*Drinks*

Ok, it's still late afternoon here although the sun went down a few hours ago so I'm not sure if it's technically evening proper but that's neither here nor there, it's time to party.

But first it's time to be responsible, which means making a list of stuff I intend to do and ways I will improve myself in the new year which I inevitably will not do, better known as resolutions. Here we go.

My Resolutions for 2010

Note: Every year I make resolutions about doing more acting stuff and getting a proper job etc etc etc which I continue to not do, and they are also things that I pretty much always have in my mind, so just take it as read that I want to do more and more proper acting stuff and get some sort of proper job or at least a proper source of income. Now we can start for real.

1. Take a self portrait every day. I've joined the 365 group on Flickr which will motivate me so I have confidence about this one. That is confidence enough. I'm almost certain it won't be possible for me to do a self portrait every single day so I'll do them on every single day I can. Let's just say I have confidence that I'll do lots. And maybe even some good ones.

2. Get up to date. I do work, sort of. I have stuff I need to do and I'm usually behind on it, completely my own fault most of the time.

3. Make those films that I have ideas for. Acting related but can be separate from the just acting stuff.

4. Get a coffee grinder. Yeah I'm running out of ideas. I've wanted a coffee grinder ever since we got the espresso maker thingy, and recently I bought a bag of coffee beans by mistake that we can't use.

That's all. Happy New Year!!

If I had anything smaller...

then I would be using it! FFS!

Money I mean. I swear every transaction I've made since the world started working again has had that exchange in it... and the people don't actually have the change, they have to go to a different drawer or somewhere to get it. Does no one around here have change? Did everyone use it all for christmas! And why the fuck do people think I'm using a large note to buy something small if I have something smaller? And come to think of it, why do keep using large notes again and again when I keep getting tons of change in return for every transaction I make? Where is it all going? Well right now I have change, lots of coins weighing me down. It's always either one or the other I suppose.

I think I know this one..

Today's Word o' the day is... surreptitious

Not as obscure as many, I've heard of it, I think I even know what it means, kind of, and may have actually used it once or twice. I would say it means something like.. um, secretive, sneaky? Sorta.

The dictionary says, done, made, or gotten by stealth; also, marked by stealth.

Kay.

That's all. Except I'll leave you with this quote:

The monitoring is not surreptitious; on the contrary, the defendant and his or her attorney are required to be given notice of the government's listening activities.

"-- John Ashcroft, "National Security; Prevention of Acts of Violence and Terrorism", Federal Register 66, no. 211, October 26, 2001"

Catch ya later.

True Bliss.

I've discovered today that Boxing Day is the most perfect of all the holidays that fall at this time of year. Both Christmas days are over, you've had dinner at your friend's, hosted dinner yourself, slept in after staying up really late because one of the movies your friend brought over is a 3 hour long arty western sort of number and today you have nothing to do but.. well nothing really. There are tons of leftovers and they have these channel things on the internet so you can watch sitcoms all day without getting up and selecting files.. it's like the old days when there was television! The sun was shining earlier on so I felt briefly that I should go outside but I got over that quick.

Happy December 26 everyone!

Veselé Vánoce!

That's Merry Christmas for those of you that don't understand Czech.



And a happy new year. And all of that.

And the holidays keep coming..

It is now officially sorta christmas! And it's actually christmas christmas in some parts of the world, not just sorta actual christmas cos the main celebration is on christmas eve which it is, but christmas day so Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it, and to everyone else happy Thursday.

*drinks*

And for the rest of us...

it's time for a holiday. This is for the ba humbugs.. those that cringe at Christmas, hate Hanukah and scoff at the solstice, or alternatively people who celebrate every bullshit holiday that comes along. This is me, the one that celebrates every bullshit holiday. The particular bullshit holiday is Festivus. In the spirit of Festivus I'll won't bother explaining it to you and if you don't know what it is fucking google it.

So, I have my virtual pole up and it's time to air my grievances to you, that is, the world. So world, here they are:

1. Once again this year, wars have gone on. Now wars are very bad things, they kill a lot of people, destroy cities, homes and livelihoods, separate families and live on in the nightmares of all who have experienced them. It's still going on, it's horrific, and I fucking hate it!

2. Poverty (see also hunger) is still around. There are millions of people in the world living below the poverty line which is kind of vague but usually defined way too low. These people are often homeless, lacking in proper medical care and hungry (see hunger again) and not even in position to think about the kind of opportunities the better off people of the world have. And this is while a very small percentage of the world's population hold most of the wealth. I don't like it at all.

3. My socks never match! Just how the fuck does it happen that every time I take my socks out of the washing machine I end up with an odd number of socks, and out of those I get about 3 pairs, at least one of them which is pushing it, and 7 odd socks left over that just won't match up no matter how much I try? What the fuck world?

4. I have no money. Ok I have some but I always seem to be short. Ok, I don't have a proper job and am not going hugely out of my way to get one, and the business that I sorta do I sorta do very half heartedly but still!

5. No acting roles. Ok I was in a few student films but not too many and nothing better. Once again.. ok, see #4 I haven't bothered so much but you'd think one of these years I'd get "discovered" just by existing and not really have to work for this, I mean, it's supposed to be sort of like magic right? That's how it happens in the movies!

6. What is up with computers this year? I could go on about this and in fact have, but one computer continues to refuse to work, ok one did, the one I replaced it with wouldn't take my hard drive and would only take one installed with some patched up version of Linux which was good for practically nothing, and then that hard drive was taken away and has so far been replaced with nothing, and the other is old and slow and keeps giving me that hourglass thingy.. it's fucking infuriating!

7. Really bad things are still around. I know I covered some of it with war and poverty, but there's still other terrible things around, in this day and age, like inequality, bigotry, continued degradation of the environment and all sorts of things I should be paying more attention to but am distracted by things like socks, but still I really really really don't like these things and I think they should stop.

And that's it. You can't say I didn't tell you world. Shall we wrestle now?

The cup is full.

Happy Solstice world! I hope those of you in the Southern Hemisphere are enjoying all that gorgeous summer daylight and making the most of it, dancing around bonfires, drinking home made wine and praying to your horned gods. Or however you like spending it. If you're using the opportunity to go for pleasant walks with the dog, then that's quite cool too.

And those of us in the north, however dreary it might be, however cold it still is even though it's warmed up about 8 degrees from yesterday and however much the snow has turned to slush and ice and possibly it's a bit rainy.. can be happy in the knowledge that tomorrow will be a slightly longer day, and the day after that will be slightly longer still, and the day after that, still longer and so on and so forth. Not only that, but over the years humans have created holidays that fall around this time of year to get their minds off the depressing mood that constant cold and dark and drizzle creates.. so pretty much everyone has something to celebrate at this time of year, even if you're in the light and sunny south, due to migration and stuff.

So it really is quite good to be today. Seriously, it is.

Posh iz us.

We went to dinner at a fancy schmanzy place last night. It went well, despite our history of cockups whenever we try to dine above our station. It was a christmas present, so perhaps that's why we were allowed just this once...

The place was on the Old Town Square, and we walked though in the evening, stopping and gazing, and snapping pics of the christmassy, wintry magic, the bigass tree that's all lit up, and crushing through the hoardes of people hanging about, surprisingly or unsurprisingly considering it was more than typically freezing.

We walked into the restaurant and were stopped a few times, asked for reservations etc, and I kept getting the feeling that we would be asked, extremely politely to leave, but we handed over our printed out email and waltzed in. Seriously, we literally waltzed. Ok not really but it turned out most people were dressed in jumpers and comfy trousers. I thought for a second that this is something new that posh people do, go to dinner dressed like they're hanging out in their living room and dressing in nice shirts and stuff is a sign of being riff raff, but no one seemed to care either way.

Nice dinner, complimentary champagne, 2 first courses and some nice things with eggplants and goats cheese. If anyone considered it undignified to photograph our dishes, I didn't notice. There was music too.

We enjoyed it, and got out unscathed. Of course when we hit the -12°C outside it felt pretty scathing but that was experienced by everyone posh or common, I reckon.

That's almost it for the zany zeroes..

I think I'll call it that. The Zany Zeroes (or zeros, not too sure on that one) that is, this decade that we are still in for a little more than a week. Not sure if anyone else has used it, perhaps not, in which case I just coined it. It's fitting that it's only getting it's nickname now, usually we don't talk about decades like that until they're over, or almost over. Or maybe it's just because the decade never had a good name, like the 90s, or 80s, or 70s.. or the 60s you know what I mean. The noughts or whatever never really stood a chance.

I don't think anybody would be bothering with this zeroes crap if we were on the verge of entering a proper decade like.. the 20s.. but, what the fuck are we getting? The tens? The teens? Sounds crap, by the time the 20s come round again people will breathe a collective sigh of relief.. mine being a rather gasping, breathless one, as I'll be old then. Old! In my f.. f... fff fourties I'll be :Z

Bloody hell. It seems like just yesterday everyone was going on about millennium this, millennium that, 2000 bla bla bla and now the first decade is over. Over! In 12 days I mean. 12 days and a few hours. Actually that depends on your time zone. And it's technically 1 year 12 days and however many hours but the numbers say 9 and 10 so we like it this way better.

