Undisclosed Really IS the Best

It's pretty much unanimous. While revising my layout here I check all my links, and all the old blogs are either eliminated or have not seen a new post in a matter of years. Years! Facebook and "crazy anti-government types" killed the blogosphere.

Liter O' Kefir Lunch

Liter is French for give me some fuckin' kefir!

I've been pounding liters of kefir for my lunch for the past week or so as part of my diet. My record is 27 seconds. What's your record?

Vegetarianism One Month at a Time

I missed Thanksgiving this year, so here's the post from last year I've been sitting on forever.

Thanksgiving: sixteen pounds of turkey, five pounds of pork (in the sausage stuffing), and a pound or so of bacon bits in the potato salad. Although we had a few guests, we had all the leftovers to ourselves. Now that's what I call a meat orgy.

Now what do people do the morning after an orgy? Bang, again? No, they just leave to go home without looking too many people in the eye. So I figured it should be after a meat orgy: let's try living without meat for a month.

Rules: no new meat from November 27th until Christmas Eve. I would have said Christmas but the Christmas Eve fish counts. I decided to go all out (Moacir) instead of vegetarian light (Ed). However, the exception (and it's a big exception) is that I could still eat old meat, such as the leftovers from Thanksgiving. But this is reasonable: I figure, okay, so you become a vegetarian--that doesn't mean you toss all the meat you already own, right? I abhor food waste. But besides this one exception I was determined to make no others, particularly regarding eating out, so that I would get a real glimpse of what a few of my friends live like.

Those leftovers kept me meated up for a good week...you wouldn't believe how much stuffing you just keep finding in the bird, it's like it's multiplying! This was very lucky, because I could bring turkey sandwiches to work each day. The cafeteria where I work is not the most vegetarian friendly place around ("Excuse me, is there any meat in this vegetable soup?" "Of course there is, how can you have soup with no meat?!").

My first incident came on Friday: I was invited to lunch with a group of education experts visiting us from around Europe. Usually I'm happy to get a free lunch, and usually I enjoy sticking out, but this is a serious crowd. I ate my salad being careful to scrape all the crab meat to the side of my plate. That was no biggie, but I knew they'd be serving meat as the entrée (How can you have lunch with no meat?). They did. But one of the experts who is Lithuanian pointed out that our French guest doesn't eat meat, and I was able to slip in with "Neither do I!" Phew. So everybody began eating his meat while they went back to the kitchen to make us crepes, naturally, it would get cold. They were about done eating when I said to my French colleague, "These are gonna be some great crepes!" We all laughed, but is this really the life of a vegetarian? Sometimes, when a lunch is poorly organized, you have to wait while everybody else is eating? That sucks.

My next incident came that very evening. I wrote it up here. I wonder if real vegetarians are ever caught so off guard.

The next week I went to a seminar that was better organized: the coordinator asked everybody ahead of time about dietary restrictions. She thought I was joking when I said no meat. How about fish, she asked. No, fish is meat I said, it's just poor man's meat. One of the seminar participants knew me from my old job in Klaipeda. When she went into the lunch room and and saw the styrophome box seperate from all the
normalother food, she said, "Somebody's a vegetarian? It's probably Aras." She said it in a positive way, so I was happy to get this unexpected compliment.

Incidentally, I later asked her why she jumped to that conclusion. Turns out she remembers once at college when I tried this diet where I order kefir and vegetables for lunch, put them in a blender I brought from home, and gag it all down. I remember it as gross, but she remembers it as innovative and unusual (like vegetarianism).

My next incident came when I got the reminder about the upcoming Gentlemen's Dinner that takes place every 6 weeks. Here's my email reply to Alex, who organizes them:

During the meat orgy we call Thanksgiving, I decided to try eating less meat over the following month--as a challenge. A sort of vegetarian light--no new meat purchases: I still ate the leftover from the holiday, those lasted almost a week, and I can eat meat from the freezer. The purpose isn't weight loss, but my pants do feel a little looser after two weeks.

It's going quite well sociologically also. I've had several interesting/uncomfortable experiences of having to say "Oh, sorry, I won't be able to eat that," and I've made good friends with my Vegetables cook book and the vegetable chapters in several volumes.

And then I got your reminder. First I thought, "Oh nice!" and then I thought "Oh crap! Well actually, this will be another interesting vegetarian experience...eating around the meat with a bunch of people all enjoying the same thing except for me...but shit, 100 lits is alot of money even with the meat, can I afford to drop that just for a little anomie? Wait a second...I RSVPed to this before Thanksgiving, so maybe this counts as food from the freezer...yes, sure it does, food from the freezer. I'm going!"

