How To Send A Mechanical Horse In 10 Easy Steps

(check if completed)
1. Remove feet, handlebar, seat, pedals and all other detachable parts.
2. Find a big enough box.
2b. Be upset because found boxes are too small. CHECK!
2c. Make plans to find bigger box. CHECK! (sort of)
3. Optional: Inquire about shipping costs at post office and UPS store. CHECK!
4. Put everything in the box(es).
5. Haul to chosen shipping company.
6. Pay.
7. Travel on commercial airliners to destination.
8. Show up with identification.
9. Receive parcel(s).
10. Carry home, unpack, reassemble, ride.

Things

Good evening.
On a flight I've seen the movie The Proposal, and as an old Sandra Bullock Fan I enjoyed it. Nice nudity. I also (just to follow the thought), which is quite curious, on one of my various internet-surfing-sessions encountered a porn actress who looks quite like one of my ex-girlfriends. That's weird in a Did-I-once-fuck-that-babe? sort of way. I did some research (checked out more material) and I'm pretty sure now that it's not her. Just the styling in that one photo-session, then.
What else? Yes, the new season of Heroes has started, I watched episode 1 and 2 with scepticism, with episode 3, however, things seem to thicken up a bit. So it might actually turn out to be good, even though they didn't kill off, what's her name, the Tracy Strauss character. But the situations the others are in seem interesting enough, and I'd like to know what happens next.
In the meantime we went and bought our winter gear, awesome new winter jackets, gloves, warm socks etc. I guess the winter can come now. We're ready.
I'm starting a countdown today: 30 days until my new computer!

Surrogates

I've just come back from watching Surrogates. It's an okay movie, nice premise - what happens, if we can send replacements of ourselves out into the world. The movie keeps it nice, simple and close to the surface; that way obvious plotholes can be ignored more easily, that way you avoid social commentary just as well as tedious explanations and you enable yourself to i.e. always have a proper problem-solving code handy, or a nerd who just happens to know the code to save the world. After deciding to leave out the details the filmmakers had to fill up the time with other stuff, which is of a kind we've seen a thousand times before and understand immediatly: Just let our hero linger in the kid's room a little, have him pick up and set down a baseball bat with a name on it, have him make a face like three days of rainweather and there you are, all the character history you'll ever need is established.
Well, Mr. Mostow, just as T3 wasn't overly dramatic and lacked passion, Surrogates is missing vitality and will probably be remembered a better movie than it actually is, it's just providing some light entertainment, and upon rewatching people, just as it is the case with T3, will be disappointed and say to themselves: Yeah, right, it actually wasn't that good, we should have rented something like I, Robot instead. Or a real classic like T2. Or The fuckin' Last Boy Scout.
At least this time nobody ruined a franchise.

Basterds

Inglorious Basterds is a very crude movie. It feels like Kill Bill all over again, only less round and more like a Western (set in Nazi-France). It's very violent and could IMHO have done without some of the gory scenes. Sometimes the movie feels a little slow, maybe because of all the Tarantino-esk dialogue, but then the dialogue is one essential reason why Basterds is worth watching. The other is the cinematography: angles, tracking, Riefenstahl quoting etc, and the score, the music, the on-screen fonts - the whole mix that makes for the overall crudeness of the movie, which is both a pro and con. The story is alright, it ignores every single historical fact and takes us whereever Tarantino wants to go, which makes for a nice ride. I liked Kill Bill better, but Basterds is a movie that works. Expactions fulfilled. Oh, I really liked Brad Pitt's performance. He must have had a lot of fun shooting this. And Bela B's got a tiny role, too (but I watched it in a Canadian cinema, nobody understood my outcry of sudden excitement: It's Bela!!! Oh right, you don't know him...nevermind).
I bought some books at the local used book store, which is way to expensive. But since I had saved a lot of money earlier when I bought a pair of on-sale jeans (Levis, 20 bucks) I didn't care and spent 17 bucks on books (more light reading for the winter). I still could use some real literature, though. My new jeans fit almost perfectly, for 100% fit I would need a 31-34, and they don't make that size here. So I had to settle for a 32-34 instead.

