Go Nak Nak Over There

Moving Out

2011-10-24T19:55:00.006-05:00

For reasons that very likely make sense to myself, I have moved this blog over to tumblr.
From now on until further notice I will post there only.

The new address is

http://brato-useba.tumblr.com/.

Welcome Back, Bass

2011-10-19T00:00:00.002-05:00

Life is good.
I just came back from music making. Some local guys were short a bassist, and for some reason they asked me. A few weeks ago, out of the blue.

I've been learning bass lines ever since then, classic rock.
Today we had a very successful session, played some Creedence (Hey Tonight, Bad Moon Rising), Stones (Satisfaction of course, and Under my thumb, which by the way has an awesome bassline), and other songs like i.e. Hang On Sloopy, Mustang Sally, Another Brick In The Wall.
Next time I think we'll work on Jumping Jack Flash, and maybe some Billy Idol and ZZ Top.

I've never done this before, I have never bothered playing famous bass lines by other people. But it's fun, and it really improves my bass skills.

It's almost like in my university days, band practice twice a week... I just have to be careful not to fall back into old habits again - cigarette breaks, beer...

Good thing I brought my bass here last february, and good thing I bought myself an amp back then, too. How did I know? I didn't.
Guess I missed playing.

Not anymore.

Mistwetter

2011-10-17T16:14:00.003-05:00

Fuck me, it's cold!

Here I am, the greatest blog-writer of all: After months of silence I come back with two posts about the weather. What in the name of He-who-must-not-be-named makes me even think that this weather is worth writing about: Fucking cold, windy, all this stuff that wishes it was snow but really is only rain coming down from the sky. Mistwetter, they call this back home, literally manure-weather, or shitty weather.
Did I mention cold? And windy? The kind that blows right through your favourite jacket, through your hoodie underneath it, longsleeve underneath it, t-shirt underneath it, undershirt underneath it, and onto your skin, screaming: Hellooooooo skin, here I am, let's get some frostbite going! Shiver ahead, boy, that's what I'm here for!

How did we go from summery fall to windy wet winter?

Time to get back into my winter boots. Only took them off in may, might as well slip them back on in october.

Snow

2011-10-16T20:01:00.003-05:00

Snow today. Not a lot, but still snow. Enough to cover the grass for a while.

Yesterday there was some, too.

Winter is coming.

I Sold My Soul To The Company Store

2011-07-13T21:58:00.003-05:00

That's right.

They offered me a new position and I took it.
I make more money now.
I work more hours now.

I owe my soul to the company store now.
With passion.

THE SECRET OF HAPPY MARRIAGE

2011-06-26T13:20:00.004-05:00

I couldn't believe it, but thanks to Tony, the famous psychic healer from the National Examiner (or perhaps Enquirer, I'm not sure) , I have finally found the key to being happily married:

I have pinned this to my wall so I never forget this easy to follow rule.

Poker

2011-05-29T14:52:00.002-05:00

Played poker last night from 8 PM until 4 in the morning. At a nice-looking poker table, all soft in the middle, saying Texas Hold'em on it. A round of seven.
I had some beers. Smoked a lot of cigarettes. Laughed my ass off frequently. Won 150 bucks.
Very enjoyable evening.

Luckily I don't work today.

Poker is an interesting game. Luck is involved, but to a smaller degree than I thought. Especially when you're down to three players or one on one you really have to push, regardless of your hand.
I guess it's up to you what you call it: either getting lucky or good bluff when your opponent folds after throwing so much of his money in the pot.
Fun game.
Even more if you end up winning.

Nineties Action Movies

2011-05-26T20:48:00.007-05:00

Today for some reason I wondered about which action movie from the nineties was the best one, and I came up with this list:

Top 2 (I just can't make up my mind of which one deserves the number one spot more):

True Lies (1994)
This movie is just awesome. It has a great secret agent opening sequence with Arnie inflitrating the mansion, then escaping through the snow (poor doggies). Later the shootout in the hotel bathroom, the horse that doesn't want to jump skyscrapers, even a nuclear explosion. Lots of action, lots of comedy. Charlton Heston is in it. Too bad James Cameron never made a sequel.

Die Hard With A Vengeance (1995)
"I didn't say park drive. I said through the park!"
When this came out I went to the cinema and saw it three times on three consecutive days. The first time I disliked it. The second time I liked it. The third time I loved it. I still love it. It's awesome.

Place 3-5:

The Rock (1996)
"Hey Man, you just fucked up your Ferrari."
I love Nicolas Cage action flicks. This was probably the first one. He was all whiny in this one, but then again he had Sean Connery to team up with.

Terminator 2 (1991)
"I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle." Do I have to say more?

Demolition Man (1993)
Stallone and Sandra Bullock in one movie. L.A. destroyed in 1996. I've seen it so often dubbed over German: "Kalmieren Sie sich, John Spartan!"

Place 5-9:

The Last Boy Scout (1991)
"The sky is blue, water is wet, women have secrets."
Probably the coolest Bruce Willis movie ever. Awesome script by Shane Black. "Satan Claus" is in it. Halle Berry dies a horrible death.
(on a side note: at some point Joe Hallenbeck says to a minor bad guy: "She said her husband was a big pimp lookin' motherfucker with a hat."
The German dubbed version turned it into "Du siehst du aus wie ein verwichster Zuhälter mit Hut.", which means basically the same thing.
One night in a city I didn't know so well and between bars I quoted this line to a guy and his friends. The guy, whom I had never seen before, really looked the part, and I kind of hoped he'd recognise the quote and therefore kind of dismiss the underlying insult. (Truthfully: I probably didn't care, I was a bit drunk.) I didn't mean to insult him, really. It just seemed so much fun to use this quote on him at that particular moment.
Luckily I had a bunch of friends with me, too. When I just walked away they used a lot of effort and spend quite a bit of time negotiating the pimp and his friends down. Thank you, friends.

Con Air (1997)
"That's a rock."
As I said, I love Nicolas Cage action flicks. In this one he really really overdoes the southern accent tough guy saying things like "why couldn't you put the bunny back in the box" before kicking ass. This movie is totally ridiculous, but so much fun, right up to the ending in Vegas, where John Malcovich gets killed by some fly-by propeller blade.

Cliffhanger (1993)
Stallone in the mountains. That's all I need really to be entertained. The opening sequence also always makes me think of Ace Ventura 2. (Also it stole or re-used the music from The Last of the Mohicans (1992). I like the Cliffhanger score more.)

Under Siege (1992)
Gary Busey and Tommy Lee Jones are the bad guys, Steven Seagal is the ex-special forces chef who saves the day, the whole thing is Die Hard on a boat - there are many reasons to love this movie. I personally only need two: Erika Eleniak's boobs. I used to frame-by-frame her on my old VHS back in the day.

Place 10 (three movies here):

Speed (1994)
"Shoot the hostage."
Die Hard on a bus. To me this movie is gritty. And Dennis Hopper makes an awesome bad guy. Sandra Bullock is in it. I am a fan. Always have been. Likely always will be.

Last Action Hero (1993)
This one was so underrated. I love all the little references everywhere.

Die Hard 2 (1990)
"Why does this keep happening to us?"
The third best film in the Die Hard franchise.

Honorable Mention:

Total Recall (1990)
Arnie, Sharon Stone, lots of blood and gore and great special effects. Awesome.

Goldeneye (1995)
I couldn't not mention a James Bond film here. So I chose this one, mainly because I've always loved the bungee jump off the dam in the opening sequence.

The Matrix (1999)
This one really set off the CGI era in action movies. Therefore I mention it here. It is awesome after all.

All these movies are movies that I try to re-watch every few years or more frequently. I might have forgotten one or two. I didn't mention The Fugitive (1993), because it is not really an action movie. Bad Boys (1995) and Armageddon (1998) come to mind, too, the former probably a candidate for the honorable mention section, the latter I just enjoyed watching. Then there is The Specialist (1994) and Assassins (1995), both solid Stallone vehicles. Lethal Weapon 3 (1993) should also be mentioned, but in my opinion it just doesn't reach the quality of it's predecessors.

Maybe I'll compile a list of eighties action flicks next.

Vanessa Williams

2011-05-23T20:18:00.003-05:00

Remember 20 years ago she claimed that "sometimes the snow comes down in june"? If you don't, you can refresh your memory here.

See, I never really believed her*. I thought she was using this line metaphorically to express something else entirely, like a stylistic device.
I've been thinking this ever since I first heard the song.

Until this morning.
This morning changed everything, because june is only eight days away.

I also know that I live in a climate zone that allows for certain tax breaks due to its proximity to the everlasting ice, but then again we are kind of at the summery end of said zone. Last year winter turned to summer in late april: plus 20 degrees just like that all the way to september.

But this year Vanessa Williams has a realistic shot at something like truth verbatim. June is only eight days away.
This morning I looked out the window and saw this:

Yes, that's right. Snow. On may 23rd. Snow. Let me spell that for you: S.N.O.W. As in cold and wet and falling from the sky. Once again for the slow ones among you: S-N-O-W. Like that rapper dude from the nineties.

Okay, Vanessa. Let's see if your pronouncement will be true this year**. Eight days to go.

*Assuming her words apply to the northern hemisphere only. I wonder if Vanessa ever considered recording an alternate version for the southern hemisphere, something like "sometimes the snow comes down in december".

**And if it does prove true, does that mean that the rest of the lyrics will be true, too? Like the sun going around the moon? Wouldn't that have serious effects on the planets well-being? As in desaster? As in end-of-the-world? As in apocalypse? Oh Vanessa, what have you done. Let's hope you're wrong and will be so forever.

As Suggested By Popular Demand*

2011-05-22T01:07:00.007-05:00

My Heart Is A Strawberry & The Blaine Lake Audio Report

combined and available for you to watch right now right here for the first and only time.

The written account of this experience can be found here.

*which translates to: 1 person, jokingly. I'm dedicating this to that very person. This is for you. Enjoy.

Rammstein

2011-05-21T20:33:00.010-05:00

Friday, about 4 PM. Four hours to go until the start of the show. We took our time getting ready, ordered some pizza, hung out in our hotel room. We had a great view of the arena across the street, and soon the first fans showed up.

Fans. Always show up ridiculously early. Should we run over there, too?

Naah. Clint's on.

At about seven we went downstairs into the hotel bar to have a few drinks. We heard the music thumping from three floors up, evidently the hotel staff had put on the right tunes for a Rammstein crowd. The place was packed with fans. It was awesome.
I don't know if we were just lucky or if the God of Metal was smiling upon us, but a table cleared just when we got there. Fabulous waitresses in short skirts were humming about: we got our drinks almost before we even had a chance to order them.

After my first Corona I stepped outside for a nice fine smoke, and outside the place was buzzing like crazy, too. Rock music was playing, and clever businessmen were shouting out tickets at the corner; folks dressed in black metal wear crowded the sidewalks, and tattooed girls in ripped tights showed off a lot of skin and questionable make up. Everybody was happy and laughing and charged with anticipation. It was great.

