Drogba Zwei Toilet

Some people like cars that go fast, some people like cars that get good fuel economy, some people like cars that are flashy, and some people like cars with disc brakes. The band that made this song obviously fall into the last category. I would pay good money (someone else's) to find out what inspired this song. It really isn't like anything I've ever seen or heard before.

This may be NSFW, but I guess it depends upon where you work. There is profanity and thats it, no nudity or anything sexual.

Happy Birthday Knut

(Knut's 1st Birthday)

The world's most famous polar bear turns two today. You've probably heard the story about his life by now so I won't go into details. I got to see him in the Berlin Zoo last year just a few days after Christmas, and it was great. I got there just as feeding time was starting, I got a spot upfront by the rail and watched him jump in the water and splash around to collect his lunch. Even at the advanced age of just over 1, he was adorable that day. I would share some of the pictures I took that day, but sadly it was an overcast day which messed with my cameras light sensor causing all my pictures to come out blurry. 

Recently there has been speculation that Knut might be sold to another zoo. He is currently owned by the Berlin Zoo, which is owned by the City of Berlin, which is billions of dollars in debt. I guess their can't afford their kleine Eisbär any longer. Some of the rumored cities he could end up in are Hanover, Stockholm and Oslo. As long as he goes somewhere cold I'm sure he'll be fine, but it will be sad to see him leave Berlin. A bear is the symbol of Berlin, it is even on their flag, and to have the world's most famous bear there only seems appropriate. 

Gobbledigook en Español.

I love this.

How I waste my time.

If there is one thing I'm better than most people at, it is wasting time. Lately I've felt like all my wasting of time has gotten out of hand. I need to find a way to waste my time and still be of some benefit to someone. That is when I stumbled across Google Image Labeler. It's a game of sorts that Google came up with to get people to properly label images. I haven't done any research on it (that'd be wasting time in the wrong way), but from what I have gathered it is so that more people agree upon what an image actually is, therefore making it easier for people to search for images. 

How to play: you are paired up with another person playing the game and they two of you have 2 minutes to agree upon labels for as many pictures as possible. The make it more difficult by having a list of tags that are already established and don't reward you with points. When you and your partner agree on a label you get a chance to attempt a second, third, fourth, or however many pictures you can label in that two minutes. Sometimes you work with someone great and you can label up ten or so pictures, and then other times you are paired with a moron and can't get past the first picture. 

I tried using this program at my university yesterday and it was inaccessible so you may have trouble using it if you are on a corporate network of some sort. 

Thanksgiving

Something about Thanksgiving felt off this year. I don't know if it was because I didn't celebrate Thanksgiving last year (I was in Dublin), or if it was something else. The meal felt abbreviated, the football was lackluster (I can't believe how bad the Lions are), and the day was slow. I'm not complaining, I'm just pointing out that this year was a boring Thanksgiving. 

It could be that Thanksgiving doesn't interest me the way it interests others. I don't see the appeal of gorging myself, and I never have. Back in June I had a little eating contest with some friends which left me unable to enjoy food for about a week afterward. Sure I won, but it wasn't worth it. I had to walk home hunched over, and my stomach felt like it was ripping open for the next week each time I ate or drank something. 

I actually don't really have anything to say today. I'm simply trying to write on a semi-daily basis so that I don't go months between posts again. 

Christmas on Mars

I don't like writing film reviews so I'm going to try to make sure this isn't one.

Saturday night I went to one of only three screenings of Christmas on Mars here in CT. All three were held at Real Art Ways in Hartford. Real Art Ways isn't your typical movie theatre. It is actually an art gallery that shows films in a small theatre. The films are small art house type films that don't see widespread distribution.

