The most exciting thing...

It's really exciting to skip lunch in favor of eating meatloaf sandwiches on the bus to Vilnius after work. I made enough for six hearty men, but just for two people, so I could use mad left overs to make these babies. It's gonna be a hungry wait, but the pay off is gonna be so worth it, I'm gonna be moaning in that bus, everybody's gonna hear me going "mmm...[chewing sounds]...mmm...oh baby...mmm..."

Then when I get to Vilnius it's Šašlikai Time, in honor of Lokys and Liepa's Citizenship Party. So today is a day of gluttony, but the rest of the weekend won't be, I don't think, cause it's Gedo Birthday, and we'll be on some kind of fantasy island plantation where we have to forage for food, or maybe they leave some hidden packages of food in hard to reach places or something, I don't know all the rules yet.

Confession: Pride

So I've been reading more of Mere Christianity, and I just read the chapter on Pride. Here's the gist of it: "Pleasure in being praised is not Pride...The trouble begins when you pass from thinking, 'I have pleased [someone]; all is well,' to thinking, 'What a fine person I must be to have done it.'" (C. S. Lewis 1952)

There's much more, if you disagree the quotation you should really read the whole chapter, it's as well written as the rest of the book (Liepa explained to me that link I gave two weeks ago ins't the whole book, incidentally). Anyway, I figured I'm probably GUILTY of this baby, BIG TIME, as you may have guesed from the title of this blog. So I figured I'd keep count. I estimated a count of 20 Pride sins per day, but it's 4:30, I've been up since 5:50 a.m., and it's only been 4:

1. an sms from my special lady about what a great dream she had about me made me think "what a fine person I must be for that to have happened!"
2. an email from a colleague made me think "what a fine person I must be for him to be so excited to have a meeting with me!"
3. my students told me a grammatical explaination I gave was the same as in text books, and I thought "what a brilliant professor I am to make up off the top of my head the same things experts come up with for books!"
4. and I'm not sure if this counts, but the repair guy called up to tell me my lap top was fixed, and I thought, "that's the most exciting thing that's ever happened to anybody, because my excitement matters more than anybody elses!"

So is that alot? I feel like that's not that much, at least it's less than I expected. And this experament comes at a funny moment, cause on Easter my special lady asked me at church if I was going to confession, and I told her I can't imagine what I'd say, besides regularly forgetting to go to church.

How can I hate coffee?

I had a cold two weeks ago, and when I have a cold I dislike certain flavors, e.g. coffee and beer. I know other people like that too. But I got better and I still can't drink coffee. Monday I thought my old coffee at home was stale. Tuesday I thought my old coffee at work was stale. But now I went to the cafeteria and bought a couple cups (Lithuanian size) to fill my normal sized mug, and I can't drink that either! WTF?! I'm very tired, I've been at work since seven this morning, and I still have some complicated documents to draft. I'm fucked unless I gulp down this coffee. And my life is going to taste disgusting if I don't get back to loving the taste of coffee, cause that's my main source of fuel.

Here's an interesting story from the Tete's blog

Trust and Wealth Management Marketing: If things are so bad, then why are they so good?

Lokio SMSes

Are you sure you tried to download them all? Cock Sucker!!! Also neither cock nor sucker are the first words to come up?!? Cock Sucker!!!!!

Also did you slip work for snoring or did you just poor at work?

[Leaving work early for a booty call]'s the way to be, or else take a long lunch and go for the nooner.

I remember the first time i heard about nooners, married with children. Same for you?
(The answer was yes of course)

A Quick Recap

Went to Vilnius Friday before Easter, still wan't feeling well so I stayed in to be ready to meat my special lady and try to find a ham with Lokys and deliver a package to somebody. Met them Saturday and went on the Ham-Hunt with Lokys. Problem was, neither of us ever baught a ham, and we didn't even know if it's supposed to be raw or cured or smoked. No Luck at the Turgus. So we head to Maxima, and they got nothin the size of a ham ever, but I'm like "Yo! I need a giant ham, dude!" ("Gal turite milžiniško kumpio? Su kaulu?") And she indicates a 1KG slab of ham, but I'm like no: GIANT like 10KG and she's like Oh My God No and I'm like Oh Yeah Baby, You Bet Your Pantaloons Yeah Habibi! And she goes in the back and raps with the butcher and he's like awe yeah kid, we got that shit! They wrap up an 8 KG hunk of meat so big the walls of the shopping basket are buldging out. Lokys was like I wonder what Liepa'll say and I said "she'll say 'Oh My God.'" That is what she said.

