well-dressed foolish ideas

Sleep is a bit evasive. But it wasn't earlier. But now it is. I should just turn off the laptop and lay in bed some more to see if I might possibly pass out again. Nah. Blog first, sleep later. I was considering taking some medicamation - the sleepy helping kind, but I have to be up and somewhat alert in the morning, so I'll postpone the drugs for later. Maybe they'll help me breathe properly again, too, as well as sleep. We shall see.

I'm a little on the fence here about whether or not I like visitors. On the one hand, they're nice to talk to and visit with. On the other hand, there's no such thing as a normal life or normal anything with visitors. You can't even wash your dishes the way you do when no one's visiting. I'm living in a place that I've been in for well over a year, but it feels like I've never even stayed here overnight. It's all foreign to me. Completely. I can't find a goddamn thing in my kitchen, I haven't the faintest clue what kind of food is stashed away in my cupboards and I really don't know what the hell is in the fridge. And somehow this only freaks me out every now and then. At least it's not a constant state of freaked out, but I miss my own place. And I'm annoyed that there's a broken glass on my counter. Why is it on the counter? There's a perfectly good garbage can nearby.

I miss sleep, too.

I don't want to go to a bunch of museums tomorrow. I don't think I'll be awake for most of the day anyways. Or at least at this rate I won't want to be awake for most of the day. I'm not really a good tourist in the city where I live anyways. Even if there's places to go to that I haven't seen yet. But I'm especially not excited about the idea of going to museums or art shows that I've already seen. More than once. And all of this is well and good, but the feeling bad for not wanting to go with the visitors isn't so hot. It's either go and be miserable or don't go and feel bad, but maybe get some sleep, and at least get some rest. So I'm not going to go along.
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I'm ill.

Somebody put me out of my misery! Please?
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How is it possible that my body knows when I'm already not supposed to be at work? And considering I don't really need an answer to that question, I'll try another one... Why when I have a prearranged day off (or week in this case) am I sick when it starts? Since Saturday night, I've slept about 32 hours. I'm currently cold. But not to worry, I'll be roasting hot in approximately 7.3 minutes.

Since all I've been doing lately is sleeping, I don't have much to write about. Thankfully, I can't really remember my dreams. I think it's time for another nap. Nighty night.
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Sitting around til about 3 in the afternoon for lack of any interesting things to go and do isn't that exciting on a bright sunny Saturday afternoon. Babysitting is still not exciting and not my thing. I'm still pretty bad at it. The trouble with weekends when you have no idea what to do is that you end up doing nothing.

So smoothies. I haven't reflected on them in a while. I haven't had one in a while either. But you know the worst part of it? I can make smoothies at my place. I can. I have the proper appliance now. Thanks, babe! But here's the absolute worst kicker. I don't have any fruit! Bad planning. Really. I'll fix that tomorrow. I have chocolate and soy milk and ice. That's so not enough for a fruit smoothie.

I'm supposed to go to the airport tomorrow and pick up another guest. I think I should have just sent everyone to a hotel. At least I wouldn't have to look after them or tell them to stop cleaning my fucking stovetop. I really wonder, does she think that I can't do any of this shit myself? Really? I mean, am I that irresponsible or unrefined or whatever? I mean, it might not be much, but in my 27 years I think I've learned how to clean a stovetop, or wash my own dishes properly.

And I have to repeat myself. Regularly.

I had a wretchedly frightening dream last night. I had a child. Well I didn't actually have it yet, it was still... yanno... not done. I don't know what that's supposed to mean in dream language. I'm not sure if I want to know. Really. I'm not good with kids, did I mention that already?

I've been watching a lot of the Euro Masters football tournament lately. I have to say that everyone that I wanted to make it to the semi finals did, except one team. But I am totally sick of hearing the theme song from Nelly Furtado by now. It's annoyingly bad. The Czech v. Denmark game just finished. And I liked it.

Oh I give up on trying to think of something interesting to say. Blah!
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Note to self: More than 4 hours of sleep is better than only 4 hours of sleep. The left pointer finger tingling came back this morning. But to a lesser degree. And I have a spot on the back of my hand. It hurts. And a bruise on my knee - but that was from a close encounter with a desk corner.

Late nights talking about things that are a little draining is not the best plan in the world. I'll keep that in mind for the rest of the weekend. I don't think I'll be pursuing anymore late night discussions again. I don't think I even pursued the one last night. It just happened. Not sure what to do this weekend. I am not good at playing tour guide and I don't feel like a tourist so I can't really get into the whole 'wander around the city and see cool stuff' thing. I don't think I want to gather a bunch of people together to hang out and do nothing exciting. If the weather clears up, maybe some napping in the sunshine at the park would be a good idea. If I could play frisbee, I would consider bringing my frisbee with, but I think that would be more dangerous for everyone else than fun for me. I feel like I have a child to look after. So I'm a bit uneasy. I'm not very good with kids.

I've only had two coffees since I got to work today, and I'm still falling asleep at pretty regular intervals.

Wow. Why is everything always my fault?
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So, there's discrimination, and then there's discrimination. Yeah, that happened yesterday.

Raise your hand for administering tests to people before they can legally be allowed to breed! As it stands, some really fucked up people are making the news for their parenting approaches.

Easy way to get people out of the US?

MSN 0: Google 1 Nice try guys.

