Things run out. Last time I checked in, I was slapped onto the departmental payroll in some sort of short term project. That ran out when March ended. I then had a deal to come work for a wonderful, down-to-earth professor for half a year, still in the same place, but things were looking pretty bleak perspective wise. So I hang around for a few more months, and then what?
As 2016 bled into 2017, a coworker on the project that ran out was job hunting. I wasn't occupying myself with that as I figured I'd look after my half year thingamabob was up, but then he found a surprisingly promising looking position. Very cutting edge technology, phenomenal institution, a dream job really. Applications were open for a long time, with the clause that the offer would be taken down once a suitable applicant was found. What did Rumpy do? Apply immediately? Hell no. I only felt 80% qualified, so I waited until the very last day the ad was up and applied then, knowing they didn't get anyone good so they might take me. A coward is me! They somehow ended up taking me on for the job, in spite of me messing up every single thing I could during the interviews. At least it's a simple case of caveat emptor, I let them know of every last one of my shortcomings along the way, so they can't pin it on me when I fail spectacularly at something I warned them I have no predispositions to do. Nevertheless, this job is somewhere else.
As such, it is time to relocate. Today marks the beginning of the final step of that trek, which involved struggling with a competitive housing market, all sorts of bureaucracy, a visibly disinterested and sloppy referencing company, strep throat, furnishing a flat for the first time in my life... a van is going to roll up around 3pm, I'm going to load up the worldly possessions I didn't fill the bin with, and we're going to go. Tomorrow I get internet and a van full of IKEA packages to ram into functional furniture. It's all militaristically planned. I'd lie if I said I wasn't stressed, but it's a calm, collected sort of stress. They know what they got into, and I've got a track record of handling prior professional arrangements just fine. Ironically, the thing that's causing me the most pain (apart from the fact I absolutely despise moving), is the fact I have to leave my current town behind.
It's a bit of a cruel twist of fate, really. When I came here in 2012 I hated it. I imagine it's largely a psychological thing because I was also making a mountain out of a molehill (easy to say that in hindsight, though) and thinking I was barely keeping my head above water in a raging storm as I did 80% of my PhD in my first year. As such, I developed a hatred of the archetypical British red brick house, and never noticed the niceness around me until like 3 years in. I was beyond miserable until the lab mates lured me out of my corner and into some form of social interaction. And then, once I got a job and not a PhD, I calmed down even more. Things really "clicked" once I found a lovely little bakery and had good bread for the first time on this island about half a year ago. And just as I settled in, roof windows and everything, I have to up and leave and repeat this process? What sort of hell is this?
You could liken my current feelings for my surroundings to the middle of season 7 of The Office. That part where it becomes apparent Michael will have to leave. I never really cared for the character, but only around that part in the series does it become apparent what role he really has, in no small part thanks to some rather gratuitous writing that paints him in a better light. After having taken my current "Michael" for granted, I only begin to appreciate it as I have to leave it all behind and go to a new place again. I'm reasonably sure I'll settle there quicker than I settled here - I won't have the deep psychological turmoil (documented all too well on these pages) of the beginning of my UK excursion, and the new lab mates went to get a bite to eat with me the very night I arrived in the city for a meeting earlier in the month. It'll probably take a couple months to get everything in order, and I'll likely be fine. Still, it's kind of bittersweet that this godforsaken shithole which I used to loathe so much has actually made its way into my heart and I'll actually have somewhat fond memories of it. Time heals all the wounds. I won't remember screaming at walls at 3am, shaking, disassociated from reality. I'll remember learning to cook, making my own band who played my songs and liked them, getting decent at small talk over steak in a little rural steakhouse. I'll remember the weird, dried up charm that swoops over even the ugliest of UK red brick streets towards the end of September, the very time of year I arrived, dog tired, from a super early flight. And then proceeded to get lost on the way to my house, having my knees buckle in a supermarket as I found out that I was given directions for the wrong street all along. Back then, it was hell. Now it feels like a fun little adventure in hindsight. I'll likely have many other "adventures" like that, but armed with the knowledge that things tend to work out allows me to approach them with a slightly clearer head and stress less. It will all be fine in the end.
Other developments? I've started actively losing weight. In the summer of last year, I hit triple digit body mass and decided that enough is enough. I'm now 20kg lighter, and have stalled for the past few weeks as I've stress eaten like a motherfucker over this whole move and new job period. I'll get back on track. I found some cool music. I got an underground as hell band to make a bandcamp page with their music on a name your price basis by writing them - a wonderful little variation on the old Paraxism story (although I did write Paraxism like they were gods, while I wrote these guys like they were just everyday humans). I recorded guitars for an album. Things aren't bad. But excuse me, for now it's time to continue hopping over to the other side. Later gator!
30.5.17
5.12.15
The Dream is Dead
Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? I'm not particularly active on here, seeing how my audience is me there's no real point in trying.
So, stuff that happened since the last post on here. I got my PhD. Well, not formally, I'll get my PhD while dressed as an assclown in some massively overblown joke of a ceremony in January. But I did pass my viva and dealt with the minor stylistic corrections. I have entered the realm of employment, sticking around the same department for the start of my postdoctoral trek. Live the Poland life, never move, stay in the same place forever. I already breached the rule by shifting to the UK for my PhD, I can't possibly breach it further. I grew some semblance of self esteem for the first time in years as I realised I actually have a use. Don't get me wrong, on the whole I still think I'm a freaking joke of a human being, but a little less so than previously, making day to day life more bearable. I ate lots of food, including developing some cool recipe ideas which I might put on here, might put on a separate culinary blog which will inevitably get no traffic, or might not put anywhere because why bother.
Also, crucially for the perspective of the blog, I let the dream die.
Without sugar coating it, the music existence I dream of just doesn't exist. In the end, in order to survive, you need money. You acquire money through shifting units. You shift units by playing what people want to hear you play. Barely anybody would show up to Electric Six gigs if they didn't have Gay Bar in their repertoire ready to go, certainly not enough to survive from being a band. As is, they're probably not living massively exuberant lives, as they churn out records and tour like clockwork in order to make ends meet. You can see this starting to take a toll on them, as the past five years have been a relatively steady decline in record quality, which is even mirrored in their recent set lists. The very band who I viewed as the against-all-odds example of making it on your own terms is actually a slave of the system.
On the other side of the spectrum, you have Kabanos. The guys have started making money off music and are well underway to being a household name among kinderrebels of all ages in Poland. All it took was embracing writing about haters, being beautiful and meaningless kinderlove for it to happen. I'm sure that the 30-something year old frontman is loving every second of this exactly as much as the 15 year old "THIS IS ME NOW" dyed hair chicas in the front row of the gigs. Don't get me started on Biffy Clyro either.
And there's also the issue of even the greats not having a particularly fulfilling time either. You might have heard of a certain Scott Weiland. You know, the guy who was the singer for Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, that one. Out of both bands, having to tour with nameless stand-ins, having to cash in on former glories night after night because of some insane alimony settlement or whatever. No wonder he relapsed, if he relapsed. He died earlier today.
As such, the plethora of different examples just go to show that there is no valid approach to dreaming of music. "Making it" is hard enough by itself, and a sufficient crapshoot to make for a dream closer to the unrealistic side of the spectrum for those of us not named Tom Hess, and when you start tossing in elements such as artistic integrity, creative fulfilment and happiness to the rider then you're gonna have a bad time. My aspirations were misplaced, the thing I wanted just doesn't exist. As such, the music dream is officially dead. That doesn't stop me making music, mind you, as I can do that freely on my own terms in my own time. Just that I can stop feeling like some misspent artiste who's wasting away, and become reasonably content with the surrounding reality when compared to, say, selling parsnips at a local market.
Since it's been so long, a brief mention on current band/music state of things would be nice. Nakpat was, in all honesty, a flop. We got some guy who was super popular in the Battle of the Bands society circlejerk to be our singer, and he carried us to fourth place in the event. In the end, nobody cared about the music at all, singer guy included. Then he moved, and the drummer moved, and the bassist-turned-drummer found some insanely good bassist who speaks and thinks musical theory and schematics a bit too much. But when we let loose and just jam everything works out fine. It's probably going to be a good time.
Other than that? Well, not all that much. Another reason for me finding some more inner peace is moving. I now lack my own personal shower, but I have gained two enormous roof windows which offer me what might well be Britain's highest amount of sunlight in a single room ever. The slanted attic walls of the room, combined with the sunlight, make me feel the most comfortable I have felt in this country. Every now and then I find women attractive. Sometimes I try to act on the impulse, usually I don't. Thank heavens for Facebook letting me reasonably easily assess whether there's any point to storming the gates whatsoever. The most recent damsel in Rumpy distress doesn't appear to have pictures with male companionship outside of larger scale group shots, so I'm going to send her a cowardly email which she'll probably ignore. The norm, really.
So, uh, a-year-in-a-wall-of-text more less done. I probably missed some important stuff. Ah yes, I have had gaming under control since that massively preachy post into nothing, so there's that. This post can double as a massively preachy post for letting the music dream die. Off to... I don't know really. Guess I'll eat some cookies and watch the third Hunger Games movie. Peace!
So, stuff that happened since the last post on here. I got my PhD. Well, not formally, I'll get my PhD while dressed as an assclown in some massively overblown joke of a ceremony in January. But I did pass my viva and dealt with the minor stylistic corrections. I have entered the realm of employment, sticking around the same department for the start of my postdoctoral trek. Live the Poland life, never move, stay in the same place forever. I already breached the rule by shifting to the UK for my PhD, I can't possibly breach it further. I grew some semblance of self esteem for the first time in years as I realised I actually have a use. Don't get me wrong, on the whole I still think I'm a freaking joke of a human being, but a little less so than previously, making day to day life more bearable. I ate lots of food, including developing some cool recipe ideas which I might put on here, might put on a separate culinary blog which will inevitably get no traffic, or might not put anywhere because why bother.
Also, crucially for the perspective of the blog, I let the dream die.
Without sugar coating it, the music existence I dream of just doesn't exist. In the end, in order to survive, you need money. You acquire money through shifting units. You shift units by playing what people want to hear you play. Barely anybody would show up to Electric Six gigs if they didn't have Gay Bar in their repertoire ready to go, certainly not enough to survive from being a band. As is, they're probably not living massively exuberant lives, as they churn out records and tour like clockwork in order to make ends meet. You can see this starting to take a toll on them, as the past five years have been a relatively steady decline in record quality, which is even mirrored in their recent set lists. The very band who I viewed as the against-all-odds example of making it on your own terms is actually a slave of the system.
On the other side of the spectrum, you have Kabanos. The guys have started making money off music and are well underway to being a household name among kinderrebels of all ages in Poland. All it took was embracing writing about haters, being beautiful and meaningless kinderlove for it to happen. I'm sure that the 30-something year old frontman is loving every second of this exactly as much as the 15 year old "THIS IS ME NOW" dyed hair chicas in the front row of the gigs. Don't get me started on Biffy Clyro either.
And there's also the issue of even the greats not having a particularly fulfilling time either. You might have heard of a certain Scott Weiland. You know, the guy who was the singer for Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, that one. Out of both bands, having to tour with nameless stand-ins, having to cash in on former glories night after night because of some insane alimony settlement or whatever. No wonder he relapsed, if he relapsed. He died earlier today.
As such, the plethora of different examples just go to show that there is no valid approach to dreaming of music. "Making it" is hard enough by itself, and a sufficient crapshoot to make for a dream closer to the unrealistic side of the spectrum for those of us not named Tom Hess, and when you start tossing in elements such as artistic integrity, creative fulfilment and happiness to the rider then you're gonna have a bad time. My aspirations were misplaced, the thing I wanted just doesn't exist. As such, the music dream is officially dead. That doesn't stop me making music, mind you, as I can do that freely on my own terms in my own time. Just that I can stop feeling like some misspent artiste who's wasting away, and become reasonably content with the surrounding reality when compared to, say, selling parsnips at a local market.
Since it's been so long, a brief mention on current band/music state of things would be nice. Nakpat was, in all honesty, a flop. We got some guy who was super popular in the Battle of the Bands society circlejerk to be our singer, and he carried us to fourth place in the event. In the end, nobody cared about the music at all, singer guy included. Then he moved, and the drummer moved, and the bassist-turned-drummer found some insanely good bassist who speaks and thinks musical theory and schematics a bit too much. But when we let loose and just jam everything works out fine. It's probably going to be a good time.
Other than that? Well, not all that much. Another reason for me finding some more inner peace is moving. I now lack my own personal shower, but I have gained two enormous roof windows which offer me what might well be Britain's highest amount of sunlight in a single room ever. The slanted attic walls of the room, combined with the sunlight, make me feel the most comfortable I have felt in this country. Every now and then I find women attractive. Sometimes I try to act on the impulse, usually I don't. Thank heavens for Facebook letting me reasonably easily assess whether there's any point to storming the gates whatsoever. The most recent damsel in Rumpy distress doesn't appear to have pictures with male companionship outside of larger scale group shots, so I'm going to send her a cowardly email which she'll probably ignore. The norm, really.
So, uh, a-year-in-a-wall-of-text more less done. I probably missed some important stuff. Ah yes, I have had gaming under control since that massively preachy post into nothing, so there's that. This post can double as a massively preachy post for letting the music dream die. Off to... I don't know really. Guess I'll eat some cookies and watch the third Hunger Games movie. Peace!
11.10.14
Operation Sellout is go!
Hello dear mentlegens,
I remember I wanted to write some whiney shit while I was in Poland but I forgot what that whiney shit was. Doesn't matter. I'm far removed from 100% mentally, earlier this week I had another one of those spastic stress freakouts that result in me getting absolutely no sleep during a given night and set me back quite a bit in energy and overall well-being. Those usually tend to happen before early meetings for some reason :P but yeah, I slept it off, I suffered some sickness to compensate for the overall turmoil, and now I'm done with it (hopefully).