By the way it's freezing cold here, and very wintry.

Hello out there...

I wouldn't mind some feedback.. you know.. *looks all needy and stuff*

And speaking of...

Christmas that is. It's beginning to look like it. That is, it snowed.. a bit at least and some snow stayed on the ground giving it that "it's winter" look. And it's pretty.

Anyway that's all I had to say.

And so this is christmas...

and if I hear that song once more I'm gonna, I'm gonna...

well, not do much except for grumble that I'm hearing it again. I mean fuck, we know it's fucking christmas Mr Lennon cos you KEEP FUCKING TELLING ANYONE IN THE WESTERN WORLD WHO HAS SPENT ANY TIME AT ALL IN THE VAGUE VICINITY OF A RADIO!!!!

And dude, it technically isn't christmas for 9 days, though it is Chanukah right now.

Seriously, I "literally" never listen to the radio and I've heard it 3 times today! Once in the supermarket, once because I was forced to listen to the little clock radio in the kitchen because the computer there is a dead empty shell and I can't play my chosen tracks and once... well maybe I heard it another time, it seems like I did... but fuck! Fuck, fuck.. fuck!

Ok it's not that bad, it could be worse. I spent one christmas in Ireland. Make of that what you will.

It was christmas eve babe, In the drunk tank...

Hmmm, that's odd.

The internet is behaving very oddly, very oddly indeed. For about the last hour now I haven't been able to get into anything.. anything I tell you!

Anything that is, except for this site, any google sites actually, and a few random others. The others however, (the others being not google or the others I managed to get through to) I simply cannot access. It includes Flickr and *mumbles a bit* Facebook and a few random others, and it's extremely odd. At first I thought it was Yahoo, as that site itself was inaccessible as well as Flickr which is a subsidiary (if that's the correct term) but... the random others aren't, I don't think.

It's very odd.

Hmph!

Just as I thought.. no snow, just overcast drizzly coldness. Boring! To be fair to the world's meteorologists.. (some of them) not all the weather sites said it would snow, in fact, they all said something a bit different and were kind of vague. One said snow all day certainly, one just said "fog" another said something else but the one with the hourly updates said there would be "flurries" all night, and "flurries" during most of the day, snowfall for an hour or 2 and "flurries" again.

Guess what? Not a single flurry. Dammit, if you're gonna promise flurries I expect flurries! Yeah I'm sure a lot of normal grownup people who didn't grow up in a warm climate are pleased with the lack of flurries but I'm not them!

I want my flurries!!!!

Apparently...

It's going to snow.

*gets all giddy and stuff*

I know a lot of regular grownups don't really like the snow.. something about it being wet and slushy and accompanied by really cold weather, but I'm neither normal or all that grownup, and from Australia where it just doesn't snow, ever. Not where I'm from anyway.. and though I haven't been there for quite a while now, childhood conditioning stays with you, I'm silly about the snow, still, even though I've lived through early spring where it's still freezing cold and there's a thick layer of ice on the ground. And it's early winter and at least 10 months since I last saw any. By April I might be sick of seeing it. Of course we might not get hardly any this season, and it probably won't snow tomorrow after all. Oh well. Happy Channukah all the same.

A bit o' fun with fotos

Caption this.

Still have the shell.

Not a fetching sea shell, brought back from my recent(ish) jaunts in the Mediterranean. It's a computer without a hard drive. It's been there for about a week... ho to go out and get one and put it in and get a system installed and have a real working computer.. not that this one isn't working.. just.. or that that is what would have actually happened, but the point is I was all gung ho.. and stuff.

Well.. I was until I looked up hard drives on the computer store's site and it was kind of hard so I gave up in despair. And I turned out to have less money that I thought I would but seriously.. why does everything in computerese have to be impossible for normal people to glean any meaning from? I have an old comp which will accept a hard drive with the little needly bits on the end, one the "older" type ones from before they changed them whenever that was but what the fuck do the computer people call it.. what type of "interface" or whatever is it? I don't bloody know. I ask someone who would know and they don't really understand what I'm asking but give me an answer all the same but it's one that is equally meaningless to me.

So it's still sitting there, useless.

Stupid Questions... (edit:SQNEA #9.1)

.. that no one ever asks, is the slightest bit interested in or even really understands the point of asking.

Why are there no bleeding ATM machines around here? I'm right in the centre of the city for fucks sake.. well in a central area, not the centre exactly (that would be Prague 1 and I'm in Prague 2) and there simply aren't any, well none that have the Vodafone symbol so I can put credits on my phone anyway.. not in the direction I went because I didn't feel like going in the other direction because going that way is annoying. Now I have to go out again in the morning to get fucking credits for the fucking phone before I can even make the phone calls which really should have been done today, well last week if I were to be totally responsible about it, but fortunately I'm never motivated to be all that responsible so I'm only a day behind.

Bugger. Yes, I'm calling that a sentence. Sue me.

The Silliness is On!

I now pronounce it officially Silly Season! Circumstances have made it impossible for me to pretend it's still regular season. It's ok to go be silly now.

Yesterday was Mikuláš, a xmassy predecessor to xmas which is celebrated here in the Czech Republic. We started the day regularly enough, going to visit the kitties, fed them food Cooley refuses to eat, saw old friends, and some new kitties and the official cat lady, who in broken English told them all their names (not the real names, the names other people all them) and a bit of history.

It got dark, and colder so we popped into a cafe we occasionally visit. Had relaxing liqueur coffees with light ambient jazz playing in the background. There was a slight disruption to this peace as a couple with a huge pram (with child inside) squeezed past me, forcing me to move my chair.. I know, the nerve.. but I got over it.

A little later a sooty devil came in, followed by two angels and St. Nicholas himself, took a table and sat down. We were completely unfazed by this, as it's exactly the day of the year one expects to see these characters. They were joined shortly after by another angel, but an angel that made us sit up and take notice, she had an elaborate headdress, big silver wings and a tiny violin. "She's a musical angel" I noted, with interest.

She began to play and I retracted "musical" from my that. It wasn't bad exactly, just.. as I said it was a tiny violin (or whatever instrument the one that's smaller than a violin is) and played only high notes, and a few songs she played I believed hadn't been practiced so much, that's all. The child however, had a stronger opinion on this free show. She started crying, that is screaming the way children do when they're displeased with something, so we had a bit of an opera going with the tiny high pitched violin on one side, and noisy (and high pitched) child on the other.

This was the moment when the season officially became silly. That is, sillier than my "regular" seasons, and believe you me, that is considerably silly.

We stayed a while longer, simultaneously amused and horrified at the spectacle, the only other thing of note that occurred during that time was another couple with a huge pram, this time squeezing past Erik came in. I was sure that this new child was going to join the opera before long, but he just slept, and slept.

Meanwhile, the parents of the other child were trying to soothe her, to get her to stop crying but to no avail, she calmed down for a short time while the angel stopped playing and decided what to play next, which should have been a tip off to anyone paying attention, but the music went on and so did the wailing.

When it became enough (after about 10 minutes) we left. To Namesti Miru we went, to continue the silliness. There were a lot of people, not too many characters but we indulged in a hot wine and took silly ghosty shots of our heads, a giant christmas tree and a few devils and St. Nicks. Overall it was pretty silly.

Something nerdy for Friday.

Today's word o the day is such a doozie I just had to share it with you. It's one of those rare examples when not just the word itself, but the description lives up to the aforementioned title of "doozie".

gallimaufry
\gal-uh-MAW-free\, noun;
1. A hodgepodge; jumble; confused medley.

Should I bother to go on, can that be improved on? When you already talk of a hodgepodge and throw in a medley and some confusion.. where is there to go?

Well.. one can elaborate on , I guess. Here are some quotes:

Today bilingual programs are conducted in a gallimaufry of around 80 tongues, ranging from Spanish to Lithuanian to Micronesian Yapese.

-- Ezra Bowen, "For Learning or Ethnic Pride?", Time, July 8, 1985

We have the same eyes dark and chestnut hair. But I am a lame gallimaufry and she remains perfect.

-- Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

That's quite a mouthful.

Origin:

Gallimaufry, originally meaning "a hash of various kinds of meats," comes from French galimafrée, from Old French, from galer, "to rejoice, to make merry" (source of English gala) + mafrer, "to eat much," from Medieval Dutch maffelen, "to open one's mouth wide."

kay.

Bits, and some bobs.

It's funny. You know, things. Things you thought, things you learn, things that never occurred to you.

Like, a lot of people in the Post Office don't really know what they're doing, and are goofily apologetic when they mess up which is often, or at least during the hour I had to observe them as I repeatedly messed up and had to fill and refill out forms repeatedly (yes I know already said "re" fill, it stands) put a small envelope into a larger envelope when I thought originally I'd have to take that package home and repack it which would take days and some running around because I'm out of the paper tape you need to sign over when you're insuring, even the stuff I used this morning which were the remnants of the stuff that somehow got soaked and wrinkled and lost it's sticky (strangely enough that's not the first time I've used this phrase on this blog) so I just put clear tape over it and hoped it would fly.. seems it did anyway so luckily I was able to send them out after all that, and being told I wouldn't be able to in the first PO I went to.. or at least that's the impression I got.

