Author: redknob

Chefknob

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Marika and I made roast lamb yesterday. It was actually good. I’ll be sure to try it again the next time I sacrifice one to the gods.

On Saturday we had a little party at Jim’s new apartment. It’s in the same building as Pete’s old place. Almost the same layout. Nifty. Pilly, Tim and myself polished off a litre of gin rather easily, on top of a few beers. It was surprising that I felt so good the next day, especially considering that I ate McDonald’s for lunch. Marika and I stayed in kala maja that night. Then we had our Sunday roast.

It was Elizabeth’s 6-month birthday yesterday, so we had cake and martinis, too. She’s a cute little dribbler. Amazingly enough, she’s one of the few babies that actually seems to like me. Huzzah!

Now I’ve returned to the old town and someone is playing Saw on the big screen, so I’m listening to it in the background. It’s still kind of creepy. I remember the first time I watched it was with palmy at his place. We sat together in the basement in the dark, shit scared. If only we held each other.

I think I should clean something. I think I should rejoin the gym, too. :/

AUD makes me say EEK!

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So, the Aussie dollar is now worth 0.50 Euro cents, according to XE.com. It’s also only worth 7.5 EEK.

I wish I’d sent Australian money over here a few months ago. I’d have made about 20% on it for a $20 processing fee.

The good news I guess is that I could transfer my foreign money into Australia and have a shitload, but I guess if the AUD is worth shit-all then there’s not much point. Thank goodness for the Euro tie-in.

It did feel nice to pay off my credit card, though, as the remaining balance on it was from a purchase via the US and it was back when our currencies were almost parallel.

I need to change clothes. Four groups are staying here tonight and a fifth one is in the remains of Monk’s. Blegh. Gym first, I hope.

"Pop!" goes the ear wax

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I can hear again. It’s a miracle! A miracle of miniature suction. I skipped down to Tartu for a doctor’s appointment Marika made for me to have ear wax removed from my left ear. It’d been about 2 months since it happened (I foolishly compacted it up against my ear drum whilst nonchalantly playing with a Q-tip) and for the duration of my ailment suffered tinnitus and reduced hearing.

I’d actually come to live with it.

When the doctor sucked it all out (which sounded very loud and odd, but kind of cool) I felt like I had super hearing. My previously-dulled ear was now more sensitive and sharp than the unharmed one on the right side of my head.

The contrast was so… audible… that I wanted him to repeat the process on my other ear. Unfortunately I had already paid up front for the treatment and was too shy to ask. I still wake up to hear little bits of wax sticking in my ear canal if I sleep on one side, or have sweaty hair. Sweaty hair, yuck.

I haven’t been to the gym for a while. I can feel my body getting softer and flabbier. I did, however, carry a lot of building materials up 6 flights of stairs. I’ll be doing it again on the weekend. I probably could have provided more moving services but the cards simply didn’t fall that way. Never mind.

We’ve still got a lot of guests staying here of late. I think it’ll be like this until late November. That would be fine if we had a nice, reliable washing machine. It’d be even better if our super-duper dryer worked. Even our regular one is having a hard time keeping the heat. Pohhui.

There was something else I wanted to mention but I forgot what it was. Hurrah. Life is exciting.

I haven’t really been drinking or going out much lately. That’s been nice. Instead, I try to get up around 7am all the time. That’s been not so nice.

Oh. I smell. A lot. I need to change clothes more often. I suppose I’m supporting the environment by using less water and CFCs and electricity, but wow.

The scariest thing that I’ve realised of late is that I’m the only person watering the plants in the building. Me. The most non-green thumb around. Terrifying.

Saarioinen make good microwave food.

I like the sound of women

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Electroclash women, that is! I still wish The Micragirls would come back to play here. I wonder where their flyer went?

Apart from that, I feel like sleeping until I die due to my intake of pancakes, chocolate bars and chinese food today. Gym tomorrow. Really.

Actually, I think I might even be making progress at the gym. Inconceiveable, I know. Too bad my body fat is, as well. Or so it seems.

