So those kids over at White Chapel, had a a delightful little idea: Group Fiction. You know the old threads on message boards were one person would start a story and the next person would right the next four words and so on? EX from them boys at Fast Karate:

GOKU1838471: Goku was walking and
Bigdooba: got a BJ from
KIDBOO: BY A PINK ELEPHANT LOL
GokuRAWKS: thats five words ROFL!
MikeReason: Well techinically lol is three words so its actually seven words
GokuRAWKS: FAG!

Sometimes it doesn’t work out too good, but the in this case it worked out rather well, and more importantly is actually amusing. So here it is uncut and archived for prosperity, I hope you have as much fun reading it as we all did writing it. Beware it is pretty dammed long.

The Hat Of War and Peace or THE NAZI TURTLE WHO WAS ACTUALLY A NAZI GENERAL ALSO A HUNCHBACK

By: Jess, Oldhat, VKlaus , Rootfireember, kpatrickglover, and the wonderful andrenavarro

Frank watched as the old man left the cafe, struggling with the door in the wind. It almost caught him and pulled him out, but he managed to maintain his balance and push the door closed. Just before he turned away, Frank realized that a rumpled gray fedora had blown into the room. He watched it as it tottered on edge and finally fell to the ground. It was a pleasant looking hat, full of character. It reminded him of the one he owned many years ago, before the war. But then, everything reminded him of life before the war.

They said war changed a man. They did not mention, in the infinite wisdom of generations past and hoarded scraps of wisdom, that it also changed everything it touched. Even something as simple as a hat skittering along the floor until it came to a stop. The simple object was more than a hat; it was a symbol of things loved and lost, and days long past.

It hadn’t been a hat, thirty years ago. It had been a helmet, with a hole in it, rolling down the hill until it hit a puddle of mud. The rain washed the blood off of it. On the top of the hill, dozens of soldiers were being massacred by mounted machine guns. It was a sight he’d have seared into his mind forever, but the helmet rolling down the hill was the strongest memory he had of it. Somehow, it was stronger than seeing dozens of people being mowed down because of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

While the helmet rolling down the hill with a hole in it was a symbol of the futility of the war, Frank’s own helmet was a symbol of strength and power. This was proven when Frank’s squadron infiltrated the base that held the horrible General Franz Kraustitt. Since 1941 the general had been heading horrible experiments on prisoners of war, animals and even his own men. He was a madman trying to play god who had to be stopped. Frank was the first one to find him and immediately the general fired at him. A stray bullet hit his wrist and his gun dropped to the ground.

There have only been a few times Frank felt the need for a miracle. This was not one of those times. Being in war changes a man, teaches him how to survive. After all General Kraustitt was only one man, a man with sever mental problems. He could handle this. But boy oh boy was he wrong.

As Frank sank deeper into the memories spurred so rudely by the lost fedora, a small turtle watched him carefully from across the room. No one paid much attention to the turtle sitting in the small plastic cage on the counter. It was unusual for the young girl to bring the creature to the cafe, but a closer inspection of the reptile confirmed that he was brown, boring and an otherwise unremarkable pet. The turtle was not inclined to do much to entertain his audience, as he was concentrating on Frank. Something, SOMETHING about the man seemed vaguely familiar. Unsettled somewhat by being unable to place the old man, the turtle’s good sense told him to stay quiet. Yet he wanted to know more. The man across the room seemed strangely intent upon watching the hat, and the turtle couldn’t help but remember a man wearing a similar fedora.

There had been experiments before the war, and during it upon beasts. Vivisection was the tip of the iceberg in those muddy years; though it was thought to be the origin of what some called hyper-intelligence in some animals. It was not; but most people seemed to prefer to think of abominable origins for animals that spoke and thought like men, instead of believing sentience in animals could have come from more natural origins. People wanted to be the smart ones. They were intimidated, and fearful of these strange animals among them. So the turtle kept his beak shut, kept his thoughts to himself.

Frank fought his way back from the memories, amazed how vivid they had been. It was like he was being pulled back through time, all because of that rumpled old hat. He pushed his coffee aside and stood up. The turtle watched him as he crossed the room, fear growing in its heart. He wanted to warn Frank not to touch the hat, that this was a bad thing, but thoughts don’t always equal words. Not in a turtle. So he simply watched as Frank picked up the hat, turned it around in his hand, then placed it lightly on top of his head. He wasn’t surprised when Frank vanished from the cafe, hat and all.

