High Score in Upwords: where's my medal?!

Ever since giving our kid away to my mother-in-law for the end of vacation, we spend most days playing hangman, buck euchre, or gin. We added rummy a few days ago, and we don't just play at home, we go to the beach or park too, but still, I've been kicking myself literally for leaving all our board games in Vilnius. Yesterday I felt unaccountably down (is there such a thing as antepartum depression for men? or cleaning-out-your-desk depression?), and bored, so we decided to go to Acropolis for a new game.

They have game store at the mall; we get most of our daughter's games there because they have thinking/learning games for various ages. They have the kinds of toys that you have to take apart, like a 3-D metal and/or wood contraptions that you sit with for hours or days until you figure out how to take it apart (which is simple and only takes a second once you figure it out). Unfortunately, they don't have any card games (such as Uno or other nonstandard deck games). Also unfortunately for boardgames they mostly have stupid things like Warcraft. What? That's a computer game! Next can I play the Duck Hunt board game? How about Street Fighter II Turbo?

We ended up buying the Lithuanian version of Upwords (Žodžių bokštas). We went to Chili Kaimas to get some beer and play. It took us a while to get going, because I'd never played before and my special lady had never even played Scrabble before. It was really fun, though, we're really glad we bought it. Throughout the game we'd both gotten a 12 point word (we were playing mostly in Lithuanian, incidentally). The thrilling conclusion was my rewriting a word that changed a couple other words too, giving me 23 points. I don't know if that's awesome or anything as far as standard play goes, but it was awesome for me!

Article of the Day

Malaise Forever!
-The immortal epitaph given to Jimmy Carter by the Simpsons

Make mine malaise, The attempt to rehabilitate Jimmy Carter, by Steven F. Hayward, is a decent account of how silly it is to try and glorify the wost president in American history. I've ready better, but I have to give a shout out to any article about the dud with the word malaise in the tile.

Is that a pickle in your pants, or...?

You bet your sweet ass it is! Sweet ass, that's a funny expression, isn't it?

I went downstairs today at work with a bowl of chili and a delicious pickle from the market. I had to slice up the pickle and heat up the chili. When I finished my lunch prep I went back upstairs to eat and watch Jim Gaffigan on the tube. I had to use both hands to carry the chili because it was so hot. I guess in addition to the hotness the chili was so good I totally forgot I'd had to put the pickle in my pocket (it was in a plastic bag). I didn't remember until I felt something cold and wet on my leg.

Article of the Day

The EPA suppressing its own report skeptical of global warming is no surprise: the Democrats' government ignores legitimate science because it stands in the way of one of their strongest talking points: science fiction, like man-made climate change.

The Hangover (Two or three Spoilers in the third paragraph, you can read till there safely)

My special lady and I have been on vacation, but up until a few days ago it's all--two whole weeks--have been spent moving and taking care of business at our new home, which has been somewhat neglected. We gave our kid away to my mother-in-law on Wednesday, and since then we're all, "Now what do we do?" The answer is mostly play cards, also some hangman. But one night we went to the movies.

The Hangover is a really good movie. We hadn't gone to the movies in a while, and it was fun to laugh out loud, especially for me, because I'm often the only one in the theater to get a joke. There were plenty of jokes in this one. It was also funny to see them translated: thrice somebody accents the wrong syllable in the word "retard," so in the subtitles the word "delibas" (which actually means dumbass, not retard) was misspelled "debylas," as if being pronounced as only a dumbass would.

Two things disappointing about the movie (here come the spoilers): predictability and too happy an ending, both of which are typical, though, and expected. Knew-it-1 as soon as Alan opened the book on how to count cards I knew they'd end up having to do it at some point. Knew-it-2 as soon as they blanked out that early in the night I sensed that Alan's Jager wasn't kosher. Knew-it-3 as soon as they showed Doug with the hood I knew it wasn't Doug. Knew-it-4 as soon as Melissa was such a bitch I knew no happy ending for her was coming. That brings us to the too happy ending: uptight Stu breaks up with his girlfriend whom he inteded to propose to, and instead makes a date with a hooker-mom? Only in Hollywood...

On the other hand, I did not guess where Doug would be, which I should have because I know that high up hotel windows don't open. I highly recommend the movie and give it an 8 on IMDb.

Restaurant Blunders

Because we're mostly moved out of our current dwelling (the freezer, spices and pantry items are gone already) we're eating out more and eating simple things at home. We've had Godawful luck with the restaurants. As I pointed out in another post, our wedding restaurant has been on a six month hiatus and the one we went to instead sucked for three big reasons. Since then we stopped at Pusynelis half way between Maisiagala and Vievis: half the menu was unavailable, the fried bread with cheese was microwaved, and the soup was so tepid I returned it. Yesterday we went out for dinner at the restaurant in Karkle: the Lowlander pancakes were obviously frozen the the potato pancakes devoid of salt. Today we went to the Chinese place near the Old Ferry on the New Town side of the river that is apparently under new management or has a new chef or both: the rice was extremely over-boiled, and when I asked for new rice they just said all the rice is make ahead of time and heated before serving; they can't possibly make me any new rice. What the fuck I says?!