We had few more drinks and then walked over to the arena. Inside the support band was already playing. Some featureless hardcore metal I didn't recognize. In fact, they were through their set already, for when we got to our seats they were finishing their last song.
We got ourselves another beer in the lobby and looked at Rammstein merchandise: a great variety of posters in various sizes, t-shirts, hoodies, belts et cetera. Long lines of fans in front of it. Our driver got himself some wallpapers.
I got myself some napkins from a hotdog stand, and out of them I improvised some earplugs. Didn't want to ruin my hearing for a Rammstein show. Yes, it was that loud.

Before the show.

And then they turned off the lights. Darkness. The crowd who'd been screaming "Rammstein! Rammstein! Rammstein!" before, fell silent. And then...

CLANG!
BANG!

The blackness broke open in two different spots. White light shot into the audience. Shapes emerged in those light beams, wielding a pickaxe, a giant hammer, using them to break off more darkness. CLANG! BANG!
In the center a line of fiery sparks went up, then over, then down again, like a blowtorch cutting through metal from the outside, and then with a deafening BOOM the barrier was kicked down and fell and there he was, the singer of Rammstein, spreading his arms like Jesus himself, and his followers were jumping and screaming like crazy before him, and that was the moment when the drums and the bass and the electric guitars kicked in and the hardcore was on.

This is "Du hast". The sound quality is terrible, but perhaps you get an idea of how loud it was. Awesome!

There were lots of fireworks and flames. At one point ("Benzin") they brought a giant gasoline pump on stage. The singer took the nozzle and started using it like a flame thrower, shooting fire all over the place. At the same time a guy dressed like a fan climbed onto the stage from the crowd and was hit by the flames and set on fire and ran around screaming and burning until a guy with a fire extinguisher came running. He put out the flames and two big security guys dragged the "fan" off stage.
Later the keyboarder tried to kick the singer, but in return he himself got thrown into a bathtub. The singer then poured liquid fire into that same bathtub.
Through all that the heavy hypntoic rhythm of distorted guitars, bass and drums, played precisely and on-the-spot - broken up only by string sequences from the keyboarder, who by the way emerged from his fiery bath not only in perfect health, but also wearing a new sparkling suit. For the rest of the show he could be seen walking on the spot by his keyboards, like a machine.

Fire!

Our seats were on the 2nd level, directly opposite the stage. Furthest away from the action, you could say. Therefore my pictures might be a bit blurry.

Down in the mosh pit people were going crazy.

They had all kinds of lights in the show: every colour you can think of, and they also had laser light. Whee!

When in doubt, bend your knees and headbang.

They played all their major hits. Everything was in German, except a few lines in "Du hast" (Never! Never!) and in "Pussy" (You've got a pussy! I've got a dick! So what's the problem? Let's do it quick! - finalized by I can't get laid in Germany!).

Here's me, mesmerized.

Altogether an awesome show and well worth both the money and the drive. I'd go again.

Keeping Busy

2011-05-20T17:58:00.007-05:00

What do you do in the backseat of a car during a 16 hour drive to keep busy?
Right.
You take pictures.
Of the scenery
and
of the inside of the car
and
of yourself.

Then again you don't really take a lot of pictures of the scenery, because they don't turn out so well. Moving car, shooting through glass - you can't expect good results there. Photographing the car's interior is kind of boring, too. Backseat. Backs of front seats. Driver in rearview mirror. Backs of heads of fellow travellers. Your feet. Garbage accumulating.
Yeah, yeah, yawn.

That leaves yourself.
I took a lot of pictures of myself.
Here they are.

In the car.

Not in the car.

One more thing concerning this blog:
A few posts ago I misquoted James T. Kirk and maybe General Chang, too. The correct quote is of course: "Earth, Hitler, 1938."
Then again I do not know if it is advisable to quote from movie characters. After all what they say changes a lot. After all they are not even real. General Chang actually says "We need breathing room!" in the original film, only the German dubbed version seems to put Hitler's words in his mouth. Hitler himself probably completely refused to speak any English. However, Captain Kirk attributes both the English and German exclamation to Hitler, even though according to the script he was just supposed to beg Chang's pardon (I don't even want to start thinking about Chang being a Klingon, let's just not go there).

And again one more thing concerning this blog:
You may have noticed that I usually do not mention any real person by their real name nor show anybody's picture in this blog. I also try do avoid revealing names of places. My general two rules were: The only face you get to see on this blog is mine (scroll upwards a bit, q.e.d.). The only name you get to read is mine (Brato).
With passing time (this is my 3rd year of blogging) these rules have inevitably softened; bit by bit I have revealed pieces of information from which the observant reader might be able to conclude where I live, where I'm from and so on.
I am also aware that especially during the last few posts I have broken my own rules quite harshly by mentioning for example certain roads and travel times and of course by talking about Courtney and where she works.

But I could not resist. I did it because she's real.

From now on privacy shall be maintained as before.

...And Back Again.

2011-05-19T20:51:00.015-05:00

Our checkout time was 11 AM saturday morning. We arrived in the hotel lobby at about 10:59 AM. There was a line of pale hangover heavy metal party zombies, but the receptionists handled it well. We were out of there by 11:15 and because it had been so nice the first time around, we decided to visit that over-the-top mall at the west-end one more time.

On our way to the mall.

Our first stop there was the food court for breakfast (I had sushi), and then time just flew away. Shopping malls. I didn't buy a single thing, one of my companions got himself some kind of garment, but the clock had run on to 3 PM when we turned out of the parking garage.
We were on our way home, on a slightly different route this time. Two changes: We wanted to avoid gravel-highway 9 and also later on instead of the divided highway use a smaller one which suited our direction better. This together was supposed to shave off a good hour of our overall travel time.

I myself was kind of tired, and anticipating driving again later on I fell asleep in the backseat. Missed all the bisons.
I woke up again when we passed into the next province and stopped for coffee at a Tim Hortons without a drive through. Imagine that, no drive through. I immediately suspected foul play here. A fake hoax sham corporation pretending to be the nations famous coffee chain. Once we were inside further warning bells went off inside my head after reading a sign advertising "real fruit smoothies".
Real fruit smoothies. That sounded delicious. Outside it was summer, t-shirt weather, blue skies all over, really really warm, a real fruit smoothie would be just the thing, wouldn't it? But I just couldn't believe there'd be someone in the back room throwing real fruit into a blender. Not in a coffee and doughnut place. And what exactly did they mean by "smoothie"? Blended fruit? Blended fruit with yoghurt? Blended fruit with slush? Fruit-flavoured slush?
There were just too many questions, so I asked.

"What's in your real fruit smoothie?"

The woman looked at me as if I had asked for a horsemeat burger and managed "I'm sorry?"
For some reason I always automatically assume that people don't catch what I say because of my accent (German) or perhaps because I mumble or something, so I just asked the same question again. This time I tried to pronounce everything as carefully as I could.
"Your real fruit smoothie. What is in it?"
There was a pause, and then she responded something that I didn't quite catch, maybe because of her accent (Asian), so I said: "Excuse me?"
She: "Fruit. There's fruit in it."
"Yes", I said, "is it just fruit or do you put something else in it, too? Like dairy?"
They (a second woman had joined her, drawn in by the strange delay in serving costumers) just looked at me as if I was nuts.
"I just wanna know what's in your fruit smoothies", I said. "Some people put yoghurt in there. Is your's just fruit and fresh and all?"
They exchanged a glance, then the first one said: " I don't know, it's fruit."
They have no idea, I thought.
"It comes frozen", she added.
"Okay", I said, "I'll have a large black coffee with two sugar, please."
From the other line-up my companions had watched the whole conversation with a mix of confusion and amusement in their eyes. "He doesn't like it!" the driver said with a grin.
Woman number two put my coffee in front of me, woman number one said: "1.46."
I didn't want to start my 50, so I gave her coins. "1, 1.25, 35..."
"Exact change", she whispered to her co-worker, shaking her head ever so slightly.
"40...1...2...3...4...5...6. Thank you very much."
I went outside and had a smoke and my coffee (which was really good) and enjoyed the sunshine. My fellow travellers joined me, and we watched people in convertibles drive by.

Then we drove on through the ever flat prairies.

We saw a fire in the distance.

We saw flocks of geese in the sky.

We tried to drive faster than our shadow.

We stopped to take a piss.

We stopped to stretch a bit. The sun went down.

The moon came up.

At dusk we reached a little place that featured two gas stations and not much else. On the right they offered no-name fuel and had a restaurant called the "12.40". I assumed everything was $12.40 in there. On the left they had Esso.
Since our motto has always been "When in doubt, go left", we chose the Esso. A brand name is always good, after all. Nobody wants their engine to blow because of some crappy no-name gas.

It was right there, at that dusty Esso station among those few buildings in the middle of the everlasting flatness, that I fell in love a little bit.

I took this picture when we turned into the gas station.

We stopped between a truck with an old guy in the drivers seat to the right and a van with half a family in it to the left. A guy was stowing something in the trunk.
To the right a matching old lady exited the store. She was carrying ice cream in her hand. Ice cream. I instantly wanted ice cream. So I got out of the car and went around the corner to the door and saw a woman locking what must have been the ice box. She was wearing some kind of light blue or so sweater. In a sudden influx of politeness I decided to say hello and just as she was turning towards me I said: "Hi! What's the name of this place?"

"Oh", she said, with a bright smile, with sunshine in her eyes, with friendliness and happiness radiating out of her like an aura: "it's just regular Esso here."
She had dark hair to her shoulders, and a beautiful face and pale skin. Her eyes were blue, or maybe brown, I didn't see or don't remember, because the welcoming cheerfulness in her demeanor lit up the whole place.
"Oh", I said, "no, I mean, what's the name of this..." and my English left me for a second "..village?"
Her smile never stopped, and her eyes sparkled, and she said:"The name of this town? Blaine Lake, this is Blaine Lake."
That's when I fell in love with her a little bit. There was a vibrancy of joy about her, so very natural and radiant; she seemed to be doing this without thinking, she emanated happiness that could only be pure.
It was a liveliness that Layla wouldn't possess in a thousand years.
This pretty gas station woman from Blaine Lake in the middle of nowhere had just done what Layla couldn't. I was excited.

I could feel it. "Hello", called my penis.
Blaine Lake, I thought, "Blaine Lake", I said.

She had just made my day. Just by being friendly to some passers-by stranger this woman had taken from him a nice little chunk of his heart, and had given him not only a little crush but also an impression that would last and a pleasant memory that he would cherish.

It must have taken me a while to process her charisma. She wasn't there anymore.
I realized she must have gone inside again.
So I went in, too.

It was a small store, the usual chips and snack food, a little back a few wall coolers filled with drinks and beverages. There was a section for camping. A shelf for household staples. A few audio CD's and a few DVD's. My travel companions were already in there.

She was behind the counter. He name tag said "Courtney". I walked the aisles a little bit, then found the ice cream cooler right next to the counter.
"There's the ice cream!" I said.

I bought a Magnum and paid with a fiver. She gave me about 81 cents back. I thought: I should complement her on her friendliness. I thought: I should ask her if she wants to be my facebook friend. I thought: I should have the driver take a picture of Courtney and me.