So what's the big news? Nakpat is go. The original second guitar dude is busy as nutsack, but I managed to assemble a full line up anyway. Half of the guys seem very keen, which just makes this all the better. I'm incredibly rusty guitar wise, but I was just as rusty when I started playing in last year's band and all ended relatively well. I'm about 1000% more pumped for this than I was for that, so there's also that.
The Nakpat track list is finished, has been for a while now. There's a decent amount of continuity, evolution, throwbacks throughout the duration of the record. I'm content with the tracks featured, even the more accessible moments evoke the kind of sellout music I enjoy and not the kind of sellout music that I don't enjoy :P There's also some deep end stuff, mainly locked within interludes.
Ah yeah, I remember what I wanted to write about in Poland now! I'm stuck in 2007 in my head, unsurprisingly. That was when I made Dawn and Beneath, arguably the two best things I ever penned. So I went back through my old CDs (I switched to HD for musical storage around late 2008) and took a look at what I actually tried listening to back then. I thought that my poserdom stopped when I admitted to myself Blind Guardian, Dimmu Borgir and Pantera aren't for me. This was not the case :P There's tons and tons of drivel on there that's completely unlistenable in a manner that I know I'd have hated back then too. Apparently I was trying my hardest to get myself to like metalcore and grind. Thank heavens I stayed true to myself and whatnot :P
So yeah, back to what triggered this little flashback - it's kinda funny how the 2007 me ended up defining the two records that I wrote since then - Turnip and Nakpat. Back then the two tracks were to go on the same CD. Now Dawn's collecting dust on the Turnip freakouts that nobody wants to play and I'm selling my soul for crackers with Nakpat :P
I kinda lost my trail of thought as I started noodling on the guitar again. Gotta get back in shape. I'm kinda ashamed of how rusty I am, but I guess it's natural as I'm trying to let the dream die most of the time, no? Gotta get dressed and hit the city center for the weekly chinese. Peace!
I remember I wanted to write some whiney shit while I was in Poland but I forgot what that whiney shit was. Doesn't matter. I'm far removed from 100% mentally, earlier this week I had another one of those spastic stress freakouts that result in me getting absolutely no sleep during a given night and set me back quite a bit in energy and overall well-being. Those usually tend to happen before early meetings for some reason :P but yeah, I slept it off, I suffered some sickness to compensate for the overall turmoil, and now I'm done with it (hopefully).
So what's the big news? Nakpat is go. The original second guitar dude is busy as nutsack, but I managed to assemble a full line up anyway. Half of the guys seem very keen, which just makes this all the better. I'm incredibly rusty guitar wise, but I was just as rusty when I started playing in last year's band and all ended relatively well. I'm about 1000% more pumped for this than I was for that, so there's also that.
The Nakpat track list is finished, has been for a while now. There's a decent amount of continuity, evolution, throwbacks throughout the duration of the record. I'm content with the tracks featured, even the more accessible moments evoke the kind of sellout music I enjoy and not the kind of sellout music that I don't enjoy :P There's also some deep end stuff, mainly locked within interludes.
Ah yeah, I remember what I wanted to write about in Poland now! I'm stuck in 2007 in my head, unsurprisingly. That was when I made Dawn and Beneath, arguably the two best things I ever penned. So I went back through my old CDs (I switched to HD for musical storage around late 2008) and took a look at what I actually tried listening to back then. I thought that my poserdom stopped when I admitted to myself Blind Guardian, Dimmu Borgir and Pantera aren't for me. This was not the case :P There's tons and tons of drivel on there that's completely unlistenable in a manner that I know I'd have hated back then too. Apparently I was trying my hardest to get myself to like metalcore and grind. Thank heavens I stayed true to myself and whatnot :P
So yeah, back to what triggered this little flashback - it's kinda funny how the 2007 me ended up defining the two records that I wrote since then - Turnip and Nakpat. Back then the two tracks were to go on the same CD. Now Dawn's collecting dust on the Turnip freakouts that nobody wants to play and I'm selling my soul for crackers with Nakpat :P
I kinda lost my trail of thought as I started noodling on the guitar again. Gotta get back in shape. I'm kinda ashamed of how rusty I am, but I guess it's natural as I'm trying to let the dream die most of the time, no? Gotta get dressed and hit the city center for the weekly chinese. Peace!
4.8.14
John Rumpy vs. Games
Yes, I have "rechristened" myself to John Rumpy. This way I can go "Hello my name is John Rumpy and I'm very pleased to meet you". It's quite possibly just a phase, but the concept is cool.
I'm writing this in the wee hours of the morning, as I'm post-transatlantic transit and my daily rhythm is down the shitter. Hey, at least somehow I managed to make the to-Europe time change feel like the to-America time change, so I'm not late for everything. I'm early for everything. This is supposedly easier to deal with. It took me like four days on the other side of the pond, but I feel a little less like I got churned up in a washing machine now, so I should be okay.
Why'd I go transatlantic? Because reasons, that's why. The reasons being conference. I flew for 10 hours, spending tons of my budget to stand next to a poster demonstrating my crappy "research" for a few hours. Woop dee fucking doo. I also got to listen to others talk about their stuff, and there are tons of cool things going on. Maybe I'll apply for a spot to some of those labs, assuming I successfully finish this part of my life beforehand. Yes, I'm down in the shitter, how'd you know.
I also met a Finnish girl who was strategically positioned 3 metres from me during the poster session. She seemed just as out of place as me, and that felt nice. I don't think she's interested. I know I'm a little interested. I'll bug her a bit anyway, you never know, maybe shit will work out. I'm not sure I should even try, I'm just a waste of space, plus I don't have a good history of long distance stuff working out.
Anyway, time to get preachy and write a thing that I've been wanting to write for a while now. Think that I'm in a good position to do it now, as I seem to have freed myself quite well... namely, video games. Just like just about every other kid ever, I played some while growing up - abusing the engines of turn of the century FIFA games to do crazy shit, being quite horrible at the basic platformerness of the Nonsense games but still loving them to bits for the randomness, being quite horrible at THPS2 but still getting a kick out of it, obsessing over the original pod racer game as ZOMG POD RACERS. I was never overly addicted or anything, I had other stuff in my life.
Cue early 2012. I apply to my current university, go through the entire confusing situation, apply for a scholarship, get noped. I get depressed even by my standards and delve head first into Team Fortress 2. I play a whole lot, even after transferring to the UK - life's pretty stressful, and that helps me vent steam. Sort of. Eventually I get fed up of TF2, in no small part thanks to my difficult to work with personality resulting in lack of luck in competitive. I guess if I were a spineless git like JR I'd make it higher up and possibly still be playing like he is. Keep at it, docter - you're at nearly 3000 hours and such div1 wow. Pardon the snark, it was uncalled for. Anyway, once TF is out of the picture is where shit gets real.
For you see, TF is like going out for a beer with friends in comparison to dota. Dota is like being a twitching drug addict on a subway station floor. It's quite possibly the most addictive game in history thanks to all the heroes and whatnot, and there's always a reason to play another game after the one you just played. There's always someone to play a game with. Just one more, doing something else, or trying to redo what you just did. You lost? Well damn, you need to win to quit while ahead and feeling good! You just won? Perfect, keep up the streak!
This would result in a HUGE time-suck, and I'd spend a full time job's worth of hours playing the game. Nope, I didn't neglect my work, I'd still get everything done and keep my supervisor happy. Thing is, when not working, dota would be pretty much all I'd do. Because reality sucks and dota makes me feel better, right? Nah. It was a negative-sum mood changer, because I'd feel far worse after losing than the slight mood boost from winning. I'd play a round with a friend in the afternoon, after getting a hunk of analysis out of the way. Then I'd snap out around 3am, head reeling, countless rounds with a rotating line up later.
In the end, this is still probably better than alcoholism as I'm not destroying my internal organs with it and it doesn't deplete my financial reserve. That's not to say that gaming's good, as it's pretty much the same thing. You dive into it headfirst to escape reality being bad. Eventually you surface and reality is still bad. Dota'ing won't support you, unless you're one of the fringe cases who get to be pros, but I'm nowhere near good enough, so it won't do anything to reality apart from leeching temporal and energetic resources you could allocate somewhere else. To be quite fair, I'm not sure I'd want to live off dota anyway, even if given the possibility.
So what sort of inspired advice can I offer to those struggling with a similar sort of "fuck this gay earth" reality-escaping addiction? Well, it doesn't help. It never does. It's a sign of weakness, and it just makes you all the weaker by itself. Cold turkey the hell out of the fucker. The thing that snapped me out was my visit back home early July. I figured that my life's unhealthy, and deliberately left my mouse in the UK for the trip so I wouldn't be able to dota. Did it work out? Hell no, I found a random old horrible mouse in my Polish room and tried to dota on a few occasions on 500 ping internet. Still, I was doing all I could to quit, and eventually the itches died down to a manageable level. I went back to the UK, and I dota'd some more. Still, I was controlling myself - I wouldn't allow myself to lose track of reality, and the vacuum-like feeling of MOAR would result in me killing the game. I was managing it. And I looked around at my life and I realised I don't need it. Yes, this is an obvious realisation to make, but a groundbreaking one for someone stuck in a shithole like that.
I think that the conference helped me the most in that department, actually. I went there sans mouse again, but not consciously. I just didn't need to dota after hours. I think that this ship has finally sailed.
Is life better now? Hell no. Reality still blows. But without this gigantic time and energy suck distraction, I've got a bit more power to face it head on instead of just claiming that life sucks and firing up dota again. I won't stop life sucking. I won't stop myself hating myself for not being musician material. Still, I'm feeling a little saner and more in control with that out of the way. Will I ever dota again? Maybe with friends every now and then, but I don't really feel drawn to it. And if I do dota, I'll have to watch out to not lapse back into the shitstate, and also be weary of it showing up from other factors.
So what's up other than that? Well, as you can tell, I'm depressed. But that's the norm. The Polish girl who I accidentally met in a mall a few years ago and can't get out of my head since then changed her profile picture on Facebook. If fate were less cruel we'd both probably be happy now. I hate myself for being a spineless git, but some things eclipse the sun, especially given my current financial situation. She no longer proudly displays that she's single, so she probably found a guy. Good for her, she really deserves one. Ever since shit hit the fan I try to distract myself, get her out of my head. It's failing. Pretty much every single song I wrote since meeting her is hers one way or another. It's an incredibly touchy subject so I haven't mentioned it here before, and I probably won't again. Just a general moment of weakness. Perfect timing, I'm about to go to a group meeting and then to see my supervisor. I guess I'm due for the annual "I'm fucking worthless" breakdown in front of her. Lights, camera, action.
Other than that, I'm eating a raspberry yoghurt. Uh-huh. Jon Auer's solo record just finished. Before that, I listened to a leak of J Mascis's new one as well. Both make for a good listen in the wee hours of monday morning when you're still supposed to be asleep. I prefer the Auer one, a lot of the Mascis one is him retreading old ground, yet again. The bits and pieces that are novel are quite pleasant though.
I think that'll do it. Huge ramble out of the way. Doesn't matter, nobody reads this shit anyway, just me every few months or whenever. It's quite possible that I'll look back at this from some future time point where I've succumbed to gaming again and I'll curse myself for not having enough strength to stay out, yet being so preachy at this moment in the time-space continuum. I feel like flinging myself off a fucking cliff. Fuck everything.
I'm writing this in the wee hours of the morning, as I'm post-transatlantic transit and my daily rhythm is down the shitter. Hey, at least somehow I managed to make the to-Europe time change feel like the to-America time change, so I'm not late for everything. I'm early for everything. This is supposedly easier to deal with. It took me like four days on the other side of the pond, but I feel a little less like I got churned up in a washing machine now, so I should be okay.
Why'd I go transatlantic? Because reasons, that's why. The reasons being conference. I flew for 10 hours, spending tons of my budget to stand next to a poster demonstrating my crappy "research" for a few hours. Woop dee fucking doo. I also got to listen to others talk about their stuff, and there are tons of cool things going on. Maybe I'll apply for a spot to some of those labs, assuming I successfully finish this part of my life beforehand. Yes, I'm down in the shitter, how'd you know.
I also met a Finnish girl who was strategically positioned 3 metres from me during the poster session. She seemed just as out of place as me, and that felt nice. I don't think she's interested. I know I'm a little interested. I'll bug her a bit anyway, you never know, maybe shit will work out. I'm not sure I should even try, I'm just a waste of space, plus I don't have a good history of long distance stuff working out.
Anyway, time to get preachy and write a thing that I've been wanting to write for a while now. Think that I'm in a good position to do it now, as I seem to have freed myself quite well... namely, video games. Just like just about every other kid ever, I played some while growing up - abusing the engines of turn of the century FIFA games to do crazy shit, being quite horrible at the basic platformerness of the Nonsense games but still loving them to bits for the randomness, being quite horrible at THPS2 but still getting a kick out of it, obsessing over the original pod racer game as ZOMG POD RACERS. I was never overly addicted or anything, I had other stuff in my life.
Cue early 2012. I apply to my current university, go through the entire confusing situation, apply for a scholarship, get noped. I get depressed even by my standards and delve head first into Team Fortress 2. I play a whole lot, even after transferring to the UK - life's pretty stressful, and that helps me vent steam. Sort of. Eventually I get fed up of TF2, in no small part thanks to my difficult to work with personality resulting in lack of luck in competitive. I guess if I were a spineless git like JR I'd make it higher up and possibly still be playing like he is. Keep at it, docter - you're at nearly 3000 hours and such div1 wow. Pardon the snark, it was uncalled for. Anyway, once TF is out of the picture is where shit gets real.
