Mmmm... pig head

Look what we found at the grocery store yesterday.

Halloweenski

The halloween party is this weekend, which should be pretty fun except that I'm having a hell of a time coming up with a costume. I've actually thought up some really good ideas this week, but the problem is I can't get any of the supplies I need here. They don't celebrate halloween in Poland so I can't find anyplace that has the grease paint that I would need for most of the cool ideas I have. I could order it online, but it usually takes at least 2 weeks for stuff to get here and it was too late by the time I figured out what I wanted to be. I guess I can take comfort in the thought that next year my costume is gonna kick ass. But for this year I'm probably going to have to settle for wearing all black and putting on my ski mask to be a ninja, which I admit is pretty damn lame. And Kim agrees. Not that I would actually do it, but she won't let me put on a dress and carry around an umbrella as Britney Spears. That's perfect since I already have the shaved head. And speaking of Kim, she's burdened me with the task of figuring out what her costume is going to be also. She won't let me refuse, I tried that.

I had a fantastic idea last night that I might be able to pull off, but it's going to require venturing into one of the many sex shops around here. That could be scary. One of them has a big 'ol vibrator in the window that looks like a corn cob. Anyways, the idea I had is liquid latex. I've never used it before, but I did some research online and that stuff is awesome. It comes in all sorts of colors, they even have metallics. I know of 4 different costumes I can use it for just off the top of my head.

So I guess I'll get some lunch in a few minutes and then head on out to the seedy pornographic underworld of Warsaw. The things I do for my art...

I need a new mask

I was sitting around the other day trying to think of some cool artsy photos to take when I suddenly decided that I wanted to buy a new gas mask. I already have three really cool ones, but for some stupid reason I didn't bring them with me and instead put them into storage until we get home. So I jumped online and tried to find someplace in town that I could find one. I found a couple army surplus stores, one of which looked alright, but the other had real potential. So I wondered on down there today, but of course they didn't have anything. The place was tiny, but they actually had quite a bit of stuff packed in there. Mostly clothing, a few helmets and canteens and stuff, but only two gas masks. One of them was ok, but not nearly as cool as the three I already have, and the other one was just crap.

I decided to skip the other shop since I'm pretty sure they won't have any, and headed to Old Town to buy my wife a christmas present (the same christmas present I had to talk her out of buying for herself by pretending that it wasn't worth the money they were asking for so that I could come back later and get it for her). I may try the other shop later this week if I'm feeling saucy.

The Polish word for...

...butt is pronounced "poopa".

That's funny.

Doggy style

The Poles love their dogs. They are so well behaved (the dogs, not so much the Poles). Technically, all dogs are supposed to have a muzzle and be on a leash when out in public, but you don't see many leashes and hardly ever is one actually muzzled. They'll just sit on the sidewalk outside the door if the owner goes into a store, it's unbelievable. But today I saw the coolest thing ever. This 50ish year old woman was walking down the street with her HUGE dog that looked like a great dane, but it was white with black spots just like a dalmation. It was actually carrying her shopping bag in it's mouth. And this bag was pretty big and looked like it was jammed full of stuff. He was slowly walking beside her and his face had this adorable, gentle look. I really wish I had my camera with me.

First visit from the 'rents

My mom and stepdad came for a week and a half, they just left saturday. We had a pretty good time, especially my mom, who bought an assload of Polish pottery. So much that there are still two big boxes that we need to pick up from the store and ship back home to her. They got here on thursday, then we took a train to Krakow on friday and spent a few days there. This was the second time in Krakow for Kim and I and we still haven't seen everything. There's a legend about the founder of the city slaying a dragon in a cave back in the day and apparently you can go check out the cave and there's a big sculpture of said dragon somewhere, we just haven't found it yet. That's going to be my priority for the next trip. But the coolest thing about the whole trip was the old town square at night. I have always really wanted to take pictures of those people that swing fireballs attached to chains, but I've never actually come across any. Until now. There were two dudes and a chick and they were awesome. I took about 100 pics in 5 minutes. Most of the time there was just one of them playing, with another one starting up just as the first's flames started to die, but I did get some shots of two of them together. I played around a little bit with different shutter speeds and ISO's to get some different looks and I think I got more than a couple good shots. There was another dude about 50 feet away all by himself that was doing the same thing, only he had two sticks with flames on each end that we was twirling around. I think he was a little newer to it then the other people since he dropped the sticks every minute or two, but he was still quite entertaining. But the other 3 were pros, not a single mistake that I could tell.

As per usual, go to my Flickr page to check out some of the pics I took. I only posted the best ones. My favorite is "fire twirlers 30". Click on the pic, then click the "all sizes" icon above it to see it larger.

We also went to Aushcwitz again, which is just as depressing the second time, if not more so. Our guide the first time was a low talker, so I only heard about a third of everything he said. Our guide this time wasn't much louder, so I only heard about half of what he said. I guess another two or three trips and I'll finally know the whole history. I'm not sure I want to know anymore, though...

The last few days of their visit was spent just wandering around Warsaw. Kim and I thought we had seen most of the city, but apparently we were way off. There's still all sorts of cool stuff to find, so that should keep us busy for a while. We went to the zoo one day and spent almost the entire day there. It was way bigger than any of us expected. And we basically had the entire place to ourselves since it was the middle of the week, so that was really cool. We watched the otters wrestle eachother for a good twenty minutes, which was hilarious. Even funnier if you've ever heard Denis Leary's bit on otters from his "No Cure for Cancer" cd.

On the way to the zoo I wanted to stop and check out the old soccer stadium that's been out of use for years. On the weekends people set up little booths all around the stadium and it's basically one big flea market. There were a couple vendors when we were there, but it looked like a ghost town. There was an old man who had a bunch of cool stuff like old cameras, Russian and Polish army uniforms and helmets, and even some random Nazi memorabilia. My mom asked how much for the cigarette holder with the nazi eagle and swastika, but the dude wanted 300 zloty (about 110 bucks). I think you can get that stuff on ebay for like 20 bucks, so we passed on that and didn't even ask him how much his other stuff was. He had a kick ass old WWII Polish sword, but I sure he wanted way too much for it. Besides, I don't think they'd let me into the zoo with it, especially since he didn't have a sheath or anything for it.

We also went to the Polish Army Military Museum, which was awesome. They had a ton of stuff, lots of old medieval armour and weapons. Unfortunately they don't allow cameras inside so I couldn't get any pics. But I took a bunch outside where they had all sorts of kick ass tanks, canons, planes, etc. They even had a 7.1 ton bomb that was found unexploded in the ruins of a downtown restaraunt. Pretty impressive.

I have lots more pics that I plan on posting to the Flickr page in the next day or two, so check it out every couple of days or so. That's all for now. I'm out!