I didn't do any of that.
I went outside and started eating my ice cream.
Then we drove away.
Blaine Lake, Courtney, Blaine Lake, I repeated in my head*.

A few hours later we stopped in a major city outside a restaurant, just to adjust our navigation system. I amused myself by taking pictures of unsuspecting restaurant guests from inside the car. Then one of them started staring at me and I realized a tiny orange light comes on everytime I aim my camera.
We quickly drove away and went to the same Wal-Mart we had visited before (I bought red bull again), and then to a MacDonalds. Then gas. Then on.

She sold us our burgers just before midnight. Very polite. I took this picture out of the car, because we were bored waiting for what seemed like a lifetime for our driver. He was in the bathroom. The restaurant was just about to close up for the night, and a few minutes earlier the manager and her had tried to check the restrooms, but stopped dead in their tracks upon opening the door. They walked away quickly and busied themselves otherwise. In the car we were laughing our asses off.

I tried to sleep some more. At about 3 AM we pulled over. It was my turn to drive. I looked around: we were somewhere on a straight highway with nothing but woods in all directions. It was dark and chilly. I opened my first can of red bull and settled in and drove. Same as before: stay between the lines, keep an eye out for deer, stay awake. I established a routine to keep me busy: Look straight ahead. Check left mirror. Look ahead. Check rearview mirror. Look ahead. Check clock on dash. Look ahead. Check kilometer clock. Drink beverage. Start over.

We reached the next town at dawn and gassed up at a closed down gas station. Pay at the pump. We also saw two joggers there. It was like 5 AM. Crazy. It was only four more hours to home, and it was light out, so I just kept driving until we reached that junction we had stopped at on our way out.
I got myself a coffee.

This time the squirrel didn't evade me.

Then the last little bit. One more hour of highway, then gravel. We arrived back in bfnowhere at about 9 AM.

Me, tired. Not far now.

*Back home I looked, but I couldn't find her on facebook.

City, Friday, 7 AM

2011-05-18T19:26:00.007-05:00

So there we were, all three of us dead tired, just wanting to fall into a bed and sleep until late afternoon. Unfortunately most hotels don't let you check in before at least 1 PM. Ours didn't, either. Our clock read something like 7 AM, and it was still set to home time. Here it was actually only 6 AM.
So what do you do in a big city on a friday morning at 6 AM when all you want to do is sleep?
Right.
We went to a Denny's.

A Denny's is some kind of family restaurant that also serves breakfast. And coffee. While we were waiting for our food, I watched the other costumers and their choices of breakfast: The usual eggs and bacon of course, but on top of that most of them also had fat pancakes with lots of maple syrup and on the side great amounts of sweet french toast. Crazy. Then came the coffee, which by the way was pretty crappy.
Last night, just about when I drove us across the line and into this province, at 4 AM maybe, I stopped at some small town gas station. An old lady there sold me what must have been the best cup of coffee in the world. I also used the bathroom there (which took a while), and it was the cleanest bathroom I have ever seen at a gas station in my life. I was impressed. It was awesome.
Denny's: Not so awesome. The breakfast was ok, but in my opinion overpriced. The bathroom had cold water only. They didn't tell me that my fruit cost extra. But maybe I was just tired.

Back in the car the clock said 9 AM. So we decided to drive across town to some big-ass shopping mall with indoor ice rink, indoor pool with real waves, indoor amusement park, indoor sea lion show, indoor movie theatre, indoor pirate ship and lots of other costumer-lures. We parked somewhere in the empty parking garage and slept for an hour until the place opened up.

The sea lion show at the mall. Probably especially arranged for a group of school kids, given the early time.

There was an H&M in the mall, which always reminds me of Europe, so I went inside. I saw a nice pair of cargo pants, so I bought them and put them on right away. That was nice. For some reason since I've been living in this country I have developed quite a distaste for my European style more-on-the-tight-side jeans. Like the pair I was wearing, purchased last year in Amsterdam. A little tight in the crotch area. When I put on my new cargo pants, it felt like liberation. It was like my balls had been screaming: "Unser Volk braucht Raum!"*, which all of a sudden was given to them. Also my fatigue level instantly decreased by 50 percent.

The hotel. During the afternoon it would fill up with all kinds of heavy metal fans, who'd sport mohawks or long headbanger's hair, who'd be pierced and tattooed all over the place and who'd be showing off the colours of the band they pray to - through t-shirts, belts, flags and attire that paid hommage to certain music videos of said band - I saw a guy wearing the hat of an artist combined with a white butcher's apron.

We made it back to the hotel somewhere between noon and 1 PM local time, checked in without any problems and went to sleep.

*Earth, Hitler, 1936 (according to Kirk, James T., Captain USS Enterprise)

Road Trip

2011-05-17T22:00:00.009-05:00

Last weekend some local dudes took me on a road trip. A sixteen hour ride covering three provinces. Almost 3000 kilometers. For all you Europeans out there: That's like driving from Berlin to Rome and back. Over there you'd probably not even drive that for a nice two week vacation. You'd take a plane. In this country it's a nice weekend trip. Three days on the road for a concert show.

We left here on a thursday at about 1 in the afternoon. 90 minutes gravel, then blacktop road. They call it highway. I'd call it Alte Letzlinger. No one else on the road, endless bush to the left, endless bush to the right. First stop after about two hours, because they always stop there when they drive somewhere: a lonely gas station next to some more or less important highway junction.

I bought some coffee and chocolate bars for the road.

They had a squirrel there, right outside the door. It didn't run when I went in, it was still there when I came back out. Just sitting there, eyes darting between me and the garbage can. I talked to it for a while, then went to get my camera from the car. Back at the door the squirrel was gone.
On we drove. The next settlement or sign of civilisation came about four hours later. A small town. We gassed up and decided to have some food. I myself always develop a strange desire for MacDonalds when back from nowhere, but the MacDonalds was closed. Imagine that.
We went to Burger Kind instead.
Bad idea. The food was mediocre at best, the staff as friendly as robots. I myself really enjoy the latest efforts of major fast food chains to make their restaurants look more stylish. Not here though. You walk in, you sit down with your food and as soon as you take your first bite you feel like a complete and total low-life loser.

I had a sandwich that was supposed to have mushrooms, because that's what it looked like on the picture. I even asked if it were mushrooms. Uh, mushrooms? Yes, they said. In the end it turned out to be onions.

We got back on the road. We were about to cross into the next province and hit Highway 9. I was looking forward to that. Highway 9. I imagined straight smooth road, immaculate lines painted on asphalt, divided highway.
It took about half an hour or so to get there. What can I say, the asphalt ended, gravel started.
Highway 9 was a gravel road.

A wolf next to highway 9.

At the province line.

The was a lot of swampy looking woods both sides of this highway 9. Lots of water right next to the road. Inevitably thoughts about breaking down here crossed my mind. Three guys lived for four days on three cans of coke and one mars bar while wading through treacherous swamps and evading killer wolfs and monster bears. Didn't happen, though. And even if, we would have been rescued: There was one other car.

It took us four hours to get back to a proper road, and to another town. I bought ice cream there, Magnum. Then we drove on, scenery flying by left and right, listening to music that was foreshadowing the show we were about see. I drank coke out of cans, are mandarins and chocolate bars. It was very nice traveling.

Until the next stop.

The next stop came sudden and was an utterly unwanted and totally unscheduled and completely unnecessary one.

"I have you at 121 in a 100 zone..."

Fifteen minutes later and having gained valuable experience and some expensive paperwork we were back on our way.
The land had become very flat, wooded areas had been replaced by endless fields in all directions. Just barren land to the horizon, a few bushes and small tress here and there.

Another two hours later, it was dark by now, we reached a major city. Time for food (MacDonalds, finally), groceries (red bull, I also bought a book) and gas. The gas station guy was some young dude who coincidentally wanted to go to see the same show, but couldn't. Probably broke or something. I told him to jump in, but he said he had to work another hour. I didn't say anything to that, and he kept standing next to our car until we drove away.

Nice highway now, divided and all.
I was getting tired. It was dark outside, nothing to see, just the music and the droning of tyres. Two hours later, right past the next bigger settlement, our driver asked me to take over.

"Yeah, I can drive."

Bought those red bulls for something after all. I also decided to have myself a nice fine smoke first, so I rolled one and got out of the car and stood there and jumped around in the cold wind. We were on the outskirts of some town, some lights in the distance, everything else just darkness.

I could feel the nicotine enter my blood stream.

I got in the car, adjusted the seat and off we went. According to the clock on the dash it was 1:38 AM. I settled for a nice 110 km/h and tried to keep the continuous line to the right and the dashed one to the left. There was no other traffic. Just the road, straight like a ribbon through the dark prairie night.
Four or five hours I drove like that, with my passengers either sleeping or dozing. Dawn came, that made it easier. I had set the heater to very off, the cold blasted away, my feet felt like blocks of ice, but it kept me awake. Then we stopped for bisons.

Unfortunately they were a bit shy and didn't want their picture taken.

A new day is dawning. This is it.

We were very close now, just about an hour to go. But somebody had turned the heat up, and it hit me like a truck, so our number one driver took over again. I fell into the backseat, and when I woke up again, we were in the city already, right in front of our hotel, the concert venue just across the street.
We had reached our destination.

Life Imitates Video Game

2011-05-16T20:01:00.010-05:00

Her name was Layla. Or Delilah, I might have misunderstood, there was loud pop music playing in the background. Layla-Delilah was dancing to the music, sort of. She wore nothing but a bright yellow bikini and was just about to take that off, too. Her eyes were brown, her hair dark blonde, her skintone well north of pale but south of light bronze. She smelled like baby powder and roses.
There was not an ounce of extra fat on her.
She had nice firm breasts, not too big, not too small. Her nipples were hard.
But she couldn't dance for shit.

She had picked me up about 10 minutes earlier. She found me sitting comfortably in a chair, enjoying the show, nursing a beer. There was an Asian woman dancing on the stage, and boy, could she move. She was wearing a fedora and had just shed her long blue country dress. I was looking forward to see her vagina.
That's when Layla put her arms around me from behind and brought her face close to mine.
"Want to have some fun with me?"
I realized I had seen her before, walking around, offering her services to other guests. Tall, neon bra and panty, long legs, gold-coloured high heels. But not my type: wrong face. Lips to thin maybe, or nose too snub, or me not drunk enough: she was pretty, but she just didn't do it for me. Perhaps it was her attitude. Too fake.
I also knew it'd be expensive. But I was curious.
"How does that work?" I said.
"We go downstairs together where it's all private and then we have fun."
I risked a look at the Asian, she had taken off her top by now. I felt Layla's hand in mine.
"Come on, let's go!" she said and walked away.
Well, why not. "Okay" I said and followed her.

She led me down two flights of stairs into a dungeon and through a pair of metal doors. To the right I could see small rooms hidden behind curtains, to the left Layla, who had stopped next to a counter. Behind it stood a blonde woman with big breasts. She asked me something to the effect of "How much do you want to spend tonight?"

"What are my options?" I inquired.