For you see, TF is like going out for a beer with friends in comparison to dota. Dota is like being a twitching drug addict on a subway station floor. It's quite possibly the most addictive game in history thanks to all the heroes and whatnot, and there's always a reason to play another game after the one you just played. There's always someone to play a game with. Just one more, doing something else, or trying to redo what you just did. You lost? Well damn, you need to win to quit while ahead and feeling good! You just won? Perfect, keep up the streak!
This would result in a HUGE time-suck, and I'd spend a full time job's worth of hours playing the game. Nope, I didn't neglect my work, I'd still get everything done and keep my supervisor happy. Thing is, when not working, dota would be pretty much all I'd do. Because reality sucks and dota makes me feel better, right? Nah. It was a negative-sum mood changer, because I'd feel far worse after losing than the slight mood boost from winning. I'd play a round with a friend in the afternoon, after getting a hunk of analysis out of the way. Then I'd snap out around 3am, head reeling, countless rounds with a rotating line up later.
In the end, this is still probably better than alcoholism as I'm not destroying my internal organs with it and it doesn't deplete my financial reserve. That's not to say that gaming's good, as it's pretty much the same thing. You dive into it headfirst to escape reality being bad. Eventually you surface and reality is still bad. Dota'ing won't support you, unless you're one of the fringe cases who get to be pros, but I'm nowhere near good enough, so it won't do anything to reality apart from leeching temporal and energetic resources you could allocate somewhere else. To be quite fair, I'm not sure I'd want to live off dota anyway, even if given the possibility.
So what sort of inspired advice can I offer to those struggling with a similar sort of "fuck this gay earth" reality-escaping addiction? Well, it doesn't help. It never does. It's a sign of weakness, and it just makes you all the weaker by itself. Cold turkey the hell out of the fucker. The thing that snapped me out was my visit back home early July. I figured that my life's unhealthy, and deliberately left my mouse in the UK for the trip so I wouldn't be able to dota. Did it work out? Hell no, I found a random old horrible mouse in my Polish room and tried to dota on a few occasions on 500 ping internet. Still, I was doing all I could to quit, and eventually the itches died down to a manageable level. I went back to the UK, and I dota'd some more. Still, I was controlling myself - I wouldn't allow myself to lose track of reality, and the vacuum-like feeling of MOAR would result in me killing the game. I was managing it. And I looked around at my life and I realised I don't need it. Yes, this is an obvious realisation to make, but a groundbreaking one for someone stuck in a shithole like that.
I think that the conference helped me the most in that department, actually. I went there sans mouse again, but not consciously. I just didn't need to dota after hours. I think that this ship has finally sailed.
Is life better now? Hell no. Reality still blows. But without this gigantic time and energy suck distraction, I've got a bit more power to face it head on instead of just claiming that life sucks and firing up dota again. I won't stop life sucking. I won't stop myself hating myself for not being musician material. Still, I'm feeling a little saner and more in control with that out of the way. Will I ever dota again? Maybe with friends every now and then, but I don't really feel drawn to it. And if I do dota, I'll have to watch out to not lapse back into the shitstate, and also be weary of it showing up from other factors.
So what's up other than that? Well, as you can tell, I'm depressed. But that's the norm. The Polish girl who I accidentally met in a mall a few years ago and can't get out of my head since then changed her profile picture on Facebook. If fate were less cruel we'd both probably be happy now. I hate myself for being a spineless git, but some things eclipse the sun, especially given my current financial situation. She no longer proudly displays that she's single, so she probably found a guy. Good for her, she really deserves one. Ever since shit hit the fan I try to distract myself, get her out of my head. It's failing. Pretty much every single song I wrote since meeting her is hers one way or another. It's an incredibly touchy subject so I haven't mentioned it here before, and I probably won't again. Just a general moment of weakness. Perfect timing, I'm about to go to a group meeting and then to see my supervisor. I guess I'm due for the annual "I'm fucking worthless" breakdown in front of her. Lights, camera, action.
Other than that, I'm eating a raspberry yoghurt. Uh-huh. Jon Auer's solo record just finished. Before that, I listened to a leak of J Mascis's new one as well. Both make for a good listen in the wee hours of monday morning when you're still supposed to be asleep. I prefer the Auer one, a lot of the Mascis one is him retreading old ground, yet again. The bits and pieces that are novel are quite pleasant though.
I think that'll do it. Huge ramble out of the way. Doesn't matter, nobody reads this shit anyway, just me every few months or whenever. It's quite possible that I'll look back at this from some future time point where I've succumbed to gaming again and I'll curse myself for not having enough strength to stay out, yet being so preachy at this moment in the time-space continuum. I feel like flinging myself off a fucking cliff. Fuck everything.
19.2.14
The Best Curry Ever, and other stuffs
Howdy! It is I, the Rumpy, and I'm coming to you live on location in my room. In front of me, a little bit to the right, is a bowl of the most freaking amazing curry I have made in my life. So without further ado, recipe safekeeping!
Rumpy's Creamy, Yet Intense Balti
Ingredients:
1. rapeseed oil (I used some that was infused with garlic and chilli, not vital though)
2. 3 small'ish red onions, chopped (yes, I use red onions in curry, sue me)
3. 800g tomatoes, chopped
4. tsp black pepper
5. tsp cinnamon
6. tsp cardamon
7. 0.5 tsp cumin
8. tsp garam masala
9. tsp chili powder
10. 0.5 tsp salt
11. 0.5 tbsp minced garlic
12. 0.5 tbsp grated ginger
13. 3 green chillies, chopped, seeds kept
14. coriander-in-a-tube, or chopped real coriander
15. 600g chicken breast, diced
16. juice of half a lemon
17. large pot of greek-style yoghurt
How to:
1. Heat up a decent amount of rapeseed oil in a wok. I put a bit more than I'd typically use, but not enough to even cover the whole bottom of the wok. I'm not one of those "curry must be dripping in oil" type of people. Unless we're talking about butter chicken, that thing's name order of ingredients isn't accidental.
2. Fry up the onions for a moment, until they start to colour up a notch. Toss in the tomatoes and keep stirring until they start thinking about not being solid anymore (but not really fully liquid yet either). Toss in the pepper, cinnamon, cardamon, cumin, garam masala, chili powder, salt, garlic, ginger and chillies and stir for a while longer, letting the tomatoes become even more liquid.
3. Once the tomatoes are pretty liquid, add the chicken. In my case, the chicken was still a bit frozen, so I kept piling on the heated sauce on it, getting it to defrost definitely, saying stuff like "Come on, chicken!" to it, much to the dismay of a random housemate :P Keep at it until the chicken is cooked. A good hint that the chicken is cooked is that it's white all over, you don't see the pink meat. Just to be 300% sure, I kept it on the flame a few extra minutes after that.
4. Turn the heat off altogether, add the pot of yoghurt and the lemon juice and stir through. Serve with rice.
This thing is absolutely magnificent. It started out as me experimenting with a more "traditional" way to make a curry, using whole tomatoes instead of passata, and then it just took off on its own. Thanks to the tomatoes proper, the sauce is delightfully chunky, and the creaminess of the yoghurt (added right at the end to not degrade into white stuff and water) fantastically complements the not-quite-cookie-cutter spice mix and chilli heat. It's also easy to make - obviously, as it's a Rumpy cooking creation, it's a one-pot with nothing exuberant going on. Give it a try, you won't regret it.
So, since I'm already writing one of these things, other stuff? First and foremost - my old MSB friend Beckkill is coming over for a visit next week! We're going to be joined by JR and launch an ascent on Mount Good Times. I foresee a smashing success, as there's tons of bad movies and cider and cooking to be had. Beckkill's doing all sorts of tourist'y research, finding things worth seeing, the complete package more-less. Oh yeah, there's also gonna be a gig by that band I'm in.
For you see, I'm in a band now. The band members are pretty darn tight on their respective instruments, and they absolutely kill that minimalist doom death ballad I penned in 2007 and fine tuned for the Polish doom death band around 2010/2011 or so. The problem is that this is the only bit of repertoire by me, and the songs by the other guitar player are relatively stale, oh so slightly progressive hunks of thrash. As such, I don't foresee Beckkill and JR having too good a time at the gig. In order to make the time a bit less bad, I took some solo spots in some of the other songs, but I'm having trouble coming up with something meaningful to play. I'll have it figured out by gig time for sure though.
Nakpat should hopefully get going around April/May, when my good friend the other guitar player comes back from Africa. I hopefully found a singer in the one housemate I befriended, and hopefully the bass guy for the band I'm playing in now will be around to give me a hand with Nakpat as well. That leaves a drummer spot open. Hopefully all will be well.
I also recently made a pedalboard from an IKEA shelf, the cheap bastard I am. Here's how:
1. Obtain two-pack of IKEA Gorm shelves. I went for the three-plank version - it's plenty long, and the five-plank version wouldn't fit in any bag that's readily available.
2. Take one of the Gorm shelves and 3 metres of strong 50mm velcro. Stick the loop side of the velcro on the shelf. Stick little rubber feet on the other side of the shelf.
3. Take your pedals, unscrew any feet. Apply gaffer tape to bottom of pedals, apply velcro hooks to that. I don't wanna muck up my pedal with velcro residue, and gaffer comes clean off if needed. The gaffer was 50mm too, and white, making for an easy time with the velcro attachment.
4. Stick pedals on board. Profit.
This setup is good, as this way I don't gunk up my pedals with velcro residue and I get the same mileage out of this as I'd get out of any purchased flat pedalboard, at a fraction of the cost. I got a keyboard bag to lug this thing around. So far the velcro and gaffer have been working fine.
Okay, that's about it really. Progress-wise, I'm chugging away and my supervisor seems content. Mood-wise, there's good times and there's bad times, and I tend to swing between the two pretty hard-style. I woke up today with good-times vibes after a nice long sleep, then I got all depressed, then I made the curry and am feeling all great again. I don't understand the workings of my mood system. Feh. I made it so far in, I'll make it a bit further in too. So yeah, that'll be a wrap. Later!
Rumpy's Creamy, Yet Intense Balti
Ingredients:
1. rapeseed oil (I used some that was infused with garlic and chilli, not vital though)
2. 3 small'ish red onions, chopped (yes, I use red onions in curry, sue me)
3. 800g tomatoes, chopped
4. tsp black pepper
5. tsp cinnamon
6. tsp cardamon
7. 0.5 tsp cumin
8. tsp garam masala
9. tsp chili powder
10. 0.5 tsp salt
11. 0.5 tbsp minced garlic
12. 0.5 tbsp grated ginger
13. 3 green chillies, chopped, seeds kept
14. coriander-in-a-tube, or chopped real coriander
15. 600g chicken breast, diced
16. juice of half a lemon
17. large pot of greek-style yoghurt
How to:
1. Heat up a decent amount of rapeseed oil in a wok. I put a bit more than I'd typically use, but not enough to even cover the whole bottom of the wok. I'm not one of those "curry must be dripping in oil" type of people. Unless we're talking about butter chicken, that thing's name order of ingredients isn't accidental.
2. Fry up the onions for a moment, until they start to colour up a notch. Toss in the tomatoes and keep stirring until they start thinking about not being solid anymore (but not really fully liquid yet either). Toss in the pepper, cinnamon, cardamon, cumin, garam masala, chili powder, salt, garlic, ginger and chillies and stir for a while longer, letting the tomatoes become even more liquid.
3. Once the tomatoes are pretty liquid, add the chicken. In my case, the chicken was still a bit frozen, so I kept piling on the heated sauce on it, getting it to defrost definitely, saying stuff like "Come on, chicken!" to it, much to the dismay of a random housemate :P Keep at it until the chicken is cooked. A good hint that the chicken is cooked is that it's white all over, you don't see the pink meat. Just to be 300% sure, I kept it on the flame a few extra minutes after that.
4. Turn the heat off altogether, add the pot of yoghurt and the lemon juice and stir through. Serve with rice.
This thing is absolutely magnificent. It started out as me experimenting with a more "traditional" way to make a curry, using whole tomatoes instead of passata, and then it just took off on its own. Thanks to the tomatoes proper, the sauce is delightfully chunky, and the creaminess of the yoghurt (added right at the end to not degrade into white stuff and water) fantastically complements the not-quite-cookie-cutter spice mix and chilli heat. It's also easy to make - obviously, as it's a Rumpy cooking creation, it's a one-pot with nothing exuberant going on. Give it a try, you won't regret it.
So, since I'm already writing one of these things, other stuff? First and foremost - my old MSB friend Beckkill is coming over for a visit next week! We're going to be joined by JR and launch an ascent on Mount Good Times. I foresee a smashing success, as there's tons of bad movies and cider and cooking to be had. Beckkill's doing all sorts of tourist'y research, finding things worth seeing, the complete package more-less. Oh yeah, there's also gonna be a gig by that band I'm in.
For you see, I'm in a band now. The band members are pretty darn tight on their respective instruments, and they absolutely kill that minimalist doom death ballad I penned in 2007 and fine tuned for the Polish doom death band around 2010/2011 or so. The problem is that this is the only bit of repertoire by me, and the songs by the other guitar player are relatively stale, oh so slightly progressive hunks of thrash. As such, I don't foresee Beckkill and JR having too good a time at the gig. In order to make the time a bit less bad, I took some solo spots in some of the other songs, but I'm having trouble coming up with something meaningful to play. I'll have it figured out by gig time for sure though.
Nakpat should hopefully get going around April/May, when my good friend the other guitar player comes back from Africa. I hopefully found a singer in the one housemate I befriended, and hopefully the bass guy for the band I'm playing in now will be around to give me a hand with Nakpat as well. That leaves a drummer spot open. Hopefully all will be well.
