13 posts tagged “journal”
So the Parental Unit got back from their vacation in the sun, all bronzed up and stuff...
And to their joy, as well as mine, they actually came back to a home, not
- A smoldering pile of rubble
- A crack-den
- An empty fridge
- ... or a sacked house for that matter
- A crime scene
- A house engulfed in flames or other strange substance
- A bunch of dead plants
The last one was something my mother was genuinely surprised about. I guess it had slipped her mind that the mass murderers of moss, greenery and general vegetation are my sisters, not me. I, even if I may brag, actually can keep plants alive for more than a week or two. (No Jenni, your gardenia is only an exception; you only have a green thumb whenever it catches gangreen.)
It is good to have them back, since the house is pretty eerie whenever I'm alone - part of which is caused because it's not a house that reflects me, so it doesn't make me feel that cozy. But in all honesty, it was really good to have some time alone and apart from them; it got really noisy really fast once everybody was awake. And I happen to enjoy just listening to music.
But it's all good, they brought back some Dutch waffles filled with caramel sauce and stories of, well... stuff.
Somewhat surprisingly, the Parental Unit took my denouncing about as casual as if I said I bought lemons instead of oranges. And, even though I kind of did expect it, the whole casual feel of it all actually made me want some kind of slight reaction, but then, I guess "Oh, OK. Could you pass me the salt?" is pretty self-explainatory when it comes to analyzing our family's look on religion. The fact that my dad said that he wondered why he hadn't done it himself yet did bring a slight feeling of well-being, though, so it's all good.
Now if you'll excuse me, I think I just found a sweet deal on a turntable. Tell ya'll more if it gets anywhere.
Today was the last day in quite a few ways, really.
- It was the last day of work this week, which means I have a whooole weekend to spend (DOING NOTHING!).
- Also, it was the last day of Camp Survive-a-bit for specimen JV-88 (that would be me), since Main Life Support Systems should be online tomorrow, having had a wonderful vacation without any disturbances (ie. moi).
- Furthermore, this was the last day I could call myself a "I haven't played Guitar Hero"-person.
If you don't know, Guitar Hero has apparently been the big thing in gaming for the last few years, and I can understand why: wielding a plastic Mattel-banjo with shiny buttons, everyone and their dog are now able to wail it out at a rock-concert as, well, the lead guitar, hence the name (I guess). At first, I didn't think it was that special, but after noticing that I should've left an hour ago, I had to agree that it had some strengths to it.
Me, of course, having only air guitar experience, decided to not choose "expert" as my starting difficulty (even if I do consider myself one), but even then I was able to not only trash Iron Maiden's Trooper, Black Sabbath's Paranoid, but also most Guns'n'Roses classics as well as *gasp* Santana's Black Magic Woman. So, filling the empty void around me with the plinks and boings of missed notes, I was able to shortly live my shortlived fantasy of rockstardom, only to have to notice that the time spent had to be taken out of my personal free time, and that I would now be in a boatload of hurry to clean the place up and wash the dishes, put my clothes to dry and iron a bit before I could give myself the once-over.
But, at least, tomorrow I should be able to get some real food again.
... and I'm not talking about myself.
While work sucked, as usual, the dinner that I'd prepared for myself for today all day yesterday was, in short, incredible.
Sure, it took quite a good portion of my spare time, but my shrimp-salmon cream-sauce came out simply mind-blowing. And of course, since it was a pasta-dish, I couldn't bare the thought of preparing ready-made pasta for it (pardon Lies).
While I'd already prepared the sauce as well as the pasta-dough yesterday, I'd decided to not make the pasta itself until I got out of work today, and with a few changes and additions to the dough-recipe, I had, in theory, the ultimate partner for a sauce I was constantly having a hard time keeping my fingers out of.
