Cork Harvest
Time to Mow the Roof!
I pity the residents of this apartment building who still have to contend with mowing the lawn, which seems to exist without a purpose.
Hellmouth
This place is referred to as the "Boca do Inferno", which translates as Hellmouth. (I understand there's one in Sunnydale, too.)
Danger!
I came across this curious paper taped to a wall in the historic part of Lisbon. I've translated it below, leaving out the name and passport number:
Do You Know This Man?
If you don't, consider yourself lucky. If you do, then it's best to exercise caution. His name is *****, he's German, and his passport number is *****. He mostly hangs out in the areas of Príncipe Real, Bairro Alto, Castelo and Graça, and he's one of the biggest conmen to ever come to Portugal.
Never put money into his hand! You'll never see it again. . .
He came from Germany to escape from the debts he had there. He says he's a student, a teacher, a translator, a painter, but he's a salesman (The problem is that he sells contraband). . . Be very careful!
He never liked to work and has always depended on women to support him. He has betrayed friends and conned customers at a business that he created and then abandoned.
He specializes in biting the hand that feeds him. Furthermore he's homophobic and incapable of respecting anyone's privacy!
Be alert! Never trust him!
Wax Offerings
At Fátima religious pilgrims may purchase and burn wax representations of the things they want to pray for.
Ancient Tile Panel
The Portuguese are renowned for their tile work. This is a sixteenth century panel depicting a maritime theme.
Unripe Olives
This is what an olive tree looks like. Below, you can see unripe black olives clinging to a branch.
And here are some olives I picked. Eating unripe olives is ill-advised.
Butter Bird
It's not often that you come across a bird made entirely out of butter. This was on the buffet table at the hotel restaurant. The funny thing is that I was looking for butter for my roll, and this was the only butter I could find. Strangely, there was no knife nearby, and I didn't want to be the first person to assault the bird, so I had to make do without.
Chicken Mythic
McDonald's was launching a huge ad campaign in Portugal for their new Chicken Mythic sandwich. I wonder if it will ever get to the US.
Gil
This is Gil. He's the mascot for the Parque das Nações located along the Lisbon coast and built to host EXPO '98. Note the pair of skyscrapersbuilt to mirror the shape of Gil's head and the conical red tiled fountain in the background.
Portugal for Kids
This was taken at Portugal dos Pequenitos, which is a sort of outdoor museum/amusement park of miniaturized works of Portuguese architecture on which children can amuse themselves.
Smoking Kills!
Cigarette warnings are much more emphatic in Portugal than here in the US. This translates as "Smoking kills".
And here is one that says "Smoking may cause a slow and painful death":
The duty free shop in the airport carries cigarette packs with translated warnings:
Extreme Bovine Productivity
Someone, please milk this cow!!!
Monkfish
I tried monkfish stew before I had an opportunity to see what the fish actually looks like.
Here's the stew:
Religious Ecstasy
It's almost as if the mannequin were custom-made for the shirt.
Here's another one:
Portugal
I can't believe how long it's been since I've blogged! Those of you who follow my podcast (which has also suffered neglect) know that I've recently returned from a three-week stint in Portugal. I've decided to post a picture a day from my trip every day for at least a month. Above is a photo of Lisbon at night.
Throwing Away Old Toys is a Sin
I've been going on a cleaning spree over the past few days, rediscovering ancient artifacts from my past. You know what that means -- more toy pics! As I sort through my old stuff, I try to arrange it in categories. So far I've managed to locate most of my old bathtub toys and gather them together. You can see pictures of them here.
Weekly Buzz
I had my final wisdom teeth taken out last Wednesday. Having had two oral surgeries in my teens and a wisdom tooth extraction last summer, I've actually become accustomed to the procedure. In fact, in the middle of the operation, I recall thinking to myself that, if I were offered a full-time job having my wisdom teeth taken out (in other words, forty hours a week every week), that would definitely be something I could do. Unfortunately, no such jobs exist, and I'm out of wisdom teeth. The hard part is the recovery. I experience excruciating pain whenever I eat or drink or move my tongue. What fun. Oh well, it should help me to lose more weight. So far I'm down 26 pounds.
Today after watering my outdoor plants, I went inside and had an itch on my leg. When I scratched it, the itchy area started buzzing, and then I felt a stabbing pain. The was a bee in my pants. As I struggled to remove my pants as quickly and as gently as I possibly could, my cell phone went off. I got it on the fourth ring. It was Lowe's calling to make sure I was happy with my new dishwasher and to make sure I knew about the one-year warranty.That was kind of annoying but not nearly so much as what's on my voicemail. (I swear I don't know any of those people, but I'm thinking I may have to take out a restraining order on Ashley White.)