I also recently made a pedalboard from an IKEA shelf, the cheap bastard I am. Here's how:
1. Obtain two-pack of IKEA Gorm shelves. I went for the three-plank version - it's plenty long, and the five-plank version wouldn't fit in any bag that's readily available.
2. Take one of the Gorm shelves and 3 metres of strong 50mm velcro. Stick the loop side of the velcro on the shelf. Stick little rubber feet on the other side of the shelf.
3. Take your pedals, unscrew any feet. Apply gaffer tape to bottom of pedals, apply velcro hooks to that. I don't wanna muck up my pedal with velcro residue, and gaffer comes clean off if needed. The gaffer was 50mm too, and white, making for an easy time with the velcro attachment.
4. Stick pedals on board. Profit.
This setup is good, as this way I don't gunk up my pedals with velcro residue and I get the same mileage out of this as I'd get out of any purchased flat pedalboard, at a fraction of the cost. I got a keyboard bag to lug this thing around. So far the velcro and gaffer have been working fine.
Okay, that's about it really. Progress-wise, I'm chugging away and my supervisor seems content. Mood-wise, there's good times and there's bad times, and I tend to swing between the two pretty hard-style. I woke up today with good-times vibes after a nice long sleep, then I got all depressed, then I made the curry and am feeling all great again. I don't understand the workings of my mood system. Feh. I made it so far in, I'll make it a bit further in too. So yeah, that'll be a wrap. Later!
12.11.13
Bonsai-Induced IKEA Nostalgia
Quite the blog post title, no?
The back story's pretty simple. One day a man arrived on campus, aiming to offload some plants on undergrads with parents with bulging wallets. There was the standard array of cacti etc, but also some mildly exuberant plants like flytraps and bonsais. A bonsai caught my eye as I was walking past, and I figured "why the hell not, I'll buy it". So why the hell not, I bought it (along with a tub of bonsai takeaway that will last the little bugger eight years) and took it home.
Guess what, the sly capitalist flower seller didn't include a base for the pot, which promptly turned out to have two holes in the bottom. It was a long day at uni, I did some work and went to the pool, so I failed to notice this minute detail straight off the bat. As such, the bonsai was living in the green bag it came with, and it was sloppily fed from a cup every Monday & Friday. On the bonsai's 13th day in my room, I decided that enough's enough and opted to roll to IKEA and get some sort of base for the pot.
First obstacle - what the hell is the size of the pot? I don't have a ruler, but my notebook's graph paper. As such, I took my graph paper notebook and rammed it against the sides of the pot, unraveling the mystery of its dimensions. Lifehack protip, kids - each one of those graph paper squares is 5 millimetres. Now you too can throw away your ruler and live the Rumpy life!
With that out of the way, I caught a bus to IKEA... and I took my time walking around the whole display, looking at things, thinking of things. IKEA's very international, and we have some elements from IKEA in Poland as well. I'm not saying the entire house is made from IKEA things, as my mom's far too aesthetic to let that thing slide, but last time around I caved and got the exact same wastepaper basket I have in both the Polish houses. No, I don't take said wastepaper basket with me when we go from one house to the other, there are two separate copies of said item. And now a third one is residing next to me. Now I caved and got some nice plates, with leaves and colours, to replace the cheepnis schmuck I've been using up to now. I'm gonna be here for two more years, may as well make the place slightly more comfy. Hence the bonsai and the nice plates. I take a weird sense of comfort from the fact that I could have gone to the IKEA which we frequent in Poland and picked up the very same plates.
I remember when I got all nostalgic the first time I went to the UK IKEA, as its overall smell and nature reminded me of the Polish one. Bot, who accompanied me for the trip, mocked me for it pretty hard. Screw him :P
I also picked up a little wooden bowl for the purpose of mixing spices easily. Reminded me a bit of the wooden bowl in which my grandparents kept walnuts and a nutcracker. The nostalgia just keeps on coming!
But wait! There's more! For whatever reason, on the bus trip home, I got nostalgic :P This time around, my thoughts carried me to the return bus trip from a ski camp in Italy which I attended around 2007 or so. Everybody was tired, I was kicking back, relaxing, one ear had Velvet Revolver's "Loving The Alien" and the other ear had a chick who was mean to me all camp long trying awkwardly to say that maybe "final impressions would count, not the first ones". I met up with the people from the ski camp by pure accident some time later on the standard mountain my family skis on, said chick wasn't present as she overslept. Someone mentioned that she wanted to go out with me. Those were the days when I still attracted females, I had a bit more hair on my head, a bit less on my face, and less fat on the gut :P for whatever reason, I reminisced about that in spite of its absolute lack of significance, with Slash's solo playing in my head. Screw the haters, Contraband had some really nice tracks. That record taught me all the basics of writing songs.
Music-wise, I'm working on Nakpat tracks, putting together a running order in my head. Some oldies, some new ones. Should be good.
Okay, time to end this. Got some pizza to attend to. My bonsai is looking menacing with a mildly asian-looking, curled-corner saucer as the base. Life's good, even though it's not really that amazing. I'm a big boy, gotta fly out of the nest, and be less self-centered about how every last thing is bad and how much I hate life and miss Poland. Gotta keep moving forward. See you all next time, and of course take care everybody.
The back story's pretty simple. One day a man arrived on campus, aiming to offload some plants on undergrads with parents with bulging wallets. There was the standard array of cacti etc, but also some mildly exuberant plants like flytraps and bonsais. A bonsai caught my eye as I was walking past, and I figured "why the hell not, I'll buy it". So why the hell not, I bought it (along with a tub of bonsai takeaway that will last the little bugger eight years) and took it home.
Guess what, the sly capitalist flower seller didn't include a base for the pot, which promptly turned out to have two holes in the bottom. It was a long day at uni, I did some work and went to the pool, so I failed to notice this minute detail straight off the bat. As such, the bonsai was living in the green bag it came with, and it was sloppily fed from a cup every Monday & Friday. On the bonsai's 13th day in my room, I decided that enough's enough and opted to roll to IKEA and get some sort of base for the pot.
First obstacle - what the hell is the size of the pot? I don't have a ruler, but my notebook's graph paper. As such, I took my graph paper notebook and rammed it against the sides of the pot, unraveling the mystery of its dimensions. Lifehack protip, kids - each one of those graph paper squares is 5 millimetres. Now you too can throw away your ruler and live the Rumpy life!
With that out of the way, I caught a bus to IKEA... and I took my time walking around the whole display, looking at things, thinking of things. IKEA's very international, and we have some elements from IKEA in Poland as well. I'm not saying the entire house is made from IKEA things, as my mom's far too aesthetic to let that thing slide, but last time around I caved and got the exact same wastepaper basket I have in both the Polish houses. No, I don't take said wastepaper basket with me when we go from one house to the other, there are two separate copies of said item. And now a third one is residing next to me. Now I caved and got some nice plates, with leaves and colours, to replace the cheepnis schmuck I've been using up to now. I'm gonna be here for two more years, may as well make the place slightly more comfy. Hence the bonsai and the nice plates. I take a weird sense of comfort from the fact that I could have gone to the IKEA which we frequent in Poland and picked up the very same plates.
I remember when I got all nostalgic the first time I went to the UK IKEA, as its overall smell and nature reminded me of the Polish one. Bot, who accompanied me for the trip, mocked me for it pretty hard. Screw him :P
I also picked up a little wooden bowl for the purpose of mixing spices easily. Reminded me a bit of the wooden bowl in which my grandparents kept walnuts and a nutcracker. The nostalgia just keeps on coming!
But wait! There's more! For whatever reason, on the bus trip home, I got nostalgic :P This time around, my thoughts carried me to the return bus trip from a ski camp in Italy which I attended around 2007 or so. Everybody was tired, I was kicking back, relaxing, one ear had Velvet Revolver's "Loving The Alien" and the other ear had a chick who was mean to me all camp long trying awkwardly to say that maybe "final impressions would count, not the first ones". I met up with the people from the ski camp by pure accident some time later on the standard mountain my family skis on, said chick wasn't present as she overslept. Someone mentioned that she wanted to go out with me. Those were the days when I still attracted females, I had a bit more hair on my head, a bit less on my face, and less fat on the gut :P for whatever reason, I reminisced about that in spite of its absolute lack of significance, with Slash's solo playing in my head. Screw the haters, Contraband had some really nice tracks. That record taught me all the basics of writing songs.
Music-wise, I'm working on Nakpat tracks, putting together a running order in my head. Some oldies, some new ones. Should be good.
Okay, time to end this. Got some pizza to attend to. My bonsai is looking menacing with a mildly asian-looking, curled-corner saucer as the base. Life's good, even though it's not really that amazing. I'm a big boy, gotta fly out of the nest, and be less self-centered about how every last thing is bad and how much I hate life and miss Poland. Gotta keep moving forward. See you all next time, and of course take care everybody.
19.9.13
Some faith in humanity restored
Well, it had to happen. The zipper in my backpack decided it needs to spice up its life and broke, rendering what once used to be a reliable source of storage into a flapping distraction completely unsuited for having anything stored within. I figured out a way to carry it around by holding it close to my chest, akin to a baby, but it's incredibly impractical, makes my back hurt for whatever reason, and would be ill-advised for the trip I'm gonna be taking tomorrow. Oh boy, the "long road" to Poland, using the further away airport. Do not want flapping backpack for this.
As such, I ditched the course I was supposed to be partaking in to find someone to fix it up for me in the city center. There was supposed to be a cobbler in the market, but no such luck. I went to the tailor I found online, and got turned down. However, the person told me of another cobbler in some other part of town, so I went there. The dude behind the register looked like your typical scenester kid - tats, the bizarre ginormous O shaped earrings, hairdo, all there. Still, he took a look at the screwed zipper, chopped off the messed up tip and installed a new one. When asked how much I owe him, he just told me to throw a pound into the charity box. I threw in two. I also gave the insufferable wailer who was banging out his greatest hits on the nearby square 50p. My backpack lives to see another day, and my perpetual, ever-advancing depression was lifted for a moment of pure feel-good.
The weather is warm and sunny, but not quite as insufferable as it was in the summer. Everything looks beautiful again, like the day I first came to the UK. It may just be my mind playing tricks on me, as I am pretty tired, like the day I came in with that 6am flight. Okay fine I was a bit more tired then. But also then the UK seemed like the beautiful land of light from a Ionesco play, and now it's merely beautiful, so it's also a step down.
I'm tired, so tired of going down... to quote Electric Six. The three complete tracks posted as previews from the new record are far superior to the unrepresentative, compressed samples from Amazon. Roll on Mustang. Peace.
As such, I ditched the course I was supposed to be partaking in to find someone to fix it up for me in the city center. There was supposed to be a cobbler in the market, but no such luck. I went to the tailor I found online, and got turned down. However, the person told me of another cobbler in some other part of town, so I went there. The dude behind the register looked like your typical scenester kid - tats, the bizarre ginormous O shaped earrings, hairdo, all there. Still, he took a look at the screwed zipper, chopped off the messed up tip and installed a new one. When asked how much I owe him, he just told me to throw a pound into the charity box. I threw in two. I also gave the insufferable wailer who was banging out his greatest hits on the nearby square 50p. My backpack lives to see another day, and my perpetual, ever-advancing depression was lifted for a moment of pure feel-good.
The weather is warm and sunny, but not quite as insufferable as it was in the summer. Everything looks beautiful again, like the day I first came to the UK. It may just be my mind playing tricks on me, as I am pretty tired, like the day I came in with that 6am flight. Okay fine I was a bit more tired then. But also then the UK seemed like the beautiful land of light from a Ionesco play, and now it's merely beautiful, so it's also a step down.
I'm tired, so tired of going down... to quote Electric Six. The three complete tracks posted as previews from the new record are far superior to the unrepresentative, compressed samples from Amazon. Roll on Mustang. Peace.
15.9.13
How to get depressed by a kindermetal song
In an attempt to distract myself from the bleakness of the surrounding reality, I started thinking what sort of musical shit I haven't listened to in a while but could get some mileage from at this point in the time-space continuum. For whatever reason, my brain went with 55 Escape. While the album and EP downed, I went to YouTube Forever, their signature tune. Still as pleasant as ever. I saw Open Your Eyes in the related vids... and remembering that I used to enjoy it back in the day, I clicked it.
Bad choice. The EP with that tune was released just as my relationship with my ex was bottoming out, and that song was a bit of a soundtrack to that. Nowhere near as much as My Love is a Knife, for example, but but it served as some sort of aural documentation of my misguided attempts to make both her and me happy somehow. This song was that - there were the nu metal elements of old (yes, I dig some nu metal, bite me), with the heavy guitars and whatnot, and there were the kindergoth elemenents with the angelic vocals and overall Evanescence-style vibe. So it was a best of both worlds. And somehow, now, listening to this track three and a half years later, I get overcome by all sorts of emotions.
Well, I wish I didn't flubbed it, in all honesty. I flubbed it hard, early, and the rest was just a long process of me ripping myself to shreds and her having to put up with it. Needless to say, in perspective I'm not all that proud of myself. But at least I'm being rekd hard by karma for this - I'm now 3.5 years older, fatter, balder and uglier, and nowhere near getting out of being single. I'm at that stage of my life that I'm becoming kind of too certain I won't find anyone. And I'm surrounded by people not being alone all around me, heck, even the other guitar dude from Nakpat has a girlfriend. He also had a charming housemate but he moved so there goes that. Not like she'd have wanted me anyway.
So yeah, just me moping over being a useless sack of shit, the usual show. This place still sucks, I've been away from home for over two months now, it's a bit much, I'm starting to walk on walls from this. I actually snapped midway through my last supervisor meeting and just bashed the crap out of myself and my work in a passive, defeatist, depressed manner. Is best manner.
