bleepings

"What I thought was unreal, now, for me, seems in some ways to be more real than what I think to be real which seems now more to be unreal" .
Fred Alan Wolf

"I can't roll the fucking thing down" - "Try it the other way"(fumblefumble)- "Nope, still doesn't work, FUCK, I'm not going to buy THESE ones again"

After experimenting with injectable chemicals which produced disastrous results (see the paragraph headed ON A PERSONAL NOTE in THIS post) and after years of experience with yucky, stinky rubber things that sometimes don't roll down (is it ME??!!), and after much deliberation.

STOP PRESS STOP PRESS!!
Gunshots outside, first time in ages!

Ahem...much deliberation from me and the misses, ("I'm not sticking one of THOSE things inside me", but dearest... "I'm not going to bugger around with my hormones again"), I've decided to get The Snip.


I have a student who is a gynecologist I just asked her how I'd go about it through the public health system, i.e. for free. However, the public health system here is pretty much like how I described the public roads in an earlier post: patched up with black crumbly stuff that gets smashed to bits when used too much. Anyway she said she'd pull some strings to get me through a 3 year waiting list in just a few months. Now these few months have come to an end and I'm at the front of the queue! She phoned yesterday, she'd put me onto her male counterpart the urologist, which, if you add 'ne' becomes almost a brain doctor, well they do say that when the one part gets to working the other part quits. And that's it, I'll be snipped in a few short weeks! Too late for second thoughts and all that bumph.

Now I want one of those ties, that I remember from the 80s, "I Only Fire Blanks" or I.O.F.B.
(Fuck, I never wear ties)

My only real concern is, will it still squirt as much and as far.

Best Alternative Places to Drink Beer - Updatable.

I've seen loadsa lists of "10 best places in the world to drink beer", Bars in Munich, the Czech Republic, Dublin etc etc. But I'd love to see an "alternative" list, this one gets my vote to begin with. Any other suggestions? (my terrace at sunset in January for example). Pavlo's on the Greek / Turkish Famagusta border in Cyprus is another of my votes, if it still exists (those 1980s blues again).

So here's the beginnings of a list, these are my contributions, other suggestions are welcome:

Kamal Van Damme's bar, Berber mountains, Algeria;
Pavlo's, Greek / Turkish Famagusta border, Cyprus;
The Broken (or Mended) Drum, The Shades, Ankh-Morpork, Discworld;
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, The End of the Universe. (actually this one's not so much for beer, but I have it on good authority that it's the best place for Pan Galactic Gargleblasters)
The Poison Apple, A Kingdom Far Far Away.

Beer at 50p a Pint!

I've learned a most useful phrase, Ga'i beint o gwrw os gwelwch yn dda? Yes, better than slow, unbearable pigs.

Cost of living table:

The Brazilian Real, R$, is worth about 25p. So 1 Brit Quid (that's Pound Sterling for my international readers / sorry, I don't have a pound sign on my keyboard) is about R$4. I'm self-employed so I rely on my students sticking around and on a very good month (between April and November) I earn about R$4,000 - 5,000. On a very bad month (December to March, everybody buggers off to the beach), I earn about R$1,000 - 2,000; 3,000 if I'm very lucky with extra translating work, BUT I still have the same expenses and unfortunately I haven't been able to even things out by saving during the bumper months, there's always too much beer to drink and too many barbies to eat.

So let's see if I'm filffy rich or rag-arse poor compared to back-'ome-how-green-was-my-cynon-valley standard:

Well as I live alone, I don't to mega supermarket runs once a week to fill the pantry and fridge, I just live day by day, except at weekends when I fill the fridge with beer and chunks of prime beef for the barbies, so lets start with that (supermarket prices and I'm not going to repeat 'about' every time, so take it as given):

A 600ml bottle (a wee bit over a pint) of lager beer: R$2.
Brazilian brewed bitter or ale 350ml (they don't do bigger): R$4 - 6
Imported can of bitter or Guinness: R$11
Pint of Guinness in the Shamrock (okay I deviated a bit from the supermarket): $R12

Prime beef steak for barbie, per 2.2 pounds (= 1 kilo, I can't be arsed to convert): R$15 (so about R$7 / lb?).
Beef ribs: R$5 / kilo

Other stuff, washing powder, yup I wash my clothes: R$1 / kilo.