The turtle had made a promise to himself many years ago. To be precise, seventy years ago, before the human who “owned” him was even born. It had promised it would never, ever speak, even though the experiment had given it the ability to do so (albeit with a hideous accent), and in the lifespan of a turtle, picking up languages is no challenge. Still, the turtle knew what would happen if it dared to speak, like that time the human dropped him and he went “AAAOW FUCK”. Luckily the human was constantly on drugs, which made things easier to forget. But a cafe full of people… still, if the human continued to wear that damned hat, something horrible would happen.

When the green flashing in Frank’s eyes started to fade away, he looked at where the hat had taken him. He was surprised to see another H4-T. he hadn’t seen one of these devices since the war. It was a genius invention originally brought on by the Germans. Basically they would distribute the H4-Ts in hat stores in well known Jewish areas. hell, they’d even give them away. And once those hats were put on the wearers would be transported to a concentration camp. A lot even ended up in General Kraustitt’s base. But that couldn’t have happened now. Frank knew the general to be dead. He killed the man himself…

It was at this point Digressing Omnipotent Narrator thought to himself “what is the world coming to?! Teleportation hats talking turtles? Jesus H Christ (not me), all things have gone awry!” But he digresses and returns to the narrative, it which Frank looks around to see the old room where he put a bullet in the generals head. The faded blood stain still marked the wall. Nazis, not the tidiest of folk.

The turtle sighed. He had to get out of the cage, get to the man with the hat, and make sure nothing was undone that should not be undone. Escaping wouldn’t be too difficult, he thought. The human had been careless lately. She had left the top panel of the cage open, and all he had to do was get his claws in the air vents just below the lid. From there, he could pull himself up and out. Luckily, the human seemed to be engrossed in her french fries, so the turtle took this opportunity to sneak to the corner of the cage, stand on his tip-toes, and crawl atop the plastic prison that he lived in from day to day. He took a moment to savor the fresh air and the smells of the cafe. Then, faster than you could blink, he too was gone.

The turtle was quickly realizing what was at stake. Drastic measures would have to be taken. The ability to speak was only the first successful experiment (after five that failed very painfully). The second was the ability to hide in plain sight. The turtle walked into an alley and, sure nobody was seeing him, he started to grow. Suddenly it could stand on his hind legs, and the shell on his back became as soft as flesh, and his face grew a nose and the eyes widened. He was now… a hunchback.

No longer a turtle, General Krausititt’s started the long hike back to his office, where he knew Frank would be waiting. It was cold, but he knew it would be. He had lived this day before. He almost hadn’t survived it, but his scientists had got to him after the shot, before he bled out. The transformation was complicated, but quick. He bore Frank no ill will, he wasn’t looking for revenge. But he had no intention of taking another bullet. The timestream must be preserved, but some other way. He would not be turtlized again today.

Krausititt could feel the timestream pulling, trying to create a loop, to make what once was merely repeat itself ad nauseum. He’d had an assistant once, a rather dim jackal-creature that had warned him of such things…every five minutes. He’d taken heed of the warning, then ended the looping for the mad beast with a few well-aimed shots. Krausititt pursed his lips, and didn’t let his will waver; history would not repeat itself. It must not. The fate of the world depended on it. He had seen it.

It wasn’t until Kraustitt stepped in to the same room they were in all those years ago that things started to happen. Kraustitt managed to catch a surprised look from Frank before everything went blue for a moment. Suddenly it was 1944 again. Kraustitt was exactly where he was when Frank had stepped in. His first instinct was to reach for his gun, but he thought better of it. That would lead to Frank dropping his gun and then in a surprise move, getting it back and shooting him. Besides, he could see that Frank was hesitating. He knew that a change had happened. Keeping his gun in his holster, Kraustit smiled at Frank. “I suppose you want to know what’s going on, yes?” Frank’s eyes widened. “y..yes…” “Don’t worry. All will be explained in good time. Would you like some cocoa? Before your men got here we had a pot of it brewing.” Frank lowered his gun and started to walk towards Kraustitt, unaware that Klaus, the 7-foot sergeant-major built like a gorilla was slowly creeping behind him.

