Monday, December 27, 2010

Shitbird

So this year at work they gave every staff member who has been working there for more than 6 months a free turkey.
My name was on the list, so I got a free turkey!
When I went to pick it up the meat guy said to me: "If I were you I'd take the biggest one."
So I did that and carried home a 3.06kg frozen turkey.

According to the instructions I was supposed to let it thaw in the fridge for 10 hours per kg. About 30 hours, right - I wanted to cook it on saturday at 2 PM, so I transferred the bird from the freezer to the fridge thursday evening at about 6 PM. For a bit of extra time, you know.

Then comes saturday 2 PM and I want to put the fucker into the oven. What did I find? First, the shitbird was still frozen stiff, and second it was to big for my pan.
Well, back in the fridge with you, and thinking about the size I postponed to later.

Attempt #2: On sunday at 2 PM there was still ice on the bird, but only in the middle and not as much. I removed the bag of organs and the neck from the turkey and filled it with stuffing. The oven was already preheating at 375. I squeezed the bird into the pan and covered it with tin foil.
And into the oven it went.

Let me say at this point that this was the 4th turkey I have cooked in my life. The first one for last year's thanksgiving turned out awesomely, juicy and delicious; the second one for last year's Christmas turned out a bit dry, but otherwise great; the third one, last thanksgiving, had to be put in again because it wasn't fully cooked, but adding another hour of cooking time took care of that.
From all this experience I was quite confident that turkey number 4 would turn out pretty well.

At 4, 5 and 6 PM I bastered my turkey, which looked amazing and smelled even better. One leg was sticking out from under the tin foil.
I prepared my vegetables and mashed potatoes and everything, before at 7 PM (after 5 hours of oven time for Mr. Turkey) I took the bird out and started to cut it.

I started with a few slices of meat from the breast. About two slices down I found the meat was still pink. FUCKER! Ah, well, I calmed myself, we'll just have the legs now (the table was all set, after all), and cook it a bit longer.
When I went to cut off a leg I found that the meat down below was still raw. SHITBIRD! ASSHOLE! MOTHERFUCKER!

We decided to have leftover garlic chicken from yesterday instead.

I rammed the fucking shithead assfucker fuckbird back into the oven, where it remained until 10 PM. At regular intervals I would open the oven door, peek in and say: "You fucker are staying in there, shitbird, and you will cook until you're fucking done."

It was nice and brown at 10 PM.
We will eat it tonight.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Mushaway Awesome!

This week I taught some of the supermarket staff some useful German words, words they would most likely spell something like this: mushy, fodza, shissa.
In return for this valuabe knowledge of Muschi, Fotze and Scheiße they taught me an awesome word in Cree, which I would spell like this: mushaway.

It means "fucking", as in: My fucking language skills!

Mushaway awesome!

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Discovery Of Speed

It must be Christmas.

Why?

Because finally some tech guy came in from the city and installed new routers.
And now the internet is fast again.

Some issues remain, though. I'm writing this on my old computer. The XP machine works just fine. My new Win7 system has some problems connecting so far - remember from Vista: it would connect to the network, but couldn't identify it, therefore no internet access.

I have to look into that.

EDIT:

I have looked into it. Amazing, what the new Win7 network problem solver button can do. I just had to click "repair". What a nice feeling to experience the www again on 1900x1200.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Today

bad:
-not enough breakfast (out of toast)
-cold winter with blowing snow
-no incoming phone calls
-no incoming email
-fucking super-slow internet connection, possibly caused by falling snow
-ate the last of my soup
-forgot cash at home and had to borrow 10 bucks

good:
-listening to old song Blase fits the occasion less and less
-workday went by faster than anticipated
-only one day until weekend
-incoming mail: letter, postcard, package
-unexpected gift of homemade soup for afternoon coffee break

result:
-myself tired, bored and waiting for phone to ring, will go to bed soon or alternatively play video games
-feel a need to eat Christmas chocolate
-feel a need to eat Stollen
-feel a desire to smoke cigarettes, but don't want to go outside (cold)
-feel a small wish to drink wine
-will drink cold tea instead

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Monday, December 6, 2010

Visualizer

I enjoy my soup accompanied by a fried egg.



ps: I cannot use Skype these days, my connection is too slow. The good old telephone will have to do.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Cabbage Soup

I had these almost empty containers of mustard piling up in my fridge. They are designed in a way, that doesn't allow all the mustard to come out, you can shake and squeeze them all you want, it just doesn't come out.
So what am I supposed to do, throw all this good mustard away?

I don't think so. I thought I'll keep it to make mustard sauce or something. But then time flies, and suddenly I was facing not 1, not 2, but 3 almost empty bottles, with a 4th one almost there.

Why do I tell you this?

Because yesterday I was given for free a great big reusable bag filled with:

- 10 lbs of russet potatoes
- 2 nets of onions
- 1 big bag of carrots
- 1 bag of parsnips
- 2 heads of cabbage

Well, what could I do really but to decide to make soup? So I decided to make soup. Cabbage soup. I have never made cabbage soup before.

I cut up 6 big potatoes, 4 carrots, 4 smaller parsnips, 1 head of cabbage, 2 onions and 1 yam (forgotten in the cupboard) and threw it in a pot of water.

Problem: Even if you throw all these fine ingredients in a pot with water and boil it, it might still taste a little bit shallow.

That's where the mustard came in. I rinsed the mustard bottles and poured the resulting mustard-water into my soup. It gave it a nice light-yellowish color and a less-watery texture. Then I added salt, pepper, a bit of Italian seasoning and some Cajun spice for good measure.

I tasted it, and it was okay, but my mother raised me a certain way, so I threw in 10 tablespoons of sugar and half a glass of vinegar.

Perfect.

I enjoy this soup by itself or accompanied by a fried egg.

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

To the store, actually.

This year the honour of frightening little children fell to me, and today was the day. They found last year's Santa suit upstairs and aired it out a bit, and then they dressed me up.
Red pants, black boots (which are actually only fake-boot-like-things that go over your own shoes, in my case: blue Adidas sneakers), red jacket, white gloves, black belt, white wig, white beard, 3 bells on a string. And a Santa hat.

I'm not really fat enough, so they stuffed me with a pillow AND a blanket. Nice and warm.

I wasn't aware of how big a tradition this really is in this country. Mothers basically outran each other to thrust their small defenseless children into Santa's lap just to take photograph. All I had to do was say: HO HO HO and jingle my bells a bit while noticing how long the line-up of children was.
Some children had long lists of wishes: a batman toy... and a joker toy... How about a batmobile, I suggested. Yes. And a spiderman suit.
Some children didn't know what to wish for.
Other children really didn't want to be there, so they squirmed and yelled and screamed, to the delight of their mothers, who stood nearby taking pictures of these memorable moments.
Some children were actually adults, one woman said she'd been naughty, and she whished for a man. Another woman said she'd been nice, and she wished for tall man with dark hair.

Most children mumbled. No really, they were really hard to understand.
What's your name? Mmmbvlele. Ah, ok. And what would you like for Christmas? Uhhmm mmmbllbe. Well, we'll see what Santa can do! Smile now! And off you go!

The whole time I felt very insecure about my Santa performance. Jingling bells and saying HO HO HO isn't really much to base a character-performance on. I felt like people were seeing right through me, as if they knew I was not the real thing.

No really, everybody talks like this at the Northpole.

The children seemed convinced enough, tough. What I saw in their eyes was real fear.

I also understand now why they put Santa high up or somehow a bit away from the line-up. It's to prevent the waiting children from hearing that Santa says the same things to every single kid. This way they also can't hear Santa's frequent complaints about how fucking hot it is, and what fucking time it is, and how fucking uncomfortable the fucking beard is, and how the strap is digging into Santa's scalp.
Not that I voiced any of these thoughts.
But I thought them.
Often.

Altogether a quite interesting experience.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Door Of Perception

I came home today and found my internet connection gone.

This kind of stunned me. I sat motionless in front of my screen, watching the connection meter crawling at -98; I was numbly staring at my non-existing, rarely spiking, quickly fading link to the world. What had been 40 to 60% before (depending on which program you use to monitor it), had crumbled down to 2%.
I stayed in this state of inactivity for about 4 minutes, then I went and got my winter coat.
It was time to adjust the antenna.

The more inside walls and wiring and ducts and equipment and whatnot they put into that unfinished building over there, the worse my connection gets. I had noticed a decrease in signal quality in the past weeks, but I had hoped I'd have more time.