The film wasn't what I was expecting. Considering how uplifting The Flaming Lips music tends to be, I figured the film would be of a similar quality. I was wrong. It was hands down the most depressing and oddest Christmas film I've ever seen. Calling it a Christmas film is a stretch, aside from the fact that it takes place on Christmas Eve and features Wayne Coyne as an alien in a Santa costume there is nothing about the film that says Christmas. The acting varied from horrific to not bad. The score was excellent, as were the sets. The fact that much of the sets were built in Wayne's backyard is amazing. Most of the film was shot in black and white, and I think this was done as much for the aesthetics as it was to hide the fact that most of the sets were held together with masking tape. One thing that really caught me off guard was the number of vagina's in this film. It would have been over the top if they weren't the only redeeming quality of the film. A marching band of vagina headed musicians about to crush a baby is oddly comedic when seen in the context of this film. If you decide to watch this movie try to look for hidden vaginae. Some are more obvious than others.

I was considering buying the Christmas on Mars Deluxe Edition, but after seeing the film all of Wayne Coyne's Jim Jones-esqu selling personality couldn't win me over. The film was terrible. I'll probably pick up the DVD/ CD set just to get the soundtrack. I can't justify spending $40 for this even though it comes with so much cool stuff.

Free Dr. Pepper

Only until about 6pm tonight you can get a coupon for a free 20oz Dr. Pepper at www.drpepper.com/text . Enjoy it while you can, act fast. 

Random Photo

I like Fiat 500s, they look like fun like practical cars. I took pictures of a bunch of these original 500s while I was in Europe, but I think this is my favorite of the bunch. I took this one somewhere in Paris. Rumor has it that they are planning to sell an updated version of it at Maserati dealerships to compete against cars like the GTI and MINI Cooper. I hope it works out because the new one is almost as cool as the original, especially in Abarth trim.

Did it again.

Apathy got to me again last night. I failed in my attempt to go to the Stars on the Lid concert. I won’t exactly consider it a major failure; I don’t know any music by the band aside from what I’ve heard on YouTube. I’ve just been so tired lately. I did the math and I’ve been having 18-19 hour days 4-5 days a week for the last few weeks. I need to increase my sleep. I can’t enjoy leisure activities until I can enjoy some proper sleep. Hopefully I’ll get enough sleep to make it to a "Christmas On Mars" screening this weekend. As far as I know this is the only weekend where the film in playing in CT. I’ve been waiting for this movie for probably 5 years, so it’ll be great to see the final outcome. Wish me luck in not sleeping through the whole weekend. Next week will be a godsend, only one day of classes and one day (maybe) of work. I could have six day break next week.

Super Obama World

Talk about a great way to waste time. Its just like Super Mario Bros. but with Obama.

www.superobamaworld.com

False Start

Lets call that a false start. I really want to get on track and start writing more for this blog, but I’m always so busy these days. I’m trying to complete my senior seminar course, I’m looking for jobs both for now and for after I get my degree in May, I want to be more artistic (I’ve come back around to photography, and I want to try stencil art), and I’ve got stuff to take care of in my everyday life. I haven’t even had time for my favorite activity, seeing concerts. I skipped a Sigur Rós concert in September simply because I was too tired to go. About two weeks ago I skipped a Pelican concert that was only about 25 minutes away because, once again, I was too tired. Tonight Stars of the Lid in playing in the next town over, and I really want to go. I’m not usually into that sort of slow ambient type music, but I figure it will be something new to listen to. As it is Eluvium is just about the only ambient band I listen to. Either next week or the week after Boris is playing in Danbury CT, which is over an hour away, but it is a relatively nice drive so I may try to make it out there to see them. I don’t even have any of their music; I’ve just heard so much about them that I think seeing them would be an experience. It is what I did with MONO and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. I’ve heard from people I trust that they were good bands so I went to see them, and they became two of my favorite bands ever.

Its late as I’m writing this, after 2:30am, so I’m not going to attempt to squeeze anything more out of this blog tonight. The video I’ve attached is amazing. If you’ve seen it before I’m sure you’ll appreciate seeing it again, and if you haven’t seen it before prepare to be amazed. After you watch it you may want to go to the youtube page where it is hosted and read about how it was created it. It is really fascinating.

Glad thats over.