Oh, and speaking of the first PO I went to, it's funny how when you're waiting in a place where you have to take a ticket you think it's crap because you're waiting so long and there doesn't seem to be any system to it, but when you're somewhere you just line up you think that's crap and they should have the ticket system, but when you're in a Post Office where you sorta float around each window behind the person being served keeping an eye on the other windows and the people hovering behind them and wondering what the hell the person at the window has that is taking so long.. and if indeed they even do what you need at that window.. you wish they'd just fucking decide on a fucking system for fucks sake! For fucks sake! Worst. Post. Office. In. Prague.

So.. you see, things. And then there are things that are not the slightest bit perplexing, just... typical. You go to the stationery shop and want fine, but not too fine point black felt pens. They have tons of pens of course, weird erasable ones, they have felt pens, big fat ones that smell strongly. Really fine point felt pens and packages of fine, but not too fine pens, in 4 different colours. I mean.. I'd probably get a pack of 4 if they were all black, because I will end up using all of those, but no.. they have black, blue, red and some other colour I'll never use. And of course they have nothing of the sort sold individually. And they have no tape, except for a small one on the dispenser and paper tape, forget it.

And of course (still going with the previous one.. sorta) there are tons of people at the register... I stand behind what I think is a mother and daughter and the woman rings it up.. a bunch of pens all individually priced, and a few other items. She takes her grand old time she does. So the other register becomes free and some dude walks up to it, when the woman in front of me goes over and tells him politely but firmly that she's first.. and the young girl pays in what seems like the smallest coins possible. She takes her time gathering her stuff and getting out of the way.. and finally I buy my stuff. I know it's shit that happens every day, but still.

And another thing. If you have card machines at your Post Office, people should be able to pay with their cards. I'd meant to go to the cash machine, just in case, as I was spinning around but zoned it out, and thought.. well they have machines at the post office or so I thought because I never use my card to pay for things.. I'm kind of a luddite about that if that's the right term.. but today I thought I might finally become a grownup and use it. If I needed to. Well I needed to and you can't so I had to go to the nearest bank machine, which isn't all that near and come back.

I think I'll stop now.

Kay, that went well.

I am now the proud owner of a discarded shell of a computer. An old computer with no hard drive.. and there's a hard drive out there that has a bunch of my stuff on it that I cannot access until I get the next round of stuff done (read, get anything done).. there's also another bunch of data that is trapped on an inaccessible hard drive but that one's here, it's just inaccessible (refers reader to previous comment inferring that naught is getting done).

So now I have to get a hard drive, like buy a hard drive. Like I have the first clue how to do that. Well I do, I even have a place that's supposed to be good for those sorts of things. After that I need to get it installed with some system thingy and I will have help with that but I'm not sure a new version will work well on this old comp with not enough ram so I might have to continue struggling with the one I've been "using" (yes I say that in it's broadest possible sense) the one that's a hodge podge of different.. er.. systems and and old version of Linux that doesn't even have Midnight Commander. If you can believe that.

Anyway.. I'm strangely and quite stupidly optimistic as if there's the slightest chance that I'm a) going to actually get my ass out and get this thing soon, b) that fixing it to the comp is going to be without incident and c) well... that the whole thing is going to turn out to be as unfathomable to me as all the rest has been and d) that it just won't happen which is covered by the other points but I think it's worth mentioning in a point of it's own... as it won't happen. You'll see.

Still, I'm quite looking forward to going down to techland and looking at all the goodies and knowing exactly what I want and bringing it home and making it work and getting the system on and getting it online and downloading and installing all those programs and having a working computer, that'll be cool.

So it went pretty well.

Oh FFFS!

Bloody computer bloody crap bloody fuck it to fuck.

Ok not this one, although it's doing it's working annoyingly slow and freezing up often which I've almost become desensitized too except for when it pisses me off but I'm talking about the other one. The one that I got to replace the other one that died mysteriously with a hard drive (on loan) which was installed with Linux which I couldn't for the life of me make head or tail of and which the adaptor thingy I had wouldn't operate on so I wasn't online.

So, I finally got an adaptor thingy which works on Linux and waddaya know... you need to go through all sorts of fiddly building kernels and long lines of text and bla bla bla fuck it to fuck for fuck's sake.

So we invite a friend over, ok so he comes over so we can all go bowling because it's my birthday and we're gonna bowl and drink and whatever but he comes over and during the time he's there we casually accidentally mention that we got the adaptor thingy and can't figure out for the life of us how to make it work.

He gets on the comp... fiddles around. Decides he doesn't know how to configure it or whatever but stays on looking up what we got there, doesn't recognize the version and tries to bring up Midnight Commander.. and fry my knees like a flounder... there is no Midnight Commander on the system.

Well.. I was flabbergasted. Ok so I'd never heard of this jazz before.. but apparently it's on every single system there is, not just Linux or Windows or whatever it's on everything so it doesn't matter that this is a sort of custom made Linux-esque operating system because they simply all have Midnight Commander.. something like that anyway. Except for this one of course..

He fucked around a bit more, but the only thing he could discover is that it isn't a standard Linux version it's a sort of custom made Linux-esque operating system... and didn't know how to work this one. So he fiddled around more on it but the sun was going down, and the end of cheap hours at the bowling alley was becoming nearer and there was only one response to this.

Fuck it dude, let's go bowling.

So he fucked around on it a bit more.. we tried the line again, in fact a few times because there really aren't enough opportunities in real life to use that line and have it make sense in the current context, unless you're someone who goes bowling a lot which we aren't.. and finally we went bowling.

So now.. oh, here's the best bit, the dude who the hard drive is on loan from now really really needs it back and is coming to get it tomorrow, and here's the better bit, I have a bunch of stuff on there, photos and whatever, and being lazy, penniless and clueless about all things computer I haven't done anything about it and it's pretty much stuck there. I could transfer them over to this comp but get this... and this, wait this is the best bit, there isn't enough room on this comp for it all, or even a significant percentage of it so fuck knows what now.

I think I'll take up bowling as a regular thing. Or maybe drinking Oh wait...

It's my birthday.

And this is me.. today, at 36 :Z.



Falling on a Sunday this year I decided to have my birthday do yesterday, ringing in the great day at midnight. We went bowling and... drinking. Been taking it pretty easy today.

Travelling and stuff.

It's funny. I've always thought of myself as someone who really likes travelling, and would do it a lot. And most likely a lot of people, both that I know, and "out there" see me as this jet setting glamorous person due to me living here in exotic Prague, and being from somewhere else completely.

They are wrong. Well at least the were.. ok the "jetsetting" and the "glamorous" are huge exaggerations and/or entirely incorrect, but the travelling what many people would consider lots is inaccurate as well. At least until recently. Ok the lots according to pretty much anyone is still erroneous, and yes I did just look up the thesaurus to use a word that was neither wrong, incorrect or inaccurate, not that anyone seemed to ask.

I do have a point. The point is I don't travel a whole lot, and until quite recently, not at all. Until some time last year I hadn't been out of Prague for like... ever. Seriously. It took Erik coming for his 3rd trip from Israel to take a day trip somewhere.

Through last year we quite often went off somewhere, and I re-familiriarized myself with some of the non Prague parts of this country, or visited them for the first time. It was nice, but I still hadn't been out of the country for like.. years. Years I tell you! That's a long time for such a little country.

Until this September when I went to Italy. We had a whirlwind trip going to Rome, Sardinia and Tuscany and battling buses, trains, ferries, and planes and meeting people who previously had only existed in the computer.. seeing Erik's parents and.. stuff. It was cool.

And then the weekend before last we went to Berlin. We walked around, visited the wall, mucked around on the U-Bahn, had pleasant mishap free rides on the S-Bahn, ate lots of falafels and kebaps (apparently in Germany there's a p in it) and stuff.

Now I feel all well travelled like I go places or something. Funny how quickly things change.

20 Years On..

No, this is not about Berlin, the wall, my recent visit or whatnot. It's about here, the Czech Republic and the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. I thought I should mention it. It happened 20 years ago.. :)

Things have changed a lot, of course. I wasn't here in 89, or 92, or 95. I was here in 96 and people were already talking about how it was in the early 90s.. by the time I came back in 2000 it was already a completely different place and that was 9 years ago so.. yeah. If you read an article about it (one for international audiences as I'm assuming my readers* will be reading it in English) it will mention that this is a country in political turmoil. Every article about the Czech Republic says that. It's funny to read that because otherwise I forget there's anything resembling turmoil happening.. you really wouldn't know from living here ;).

20 years. I remember when it happened, I was in Australia and it was on the news, of course to our family it was a big deal. I remember it well as I was old enough. Old enough to remember it clearly, and it was 20 years ago. Make of that what you will. Yes, I am making it about myself.

There's stuff going on today, a re-enactment, some festivities. Might catch some, might photograph. Might listen to the music. Might drink. Ok scratch the word "might" from that last one.

*Yeah I know I'm being presumptuous here, but I like the sound of it.

