On taking a break

After extensive consultation with the board of directors I’ve come to the decision, for the sake of my own insanity, to take a brief leave of absence from if all else fails…use a hammer. I’ve noticed other bloggers doing it from time to time and it seems to me a sound practice, lest this blog starts feeling too much like work.

During this period I’ll also be cutting down on my blog reading, so if I don’t like and comment on your posts like usual, don’t take it personally. It’s not you, it’s me. (Yeah, that line just never sounds good, no matter the context.)

I’ll be using the time to try and get ahead on my studies and get some writing done – I have so many ideas clamouring for attention in my head and it’s time to get them committed to paper.

I don’t expect y’all to quit cold turkey (I’ve always wondered where that expression comes from) so the Song Title Challenge for the next two weeks will still take place – they’ve already been written and scheduled. But aside from that, don’t expect any movement here for the next few weeks.

So, adieu and farewell for now. If I’m not back by Easter I’ve probably decided to end my suffering by drinking water straight from the tap. That can be fatal where I live.

On Disappointment

Disappointment can strike at any time, it can take any form and come at you from any directions. I was reminded of this hard truth yesterday.

The wife and I decided to eat out last night. It’s not something we do very often, as it’s bloody expensive, so I was quite excited. See, we have very limited options in our town, so we usually go to Spur, a Wild West inspired steak ranch chain you’ll find in any town in South Africa with more than two tarred roads. And in this particular restaurant I always order the same thing. Because I can make steak, ribs or burgers at home any time I like, but not eisbein.

Pickled Eisbein, with Sauerkraut. Eisbein is h... — Pickled Eisbein, with Sauerkraut. Eisbein is heavily marbled meat covered with a thick layer of fat. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For those of you unfamiliar with German cooking, eisbein is, in a word, heaven. Eisbein is a pig’s knuckle – that part of the pig’s foot directly adjacent to what would be the ankle in humans. This restaurant grills it over open flames while basting it, leading to juicy pork meat encased in a crispy outer layer. The ultimate eisbein experience occurs when it is served with that other divine German culinary invention, sauerkraut (sour cabbage), but as Spur serves it with fries and onion rings is just as nice.

Eisbein is a bit of a specialty item here and not that commonly (or cheaply) available (not to mention wildly unhealthy), and I don’t know how to cook it myself, so our infrequent visits to Spur is my only chance to enjoy eisbein. But lo and behold, when I opened the menu last night, no eisbein.

They had removed it from the menu!

Needless to say, dinner was ruined. I was forced to drown my sorrows in their “Warrior Combo”, a dietary travesty involving ribs, chicken, lamb chops and wors (South African sausage). It just wasn’t the same.

What’s worse, I now have no idea when I’ll get to have eisbein again. Life can be needlessly cruel at times, don’t you think?

Song Title Challenge #39: Freakishly long song title – Christine Lavin

It’s time for this week’s Song Title Challenge.

Me and my big mouth. A couple of weeks ago I made an innocuous comment to bumblepuppies about longer song titles being more challenging than one-word titles, and he took it as an invitation for the ultimate challenge. Thus he sent me Regretting What I Said to You When You Called Me 11:00 On a Friday Morning to Tell Me that at 1:00 Friday Afternoon You’re Gonna Leave Your Office, Go Downstairs, Hail a Cab to Go Out to the Airport to Catch a Plane to Go Skiing in the Alps for Two Weeks, Not that I Wanted to Go With You, I Wasn’t Able to Leave Town, I’m Not a Very Good Skier, I Couldn’t Expect You to Pay My Way, But After Going Out With You for Three Years I DON’T Like Surprises!! by Christine Lavin.

The full title is actually Regretting What I Said to You When You Called Me 11:00 On a Friday Morning to Tell Me that at 1:00 Friday Afternoon You’re Gonna Leave Your Office, Go Downstairs, Hail a Cab to Go Out to the Airport to Catch a Plane to Go Skiing in the Alps for Two Weeks, Not that I Wanted to Go With You, I Wasn’t Able to Leave Town, I’m Not a Very Good Skier, I Couldn’t Expect You to Pay My Way, But After Going Out With You for Three Years I DON’T Like Surprises!! Subtitled: A Musical Apology and at ninety-seven words is the longest known song title in the English Language. (Apparently there’s a Russian song that tops out at 155 words (English translation 180), but lets just stick with the English song for now.)

