2015-01-27: A cross shaped candle would have 3 ends

Yesterdays ski muscle workout has left us broken people. I am pretty sure Ewa read the instructions wrong as we were only meant to do one exercise per muscle group. Which makes it her fault. Good thing her legs are sore too otherwise I would be ruthless in getting revenge.

I had to do a bunch of administration stuff in the city and afterwards we strolled to stretch the achy (but toned) muscles. I had worked all night and so was a little tired; casually dishevelled. Ewa looked at clothes for a few minutes and I decided that the "boyfriend chair" is nowhere near what is required in this world.

Someone should make "Husband Hammocks". I would totally have used it. If it had beer I would have never left.

Now I think about it I guess a Ladies clothing shop is never going to encourage me to spend an afternoon in their store alternating between groaning and requesting more beer while swaying gently in the breeze. Oh well, we all have differing goals in life and just have to learn to get along.

Lack lustre. Not just the colour.

$2 a bottle. Wish the weather was warmer and I had a hammock.

Whilst obtaining my own supplies of muscle relaxants I found what must be one of the best mark-up products out of NZ.

For Australians I believe Manuka is the same as Tea Tree. $45 honey in a supermarket. Surprised me anyway

I guess when I get my hammock I should get some manuka trees and a bee hive to support my supine lifestyle. 132 zł for 500g of honey = 23 bottles of Schofferhoffer each containing about 500g of beer.

That is some numerology stuff right there!

I wonder how fast bees make 500g of honey and how fast I can drink 23 bottles of Schofferhoffer... I'm betting I would win. Stupid bees, so lazy.

Food and Beverage Review: Kopytka (they are not Gnocci).

Our Ravenous Return was Rewarded with Kopytka.

I make gnocci by passing cold boiled potato through a ricer then mixing it with an egg and flour until it reaches the right consistency.
Roll dough into a snake and cut into bite sized morsels.
Drop one in a pot of just boiling water, if it doesn't float after a few minutes add more flour.
Then start dumping them in the water at a speed which doesn't drop the water temp too much, as they rise to the surface dump them in a flattish dish which has some bacon fat in it keeping warm in the oven.
When they are all in the dish raise the oven to a million degrees to get a small bit of fry going. Or you can throw them in a frying pan with the fat to get even quicker friedness.

The key differences between making Kopytka and Gnocci are:

1. You don't use a ricer because you don't have one. You use a mincer. (I don't see this making any difference)
2. You don't use an egg (I don't see this making much difference).
3. You gently fry pork lardons and use the fat to fry the gnocci kopetka (I don't see this making much difference)

But Kopytka are not Gnocci, they are far superior. Maybe "the right consistency" is different. I like them both anyway so in future I will simply threaten to make Gnocci if there are complaints about my Kopytka.

Rating: 8/10 (The rendered pork is a great on top these too and I shall add them to my Gnocci in future)

Cultural Observations: Change and Coins.

If a currency has a fixed number of units equalling a larger unit (e.g. 100 cents == 1 dollar) then it is culturally wrong to remove the concept of the smallest unit. If in Australia a law was passed saying that all prices must be marked in increments of 5 cents then we would no longer have 100 x 1 cents to the dollar, we would have 20 x 5 cents to the dollar. I am a conservative (and well groomed) fellow and can see that this kind of change could have unintended consequences psychological and far reaching.

Refusing the 2 złoty change would make me look like a foreigner with weird philosophical views on the nature of stored values in representative forms

Money is, functionally, an agreed upon fiction. A $5 note represents an amount of agreed upon value. It is not intrinsically worth that value. This is obvious as the material value of any given banknote is roughly the same as one denominated a tenth of the value, a $100 note has the same value of plastic in it as a $5 note.

So we are comfortable using the abstraction of money in a functional manner even if we don't think about it too much day to day (well by we I mean "you", I think about dumb shit all the time).

This does not mean that the practicality has to mirror the abstraction perfectly though. In Australia we got rid of 1 and 2 cent coins at a practical level but keep the prices reflecting the abstraction e.g. $1.99.

Poles are more conservative than me and refuse to rid themselves of their one grosz coin on principle and, I believe, are mandated to use these increments in pricing.

At first I thought I sucked at integrating myself into Polish society because I would look blankly at my handful of coins unable to find the 4.27zł required for a purchase. Inevitably I would mutely thrust my hand at the cashier and implore them to please just take what they want.

I have since observed (and interviewed local subjects in various degrees of relaxed inhibition) that I am actually integrating perfectly. No one can count the damn things.

Rating: 9/10 (I am integrating at a rapid pace).

My Naginata versus Kendo fun the other day has been met with interest by members of other clubs and I have been invited to do it again in Warsaw tomorrow night. This also means I get to enter the informal Kendo competition which is the actual focus of the evening.
Plans: 

• Go to Warsaw
• Enter and promptly lose in a Kendo competition
• Play Naginata versus Kendo with some of Polands best Kendo people
• Hopefully regain a little dignity after the humiliating loss earlier