I put my knitted tuque on, I grabbed a wrench, I put my boots on and went outside into the -17 or so degree weather to have a visit with my antenna.

I re-aimed it to the best of my ability to where I believe the source of the signal is (which is kind of hard with a building in the way). I adjusted the angle of the dish by a few degrees, always with a close eye on my screen, where I could see if this did any good.

After a while I managed to get a gain of maybe 5, so now I am back at -92, or 8%, depending on the program, which gives me at least a steady connection again. But it's only patch-work I guess, soon it'll be gone again, and then I will really be out of options.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Meta Meta Meta

Something astonishing happened today.

My blog complained in or through itself to me about having to deal with my shit. My blog, utilizing meta-communication, demanded more attention (see comments under post below).

It's nice to be needed.

You know what, blog? FUCK YOU.
I am in charge, and unless you can provide me with proof that you really have feelings that can be hurt, I will not consider posting anything just because you ask me to.
Nor will I stop posting.

Have a nice day.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Is This Really Real, Or Just A Dream?

I just spent 3 hours wrapping Christmas presents.
Most of them are for my wife. Seems she's been nice this year. I must love her a lot.

The pile looks quite impressive. I'm looking at it right now. And really, it's not even december yet. Must be all that Christmas merchandise I see at the store everyday. Or maybe I'm just bored. My wife is out of town after all.
Yesterday I found her red high heels in the closet. I instantly knelt down, and sniffed and touched the artificial leather.

Right now I could really really smoke a cigarette. Outside, and yes, it is almost minus 20 outside. But a cigarette would be nice.

Good thing I don't smoke.

There's one thing I find really annoying. It's about frozen pizza. Delissio Deluxe. On the package they don't mention the weird meatballish ground beef. The kind that feels like crumbly shit in your mouth. They only mention all the awesome olives and peppers and veggies and pepperoni and cheese, but they fail to inform the costumer, me, about the disgusting meat. Fuck you, Delissio Deluxe.

I'm gonna need some nuts. Hazelnuts, to be precise. They belong auf den bunten Teller, some crazy tradition from where I come from.

I have a question: Say you have friends who are a couple. Say you don't really give each other presents for Christmas. But then say you found some awesome gift for one of them, so naturally you want to send it to them. But you didn't really see anything anywhere for their partner. Now do you have to buy something crappy for the partner just so they both get something?
Or will they automatically know we're thinking of them, too, even if they don't get a present?
I hope so.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

S N O W

Now we have snow. 15 centimeters or so, probably more. It's still snowing. The sky is grey, low cloud cover. No way there's gonna be planes in weather like this.

Goodbye hotel room, goodbye red wine, cheese and olives.

Hello, frozen pizza, here I come.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Weather Warning

Fuck living up the buttfuck's asshole.

I had planned to fly away from here today, but couldn't, because of the weather. Couldn't drive to a bigger airport either, because of freezing rain. This sucks.

It's really time they invented teleporting.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Soup

By the way, you can't live off frozen pizza alone. Especially if it's overpriced. That's why I cooked myself a nice green bean soup today.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

I Used Up All My Duct Tape

Praise and respect to all the Swiss army knifes on this planet. Today I used mine to cut a wooden board into small pieces (no, I do not own a hand saw).
Why did I do that?

Well, it was a necessary step towards re-building my usb-dish construction once again. I just didn't feel that a signal hovering around -90 was the best thing. Plus I had still doubts about the focal point.
I brought the whole thing back inside and re-did the whole mirror-pieces procedure again, but this time I fixed the top-bit of a paper-coffee-cup to it, basically as a ring-to-look-through in order to see the lamp's reflection in the mirror pieces. Doing this showed me that the focal point was a bit higher up and a little further out, so I had to construct something to make the arm longer. The focal point is now about 56 centimeters out, which matches my calculations about a dish like this.

So I brought home a wooden board from work (one of those I'm collecting to build a dog house) and used that to build a new base for my new receptor. I bought two cans of Puritan Beef Stew (on sale, 2 for 5), emptied one can (I'm gonna eat it later) and used it to make my new cantenna.

This is what it looks like.


Yesterday I also found another old chair outside, quite weather-worn but still sturdy. I thought it might come in handy to get the whole construction a bit higher up, so I used cable binders to attach my half-chair to it.


It looks a bit adventurous, but it's quite stable. We had rain and very windy weather all day today, and it didn't tip over.

Let's cut to the chase: Was it worth it? Did the signal strength improve?
Yes, it did.


A nice gain of about 10, as you can see the area north of -80 gets visited quite frequently. So, compared to just the usb-dongle outside by itself, which clocked in at less than -90, and considering that I have still trees and a building in the way, the result is quite ok, I think.
If anybody has any idea how to improve it even more, let me know.

I'm gonna eat that beef stew now.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

I Want To Believe

For some reason I just couldn't believe that the focal point of the dish is not located where the receiver-thingy was mounted: on the end of the arm.
So I broke a tiny mirror and taped 8 pieces to the edge of the dish, then shone a light on it in a dark room, put my face to the end of the arm and tried to see the reflection of the lamp in every single piece of mirror. And would you believe it, I indeed saw the reflection of the lamp in every tiny single bit off mirror.
So I removed the usb-dongle from where it was and taped it to the end of the arm, using the plastic cover of the receiver-thingy as a base. To weather-proof it I put a clear freezer bag around it and taped it to the arm.
Still, so far I don't really see a lot improvement.

I have to think about it some more, and try more, but at the moment it's raining and very unpleasant outside, so I guess I'll do that tomorrow.

I also found out that my usb-dongle is so old, it doesn't even work with windows 7. (It turned out last night that a steady -85 connection is way better than a spiky -75 one, so I tried to hook up my new laptop. Well, I guess my old computer has the privilege of being online for now.)

As for using multiple usb cables, or shorter ones: I can't. Since I don't exactly live at the hub of civilization here, I have to work with what I got: 2 usb cables 3 meters each that get too long if I put them together, and a fucking old usb-dongle. Better than nothing though. Of course I could order things, but then I could also order and buy a brand new and stronger usb-dongle. But where's the challenge in that?

It only has to last until november, anyway. I actively and consciously choose to believe.

Monday, October 25, 2010

What Is He Doing Now? Contacting Aliens?

I had the afternoon off today, so I worked some more on that usb-dish. I found an old chair outside, half of it missing, on which I mounted the dish. I also removed the receptor-thingy, or whatever that is, from the arm on the dish (attaching the usb-dongle to it didn't get me any gain, so I figured the focal point must be somewhere else.
I searched for it using the old trial & error method: moving the usb-dongle around while keeping an eye on the signal strength.

But how do you fix something in place 33 centimeters above the arm in mid-air? You can't use any metal, and it has to be weather-proof.

Piece of cake: With bottles. I bought two bottles of water at the supermarket and drank them, then I just replaced one of the caps with my usb-dongle, cut 4 holes in the bottle's bottom, taped it with tape to prevent ripping, and attached it to the arm using cable binders.
I didn't need the bottom of the second bottle, so I cut it off, then I just stuck the bottomless bottle right on top of bottle #1, thereby shielding my precious electronic parts form wind and weather.
Then I aimed the whole thing roughly at where I think the signal is coming from, and it provides me with a steady -85. That is not great, but better than what I had before, and it is a pretty stable connection.


I did all that with my old laptop.

When I checked my new laptop, I noticed that the signal pattern had changed. Instead of a constant -90, which sucks, I suddenly saw a lot of spiking up to -75. Well, you can't watch youtube with that or even listen to online radio, but you can surf the net. And at every spike even faster than the connection of my old laptop. A bit unreliable, though. But since I can't connect the dish to my new laptop without moving my whole workspace (usb cable not long enough, 2 usb cables together cause signal-loss), I think I'm okay with that.


I guess it must be from the dish outside the door. We have some kind of nook here, walls on three sides and a balcony right above. I'm thinking the signal gets reflected by the walls or something, and then bounces back onto the backside of the dish, and from there right at my computer.

But then again it could all just be coincidence.

I don't know if this is the optimum, though. Probably not. Maybe I'll work on it some more.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Poker

Last night I played poker again with my boss and his friends. 20 dollar buy in, 10 buck re-buy. And what can I say, I won and went home 100 bucks richer than before. Yay.

Today at work I paid the price for it. Poker lasted until 3 in the morning or so, and I had to work all day today, inventory, counting stuff. Have you ever counted stuff with dead beer still in your system? Not a lot of fun.

Then again: One of the guys in fact had, you won't believe it, in his shed a totally unused spare satellite dish.
And he was so kind to give it to me - I borrowed it from him.

