaining four. We subsequently compared lists and the states I couldn't think of were Missouri, Nevada, Kansas and Connecticut. The first two are inexcusable whiffs, as I've been to St. Louis and Las Vegas before. I should have gotten Kansas and Connecticut as well due to their basketball teams and it being March Madness, but 46 isn't too bad. Try it yourself, it's harder than you think. I later did the capitals for all 50 states and nailed a very respectable 42 of them. Mad credit to Mrs. McDougal(d?), my fifth grade social studies teacher who was a capital fanatic.
We then returned to the subject of food and what American cuisine I need to abstain from to avoid immediately gaining weight. Even though I was vegetarian for about a year around 2009 I still found plenty of fattening foods to eat. I feel like returning to the States from an Asian country is similar to how one gains the freshmen fifteen in college: an unfortunate aspect of adjusting back (or to) a new lifestyle where your food options are limited and soda(pop) or Natural Light replaces water as the predominant liquid consumed. We went over food and restaurants we liked and in the spirit of March I started to make a bracket before quickly realizing that it's impossible to compare McDonald's to Olive Garden etc. We divided restaurants into categories and compared/contrasted various aspects of them. I was amused as to how much disagreement arose but will do my best to convey both of our thoughts about the categories. I ranked them from best to worst, giving my opinion more importance than Shehrish's as I have more experience and have eaten in more areas of the USA than she has. Also, we left out restaurants that are exclusive to Winston-Salem to not make the blog too specific.
Mid Level Chains (best to worst)
I have to preface this by saying I'm not a fan of any mid level national chain, but we compared them regardless. It was a REALLY boring Saturday night. I remember a fraternity house argument where we argued about whether or not Red Lobster was trashy, and some people got really heated and accused the Red Lobster haters of being pretentious and elitist. In no way am I above these restaurants (except the last two), I just usually opt for other things.
Outback: Even at my most corpulent I would avoid Outback Steakhouse because the entrees are so blatantly unhealthy, but we both agreed that it stands at a notch above its competition. The Bloomin' Onion is what I first thought of and Shehrish mentioned their bacon cheese fries as her favorite. Suitable appetizers before eating steak or ribs; I've probably had Outback between 5-10 times in life and have left stuffed and feeling gross every time. But man is that Bloomin' Onion tasty.
Chili's/Applebee's: Shehrish thought Applebee's should have been ranked higher. I find them to be facsimiles aside from Chili's chicken crispers, basically chicken fingers that are probably fried two or three extra times giving Chili's a slight edge. I'm not even sure if the themes differ; I recall that Applebee's is all American nostalgia and think that Chili's is the same but could be wrong about that. I once stopped at an Applebee's for a beer after spending almost two hours during Christmas time in line at a Best Buy and sat next to a belligerent Santa Claus who started chatting me up for the better part of an hour about his life story and when Jesus saved him. It was a valuable lesson to never enter a drinking environment in the middle of the day, especially during the holidays. I don't know why I remembered this commercial but I'm glad I did. Pretty much summarizes why not to eat at Applebee's either:
Buffalo Wild Wings: I don't really think of this place as a real restaurant but they do have a full menu aside from chicken wings. The chicken wings are forgettable and the rest of the menu is atrocious. I ordered some steak ranch wrap thing one time and found it unbelievably salty. The upside to BWW is they have 60+ TV's. Shehrish and I made the bold decision to go to one on a Saturday night after seeing an advertisement for a UFC fight being aired at BWW. We lived nearby, I was flirting with UFC fandom at the time and Shehrish is usually game for new things. We arrived to a packed house around 9pm when the main event didn't start until 11 or so. I have never been more scared of a crowd in my entire life. UFC PPV cards really bring the nut jobs out of the woodwork and we entered into an environment of big, drunk, stylized t-shirt wearing military maniacs who got rowdier with every fight. Rednecks and alcohol are a lethal combination. I had to intervene on a couple of occasions as Shehrish likes to talk to anybody and I was scared for her safety. The atmosphere was most frightening around main event time when everybody was at their peak of intoxication. The fight was over in less than a minute and I have never been more thankful to pay a tab and escape with my life. My flirtation with UFC ended on this particular evening.
Friday's: Utter crap. I've probably had it more than once but only remember one time in Indiana when I ordered a cheeseburger or something and it made me sick. I remember this guy being their spokesman for awhile and will never eat there again. I feel like most people put Friday's on a higher pedestal and I've never figured out why.
Ruby Tuesday's: Terrible; only included to show that it is a notch above the lowest of low....
O'Charley's
(leaving the mall around lunchtime)
Kyle: Hey, let's try that O'Charley's, I've never eaten there before.
Shehrish: It looks terrible. You hate places like that.
Kyle: Yeah, but let's try it anyways. You never know.