Since I’ve already started discussing women, I should mention that Marika is back from her pilgrimage to Jim Morrison’s grave in Paris. I guess he broke on through to the other side after all.

It’s nice having everyone floating around the main building again. It’s nice to have too many people to schedule, too. Maybe I’ll try to take a long holiday soon, since we have so many kiddies. Too bad I can’t go to the gym if I’m away, but I’m being a bit lazy anyway. Oops.

Spain beat Estonia 3-0 in wet weather, we had lots of Spanish guests. It’s always the same process… Germany beat Russia 2-1. No one here seemed to react.

It’s been very sunny here of late, just cold at night. Windy, I guess. Blustering.

There is too much laundry here. I don’t want to think about it. It’s a big load worthy of dumping onto someone else. I know just the man.

I can still taste the crispy beef.

Hello.

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Long time, long time.

Maybe I won’t tell you anything, anything at all.

Maybe I will say what will be. Yes, I can see the future.

The future looks like pretending to go to the gym and eventually washing my hair.

In regards to shaving, it’s blurry.

Everyone lives in Olevi again. Kind of.

Loud people are annoying.

Anna has cheesy tomato soup. I will try some.

Cha-ching

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Ok, so credit cards don’t make any sound when you pay for things online but I still needed some title for this post.

Yep, I just tried renewing my registration for this domain. It said I couldn’t. What? I wanted to renew it for 9 years. Instead I just got some other thing that hides my identity or something. For 9 years. Longer than this domain is registered for.

Yep.

Oh well. I’ll try again.

The music is going well!

Electronic/pop music

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I am finding heaps of new good old stuff. Soon I will get high and giddy from it.

Thank you for listening.

Also, I think the gym is starting to work. Slowly.

Also, Marika went to Tartu. Boo.

JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJesus

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3

Bloody hell. Just had the most bizarre/tiring/fucked up day in a long time.

Woke up with a hangover. Early. I don’t remember much of it.

Eventually I started cleaning the whole building, top to bottom, except for the basement of course. In the meantime we had our new industrial strength dryer delivered. Tim and I heaved it up to the top floor and took the smaller old one back downstairs.

Unfortunately the dryer needed its own special high voltage wall connection. We asked about it before we bought it but Hugo and I could have sworn that they said no. So, we called an electrician.

Of course, none of these handymen can speak English, so I had to get Renata to converse in Russian whenever I could find her, otherwise I tried my bad Estonian (and probably just made things more confusing).

Dryer man left because he couldn’t do anything until the electrical socket was ready, so electricity man came and started working but then he had to leave because he needed some other equipment. Dryer man came back and didn’t understand why things weren’t finished. Eventually it all got sorted out and off we went.

In the meantime I was trying to set up our new Internet and digital TV connection. Everything went along rosy until I discovered a problem with the actual Internet link. The DSL line was working fine but no matter what I tried it wouldn’t connect to the Internet. A few phone calls to the telecom revealed that basically they’d fucked everything up and it should be ready now within 2 hours.

3 hours later and it was still fucked and everyone in the hostel was quietly pissed off at not being able to browse Facebook. I called again, this time directly to tech support and they said they could see the problem but needed the system administrator to fix it, but since it was already 7pm he wouldn’t be back until the morning. Great.

I reconnected the old router and got back online, that made people happy. All I wanted to do was sleep but Renata had beaten me to it, so I started doing laundry. Boy, oh boy does this dryer do its job. It was pounding through loads of laundry like a dream. I was quietly content, even though I’d been running around like a maniac all day. I had to drink a few small ciders for the sugar rush and energy kick to keep me awake, but I was doing ok.

Jason came over and made a really fucking good spicy pasta, which helped somewhat. The evening was rolling in and people were enjoying themselves, lounging around the common room. We even put a movie on for the first time in ages and some guys decided to order a home-delivered pizza. Top stuff.

Then, at 10:30pm, all the power cut out. Completely.

