Es kocht die Eifersucht

I am just a little bit jealous and sulky right now. Today is the fourth Rammstein concert in Wuhlheide, Berlin (the previous three having been on 23., 24. and 25.), and instead of being there I'm at home. Then again, after four nights of Rammstein I would probably have gone into a happy catatonia, and I get to see them anyway in a couple of weeks (w00t!). But still. That would have been one helluva way to spend the Midsummer holidays. Especially when they performed a brand new song from their upcoming album there. I hope it's now inserted permanently into their setlist. They promise to shoot out 20 meter long fire pillars with that song. I want 20 meter long fire pillars. My life isn't complete without 20 meter long fire pillars. I'm so easy to entertain.

In a small compensation I managed to find a bootlegged video of said song (it's called Benzin - perfect, IMO) on the internet and despite the sound quality sucking some major arse I've been rocking out to it. Even though bootlegs are bad. A Good Fan (tm) should not succumb into that evil but wait patiently for the official releases, even if they are postponed from September to October. So if anyone asks I do not have neither Benzin nor Mein Herz brennt played with Apocalyptica on my computer.

Anyhoo, it was a very peaceful Midsummer's Eve for me. I was working at a wedding (I never get tired of hearing the "Ooooh!" as the cake I have decorated is brought out ;) ), which, despite the bride changing her mind about almost everything in the last minute and people using the kitchen as if it belonged to them - I mean, do I walk into people's work and start rummaging around the cupboards and the fridge without asking? Extremely annoying - was a very nice and relaxed event. The weather was perfect, everyone seemed to have fun except one sulking teenaged girl who had clearly decided that her parents could force her to go there but they could not make her enjoy it, the bride was very pretty and since it was the Midsummer's Eve I got payed 1.5 times my usual wage. All in all, not a bad experience, though I have to admit that spending the last couple of days with my friends in the countryside would have been much more enjoyable. But since there are both my landlord and a travel agency wanting my money the next month I had no choice in this matter.

All right, time to go back to the menu plans for the Cudgel War.


Today's top tracks besides the obvious (brauche Geld für Gasoline / explosiv wie Kerosine / mit viel Oktan, frei von Blei /einen Kraftstoff, wie Benziiiiin! / Benziiiiiin! Benziiiiiin! Benziiiiiin!) :

Billie Holiday: I Cover The Waterfront and Night And Day
Dinah Washington: Mad About The Boy and Mellow Mama Blues
Peggy Lee: How Deep Is The Ocean? and Why Don't You Do Right?
Erykah Badu: 4 Leaf Clover and Certainly

It's been one of those kinds of days.



The headline so generously contributed by messrs Rammstein.

Menu Suggestion

I just remembered that I promised to cook the feast for the Cudgel War, and that the deadline for the menu is the 30th.

I thought something simple in three courses (let's face it, the kitchen is designed for serving coffee and cookies for 20 people, provided you bring the cookies), loadsa fish and a selection of sauces.

And before I go into detail, a thing I must get off my chest. I swear that if I hear one more time "plenty of meat" as an answer to my question of what people would like to eat that's exactly what you'll get. I mean, thank you for summing up five hundred years worth of culinary history into an Errol Flynn movie. After planning carefully the tournaments and the general theme of the event, wouldn't it be nice to have a feast to follow? We aren't talking about just food here, but an essential part of people's every day life which has reflected the society itself, attitude towards religion, means to separate holidays and special occasions from ordinary days, means to show one's status in the social hierarchy and so forth. I don't expect everyone to become experts in telling how important a person is just by looking at the type of bread he's eating (goodness knows I know next to nothing about medieval food, at least that's the feeling I get whenever I open another book on the subject), but a little thought here would be appreciated.

It'd make my job easier, anyway, if I didn't have to start planning from the very beginning...

But back to business. The usual disclaimer follows: This is just the first draft, there'll be some changes as I get the list of people's allergies, info on how much money can spend and as I get more ideas.

