Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Weird weekend

This might be a bit long one this time. It's my last weekend. Thursday might be a bit confusing. (The way I wrote, not the day itself.) So you might want to skip that part.

Thursday - Finland is a very small country

On Wednesday a friend of mine called from Finland and asked if I can show his friends around when they come to Amsterdam. I asked when they're coming and of course it was the next day. Two couples were coming and my friend knows the other couple.

I took a Finnish friend of mine with me and went to see those guys. Suddenly another Finnish friend, who also lives here in Amsterdam, called and asked if I was coming there. He knew the other couple and was with them. These two Finnish guys who live here, (The guy I was walking with towards where my friends were, and the other one who was with them already.) I met the first time when I was already living here - and they don't know my friend who lives in Finland. So it was a huge coincidence that two couples are coming over and my good friend from Finland knows the other couple and my another friend knows the other one.

So we went to have couple of beers and I introduced my friend (who was walking with me towards the bar) to the lot. We thought he doesn't know anyone from this group. Turned out that one girl in that group happens to be from the same village where my friend was born.

So all in all, to make this weird thing even more complicated, I try to show this as math-kinda-formula(ish)-thingie.

Me = A
My friend who didn't know anyone = B
My friend from Finland who didn't come over = C
1st couple = D & E
2nd couple = F & G
Another friend who lives in Amsterdam = H

So C called A and told his friends D & E were coming. They come with F & G, but C doesn't know F & G. I was going to meet them with B, when H called, since F & G were coming to visit him with D & E. He knew only F & G, not D & E. I met both B and H in Amsterdam, and neither knew C previously. Turned out G and B were from the same village.

Ach... messy... and the rest of the night became even more messy, which resulted in hangover at work on Friday.

Friday - Strange and weird Finnish happenings

If that wasn't enough, I had yet another friend coming over from Finland - on the same weekend!, so I went out with her and couple of her friends on Friday. We drank some beers and decided to go to the Cave. Usually nice heavy-metal there. This time it was 3 euros to get in. There was a Yugoslavian metal-band there. Excellent music, although it started as mid 90's nu-metal(ish) kinda thing, but it quickly evolved into proper crunch!

There was four of us, and only one table was almost empty. There was one heavy-metal girl sitting at it. We just jumped into the empty table and started babbling away with my friend. Of course we were talking in Finnish and assumed (again) no-one understands and we were just talking about her last one-nighter... quite graphically I might add. On that point the metal-girl on that same table said in Finnish: "OMFG you can't be from Finland too?!" - Of course she had to be Finnish.

When were were sitting there I got info from my housemate he's going to get the new Harry Potter book. It was like 11PM... And the shops open at 8 or 9 next morning. A grown up man is going to show up in Harry Potter queue? Seriously? Queuing for hours for ... well, almost anything is ridiculous. I understand few hour queues in Russia when there's only few loafs of bread for thousand people. But in a western country, where we don't need anything that much...

Harry Potter books are not that magnificent anyways. What's the fuzz? Ok, funny and entertaining, but nothing to form a cult over. Same thing with Da Vinci Code. I had the misfortune of reading it. Nice and entertaining story. Providing you don't know what Da Vinci did or who he was, don't know anything about European history and no clue about Holy Grail mythology other than that story where some moistened bint lobbed a semitar at some dude called Arthur, then yes, on your flight from New York to London, read the book. Otherwise, it's nothing special. Hm. Actually, it is kinda special. Special in a way it is a screenwrite and a book at the same time. When the camera cut is expected, the chapter changes. Scene by scene writing and much details what kind of props and decos you need for the movie. But very superficial info about Da Vinci and the Grail myth. Still, rather entertaining story, although nothing to cause world-wide praise and "book of the century" ravings.

