Obamania, take 2

Firstly, I want to make it clear that I have nothing against Obama and I fully support him and hope he'll do well in office. On the 5th November morning when the boyfriend and I woke up to the 8am news and heard that Obama had won, we high fived half asleep and the day seemed to begin well. (It turned out to be a rather depressing morning, but it's a completely different story and didn't involve Obama in anyway.)

I've set out now to sort of rewrite Obamania because I don't think that it was anywhere near eloquent and as I wrote it in a frenzy of uncontrollabel and part-irrational anger I'm not too happy with it. In this post I wish to explain myself again, and I've tried to incorporate some things that I thought about after the feedback I got on the original post. (I'm still going to leave the original post up there, in case someone wants to read it. I'm not sure if I recommend it.)

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I've had the beginning of this post (above) ready for ages, but just didn't have the determination to actually write it up. I did, however write a personal message to a friend of mine who I had a minor argument with regarding my Obamania post. I think, with the Awesome Inauguration coming up next Tuesday, this might be a good time to tackle this one again. However, since I'm lazy and I'm actually quite happy with that message I sent to that friend of mine, I'm just going to copy paste it here. I've done some minor changes to it, mainly to make it a bit more PC as well as adding some links and stuff. (It's a bit long, so prepare yourself, get a drink and some snacks and.. Enjoy!)

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Firstly, I hope you realised from the quality of the blogpost in question that it was written in a frenzy of mindless anger and annoyance. Although, I do stand behind my words. I just mean that had I actually THOUGHT about what I was writing about I would've said things a bit differently.

I am still holding on to my opinion on local elections. I do believe that they are the most important elections for the average Joe or Jane. However, I'm not trying to say that other elections aren't important, on the contrary I believe elections are a wonderfull thing and all of them matter. Neither do I think that people are wrong to get enthusiastic about the US elections (and this is something I realise I didn't make clear at all), but I think that it's a real shame that many of the people I know who got all worked up about the election are people who don't care about what goes on in their own country. Or people who in general don't seem to have any real interest or opinion about US (politics) other than 'Bush sucks' (or more recently 'McCain sucks and Palin is an idiot'). And I'm not trying to say they're wrong, I just think it's a bit pathetic in a way, you know just repeating things they've heard other people say. If you see what I mean.

I'm finding it very hard to believe that we are now or would have been anywhere near WW3 had McCain been elected. I'd like to think that if McCain had died in office and Palin would've become president, she wouldn't have just sent out a load of nuclear missiles to Russia, even if she has seen Putin rear his ugly head or whatever it is she said she'd seen. I just can't imagine it [WW3] happening anytime soon, and I think I personally will stay a lot happier not even imagining such a possibility. (Following pic from flickr.)



I take your point with the July 2005 bombings, though. [This one I should probably make a bit clearer. My friend used terrorism to back up his argument about the importance of the US election to people everywhere, which is a fair point, I suppose.] Terrorism is something (kind of like the WW3-thing) I don't really think about, having never experienced anything the like. I've never felt a real threat of terrorism even living in London now. Perhaps it's because I'm selfish and can't really picture it before something happens to someone I know or something.

I'm a lot more scared of being stabbed, shot or simply mugged in the streets. Just the other day there was a stabbing/shooting (I never found out which it was, my guess is stabbing) right next to our local library. And a few days before that someone got stabbed right outside the house of some friends of the boy. That's something I worry a lot more than terrorism, which brings me nice and neatly back to the importance of local elections. I think it's not easy to link local stabbings with the US presidential elections, but it's a clear sign that there are severe problems in the society we live in (and I mean society here in the national/local sense not in the international sense).

Hm, I think that's it. Well, I've exhausted the pseudo-academic side of my brain and won't say more even if I should. ...And in case I've not made myself clear enough, I'm really glad Obama won!

Original art work by Alex Ross - Get it as a t-shirt here

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I think there is more to be said on the topic, perhaps that's something that could be done in the comments. If you've got something to say, SAY IT! I would very much appreciate any feed back or opinions and I do to keep an eye on the comments in case some of you actually DO want to discuss all of this. If you got this far, that is.