Berlin

A bit of it :)

I'm back..

Got in earlier today. Had a decent time, in fact I'd call it fine. Details later. And photos.. later.

Misshaps were relatively mild..

Oh and by the way..

I'm going to Berlin tomorrow. I shall spend the weekend there. I'll probably take a few photos. And stuff.

so...

It's working, there's usually an issue with starting up or shutting down, but it seems to stay on, at least for a few hours.

*crosses fingers and everything crossable*

The current bi-monthly misshap..

Not sure if these misshaps... computer related or general happen weekly, monthly, bi-monthly or 4 daily, but they happen a lot. A lot!

The most recent (current) one is this very comp. Yes, I'm using this very one right now, obvs.. but it's been giving me problems.

All weekend it kept shutting down, it would start up mostly normally with a blue screen informing us there were problems to be checked, usually got fully started up but it wouldn't stay started for very long. Not long enough to do anything.

We tried everything.. everything! That is, the 3 things each we know how to do and did those things over and over again though those things proved useless in this case. I don't include the things I tried to do which usually worked for me before when I had computer problems, as it wouldn't let me do those.

So.. at some point we tried similar but slightly different things (this is the not me part of we, all my attempts were pointless) and it seemed to do something different. Shut the computer down and slept on it.

Monday it worked like a charm. Well, like it did before which is slow and clunky but it stayed on.
Some time in the evening it shut down, but came back again.

Yesterday.. expecting I'd have a fruitful day of doing stuff on the comp, seeing as Monday it had for the most part worked.. I logged on. Unfortunately it decided to do a repeat of the weekend. I did a repeat of the things I'd tried which had never worked, and they never worked.

In the evening Erik came back and did something slightly different again and it did something a bit different. It looked promising, and today, I expected to have another Monday.

No such luck, it kept shutting down. I repeated a few times, left it, repeated again and one of those times it stayed on and this is one of those times. We'll see what it does next.

Something to Caption

..if you like.

"By the way..

maybe in a few years it won't bore me.."

I overheard that at the tram stop earlier. Why am I telling you this? No reason.

*ponders what she might have meant by it*

Brrr...

Now we've got light snow. Well that's what the weather thing says.. I didn't really notice it myself in real time here. Actually one weather thing says it and the other says "fog". And it's 3 degrees warmer on that one. I don't see the fog either.

*goes back to being absent and stuff*

Something a bit haunted

Wednesday, what do you do when the job's been done for you?

I wrote earlier about the new improved Conservative bible. It's not done yet, but they (The Conservapedia people or as I refer to them for short "Conservapedes") present me with a dilemma. How do I translate random bible verses taken out of context when it's (sorta) been done for me? Yes, that's a rhetorical questions, and the answer is whatever I'll do it anyway, but this time I'll take a verse out of their book, and do it. Worth a try.

I should pick a random one but for this special occasion I'm going to begin at the beginning, in Genesis. I'm going use verse 2:21:

So God created gigantic sea creatures, and made the waters teem with every moving creature after its kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God approved it because it was good.

a. (Not really a translation, it's the Conservapedia analysis) "The largest of sea creatures included more than the great whales. They also included several species of marine dinosaurs, at least two of which (the Loch Ness creature and "Predator X", identified in the Bible as "Leviathan") survived the Great Flood." :) kay...

b. And like, this giant sea dragon rose out of the water and grew and grew and it like flew off and turned pink and offered us sausages and then disappeared in a puff of smoke and dude.. what is this shit this shit is good!

c. Actually this really happened, it's a metaphor for evolution, see, life started in the sea right? That can't be a coincidence.. or maybe creation really is real.. I'm a bit confused but whatever it is God totally did it.

Um.. yeah. Whatev.

Tuesday SQNEA #8 - Pies, are they really that easy?

Some things are as easy as pie. People have told me, so I know it's true, but just what does that mean?

Pies are easy, that's the claim, or so it's greatly insinuated when someone extorts the easiness of an activity by comparing it to "pie" but, just what does that mean???

First of all, what is pie? "A" pie is a.. well pie, a food thing. "Pie" is the stuff that "a pie" is made from. And it's easy. How is it easy? It's not an activity, it's a thing, or stuff. It can't be easy, not in and of itself. It must mean something in relation to what is done to or with pie.

We eat pie. Eating is generally not seen as a difficult thing so that might be the reason, but why pie? Why not say as easy as eating? When you specify pie, it means that it's easy to eat in comparison with eating other food stuffs. Is it? No, I don't think so. Perhaps it's not particularly difficult, though some can have a hard crust, but it's not easier than eating say... a sandwich? So what?

A pie has to be made. Making food can be easy, I mean it's not rocket science, and if you don't happen to be a talented rocket scientist who is a bit of a disaster in the kitchen it's a lot easier than said science. Some things are difficult to cook, and some are easy, relatively. Is pie one of those things? I've never made pie, but it doesn't actually look like one is easy to make, I mean you have to make a crust and all.. and comparing it to stuff that's easy to cook, like say.. pasta, I don't think it's easy at all. In fact, it seems kinda difficult.

So just why is pie easy?

Because the old one just doesn't have enough smitin' in it...

The Bible. It's holy, it's famous, it's important and stuff, it's the Bible of.. well, all things everywhere (well if you happen to be one of the people who are into the particular religions that use it as their texts enough so you really believe in it, which, admittedly isn't the majority of the earth's pop but whatev), it's old. Really really old.

So time for a rewrite!

Ok.. I know it's been translated and re-translated and there are tons of different versions of it but let's just for the sake of what I'm saying now say there is one and only version which is directly word for word what Jesus and such dictated to their editors, and that version is the KJV.

Well now the Conservapedia people are now working on a new version, The Conservative Bible, appropriately enough, to avoid that insidious Liberal bias that infiltrates "literally" everything in our world. Including the bible. You didn't think Jesus was really chilled out and stuff did you? Liberal bias! As the Conservapedes state:

There are three sources of errors in conveying biblical meaning are, in increasing amount:

• lack of precision in the original language, such as terms underdeveloped to convey new concepts introduced by Christ
• lack of precision in modern language
• translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one.

Well, you know, they have a point. I know nothing at all about this stuff, but even though there are experts on this, I'd think it's still pretty much impossible to get a completely accurate translation of ancient texts. And just perhaps there is a bit of a what I'd call a modern bias, not so much into the smiting and slaughtering and slavery stuff these days. I guess that's what they call liberal. In fact, the stuff that is in the bible that's already been distorted by girly fags seems pretty horrific to me.. some of the stuff in there anyway, one of the reasons I am not a fan of Christianity, in fact. For the Conservapedes that very stuff is too peaceful and loving, or whatever, and that's a bad thing. So it's up to them to fix the bible, according to the following guidelines:

1. Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level^[3]
4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms to capture better the original intent;^[4] Defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words that have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".
5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction^[5] by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";^[6] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census
6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
8. Exclude Later-Inserted Inauthentic Passages: excluding the interpolated passages that liberals commonly put their own spin on, such as the adulteress story
9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."

Because obvs the original bible was pro capitalist and afraid of girl germs. You'll be happy to know that those hardworking boys have already started.

Happy Sunday!

A bit of dorkism for something to do..

I remember when I constructed my system, for the times like this when I don't know what to write about to keep me blogging and stimulate my writing muscles and make them do more of what they're supposed to be doing, that is, coming up with interesting and original non-gimmicky content.

It didn't work, but it did provide me with something to throw up here when I have nothing to write and feel I should post something cos I haven't for so long.

Caption this.



That's in Rome. *looks all cultured and stuff*

Why Weather gods.. why?

Just here to talk about the weather.. it probably says something that I write about the weather on this blog so often.. at least often in relation to the overall content.

Fuckin ell it's fuckin freezin! It's October ok.. autumn.. mid autumn not even late and it's bloody freezing. One or 2 degrees and officially snow according to the weather sites but it's actually rain just that really icy rain that isn't much like snow except for that it's really cold.

Bloody ell!

Just dropping by..

Thought I'd mention to you all (um.. you singular?) that I'm off for another casting today because as the tradition goes I'm supposed to tell everyone so then nothing comes of it. No biggie really. Bit annoying that they have it on a Sunday which is not only a day, particularly today because it's rainy and gloomy and the trams which go to the spot I need to go don't run on weekends but that's about the most interesting thing I have to write.

See, it's not just laziness that keeps me from keeping up the blog. Well anyway, um. That's all.

Damn, I thought I was all clever n stuff..

I've been having a few computer issues over the last month. Not the one I'm currently using.. well there are issues with this, but those are not the issues I'm talking about now.. well the issues with this computer contribute to the importance of sorting out the issues with the other one, but those are not the issues I'm going to focus on in this post.

The other computer is at this time running on what is little more than a kernel. I'm not sure if that sentence is correct or if I know what it means, but it's running on Linux, (Ubuntu or whatever) and at the moment most programs just won't work. I was able to put my photos on, and a little bit of editing, and Erik managed to configure Realplayer to play music, some anyway but further than that, I have no clue.