Anyway, I found the bee. It was dying, since it had expended its stinger, which was really a shame. If it had lived, I would have set it free. But how on earth did it wind up in my pants? The whole thing was a bit scary, since I had never before in my life been stung by a bee, and, for all I knew, I was horribly allergic. Apparently I'm not, since I'm still okay.
Art Cat
It would appear that I'm just not going to be blogging on a daily basis this summer. In fact, I seem to only be posting about once a week. I'm sure that, once I get back to Oregon, I'll be posting with my regular frequency. In the meantime, I'll try to make every entry count by seeing to it that each one is chock full of quality. Let's see; what can I cram in here?
Well, for starters how about another picture? This is my parents' cat admiring the two photos I entered in a local gallery exhibition I mentioned a few weeks back. No one was interested in buying, so I got to keep my work. Actually, from what I hear, no one there managed to sell a single piece of their work, so I don't need to feel too bad about it.
Okay, now how about some more links? Here we go:
Scientists are working on cultured meat, in other words, meat without animals. I wonder if this could be considered vegetarian meat. It would also be cool to grow human meat, so I could practice cannibalism without all the guilt.
Leo claims to have big news, about Call for Help but won't yet say what it is. It looks as though the show may go back to being aired here in the US. Let's hope.
A helpful pamphlet for everyone who blogs: What Everyone Should Know about Blog Depression (And if things get really bad, there's always The Layman's Guide to Suicide.)
Wet Web
I will write a post about my latest jog soon. I'm a bit sleepy now, so I'll just post an unrelated picture for today's entry.
At the Drive-In
A few hours ago I went to the local drive-in. As you can see, I got to see Herbie: Fully Loaded, which was quite mediocre. (I just don't think it's right that they departed from the old movies by having Herbie be able to smile and blink.) This was followed by Bewitched. I really had a bad night.
Another Cat Pic
This cat was not photoshopped.
Rainbow Invasion
My brother left his fishtank at our parents before going overseas, and everyday in the early evening the sun sends spectacular rainbows into my parents' living room for a few minutes each day. This photo has not been digitally enhanced.
Strange Ball
I never did find out the meaning of this strange wooden ball that one day appeared on campus and then vanished several days later.
Completely unrelated to the giant ball, Dean has asked that I blogroll him. As most of you already know, I try to only add people that have been commenting for at least several weeks, but I have no problem linking to someone in an entry:
Death-Defying Photo
Blogging Rule #937: When you have nothing to say, post a picture.
Aquarium Photos
As promised, I've published the photos from my aquarium visit. I added the new pictures to my old Aquarium Album, which is now back up in the left sidebar. I've also added some newer photos to the Eugene Webloggers Meetup Album, and I will probably continue to add to it each month, because, after all, you can never have too many dimly lit restaurant pics.
My Room
Jenny has asked me to post photos of my dorm room this year. You've all seen it before, of course. And if you've been reading me long enough, you'll remember my room from last year. Now, by clicking on the above photo, you can see pictures of my room as it looks now. Next year it will be even more fantastic.
Lauren the Amazing Two-Headed Girl
I went to another Eugene Weblogger Meetup. As always, Michael brought his fast-moving daughter.
Dinner
Tonight there was a special Valentine's Day dinner in the dining hall. I've been trying to avoid refined sugar, but I was helpless before the pink.
More Fun With Romanian
Whenever I'm too tired to write anything, I just put up a photo. This is something my Romanian teacher drew the other day when she was feeling artistic.
The Return of the Scrub Jay
I wasn't sure if I wanted to go beyond the free trial of my dot mac account, but today it occurred to me that I can use it share video. And since both of my digital cameras have some video capability, it seems silly not to be doing this. The only downside is that, once I fill up my quota, I'll have to start deleting stuff in order to be able to put up more. So anyone coming to this entry months from now will find themselves unable to access the movies. (If you happen to be a visitor from the distant future, I'd like to apologize for the non-functioning links.)
Remember the scrub jay from last year? I'm living in a new dorm this year, so it didn't know where to find me. Over the past few days I've been putting an unshelled peanut on my windowsill every day hoping it would be spotted. The peanuts invariably disappeared after a few hours, but I wasn't sure if they were just being blown off by the. Today the jay (or possibly a jay) showed up while I was home. Within an hour I was able to get it to take food from my hand.