Because I like my chili.

This shall be a food post for a change. I wrote it because I've been off ill for a week now and am a lot better now and BOREDBOREDBORED, yet too lazy to do anything. Oh well.

I have found a new favourite food. I had a chili con carne at the boys parents whilst we were living there early autumn, it was my first since age 10 or something like that and it was AWESOME. After that, however, we sort of forgot about chili and stuck to our more usual dishes; different curries, stir frys and pastas. Lately though, we've started making chili nearly once a week. We do one big enough to last us for two dinners, and thus save money and it is always amazing. Today's one, I found exceptionally good, here's how we did it:

Incredients:

400-500g Minced beef (preferably lean, I'm not a big fan of random bits of something indescribable in my mince)
1-2 Onions (depending on size and strength)
1 Chili pepper (medium hot)
3 Peppers (this particular time we used two reds and a yellow)
Box of cherry tomatoes
Tin of red kidney beans
Jar of chili cooking sauce (this time we used a cheap one from Aldi, I think it's quite nice. The boy doesn't like things too spicy, so we've been eating medium spicyness ones.)

Rice (I prefer long grain with chili, but since we usually only have Basmati, that's fine too)
Tortilla crisps
Grated cheese

Preparation:

* Chop everything first. I like my chilies and onions extra small, peppers quite small and cherry toms in half. Beans can be as they are.
* Stick the mince in a pan (we use a wok, it's very handy with large amounts of food) and fry until quite brown.
* Add onions and chillies. Stir and fry for a bit. Then add peppers, stir them in and let things fry on medium heat for 5-10mins. If you like, you can also add some salt and pepper and such spices and flavorings.
* Add cherry toms and stir.
* Open the kidney bean tin and drain the water (if using chili beans or something alike, you can obviously use the juices too). Throw the beans in the pan and stir.
* Add the cooking sauce and rinse the jar with a tiny drop of water and pour it in as well. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat and let simmer (if possible) under a lid for the time it says on the jar (usually between 15-25mins). The longer it gets to simmer, the softer the veg get and everything is nice and smooth and flavours are mixed and yumyumyum.
* (If required) rinse a suitable amount of rice and boil it according to what the package says.
* When the rice is ready, the chili should be pretty much ready too so deal it out, grate some cheese on top and serve it with tortilla crisps. It should be AWESOME. If not, you did something wrong and I'm not to blame!

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Realised I probably should've taken a photo of the chili tonight. But then again, I didn't think I'd blog about it when we had it. Perhaps I'll photograph the left overs when we eat them and add one then. Or perhaps not. I shall keep you in suspence. Muahhahahhaa! (That was an evil laugh, in case you didn't know.) Over and out.

The New Year is Here - and HOW

Hello there dear Whine-readers! And happy New Year! I hope you've all had the bestest of times and will continue to have even better times in the near and far future. I now want to share with you the story of my New Year's Eve, as I'm sure you really really want to hear about it. (In addition it is a little embarrassing and I like to tell embarrassing stories about myself.)

Well, my New Year's Eve started with me trying to get up at 8am to go to work for 10. That I did and work was really quiet. And then I heard that my shift the next day (ie. today in other words New Years Day) was cancelled because my managers had decided not to open the coffee shop that day at all. So I was all 'WOO, don't have to worry about not staying up too late or having a drink too many!' And then I also got a text from an ex-housemate saying that he'd managed to gather two more ex-housemates together and were hoping for me and the boy to join them for the night. So we did, even though we weren't mega-keen on the idea of going to a pub for New Year's Eve partly because I'd just earlier that day had a discussion about the bestest of ways to spend NYE and established that it was a house party with a select collection of people and perhaps going out to see some fireworks and mostly because the boy had completely lost his voice and would not be able to speak to people in a loud pub.

