Hej! I forgot something in that last post - a request. I don't know if someone has too much time on their hands or a Swedish cookbook, but I'm looking for a recipe for skomakarlåda. There are one's I've found online in Swedish, but I'm not having any luck finding any in English. While I really want to learn Swedish, I haven't gotten around to it yet. Of course, ideally I could just go to Sweden and get some of the real thing, but we don't live in an ideal world. Anyway, if anyone could help me out, that'd be great. Thanks!

Life is getting a little better since last weekend. I'm not completely in the clear yet, but I'm getting there. My mom loaned me some money until my loan check finally comes. Then, I got a hold of financial aid, and after dealing with a couple of incompetant idiots, I finally got them to mail my mom the remainder of our money. My teacher and TA never emailed me back, but I talked to the TA in class tonight, and he gave those of us who got screwed over by having some idiots check out all the books a week's extention. Of course, that extention only does us any good if the other students return the books they checked out. Tonight was our last Scrabble night also. Since the Dinkytowner has gone from being the hang-out it once was to the destination it now is, it had become too much of a hastle to gather there. Who knows what will come next. Now I need to turn my attention toward my journalism class. We have a test on Friday which I need to study for, and I need to write the 1-page paper for the test. I also have to do research for our presentation and research paper. I'll probably try to get to the music library and archives Thursday. Of course, Thursday is bowling night also. And of course, the weekend it just around the corner! It could be a cold weekend, as this cold front has moved in, and brought colder temperatures and precipitation with it. Brrrrr....

I also have to send out a couple of congratulatory notes. First, happy eighteenth birthday to my brother - you're finally ready to join the adult world of gambling, tobacco, and porn. Then, congratulations to Chrille and Tini on the news of Tini's pregnancy!

In something completely different, let me talk to you about toothbrushes. Now, I had always been content with whatever toothbrush I happened to be using before... until today. Carrie set me up with a couple of Oral B Cross-Action toothbrushes, and I finally tried one out Wednesday morning. Wow - now that's a toothbrush. I could feel the bristles getting in between my teeth, and the neck made it easy to reach even back to my wisdom teeth, even if they will only be temporary residents of my mouth (I'm getting my wisdom teeth out over holiday break in January). Yes, I'm looking forward to brushing my teeth before I go to bed.

Okay, enough about toothbrushes, Scrabble, and porn. Nighty night everyone!

Okay, so maybe I overreacted a little bit yesterday when describing my day. I'll be fine. Life will go on. The same can be said for others as well, such as the Packers. Playing the way they did today, they might as well have not even showed up. As it was, I don't think they did anyway. The offense was non-existent, the defense was non-existent, and unlike them, the Vikings actually showed up to play some football. Of course, the blame for the offense will fall upon Favre, but in actuallity, I think you have to blame the receiving corps. I mean, other than the interception in the first half, he really didn't make too many mistakes. On the other hand, I can't believe a group of professionals can go about dropping that many passes. Ouch. Anyway, here's a rarity from my fingertips: Congratulations Vikings - you deserved to win today.

Onto something completely different.... This is going to sound really bastardly and insensitive again, but I want to know why the events of September 11 couldn't have taken place about 9 months later. The car companies and dealerships are all offering great deals on cars and financing right now at a time when I can't afford to replace my car. On the other hand, I'm hoping to be on better financial ground by next summer, and hopefully then I can look forward to buying a car. If nothing else, maybe they can atleast revive these deals when I need to buy a car. Damn.

Okay, perhaps I should now consider going to bed. Ummm... if anyone knows where I can get a mounted fish, let me know. I don't fish, so I'm not going to be catching any on my own and having them mounted, but I still want to have a fish mounted on my wall. It's not even a masculine thing - it's a tacky thing. I need to up the tackiness of my apartment even more, and nothing does that quite as well as nice mounted fish or set of deer antlers.