I've been listening to the Pogues for the past couple of days while at work. I'm waiting for my order from amazon.co.uk - it's got two Pogues albums. So that just means I'll keep listening to them, I guess. I don't know why I keep ordering from amazon.co.uk. They take a bit longer than the duration of the ice age to ship my purchases. Yet I persist.

It was moving day at the office today. I'm probably pretty lucky in that what I was to do today was read research. So I didn't need my desk to be fully functional for the majority of the day. Drawbacks for moving - everyone seems to want to check out the new digs of everyone in the room. And then there's the habit of standing around in the middle of the room talking about who's moving where and when and what kind of table they'll have and if they'll get to coil their own cables... Very interesting stuff. And essentially, it kills productivity in a way that nothing else can really touch.

So I have my new camera. And my new mini. I haven't done anything with the ipod, yet. I charged it, but I didn't have the time or energy to install software. Tonight probably. But my camera is superduper cool! I like it. Yay!

Time to go snack on something for lack of anything interesting to say.
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Sleep and are aren't really getting along. For example, 7:41 seems to be a good time to wake up every morning. I don't know what else to do, so it seems like a normal time to chug a glass of water. What do I know, really. But it seems to work. Puts me right back to sleep. I hope I'm thirsty at 7:41 tomorrow. For the 5th or so day in a row. That would be great.
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There was a small plot of land across the street from grandma's. A small forest. It had a little stream trickling through it during the searing heat of the summer months when, inevitably, I would have the opportunity to wander around in solace. It was the only safe place for an 8 year old trying to avoid her overbearing and usually rambunctious brothers. Everywhere I looked, motes danced on streams of sunlight that weaved through the branches of the trees. Antlers hovered near thin tree trunks, swaying atop bucks heads in a rhythmic tempo. Big brown eyes glanced casually around the forest and dismissed any disturbance with a nose twitch. Finches chatted amongst themselves in the tree tops, their chirps echoing off the uneven bark of the saplings. A quiet symphony of trickling water clashed with rustling leaves and wind-disturbed branches.

"DINNER!" yelled from a mere 15 meters away, yet beyond any sight. The beginnings of the adventure of a little girl into a magical forest postponed until another day.
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So this morning, I woke up to something sounding like the titanic crashing into the building. Luckily I'm in a landlocked country and that just isn't at all possible. Apparently, construction workers like to bang on metal and throw large, heavy stones around here. This is good to know and something to keep in mind for the future.

I'm starving. And lazy. So not cooking. I might do that later, but the chances are getting slimmer and slimmer as the night wears on. I'm sitting on the couch listening to Norah Jones through one of my neighbor's stereos. Whoever they are, thanks, since it seems to be too much of a stretch for me to turn on my own stereo and put on an equally as depressing CD.

Ever feel like you just can't get anywhere? Nothing's happening...the wheels are spinning but they're just digging themselves deeper and deeper into the dirt road? You can put the pedal through the floor of the car, but that won't change the scenery? I put too much energy into things. And after a while, I start to realize that very little is changing or happening. There's less and less feedback. Less and less response. And it sucks. I can't even find a way to constructively change it. I can't do anything about it without ruining it all. How in the hell do I get into these situations? And how the fuck do I get out of them?
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So soccer isn't all that exciting to watch. In case you were wondering...

Soon I will have in my possession my new camera and most of the accessories I've purchased, my new mini iPod and all of the accessories I've purchased plus a whole bunch of candy that I don't need, in any way, but will enjoy nonetheless. And I might be able to get one or two of those boca burgers. Who's the lucky girl?

Yeah, that'd be me.

So, guilt trips and I aren't really on speaking terms at the moment. I'm totally not complaining. And I'm keen on keeping my kitchen organized the way I have already organized it. Don't worry, you weren't supposed to understand that or get any kind of reference in any way.

I would completely be more into putting up some kind of blog with some sort of substance if I wasn't already so ready to curl up in bed.
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I miss Twizzlers. And Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Don't get me started on Bites. I heart Bites. I thank my dad for that addiction. They were the licorice bits you could get at movie theaters. Both red and black in one bag. Yum.
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Apparently I should place an order for this book. So the near deaf can review it.

I'll get right on that.


So my weekend was to be filled with mass frenzy masked in preparation for my mother's arrival this week. However, I've not even begun the frenzy or the preparation. I don't even know what I have to do.

It rained - all day. I woke up a little broken. I think my neck and upper back were repeatedly whacked last night. Or I slept a little wonky. Who knows. My money's on the beating.

I had a strange dream last night. I bought 100 stamps. I assumed when you buy stamps in bulk from a machine where you need a card to get them (thanks to that small trip into the bank yesterday on the way to theater cafe for putting that idea in my head...) that the stamps will all look the same and have the same value. But they aren't. At least, not in my dreamworld. Strangely enough the value of the stamps ranged from 1 cent to 60 euros. And there were flowers on some, and jack-o-lanterns on others, and little stick people and simple houses like the ones I used to draw when I was little on others. Please don't ask. I cannot possible explain.

And don't ask me why, but I found the pictures here incredibly entertaining. The top 3 anyways.

It's too bad that this game got such horrible reviews. I was geeky enough to consider reading through the details. Yep, that's right.

Friday night was a good time. I didn't get to eat a falafel like I wanted, but I got to hang out with some people I don't see very often. And have some cider. The walk home was a little long. Especially at 3:30 in the morning or so. But the teriyaki vegetable stir fry that I whipped up when I got home was fab.

