Author: redknob

Mental

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The cops just came down our street with a megaphone telling everyone in front of Levist to bugger off. I haven’t seen that before. Awesome. It’s crazy out there.

It was crazy in here too, with some fine gents bringing two very attractive women (definitely too attractive, clean and well dressed for anyone sleeping in a dorm) back at 5 AM. They could have gotten away with it if they weren’t stupid enough to storm in and wake me up while I was sleeping on the couch (that wasn’t meant to sound like Scooby Doo, honestly). I had to chase them up the stairs and kick them out, after they lied saying that they were staying here. Yeah, right. Not with those shoes, lady.

Last night another fine gent (why are they always British? Oh, I think I know…) decided to keep me awake with his friend for a few hours in the early morning before passing out on the couch. That wouldn’t have been so bad if he didn’t then lean over and vomit all over the floor, again waking me up. I think I’m sleeping on an unlucky couch or something. It’s always uncomfortable and every time I lie down on it something goes to shit.

I haven’t bothered uploading any photos of my hair yet. Fuck it. There are some and they will come, but not for a bit.

The Viljandi folk festival was very cool. I took a 4 day pass and bought Marika one for her birthday, too. Lots of us went together and most of us camped outside, some at the grounds and some at Kea’s house a bit out from the centre.

The weather was perfect and my wallet became empty very quickly. It took me 3 days to recover from my trip to the gym the morning that we left. I could barely sit down or move I was so stiff and sore. At least if I can survive sleeping in a tent with a body that sore I know I should be able to cope as an old man.

Overall it was good fun! I did miss the old free stage, though. It’s pretty clear they want to stop all the drunk, poor kiddies from fart-arsing around and leaving garbage everywhere. Rumour has it that there won’t even be any alcohol served next year.

We decided to stay until Monday and then Pilly and I would take the train back. Sunday night was our big barbecue night and somehow I ended up having to take care of most of it. How impressive. The next day everyone else hitchhiked or took the bus in impatience, apart from Eagle 8. We met her by chance at the train station and she gave us some wine, so we vegged out on the couch until we pulled into town 2 and a half hours later.

Since I got back it’s been pretty good here. I even saw Wanted and the new Batman, The Dark Knight. One is better than the other, so clearly Morgan Freeman isn’t the difference. They’re both good in their own ways, too. Still, Batman is very over-hyped but it’s mostly coherent, Wanted is just cool to watch but the story is… well, even for a stylised comic book action movie it doesn’t make sense.

I have a big happy belly from all the festival food. Oops. Gym tomorrow, if I can stay awake.

It's raining

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I’m too lazy to go to the gym today. Too lazy to go and re-join for the next month. Tomorrow, hopefully.

Phil left the hostel for a few days to travel around, then he’s leaving for good to continue his trip! It’s very sad. It’s also going to leave a lot more laundry work for us.

Teo is also running off. That means I don’t have to fight for my laptop any more. Especially now that Lucy has gone off with palmy to Barcelona. Yep, palmy came back to visit. Good times, as usual. He was very bruised after a week, but I’m not sure how.

So, new volunteers are coming but they’re not here yet. That means I’m doing 5 night shifts back-to-back and most mornings, too. It’s all good. Cheaper, somewhat.

It really doesn’t feel like it’s the middle of July. Doesn’t seem too different to March or April except that all the beds are full. It’s funny how we can have 36 people staying at this place but it never feels overly busy. Before I know it there’ll be snow on the ground again.

Fring is awesome. It lets me message and call for free/Skype prices on my phone over wi-fi, and seeing how most of this country has free hotspots, I barely have to pay anything to use my phone now! Elite.

Marika wants to rent her own apartment in Tartu. :D Yessssss. I hope she gets a good one.

I want an apartment of my own. I can live in a little box, easily, as long as I have decent Internet and a kitchen! Hmm. I’m going to go look now.

Awesome.

The good, the bad and the hungry

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This will be a quick catch up post, I guess.

So, the gym is going well. I’m usually getting down there about 3 times a week. I don’t think my diet is too helpful in regards to fat loss and muscle growth, but never mind. It does feel very good to be lifting weights again after so long. Now if only my arms weren’t noodles.

I bought a Nokia N95 8GB for 8900 EEK. It’s very cool, but tofu has one as well so it can’t be too cool. I’ve been playing with it non stop since I picked it up, trying configure/personalise/break it. So far, so good.

