Praha, Pivo, Prosim

I have a weakness for breakfast food. I do–fact. I admit it. Admitting a problem the first step in recovery. I can’t say with certainty that there is some reason why I have this love/love relationship with breakfast items, it just IS. It’s kismet; it’s fate. Maybe it’s because my Mom never really made big breakfasts when I was a kid therefore, when I did have them, it was eggy carbo bliss. (and still is….)

On the weekends, I usually find myself whipping up some random breakfast. With a grocery store SO close (we’re talking a one minute walk), it’s really easy to buy stuff in no time at all. And even though I ain’t got no wheels, it’s no big deal. Transportation in this town is a breeze. It’s fast and efficient. That said, I don’t even need to use the public transportation to lug groceries back to my flat. It’s that close. Good times.

So, today was a day of pancakes. No, not from scratch. I could do it but I had a nice package of mix (sent from the land of the stars & stripes) in the cabinet. As Americans, we love syrup on our pancakes. It is delicious. No denying this sentiment. However, a bottle of syrup is about 200Kc here ($10+ yes, really) and I cannot justify the expense for something that I can’t/won’t use regularly. Instead, I whipped up a tasty (but ghetto) alternative to syrup. In a heated pan went some butter (duh), brown sugar, honey and a bit of cinnamon. When it was nice and melted I added it to a few tablespoons of Jif peanut butter. The heat makes the mixture pliable/stirrable (is that a word?). Also in went a bit of heavy whipping cream. Voila! A semi-spreadable peanut buttery pancake topping.

Many times I’m an ‘on the fly cook.’ Simply meaning, if I see an ingredient I’ll often try to use it–especially if it’s produce and about to go ‘bad.’ Wasting food is exactly that and I don’t really have a flexible enough budget to not care that I’m throwing away unnecessary amounts of food. So, with some leftover button mushrooms I decided on an omelette. I sauteed up the mushrooms with deli ham and tomatoes. When the omelette was ready to be ‘filled’ I put in the sauteed mixture and topped it with Eidam (cheese). Voila–nstant omelette!

Marks & Spencer (British store) has a nice grocery/potraviny. Here is proof that porridge really exists; it’s not just in that children’s story. By the way, it’s just oatmeal.

You may be surprised to know that I do have some flaws. Shocking, I know. But impulse shopping isn’t on this list. Well, ok I take that back. I’ll impulse shop at the grocery store but not really at a shopping mall. Exorbitant and flashy expenses aren’t usually my thing. This next item gets a check mark in the ‘impulse shopping at Albert’ column. I bought this ONLY because of the dumbass name. By the way, this is basically store brand Coco Puffs. And yes, I do eat them.

It’s a new year so you shall get a new blog…..

I spent New Year’s Eve in Old Town Square. Fireworks everywhere, tons of people and lots of broken bottles. Quite an experience! Pivo and Becherovka made the rounds. It wasn’t too cold and there was a blue moon eclipse. According to the news articles I read, it was a once in a millennium occurrence so voila! How did you spend your NYE?

Because of the holidays I’ve had little work over the past two weeks so I was able to travel. And travel I did!

Day 1: Christmas

I took an overnight bus to Zagreb, Croatia. Departure 9pm from Florenc metro. Holla! Because of the Schengen Zone there is very little border control between nations in Schengen. As most of Europe is in the SZ, it makes travel easier and little traffic is stopped/inspected upon exit/entry within the zone. Therefore, passport control was only exiting Slovenia and entering Croatia (a non-Schengen country). Entry into Schengen usually gets you a fancy stamp in your passport but going from say France to Germany to Belgium probably won’t add any bright shiny stamps to your travel documents.

Day 2: December 26

The bus arrived an hour early to the main bus station. 7am is mighty early after an uncomfortable night on a bus. Ah yes, the glamorous life of bus travel! I hit the ATM for some local currency and managed to buy a few tram tickets. The main square of Zagreb was only a few blocks away and the hostel I had booked was a few blocks past that.