I tried to set it up after work today, but I think that fucking usb-dongle is just too old and weak. And really, satellite dishes like line of sight a lot.
But line of sight I can't provide.

I might try some more, but I don't have much hope.

By the way, praise to my microphone stand. It's so versatile. Last night when I came home and wanted to grab my towel after brushing my teeth I suddenly remembered the laundry, because my towel wasn't there.
Of course I couldn't throw it in the dryer in the middle of the night, so I transformed my mic stand into a great big T and hung my wet clothes (on hangers) on it.
Dry in the morning.

I like my stuff.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Cantenna

I've found this little program called Inssider 2.0 to monitor the strength of the wireless signal.
Here's what the connection has come down to:

As you can see it hovers around -90, which means: you can't have a stable connection. I know that at around -75 it is good enough to actually use it. So naturally I thought about options to gain those 15-20 dB.
I found out that you don't have to spend fuckloads of money to improve the sending or receiving power of your system. With a bit of knowledge and the right tools you can build your own antennas.
Well, I can't do anything to the source of my signal, because it is not mine. Therefore all I can do is try to enhance the receiving end by building my own new antenna. But how to connect it to my laptop?
Since I am no electronic specialist and don't own the right equipment, opening up my computer and fucking around with the built-in antenna simply is no option. Therefore I decided to get my hands on an USB external wireless dongle.

I figured if I can get a gain of 15 using the dongle, everything'd be just fine.

So I went to the store to buy one (I knew they had exactly one available), but in the end I didn't have to purchase it, because luckily one of my co-workers had one sitting around unused, and he gave it to me for free.
Yay! So went to the canned-food aisle and bought myself a can of ravioli (the only bad side of this little project, I had to eat them). Then I went home and tried out my new free USB device, an old Trendnet tew-624.

Thing is: I hooked it up to my computer and the thing didn't even pick up a signal. It is actually weaker than the antennas that are already built into my computers. Using the dongle as connecting device I had to walk outside to get the -90.
That sucked.

The whole project had instantly become useless, because even if I managed to get my 15 dB of gain, I would just end up where I was before.

But then again, I had already bought and eaten the fucking ravioli, so by god, I wouldn't not refrain from building my antenna!

So I sat down with my swiss army knife and assembled this device:


So this is a pretty directional home-made antenna. Using it I managed to get about -90 inside. So it actually worked! I thought about setting it up outside, but because of a number of reasons like cable-lenght, window-situation, outside-temperature, possibility of theft etc. I decided against it.

Instead I opted to try different antennas first, and also to enhance the performance of this thing.
I looked around in the apartment for things to use to collect microwaves, and in the bedroom I found a metal lampshade. Then I made this:


Unfortunately this device didn't work at all. So I took it apart and instead built this thing, an attempt to create a spherical reflector, some kind of two-dimensional parabolic dish, if you will (I wish I had an old satellite dish).


I used tin foil and string, but it was very hard to find the right spot for the usb stick. I couldn't find any means to create a stable construction, so that's why I abandoned this one and went to build this instead:


Well, I got a flicker out of that one, it would pop up every once in a while somewhere at -96 or something. I decided to combine it with my initial successful cantenna:


But this didn't do anything but bad to overall performance. So I disassembled everything and felt satisfied enough that I managed to build a working cantenna (and to waste a lot of aluminium foil and duct tape). No practical use in the end, but it was fun anyway.

Now, if I had an old satellite dish, I could combine it with the cantenna and aim it directly at the source of the signal, that should get me another 10 dB, I think. Maybe I'll find one somewhere.

By the way, I'm writing this on my old laptop from the other building. They've started to build the roof on the building inbetween. Our apartment is now completely cut off.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

The Shield / I Am A Monkey

The source of my internet connection here is located in a different building, between 30 and 50 meters away. Inbetween is an area half grass, half trees. Well, there was an area half grass, half trees until they cut down half of the tress and dug a great big hole in the ground. Until they filled that hole with a basement. Until they started building fucking walls.

The connection became better when they removed trees. The connection remained stable when they dug a hole, it was fine when they built the foundation and the basement, and it was quite alright when they started building the walls.

Then two days ago they added another half meter to the fucking walls, thereby finishing them, thereby COMPLETELY FUCKING UP my connection.

Question: How do you seriously fuck up a wireless connection?
Answer: Build a fucking building in the way.

And now I'm sitting here with an on-and-off-fucking-mess of a connection, unreliable, laggy, slow and overall bad.
Hello? This is my door to the world!

Word is they're gonna fix this somewhen next month. Blessed are those who are believers.

Then again, who knows what it's good for. Maybe I'll go out more now.

Sidenote:
Today I was lifting up a dresser (for delivery), when the unthinkable happened. My pants, which I purchased about six months ago in London of all places, ripped apart at the seam. The ass-seam. Completely straight down from belt to balls, CRAAACKCH!

Only six months old!
I will attempt to fix them.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Winter...

...is officially here. It's white. Snow in the trees, on the cars, on the ground, in the air.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Now I Have A Machine Gun

This morning I looked outside and everything was white. Yes, white. Snow.
It didn't stay, though. It was gone before noon.

Two days ago, while climbing on top and behind the giant coolers in the store (to retrieve merchandise that has been there probably for years), I ripped a hole in my pants.

Yesterday I forgot to deal with this hole in my pants.

Today I remembered. So I took my old green sewing set (curtesy of German army) and sat down to fix this. It was a pretty basic rip, about 3 centimeters long, then a 90 degree angle and another 3 centimeters.
Well, I'm no seamstress, but they taught me the basics in school (grade 3, I think). First I considered sewing a patch of other fabric behind it, for stability. But then I thought 'fuck that' and I just sewed it together, looping 'round and 'round and 'round, 'round the corner, and 'round and 'round til the end and then the whole thing again backwards. I did this on the inside of the pants, of course.
When I was done I looked at my work and what came to my mind immediately was the old saying:

Not beautíful, but rare.

It looks like a scar. Sewn up under gunfire or in some dark backroom by a disgraced surgeon. Too bad I didn't have whisky in the house. I would have liked to disinfect my needle in it.

Deja Vu: Civilization V is out. I like it. What you miss though is the sense of achievement after winning a game. No replay of your growing empire anymore. No graphics showing where your culture jumpstarted, your science rocketed, your points soared high. Just demographics, and the button: Back to Main Menu. Kind of dis-rewarding. Patch, please.

I think tomorrow maybe I'll buy myself a handsaw (one of those they literally call fox-tail in Germany: a tool with a long blade with sharp teeth along one edge that is used with one hand only). I have collected quite a few small wooden boards from work (they put them in packages to protect long bendable things like curtain rods from transport damage), and maybe I have enough to build something nice. A doghouse perhaps. I might have to liberate one or two two-by-fours from the construction site nearby, although I'd rather avoid that.

Oh, I think for some reason they have mentioned now at least three times who they'd like to be the supermarket Santa Claus this year: me. They want to make my beard white.
I also had a brief talk about religion today in the staff room. Talks about religion are always something one should not commit to. One should especially avoid saying things like:

"No, I'm not baptized. But I was at a baptism of a friend once. There was a guy in a costume who held a speech and then made everybody drink red wine out of the same cup and then he gave people crackers and then he put some water on my friends forehead. So what the fuck that's good for?"

The answer was: "You're evil."

Well, I guess coming to town this year is goold old Satan Claus. Ho-Ho-Ho!

Monday, October 18, 2010

Snow

Today it snowed for a while.

No big thing though, last year it snowed on october 8th already. But I thought I'd mention it.

What else is new? Civilization V is out. It's very different from IV, and you have to play at least on Prince, the three difficulty levels below that are totally useless. A lot of fun though, time goes by quickly, and once you've finally made yourself free from all your old Civ IV habits and worked yourself into the new game mechanics it is even more fun.

Also out: Gothic 4, or as they call it: Arcania. I won't bother with it, though. From what I read about it, it probably and very likely sucks.

Airing: Dexter, season 5. I've seen the first couple of episodes, okay entertainment so far. Things seem to go as expected: Dexter a suspect (kind of), kids off to grandparents... I noticed that he doesn't kill as many people anymore, though. There seem to be less dead people altogether, somehow. Compare season 1, I think he kills off three guys in the first 2 episodes alone. Plus 2 dead women, one dead cop, one dead cop's wife.
Ah well. I like this show.

I have to go.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

And If He... Alters It?

