hosma

27: We went out on this wonderful evening to an everythingburger of a store called SoLow today, where we had many a great chuckle at the ... varied inventory, which included such things as several items displaying the word KUT in gigantic capital letters; mugs proudly proclaiming: “I ♥ COCKS”—or otherwise just gewoon-ly had cocks inside of them; a noggin-jogging assortment of freaky sex things; a tear-to-eye-bringing amount of beer-themed articles of clothing and other thingamabobs and so on and so forth – this is a store, by the way, that you can bring your children along to browse together with to.

Ah ... but as exhilirating as that visit was, the main event only came afterwards, when we decided to stop by Het Frietlokaal to grab a bite, and I ordered something so culinarily perverse that the chap behind the counter had to switch to English in order to ascertain with the utmost certainty that my choice for a sauce to go on top of my burger—oorlogsaus (‘war-sauce’), which I was drawn to for no other reasons than that I had no idea what it was and that I thought it sounded ridiculously awesome—was not a mistake.

Yes, he was completely and utterly gobsmacked, in the purest sense of that word; and the chef's heart must have surely shattered into a nonillion little stukjes, so much so that he must have implored the guy to ask me again before finalizing the burger—as he duly did. Nevertheless, I stood firm: My mind was made that I would try the war-sauce, whatever the cost—it was the least I could do to honor some soldier of another, despite their spirits surely having been begging the gods for a miracle that would cause my determination to falter ... but alas.

I'm still alive, though! Not only that, but I can also confidently say that this taboo combination of burger and sauce was suprisingly delectable, a fact to which even Lynn—whom the Dacian palate for adorning pizza and spaghetti with ketchup causes to physically recoil—can attest.

I simply must be the first human to have ever attempted to create this blasphemous oorlog-burger—and I stand proud! This burger is of my invention! Please, give it an honest try when you have the chance, and let me know what you think.

On a different note, I also want to mention our subsequent stop at McDonald's, where we bore witenss to a juvenile creature exclaiming “six sevennnn”, as well as an elderly slavic gentleman making ... um ... conspicuous Donald Duck noises?—which I was unfortunately unable to make out.

I love it here.

26: Rewatching The Fourth Son Visits His Mother, and I am absolutely gobsmacked to finally realize that 杨Yang延Yan辉Hui's false name—木Mu易Yi—comes from the two components of his original 杨 (simplified form of 楊)! He even says so himself, so I'm not sure how it's managed to fly right over my head for all this time.

I must also incidentally express my frustration at no longer having someone to share all this CJ and occasionally KV nerdery with—instead having to just dump it here and call it a thought...! 人生啊。

23: I'm really missing Shotover Hill back in Oxford as of late—with its lush woods and cute little gray bunnies, and that breathtaking view of the city, to which the prior 15-minute 45°-angle^{[citation needed]} walk must have only contributed.

Oh, how I miss the serene walks to Wheatley, which made me feel like I was on top of the world—somewhere far removed from the vicissitudes of city life; and that beautiful blue-green wheat field sheltered from view by a somewhat thick row of bushes (although it had already turned a boastful gold by the time I'd up and left; and although I imagine that but the soil remains now); and passing by that towering windmill which I couldn't help but stop and admire; and the coming back down and around through Horspath, during which I'd stop at an angled little bus-stop library to see if there's anything eye-catching on the shelves.

And to think that I hadn't the slightest idea that such a beautiful place was so close to me for the years I had been living there.

20: Lynn very often gets the hiccups for no apparent reason and, as of late, I have been enjoying leaving her incomprehensibly frustrated by ‘stealing’ them away by saying something along the lines of “You're not hiccupping right now”—trying to get her to reflect upon the situation or prove that she's doing it. It works like a charm—or, well, it used to.

Although one may understandably be of the opnion that a cure to hiccuping is reason for celebration, Lynn is not just anyone—she's a spitefish – so much so that she's managed to evolve a mechanism that allows her to bypass my little psychogenic exploit—but hey, as long as she's happy!

17: No idea what I was on about when I wrote the previous entry, as it was neither October nor the 24th! With that amended, however: I was witness to a crime for the first time in my life! Of all places, I could have never expected it to happen in the Netherlands—and so soon after arriving here at that!

It happened a few days ago at around 3 AM; Lynn couldn't sleep, and I remember being woken up and urged to look out the window: A car was repeatedly ramming into the shutter of a small Jewelry store across the street! This continued for about a minute, after which the perpetrators apparently managed to scooch inside the store, past the bent shutter, and take a number of items. We then saw them take off on a scooter, leaving the car behind—rear headlights illuminating our disbelief.

It was indeed quite the scene, and I'm disappointed to say that, to my knowledge, the two individuals have not been caught in spite of the streets having been empty in dead of night, and of us having called 112 while they were still inside the store, with others having done so even earlier.

On a lighter note, I've had my first real-life Dutch conversation with a chap from the local Appie yesterday! Although he'd definitely smelled me out, and to my utter astonishment, he didn't turn English-mode on me the moment I said FAY-khun instead of just 'vegan' – or when I forgot how to say doe mij maar een [ding] or ik wil graag wat [dingen] when he asked me whether or not I wanted anything specific—but hey: no dankjeblieft this time around!

Indeed my confidence has been boosted; I have already achieved what I was never able to with Japanese, despite having a much better grasp of it than I do of the Dutch language – Anki does pay off... (Cue dramatic close-up of teardrop streaming down cheek.)