I was nearly convinced Friday night to invite folks to my place for a dinner thing, what with the new kitchen and all, but I mostly resisted. It might happen. But the menu for the evening wouldn't be 4 pages long. Much to the dismay, I'm sure, of some future possible guests.

Not much else to report about the weekend, not much excitement lately. Just a little torment and torture about smoothies. I'll get over it. Someday. I hope.

Every summer, we took road trips. The whole family would pile into either the station wagon, of the pretty pale blue variety, or the RV (I have no idea what color it was. But the fabric by the table was sticky all the time.). And then we would spend about one grueling and torturous week in this close, confined space while traveling at a not very quick speed across the country. Every other year or so, we stopped in Minnesota. And every alternate year, we'd go all the way to New Jersey. My mom's parents lived in St Paul. One year, probably somewhere around the time when I was just hitting double digits in age, we went to St Paul and before we got to grandma's house, my mom stopped to call home to let them know we'd be there in approximately some amount of time. We stopped right around the corner from the house, and she told them some slightly exaggerated time. So when we turned right off of McCarrons Blvd. and towards the driveway to my grandparents' house, I spotted grandpa on the lawn right next to the driveway leaning over and pounding on a little white cross with a rubber mallet.

We had a white poodle (Three, to be honest, but the oldest two were well on their way off the planet by the time I was born so I don't really recognize that we had them.) named Harold. "Harold the blue toothed king" to be precise. My mom named him. He was the runt of the litter of the other two white poodles we had. They were namedLily and Soc or....Luscious Lillian and Socrates the Great. My mom named all of them. She had a penchant for being verbose when naming her pets.

Harold got run over by a car one summer while we were in St Paul, about two or so summers before this incident. We buried him right next to my grandparents' driveway. And we put a white cross marking the spot where we buried him.

My grandpa gave me 25 cents to not tell my mom that he took the cross down as soon as we left two years before. What a generous bribe. I bought a Skor bar with that 25 cents. Thanks, grandpa. But I told her anyways.


Smoothies with chocolate are awesome. And required. Right now.
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Instead of taking medicamation for the neverending headache, I've gone with another approach. One Make that Two Smoothies, made by yours truly, with the following ingredients:

• Fresh Strawberries
  
• Fresh Raspberries (my favorite)
  
• Bananas
  
• Soy Milk
  
• 5 Pieces of Super-Duper-Fantastically-Spectacular Chocolate!

So good I can't even begin to explain it. Really.

And then I didn't eat dinner. That's right, who needs nourishment? Not me, silly fool! No, no! But I did crack open a bottle of red wine and have had almost two glasses already. I think if I don't stop soon I'll have one of those "I drank red wine last night" headaches tomorrow to sit right on top of the ever-present headache that will-never-go-away-no-matter-what-I-do.

In case you were wondering, Ninja Gaiden takes about fifteen days to load Chapter 1.

And once it's done loading he moves like he's on speed. VERY different to Thief: Deadly Shadows, which I was playing not more than 15 minutes ago. I'm a little slow right now...and this ninja is confusing me. So I think it's about time to get back to my homebrew medicine.
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So instead of just having Martha moments today, (Yes there was one, but I don't want to talk about it. I'm scarred for life.) I dreamed of having Bob Vila moments. Yeah the Bob Vila that does all of the Do-It-Yourself stuff around his house. He even has a TV show. I figure if I work it right, I could have one too, but I wouldn't call it the Bob Vila show.

Monster headache has prevented me from doing major house repairs. Well the headache and the fact that there's not really any major house repairs to do. And then there's the part where I couldn't be vertical for more than half the day because it hurt the noggin too much. So I guess drilling or hammering was totally out of the question for a number of good reasons. None of which included me being not "Bob Villa-ish" enough. Cuz I can do that. I dig power tools.

I guess I should give in and take some sort of medicamation for this massive achiness I have here. But I'm being stubborn. I'm starting to think that being stubborn isn't helping. But why help yourself?

Right? Right.
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I will soon be the proud owner of a brand-spanking-new Canon PowerShot S410.

I can't wait for visitors from the States to bring me all my goodies. Camera. Mini iPod. Accessories. Yay!

Hurry up and fly over here already!
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Update: Left index finger - no tingling when I woke up. Tingled once or twice today, but it's back to normal. I think this erratic behavior might have something to do with Martha invading my brain.


So what kind of answer would you come up with to this riddle?

Given a rectangular (cuboidal for the puritans) cake with a rectangular piece removed (any size or orientation), how would you cut the remainder of the cake into two equal halves with one straight cut of a knife ?

Thanks babe. Okay. So you can see that it's one of those logic questions. And there's one simple answer. Of course. But the right answer isn't really what I wanna look at here. Do you know what I thought immediately for one scenario? I imagine that the cut out piece was in the middle of the cake, the exact middle, and that the way I would want to cut the cake (umm if the long side of the cake and the missing piece is left to right....) would be perpendicular to the length side, so basically the left side would look like a blocky C and the right side would look like a blocky backwards C. Wanna know why?

It would look nicer than any other cut.

Hello? Does anybody else see a problem with this? I know I mentioned the Martha Stewart thing yesterday and all, but I think this is becoming a rather difficult problem to deal with.

And now I want cake. Even if there's a mysterious rectangular piece missing from anywhere in the cake. It wouldn't bother me at all. Unless of course it didn't look pretty.

Ugh!