No worries, I thought. Let’s check out the switches! It happens now and then. Huh? They were all up. What’s going on? Maybe it’s the block or something. Nope, all the neighbours have lights. Even the shop below us…

Well. What to do? We brought out some candles (4 small ones) and I gave out some beers to people. We tried calling some different folks but basically it was too late for the caretaker to do anything, or want to. Even the 24hr service companies couldn’t work out what was wrong.

The guests didn’t seem to mind too much. The only real problem was that there were no lights in the toilets, so that’s where the candles had to go. Unfortunately the candles only really lasted about 2 hours. Never mind.

The pizzas got delivered and the people who ordered them got into a nice argument with the delivery guy. They didn’t realise that the delivery service was a separate fee, which was actually more expensive than the pizzas themselves. This was about the same time I realised that the door bell didn’t work without electricity, so there was no way of knowing who was trying to come inside unless you could hear them knocking.

I love night shift.

I sat up until 2:30 AM on the front step with a blanket, so I could open the door for people when they came back from wherever they were. I was planning on staying there until 7 AM or so, when Renata was meant to get up. Unfortunately it began to rain and I was feeling exhausted and quite stiff. I think I’m getting sick. I decided to head inside and try to sleep on the staircase near the doorway. I even had the brilliant idea of propping a broom up against the door handle and resting it against the wall above my head, so whenever someone tried to open the door it would fall down on me to wake me up. It worked.

By 6 AM I figured most people must be back, so I put a sign up saying reception is closed until 9 AM unless you knock on the window on the other side of the street. Yep, I slept in the window sill after that. With the blinds open so people could see me. That was a bit awkward but remarkably comfortable.

All of a sudden, it was 9 AM and the lights flicked on. Woohoo! Raivo the caretaker had done something magical to fix it. It turns out the dryer was sucking too much power and didn’t like being on the same power line as the sauna, or something. So, we need a separate line just for the dryer. That’s fine and all, but we can’t actually use it until then. 2000 euros of metal and we can’t do anything with it. Hmm.

Now I’m awake and I’m alive and the telecom company still hasnt’ fixed the fucking problem. I’m gonna call them again now.

Thanks for listening.

Summer days, drifting away

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3

Yep. Nothing but cold wind and rain now. Bugger.

Well, at least I’m not sweating any more.

I’ve spent the last few weeks drinking on and off. Listening to Jason and his interesting stories. Apparently he’s coming back in February. He reminds me a bit of Luke. Sort of. Maybe that’s insulting to both of them? Ha.

We also built a funny little bar. I run it. And fund it. I’m sure people are sick of me charging them for drinks, but fuck it, Rimi is open until 10. :)

The bar has become my own little cave. It’s quite cool, since we made it out of a bunk bed. I just fold a mattress out to sleep underneath it. I like it. I even get a window above me to blow some nice fresh air in. Life is pretty good.

Still, winter will be fun. I think. I hope. At least then we will all get beds. Huzzah! I hope.

Hugo wants to open another building just outside old town. I can’t remember if I mentioned that before. It’s not a bad place but needs to be built up. We’ll see if it comes about, though. At least it’s near dirty burger if anyone gets hungry. Apparently there’s a 24hr shop near it too, but I’ve never actually been to it.

So, Suvi came to visit. I’m sure she wasn’t as impressed this summer as last year. I don’t think anyone was, actually. Too much work and no fucking beds. Yeah.

The other day some muso cunt tried to force his way into the hostel with some friends so they could come up and play some “live music”. I said no thanks I’m not interested. We then started arguing about why they shouldn’t come in and why I wasn’t interested in some “alternative” culture. Considering how every single “trendy” musician seems the fucking same to me, I wasn’t impressed. I told him I’m alternative enough, thanks. He told me that if that’s my attitude, I’m definitely not. Wanker. It was good to piss him off, though.

Gym’s coming along nicely. I have to pay Tim back some cash, he bought some mint-chocolate flavoured protein powder, or whey powder or something. It tastes fucking good. I could mix it on my cornflakes.

Soon I will shave off my beard again and only leave a moustache. Soon.

Speaking of soon. Dexter!