Kablammo!

I see some trees, but they’re all in the same forest.

Hey look, I’m in Riga, killing time as I wait for the bus to take me back to Tartu. Lithuania was cool, as evinced by these pictures:

God damn, it certainly feels good to be able to wrap my grubby little fingers around my ticket out of this place. Not that this place is really bad at all, and not that I’m necessarily homesick or anything, but it’ll be interesting to see just how long it takes this year to become nothing more than a collection of photographs and dimly-recollected conversations.

…ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth is long forgotten…

So I’m off to Lithuania tomorrow in the latest instalment of my series of long-pondered but poorly thought-out and carelessly entered-into plans. Wish me luck, or don’t.

Song of the Moment: «Amerimacka» — Thievery Corporation

The last time Tony had made it to the front of the queue at the post office, he noticed he’d left his wallet at home; this time, however, he suddenly realized he’d left the parcel behind, turning what should have been a simple and straightforward errand into a noisome and vaguely Sisyphean ordeal.

Well, my knees are mildly sunburned and holy shit am I ever covered in mosquito bites. Summer plus northern altitude equals mosquito central, especially when you add tenting to the mix. But it’s all good. Fishing was entirely unproductive but the kanuuretk was quite nice.

All in all, quite a nice Jaanipäev weekend. Pictures to come, maybe, if I stop being a lazy shit. (So don’t howld your breath.)

Also, direct congratulations to Riina and Rene, who recently provided their respective emas and ämms with a second grandchild to dote over.

Song of the Moment: «Secret Knives» — Wolf Parade

Perhaps you remember this entry from about a year ago. If not, you can go back and read it if you want; the point was complaining about a bunch of absolutely shameless pork-barreling.

As it turns out, the same bullshit is still going on. Really planning on vetoing the bill, George? Go ahead, but since both of Congress’s camerae have overwhelming support for the bill, it’ll be nothing more than an empty gesture if you do so.

Song of the Moment: «You Pay» — Crass

Thursday night, I slept on a sailing ship.

On Friday, I watched a guy play World of Warcraft, and I whistled the Bubble Bobble theme a bunch.

Saturday was spent playing croquet and whistling Bubble Bobble some more, as was Sunday.

Monday, though spent mostly in transit, also featured me getting a special free gift of an issue of The Economist.

Song of the Moment: «Airport City» — Giant Robot

So I finally decided to book a flight back to the United States, and it seems there’s a chance that I may have capped off an absolutely wasted year abroad (read: “getting to know myself”) with an absolute waste of $587 (read: throwing it away outright). For, while I admit I’m still rather impressed with Yahoo!’s ‘Farechase’ system and the perfectly reasonable price for a one-way trip from Tallinn to JFK it quoted, onetravel.com has kind of left a bad taste in my mouth since I actually booked the ticket.

Googling for “onetravel” yields a far-from-laudatory Consumer Reports report and a series of consumer complaints, while Googling for “resfinder” (onetravel’s name for their reservation system) yields this wonderful gripefest. Of course I didn’t actually check this stuff until after entering my card number and telling them to go ahead and book a ticket for July 12. So it goes.

For what it’s worth, it seems the guy from the gripefest had his situation work out in the end, and the only real problem all along had just been piss-poor communication on the part of onetravel, which seems quite consistent with CR’s appraisal. On the (possibly) bright side, they’ve already hit up my card for charges, which means something is going on, and in the worst case I ought to be able to get the charges reversed. On the (most definitely) bright side, it seems my name and the reservation number that onetravel provided me do correspond to an entry in CZA Czech Airlines’ online reservation-checking system, an entry which matches my intended itinerary, to boot!

So here’s hoping everything works out fine.

Song of the Moment: «Final Fantasy 1, Town theme» — Some Jerk

And so, with the soft darkness of a humidly warm summer twilight languidly closing in around his sunburned body and the federally-protected forest in which he presently found himself, he patiently tied a crude noose to an overhanging branch of a conveniently-located tree and carefully proceeded to mercilessly take his own worthless life, his last panicked thought entirely consisting of a deep and abiding regret for having foolishly invented what he once proudly called his “Unimpeachably Magnificent Qualifierer”, the ridiculous device that had unfeelingly inflicted an unbearable plague of patently unnecessary descriptive terms on the innocent prose of a previously-unencumbered world.

As one of the world’s foremost rodentologists, Amos immediately recognized the beaver marks for what they were, but he was so shaken by the thought of a beaver that could bite through reinforced concrete that he pretended he hadn’t seen a thing, opting instead to drink a pint or twelve down at the pub to get the image out of his mind.