Next thing I know, I'll be crocheting and knitting and then making fantastically colored pot holders. (I'm so glad I struggled to think of the last word of that sentence.) I even thought of making a collage today. Yeah, that's right. Collecting bits of paper and applying them to some surface with a glue stick (that I already (!) have) that can then be put into a picture frame.

I think while I was sleeping Martha invaded my brain. And left traces of ickyness behind. The icky girly behavior. GROSS! Oh dear god, I just realized I was even wearing a skirt recently. And Martha's site is in my browser history - but I can explain that! I can! I had to google it earlier to send the link to someone.

That sounds like such a copout.
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So I made this fantastically sumptuos dinner for myself. It was d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s! And before I ate it, I actually arranged it on the plate so it even looked yummy. To make matters about fifty times worse, I took a picture with my laptop camera and sent it to a friend to display my fantastic artistic skills with food. Is this a sign that I'm becoming Martha Stewart without all the fraudulent financial behavior? I can make Dutch Apple Pie from scratch. That so doesn't help, does it?


Sorry little buddy. I can make it again!
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Really, who couldn't possibly need one of these suckers?
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What in damnation is wrong with my left index finger?

It's tingling again.

Alert the presses. Someone.

On a completely related note, I read about Otto and Karl today. You should, too. I also slept for about 3 minutes last night. It was a solid plan, well executed, and has left me miserably useless. Someone has a serious case of the Mondays! And it's me. Coffee hasn't even worked. At least my eyes aren't taking a vacation when I'm trying to focus on my screen. I shouldn't say write things like that when I know very well that they might just go bonkers on me at any second here. Wait, there they g...oh they're back. Okay.

The sun is out, it's a beautiful day. What I wouldn't give to be laying around in the park and sleeping. Or sleeping in a bed. Or sleeping on the floor. My chair isn't that uncomfortable, I might just take a nap right here. Someone will wake me if I start snoring, I'm sure. And if not, well, that'd be too bad.

The only thing that's keeping me awake is the seriously focused energy that I've rounded up from somewhere to keep reminding myself that I can go home and sleep sooooooon. But not soon enough. And the reminder hits every minute or so. Otherwise I'd be nodding off much more often.

I think I ate something bad for lunch. In case you were wondering.
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So, if it's not one massive shopping spree at one store, it's at another. The Body Shop, as I already mentioned, is dangerous. However, a magazine shop is at least just as dangerous. Especially when I haven't read a magazine in a long time. And there's copies of Time, Newsweek, Scientific American, National Geographic and a really cool new pick, B&W. I even picked up BH&G, but that's mainly because I'm a big geek.

The eyesight is back to perfect. Which seems like it should maybe be a small cause for concern. Either I shouldn't read so damn much on my laptop screen for an extended period of time, or I've got super healing powers that have only just come to light. I'm betting on the latter. To further back up my new theory, the index finger has been perfectly fine all day. I'm really thinking the super powers are responsible.

I think I went crazy buying magazines today because I was really freaked out about the eyesight thing last night. (Although this sounds perfectly plausible, it's a very solid excuse.) Getting my eyes to focus on magazines and reading those for hours at a time might produce the same results as reading from the laptop. And if that happens, then the freakout will come back in full effect and I'll have to resign myself to the fact that I won't have perfect vision my whole life. Boohoo!

I could have, of course, just finished all of the 7 books that I'm in the middle of reading, but those are old already, and buying new stuff is so much fun! So I did that instead. I'll finish those books. Sometime.

There's a really fucking scary teeth whitening commercial on TV right now. I'm so incredibly scared I can't begin to describe it. And now I will stop writing and hide in a corner to make the teeth whitening nightmares less of a possibility.
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I think I should stop reading any significant amount of literature on a laptop screen. Especially one that is as small as my laptop's screen. I started to notice last night when I was doing just that, that if I didn't keep my eyelids at a certain level while reading, the text went fuzzy. It's happening again tonight. Am I losing my perfect vision? Hopefully it will be a temporary thing. I hope I won't have to say something like "well my hindsight is 20/20 but I can't see jack shit anymore!" Okay the fuzziness hasn't gone away yet. Maybe I should up the resolution for a couple of days to see if that helps. Eh. Maybe tomorrow if this fuzziness comes back.

Along the same lines of random weird shit happening to me, I woke up two days ago with ... well this'll be fun to explain. So, you know if you have something akin to frostbite, or nearly frostbite, or well... really cold hands? Yeah well, when that happens to me, my fingers go white. That's right. No blood. White. Creepy Casper the Ghost white. Which by the way is an entirely different shade than my normal, everyday transparent, Irish white skin tone. That's perfectly normal and okay. The white fingertips from the cold... that's not okay. And it's usually accompanied by a loss of tactile sensation, but that's not entirely true in that the fingertips kinda feel a little tingly when you touch them. Yeah. Pins and needles. And it's usually just the fingertip - up to the first knuckle. So anyways...

I woke up two days ago with this weird cold fingertip sensation in my left index finger that covered about half the size of my fingernail, but it wasn't cold. And it wasn't asleep. And the creepy bit is that the sensation stayed. All day. And I woke up yesterday with the same thing. What's that all about? This morning it seemed to have vanished. Amazingly. But this afternoon, weirdly enough, it came back, but only on a very small area. And typing with this non-sensation is odd. But, typing with this odd sensation AND having fuzzy vision is freaking me out!!