I should have known. Shehrish couldn't eat her $12 shrimp dish and I struggled through spinach artichoke dip before also giving up, which I never EVER do. The fact that O'Charley's is able to do business is disgraceful. Perhaps the other mid level chains came together and agreed to make a restaurant so bad that it makes their food seem better in comparison. If so, then O'Charley's is a success. The painfully forced Irish theme added to my misery; if I were from Ireland I would be horrified at how Irish culture has been so exploited by Americans (by the way, Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody). Never go there.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention my affinity for Bennigan's, which we couldn't compare as Shehrish has never been to one. I don't remember how the food is and haven't been to one in probably ten years but I did see Scottie Pippen eating at one when I was seven or eight and have had a soft spot for it ever since.
EDIT: Just Googled it to see if they still existed and realized it's fake Irish themed...
I rambled longer than planned, burger joints/sub shops/'high' level chains and miscellaneous lists coming soon.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Mussoorie, Holi, Sepp Blatter, Nepal vs. Maldives
I had written a bit about our travels to Mussoorie but never posted it because we didn't have internet. So about Mussoorie...
After returning from our Jaipur/Agra trip, we had a couple of days to rest up before Shehrish's mom and brother (Uzir) came to Delhi. Uzir attends Woodstock School in Mussoorie and the only way to get there is by train. We woke up at 4:15 am the next day to get to the train station for a departure around 6 am. The train car was nice and they keep you distracted by constantly bringing you food and drinks, even more so than international flights do. I guess being incredibly full is the ideal way to travel as being in a lethargic, zombie-like state makes the time go by quicker. I've always enjoyed train rides as the routes take you through stretches of land that are otherwise abandoned by humanity. It was strange to see so much uninhabited land in one of the most populated countries in the world. After about a six hour train, we got to Dehradun, hired a cab and proceeded to wind our way up the hillside to reach Mussoorie at the top. Mussoorie is a quaint hill station town where it seemed like everything was uphill and monkeys were as common as pigeons in a normal city. The air was clean and I enjoyed the town despite the blistering cold. Our hotel was without heat which made for the coldest indoor night of my life. It was too cold for me to sleep initially and I watched Jurassic Park in Hindi to pass the time. I woke up early and tracked the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl on Shehrish's iPhone. It was either really suspenseful or my updates were brutally slow. Later that day we traversed further up the hillside to drop off Uzir at his boarding school, which was stunningly nice. We then repeated the entire journey in rewind and got back to Delhi around 12:00 pm, only to wake up at 6:00 am the next morning to drive to the airport and catch a plane back to Nepal. Gallivanting all over India was fun but exhausting. Note to international American travelers: you can only get USD at the airport if you are traveling back to the USA. I needed USD to get a fresh visa upon returning to Nepal and they wouldn't give it to me despite my passport. Things worked out in the end and we flew back to Nepal with no immigration issues.
Fast forward to this past Wednesday, which was Holi in Nepal. Having recovered from my blow to the forehead the day before (see previous blog), we set out to Nisha's house to 'play' Holi with friends. Playing Holi consists of soaking each other in water by means of balloons/guns/hoses/whatever and covering each other in multi-colored powders. We also engaged with various groups nearby that were also participating. After finishing, we headed out to Thamel, still soaking wet and with colors all over our clothes and faces. I didn't bring my camera to avoid it being ruined but somebody took a lot of pictures and I'll put them up when they're sent to me. Most of Thamel was closed as Holi is a national holiday but a couple of places were open and full of action. The atmosphere was almost like being at a rave and everybody was throwing colors and water all over each other. The day was incredibly fun but the red-colored powder left my skin with a tomatoey tinge for the next few days.
A couple of days later I was heading to a grocery store in Baluwatar to get something to snack on when I see a huge limousine pull up to one of the ministry buildings. Seeing motorcades of big cars roll into this area isn't too uncommon but I had never seen a limo in Nepal and stopped to see what was going on. A series of old guys got out of the car, one of whom looked strangely familiar to me. I was unable to place him and went about my business, thinking it was just some diplomat I had seen in the paper recently. I saw in the paper the next day that I had run into none other than Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA and one of the sleaziest sports figures in the world who somehow hasn't been ousted. Sepp was in town for the AFC (Asian Football Confederation) Challenge cup, and yesterday I went with a group to see Nepal play Maldives. I was excited for the match, not having seen a live sporting event since leaving America and was curious to see how the international play would be. We got to the stadium slightly before kickoff and I'm estimating that the crowd was something like 20,000-25,000. The atmosphere was electric and scary at the same time, as there were multiple police sitting in every section and all over the perimeter of the stadium, almost as if they were overly anticipating a riot. I was seated right next to the only group of Maldivian (that's a guess, look it up) fans whom were the target of perpetual ridiculing by the Nepali fans. The match started and I quickly realized why I had never heard anything positive about either team. The play was akin to a couple of 3-year olds playing FIFA and just pushing buttons at random. There may have been one or two successfully completed passes but I don't remember any. The match was nil at the break but the Maldivians came out strong in the second half and opened up the scoring due to pathetic 'defensive' lapse by Nepal. I put defensive in quotes because it really wasn't defense, just a clogging of the area. The Maldivian fans were quickly escorted out by a team of police officials for safety purposes as the Nepali fans were getting a bit too rambunctious for comfort. Nepal ended up losing 1-0 and we escaped the premises without incident. I had a lot of fun even though I have seen more compelling youth games before. I had been strongly considering not supporting Chelsea anymore for various reasons (team, style of play, ownership etc.) and making my favorite bad team, Fulham, just my favorite team but after seeing Nepal-Maldives I have a new appreciation for Chelsea's brutally horrible play as of late. Later in the evening I watched Chelsea eke out a 1-0 win over Stoke and despite looking horrible for EPL standards the level of play was 10000x better than what I had seen earlier in the day. Go Chelsea!