Check-in at the hostel is noon. What is a girl to do until then?

Croatians are into their coffee. I mean REALLY into their coffee. There are cafes all over the place and they fill up quickly. Living in Prague I’m used to seeing bars on nearly every street corner (if there ISN’T a bar on a block in this town, something is very amiss). Sure, there are pubs in Zagreb but I’d say there are more cafes than bars. Coffee is the thing to do in Croatia–or at least Zagreb. I went to a cafe in the main square and ordered a very expensive coffee. When first using a ‘new’ or unfamiliar currency it’s easy to spend freely as the mental conversion rates never really kick in and you don’t realize the true expense of anything. That said, I ordered an Irish coffee (yes, with alcohol at 9am!) and a chocolate croissant. Upon leaving I was 60Kn lighter (approx. 12 USD). Oy vey!

I continued from the main square and snapped some shots of the main cathedral in town. The sun was shining and the clouds opened up. Considerably nice weather for December! Hooray!

Unfortunately, because of the official holiday of the 26th, many places were closed as was the Dolac market. If you didn’t know, I’m all about some markets. (But I was able to visit the market the following day so I’ll get to that later.)

A main spot for drinking/eating is Tkalciceva ulice. More time to kill still yet so I went there….. more cafes. Oy, these people are caffeine freaks!

I checked into the hostel and I gotta say the ’staff’ guy was a total flake. Although check-in was noon, this guy was clearly unprepared as the first thing he said to me was how he had just woken up and blah blah. The beds weren’t made and the place was a mess. Nice. But hey, expectations should be low for a cheap rate.

In the afternoon I went to the Mirogoj Cemetery. Not only do Croatians love their coffee, they also love their dead people. For real, y’all. Graves & headstones are decorated or ‘upkept’ with good care in this country but the Croatians certainly outdo the Czechs. Perhaps because it was Christmas the locals really did up the graves to the 9s.

On the bus up the hill to the cemetery there was a lovely babuska lady (I don’t know the correct term) with a mustache. A SERIOUS mustache. Although I live in the Czech Republic there are surprisingly few (if any) of the stereotypical babuska ladies here. Not getting the imagery? Think Communist Russian old ladies with their scarves/kerchiefs tied around their heads. Yes, yes, THAT look.

All these dead people made me hungry. Food. Needed it. Where to go? According to my ‘In Your Pocket’ online PDF guide (AWESOME travel resource), there was a local place I wanted to check out for CHEAP EATS. Traveling on a budget sucks but you gotta do it. It was quite a long walk down the main street but alas my sense of direction is usually pretty spot-on so I didn’t have any problems finding the place. I had the lunch special of goulash–delicious! It was served with some freaking delicious bread that I’m still trying to Google to find out what it is so I can make it at home. (Random: I think it’s Pogacha bread so I will be experimenting this weekend!) Since I’m sure many of you travel to Zagreb regularly, you can eat at Zalogajnica “Kod Duje.”

Day 3: December 27

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! What to do today? The weather on Sunday wasn’t as agreeable as the day before so I decided to hit up a museum. Culture and education! Yay!

The museum didn’t open until 10am so I found and easy-to-find cafe for some java. Moving to Europe really threw the ‘no caffeinated beverages’ thing out the fucking window. This cafe (and I noticed this elsewhere in Croatia) had a little something printed on the menu. It clearly stated the ‘book of complaint’ is at the bar. Yes, book of complaint. I didn’t investigate this further but it’s an interesting idea.

The Mimara Museum is really quite nice. It comprises of works all donated by one wealthy collector. It’s an art museum so I don’t know what else to say. Sculptures, paintings, Christian artifacts. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

I headed back towards the main square because I wanted to hit up the Dolac Market today. In true form (as Judie’s offspring), I enjoy going to markets and discovering new and funky foods. Add in the new country/Euro factor and it’s even better. In the lower part of the Dolac market there were many vendors selling all kinds of meats, cheeses and breads. Additionally, there were even a few stalls with ladies selling these giant fresh sheets of pasta. The meat shops had all kind of funky cuts of meat as well as proudly displaying the carcasses of pigs about their stalls. Dead pig heads = awesomeness. In the back of the market were the cabbage ladies. The entire back half of the food hall smells of the soured cabbage-y mixture that sits in big buckets waiting to be purchased. It’s one of those smells that certainly ‘wafts.’