The veritable man-god grabbed him by his unsuspecting ears and hoisted him to the ceiling. “You see,” explained Krausitit, “You have been brought back into time to re thread history”. The rage was bulding in Franks face, pink an purple from pain and anger. “YOU SON OF A BITCH I’LL HAVE YOUR DISGUSTING ZOMBIE TURTLE HEAD FOR THIS! YOU CAN’T STOP ME!” SHOUTED Frank, “You are all demons, and god will rain vengeance upon your soul!” To which Krausitit replied. “No Frank, you are the demons”

and then Frank was a Zombie

THE END.

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So here it is, Thursday morning. I’d like to talk to you for a moment about food, and some crappy absinthe, but first, food.

There may have already been some food (and general trip) related photos, so make sure you’re keeping tabs on my flickr, which I didn’t even know that ping.fm posted to until yesterday!

Here’s what I’ve been jotting down my food-related notes in:

50 cents in the random crap bin at the grocery store. Purchased for the lulz.

Tuesday when we got in, we checked our bags at the hotel, and since it was too early to check into the room proper we decided to suss out the closest delicious food source. I poked at yelp and so forth on my phone, and saw that there were a couple things up the street from us. Exploring, we discovered a little hole-in-the-wall Japanese place.

Koji Osakaya Japanese Restaurant

First off, whoever told me that sushi is just better on the west coast… was clearly right. This was a great experience that trumps every east coast sushi I’ve ever had. Granted, hunger does make a fine sauce – and man was I ever hungry – but this was very easily a much tastier and worthwhile experience.

The place was fairly quiet, somewhat understandable for about 2pm on a Tuesday I suppose. There was limited seating in the restaurant from what I could tell, leading me to think they probably do more takeout business than dine-in. Still quiet was exactly what I was after. I greedily eyed the noodle bowl options, but knowing the portion sizes that things like that tend to come in, I resigned myself to checking out the lunch specials and items that looked cheap since I knew they’d be somewhat smaller. I was starving, but not interested in eating myself sick either. Sometimes it’s a thin line between full and HOARF, ya know? While perusing the sushi options, I spotted an amusing typo.

Bagle Maki

page 1 of food libraries

For about 15$ I picked out the assorted sashimi lunchbox, mostly because I was hoping it’d come on a bed of rice so I could stuff myself silly on sumptuous sushi rice. It was to be my one concession to the urge to eat ’til I dropped. No such luck there, but the miso soup was some of the best miso soup broth I’ve had in a while even if it was lacking my personal favorite: green onion. My usual habit of dumping a generous amount of soy sauce (we’re talking 3 shades darker at least, people) into the soup was totally unnecessary here. The fish, oh the fish was amazing! There was a piece of octopus which was chewy, salty, light and packed with flavor. It’s somewhat difficult to describe but if you haven’t had octopus and you enjoy sushi, get past the idea that it’s a tentacle and do it up. There was salmon which was melt-in-my-mouth delicious, though perhaps a little… lighter than what I’m used to getting. This may have to do with it being fresher, or it may be a different variety of salmon. I couldn’t tell and I didn’t ask. There was something that was pale, flakey and unbelievably rich. I was just looking at sushiencyclopedia.com – which seems like a pretty nice resource – but couldn’t find anything that quite matched. There was of course some medium fat tuna, and something that I think was yellowtail perhaps. I grabbed a couple rolls off the sushi plates my compatriots got, and was also impressed. The rice was terrific (would that I had gotten some!) and the veggie roll with ume and shiso was intense. Not quite my thing, but impressively flavored nevertheless. I also got the coldest, crispest Sapporo I’ve ever had. It was in a brown bottle with a golden label, which I don’t think I’ve had before. Totally awesome. One of those and all that lush food, and I was on top of the world, lookin’ down on creation.

After an awesome start to the food ethos of the West Coast, I was pumped for what lay ahead. The hotel uses the restaurant downstairs to fulfill their room service, Pazzo, and that was our next experience, with WILDLY mixed results.