After returning from our Jaipur/Agra trip, we had a couple of days to rest up before Shehrish's mom and brother (Uzir) came to Delhi. Uzir attends Woodstock School in Mussoorie and the only way to get there is by train. We woke up at 4:15 am the next day to get to the train station for a departure around 6 am. The train car was nice and they keep you distracted by constantly bringing you food and drinks, even more so than international flights do. I guess being incredibly full is the ideal way to travel as being in a lethargic, zombie-like state makes the time go by quicker. I've always enjoyed train rides as the routes take you through stretches of land that are otherwise abandoned by humanity. It was strange to see so much uninhabited land in one of the most populated countries in the world. After about a six hour train, we got to Dehradun, hired a cab and proceeded to wind our way up the hillside to reach Mussoorie at the top. Mussoorie is a quaint hill station town where it seemed like everything was uphill and monkeys were as common as pigeons in a normal city. The air was clean and I enjoyed the town despite the blistering cold. Our hotel was without heat which made for the coldest indoor night of my life. It was too cold for me to sleep initially and I watched Jurassic Park in Hindi to pass the time. I woke up early and tracked the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl on Shehrish's iPhone. It was either really suspenseful or my updates were brutally slow. Later that day we traversed further up the hillside to drop off Uzir at his boarding school, which was stunningly nice. We then repeated the entire journey in rewind and got back to Delhi around 12:00 pm, only to wake up at 6:00 am the next morning to drive to the airport and catch a plane back to Nepal. Gallivanting all over India was fun but exhausting. Note to international American travelers: you can only get USD at the airport if you are traveling back to the USA. I needed USD to get a fresh visa upon returning to Nepal and they wouldn't give it to me despite my passport. Things worked out in the end and we flew back to Nepal with no immigration issues.
Fast forward to this past Wednesday, which was Holi in Nepal. Having recovered from my blow to the forehead the day before (see previous blog), we set out to Nisha's house to 'play' Holi with friends. Playing Holi consists of soaking each other in water by means of balloons/guns/hoses/whatever and covering each other in multi-colored powders. We also engaged with various groups nearby that were also participating. After finishing, we headed out to Thamel, still soaking wet and with colors all over our clothes and faces. I didn't bring my camera to avoid it being ruined but somebody took a lot of pictures and I'll put them up when they're sent to me. Most of Thamel was closed as Holi is a national holiday but a couple of places were open and full of action. The atmosphere was almost like being at a rave and everybody was throwing colors and water all over each other. The day was incredibly fun but the red-colored powder left my skin with a tomatoey tinge for the next few days.
A couple of days later I was heading to a grocery store in Baluwatar to get something to snack on when I see a huge limousine pull up to one of the ministry buildings. Seeing motorcades of big cars roll into this area isn't too uncommon but I had never seen a limo in Nepal and stopped to see what was going on. A series of old guys got out of the car, one of whom looked strangely familiar to me. I was unable to place him and went about my business, thinking it was just some diplomat I had seen in the paper recently. I saw in the paper the next day that I had run into none other than Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA and one of the sleaziest sports figures in the world who somehow hasn't been ousted. Sepp was in town for the AFC (Asian Football Confederation) Challenge cup, and yesterday I went with a group to see Nepal play Maldives. I was excited for the match, not having seen a live sporting event since leaving America and was curious to see how the international play would be. We got to the stadium slightly before kickoff and I'm estimating that the crowd was something like 20,000-25,000. The atmosphere was electric and scary at the same time, as there were multiple police sitting in every section and all over the perimeter of the stadium, almost as if they were overly anticipating a riot. I was seated right next to the only group of Maldivian (that's a guess, look it up) fans whom were the target of perpetual ridiculing by the Nepali fans. The match started and I quickly realized why I had never heard anything positive about either team. The play was akin to a couple of 3-year olds playing FIFA and just pushing buttons at random. There may have been one or two successfully completed passes but I don't remember any. The match was nil at the break but the Maldivians came out strong in the second half and opened up the scoring due to pathetic 'defensive' lapse by Nepal. I put defensive in quotes because it really wasn't defense, just a clogging of the area. The Maldivian fans were quickly escorted out by a team of police officials for safety purposes as the Nepali fans were getting a bit too rambunctious for comfort. Nepal ended up losing 1-0 and we escaped the premises without incident. I had a lot of fun even though I have seen more compelling youth games before. I had been strongly considering not supporting Chelsea anymore for various reasons (team, style of play, ownership etc.) and making my favorite bad team, Fulham, just my favorite team but after seeing Nepal-Maldives I have a new appreciation for Chelsea's brutally horrible play as of late. Later in the evening I watched Chelsea eke out a 1-0 win over Stoke and despite looking horrible for EPL standards the level of play was 10000x better than what I had seen earlier in the day. Go Chelsea!