For lunch I found a place on Tkalciceva that was open. Before my main meal I ordered some Trappist cheese and bread. Those Trappist monks are busy guys: beer, chocolate and cheese. It was also served with that freaking delicious bread again. Man, I have GOT to make this stuff pronto. If the supermarket was open now I’d go buy supplies immediately. As a main meal I ordered the cevapcici. Cevapcici is one of many national dishes. It’s basically finger-length hand-rolled sausages. Really good! This particular meal was served with raw white onion and a Croatian condiment called ajvar which is a paste made from red peppers and eggplant. I imaged you could slather this stuff on a dirty shoe and it would be good. It’s that kind of thing.

Dinner was at Nocturno–a place recommended by the flaky American guy from the hostel. Reasonably priced food is always a plus. Croatia is known for their beaches (tons of Europeans flock to them in the summer months). So, if a country has a lot of beaches, there’s probably going to be a lot of seafood as the cuisine. Although I wasn’t on the coast, I wanted some fairly fresh fish for dinner. Grilled calamari stuffed with ham & cheese is delicious!

Palacinky (sorry, that’s the Czech word for this item–I don’t know the Croatian one) was my dessert. Sometimes a girl wants her chocolate! Anyway, palacinky are basically crepes. They’re easy to find in this part of the world and I can confirm that they are delicious. I had the chocolate variety.

Day 4: December 28

While checking out of the hostel, the flaky American didn’t remember me paying him two days before. Nice. Vince from L.A. is an aspiring rapper (yes, really) and he informed me that he has mad skillz, yo. At this particular hostel there is a ‘key deposit’ but once you check-out and return the locker keys, you naturally get your deposit back. Well, idiot Vince the shitty rapper asked me who I paid and I had to remind him that it was him. He had told me the previous day that since gambling is legal in Croatia (as it is here, too) he got into some money problems and was broke until Jan. 7 when he got paid. He then proceeded to tell me how my ‘key deposit’ was the only money he had until that time. Babe, I wasn’t born yesterday and I’m not pitying you and your West Coast Broke-Ass Rapping Self and I’m not giving you my deposit. I work for a living and am actually required to be responsible. They’re good attributes to have. Yeah, it sucks that the dude has no money but he’s not my responsibility. Get it together, dude. So, as I was leaving in the morning and he was digging through his stuff for cash (I don’t understand how this $ somehow became ‘his’ during this process but I didn’t ask), he then again emphasized how he had literally no money. At all. Needless to say, I took my money back and let him beg in his pathetic way to the next traveler to come through. End rant.

I decided to do an on-the-fly trip to Budapest. Why not, right? I had some extra money and the time off work so I said fuck it, I’m going. There was a 10am train so no worries. A ticket was purchased. I had some time to kill–I wanted breakfast. Ah ha! How about another national dish? Breakfast was a juice from a vending machine and burek bought from a little bakery inside the train station. I suppose you could say burek is pie-shaped but it’s not a pie in the traditional sense that you or I would consider a pie. It’s a round layered dough creation either made with meat or cheese. Mine was the cheese one.

The train to Budapest was a bit long and boring. Train travel is super easy and accessible in Europe; I don’t get why Americans don’t utilize it more often. We’re lazy gas-guzzling automobile whores. Anyway, Lake Balaton (Hungary) is quite huge and the train followed the lake parallel for the length of the lake. It appears to be a resort area of Hungary as most of the towns/villages on the lake were ‘closed up’ for the winter.