The dough was perfect, and since I hadn't made the tagliatelle itself yet, it hadn't dried out, gathered any funky aromas or changed color. I proceeded to make thin, fine and very long mm-thick tagliatelle, which I then quickly cooked and served to myself with the aforementioned sauce de vie.
And Oh. My. God.
I had been afraid that I'd mess something critical up, and turn into a reverse king Midas, where everything I touch turns to shit, but somehow everything fell into place. The tagliatelle was perfectly cooked, the sauce was just right, and by now I was hungry as hell. But even then I wasn't prepared for the culinary mouth-rape of the century. It was fabulous. If I wasn't me, I'd have gotten down on my knees and proposed - or dropped my pants; one or the other. I can't explain the feeling I had after I'd finished eating. I can only say that dinner can, indeed, be even better than great sex. I was, simply put, limp and powerless before my awesome cooking-skillz.
Adding this to my housewife-resumé is making me one hot property. The sure-fire hit for a romantic dinner.
And they say chocolate is an afrodiziac! Ph-shaw! I was so blown away, I forgot I'd prepared desert!
Observation: Perhaps dosage was increased too drastically, severe personality-fluctuations have been observed throughout the day. Dosage decreased to original amount.
Waking up in a cold, empty house today was ever more a depressing experience, since waking up 5:20 am inside a frosty house is more than I can bare! And I was bare... mostly.
It seems that, prior to leaving, the parental unit saw fit to turn off most heaters, the thermostat, the sauna and so on ad infinitum. Unfortunately for us up here where hell does, and has frozen over (ie. Finland), someone saw fit to open a frozen can of weather-whoopass on all of us by releasing the most menacing snowstorm this side of New Year's.
My first reaction? "I am so not going to work on my bike today."
So, caving in, (and after having turned on pretty much every heat-emitting apparatus in the building) I snatched me mum's car and took off. No harm there, the roads hadn't frozen (yet), and the snow was so light and powdery that it hadn't really stuck to anything (yet).
Fast forward to me leaving work. The snowstorm hasn't stopped, there's more snow around here than Frosty could puke out of him, and I'm running on unsalted roads.
It's not even 3km from work to home, yet during that short drive home (down Suburbiastreet) I saw one carcrash, one near-crash, a bus in the ditch and my ass land in a huge pile of snow (Ok, that was prior to me driving, but still, a casualty.)
But the funniest thing about it all was that the usual 3-5 minute drive took 20 minutes, 10 of which were spent on the last 5 meters of the whole drive. I could not, for the love of Bob, get the damn thing up the driveway and into the garage without it going all "Supaslick" on my ass. I was finally able to get it in there (Haven't you heard that one before?) by gathering some speed; one block, to be exact. Luckily the cops that passed me during that little spurt didn't stop me, since I was (among other things) not wearing my seat belt.
I've yet to carve up a path through the driveway, since I find it futile in the middle of a fucking snowstorm, no matter what other people may do!
I also decided not to go out jogging today, mainly because I don't own snowshoes, a sleigh or a ski-gimp.
In completely unrelated news, something big happened today, but because it's late and I still have to finish making tomorrow's dinner, I 'ave ta goo. Toodles!
Observation: Subject's increased dosage has yielded positive results. Possible additional increase has is to be discussed among Management.
Ever heard of the Soviet Deathray?
That's the combined glarebeam two Soviet expats are able to generate and stabilize enough to be able to aim said beam at an unlucky bystander not fortunate enough to be shielded by an impressive moustache.
In this case, that bystander would be me.
And how in the world was I able to rip open yet another diplomatic rift at work (I've made a few certain Poles very, very angry in the past) to have these two burly Siberian welders try to glare-melt me into a puddle like some lump of politically incorrect butter?
Why, by answering my phone.
To clarify the situation to all of you, I think I should first, and foremost, give you a little snippet of my ringtone, which may have played a small part in this...ehm, "incident".
The fact that I unwittingly answered "Da?" didn't really help either, since they both know I ain't from east of the border.