Once it knew I had peanuts in my room and could see them, all I had to do was open the window, step back and let it come in and take them. Each time it left, I put them further and further from the window and closer to me. In this first clip you can see just how close I was able to get it to come.
As the bowl of peanuts got ever closer to me, the jay started to get nervous. I'm sure it was thinking to itself how much easier it would be if that large dangerous human would just leave so that the bowl of magically appearing peanuts could be approached in safety. In this visit, the peanuts are a bit closer to me, and if your speakers are on, you can hear the threatening cries of the mighty scrub jay. Basically it translates into English as, "Okay, I'm coming in now, but you'd better not try anything, or the next nut I carry out of here won't be a peanut."
I decided to try hand feeding, which the jay seemed to find easier to deal with than entering my room. Whenever a peanut appeared, it could just fly up and grab it on the go. I never could figure out where it was taking them, but somewhere on campus is a nest overflowing with peanuts. Oh, here it goes again.
If you only have time to download one clip, this is it!
Night & Day
Last night when all the snow was falling, I made my usual late night trek through the alley to my home. It was an unusual night. Despite it being just a little after 2:30 in the morning on a cloudy night in the dead of winter, the city was shrouded in an eerie glow. I took a lot of pictures (without the flash), and perhaps I will post more of them another day. For now, check out the photo of my backyard at 2:41 am, and compare it to the one I took this afternoon at 1:29 pm.
Snowy Road
I'm still not completely back in the swing of blogging, so I guess I'll just start posting pictures rather than writing. Here is a pic of the highway I traveled on my way back to Muncie.
Guess the Straight RA
A few weeks back, I went to a University Housing event entitled "Guess the Straight RA". (RA = resident assistant) It served as a forum for discussing issues of sexual orientation on campus and centered around a fun activity where a panel of RAs introduced themselves and answered questions from the audience. Then they left the room, and we got to vote on their respective orientations. The results are pictured above. (Note that this only shows how we voted and not the actual orientations.)
Strangely, no female RAs participated. When I asked why, I was told that not a single RA on campus had been willing to participate. That's kind of odd, but the one RA I know (the one in charge of my floor) has openly stated that she believes homosexuality to be a sin.
Around Campus
I've put up a new album of photos taken around campus in the past few months. You can check it out here.
Shadows and Reflections
Here is a photo I took soon after moving into my room. The evening sun bouncing of the surface of the drawers cast an interesting and highly-detailed image made of both shadows and reflections.
Birds Revisited
Back in November I posted a picture of some birds on a telephone wire. I was really pleased with the composition and still consider it to be one of my very few masterpieces. Unfortunately, it was horrendously lacking in vibrance. At the time, I tried a lot of tweaking techniques to improve this aspect of the image (such as adjusting the contrast and color saturation) but had no luck. A couple days ago, I started playing around with it again and had much more luck. Now it's a true artistic masterpiece (in my highly biased opinion, of course).
Young Society Matrons
In my language teaching course, the prof was showing us transparencies of old teaching materials. This is a page from a very old Spanish language textbook. I thought the caption under the photo was particulary interesting. Unfortunately, all of the matrons' faces are off-screen.
Crud Bug
And He Brought along His Fucktards
As I type this, one of John Kerry's lackies is standing outside my dorm yelling into a loudspeaker and interfering with the lives of hundreds of U of O students who are trying to study or sleep. No one even told me he was coming. I'm always so out of the loop. I knew something wan up when I looked out my window this morning and saw this:
Fortunately the police are here to keep an eye on the Bush supporters:
But they also wouldn't let me into my own dorm even though the main entrance was just thirty feet in front of me. Here's what the lobby looked like when I finally got in:
The only way up was through the evil blue partition. This was scarey, and I will say more about it in a subsequent post. (Right now I want to get the pics up while Kerry is still speaking, so I can say I'm blogging live.)
Here's a view through my window:
Someone just came to my door this minute and made me close my window. This is ridiculous! I live here for Chrissakes!!!
Anyway, the tiny white flecks that look like members of a termite infestation are democrats. See?:
Okay, I'll have more commentary along with a rant against the secret service in tomorrow's entry. I will post this right this minute. Kerry is still talking, so this truly is a live entry. (I bet it has typos; that's just how live it is.)
My Room
This is the picture I know you've all been waiting for. Here is my dorm room as it looked when I first moved in. It looks quite different now. Last year there was a contest for best interior design of a dorm room, and this year I intend to be the winner (assuming they hold the contest again). Every day I make small improvements. In a few months, I'll set up a gallery dedicated my room -- soon to be the most beautiful one on campus.