Upon arrival at Keleti station I changed over my money to Hungarian Forints and I was off to find a hostel I had Googled the night before. Because this was an unplanned extra trip, I didn’t have any physical maps to use as a guide nor did I have any real ‘tourist’ information so navigating my way from the train station to a downtown hostel could have been interesting. I bought two tickets for the bus/metro/tram from a newsstand inside the train station and I hoped I could find a bus or tram that would take me where I needed to go. A bus stop around the side of the building listed the stop I needed so on the bus I went. The Budapest public transit is heavily policed. (Way more than here in Prague.) A guy in unofficial-looking attire promptly pulled out his metro cop identification and began checking that passengers had the appropriate tickets.

I found the hostel I had researched (although I had not made a reservation) with relative ease and I can proudly state I didn’t get lost. Not bad work for someone in a foreign country with no knowledge of the language and no map or other information to use as a guide. The Goat Hostel (great name) gets a huge thumbs up from me. The place was really quite nice and I had a room to myself! Although I was paying for a ‘dorm’ type room, I was lucky to have it to myself. Ahhhh… The staff was super friendly and they’re going to get a glowing review from me on Hostelworld.com

Being a good Hungarian girl, I had a food objective that night: real legit paprikas. My Mom and Grandma have made this stuff for years (and it’s always been one of my favorites) but I wanted an authentic experience. Because I had inquired about a close place to eat dinner, the girl on staff directed me to a place down the street. The For Sale Pub served out a giant heap of veal paprikas. It wasn’t cheap but when in Budapest…..

You might be wondering….what is paprikas? It’s basically considered a ’stew’ but it’s not exactly something your slurp with a spoon. First, some dumplings are made–there are several varieties of dumplings in Europe. Here in the C.R. there are flour and potato dumplings. But these dumplings are made into a big ‘loaf’ and sliced off individually and served with meals. The Hungarian (and Croatian version from what I could tell) dumplings are the flour variety but they are much smaller and ‘individualized’ rather than made from a big loaf-like object. On top of the dumplings goes the meat/stew mixture. I suppose various meats can be used but my Mom only ever made a chicken version. Anyway, it’s a paprika-y/onion-y/red pepper-y thick reddish base with chicken (or misc. meat) and topped with sour cream. Trust me when I say this dish is freaking delicious. One of my all-time favorites. You will always win points with homemade dumplings.

The atmosphere of The For Sale Pub was actually pretty cool. Imagine a woody rural pub or lodge–that’s what the interior looked like. The floorboards were uneven (intentionally so) and there was actual hay on the floor. Small pieces of paper were tacked all over the walls (various notes from former patrons) which really kind of add to the overall feel of the place. It wasn’t the cheapest way I could have eaten dinner but I had little time and this was the homeland!

At this point I’ll mention that Budapest is fucking beautiful. I’m so going back. Seeing all the big fantastic buildings illuminated at night was a great first experience.

Day 5: December 29

Free breakfast at the hostel! I got a room to myself and they offer to feed me–most excellent!

I only had a few hours before getting a train back to Prague so today was going to be a quick one. From the hostel I walked down a main touristy street that has lots of souvenir shops and miscellaneous cafes & restaurants. As is per the norm with souvenir shops, everything was overpriced and in some of the shops the sales assistants were pushy and a bit aggressive. I’m not a fan of that tactic; it doesn’t work for this girl.

If you have ever seen a photo of Budapest it’s most certainly been of either the Chain Bridge or Buda Castle. Because the Buda part of Budapest is on a hill, it makes the sights that much more impressive. The castle sits above the city and when it’s lit up at night, it’s pretty awesome. There’s also the Matthias Church and the Fisherman’s Bastion that round out the impressive landscape. I walked across the Chain Bridge and took a funicular up to the castle. Frankly, my ass and legs were killing me from the crazy walking I had been doing and I was not interested in going up a steep hill. Sure, it would have been a healthier choice (and free) but it just wasn’t happening. Obligatory photos were snapped outside the castle and I walked over to Matthias Church and Fisherman’s Bastion. The FB has great views of the city, by the way!