We’ve had to vacate our balcony after our neighbours made up lies about how we act on it. We close it at 9pm and keep it very clean and usually very quiet – only people having cigarettes or coffee/tea 90% of the time. Unfortunately one bitchy person with too much money and not enough class has convinced our landlord that we’re a menace and as such we were reprimanded. We’re complying at the moment, but I’m sure something will happen along the line.

Pilly comes back today and palmy comes here tomorrow. Hopefully we can all get along to beer festival together and have a jolly good time. I just hope I can rope someone into doing nightshift here. Teo? Triin? Anyone? Surely.

Bella leaves today. Poor Monk’s. Poor Tim. She’ll be back, probably. They always come back. Gloriana left yesterday. She’ll be back, too. Just watch.

I can’t remember what else I was gonna put. I’m hungry? Not really, I just put that in the title for a giggle.

Fob off Facebook

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Yup! I deleted my account. Completely. It feels good.

Fucking Facebook used to be about 200 times cooler and better before all the applications and the masses joined up.

Now I’m free.

Yay!

Lakrits

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I’m in a better mood now. I got drunk the other night and bitched about things for a while, now I’m over it.

Tonight I’m eating licorice. Teo came here for summer, too. I even cooked some fatty bachelor chow for him for dinner. He awarded me a thumbs up then ate some cookies that I bought. Good lad.

I gave myself another hack of a hair cut last night. Much better. It actually manages to stay out of my face again. I don’t think I could actually cut it all off these days, I like looking shabby. Maybe I could get it thinned, or something. I have a lot of fucking hair. I’m grateful that a reasonable amount seems to fall out, because if it didn’t then I’d probably have difficulty putting on shirts.

Everyone’s been watching the Euro football cup. I haven’t been paying too much attention but I have sen almost every game, except for the ones that I sleep through under coffee tables or with my head in Marika’s lap. I don’t know how I fit in either position but both were very comfortable.

Marika doesn’t think she has much in common with Alabama. Maybe it was just the fashion sense in which I saw the resemblance. Whatever. I have to watch some more movies, and read more books… As always.

Oh, and read more comics, too.

Happy Jannipäev!

Teary corner

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We’ve been getting so many mixed reviews at the moment that it’s doing my head in. To make it worse, people staying here that I know have had a blast aren’t leaving reviews, so it makes things even worse. I’m not sure what I’m meant to do to fix it, either.

It feels fucking hard for me, at the moment. There probably isn’t much anyone can do about it, though.

Unfortunately it just seems to be one of those times where I’ve got plenty of shit on my mind and only a fraction of them are positive.

So, instead, let’s talk about the new Incredible Hulk movie. It’s good. Very different to the first movie (which I actually enjoyed) and overall it did a great fan service with its little nods and winks to readers of the comics. The Avengers tie-in, similar to Iron Man also helped develop a decent bit of saliva. The only thing I didn’t like was Hulk’s lack of strength increase in proportion to his rage, although I realise it probably would have fucked up the plot if it occurred.

I’ve been on a bit of a revived comic binge of late, due to all these lovely movies coming out. I could list them off, but no one would give a shit.

After months of deliberation I finally picked up a few blank DVDs in order to boost up our movie selection. People probably won’t want to watch some of the movies I’ve picked up, but fuck them. I made a crowd pleasing one, kind of. Well, I will. Or something.

So, I watched True Romance (I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it before, although I did know of it. Alabama reminds me too much of Marika, whether or that’s a good or bad thing I don’t know), The Prestige (ok but I believe it to be very overrated), Raging Bull (I’m sure it had more of an impact when it was created, but it just reminded me of Rocky with better acting and worse fights), Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs (cute but still has nothing on the show). I still haven’t put on Arrested Development yet. Fuck, no one’s even seen it. Jesus.

Before anyone jumps in on it, yes, I got the movies. I guess I just get more critical about dramas or character-driven plots or something because I don’t actually care too much about other peoples problems. It’s just a simple lack of sympathy and empathy. Tough shit. I’ve got enough to worry about without having to get emotionally involved with fictional characters for 2 hours.

I’m meant to get up soon. I don’t want to. Waah.

Mr Popularity

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This site’s been getting a bit of spam lately. I can’t tell whether or not it’s due to my anti-spam plugins being out of date or if I’ve majestically started getting more traffic. Unbelieveable.

Anyway, I made a few updates and now I just have to wait and see.

So, Lucy is having a good time over here. Too bad she has to leave next month some time.  Tallinn’s much nicer than Estonia.