It's humbling. All this time, whenever I thought of it anyway, which admittedly is very little, I thought I'd be one of the clever, openminded people who'd take to Linux like something that takes very well to something else, and not one of those Windows minions who complain that it's not usable and Windows is better.

Well.. let me say this. I don't know if "better" is the right term, but at least for the moment Windows is much more me friendly. I mean.. progams are actual programs, and they work. And if you need to install something you click install.. and it installs. I wouldn't mind something a tad more complicated if there was no choice.. but a page full of lines of script that I'm supposed to do something with.. and talk about kernels and terminal emulators and configuring the command line with patches while fabricating the port for uxb app.1. Oh, and starting from System/Applications which I couldn't even find on the damn thing well.. That's not what I ordered. And my wifi thingy won't work on it because it only works on Windows.

Not to mention, my only experience with a Mac recently while I was in Italy didn't turn out well either. Something about automatically creating a trash folder when I wanted to delete stuff off my memory card and making it invisible so my card was still essentially full.. and when I got back on the dumbass' Windows comp it immediately showed the folder. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Anyway, there's not much hope of this, but if there's anyone out there who understands this stuff and is able to explain it in any known human language that would be great, but I reckon it won't happen, so wev. I just have to face the fact I'm one of the crowd, the many, the common folk who like to click and play, and aren't capable of much more than that.

And it went ok.

D-day was yesterday. That's the day that the ominous thing I've been vaguely alluding to was going to happen and it did happen and the circumstances changed slightly by the time so it turned out not all that bad. Not that you even know what it was all about in the first place so that the change in circumstances would be meaningless even if I told you what they were which I wouldn't anyway but everything's cool now. Pretty much anyway.

Now I can think of other stuff. If only some other stuff would materialize I'd have something to keep my mind on. Hello.. other stuff? It's ok it'll come.

Tell you what, I'll accept the magic beer fairy, and we'll leave it at that.

The Pope was in Brno today. That's in the not Prague part of the Czech Republic.. I was there a few weeks ago. He was in Prague yesterday, but didn't speak to the peons, just some politics.. wonder why.. hmmm..

Well anyway, he had an interesting message to the crowd.. "Don't exclude God" he told the worshiping 100,000+ strong crowd.. I mean I wasn't there but they say the crowd was about that and I'm just assuming...

And it's annoying. I mean I know that's what these religious leaders do, and that they're mostly talking to (directly anyway) those who are already faithful but fuck. No, I won't include a non-existent deity into my life who if it did in fact exist would most certainly make said life much much worse.. and you my dear, have and should have no say in it. I know for you god is real and good, but you don't speak for the far far majority of people in the world, and to those people your words are OF NO IMPORTANCE and you should.. ya know.. fucking realize it.

Anyway.. more stupidity from the Ratz includes:

"History has demonstrated the absurdities to which man descends when he excludes God from the horizon of his choices and actions"

Um, no. Sorry dear. History has demonstrated that people can do horrendous things for all sorts of reasons but by far the most has been because of religion. I do accept that a lot of the time the religion is a front for ethnic and land disputes, but... well what he said is just rubbish, is all.

Oh and I love this bit..

"The 82-year-old pontiff's three-day visit comes as Czechs prepare to mark 20 years since their 1989 Velvet Revolution shook off a regime that had ruthlessly persecuted the Roman Catholic Church."

Waaaaaaaaaaaahh, waahhh.. Please. The Catholic Church should know a bit or 2 about persecution.. and I really don't know a whole lot about the history of Catholics in this country, but there weren't any burnings or flailings or whatnot. Just sayin..

And in other Pope related news.. Yesterday in Prague he was attacked by a "large arachid" :)

That's not what I ordered.

I was going to write more witty, pithy, kooky things about my trip to Italy but.. the time has passed and it's "literally" ancient history now. So it'll have to wait.

I'm back at home, in the doldrums. Yes, I live in the doldrums, it's quite nice here this time of year actually, a little known fact. It doesn't change the fact that I have ominous heavy shit hanging over me, which surprisingly, or unsurprisingly if you know me as well as I do, is easy enough to put out of my head and figure out what I'll do until the last minute. I mean it is sorta the last minute, but nevertheless.

There really isn't much going on.

I went to Rome :)

Another shot..

cos I got plenty.

And we're back..

Home again after a trip to Italy which I like to refer to as "il shlep grande". Ok so there've been more grande shleps for many people over the years, but at the time..

The short version of the itinerary goes Rome - Cagliari, Sardinia - Radicondoli, Tuscany - Rome.. and back to Prague. The longer version is more like Roma Fiumicimo - Roma Termini - Civitavecchia - Cagliari - Civitavecchia - Grosseto - Siena - Radicondoli - Volterra - Radicondoli - Siena - Roma.. and back to Prague. That's not including every single metro trip or bus.. though I could add those if we want a longer one. Oh and the bits between Civitavecchia (the port of Rome) and Cagliari were on the sea. Ferry trip. 14 hours on a "sleeper" ie a chair.

It was nice. Here's a photo.



You can probably figure out which leg of the journey that was taken.

refulgent

That means; Shining brightly; radiant; brilliant; resplendent.

Doesn't really sound like it. I would have thought it meant icky, or crap, generally poor. Maybe something like the state of having strength to resist that which one bla bla bla etc. Or something.

Well.. you learn something new every day. That is if you keep track of the words the internet presents with us each day. Unless of course you see a word you already knew the meaning of in which case you don't learn anything new unless there is something else you've learned the same day, which is actually quite likely, so there.

That is all.

Blogging and stuff..

I've rather gotten out of the habit of doing it, this blogging thing. It's not that I don't have anything to write, at least, not in comparison to the time when I was writing often.. it's just that... I don't.

I'm off to Italy soon, for a week. That should be nice. When I come back I'll tell you all about it.

Well that was a fun month..

It all started with me rushing back to Prague from a visit with my mother and other rels to meet Erik's parents.. and just ended with me coming back to Prague with him from visiting the same place to see the same people.

Well, is ending. And I came back yesterday. And I didn't really rush and didn't have anything much to do or anyone much to see today.

In between much must not have happened because I can't think of anything in particular. I didn't write much.. obvs.

*sneezes*

My home, is "literally" making me sick!

Making me sneeze, nose run, itchy eyes. Especially around the bedroom area (yes the bedroom is an "area" and not a room, bohemian artist dwellings like) where of course it has a major effect on me.

It's dust, and/or cat hair. It's always been here it just seems like there must be more now because it didn't effect me so much before. About a month and a half ago it started getting noticeable. We've tried to clean up as much as we can but it doesn't appear to be helping. Possibly it's because cleaning up the dust means kicking up more dust into the air which is where it has the most effect so perhaps it will settle eventually and as there will be less things will get better. I dunno.

All I know is it sucks. And I'm fed up! *pounds fist in air*

Hi again..

Been busy... mostly trudging. A bit of eating and drinking... chatting and some photographing but trudging mostly. At least that's what it feels like. Been hanging out with the manfriend's 'rents.. the "in laws" so to speak. We've covered a fair bit of ground with barely 2 rides on a tram which is impressive, even if I, one of the trudgers says so herself. It's nice. There's been a lot of view viewing and old stuff looking at, which is something I quite like to do, if I don't usually care to experience that much trudging in such a short time span.

I'm glad to have a rest from all that today and catch up on the computer stuff... make a half assed effort to sort out all the photos and the like. And to sit on my ass, that's the bit I'm particularly enjoying.

I'm home... and I'm stayin..

I'm home again after a trip again, except this one was more like a trip and I didn't have to take 2 train rides in one day. I went to České Budějovice to see my mother, father, cousin, aunt, grandfather, and uncle I hadn't met before and a few sundry others. I walked a bit around town and hung out in a flat. Doesn't sound very exciting that way and actually in reality it wasn't at all exciting. Anyway it's good to be home in time to meet a new set of parents.. those of Erik and do some hauling ass around Prague in the heat. There's plenty more of that to come, but this evening we have hanging around here with nachos and beer to look forward to so I take that as a positive.

Ok now, why?

Just why the fuck do all train trips that are supposed to be just under 3 hours take 3 hours and 40 minutes?

Why the flying fuck of fucks do the fucking 1st class carriages have to be on the side that you come out of the station by, when your train's on platform fucking 5, after waiting in the line that some fucking woman used as a 1000 questions info stop to buy you ticket?

How the fuck come do people working in government offices need to tell you they need to check on some stuff that's pretty much greek to you (or official papers and forms Czech, which might as well be) and make you wait in the hall while they check it out?

Why the heavenly holy fuck are station maps completely fucking WRONG? And I mean it's wrong, not just that I can't follow maps properly and that's why I went the completely wrong way and came back and started again TWICE!

And why oh why on god's green earth are internet timetables for trains from Brno to Prague just wrong! And I mean wrong, like actually wrong, not like station map wrong.