Back down (on foot this time) and back across the Chain Bridge. St. Stephen’s Cathedral is just on the other side of the bridge so I got a bit of my Jesus on while in Budapest. I passed through the Christmas markets and smelled all the wonderful food. Ahh yes, food! There were many kinds of sausages & mixed meat/veggie combos none of which I know the names too. There were also large knuckles or joints of various animals all cooked up and brown and crispy-looking. Sorry vegetarians, that shit is good, yo. There’s something just so wrong and so right about seeing miscellaneous meat cooking on the street. God bless the animals that feed us! There were also lots of handmade crafty items for sale such as traditional Hungarian clothing, ceramics, hats, tablecloths, etc. I couldn’t justify getting more money from the ATM to buy said stuff so I skimped out and only bought something for my 95-year-old Hungarian grandmother.

 

Back at the train station I had a ticket for the 3:28 back to Prague. I arrived home around midnight and I took my ass to bed.

Today: I wrote this blog yesterday but I managed to find a recipe for the Croatian bread mentioned early in my post.

It’s been 10ish days since the last blog and while I don’t have anything really exciting to report I can say that I landed a 3rd job. Although none of these jobs have started yet (yawn!), at least I’ll be working soon (Monday!!!) and will begin generating an income. While not working is great, it’s just a bit boring as I have no television and funds are limited. Boo on both fronts.

MEDIA Not having a television sucks. It does. I’m a tv girl. I miss my shows. I’d even take a CSI: Miami marathon right now and David Caruso is the biggest douchebag on American television. Damn. My time away is making me crave the Horatio. WTF? When discussing my tv woes with one of my flatmates (the one that actually speaks), she told me she found a movie website. Great, awesome, sweet! Ok, of course there are about a bajillion movie websites with free streaming feeds. The problem is that most of these feeds link to Megavideo. Megavideo is fine if you don’t mind watching something for 72 minutes or less. Apparently, the higher ups at Megavideo decided 72 minutes is the magical cut-off. At that time, you can either pony up some cash and get a ‘real’ account or you can ‘wait’ 54 minutes and continue watching. Problem with waiting is that well, it’s WAITING and the stream doesn’t keep your ‘place’ so you have to wait MORE through any buffering issues. Boring. Yawn. I don’t like that option. I’m sure there’s some techie issue that could get me around this problem but I don’t know what that is so….. anyway, since finding this ‘new’ site, I’ve been a movie whore for the last 4 days. My tally is up to 10 or so and that’s just sad. That said, here’s a few movie recommendations: Dead Snow (see below), Hamlet 2, Pineapple Express, Let the Right One In, Step Brothers, Winged Creatures, 3:10 to Yuma…..

ZOMBIES I was at Marks & Spencer yesterday at Palladium and the cashier guy looked like a real-live zombie. Yes, zombie. This dude was tall & lanky, super pale with sunken and reddened eyes and goofy ears that grew away from his head. Zombie was the first thing in my head when I saw poor Jaromir. He could be a perfectly nice man; this is something I will never know. But, perhaps since I’m fresh off the Norwegian horror flick ‘Dead Snow’ (with Nazi zombies–yes, really and it was fucking awesome), I think he looks more like a zombie than an average person who doesn’t watch such cinema.

DRUGS While I was walking away from Skrivanek (one of my employers) the other day, I saw a guy examining the crack rock he had just purchased. Apparently the drug laws (or enforcement of said laws) are quite lax here so thus the crack inspection. Good times. At least he’s monitoring his purchase before he fires up. I still haven’t seen the kids shooting up in the park behind the National Museum. Sad but true. I want to have an HBO Undercover experience.

