The Art of the Fifteen-Minute Post

It's snowing! For real this time!

The snow is finally sticking. This after 3 weeks of daily highs around 1ºC, bitterly cold clear weather, and nightly frosts that made my toes curl up, wither, and die. But! It's all been worth it to see the snow falling and the city frosted like a big German Pandoro.

This means I managed to fulfill my fantasy of drinking a glühwein in the falling snow. (1) I hope it continues to fall through the night; at the very least, if it stuck around until tomorrow afternoon (when I have visitors), that would be nice. I'm excited to see my frosted Bamberg in the morning!


--------Endnote-------
1. A fantasy I conjured up when the snow started falling.

11 Days, Three Beers, Only One Update

Christmas preparations prevent me from regailing you. Let me only say, DeutschlandRadio Berlin may be the best radio station in the entire world. Think NPR, except with interludes from Duck's Breath Mystery Theater, German pop-music, and other randomly generated entertainment. Everything I love (music, talking-heads, comedy, and surreal juxtapositions of the above) have been brought together under one roof.

Cool thing's I've heard on DR Berlin:
1. A Schumacher concerto, followed by Roxanne -- the Police
2. Short, vicious (but joking) pieces on how to reach enlightenment or reduce stress by contorting your body into painful and bone-injuring positions, including sound effects!
3. A piece on globalization and it's impact on the German economy, including a live interview with a major official from the Economic Ministry; cut immediately to I'll Be That Girl -- the Barenaked Ladies (1)
4. A piece on education and single-parent households; cut immediately to Wyclef singing "I ain't yo daddy, but I'm the closest thing you got"

I'll forgive the fact that they're now playing some crappy J-pop (Happy! Sad! -- I don't know who, and I don't care, just make it stop!!) because they regularly play Afro-pop, which, after the demise of Afropop Worldwide on my local NPR stations back in the Empire, I miss dearly.

Go check out the live stream: Real Media or MP3. (2) Even if you don't speak German, let the Funny Moon Language act as white noise, then enjoy a music selection that makes the word "eclectic" seem empty and superficial by comparison!

-----Endnote----
1. It's funnier if you understand that most Germans seem to be very disappointed with their economic engine of late.
2. There is also a Windows Media stream, but I don't like Windows Media streams. The quality is lower than the others, and the stream rebuffers too often, leaving out punchlines and useful information. The full selection of streams is available here, under "DeutschlandRadio Berlin."

Burn

A Quick Note from Yesterday's Süddeutsche Zetiung

On Madame Tussad's somewhat controversial creche exhibition featuring David Beckham and Victoria "Posh" Spice as Joseph and Mary:

Von "schlechtem Geschmack" ist in Rom die Rede, wenn nicht gar von Gotteslästerung. Herr im Himmel, die missdeuten wieder alles! Da stehen doch George W. Bush und Tony Blair neben der Heiligen Familie, und zwar als die "Weisen aus dem Morgenland". Respekt! Das ist noch viel feinsinniger, ja hinterlistiger und gemeiner, als würden die beiden Ochs und Esel verkörpern.(1)


--------Endnotes-------
1. Streiflicht, Süddeutsche Zeitung. Freitag, 10. Dez. 2004. 1:1.

Christmas Wishlist!

I've been playing around with the del.icio.us service, and I used it to publish my Christmas demands wishlist.

Enjoy shopping for me!

Addendum

Check out the eyebrows on Mr. Uranium Salesman!

Props to Megawatt.

Inexplicable German-ness

Why, God, Why??
The Second Frost happened last night.(1) As before, the clouds burned off by 9.00, leaving a cloudless, brilliant air and a bright, nearly blinding sun. But it's still cold as shit. I know I'm not supposed to be griping about the weather, but my gloves are kaputt, and I was forced to ride my bike to school, due to my lazing about in bed this morning. Here's the equation:

Freezing Cold + Metal Bicycle + Lack of Protective Clothing = Human Sterilization

It is now 11.19, and my outside thermometer says it is 3ºC, which means it's either 0ºC or 6ºC. Either way, I'm glad that my apartment has in-floor heating.