Concerned Celebrations

There is one reason to be concerned and three reasons for celebration.
Celebration reason #1: Back to Highspeed. No further comment.
Celebration reason #2: This is post number 100. It's a round number! 100 posts! I'm so excited. Yeah. Next.
Celebration reason #3: For more than one year I have not smoked a cigarette. The actual date was september 23rd 2008, 10 PM. That indeed is a good reason for some celebration. I like it. Though it's starting to feel awkward talking about with other people:
Person 1: Oh, I so wanna quit smoking!
Person 2: Oh, I so should quit smoking!
Person 3: I haven't smoked since february, except at parties, like a pack every 2 months.
Person 4: Stop smoking? Yeah, next year.
And then I say my line and another conversation hits a dead end. But well, as I said, I like it. Guess I had no choice, after justifing 10 years of smoking with saying I'll quit before I turn 30. (Mh, a good six months to spare there. I think these six months could still count as smoking credit time? I'll use 'em up after I turn sixty.)

Reason for anti-celebration: My cat-allergy seems to be getting worse. I think I also have developed at least a minor dust allergy. I have a lot of trouble staying in cat-infested (meaning 1 cat lives there, or 2) households, adjusting to them, even if I take anti-hystamines. It's not just stuffed nose and some sneezing anymore, it's starts with that, goes to loads of sneezing, and loads of stuff in the nose up to coughing and a swollen feeling in my throat. Fresh air cures it almost immediately, though (inside half hour). I guess I'll have to take a lot of walks and strolls this coming week.

Tonight I'm gonna go and see Inglorious Basterds.

Waiting For Sunday

This is dial-up. Really slow.
This feels like 800x600. Really low.
We're not in the city anymore.
I can't post anything.
We must wait until sunday for that.

(But I bought 12 books for 2,64 at the local book exchange. Light reading for the winter.)

Big City

How do you determine if a city is really a city and really cosmopolitan and stuff? Just count the adult stores in the downtown area. The more you see without looking for them and the bigger their signs are, the more city-esk is the city.
I'm in Toronto right now. I walked down Yonge Street and saw at least 4 adult stores. Later I walked down Queen and through Kensington, and I think Toronto is pretty cool. Reminds me of Berlin a little bit.
After living out in bumfucknowhere for so long citylife is quite overwhelming at first. But it's also nice. We went into a bar last night, played some pool, there were three live-bands playing, nice music (some kind of emo-country), great variety of different beers available...
And I got my socks and t-shirts. No pants though, didn't feel like looking for them.
Soon I'll be on my way to the airport again.

Desk

After 1.5 days of walking the box stores under a blazing sun I've finally found a desk. I almost ended up with a nice wooden chipped table from a used office furniture store, but then I walked into a RONA of all places. And there it was, the straight simple computer desk with a nice big keyboard tray. 48x30 or something, seems sturdy, has feet, looks nice. I bought it and put it in storage.
Tonight I'll have to get up pretty early to catch my flight to an even bigger city; there I'm gonna buy a couple of t-shirts and maybe some pants. And a new passport, mine will expire soon. And socks, I'm gonna buy socks! Muahharharhar!
(A lot of evil laughter lately. Should I start to worry?)

Why it Sucks to Live in a Big Country Next to the USA

1. You can't just drive anywhere, because it takes days.
2. In real life, there's no such thing as overnight-express.
3. You have to fly everywhere.
4. Airline baggage restrictions apply.
5. You have to travel halfway across the country to buy your favourite kind of t-shirt.
6. The same applies for pants, socks, electric horses, computer desks and everything else.
7. If you can't find it where you are, don't bother traveling someplace else, because they won't have it, either, because everything is a fuckin' chain.
8. If you look for online stores, you always end up with ones based in the US.
9. Tim Horton's coffee tastes like warmed up liquid shit.
10. You can't walk to the supermarket, because it's always out of town.
11. You really, really need a car.

Hotel Room #2 / Songs

The king size bed we're sleeping in these days is like one of those old castle/manor dining tables, and people sitting far away from each other at the narrow sides. The bed is so big, instead of saying good night, we have to call out to each other and wait for the echo.
More importantly: You may have noticed: The songs on the right are gone, so is the player. So much for reliable file-hosting-services. They might not be back anytime soon. I'll see what I can do. The videos are still there, though.
Today I will finally get a haircut. A "big city haircut". Muahahahahar!