The last incident was my office's Christmas party. We went to Bravaria, which I organized. I organized it based on the beer, not the food, which turned out to be a mistake. When I asked her to show me the vegetarian entrées, the waitress told me, "Uhm, not really, take a look at the salads." And voilá! There was indeed one salad without meat in it. Is this the life of a vegetarian, choosing from a menu with one vegetarian item on it?

The incidents would have been far more if I hadn't avoided eating out. It seemed like too much hassle, and as I said to Alex, I'm not going to pay restaurant prices for something with no meat! Furthermore, Gedas once undertook a study that proved that vegetarian dishes are significantly more expensive than meat dishes at Lithuanian restaurants.

Besides these incidents, there was one fun aspect of the meat-free month, as I mentioned in my email to Alex: I spent much more time than usual with my Vegetables and other cook books. One recipe that is definitely here to stay is Ratatouille. Man, how can it be so good with no meat?? Fried eggplant sandwiches, too, so I guess eggplant is the big winner here.

The other upside of this month was that it gave me an excuse I always welcome: an excuse to make myself a BBQ Bacon Explosion for Christmas!

Mitt Romney's anal whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat now?

Sweet Sweet Negotiations

There's not another asexual thing in this world that gives me a bigger boner than winning negotiations. It's not just the money--it's the winning. Especially with no concessions. Hello! Offer. Counteroffer. "But my original offer was already a discounted rate. Isn't that discount enough?" Of course it is. Bam.

How do I make my own gin?

The top few hits when you put that question to google are websites that explain how to make gin flavored vodka. What the fuck? What the fuck, I say. I don't understand why anybody would ever want to do that. That's like adding liquid smoke to ketchup and calling it barbeque sauce. You gotta be a special kind of dunce to get a kick out of that. If you're going to make "your own" gin, be a man and ferment it yourself.

Big Ass Hamburger

I don't suppose I'd ask for more than a half pound of meat to make myself a burger, but because in Lithuania we speak in metric—the tool of the devil!—I have to ask for the meat in grams. I ask for 300 grams. Then I always think, shit that's gonna be a big burger; that's two thirds of a pound. But I'm not gonna say Oops, sorry meat counter lady, make it 227 grams instead. So I just eat big ass burgers, but I'm not complaining. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

What's the point of soft-core porno?

You can't get the fastest Internet in Lithuania without getting cable TV. That's just the stupid way it works. On the bright side, I thought as I looked over the channel listings, there's Playboy and Hustler Blue, that might come in handy. Nope! Recorded several night time shows that require the pin code to watch, all completely soft-core. Who watches that? It's what I expected from Playboy, actually, but not Hustler. For shame.

Internet Service Provider Boasts Piracy

We got faster Internet now, 300 Mbps. While the guy was installing the new cable, he said "Oh yeah, this is fast. The first night I had it I downloaded thirty movies. I don't even have time to watch everything I download!"

Have Diarrhea, Will Travel

Or, ‎"From each according to his ability to give a shit"

Or, ‎"Dos and Don'ts of a Trip to China"

• Don't drink the water, even from water coolers, even at classy hotels: they fill them up from the hose, I saw them at it, and I spent my last four days there running to the john
• Do get the Chinese medicine when you get diarrhea; it won't cure you, but it's so cheap, you'd be stupid not to buy it!
• Don't bother bringing booze: their local ~90 proof liquor is cheaper than western brand name bottled water, and if you like, it comes in gallon jugs.
• Do BYOB if you don't like liquorice, that's what they flavor their stuff with.
• Don't expect anybody to speak (or admit to speaking) much English, even in four star hotels.
• Do make sure taxi drivers turn on the meter, unless you like having incoherent bilingual arguments
• Don't expect anybody to care outside of the markets: the only place anybody cares what you have to say is the place they get your cash direct; hotels, restaurants, shops, all the places where employees get paid by someone other than you will have the worst customer service ever

Incidentally, I was in China summer of 2011. I just found this draft lying around my blog post draft box now. 

Exercise Time

I was all set to go to the gym and get a membership when within two days I got requests from two different people for private English lessons. So unless I don't want to see my family during the work week for the next two months, going to the gym is out.

I'll have a 15 minute walk to get to a convenient bus stop--so why don't I bring dumbbells with me so I can power walk? Then, I could also exercise with the dumbbells on the bus! That'd be another 20 minutes of weight lifting right there.