"240, or 350 for the whole night."
"Do you want me the whole night?" Layla chipped in, smiling.
If to me you were superhot, hellyeah, but you're not even my type, so no, thank you very much, I thought.
"...or 120 minimum" the blonde woman finished.
To me, Layla clearly wasn't worth 120 bucks. I had seen a brunette girl upstairs, petite, pink underwear, beautiful face, I'd pay 120 bucks for her. But not for Layla.
I said: "Thank you, but I can't afford it. I'm gonna go back upstairs."
With that I turned to leave.
The blonde was clever though. "How much can you afford?"
Good question.
My curiosity got the better of me. I told her 50 bucks would be okay.
"Make it 60 and you get two!" she said.
"Yes, make it 60!" said Layla.
"Two what?" I asked.
"Two dances."
Well, why not. I pulled three twenties out of my wallet and chucked them on the desk. "Alright."

And that's how Layla and I ended up in a private room. The music was Rihanna, and then Kesha, and later something else I didn't immediately recognize, very likely Black Eyed Peas. The room was painted dark red and was square shaped with a furry bench on one wall. I sat down on it and spread my arms on the backrest and could touch the walls on either side with my hands. Opposite me was the curtain, and Layla, who immediately jumped on my lap, one knee to my left, one knee to my right. She started moving her body to the music and whispered:

"No touching, no kissing, no blowing, no nothing. Enjoy."

The space between her breast was right in front of my face. I wanted to look up to see her face, but she was too close. This was the moment when I noticed what her skin smelled like. I was waiting for some kind of reaction from my penis, but there was none.
She then danced in front of me, standing. It seemed all awkward to me. I wished she'd say something, but she didn't. Instead she turned around and bent over to give me nice long look at her ass, which was a very very nice looking ass. When she came back up I asked what her name was, just to make this a bit more personal.
"Layla."
"Nice name." I said. Couldn't think of anything else to say.
Then she took her top off and came close again and I got a bit distracted by her boobs and nipples. Still all quiet on the cock front, though. Maybe better this way, since this was "for your EYES only" entertainment. No kissing, no touching, no blowing, no coming, no toys, no vegetables, no fingers, no nothing. The most PG13 exotic entertainment gentleman's club ever, with crappy music and overpriced drinks.
She was now in the process of taking her panties off (she was wearing an even smaller second black one under the neon-yellow one).
I felt it was the right time for a nice pop culture quote, so I said: "This no touching rule is killing me."
She responded by bending over again, picking imaginary things off the floor.
I said: "Oh yeah."
Still nothing from the penis.

She danced on, placed herself sideways to the right of me so I could look at her vagina some more. I settled on doing that, because whenever I risked a glance at her face or into her eyes I saw nothing but detachement. Maybe I should start telling her what to do, I thought. Make her talk. Make her make me believe this dance was special and for me alone.
But then my time was up.
"I see you upstairs, sweetie." she said.
Yeah, right.

I sat back down in my chair just in time to see Asian Woman walk off stage. Too bad. Missed her pussy.
About one more Corona and two dancers later I felt like quoting from Grand Theft Auto IV again. I aimed for the exact tone of Nico Bellic's voice in order to match the extent of annoyance and boredom and questioning why he had gone there in the first place when he says: "I've had enough. Let's get out of here."

This is the place. Admissíon: $7. Corona: $7.50. ATM inside, fee: $7 minimum. Small posters of exotic dancers: $5-$25, depending on your dexterity and/or endurance (a game: after each performance the dancer makes the audience throw loonies into rolled up posters held close to pussy, or they stick fridge magnets bearing their picture to their skin (vagina, ass, boobs), and if you hit it with your coin and it sticks, you win. In one case 5 hits in a row earned you a freshly shot polaroid of Darla's pussy. I gave it a shot, of course. No luck, though, it only got me a poster of Darla. I still have it. Can't put it on the wall here, too many visitors. Maybe I'll send it to my father-in-law.
Altogether the atmosphere of Eden matches that of a second rate dance club without dance floor. Everything is very money-oriented and impersonal. Compared to a couple of places I've seen in Amsterdam, it is also kind of innocent. Still fun though, for a while.

Follow Up

2011-05-02T21:47:00.003-05:00

Whoo, this facebook is quite something. I came back from work today and already had 14 friends.

What will I do now?
Look up ex-girlfriends? What if I can't find them?
Re-establish connections?
Enjoy the warm feeling of being able to contact people from high school who I have never even been friends with?
Show off how far away I live now? My moustache?
So many options and possibilites. Thank you, social network.

My life was so simple before.
Now I am all addicted again. Luckily I've finally reached 100% game progress in GTA4 two days ago, so I can rest somewhat assured at least.

Did I mention that it is snowing again?

Everybody Wants To Be Part Of Something Bigger

2011-05-01T22:56:00.005-05:00

So I did go back to facebook.

I made a new account, and now I already feel so instantly lo--hooo--hooo--hooo- nee-ly,
because I don't have no friends!

My god.
OH MY GOD.

What did I do.
This must be the end.

Please feel free to add me.
I'll say yes, promise.

Komm lieber Mai und mache...

2011-05-01T20:06:00.004-05:00

Twice this year have I put away my winter coat, my winter boots, my winter scarf.
After the first time it was okay to take the winter wear out again, it would have been weird somehow anyway if winter had left without coming back at us at least once
(man, all those grammar lessons back in grade 8 and 9 really are paying off now).
In the past days we found ourselves enjoying the strong rays of the sun; we were sitting in the warm sunlight thinking about summer cigarettes and beer.
Then this happened:

We got ourselves a bit of a snow storm. Several inches of snow. Blown to big heaps (on my way to work today I sank into it up to my knees every now and then). Now please remember: This is may first. The first of may. A holiday, where I come from.

Where I come from, people are usually sunbathing in the park on this day. Enjoying ice cream and cold beer in outside cafés. All I can enjoy is icy winds and blowing snow.
Well, whatever.

I took the picture this morning, in the evening everything was different again. The snow has become wet and heavy (perfect for building the last snowman of the year), and the winds have slowed. I'm sure it'll be summer soon.

Oh, another thing:
I am considering to be to facebook again. Maybe I should have an account there again, because it's a nice tool to stay in contact with people that one doesn't bother staying in contact with otherwise. Or perhaps I shouldn't say "one doesn't bother", but "one is too busy for" or "one just never gets around to".
So I am seriously considering it.

...

2011-04-29T17:20:00.002-05:00

Our building's internet connection has been down for two days, but now it is finally back up, which is nice.

That is all I have to say right now.

SNOW

2011-04-24T11:21:00.002-05:00

It's snowing.
Let me say that again: It's snowing.

SNOWING.

S.N.O.W.I.N.G.

In late April.
This is depressing.

It looks nice, though.

Moustache Hero

2011-04-17T14:32:00.003-05:00

Look, I got myself a nice new 'stache.

Fish

2011-04-08T19:37:00.003-05:00

Fish.

Let me tell you, I have a troubled relationship with fish. I don't really like catching them, and if I do, I throw them back in. I absolutely do not like killing them. I even wrote at least one song that are fish-pro-life (see on the right).
I do not really like eating fish (or other seafood, for that matter), partly because of the fish-flavour, partly because I am terribly terrified of fish bones. Inside myself lives a huge fear of accidently getting a fish bone stuck in my throat and choking to death painfully and slow.
Then again, fish is supposedly good for you and healthy. And really fresh fish does not smell like fish.
Therefore I do eat fish, and when I do, I prefer caught-the-same-day-fresh filleted fish and I like to cook it myself.

(So I can pat down the fillets once or twice from all sides, feel them up and down for hidden and overlooked fishbones. That's what I do, and I do it very carefully.)

While there exist a lot of ways to create awesome fish dishes, this one is my current favourite:

At first you make some mashed potatoes, which at the moment I do this way (for two):
Take 4 medium sized potatoes, peel them, dice them, cook them.
Drain them, but not completely. Mash them with a fork, if too dry, add water. Add salt and a nice splash of olive oil. Stir.
Done.

Now for the fish (I use pickerel, nice white fish):
Preheat your oven to 350.
Make 2 "bags" out of aluminium foil. Put them on a baking sheet.
Put 1 portion of your fish fillet in each aluminium foil bag.
Chop and distribute evenly (just throw on top of the fish):
1 medium sized or big green pepper
1 medium sized red pepper
1 medium sized onion
a few black or green olives, sliced
1 big tomato (peeled)
100g or so of mushrooms, sliced

Add a nice amount of freshly ground pepper and a nice big splash of lemon or lime juice.
Then close the bags and place them in the oven.
Wait 20-25 minutes.

Enjoy.

(It's like fish soup, but better*. The veggies will still be crunchy, so somehow it'll feel like you are eating a warm salad. There will be a lot of juice, tasty and a bit sour from the lemon juice. The mashed potatoes will just soak it up. The fish will be cooked awesomely, just coming apart by itself when you touch it gently with your spoon.)

*no bones.

Language Discoveries

2011-04-06T21:46:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, while at work, I discovered the following:
In the English alphabet all letters have one syllable (a, b, c, d...), except "w" or "double-u", which has three. So what is so special about fancy-schmancy "W", that it has to stand out like that from its peers?
Then I looked further:
In the German alphabet all letters have one syllable also, except one, which is not "w", but in fact "y". This one the Germans call "Ypsilon" - kind of like "oops-ee-lon". So what makes this little letter "Y" so special, that it narcisistically boasts 3 syllables?
Again I looked further and I found:
In the French alphabet there are actually TWO letters that have more than one syllable, guess which ones: Yes, that's right, "w" and "y". Both of them!! "W" sports three syllables, sounds quite similar to "dooble-wa", while "Y" has two (sounds like "ee-gratt").

So what does all this mean? Is it a conspiracy of letters? Or is it just coincidence?
I don't think so.
I bet your ass when we look at Spanish and Italian for example, we will find more evidence!

But now for something completely different:
Today I learned a new word in Cree, which is quite awesome. When I mentioned this word while standing in line at the check-out it created much laughther and joy among all the people present. The word, if you say it, sounds quite like: "we-checkoway"

It can be used to insult people in a friendly way, because it means: Smelly testicles. Actually it seems to encompass a whole range of things from smelly testicles over stinky nuts all the way up to shitty balls.

Now I am going to combine that with the other Cree words I have learned so far:

Mushaway we-checkoway!
Ekosani.

Fucking smelly balls!
Have a nice day.

Strawberry Season

2011-04-01T19:06:00.006-05:00

It's that time of the year again!

They had this sale on strawberries this week at the store, 2 for 5. 2 containers, that is. So I went and quickly bought 15 bucks worth of strawberries.
Then, facing all these strawberries in my kitchen, I decided to bake a strawberry cake. After my mother's recipe, because those are always the best.

The result:

The cake is in the background (red top, brown middle, yellow bottom). The guy with the thumbs-up is me (green shirt, glasses, big smile).

How to do it:

Make 5-spoon-dough (to all you non-Europeans: please do use an actual tablespoon here, not that weirdo measuring device of yours. And please don't worry if the next spoonful has more or less than the one before, it is O.K.).

