A Toast for the Host who can Boast the most Posts

I have not been posting much to my blog. This is for three reasons.

1. I have been posting to an additional blog for the past six weeks, My Mother's Remembrance Blog. There are not that many postings from me, but I take alot of time with the translations, the better writers in particular.

2. The process of collecting documents and working with the notary public in Lithuania is grueling. I have to drive to Vilnius for a couple days every other week to keep the process going.

3. I don't have plans to move to Vilnius, but I've been at my job for five years at the end of this school year. For that and other more important reasons, it's time to take a situation analysis of my life and decide whether or not I need a change. Therefore, during my trips to Vilnius, I'm not only taking care of my mother's affairs with the notary, her employer, and the city, and taking care of business for my College, I'm also talking to people I know about employment opportunities in Vilnius.

I wonder if I've ever eaten a turnip before? I feel like I ought to have, since the Lithuanian name for them rings a bell: Ropes!

Fucktarderama

I got a speeding ticket from the Kaunas police three months ago. I paid the ticket within two days. I got a registered letter this week from a bailiff in Klaipeda that says I didn't pay it and I gotta pay more than double the ticket for their service of tracking me down. So I had to A) go to the special post office, which has a back door entrance you can't find, B) go to the city tax office to get a receipt for the payment from October (all five of the employees in that office were sitting around chatting, incidentally), and C) go to the bailiff's office, which is also really hard to find and takes alot of walking around in the cold. Then after I wait around and finally prove my case to her, she's all disappointed because there's no chance in hell the police will pay her the tracking fee I would have had to, and I certainly don't have to, so she's screwed, and there's even less of a chance that the police will reimburse me for my lost time, gas, and stress. I wonder, why can I be obliged to pay for tacking me down, but nobody's obliged to pay me for tracking my documents down to prove that I've been falsely accused?

One more strike against Kaunas, not that it needed one.

Article of the Day

Here's a good one Rachel sent my way: War Nerd MC’s First Man O’ War O’wardz by Gary Brecher

Reminds me of a slogan my greatest BU professor, Igor Lukes, used to throw out when facing a bunch of peace hippies: "Give War a Chance!"

Off on the Right Foot

Today I fell on my ass. It was one of those slips on the ice when your whole body flies up into the air for so long that you have time to wonder if you'll break your ass bone or not. I didn't, but my spine hurts and I want to kill everybody who looks at me cockeyed.

Where in the World Can I Possibly Live?

My deputy mentioned today that she saw a parking ticket on a car parked on her street, even there are no signs posted there that you have to pay. I said the driver shouldn't pay it, since there is no legal fine if the sign hasn't been posted yet (did I really have to explain my position? unbelievably, yes I did). I said the driver should sue the police. She said that would take years and the the police would find out where he works and make his employer pay the fine while that's going on. The the driver should sue his employer, I said. He'd end up dying amid years and years of lawsuits.

Maybe I should move to Italy. Man it's great there. But then she told me there are a barrage of laws in Italy forbidding anybody without Italian citizanship from employment. WTF?

Maybe I should move back to America, then. I don't think so, though, not after reading this article: Common Sense is No More, By George Will

Dos and don’ts of Another Trip to Italy

Do guarantee great weather: positive thinking affects your environment; the terrible forecast will turn out to be right no more than half the time if you think positively enough.

Don’t forget that your wife hates museums.

Do buy the hat at the market for €5; it’s identical to the one at the Jewish department store for €35.

Don’t accidentally drop your new hat in the toilet and not notice, your wife will piss all over it.

Do bid 11 low when your wife has 31, because otherwise she’ll go out anyway; this way you can pick up four tricks in the blind and set her back to 20 and come back to win the game!

Don’t go to any indoor tourists sites at anytime past 9 a.m., the lines will be longer than [Man with the longest dick in the world] when he’s horny.

Do eat as many of the broccoli-sausage pastries as humanly possible, they are the most delicious thing on the whole freakin’ planet.

Don’t eat at the Chinese place: the Italians avoid it for good reason. (Since they’ve never seen a Chinese funeral, they’re suspicious of where the old Chinese folks end up!)

Do take the batteries out of the remote control when you get to the hotel unless you want someone to keep it on all the time.

Don’t check your email all week: it’s quite refreshing.

Do drink lots of wine.