Oh, by the way, an update on my list of festivals I want to attend this year: I missed RiverSplash and Pridefest, but I made it to Polish Fest. Not a very good Hit/Miss ratio, but at least I’ve gone to something, right?

Polish Fest was… okay. There was some interesting stuff for sure, but the day we went, there wasn’t a ton going on. We went last week Friday, the very first day of the festival. It was 50 cents to get in between Noon a 5 PM because that’s basically their, “We haven’t bothered to schedule anything worthwhile for this time period” part of the festival. 50 cents is way better than $8 though, so why not.

Polish Fest is probably the only one I’ll manage to talk family members into going to, because my family is very Polish. Like, we’re the sort of Polish people that are totally A-OK with branding ourselves as Polacks. So my aunt, my cousin, my mother, my little sister, and the girlfriend all went to Polish Fest. We ate food, did some shopping, listened to some polka, and not a whole lot more.

My mom and my sister wanted to see some of the Polish dancers in action, but those events weren’t until later in the evening. We had to make due with seeing some frighteningly limber elderly folks waltzing away to polkas aplenty. That didn’t last long, we pretty much just watched that when we sat down to eat lunch. Kishka, pierogies, crepes, the usual. The girlfriend had some Krupnik, which I am pretty sure she ordered on accident because she wanted mead but there was a sign for krupnik at the mead stand. The event program said they had mead, but it turned out that they didn’t. Which was hella lame, but what can you do?

I didn’t buy much when we went shopping. I bought a magnet because my fridge is in dire need of them, Pole-themed or otherwise. I also bought a cookbook, Treasured Polish Recipes for Americans, largely for the novelty. I might make one or two things out of it, but I pretty much bought it for show. There’s some righteously disgusting recipes in there… but there are also some good ones. Who knew kishka was so easy to make?

I briefly considered buying a novelty t-shirt… but my love for completely corny and pointless things only goes so far. I couldn’t bring myself to wear a shirt that says “You bet your dupa I’m Polish” or “I only like her for her pierogies.” That’s a level of awful I’ve not yet reached.

I wanted to check out the tent dedicated to St. Josaphat’s Basilica, a Polish church here in Milwaukee, but didn’t get the chance because everyone was started to get bored (or ill) at that point and all wandered off in different directions. In the interest of not losing every single member of my family I stuck with at least one person. So, I didn’t see it. I suppose I didn’t necessarily need to see it, either. I know about it rather well already. My grandparents were married there, so I took an interest in it pretty early on. It’s a neat place. If you want to see a picture of its absolutely beautiful interior, click through the ‘read more’ link at the bottom of this post.

That’ really I have to talk about regarding Polish Fest. I would’ve had a far more entertaining experience had I gone Saturday night, but that’s alright. There’s always next year! My next destination is SummerFest, and while I said I might go to Bastille Days on my festival post, I probably won’t. I don’t remember that one being very good. So instead, after SummerFest I’m awaiting GermanFest starting July 23rd. We’ll see how that goes!

If you read my blog on a regular basis, you’ve probably seen the picture above. It’s a picture of my lawn from a few weeks ago, with a view of the back of my garage. It doesn’t look like that anymore. I would go as far as to say it looks completely different now. Let me show you…

Yeah. It’s torched. Completely and utterly. About three days ago, around 3 pm, the garage went up in flames. We have no idea what caused it, but the popular theory right now is that the fire was electrical. It seems to have started at the very top of the garage, which would imply wiring. You can’t see it very well from the angle above, but the very top of the garage is pitch black. The shingles you can see from this comparison angle are in surprisingly good shape. The other side of the garage is black, probably because that’s where a majority of the flammable material was. You know, things like a goddamn car. More details (and pictures) behind the link below.

Like I said, it happened around three days ago. I guess ‘surreal’ would be one way to describe it, but I’m not sure if it’s the right way. I’m pretty infamous for reacting to catastrophe very, very differently than most everyone else, so this happening didn’t really bother me. It barely phased me at all. I was completely oblivious to anything happening at all at first, I was busy working on something for work when it happened. I was mostly just really annoyed that somebody was suddenly banging on our door and ringing the doorbell. I assumed it was just a neighborhood kid being annoying or something like that. Note: The window of my office looks directly at the garage. If I turn my head, I’m looking right at its ruined remains, but I didn’t notice smoke billowing out of it at all. I opened the door, and my neighbor says to me, “My fucking car is on fire, man!” Then he runs by me. I was still largely unphased by it, even with the other neighbors panicking and running through my yard yelling ‘fire, fire!’ I just sort of went, “Huh, that’s weird” and went to tell my girlfriend.

I was concerned for a moment when the fire flared up and looked like the wind was blowing it towards our house, but that worry was brief. The fire department got things under control at that point, so it just went back to being odd. I was honestly more disappointed that I couldn’t go back in the house to get my camera while it was still burning, that would have been some awesome footage. Instead, we only have aftermath pictures.

Again, ask almost anybody that knows me personally: My luck is terrible. I’m not talking that sort of bad luck that people use as justification for things going poorly via neglect. No no, I mean some cosmic bullshit. Anybody who I’m near will be absorbed into my bubble of shitty lucky. That car there? As far as we know the goddamn thing is ruined because my garage decided to spontaneously combust. And the neighbors’ other car? They had to park it out on the street because our driveway is full of rubble. Know what happened? Yeah.