And for fucks fucking sake? Why in the jesus fuck do canoodling not teenagers (no excuse people!) have to be right in front of the place you at first think is the street number you need, so you don't want to go and inspect it properly because they're there, so you walk past and then you go back cos you thought it was it, and it isn't so you have to go past them AGAIN to go up to where it actually is. All the time they're looking at you like YOU'RE the weird one, who like, doesn't have a right to be there or something. And get this.. they're STILL FUCKING THERE when you finish your business and go down the hill again! I mean FUCKING GET A FUCKING ROOM FOR FUCKS SAKE!



Fuck!

Being responsible and stuff

I'm busy this week. I did that important thing on Monday that I mentioned.. I think, and I'm doing part 2 of that today, which involves going to Brno. It's another city in the Czech Republic. Anyway I'm just there, do it, take some shots of the town square or whatnot and back. It should be pretty boring but kind of exciting seeing as I never go anyway.

Tomorrow I'm being summoned to České Budějovice to take some stuff to my parents that they dumped on me while they gallivanted around Germany. It's heavy, but I should be mostly on the train so it's forgivable. I'm to hang out there about 2 days with the rels and co. When I return Erik's parents will be here so we'll be doing the tourist thing with them.

Quite busy I am. And in unrelated news, it's fucking dustier than fuck in here! I'm sneezing and eye watering like crazy.. yesterday I tried to beat the mattresses and pillows to get the dust out and well.. we don't really have an outside bit here, and though the pillows can be hung out the window, and I took the mattresses into the other bit of the flat it's fucking worse than ever! Who'd have thought that sending dust flying into the air of this tiny flat would make people sneeze and shit.. huh? Fuck.

Anyway.. very busy, off soon.

One down..

And one to go. Or is that 2 down? Is it only one to go?

And then after that I've got all the other stuff.

What the hell am I babbling on about I hear you yelling! Er... stuff. Annoying stuff, worrying stuff, the sort of stuff you want to be down already. It's gonna be a while.

Weather's been nice...

*Looks embarrassed and stuff*

Why oh why did I think it was Thursday yesterday? It was certainly Friday, it had totally the feel of Friday, and I even didn't get around to doing a certain thing I went out to do because it's Friday and stuff closes early. I don't get it!

Of course, you probably don't know what I'm talking about, and I can have a photo captioning post any day of the week and indeed I do the stuff on the "wrong" day all the time and nary a heart flutter.. but I did put Thursday in the tags so I feel I have to point out how silly I am. I'm really silly.

Now it's the weekend, and that's nice.

Take a look at this!

Leave a caption if you like.

Things that suck, and things that in some way sucky if you look at them in a certain way..

Well wadda ya know. Vyšehrad really is just up the hill. I mean, I knew this, I just know now that it's a simple walk there. I wish I'd known before I walked up there yesterday evening. I set off in the general direction, very general as it were, actually the wrong direction. I had to divert myself around rows of buildings that had no break in them 4 blocks along, and found myself on a busy road. One them ones that's just for cars, and no trams or anything else. I walked and walked.. oh btw the way to Vyšehrad is all uphill, and even though I was going the wrong way, I managed to be walking uphill all the same.

I finally got to Pankrác, which is 2 metro stations the other way, but fortunately a station so I hopped on the train. The wrong one.. for some reason, but all I had to do was turn around and go back and I found myself in Vyšehrad before long... got out on the wrong side of the station, minor mishap.. then walked to where the castle grounds is at, and then walked around before I found the beer garden Erik's work people were at. Oh.. I didn't mention, I was meeting him somewhere he was having an after work gathering. It was big, crowded, there were people all over the place and some hanging out on the grass so I had to wander around for 10 minutes before I found them. After that it was cool... beer, nice view, a kitty on the top of some shack they have.

We walked home. You can sort of see where we live from the view up there so we went in the general direction. We went through some park thing, right under the bridge. When we came out we recognized the spot... just a block over in the park we always visit or go through, ie, very close. Right under the bridge we walked back on the last time we walked home from Vyšehrad. It's the opposite side of our place that I decided to walk when I went there. It didn't occur to me to you know.. follow the bridge.

So anyway, today I was finally going to get something done that I sorta kinda really badly need to do, well start the process anyway because it has the potential to be long and arduous. And I realize I don't have some very important papers that I really need and totally should have and fuck knows what happened to them they should be there so now I don't know how to even start going about it. With barely 2 weeks to get it all done so I don't have to worry about a certain thing I've been worrying about. That's the thing that really fucking sucks. The other thing was a little bit sucky, but overall amusing. And it's nice to know we're really kind of close to that cool beer garden.

It'll help when everything else falls out from under me. Assuming I'll be able to partake in the enjoyment of it.

The A-Z of great thespianism.

I thought I'd compile a list of all the faces I might potentially need over my acting career, so I can practice them, and get real good at them. It's a plan, and I do love plans. I shall start.

agitated
alarmed
aloof
amazed
amused
ambiguously emotional
angry
angst-ridden
apathetic
ashamed
awed

bamboozled
baffled
bashful
bemused
betrayed
bewildered
bewitched
bitter
blank
blissful
blithe
bloated
bloodthirsty
bored
bothered

And there you go..

Ok, so it's a- some of b,but there's enough there to practice for now. Now what exactly is the difference between bamboozled and bewildered?

Not a bad day n a bit's..

Finished filming. Went rather quick really, and overall was quite relaxing and easy, sans mishaps. Well not entirely free of them, not at all free of them.. they just weren't the negative, screwing with one's art, holding everyone up, pissing people off sort of mishaps. Not to me anyway.

Started yesterday, I met them at the director's flat. It's a street I know well and have walked up for this very purpose before. I wondered if perhaps just I'd been to this exact flat before and lo and behold it's the same flat I shot a film in last August. One where I didn't say anything and gave a lot of spooked out looks. You know.. that one..

Right away we shot in the bedroom, it was dressed up as a doctor's office.. that went pretty quick and then we went out for a coffee and moving on. The coffee was good. We walked on and stopped halfway down some steps to shoot a scene. I managed to get some "stills" in this spot, so you might just get to see me recreating one of the famous looks from the film some time soon.

And on, to some sports centre which has a statue in front that we used. My job was to stare wistfully at it, regretting my lost youth and health. And we moved on.

The next scene was on a street, a couple of tram stops up. I look into the mirror in an art store window eating and ice cream and look at myself. I had a Magnum. Quite a good choice as they don't melt so quick.. and I did have to hold on to it for some time. I had to keep the licks small.

And we moved on up the street a bit, to Zelevskeho where there's a big reflecting building and I continued eating the ice cream there. All of it took some time, with the walk and the setting up and when we finally went to film all went well until my ice cream fell apart all over my skirt. There was a slight mishap as we waited for them to get a napkin so I could clean myself up a bit, but I got some good ice cream mess shots, as well as some reflection ones. There was more to shoot so they had to get me a new ice cream.

Then we went to the "square" where we met the other actress who was playing the ice cream lady. No, I'm not the ice cream lady.. I didn't get the idea until I saw her, we just shot that scene earlier.

So, they g0t her an ice cream and she ate ice cream and I watched her, with looks. We shot both from different angles and it started to rain. It continued a little in the rain but alas it neither stopped nor abated so we sought shelter in the metro.

A bit later we went back out, got a new ice cream for ICL and filmed more. She dropped the ice cream which for her was part of the script. Our director went off to get her a new ice cream, which her character does, and we hung about, I took a bunch of photos of the splat on the ground, and she started cleaning it up... which was a boo boo as the mess was needed for the next scene. So another needed to be got. They shot the scene and ice cream lady was done.

Next we did the tram scene. I sit on a tram, making faces and flipping through but not reading a book, and that's it. Went pretty smoothly, the exact time it takes to get to the destination we were going anyway, so pretty convenient. That was it for yesterday.

Today was the bath scene. I arrived at the flat.. another one. No one was there and I didn't recognize any of the names on the buzzer, so I waited, this is quite typical for film students, they never give you proper instructions for meeting them so you find yourself outside strange flats with no idea what to do. They need to sort this out!

After about 10 mins my director came out saying she'd burnt her hair. I didn't ask. Well I did when we were up about the 3rd floor and she said it she was lighting a candle. I think I said "oh".

I went in and they were lighting candles all around the bath.. I remember skimming over this bit in the script. They set it up, I came in to draw a bath and then found myself trapped in there because the camera was set up right in front of the door. This sucked because I wanted to get photos of the setup, but one can't always have everything how one wants.

The candles around the bath were melting like ice cream that's been made to wait on a delayed film set, wax was dripping and making shapes around the bath, and eventually getting into the water.

The bath was full and we shot. I sat, looked at the candles, looked at my toes, pretended to cry and this was the fun bit, submerged myself under water several times. It kind of sucked because my nose got full of water and well.. that just sucks.. and when you do it a few times..

It was full of wax, it didn't bother me, it was just strange. Some did drip down onto my toes as we were shooting a scene that featured them. She waited until last to film my toes by the way so you get to see them in all their shrivelly, wrinkly splendour. I did just cut my toenails though, of which I was glad.

We finished and I got out of the bath. She blew out all the candles to make it easier for me to get out of there, so I didn't get my shot of the lit up bathroom, though I got some of the aftermath, as well as some typical dorky in the mirror shots.

And we were done. I thought we were doing another scene by the river but for some reason it's not happening. So I came home.

