Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Ah, Prague.

Well, this is a Czech keyboard and I really do not know how to enable the numbers again. Or the exclamation mark. But I can do all these interesting symbols now very easily, like this: ě š č ř ž ý á.

We are obviously in Prague. Prices vary here. Yesterday we paid for two coffee and one fanta fourhundredthirtyseven Kronen, which is about eighteen Euros. That was on the Wencelas Square. Today we went about fivehundred meters away from there into a small side street Italian restaurant and had two large pizzas, one coffee and two great big beers and we paid threehundredeightytwo Kronen, which is less than sixteen Euros.
Very interesting.

But that only as a side-note.
I also bought myself a nice pair of pants by a local designer. Original Jozef Svoboda (or so). Very tight (for my now north-American-continent accostumed lower half), yet also awesomely satisfying.
Unfortunetely the weather is a little bad. Rain.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Ah, Amsterdam!

They've got canals and bridges and bicycles and tulips and so much more. Women sitting in red windows for example. Indeed enjoyable.
However, we're taking a train right about now to an undisclosed location in good old Germany.

See you there, my friends.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Ah, Europe!

We've made it across the ocean and through the US. Not without difficulties, but we've made it. Apparently they got some new rules for entering and leaving the states, so we had one of those WTF we need extra paperwork? experiences at the airport check-in. Those are always fun. NOT!

But who cares, we're in Amsterdam now.

See you later.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

The Eve Of Travel

Morgen ist es soweit!

We're pretty busy packing right now.
So much to do in so little time!

Like... eating all that food in the fridge (2 apples, 6 eggs).

In the meantime I have re-discovered Queen for my music listening pleasure.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Springtime for Bra-to

Spring is here.

She snow has been melting for a week or so now, there's still a lot left, but spring is here. Blue skies, sunny days, winter-parka-defenitely-too-warm-weather. I can feel it. I can feel spring is here and that it's going to stay.
And even if it doesn't, I don't care, because next week we'll be away for five weeks and when we get back it'll almost be summer!
(or so)
(Remember, I reported snow on october 8 last year. Now I am reporting springtime.)

Saturday I was sitting outside in the sun on my coffee break at work and I thought: Yeah. If only this pallet I'm sitting on was a nice sun deck of a street restaurant in let's say, any European city, and if only this coffee was a nice cold beer...

Ah well, we'll just do that next week.

By the way, today was bra day. I unpacked and marked f.loads of bra/panty sets size 42D and up (and up only). That was fun. (Though I can't really explain why. Maybe because of all the co-worker ladies looking in saying "Look at these huge bras!" Or maybe because of my supervisor asking "Does this make you feel uncomfortable?" I said: "No, it makes me happy!")

At least no-one asked for carpet spice today.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Carpet Spikes

Today at work a fellow co-worker woman came into the marking room and asked: "Do you have carpet spikes?"

"Excuse me?" I said.

"Do you have carpet spikes?"

Carpet spikes? My instincts told me I was misunderstanding her, my brain frantically went through all possible combinations of words and things that would match her inquiry. Yes, carpet spikes, aren't those these spiky things you use to hold your carpets in place? Kind of like tent pegs?

"We're out of carpet spikes, do you have carpet spikes?"

I was at a complete loss. What the f. was she talking about? I shook my head. "I don't think so."

After a moment or so I added: "Honestly, I don't even know what that is. What are carpet spikes?"

She looked at me as if I had said something really stupid. I noticed she was wearing rubber gloves. That put her in the fast food department. Or janitorial. But neither made any sense, neither of them would have use for carpet spikes, in fact, there isn't one single fucking carpet in the entire store!

"Carpet spikes! You must have carpet spikes!" she insisted.

"Carpet spikes?" I said, somewhat lamely.

And then suddenly she saw something behind me, and went past me to the corner where I keep my marking room garbage bags.
And she bent down and took some.

"Ah!" I said. "Garbage bags! Of course I have garbage bags." Garbage bags? Carpet spikes? Garbit bikes? Carpage Spags? I hurried to apologize: "I'm sorry, I didn't understand you right."

She didn't seem to intent to leave me some garbage bags, so I added: "But don't take them all!"

She laughed, took most of them and left.

Garbage bags. That's what she'd said. Yet it sounded like carpet spikes.

I guess that's what can happen when local slang meets a foreign ear.

Spring Socks

My wife is back in town which is nice.

Now that the winter finally seems to be over (everything is melting - wich causes great and awesome mud by the way, the kind that sticks to your shoes and builds up and five meters later your walk like an elephant), I for the first time wore my new winter socks, the fancy expensive ones that I bought last september or so.
And these socks really are something. It starts when you put them on, they are somehow shaped to the foot, every part from heel to toe slips right into the correct position. Inside the socks there's some kind of fluffy material, but very subtle, you only feel it when you walk, it's like walking on plush.
Last but not least some clever designer put these red lines on the socks' outside, and they make them really look cool, space-ish maybe, or UFC-ish. Oh, and the socks are also very warm, very very warm.
(Sometimes it's cold at work.)

Yesterday I re-found a nice song to play on my guitar here in bf country music land, an old Tammy Wynette (?) or Patsy Kline song: Stand by your man. It's a lot of fun to sing it, especially when people seem to believe it really should to be sung by a woman.

Therefore I'd like to dedicate this post to "something warm to come to".

Thank you.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The List Is In The Open!

