First Web Launch, etc.

Good evening, Citizens. Yankee here again. Tonight, Aussie and I will be sending out some invitations to our friends to come and view our project here at the Long Crawl. We figure we've got enough content up now to give people something to read for more than one visit and the itinerary is more or less solid, so it's time to go public.

If you are one of those people whom we've directed here via the Facebook page, welcome! On the right hand side of the page, you'll find links to the itinerary and the rules and commandments and whatnot which should give you a good background as to what we're trying to accomplish with this project. The goal here is to have it be fun and funny while at the same time being informative. Please feel free to leave comments about the various articles. It makes the three of us feel like we aren't wasting our time.

Also, on the right hand side, you'll find a link to our message board. There, you'll find threads for all of the 21 stops with sections for background, ideas, and meetups. It's pretty self explanatory. Anyway, if you have traveled to one of our planned destinations, please leave some advice on the message boards. In many parts of the middle east, if you show someone the bottom of your foot, it's comparable to giving them the finger over here in the US. Knowing things like this would be very helpful prior to us leaving on this adventure. It would be a shame if I had to use the Idealist as a bullet shield half way through the trip over an avoidable misunderstanding. Help us out, write down what you know. This trip is largely meant to be interactive, and the more that it is, the more fun for everyone.

Speaking of interactive, there is a space for meetups on the message board. If you want to meet us on a specific stop, let us know. We'll take pictures of you making an ass of yourself and put them on the internet. It'll be a blast. Also, if we know you'll be available in a certain city, we'll know who to call to help us bail Aussie out of jail after he shoots his mouth off. Good times had by all. Similarly, if you have suggestions for places to go in these cities, let us know. If your suggestion doesn't suck, we just might take advantage of it, and credit will be given. We've submitted to a couple of publishing companies to try and get this off the ground and we're shooting for a March 2009 departure. We'll be posting updates daily (or every other day) relating to the various stops and how the project is going until then. The more input we get from you, the reader, the better this trip will come off. Hook us up. Thanks.

Now, the normal updates. Aussie and I just got back from the last rugby games in New Jersey. Aussie played valiantly and led the team to a tremendous, come-from-behind victory over Philadelphia. I missed tackles and generally looked out of shape. At least I'm honest. Due to the odd shape of rugby uniforms (full shirts, tiny shorts), I have a very strange tan going on. I'm not sure you can call it a farmer tan, it's too odd. Considering the wifebeater tan tragically incurred a few weeks ago, and the fact that I taped one of my wrists, which is the one part of my arm not burned, I could possible qualify for the weirdest tan ever. If jacked up tan lines are cool, consider me Miles Davis.

As I write this, the mighty Yankees are blowing it to the Red Sox. We've embarrassed them the last two games, now we choke on it in the final game of the series. Being a true fan sucks sometimes. We could have tied them for the AL wild card tonight, but no, that would make too much sense. Sox fans out there, enjoy it. You'll go down at the end, like you always do.

Not to close out the post on a somber note, but there was a terrorist attack in Turkey today, which is one of our stops. Noone's taken credit yet, but it was probably Kurdish separatists. So far, 16 people have died in Istanbul in a double bombing. They set off one bomb in a pedestrian area, waited ten minutes for a crowd to form, then set off a second bomb which claimed most of the casualties. While we bitch about politics on this blog from time to time, the purpose of this trip is to attempt to bridge some of the ideological divides that lead to behavior like this. We think people the world over are pretty similar on the most basic levels and we'd like to illustrate that. If we can grab a few beers and your attention during the whole thing, that would be super. The world goes on much further than your front porch. We hope you'll laugh at what you read here at the Long Crawl, but more importantly, that you'll feel a little closer to your fellow people out there, thousands of miles away, going through the same things you are, from a different point of view.

That is all,
Yankee