The internet was down all yesterday evening well into today. What about my routines, connection? What about my chess moves (made 1, then zip), my emails (who t f cares, most of it spam), my news (more of the same)?

I was bored a bit, understandably so, which lead me to do something I don't do very often: I turned on the tv and after zapping full circle once I recognized a movie: The Blind Side.
Why not, I thought, I've been a Sandra Bullock fan for a long time. I remember about 9 or 10 years ago a good friend (bigger fan) had lots posters of her on his wall, one of them showing Sandra Bullock wearing a very short skirt, photographed from the front, and she was leaning towards the camera a lot. Looking at that poster I often imagined myself standing somewhere behind her.
However, so I watched The Blind Side yesterday for the second time (I have seen it before), and I think Sandra Bullock totally deserved the Oscar for her performance. This movie has now officially entered my personal list of movies that always make me cry. Other list entries are: Die Hard, no, just kidding. In fact, right now I can think only of one single movie, and that is Zärtliche Cousinen. No, I'm kidding again. It's Forrest Gump. It's always time for tears when he see his Jenny again (reflecting pool...). In The Blind Side: Whenever she tries to hide her emotions.

Well, today I finally finished dealing with the turkey leftovers: I made two pots of broth, turned one of them into lentil soup, froze the other one. I picked out all the meat from the bones, too. Now I have a medium sized pot of turkey meat in my fridge, and a pot of soup. I think this will last me until sunday.

Work related news: None. Boxes, boxes, everywhere. Christmas is coming. Better hide.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Donkey

Oh my god, I am so full.
I just came back from my second Thanksgiving dinner: delicious juicy turkey, mashed turnip, mashed potato, the most amazing salad with avocado and other exotic stuff in it, gravy, cauliflower broiled and covered with cheese... and then, as if that weren't enough, a dessert of three different pies: coconut cream (pure poetry), pumkin pie (a dream) and apple pie (like heaven).
I won't have to eat for days.

Then again, our fridge is filled with all kinds of leftovers from our own Thanksgiving dinner: more than half a turkey, potatoes, salad and whatnot. It's gonna be a pretty one-sided diet.

Some people, and I find that very interesting, don't even cook their turkey-filling inside their turkey. They just cook it by itself in a fucking pot, but still call it filling. Weird.

Thanksgiving.
Bigger than Christmas.

Crazy.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Maybe I Should Find Out About Edible Mushrooms Around Here

So my wife's still out of town, this is week #6. After turning to frozen pizza for a while I have now decided to go back to real cooking. It just tastes better. Today, for example, I made a great big mashed potato-sauerkraut-pork-pea-mix-with-cheese-on-top-casserole. It's enough for today, tomorrow and wednesday.
If I had a camera, I would post a picture. But my wife took it.
Also I found that 1 person needs more money than 2 persons. Technically I should be fine with about 65 bucks per week, without struggling (this being half of what I spend for my wife and me averagely). But it's harder than I thought to keep to that limit, even though I hardly buy anything, no fancy stuff, just the basic food I eat.
However, this week my wife's gonna come home, and I am gonna cook us a turkey. Whee!

By the way, I've been working the whole weekend. Hopefully it'll get less busy now for a while. I've been planning to make some music or spend time doing similar creativity-based activities, but it hasn't happened yet: too tired, too bored, no inspiration...
My computer games are all boring lately, too. And the books I read mostly suck, too. I read too much of the same crap, I guess, always terrorists and lonesome heroes and assassins and spies; Bob Lee Swaggers and Jack Reachers (though these two are definitely worth a look).
I feel a need for some real literature rising up inside me. Something the caliber of "Jude the Obscure" maybe. Something that has a few more layers than one.

Friday, September 24, 2010

Memory Lane

I am very lucky to own music by this formidable band*, which doesn't exist anymore.




Especially a recording of their famous last show, which I remember well, because I myself was there, and so were all my friends who I don't see so often anymore, which sometimes makes me sad a little.

Sometimes I even listen to aforementioned music.

Today is such a day.



*and of course the band that opened for them that day in July.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Hotspot

After hearing about a little program called Connectify, which supposedly is able to turn a Win7 computer into a WLAN hotspot I wanted to try it out.
So I downloaded it and started it etc, but for some reason the program kept turning off DHCP on the virtual wifi miniport adapter, so my poor old xp-laptop who had to play client couldn't find a network adress, thus the connection remained incomplete.

So I researched the whole thing a bit on the internet and found out that Connectify is really no more than a GUI for features that are already part of Windows 7.
I immediately de-installed Connectify, rebooted, checked the virtual wifi miniport adapter and found DHCP still off, so I turned it on.
Then (as admin) I brought up a command window and typed:

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid="name" key="password" keyUsage=persistent

Name being the name of the network of course, and password the password. Choose to your liking.
After that I opened the sharing options of my internet connection (right click on my real wireless adapter, properties, sharing) and turned the option to share the internet connection on; and of course I had to select the connection associated with the virtual wifi adapter there.

Back to my command prompt:

netsh wlan start hostednetwork

And that was it. My client-computer immediately* found the new wlan and could access the internet through the connection of my main computer.

Very nice. To turn the hotspot off type:

netsh wlan stop hostednetwork

to see it's status type:

netsh wlan show hostednetwork


*Honestly, all this took a lot longer to figure out, but in the end it works, which makes me happy. It was all because of Connectify, effin' third party software had fucked up half of my settings.

ps: for those who don't wanna type all the lines all the time it might be easier to just create one or two .cmd files, then right-click-execute-as-admin them.
(use pause if you'd like the command window to stick around)

More information can be found for example here (German).

The Little Man In The Boat

Today was a quite educationally valuable day. During breaks in the staff room I learned that one is never really alone, even though their wife might be out of town. How's that, I asked, and my co-workers immediately enlightened me.

It is because appearently Handselina Jolly and Palmela Handerson are always with me, where ever I go. Furthermore I was also informed that there is in this world a little man in a boat, although according to a different co-worker this little man might also be a quite big man in a boat sometimes.

Two fingers, they added, as if holding a cigarette, are usually quite enough to touch this little man in his boat.

I was amazed and almost spilled my coffee.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

The Queen's Tits

So what do I do when my wife is out of town?

I pick up new sayings, like for example what you say when somebody shuffles the deck forever:

"You're gonna wear the Queen's tits off."

Way funnier than the German equivalent, roughly: "Once there was someone who has shuffled himself dead."

We had a delicious dinner first, complete with a nice chess game and interesting conversation, and then afterwards went someplace else and played poker all night long. It's 5 in the morning now and I just came home. The last time I did something like that I can't even remember.

Oh yes, I have to remind myself to put those 30 bucks into my expense-statistics, category: fun.

I better go to bed now.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Best Before

Today after work I walked home as I usually do. It was raining, that is not unusual. With my left hand I carried a plastic bag. Inside the bag: 2 loafs of toast, 1 dozen eggs, 1 long distance phone card. In my right hand I carried an open can of coke.

Then I slipped in the mud und saute mich total mit dem dreckigen Schmotter ein. Die ganze Hose eine einzige Matschwampe, die Jacke ein kompletter Modderhaufen, Schuhe total schlammverschmiert, Pfützenwasser in der Einkaufstüte und Colaschwappe überall.

Großartig.

None of this spoiled my happiness in any way, not at all. I got up and walked on and kept singing made-up dubdub dubdidei songs* in the rain. The wetness of my clothing was annoying though, and cold.

At home I stripped naked, started laundry, put my groceries away and discovered that 4 eggs were broken, took a shower, put a frozen pizza in the oven, whipped up a cake, took the pizza out, put the cake in, ate the pizza, moved the laundry along, took the cake out.

This is the cake:

pretty basic poundcake, made using 4 broken eggs; with chocolate swirl AND raisins, some of the necessary sugar substituted with honey; powdered sugar not yet added

By the way, the other day (last week) I baked a different cake, because I had to use up that good old Rocky Mountain Quark before it went worse-after.

This is the quark container:

container, now empty, once filled with quark

This is what's left of the part-quark cake.

yeast dough replaced by quark-oil-dough, topped with a quark-egg-lemon mix, other half: sugar and butter

*One of the songs was about a fish in a tank. The fish was at least 213 years old and very hungry, because I hadn't fed it in a while. It had belonged to my dad once, and to his dad, and to his dad, and to his dad, and to his dad, and to his dad, and to his dad, and before that to one Mr. Jerkoffsky, a Polish immigrant from Poland, who happened to have opened a pet store somewhere in New York.