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Holi, March Madness Smacketology
Nepal has a doubleheader of festivals this week, Holi and Women’s Day and I am enjoying the first of my two days off from school. One aspect of Holi is to throw colors and water all over each other and I was introduced to the festsivities yesterday at school when the kids brought their water guns and everyone had a blast soaking each other. After school while jogging my daily route through Baluwatar, I was struck between the eyes by a water filled bag lofted from above which proceeded to explode all over my chest. I kept running and gave a wave of acknowledgment to my anonymous assailant for such a direct hit. My iPod had gotten wet so I went back to Shehrish’s house to drop it off and completed my run with no further incident aside from a couple of water gun squirts as I ran by some kids. When I had finished running and was cooling down, I realized that I was feeling really disoriented as if I had been punched in the face. About an hour later that day we took bus to meet up with people for a birthday celebration (Shristi’s), and I nearly collapsed while exiting the bus from dizziness. You wouldn’t think that a makeshift water balloon could pack such a punch but I had a pretty intense headache for the rest of the evening. Apparently the police have been cracking down on the water balloon assailants as it has caused traffic incidents and injuries in the past. I was just thankful that it was only water this year, as last year I was splashed with a substance that reeked suspiciously of ammonia.
The rest of this blog has nothing to do with Nepal and if you haven’t watched The Wire you may want to stop reading now. It hasn’t been feeling like March to me as I have been unable to follow college hoops at all while living in Nepal and have no idea how the season has played out, aside from knowing that Duke-UNC split and that Anthony Davis of Kentucky is considered a lock to be good in the NBA. But yesterday morning before work I was perusing Grantland.com and discovered that they had formed a 32-character bracket of Wire characters and had assigned them a seed and a region exactly like the NCAA bracket but only with 32 components. This is basically about as perfect of entertainment for me that I have come across in a long time, as I have seen every episode of The Wire at least three times and have had many discussions and debates over various aspects of the show. Nobody in Nepal has seen it and I hadn’t really thought about the show until a few days ago where President Obama mentioned that Omar was his favorite character on a podcast. Since the Grantland version wouldn’t print for me, I immediately Googled ‘Blank 32 team bracket’ printed it out and had a blast filling out, thinking about the show and comparing/contrasting the value of certain characters. I wanted to do it before the website publishes their version so that my views are independent and I can see what other people think as I haven’t talked about The Wire at all over the last year. I have seen seasons 1-3 again over the last few months. It’s about to get really esoteric for most of the readers of this blog but I don’t care, because The Wire is probably the best show ever. I only say probably because I’m still really high on Breaking Bad having finally seen the fourth season but I digress; here is the breakdown of my Wire bracket. I did all of this from memory, so excuse me if I’ve forgotten anybody or remembered something slightly differently. I put in YouTube clips later when I have time. EDIT: YouTube clips in. I had never realized the shear breadth of YouTube until searching for Wire clips. I figured that only the classics would be on the internet, but you can basically watch any moment of the show, significant or not.
I evaluated characters on their importance to the story arc, longevity, quality of character/actor and personal preference.
Overseeded:
Bunk Moreland (#1): The Bunk as a #1 seed seems dubious. I like Bunk but never thought of him as much more than part of a buddy cop tandem with McNulty. Nobody I’ve talked with about The Wire with has given Bunk any real admiration, so him being a #1 seed surprised me. The scene where he explodes on Omar is probably my favorite memory of Bunk.
Chris Partlow/Wee Bey (both #4’s): The top hit men for their respective kingpins. Chris was an important fixture in seasons 4 and 5 but really just killed a lot of people and didn’t talk. Wee Bey was locked up at the end of season 1 and really did nothing else throughout the show aside from allowing his son to be adopted. There are too many better characters to assign such high seeds for one-dimensional killers.
Kima Greggs (#7): Probably my least favorite character on The Wire. The whole lesbian family storyline was monotonous and completely unnecessary. Too bad Little Man and Wee Bey didn’t have better aim when they shot up her car in the first season; her dying would have made for a stronger ending to season one and would have saved a lot of air time in subsequent seasons.