Yeah that's right. TWO exclamation marks. That's thanks to the level of freakiness.

And it was to make a point. But nevermind.

Oh and today, yeah... I was let loose in The Body Shop. Bad idea. Really bad idea. I wanted to buy cuticle cream. Hello? Yeah. What in the hell do I need that for? My cuticles don't need to be moisturized with a special solvent from a cute little container from that damn store. Really! Thankfully, I was lassoed and put into my corral with only half of the value of products as the last nightmare (read as "solo trip") there.

Believe it or not, the eyesight is de-fuzzing. I may not have to make a doctor's appointment afterall. Hooray for - umm whatever is making my vision correct itself!

And now, before my back wigs out (I can feel it coming!), I'm going to shut off my laptop and try to fall asleep to the soothing sounds of semi snoring.
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Today was another one of those "don't do a damn thing" days. I, again, had success. I watched some Alias episodes from the second season, which of course, I've already watched, but I didn't really remember them so it was pretty relaxing and entertaining. I can't wait for the third season to come out on dvd.... September is just around the corner. Really. I considered putting up some shelves today, but passed on that idea since I don't actually own a drill and I would have to likely beg someone to borrow one. I also couldn't really be bothered to leave my flat today, except at about 17.00h for some food. I thought it might be a good idea to buy some stuff to stash in my cupboards. (I'm still not over the fact that I have a real kitchen now!)

Made myself some dinner and I must say... damn it was good. Nothing fancy or exotic, really, just some zucchini, mushrooms and seitan steak. A kind of large splash of soy sauce and teriyaki sauce and some herbs. Yum! And a little tomato, without the rest of the salad because when I was at the store I forgot about the rest of the salad. Ooops! That was my thrilling excitement today.

Sad.

But tonight I had more excitement than during the day. So tonight was celebrating a friend's 30th birthday at her place with a pretty large handful of other people. It was pretty cool. There were some people that I hadn't seen in about a year and a half and it was really fun to talk with them again. And I got to enjoy the balcony for some time before the neighbor asked us to keep it down. It made me really long for a balcony. But instead I have a kindergarten. Oh the joy.

I checked out the trailer for Fahrenheit 9/11 today. I think it looks pretty good. I'll have to go check it out when it hits movie theaters here. Except I don't know when or even if that will happen. I'm expecting it to show here, but you never know.

So I was asked tonight if I ever ask questions of other people that I wouldn't want to answer myself, but know what my answer would be. And of course I said yes. But now I'm wondering what my motivation for that would be. When asked why I would do that, I think I said something similar to 'to compare' or something like that. I don't really remember, but if I was hard pressed right about now, I don't think I could really explain that answer now. I'm probably even less likely right now to have some kind of answer that makes any further sense.

As much as I'd like to postulate about this whole concept at the moment, I don't think it would do any good considering I'll likely be trying to differentiate between waking and sleeping thoughts or ideas very soon.
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So, I had this plan today to sit around and relax and not do anything stressful or exciting.

Success.

However...

I had made up my mind to not go out tonight. Then I talked to a friend who wanted to go and have beer. I was pretty staunch about my staying home, but he wasn't very influential and didn't really try to change my mind. Then, well then, there was another persuasion attempt, and lo and behold that one worked. So I went to Alcazar for a cocktail. Just one. At 10 pm. And I promised myself I would come home before the last underground so I wouldn't feel like taking a taxi and spending useless money. Amazingly, I got home on the last tram. Well done me. But the reason to come home at a decent hour was to get some sleep, at the normal (or when the rest of the world considers normal) time. And now it's nearly 3 goddamn 30 in the morning.

I hate the internet. I didn't need to read a bunch of news articles or check out the latest gaming news on a bunch of different sites. I didn't need to sit and ponder just who to send GMail invitations to. I didn't need to have any cake, either. But I did all of that! Why? Well because the extent of my strong willed behavior had been used up for the day. There's a quota, you see. I can only be strong willed to a certain degree everyday. If I use all of it up at once, well, I'm screwed for the rest of the day! The worst bit, really, is that I thought to myself when I got home that it would be about time to blog something. And that's the reason I opened my laptop. Well not the only reason. I was wondering if I might see my brother or someone else online. Ya never know. It could've happened. So I guess all the surfing was wasting time to see if someone I wanted to talk to would show up in my contact list before I got too sleepy. And all the while I was promising myself to start a blog so that I wouldn't be uselessly tired.

Failure.

I'm exhausted. But why? I didn't really do well... anything today.

To move on to something of less babbling quality... I had another talk with another friend last night about a problem. But it was less of a psychology lesson, thankfully. Although I seem to have gotten pretty good at the whole psychology lesson giving talks lately. There hasn't been much neurology talk lately. But I did slip in a story about John Watson and Little Albert a couple of nights ago. I forgot Rosalie's name during the storytelling, but I'm sure the point was still made even without her name being included. Because the wiki page makes Watson and Rayner out to be vicious, here's the article in their own words. And here's the behaviorism theory from the beginning.

Would it please, for fuck's sake, stop raining? PLEASE! It's mid June. This is now completely out of hand. I wouldn't say that unless it was really true. Really. Rain in the Summer in Vienna isn't shocking. It's not out of place. But it was probably something like 15 degrees outside today. And not sunny. It's summer. That's not summer temperatures! It wasn't even partly cloudy today. It was just cloudy. (Well, that's what it looked like from inside my flat, anyways.)