Let me tell you about my day... (be warned - if you don't want to hear my whining and complaining about my miserable existence, please read no farther). My day started out relatively fine. In fact, I even went outside for a little while to enjoy what could possibly be the last beautiful Saturday of autumn. I worked on rearranging the wall decorations in my apartment, listened to a little of the radio, and watched some tv. They didn't show the game, but gave the score, and Minnesota actually won the homecoming football game against Michigan State. That's the first homecoming game we won since we beat the Spartans back in '98. Geez - we should ask to play them for homecoming every year! My mom called, and we had a nice conversation until she had to break it off because my dad was apparently outside complaining that she wasn't out there helping him remove fallen leaves from the yard. Shortly thereafter is when my day started to go to hell. I ventured to campus to go to the library and do research for my science fiction research paper. As I went through the online catalog and checked the shelves, I came to realize that some jackass[es] in my class had checked out every single book the U has on the history of science fiction film. Seeing how completely screwed I was, I emailed the teacher and TA and asked them what my next course of action should be. Since there was nothing more I could then accomplish by being in the library, I decided to return home. With some time to kill before the Bis concert at the Entry, I decided to go online for a bit. My sour mood was temporarily lightened when I learned that both Liverpool and Bayern had won their respective league matches today 4-1. Of course, elation gained vicariously through the success of sports teams is more superficial than anything else. I say this mostly because of what I discovered next. Deciding to inquire into the status of my checking account, I went to my bank's website, and that's when the shit hit the fan (part II). I managed to go through nearly $400 in under a week!!! Looking over the transactions and calculating in my head how it all worked out, I saw that there was no error - I'm broke. Using a tired, old cliché like "flat broke" wouldn't even apply to me in this instance, as it turns out that once the county cashes my check for my parking ticket, I'll have overdrawn again and owe another $28 fee. Shit. By then, it was already 8:30, but I figured I'd try walking over to the Entry anyway in hopes of being one of the first 50 at the show and being able to get in free. Nope. So, with negative money in my Minneapolis account, and an ATM machine having eaten my Time card from my Appleton account, I could hardly run to an ATM and get cash to get in. The result? I'm currently missing the Bis concert - a concert I've been looking forward to for months, nay, years (since I just finally turned 21 in April) - and now I'm sitting around my apartment miserable. I'd get drunk, but I don't have any drinkable beer, and I don't have any money to run to the store and get some. I have food for tomorrow and maybe Monday, but that's it. I wrote an email to my mom attempting to explain the situation in hopes that she can loan me some money until financial aid finally gets around to dispersing my loan money, but I'm not holding my breath. I am so screwed.

While I have so many other things I could take the time to write about right now (like my trip to Appleton and the Björk concert or how I still haven't gotten a chance to wish Annemarie a happy birthday), I'm instead choosing to write about Erik Porras. You see, after receiving yet another email from him today, I was inspired to go back and read several old emails from him that I'd saved over the past few years - and I almost wet myself. Holy shit, there's some hi-larious schtuff there. Maybe one day I'll be inspired enough to actually post some of them here for y'all, but for now, I'm too tired and going to go to bed instead.

Okay, it's been a couple of days again, so I'm going to just do this the economical way and lump it all together as neatly as possible. Tuesday night was the preview of Mulholland Drive. The auditorium was packed, I had to work it alone, and I didn't get to see the movie, it sucked (working, not the movie). Wednesday I walked out an hour early on my sci-fi class because I didn't want to listen to him simplify another brilliant German down to an hour's worth of lecture. I went to the Dinkytowner, had a busket of fries, and it occured to me that everyone was at the They Might Be Giants concert and I was the only one there. I went home. I intended to do homework on Thursday, and I got a start on it, but then I got bored. I then wasted time alternately by checking my email and watching tv. Jonathan and I were going to go to the Polish class, but we were running so late that we decided not to show up late, and we just went to Mayslack's. After a beer and a filling meal, we went to the bowling alley and killed some time. We decided to bowl a few games before everyone else showed up. Everyone else didn't show up. Well, Annemarie, Jonathan, and I had a fun time anyway. I bowled games of 121, 140-something, 130, 200, 129, and 190. Yeah, pretty sporadic. We went home, and I fell asleep once again listening to Al. Now I have to dig up enough clothes to last me the weekend, because I didn't realize how short I was. Then it's off to class, followed by a 300-mile drive back to A-Town. Sunday we're going to Chicago, so here I come!