But off we went to Camden after having a wonderful pasta dinner at home with breaded mozzarella sticks. The pub we found our comrades in was very loud and had a New Year's Rockabilly Eve and, well, I wasn't happy. We got out of there and our local Camdener recommended we check out this pub in which he'd 'never seen more than two people in'. And it wasn't too busy or too loud and quite good music was actually played. We stayed there for three pints with the boy and then left to take the tube to central London, hoping to catch the fireworks by Westminster Bridge.

And this is where it gets a bit embarrassing and everything starts going a bit wrong. Silly me, didn't use the facilities in the pub before we left. I DIDN'T FEEL LIKE I NEEDED TO THEN! But on the tuby-tube after about two stops I started feeling like a piss would need to take place in the not so distant future. And as we went along I felt as though it would actually be needed very soon. Not to worry, we were going to get off at Waterloo and I thought it's a big station, it must have public toilets. As we stop at Waterloo, I'm pretty desperate already and my desperation is only worsened by the announcement which says 'this train will not stop at this station due to overcrowding'. OH BOLLOCKS! And we stay at the station for what seems to be ages and my desperation is ever-growing now with the added bonus of mild claustrophobia - which I never get, it seems it only happens when tipsy and needing a piss!.

So the tube takes of and the next stop is Kennington. I tell the boy I need to get out if there's no toilets at the station, and it's a small station so obviously people don't need to piss there. No toilets. Perhaps there'll be a pub or similar close to the station we can go in and I can use the toilet. But no, there's nothing. We walk down the street and turn in to a side street hoping that we'll find a dark enough alleyway I could squat down at, but no. I'm super-speed walking around to find something, anything that looks like it could be utilised. In my mind I'm planning on knocking random doors, but the chances of people letting strangers in is pretty slim, right? But behold! There's a house with an open door and people getting out as it is now about 10 to midnight. There's obviously a party thing going on and I approach the people standing in front of the house and very politely inquire whether I'd be able to use their facilities. And these are nice people! They show me to the bathroom (and what a bathroom! If only I wasn't so embarrassed and didn't want to do my business as quickly as possible I could've marvelled at it a bit more) and I wee and thank again and leave.

I come out of the house to find an annoyed looking boy waiting for me and we decide we've now missed our chance to see the fireworks and might just as well stick around to see the people from the house setting their own fireworks at the square they live by. But I feel a touch awkward standing around there so we leave and take the first bus towards Elephant & Castle. At least it's not really late and we can just go home. From the bus we can see people gathered at a crossing looking over to the north and we realise that we can see the London Eye all the way from here! WE get off the bus and join the crowd (of about 20 people) and we can actually see most of the fireworks there!

The fireworks finish and we decide to walk down the road a bit and realise we're actually only a few 100 metres from Elephant & Castle so we walk down and get on a bus home. Nearly get some KFC on the way but because of the queue we just decide to go home for some late night toast and sleep.

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So there, hope you enjoyed the story of my NYE. I have no promises for the new year, I've never really been into that kind of stuff. But I'll do an exception and promise that I shall write up that 'Obamania, take 2' post I've been brewing for ages now. There are a couple of others as well, one in particular that has to do with people and buses but we'll have to wait and see if and when I get around to writing them up.

Anyway, Happy New Year, may it be even better than the previous one!

Those goshdarn Republicans!

Oh dear lord. I have just bumped into someone answering the question 'Do you support Republicans or Democrats?' by saying they'd choose Democrats because they like the idea of democracy. Oh my. (And this is someone who studies in a top university and has an 'aura' of social awareness about them.)

Because obviously, Republicans don't believe in democracy, right?

Obamania

I've suddenly been inspired by annoyance! This hasn't happened in ages and I've been wondering if I should just declare this blog dead. BUT there is still hope, it seems.

This sudden stroke of annoyance has come from the elections in the US. Now I have a degree in International Relations and I'm especially interested in American politics BUT I am sick and tired of all of the people on social networking sites (read: facebook) going on about how they so wish that Obama would win, and please, oh GOD please, go and vote for OBAMA. Ugh.