Wallace (#4): I’ve gotten heat for taking this line before, but Wallace is grossly overvalued by almost everybody. His murder was one of the most intense moments of the entire series and his story is tragic, symbolizes the evil of the drug game etc. but come on. If he had spent the rest of the series back on the corner or staying with his grandma nothing would care about him at all. I expect him to go far in the national bracket and I don’t agree with it. Nevertheless, his murder is one of the most intense moments of the entire series.
Underseeded:
D’Angelo Barksdale (#6): D’Angelo is one of my favorite characters in the entire series and was the impetus for what kept me interested in the early episodes of the first season. I have a soft spot for the ‘tragic characters’ of each season (D’Angelo, Nick Sobotka, Randy Wagstaff etc.), and his inner battle with morality versus loyalty made for some really good television while his anti-violence approach (despite killing somebody) contrasted nicely with the bloody approach that the rest of his drug crew took. He gave a nice speech in his prison library book group referencing Great Gatsby about having to embrace who you are before being strangled to death in prison which ultimately led to Barksdale organization falling apart. I was really surprised to see him seeded so low.
Marlo Stanfield (#2): Probably properly rated, but I thought he deserved the final #1 seed over Bunk. Marlo is more of a personal preference for me, but I love his ice-cold demeanor and callous approach in becoming the top drug kingpin of Baltimore. Unlike the rest of the top drug players, Marlo only cares about power and respect, evidenced by his explosion in the famous “MY NAME IS MY NAME” scene. The ending for Marlo was perfect, as he had all of the money but none of the power and was left alone in the streets reminiscing on what he once had. Dude just looks the part, too.
Notable Omissions/Inclusions:
Spiros Vondapoulos (not included):
I was primed to send Spiros (or even The Greek) on a George Mason-like run to at least the elite eight of the bracket before noticing their omission. Professional and efficient gangsters who never got caught and exuded complete power and control in their minimalistic approach to business. I am a big season two defender but one of them should have been included, especially over…
Sergei Malatov (#6): Dumbest inclusion in the entire bracket. I wracked my brain trying to remember any scene involving Sergei and only came up with when he got defensive about everyone just assuming that he’s Russian and the phone call where he denies responsibility for a murder as the corpse still had hands and a face. He hooked Marlo up with the Greeks from prison in season five but did nothing else.
Slim Charles (not included): Probably an acceptable omission but Slim had longevity and was fantastic in his role as violent muscle for Avon and Prop Joe. He also notably ascended to the top of the drug world at the end of season five as everyone else was dead, incarcerated or out the game like Marlo. Looked and played the part of cerebral hit man to perfection.
Namond Brice/Randy Wagstaff (not included) /Dukie (#5): I was surprised that Namond and Randy were omitted especially since season four is held in such reverence by nearly everybody. Season three is my favorite, but Namond and Randy were integral to the school system storyline and were both fantastic in their roles, especially Namond. Putting Dukie in over either of them seems stupid, as Dukie basically just became the next Bubbles. Onto the bracket…
West Baltimore Region:
I think the Grantland people gave ‘the king’ an easy walk to the final four as I found this region easily the weakest of the four. My one heavy upset was D’Angelo knocking off Michael Lee and going to the elite eight for aforementioned reasons. I love Cutty as well and may have sent him further if he were in another region. Omar takes this region easily. Winner: Omar Little
Hamsterdam Region:
I found a lot of the seedings/pairing weird and didn’t realize that people like Clay Davis (#2) as much as I do. I thought McNulty was properly rated as a #3 and I went with the upset pick, taking Daniels (#6). Daniels acts better and the McNulty/serial killer storyline of season five was the lowlight of the series. I also went with Maurice Levy (#5) over Wallace as I love Levy as the high power drug kingpin defense attorney and love that the writers of The Wire had the balls to portray a Jewish lawyer in such a stereotypical light. Bubbles over Clay Davis could be an upset in the public bracket. I find Bubbles hard to assess, as the acting is really good and the drug addict angle to the story is compelling (especially if you’ve read The Corner) but I found much of his character arc redundant. I’m guessing the general public overvalues McNulty and Bubbles and one of the two end up winning the Grantland bracket, but I went with Clay. Winner: Clay Davis, shhheeeeeeeeeet
The Ports Region:
A polarizing region with good and bad characters. Carcetti (#4) is my second most hated character as I find the acting horrible. My second biggest upset came from this region as I took Frank Sobotka all the way to the elite eight. Prop Joe (#2) is a great character but is slightly overrated as a 2 and didn’t have the overall impact that Sobotka had. I then struggled with Sobotka versus Bunny Colvin (#3), as Bunny was the mastermind behind Hamsterdam and does a great job representing honest police work in a corrupt system in season three and is great in season four as well working with the corner kids. I made one of my two changes here and initially had Bunny versus Avon in the elite eight but changed it to Sobotka. I could be talked out of this because I admittedly, probably put too much emphasis on season two but I went with Frant Sobotka losing to Avon Barksdale. It will be interesting to see how the public evaluates Avon; I love Avon but know that many people don’t and I have argued about his character on many occasions. Pure gangster. Winner: Avon Barksdale
East Baltimore Region:
Easily the ‘best’ of the four and stacked from top to bottom (minus Kima) with quality but was the easiest for me to fill out and the only upset I had was Lester Freamon (#5) over Wee Bey, which is obvious to anyone who has seen the show. I would have sent Lester much further but couldn’t take him over Stringer. Marlo versus Stringer gave me a moment of pause because I probably give Marlo too much importance but in the end it was easy, Stringer in a landslide. Winner: Stringer Bell
Final Four:
The first two matchups were easy, Omar over Clay (no explanation necessary) and Stringer over Avon. The Stringer/Avon conflict throughout season three is my favorite stretch of Wire episodes and the business versus gangster philosophy was fascinating to watch unfold. Stringer accepting culpability for D’Angelo’s death and the subsequent fallout is probably the most underrated scene in the entire show. In the end, Stringer is far and away more important to the overall theme of the third season and I went with Stringer.
