Not your chips!

Question: what's more difficult? Finding a decent nachos in Poland or drawing a plate of nachos?

Turns out "nachos" in Warsaw simply means "bowl of corn chips".

Literal yes, satisfying, hell no.

Study of a sugarpot

Sometimes it's hard to do something you've never done before. Like drawing a sugarpot. Sometimes you get worse before you get better, like when you attempt your second drawing of a sugarpot. By the fourth time it somewhat resembles what you're trying to do and on the fifth time you're pretty happy. But do it a hundred, or a thousand times and that difficult thing you've never done before, is as easy as pie...or sugarpots.

Piano

This is a piano.

Hey piano! One day I'm gonna know how to play you properly #chopsticks #rugratstheme #athousandmiles #shhhh! 

...and the music's not too loud #coffee

Traveling is great. But when you're used to a culture of good service traveling can be difficult. When you're used to great coffee from pretty much any cafe traveling can be difficult. You're told that people in Eastern Europe grew up without the smile and not to mistake directness and a frown for impoliteness. But when you've worked for years in customer service and believe that a smile makes all the difference it's hard not to feel defeated when you're constantly being served by grumpy faces. Just smile!  You wanna say. But maybe they don't have anything to smile about. It's a miserable day after all and if my cup of hot brown liquid (if it had any resemblance to coffee it would be acknowledged here) only cost me 30cK ($1.50), I doubt wages are high. You're not used to negotiating a replacement if your espresso tastes like they've used the same coffee grinds all day. Actually, looks like they have. Luckily you find this cafe in the courtyard of an old church.  It lacks the novelty of being allowed to smoke inside, but that's far from a criticism. Their espresso machine isn't branded Nespresso, they have a selection of coffee beans and you choose your favourite and their menu includes V 60 drip coffee and aeropress. Coffee wanker? No, you just want a coffee that isn't burnt, or watery, or both.

Thanks for the nice coffee and the smile.

You welcomed it warmly after seeking in vain a laundromat that seems to have turned into a Swedish health spa and consequently giving into to the hostels ridiculous demand of 280cK ($14) for access to the washer/dryer combo in a tiny, stuffy room in the basement that only had one temperature setting only to discover that not all clothes fit in the machine so you cross the street to the previously hidden-in-plain-sight dry cleaners, more affordable, but you're greeted, greeted is the wrong word, presented with a lady whose courtesy extands to slapping a basket down on the counter and taking your 200cK ($10).

Am I a spolit traveler?

Why technology can smd - part 2

As you may have read, part one of this as yet undecided amount of parts series of why technology can smd was about mobile phones and how they are all out to get my, by doing nothing. It was alluded to in the previous post that i also have computer troubles, mainly my laptop which I am currently working on, and crossing my fingers hoping that it's not going to have a seizure.

So i got this fine piece of technology for Christmas last year, it is not even a year old and I have had a considerable amount of trouble with it already. The biggest pain in my ass was about in the middle of the year, the day before my one exam of the semester. I had decided to start studying, as you do, at about noon. Even though it was an English exam, there is no reason for you not to spend a good two hours writing one page of notes and pretending to note the readings that you paid $20 for but have neglected for the past three months.

I was about an eight of the way through the course when the music stopped. This is always a bad sign. It doesn't stop completely, but sort of has bursts of noise every 4 or so seconds, which you cannot pause, or mute, or even stop by shutting the laptop. The only things you are realistically able to do in a situation such as this are:

a) leave laptop open and go into the kitchen to make yourself a calming sandwich/milo

b) calmly push laptop away from you and proceed to scream into nearest pillow

c) turn off laptop by holding down power button (i hate doing this because it seems like the equivalent of suffocating it...holding your finger over a certain part of it until all life leaves it. Very sad).

But there was a secret option that I was not aware of:

d) swear at laptop, go red in face, jump at suddenly ringing telephone then have conversation with person on other end about how laptop is royally fucked (which the person was ringing about, incidentally) and then proceed to pay unknown person a large sum of money, the exact amount which is not to be disclosed to fix the problem because studying has suddenly become very important indeed and Google is needed because you realise that you did not pay attention during tutes, and did not attend lectures.

I was so sure that I had got a good deal, the money would cover me for 4 years for any computer problem I had and also up to three other computers in the household. The laptop was fixed (for the time being) Google was consulted, the exam was sat and the subject was passed.

Everything was fine for a few weeks, apart from my laptop being retardedly slow, but I have come to learn that that is just how technology acts around me - it reduces its productivity to be directly proportionate to the amount that I understand it - practically nil.