Pazzo and Pazzoria

We got late night munchies from them. I got manicotti, and @meatbag picked up the capellini pomedoro (which was angel hair pasta with… stuff). The manicotti was pretty good. The sauce was lacking a little something, but the baked cheese on top totally made up for all that. (What can I say? I’m a sucker for cheese.) With that experience being pretty satisfactory, I was looking forward to breakfast. I was wrong to do so

The egg in the omelet I got had almost no character whatsoever. The spinach and fontina in it were fine enough, I suppose, but paired with the egg it was just underwhelming. The potatoes were salvaged from a dry hell by copious amounts of tabasco and ketchup. The bacon… oh the poor bacon. The nearest thing I can think to compare it to would be pork rinds made out of cardboard. The cappuchino was cold, so it pretty much didn’t matter what it tasted like. I spiked it with coffee from the thermos so I could at least drink it. The coffee itself was definitely potable.

This morning out of laziness, we opted to give them another shot. This time I got the french toast with sausage, and a fruit cup. It was like a whole different experience! The slices of bread were huge and screamed “we totally bake our own bread” which they totally do, in the bakery connected to the restaurant that’s connected to the hotel (and the green grass grew all around all around, ‘cept it didn’t because this is the city, duh). Pazzoria bakery helped make this particular breakfast a total success. The pain perdu had awesome flavor. I spread it with butter and drizzled it generously with the (I believe totally authentic) maple syrup, stealing a little cream cheese from @meatbag‘s smoked salmon plate for one of the smaller pieces. It was all music to my mouth and filling without being super heavy, like rich breakfast food like that can sometimes be. The fruit cup was impressive. It was actually a small bowl of nicely arranged, fresh, and really flavorful fruits. The apple was the best I’ve had in a long while and left me wanting so much more. The pineapple was delicious, as were the blueberries. I’m not a huge cantaloupe fan but this was firm and sweet, and before I let it get warm it was quite good. The only negative here was the slightly mushed blackberries. They still had good flavor, but once they start getting smushy the texture aspect just isn’t very enjoyable.

ridiculous breakfast!

meatbag's salmon plate. those triangles? expertly cut cream cheese, folks. mmmmm... cream cheese.

Let’s take a quick trip back in time though shall we? Yesterday’s lunch was equally as squee-tastic, and came courtesy of a jaunt out to a place called Bon Apetite, across the street from a large Greek restaurant with a crazy purple octopus out front.

What you see in the upper left corner is not a monster, but my finger. It was raining and I was attempting to shield the camera lens on the back of my phone.

Bon Appetite!

So as noted above, the Greek restaurant with the giant octopus out front sounded great at first because it’s Greek food, and it’s close, AND they have a giant octopus out front. I checked it out on yelp and was disappointed to find that most reviews were very negative. Slow service, incorrect orders, etc. I sniffed around some more to see what else was in the area to satisfy my urge for something Mediterranean. Just across the street from that same cephalopod-bearing restaurant was a place called Bon Appetite, labeled as Greek/Mediterranean food. Perfect! We trucked down there in an inexplicable rain shower, a light but steady drizzle from what looked like a clear sky.

It took a second to find the place. It’s part of a strip of stores that aren’t terribly distinctive. That puzzle solved, we headed in and firmly glued our eyes to the menu. Shwarma, falafel, gyros abound on their list. The shwarma was tempting, but since Quick to Go in Somersworth (NH, that is) has already won the right to that fiefdom of my heart, I went with the falafel. I’ve made my own sweet potato falafel, but never had proper falafel until yesterday. Holy crap I had no idea what I was missing. It had a enough of that fried food flavor to satisfy even the most vicious urge for grease, but not so much that it was dripping with oil. The flavor itself was rich with parsley and that slightly nutty flavor that only comes from chickpeas. The sauce was so fantastic I actually avoided picking the tomatoes out of my wrap, which is kind of a big deal since I don’t do raw tomato as a rule.

Or as I conveyed my feelings on the matter via Twitter:

that was so good it was almost sexually gratifying A+++++++ would nom again

We grabbed an appetizer box to go for @malpertuis, who’d stayed in to chill. It slid around a bit since the takeout box decided to turn sideways in the bag, but that didn’t stop it from being fantastic, it just stopped it from looking pretty. The hummus, baba ganoush, etc were all amazing, and clearly homemade with that kind of balance between richness and salt that can’t come from the store.