Yeah, it's been a while - so sue me. I'm sure you've all really missed reading about my boring exploits. Yeah, sure. Okay, so after I had the night with the freaky lady, I was hoping I'd never see her again, but then she showed up. She came on the following Tuesday... and became a member! Luckily, I haven't seen her again since, but I know she'll be back.

We got our assignment for our sci-fi research paper on Wednesday, and as if it weren't enough that I hate doing research papers, he had to go and assign us all the same fucking topic! That's right people, 60 students will be struggling to all use the same books in a 21-day period to write the same paper on the same topic. How fucking boring is that?! Then I went to the Dinkytowner, where the music was loud and annoying, the wait staff never once offered me even something to drink, I got shitty letters, and the game took much longer than it should have for how much Molly was blowing us all out. I just wanted to go home.

We got the whole crew - Molly, Annemarie, Jonathan, Morgan, Nichole, Lindsey, John, Peter, and I - to head on up to Columbia Heights for some mad bowling action Thursday night at Mady's. We were only able to get one lane, so one game took us over an hour. The others were already in the middle of a game by the time Annemarie, Jonathan, and I got there, so we had to wait for them to finish first. Since I didn't have to drive for once, I was free to get as good and liquored up as I pleased. And I did. I bowled a very poor and mediocre 111, but it was still the second best score behind Jonathan. Come to think of it, the three drunks (Jonathan, Annemarie, and I) had the three highest scores... go figure.

I wanted to go see Jonathan Richman on Friday - and Molly had even gotten me a comp - but I ended up having to work. Annemarie picked up a 12er of Premium, and we went back to my place and sat up all night drinking, talking, and watching old cassettes of videos taped off MTV about 6-7 years ago. I finally brought her home at like 10:30 Saturday Morning.

I tried to take a nap on Saturday, but had no luck. I ended up just doing the dishes and watching some tv. We lost our soccer game 5-4 after I had a lackluster first half at center back and an improved second half in goal. I came home, ate a few sandwiches, and went to bed by about 7. I didn't get up off the couch again until 7:30 Sunday morning.

I watched tv Sunday, including the Vikings game and the first half of the Packer game. I had to work, but when I came home, I watched the rest of the Packer game. Now, the Vikings are a pathetic team, but for the Packers to lose to Tampa? Ouch! They have no offense and a slightly-above mediocre defense, so the idea of losing to them is just sad. Man, even the 1-3 Vikings didn't lose to Tampa. Anyway, I prepared some stuff for my paper and went to bed.

I got up about 9:30 Monday morning and started my paper by 10. It was supposed to be 5-6 pages, but when I finished around 1:30, I was up to 8 pages. Oops. Showed up late for my journalism class, but finally found out who one of my partners for my group project is. Went to work and wasn't all that productive. Went to class, turned in my paper, watched Stagecoach, came home, put on the tv, attempted to watch football, but the Lions - despite being in a division with Tampa, Chicago, and Minnesota - could be the worst team in the division. Atleast Dennis Miller is entertaining enough to make it worth keeping tuned in when the Rams are beating the shit out of Detroit. Don't quite know if even Dennis will be able to salvage next week's 'Skins-Cowboys game. What were they thinking making that one Monday night? Anyway, I think I watched a little more tv, and then I turned it off and fell asleep listening to Al.

Well, if you really cared, that's my previous week in a nutshell. I have to work today. Tonight we have the preview of Mulholland Dr., and I'll have to work hard to avoid wanting to kill someone. Blah.