Omar Little vs. Stringer Bell:
I started off making a case for Stringer just to play devil’s advocate as I’ve done before in arguments. Stringer is absolutely crucial in seasons one through three and undergoes more development than any character on the show, playing a pure consigliere to Avon in season one, interim kingpin in season two while Avon is incarcerated and defiant businessman in season three when he wants the Barksdale organization to turn legitimate while Avon is still wrapped up in warring with Marlo over territory. His playing ‘legitimate’ businessman with Clay Davis made for some really good scenes as Stringer just didn’t have the knowledge of the political climate and was scammed for serious money. Stringer was responsible for two of the three most intense death scenes in the show (Wallace and D’Angelo) and his death was for me the most shocking, brain twisting moment of any show that I have ever seen; even though I ‘knew’ it was coming, I didn’t believe it would happen until he was full of bullets. The argument for Omar is much easier to make: best actor, most memorable scenes, best character, etc. He’s the first thing I think about when I think of The Wire. I even found Michael K. Williams (Omar) memorable before watching The Wire as he was great as the villain in an SVU episode as a murderous pimp. I can’t really get into Boardwalk Empire because it’s too weird seeing Omar (Michael K. Williams) in another role. I would get pumped up every time an Omar scene came up in any season. I read somewhere that the writers were going to kill him off in season one but didn’t because people liked him too much. Some things about Omar don’t really fit, though. Him being homosexual is completely irrelevant to the overall nature of his character as a cold-blooded robber of drug dealers. That might be the point that the writers are making, that sexual preference doesn’t matter, but him in romantic relationships and caring about people seems contradictory to his ‘job’. I still can’t decide if his polite tone and lack of profanity adds complexity to his nature or is just an arbitrary quirk. I enjoy Omar more than Stringer, but I think Stringer is much more important to the show. Omar’s survival after getting riddled with bullets behind a couch was questionable and his death almost seemed insignificant, albeit shocking. I expected the writers to have some sort of Marlo/Omar standoff with one of them dying and was disappointed by the anticlimactic nature of him getting shot in the end while buying Newports. Stringer wears the crown as The Wire’s best character.
Winner: Stringer Bell
The rest of this blog has nothing to do with Nepal and if you haven’t watched The Wire you may want to stop reading now. It hasn’t been feeling like March to me as I have been unable to follow college hoops at all while living in Nepal and have no idea how the season has played out, aside from knowing that Duke-UNC split and that Anthony Davis of Kentucky is considered a lock to be good in the NBA. But yesterday morning before work I was perusing Grantland.com and discovered that they had formed a 32-character bracket of Wire characters and had assigned them a seed and a region exactly like the NCAA bracket but only with 32 components. This is basically about as perfect of entertainment for me that I have come across in a long time, as I have seen every episode of The Wire at least three times and have had many discussions and debates over various aspects of the show. Nobody in Nepal has seen it and I hadn’t really thought about the show until a few days ago where President Obama mentioned that Omar was his favorite character on a podcast. Since the Grantland version wouldn’t print for me, I immediately Googled ‘Blank 32 team bracket’ printed it out and had a blast filling out, thinking about the show and comparing/contrasting the value of certain characters. I wanted to do it before the website publishes their version so that my views are independent and I can see what other people think as I haven’t talked about The Wire at all over the last year. I have seen seasons 1-3 again over the last few months. It’s about to get really esoteric for most of the readers of this blog but I don’t care, because The Wire is probably the best show ever. I only say probably because I’m still really high on Breaking Bad having finally seen the fourth season but I digress; here is the breakdown of my Wire bracket. I did all of this from memory, so excuse me if I’ve forgotten anybody or remembered something slightly differently. I put in YouTube clips later when I have time. EDIT: YouTube clips in. I had never realized the shear breadth of YouTube until searching for Wire clips. I figured that only the classics would be on the internet, but you can basically watch any moment of the show, significant or not.