I did, however, gain some valuable information because of this: contrary to popular belief at work, these guys (judging from their reactions) do seem to understand at least a bit of english!
Moving along the theme, while I was at the grocery store (THE THIRD TIME IN A WEEK! ..Wait, the third time in a week? Jesus!) I came across a sale promoting some cheap butterscotch. Whether it was the cheap price, my rumbling hunger or the presence of very many cyrillic letters on the bag, I went ahead and bought some. And while they weren't exactly what I'd had in mind when I bought, on afterthought, they were pretty much exactly what I should've expected. Tasty, but once you popped one in your mouth they disintegrated like a certain form of government (oh, burn!).
On my way home I also came across one of the most definite signs of spring: the miniskirt. Too bad, though, that the one wearing it was lil' miss Jailbait, and, unfortunately for her, she was prancing about in the middle of my Suburbia-hell's road and was about to block my right-turn. Bearing in mind the getup I was wearing while going to work today (on my bike, in -10ºC weather, in snow), I wasn't going to have any of that, and with an apt "Aw, hell no." I proceeded to make a slightly tighter than usual turn. One frightened little girl later, a few glareholes through my back richer, I proceeded to go home and enjoy being me. Because, sometimes, it's just better to let your ego do the driving.
Also, an interesting article.
I've been suffering from quite the anxiety-attack today, mainly because I have to go back to work tomorrow. Stinky, dreary, mundane work so I can pay for my rent and start studying already! Not even Santana's been able to keep me in a good mood today. Working just, well, sucks so much! And I'm not saying that just because I think summer's too far away for me to go pro-hammocking again (I'm preparing for a world tour). The whole fact that I'm working right now instead of studying (where I should be; thanks FDF, go suck a fat one!) keeps churning at my brain like a rusty saw through butter.
To add to this suckfest that is contemporary reality, I noticed that I've just about run out of bana(nananana)nas , which sucks because it's an essential part of my lunch at work.
"Well, why not take, say, an orange instead, eh?" said the Canadian.
Because, as I may have made clear over the past... week, I am currently the sole resident of this household, which makes me responsible for the existence (or non-) of foodstuffs, produce and the like.
I also noticed that the lil' box o' potato sallad (sweet, sweet 'tato sallad) will pass it's due-date tomorrow, which makes it pretty obvious what I'll have to churn through today/tomorrow. That, and a bit over 2 l of milk, but that's a whole 'nother story.
Huh, makes it so much more clear why so many construction workers show up with a hangover on Mondays, doesn't it?
Daily dosage for subject JV-88 has been increased to 870mg. Changes in state over the next few days should be significant; monitoring is to be intensified.
Statement: Subject JV-88 has finally learnt that fauna, in general, require certain amounts of nurturing when not in the wild.
After having cleaned up and taken out the trash after Sis and her hubby (which took a while, since they seem to be pretty good at messing the place up) and having noticed that they ate me out of most of my house and home ( guess I'll have to do without yogurt for a few days...), I proceeded to do perform one of my utmost refined skills.
That, of course, would be loitering.
So, after a pleasant (and all too long) shower, some reading, oodlin' and doodling, I happened to look at my surroundings for a bit. And hearing my mothers voice saying "at least try to remember to water the plants" I realized that I should probably check the local greenery.
And, of course, there they were, looking more flaccid than Hugh Hefner's dong before his daily Viagra-shot. Five seconds later, and you had me scuttling about with a watering can in one hand and my pants in the other (it was still early in the morning, about 1:30 pm), trying to save what was left of my mother's plant(ation)s.
Don't worry, mom, the plants are... mostly fine, even if I had to go on a veritable hunt to find 'em all (they're really
scattered about.)
But now I've gotten back to enjoying the finer things in life, meaning Carlos Santana and the crashfest that is my laptop. If either of these keep going on, I might have to crack that ol' bottle open again; the reason why may vary.
