PS

Besides being starved for shows to watch while drawing (I've switched from CSI to Criminal Minds and learned a new concept: victimology. Hello, nightmares..), not only was the House episode about a life in the day of Cuddy amazing, so was the latest Grey's Anatomy (Time warp) - and I was just about to give up on that show... Little mandy! LOOOL! "Lose the smile!" scene was awesome :D Okay, so the entire show is one big sappy hospital  sex, drama, but it's worth watching just for Dr. Bailey. What a stag beetle! :D

Holy hershys, it's been like an EON since my last entry and it's not from the lack of events, let me tell you :P

I haven't been able to upload since Piček's mum's doughnut making lesson, have I? Either way - see, this is the way they are SUPPOSED to be done. 

Now no more for a while. Except maybe her home made noodles...

As you can see, I've gotten the hang of the timer stamp. *aplause...* 

Time really runs so fast. There may have been a spell in the middle, when I was kind of bored and off the main road, thinking about posting some photos of Ziyi Zhang, because even though she is more less perfect in design, photographers get creative while taking her pics, without really stepping out of the box. Last I've seen that was with Gillian Anderson, but she's not so lovely, so perhaps is doesn't count. Easiest shots are always taken with people who look like dolls. Faces with minute flaws already make the job easier. And nothing is as boring as a photo of a pretty lady.

       But I'll do that another day.

Piček's sister's family has moved and for as much as nice their new house is, I have been secretly imagining the left-behind flat as my would-be kitchen for the cake studio. All I'd need would be someone who is licenced and a lot of cake models. :D

The drawing, on the other hands, sometimes goes incredibly well and I produce pickies I am really proud of, or I get stuck and I pick a fight with my baby. Bad fool. But I am a high maintenance bitch. Never said I wasn't. I just make sure it's worth it.

(It's purposefully bad quality, as I am obliged by contract to discourage copyrights violations... The book is rapidly heading for the finish-line...) 

We've gone to the movies to see the Wolfman. It's rather disappointing, but not entirely dumb. The cast was actually remarkable, except Benicio Del Toro, who seems like he's on crack and has just been woken up and dragged onto the set one minute ago for every scene. As much as I adore Hugo Weaving, he is obviously stuck onto his Agent Smith way of acting - and sorry but his Tick continues to inspire me today. The script was painfully bad, and everything seems to have been cut short - the narrative, the plot,  the human condition substory, the which-ever love affair.. It's like they took two minutes out of every scene done. The design of the story is not bad at all - Eerie Victorian era, science stuck between old superstitions and modern treatments, the arrogant beliefs that all human faults can be treated with torture.. I liked that approach a lot. The anemic little creature that plays the opportunistic fiance (first failing to get to the family wealth by marrying one brother, then the next) is for once individualistic and intelligent, if bored. She has a shop that no-one keeps? She must have it just for the heck of it then. But like I said, everything is just... something. Aha, there's a werewolf who is not only hungry, he's also rabid (no wild animal attacks with that much fuss Everybody knows the most dangerous predators go for the rim of the herd and do it soundlessly.) He takes out entire villages and gypsy camps and suddenly gypsies are a bunch of screaming girls. Then there's the old father figure, who is a father and a villain and a victim all in one go and Hopkins manages to pull it off magnificently, as expected. Then there's the whole transformation stuff and eating of the stupid doctor London elite and a bunch of "incredible Hulk in Matrix" fights. Between the two, I'd choose Hot Rod to be a better movie and that one just m kes your jaw fall off from staring. 

Alright, but the biggest news so far, is that I've finally created a guild. I've been fidgettng about it for days, until Piček was so fed up with me, he refused to be involved in the process of elimination of the titles :P (My idea of compromise, when I want the guild to be called something like The Literary Society, and he wants it to be warrior-like and cool, like Karantania, is to eventually come up with "KarantanialnLibrary Club". NOT what he was hoping for. LoLz.) But you know, I want the game to stop making nerds being ashamed of being nerds :) Probably not 2% of Slavs know that this was a proto-slavic 9th century realm, a pretty cool and feisty one in fact - but those who bother to google it, are in :) No idea yet what we'll do with it,  I just wanted the tabard and the bank - the slots are fucking absurdly costly! - but as long as I stop seeing it as something to worry about, it should be fun. We may even get together enough folk to raid decently. If we feel like it :)

Fot the least bit of interesting news, just in a sense of a log entry, a cultural office has approached me to do a project for them, but the way they've been going at it, letting me know they practically have no idea what they want done, they just wanna make sure it's super cheap, made me wanna hit "leave party". Seriously. Like a daft PUG. Lame players, epic starved. No, thank you.

