Dos and Don'ts of a Trip to Denmark

Don't leave the door ajar when you leave your hotel room.

Do take your key out of your hotel room door (from the outside) before going to sleep.

Don't expect to use your credit card anywhere; 90% of places (including grocery stores) only accept Danish cards.

Do eat pizza every day; it's almost as good as American pizza!!! They got real pepperoni! And they squirt on this garlic oil that d e l i c i o u s! Ask them to put the hot peppers under the cheese, then they won't get stuck between your teeth.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was yesterday, but I'm celebrating it tomorrow. But really, I spend a few minutes everyday thing about what a wonderful concept Thanksgiving celebrates: capitalism and the production & consumption it allows me.

Coincidence?

This morning I didn't have work till later than usual, so during breakfast I watched a little Robin Williams Live on Broadway, including the part about the "side effects" that are so tremendous that they're "effects, really." Then just now I read this paragraphy in a NYT article about meds for kids and their side effects:

"Last year, the Food and Drug Administration required drug makers to warn on their labels that antidepressants can cause suicidal thoughts and behavior in some children. Anticonvulsant drugs carry warnings about liver and pancreas damage and fatal skin rashes. The side effects of antipsychotic medicines can include rapid weight gain, diabetes, irreversible tics and, in elderly patients with dementia, sudden death. When drugs are combined, these risks compound."

Suicidal thoughts? Liver and pancreas damage and fatal skin rashes? Rapid weight gain, diabetes, irreversible tics? Sudden death!? WHAT! Sudden death!? Warning: may cause sudden death; if death occurs, consult your doctor. Yeah, those sound like some bearable side effects!

i'm unhinged?

Is that the right word? I can't focus, but I'm not tired, I feel hectic. I feel like I got 20 tasks in front of me but they're all running around and I keep grabbing at their coat tails, but I can't make any significant progress. The only complete thing I successfully did today besides classes was return library books (a week late).

Quote of the Month

"Send him an email that says our internet isn't working, that's why we didn't call him."

My crazy experiences going to the bathroom in the woods...

Dude, I'm not gonna write about that! You gotta call me on skype if you wanna hear about those types of lucky streak!

My Brilliant Plan

I figured, on day light savings day, why hit the time-hour button on my alarm clock 23 times, when I can just hit the alarm-hour button once and get the result: waking up on time. It worked for a couple weeks, but then I got tired of remembering that it's an hour earlier every time I look at the clock. So I caved in and hit the button 23 times. Mission accomplished? No. I mean, that's all I did, until the next morning, when I work up an hour late for work. Haven't had one of those days in a while...

Euro-English? I'm going to call it Eurglish.

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English". In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with the "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a de terent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away. By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords containing "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

An Error, A Catastrophe, A Duping of Which I was the Butt, and A Slice of Bacon

Saturday evening I didn't have any mixer, and I thought, "maybe plain gin would be good." Nope.

Sunday morning my special lady made soup, which was a bit of an event, since I usually do all the cooking. The plan was to eat it for lunch after we went to market. When we came back, I put it back on the burner to warm up...and we didn't come back to the kitchen till it was burning. Luckily, it was only a little smoky, and my special lady decided it was still edible, no big deal. As she stand stirring it, I put away everything we bought at market, and the last thing is two kg (2.2 lb.) of bananas, about eight bananas. The normal place we keep bananas was taken, so I hung the bag on the door of a cabinet. At the last second I realized it wasn't going to hold, and I opened the door to catch the bananas before they fell. But I swung it open too fast and inadvertently propelling the bananas directly into the big pot of boiling soup, upending the whole thing in a deafening cacophony! Nobody died, no one was even burned, somehow, and miraculously we were able to scrape up two bowls of soup of the stovetop...but I had to clean up the mess, much of which coated the sides of the counted adjacent to the oven, that's no easy reach! Also, I’m changing my title on my business cards to read “World’s Greatest Idiot.”

In my long tradition of weaseling myself into discounted public transportation, I tried something for just the second time this morning. Instead of punching my ticket on the bus, I just held it in my hand, ready to punch it if a controller come on the bus. See, in Vilnius the tickets get stamped with the time, and they're not valid unless stamped a minute or two before the inspection, but in Klaipeda, it's just a hole-punch configuration. So I'm doin it, I'm getting away with it, then at one of the stops I hear, "Tickets! Control! Tickets!" I stick my ticket in, slam the puncher, take it out and return to being non-chalant, no one the wiser, very proud of myself in deed. Until the laughter begins, and it turns out that it wasn't a controller at all, just some brat kids. Duping my way into a free bus ride got me duped myself. Was that even a sentence? Whether it was a joke, or a way to score tickets from outgoing passengers, I don't know. I just know that I'm going to try that myself, by golly!