I evaluated characters on their importance to the story arc, longevity, quality of character/actor and personal preference.
Overseeded:
Bunk Moreland (#1): The Bunk as a #1 seed seems dubious. I like Bunk but never thought of him as much more than part of a buddy cop tandem with McNulty. Nobody I’ve talked with about The Wire with has given Bunk any real admiration, so him being a #1 seed surprised me. The scene where he explodes on Omar is probably my favorite memory of Bunk.
Chris Partlow/Wee Bey (both #4’s): The top hit men for their respective kingpins. Chris was an important fixture in seasons 4 and 5 but really just killed a lot of people and didn’t talk. Wee Bey was locked up at the end of season 1 and really did nothing else throughout the show aside from allowing his son to be adopted. There are too many better characters to assign such high seeds for one-dimensional killers.
Kima Greggs (#7): Probably my least favorite character on The Wire. The whole lesbian family storyline was monotonous and completely unnecessary. Too bad Little Man and Wee Bey didn’t have better aim when they shot up her car in the first season; her dying would have made for a stronger ending to season one and would have saved a lot of air time in subsequent seasons.
Wallace (#4): I’ve gotten heat for taking this line before, but Wallace is grossly overvalued by almost everybody. His murder was one of the most intense moments of the entire series and his story is tragic, symbolizes the evil of the drug game etc. but come on. If he had spent the rest of the series back on the corner or staying with his grandma nothing would care about him at all. I expect him to go far in the national bracket and I don’t agree with it. Nevertheless, his murder is one of the most intense moments of the entire series.
Underseeded:
D’Angelo Barksdale (#6): D’Angelo is one of my favorite characters in the entire series and was the impetus for what kept me interested in the early episodes of the first season. I have a soft spot for the ‘tragic characters’ of each season (D’Angelo, Nick Sobotka, Randy Wagstaff etc.), and his inner battle with morality versus loyalty made for some really good television while his anti-violence approach (despite killing somebody) contrasted nicely with the bloody approach that the rest of his drug crew took. He gave a nice speech in his prison library book group referencing Great Gatsby about having to embrace who you are before being strangled to death in prison which ultimately led to Barksdale organization falling apart. I was really surprised to see him seeded so low.
Marlo Stanfield (#2): Probably properly rated, but I thought he deserved the final #1 seed over Bunk. Marlo is more of a personal preference for me, but I love his ice-cold demeanor and callous approach in becoming the top drug kingpin of Baltimore. Unlike the rest of the top drug players, Marlo only cares about power and respect, evidenced by his explosion in the famous “MY NAME IS MY NAME” scene. The ending for Marlo was perfect, as he had all of the money but none of the power and was left alone in the streets reminiscing on what he once had. Dude just looks the part, too.
Notable Omissions/Inclusions:
Spiros Vondapoulos (not included):
I was primed to send Spiros (or even The Greek) on a George Mason-like run to at least the elite eight of the bracket before noticing their omission. Professional and efficient gangsters who never got caught and exuded complete power and control in their minimalistic approach to business. I am a big season two defender but one of them should have been included, especially over…
Sergei Malatov (#6): Dumbest inclusion in the entire bracket. I wracked my brain trying to remember any scene involving Sergei and only came up with when he got defensive about everyone just assuming that he’s Russian and the phone call where he denies responsibility for a murder as the corpse still had hands and a face. He hooked Marlo up with the Greeks from prison in season five but did nothing else.
Slim Charles (not included): Probably an acceptable omission but Slim had longevity and was fantastic in his role as violent muscle for Avon and Prop Joe. He also notably ascended to the top of the drug world at the end of season five as everyone else was dead, incarcerated or out the game like Marlo. Looked and played the part of cerebral hit man to perfection.
