Usually, no, whatever, I was gonna write about what I had for dinner, but then I realized all I do anymore ir write about food, so forget it.

Instead I'll write about drink. In Lithuania, we drink kefir, or kefyras. I'll tell you why that's funny after you read this Onion article.

Read it? Well, I'll explain what kefir is now then. It's chunky sour milk. It's milk, it's sour, and it's the consistency of drinkable yoghurt, with big old chunks! Is it good? Yeah, it's ok from time to time, especially with Cepelinai. Why do I drink it every day? It's wicked healthy: if you drink five liters of it daily, you can eat all the red meat you want and it won't raise your cholosterol or blood pressure.

Cepelinas Recipe for Cepelinai

Cause you never eat just one, right? Especially if you're pregnant. Not that I'm pregnant, or anybody else I know, that's just something I heard, once. Well, one of my former students is, but let's stay on target. Stay on target!

Here's my not-a-complete-success recipe for Cepelinai:

1. 5 pounds potatos for two people (that's enough if you don't want left overs...which we did): 2/3 grated, the rest boiled and mashed (the proper part to grate is more like 4/5 or greater)
2. no salt (you should add plenty of salt)
3. forget the egg (don't forget the egg)
4. 1 g. crushed vitamin C (try five grams: with only one the Cepelinai turned very dark; you can also add a bit of milk to the mashed potatos to combat this)
5. skip the added potato starch (don't skip the added potato starch; rolling the Cepelinai in it will make them look much more proper, i hear, and less like gypsies rolled into the trailer park for the holidays)
6. use a normal amount of flour in the mushroom sauce (go very light on the flour you add to whatever sauce you make, unless you like eating potato sandwiches)
7. do add lean bacon to the cooked ground meat filling (yeah. that's the only thing I did right!)

I took a photo for posterity, but I'm not including it...it's...not appetizing...

We ate 'em though, and I'm confident that next time they'll be fantestical.

Maybe...I need another hobby?

Birthday presents:

"I know you like cooking, so here's a potato grater!"

"I know you like cooking, so here's a meat thermometer!"

"I know you like cooking, so here's a pizza cutter!"

They're awesome presents, but maybe having only one hobby (playing Alpha Centauri doesn't count, does it?) makes me shallow and boring to shop for?

p.s. anybody got a recipe for Kėdainių Blynai???

Dry, you mother scratchers!

There's something I'd like everyone to know;

I'm going to print on my business cards from now on;

I'm going to have a sky writer proclaim this fact white on blue;

I'm going to include it in a p.s. in every letter and email and sms I write;

I'm going to mention it every time I introduce myself;

I'm going to tatoo it on my forehead;

It's going in my blog desctiption:

I DON'T DRINK SWEET WINE OR CHAMPAGNE!

Over the past few months, I've received a few bottles of champagne as gifts, and I've been served wine and champagne at several parties. I don't drink it sweet! I don't drink it semi-sweet! I can barely gag it down semi-dry! I need my wine and champagne dry! I want it dry as the Mohabe desert, I like it as dry as vampires like blood, which they do, alot!

But I can never receive a gift, look at the label, and say, I'm sorry, I can't drink this...it's not kosher. So I'm letting everybody know now, let's not have any mix ups in the future. Thanks for your cooperation.

what's up with levi's jeans? they only last for a year now, has it always been like that?

Stupidest trip of my life, I there's no emoticon to describe how stupid public healthcare is. On some days I work in places public transport won't take me, so I take compensated cabs. Today I didn't take one all the way back to my normal workplace though, because I had to go to the polyclinic. I had to, told me my special somebody...

I had to go get my record to bring to her. I go to the dermatologist, and there's literally 20 people waiting there. Hoping they were waiting for somebody else I just went in, and she said I have to wait, and I asked if that wait would be very long, and she said yes, she's got a lot of patients. Can I make an appointment? No: first come, first serve. Everytime you go to the doctor, you risk spending the whole day there.

I went there Monday, incidentally, and waited; she was absent for at least 15 minutes at 9:30 a.m. before I gave up. And then I gotta go to work by bus, cause I can't get two compensated cabs for one trip. So I've sacrificed two mornings this week to public health care, and I'd just like to say, go to hell.

Me? Slap Happy!

I laughed so loud at the third guy's response, I reminded myself of Lokys...

The Onion American Voices

Gender Bender Weekend

This weekend I finally bought a cordless drill. I been lookin' around for one for half a year. Where's the one I got my old man for Christmas 12 years ago for like $30?! They're all at least $150, that's the cheapest at most places. I finally found one for 142LT (~$60) Saturday, which was lucky cause I really couldn't wait anymore, I had to fix this desk so I could rearrange the furniture to make a play area for someone, dammit. I fixed it up, with a greater than 50% success rate for drilling a hole in the right place on the first try. Owning the drill and operating it successfully made me feel like a real man in a new way.

Also this weekend, I created bread for the first time in my life. The only thing I've whipped up with yeast before is pizza dough. Creating pizza isn't flamboyant, as long as you top it with dollops of spicy sauce, dabs of flesh and sautéed vegetables, and dashes of pepper flakes. Which I do, with aplomb. But what about bread? It was potato bread, is that a deviation from normal, pure baking? I don't know. Cooking may be manly, but I'm afraid baking is feminine. As good as the bread tasted, baking it make me feel like a fertile, delicate woman.

I guess I should post something, though I find it hard to believe anybody's reading this, since the politeness one didn't get any comments...

So New Year's Eve was a blast. On Christmas we found out that our special baby's special grandmother offered to take her for a week, leaving me and my special lady to fly anywhere we want to celebrate n.y.e. Every flight out of Lithuania till that time and into Lithuania after that time was booked solid, leaving us in the "party town" of Klaipeda, and yes, I'm using rock-n-roll quotes, not regular quotes, that's my thing but you can use it, cause I know you're going to steal it anyway. Luckily though my buddies Ed Pečiulis and Vytas Juškys came into town to celebrate along with some celebrities. We joined them to catch up and party. Tons of fun in Klaipeda Hotel, one highlight was Vyto room with a window from the room into the bathroom, leaving him on the can in perfect view of everyone in the room. Nice. Yummy drinks and stuff and out to dinner, luckily early enough for three of us, but Ed didn't call with his order in time, everyplace closed at 9, what the fuck? He had to make himself sandwiches. Then down to the Incluto show in Honolulu, which was awesome, then out to the street for midnight, then back for the rest of the Incluto show, which was awesome. Got to the point when dancing is still possible, but not standing up. Good New Year's!