As you may have noticed it has been a long time since I posted, but I swear I have an excellent reason. I was kidnapped. Yup, the Chinese equivalent of the CIA didn't exactly care for my scathing review of their society so they took me black-ops style. I've been somewhere in the middle kingdom for the last 6 months.

Not Really.

I actually lost internet shortly after my last post. Then I when I got internet back, I went to Sweden. When I got back from Sweden I was busy with something or another, it was 5 months ago, I'm allowed to have forgotten. Since then I did some more traveling. Spent time in France for half of August. Then I came home and I've been busy with school since then. I'm in the middle of trying to write my senior thesis, so I'm busy almost every day. In fact I should be writing it right now, but I'm hoping this blog entry will help to clear my mind. I don't have anything to share with you, but why don't you check out this youtube clip. It's Craig Robinson, or as you probably know him Daryl from The Office. Last night he put on a free performance at my university and it was amazing. This guy is hysterical.

Top Ten: Things I Hate About China

After my last post I feel like I should enlighten you to the TOP TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT CHINA. Maybe this will be a new feature, Top 10 lists, or maybe like other “new features” I’ve brought up in the past it will fade into oblivion. Whatever. Today it is a new feature. Yay. So now on to the ten things I hate most about China.

10. Why are they the middle kingdom? Shouldn’t they be the right hand edge kingdom? I hate when people don’t know geography. Hey China, stick to math, you fail at geography.

9. Chinese people don’t sweat out of their armpits. My friend read this on the internet, so it must be true. I’m actually just jealous about this one.

8. There are over a billion of you. This is probably just my lame-ass emo-indie-wanna be hipster-part time electrician coming out here, but I don’t like things when they become too popular. That’s why I only listen to music released on CDR and watch movies on laser disc. Maybe if there weren’t so many of you, I’d be less harsh…like Japan.

7. Why are their heads so round? This one just kinda freaks me out. When I was growing up I knew a kid with an exceptionally long head, I pushed him off the slide. But round heads! Eck. And they all have bowl cuts. Don’t they have other haircuts in that country?

6. Their food makes me want to shit my brain out of my ears. I imagine being gang raped by a heard of rhinos would be less painful than eating a full serving General Tsao’s Ass-Rape Fried Chicken Surprise.

5. They’re backstabbers. Come on, you guys were getting raped left and right by the Nips and we came in and saved your little yellow ass, and what do you do to thank us. You shit all over us. Sure you gave us ping-pong and shoddily crafter shoes, thanks a lot “middle” kingdom.

4. Chinese people smell funny. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s all of the tiger penises they eat, but they come in a room and I’m ready to shit my brain out of my ears.

3. Their music sounds like it was made by deaf-retarded-pterodactyls. Listening to Chinese music is the only thing more painful to your ears than shitting out your brain.

2. Ching Chong Taso Dang Loang Tsaosung. What the fuck does this shit mean? Please use some real letters and speak like a human. If I wanted to listen to the shrieks of baby pterodactyls being eaten by an elephant seal I’d watch Jurassic Park IV.

1. You eat Tiger Penises. Yeah that’s right, the number 1 killer of Tigers in the world are Chinese people who want to eat their dicks. They also eat other things like rhino horns and Panda sperm. Look dumb fuck, eating a tiger dick ain’t gonna make yours any bigger, you’re Chinese… remember?

Torch

You know how some people can just be a dick? I mean a real asshole. Someone that annoys you, and annoys you, and annoys you NONSTOP. This is the kind of guy that goes out of his way to be a royal douche bag at all times. He does things not because he wants to do them, but because he knows doing them will just piss you off more. This guy also thinks he knows everything. That’s right, there is nothing in the world that you could possibly know that he doesn’t. And god forbid he’s wrong, because then he’ll just tell you that wherever you got the facts was actually wrong, and his made up reality is in fact the truth. Yeah this guy is an asshole, and I know you know him; you probably went to High School with a guy just like this. This guy makes you shake with rage with the mere mention of his massive douche-baggery. There is no reasoning with this guy, he doesn’t reason. He is a fucking DICK and his name is China.