MEAT I found some Czech-style bologna the other day. Bologna is fucking delicious. Sorry vegetarians, it is. Eat it. Now. My general Czech vocabulary hasn’t improved any so I’m still kind of shopping for things at random. When I was in the deli meat section, I decided I wanted a sandwich. My American friends know good and well that I heart my sandwiches. It’s true. I cannot deny this love. Bread + meat + cheese = Awesomeness! Anyway, this bologna is delicious. It’s flecked with fat which, in my book, makes a damn fine meal. Nobody ever really wants to admit it but fat is what makes meat taste so bloody good. It’s true. Look it up.

WHEN YA GOTTA GO, YA GOTTA GO A few weeks ago on the tram we passed along a gentleman in the street helping his son with a rather intimate activity. Clearly the kid had to take a leak and rather than go use a public facility, Daddy leaned over Junior and assisted in the peeing process. Into the street grate it went. Really. While walking to the Glossa office today, I noticed the second occurrence of said pee assistance. Different parent and different kid but yep, Momma had her hands on the cocktail weenie while the golden stream flowed down into the sewers of Prague. I really had to laugh as I was assuming the first instance was just some freak thing I’d never see again but I was proven wrong today. Now, my assumption is different. Perhaps during the hot summer months the streets will be filled with parents and peeing kids. There’s already enough dog shit on the sidewalks in this town, do I now have to dance and tippie-toe thus evading the kiddie urine?

EASTER BUNNY The annual Easter Festival is all over town for nearly a month. I don’t know exactly what this entails but there are food vendors set up in several spots around town selling miscellaneous meats and pastry items as well as the obligatory Czech beer. There also seem to be lots of painted eggs and children’s toys. Good times.

OBAMA IN THE HIZZY Obama is going to be here this weekend. I admit, this is a bit exciting and I should go. I want to go. But….. standing around in one spot all day does not appeal in any way.

Upon further inspection I’m happy to report that the security detail will not be permitting ammo or explosives. Phew. I was worried for a minute. Also, please note that ’structures’ are prohibited. I love the vagueness of structure prohibition. To clarify, exactly what qualifies as a ’structure?’ Is this something I’m affixing to the cobbled walk around the speaking platform or would say an inflatable yard pool fall under the descriptor of structure? I need additional support on this otherwise I’ll have to ditch my lesson plan for a newer and streamlined one.

BOOZE Wine. Let’s talk about this. Usually, I’m not a big wine person. Not that I don’t like it because I do and it can be great. However, I typically go the route of pivo and certainly now that I’m in a beer-consuming and producing culture. That said, I did make a few purchases at Albert last week. A good portion of the wine here is inexpensie. We’re talking less than 200Kc here (10USD) and that’s if you are springing for some ‘good stuff.’ My knowledge of European wine is for shit and the Eastern European varieties are completely lost on me. So, since I was in a wine kind of mood I bought a bottle of some stuff from Bulgaria. Yeah, Bulgaria. I didn’t know that made wine either. But hell, just about every place on earth produces or bottles their own wine so the Bulgarian factor really shouldn’t be so surprising. A big 49Kc is what I paid for that stuff. Go ahead & get your currency converter. I’ll wait. Like I said…it’s um, ‘inexpensive.’ Cut to two nights later and I was back at Albert. I’m not lying when I say I found something cheaper. Yes, cheaper than 49Kc. Behold the special selection for Albert (note the store logo on the back label!)–sold for the low, low price of 39Kc. And yes, I DID drink it as is evident by the photo. At such a ridiculous price, how could I NOT consume it?

SAPA MARKET The SAPA market is in Prague 4. In my last blog I detailed my trip to the Vietnamese market in Prague 10. I have since been to the market in Praha 4. The SAPA market is huge. Fucking gigantic. We’re talking a small city here. For realz. Yet another adventure involving a metro and then a bus. Geographically, SAPA isn’t that far away but I was really channeling Bourdain on that visit. I’ve never been to Asia but holy crap, it felt like Vietnam.