**Also my beard is growing nicely.

3 times Brato, with 5.5 month-beard, today

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

September, September

In the morning when I step outside the air is crisp and fresh. It smells like fall now.

Man, am I happy that I finally finished all this posting about the game Survivor. It only took me a month. Oh, now that I mentioned the word month, yes: My wife left town for a number of months, work-related. So I am all by myself here, going to work everyday, and not cooking as much.

I bet this will reflect in the statistics of grocery-purchasing: I had to include a new category: processed foods (for frozen pizza). Also I think the snack and softdrink catagories will experience a total boost. To balance that the overall weekly cost will go down a lot (as well as fresh fruit and vegetables), probably to 50 or 60 bucks per week, or less.

We had a long weekend recently, I completely spent it doing nothing. 3 days of doing nothing. That was very nice. (I also played computer games a lot (Risen), and read a bit (Jack Higgins: The Eagle Has Landed; it drags a little).)

And now, humming an old tune (...ich lebte...so leer und frei...im September...da ist alles vorbei...), I say: Good Night.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Survivor Tale #14

Monday morning the game master took us all to the beach again, then she busied herself with tying some rope to a bunch of trees, winding it around their trunks. This was done in preperation for the next challenge, which worked like this:
The players didn't do this all at the same time, but one after another: They had to "run the rope", follow it through and around the trees. This made it necessary to sometimes climb over or crouch under the rope, and you had to pay close attention not to get stuck, because each runner had to one of his arms attached to the rope with some kind of snap hook. There was also a big wooden picnic table with "built-in" benches involved, under/through which everybody had to climb. The player who ran the course in the shortest time would win immunity.
I think Stephanie did it in 1 minute 18 seconds, J.T. went twice, because his hook broke, he was faster than that, Amber, too. Shambo was the only one to have the hook on her other arm, which gave her a disadvantage, and if I remember correctly she didn't make the 1:18. The fastest one was actually the tallest player, James, he did the course in something like 1 minute 2 seconds and therefore won immunity.
The following tribal council was quick and the result was not unexpected: Shambo had to go.

Back to the cottage, where the next challenge was almost already waiting for the remaining 4 players: It was about Holding Things.


They had to press the handles together to keep the wooden cubes in place, and after certain time intervals they picked up more and more cubes. Whoever lasted the longest, would win.

I think J.T. dropped his cubes first, and a while after that, Stephanie. Amber and James however kept sitting there, arms up, holding their cubes. Anybody who ever tried to hold out their arm in front of them knows how hard it is. Now add to that the weight of the cubes and the lateral force needed to keep them together to get an idea of the perseverance necessary.
Man, it took forever. 15 minutes, 30 minutes. Amber's arms muscles were trembling by now, but her face showed nothing but absolute determination to win this thing. James next to her didn't seemed troubled, though. It looked like a walk in the park for him.
Finally the cubes fell.
James had won another challenge.

Another vote, another one out, but this time it was more complicated:
When the game master counted the votes, it was Stephanie's turn to go. But out of her pocket she pulled the second immunity necklace, so votes for her didn't count. Lucky her. Unlucky Amber.

Three players left, next challenge: Balancing ashtrays on "prolongable" plastic sticks. This time more a dexterity-than-stamina-related game.

James won it.

He had now won 4 or 5 challenges in a row, thus preventing himself from getting voted out. Great accomplishment, and just the way to play this.
Because at this stage a vote didn't make sense (J.T. votes Stephanie, Stephanie votes J.T.), it was James' prerogative to pick the player to accompany him to the final round.
He chose J.T., so this was were the game ended for Stephanie.

Well, the weekend was almost over now, and we all had to catch our boat back to the mainland. It took about 2 hours to take the tents down, clean everything up, pack all the bags and gather all the garbage and transport everything to the wharf, where the boat was already waiting.
After loading everybody jumped aboard.

Only 1 thing remained: We had to determine the winner.
13 previously voted out players now had the chance to vote for their personal favourite, so the game master called everybody one by one to her and had them write down a name on a piece of paper.
So who would I vote for?
After thinking about this for a while I came to the conclusion that I now could either honor the work of a great bullshit artist - or let me put it differently: Wasn't it an awesome achievement to end up in the game's finale without even winning a single challenge? The fun and friendly short dude with the little belly succesfully managed to circumnavigate all dangers and outsmarted and outlasted so many of us. That was definitely worth voting for.
On the other hand there was James, who in the beginning of the game, during the first few challenges, stayed under the radar; still he was always a force to be reckoned with. He chose to play his hand well and consequently started winning challenges only when it became important to do so. This patience and physical power couldn't go unvoted for, could it?

So when it was my turn, I wrote: James.

When everybody had voted, the game-master sat down in the middle and read the names to us.
The great counting began.

1 for James.
1 for J.T..

Another for James.
Another for J.T..

J.T. again.
And James.

James. He had 4 now.
Number 4 for J.T.!

And another for J.T.!
The score was now 5:4 for J.T., and 4 votes left.

Next vote: the equalizer for James.

5:5.

And James again. 6:5.

2 votes to go.
Was the next vote the decider?

The game-master slowly unfolded the piece of paper, looked at it for a moment, then looked at us and said: The winner of this year's Survivor is... James!

His trophy: A beautifully carved wooden immunity idol.
Everybody shook hands with J.T., and everybody congratulated the winner.

And then the boat reached the mainland and docked. The weekend was over.

James won the game.

I also liked his beard.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Survivor Tale #13

They voted me off.
Those backstabbing Purple traitors voted me off.
It made sense to me, but I couldn't believe it.

It should have been Blondie!

I walked away from the circle of players to join those who'd been voted out before, whose fate I now shared. One of the helpers pointed out: You were too strong. They voted you off.
Ah, I said.
Motherfucking purple traitors.

I went to get myself a beer, after that I preferred to sit by myself for a while. Quite disappointing. The game master and her helpers were busy setting up the next task, creating some mysterious wooden structure that reminded me of gallows. It looked like they could use some help by a tall guy. I didn't feel like helping them at all. You can build your gallows yourselves. I looked to the right: My former opponents were all happy and merry.
Yeah you fuckers, there you have it, I thought. The next challenge is gonna be "Hanging By The Neck", and whoever doesn't shit themselves and is still alive at the end wins immunity.
Good luck.

I must confess I was a little bit disappointed, but at that time I also understood an important thing about this game: Always be nice and friendly to everybody, but when it's good for you, don't hesitate to stab them in the back. Twist the knife.

Heureka: Half of the game is about how much of an hypocritical asshole you can be.
Other half: Physical accomplishment. Win challenges, make sure they can't fuck you over.

At least I had made it to the top 7. I felt for those who'd been voted off early. If that had been me... I mean, you don't get to participate in any of the challenges and games. Instead you get to set them up and watch others play. All work, no fun. Sucks.
After half an hour (or a bit longer) I felt better and was able to really smile again.

I went over to the gallows, where the next challenge was about to start.
It wasn't Hanging, it was more like Standing.
Standing on a post under the burning sun, holding up one arm, which is tied to a bucket, which is filled with water. Your arm gets too heavy - you get wet. And you're out.


The game master gave the signal, and for about 10 minutes nothing at all happened. The first to splash himself was J.T., followed by, if I remember correctly, the Orange one. Then Stephanie and James.
15 minutes had passed, the next 15 minutes brought no change. Shambo and Amber just stood there in the heat like they were statues. Maybe a twitch of a muscle here and there. Shambo kept talking to people, Amber had zoned out to somewhere only she knew.
The game master started thinking aloud about making them lift up one of their legs, making them stand on one foot to speed this thing up.
I wanted Shambo to win.
But she didn't. After 37 minutes she had to step down, granting Amber immunity.

The game master called for tribal council immideately, for this had taken longer than expected and there was another challenge to come. An award challenge.

They sat down, voted, and Blondie had to go. Nice how you went with the plan after all, you Purple traitors.

The award challenge was: Surprise: Standing on poles again, this time with their hands (not touching) on their heads, elbows sticking out. That seems easier than it actually is. Last one standing wins an outstanding evening meal and can choose another player to share it with.
Long story short: James won this one, but he gave his prize away to Amber & Shambo (Whooo, everybody started to whisper, wasn't this an awesome strategic move in order to get rid of them so the other 3 could peacefully plan crazy conspiracies? Yes, it very likely was, everybody agreed.)
By sticking with the larger group he probably wanted to prevent them from allying against him.

Back to the cottage! Since this was the last evening, we had to make sure to use up all our liquid supplies. No use in taking full bottles and cans back to the mainland, right?