Now I'm blasting's Perimeter's second record, as a demonstration of simple, testosterone-laden brutality. It's kind of working. As JR would say, fuck this gay earth. Enough moping, gotta get my shit together and last through this last week and then go home for a while.
Bad choice. The EP with that tune was released just as my relationship with my ex was bottoming out, and that song was a bit of a soundtrack to that. Nowhere near as much as My Love is a Knife, for example, but but it served as some sort of aural documentation of my misguided attempts to make both her and me happy somehow. This song was that - there were the nu metal elements of old (yes, I dig some nu metal, bite me), with the heavy guitars and whatnot, and there were the kindergoth elemenents with the angelic vocals and overall Evanescence-style vibe. So it was a best of both worlds. And somehow, now, listening to this track three and a half years later, I get overcome by all sorts of emotions.
Well, I wish I didn't flubbed it, in all honesty. I flubbed it hard, early, and the rest was just a long process of me ripping myself to shreds and her having to put up with it. Needless to say, in perspective I'm not all that proud of myself. But at least I'm being rekd hard by karma for this - I'm now 3.5 years older, fatter, balder and uglier, and nowhere near getting out of being single. I'm at that stage of my life that I'm becoming kind of too certain I won't find anyone. And I'm surrounded by people not being alone all around me, heck, even the other guitar dude from Nakpat has a girlfriend. He also had a charming housemate but he moved so there goes that. Not like she'd have wanted me anyway.
So yeah, just me moping over being a useless sack of shit, the usual show. This place still sucks, I've been away from home for over two months now, it's a bit much, I'm starting to walk on walls from this. I actually snapped midway through my last supervisor meeting and just bashed the crap out of myself and my work in a passive, defeatist, depressed manner. Is best manner.
Now I'm blasting's Perimeter's second record, as a demonstration of simple, testosterone-laden brutality. It's kind of working. As JR would say, fuck this gay earth. Enough moping, gotta get my shit together and last through this last week and then go home for a while.
9.7.13
The most happiest day
Today, I had one of those days that feel amazing from start to finish. You know the type.
Was off to visit a friend in a nearby city. A friend of said friend tagged along. We had spot-on sushi, three good beers per head (good beer, coming from Rumpy, means the beer was 100% un-bitter, more-less), we saw a mediocre yet amusing zombie flick by the name of World War Z, a surprisingly satisfying kebab, and we screwed around playing free foosball in a pub afterwards. The weather was great - warm, but not too hot, and there were plenty of good-looking girls around. The banter was ever-flowing, never stopping, and ranged from serious stuff to off the wall silliness. Some highlights include showing off our foreign student IDs to the bewildered yet cooperative cinema clerk, offering up Getting Rekd 101: The Illustrated Guide in foosball in spite of getting 2v1'd, and historical banter about the interactions of Nordic and Baltic countries.
I could probably write more. It's just proof that the beautiful moments in life are really great, and well worth it once they finally show up. Hopefully good times lie ahead, and I'll have tons of those type of days. Signing out. Gotta enjoy the last bits of my mountain stay before I'm back to the UK. It's gonna be a busy summer. Two statistics courses, finishing the paper, making an algorithm to get some sort of rational (hopefully biological enough) conclusions... I think I'll manage though.
Was off to visit a friend in a nearby city. A friend of said friend tagged along. We had spot-on sushi, three good beers per head (good beer, coming from Rumpy, means the beer was 100% un-bitter, more-less), we saw a mediocre yet amusing zombie flick by the name of World War Z, a surprisingly satisfying kebab, and we screwed around playing free foosball in a pub afterwards. The weather was great - warm, but not too hot, and there were plenty of good-looking girls around. The banter was ever-flowing, never stopping, and ranged from serious stuff to off the wall silliness. Some highlights include showing off our foreign student IDs to the bewildered yet cooperative cinema clerk, offering up Getting Rekd 101: The Illustrated Guide in foosball in spite of getting 2v1'd, and historical banter about the interactions of Nordic and Baltic countries.
I could probably write more. It's just proof that the beautiful moments in life are really great, and well worth it once they finally show up. Hopefully good times lie ahead, and I'll have tons of those type of days. Signing out. Gotta enjoy the last bits of my mountain stay before I'm back to the UK. It's gonna be a busy summer. Two statistics courses, finishing the paper, making an algorithm to get some sort of rational (hopefully biological enough) conclusions... I think I'll manage though.
6.6.13
The Vicious Cycle Of Depression || Rumpy & The Ladies
Yknow what's funny? When I get depressed, I stop being able to do anything, more less. As in - I can do work and stuff from the confines of my room, but even going to the shop becomes a challenge. As such, I become immobilised. As a result of that, I become even more depressed. Rinse, repeat, thrombophlebitis at the ripe old age of 23. Well fuck. During my last visit home, my mom managed to finally motivate me to plant that well-needed kick on my ass and start moving again, go to the pool and stuff.
Still, the split second I get lazy or whatever, the vicious cycle will set in again, woohoo. I'll try to just keep it going. I'll have it easier when I move on campus for the summer.
Anyway, continuing the post - I went to the pool today. Was neat. Did half a kilometre without stopping once. Not that impressive, I know, but I'm a fat bastard, so it's pretty neat for me. Afterwards I could barely move, but it was extremely rewarding. So I was on the bus stop dying, and in walks a neat-o lady. Like 90% of the ladies I find attractive, she was caucasian, callipygous and dark-haired. And she got on the same bus as me.
Well, dandy. I spent the first half of the bus ride motivating myself to get off my ass and go to her and start up a chat. No stupid pick-up lines, no nothing, just blunt honesty. Ay you, you caught my eye at the bus stop, my name is Rumpy and I'm very pleased to meet you. What do I get to know about her? Nothing at all. Hell, even if I'd met her at a Dinosaur Jr gig or whatever it wouldn't necessarily mean she enjoys Dinosaur Jr. All I have that I can go from is the way she looks, and anybody with half a brain will know it and understand it and the getting to know each other part starts, maybe resulting in something pretty damn interesting.
After much repeating of "dude, sucking at something is the first step to being kind of good at something" in my head, I charged in. Of course, no ordered sentence came out. Just some random blabber, I think I pronounced "eye" right and that's that. Typical British courtesy upon my arrival quickly turned into a prompt "well, I'm minding my own business" ice-cold reply and turning away. Back to the drawing board. First step to being kind of good at something, long journey ahead of me.
No Cooking with Rumpy this time, go order a pizza or something. I need to wallow in self-pity over how bad I am with the ladies kthx.
Still, the split second I get lazy or whatever, the vicious cycle will set in again, woohoo. I'll try to just keep it going. I'll have it easier when I move on campus for the summer.
Anyway, continuing the post - I went to the pool today. Was neat. Did half a kilometre without stopping once. Not that impressive, I know, but I'm a fat bastard, so it's pretty neat for me. Afterwards I could barely move, but it was extremely rewarding. So I was on the bus stop dying, and in walks a neat-o lady. Like 90% of the ladies I find attractive, she was caucasian, callipygous and dark-haired. And she got on the same bus as me.
Well, dandy. I spent the first half of the bus ride motivating myself to get off my ass and go to her and start up a chat. No stupid pick-up lines, no nothing, just blunt honesty. Ay you, you caught my eye at the bus stop, my name is Rumpy and I'm very pleased to meet you. What do I get to know about her? Nothing at all. Hell, even if I'd met her at a Dinosaur Jr gig or whatever it wouldn't necessarily mean she enjoys Dinosaur Jr. All I have that I can go from is the way she looks, and anybody with half a brain will know it and understand it and the getting to know each other part starts, maybe resulting in something pretty damn interesting.
After much repeating of "dude, sucking at something is the first step to being kind of good at something" in my head, I charged in. Of course, no ordered sentence came out. Just some random blabber, I think I pronounced "eye" right and that's that. Typical British courtesy upon my arrival quickly turned into a prompt "well, I'm minding my own business" ice-cold reply and turning away. Back to the drawing board. First step to being kind of good at something, long journey ahead of me.
No Cooking with Rumpy this time, go order a pizza or something. I need to wallow in self-pity over how bad I am with the ladies kthx.
23.4.13
The Frankfurter Secret
Welcome back! It's your loveable dissonant overlord, and I've got some music news plus another recipe for you today! The music news is simple - Nakpat is very slowly starting to take off, and I co-wrote my first properly co-written song in years with the other guitarist on Saturday. I came with a couple of riffs, he came with a couple of riffs, I dropped his riffs into drop Bb (yes, I have trouble getting rid of the heavy, but that will make Nakpat more interesting aurally, so no real loss), we jammed off each other's riffs and jam ideas for a while, and a rough template for a pretty interesting track got made. I'm pleased that Nakpat is a bit adventurous without stooping into the bizarre.
Yet.
Hopefully I'll manage to contain my crazy alter ego and not drift off into insanity with it :P Time will tell. For now, need a dedicated drummer and singer.
And now, the fooding! I'm about to share with you the most shocking culinary secret passed on to me by my family... for you see, frankfurters work as a "proper meat" substitute in a lot of situations. My mom's spaghetti with frankfurters, predating my entrance onto this mortal coil, is arguably my dad's favorite dish. As such, I had the approach in my blood, and I whipped up my very own recipe where the frankfurters are present by default and not subbing for something else. Without further ado, the recipe!
Potato and Frankfurter Whatsit
Ingredients:
1. 350g frankfurters
2. 200g bacon
3. 1kg potatoes
4. olive oil
5. half a head of garlic
6. rosemary
7. thyme
How-to:
1. Slice up frankfurters
2. Slice up bacon
3. Slice up potatoes into bite-size bits
4. Start heating olive oil (pour in not quite enough to cover the pan's bottom) on a small flame
5. Crush up garlic
6. Throw garlic into olive oil, marvel at the best small in the world
7. Quit marvelling over how amazing garlic and hot olive oil smell, throw in bacon. Bump up the heat a bit, fry bacon until it's no longer raw
8. Throw in frankfurters, stir for a while until the thing is nice and warm throughout.
9. Add potatoes. Repeat the waiting a while thing
10. Generously cover the thing with rosemary. Stir in.
11. Repeat with thyme. Stir in.
12. Add a bit of water, cover with lid, increase heat a bit more.
13. Do the dishes. Turn the heat down.
14. Go upstairs. Watch Futurama.
15. Go downstairs. Tuck in!
So yeah, that's about it. See you all next time, and of course take care everybody :3
Yet.
Hopefully I'll manage to contain my crazy alter ego and not drift off into insanity with it :P Time will tell. For now, need a dedicated drummer and singer.
And now, the fooding! I'm about to share with you the most shocking culinary secret passed on to me by my family... for you see, frankfurters work as a "proper meat" substitute in a lot of situations. My mom's spaghetti with frankfurters, predating my entrance onto this mortal coil, is arguably my dad's favorite dish. As such, I had the approach in my blood, and I whipped up my very own recipe where the frankfurters are present by default and not subbing for something else. Without further ado, the recipe!
Potato and Frankfurter Whatsit
Ingredients:
1. 350g frankfurters
2. 200g bacon
3. 1kg potatoes
4. olive oil
5. half a head of garlic
6. rosemary
7. thyme
How-to:
1. Slice up frankfurters
2. Slice up bacon
3. Slice up potatoes into bite-size bits
4. Start heating olive oil (pour in not quite enough to cover the pan's bottom) on a small flame
5. Crush up garlic
6. Throw garlic into olive oil, marvel at the best small in the world
7. Quit marvelling over how amazing garlic and hot olive oil smell, throw in bacon. Bump up the heat a bit, fry bacon until it's no longer raw
8. Throw in frankfurters, stir for a while until the thing is nice and warm throughout.
9. Add potatoes. Repeat the waiting a while thing
10. Generously cover the thing with rosemary. Stir in.
11. Repeat with thyme. Stir in.
12. Add a bit of water, cover with lid, increase heat a bit more.
13. Do the dishes. Turn the heat down.
14. Go upstairs. Watch Futurama.
15. Go downstairs. Tuck in!
So yeah, that's about it. See you all next time, and of course take care everybody :3
19.2.13
The Magical Alliance
Alas, alack, all that is dandy has to end, and today I flew back in to UKland after an extended weekend at home (there was a proper large-scale family celebration I had to attend). After saying my goodbyes, and making it through the security check unscathed (hope you loved your rock-solid-yet-still-somehow-liquid-according-to-you curry paste that used to be mine, UKland control officer), I seated myself in the optimal position on the aircraft - just behind the magical reserved seats, aka I'd be the first zooming out of there once the plane hit the ground. Just as I made myself comfy, they made their appearance.
The Magical Alliance caught my ear first, then my eye when I turned around to see what was making the racket. The racket was being made by three very fine young gentlemen in Adidas track suits. The leader looked like a carbon copy of one of the dunderheads who used to pick on me in middle school. His right-hand crony seemed to be so stupid that blinking and walking at once must have been too hard for him... I guess he did the leader dude some wrong, as he was seated next to the window. With all the mental capacity the window-sitter could muster, admiring the views outside could literally take his breath away. The third member of the group, and the hero of the story up ahead, sported a ridiculous mohawk-mullet hybrid that would have looked dreadful in the early nineties, let alone now. I just scoffed at their barbed language, writing it off as the lads being excited before embarking on a trip to the depths of the job ladder.
Spurting idiocy apparently wasn't enough. At some point mid flight, the hero of the tale produced a bottle of alcohol. I'm not sure exactly how they distributed the grapefruit vodka or whatever the hell it was, but said hero held the empty bottle when I noticed them taking their party to the next level. Also, somehow, it was him swaying in the general direction of the toilet moments later as his comrades remained seated. As such, I guess that his brain cell didn't think it was a bad idea to down the whole thing. Soon enough, the flight attendants got the guy in check, and he was placed in the magical fenced off reserved seats. Right in front of me.
Lovely.