5 tablespoons of flour
5 tablespoons of sugar
5 tablespoons of oil
2.5 eggs
1 teaspoon of baking powder

(I actually doubled all these amounts for my cake, but that is your choice.)

Pour dough on a pan and bake until golden brown. I don't know, maybe 30 minutes or so.
In the meantime wash and cut the strawberries. Put them on the cake.
In a pot, stir together some glaze (store-bought) and spread on top.
That's it.

Mhh, delicious!

PS: I really really do like that advice about perceiving time differently. This can change your whole life. I mean, think about it: Time can't be wasted. It's is just an impossibility. What weight it takes off one's shoulder! What's now is now. Now is good. Future and past do not exist. I'd like to extend an olive branch to my past and those who are in it. Maybe we'll meet again, in the non-existing mind-constructed future. Then there'll be nothing but now. For real.
And yes, this is blog-posting time. Earlier was cake-making time. Later will be video-gaming time.

Spare Time Anxiety

2011-03-30T18:19:00.003-05:00

I think at the moment I am suffering from a severe case of spare time anxiety. Which goes like this: Whenever I have spare time, I grow terribly afraid of not using it properly, I grow scared that I could be wasting all my precious spare time without relaxing properly.
That makes me completely unrelaxed.
So even if during the whole workday I was totally looking forward to a relaxing game of Grand Theft Auto, while and after playing Grand Theft Auto in my spare time it does not really satisfy me, because really, why do I waste my valuable spare time with playing video games?
On the other hand, if I am facing, let's say 10 days off in a row I could totally play three GTA three days in a row, because afterwards there'll be seven days left, therefore lots of time for "proper relaxation".
On yet another hand (!), if I use my spare time to do some housework, kitchen scrubbing and laundry doing, then afterwards I feel totally fine by wasting the rest of my spare time with video games.
I am weird.
I have spare time anxiety.
I want to relax properly so much, that I can't relax properly.
And what does that even mean, relax properly?

I will go now and play video games.

Tuna-Casserole

2011-03-27T21:36:00.005-05:00

Today I made a tuna-casserole. It's a pretty simple dish to make, here's how I did it:

Take the equivalent of two cups of elbow noodles and boil them. Fry one large or two smaller onions and about 200 grams of mushrooms. Cut two to three medium sized carrots.

Put some oil into your casserole dish. Open a can of tuna and a can of cream of mushroom soup (I prefer Campbell's less salt), dump that stuff into your dish. Uncooked cream of mushroom soup always looks like Moppelkotze, which is okay, so please do not worry about it.
The onions and mushrooms should be done by now, throw them in there, too, and mix it all nicely.

When the noodles are done, drain them. I usually keep the hot water and cook my carrots in it, alternatively you can always throw the carrots in with the noodles a bit earlier. Mix the noodles with the contents of your casserole dish, then add another vegetable of your choice (I picked yellow beans because that was all I had, green beans would have been better - more colour variety.)

Finally add the carrots, stir them in, and put cheese on top. Because we didn't eat this immediately, I covered it up and put it in the fridge. If you want to eat right away, just preheat your oven to 350 and leave it in there for half an hour.
Enjoy.

Me And My Schrubber

2011-03-27T21:04:00.008-05:00

Well, let me tell you this: The package finally arrived. What package, you ask?

I sent a package to myself and it finally got here.
(German postal service sent it back twice (yes, twice), both times with a sticker on it saying "undeliverable", but without giving any reason. After repacking everything into a different box, it shipped just fine. Weird. Must have been one of these automated package-sorting lines or something.)
Inside the package, among other things, was this: A Schrubber, which is basically a brush on a stick. Great for scrubbing floors. Couldn't find one here. All they seem to have is various mops. Yacht mops, commercial mops, plain mops, this mops and that mops. Fucking mops are no good for scrubbing floors, though! So I imported my own brush on a stick (well, actually just the brush, the stick is local).

Here's a picture:

me & my Schrubber

By the way, even though my new notebook was lowering the temperatures of my notebook, I really had expected more, yes, I might even go so far to say I was a little disappointed, but didn't want to let it show.
However, I purchased a bottle of compressed air last week and used it to clear the insides of my computer of dust; and wouldn't you know it, even though the fans and their immediate surroundings were pretty clean, there were shitloads of dustballs inside the copper exit vents.
No wonder temps were running high and the cooler underperforming! You can blow in cold air as much you want and it won't do good one bit if the hot air can't get out, right?
So now, when idle, and at all other times I'm getting awesome results.

Information Overload

2011-03-23T22:12:00.004-05:00

I read in a magazine (Newsweek, I believe it was) about how too much information fucks our decision-making. Apparantly tests have shown that activity in some cortex behind the forehead, which is responsible for making rational decisions and keeping emotional outbursts under control, shuts down completely if too much input is given to the test person.
So next time you have to decide somthing, cut away all the bullshit and strip it to the most essential information needed.

That said, be warned that I wrote something like four posts this evening. That is a lot of information. You won't be able to react to or comment on everything, that is perfectly normal, so stay calm.
Please read carefully, save your energy and please, by god the almighty and his powerful friends, do not, I repeat, exhaust yourself.

Have a nice evening.

Cooler

2011-03-23T22:03:00.005-05:00

I got myself a notebook cooler to help keep my computer cool. I've wanted one for quite while now, and finally I went and ordered one from tigerdirect.

It's a Zalman ZM-NC2000, black, it looks like this:

This little machine is really nice and quiet (even at the highest setting all you hear is a low rumbling whirr, as opposed to higher-pitched screaming of the fans in my notebook), and you can feel the cool air even at the lowest setting.

It lowered the general temperatures of my system by about 3 or 4 degrees when idle, which is not a lot, however, the GPU temp, which was around 52 idle before, now idles at 43, which is quite awesome. I am quite happy with this little cooler.

Addicted

2011-03-23T21:25:00.011-05:00

I think I am addicted to video games.
And not just all video games, only those which really leave you with nothing but wasted time afterwards. Only there is no afterwards, because per defitionem addiction isn't meant to have an afterwards.

Right now I am addicted to a game called ""World of Cinema". link
It was developed by some guys in Germany and is being sold directly of their website, without a major publisher or anything else. I myself bought the basic version for 25 euros.

This is a game about making Hollywood movies. You are the manager of a film studio, and you get to pick directors, producers, actors, stunt and camera people and so on, and you make movies and movie posters.
You (me, in the basic version) never get to watch your final movies, they are just entities in the virtual world, and they produce ratings and box office results, and the goal is to make always bigger and more succesful a movie than the last. (There is, however, an all-in-one-version of the game which really lets you make watchable movie-scenes or so, but in my opinion that part is useless, for the fascination is not in making bad-graphics-clips, but in enjoying 340 million dollars of profit for your last Sam Raimi masterpiece Evil Dead IV.)

I for example have made, among others, these movies so far:

The game, even though it is mainly about juggling numbers and has no awesome graphics but still some bugs and other shortcomings, maintains proper motivation by featuring an in-game level system (I am currently at level 14), online all-time charts (see above mentioned website, look for brato) and the awesome feeling of making great films with great and well known actors, directors and producers. And really, who wouldn't (have) like(d) to see both Arnie and Stallone kicking ass together?

Danger Of Combustion

2011-03-23T21:13:00.003-05:00

So, today while working I came across this little sign, which came attached to several pieces of garment, it was little girls pyjamas that had pictures of little fairies on it.

What does this mean, really? Is it meant to warn parents, that if you happen to dress your kid in loose-fitting clothes, they will easily go up in flames? That they will spontaneously combust?
And is there a garment, which is flame-resistant? Apart from asbestos of course, and everybody knows how important that is for the safety of our loved ones.

"Honey, I don't know about these asbestos fibers... little Janie's coughing blood again..."
"Awww come on, do you rather have her catch fire? The house might burn down!"
"Yeah, right. You're so smart - suck it up, Janie! Quiet now!"

Potato-Pork-Sauerkraut-Casserole

2011-03-23T19:21:00.007-05:00

Good evening,

it is still cold here! But nevermind that, much more important is this:

A few days ago I made an awesome mashed potato-pork-vegetable casserole with cheese on top. Luckily I had my camera close by and was in the mood to take pictures, so now we can re-live this extra-ordinary cooking-experience together once more.

At first of course you have to peel some potatoes, about 7 medium sized ones should do it.

Cut them into nice little pieces and put them on the stove to boil...

Time for the meat. I chose pork this time, tenderloin even, because for some reason it was only 9.90 per kg, good price, I bought about 475 g of it.

Cut it to your fancy, and then fry it up a bit.

I myself enjoy Montreal Steak Spice, so I use plenty of that.

While the potatoes are boiling and the meat is frying, we can take care of the other stuff: Grease the pan slightly with oil and bring out the vegetables and cheese...

...and the milk for the mashed potatoes, and a can opener...

And you'll see, just like that the meat will be all done (we don't want it dark or brown, just fried a little bit from all sides).

The potatoes should be ready by now, pour out the water, mash them up with a fork and mix in some milk and salt. Mine looked like this when I was done, not the smoothest in the world, but then again, I didn't really care.

Time to put a nice fine layer of potato mash into our casserole pan (use about 2/3 of your mashed potatoes). Then throw the fried meat on top.

Now the vegetables. Peas...

...and sauerkraut...

...then cover it with the rest of the mashed potatoes.
Well, originally right about now I would have put the cheese on, but there was still room in the casserole dish, and I was out of mashed potatoes because my potato pot is kind of smallish, so I decided (partly because I considered it a healthy choice) to throw some more veggies in.

That's right, green beans and corn. And of course, don't forget to put cheese on top.

The whole thing goes into the pre-heated oven (at 350, or 180-200 degrees C) for a while (until the cheese is nicely brown, about 20-25 minutes or so), in the meantime we can tidy up the kitchen and do the dishes.

Nice. Dishes done, kitchen clean, food ready. When you take it out of the oven, it should look something like this:

Let it sit for a few minutes, then use a sharp knife to cut it.

You can easily lift out a portion (portion shown fills me up if there's dessert, otherwise I need more. Two of these portions are a bit much. The whole pan probably easily serves 5, or one for 4 to 5 days).

Mhh, delicious. Enjoy.
Cover up the leftovers and put in fridge for tomorrow...

...because overnight it'll turn into nice and almost solid blocks perfect for re-heating in a microwave oven.

Very good.
(If you're no fan of sauerkraut (which, I must admit, can cause awesome activity inside of you if you're not used to it - in fact, it'll turn you're usually so silent and odourless farts into awesomely long and seconds-lasting-cracking-attention-seeking monster-explosions that come with a stink so disgustingly terrible, you'll be amazed at yourself for the ability to produce that kind of rotten smell), so, as I said, if you're no fan of sauerkraut, feel free to leave it out.)

T-Shirt Weather

2011-03-16T17:03:00.002-05:00

It has finally warmed up.
At last it is not so cold anymore.

No painful sensations of face-freezing-off when stepping outside no more.

Time to ditch the long johns and the winter parkas, the woolen furry toques and lined winter mitts.

Temperatures have risen to some balmy minus 5.
T-shirt weather, for the locals at least.

