Warning! Explicit Content

Whenever I put something on my blog that I think may offend some people I always put one of these "Explicit Content" warnings first. So now you are forewarned. The special Christmas video in the post below contains cursing and some, what might be called, "crude humor". So if you think that might offend you then don't watch it. If you watch it anyway and it does offend you then please don't send me explicit E-Mails full of cursing and some, what might be called, "crude hatred". And also I know that probably nobody reading this has ever watched Yugioh in their lives, but the video still is funny. If you watch it and enjoy it let me know. If you were offended then don't. So anyway, have a very merry and explicit Christmas!

A Christmas present just for you....

If you've been paying attention then you'll know that I love Yugioh:The Abridged Series. And so while planning up a special Christmas post I could think of only one thing special enough to put up as a present for you. Not a picture of myself this time. But the Yugioh Abridged Series Christmas Special! Yay! Hope I don't offend anyone. Merry Christmas, and thanks for reading my blog!

The Duel Report! (And I promise I'll write lots more interesting stuff later about stuff that actually interests normal humans)

As you may have guessed from that super snazzy picture yesterday I went to a Yugioh tournament and now I'm going to tell you how it went. Do you remember last week? I lost, but I did it with style. My opponent's had for every inch of ground that they eventually did take from me. And I did win a few battles, but not the war. Story of my life...But anyway, now you want to know what happened this week. Well first I'll give you the setting (don't you love suspense) this time I had no cheering fan club to back me. Anneli didn't come, and believe it or not she was missed, but don't tell her that. The reason why she was missed is not because she helps me win, far from it, she distracts me, but because together we make the ultimate comic duo and it's a lot more fun to lose when you're laughing. So I was late by a few minutes, but it was no problem because I made it an even number so I had an opponent waiting for me looking bored. Remember how Yugioh works? Best two out of three. Well I didn't win one all night. Well that's not true. I finished with one guy early and so we had a few friendly matches and I won one of those. In the end making it 3 wins to him and 1 to me. So basicly I lost horrendously. It wasn't my fault though. I just had tough opponents. So anyway, that's it really. Though I did fight admirably. For anyway who knows Yugioh, I did 4000 damage to his Life Points on my second turn. Now if you think that's impressive then you'll be even more impressed by the way I lost on the next turn, his second turn, when he did 8000 damage in one turn. Scary. So anyway, now I'm off to the Methodist bible study after a long day of babysitting. So until I blog about interesting things, Cya!

I haven't blogged in a while, but maybe this will help you understand why I DO blog now and then...

Toilet seat, good idea! I'm totally gonna do that to someone.

La, La, Lasagna!

Guess what I cooked yesterday. Wait a minute, correction, TRIED to cook yesterday. That’s right, LASAGNA! I’ve made lasagna before, and last time it was pretty good, and I was very happy with my cooking skills. But last time I didn’t use meat. My recipe was for vegetarian lasagna so that’s what I made. But this time I felt adventurous, I thought I should chuck in some meat and make this a good carnivore lasagna. So armed with instructions from my dad (who is the master cook in our house, despite the sexist idea that only women can cook, it is my dad and I who do about 99% of the cooking) I pulled out all the ingredients and got to work. Despite my little brother being constantly underfoot and making me splash sauce all over myself I was doing pretty good. I browned the meat until it was perfect; the smell of it could have driven a pack of hungry teenagers to the brink of insanity (though most are already there). Then I mixed it in with two types of sauces and stirred nicely than begin the repetitive cycle of “Sauce, noodles, cheese. Sauce, noodles, cheese. Sauce noodles…” but after the first layer I noticed I didn’t have a whole lot of sauce. So I grabbed two more jars and stirred them in with the meat and laid down more noodles and cheese, then as I was spreading sauce I noticed I was low again. So I grabbed my final two jars of sauce and once I had finished this layer of sauce noticed I now didn’t have room for another layer of noodles. Well, I guessed I’d just have one less layer of noodles than normal. So then I took this rather full and heavy dish and put it into the oven to cook. Half and hour later I took it out and put some nice cheese on top, three different kinds! I was like the cook master! Three cheeses! I’d never done that before. So 15 minutes later I pulled out my masterpiece of cheese and sauce and stuck in a spatula and began to serve. It was about this time that I realized that my master was nothing more than cheese and sauce. I had created lasagna soup. We at it with bread, and when my mom came home she wouldn’t eat it at all (people are always so appreciative of my cooking). We’re probably going to use it with spaghetti or something, because it’s a great sauce I created, it’s just not a great lasagna. So just a hint, if you’re ever cooking lasagna, don’t use 6 jars of sauce with two layers of noodles.