I received a call a few months later saying that there was a problem with my email, but it turns out that that was just a ploy to hack my accounts. Sucks to them though, I don't have any money for anyone to steal.

And I kid you not, the DAY BEFORE MY EXAM this semester the exact fucking thing happened, but this time someone else rung up demanding money in exchange for doing something that anyone at my dear mother's place of work could have done for free. I did not yield again, but hung up instead. In addition to this, the same thing happened the very day that I wrote part one of the 'why technology can smd' saga.

For real.

Don't ask me how they know when my computer fucks itself, but the smarmy scammers have their wily ways and so I need to be content with a laptop that is incredibly temperamental and needs kind words and a gentle touch to coax it into performing the most menial tasks.

Not fair.

Stay tuned for part three - automobiles and related accessories.

Toilet Door Wisdom

Why technology can smd - part 1

Have you ever felt that technology does not work for you? Have you perhaps yelled at it, or maybe physically punched say, your laptop screen, cracking it and also cutting your knuckles on the shattered glass, making you even angrier? It could be described as just bad luck, or maybe that everything that I have ever used that has a power source that I don't understand is out to get me. One thing is for certain: I am technologically retarded.

I would never have been able to be part of this blog if it weren't for A. She helps me with everything from formatting my uni documents (yes, seriously. Just yesterday she introduced me to the idea of 'shift/enter') and backing up my computer to guiding me through the incredibly straighforward realms of Windows Movie Maker in order for me to pass my degree (hopefully, at this stage).

It seems to me that the idea that you don't really pay much attention to something until it starts to fuck up on you is 100% true. This happens to me in a serious way at least once a week. Everything is cool and then: "WHY iview? Why you no play Louis Theraux documentary on cosmetic surgery? Or the latest episode of The Slap? Why you do this to me? It no fair, I kill you for this treachery!"

I have "bad luck" with mobile phones, computers of all sorts, DVDs and even my car radio. It is getting to the point where I am scared to have four or five tabs open on my laptop for fear of it getting intimidated by the workload I expect from it, freaking out and freezing on the spot. It is also daring to have music playing if working on a document at the same time, and I've only had it for a year.

So the first edition of technology and why it can smd is the mobile phone. You have one, I have one, we all have one. If you don't, I feel sorry for you but seriously, get on that shit, you are way behind. I'm sure that we all have some horror story of accidentally dropping your phone in a pot of boiling water, or going kneeboarding with it in your pocket or driving a forklift over it, heck knows I do, but this goes beyond the usual assholery that we put our mobiles through. in varous stated of drunkenness/hungoverness.

I left my relatively new mobile phone in a school playground, overnight, in the rain. It worked ok for a couple of days, but then started to play up, so I took it down to the good ol' guys at My Phone Company to get it fixed. "We will send your phone off to get fixed and you will have it back within 10 working days" they said.

Bullshit.

9 weeks of using a piece of shit replacement phone that ended up being stolen at a Goodwill storeof all places (that is my story and I am sticking to it) and a flobbityjillion annoyed phonecalls later, one of which included some dude telling me that my phone was "beyond repair", my apparently completely rooted phone was finally fucking back in the store. So I went in, and they said "all the parts have been replaced, it should work fine now". I should have smelled a rat, but was too excited to be back amongst the mobile commmunicators of my generation to care about that, or the suspicious replacement SD card that came with my phone.

The SD card had been previously used, and there were some photographs that should not be shared on a public forum such as this, as they included fat people in hawaiian shirts swimming in a pool, some happy holiday snaps of somewhere in Asia and a few pictures of a man cleaning his pool starkers. Many lols were had but I removed them off facebook just in case a naked and red-faced man brandishing a pool scoop came knocking at my door.

So for a few short days, I was happy. But then the phonecall came.

"I'm sorry, there seems to have been a mistake at the store. The phone we gave you does not in fact belong to you. Please return the phone as soon as possible. Your phone should be back in the store within 10 working days." Smd Phone Company. I will hold this phone hostage until you give me my phone back.

So I did.

When I did get my phone back, it had the same problems that existed before I sent it away. But it didn't really matter in the end, because I lost it in a public bathroom within a week.

G

Note: I would also like to take this opportunity to point out the stupidity of some people. When I lost my phone in the bathroom, I needed to report it stolen so that I could get insurance on it. One of the questions that the ladypoliceofficer asked me was, and I quote: "was it an iphone 5?"

Um...no. They don't exist yet.