~

 

The Kurents with their victim. One of the more magical, and brutal, heirlooms of our culture - the monstrously dressed fathers and sons with violently noisy cow bells, hopping through the streets to spook the winter off the roofs and fields. They snatch young ladies and take their scarfs or handkerchiefs to later brag which one has gathered more. Personally, I love the lore and love the noise and color, but cannot stand being caught by them. Hence the photos taken from the second story window :p

LoL, it's RAINING! And not just some shy snow, hitting the ground all wet because of global warming - it's raining like a propper warm-time rain. I've forgotten how much I like the sound of it, not to mention how well it does it's job as janitor - streets are super salty, cars and shoes and trouser legs are getting eaten away by it and as I've always wondered how a highway would taste if I licked it, good riddance. Winter's been positively lovely (haven't had the chance to go enjoy it outdoors much, but that's not because trekking, skiing or shovel sledding wouldn't be available to me, it's just cause I'm butt lazy.), but it has been going on long enough. There's severeal wintery posts I haven't had the chance to upload yet - butt lazy part again - but it's a cool saturday morning, windows open wide, streets void of school geese flocks and I have Piček at home for another two long days. Rain just makes it perfect :)

Yesterday's cooking lessons: doughnuts, shtraubi and pads

 The doughnuts, the crunchy shtraubi and the lunch meat variety, pads. 
Firstly, donuts.

Featuring:

Mats. :)
Hehe. Okay, so I've never made donuts before. (I prefer the 'dough nut' version of the word, btw. It's so cool.) Mum made them once and they didn't work out - they were burnt on the outside and runny on the inside. Still good, though, so we are them anyway and then we were really sick. 

         I had three different recipies, trying to make sure stuff made sense. Like, there's almost no sugar and  wanted to double check that. Or one said no salt and that makes no sense either. It would have been a waste of a lot of mats if I messed up :) Mum helped by being nervous, fussy and over-all pesimistic, which is usualy a good sign and stuff then works out perfectly in the end. 

 

  

Then they are bounced around into a neat cushion, left to rise, then spread rolled around 2cm thick and cut out with shapes, and left to rise again, covered someplace warm. Both times they kind of double in size, but if they don't, it didn't seem to matter much, as they popped into shape as soon as they hit boiling oil. 

Yeah. I know. They are all over the place in shapes and sizes, because I never did them before, had no idea how I should shape them before and wasn't sure if they'll get puffy and if they didn't, how well will they actually be done in the center. Oddly enough, every single one was delicious. Tastes in the household vary, so some prefer them more done, others less and some just use them as an excuse to get to jam.

 

 ~

The second version of the shtraubi was more to my memory of them - they were without yeast, a lot more done, crunchy, sweeter and somehow tasting of winter. They usually go with mashes apples, but we ran out. Again, this was done mostly from an idea what they ught to be like, but they were a total success. Mags adored them and Piček annihilated them and dogs literally drooled all over kitchen when mum was teasing them with crumps. If you've ever seen a Rottweiler drool, you'll know how serious that gets :p

  

Tricky bit is knowing just how hot the oil ought to be. If it's too hot, they burn within seconds, but only on the outside. If it's not hot enough, it foams like a fountain that someone dropped a detergent in.

Ultimately, though, this is what they're like,

This is what is left

And this is why. Dad complained about them until he finished them off. :P

And for lunch, because you have to have some normal food before such  dessert, we made bready pads.

You need: some herbs, such as parsley, onions, some spices, old bread in bits, dipped in milk and minced meat. 

 That green thingie in the middle is blitva. Not an ingreadiant, but a sidedish. Anyboo, you mix the lot, make pads and fry it. Ultra yum. 

 

ICC10... hello.