Holy shit, wait, I just realised my fucking Estonian slaves are the ones visiting this site. Now they keep asking to see the embarrassing childhood videos of me. Fat chance. 3 days of publicly displayed shame is enough.

Today is meant to be my day off. The first thing I did when I woke up at noon was fix everything that had gone wrong in the last 4 hours. At least I got to sleep in a bed for once. I only dream when I sleep in beds. Probably because it’s the only deep sleep I get, particularly in the basement.

Marika’s playing in the forest listening to Nick Cave. I hope she’s taking drugs as well to complete the experience.

This weekend there’s going to be barely any staff. Everyone’s decided to all fuck off at once. I think we’ll manage but it’ll be a pain in the hole.

Speaking of pains in the hole, Dave came to visit and then pissed off to Vilnius 2 days later with Egle. I still don’t have my Uus key back so I’m a little teary.

We’ve got another volunteer here, Phil. He’s from Australia, of course. He’s a bit older but a really nice guy. I think my favourite thing about him is that he actually gets up really early. Worth his weight in gold.

Goody, I have to take people to Viru later. Fucking Viru. Where’s the bloody repairman for this place, anyway?

Blubitty dub

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Normally I would have cleaned the kitchen and dishes by now, tonight I just can’t be fucked.

My weekend was very quiet, a few drinks but nothing interesting. I’ve spent all of the last few days in the hostel, really.

I joined the gym with Tim. Usually we run around kicking a football for an hour or so before we start a workout. I can feel that it has made a difference already. Not that I look bigger, I just ache more. Although, it is a good ache.

We’ve been going every other day, except tonight. The place was already closed by the time we turned up. I’m still wearing my smelly gym pants at the moment, actually. Cheap thrills.

Since we couldn’t get into the gym we decided to make some food, as eating dumplings at EAT seemed a bit excessive due to our lack of exercise. Instead, I bought ingredients for Tim to make a curry. It wasn’t bad. The second course was baked apple pastries with strawberry ice cream. Tasty. Unfortunately the calorie count was probably ten times higher than if I’d just munched on some pelmeenid.

To add to this shocking lifestyle near-change, I’ve begun doing some light stretching in the morning on our balcony. It’s quite nice and peaceful and almost makes getting up early feel worthwhile. Fuck, I hate getting up early.

Dave comes back from Dublin for a few days tomorrow. I wonder if I can get him semi-naked again. In public, that is.

Lucy came to stay for a while, as well. Crazy girl managed to get herself here within 4 days of the idea. I must be convincing at times, or something.

Stupidly, I’ve been showing everyone the home movies my parents sent over on DVD. My chubby fat pale redheaded kid antics are a mild hit. All my worst moments. It’s great that they didn’t actually include anything to be proud of, like how big I looked when I was playing rugby in my early teens. You know, just for a mild ego boost. Ah well.

Where the fuck is Renata? I need someone else to wake up in the mornings instead of me. Bastards.

Bob Dylan – more boring to be him or watch him?

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Yes, I saw Bob Dylan play last night at the Saku Suurhall. I saw his left side. Yep. He faced the band for the entire concert. At least the band looked at the crowd. He didn’t acknowledge the audience at all, not even a hello. After 2 hours of slurring and rambling indecipherable lyrics of dramatically re-arranged old songs he simply announced the name of his bandmembers, took a bow with them and then left the stage without so much as a goodbye.

Ok, fine, so I understand that it would be pretty tiresome to continually perform the same songs for 50-odd years. It’d be even harder to remain enthusiastic about it. What shits me is that he’s a prick. Perhaps he’s always been like that. Whatever.

The music sounded good, I have to say. The band was fine and all. Too bad no one understood anything he said all night. The general consensus of all the people I went with was “underwhelming”.

I admit, I’m not the greatest Bob Dylan fan. I only really wanted to go because I wanted to see him before he died and I figured doing it over here would be fun in itself. Sure, I’m glad overall that I did it. It just wasn’t awe-inspiring.

Lou Reed is coming here soon as well. I was considering seeing him as well since he’s probably gonna kick the bucket soon. Meh. He can’t be much better.

Actually, seeing bands live is really shit unless you’re a bona fide, die-hard fan. At least in my experiences. Maybe I’m just not a big live music person, but I always get bored and start falling asleep. Maybe it’s to do with not always being up the front, close to the stage. No, I think I have to be a fan of the music and up the front in order to stay awake and wholly enjoy the music.