I was also able to indulge myself in the only easter-tradition I have left, namely watching Monty Python's Life of Brian, which still makes me howl even though I know it by heart. And since I recorded Mel Gibson's version of the (apparent) slashfest that was the crucifiction of Jesus, I might as well watch that as well.
... And seriously, having leafed through it, I have to say that my dad's got one killer of an LP collection... Dibs, Sis.
Statement: Subject JV-88 has been showing unusual characteristics and thought-patterns throughout the day. Cabin fever is to be suspected.
It's been really weird today, since today's Saturday, even if it feels like a Sunday. I feel like I should be preparing for work any minute now, but I know in the back of my head that I'm wrong.
But today has been very lucrative in the slacker-sense: I haven't done any exercising and have instead decided to pork it. My second trip to the grocery store went quite uneventfully, though from the surprising number of wheelchairs out and about I'm suspecting there's some kind of wheelie- Gran Turismo going on and I just haven't been notified about it. The whole situation did seem to flabbergast ( I love that word) me so much that I forgot to buy milk, which is unfortunate, since the stores are all closed until Tuesday (it's Jesus' fault somehow), which means I'll have to find other ways to lubricate my bowels.
Since I was so tired from slacking off so much, I didn't really have the energy to make any dinner, either, and instead opted for paying someone else to make my food. For some strange reason, though, most of my friends decided to bail on me and tried to force me to go eat by myself. Well, one phonecall later, and I was able to eat out (with) a girl I know (since girls rarely decline a dinner-invitation, even if you're not paying for them), which was nice, since I like having company. And while the food was good, it's not exactly encouraged to people suffering from cardiac arrest.
Later on at home I had the most wonderful surprise waiting for me (which I prepared yesterday): the most in-your-face chocolate cake you can possibly bake; a veritable dream euthanasia for people with heart problems in general, wether they be physical or emotional.
Being a Saturday and having the house all for myself, I opted to throw a party in celebration of, well, me. And before I receive the "Most conceited individual"-award from God, it would have been a late birthday-party, but sadly, once again my friends decided to bail on me, and since I didn't want to spend the night with anyone at home (Hi mom!) since my sister's going to crash here at some point in the dead of night, I decided to do what every sensible Finnish 20-something guy would do: Crack open a bottle and get plastered. And thus, here I am, taking a quick break before I continue rocking out with a bottle of the ol' moonshine, my favorite Santana LP and my stencils to accompany me. Now if you'll excuse me, they're playing Black Magic Woman.
On a completely unrelated note, it seems that an even greater number of people than I knew about read my blog, since after whining about all those facebook app-invites and the subsequent death-threat to anyone who'd continue, my invite-amount has effectively been cut to roughly a fifth. I thank you, and have crossed over some of your names from my "kill"-list. You know who you are. And the one's who haven't been crossed off yet will find out soon enough...
Subject JV-88 has insisted on not having bathroom-breaks monitored. Surveillance has agreed, though Management raises the question exactly what Resident is doing that could jeopardize subject status.
Management has agreed to continue bathroom-monitoring in secret. Non-disclosure agreements will be added to tomorrow's memo for all those involved.
Since today was a welcome day off from the usual grind'n'wind that is work, I decided to do that which is innate to most slackers of the world - that is, of course, sleeping late, locking yourself inside the house and refusing to wear regular (or any) clothes. In that sense, today was a success.
Statement: Nude images of Resident successfully acquired. Management has decided to sell them on the internet for extra revenue.
I did, however, get some work done, even on my day off. Being the resident in-house bitch that I am, I cooked, cleaned, washed the dishes, put shit out to dry (both food and clothes), baked (vat de fuk? Bork bork!) and so on. In short, all the housework most men won't perform throughout their whole life, but since I think relationships are supposed to go 50-50, I guess I'm different... Then again, me doing all this may be because it's a full moon, or because I think I kinda look good in an apron. Either way, I'm sure I'm screwed somehow.