After the fantastical radness of Bon Appetite, we decided it was high time to procure some booze. Not being bar-going folk, @meatbag and I both decided we’d hunt down the liquor store and see what was different and thrilling on offer. We first popped in to a convenience store to pick up a six pack of local beer, which was pretty good, though nothing incredibly distinctive.

I didn’t know you could buy scope at the liquor store…

What WAS noteworty was the absinthe we picked up at the liquor store on our way back to the hotel. First off, a word about this liquor store. It was dimly lit, maybe because it was so close to closing time. The selection was pretty admirable, though hard to read since it was all behind the counter. A type of theft prevention, I’m sure, but kind of annoying as I like to be able to read the bottles and price labels up close and personal. The guys working were playing Wilco (Being There, so mad cred for that too) at an admirable level.

In the interest of perhaps setting ourselves up with the means to make Doctor Funk/Crunk/Funkenstein (pro tip: they’re each slightly different drinks), we eyed the absinthes on offer. They had Lucid, which has become our standby at this point, and three others we weren’t familiar with. One was about the same price as the Lucid (around 60), and one was $80 in a lovely bottle. The one we ended up getting, however, was about $45 dollars. We learned the hard way that you do NOT cheap out on absinthe. Ever. Seriously.

It came in a cardboard tube, positioning itself like some “fancy” booze. In retrospect I theorize this was not so much a package design decision as a “let’s hide how fake this shit looks” move. This was definitely an instance where the inability to get up close and personal on the packaging (largely due to lack of time, I’m sure they would have let us check it out) really hurt our purchase decision ability.

Here’s how the live twitter report went:

• http://ping.fm/p/ijjMm – new kind of absinthe it is VERY green not sure how I feel about that, but the proof is in the louching afterall :)
• http://ping.fm/p/7drCc - no your eyes do not decieve you, that IS mouthwash colored absithe, friends. taste verdict to come
• it smells like a high alcohol herbal perfume so far, not as rich on the nose as i’d like…
• correction to aroma report: out of the bottle it smells like wintergreen and non-descript men’s cologne
• and what did we learn here, kids? we learned that you don’t get the cheap goddamn absinthe. it TASTES like wintergreen cologne too. :/ Editor’s Note: FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

It was just plain awful. It’s got at least 3 dyes in it, thus the fucked up neon aqua color. It really does taste like what would happen if you dumped some cologne into scope. A child’s experiment in mixology. “Here daddy I made you this!” Hell, I almost gargled with it this morning since I really just want it to be good for SOMETHING. It was a tragic waste of 40$, for sure.

Avoid, at all costs, Le Tourment Vert absinthe. I really can’t stress this enough. Other reviews back me up, too. Someone generously suggests that it might appeal to people who enjoy Rumplemintz. That may be true, I’ve never had Rumplemintz so the comparison is lost on me. However, I’d not suggest giving this away to a desperate alcoholic who is on the verge of switching to sterno, I found it so repugnant.

Luckily, we’d also picked up a 10 year Macallan scotch, so that and the Blue Heron beer comforted me.

So what now?

Tomorrow marks the first day of the film festival, and the arrival of @cheshster and @oddessy, as well as the exciting prospect of meeting @theweeklygeek-ers. :) I look forward to all of it.

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Disclaimer-by-way-of-Prologue – I sat down and thought to myself: “Suppose I was to solicit some kind of bodily coupling through something like craigslist, in an area where these kind of services are clearly not at their peak usefulness?” This is the result of that thought process. (I may have also been letting my mind wander after reading Curvy. [NSFW] So, you know, whatever.) I couldn’t necessarily decide if I wanted to put it in the fiction category or not since it’s more of a “thought experiment” so I decided that the almighty FNORD would be perfectly adequate here. There is a certain amount of temptation to go ahead and post this to see what kind of responses it would turn up, but at the same time I’m afraid that the rage caused by attempting to read the painfully infantile responses that I would anticipate from such a posting would cause me to have a stroke. The other terrifying alternative is explained below, and the consequences would be no different if I were joking or serious, because some people just don’t get that other people having sex is none of their goddamn business and they, therefore, have nothing to be afraid of or disgusted by if they just take the unimportant information of who’s doing what with their naughty bits and just put it out of their mind entirely.