First course:

Jellied pike
Herb, cheese and mushroom pies
Deep-fried cheese
Onion-pea soup

I realize that it's July, so it's not actually mushroom season yet, but there might still be some preserves left from the winter (like I wasn't going to use fresh mushrooms, but hey.. ;) ). Most of the dishes are served cold - there's only one crappy oven at the site - but it goes with the recommended order of dishes. Light, moderately seasoned dishes will open the stomach and prepare it for the hard-core eating.

Second course:

Barbecued perch
Stuffed salmon
Mutton
Chicken stuffed with whole oranges and lemons
Sauces - probably green ginger sauce, garlic sauce, maybe some version of cameline sauce as well

Still a lot of fish. It is July, like I said before, and the site is by a lake, so fish would have been the main ingredient anyway. Besides, the only animals worth slaughtering would have been chickens and sheep - says the city girl. I admit my lack of knowledge in the agricultural issues, but my reasoning goes that the calves born would still be too small to butcher, the cows and oxen that survived winter would still be used as workforce. There'd be pigs, of course, but I'm bored with cooking pork. Adult sheep would still be growing wool, so that leaves lambs and hens who'd quit laying eggs. The large-scale slaughterings have always taken place in the September/October when the animals would be big enough to be worth the trouble and there'd be no more need for them as working animals - there's also the winter coming up and only a few select animals would be left alive, there was no possible way of feeding a large number of cattle through it.

I have some creative ideas about the decoration of the stuffed salmon (or pike-perch, haven't decided yet) which I must try some time. I'm planning on cooking the mutton in the ground under a fire (rosvopaisti in Finnish, have no idea what that'd be in English. Poacher's roast?) or buying it cooked and serving it cold.

Also, all the vegetarian dishes and the side dishes are still missing.

Third course:

This course is under construction. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Any commets? Requests?



As for Real Life (tm), I'm in pain. The sudden interest in jogging has left my poor body aching all over but on a some strange, almost perverted, level I enjoy it immensely. Go figure. Just put some Sepultura, Megaherz and Rammstein on my loyal companion, the mp3-player, and watch me go (Ok, ok, I'm in no great shape so it's been walk a little, run a little, walk some more, then run again but you know what they say about baby steps. I'm still proud of myself).

Current soundtrack: Sleep by KMFDM and Herrin des Feuers by Subway to Sally.

A Shameless Rip-Off...

...of other people's idea.

Three things that have made my life happier during the past couple of days.


1. The re-runs of Sex and the City

Whole summer ahead with Sex and the City airing almost every night. Bliss. I love that series, I just do.

And I can now relate to Carrie Bradshaw even better when I can watch the show wearing

2. My brand new shiny perfect running shoes

When my mother asked me what I want for birthday I told her sneakers, since I have quite taken into walking lately but I haven't had any proper shoes for that purpose. So she bought me a pair of running shoes. Shoes for the purpose of running, not walking. A pair of expensive running shoes, the most expensive pair of shoes I've probably ever owned. Boy do my feet love those shoes! I took them out for a test drive yesterday and they practically run themselves.

I hear your gasps of horror, "she ran voluntarily, the end is truly nigh!" and that was my feeling about the whole jogging business too, at first. But then I got over the whole embarrassement factor and the hatred towards exercise firmly embedded in me during my school years and - would you believe it - I liked it.

So far there's no reports of water turning into blood and the sky seems to be totally devoid of fire and brimstone falling out of it, nor have the four horsemen of the apocalypse shown themselves, so I guess it's safe to jog a bit more.

3. The confirmation for the new Rammstein album

Should be released on September. Me grins stupidly right now.



I'm off to see some stand-up comedy and I'm not talking about looking into a mirror.

Soundtrack right now: In Extremo: Melancholie. Even though I'm not, really.

Me likes In Extremo, too.

Goodness, I Suck at Inventing Headlines

What a strange day this has been. First of all, no work, no school. What do people do on their days off?