Hotel Room

We're staying in the same hotel like last time, except one floor up, and on the other side of the building, where the luxury suites are. That's right, luxury suites. With black leather, a king instead of a double, bathrobes for our convenience.
Now we finally know: Rich people are happier, because they can buy luxury. Man, these bathrobes... I feel like Axel Foley. Bathrobe, anyone?

Back to Civilization

One week of no internet. Can you believe it? It went down somewhen at night last week, and didn't come back up. The first day it was okay. The second I thought: Ah well, I've survived worse things. On thursday I got a little worried. When it wasn't there friday, I lost hope: Nobody works on the weekends! Who should bring it back? And yes, no internet on saturday. No internet on sunday. And today, at 9 in the evening, finally: High speed.
But wait: We traveled. We're on holiday. We're in the big city. In a hotel room. Thank you civilisation, here, have us back. (We just had some beers at a rooftop restaurant. Wheee! After no beer for like ever these ones really tasted great, even for such a beer schmock like I am, beer flavour spoiled European.)
And one more thing: We had some plums hanging around in our fridge, my wife got tired of them, so I decided to make a good ol' plum cake. I didn't know how to make it, but remembered what it had to look like. Kind of like pizza-dough with plums on top and some sugar. So I did that. Made pizza dough, cut the plums in halfs, put them on top, a bit of sugar over it, into the oven for 20 minutes, et voilá: Plum cake. And it tasted just as it was supposed to taste: Awesome.
So much for now, I have to make some chess moves. (Oh, my fellow online chess partners, how long you've had to wait! - I hope you don't get unfair advantage from the fact that I am under the influence of alcohol.)

Introducing...

Griffin, the dark bear from hell who goes "Gnaaah!".
Is there anybody who hasn't heard of him? He who grew to become the most famous of all bears, feared, respected and loved all over the world and in its shadows; every creature from insect to elephant knows his name: Griffin, the dark bear from hell who goes "Gnaaah!".
His story begins on a cold december morning in 1964, in hell.
Everybody knows that the dark bears have lived in hell for all eternity. Every now and then however, and although they really should know better, some of them try stupid things like revolution. Griffin's parents were of that sort. They seriously wanted to introduce democracy in hell, can you imagine? Of course that got them into trouble with Satan himself, who, on a rare notion of being humble, instead of taking their lives just banned them from hell. So Griffin's parents had to emigrate, and they emigrated to New York.
When they moved into their shabby appartment on 110th street, Griffin's father, looking at his pregnant wife, laid out the rules: "Grrr, we're still dark bears. Dark bears from hell, and nothing will ever change that!"
"Grrr!" Griffin's mother said and blinked away one single tear. Little Griffin was born the following spring, and soon it was time for him to learn the call of the dark bears. This proved to be harder than expected, because whenever Griffin's father showed his son the traditional and well respected "Grrr!", all that Griffin could accomplish was a feeble: "Gnaaah!"
Now everybody knows in hell the official language is German, thus no dark bear has ever had problems pronouncing the call. Little Griffin however grew up in New York, and he had never heard a rolling R in his young life. He tried hard, and after years of schooling and training camps his call became loud, strong and well respected, but remained: "Gnaah!".
It broke his fathers heart. But the future had a lot in store for young Griffin, and over time his father, who had turned white, would learn what a fine son he had, that his son was in fact the most famous bear in the world, and everybody knew his name and spoke it with honour: Griffin, the dark bear from hell who goes "Gnaaah!".

Work

At 10 AM today I went to the supermarket to work there. That took the whole day and gave me 2 free meals, a number of cups of coffee and 100 bucks. Unfortunately for the near future, like next week, there's no more work scheduled, but they say they want to offer me something regular in october. Sounds good to me, because we'll be doing some traveling for half of september anyway. The supermarket staff is very friendly, but then again all the people here are very friendly. Very friendly people!
Too bad I don't speak French. The Boss said something in French to me today, to check out my language skills. I thought: Should I use my limited knowledge now and say something like "Il y a des nuages dans le ciel" or "Vous avez une contusion" or "Le soleil brille"... but before I could think that thought to the end I was already done saying: "Excuse me?"
Ah, well, whatever. Week 14 of being here is over today, and in the last two weeks I've managed to cut down the average weekly grocery bill by another 20 bucks (compared to the average of week 1-12). I like that. Let's see if I can keep that up.
And one last thing for now: I must say I really enjoy playing chess online against my friends.