Party!

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Survivor Tale #12

It was time to vote somebody off. But who? The last remaining former Orange person had immunity (as did I), so we former Purple ones couldn't follow the original plan.
Looking back I realize that this was the moment where I should have acted, should have set something in motion. If I had played my cards well from this position of strength, later misfortune might have been avoided.
I suggested to vote off Stephanie to the boys, but they didn't want to do that. They said it'd better to get rid of Sugar first. I agreed. It must have been my high-flying-imminuty-state-of-mind that prevented my alarm bells from going off. Here's what I should have done: Go straight to Shambo and Sugar, ally with them against James or Stephanie, get Blondie to join in, too, and then try to get Amber onboard. The idea might have flashed my mind, but at the time I dismissed it.

There'll be plenty of time to do these things later, I said to myself.
I couldn't have been more wrong.

We sat down in a circle to vote, and without much surprise Sugar had to go. I didn't like it. It didn't feel right. I felt like one of those secondary movie-characters who rat out the hero and then later try to make amends. Only they usually get their ass kicked first.
Byebye awesome Kung-Fu-dude!

The game master gave us some time to rest before calling us to the next challenge. This one, by the way, was my least favourite challenge of the whole weekend. (This is probably because I sucked at it.)
The helpers had painted a big square in the sand. Placed inside were 7 rows of 4 little packages each. Every package consisted of 4 pieces of wood, tied to together with some string, the ends of that tied to loops.
All players received a piece of rope with a metal hook. The task was to use the rope-with-hook to fish for the packages and drag them out of the square. After sucessfully retrieving all 4 of them, the player was allowed to open the packages and sort the wooden pieces (which had letters written on them) into a phrase.
Whoever shouted out the solution first, won the game.

And go! I swung my hook, but the fucker didn't wanna catch the fucking loop. By the time I finally managed to drag my first package home, Amber and Stephanie both had 2 already. I just couldn't figure out the right way to do this in time, I tried throwing the hook, slamming it down, wiggling it; I tried going to far and then pulling it back, but it was all basically useless. Everybody was catching packages all over the place, only mine didn't wanna bite.
Finally I managed to get package number 2, and I was just throwing my rope out again for number 3, when I heard the game-master: Amber has all her packages!
Awesome.
5 seconds later it was all over, Amber had solved the puzzle.
The solution was "Individual Immunity".
How ironic.

An unusual long time elapsed before the next vote took place. I had tiny voices in my head, telling me to do something, but I didn't listen to them. After all it was Orange's turn now, wasn't it? I could trust the boys that far, couldn't I? That big quiet bearded dude James, who gave everybody raspberries every morning. The shorter J.T. with his belly, always so friendly, he wouldn't hurt a fly. No, they were good boys. I wasn't so sure about Stephanie, but then again pretty convinced I had nothing to fear from Shambo. And Amber? That could go either way.
I had another beer and came to the conclusion that I had a decent chance to get lucky this time: Orange girl would be voted off, and then after the next challenge it'd be time for some serious action.

The game master called us over.
It was voting time.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Survivor Tale #11

I don't quite remember what we had for lunch, probably rice mixed with our last can of beans, and canned peaches for dessert. Except Sugar and Shambo of course, they cashed in their mysterious envelope and enjoyed (veggie) burgers and hotdogs and whatnot.
The rest of us, well, how do they say in Germany: A beer is a meal.
Make that 2.

The afternoon then took us back to the Eastern beach, where upon arrival the helpers took the buoys into the water. Aha, the next challenge involved going into the water. I personally wasn't exactly happy about that, because I hadn't brought a swimsuit. Usually I wouldn't think twice about things like that (I'd go in naked), but out of respect for those prude citizens of this country I decided my black underwear would have to do.
However, the challenge: The game master put a bunch of colored wooden bars (each with 5 little holes in them) in the sand, and every player had to pick one. Attached to the buoys in the water was a rope, and attached to that rope where 40 little flags, 5 flags per color. And who would have thought, appearantly these little flags in the water fit exactly into the little holes in the wooden bars. The task was simple: On the signal, run into the water, get a flag of your color, bring it to the beach and stick it into your piece of wood, then run back for the next flag, and so on. The player with all their flags in place first wins the challenge.

Well, that seemed easy enough. All you had to do was be fast. I hurried to pick the right color for me, I wanted a bright and easily recognizable one (without my glasses I am basically blind), which was orange.
Everybody took of their unnessecary clothing and lined up next to their piece of wood. I felt kind of weird in my underwear. Fuck those who succeded in making me self-conscious about being on the beach in underwear! I tried to ignore it. Crazy locals with their cover-thy-knee swim-shorts. How could one ever want this much heavy water-soaked fabric on their body?


The game master asked: Everybody ready?

I put my glasses in my shoes and was ready.
This was the moment where our (Blondie and I - for ?$§%!!'s sake, I seem to be unable to recall her Survivor name) mysterious envelope came into play: A 30 second head start for the both of us!

The game master held up her watch:

Ready!
Set!
Go!

I ran into the waves as fast as I could, Blondie next to me. I tried to jump the waves to minimize the resistance. The flag-rope was about chest-deep, my orange flags were easy to see. I went to the right-most flag first; they were tied to the rope with some kind of string, I pulled the flag off and hurried back. When I reached the beach 30 seconds had passed and the others started dashing forward. This advantage was really worth it! Two steps up the beach, I stuck my flag into the sand and ran back into the water.
I figured with that kind of head start I had a pretty good chance to win this one. If everything went smooth all I had to do was to be faster than Blondie, which seemed entirely possible.

If everything went smooth.

I brought my second flag home quickly, but flag number 3 was kind of stuck on the rope. I couldn't get it off. After trying for a what seemed an eternity but was probably more like 5 seconds I went for the 4th flag instead, which came off easier. Back at the beach I took a moment to wriggle my flags into the piece of wood - which was tricky, too, they barely fit the holes. And back into the water!
Around me everybody was swimming and running and splashing and racing; there was absolutely no way of telling who was in the lead. It was crazy. When I reached flag 3 for some reason it came off pretty fast, easier than expected, I grabbed it and turned to make my way back to the beach. My legs were starting to get heavy though, lifting them up and through or over the waves became harder and harder. I risked a quick look at the other flags when I placed mine in the its hole, it seemed promising, so many flags to count, though, I was probably ahead, but without glasses I couldn't be sure. No time to lose!
As I ran back in Blondie was coming out with her 4th flag, so I was in the lead! Just grab the last flag, Ethan, and you're home free!
But when I got to my flag the fucking thing didn't come off. I pulled, I turned, I pushed the damn thing, it wouldn't budge. Next to me people were arriving empty-handed and departing with flags, and I stood there, losing time, stuck with this motherfucking flag that didn't want to move. The cord that tied the flag to the rope must have tightened or something, I tried undoing the knot, but that was impossible. So I pushed and twisted the flag like crazy, voices in my head screaming: THIS IS TAKING TOO LONG! THINK, GODDAMNED, THINK AND DO SOMETHING!
The flag was slowly moving. In the corner of my eye I registered Blondie reaching her last flag. I still had about 2 or 3 inches to go. TWIST, Ethan, pull that flag out!
Blondie grabbed her flag (Why did her's come off so easily?). 2 inches to go!
Blondie was making her way back to the beach.
This was too much. Fuck you, flag! I had to go all-in, either they'd disqualify me or I'd win this thing. I broke off the last inch of the flag and swim-jumped after Blondie as fast as I could. There she was, just leaving the water. With 1, 2 big strides I was next to her, past her, she dove to the ground, arm stretched out with flag in hand, I threw myself forward, chrashed into the sand and brought my flag down and stuck it onto the board.
A bit to the right Blondie had done the same.

2 seconds passed, and another one.
Who had won? Who was first?

The game master looked at Blondie, looked at me, and finally she said: "I have no choice."

She stood up: "DOUBLE IMMUNITY!"

Blondie and I had both won the challenge.

flags in the sand

Friday, August 13, 2010

Old Man My Ass

I just came back from the movie theatre, and I have seen 1 movie and 3 trailers.

Red
Has Bruce Willis, that is usually enough for me. I'll watch it.

SAW 3D
Is this really necessary?

Takers
Honestly, it looks like it should have gone straight to video.