Am heading to town to join my dad for grocery shopping. We both like to do that, doesn't matter what we buy. Plus it will be extra interesting, as all the roads and parking lots are snowed in and it is almost impossible to maneuvre around the city. Took me two hours to climb uphill yesterday, in 4o cm of snow. Was so tired when I returned Piček and I went to bed at 8, however 2o minutes into enjoying his body warmth, sis phoned to ask if I wanna join her guild to do an ICC run with a ten-man group. It's hard to stress to a civilian what an honor that is. Hehe. Well, the kind you do not pass unless you're suddenly blinded or, say, knitting or something. I haven't had the opportunity to go to Icecrown Citadel - up to this point the hardest dungeons in Warcraft, only recently cracked by the uber guild (an Alliance faction, alas, as we are fiercely Horde), and you cannot suceed besting one ridiculously difficult boss after another. I've tried, but in the end it's just not worth it, giving yourself all in only to die because of some 'tard's incompetence or CBAism. This was the first time I was in a group of true 'professionals' and we went though it like a hot knife though a rubber duck. Did all four first bosses without a wipe, then Professor and his two sons (you'd have to see them to believe them), the Bblood Council of three princes (IMPOSSIBLY difficult and fuck those orbs all over again now that I'm able to type properly) and finally the queen - the last of the second set. Then we retired for the morning and did some smaller things. I have total muscle ache from tension. My neck hurts so much and my teeth look like I'm a hypo by now, ground flat... SO much adrenaline. SO much concentration my screen cracks under my stare. At one point there are six or seven things to mind - usually there are three or four - and it is the first time where I was unable to perform a task on my own. Needed help. That's never happened before. (It was the princes. My job - I'm a hunter, so obvioustly - is to prevent orbs of energy, which hover like soap bubbles, from reachng the floor and killing everyone. If I see another soap bubble anywhere I will run away screaming.) Meanwhile there are three other kinds of orbs, good, very good and very bad, that I have to avoid in order to allow other 9 players to manipulate them, and that's just the background noise. The real fight is going from one prince to the next, as they wolleyball power and mortality amidst eachother and players have to either taunt, hurt or heal. There is so much chaos - and I haven't done this fight before, so to me it was just ridiculously messy - you think you'll pee yourself by the time it's - sucesfully - over. (Fifth or sixts try). Failures are coitus interruptus'. If I didn't have my sister's for-warnings and Mag's calm voice, i don't tzhink i'd be able to pull it off. That's a couple of hours of feeling like you're on bad heroin (I imagine.) The queen was lovely, though. She bites someone and for a minute they have no attention and amazing power, but then they need to bite two other unafflicted players - so if after 5 minutes the fight is not over, there's a certain wipe. Not always easy finding them in the mess. Meanwhile you can get plague and need to run out of the cluster of players, or you get a string of life connecting you to another player and neet to instantly meet with them.  All the while making sure you do not attract her attention and all the while making absolute impossibly high damage, so she doesn't last 5 minutes. Such SUCH power of mind. I wish I had Demontania's calm demeanor. Staying that concentraded for such periods of time is like holding up an absurd weight, all your body screaming to let go, why bother, there are easier ways to make an impression, and somehow yet you continue to will it steady. And this is my brain we are talking about. NOT my most prominent muscle :P

Of curse I am compulsively getting up at 4:4o no matter when I go to bed and am now underslept, under-focused and hysterically giddy. Can't recal the last time that kind of energy was surging though me in the real world. No wonder this game addicts.Virtual emotions are better than the real ones,  nearly more profound, because you allow yourself to feel them. In the AFK most feelings are totally in your way or completely impolite. Genuine rage, envy, racism, abuse of power, bragging, that's all prohibited in every day life, and true fear, dissapointment, anticipation and art of war are usually a bad idea to promote. In a game this well created, you can go all out, knowing perfectly well you can log off and be okay in an hour. Be really really totally scared, like, almost on the verge of tears, knowing absolutely nothing will actually harm you, so go ahead and go mental. Even reputation, if lost, is just an LCD illusion :)

Angelique e le whatever

I've been trying to watch Angelique (in I think most languages but French by now), simply because I stumbled upon the movies on P.Bay and because I remember reading all books about her (well, at least five) when I was thirteen. I just can't seem to et it. Though I adore old Errol Flynn flicks and old Robin Hoods, a movie like this just doesn't get into my head. NOTHING feels right. Not her hair, her make-up, her costumes are absurd, even her beauty is out of time - and I DO take the era in which the movies were made into consideration. Dunno, were they bad movies even then? Or did the emancipated ladies of the late sixties purposefully applaud Angelique's stubborn style and romantic view on the court of the Sun King (How I liked raping and killing him in my stories back then..)? 

Perhaps because I've seen the world as it truly was back then, I simply cannot swallow the director's interpretation. I found Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette sooner to being realistic! Dunno. I just can't get pass that wig and those erotic displays of her perfect frame, which remain exactly the same thorough her entire life-long ordeal. Somehow, and it's probably just the times I live in, that much blatant exposing feels like some posh pervs' country club video. Something to stare at while pretending to be watching paid actors act. I could be wrong, though. I could have just seen way too many HBO interpretations of places like Rome and Deadwood... It isn't rational to compare.