As The Great And Powerful Rumpy is a walking example of mild-to-average emetophobia, I spent the rest of the flight bunged up in an embryo position with my bag and coat (fuck regulations, no way is it under the seat where there's a fraction of a chance he'll barf on it somehow). Ugh. Not fun at all.
My mood was slightly improved when the boss of the pack went to speak with the fallen. At first they were exchanging bro-hugs, but soon enough it degenerated into a shouting match with the drunken dude doing his best to hit the sober one. Once again, flight attendants had to step in. The Magic Alliance, shattered before the plane even touched down at their final destination. I can't help but have my spirits a little raised.
Now, I'm back in the place where I lived, and one lamb jhallosa later I'm pretty settled in. Conclusions from the journey - take the seat one row behind the reserved seats.
The Magical Alliance caught my ear first, then my eye when I turned around to see what was making the racket. The racket was being made by three very fine young gentlemen in Adidas track suits. The leader looked like a carbon copy of one of the dunderheads who used to pick on me in middle school. His right-hand crony seemed to be so stupid that blinking and walking at once must have been too hard for him... I guess he did the leader dude some wrong, as he was seated next to the window. With all the mental capacity the window-sitter could muster, admiring the views outside could literally take his breath away. The third member of the group, and the hero of the story up ahead, sported a ridiculous mohawk-mullet hybrid that would have looked dreadful in the early nineties, let alone now. I just scoffed at their barbed language, writing it off as the lads being excited before embarking on a trip to the depths of the job ladder.
Spurting idiocy apparently wasn't enough. At some point mid flight, the hero of the tale produced a bottle of alcohol. I'm not sure exactly how they distributed the grapefruit vodka or whatever the hell it was, but said hero held the empty bottle when I noticed them taking their party to the next level. Also, somehow, it was him swaying in the general direction of the toilet moments later as his comrades remained seated. As such, I guess that his brain cell didn't think it was a bad idea to down the whole thing. Soon enough, the flight attendants got the guy in check, and he was placed in the magical fenced off reserved seats. Right in front of me.
Lovely.
As The Great And Powerful Rumpy is a walking example of mild-to-average emetophobia, I spent the rest of the flight bunged up in an embryo position with my bag and coat (fuck regulations, no way is it under the seat where there's a fraction of a chance he'll barf on it somehow). Ugh. Not fun at all.
My mood was slightly improved when the boss of the pack went to speak with the fallen. At first they were exchanging bro-hugs, but soon enough it degenerated into a shouting match with the drunken dude doing his best to hit the sober one. Once again, flight attendants had to step in. The Magic Alliance, shattered before the plane even touched down at their final destination. I can't help but have my spirits a little raised.
Now, I'm back in the place where I lived, and one lamb jhallosa later I'm pretty settled in. Conclusions from the journey - take the seat one row behind the reserved seats.
10.2.13
The Update Show!
Piano!
*piano smash*
*muttered* whose idea was this?
Now, with the lamzor asdfmovie reference out of the way, I can move on to an update proper! So, how have I been? Pretty darn good, actually. I'm getting used to UKland, and working at my own pace. There are no jet skis, I'm not stuck in mud - turns out that the work I put into the method is pretty good progress. I'm not lagging behind. Currently relaxing and rebuilding energy after an intense period where I tuned up the method to perfection and made some user-friendly things for it. Working on the paper, but not overexerting myself. My supervisor, who's supposed to be very demanding, is happy. So I'm happy too.
The vagueness of my future direction got spotted when I had my progress review meeting. Thought this was a huge obstacle, and I was crushed for a few days. Then I realised that it isn't actually a problem, and I'll be okay. My supervisors have tons of stuff in need of attention, and I'm more than happy to pull up my sleeves and do the computer work... and then try to parry the biology :P eventually I'll have to delve into that too. Thing is, I don't feel competent in that department, and whatever conclusions I may draw should be taken with a huge, huge dose of reserve.
Insanity fighting - music! Found the second guitar guys for both Nakpat and Green Parrot. Smashing success! Also, bought the Fnord, it's underway now. Pedalboard should be complete soon enough!
More insanity fighting - cooking! Indians and Pakistanis are two of the three top minorities in the UK (the third nation being Poles), so I started experimenting with their spices and whipping up some curries. The butter chicken may have been beginner's luck, but it got the halal roommate seal of approval for the tastiest stuff he ever had. And it rolled from there, usually successes instead of failures. The cookbook mah amazing sis got me for Christmas is a fantastic resource of great recipes, and even the seemingly harder ones are described in great detail and are easy enough to pull off if one just follows the protocol. It's like lab work.
Rumpy presents: The potato-lentil-pea curry extravaganza lab work sheet
(I lernd hoa2bold todai. uproud)
Serves: whoa this is a lot
Reagents vel ingredients:
1. canola oil
2. 2 small onions
3. 1 tsp ginger powder
4. 1 tsp garlic powder
5. 2 tsp ground coriander
6. 1 tsp ground cumin
7. 1 tsp turmeric
8. 0.5 tsp ground cinnamon
9. 1 tsp chilli powder
10. 750 g young potatoes
11. 250 g red lentils
12. 700 g tomato passata rustica
13. 400 ml can of coconut milk
14. half a cube of chicken stock
15. 1 tsp garam masala
16. 0.5 tsp salt
17. 0.5 tsp brown cane sugar
18. 150 g green shelled peas
19. 1 tbsp coriander-in-a-tube
20. 3 tbsp lemon juice
Note:
tsp - overflowing teaspoon
tbsp - overflowing tablespoon
Procedure:
1. Hack up potatoes into small, bite-size chunks.
2. Put a bit of canola oil into a big pot and set it on medium flame so it heats up.
3. Hack up onions.
4. Dump onions into pot, stir occasionally.
5. Mix ginger powder, garlic powder, ground coriander, ground cumin, turmeric, ground cinnamon and chilli powder on a small plate to add them effortlessly later.
6. Once the onions are reasonably cooked (should take about 5 minutes) dump in the spices. Cough, sputter, wonder why there are so many spices and so few onions, stir, cough, sputter, think that you should have put in more oil, keep the uneasy mix on the hob for about a minute.
7. Dump in the hacked potatoes and lentils. Cough and sputter even more as the drastic scent of fried spices gets shifted up by the sudden air movement. Bot starts suffocating next door and accusing of mustard gas creation. Open front door, back door, window, air the thing. Stir the thing in the pot to spread the onions and spices evenly across the taters and lentils.
8. Pour in the tomato passata and coconut milk. The coconut milk is a solid coconut cream layer on top and water on the bottom. Frantically sniff can to see if the thing wasn't spoiled, read label, find a hint to shake before use as separation usually occurs. Ah, ok. Stir the mix, bring it to the boil.
9. Whip up a cup of chicken stock from the half-cube and a cup of boiling water from the kettle. Add that. Add garam masala, salt and the sugar. Throughout stir.
10. Reduce the flame. Watch Slurgi taking a teleporter disguised as an enemy pyro, using the revolver when claiming to be using the enforcer, and missing 8 shots in a row on a rather predictable demoman. Overall, just chillax, relax, max for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.
11. Add peas, stir, simmer for another 5 minutes
12. Take off flame, add coriander-in-a-tube and lemon juice. Stir thing. Taste thing. Barely restrain self from instantly eating whole pot of thing. Fry up parathas and eat the thick, delightfully tasty goop with them.
So yeah, tune in next time for more cooking with Rumpy! Maybe, if I feel like it, that is.
Also, another thing that really, really did my mental sanity well - I weeded Fox out of my life once and for all. True, when times were good, she was a great friend. But when times were rough, she was nigh impossible to deal with (as reflected in numerous butthurt posts on this blog), and I just couldn't tune out what she was saying. As it just wasn't working, I terminated it. And all's dandy. She's too busy being adored by her "new friends" to come after me, and I'm okay with this.
Welp, that will be all for now. I need to buy me a performance hat ;) Stay tuned for more ramblings from everybody's favourite curry-devouring, fuzz-loving dissonance overlord in the future!
*piano smash*
*muttered* whose idea was this?
Now, with the lamzor asdfmovie reference out of the way, I can move on to an update proper! So, how have I been? Pretty darn good, actually. I'm getting used to UKland, and working at my own pace. There are no jet skis, I'm not stuck in mud - turns out that the work I put into the method is pretty good progress. I'm not lagging behind. Currently relaxing and rebuilding energy after an intense period where I tuned up the method to perfection and made some user-friendly things for it. Working on the paper, but not overexerting myself. My supervisor, who's supposed to be very demanding, is happy. So I'm happy too.
The vagueness of my future direction got spotted when I had my progress review meeting. Thought this was a huge obstacle, and I was crushed for a few days. Then I realised that it isn't actually a problem, and I'll be okay. My supervisors have tons of stuff in need of attention, and I'm more than happy to pull up my sleeves and do the computer work... and then try to parry the biology :P eventually I'll have to delve into that too. Thing is, I don't feel competent in that department, and whatever conclusions I may draw should be taken with a huge, huge dose of reserve.
Insanity fighting - music! Found the second guitar guys for both Nakpat and Green Parrot. Smashing success! Also, bought the Fnord, it's underway now. Pedalboard should be complete soon enough!
More insanity fighting - cooking! Indians and Pakistanis are two of the three top minorities in the UK (the third nation being Poles), so I started experimenting with their spices and whipping up some curries. The butter chicken may have been beginner's luck, but it got the halal roommate seal of approval for the tastiest stuff he ever had. And it rolled from there, usually successes instead of failures. The cookbook mah amazing sis got me for Christmas is a fantastic resource of great recipes, and even the seemingly harder ones are described in great detail and are easy enough to pull off if one just follows the protocol. It's like lab work.
Rumpy presents: The potato-lentil-pea curry extravaganza lab work sheet
(I lernd hoa2bold todai. uproud)
Serves: whoa this is a lot
Reagents vel ingredients:
1. canola oil
2. 2 small onions
3. 1 tsp ginger powder
4. 1 tsp garlic powder
5. 2 tsp ground coriander
6. 1 tsp ground cumin
7. 1 tsp turmeric
8. 0.5 tsp ground cinnamon
9. 1 tsp chilli powder
10. 750 g young potatoes
11. 250 g red lentils
12. 700 g tomato passata rustica
13. 400 ml can of coconut milk
14. half a cube of chicken stock
15. 1 tsp garam masala
16. 0.5 tsp salt
17. 0.5 tsp brown cane sugar
18. 150 g green shelled peas
19. 1 tbsp coriander-in-a-tube
20. 3 tbsp lemon juice
Note:
tsp - overflowing teaspoon
tbsp - overflowing tablespoon
Procedure:
1. Hack up potatoes into small, bite-size chunks.
2. Put a bit of canola oil into a big pot and set it on medium flame so it heats up.
3. Hack up onions.
4. Dump onions into pot, stir occasionally.
5. Mix ginger powder, garlic powder, ground coriander, ground cumin, turmeric, ground cinnamon and chilli powder on a small plate to add them effortlessly later.
6. Once the onions are reasonably cooked (should take about 5 minutes) dump in the spices. Cough, sputter, wonder why there are so many spices and so few onions, stir, cough, sputter, think that you should have put in more oil, keep the uneasy mix on the hob for about a minute.
7. Dump in the hacked potatoes and lentils. Cough and sputter even more as the drastic scent of fried spices gets shifted up by the sudden air movement. Bot starts suffocating next door and accusing of mustard gas creation. Open front door, back door, window, air the thing. Stir the thing in the pot to spread the onions and spices evenly across the taters and lentils.
8. Pour in the tomato passata and coconut milk. The coconut milk is a solid coconut cream layer on top and water on the bottom. Frantically sniff can to see if the thing wasn't spoiled, read label, find a hint to shake before use as separation usually occurs. Ah, ok. Stir the mix, bring it to the boil.
9. Whip up a cup of chicken stock from the half-cube and a cup of boiling water from the kettle. Add that. Add garam masala, salt and the sugar. Throughout stir.
10. Reduce the flame. Watch Slurgi taking a teleporter disguised as an enemy pyro, using the revolver when claiming to be using the enforcer, and missing 8 shots in a row on a rather predictable demoman. Overall, just chillax, relax, max for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.
11. Add peas, stir, simmer for another 5 minutes
12. Take off flame, add coriander-in-a-tube and lemon juice. Stir thing. Taste thing. Barely restrain self from instantly eating whole pot of thing. Fry up parathas and eat the thick, delightfully tasty goop with them.
So yeah, tune in next time for more cooking with Rumpy! Maybe, if I feel like it, that is.
Also, another thing that really, really did my mental sanity well - I weeded Fox out of my life once and for all. True, when times were good, she was a great friend. But when times were rough, she was nigh impossible to deal with (as reflected in numerous butthurt posts on this blog), and I just couldn't tune out what she was saying. As it just wasn't working, I terminated it. And all's dandy. She's too busy being adored by her "new friends" to come after me, and I'm okay with this.
Welp, that will be all for now. I need to buy me a performance hat ;) Stay tuned for more ramblings from everybody's favourite curry-devouring, fuzz-loving dissonance overlord in the future!
7.1.13
Rumpy vs Insanity
Signing in again.
So, what's been up since then? Still fighting an uphill battle against science. Still not feel like I'm winning. Still seeing everybody else zip by on turbo jet skis or something. Still going insane.
How am I combatting the insanity? With routine trips back home for the weekend, about once every 3-4 weeks. Pricey? Not at all. Just buy tickets ahead of time from Wizzair or something. I spent my first weekend home back "on detox", constantly crying and shaking and puking from nerves. Since then it kinda got better. The world as I know it back home isn't going anywhere. Everything is still in place, and it's waiting for me if I fail here. Screw life as Plan B, if I mess up here I just get to go back to the part of the world I feel best in, in the end.