Other other stuff, rent. I live in a pretty slummy neighbourhood, though my flat's pretty decent (2 bedrooms, garage, terrace): R$500 / month (any other neighbourhood, I'd pay up to R$1,000), water and rates included.
Electric bill: R$50 - 60 / month
Gas - one bottle (you know those big iron thingies), I use about one every 3 months (just for the cooker) - R$40.

Eating out: Posh restaurant for 2, drinks included: $R80 +
Joe's Greasy burger for two + beer R$20.
Decent lunch with salad and meats as-much-as-you-want-buffet: R$10

I could go on.

How does that compare to living in Aberbachgenbach? Divide everything by four.

Shit, I'll never become a published writer if I repeat pretty as an adverb twice in the same sentence

Mochyn Annioddefol

Took a quick experiment with an internet language course in Welsh and in just a few short minutes, I learned Mae'r mochyn yn araf, now what I really need are some of these useful phrases.

Perfect Biking Roads

The roads here seem to be made of some crappy black stuff which becomes crumbly in rain and gets pounded to hell by the passing traffic thus creating immense pot-holes. After a few weeks a truck goes round and fills the pot-holes with big gravel (i.e. small stones) this in turn gets pounded around and spread all over the roads once again exposing the hole, another few weeks pass before another truck comes round and fills the hole with the same sticky black stuff that crumbled in the first place. Most of the roads look like black patch-work.
A heaven for bikers.

NOT!

When I wuz cruizing the roads of Britain on my Kawasaki ZL1000 (SIGH! them we'r' t days, que saudades!) we used to complain about the roads THERE! Never again shall I complain (if that is, I am ever cruizing the roads of Britain again at some future time). WAAAAAAY back in the 80s. I've just been moping over my collection of back issues of Back Street Heroes from 1987, TWENTY years ago JEEEEZ! I think that was the year I went to the Kent Show and the Bulldog Bash. I never could make it to the Dragon Rally (lying barstud, couldn't be arsed more like, middle of Winter in a tent in North Wales? No cojones mate).

I'm in the running for "Best Personal Blog" in the Welsh Blog Awards 2007, which means I'll have to write something ..... uhm ... er...oh BOLLOCKS!

Here's an update on my current situation anyway. Since the incident with the Personage on the Balcony, which occurred six weeks after the Personage on the Terrace incident and three weeks after the Personage IN the Apartment incident - most probably it is the same personage - I'm a trifle nervous whilst sleeping, or NOT sleeping as is the case. Despite strengthening bars being welded onto the terrace and a cage being welded onto the baclony, I still don't sleep tranquilly. I constantly awake during the night, tense and half expecting to see the silhouette of the barsturd THERE. I sleep (or not, etc, etc,) with a hammer beside the bed, yes, I know, I know, but I don't have a baseball bat. My flat-in-front neighbour offered to lend me his gun, I was sorely tempted. I'm actually half hoping this slimebag will return to the balcony in order to give me a chance to reach through the cage and shove him off and be done with. A three storey fall should break a few bones and perhaps dissuade him from further exploits. In my transmogrified HULK state when he appeared, I would have shoved him off if I had caught him. I have warned the neighbours above that as I now also have a caged balcony (the first floor is a garage with bars, the second floor is a caged balcony, so this is effectively a ladder straight up), he may continue his climb to there.

As I am apparently connected to 62,759,867 people through 19 Orkut "friends", so too am I connected to several of the people who perished on the ill-fated Porto Alegre - São Paulo TAM flight through three of my students. My coração goes out to the families.

IF THAT FUCKER COMES AGAIN, I'VE GOT MY WAR BAND READY

My bedroom is a cube, one wall of which is a glass sliding door opening to a balcony (3rd floor). My bed is adjacent to this glass door, if I reach out my arm I touch it.

Imagine then my surprise when I awoke from a doze at 11pm to see A PERSON standing there on the balcony. What Larks. See below posts for the history of invasions.
My rage overcame my fear and I believe I momentarily transmogrified into the HULK. Starkering Nekkid, I leapt out of bed screaming Celtic War cries. The person, I guess completely taken by surprise at my reaction, deftly lept over the bars and monkeyed down, jumping the last couple of metres and ran off with my curses heating his arse. Curious neighbours soon appeared, I still naked, "Hi, uhm yes just some guy on my balcony you know, everything okay now". Now before I sleep I shall paint myself blue for the full effect if it should happen again.

As I type there is a small team of workmen soldering bars to the balcony effectively imprisoning me.