I should probably be very happy about so many people taking interest in politics, however I'd much rather they took interest in local, or at least national politics. I know a number of individuals who go on about how they will lose any faith in humanity if McCain wins but don't themselves vote in local elections. Perhaps in parliamentary elections but not in local elections. This is something that really gets my blood boiling. I mean you don't do what?! Vote in local elections. My dear person, local elections are probably the most important elections for you and also the ones where you have the biggest chance of actually having a real chance of affecting the outcome of the elections. Even though I realise that parliamentary elections are also very important, I strongly believe in the importance of local elections because your local council decides on things that affect your everyday life, such a waste collection, schools and libraries. This is turning into directionless rambling because I'm finding it hard to concentrate with so many little things around in my head. (I have a feeling there are more than a few typos in this post already too.)

Anyway, right. By all means, have interest in global politics and current affairs, but please don't stuff it down my throat unless you've got something constructive to say about it. You like Obama, fair enough, so does the majority of European people and it seems possibly also the majority of Americans. And never mind how much the media keeps on saying how it's the elections for the most influential post in the world, it's relevance for a normal person in the UK or anywhere in Europe really, is minimal. I mean, yes the president of the US has a lot of power, but with the American governing system being as it is, he's not allowed to do all that much. The congress matters too, you know. And even if you were to just blame the current president of the US of the war in Iraq etc. does it really affect you that much? Also, I don't understand much of how the economy works, but I don't think that you can blame George W. on the whole recession and credit crunch and stuff either. My point is, it doesn't matter THAT much. But great that you're interested in the first place.

Argh. I'm really losing any coherence now so maybe this is a good place to stop. If you'd like me to conclude (and even if you don't) basically, I'm just ANNOYED with the Obama people. Especially when they can't even vote in the elections in question. There. PFF.

Oh, and I'll leave you with a Looney Tunes short which kind of tell you a bit about what the U.S. constitution is all about.

The summer is over

It has been AGES. Again. In the nearly three months since the last post I've gathered up anger against a number of things including landlords, recruitment agencies, old shitty airplanes, back ache, parents, unemployment and the list goes on.

During the time I finished uni, moved out of my Birmingham house, went to Finland, became a godmother, came back to Birmingham, graduated, went to New York, flew back to Finland and now I'm staying at the boyfriend's parents in Manchester whilst looking for jobs and flats in London and it is really starting to get to me.

I had thought that at least we'd have a flat sorted in two weeks. Needles to say it didn't happen. I don't know why, we just seem to attract loads of scams (perhaps we are to blame for this because we've tried to go for the private landlords as opposed to letting agents) and the viewings that we actually did manage to schedule fell through. Pff.

On the job front I've applied to a few, so far got back from one for which I had an interview/test last week. I'm hoping to hear back from them in the next few days. It is all very frustrating and not only because everything seems to go through bloody recruitment agencies now. I mean, I am applying for a SPECIFIC job, I DO NOT want to sign on with an agency just to do that. PFF.

Anyway, this is sort of a mid-post, I shall try to put some effort in one in the near future. Ta-ta.

Movies, pt. II

Since I've been in a happy place for quite a while now I don't really have anything to whine about. So I figured I might as well make post of the movies I've seen after the previous movies post.

Margot at the Wedding
I really liked this one. I preferred it over The Squid and the Whale but then I think I should probably watch that one again. I didn't really get into it, perhaps it was because of where and when I saw it. This is my problem, I need to be in a good mood and comfortable to be able to enjoy a film. I think I might have even enjoyed the first Spiderman movie had the circumstances been a bit better. But back to Margot at the Wedding; I think perhaps the best thing in this was that I really enjoyed Jack Black in it. And I'm usually simply annoyed by him.

Mister Lonely
I thought this one sounded good; a punch of impersonators living together. You could make that into an interesting film. But oh how miserably it failed. It was rather predictable when it wasn't just plain boring. I didn't really understand what was the point of the whole film. The only good things were the storyline following the priest played by Werner Herzhog and Samantha Morton, just because she's well hot, especially as Marilyn Monroe.