Second insanity-combatting strategy? Starting a band. I intend to get something going in the UK. Coincidentally, I split off my mellow leanings into a project named Nakpat. As such, it'd be perfect if I could create both Green Parrot and Nakpat, but we'll see what comes out... I'm pretty sure the latter won't have any trouble attracting musicians and a putative fan base.
In preparation, I took my pedals from Poland.
RUMPY PEDALBOARD OF AWESOME: Geetar -> Dunlop Crybaby 535q -> TC Electronic Polytune -> Boss OS-2 -> Devi Ever US Fuzz -> Black Arts Toneworks Fnord -> Akai Professional Phase Shifter -> Amp
Said pedalboard requires two purchases to work. I got the Polytune in my back-at-the-motherland music shop, bartering down the price a bit. Love haggling, even with shopkeepers. I still need to get my hands on a Fnord, but the pedal guy will have them back in stock in a few weeks. Hope customs won't be evil and I'll get my hands on the pedal without any issues.
So yeah, UKland still hasn't been fully tamed, and probably never will be, but what can I do. Gotta keep fighting.
So, what's been up since then? Still fighting an uphill battle against science. Still not feel like I'm winning. Still seeing everybody else zip by on turbo jet skis or something. Still going insane.
How am I combatting the insanity? With routine trips back home for the weekend, about once every 3-4 weeks. Pricey? Not at all. Just buy tickets ahead of time from Wizzair or something. I spent my first weekend home back "on detox", constantly crying and shaking and puking from nerves. Since then it kinda got better. The world as I know it back home isn't going anywhere. Everything is still in place, and it's waiting for me if I fail here. Screw life as Plan B, if I mess up here I just get to go back to the part of the world I feel best in, in the end.
Second insanity-combatting strategy? Starting a band. I intend to get something going in the UK. Coincidentally, I split off my mellow leanings into a project named Nakpat. As such, it'd be perfect if I could create both Green Parrot and Nakpat, but we'll see what comes out... I'm pretty sure the latter won't have any trouble attracting musicians and a putative fan base.
In preparation, I took my pedals from Poland.
RUMPY PEDALBOARD OF AWESOME: Geetar -> Dunlop Crybaby 535q -> TC Electronic Polytune -> Boss OS-2 -> Devi Ever US Fuzz -> Black Arts Toneworks Fnord -> Akai Professional Phase Shifter -> Amp
Said pedalboard requires two purchases to work. I got the Polytune in my back-at-the-motherland music shop, bartering down the price a bit. Love haggling, even with shopkeepers. I still need to get my hands on a Fnord, but the pedal guy will have them back in stock in a few weeks. Hope customs won't be evil and I'll get my hands on the pedal without any issues.
So yeah, UKland still hasn't been fully tamed, and probably never will be, but what can I do. Gotta keep fighting.
22.10.12
The Research Cave
So... I've been in the UK for over three weeks now. Guess what, my irrational side was right.
They keep casually flinging around big names of big things like it's adding two numbers. They expect me to read and understand those logorrhea + barbed wire formulas articles. Every single attempt to master anything ends with me having to backtrack five miles and start from the absolute basics of everything imaginable.
I attempted to combat it with creativity. They don't really see a problem with the errors they're making. And I don't have enough stuff in my arsenal to persuade them that it's otherwise.
It's not helping that I'm cooped up in an office with three other people who are doing more-less the same thing for their PhD, and they're all continuing their masters projects. Which, in turn, evolved out of a class they took during their taught masters part. The guy on the left is writing up page after page of bushy integrals like it's nobody's business. The girl behind me is whipping up crazy-ass graphs of shit I probably wouldn't understand. The guy on the right came up with his own skewed distribution for some sort of neural cell process. And his supervisor accepted it. My supervisor just nixed my perfectly-in-sync-with-their-method's-core idea to make it somewhat more compatible with other techniques that are less home-brewed than theirs is.
Also, today's a shit day. Had a pretty epic (one-sided, as usual) fight with Fox yday, the chicken I had instead of fish & chips doesn't exactly like it inside of me, and all my office mates are gone. I have no idea where they are and whether I should be there as well. Still, at least it gives me an excuse to slack off and type this up instead of doing actual work. Plus, it's the standard glum UK morning out of my window.
Fox fights left me a bit battered up back when I was home and in good condition. Considering I'm something of a halfway-snapped-open egg over here, and she was even more hard-hitting than usual, I'm in pieces. And I'm changing my demeanour with her, this time for real.
I miss home. I want to ditch this place and head back, hug my folks, sit in the mountains and never leave. Meet up with all the people I left behind and have fun with them. Like I used to. Before I left it all for some madman's dream of actually being competent and managing. Guess what, now that I get to execute Plan A (even though I'm a Plan B for them), it simply turns out that I'm not good enough for it. After a lifetime of being told by my parents how smart I am, acing GPA's, doing well in competitions... it just turns out I'm not good enough after all.
And that feel will not leave me for the rest of my life, no matter what may happen. That I had a chance and I'm watching myself blow it in slow motion, not for lack of trying (hello 8h office days). Simply because I'm too much of a worthless piece of shit in the end.
Signing out. Hopefully it'll all magically fix itself, but I doubt it.
They keep casually flinging around big names of big things like it's adding two numbers. They expect me to read and understand those logorrhea + barbed wire formulas articles. Every single attempt to master anything ends with me having to backtrack five miles and start from the absolute basics of everything imaginable.
I attempted to combat it with creativity. They don't really see a problem with the errors they're making. And I don't have enough stuff in my arsenal to persuade them that it's otherwise.
It's not helping that I'm cooped up in an office with three other people who are doing more-less the same thing for their PhD, and they're all continuing their masters projects. Which, in turn, evolved out of a class they took during their taught masters part. The guy on the left is writing up page after page of bushy integrals like it's nobody's business. The girl behind me is whipping up crazy-ass graphs of shit I probably wouldn't understand. The guy on the right came up with his own skewed distribution for some sort of neural cell process. And his supervisor accepted it. My supervisor just nixed my perfectly-in-sync-with-their-method's-core idea to make it somewhat more compatible with other techniques that are less home-brewed than theirs is.
Also, today's a shit day. Had a pretty epic (one-sided, as usual) fight with Fox yday, the chicken I had instead of fish & chips doesn't exactly like it inside of me, and all my office mates are gone. I have no idea where they are and whether I should be there as well. Still, at least it gives me an excuse to slack off and type this up instead of doing actual work. Plus, it's the standard glum UK morning out of my window.
Fox fights left me a bit battered up back when I was home and in good condition. Considering I'm something of a halfway-snapped-open egg over here, and she was even more hard-hitting than usual, I'm in pieces. And I'm changing my demeanour with her, this time for real.
I miss home. I want to ditch this place and head back, hug my folks, sit in the mountains and never leave. Meet up with all the people I left behind and have fun with them. Like I used to. Before I left it all for some madman's dream of actually being competent and managing. Guess what, now that I get to execute Plan A (even though I'm a Plan B for them), it simply turns out that I'm not good enough for it. After a lifetime of being told by my parents how smart I am, acing GPA's, doing well in competitions... it just turns out I'm not good enough after all.
And that feel will not leave me for the rest of my life, no matter what may happen. That I had a chance and I'm watching myself blow it in slow motion, not for lack of trying (hello 8h office days). Simply because I'm too much of a worthless piece of shit in the end.
Signing out. Hopefully it'll all magically fix itself, but I doubt it.
26.9.12
Just prior to leaving...
Welp, the time's here. I'm gonna be heading off to the UK in a ricketty steel box with engines in just over 24 hours. And I won't lie, it's stressful.
I'm justified in being freaked out. After all, I lived with my family until now. I studied at a local university. Now I'm skipping the masters step, going to a somewhat more prestigious university, and getting away from mah folks at the exact same time. If that's not a leap, what is?
There's the stress of "will I be adequate academically". I downed a ton of articles. I read them. They were scientific logorrhea hiding behind barbed-wire formulas. As such, I familiarized myself a bit with how stuff works from an extremely basic standpoint to not come in empty-handed. I'm usually quick to grasp stuff that's presented in a friendly manner, and they know I'm an interdisciplinary weirdo, so my rational side is telling me all will be well. My irrational side is scared.
And, obviously, I'll miss my family. There's times when we quarrel, but who doesn't. Mom's concerned whether I'll be able to handle being in charge of my life, but I think that's not really a problem. I'm asked to make Excel cells red (from within a program), I manage to learn to do it and pull it off, even though it's only for visual purposes. Whenever I'm home alone, I don't wreck up the place, I feed myself, I clean up, I know how to operate a laundry machine and use an online bank account (to pay stuff). So I guess I'll do fine.
The world is doing everything its might to make me feel better. It's feeding me good music (new Bucket trio of discs is his best thing in ages, new Biffy is surprisingly un-shit by their major label standards, and I discovered Voivod's awesomeness three years too late). It's letting me socialize with people, "closing the pages" of my life here. Slowly saying farewell to everything and everybody. Already said farewell to the mountain house, my good friend from down south, Lillien... ugh. This is pretty damn tough. But, excluding the nerves from the leap, I'm in surprisingly good psychic condition. So, I'll have to use it to my advantage and have a good start there. The good friend from down south reminded me of a happy time from around 2004-2005, when I could walk up to anybody and go "I don't know you, I'm Rumpy, who are you?"... it was a different time. But I'm reconnecting with some of those vibes. The meetups with fellow bronies helped, as did all those gatherings and some inner mental closure.
Signing off, almost certainly for the last time from Poland for a while. Anxious like shit, but rather confident in the end. Rumpy.
I'm justified in being freaked out. After all, I lived with my family until now. I studied at a local university. Now I'm skipping the masters step, going to a somewhat more prestigious university, and getting away from mah folks at the exact same time. If that's not a leap, what is?
There's the stress of "will I be adequate academically". I downed a ton of articles. I read them. They were scientific logorrhea hiding behind barbed-wire formulas. As such, I familiarized myself a bit with how stuff works from an extremely basic standpoint to not come in empty-handed. I'm usually quick to grasp stuff that's presented in a friendly manner, and they know I'm an interdisciplinary weirdo, so my rational side is telling me all will be well. My irrational side is scared.
And, obviously, I'll miss my family. There's times when we quarrel, but who doesn't. Mom's concerned whether I'll be able to handle being in charge of my life, but I think that's not really a problem. I'm asked to make Excel cells red (from within a program), I manage to learn to do it and pull it off, even though it's only for visual purposes. Whenever I'm home alone, I don't wreck up the place, I feed myself, I clean up, I know how to operate a laundry machine and use an online bank account (to pay stuff). So I guess I'll do fine.
The world is doing everything its might to make me feel better. It's feeding me good music (new Bucket trio of discs is his best thing in ages, new Biffy is surprisingly un-shit by their major label standards, and I discovered Voivod's awesomeness three years too late). It's letting me socialize with people, "closing the pages" of my life here. Slowly saying farewell to everything and everybody. Already said farewell to the mountain house, my good friend from down south, Lillien... ugh. This is pretty damn tough. But, excluding the nerves from the leap, I'm in surprisingly good psychic condition. So, I'll have to use it to my advantage and have a good start there. The good friend from down south reminded me of a happy time from around 2004-2005, when I could walk up to anybody and go "I don't know you, I'm Rumpy, who are you?"... it was a different time. But I'm reconnecting with some of those vibes. The meetups with fellow bronies helped, as did all those gatherings and some inner mental closure.
Signing off, almost certainly for the last time from Poland for a while. Anxious like shit, but rather confident in the end. Rumpy.
12.8.12
It's gonna be alright
Long time no post yet again. With reason though - I sank into a mental stupor following the scholarship rejection and it took a hefty dose of Team Fortress 2, ponies, Futurama and other shit to kill off any semblance of thought that may have formed in my head. It was essentially the post-breakup mental doomride all over again, and it took me quite some time to stomach the failure. I felt bad that people wrote me recommendations and all that, they tried their best and all in all it didn't work out.
Eventually, I settled into Plan B. The second university may not be as prestigious, but it's a tried-and-true option, and I'll have friends there to make the start easier, all that jazz. Afterwards, I can grab some sort of PhD and be settled in for life...
...and then guess what happens? Mom keeps bugging me about buying plane tickets to fly in for Christmas, so I log into my gmail account which I use to correspond with said university. It's been forever since I signed in, as I wasn't expecting any mail from them and all my other business is handled by my Polish email (which bounces off UK university email hosts like a charm). And guess what I see? University #1 comes back knocking, offering me a fully funded PhD spot starting in October. Guess the time stamp? A month before I logged in.
And this is where the crazy ride kicks in. I write them back, turns out the spot is still available, so they ship me an offer, and it turns out that I'd still need to redo my English language certificate. As you can probably tell from my posts, I know how English works, and I do have a "valid for life" certificate to prove it. Not good enough. As the whole course of action is such short notice, I apply for a waiver. The waiver thing starts going and the UK application nature kicks in immediately - here, have this article, whip up a summary, plus you'll get a phone interview. I whip up a summary, and it's been over a week since the phone interviewer was supposed to get in touch with me to schedule the thing.
Clock. Is. Ticking.
I can lose my down payment at the other university if these dudes don't get their stuff together and finally give me a clear green or red light. This limbo is extremely stressful, and the fact I'd bypass masters and get injected directly into PhD ain't helping soothe my nerves. I was freaking out over it non stop, and I was supposed to go a BBQ over at a friend's place yesterday to socialize a bit and calm down.