The movie I've seen was of course The Expendables.
What fun! Didn't need a lot of brain for this, but that was expected, wasn't it? And I totally want to watch it again, just for all the stupid one-liners and all the severed limbs and blood splatter and explosions and knifing and hand-to-hand-combating; and for the awesome scene involving Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Minor annoyances of this film are in my opinion the completely useless guy from Dexter, totally unbelievable, and the sometimes really shaky camera. Story has some holes, too, but who cares?
What did I read somewhere on IMDB?
Think Rambo, but with 5 Rambos and 2 of them know Karate. That sums it up pretty nicely. Plus Rambo (Stallone) is not so annoyingly serious this time. Shoot a guy, crack a joke, blow a building, crack a joke! Get a bit emotional, and... crack a joke!

Way better than A-Team.

Survivor Tale #10

One challenge to go before lunchtime. But first: The vote. Everybody sat down in a circle again, everybody wrote a name on a slip of paper, the game-master counted and said:

"The next person voted off Survivor is Rob!"

So byebye Rob.

We immediately proceeded to the next challenge, which was an auction. We remained sitting in a circle, and the game-master handed 100 pennies to every player. Available for purchase were 6 items: 1 bag of Doritos, 1 pack of chewing gum, 1 pack of chocolate bits and 3 unmarked envelopes. Each of these envelopes, so we were told, contained 1 of the following: an advantage for the next challenge, awesome food for the upcoming lunch, a hint to where the second Immunity Necklace was hidden.

Imagine that, a second Immunity Necklace! A magic token of protection you'd pull out triumphantly if they tried to vote you off! A piece of hand-made jewellery that said: Fuck you, fellow players, I'm staying! What a prize!

First thing auctioned off however was the bag of Doritos. The last remaining orange player, she was sitting right next to me, bought it for 20 cents.
Then the chocolate bits, if I remember correctly James grabbed them for about 35 cents.
Nobody seemed to want the gum, so I finally stepped in and got it for 5 pennies.
And now it became really interesting.

The situation: Better food, the advantage and possible immunity still available, but we had no idea which envelope contained what.

The first envelope went quickly. Somebody offered 100 pennies for it, but Sugar and Shambo instantly teamed up and offered 2 bucks. Nobody could beat that. Nobody formed a quick 3-person-alliance. Their offer was accepted, and both Sugar and Shambo now were out of cash, but had 1 mysterious envelope in their possession.

2 envelopes left. I really really wanted one. I would have taken both of them, but that was impossible. I could still get 1, though, but not by myself. And I had a feeling other people were teaming up, too.
J.T. still had 100 pennies, so did Stephanie right next to him (the both of them sitting to the right of the game master). You could see in Stephanie's eyes how much she wanted that necklace. These two were whispering, they were definitely teaming up.
Sugar and Shambo, sitting to the left of the game-master, were basically out.
And then there was Amber, with all her 100 cents, myself, 95 cents, the orange one, 80 cents, and James, with about 65 cents.
So when envelope #2 became available, James offered his 65 cents, and I offered all my 95 cents, and I think Amber offered 1 dollar.

"1 dollar - One!", the game-master said, "1 dollar - Two!"

I knew if this one sold for only a buck, I would have no chance to get my hands on the third one later. Stephanie and J.T. would grab it. I had to drive up the price for this one right now, so I frantically tried to find someone to team up with me: James? He didn't want to. J.T.? Shook his head.
Okay then, Orange girl? How much have you got left? I couldn't really wait for an answer, so I said: We offer 1 dollar 85!
A slight miscalculation on my part, but it went unnoticed, because J.T. and Stephanie instantly went for it and bought envelope #2 for 200 pennies.

That was good. Orange and I then teamed up for envelope #3, and since nobody could beat our 1.75 dollars, it was sold to us.
I was very happy with this result. Doritos, gum and 1 envelope between 2 players. Very good.

It turned out that Sugar and Shambo had grabbed the better-food envelope, and when Orange girl and I opened ours, we discovered a 30-second head start for the next challenge.

That meant that Stephanie and J.T. had a shot at the second Immunity Necklace.

Again, I should have seen it. The signs were all there. The boys had told me repeatedly that Stephanie meant danger. She had to be voted out soon, I thought. Right after Orange. And then, as I ventured further down the strategic path in my mind, we'd have to find a way to get one of those boys out of the game... they were too strong together. But first things first.

Lunchtime.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Lifetime I Will Never Lose

Why not?
Because I have already seen the trailer.

The Town
You know what they say in the trailer? From acclaimed director of Gone Baby Gone (one of the most boring movies I ever walked out of). Luckily that won't happen with The Town, because after seeing the trailer I have basically seen the whole thing.
Too bad. I like bank robbery movies.

Tron Legacy
Can you be more boring? Can the main hero be more insignificant?
Okay, I guess Tron is something for Tron-Enthusiasts, which I am clearly not, but if that trailer was supposed to win new fans or make my mouth water, it failed miserably. Who wants to see another lame CGI festival? Good guy VS bad guy with weirdo disc-weapons. And what's with the Eighties-glow-stripes? I sure won't go see this one.

The Social Network
I must confess I find the trailer somewhat interesting, but that may be because I like a) Radiohead, and b) a certain Belgian girl choir. It is therefore understandable that any motion picture trailer with a girl choir version of Creep playing in the background will grab my attention. So I guess I might check this one out.

The American
George Clooney in some kind of professional killer movie? With a trailer that doesn't really tell me anything? I'm sold. I'm so gonna go and watch this. No questions asked.

The Green Hornet
Seth Rogen. Well. Superhero movie, standard Hollywood. Well.
Then again, it has Cameron Diaz. Can't really think of a reason not to watch it.

Legendary
Yawn.

Devil
From the mind of M. Night Shamalyan or whatever his name is? Set in an elevator? Sounds like a bad version of Drag Me To Hell. No thanks.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Well, the trailer looks interesting. If I only was a fan of the original Wall Street. I guess it's checkout-able.

Scott Pilgrim Against The World
Probably not as funny as expected, but I can't really miss a movie in which a character picks up an extra-life just like that. Gonna see this one.

Man, I have seen a lot of trailers lately.

Lifetime I Will Never Get Back

I'm going to the movies a lot.
Saw "Inception", which is actually as good as they say. If you like layered dreaming, that is. Which I do. The film is a bit confusing at the beginning, but once you get it, it's just great to see how it all comes together. Nice work, Mr. Nolan.
The music, by the way, is awesome. Great work, Hans. Wonderful soundtrack.

Then, for absence of a better choice, I went and watched "The Other Guys". This movie is a lot like "Cop Out", only funny. This of course doesn't make it a good movie, but at least it is funny here and there. Not like "Cop Out", which utterly sucks.
Sometimes I think they don't make good movies anymore. Remember those buddy-movies from the eighties and nineties? Which were funny, but not stupid, and had action, not CGI, and had a story, which was believable? Like for example Lethal Weapon, let's say, 3, or maybe Rush Hour 1? Or Die Hard With A Vengeance? 48 Hours?
Well, "The Other Guys" is at least watchable. It has it's moments.

Today I'm gonna go again, and I think I'll watch "Salt" again. Yes, I have seen it before. But I liked it. And I don't wanna see anything else now playing.

And tomorrow, tomorrow I'll definitely go and watch "The Expendables". Whoohoo!

Survivor Tale #9

Some of the helpers told me to be careful. If I appeared to be too strong, if I won to many challenges, I'd make myself a target. They'd vote me off the game.
Well, not this time. This time I had the Immunity-Necklace.
(I'll post pictures as soon as I get them.)

So when tribal-council started after the counting-challenge I didn't need to worry about a thing, nobody could vote for me. Besides, internal player-conspiracy had already determined who was to be considered dangerous and therefore voted off: Parvati.
And that's what happened: Parvati had to go.

Time for some gun-play! Nine players left in the game, nine target-posts on the beach. Each post has 3 little tiles attached to them, after all 3 tiles have been shot off your post, you're out. The player with most intact tiles on his post in the end wins.
The twist: You could only shoot the gun after answering the trivia questions right. Every player received a bunch of yes/no cards. The game-master asked a question (like for example: "On this island, you're allowed to light fires at the beach. True? False?"), then each player would show their card. Everybody with the right answer could shoot once at a tile/post of their choice.

the shooting challenge - note the selfmade-from-t-shirt-leftovers handbag hanging on the stick

The gun was a pellet gun. When the shooting started, eveybody aimed at Rob's tiles first, except Rob, who aimed at mine. The great big player conspiracy had already decided that Rob (the last dude from Orange) was some dangerous motherfucker and had to go. So we had to make sure he didn't win this challenge.
And he didn't, he was out first. I was out second. I should have paid attention to what was going on right then, but I didn't. Why be concerned? The old purple team had agreed after all: vote out the orange leftovers, then deal with ourselves. Still two Orange to go, no need to worry.
It's nice how people believe what they want to believe.