Chick Flick

So today we've watched "He's not that into you". It's one of the worst movies ever. Or let me rephrase that: If you make it through the first 60 minutes of it (which needs all your power), you might actually be kind of entertained by the last 30. Maybe perhaps, that is (and most certainly because by then you will have have gotten used to the movie or simply won't care anymore). This movie is full of superficial characters who do superficial things, get stuck in stupid circles of thought, don't listen and don't tell. It has Ben Affleck in it. And Jennifer Aniston, who as usual plays the same character as in all her other movies (i.e. "The Break Up", which also sucked, for the same reasons). On top of that the writers have poured every single dumb cliché about relationships, marriage and dating into "He's not...". I thought I could handle chick flicks, now I'm not so sure. Making me watch it was probably my wife's revenge for making her watch all the James Bonds up to 1989.
Well, at least "He's not that into you" had the "Die Hard 4" sidekick actor in it, whose performances I've grown to like (as in "Drag me to hell"). His character is the only believable one in the movie, well, for half of it, unfortunately they later let him share the fate of his fellow co-characters. Awesome. I could barf all over the place.
One last bit of advice: If you ever, for whatever unlikely reason, find yourself choosing between "He's not that into you" and "Bride Wars", do not choose the latter. We've tried to watch that one. We lasted about 3 minutes, then we had to burn the DVD and the player. It's so bad, so plain dumb, we had to brush our teeth and rinse our eyes out. Literally.
I have to go and watch "Cliffhanger" now. And "The Last Boy Scout". And "Conan".

Barbecue

We just came back from a barbecue or potluck, or rather: bug-becue or bug-luck. I've been eaten alive by probably every single mosquito, bug and insect within 1 square mile. My arms, my head, my fingers!! Through the pants, through the socks! Call me mosquito-meal!
It's no fun. The food for humans was fun, though. I ate the most delicious orange-cumin-rubbed-chicken. Really good. The woman who made it also asked me for guitar-playing-advice. "Jup." I said. A nice barbecue altogether.
But those bugs! As soon as you stopped moving, they were all over you. I mean: me. And over everybody else, too, slamming their long suckers into innocent human skin. Suckers! Fuckers! Next time I go out I'll be like Forrest Gump: Running everywhere. That way they won't get me.

Hot September

The last few days it's been so hot here, the AC is running at all times. My instinct of survival makes it almost impossible to leave the house at all, except at 6:30 AM for our almost daily morning run (which by the way was especially good today, all the way to the airport and back at a steady and rather fast pace and without any walking). I think I will soon continue to work on my graphic novel, 9 months of a break from it I guess is more than enough.
People always seem to wonder-slash-inquire about me being a stay-at-home-husband. Nobody wonders about stay-at-home-wifes. People also talk about purpose in life; as if not having a job meant losing one's soul, one's brains and one's right to exist. I wish they'd stop. Having a job will never be my first priority in life.
I'm in for some part-time work, though. Applied for 4 jobs. No news there yet, unfortunately.
But this is new: I've managed to hook my wife on German Eierkuchen, or thin pancakes (like crepes). Hehe. We even had them for mid-day meal today. How awesome is that! I think I can start working now on Mustard Eggs and Sauerkraut. Muahahahaha!

Curry Chicken With Rice

We started off September with a nice morning run, and later a new mid-day meal: Curry chicken with rice, vegetables and fruit. It sounds a bit sophisticated, and it tastes awesome, though the recipe is just a slightly altered version of what I call Everything-Meal with rice (basically: throw whatever you wanna eat into a pan together and eat it). I curried the chicken exuberantly, fried it, fried onions, threw in the cooked rice and vegetables (carrots, beans), curried it again, peppered it, salted it, found a tin of abandoned fruit-cocktail in the fridge, drank the juice, threw in the fruit, stirred it, added garlic, let the whole thing sit on low and hoped for the best.
And my wife liked it.
Success! Success!

Unfortunately I didn't take a picture, so just imagine rice and chicken with beans and carrots in a frying pan, but more yellow.