Guess what. I spent most of the BBQ walking around like a dope, distressed by truly disdainful power metal playing from the loud speakers, and trying to avoid the gaze of a rather hot female friend of his who was invited as well. Her Witty Line Of The Evening? Bronies need more sexual action. Easy for her to say, with her cover girl visage and callipygous posterior. Whatever droplet of sex appeal that may have been hiding in me got sucked out when I got my hair cut. Once the ordeal was over, I got my ass over to the train station. After absorbing the urban decay and perfect silence (stirred only by my footsteps) for half an hour, I got on the platform. Five minutes passed. Ten. The train was supposed to be here by now. I check the schedule again. Guess what, faggot - the train doesn't come on saturdays. Only saturdays, mind you. And that was the last train of the day. As such, no return to the mountains for me.
I hitched the next train out of there to the main train hub and went to where I usually live, seeing it for the first time in about a month and a half. My computer and primary guitar are in the mountains, so I dusted off the ancient lapper I used to chat with my ex. Glacial efficiency and a ton of toxic memories at their finest. The whole fiasco with the schedule left me further distressed, and I had trouble maintaining any semblance of composure - everything was just welling up and I had trouble imagining how the situation could get worse. It got worse when I woke up at 3am with a raging stomachache, as if a xenomorph was preparing to make its appearance. Cool.
Come morning, I was wiped and shaky. For whatever reason, I picked up my old classical guitar. I played Beneath. And shit got better.
Beneath may be a song about unrequited love and whatnot, but it got some vibes in my head. Vibes that have been gone for a long time. I felt like Rumpy again. The future is in the future, and I'm doing what I can to prepare myself for it. It doesn't matter all that much if I go to University A or University B, I'm continuing with my education. And music is an amazing thing... but I was well aware of that even when the vibes were gone. I need to finish up Big Axe, it's been a while.
I recorded a spontanous, horrible, horrible Mike Johnson cover with sour notes, rhythm fuckups and overpowering microphone static. Who gives a shit. Life's gonna be okay. I'll just Wait & See ;) Signing out, hopefully the next post will be 100% optimistic.
Eventually, I settled into Plan B. The second university may not be as prestigious, but it's a tried-and-true option, and I'll have friends there to make the start easier, all that jazz. Afterwards, I can grab some sort of PhD and be settled in for life...
...and then guess what happens? Mom keeps bugging me about buying plane tickets to fly in for Christmas, so I log into my gmail account which I use to correspond with said university. It's been forever since I signed in, as I wasn't expecting any mail from them and all my other business is handled by my Polish email (which bounces off UK university email hosts like a charm). And guess what I see? University #1 comes back knocking, offering me a fully funded PhD spot starting in October. Guess the time stamp? A month before I logged in.
And this is where the crazy ride kicks in. I write them back, turns out the spot is still available, so they ship me an offer, and it turns out that I'd still need to redo my English language certificate. As you can probably tell from my posts, I know how English works, and I do have a "valid for life" certificate to prove it. Not good enough. As the whole course of action is such short notice, I apply for a waiver. The waiver thing starts going and the UK application nature kicks in immediately - here, have this article, whip up a summary, plus you'll get a phone interview. I whip up a summary, and it's been over a week since the phone interviewer was supposed to get in touch with me to schedule the thing.
Clock. Is. Ticking.
I can lose my down payment at the other university if these dudes don't get their stuff together and finally give me a clear green or red light. This limbo is extremely stressful, and the fact I'd bypass masters and get injected directly into PhD ain't helping soothe my nerves. I was freaking out over it non stop, and I was supposed to go a BBQ over at a friend's place yesterday to socialize a bit and calm down.
Guess what. I spent most of the BBQ walking around like a dope, distressed by truly disdainful power metal playing from the loud speakers, and trying to avoid the gaze of a rather hot female friend of his who was invited as well. Her Witty Line Of The Evening? Bronies need more sexual action. Easy for her to say, with her cover girl visage and callipygous posterior. Whatever droplet of sex appeal that may have been hiding in me got sucked out when I got my hair cut. Once the ordeal was over, I got my ass over to the train station. After absorbing the urban decay and perfect silence (stirred only by my footsteps) for half an hour, I got on the platform. Five minutes passed. Ten. The train was supposed to be here by now. I check the schedule again. Guess what, faggot - the train doesn't come on saturdays. Only saturdays, mind you. And that was the last train of the day. As such, no return to the mountains for me.
I hitched the next train out of there to the main train hub and went to where I usually live, seeing it for the first time in about a month and a half. My computer and primary guitar are in the mountains, so I dusted off the ancient lapper I used to chat with my ex. Glacial efficiency and a ton of toxic memories at their finest. The whole fiasco with the schedule left me further distressed, and I had trouble maintaining any semblance of composure - everything was just welling up and I had trouble imagining how the situation could get worse. It got worse when I woke up at 3am with a raging stomachache, as if a xenomorph was preparing to make its appearance. Cool.
Come morning, I was wiped and shaky. For whatever reason, I picked up my old classical guitar. I played Beneath. And shit got better.
Beneath may be a song about unrequited love and whatnot, but it got some vibes in my head. Vibes that have been gone for a long time. I felt like Rumpy again. The future is in the future, and I'm doing what I can to prepare myself for it. It doesn't matter all that much if I go to University A or University B, I'm continuing with my education. And music is an amazing thing... but I was well aware of that even when the vibes were gone. I need to finish up Big Axe, it's been a while.
I recorded a spontanous, horrible, horrible Mike Johnson cover with sour notes, rhythm fuckups and overpowering microphone static. Who gives a shit. Life's gonna be okay. I'll just Wait & See ;) Signing out, hopefully the next post will be 100% optimistic.
21.5.12
A rose among potatoes and other tales of woe
Long time no post. So, as I'm running out of things to procrastinate with, time for another post here to pretend this is alive.
The main thing that happened since my last post? I didn't get a scholarship, and as such I'm not going to the fancy-ass UK uni in spite of being accepted. But hey, the costs are insane and we're not exactly made of money. And raising money there in order to cover costs wouldn't be that easy.
As such, I'm going to another UK uni, along with nine other students from my current uni. It's less fancy-ass, but it does come with a wimpy scholarship and no tuition fee. Thus, the required financial investment is less overwhelming and can be covered.
I need to get out of this university I'm in right now. My undergrad studies were okay... nothing to write home about, but pretty bearable. But the masters studies are horrible. Truly, undisputably horrid. Two times a week I feel like giving a damn... two subjects are actually worth listening to. The rest range from mind-numbingly boring drivel to incompetent idiots rampaging around unchecked (I should be fearing for my academic life, as hell knows - maybe these dunces will decide to fail me). And I have to pass all this shit in order to go study in the UK. Just fucking amazing.
In order to flee from my ever-encompassing depressive thoughts, I fled into Team Fortress 2. I play more than is healthy, and I still suck at it like mad, but it makes it easier to stop thinking about the shit surrounding me. About the fact that I'm a Forever Alone, about the fact that once again my high aim ended up dropping me on top of the nearby heap of manure. About the fact that my dream of making music for a living won't ever come true because I'm just too weird and idiotically noncomformist.
I don't even listen to much music lately. Burning a hole in Dick Valentine's solo acoustic effort (hence the title of the post). It's amusing how much moods the guy covers over the course of a single chord-driven, near-minimalist record. Thus, a tip of the hat to my current model of rose from a royal potato on the sidelines. Signing out, until next time.
The main thing that happened since my last post? I didn't get a scholarship, and as such I'm not going to the fancy-ass UK uni in spite of being accepted. But hey, the costs are insane and we're not exactly made of money. And raising money there in order to cover costs wouldn't be that easy.
As such, I'm going to another UK uni, along with nine other students from my current uni. It's less fancy-ass, but it does come with a wimpy scholarship and no tuition fee. Thus, the required financial investment is less overwhelming and can be covered.
I need to get out of this university I'm in right now. My undergrad studies were okay... nothing to write home about, but pretty bearable. But the masters studies are horrible. Truly, undisputably horrid. Two times a week I feel like giving a damn... two subjects are actually worth listening to. The rest range from mind-numbingly boring drivel to incompetent idiots rampaging around unchecked (I should be fearing for my academic life, as hell knows - maybe these dunces will decide to fail me). And I have to pass all this shit in order to go study in the UK. Just fucking amazing.
In order to flee from my ever-encompassing depressive thoughts, I fled into Team Fortress 2. I play more than is healthy, and I still suck at it like mad, but it makes it easier to stop thinking about the shit surrounding me. About the fact that I'm a Forever Alone, about the fact that once again my high aim ended up dropping me on top of the nearby heap of manure. About the fact that my dream of making music for a living won't ever come true because I'm just too weird and idiotically noncomformist.
I don't even listen to much music lately. Burning a hole in Dick Valentine's solo acoustic effort (hence the title of the post). It's amusing how much moods the guy covers over the course of a single chord-driven, near-minimalist record. Thus, a tip of the hat to my current model of rose from a royal potato on the sidelines. Signing out, until next time.
19.2.12
Flounder / Performance Hat
Today I found Flounder. Will the consequences ever be the same? I fear not. This is some of the most intense stuff I have ever heard, and I can't get enough of it. When I heard Demo II, I was dumbfounded. When I heard Demo III, Demo II started sounding like tripe. Of course it's still awesome. It's just that Demo III is Albino Slug tier of awesomeness, and that's not something any other band can claim. Holy shit.
Randomly went to the same mall where we did the Christmas shopping. A ponymeet was held there yesterday (I didn't go, first one I missed during my tenure as a ponymeet-goer), and they couldn't find any blindbags at all. The meet leader had a word with the employees of the toy store, and what do I see when I walk in today? A spanking fresh shipment of wave three blindbags, all for me to sift through! Scored Big Macintosh, so I'm up to two ponies. Wanted to pick up Lyra for Fox & Lillien, but I forgot what the identification number was. Funny thing though, whenever I go to that mall with my family I end up buying a pony. I guess the new wave of blindbags will be out when we go there yet again, and I'll pick up Derpy (she'd better be in there!) to maintain the tradition.
Also, I scored a new Performance Hat. Others may consider other elements of gigging apparel important, but for me the vital component is the hat. Got a fantastic red ski cap from Big Star, complete with pompom. The site says it's a female model, but what do they know. My old trusty ski cap that I casually nicked from my dad is freaking amazing, but it's probably older than I am and it's a bit stretched, so I need a new one just in case. This one does the job pretty well.
By the way, tomorrow I'm starting my masters studies. Never before have I dreaded going back to university quite this much, and I can't even put my finger on why. Maybe because the leadup to my final exam was stressful, and the couple of weeks I've had off weren't quite enough to recuperate? Hell knows. I'll survive.
So yeah, another post. All hail Flounder!
Randomly went to the same mall where we did the Christmas shopping. A ponymeet was held there yesterday (I didn't go, first one I missed during my tenure as a ponymeet-goer), and they couldn't find any blindbags at all. The meet leader had a word with the employees of the toy store, and what do I see when I walk in today? A spanking fresh shipment of wave three blindbags, all for me to sift through! Scored Big Macintosh, so I'm up to two ponies. Wanted to pick up Lyra for Fox & Lillien, but I forgot what the identification number was. Funny thing though, whenever I go to that mall with my family I end up buying a pony. I guess the new wave of blindbags will be out when we go there yet again, and I'll pick up Derpy (she'd better be in there!) to maintain the tradition.
Also, I scored a new Performance Hat. Others may consider other elements of gigging apparel important, but for me the vital component is the hat. Got a fantastic red ski cap from Big Star, complete with pompom. The site says it's a female model, but what do they know. My old trusty ski cap that I casually nicked from my dad is freaking amazing, but it's probably older than I am and it's a bit stretched, so I need a new one just in case. This one does the job pretty well.
By the way, tomorrow I'm starting my masters studies. Never before have I dreaded going back to university quite this much, and I can't even put my finger on why. Maybe because the leadup to my final exam was stressful, and the couple of weeks I've had off weren't quite enough to recuperate? Hell knows. I'll survive.
So yeah, another post. All hail Flounder!
6.2.12
Snowflakes
Winter hit like a truck, at least in terms of temperature. It's fucking freezing around here! At least it seems to be getting a teeny bit warmer lately, so there's hope that the chill will go away eventually.
I went outside in the evening to fetch something for supper (I'm home alone, waiting to show up and wave my hand at the appropriate moment so bureaucracy doesn't implode because I'm not around), and the usually busy street was empty, everything was dead silent, and there were snowflakes hovering down from the sky. Sure, I can get something similar in the mountains no problem, but it was a cool new experience to get this in the area around my house. Felt awesome.
Today, I learned that just because something says that you're to cook it with the heat cranked doesn't imply you're to dime the power. Still, the cutlets were surprisingly edible. I'm making progress.
Also, today I found out that the cover for Taproot's new album is online. It's not promising, to put it nicely. Plus, the fact that it's essentially a bunch of glorified b-sides from their 2008 record isn't that inspiring either. I'm hoping that the guys manage to surprise me positively.
So, that will be all for now. It's easier to live when one tries to look at stuff less emotionally and more objectively. Hooray.
I went outside in the evening to fetch something for supper (I'm home alone, waiting to show up and wave my hand at the appropriate moment so bureaucracy doesn't implode because I'm not around), and the usually busy street was empty, everything was dead silent, and there were snowflakes hovering down from the sky. Sure, I can get something similar in the mountains no problem, but it was a cool new experience to get this in the area around my house. Felt awesome.
Today, I learned that just because something says that you're to cook it with the heat cranked doesn't imply you're to dime the power. Still, the cutlets were surprisingly edible. I'm making progress.
Also, today I found out that the cover for Taproot's new album is online. It's not promising, to put it nicely. Plus, the fact that it's essentially a bunch of glorified b-sides from their 2008 record isn't that inspiring either. I'm hoping that the guys manage to surprise me positively.
So, that will be all for now. It's easier to live when one tries to look at stuff less emotionally and more objectively. Hooray.
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