So that was an interesting start to me night last night. But as with everything I took it in stride because no use crying over spilled lasagna soup. The I went to the corps and got a nice surprise. Several surprises actually. One is that Nadia came to the corps with Elis (which surprised me after Elis told me not to scare Nadia away with “all that God stuff”, which I answered by standing up in our crowded tram stop and yelling “REPENT, SINNERS!”) and the other was that during youth group, Rebekka and Kerli showed up with 3 little girly friends! Yay! You know the song “Girls” by The Beasty Boys? I love that song. “Girls. Yeah all I really want is girls.” The only problem is that when I say “little girly friends” I mean they were all little. But then again so are Rebekka and Kerli. Why is it that no one ever brings their 17 year old, single Christian friends to meet me? Why do they always either have to be guys, or satanic, or really young? My friend Keit is under the impression that the dark haired one kept looking at me. I might be more interested by this news if she was roughly 5 years older. Anyway, that’s 5 girls who all left with applications for winter youth camp in January, so let’s hope they come. Though we really, desperately need more guys. So far I count 5 guys that I know for sure coming. And I know there’s going to be girls. There’s always girls. And as I said I want there to be lots of girls, but not too much or else the house will start to smell too nice. We need more of us men to stink it up.

Anyway, I’ve probably given you all nightmares of smelly men now so I’m going to go before I do any more damage. Cya!

I am so totally the Yugioh master...almost. (written yesterday)

Today was the long awaited (by me) Yugioh tournament. So last night I checked all my cards, made sure I was invincible and had everything I needed and then went to bed so as to be well rested for some nerd butt kicking. Then I woke up and spent the day in anticipation, babysitting and cleaning and reading to pass the time (which made my mom happy that I should choose to pass the time that way). Then at 16:00 (4 pm) I strapped my deck in and headed out. Have any of you ever seen where I keep my deck? I always have it with me so you should check it out sometime. Just like Mai has that cool deck holder strapped to her leg (how was a character as hot as her allowed on children’s television?) and Yugi has his cards in that cool deck belt (how was a character who has been described as looking like a bondage slave allowed on children’s television?) I have a cool little pocket on my bag where I can snap in my cards. I’m sure it wasn’t originally meant for holding cards, in fact I think that what I use as a messenger bag was meant to be a women’s purse. But anyway, I’m WAY off the point. Next thing you know I’ll be talking about my facial hair again! So I strapped my cards into my oh so smexical (better than smexy) deck pocket and headed to the library, where I was going to meet Anneli at 16:30 (4:30 pm). I’d had this whole hour planned to the second. Get to the library early because of course Anneli would be there early, she’s the one always fussing about others being late, then be to MegaGame by 16:45 (4:45 pm, do you really need my little time translations? Please comment yes or no, it gets tiring…) and enter the tournament and spend 15 minutes meeting other players and perusing their cards so I knew what I was up against, while keeping the contents of my deck a deep dark secret. Then at 17 (5 pm) unleash the madness of my skill upon an unsuspecting string of opponents and walk out victorious. Sound good? I thought so too. I don’t know about in your life, but for me things never work out as I plan them.

So Anneli was 10 minutes late and I had literally been about to leave without her when she walked up saying something about how just as an “academic hour” is 45 minutes girls have an “academic 10 minutes of lateness”. Dang it! That girl has an excuse for everything. So we walked briskly for 10 minutes and arrived at 16:50 (4:50 pm) just 5 minutes behind schedule. The only problem was that I didn’t see bunches of duelists lining up for me to beat. I saw a bored looking girl behind the desk reading a book. So I broke the dark spell of her boredom with a question. “There’s a Yugioh tournament in 10 minutes right?” “Yes, we sell Yugioh cards” Was her reply. I’d hoped that the book would counteract her blondness, but apparently I had yet another blond to deal with. So I spoke slowly and eventually found out it wasn’t until 17:30 (5:30 pm) and that she didn’t know anything about it. I knew they should have hired me. I would have totally been great at that job. But I think they wanted to add a feminine touch to nerdiness so they hired bored girls. So I stood and chatted and joked with Anneli and an old…more acquaintance than friend, Martin, who decided to take a break from his “CG madness” or in human language, computer games, to come say hi to me. I was truly honored. So we passed the half hour fairly quickly. But I still didn’t see anything resembling a tournament starting. So at 17:35 (5:35 pm) I went and asked my helpful blond friend what was up, was I just delusional in thinking anyone would still want to play this game with me? No, but I had missed the first round. My blond friend was a little out of touch with what was going on in the other room. The tournament had already started, and because I made player number 7 it made sense for me to just get an automatic win because of a lack of an opponent. That’s what happens when you get uneven numbers of players. So I got it all figured out and registered and paid my entrance fee and then waited for another 10 minutes or so while the first round finished. Then finally the duel finished, the apparent organizer of the tournament looked at me and said “you face him”.

