I’m a vegetarian, and thus found this pretty gross, but it’s amusing nonetheless. I can say, with all honesty, that this is EXACTLY how Hungarians feel about their sausages.

Fun video of the bringasok action from back in the bloc (via Index.hu):

Ah, many fond memories! Thanks to bringababe for the tip!

(Click images to enlarge)

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And I’ve lost a wheel.

Was out late last night at an apartment warming party that Kacsa threw. ‘Twas good times, though some weirdo kept asking me to play (I was the Def Selector) Michael Jackson tunes. One is ok, but three in a row? That weird one with Naomi Campbell? Not happening.

Anyway E and I left “early” at about 2:30am and went to Corvinteto, which has all the charm and style of a red light-swathed opium den (and I’ll let you decide whether that sounds cool or not), where we proceeded to get our boogie ON. Long story short, my 7:45am alarm came WAY too soon.

So I got sad.

Part of it is that we’re leaving. Sometime. More on that soon, when I force myself to sit down and write again. But then I read the news about the NYPD goons getting acquitted, and I just felt terrible for Sean Bell and his family and friends. I have no clue why, except that they are so obviously the victims of a racist and unjust system – but what else is new? Bang off twenty shots. Stop. Reload. Bang off another twenty shots. It was him or us, judge. Who was Amadou Diallo again?

Then we heard that a bicyclist had been killed yesterday. Riding on a bike path, hit by a truck that took a right without looking. Maybe he wasn’t either. And I wanted to cry for his family and send them cards and hug his kids or siblings if he has them. Maybe he doesn’t. I mean, didn’t.

We decided to join a group of 150 or so bikers that had gathered at Heroes’ Square to paint a ghost bike and chain it to the spot where he was killed. It was pretty powerful, all these people who didn’t even know the guy coming together to ride. Along the way we stopped at another ghost bike, one for the victim of a similar incident that happened a few months ago. This madness must cease.

And you would think it would – soon – judging by the turnout of last Sunday’s Critical Mass ride. It was only the biggest in the world, EVER, at an estimated 80,000 participants. The only things bigger are the anti-government rallies and the Sziget Festival, but I don’t even know if that counts because most of those people are foreigners.

But the truth is, Hungary is changing impossibly slowly. It is a wildly squawking Turul with its wings drowning in a thick paprikas. Did I tell you yet why we’re leaving?

And this is the most poetic thing I’ve read in months. It makes me sad to know these truths.

But don’t worry, I’ve been drinking water all day.

I’ve noticed something recently about Hungary: when things work the way they’re supposed to, we’re disappointed and even offended. It’s part of the legendary Hungarian self-aggrandizing/self-loathing, where proverbs such as “Hungarians are happiest when they’re in tears” describe a sort of pride in things not working quite ideally, or at least, not the way they do in Denmark.

The first example is the entrance to our building. There are two doors, which each take the same key. For over a year, the second door has stuck just enough so that it doesn’t lock, and can be just pushed open. While obviously a security issue, the crime in the neighborhood is so l0w (aside from my bike being stolen from right outside this very door) that most residents probably believed that the one outer door was enough. Recently, however, the inner door closes and locks as it should. But instead of being relieved that we are one glass door safer from burglary than we were before, our reactions have mostly been negative, along the lines of “whose stupid idea was it to fix the door? Now I have to unlock BOTH of them. That’s double the work! What a travesty!”

Another example has been the effort on the part of the mass transportation authority to field more ticket inspectors at all metro station entrances and many trams and buses, including the night “drunk” bus, and thus preventing the estimated 60% of riders who do not buy tickets to actually do so. Again, instead of people recognizing that more people actually paying for the rides will help improve the quality of service and (hopefully) eventually lower the ticket price, it seems like an affront: “what do you mean I HAVE to buy a ticket now? This has always been optional; I can’t believe they’re making us actually PAY to ride the subway!”

Tonight (Tuesday) I will once again be the guest on Radio Café’s “Legal Alien” radio show, one of the only English-language talk shows in the country. If you want to listen via the web, go to the following link and click on “Gyertek hallgassátok online!” and then look for the English explanation.

Link (scroll down a bit for English instructions)

The show starts at 8 p.m. here in Hungary, so that would be 2 p.m. east coast time, 11 a.m. west coast time, and 4 a.m. Japan time. Gomen nasai!