I just ate a delicious slice of smoked bacon, removed from the top of and as an appetizer to my left over meatloaf lunch.

My Uncle Bob's Letter to the Paper

My Uncle Bob is the quintessential young single uncle, the one who's young enough to still be a rascal when you're old enough to just be starting to be a rascal. Like asking questions about girls that were embarrasing but also enlightening. Also, I got him to take me to Terminator 2 in Minneapolis when my father wouldn't let me see it at home. He taught me to shave using a blade, since my father hasn't shaved since the 70s.

Here's an article he wrote about Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq war.

"Boo-yao" or "Fuck-it-it's-money": Unsure in a Public Institution

I got a raise this week, after two years and two months at work. It was a not bad raise, I think, slightly over 10%. However, it was disclosed to me in a peculiar manner: "The opportunity has arisen to raise your salary." What does that mean? I took it to mean that the ministry diverted more funds for salaries, that I wasn't being rewarded for well evaluated achievements. The most important thing at work is money, but the reason it's important is not just that it buys my caviar and sports cars; it's supposed to represnt my value as an employee, which is a significant part of me as a person, since half my life is work. I was disappointed.

My career advisor claims that I'm wrong. She says that statement really was a formal way of saying "Thank God we can finally pay you what you deserve, we've wanted to, but didn't have the opportunity till now." Maybe she's right.

Two days later, after working in the same field as I for just two months at another institution, my special lady also got a raise, congradulations, bigger than mine, double congradulations (I still make more money than she does, "thank God" says my male hormones). She hasn't gotten an explanation for it yet, so we'll see how that goes.

Güten Morgan, Ah Ha Ha!

This morning is my last non hectic morning for four months, because tomorrow I begin my second job, 8 a.m. sharp at a very out of the way place unreachable by public transport. So, my special lady and I decided to go to work together. That was after she woke up with some kind of virus and I made my oatmeal with too little milk, so it was all dry. :(

We went to the day care drop off together, and were met with the next piece of bad news: since miss special baby got better and started attending again on november third, we get refunded for the 10 days she missed next month, not this month. :(

We catch a micro bus. It's a small bus that's faster than a regular bus and runs the same route, and it's about 50% more expensive in Klaipeda. Though the fasterness is questionable during rush hour. You stop the bus to get in by waving to him, and you stop it to get out by telling the driver where to stop. About half way to work I remember that I forgot to bring Billy Budd the movie, based on the book by Herman Melville. My students are preped for watching it, so I can't not show it to them today, especially since I'm not prepared for any other material today. So ends the romantic ride to work together: "Stop at the traffic light please!" But he can's stop before it, cause it's a right turn only lane and we have to go straight... :(

When we ride together, I hold the tickets, because my special lady gets off earlier than I. In my haste I forgot I had them and took them with me, so she had to buy a second ticket, lest the ticket-comptoller board the bus and check everyone. :(

I take another micro back, and as I'm walking to our place I slip on the ice and fall on my ass...fuck! :(

I get the movie and go back to the bus stop, and now sleet is coming down from the sky into my eyes and ears. (I would have been at work before it began if I hadn't forgotten the movie) :(

I get on the bus and the only free seats are at the back. I wonder why several people are standing rather than sitting down there. I sit down and find out: the plastic seats with no coverings are very cold, so cold that they freeze my genitals. I remain seated, figuring the seat will warm up after a few minutes. When it didn't after fifteen minutes I had to switch to a now vacant covered seat. :(

In my new warm seat I began day dreaming about something, probably some paranoid delusion. I was dreaming so deeply that I forgot I was on a normal bus, not a micro bus, and when I saw my work place nearing, I shouted, "Stop at the crosswalk please!" Everybody looked at me and giggled, which was embarrasing, but not that bad. Then the bus driver gets on the intercom, though, and says, "Would the ugly dunce in seat 8A please shut up?" I looked down at my seat and saw that it was 8A...The look of indignation on my face confirmed what all the other passangers suspected, that I was in deed the dunce the driver refered to. As their giggles turned to snickers and obsenities, with pointing, my indignation turned to fury. I ran up to the front of the bus and decked the driver in the back of the head and yanked up the hand break. I kicked the door open and ran out. My knuckles were bloody, maybe broken. :(

I ran to the crosswalk and crossed it, while the bus had just begun moving, there was plenty of time to cross the street. But I slipped on the ice again! I fell flat on my ass, and I didn't manage to get up in time, so the angry driver ran me over, and I died. :(

Luckily, I'd picked up a free guy at breakfast by grinding my own flaxseed, so I was able to start again at the crosswalk. After that I walked to work with no further anxiety. :)

Lunch Box Bummer

I opens up my lunch box, and what do I finds? The lids come off my plastic tight-sealing food container! All the salad dressing is leaked out! Fortunately, I'd been brilliant enough to put it in a plastic bag, not directly into my briefcase, so it wasn't a cataclysmic misfortune, but merely a bummer.