But apart from being the kitchen-gimp, I've also gotten all kinds of shit done today, as well, and while I can't really talk about them too much (today), it should make some people (me included) very happy.
But it's almost 9:00 pm and I've gotten pretty much everything I've supposed to have done done,
Statement: Resident did not complete all Mission Critical Secondary Objectives: Bed not made, Resident not drunk.
things are cooling and drying, and it's just about time for tonight's movies to start.
Which brings forth a dilemma. See, for some reason (I don't know, maybe because it's Easter Friday?) pretty much every channel I actually check the schedules for are broadcasting one or more movies worth watching. Among other things, they're airing The Passion (Fruit) Of The Christ (isn't it supposed to just be "Christ", and not "the"? I mean, it's not Jesus the Christ, that's, like, his rapper name.), John Carpenter's version of The Thing ( There's a walking head and the most hilarious scene I've ever seen in there) and finally, the first The Lord Of The Rings - movie.
Now here's the thing: I can either get plastered and watch Kurt Russell flambé about 500kg of anomalous alien-steak, watch some romans beat the living Jesus out of (oh wait, a pun)... or I can go watch Legolas run around in green pantyhose. But to say something positive, Lotr does feature John Rhys-Davies, the only guy apart from Ron Perlman who could, at the very least, put up a good fight against Adebisi from Oz. In any case, I'll be cruisin' for a boozin', so in the end it probably won't even matter what I'm watching...
Update, 2240 hours: Mission Critical Secondary Objective achieved.
Update: Earlier today, subject JV-88 has been promoted to "Housewife" status.
Surprisingly, today's success-rate would probably be somewhere around 87.64%, which is surprisingly high, only stunted by me not having enough time to carry out a few personal tasks (ie. shorten my "kill"-list).
I did, however, not only manage to get some good ideas for upcoming dinners and go to the grocery store, I also washed my clothes and prepared tomorrow's dinner!
This coming from a guy who not only hasn't washed his clothes since... well, a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away, duh), and who hasn't cooked since last spring.
And I gotta hand it to people: choosing even two day's worth of dinner-choices is hard. Seriously, trying to choose your next few days' cuisine without it becoming ready-made hell is tough...
...although, upon retrospect, the fact that most of my cookbooks are... "lacking" in actually feasible, sound and quick to prepare- meals may have something to do with it. Sis, I appeciate the book you gave me for Christmas, but whipping up Tikka Masala or Won Tons just like that is currently... daunting, for lack of a better word. But I'm getting there!
But what did I prepare for tomorrow, seing as I just dumped ethnic cuisine over the starboard side?
Why, the simplest recipe I could find, of course!
So I made pasta. From scratch. And this only because I find homemade pasta to be the only kind worth mentioning. And, ultimately, it is pretty simple to make and play around with. All you have to do is make a flour-volcano and fill it with eggs. Unfortunately for me, the last egg was the egg that broke the camel's back, forcing me to quickly make the dough before the whole flapjack-wannabe got a chance to hit the deck (literally), all the while wearing nothing more than an apron and pants and pretty much going "fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck" all the while doing it. But in a few minutes the whole thing was under control, and I was able to go off to the supermarket.
Making the pasta itself isn't that hard, as I said, but it requires roughly the same amount of raw manpower to shape the whole thing as it does to lift a tank. So there I was, apron and all, kneading the lump o' dough like a motherfucker and actually breaking a sweat. But now I have oodles of homemade noodles, so all is good. And the fact that I put all my clothes to dry while still wearing the apron profecizes me becoming such a bitch once I get married that it's not even funny.
Oh, and to the author of the cookbook that said that making pasta is "quick, clean and simple" (he shall go unnamned): Fuck you, Jamie Oliver. Fuck you and the Vespa you rode in on!
But at least I make a killer pasta.
