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Dear Jess,
Happy Birthday. Sorry I'm a few hours late, but the internet is a fickle entity here on the beach in Cambodia. I'm in Sihanoukville on the south coast and it's Chinese New Year. The place is totally packed and the power supply can't keep up so there are outages about five times a day. Aside from the loss of the fan the outages are quite welcome as they put an end to the endless stream of the strange Asian version of Happy Birthday (or Happy Bird Day) that they seem to play on an endless loop at New Year. Yes, I know, I'm really roughing it. I think I'll go have another cocktail to ease the pain.
How are things back on the home front? Has your corporation achieved world domination? Did Dennis Kucinach get the democratic nomination like I knew he would?
Hope all is well, sis. Talk to you soon.
Dan
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Hey Dano!
I was just home last weekend, and we were speculating whether or not you were still alive. I’m glad to see that (1) you are and (2) you’re even lucid enough to remember my b-day. Awww, shucks.
While you were away, Canada invaded the US, defeated us over a long weekend, and declared us the “great southern province”. (Apparently they were pissed that we could never remember their Prime Minister’s name – who knew?) But it saves us the trouble of voting in the US elections this year, so that’s nice.
Carbonite is now a Fortune 500 company with 10,000 employees, and I have been promoted to VP of Everything. We’re thinking of buying a small country to host company retreats; have you seen any worth purchasing in your travels? Happy Chinese New Year, and have another cocktail for me, would ya?
Your Loving Sister
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Dear Jess,
Cambodia is for sale but, regrettably, covered in land mines and unexcavated mass graves. What is your company policy on unexploded ordinance and genocide anyway? I've been meaning to ask.
But while your very pc approach of purchasing a nation is quaint, I think that your best bet is to develop a small naval military force and simply acquire an archipelago in the South Pacific. It's a time tested method and chances are that their current European occupation has been rendered fairly complacent by large quantities of sunshine and coconut flavored cuisine. Besides, with our impending withdrawal from the middle east privately contracted military muscle is about to become very affordable. I've heard good things about a small company called Blackwater, you should check it out.
As for the Canadian takeover, while I'm excited about the prospect of socialized health care, I fear it will be short lived. Under Canadian law all we need is a simple majority to secede again. Hence the Cannucks' lack of success with imperialism. It's a shame too, because if anybody could use a getaway archipelago in the South Pacific it's those pasty Canadians, eh?
Love,
Dan
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Hmmmm, Blackwater you say? I’ll have to check them out. The name’s got such a nice ring to it – and it would sound so great with “gate” on the end. How could we *not* select them to help us with our international acquisitions – I mean, “humanitarian peacekeeping operations”? (I can tell you one thing; I know what our first company team-building event will be at our lavish new Cambodian corporate hideaway! But shhhh – it’s a surprise! NB: You did say those mass graves were un-excavated, right? Know where I can get 10,000 shovels on short notice?)
Re: our extremely polite Canadian overlords, don’t worry: we’ll be living the high life with socialized medicine for many years to come. In order for the US to get a majority and secede, us former-Americans would have to register to vote and then show up on election day. And you know *that’s* never going to happen. ;-) I hope you’re enjoying your coconut-flavored life in Cambodia… but when are you coming back to the NASC? (That’s the North American Socialist Collective. We’ve done some rebranding since the Canada merger.)
***
Sounds like you've got one hell of a scavenger hunt sceduled for the next company picnic. Just make sure to send in a team of interns first to clear the mines. And a little advice: land mines are designed to be non-lethal based on the theory that a wounded soldier exhausts more resources than a dead one. This is also true with interns, so you may want to revise the dismemberment clause in your health plan before sending them into the field (or be prepared to get your hands dirty, if you know what I'm saying).
I'll be headed back to mother Canamerica on April 22nd. I'll be expecting a sixer of Molson in the fridge, a plate of french fries and gravy on the table and a good curling match on the television when I get there, eh? That's assuming I don't have any trouble repatriating with my obsolete American passport. Do you think that I'll need to memorize the prime minister's name to be granted temporary refugee status? I hope not. It took me years to remember Chretien's name and then they just went and got some new guy. Well, whatever happens I just hope they don't try to bring rollerblading back into style, because that was really lame.
Cheers eh?,
Dan
P.S. Given your new found Canadianhood maybe you can help me decipher this Canadianism that I heard the other day after a brief conversation with one of our new compatriots:
"Ok, hey, we're gonna boogie and try to spin up a number before the nights festivities . . . see ya out there, eh?"
If we're going to peacefully coexist with them we should make an effort to learn their language.
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