At some point during the shooting challenge the wind picked up a bit, so the remaining players exchanged the gun for rocks, and instead of shooting the tiles off the posts, they just smashed them down with rocks. The last one standing was James, so I had to hand the Immunity Necklace to him.

Time to vote.

Survivor Tale #8

First thing sunday morning: Get coffee. So I grabbed my mug and got some hot black coffee from the kitchen, and I drank it, and I went and got more, because as far as I knew I had a bottomless cup deal; so I also gave coffee to the others. James had gathered some wild raspberries again (like the day before), very delicious.
After the real breakfast (rice with canned beans - let's not talk about it) we were off to the eastern beach, to see the first challenge of the day.

The day promised to be eventful, judging from all the stuff and equipment the game-master and her helpers were loading onto the 4-wheeler. All kinds of posts and buoys and stuff. Also a gun.

At the beach the helpers set up 5 stations, numbered 1 to 5. Each station was a big plastic plate filled with a certain amount of pieces of beachglass, rocks, and shells. The challenge worked like this: Each of the ten remaining players received a piece of paper, but no pencil. On the go signal we were to run to a station of our choice, count everything on the plate, run back to the game-master's helper, grab a pencil, write the numbers on the paper, give the pencil back, run to next station, repeat. With five sets of numbers on the paper we'd run to the game-master, she'd check if we had counted correctly. The first player with the correct set of numbers wins the challenge.

Boah, what a shit challenge! Again you had to focus like a motherfucker, and above all: stay calm. No use in running back and re-count stations, is there? On the go signal a wild bunch of crazy chickens playing a game of Survivor spread out in all directions and started counting like accountants. Soon there were line-ups at the pencil-guy. Wheee!
When I came to my second station I discovered they were not in the correct order. What I thought of as station 3 was actually station 1. Great. Nothing better than to add a bunch of crazy arrows to the scribbled numbers.
I tried to stay calm and focused, finished my counting as quick as I could (dodging other players), and handed my paper (which now had 15 numbers on it) to the game-master. She looked at it - I stood there - she kept looking at it - I stood there (my mind strangely empty, except for the constant: Let it be right! Let it be right!) - she said: No!
And off I went again. Problem was, I had no idea which number wasn't correct. I decided to systematically recount all stations, starting at the left-most one (no other player there at that moment). I recounted, and of course: my new count didn't match my old count.
Back to the game-master.
Let it be right, let it be right!
No!

Next station. Recount. Numbers seemed correct. Next station. Recount. Rewrite numbers.
Game-master.
Let it be right!
No!

Off again. I recounted the remaining stations. Other players were sitting in the light, moving shit around on the plates for their counting. Don't get confused, man!

Game-master's verdict: No!
Arrgh!

I counted again. By now I had counted everything twice. It had to be right!
Game-master said: No!
Fuck you!

Off again. Re-count. Numbers I had corrected before, I re-corrected back now.
Line-up at pencil-guy. Line-up at game-master.
Game-master: No! Helper: A very interesting "no".
What's that supposed to mean?

Another count! Fucking beachglass sometimes looked like rocks. Fucking shells sometimes were hiding under shells! So did fucking rocks!
Run back - grab pencil, scribble numbers.
Game-master: No!
Helper: Like before!
What?

Just stay focused, man. I counted again. By now I was sure my count was correct. This time it had to be right. It had to be.
Line-up at the game-master again. I had to wait.

Actually, I didn't know about the right count anymore. After all this re-counting and re-checking and re-writing everything seemed to be possible. By now, I thought, it was just a question of getting lucky.
My turn. She checked. And checked.

"Uhm, I didn't mean the fuck you earlier."

Game-master: I know.

"Ethan wins the challenge!"

Phew. I won the challenge. I didn't even wanna know if I had counted right. I hoped they wouldn't re-check.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

German Restaurant

There's this thing about international restaurants. They are never authentic. Heavily influenced by the country they are located in*. How do I know that?
Because I just came back from probably the most terrible German restaurant on the North-American continent. It featured everything you need to make the locals believe it's German:

- rude SS-waitresses (awesome job doing the Nazi-attitude)
- Bavarian trumpet-music in the background

On one single plate for one person:
- 1 Bockwurst disguised as 1 Bratwurst
- gravy to the horizon
- 1 ham steak disguised as Kasseler
- flavourless Spätzle drowned in aforementioned gravy
- 2 pretty decent slices of pork roast (drowned in gravy)
- 2 Knödel drowned in aforementioned gravy
- Sauerkraut
and
- a "German" salad (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, carrot, a bit of potato salad; all of it swimming in tomato sauce)

I'm out of words.

The menue boasted 10 different German draughts, in reality there were only 5 and their variations (dark, light). They offered a thousand types of Schnitzel, but no Hamburger Schnitzel and no Wiener Schnitzel, instead their Schnitzel came topped with either tomato sauce (sooo German) or Swiss cheese.
The whole place seemed to cry constantly: "If I only was a chain-restaurant! If I only was a chain restaurant!"

I will never go there again. Never. Ever**. In my life.

*I remember this "Italian" restaurant run by a bunch of Germans back where I come from. Not 1 Italian thing in the place except the pictures of Naples. The menue features German versions of Italian dishes. People love it.

**Except maybe to have a beer. The beer was good (compared to what else is available). Warsteiner.

Survivor Tale #7

At some point during saturday I was first approached by some of my fellow players to plot against other fellow players and to form certain alliances. Later, when everybody was expecting the Merge of the teams, I was approached again, in a cautious "think-about-it"-way.
Very interesting.

The Merge happened saturday evening around dinner time. The game master handed out new nice olive-coloured t-shirts and cool black hats to the remaining 10 players (the girls immediately started ripping, uh, modifying their shirts again - it broke my heart). From now on everybody was playing for themselves - no more team work.

The remaining players (using their "Survior names"):
From Purple Team:
James, J.T. , Stephanie, Amber, Sugar, Shambo, Ethan (me).
From Orange Team:
A dude (Rob?) and two blondes (Parvati and ??).

The boys (James & J.T.) had talked to me early on, just to make sure that in case of a purple-vote-off I'd vote one of the girls (Stephanie, Amber) out. I was okay with that, one of them seemed especially dangerous. Therefore I was a bit hesitant later, when one of the girls came to me talking about alliances. I kept my answers vague.
With the Merge looming ahead though, the boys as well as the girls repeatedly spoke of voting the former orange people off one by one in the upcoming challenges. Then later, when we'd be down to pure Purple again, we'd deal with ourselves.
I was fine with that (must be some deeply buried German gene of segregation), and I relayed the information to Shambo. Sugar didn't seem to be interested at all in forming any alliances or voting anybody off - conspiracy communication didn't work well with him.

But we didn't get a chance to vote anybody off that evening, because there was only one challenge left to play that day: The memory-challenge. This one was played for an award, the prize was access to hot coffee, a toothbrush and a shower in the morning.
The challenge works like this: 42 tiles are arranged face down on the ground. Each player can turn over 2 tiles while it is his turn. Every match scores 1 point. The twist: it is not just about matching the symbols, it's about matching the symbol-halfs, because every symbol is not only cut in half, but also depicted twice. Therefore it can happen that two halfs of the same symbol don't match.
The first player to score 4 points wins.

for a hot shower and a cup of coffee

This one was hard, and probably because of the sudden no-team-work-anymore I also found it a bit nerve-racking. I just tried to stay focused and to remember the symbols the others turned over. Especially Shambo and Parvati were pretty good at this game. They both scored multiple points before I even had my first.
At some point I realized I knew two matching tiles everybody else seemed to have missed. Nobody ever turned them over. Neither did I, I just tried to keep them in the back of my head. I went for the obvious ones instead, the near misses of players just before me.
At some point I had scored 3 times already, so had Parvati, Shambo and a couple of other players.
The little yellow thingy on the game field helped me a lot. I kept repeating in my head: 2 over and 1 up from the yellow thing, 2 over and 1 up from the yellow thing...
And when it was my turn again I turned it over and walked to the tile I believed was the match.
It was.

The game-master said: "Ethan wins the challenge!"

Nice! Coffee for me! I didn't want the shower (With the weekend only halfway over, what's the point of getting clean? I'd just get dirty again. Besides, there was always the ocean.) I gave the shower to Parvati.