An electric thrill of excitement shot through me as I eyed my first challenging human opponent in over a year (I’ve played against humans that aren’t that good, and against computers that are good, but not as good as me) I was finally getting the challenge I had been waiting for. We sat down, shuffled our decks, rolled a die to decide who went first (me) and I drew 5 cards and the game began. It was painfully close. To those of you who don’t know how Yugioh works (all of you) in a match is a set of 3 duels, best 2 out of 3 wins. The first duel I was on fire. Every move my opponent tried I countered. Every move I made brought my opponent one step closer to defeat. He was gone. But I still needed one more win. The next duel was close, too close. I lost. The third duel, the deciding duel was over too quickly, and once I again I had lost. No problem, I still had one more challenge ahead. We sat down and basically the same thing happened. I won 1, he won 2. But again it was far to close. I could taste victory sweet on my tongue. But I lost it. But it was not replaced with the bitter ash of defeat, it was replaced with a different kind of sweetness. Those two matches were extraordinarily close. I’ve been playing this game for 5 years and have never had a pair of games that were so close. I’m usually either against a loser who I mop the floor with or a champion who spits on my cards. And the thing that made it truly sweet is that every other player there knew how close it was. The other two matches had ended quickly while my opponent and I were still at it tooth, nail and flaming fire balls. And so we had a 6 person audience (the four other competitors and Anneli and Martin) while I lost by a few points only after pulling of some extraordinary moves to protect myself and damage my opponent. You might think watching a card game is like watching paint dry, but my skill, my moves, my strategies, my deck got some oohs and ahhs as I put up an amazing fight against a worthy opponent. I lost in the end, but I consider it amazingly worth it just for those appreciations of my skill. And also I got a new card. At the end of every tournament even if you don’t win you can still win a consolation prize, in this case one limited edition card which I’m sure has great collectors value, so if you want it I’ll sell it. I don’t need it. But I’m still happy to have gotten it. I’ll probably trade it for something better suited to my strategy later, but for now I’m happy letting it represent my initiation into the dueling community here in Tallinn, where there are weekly tournaments every Wednesday and Sunday. I’ll only be going on Wednesday s, but still.

And one final thing before I spare you any more nerdiness. Next week I will win! I am confident in my skills and my strategy. Next week they WILL lose. I promise you that. I’ve revamped my deck and now am truly unbeatable. But now I must go, tomorrow is Thursday, the party day. Not really, but it’s a day like any other, and I need sleep for every day. So good night, and please forgive my nerd ways…

Another Get Fuzzy comic about my blog...

You know that everytime someone makes me angry they shake with fear knowing that though I may not come right out and call them a jerk, I will gently insinuate it in ways only a select few will notice. JERKS!!!

Is Satchel writing a Blog?

I thought you might enjoy this little comic that is oddly reminiscent of my blog. "Some would say my lack of complication is refreshing." Amen brother, amen.

Decisions, decisions...