What else? Yes, the best dressing in the world, and, because it fits nicely, the best salad in the world. I don't feel like taking a picture, so this description will have to do:

Take equal amounts (maybe two tablespoons? probably three) of oil and lemon juice and put it in a biggish bowl.
Add some pepper.
Take a few cloves of garlic and dice them nicely on a bed of salt, then throw into the bowl.

Take a quarter head of fresh red cabbage and chop it to small pieces. Throw into bowl.
Take a relatively big carrot and scrape it to little strips. Throw into bowl.
Take a handful of raisins and yes, throw them into the bowl!

Stir and mix and stir and mix and let sit for 5 minutes or longer or eat right away. You will have enough for four, but if you are only two you can keep it in the fridge overnight and next morning you will find that the raisins have absorbed a lot of the liquid, they will be bigger and more delicious even!

I have to go now.

Still A Lot Of Winter To Go

2011-03-08T20:13:00.004-06:00

The winter festival is over now, the final event was a big "social" on saturday. We didn't go (we are reclusive hermits after all), but several of my co-workers showed up either late or not at all yesterday. Which was monday. Party on! People here don't do things half-assed.

Anyone remember the good old game "Hollywood Pictures"? It came out in 1993 or something, and was simple and fun and about making movies. It's been old for a long time now, and has always left a hole in the world of computer games. Games focusing on the same aspects of movie making just didn't exist. Until now.
Appearantly now some dude from Germany has made a new game called "World of Cinema". I am seriously thinking about trying it out.

Today is also "Shrove-Tuesday" (?). On this day, so goes the tradition, people are supposed to eat the last of their eggs and milk before 40 days of fasting begin. Therefore you must have pancakes today. Great! Not that I need a reason like that to have pancakes. So we had pancakes today, yum!
I think, by the way, that this whole fasting-thing was invented somewhen during the dark ages to keep the masses down. All the peasants would regularily this time of year run out of food, all the stuff from last year's harvest would be gone with still a lot of winter to go. So the rich and powerful came up with some made-up bullshit story about some period of constant hunger, which they conveniently linked to the religious belief system (which in itself had worked out fine so far to keep the peasants in check), and the dumb farmers who are our ancestors believed that bullshit story once more, and we still live by it today.

For those who'd like to see what I looked like before I shaved off my beard, here's a picture of me taken outside Berlin Airport on february 18.

Off With It

2011-03-06T11:29:00.002-06:00

2nd

2011-03-03T16:38:00.003-06:00

The Joppie Blacksmith Memorial Whiskerino,
also known as beard contest
is over.

I came in second, because I just couldn't compete with ten years of white beard. Same guy who won last year defended his title this year.
They gave him 50 bucks for it.

I made 30.

Back In BFNowhere

2011-03-01T19:28:00.002-06:00

I'm back, and I have been back for more than a week.
I find myself tempted to quote the old quote that tells us "[er] kehrt anders zurück als er aufbrach...", but then again, I am still the same.

Here in BF everything is the same, too.

Today I made red cabbage from a real head of fresh red cabbage, which I have never done before. The result looked like it was supposed to look and tasted pretty delicious.

I think today is the beard contest.

In the City!

2011-01-21T23:49:00.001-06:00

We have arrived safely in the big City and had 1 day to spend (we flew out of bf a day early because of the possibility of weather (bad weather, that is, the kind that prevents planes from flying and gets you stuck places), just so in that case we'd be able to take the bus instead. Luckily that wasn't necessary, the sky was clear, the plane departed and arrived as scheduled. Better safe than sorry, as the saying goes.

So what do you do with a day in the city?

That's right, you spend some cash. I came here with 700 bucks in my pocket, and I had the same 700 bucks this morning, but now, in the evening I only have $280 left. Where did the money go?

Well, I purchased:

- 1 pair of nice shoes, some kind of crossover between a hiker and a dress shoe, waterproof, pretty conservative looking, but then again they're good for slushy weather, and I can always fall in love them later (89 bucks, with taxes)

- 1 brand new digital photo camera, Samsung, 14 MP, shoots HD video, too (149 dollars, without taxes)

- 2 memory cards, 1 SD for above mentioned camera, 1 micro SD for my mp3 player (about 70 bucks before taxes)

- 1 brand new Behringer 90 Watts Bass Amp Combo (which will be stored in the city until I come back), 1 instrument stand, 1 pack of bass strings (about 290 bucks altogether)

- 1 meal for 2 at a fast food sushi place

- 1 slightly used book that looks brand new (Daniel Quinn, Ishmael)

- assorted small odds and ends

(yes yes, you smart-ass mathmaticians (?), it doesn't really add up. That's because I paid some of it with my VISA.)

What a nice way to spend a day. We finished it with an awesome supper in a pretty cool and classy restaurant, with elk and blueberry-brandy sauce, and veal, and duck-bits in dough and whatnot, very delicious. Place is called "Inferno".

Buying musical equipment, by the way, is always an experience. I usually expect staff to be all talkative and tell me all about the differences between this amp and that amp, and why the pro's don't use this brand but use that brand instead and so on. So the first store we went to they had a Treynor (or so, I don't quite remember) combo 50 Watts for 280 bucks, and next to it a Fender combo, 75 Watts for 275. So you get more power for less cash, right?

What's up with that, I asked the guy, what's the difference?

He's like: Dunno, the manufacturers make the prices.

Then he gave me a bass and I tried the Fender combo (I didn't wanna go below 50 Watts, and why go for 50 when you can have 75 for less?). Nice sound, I take it, I said, but I need a box, because I have to ship it in a small plane, and I've seen those guys handle luggage, trust me, I want this thing in a box.

Uh, he said, we don't keep boxes, no room, but I'll go and have a look-see.

Did I really want a Fender combo?

I've never really liked Fender as a brand, no particular reason.

10 minutes later: no box.

So I said: Well, can't buy it without a box, I'll come back when I am back in town.

Off to the next store.

There the guy was just as I had imagined: he kept talking about touring and pro musicians, making the romantic dream of life as a musician in a band come true before my eyes (and yes, it is awesome, and no stale sandwiches and cases of cheap beer and quiet crowds can ever take that away from me - in fact, playing music in a band together with others is the only time my mind goes blank completely, and when the practice session is over, or when we walked off the stage after a gig for me it was always like waking up to the real world again; however, the guy there kept talking about this and that and about how Behringer equipment, because not as sturdy, might crap out on me on tour; but I didn't care, because I won't go on tour anytime soon and I have always liked Behringer as a brand, maybe because I've had a Behringer mixer for so long and it has never failed me, never ever. So I bought the combo, and the guy went to the basement and found me a box and some air-filled bags, and we taped it all up and I bought it. 90 Watts! Yay!

Now I have all the tools to drive the neighbor-nurses to madness with constant rumbling bass lines.

It is now midnight, my flight leaves in about 6 hours. I am getting excited. Travelling on planes internationally always remains so unreal until you are actually on the plane, realizing that it is actually happening.

I'm gonna go and see if I can catch a bit of sleep.

Good night. See you on the other side.

Oh, one more thing:

Check out this blog, I am mentioned!

Departure Imminent

2011-01-20T17:53:00.003-06:00

Last post before traveling.

Off we go.

Unglaublich aber wahr! Der Ausverkauf geht weiter!*

2011-01-19T22:46:00.005-06:00

*roughly: "Unbelievable but true! The sale goes on!"

Take this, fellow bloggers, internet surfers, music and/or video enjoyers, crowd, recipients, world! Brato gives you yet another old piece of music. Why? Because he can. Because he likes his post count to increase. Because this stuff isn't wine and doesn't get better with age, rather the opposite is true.
However, this time it is really highly original, and even an Hommage, a nod, no, more than a nod, a bow to the master who came up with it. Then again...
Ah, well, it's probably just a nod, if even. The tiniest of nods?

I myself have thought about this lately, this being the human need for story, both telling and receiving. Haven't come to any conclusions yet, though. Maybe next week.

In the meantime, eat this:

Travel time tomorrow.

Freeze No More

2011-01-18T20:01:00.004-06:00

It
is
cold
these
days.

Walking to work at -32 (windchill -42) is no sugar-licking. Sometimes it feels like my nose is burning off from frost, and my eyebrows are frozen. My beard regularily turns white - it gets all frosted up (frozen breath I suppose).

Only 2 days to go before holidays start!

For obvious reasons I found it quite fitting to post the following video, which is kind of about the complete absence of snow, frost, ice and the likes. But it is a little bit sad, too.

This might just as well be the last one for a long, long time.

Android

2011-01-15T23:35:00.004-06:00

We never go out, host no parties, drink no booze, smoke no smokes, do no drugs and are altogether completely boring and always at home by ourselves.
This week however, we are very social. Yesterday we had a bunch of nurses over for supper (I made pizza from scratch), and today we had people over again, this time a.o. from the supermarket. Very enjoyable.
(I must say here though that the supermarket folks were a lot more fun than the nurses, who just couldn't stop talking work. This can be kind of annoying for people like me who really really don't want to know about what sicknesses you can suffer from in this world, people who have a very quick and visual imagination and therefore are easily disgusted by descriptions of ulcers (?) or abscesses or even rashes - I don't even want to remember what else they talked about, you probably get the idea; but try to combine these stories with the prospect of a nice evening with food and wine and fun conversation and you will find they won't go together, in fact, they'll clash terribly.)

However, here's again another piece of not so new music.

...And So Should Be Art.

2011-01-14T18:09:00.003-06:00

I'd like to quote my good friend E. from the country of G. at this point (live on stage, right after a song that had been announced a b-side): "Das war mindestens ne C-Seite!"

...which roughly translates to "This was actually with much goodwill a c-side!"

This being said, go ahead and make yourself at home with Brato Useba's latest old tune.

Day Off

2011-01-13T08:36:00.003-06:00

I very excited about travelling next week (gonna leave town 7 days from now already). Seeing everyone again is something I am very much looking forward to. Whee! Planes! Airports! Rental Cars! Javaanse! Autobahn!

An additional piece of information: Today I have a day off.

Life Is Suffering, Says The Buddha...

2011-01-12T20:34:00.003-06:00

It is rather unbelievable, but the formidable record "Rumpo Auriga & His Brother Frango" is full of outstanding musical phenomenons; therefore it is not really a surprise that I myself have found another almost unpublished pearl of melody, another hidden gem of musical genius, which, and that is the most amazing fact about this track, through its never-before-heard mellifluous cantability for the first time ever in music history gives voice to one of the most grievous deficits of today's consumer oriented society.

But see and listen for yourself:

Sleazy Porn Music

2011-01-11T21:13:00.002-06:00

I really should get some better software. I used to use some crappy video editing program that came with my old miniDV camera, but I didn't install it on this computer. So at the moment I am working with Windows Movie Maker.
And let me tell you one thing: For making movies, Windows Movie Maker sucks. Big time.
It is okay though if you just quickly want to combine some pictures with a music track. But just okay. I mean, they could at least have implemented some kind of rudimentary "conform to BPM" function.