THE END

That's it, I'm putting together resume.

For acting. A little bit about what I've done. A very little bit, because it's not much, and under skills I'll put "very good at making anxious, inquisitive, scared and thoughtful faces. Experiences in bath scenes. Doesn't have much experience with dialogue but knows some English."

I might need to fill it out a bit.

Well, actually...

Someone did email me, but she got my name wrong and I thought she had meant to email someone else, so I replied saying my name's not Melanie bla bla bla.. and no answer. I figured she had meant the real Melanie and hadn't bothered to write and say "no, I actually wanted someone young and pretty who can act" or something.

Oh by the way I'm talking about film students.. I went to the casting last week, didn't hear anything for a few days etc etc etc.

Anyway, I got another email and she did mean me so I'm shooting on Monday and Tuesday. I'm playing a woman with cancer so it should be deep and let me exercise those skills I'm supposed to have. Any luck I actually have some and they're gonna show themselves one of these days. Preferably tomorrow.

Innappropriately interpeted photo Friday.

Or alternatively, Caption this Photo on the wrong day.



And I mean.. just cos I called it inappropriate doesn't mean the caption has to be er.. ya know.. I mean, don't let my warped mind make you read something iffy into a perfectly innocent photo of cherubs playing. Just sayin.

You know how they thought me?

Well I went to the casting, went ok it seemed, caught up with some people and had a drink with one guy I hadn't seen for a while in a bar I hadn't previously known which is quite near and Erik would really like so we're totally going there but..

no one's called me!

*cries*

yet.. oh well.

Hey they thought of me..

Here I was the other day, thinking about stuff. And I remembered how I was looking forward to the summer upon completion of my last film, anticipating the month courses in which I traditionally participate to some degree, and thinking how last month nothing of the sort happened, and castings for this month should be coming up around now and I've gotten no phone calls and no emails or nothing of the sort. I was even thinking specifically today that it would be cool if I got a phone call, out of nowhere. And when I got a phone call from an unknown number I thought yes this is it but it turned out to be the fixit guy from yesterday who came back to get the money I didn't have on me yesterday. And then.. well the typical stuff.

Then she called me, said the castings are tonight oh thank you for the notice but what the hell I don't have anything else to do so I said yeah I'll be there. Then I remembered that my parents made a vague date for tonight though they haven't called yet. Oh well.

So I might just be in something else this year yet. Then again maybe I won't. I should spend all that spare time learning how to write proper grammatically and stuff. Maybe I won't bother.

Toiling, working..

Dinner guests tonight, none other than the very "those that spawned me", so I'm toiling away like a little beaver getting the place ready, fixing up the refreshments.. this place is a dump but goddammit if I ain't gonna get it sparkling..

well, as sparkling as half a day's moderate toil can achieve. I am making bread after all, and I had to run out and get some ingredients that I previously thought I had but didn't after all, and I have refreshments to prepare. The main course has already been premade by considerably more hard working than me man friend, but I need to chop up tomatoes so there.

Now, if only Cooley will greet them nicely :Z

So the rents are here.

I'm not sure that's right, the proper way to say it would be "the 'rents". Or I could just say "my parents" for maximum clarity. Actually I prefer "those who spawned me", which is how I introduced them to Erik (the partner, bf, so "man friend" as I like to say) when we met at U Draka, the Dragon pub.

So I met them at the metro, took them to U Draka, we ate, drank some wine/beer/coke/mineral water depending on which of the party we were and the time we were drinking. It was pleasant. They told us all about what they've been up to, London, Paris, Amsterdam, cruise, Budapest, Croatia.. etc etc. And we told them about, well, me not much but Erik told them a bit about himself.

Yesterday we had lunch in the centre at U Medvidku, the bear pub and walked around the centre.. very slowly as my mother had to stop and photograph/film nearly everything she saw.. did I mention these people spawned me.. and in the evening we went to the flat they're staying in for dinner and to pick up the goodies they brought me. Clothes and stuff and some Vegemite.. a pretty good deal.

That's about all really. We're hosting them here for dinner tomorrow, so I should clean up a bit..

*stretches.. comes to life*

Hello.

Happy whatever holiday you're having, if you're having a holiday. I know the sepos had their big day and possibly are having a day off today to make up for that being on a Saturday.. which they do in some places I've heard. They don't do that here. It's kind of grumblesome because we have holidays on the 5th and 6th for some saints or whatever and of course one of those days fell on a Sunday this year.. and WE DON'T GET AN EXTRA WEEK DAY FOR IT! It wouldn't make a difference to me really but as I like to hang out with the SO or whatever you call them people these days it's a bit annoyin.. that's nothing though.. last year the 5th and 6th fell on Saturday and Sunday! Fucked up! The many years before that these days fell on weekdays and it holidays meant nothing to me except for days where everyone you're trying to do business with is away and everything is closed so the timing is particularly shitty.

Anyway.. it's actually cleared up a bit, we've had only minimal rain and overcastness for the past few days so by next weekend we might be able to go on a longer walk without the likelihood of being rained on. I'll let you know if that happens, and I'll take pictures.

My parents are coming tomorrow. Not sure what time, or if I'll met with them until Thursday or Saturday or when but.. I'll see.

What can you possibly have to say?

About this.

There goes July..

It's the 1st of the month, so happy July all of those inclined to celebrate. I was looking forward to it.. after the last one we had. I mean.. June was ok, nothing terrible happened, overall the usual mix of fun and boring and sucky and kinda cool. It's just that it rained. I don't mean it rained during the month.. I mean it rained all the time. And yes.. I mean literally all the time, every second of every day it rained! ALL THE FUCKING TIME! I mean there were a few breaks of sunshine here and there, a few days when it didn't rain but it was a mix of overcast and sunny and somewhere in between and days where it was all of everything through the day... pretty much every day was like that actually. But apart from that it just rained. All the time. We have looking like it's going to flood to show for it.

I had hopes though. A fresh new month brings a fresh new weather system thingy and this morning we were woken up.. well not really woken up because we put blankets and stuff over the windows to replace our other makeshift curtain system which was flimsier because the sun comes up so early.. but it was sunny, very nice for most of the early part of today.

I thought it meant the curse had been broken. It's July! It's going to be sunny now!

And then evening came and it rained. Just like it did every day in June. Bugger.

What exactly are these "parent" people for anyway?

I have some relatives in the country at the mo.. well, they're always here, this being the land of my blood and all that but I speak of the nuclear version.. ya know, the ones that spawn you, lovingly raise you and all that.. the parents. My parents are in the country. Not THAT YOU'D BLOODY KNOW FROM THEM LIKE.. BOTHERING TO TELL ME OR ANYTHING.. oh no..

well, my mother did bother, finally to email me to tell me she is in České Budějovice from whence they hail.. they've been there a few days after coming back from Croatia. Oh, they were there before but took off again to Croatia with my cousin's family. That is after gallivanting around London and Paris, going on some cruise and Amsterdam and where else who knows...

Now they're "busy" so haven't been able to email me since they got there and there's no point me and Erik going there because there's too many people and nowhere to stay. Nowhere for unimportant "daughter" freaks anyway, it seems.

I'm not bitter or anything.

They're coming to Prague sometime next week and might be able to meet with me if they're not too busy with socializing with all the people they're going to have to visit while here, so I should consider myself lucky. I mean some people.. oh whatever.. so long as they brought stuff, everything's cool.

Oh that cruise?

The one I went on yesterday? I was fun. It rained most of the night. Lots of food but we had to pay for drinks. We had this guide that stayed with us the whole time and occasionally told us stuff about Prague (most people who take it are tourists, and she seemed to be stuck in the habit of talking to said people), the river is very high and looks on the verge of flooding.

Overall quite interesting, and I got lots of photos. Had a few drinks.

About time to attempt it again..

The last time I tried to do something high falutin' and posh-ish was Valentine's day. Oh I remember it well, dreams of fine dining in what some would call an "ethnic" establishment turned into eating stinky gooey cheese down the pub. The event encapsulated me being in quite a succinct way. I was quite proud after the fact, actually. So it goes.

Tonight I'm going on a dinner cruise. "Oooh" I hear you say. Well it's a christmas present from Erik's 'rents and we've been meaning to do it since about.. well christmas last year, though we at first thought we'd wait for spring at least.. March came, we didn't think much of it, April we might have mentioned it once or twice and then it was May and he was in Singapore, but we said we'd do it in June. Part of June he was gone again but this morning we thought we'd try again to get through the bureaucracy which is the getting tickets and stuff for the thing and we set it up for tonight.

So we're doing it tonight. I think it'll be cool.

Poor Farrah..

Poor dear Farrah Fawcett, she was one of the original Charlie's Angels, a favourite pinup of the 1970s, starred in many a harrowing dramatic made for TV movie and bravely suffered cancer for years died yesterday. It was a shock to see it on imbd yesterday. I'd never really been a big fan, or knew too much about her but it's sad to hear that someone with such a well known name, who's too young to die, has died. People were talking, paying respects and set to pay tribute in a way such a great and well known actress deserves.. and then.