The retail halls at SAPA are huge. Several buildings with criss-crossed aisles again selling tons of clothes, purses, toys, etc. There is also quite a bit more ethnic food variety at SAPA as there are several independent markets selling odd-looking items. Of the shops I visited, there was/is a rather interesting looking item behind the glass in the meat counter. It’s a big plastic bowl of various (raw) cuts of meats and organs with raw egg yolks swimming around in the multi-colored flesh. I was curious to know what the stuff is but seeing as I how I cannot communicate in Czech or Vietnamese, I didn’t bother asking. Anyone?

One of the restaurants had a guy blow-torching some kind of meat on the sidewalk. Dude was blow torching like it was a lab experiment. The whole effect looked cool & random & gritty but he didn’t want me to take a picture of him so you’ll just have to use your imagination on that one. I’m going back later; I want blow-torched food.

MANNEQUINS The random mannequin parts are all over SAPA. Unfortunately, my website provider isn’t allowing me to upload the pic of mannequin heads in a metal bin. Damn. Boo on technology. Maybe next post. 

PHOTOSHOP Here’s a bit of before & after. Original was taken in the rain on a shitty March morning.

 

As I slowly check things off my moving/stuff to do checklist, I’ve posted a pic of the most expensive from the checked off column. I don’t usually consider myself cheap or miserly but I hate spending this kind of money on something I really don’t need. Perhaps a less expensive model could have/should have been purchased or even an inferior (don’t kill me PC lovers for using that term) brand, but for nothing other than aesthetics and WOW factor did I buy the new aluminum MacBook. I’ve expounded on my female-driven/estrogen-laden love for Macs in previous blogs (since deleted) so it’s fair to say that I’m forever a convert to the Apple brand. It just sucks that their systems are pricer than most others. To that I say boo.

On the other end of things I’m justifying this expense for a few reasons…
a) I never make huge purchases
b) I wanted this particular (new!!) machine
c) this will be my main mode of communication to people thousands of miles away
d) I hear the new version of iLife is just sick…

The next step is to move my iTunes from my current iMac to an external hard drive. I’ve read up on this and it might be more complicated than it seems. Not looking forward to that. But, after all that business is complete, I’ll check another expense off my list and go ahead and buy an iPod. Truth be told I wouldn’t mind an iPod Touch, either. Again with the need factor as I clearly do NOT need the Touch but they are amazing and pretty and so much fun. I do need to get my music on a portable player and while a larger capacity iPod would be feasible my chick instinct might force me to buy an iPod Touch. Damn, sometimes this vagina renders me weak and powerless to the shopping Gods. If anyone has any input on the iPod vs. Touch debate, please leave a comment. I need to be pursuaded.

UPDATE: 9:45 pm…. Several times today after posting this initial blog, I confess I was THIS CLOSE to throwing my budget to the wind and purchasing a 32GB iPod Touch. Real restraint exhibited today.

And a few other things….

The latest installment of WHAT’S ON MY NEIGHBOR’S DOORSTEP

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Well, it seems my neighbor has expanded her garbage repertoire this holiday season to include a few new and unique items. While the poop bag pile is at a minimum (or perhaps because it’s mostly hidden), she managed to stack on a box from JC Penney as well as the dog box/carrier thing that is apparently no longer of use. I don’t think the dog kicked it as the poo is still clearly present. I’m curious to see the upgraded canine accomodations.

And here’s a snippet of how unorganized and generally messy my apartment is today. No, I don’t have inches of guano all over the place nor is the carpeet littered with fast food containers. My place is certainly habitable but if I had important guests arriving (let’s say the Queen of England), she would be unimpressed even if I did buy the fancy rose-scented soaps.

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Yes there is an iPod Shuffle here but frankly, due to it’s lacking capacity, I don’t consider it a ‘real’ iPod. A coworker told me he has nearly 200GB of music (you read that right) and while I don’t have anything NEAR that but I’d like to have all my tunes on a player rather than be required to swap them out when I’m bored. Two hundred GB of music is excessive and there just isn’t any way one can really enjoy ALL that stuff. Hell, at present I’m deleting a bunch of files from my paltry 16GB worth of tunes because I neither want nor need music that I skip over.