Therefore, even though this is a video, it is not meant as a video. It is just a vehicle to easily upload an mp3 to this blog. Hello blogspot people? Would you please program in some kind of "add-mp3" button next to those "add picture" and "add video" buttons, so users are not forced to find webspace elsewhere or fuck around with shitty programs like Movie Maker?

Enough of that, here's a piece of sleazy porn music I recorded myself back in summer 2009* when we first came to this town. The piano I hacked in myself through MIDI.

The track is called: "My Heart Is A Strawberry".

*Off the album "Rumpo Auríga & His Brother Frango". It's never to late for a another single.

Pro Tools Test Track

2011-01-09T21:40:00.007-06:00

Today it was time to try out my new M-Audio Fast Track recording interface. So I downloaded the latest Win7 drivers from their website and installed the device. The first thing I noticed was that instead of two input channels it has only one, or more precisely: You can connect your mic and your guitar to the thingy, but internally it records only one channel, putting the vocals on the left and the intrument on the right. In other words: You can only record mono with this thing.
But what do I care, I can always make fake stereo from mono, and nobody will ever know; what is stereo anyway - not having to deal with any input level fucked up shit is totally worth it.

Since it came with Pro Tools Essentials, I installed that also. It version 8, not the latest, but still a nice piece of software. You can pretty much do your music LEGO style; just drag and drop from samples provided, down-mix to disc and there you are.
It takes a bit of getting used to, but I managed to click together this track (for blogger-upload-convinience I embedded it in a video file):

You can hear in there a South-American style guitar and percussion, some kind of pop/rock piano, a jazz trombone, a noisy garage break beat, several different bass samples, some weird electro synth, some kind of funk guitar and some other stuff I didn't have a problem putting in there. The whole thing, by the way, is completely in E minor.

My next goal is getting more comfortable with Pro Tools' real recording and mixing functions, and to record a real tune that I write and play myself. That's more fun anyway. Samples are nice, but a tune like this is just not satisfactory for me, because it is not really me*.

*When listening to my own music I also like the feeling of surprise in remembering how I wrote and played certain bass lines, solos or whatever else I recorded. You can't have that with prerecorded samples.

Beach Boys

2011-01-07T22:20:00.002-06:00

I took the liberty to add the two links from the last post to the more permanent link list on the right. Why did I do that?

I thought it wood be nice.

Missing Link

2011-01-06T21:10:00.004-06:00

Today, while doing dishes, I cracked a glass. It didn't break, but I heard the characteristic sound of breaking glass, and then I watched a long crack appear down the side.
I had to throw it away. Well, on to happier things:

We are, I have to admit, by now a little bit tired of eating turkey.

Apart from that there is not much going on right now. My wife's working her ass off, day and night, all the time, all day and all of the night so to speak, healthy or sick, storm or no storm. And if she is not at work, she's on call.
Whee.
How does she do that I don't know. She just does.

Me myself works nine to five pretty much monday to friday, there's not much going on at the supermarket, mostly "spring" cleaning (As if january could ever be considered spring, on top of that in a country where spring effectively starts in late may or so. Then again, if it's minus three these weird Nationals here think it's summer and break out their flip flops.)
The cleaning consists mainly of rediscovering old merchandise in places you'd never suspect and making sure some fools still spend money on it.
I mean costumers.

Remember I mentioned all that wood a while back? All those nicely cut pieces of wood, if I recall correctly over one year I had collected about 7 long boards (maybe 1,3 meters each), 6 medium boards (about a meter each) and several short ones, 70 cm each perhaps.
I was also ready now to take them all home, because I felt I had almost enough to build a nice fine dog house for that friendly black dog that walks with me to work every morning. His name, by the way, supposedly is Shaka, but I don't find that name satisfactory, so I call him Black Dog.
Or Sneezy (because he sneezes sometimes). For a while, when he had been hit by a car or something, and he walked funny, I called him Limpy.
But that is beside the point; Last monday at 8:45 in AM I came to work and discovered all my wood was gone, appearantly somebody had gotten rid of it, the place where I had stored it was empty, the wood was gone, the wood was gone, all gone, baby, gone.
For a long moment there (until about maybe noon the next day) I felt my heart was just like that glass I cracked in the sink today.

I also discovered that the person most likely responsible as of late has his own blog.
For those interested: click here.

And since I am linking pages right now, for those who would like to more about the landscape in certain communities, and those who are interested in eating soup, you might want to check out this blog written by a person who may or may not have witnessed the tragic disappearance of my beloved wood collection, a person by the way, who also most of the time tries to laugh at my jokes (which I find very nice and friendly, that's a good character trait). Please feel free to click here.
The fireworks pictured there seem to be just the ones I totally missed out on this year for reasons of being asleep.

Another thing: For the new year and all the rest of my future I have decided to try to concentrate on the present more. The past, as well as the future after all exist only through thinking in our minds and both are therefore non-existent. So why divide my attention equally among the three? I will consciously try to allow 2 thirds of my attention to the present from now on, and have yesterday and tomorrow share the remaining 33 percent among them.

How to achieve this, I don't have a masterplan. Participate in things even though you have to get up early next morning? Say yes to going into the wilderness even though the mere thought of outside makes you freeze with cold?
Any helpful hints are appreciated.

I will now lean back and enjoy listening to Ennio Morricone, at the moment "Le Marginal".

Bunnyrabbit

2011-01-02T18:07:00.005-06:00

According to our culture's calendar it is the new year now. What's the name of the band again:"So this is the new year, and I don't feel any different..."
One of those Indie bands, I think. Can't remember which one, though. Any help?

I myself do feel different now, but that is only because I did feel sick on last year's last day, in fact I spend most of it sleeping. And when I finally woke up it was this year's first day already, 11 o' clock.
Oh God, I missed all of the fireworks!!

Since this is the first post of this new year (the year of the rabbit, some say, therefore much better than last year, of course), it is also time to take inventory. What was Christmas good for this time?
Let's see what I got:

- a fuckload of Ferrero Rocher. (1 giant 48pack, 2 16packs, 1 mixed 8Rocher/6Garden (which is Raffaello, to all you Europeans)/6DarkRocher (which actually go by a different name, but they used such a fucked up scripture font on the label that I find myself unable to read it), 1 mixed 8 of each pack (or so)
- 1 external HD 1 TB for backup purposes
- 1 M-Audio Fasttrack Recording Device, which actually comes with a free version of ProTools (I always wanted to try that), and which enables me to record two input channels at the same time through a USB port (goodbye windows-asshole-motherfucking-microphone-input-level-automatic-userfriendly-fucker-upper); I haven't tried it out yet, but I will do so soonish
- several cookbooks, a.o. one big fucking Harrowsmith 3-in-1 super all editions not available anymore super-duper cookbook with all the standard and non-standard recipes you may ever need; also one cookbook for fast veggie dishes, which is nice (maybe this one will be able to finally give me the answer to the question: where can I find an adequate vegetarian substitute for meat? - On the other hand, maybe it is me who is asking the wrong question.)
- several German books, a.o. Die Vermessung der Welt (Kehlmann), Wir hatten mal ein Kind (Fallada), Der Turm (Tellkamp) and Garou (Swann)
- several English books, a.o. two Jack Londons and three John Sandfords
- 1 Sandisk SansaClip+ 8GB mp3 player (imho the one and only real alternative to an ipod nano)
- lots of Christmas candy and goodies from both sides of the Atlantic, including Stollen, Lebkuchen, Toblerone, Mercy (...daß es dich gibt), Kinder Schokolade and various other chocolates

I would like to thank you. Thank you, Santa Claus.

I also read two books this holiday season which I found very interesting and would like to recommend to everybody (for more information, clicking the titles will take you to Amazon):

Sex at Dawn (Ryan, Jethá), which explores the prehistoric origins of human sexuality, and The Fall (Steve Taylor), which actually suggests very convincingly that it is not human nature to make war, oppress women, destroy nature etc... We don't have to be evil!

What a relief.

I'd like to end this post with a little joke I read in a book the other day:

A guy comes home and finds his girlfriend outside the door, with her bags packed, all ready to go. "What's going on?" he asks.
"I'm leaving you!" she says.
"Why? This morning everything was alright! What's wrong?"
"Well, " she says, "I heard you were a pedophile."
"Pedophile?" he replies, "isn't that an awfully big word for an eight-year-old?"

Shitbird

2010-12-27T13:51:00.003-06:00

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.

Mushaway Awesome!

2010-12-23T19:49:00.003-06:00

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!

Discovery Of Speed

2010-12-22T20:09:00.005-06:00

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.

Today

2010-12-16T20:44:00.003-06:00

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

OHMYGOD It's Him!

2010-12-09T20:17:00.002-06:00

Visualizer

2010-12-06T18:26:00.002-06:00

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.

Cabbage Soup

2010-12-04T21:54:00.004-06:00

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

2010-12-04T18:04:00.002-06:00

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.

Door Of Perception

2010-12-03T21:11:00.002-06:00

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.

Meta Meta Meta

2010-12-01T19:46:00.003-06:00

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.

Is This Really Real, Or Just A Dream?

2010-11-20T22:14:00.006-06:00

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.

S N O W

2010-11-11T10:21:00.002-06:00

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.

Weather Warning

2010-11-10T22:44:00.002-06:00

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.

Soup

2010-11-04T19:49:00.001-05:00

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.

I Used Up All My Duct Tape

2010-10-27T19:42:00.007-05:00

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.

I Want To Believe

2010-10-26T18:52:00.003-05:00

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.

What Is He Doing Now? Contacting Aliens?

2010-10-25T19:09:00.009-05:00

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.

Poker

2010-10-24T22:05:00.004-05:00

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.

Cantenna

2010-10-23T14:38:00.007-05:00

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.

The Shield / I Am A Monkey

2010-10-21T21:40:00.005-05:00

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.

Winter...

2010-10-20T22:32:00.000-05:00

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

Now I Have A Machine Gun

2010-10-19T20:10:00.006-05:00

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!

Snow

2010-10-18T20:33:00.002-05:00

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.

And If He... Alters It?

2010-10-14T20:20:00.002-05:00

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.

Donkey

2010-10-11T22:30:00.002-05:00

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.

Maybe I Should Find Out About Edible Mushrooms Around Here

2010-10-04T21:53:00.003-05:00

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.

Memory Lane

2010-09-24T23:07:00.003-05:00

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.

Hotspot

2010-09-22T23:04:00.002-05:00

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

2010-09-22T19:31:00.002-05:00

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.

The Queen's Tits

2010-09-12T05:09:00.003-05:00

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.

Best Before

2010-09-10T19:54:00.010-05:00

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

September, September

2010-09-07T21:53:00.002-05:00

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.

Survivor Tale #14

2010-08-30T18:19:00.006-05:00

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.

Survivor Tale #13

2010-08-26T20:24:00.007-05:00

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!

Survivor Tale #12

2010-08-18T08:15:00.003-05:00

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.

Survivor Tale #11

2010-08-16T19:56:00.006-05:00

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

Old Man My Ass

2010-08-13T20:34:00.002-05:00

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

2010-08-13T08:37:00.002-05:00

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.