Michael Jackson goes and bloody dies!*

Way to be overshadowed. I mean.. of all people? I admit I was shocked. I guess if I'd ever thought about it I never really expected him to live out a long natural life, he's too strange, too tragic, but still. Michael Jackson, larger than life, no highly publicized illness, 50! Very weird.

And of course everybody forgets about little Farrah. Well, about pretty much everything. We can expect a week of Michael coverage, about his life, his death, his childhood genius, his strange ways as he got over, plastic surgery, pedophilia, impassioned arguments for and against, people who were ready to throw him to the wolves a few years ago passionately defending him, new information coming out about how he died, from child actors who were friends of his and some who were more than just friends, celebrities and there take, huge stadiums full of people crying, Iran. er.. who? his father, his sister, his other sister saying something nasty, young celebrities who will now claim to have been his biggest fan, his contemporaries talking about what it was like being the hugest stars of the 80s and so on...

So I don't really have to say much about him, because it's being said, and will continue to be said. But don't forget to think of Farrah. It would be nice. Maybe someone will even write a post about her of which the bulk isn't about the man who overshadowed her. Hmm.. that's a thought.

*anyone reading this from about the 8th of July on might not get the impact but at the moment the front page of CNN is all Michael tribute.

Thursday NRWOTD - The wrong day and wrong function version..

unbuncle:

It doesn't mean anything, at least I don't think so. It was one of them word verification things, but doesn't it sound cool? I think it needs a meaning. How about:

i. to see a vision in which a known person takes another form, eg animal that has metaphorical meaning to the visionee (?) seen in dreams or hallucination..

eg. she dreamed that he had turned into a bull, as she had so often imagined him in his angry rages

ii. A coloquial term that refers to having vivid and realistic dreams

iii. To reverse a "buncle"

buncle:

To strap somone or something up in a leather belt (preferably black) for the purposes of restrainment. Usually done the case of uncontrollable rage on the part of the bunclee (?)

I didn't claim the definitions would be any good.

Must Have Penis

Manly chips
Originally uploaded by erikland.

Erik snapped this while he was in Singapore last month. Apparently these chips are so spicy only real manly grown up men-like men with hair in unmentionable places can handle it, the boys will quiver and weep if they attempt it and ladies... well, just daintily push them away and give the old diet excuse, you've got no business here..

incidentally my man friend, the aforementioned Erik said they're not very spicy at all so obviously he outmans the most manly men of them all..

*looks all smug and stuff*

*blushes a bit*

Tuesday SQNEA #8 - The er.. um edition.

Why can I never think of a stupid question at the right time? The right time being Tuesday of course, the Time That Stupid Questions Must Be Asked! No exceptions, all will go awry if it isn't done at the right time. Awry, I tell you!

I had plenty of questions, oodles of them, I had one about vampires that was really really good, and another one before about something else that was too but I've totally forgotten them! It's frustrating.. infuriating I tell you.. that's my new favouritest word, infuriating. Isn't it cool?

So anyway, don't really have a stupid questions except for the one at the top about not being able to think of questions or rather to remember them. It is pretty stupid and I'm pretty sure no one ever asks it, not specific to this context anyway, but it's not really a good stupid question.

What the fuck. That's not a question that's.. something else.

I don't have time for this!

I didn't have time earlier on when the water heater was doing what it wanted to do instead of what wanted it to do, ie what it should be doing, and I don't have time to be waiting around the fucking post office, and being made to fill the fiddly fucking form again because I stupidly forgot to write down one fucking detail which shouldn't make a difference because there's so much other fucking information that they should be able to get the fucking transaction done regardless. I won't go into detail but in short.

I don't have time for this! Fuck!

I mean it's done now, and I'm back from the PO, but still. Fuck!

Yay.. something to write about!

If it's not one bloody saga then well it's a complete fuckup of monstrous proportions, ok a problem that is nevertheless troublesome for me in my condition.

I need to work today. Work, I tell you! Do you people understand that? Actual work, real doing stuff. I have STUFF to do, lots of stuff! I don't think you understand the importance of this stuff..

well anyway, I got up (kinda late because after being almost about to get up a bit earlier I decided to lie in a bit longer and in doing that fell into a deep slumber and had a dream about being in some house by a river with all these people, all but one who were imaginary, the non imaginary one was someone I knew in school, and why she was in my dream I have no idea, anyway, stuff happened.. there really isn't a story to this) got on the computer, got the info I needed, a phone call organizing a meeting here in the afternoon which must occur after I've done one of the major things on my list, and wasted a bit of time. I shouldn't have, but it's what I do. Sue me.

So after a bit of time wasting and coffee I, in a responsible manner decided to get in the shower, get ready.. and wait for my hair to dry and stuff while I hang out a bit more, and go!

I got in the shower, turned the water on, happily lathered my hair up with shampoo which I hadn't used for days, leaving my hair feeling icky, soaped myself up and down.. I don't really need to go into this actually.

Shower, shower, soap all over. I waited until last to rinse out the shampoo, just something I do. I turned the water off for a second once, because I heard something and thought maybe.. I dunno. Anyway I turned it back on and it was cold.. no bother, I let it go for a bit but IT DIDN'T HEAT UP!!! I turned it off and tried it again.. no luck.

So I got out of the shower, went into the kitchen where the water heater is expecting to see the red light flashing, as it does when the water empties.. or something.. then I need to press it and in a few minutes it will work again. But no red light was flashing.. I went back into the shower and tried.

NOTHING!

So, I fiddled around with the heater, including a few old fashioned thumps.. and I got the match thingy to light up once using the kitchen sink so I went into the shower and tried again. IT STILL DIDN'T WORK!

So I tried again a few times, kitchen sink and shower, didn't work, didn't work didn't work. I thumped it a few more times. Didn't work. I noticed the heater was hot which was odd because it wasn't on so I fiddled around with the settings and after that it worked. I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair.

So all is ok now but the point is, it took ages and my calculations for doing stuff today are way off. I have stuff to do dammit!

And again..

He's returned. I'm happy, kitty seems to be acting normal, whatever that means and it's sunny. I actually sat in the garden of the pub across the road and had a beer yesterday.

Yes, life is exciting.

Oh look! A cat..

Because there just aren't enough cat pics on the internet/flickr/my blog.

It's just well.. silly.. silli.. sille..

Have you ever noticed, assuming you're someone who cares about these things, and can actually recognize it, that there are certain spelling mistakes that literally everyone makes? It's infuriating! It's as bad as people sticking apostrophes where they're not wanted or using literally incorrectly.

Yes, I did that on purpose, I know.. sad. Anyway, one of the aforementioned oft misspelled words that infuriates me is this one..

rediculous

just so you know, that one is the misspelt version that so enrages me.. the correct spelling you all, I'm sure, know is "ridiculous". I'm writing about it because I've seen it like 3 times today spelt like that on completely different sites, most populated by people who should know better, I mean really, they should.

And speaking of misspells, why does the blogger spellcheck consider "spelt" a mistake? Is that not a proper word? And if so, how do you spell it? And have you noticed that blogger also doesn't consider "internet" a word? Isn't that a bit odd? Do I ask too many questions?

Ok, now it's starting to piss me off.

I've had this weird thing with my back for the last few days. Out of nowhere.. and I haven't had anything like this before.. well maybe once, for a few days I had this strange pain, which I can't remember is like the current thing I'm feeling. Well if it only occurs about every 2 years for about a day I can survive, but..

I might have a "pinched nerve" whatever that is.. it feels nervy, and kind of pinchy, or it could be sciatica which is what I'm most worried about, assuming a pinched nerve isn't worse than that. I knew someone.. know someone sorta with it and it's a problem. Complete mystery as to what causes it, can't be cured and can barely be relieved, just puts you in constant discomfort, sometimes it's worse, sometimes it's tolerable but mostly it screws you up for doing a lot of things. At least that's what I gathered.

I really sorta feel like going outside and at least walking, but I don't really feel like it. I'm not going to blame it on my back completely, it's difficult to get myself away from the computer and out at the sunshiniest of times when I'm feeling normal, but this doesn't help. Yesterday when I took my one walk out to go shopping it was really painful, or at least uncomfortable.. I feel as though I should be walking, or exercising but when I do it doesn't seem to help. I don't know.

It's not my fault..

I know I haven't posted in the obscenely long time of 3 days.. and all I have to say is it's not my fault.

Well it's not my fault I didn't post yesterday, my internet was doing this weird thing where all indications pointed to it being on, and the connection strong except for that one small part where you can connect to webpages. This happened in the evening and remained so well into the wee small hours which I was awake to experience.. and of course after the time I decided to put up a post.

The reason I didn't post on the weekend is probably due to laziness. Well Sunday is, that and I forgot, possibly having nothing to write about. The main reason for non posting Saturday is embarrassing so I won't go into it, I'll just say this, check the date.

Anyway I'm posting now. Not much to say except for that it was a minor/major annoyance and/or worry about the internet yesterday, and the other reason I have to grumble is due a back pain which I can't explain and is also cause for worry. I had a stupid question that I thought of yesterday which was totally brilliant but I forgot it. It had something to do with vampires I think.