Including spaces and punctuation this song title 481 characters long. To put it in perspective for you, you’ll need four tweets just to tweet this song title (explaining the title of today’s post). It’s too long for a google search string (which cuts off everything over thirty-two words) and takes up a third of my total word count for the Song Title Challenge.

In the words of the immortal Barney Stinson, challenge accepted.

To find out how the Song Title Challenge works or to suggest a song title for next week, visit the challenge page now. You can also leave a suggestion on the Facebook page.

bumblepuppies did not include the subtitle in his suggestion (even though it’s actually part of the song title), so I’m just using Regretting What I Said to You When You Called Me 11:00 On a Friday Morning to Tell Me that at 1:00 Friday Afternoon You’re Gonna Leave Your Office, Go Downstairs, Hail a Cab to Go Out to the Airport to Catch a Plane to Go Skiing in the Alps for Two Weeks, Not that I Wanted to Go With You, I Wasn’t Able to Leave Town, I’m Not a Very Good Skier, I Couldn’t Expect You to Pay My Way, But After Going Out With You for Three Years I DON’T Like Surprises!! The genre is Fantasy/Sci-Fi. Here goes nothing.

Regretting What I Said to You When You Called Me 11:00 On a Friday Morning to Tell Me that at 1:00 Friday Afternoon You’re Gonna Leave Your Office, Go Downstairs, Hail a Cab to Go Out to the Airport to Catch a Plane to Go Skiing in the Alps for Two Weeks, Not that I Wanted to Go With You, I Wasn’t Able to Leave Town, I’m Not a Very Good Skier, I Couldn’t Expect You to Pay My Way, But After Going Out With You for Three Years I DON’T Like Surprises!!

Continue reading “Song Title Challenge #39: Freakishly long song title – Christine Lavin” →

On my February reading

Wow! This is embarrassing. See, there isn’t any. I did not finish a single book this month. It’s not that I wasn’t reading, cause I was, but I kept picking up lemons.

The first book I really tried to read, but between typos galore, chapters of backstory, unrealistic dialogue, descriptions so detailed they read like technical manuals, and dialogue tags that were just plain weird, I couldn’t make it past the first few chapters. And it wasn’t a self-published novel, so it can’t be blamed on a lack of editing. This novel went the whole route of querying, editing and proofreading. Come to think of it, maybe the problem lies with me. In fact, all the reviews I’ve seen of the novel were praising its brilliance, leaving me somewhat confused because I just can’t see it.

For my second attempt I chose a James Patterson. I’d never read anything of his before, but my dad’s a big fan and has all his books, so I plundered my dad’s bookcase. Jester, which Patterson co-authored with Andrew Gross, is a historic novel about a French dude who goes to the Crusades and comes back to find his wife has been carried off by raiders. Sounds fun, right? Edge of your seat, sword battles, jumping castle walls with a catapult…wait, I think I’m describing a different story now. Continue reading “On my February reading” →

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell revisited – Part II

In case you missed it, on Monday thebookboozer wrote a rant about George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Yesterday I expressed my opinion on the specific points she raised for not liking the novel (to which she graciously responded). Today I’d like to advance my theory as to why she did not enjoy the novel and propose how one should approach this novel, and really any classic novel, to get the most out of it.

I feel I have to state upfront that I wasn’t an English Lit-major. I just read a lot and love looking things up if I don’t know them. I love reading the classics – in eighth grade already I was reading Jules Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle – but I’m not by any means a literary snob – in eighth grade I also read just about every Nancy Drew novel in existence at the time. So what follows is absolutely my opinion and may be completely wrong, so please don’t quote me in your senior thesis or anything like that. Continue reading “Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell revisited – Part II” →