All that's left is figure out the garb. I guess I'd have to bring clothes and change everyday, cause I'd look retarded lifting weights on the city bus with my suit on.

Fat Bus Bitch

You ever sitting on a bus and a fat bitch sits down next to you? And it pushes you half way out of your seat cause she's so fat? Goddamn it!

But I keep me mouth shut just in case I run for office someday.

Shitty Waitress

Walked into a Gusto Blyninė today and noticed a sign for Žemaičių blynai. When I asked how are they, she didn't know. When I asked how much they cost, she also did not know. When I suggested the price accompany the name of the dish on the sign, she exclaimed, "That's what the menu's for!"

I then discovered the price in the menu isn't even correct; there's a insert with each weekday's lunch special with a different price than regularly listed.

What a shitty waitress.

Rubber Ducky

There once was a rubber ducky,
With a johnson so long he could sucky;
He stumbled along till he fell on his dong
And then he no longer felt lucky.

I have to take a piss

That's just one of the many interesting tidbits I used to be able to write into facebook. Alas, although I've managed to keep my extended family and coworkers at bay, too many of my friends have not. It's turned into a PG scene where offending anybody is against the rules. Fuck it, that's why I'm back to blogging.

No Calls, Please

I had an off site meeting on Friday. I got a call that there were some mistakes in my paper work, so student visa documents couldn't be sent out as planned. That pretty much ruined my whole weekend. I had nightmares about it.

Early Monday I showed up to correct the mistakes. Turns out there weren't any mistakes, besides one typo. But the mistakes for which the documents could not be sent were non-existent. Mother fuckers.

Moral of the story: no phone calls from work Friday afternoons, mother fuckers.

Beans, beans!

God, had some chili for breakfast, was that ever a mistake. Beans are meant for dinner, so you can spend the night farting instead of the day. For a while I forgot about the chili and thought I must be about to have diarrhea. It's so bad I have to sniff my sweaty armpits for relief.

Castratiophobia

What if a deaf guy was taking a piss in some hedges, and the guy trimming the hedges was blind, so he didn't see the guy, and the deaf guy didn't hear him coming, and the trimming guy accidentally chopped the pissing guys's dick off?

Blackberry? More like...Sack's Hairy!

Whatever, only one word actually rhymes with blackberry, and it isn't funny.

The secretary walked around with a bowl of fresh picked blackberries today. They were disgusting. I said thank you through clentched teeth. I wonder how obvious the look of disgust on my face was?

Nude Beach

I did not make it to the nude beach this summer. But when you spend half of every day nude, it's not that big a deal, is it? I sleep nude, walk around the house nude as long as it's not cold, cook nude, unless there is a risk of hot oil splattering. Naked is the way to be.

Fart Harmony

There're repairs going on around the office including new radiators, all the old pipes are being changed. I went to take a dump today, and I was a little distracted playing backgammon on my phone. It felt like I was farting, but the sound was so weird. It sounded like pressure being released from a pipe through an open valve, high pitched, no rattling sound at all. It was so unlike a typical fart I had to shift positions to see if it would stop or not. It did. My ass is a one man band, apparently, thank you very much.

Lonely Weekend

I chart my weight. It goes in a wave, gradually downward, but it does go up every weekend due to drinking, mostly, and the drunk munchies that go with it. So this weekend I didn't drink at all. Did I break the wave? Not really. The whole family was away, so I was bored and there was nobody around to judge me, and I got stoned a few times, so I ended up eating just as much. Reminds me of the Simpsons/Futurama quote:

There are many good reasons to eat: Hunger, boredom, wanting to be the world's fattest man.

Five meals a day sober = #2.

Ten Month Hiatus

You could call my absence for the past ten months a hiatus. But because I changed the name of the blog and its address, maybe you should call it something else. Something like a witness relocation deal. Yeah. I witnessed my vulgar, at times obscene, blog being googled by potential employers. This caused me to panic and shit it down.* But I can't keep my creativity bottled up anymore, and I stupidly signed up for facebook with my real name. So here we go again...


*shut it down.

Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in.

Actually May 20, 2010:

When the Pig Man called last month to ask us if we want half a pig delivered on the day the pig delivery boy come by our neighborhood, we said yes. Luckily Gedas was coming for e visit, so we were planning on throwing a party anyway--half hogs weigh between 66 and 110 lbs., and by the time the deliver truck got to our house the smallest one the had left was 90 lbs; we didn't expect it to fit in our freezer, even though we have a separate stand alone one. Also, I'd never butchered anything larger than a chicken before, so here's how it went.