1. The remaining time (about 1.5 weeks) before our trip seems to stretch surreally.
2. I caught myself some kind of bug which had a party in my throat first and has now moved on into my nose.
3. My wife is in the City attending some conference, so I am home alone until the end of the week. That is alltogether kind of boring.
4. I play way too much computer game (Gothic 3). It's looks great on this machine though, for the first time ever I can actually see more than 3 meters ahead.
5. I now have my very own box cutters. Very handy at work.
5b. Ufo-ing shoes is a pain.
6. My favourite (and only) online chess website has been down for more than 24 hours now. Server maintenance my ass, chessmail. Get it done!
7. I gave my blog address away to people who live in bf, too. Now it is not lost in the depths of the internet anymore. Now there are persons close by who can connect the nickname with the real me. My personal one-entry-only NOC list is in the open. Do you read me? The list is in the open!
I am not anonymous anymore.
7b. I have toyed with the idea for a while to secretly have another blog that nobody who knows me knows about, so I can write completely without second thoughts. But then again I don't believe the benefit would match the effort.
8. Tomorrow I am gonna teleport into Vengard, fireball all the orcs, fight my way into the castle, meet up with Karypto (or so), the fire magician, have him teach me mana regeneration and the highest wisdom of the fire mages, and then, equipped and armed with that kind of knowledge I will teleport to the castle of Trelis and from there I will finally make my way into the vast desert of Varant (which is my favourite).

Friday, March 5, 2010

Aftermath

Turns out we actually did win something in the square dancing contest: Third place or $300. That made 37 bucks 50 per person. Who would have thought! Very nice, too, because it enabled me to have a coffee on my morning break (Which I needed after going to bed so late last night. Plus I had left my wallet at home).
Strange unknown-to-me people kept talking to me all day. Stopping next to me on the road, rolling down their window, complimenting me. Popping out from behind store aisles, saying "Good song, man!"
Rumors have it all the nurses were gathering aound the TV in the waiting room in the morning to see the square dancing performance (I suppose local TV was showing repeats of yesterday's show all day). My wife got paged to the front to join them.

Very interesting.

Annual Festival Continued

I'm back from singing and square dancing! I've witnessed the most interesting things: A guy with a long white beard got a prize for growing it, several woman were sporting awesome mullets, the kind that is nice and short and helmet-like on the front half of the skull, perhaps from the nose to the ear, and then the hair on the back falls down long and longer, all the way down to the belt.
I saw children beat themselves up with inflatable rubber hammers and more grown children trying to look gangster. And I listened to a lot of country songs!

And I sang one myself, have a look:

(Hair, verse 2 only)

If you would like to compare this to the original, there's a link to the video on the right.

After singing was finished (a lot of women before and a number of man after me) it seemed to take a long time until the next event, the square dancing, so we stepped out for a bit.
Back inside I found out in the meantime there had been some kind of award ceremony or something and apparently I won second place in the singing contest. I hadn't even realized it was a contest, but who cares, I won 200 bucks.
I should have known, every event in these festivities seems to be a contest and somehow about money. Longest jackfish: 10 grand. Second place singing: 200 bucks.

Here's my prize:

(my prize: two $100 bills inside)

Later on our 8-person square dancing team went on stage. Meanwhile a guy with a fiddle had joined the band, and he fiddled like the devil himself. Unfortunately (or luckily) I don't have a video of the dancing. (I might get my hands on one later though.)
It was kind of fun, jumping around in circles. A little exhausting, too. You never know if the band keeps playing until the dance routine is finished or if the group keeps dancing until the song is finished. Probably both.
However, that also was a contest. I went home shortly after the dancing, so I don't know, but perhaps our performance was impressive enough to win something! Then again: I don't think so.

But you never know.


In order to end this post on a positive note, here's the final chord of the live performance (it was filmed with a digital camera which had a certain minute limit to movie recording, therefore I ended up with several parts):


(Hair - final chord)

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Annual Festival

I have just been recruited into the supermarket's square dance team.

This week they have all kinds of events taking place (it's some kind of annual festival), and square dancing will be tonight. Apparently every company or similar in town has their own square dance team for oocasions like this.
We did a 20 minute practice session without music to guarantee maximum fun for tonight.

Also I half volunteered half was asked to sing a song tonight at the same venue. Apparently several people from here will be singing songs, too, accompanied by a band, and representing their workplace. So I am one of three (as of right now) singing for the supermarket.
I'm gonna sing the hair song, which I wrote myself. I've met the band yesterday, we played the song twice, and they kind of turned my slightly reggae-ish original into speed country.

I can't help myself but I'm looking forward to do this (not so much the square dancing, but the song).

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Country Music

There is good country music and there is bad country music. Good country music follows along the general toppics wife (or lover), truck, dog, and respectively the loss of wife, truck and dog.
I can listen to that kind of country.
It has certain almost honest feel about it.

Bad country follows the general theme of daddy loves his truck with his hand on his heart in front of the American flag while watching his daughter grow up too quickly. I think they actually refer to it as Nu-Country.

Why am I telling you this?
On monday at work somebody had turned on some kind of Nashville Country Station. They kept playing the same songs over and over and in between songs anncounced upcoming guest DJ's, actual country musicians, who would then play their 'favourite' tunes, but in the end kept playing the same shitty songs over and over.
Songs about lollypops stuck forgotten on the sofa. About nothing's sweeter then American honey. About if you're not down with his redneck crowd you can kiss his country ass.

Well, nu-country, you can suck my country cock.
Seriously, I almost got ear cancer from that shit.

Monday, March 1, 2010

This Post Is Dedicated To

the one and only

Sammy McLongson from the Hunting Rock'n'Tocks.


Way to go, Sammy!