Starting at the Beginning
Okay, now that I'm back to blogging, let me start at the beginning and tell about all the interesting stuff that has happened during the non-blogging interim. This is a picture of the stuff I brought with me to Oregon. Here it is in a heap on the floor. Last time I came to Oregon, some essential items were forgotten and left behind. This time I spent several days preceding the trip making a comprehensive list. Most of the actual work of packing involved gathering the various items on the list, dumping them into a pile in the living room and crossing them off the list. The only thing that was overlooked this time was my laundry card, and that I can live without. This pic shows almost everything I brought with me. All that is lacking is a crate of books and my clothes and toiletries, which were all loaded last. Traveling without my mouse this time freed up a lot of space in the car. (And having a lot of stuff already in storage and awaiting me here in Oregon helped a lot too.)
Besides packing, the other big drama involved the last minute shipment of vital lemon curd fedexed to me from Bakerina. It didn't arrive when it was supposed to, and there was concern I would be gone when it arrived. After e-mailing Bakerina about the situation (the non-arrival of scheduled curd), I discovered a fedex notice on my the door to my house. I had missed them, because they came in the evening rather than the morning as they were supposed to. I couldn't notify Bakerina until the following day, since I had no internet access at my house. In the meantime, she contacted FedEx. They swore up and down that it had already been delivered, so she demanded to see a copy of my signature. At this point things become confusing. At that time, I hadn't yet received it, so there could not have been a legitimate signature. Bakerina sent me a screenshot of her computer apparently displaying the signature, but all that was visible, was her taskbar. The rest was black, as if it were a video overlay and not a digital image. It was fun reading the many items open on her taskbar, though. I was hoping to catch her looking at porn or some other non-work-related websites (since she was contacting me from her place of work). At one point I thought I had her when I saw a webpage title that looked like the beginning of a popular nineties drama spoofed on SNL with the title "Pretty Rich White Kids with Problems". But it turned out (from what I ended up reading on the lemon curd box which was manufactured by her company (Yes, I did get the lemon curd (Don't you just love reading posts with nested parentheses?).)) that that was also part of the name of something company-related. So Bakerina is beyond reproach (well, unless you fault her tracking lemon curd packages on company time with the company computer (I hope this doesn't turn into another messed up row of nested parentheses (Oh, shit.).).)
I really should stop now while I'm still semi-coherent. But the saga will continue in tomorrow's exciting entry.
Lemon Head
My goodness, this poor lady has lemon curd in place of a head! Does anyone have an idea who it might be?
Mystery Image
What's that?
Big Spider
This is a large spider with one of the biggest orb webs I have ever seen.
I Found Them!
Strange Insect
I've never seen one of these before.
Yellowjackets
This is a bit blurry. It's hard to have a steady hand when you're that close to a nest of yellowjackets.
Kitty in Motion
Michael's Meme
Michael went and started a new meme. Receptionista and Bakerina quickly heeded his call, and others have promised to follow their lead. Now it's my turn.
These pairs of underwear go way back. I wore them in middle school. They actually came in a three-pack. The third pair (which I unfortunately could not locate) is red. When I saw these in the store, I was fascinated, because they are the same kind of briefs I normally wore -- but colored. Unfortunately, their uniqueness caused me some difficulty in the school locker room. People who saw me in them kept accusing me of wearing underoos, which, I kept explaining, they could not be, because underoos were not manufactured in my size. The blue ones caused a further stir when one of my fellow locker room undressers exclaimed in a loud voice: "Look! Tvindy wears baby blue underwear!" Oh the shame of it all.
Another Sub
This submarine isn't as cool as the weeble one, but I thought I'd let you see it just the same. This was made for GI Joe. No, not that newfangled team of idiots; I'm talking about the original -- the one with "life-like hair" and kung fu grip. Unfortunately my mother got rid of GI Joe, but I still have the plastic squid. (I just don't know where it is now.) Actually the squid was the only part of the set to really get played with. I was well into my twenties before I learned that squid are not really grey.
Old TV
Receptionista showed us her TV. It's so old that it predates her birth. Well, here is my TV. Unfortunately, I don't think this quite makes it as a success at outcooling Receptionista, because her TV was passed down to her, whereas mine was simply picked up by me at a thrift store. This crazy thing almost certainly goes back to the forties. What on earth did people watch back then?