Lifetime I Will Never Lose

2010-08-12T22:26:00.004-05:00

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

2010-08-12T15:38:00.002-05:00

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

2010-08-12T10:47:00.005-05:00

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

2010-08-12T08:42:00.003-05:00

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.

German Restaurant

2010-08-11T19:55:00.004-05:00

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

2010-08-11T08:11:00.005-05:00

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.

Survivor Tale #6

2010-08-09T18:35:00.003-05:00

Did I mention what kind of people were playing this game? I mean: Profession-wise. We had dentists, psychologists, nurses, designers, woodworkers, fishermen, supermarket-employees, fabric-factory-people, housewifes et cetera. All kinds of people! And that's just what they did for a living, imagine their hobbies, imagine the impact on the game!
For example: One player had a roller-derby-background. Those roller-derby-ists have some strange codex about their clothing, they alter it. And clothes-alterations, especially among females, are often contagious:

normal t-shirts become shoulderless short-shirts, sleeves become almost-hot-pants or headbands, v-necks appear out of nowhere... anything is possible

What I didn't mention for sure is the disgusting-food-challenge. I must have pushed it from my memory, an act of subconscious erasure.
This one took place on saturday, right after lunch. Did you hear what I said? Right after lunch. When everybody was full of delicious food. Well, when Purple Team was full of delicious food, because one of those morning challenges had been an award challenge, the award was a pizza for lunch (as opposed to sardines out of cans for team Orange). So I guess orange team had a slight advantage on this one.

The disgusting-food-challenge went like this: 2 players, 1 of each team, go to the counter and find there 2 portions of a disgusting food. At the signal they start eating it, whoever has eaten it all first and goes AAAHHHHH empty-mouthed scores a point. Each team sends in the next player, and so on. Whoever team scores 5 points first, wins the challenge.

I really didn't wanna do this. I hate disgusting food. The idea alone is enough to make me barf. I was basically sick from anticipation even before it really started. Purple team assigned numbers to its players, and I was number 6 - meaning that I would be sixth person who has to eat something really icky. I instantly noticed that there was an off-chance of roughly 0.000001 percent or so that I wouldn't have to play - in the event that all 5 players before me score a point.
I liked that idea. I held on to it, mentally. It helped me breathe.

Our first player to go was a vegetarian. Orange's wasn't. Rumour had it that she was more like a gourmet of disgusting food, enjoying it voluntarily all the time. From a purple perspective: Not exactly what you'd call nice prospects.
So they went to the counter, and the first disgusting dish was heart. Cooked, thank god.
It didn't look too disgusting, just like a piece of meat. Then the signal - both players grabbed their chunk of heart and bit off a piece and started chewing and chewing and chewing... and purple player took another bite... chewing, chewing, Orange still chewing, second bite orange, third bite Purple, chewing, chewing, chewing... AAAAHHHH!
What the fuck? The vegetarian has eaten the heart faster than the meat-gourmet? Extraordinary! 1 point for Purple Team!
Awesome. Great job. Who would have thought? I am still amazed.

Next players to the counter!
I am sorry, but I seem unable to remember the exact order or even the kinds of disgusting foods served from this point on. My soul may be too pure for things like this. All I know is that there was some kind of pickled pig-brain, some kind of see-food or fishy goo, and liver. There was a lot of chewing involved with the liver, which for some reason seemed to be very dry. Our Asian Kung-Fu-Dude had to practically dance down his piece of liver, or dance-power his saliva production, and that was exactly what he did. Orange never had a chance.
Long story short: Purple team scored 5 points in a row, which not only won the challenge, it also allowed me to sit this one out. Phew. Thank you, Purple Team.

To correct myself: I believe that this challenge actually lead to Orange-voting-one-off, while one of the previously described activities just won us a pizza. The result however, was the same: By saturday evening Orange had been defeated (down to 3 players), Purple was still at 7.

And then came the Merge.

Survivor Tale #5

2010-08-07T20:22:00.005-05:00

I hope former team Orange doesn't hate me because of constantly mentioning their losing streak... which by the way continued nicely over the course of last saturday's afternoon.

If I remember correctly we did three things at the eastern beach that day: the blindfolded puzzling, the throwing and the bucket-ing.

The game-master had prepared 2x16 tiles (half orange, half purple), which were scattered all over the beach by his helpers. The goal was to collect all the tiles, turn them around - they were actually puzzle-pieces - and solve the puzzle. Each team had 5 collectors.
The twist: The collectors were blindfolded. They could move, but they couldn't see.
That's where the caller came in: 1 person of each team had to remain stationary, but could direct and "steer" the blindfolded ones to the right spots. By shouting.

On Team Purple the caller was me.

I would scream the persons name and then add words from a pool of commands: Go forward/backward! Turn left/right! PICK UP THE TILE! (that was my favourite)
It didn't help that I still had not memorized the names properly. So there's me yelling like a madman: ROB! ROB! TURN RIGHT! But the guy just keeps standing there, grinning stupidly. WHAT THE FUCK! ROB! TURN FUCKING RIGHT!
From somewhere I heard: "His name is Dave." So I went: DAVE! TURN THE FUCK RIGHT! MOVE FORWARD! STOP! PICK UP THE TILE!
That worked better; he went, and fell to his knees, combing the sand in front of him with his fingers until he found the wooden puzzle piece. It was very hectic, with purple and orange people all over the place. Imagine 10 persons running about like crazy chickens while two dictators scream random commands. RUN FORWARD! KEEP RUNNING! STOP! PICK UP THE TILE!
Behind me the spectators (helpers and voted-off ones) were making fun of me because of my accent. Nazi-joke time. They were waiting for "SCHNELL! SCHNELL!", or so they told me afterwards. But I didn't notice any of that, I was busy controlling my blindfolded team members. I didn't even follow the progress of team orange, there was no time for that.
It was also my job to keep an eye out on everybody for safety, and prevent them from colliding with each other. I didn't really succeed in that part, though. Didn't seem too important to me at the time. All I wanted was to have all the tiles in a nice neat pile at my feet.
Whenever somebody had picked up the tile, they would just run back to me, guided by me voice. When we had all 16 pieces we launched ourselves at them like hungry wolves at a bunch of goats. Everybody ripped off their blindfolds, moved tiles back and forth until the image made sense: It was the Survivor Logo.
Then we heard the game-master's voice: "Purple Team wins!"

By a hair, or so Orange told us later. A likely story.

puzzle pieces

10 minutes later the team Orange-you-sorry-that-you're-orange gathered in a half circle around the game-master for "tribal council": they had to vote one off.

The throwing was all about... yes, throwing. Each team had 6 poles with bottle-shaped targets on top of them, the goal of the challenge was to hit the bottles off the poles with tied-together tennis balls. The whole thing turn based: 2 purple players throw, then 2 orange players throw, and so on. In the beginning there were also keepers involved, but after 20 minutes of endless throwing and hardly any hitting the keepers were outcommissioned. They were keeping too well.
It took another 20 minutes to hit all of Orange's targets, and once again they had to vote one person off their team.

throwing and catching

So they were down to 4 for the bucket challenge, which went like this: 4 players of each team got small buckets. They lined up in two rows: the first player in the water, the next player 3 meters up the beach, player 3 another 3 meters further away, and yet another 3 meters further the fourth player, who also had a big empty bucket sitting next to him in the sand.
The challenge: Player 1 fills his bucket with water, then throws the water (not the bucket) to player 2, who catches it with his bucket, and throws it to 3, who throws it to 4, who empties it into the big bucket. Whoever team's big bucket flows over first, wins.
A guarantee to get wet.
Luckily Purple Team had Sugar, the super-Kung-Fu-dude from Asia. He was not only in an extraordinary physical shape, he also worked some kind of awesome Kung-Fu magic with the water - he seemed to be able to control it. It shaped and bended after his will, out of the bucket and into another bucket in long perfect arches, hardly ever spilling one single drop. The other 3 Purples quickly mimicked this, to the effect of relatively quickly filling the big bucket. And while Orange was still drenching themselves in ocean water and tears over their two inch bucket-water-level, Purple's bucket flowed over.
Another win for us, another one to vote off for them.

Final count: 7 to 3.

Survivor Tale #4

2010-08-07T07:37:00.002-05:00

No tents for survivors - we had to build our own shelters. Did you know that by taking rope apart 10 feet can easily be turned into 30 feet? We did that a lot. After trying to construct a shelter between some trees (with questionable results) we decided to start over: On a tree-free patch covered with soft grass. We put up 2 ropes all the way across the clearing, tied a roof-tarp to them, hung 4 wall tarps from them, put a floor tarp under them, et voilá: Done was our new roomy and nicely box-shaped tarp-tent.
At the same time 2 of our team went about 50 meters further into the woods to built a latrine: Basically a tarp for sight cover around a hole in the ground, but when it was finished it came complete with toilet paper, flash light, in-use-indicator and magic markers for writing on the walls.
The judges were impressed, we deservedly won "best shelter" - another fuck-up for Team Orange (they had a latrine with an actual seat though: A for effort - they tried really hard). This was friday night, by then they couldn't yet know they'd better get used to being second.

Saturday noon: We had canned pasta with rice for lunch. Let's not talk about it.

Survivor Tale #3

2010-08-06T06:49:00.004-05:00

We were 7 people on Purple Team, and 8 on Orange. Remembering all their names wasn't easy, given that everybody had 2: their real name and their survivor name, borrowed from the tv show. So to our mastermind of games and architect in charge we referred to as Jeff Probst. I had picked my game name from a list on wikipedia: Ethan (I like Mission Impossible).

Saturday Morning brought us 3 challenges at the northern beach:

Challenge #4 was about 3 team members digging 3 boxes out of the sand and finding numbers in them. A 4th team member then had to use those numbers to open the lock on a chest, which contained a diagram of symbols, to be memorized by team member 5, who then had to reconstruct the sequence ten feet further down the beach.
We clearly won this one.

Challenge #3 was about 1 team member retrieving little flags that were tied to a buoy in the water. After getting all the flags the whole team had to stand on a 1 square foot platform: An act of balance. I don't know how we did it, but we won.

Challenge #2 took place on the beach as well as on the way there. Both teams had to find hidden packages in the woods, then take them to the beach, open them, and from the wooden letters inside reconstruct a phrase. Personally, I don't think Purple Team was made for finding things in the woods, which might be why we sucked at it. Orange (most likely on some kind of sardine-rush or rice-rage) found their packages faster, they made it to the beach quicker, and they also shouted out the phrase before we did. So Purple Team lost this one, possibly because of all the eggs and bacon and coffee in our well-filled bellies.

So we had to vote one off our team. No big deal though, to make things even (8 against 8 instead of 7 against 8) Jeff had loaned us one of the helpers as a temporary 8th team member just before the challenge. This helper had to go now.

So by noon saturday Orange had voted off 2 and was down to 6 persons, while Purple still had their original 7.

Once I get some pictures of this, I'll post them.

Book Burner

2010-08-05T15:15:00.003-05:00

We bought this book yesterday. Didn't really want to, but then couldn't resist. In a store downtown, off the shelf. 25 bucks. It's the english translation, but I guess it'll still get you arrested in good old Germany.