So when I went for my one drink tonight, we had a quick conversation about family reunions. I haven't been to one of those in ages. I think I was about 14 or so when I went to the last one. Maybe even 10 or 12. I just remember getting lost on the way there. I was with my two cousins and my cousin's wife. We stopped to get chips. I got a bag of pretzels. And we were in my cousin's IROC Z. I remember something to do with a not living animal on the road. But I can't remember exactly if my cousin killed something or if it was already injured. And then I remember stopping at a really interesting small general store on the side of some random two lane road and using the pay phone to call ... someone ... for directions. The directions didn't help. And we were in Minnesota. And everyone in the car lived in either California or Oklahoma, so we were mostly out of luck until we stopped at a gas station and got some much better directions for the station attendant.

The reunion was at someone's farm. Apparently, I am somehow related to the owner of that house and farm, but dammed if I can remember anyone who was there besides my cousins, my two brothers, my uncles and one of my mom's aunts - Bertha, if you must know. Yes, I have a great aunt named Bertha. Yes, her siblings called her Bird Shit when she was little. All of my relatives on my mom's side of the family have nicknames. I didn't know my grandma's name wasn't Honey until I was about 10. And now I can't remember my mom's nickname (well the one that her family called her anyways... her school friends called her Soggy.). I'll have to ask her when she gets into town. I can't remember if my great uncle Curly actually ever had curly hair. I'd suspect so. I imagine that my Uncle Zeke (not his real name, but the only name I've ever called him...) was happier when the entire family started calling him Zeke instead of Snookie when he was 16. About 15 years ago, Bertha was still calling her nephew Snookie though. Poor chap.

Enough rambling. It's sleeping time.
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So I can invite 3 people to create a gmail account and I don't know who to invite. They will likely let me invite more people later, but it's hard to choose people.

I really would write a lot more about my last conversation but I'm so tired that I'm typing this excuse for a blog entry with my eyes closed. Sleep first for me, write later...
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I've been quite the psychologist for the past three days. I didn't expect from myself that I would be able to explain the concept behind neurotranmission, neurotransmitter reuptake and catecholamine hormones and neurotransmitters. Not only those fascinating topics, but also the concept of chemical imbalance and the effects of chemicals on the brain, and then there's the homeostasis tendencies of the brain and body.... Wow. That degree was pretty well retained. Or at least the information was. I've impressed myself.

So I know most of the inner workings of wellbutrin XL - antidepressant, which is a dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor - and have explained the concept of "the brain is ever changing in its own structure" and that this is its tendency, or rather its job. And all explanations without a whole lot of negative connotations to words just to keep from making something sound bad, or scary, or unhealthy. Stupidly, I sent a link to explain a neurotransmitter and failed to catch this sentence

Although it functions normally to reward vital activities such as eating and sex, this same mechanism is also responsible for the craving connected with addiction to drugs, cocaine for example.

in time. So I had to back pedal a little bit. But it was salvageable.

I'm someone's champion. Sometimes. And I don't need to be. You know how you can talk to a friend for a while about something and they aren't happy with another friend... you may find yourself sticking up for the one you're talking about... Yeah, I did that last night.

Just the other day I was talking with someone about relationships. What's essential in a relationship, and what elements are tied together? Took us a while to get to the point of it. And it took us a while to come to our own contented peace with the discussion, but it happened.

Somewhat related, levels of intellectuality. (If that's not a word yet, I just made it one for my own ease of reference.) Can you have a conversation with someone who is on a different level, intellectually, than you? I contend, and did during the discussion, that not only is this possible, it's practically required. The basis for the near requirement is that it's very difficult to find someone who is on the same or even near the same level as yourself intellectually. A lot of elements influence your intellectual being, a lot of elements influence you as a human being, and since no one shares their experiences the exact way they experienced them, it's difficult to imagine that anyone can ever really be equal with levels of ... I'm not explaining this right.

Basically, there's no one that is anyone's exact equal on any level. But people still find a way to communicate on those uneven levels. Yeah.

I can't be philosophical anymore. Or psychological, or whatever. It's fucking boiling in this room and it's cooler outside, so I'm going to go get a beer and have a chat. And then get some sleep.

I'll take offers if anyone's interested in purchasing some time from a non-practicing psychologist.
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So I took a break from playing that horribly addictive blocks game with a friend to see The Day After Tomorrow. How super cheesy, Hollywood can one film get? It just reminded me a lot of that 'era' where all the super cheesy type of films came out nearly all at once. Or they came out all around the same time in my memory - which is good enough for me. But I mean those ones like Independence Day, and that other horrible film that I can't remember right now, and that other one.... But the point is that they all had the same plot. At least The Day After Tomorrow isn't one of those "the aliens are coming to get us!" or "Oh look at the huge meteor headed our way!" but one of those plots where it's a 'stop burning fossil fuels' kind of stories.

Meh. It was okay. I mean not spectacular, but not horrible.

So after going for bagels and not getting one this morning (really it was already afternoon, but my morning) I went and sat in the sunshine, even though the weather forecast predicted partly cloudy for today. And the good news (somehow) is that I heard it was supposed to be something like 30 by Wednesday. Umm, ok. It was about 10 yesterday. Must be global warming. Anyways, back to the topic at hand. I went for a drink at the old AKH to bitch. That's right. And bitch I did. But thankfully, it wasn't only me. (Which made the commiserating that much better, really.)

