I want my MTV

So its happened. The trendy, quasi-garage Franz Ferdinand-esque style has finally been co-opted by the mass of crappy Brittish bands. Its hilarious. We get like 5 or 7 MTV channels on our satellite, including one from France, one from Russia and one from Italy. I've been spending the afternoon flipping between them to try to find something that I like. I guess its been an enjoyable afternoon. I'm growing more and more fond of the new Will Smith song "Switch" everytime I see it. Well, maybe I've been watching a little too much MTV... But the Italian band that is on TV right now has a Key-tar. It doesn't get cooler than that.

Tomorrow I'm going with my dad and Onf to a site where we will take some soil samples for analysis. Up north in Jordan, near Syria, there is an area that has had a bunch of oil spilling, which subsequently gets soaked up into the sand and ultimately goes to the water aquifer. And that spells trouble for people who like to drink water. Its pretty important stuff.

I don't know if you've heard anything about whats going on in Lebanon right now, but its pretty intense. A few weeks ago, just shortly after we got here, the Lebanese Prime Minister was assassinated, and alot of the Lebanese people had suspicion to believe that it was done by the Syrian government (who have been in control of the Lebanese government for a number of years, and are essentially an occupying force). So anyways, there've been all these HUGE anti-Syrian rallies recently. They've been so big that the government essentially said that demonstrating and protesting is illegal and moved military personnel into the capital, but the Lebanese people kept coming to demonstrate. And so, last night, the Syrian-controlled Lebanese government resigned from power, which is a great victory for the Lebanese people, and their desire for autonomy. The things that are going on in the Middle East are really exciting right now. Its really neat to be surrounded by it all, and to get a local perspective.