Don't Try This at Your House, Kids -- Go to a Neighbor's, Instead
More things that are very German, yet inexplicable:

• Bob Ross
  OK. He's not German, but they love him over here. Why? I don't know! I'll give prizes to anyone who can give me a reasonable explanation for this. His television show is broadcast here untranslated, which is something. He's name seems to be used, at least among university students, as short-hand for American drug use tendencies.


• Volksmusik
  This stuff...should be...banned? shot? At least, Germany, please refrain from making more music videos of this crap. Please! Please?
  Imagine John Denver in concert, backed up by an Oom-pah Band, except the musicians can sometimes make Hair Bands seem subdued, and they are standing (with insturments) on the tops of otherwise perfectly good mountains. This is a waste of lots of things, not the first of which is money.(2)


• The Following Christmas Songs
  
  • Exhibit A: Winter Wonderland by the Eurythmics
    Absolutely unacceptable. Completely uncalled for. I wish I could erase it from my memory.(3) I blame this song's airtime (on morning radio, no less!) on some late-night bender by the programming committee. My message to Antenne Bayern:
    THAT WAS NOT FUNNY. DO NOT DO THAT AGAIN.
  
  
  • Exhibit B: The Christmas Trucking Song by ???
    Also relatively frightening. Jingle Bells, except with something resembling the lyrics to (We've Got a Great Big) Convoy crudely stapled to it. There was even a children's choir backing up the chorus. Shudder.
  
  
• Das Blaue Couch
  This is a good thing! An interview snippet on Bayern1 Radio (4), in which the guest plays a short word-association game with the host. Very clever, and the answers range from purile drivel to clever punnery. It's like those obnoxious email surveys your friends send you, except with famous and/or intriguing people.

--------Endnotes--------
1. The First Frost being the night before Thanksgiving.
2. Money would be quickly followed by time, film, and the food that I inevitably throw at the TV in disgust.
3. What erases memory? Alcohol! Luckily, beer is easily acquired in this country.
4. That's "Bayern Eins Radio."

The Stunning Concluding Paragraph

This Conclusion Brought to You by Alan Gallay

If the Carolinians were a God-fearing people, it was an exclusive God that permitted them to smite not just their enemies but people they had never met. If they were a law-abiding people, they obeyed only those laws that suited them and then used the law to secure their place in power and the subjection of their social inferiors. If they were a civil people, it was a civility of convenience. (1)

Read it for yourself.



-------Endnote-------
1. Gallay, Alan. The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 357.

Keep your perineum on!

A man was seen flailing senselessly at the Internet

My internet connection is one the way to being restored, a charming and beautiful woman has offered me a TV, and I cleaned my apartment last week. Of course, all of this really means nothing to anyone else, but there it is. If you were wondering why I didn't get in contact with you last week, one of these things is probably the reason.

Mimi Smartypants, who has the smartest pair of trousers in Cyberspace, had a nice post which emphasizes the difference between blogging and online diaries. I'll decline the thesis offer, but it's neat to be in the middle of this still-emerging (?) form. There does seem to be a self-sustaining discussion about the rules and purposes of blogging. Leading figures? Dave Weiner, to whom I broach no link, and my own favorite, the ever-idle Maciej. Five points to him, and to myself, for odd and somewhat-surreal "defining the medium through the medium" posts!

You Broke It!!

Or, rather, I did.

My internet connection, that is.

Somehow, sweeping the dust out of my room shorted out my cable modem. Now my tiny little apartment is just that much smaller, with no Internet connection to the outside world. Really, this is a good thing (except for not being about to download web-series and watch the Daily Show), for it means that I will now focus on doing the reading that I should have done a long time ago.

So, for the time being, all communication will now take place over the phone! Exciting! It's like 1987 all over again! (I'm really glad that I bought that 5m. cable for my telephone - it seemed like a silly thing at the time, but now . . . .)

If you're trying to get in contact with me, I'll only be checking my email on Mo./Mi./Fri. for the time being. Email blog@unquote.ath.cx if you desperately (1) need some other way of contacting me, and I'll get you some digits.

In the meantime, take this chance to read Mimis Smartypants (who is much funnier than I) or catch up in the archives. Did you miss these "classics"?

Snow Falling in Flurries
I misinterpret a word and have an unintentionally hilarious conversation about a fish
In which I hear a Grandious Organ Concert and Mock the Political Intentions of Veg-etables



----------End Notes----------
1. You're not really that desperate, though, are you?