So after the bitching stopped, (There really is a point where you just feel like enough has been bitched about.. I swear.) there was a visitor for a little bit who, upon leaving, made my companion rather ticked. This lead to the quick evacuation of the sunshine, which was a good plan since it started pouring down rain when we got inside, and a few hours of the addictive block game. (I should find out the name of that stupid game so I can link to it sometime, but that's not the point at the moment.)

What troubled me today during the bitching and the commiserating, was that sometimes you just can't help but feel totally helpless. Even being sympathetic doesn't feel like it's of any use. I ran into that brick wall today. I wanted to be able to do something to help, which I know just wasn't possible. And once that realization hit, I wanted to be able to say something to make it better, or at least not so... unhappy. But there's just some times where there's nothing to be done, and nothing that can be said. How bothersome is that? Hm. Well I guess just being there could make it slightly better, but it doesn't feel like it does much.

I should do some research and find a hotel for the wedding at the beginning of July, and reserve a car and blah blah. Maybe tomorrow or Tuesday.

Okay I just got a snack, time to eat...

After rereading this entry, I've noticed that I'm really fond of parentheticals.
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So while I'm waiting for bread to toast, I thought I'd do a quick blog entry because I didn't do one when I was awake yesterday. So it'll probable be short...

I'm curious. After the kitchen was installed, and then after I installed the sink myself, everyone who asked about my kitchen for the rest of the day asked only about 2 questions. The first was always, how's the kitchen? And the second had something to do with making them dinner. Soon. Why is this? I didn't make an extravagant dinner last night. If anything, I made more of an extravagant dinner tonight, albeit not in my new kitchen. But that's beside the point.

Hold please, must check toast.

Okay it's not done toasting yet. I'm not sure why this toasting device hates me, but it seems to take 10 minutes to toast bread for me. And for others, merely minutes. But this is okay, as it gives the amaretto sour I put in the freezer to chill more time to...well, chill. It's not a weak one either.

I've consumed more food and beverages in the past 4 hours than in the past 24 hours. Scary.

Anyways, I was thinking about going out tonight but have since been sidetracked by games. First Zelda and now Disgaea. I'd link but I don't think I have enough time before the bread is toasted to get a proper link. Disgaea is highly amusing. The weapon descriptors, in fact, the item descriptors are hilarious. So far haven't seen much of the game besides the tutorial, but I find it amusing and just off the basis of the item descriptors and the campy dialog, would say it would be worth buying. If only I had a PS2 of my very own. But we all know that won't happen, since I have proclaimed to pretty much everyone I know that it's a wretched console. (I think I've already mentioned that I'm an MS fan slave.)

Hold please, toast check.

Okay since it's still not done, I turned up the heat. Let's see how long it'll take to go from not-yet-toasted to burnt. Probably a matter of seconds.

Smoothies still have a handle on me. Thankfully I have no blender at home. Or it might get ugly. (Right, get ugly. Because right now it is just on the border of being ugly...)

Okay I give up on this whole waiting for the toaster. It's time to spread some butter.

Blah.

Hoot for you!
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Geezus Christ, 8.30h is early.

:(
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Take 2. (Yes, I started this blog entry already. Must learn to not accidentally press mouse buttons on laptop while trying to type lying in bed.)

After a long and serious discussion with a friend tonight, I needed a lighthearted evening with useless banter or non-thinking moments. So my plan to go see the new Harry Potter film with a few co-workers was not in vain and served me quite well. Not a bad film. It's a shame that they glossed over some of the finer parts of the book, though.

I had a small stopover at my flat between leaving the office and going to the movie. It was not nearly long enough, but I still enjoyed it. I played a little Puyopop, but after a few minutes I realized it wasn't going well for me tonight, so I put in P.N. 03 instead and played that for a while. I seem to remember having saved with a lot more progress the last time I played, but those saves must be on my brother's memory card. I hope he enjoys those. I don't think P.N. 03 is quite as bad as gamespot's review would lead one to believe. But what would I know anyways. The animations look good at least.

The kitchen is going to be set up tomorrow. I'm not sure if I'll want to leave after it's all put in, but I suppose I might go to the office if it doesn't take all day for the nice installation people to do their job. I have this feeling I'll probably want to cook at home tomorrow. Odd.

So at the end of the month I'll have two guests from the states here. I don't know what to think of this yet, since I was really only prepared for one, and I still don't know what to do with three people sleeping in my flat when there's really barely enough sleeping surfaces for two. I'll deal with that later, I suppose. At least there'll be a kitchen! They will both be happy about that.

I feel like being obtuse.

I have this thing that's kind of bothering me. Let's use a hypothetical situation to explain it, maybe draw some analogies out since I like those so much. Say I have this membership at a fitness center (no, I don't - not yet...). And I go to the fitness center and do what people do at those places, but when I go, no one else is there and I don't really know how to, let's say, use a particular weight machine. So I kind of just start using it, but in my very own way. After a few visits, I'm pretty sure that, while it's doing 'something' for me, I'm just not using the machine properly. And by properly I mean - like everyone else. Other people get something else out of this machine than I do. Which is perfectly fine and good, but I can't really help but wonder how I should go about changing my own approach. Or if I should change my approach. To compound the issue, I still don't know how other people use it, exactly. I mean, do I just guess at another approach and try that for a while? Should I ask the other fitness club members, or maybe one of the trainers (or whatever those people that work at those places are officially called...)? Perhaps I could carry on in the same fashion I've been doing and get different results than everyone else. Maybe even results that I would be better off getting from another machine...I think I'd likely end up asking one of those people that works there. I'll get around to that after some sleep.