Namond Brice/Randy Wagstaff (not included) /Dukie (#5): I was surprised that Namond and Randy were omitted especially since season four is held in such reverence by nearly everybody. Season three is my favorite, but Namond and Randy were integral to the school system storyline and were both fantastic in their roles, especially Namond. Putting Dukie in over either of them seems stupid, as Dukie basically just became the next Bubbles. Onto the bracket…
West Baltimore Region:
I think the Grantland people gave ‘the king’ an easy walk to the final four as I found this region easily the weakest of the four. My one heavy upset was D’Angelo knocking off Michael Lee and going to the elite eight for aforementioned reasons. I love Cutty as well and may have sent him further if he were in another region. Omar takes this region easily. Winner: Omar Little
Hamsterdam Region:
I found a lot of the seedings/pairing weird and didn’t realize that people like Clay Davis (#2) as much as I do. I thought McNulty was properly rated as a #3 and I went with the upset pick, taking Daniels (#6). Daniels acts better and the McNulty/serial killer storyline of season five was the lowlight of the series. I also went with Maurice Levy (#5) over Wallace as I love Levy as the high power drug kingpin defense attorney and love that the writers of The Wire had the balls to portray a Jewish lawyer in such a stereotypical light. Bubbles over Clay Davis could be an upset in the public bracket. I find Bubbles hard to assess, as the acting is really good and the drug addict angle to the story is compelling (especially if you’ve read The Corner) but I found much of his character arc redundant. I’m guessing the general public overvalues McNulty and Bubbles and one of the two end up winning the Grantland bracket, but I went with Clay. Winner: Clay Davis, shhheeeeeeeeeet
The Ports Region:
A polarizing region with good and bad characters. Carcetti (#4) is my second most hated character as I find the acting horrible. My second biggest upset came from this region as I took Frank Sobotka all the way to the elite eight. Prop Joe (#2) is a great character but is slightly overrated as a 2 and didn’t have the overall impact that Sobotka had. I then struggled with Sobotka versus Bunny Colvin (#3), as Bunny was the mastermind behind Hamsterdam and does a great job representing honest police work in a corrupt system in season three and is great in season four as well working with the corner kids. I made one of my two changes here and initially had Bunny versus Avon in the elite eight but changed it to Sobotka. I could be talked out of this because I admittedly, probably put too much emphasis on season two but I went with Frant Sobotka losing to Avon Barksdale. It will be interesting to see how the public evaluates Avon; I love Avon but know that many people don’t and I have argued about his character on many occasions. Pure gangster. Winner: Avon Barksdale
East Baltimore Region:
Easily the ‘best’ of the four and stacked from top to bottom (minus Kima) with quality but was the easiest for me to fill out and the only upset I had was Lester Freamon (#5) over Wee Bey, which is obvious to anyone who has seen the show. I would have sent Lester much further but couldn’t take him over Stringer. Marlo versus Stringer gave me a moment of pause because I probably give Marlo too much importance but in the end it was easy, Stringer in a landslide. Winner: Stringer Bell
Final Four:
The first two matchups were easy, Omar over Clay (no explanation necessary) and Stringer over Avon. The Stringer/Avon conflict throughout season three is my favorite stretch of Wire episodes and the business versus gangster philosophy was fascinating to watch unfold. Stringer accepting culpability for D’Angelo’s death and the subsequent fallout is probably the most underrated scene in the entire show. In the end, Stringer is far and away more important to the overall theme of the third season and I went with Stringer.
Omar Little vs. Stringer Bell:
I started off making a case for Stringer just to play devil’s advocate as I’ve done before in arguments. Stringer is absolutely crucial in seasons one through three and undergoes more development than any character on the show, playing a pure consigliere to Avon in season one, interim kingpin in season two while Avon is incarcerated and defiant businessman in season three when he wants the Barksdale organization to turn legitimate while Avon is still wrapped up in warring with Marlo over territory. His playing ‘legitimate’ businessman with Clay Davis made for some really good scenes as Stringer just didn’t have the knowledge of the political climate and was scammed for serious money. Stringer was responsible for two of the three most intense death scenes in the show (Wallace and D’Angelo) and his death was for me the most shocking, brain twisting moment of any show that I have ever seen; even though I ‘knew’ it was coming, I didn’t believe it would happen until he was full of bullets. The argument for Omar is much easier to make: best actor, most memorable scenes, best character, etc. He’s the first thing I think about when I think of The Wire. I even found Michael K. Williams (Omar) memorable before watching The Wire as he was great as the villain in an SVU episode as a murderous pimp. I can’t really get into Boardwalk Empire because it’s too weird seeing Omar (Michael K. Williams) in another role. I would get pumped up every time an Omar scene came up in any season. I read somewhere that the writers were going to kill him off in season one but didn’t because people liked him too much. Some things about Omar don’t really fit, though. Him being homosexual is completely irrelevant to the overall nature of his character as a cold-blooded robber of drug dealers. That might be the point that the writers are making, that sexual preference doesn’t matter, but him in romantic relationships and caring about people seems contradictory to his ‘job’. I still can’t decide if his polite tone and lack of profanity adds complexity to his nature or is just an arbitrary quirk. I enjoy Omar more than Stringer, but I think Stringer is much more important to the show. Omar’s survival after getting riddled with bullets behind a couch was questionable and his death almost seemed insignificant, albeit shocking. I expected the writers to have some sort of Marlo/Omar standoff with one of them dying and was disappointed by the anticlimactic nature of him getting shot in the end while buying Newports. Stringer wears the crown as The Wire’s best character.
Winner: Stringer Bell
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