Someone hit it right out in front of our house at 2 AM and totally totaled it. This is my fault. I did this. The universe hates me so much that it destroyed both of our neighbors’ cars within three days.  This is not random happenstance. This is God telling me that he’s pissed. This has been my entire life. And endless stream of disasters. People wonder why I don’t react very strongly to things, and this is why. I have been desensitized. If my front lawn were to burst open and Satan himself rose from the Earth’s depths to wreck up my house, it would be just another day. I’d hit up Twitter, describe the Devil’s shenanigans in 140 characters or less, and move on with life.

You know what makes this whole thing even better? I have to wait a few weeks for the city to bring me new garbage cans, so I get to ninja my way up and down the alley depositing my trash in other peoples’ garbage cans. Do you know how possessive people can be about their trash cans? It’s frightening.

May grab video if I can. Thunderstorms have always fascinated me.

I’m trying to make it a point to go see more of the festivals this year, because I never really got out and did that before. I’m looking at the festival schedule for this year and… it’s really obscene. Excluding little church/school festivals, the list of places I want to go is pretty long, especially for someone that lives a fair distance from downtown and doesn’t have a car. Henry Meier is easy to get to, but gallivanting all over the city is harsh. Still, this is my ideal list…

• RiverSplash (June 5-7)
• PrideFest (June 12-14)
• Polish Fest (June 19-21)
• SummerFest (June 25-July 5)
• Bastille Days (July 9-12)
• German Fest (July 23-26)
• Arab World Festival (August 7-9)
• Irish Fest (August 13-16)
• Indian Summer Festival (September 11-13)

To say I need to pare down my list would be a massive understatement. At least BlizzCon doesn’t happen at the same time as any of those, so that’s not a factor in deciding where I go. I do need to fit this Milwaukee Food Tour in there somewhere, though.

I’ll let you know how my decision process goes. If there are any Milwaukee folk in the audience, any suggestions? Are any of those a must-see? Any that aren’t worth the trip? Polish Fest is probably a for-sure on that list. My heritage and all of that. Pretty much everything else is up in the air.

You still need to enter a name and e-mail address to comment and I’ve tried to turn up security/spam control in other ways, but registering is now optional. We’ll see how that goes.

Completely unrelated: I was testing out the video quality on my digital camera when I was walking to pick up some dinner the other night. The footage I took has absolutely nothing worth watching in it, but if you want to look at a cloud or a bridge, hey, go for it! I’ve embedded them behind the link below.

No, really. It was in the low 60s today in Milwaukee, which is absolutely beautiful compared to the winter we just had. The last few days have been full of freezing rain (hooray ice-coated sidewalks) and in the upper 20s, so the warmth today was completely unexpected. I bundled up to walk to the store and pick up some soda (Dr. Pepper, if you must know). I was wearing a winter coat and hat, and borrowed my girlfriend’s scarf because breathing cold air triggers my asthma in a bad way. I didn’t really notice the temperature until I was about halfway there and it was too late to just toss my coat and all back into the house. I’m pretty sure I died of a heat stroke at least three times on the way there and back.

Of course, this pleasant weather isn’t going to stick around. It’s only March, and this is Wisconsin. It’s supposed to storm tonight, and my fancy iGoogle homepage says that it’s going to be back down in the 20s for the next couple of days. That sounds about right for the Northern Midwest around this time of year. We’ll have another day in the 60s next week, then it’ll drop down again. The pattern will continue until June, when it shoots up to the 80s with a constant 95-100% humidity until October, when it will immediately plummet into the 40s.

In completely unrelated news, I’ve been considering picking up a Kindle. Well, a Kindle 2, which they released at the end of February. I like the concept of being able to have this futuristic datapad around that I can pick up in the morning and read the newspaper on, or my favorite blogs, or some books, or whatever I want. Instead of going outside to pick up a paper, the thing is already sitting on my coffee table. That’s pretty sweet.

What isn’t sweet is the fact that a Kindle will run me nearly $400. There is very little that is worth $400 to me. A Kindle is not one of those things, not by a long shot. It doesn’t help that their ebooks aren’t much cheaper than actual books. Essentially, the $400 you’re paying is the price of covenience. Is not needing to go to Borders once in awhile worth $400 to me, considering I can have the newspaper sent to my front door every morning anyway if I wanted? Absolutely not. Especially since Borders is where I indulge in my addiction to Chai Tea/Lattes.

Another thing that counts against the Kindle is the fact that I don’t yet have an iPhone. Not only does the iPhone have a Kindle app, but it’s also far more useful an a whole lot of other ways. The only issue with getting an iPhone is I need to cut my contract with US Cellular short. US Cellular is terrible. Terrible. My phone didn’t even come with any games, or the ability to download games. What kind of phone doesn’t come with games, or let you add games? Useless ones.

It’d cost me $150 to break off my US Cellular contract, which I will most certainly do… eventually. Not right now because I need to cough up roughly $3,500 in taxes in the next couple of months, but sooner or later I’m going to take the dive and get an iPhone. It’ll be really fantastic for work-related things, too. Not being able to check my e-mail or check up on the site when I’m out of the house drives me crazy. It really has reached the point where if I’m not plugged in constantly, I get the jitters. Purely work-related, too. I don’t worry about my leisure activities at all if I’m at the store or whatever, but work? Oh hell yes. I hate not knowing what’s going on at every waking moment. An iPhone will help me dramatically. My laptop really didn’t cut it, though it is nice having a computer in two rooms! Yeah, I’m hopeless. When do I get to put a computer directly into my brain? Or maybe I could have a pair of glasses with a computer in them that I manipulate with my eyeballs. That would be sweet and solve a lot of my problems.