Hoot!
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So I was super tired last night -- too tired to post anything. And I had to get up early today. So sleep took precedence over posting. Didn't have much anyways.

Who allowed this shipping date to slip? I was looking forward to my copy arriving next week. Not that it would make a huge difference because I haven't gotten the xbox modded yet, but still. It would have been nice.

So I'm being a bit antagonistic today. I know precisely why, but I can't quite figure out how to not be antagonistic at the moment. Perhaps a little time out and some thinking will help, but it won't change the attitude that greatly until I come to at least a pseudo-conclusion.

It's not possible to sit in this room at work and be able to actually concentrate on anything without being interrupted by people talking to me or near me. The only time I've managed this is when most of the room goes for lunch. And it's a shame that only lasts about an hour.

I figured out last night that I will have to continue to take german classes for at least one more year - to the tune of an additional 2000 euros on top of what I've spent already for them - before I can take the special exam that would allow me into a university class. Which isn't the entire point of the german classes, but an added side effect/bonus piece. On a side note, apparently the company is arranging a german teacher to come into the office to teach some german to the co-workers here that speak english as a first language. But we've been hearing that since last October, so I'm not all that convinced that there will be someone teaching a class before the end of the summer. Color me pessimistic... Of course, it could actually happen, and then I would be wrong - not the first time in my life, and certainly not the last I'm sure - and I would be happy about being wrong. I'm kind of curious how they'll set up classes, what with the levels of german comprehension so varied amongst all of the people that would be taking the class.

I have to wonder if summer is ever going to hit Vienna this year. I think we skipped it and went straight from a week or so of spring and we're straight back at fall, where it rains all the time and looks grey and gloomy and depressing. It makes me want to bake pumpkin pie and sit in front of a fireplace. Oh and eat the pie while sitting there. Or maybe cheesecake. Oooh, cheesecake. I miss cheesecake. Of course I probably wouldn't eat much of it if I could get a decent slice in Vienna, but since that's not even possible, I guess I'll have to suffer with an ice cream cup that tastes mostly like cheesecake. Except I mentioned that it's fall-type weather, so the ice cream is kind of hard to convince myself of. Maybe if it ever stops raining...ice cream.

Must pay attention to a friend. Will come back here later if I have time.
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I'm ignoring the fact that I'm frustrated with work.

Juhu!

Debates are apparently ongoing about whether or not the president of the good ole U.S. of A. is a twit or not. I thought this matter was already solved?

Moving on...So how bout that tornado? Surely doesn't look all that fun. I was in a tornado once. The house I was in didn't get blown away though, so my story pales in comparison to most of the people that live in the midwest these days. But I did hear the tornado sirens in Minnesota. For a few hours. From the basement of my mom's college friend's house. I was about 9, so it scared the begeesus outta me. We passed the time by shooting pool and playing pinball. Houses in the midwest are so much cooler than the ones in CA. There's basements in the midwest, usually filled with games and entertainment devices, like pool tables or pinball machines or the like. At my childhood home we only had a pool table...in the garage. It seems so uncool, really.

Both my grandparents' houses had basements. I used to spend practically my entire vacations in those places. For some reason both of my grandmothers thought they should save every glass jar they ever owned and store them all in the basement. I made a lot of glass pyramids with those and only broke a few. My grandma Soggy - mom's mom - had small pie tins. Where in the world the woman found these or got these from, I have no idea. But she had a million or so. And I think that's a pretty conservative estimate. They weren't really fun to play with. But at least they didn't break easily and small pieces of tin aren't nearly as painful when lodged into the bottom of one's foot as say...glass. Yeah. That was fun.

My mom apparently tried to make an ice skating rink in her basement when she was little. At least that's what my grandma told me once. She and her two brothers cleared out the basement of every piece of furniture, lined the floor with plastic (hello!?), took a hose from the garden and turned the sucker on. They flooded the place with a couple cm's of water before my grandpa came down into the basement and put a stop to their fun. Oh, did I mention it was during a december storm that they decided to do this?

As it stands, I have no cool basement stories from my childhood. And all because I was cursed to grow up in Sunny California. BORING!

We did have the fun of a halfpipe in the backyard though. My dad was nice enough to build a halfpipe for my brothers since both of them skated far too much for their own good. It's kind of like a basement. In a way.

Right?

Right.
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Okay I went an entire three day weekend without that wretched game. And now when I close my eyes I see little colored squares. And if it wasn't for my headphones stuck on my ears right now, I would even hear the music from that awful game. And by awful I mean addictive. It's too bad I have one of those addictive personalities.

I'm having one of those frustrated, "No one is giving me information yet I'm somehow supposed to magically know what the hell is going on" moments. Something I'll have to learn to deal with, I know. But I'm frustrated as shit and just want to go home.

I also have the fantastic joy of 3 fucking people that are acting like my boss and all of them saying something entirely different than the others. So I have triple the work and no fucking clue which one to do first, so fuck it. I'll do what I was going to do in the first place and sod em. Really.

And then there's the let's all have a meeting and ask for things to talk about a week before, which is cool, except when the meeting is held, any points that I brought up via email prior to the meeting have become someone else's fantastic ideas. So stupid that this bothers me. Really.

I really don't like being here.

Grr.
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