In other news, I have alſo written a Tampermonkey uſerſcript that replaces boring old s'es, where applicable, with my beloved long (or, ſhould you be ſo inclined, medial) ſ, which can be moſt appreciated within ſerifed and italiciſed text; and also every TH/Th/th sequence with Þ/þ as appropriate. (Note, however, that these conversions will be applied regardless of language, because most English-language webpages are unfortunately not marked with an appropriate [lang="en"] attribute; Boo webdevs and teaching resources!)

Currently, I am doing some soul-seeking whilst moving my Spotify library to an SSD, and enjoying a nostalgic cup of mpd with NCMPCPP.

[Insert obligatory Sinterklaas mention here.]

10: Currently (still) trying to figure things out in the Netherlands. A longer (and also long due) post is in the works, but for now I feel the need to chronicle my little exchange with a courier from earlier tonight, wherein I thanked him off by saying—and very confidently at that—dankjeblieft. If you don't speak Dutch, I'm afraid that this little calque may be untranslatable, but if you do... let's just say: IYKYK.

27: My time in the land of mandatory tipping is drawing to a close, and I cannot help but feel somewhat regretful.

Once more I have brought with me the European plague, which swiftly spread to everyone else, and as a consequence of this contagion most of my time here has been spent inside a suburbian home in southern Illinois, which I believe you should be absolutely harrowed to hear if you are yourself an American; and harrowed still to learn that this is the third time that this has happened to me. Indeed: three times I have come to the United States, and three times I have seen but fields of corn and other agricultural plantations interspersed with fast food joints and gigantic billboard advertisments.

Woe is me, most certainly, but it wasn't all bad: I got to spend more time with my beloved and, on the few days that we were able to go outside, I got to see some pretty ridiculous things such as the ginormous ketchup bottle, a school bus labeled “SHITTZENGIGGLES” (those Germans!), Dick's, and a shop called Cope Marine, which were all worthy of a giggle, to say the least.

Indoors, I have been enjoying—among other things, of course—playing Ōkami on the PlayStation 2, watching an Armageddon VHS tape on a CRT TV, and watching a lot of Lost on a regular LCD TV; and with all of that, my yearning for a complete return to analog is indubitably ablaze.

For that very reason, I have also been looking for either a dumb- or feature-phone; however, it would seem that fucking nobody on this planet understands what the appeal of such a phone actually is; I do not, in fact, want an Android phone with a physical keyboard—Blackberries already exist, and they blow—wait... are those still a thing, actually?—no, what I want is a barebones mobile device with a physical T9 keyboard, no touchscreen, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and that supports WhatsApp and FM radio – am I asking for that much?

Well whaddayaknow, KaiOS devices tick all those boxes—and whaddayaknow, WhatsApp stopped supporting KaiOS back in 2024 because, uh, muh security or something. Seems like my only options now are the Xiaomi Qin F22, which doesn't have a camera ... or a headphone jack ... or anything for that matter; or, the Kyocera 902kc, which is rather costly, but comes with an epic weeb keyboard. I guess it'll have to be the Xiaomi, as my priority is simplicity; I can live with the lack of basic amenities – maybe I'll get a physical camera later down the line, and an actual mini radio that I can carry around.

I would also be interested to get myself an original Jolla Phone, as I was a huge fan of SailfishOS back in the day, but I'm not sure how functional they remain nowadays. The new C2 community phones that have replaced them look pretty sloppy to me, so I don't really care much for them.

Went to Target and saw kids' halloween costumes of hamburgers, hot dogs, ketchup & mustard bottles, pizzas, traffic lights, and the VLC logo. Yeehaw.

11: Finger sucked onto by fish.

9: Laceration without foreign body of right index finger without damage to nail, initial encounter. Suture removal in 7–10 days. Keep clean and dry.

6: Good afternoon, America! Had a little back-and-forth with some chap from O'Hare security, but it was all worth it for this wonderful view of the Chicago skies:

1: I am just now realizing how many things are impossible to put inside a <p>, and I think that the reasoning is rather silly.

秋の颸かぜ。紅葉もみじば散って、来たる冬。

YKK's been on my mind for a long time. I don't know anything about it other than that it's somewhat obscure and supposed to be comfy—so way up my alley. I shall be watching and reading it soon.

30: I've added a bunch of 88×31 buttons for things and people that I find interesting down below. I've also made a few new ones for the new website (apt), and scoured others' collections for any previous ones that I'd lost. (I barely even remember making the one with a slashed 'S'.) I think it must've been good ol' Kenny who made the one with the pulsating circle, but memory fails me yet again. It's a nice feeling, remembering past friendships and being proven that I've actually remained a part of those people's past, just as they have of mine.

29: Just found out that Firefox, for some reason, doesn't have support for the rch CSS unit – even though it does support ch. It also doesn't handle line-height the same way WebKit does. Wow. Sure.

28: Rest your little ears in peace, Patches. You were the silliest, funniest, gurpiest bun ever. Our little baby bunny. I hope you're hopping your heart out throughout all the greenest meadows, eating all the most delicious carrots and bananas that a bunny could ever want. We wanted to show you so many more things that you could lunge at and munch on. We love you.

27: Restoration Efforts Underway as hosma (with Intentionally Lowercase 'h') is Declared Critically Endangered

24: なんかやってきたで