We made some margučiai, mine sucked though. I kept thinking I'll make a better one tomorrow, but then I decided to just make a better one next year.

So we decided to go to noon mass so we could party Saturday night, even though we wouldn't be able to eat until 2 after church. Lokys and I and my special lady went (incidentally she finally saw The Big Lebowski Saturday and learned the etymology) to church and it was pretty good, it reminded me from stuff from Mere Christianity, which I mentioned a post or two ago, so we had stuff to talk about on the way home. Then home, and the HAM wasn't ready till FIVE, but when we ate it it was the best thing ever! The fat was the first fat I've had in my life that I could just eat plain, is was scrumptious. I don't even remember what else we had, the HAM was so good!

After that I can tell you this: telecommuting is not as easy as everyone thinks. It's hard to explain things, cause you gotta do it by email or sms unless you're so lucky that everyone you work with has skype. One of my colleagues does, thank God, but she wasn't at her computer for most of the day, and I'm a big enough idiot to leave my phone's sound off so I find 8 missed calls from her so then I do have to call her. And also if you're like me your colleagues can't scan things and email them to you, they can only fax them, so you still have to get dressed to drive to a fax machine place, unless you're super lucky and have a beautiful friend who can receive it someplace for you and scan and email it to you, I got lucky there, thank God!

Good work accomplished for the college Friday, I'm going to Germany after Turkey now if May, Hooray! For Free!

Had an anniversary dinner Saturday with the special lady, which was a surprise to her. She thought we were picking up Gedas and Juste for a dinner at home, but in fact we dropped off the special baby and went to dinner just the two of us at the best place I know and a walk in the park after. Thanks Gedai ir Juste!

The ride back to KL was a breeze, slept the whole fuckin way yeah bitch, yeah!!!

A new member in my Favorite Authors Group

Once Peanut complained to me about reading that "no book could ever make you laugh out loud." This was probably seven or eight years ago, and ever since then I remember his staunch resolution whenever a book makes me laugh out loud. This happened several times last night while reading Book II of C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. This guy is one funny SOB. I can't give you any quotes, because it's always after a long set up in the context of the book.

I'm not wont to review a book I'm less than half way through, but yesterday was the worst day of my life until I picked it up, and then it turned into the best. Hugely uplifting. My mother is the best book recommender/lender ever, except for when my father is. The link in the first paragraph gives you the entire book, incidentally. It's not really stealing since Lewis's dead.

When did I become so unhealthy?

Last time I was feeling under the weather and drinking mad tea and vitamin C, one of my colleagues was like, "when are you not sick?!" Do I really get sick that often? I only remember once this year before today, during flu week, when everybody was sick. And this time it's because of a certain special baby coughing and sneezing and spitting (yeah, she spits) her baby cold germs everywhere. Christ, how bout covering your mouth once in a while? I though I would make it through the day showing students movies in English and testing their recollection, but, alas, I'm already making a mess spilling things and knocking things over...so it's home to make chicken soup.

Speaking of which, when are they gonna get some goddam campbell's fricken soup in this country? I'm so sick I have to go home from work, my colleagues are like "get outta here with that thing!" and I have to stop at market to buy a chicken back and carrots and shit and boil soup for a an hour or two before i start healthifying myself...

I'm so ronery, I am so ronery...

I gave away my laptop last night to be repaired. They're gonna call me today to either tell me to come get it or bring in the box for it to be shipped for repairs...luckily I'm sick so I just went to bed right away, cause if I had to sit around my room by myself without crappy backgammon, crappy hearts, and snood, I don't know how many times I'd kill myself.

Oh and I miss my special lady too ;)

UPDATE!
I got the call...I'm on my way to bring them the box...rooks rike I am so ronery for some serious time to come... :(

Advice

Here's some classic words of inexperience: "you really think we'll eat that much?" The correct answer is always an emphatic "YES!" I mistakenly answered last night "Fine, just get three chicken thighs then." Me so stupid. No catastophy, but the result was that instead of giant chicken sandwiches with mushrooms onions and green pepper for dinner, we ate giant mushroom-onion-green pepper sandwiches with a little chicken in there somewhere.

Das Comp

Hey anybody ever have this happen? My left laptop mouse button won't work, nor does it work to click on the touch pad. I can scroll on it, but not click. Right click works fine. I thought it must be a software, not a hardware problem since I can scroll but not click. However, when I attach a real mouse to the laptop, everything works fine, which makes me think it's a hardware problem after all.