Life is full of choices, and choices are irritating and difficult. Tomorrow is Wednesday, normally a free night for me. A night to chill, a night to rest, a night to not go to the corps, a night to do whatever I want. But as I’ve already said, Christmas parties are trying to ruin my Christmas. Tomorrow night is some annoying Tallinn Salvation Army employees Christmas party, and since my parent’s are employees here in Tallinn they have the privilege to get to go to this party. And as their child I have the privilege to either stay home and babysit my three year old brother and cook supper or go to the party and force a smile as I shake hands with everyone and to force down over cooked food and have conversations in broken Estonian. See what I’m talking about? Such hard decisions. And neither of these is what I’d LIKE to be doing. I never did get around to blogging about what I know causes groans from loads of people who think that the fact that I still do blog about this proves my immaturity and that I should be locked in a cage until I’m 42. The thing I’m talking about of course is Yugioh. I’ve been playing (more like dominating) Yugioh since I was 12, and I’ve never gotten tired of endlessly reworking my strategies and facing new opponents. Some may think it’s immature of me to love a children’s card game but may I remind you that many men love playing poker. And I know some of you spend HOURS on solitaire on your computer. Or at least that computer repair guy the street does. Every time I walk past that's all he's doing! So you guys go bet big money on your “adult” card game while I go enjoy mine. But anyway, I don’t know if you remember my search for the perfect deck? In an attempt to discern God’s will I prayed for months that if it was his will for me to go to the MegaGame store in downtown Tallinn and play Yugioh and enjoy myself while making friends and inviting the to corps then that he would help me find and buy the “Zombie Madness” deck and use it to make myself all powerful. And if it was not his will then being omnipotent he would make it not be in any store I visited. So for a whole year I searched stores across two continents for this deck, and I never found it. They’d have every other Yugioh product ever made, but not what I needed. So I accepted it just must not be God’s will, and that I should just focus on studying and applying to college and everything. And as you know I got accepted and will be Houghton College next year. And on the same day I was accepted I also found the deck. I bought it a few days later and using the cards made myself the best deck I have ever owned. And so how does this story tie in with tomorrow? Yugioh tournaments here in Tallinn used to happen on Sunday morning when I was at church. So after returning to Estonia with my new deck I checked the MegaGame website (www.megagame.ee) and found that apparently Yugioh tournaments have been changed to…Wednesdays. And I didn’t make it to last week’s tournament because I hadn’t checked the site yet so that means that tomorrow at 17:00 (5 pm) will be my first chance to go dominate the Estonian dueling scene. But this party is at 18:00 (6 pm), and so if I need to either babysit or be at this party then I won’t be able to go to this tournament.

It’s a hard life I lead. Such choices I face. So I’m hoping and praying that tomorrow everything will work out for the best, because going to this tournament would make me very happy. But if my parents need me to babysit then that is first priority. And if my brother and sister go to the party and if I don’t will I be insulting everyone? Well, what will be, will be. I’m resigned to my fate. I chose the life of a GOOD (emphasis) officer/missionary kid and I guess I’ll just have to live with the work and impositions on my social life that that choice makes. So I’ll let you know how everything goes tomorrow, but for now I’ve gotta go take a shower! Cya!

What I've been doing lately.

As you may have noticed I’ve been on a bit of a blogging frenzy over the last few days, pumping out roughly 1.5 posts a day. So it must have surprised you when I didn’t blog yesterday, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t Saturday either. But now I’m back, with yet another bunch of words thrown together in such a way as to waste your time. The last few days were kind of interesting, on Saturday night Elis called me out to hang out with her and Nadia, and Anneli joined us eventually. And we did what we always do when we hang out in old town. Walked in circles, got bored, sat in Viru Keskus critiquing the fashions we saw walking by (quoth the Anneli “That guy is so I.T.” “She must be Russian, only a Russian would wear half a dead tiger with that much make up”), wound up all going home hours later with the soles of our shoes wearing thin to watch “Home Alone 3:Chickenpox Kid Vs. Idiot Secret Agent Spy People”. It was all quite fun, except that stupid movie. The original Home Alone is cool, the sequel was interesting, the 3rd and 4th were a waste of film. I wish I could outsmart international criminal masterminds using a toy car and a telescope. So anyway, that was my Saturday, I got home around 8 only to find that my dad was sick. Now of course my dad is the only one who ever does anything around here because my mom and I are always too busy blogging and FaceBooking. So this was a problem. So yesterday my mom and I went to the corps alone and made everything work, which wasn’t a problem for people as excellently skilled as us. And now it’s Monday, December 10, 2007. Wow, Microsoft Word just wrote that December, 2007 thing for me. That was nice of it. And because it’s Monday, December 10, 2007 (I love Word!) it’s back to work for me. I need to get my schoolwork really rolling again, because I want my transcript at the end of the year to look awesome. I’m going to read some Geoffrey Chaucer stuff and maybe that will make me a better writer, or maybe by reading “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” I’ll learn how to get “husbands meeke, young and fresh a-bed” which is just what I need. So I’ll be off now, Cya



P.S. those of you who are my friends on FaceBook should now know that my blog easily accessible through my profile through the “As Seen On…” application. Now if you’re on FaceBook you have no excuse not to read my blog!