Back to Friday

I was drinking my beer and the band was just starting, I noticed the bass vibrations made the foam on my beer change. It started to look like an eye. I told that Finnish metal-girl who we just met my beer was staring at me. She laughed and looked at my pint. Yes, I didn't hallucinate. It looked like an eye. My friend took the pint to her hand and also looked at it and saw the eye too. When she put the pint back on the table, the eye had changed. Now it was the head of Jack Skellington. Bizarre. Couple of sips and the foam looked like a bat's head, and when the bass vibrations moved the head a bit, the ears became rabbit-like. Now it was Frank from Donnie Darko. I quickly took a sip to get this foam away, and almost succeeded. There was only little bit left. Which looked like the mask from Phantom of the Opera... G-sus! Did they serve me some black-magic beer? And I didn't have a camera. But I'm sure I wasn't going insane, since my friends saw those too.

A while after my housemate came with his girlfriend (and a camera! Too late!) - they didn't get the book. There was a line for like two blocks for the Potter book. They did the wise thing and didn't queue for ... minimum of 9 hours before the shop even opens plus the time when the sheep have gone through the gate and got their reward. They went to the store the next day (on Saturday, so still the first day) and got the book. Without queuing. My housemate took few pictures, though. There was even people dressed up as witches?! Sad. Sad. Sad.

Here's couple:


A huge line around 23:00!


Some were dressed as witches...

Good thing he came to his senses. I was shocked today to read that even Violent Acres was waiting like a tame sheep in line for this single-serving entertainment. Don't get me wrong, nothings bad about reading, and should you like fantasy, good. Read it. I like Tolkien, and even Harry Harrison, but I would not panic if I cannot read the book in the first minutes it was released. She dropped a lot of respect points there. I respect individuality, which this kind of behaviour is not.

Almost the only times when I calculate time is when I need to get something or go somewhere where I expect to be many people. I try to calculate the time when everyone is not there. Even if I want a DVD badly, I will not queue for it for hours. Couple of people, ok, but not more than 10 in front of me. I go to do something else and check back later. If the DVD's gone, I wait for the next shipment. No entertainment is that important.

But people like to queue. Check it out in supermarket the next time you do groceries. You'll see that people are running like headless chicken to the shortest queue. Yes, queue, not the empty kassa. They switch to different queues to get one second earlier, but they remain in queues. I'm sure if you put a queue in the middle of the street, some people will join it without knowing what we are queuing for.

Friggin' sheep. Wasting your lives in queues over cheap entertainment.

Saturday - Hangover

Didn't do much. Pain. A dog bit me inside my head. Drank a zillion litres of juice and smoked fivehundredthousand cigarettes. Went to see couple of documentaries over a friend's place and drank couple of that dog's hairs.

Sunday - Resurrection

Made food. Wiener Snitchel, simple marinaded paprika, dark beer-based jägersoze and fried garlic potatoes. Will post the recipe later.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just a couple of notes...

Waterstones actually had doors open Saturday from 01 to 03 or something to sell the Potter book - that's where the pic is from :-D

But no, we didn't fancy standing on the queue... it doesn't show very well on the pic, but it was some 200 meters long, 4 - 8 ppl wide...

Still me says don't judge the books by the movies. Potter fan I am not, but methinks the books are just about best fantasy that has appeared for God knows how many years. My previous experience with a fantasy this well written is with Stephen Donaldson's Covenant saga.

Uku said...

Sounds like a lot of fun!

I've always been kind of amazed how people can smoke cigarettes while suffering a hangover? Maybe they're just pros?

I agree with you about the Harry F*cker- books. What's the damn fuzz 'bout those stupid books? Okay, I understand that children and others enjoy to be in wonderland, in the world of imagination but hey, come on?

Anyway, I enjoy reading your stupid posts. :)

All the best,

Uku

Don KeyShot said...

Hairy Potters also not my thing...
But your story explains why you couln't make it... Same as 90% of our belloved colleagues: Hungovered.
Although slightly mistreated myself, I managed to wake up around 10, as I had the good sense of coming home around mid-night.

PS: That's why you should never leave home without a camera (and towel, of course) - to make sure you can always capture the different shapes in the foam/head of your beer.

PSS: have you considered placing your Space Odissey thingy on top of your blog, where everybody sees it when they reach the Frogs in the Throat blog?