At any rate, the questions for the readers might be this: Would you respond to a personals ad on a site like craigslist? Would you POST a personals ad on a site like craigslist? HAVE you done either of those things, and how did it turn out if you did? I myself have always been extremely particular about my partners, so I can’t actually imagine following through with something like this, but the idea intrigues me and I am interested to hear from people who’ve been there and done that. Comment! Your email will never be published here, and if you’re worried about something like that anyway, don’t forget there’s always hushmail.

You know, this is totally crazy. I mean, New Hampshire is a pretty small state, the seacoast area doubly so from what I’ve noticed. Yet here I am, typing this up as if I’m really and truly considering putting myself and my partner up on the block to be passed over (or worse taken up) by people we’d potentially never think twice about, much less set up an intimate relationship with. An even further terrifying thought is the idea that someone I actually know, or heaven forbid work with, would actually come across this and be able to identify who I am by the way this is written or the location I’ve specified.

Not that it’s any of their business anyway. After all, if I’d wanted to include them in my sex life I probably would have just gotten extremely drunk and asked by now. Still, even if lots of people do this (and you must be at least interested or you wouldn’t be here reading this, would you?), and it’s really not that big of a deal, and if anything it’s safer and more cost effective than trolling bars, it would undoubtedly be seen as some kind of transgression of society and be laughed at heartily and most likely jeopardize my good standing with certain less open minded individuals. It’s really an unfortunate state of affairs (no pun intended).

So the first question that I must ask of you, dear respondent, is how do you deal with the knowledge that this ostensible stranger you’re contacting may be someone you know? Furthermore, how do you deal with the knowledge that you actually know nothing about this ostensible stranger if indeed they turn out to be someone previously unknown to you? A relatively decent answer to either one of these questions will also help me establish that you are not some kind of weird robot intent on selling me man-bits-enhancing-laced flapjacks or whatever it is they’re pushing these days with the spam.

Clearly, this process would have to start with some kind of meeting sans sexual expectations. Not that he or I would be looking for anyone interested in forging a lifelong bond of inseparable friendship and omfg-limbs-everywhere sex, but it would be nice to know beyond a simple reply message whether or not the person we intend to meet is some kind of mouth-breathing troglodyte before we get to the clothes off stage of things. I also naturally assume that, like me, you will want to be seeing the person whom you’re considering climbing into bed with – totally understandable. Well, I won’t be posting any photos of myself or my significant other on craigslist, as that erodes what little sense of safety in anonymity craigslist actually provides (see also that “small state” comment from the beginning). That said, I know that pictures are helpful to bridge from emails or phone calls to the next actual meeting step, and I’ll be happy to send one along as soon as I hear from someone who seems like an interesting person (that I don’t already know). I am in my late 20s and he is in his early 30s, and neither of us are body builders but we are also not sacks of human waste with eyes, so that’s a plus.

Oh, and what we’d ideally be looking for is a woman, between the ages of 19-35, or maybe even a couple in that age range (male/female or female/female would be fine, male/male might be too many man-bits to for either my partner or I to deal with, sorry guys), who takes interest in or at the very least does not take exception to the following:

• Substance use (for the sake of legality I will say booze and cigarettes)
• Terrible B movies, and not-terrible movies centering around sci-fi, history, or abstract concepts
• Discussions about esoteric philosophy, science, computers & the internet, art, video games and comics
• Relatively obscure/eclectic music including but not limited to medieval Serbian folk music, The Fleet Foxes, of Montreal, Daft Punk, Guided By Voices, and the soundtrack from the Katamari games
• Keeping things completely and totally out of the commitment zone.

(By now anyone who really knows me has probably figured out who I am by the contents of this post, and if you – for whatever reason – want to talk to me about this by all means respond, or speak to me privately. Should I discover that my request has been aired in whispers all over the fruited plains I shall be very disappointed in humanity as a whole.)

If you are still interested after this confused diatribe and wish to contact my partner and I about this (flight of fancy I have decided to) post (without telling him) then please feel free to respond. I look forward to the kind of unique interest something like this can generate.