Tragedy doesn't turn in Catastrophe

...cause making onion rings isn't that hard. I still have a ways to go to perfect my product. My alliteration is tip top, though.

So I come back from the bathroom, and there's so much toilet paper hanging out of my pants it's ridiculous, it's just unimaginable, and I walk into class, and all my students start laughing at me, plus a bunch of important people I respect and don't really belong there, I don't know why they're there. My special lady's there too, and she points out to me why everybody's laughing. I look down and see the toilet paper. I can't believe it. There's literally hundres of sheets worth of toilet paper sticking out of my pants in all directions. I'm a laughing stock. Thinking fast, I start tearing it out of my pants and throwing it at everybody, like confetti, or streamers. With a big-ass smile on my face, like it's all a joke I intended from the moment I left for the bathroom, I cover the whole crowd with confetti/streamers until they're all cheering me on, laughing with me instead of at me.

The moral of the story is, when life gives you toilet paper, throw it at people you love or respect.

Tragedy Strikes

The awesomest non-human, non-electronic thing in my life is no more. There was a restaurant, and I won't say a hero-restaurant, cause what's a hero? There was a restaurant, Chili Kaimas, that was the only provider in all of Lithuania for an excellent appetizer, Onion Rings. They were really really good, so much so that they completely earned their name, Vyrų Džiaugsmas (Men's Joy). They were so good, I used to go there just to order some Onion Rings, eat them with a beer, and leave...by myself! (I never eat in restaurants by myself.)

Saturday night we went there, a bunch of us, in Vilnius, and they had new menus, and after just a few seconds my special lady goes "Arai...[there's no more Onion Rings on the menu...]" But I was just like, "Well I'm ordering them anyway!" So I ordered them, and nothing else, cause my special lady and I were gonna share her delicious dish, Kedainiu Blynai with Mushroom Sauce. Sorry, I can't find a satisfacory link to describe Kedainiu Blynai. They're sort of like American-Lithuanian potato pancakes with South-Slavic kibinas filling. Anyway, the waiter's like OK but then he comes back and he's like Sorry, they are no more, so them I'm like, "Then instead, bring me a big knife so I might slit my throat!" I declined another appetizer in its place, explaining that I'm in a delicate state of mourning.

I wrote complaints on three different pages of the complaint book, in three different languages, and I've repeated this process at another location, and I requested that the waiter/ress each time convey my dismay to all who will listen...I can only pray that I get through to them.

Left Home Fries, Right Cheeseburgers

Your wish is my command: the photo! These cheeseburgers are well over a half pound each and barely fit on half a loaf of fresh bread. Cheese goes on them, of course, and on each is sliced one medium tomato, half a green pepper, half a medium onion, several lettuce leaves, and a few tablespoons each of Hellman's mayonaise and homemade bbq sauce.

My new favorite spice is...

Tarragon!

Life's a bitch but then you have dinner and you're like, oh man, this is awesome. And then you have desert and you're like, oh man, this is so awesome, I'm going to bed! And then you go to bed and when you wake up you're like, wow, I'm not even tired, I'm gonna sleep 8 hours every night, but then, at two p.m., you're like oh man, I'm so tired, I wish I could go home right now, how the hell did I make it to five p.m. with no problem all the time till yesterday, and how the hell am I gonna make it to 7:30 p.m. when I start my second job, and when the fuck am I gonna write my goddam master's paper, I wish I was dead.

But there is one thing I do know: a special request was made for cheeseburgers tonight, and I'm going to fulfill it, with homemade BBQ sauce. After that I bet everything will be awesome again.

My favorite spam title is this:

"Make your fat friends envy you!"

Where do countries get their names?

Did you know there's a country called Reunion? Look at number 44! HA!

I'm definately gonna limit my kids to 8 hours of TV per day...it'd be less, but it's hard to make them watch less than I do...just kidding...

TV Really Might Cause Autism
A Slate exclusive: findings from a new Cornell study.
By Gregg Easterbrook
Posted Monday, Oct. 16, 2006, at 6:52 AM ET

Last month, I speculated in Slate that the mounting incidence of childhood autism may be related to increased television viewing among the very young. The autism rise began around 1980, about the same time cable television and VCRs became common, allowing children to watch television aimed at them any time. Since the brain is organizing during the first years of life and since human beings evolved responding to three-dimensional stimuli, I wondered if exposing toddlers to lots of colorful two-dimensional stimulation could be harmful to brain development. This was sheer speculation, since I knew of no researchers pursuing the question.

Read the rest here...