Shine a Light
I don't think there's that much to say about this. The boyfriend wrote a review of it, you can read it here. I thought it was really beautiful and a very good concert film. Keith Richards is such a dude. And Mick Jagger's (I first wrote 'Migger Jack's') bum is just way too tiny and it seems that he used to be a lot more laid back and funny when he was younger. Oh well. It was still very enjoyable, there was a point when I had to stop myself from singing loudly along. I thought it wouldn't have been allowed in the cinema.

Persepolis
This was very good. Although at times I thought it was a tad boring. Anyway, I'm now reading the graphic novel, which I do think is better than the film, eventhough the film is very much just the book. But then there are bits in the book that I find very interesting but they didn't end up being in the film.

The Oxford Murders
Because I refused to spend Vapunaatto on a pub crawl, we decided to go to the cinema instead. And because a certain friend of ours is very much into his maths we went to see The Oxford Murders. It was quite horrendous. Although, the good thing was that it reached the level of bad that made it quite funny. If you know what I mean. Anyway, the boyfriend wrote '5 Reasons Why The Oxford Murders Did Not Completely Suck' check it out, it's pretty good.

Iron Man
I liked it! And not only because Robert Downey Jr. is one of the hottest men in the WORLD (although not according to the picture on his wikipedia article, for a better one check this, it's the eyes, me thinks). Anyway, I thought it was very entertaining and had beautiful people in it and eventhough I wasn't at all familiar with the story of Iron Man it did not matter. It's up there with the Batmans fighting for the top spot in my list of best movies based on superhero comics. Although, it must be said that not all of the Batmans are that good and I've still to see Batman Begins.

Il Conformista
This was actually shown at the cinema and we went to see it. It was very good. But it's the kind of film I'm not very comfortable in saying anything about it, and to be honest, I've forgotten what I actually thought about it. It had some very cool shots though. (How lame does that sound?! I'm sorry.)

Planet B-Boy
This was AWESOME. I think my mouth might have been open in awe for about 85% of the running time. Also it made me miss the times I used to do street dance a lot. It didn't even matter that the colour seemed to be a bit well... fucked when they showed it. I didn't really even realise there was something wrong with the colour. Just go and check the videos on the official website, it's a fantastic documentary. And have a look at this too, in fact you should at least watch this, it is full of AWESOME:


Sex and the City
I'm not a Sex and the City fan, whatever that even means. I've seen a few episodes including the series finale double episode twice and cried my eyes out both of the times. However, I've never thought that the series was amazing just harmless entertainment when there was nothing better on tv. Anyway, I still wanted to see the film and eventhough it did make me cry a bit, it didn't really do anything to me. I was really irritated by the r'n'b theme (I mean WHY r'n'b?! It's not like the girls are into it or anything.) and otherwise I though it was just too calculated and slickly produced. In a way it was flawless, but flawless in a very bad way. Plus it was too long. And there was not much of Charlotte, it seemed as if they didn't really know what to do with her character. Plus Kim Catrall really would deserve more money than SJP. And I used to prefer Carrie over Sam, but in the film, Sam was the star. ... One last thing, this dress was gorgeous though.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
I loved it. It felt like it was the natural continuation of the old trilogy. It didn't feel new it felt like it was part of the old ones. I had some problems with the story, but I won't specify because maybe not all of you have seen it yet. All in all, I thought it was very good. And since I don't particularly like Raiders of the Lost Ark, I thought it was better than it. Perhaps even better than Temple of Doom, eventhough I really do like it.

Joy Division
This one I saw yesterday. It was half good, half not so good. I thought it felt a bit too pretentious in parts and it sort of fell apart towards the end. And it did turn into just being about Ian Curtis in the end. And I do see why it is a big part of the whole Joy Division story, but given the first half where I though it did talk more about Joy Division the band and not Ian Curtis and the other dudes that aren't that important. It did have some good laughs though, but over all it was a bit of a disappointment. The end of it just felt a bit too much likeit was just straight out from Control.