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I can’t remember when I first heard this song. I’m not from a family that listened to Neil Young when I was a kid. So if I was to put an age on it’d be around 17 or 18. When I was out there discovering music to listen to of my own. This would definitely be the first Neil Young Song I heard. It’s a “classic” of is. The song that got him to the top of the charts and is the song he loathes to play. It also isn’t his best song.

But it’s a damn good song none the less. It speaks of many themes that I find compelling. The weariness of life spent in constant search for the perfect place and moment. But I can’t stop searching and I can’t stop moving in life. Ah well at least I’ve got my passport.

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Yes, you read it right folks. Another Ghetto Dinner Party is upon us, they only come but once a year. When the last leaf of the great Maple tree falls and when it becomes too cold to play whiffle ball, the Great Ghetto Dinner comes forth like a mighty steed. When you get out of work and you’re greeted by cold winter winds and Mr. Night man, and you say “Mr. Night Man, why are you here so early?” Then Mr. Night Man replies “I do what I choose, and I just karate chopped the sun because I hate you”. That’s when the Ghetto Dinner party comes in to rescue you from your woes.

Anyway, this is your OFFICIAL invitation to the best dinner party of the year. In the old days people would have magnificent balls, or masquerades. In our time, this is pretty much the best you’re going to get. The champagne in crystal flutes will be replaced with 40′s in brown paper bags. The gowns and fine suits shall be replaced with ripped jeans and hoodies covered with stains and boot. The feasts of roast beasts and various sorts of gelatins, replaced with spam, raamen, twinkies and various canned goods. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Oh, what’s that? You’re new to the idea of a ghetto dinner party? Well if you aren’t excited about it by the time you reach this sentence, good luck to you on your quest for a better time. Not only will all of what I have mentioned be available to you, but there will be Frank Sinatra involved. You can’t have a classy dinner without ol’ blue eyes. Now onto the details:

1. What day and what time should I go Kat? Friday, November 21st at 9PM. We shall eat, judge you, find a winner, and get wasted. We will then walk to Trophy’s on a triumphant journey to place the Cup of Broken Dreams atop the highest shelf, in the highest bar in town. Which, of course, is Trophy’s.
2. Where is it? If you don’t know ask one of your comrades, or just get into their car and wait for them to drive to my house! That will be a fun surprise for you and them! Of course, you can just reply to this email and I will tell you where I live. Too lazy to write my address now.
3. What do I need to bring? Well, the best and most delicious ghetto food item you can think of! You better bring something good because we will be judging you. If you win, you’ll get a fancy prize!

GUESS WHAT! We have the trophy back in our possession at the South Pine castle. Many of you may remember Lauren won last year and her name was “engraved” on the Cup of Broken Dreams. Who knows? Maybe your name could be next?

OK, I think I went over everything. If you have any questions you can find me in TMT. I’m the girl with the baggy pink sleeves, and the juice on my jeans! That was for Amy, and if you need to be told a description of who I am, then I’m not sure why I invited you in the first place.

Raamenly Yours,

Kat

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I’m writing this without access to the Internet. I’m currently sitting in a lecture theater at my old university watching animé. I’ve no idea what animé it is. Something about a school girl being chased by magic demon things. There’s a big black and red dog. It’s all a bit odd!

Anyway, that’s all a distraction from today’s musical erm distraction. I know this is a Nightwish video. If I remember correctly it’s the last single from their most recent album “Dark Passions Play” called “The Islander”. This is more a folk song with bits of metal than usual Nightwish faire. It’s got a bit of a steampunk thing going on as well. With a sweet old man pulling on the mooring of airships around a desolate landscape.

Nighwish truth be told are a guilty pleasure of mine. They’re not cool and they aren’t very sophisticated. But that’s alright as I figure everyone has a couple of bands/singers that treat as guilty pleasures. Remember that if I’m mocking you for liking Bon Jovi or Guns ‘n’ Roses for being lame and shite. You can rightly shoot back and say that I like Nightwish.

There’s also another thing about Nightwish that I like, beyond them being a guilty pleasure. But I’ll save that for another day.

Nightwish – The Islander

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