If I give away the comp for repairs I may lose it for a long time, like even weeks. Any advice?

I can finally stay in Lithuania permanently!

The Tim Robbins Fan Club

Just in case he ever shows up to our meetings,
we have a special dressing room for him to get into his karate kimono
and spike up his hair and put his headband on...

i'm obsessed!

i'm krumas, fyi:

Krumas: if you do that, i could come back with you
liepag: i know
Krumas: if it's just the two of you in a car
liepag: if
Krumas: that would be the most amazing thing in the work
Krumas: work
Krumas: i mean, work
Krumas: fuck
Krumas: W O R L D
liepag: hahahah
liepag: world
liepag: yes

Spring is in the air! Ah, what a beautiful Lithuanian spring...

It may not be just how extremely goodlooking I am after all...

I cleared up the confusion yesterday when I asked a waitress why everybody thinks I'm foreign. She said "Windbreaker jacket on top of a suit." This makes sense because I just recently started wearing it, when my overcoat's arm tore off!

I guess it does look a little silly!

The cat's outta the bag!

I bumped into one of my favorite students yesterday, one of the ones I was really glad chose me as her course paper sponsor. Among other things, she mentioned "Suradau Tavo dienorasti :) "

"...ka...?"

"Nezinau ar taip vadinasi, bet ten kur rasai internete."

I assumed my students found this blog earlier, but this is the first time anyone's said anything to me. Ever since I got statcounter I see that there's about five to ten internet searches each week for my name just from Klaipeda. I only know of a couple people who are either enamored or enraged by me. I guess there's a whole slew of enamored ones though... ;) Who's left but my students? I guess maybe my professors, that'd be a little more embarassing. I don't know who the hell's looking for me in New Jersey.

She's a fourth year, almost out, and decidedly disenchanted by the college, with the exception of me and two other professors, so I hope she listened when I told her not to tell anybody! Davai, shhh :D

How come I never post jokes here? This one's ok.

A plane is on its way to Melbourne when a blonde in economy class gets up and moves to the First Class section and sits down. The flight attendant watches her do this and asks to see her ticket. She then tells the blonde passenger that she paid for 'Economy' and that she will have to go and sit in the back. The blonde replies, 'I'm blonde, I’m beautiful, I'm going to Melbourne and I'm staying right here!' The flight attendant goes into the cockpit and tells the pilot and co-pilot that there is some blonde bimbo sitting in First Class that belongs in Economy and won't move back to her seat.

The co-pilot goes back to the blonde and tries to explain that because she only paid for Economy she is only entitled to an economy place and she will have to leave and return to her original seat. The blonde replies, 'I'm blonde, I'm beautiful, I'm going to Melbourne and I'm staying right here!' Exasperated the co-pilot tells the pilot that it was no use and that he probably should have the police waiting when they land to arrest this blonde woman that won't listen to reason. The pilot says, 'You say she's blonde?' 'I'll handle this, I'm married to a blonde, and I speak blonde!' He goes back to the blonde, whispers in her ear, and she says, "Oh I'm sorry - I had no idea," gets up and moves back to her seat in the economy section. The flight attendant and co-pilot are amazed and asked him what he said to make her move without any fuss.

The pilot replied, "I told her First Class isn't going to Melbourne."

What's better for film making, beer or wine?

What a quandry. I imagine film making to go together with one of these things, I'm not sure why. Maybe cause it's like an art or something, and you know artists. A few weeks ago I tried a liittle wine before getting to know my film making software. That was just very frustrating. Lokys and I made a movie a few years ago on our father's Mac. Man, was that a breeze. You just hook up the camera and you're doing it, and in like an hour you've got something to be proud of. After an hour of doing this on Windows I had an empty bottle of wine and a grudge against Bill Gates. And I was hungry.

I got a new program on the advise of Darius, though, at least to edit my photos, which is very convenient. And I installed some dvd making software that has a movie maker with it. And I had a left over liter of beer from last night, so I decided that this is the time to shine. After breakfast today, I made my first movie, and drank a beer. Two beers. Four if you're French, those pussies. It's a 25 minute mix of home movies, short slide shows, clips of me preparing food, e.g. a giant meatball sandwich, and monologues directed towards the recipient of this April Fool's Day gift, my special lady.

So the answer is beer. Beer is a better catalyst for movie making. Unless the events of the day have just been a coincidence! That'd be a first. I've always wondered what a coincidence would be like...