Secondly, I didn't have to wake up at 7.30 to the melodious sound of someone taking a power drill to the wall - it resonates beautifully in the entire building and it's a sound you can not escape unless you leave the house. I've been mostly doing the 12-20 shift at work, and while I do think that leaving early for work is all well and proper, leaving that early would be pure overkill.

Also, I have been now officially 29 years old for two days now and so far no big change has occurred. I do not feel particularly grown-up, or any more responsible than what I have been this far. Unless you count the sudden urge to clean and do laundry I got this morning (see-through windows. What a novel idea) which in my case is unusual and always a bit strange. The trouble of cleaning a single-room apartment, as I have said before, is that while it seem a simple and quickly done task, there's always a ton of stuff in your way and there's really nowhere to put it while you clean. On the other hand, living in a flat this small has probably honed my logistic skills into a fine point.

But I had a good b-day party. I hope everyone else enjoyed it as well. Next year I'm relying on H to organize something a bit more extravagant but the good old combination of going to a bar the previous night and then curing the hangover by the means of a picnic on the second day is almost unbeatable, IMO.




Today has been a day to listen to different Rammstein remixes. Almost all the different versions of Keine Lust (the Psychosonic remix, the Bozz remix and the Jazz remix (weirdness redefined...), plus Ich zähl die Fliegen remix) have been duly listened to, and the version of Ohne dich Laibach has made I have listened to so many times that I can't sing the original lyrics any more. I mean, every time Till Lindemann launches into the chorus: Ohne dich kann ich nicht sein... I grab my hair brush and go, as they sing in the remix: Ohne mich kannst du nicht sein...

Oh, and the hot news of the day is, that the Rammstein setlist in Ruisrock might include Asche zu Asche. *listens to the crickets in the distance* OK, I'm the only one excited.

But the most important question still remains: What am I going to wear to the festival???

I'm Photographed; Therefore I Exist

Well well well, what do you know. I've found evidence of my existence. Remember when I wrote about how I went to drink one glass of wine and ended up in a Kotiteollisuus gig? Well, someone there took pictures, and there I am (me and friend H spent the firt part of the gig in the balcony, and moved down to the actual mosh pit just before the encore). I'm the one in a red shirt, next to the crazy headbanger (I had to protect my drink from his flying hair - I mean, there is a time and a place for everything and actively trying to soak your hair in people's drinks is never acceptable).



The rest of the pictures are here, including the one above in full size - it was too big to fit in here in its original size so I had to tweak it a little. That was a good concert if I ever saw one. Or heard.

No other big news from my life, again. Work and sleep, work and sleep. Oh well, there'll be enough excitement in July and August to make up for this dry spell.


Will I ever be able to post anything without editing it a gazillion times afterwards? *Sigh*

Pulp Fiction In 30 Seconds (And Re-enacted By Bunnies)

Month To Go...

Here again

I know I haven't been a good girl and posted here for a week, but really, it has been an uneventful week and I believe that nobody wants to hear how many times, exactly, I go to toilet every day or something like that. But in case you are wondering, I'm still alive and kicking.

All I've done during the last days is work, come home, sleep. Except on Friday, when I worked till 8 pm, went to have one glass of white wine with friend H all Sex and the City-like, and suddenly it was 1 am and I found myself in a mosh pit. I had exactly four hours of sleep and went back to work at 7 am.

So no wonder I woke up today at half past one in the afternoon... Good thing I had nothing planned for today.

Uh... That about sums it up for my life this point in time. Like the ancient wisdom goes (made it up right now), sometimes there's stuff happening, sometimes not. It'll all balance out in the end. The most challenging thoughts for the week have been whether to buy the red or the blue Megaherz shirt.




I'm veering towards the blue, somehow it looks to me better than the red one.


A deep analysis of my character according to a reliable and carefully done quiz:



Of course it's true, it's in the internet.