Did, though, like the latest episode of Fringe. Liked the ending. I was wondering when THAT bit will come crushing down like a ton of icicles on our dear heroes, and they didn't choose a bad moment to time it. The handsome yet overly masculine beaut Olivia FBI even exhibited two whole new expressions! One was not unlike the one I often cast on the ones I care for when I'm really really angry. The other was such profound shell shock - should she utterly hate Dr. Bishop or should she utterly pity him? End credits.

Villain on cooldown...

Damn Paparazzi just killed Arthas... Ah well.. "Server first". No shocks there. He will be missed. Not only I have a weak spot for villains with long white hair, he had a sort of a chill style...

Love what they did with the Lag City fountain....

The battle scene from P.Prince

 

And then I show the pic to Piček and he asks: "Is he wearing plait?" I say yes, and he: "These arrows are wooden?" Aye. And he: "A wooden arrow wouldn't go through plait. If they were smaller, then they could be crossbow bolts and those mayhap stood a chance. It's why the Romacatholic authority on Crusaders forbade the use of crossbows upon devout opponents. Only heathens. Only a crossbow arrow would go though a plait armor like this."

... Told you he's not called The General for nothing.

Bit my tongue. OUU. That shit hurts!! Not the preferred start of the day... See? -->  I then gathered *exactly* 281 high end Northrend flowers without gaining a *single* Frost Lotus.. (My ICC 1o second-set-of-bosses battle is tonight and I need pots... Ridiculous, I tell you.) My back hurts from sleeping in a funny pose and as consequence I had really weird dreams about my old yellow postal moped and a lesbian scene with Tilda Swinton and La Roux...  O.o

A capoeira studio opened in my town and for about 1o minutes I was really excited about having ANYTHING in common with Vincent Cassell.. Also been wanting to get the General to take on dancing lessons since I met him (and since it turned out Miami Vice is one of our both favorite movies, I actually thought I had a chance "Pennies in my Pocket" burns!), and this would be my sneaky lure, but the haughty Clint Eastwood knows everything there is to know about war, so he of course knew what I was up to. Piček considers dance to be a perfectly pointless waste of time before sex (has similar views on foreplay, too), to what I secretly agree, but since I have WAY too much sex to be considered a proper WoW-playing geek, I thought something drastic should be done about it. (What if some day a song like this paly in some Cuban  hotel or garden pr something and I really look good in a slinky dress and there is no-one to dance with me but Arnold Vosloo? The only man Piček might actually be jealous about and then what am I suppose to do?) I was crushed to read about that 'dogs-kill-owner' episode. I'm sure I've mentioned it, the woman whose bullmastifs brutally attacked a man didn't go to trial because she was someone important, but then died and now her husband (also a doctor) was torn to sticky little pieces by them... Well, turns out and I can't be sure this is actually true, (though seriously, not even media can conjure up this kind of falsehood), but the husband was supposedly once a woman himself and police having found a large strap-on near the death scene, it suddenly became obvious the odd rectal bruising on one of the canine females were indeed testament to sexual abuse of the perpetrators...

                 .... I have A LONG way to go to be THAT weird, that's all I'm saying.

Work in progress....
            (The Pumpkin Prince details...)

 

Been wondering why do all the pickies of my family ultimatelly look like this?

  

  

  

  

O.o

But other than that.... It's 8am. Off to watch Memoirs of a Geisha and paint on.. 

  

 

Update in a nutshell...

Continue to fail to download some of the cool reading thingies I kind of want. More Bryson. More about posh whores. Definitely something that qualifies for an airport novel. I am way too into quality stuff..

But I did get the tiny wonder that is the battered pot replica. Check out this absurd cuteness..

Isn't it??

Working on the last of the stories for the book... (Check out the new cartoonout there, Secret of the Kells.. That's some heavy duty art for a kids story. I bet the kids won't get it. Best stuff they usually don't.)

 

 Also made shtraubi and coffee cake. Dumb recipe failed to mention salt and of course as I tried to add it to oil, it was too late. Why do I always have to fix other people's cooking effort? Don't they love their job?

Zi Shtrauben: 

Und zi kejk:

 

Oh, yeah. It was uiber perishable. :P

Off to do my fishing daily. Tried to reid last night and got stuck in dumb groups four times. I better not be locked out of all the best dungeons.. or there will be snarling at the screen. 

 

PS Some portraits of mum while goofing around with the camera after lunch. yay, I made rice photogenic 8)