2) Went to church yesterday morning. I was bored and awake in the early morning for no apparent reason, so I thought, what the hell. It's been a long long time. Went with past experience telling me that churches are generally good places to find the sort of people who will take an interest in foreigners even if they don't speak your language particularly well. Found that there's still entirely too much God involved in Church for my tastes, and that the people's interest was generally directed at my spiritual well-being, which is a stat I generally prefer to leave empty when filling out character sheets. Those five potentials are better spent on dexterity and reflex, in my opinion.

3) I hate hate hate seeing my sweet, kind, trusting Tyotya and Dyadya getting taken in. Stupid americans and all our enterprising little capitalist fucks who bring their pyriamid schemes and Mary Kay to Russia to leech these sweet people of their $100 a month pensions. The concept that the reason these people are bringing their "company" here not because they want to share their wealth, but because Americans are generally less suckers about such things doesn't enter their heads. They think its even better because its american and all americans are rich. Clearly. Russians don't need $10 toothpaste anymore than we do, and they don't need to be suckered for anything else. I'd say they've had enough of that what with that whole 70 years of communism thing. Its the people who go and set up on the street womewhere with their little handpump and their ballon-on-a-stick figures that they bought from some tv commercial because they were under the impression that that's how capitalism works, DIY. But no, their enterprising gets them nowhere but a -20C street corner with a bunch of carnival baloons and no fucking carnival.

Lets work out a little mantra, why don't we. Repeat after me: if you have to pay money in order to recieve money, RUN AWAY.

start-up costs are one thing. Pyramid schemes are another. And god, Russia with a tv in every room and this huge scandal about that big commercial pyramid scheme that just came crashing down and how they're searching for the founders etc, you'd think people would have a little more sense.

Money does not trickle down, and Pyramid schemes do not go on forever. Who is paying for their new car and the dinner they took you out to? You are.

And what are you going to get out of it. You're going to end up sitting at the dinner table with your family on New Years trying to evangelize them into your "business", and if the pyramid doesn't crash on you, it will on your family or your friends or their family...

4) There is only so much time one can spend thinking about hand cream and buying new shoes before one goes stark raving mad.