I was in Paris last week on a trip with friends, but the highlight of my stay was protesting the Olympic Torch Relay. When I found out about the relay I made sure that my stay would overlap the protest. It was worth it. I don’t know much about protests, I’ve only been to one before this, but that was as researcher and not as a participant. This time I got to get in the trenches and lob some verbal grenades at those “gooks” the way my grandfather did in Korea. As an aside, he loves telling stories about all the “gooks” he killed.


I got there a little late, I had to switch hostels from one side of town to the other (I’ll talk about that another day), but I got there. When I showed up I came from underneath the Eiffel Tower where some protestors had just hung a surprisingly small banner. Maybe it looked bigger when they made it, but hanging from the Eiffel Tower it was tiny.

Fast Forward an hour or so, and the Olympic flame is nowhere in sight. The police have done a good job keeping the two sides separate from each other. On one side you have the Chinese, and I don’t just mean the pro-Dick, ermm, pro-China supporters, the China side was literally nothing but the Yellow Menace himself. The pro-Tibet (because at this point it wasn’t much more than a Free Tibet rally) side was multi-ethnic and multi-cultural and multi-lingual. Most of the chanting was done in Engrish, but there was Tibetan and Chinese shouted. The only French I heard was something about “Liberté Tibet”. This rally was like a free pass to be as racist as you want. I’m not saying I’m a racist, but I hate assholes, and China is an asshole, so I took advantage of this. I think Monday April 7th, 2008 will go down in history as the most racist day of my life.



Eventually my friend Wes (name not changed, because I don’t give a shit about his wellbeing) and I came upon a small commie red Chinese flag. Great lets burn this motherfucker. Well not so fast. It turns out burning a flag is really hard. Those Arabs on TV make it look so easy when they burn flags and effigies of President Bush or Danish Cartoonists, but it’s not. I don’t know if it is the fact they live in the desert or is maybe they rub it in camel shit first, all I know If they make it look easy. It isn’t. It took us a while to get that flag burning. But when we did we felt good. It was nice watching a flag burn for once than wasn’t American. In fact it was nice that it wasn’t America getting booed this time.


We had enough of the pro-Tibet side so we decided to go check out the people sitting in the street in an attempt to block the incoming flame. That was really boring, so we went to pretend we supported China. Yeah, because 3 white Americans are going to fit in with a sea of short black haired Chinese waving their retarded flag in support of their retarded country. Actually my main goal was to try to find another flag to burn, but none of the Chinese believed me when I said I supported them. They must’ve seen me switch sides. There were two other white people on the China side, they had snuck in behind the short sea in front of them and were waving a Tibetan flag over their heads. That’s one of the benefits of growing up in a first world nation, having the nutrition necessary to stand up and over the Yellow Menace. And boy were they a menace today. Some tall ass Yao Ming wannabe came and stole their flag and then he and a group of his cronies took it and ran down the street and started to stomp it. I stole it back from them and then taunted them, which was probably stupid, there were about 10 of them and I was alone. I got the flag back to its rightful owner and was turning around to go back to my, cowardly, friends when one of them assaulted me. Ok, it wasn’t that bad, they just threw water at me. But still, if I had seen which one of those little egg rolls had thrown water down my neck on a day where it had been snowing I would have been showing them a little Kung Pow chicken action.


When the flame did pass by us it was in the ‘safety’ of a bus. I guess they knew we meant business. An hour or so later I was walking down the Champs Élysées when a mob of people came running at me, it turns out I had happened upon the torch a second time. This time I got to see it pass by me, it wasn’t worth writing home about.

(these guys were all over the place, they looked like RoboCop, and some of them were on roller blades)
Overall it was a good day. I enjoyed all of it. I hope to do it again some day, and if the Torch comes to your town or city go tell China’s he’s a dick and you’re sick of his bullshit.

Another Picture

This is Imperia, she is a statue of a whore holding the king in one hand and the pope in the other. It's a rather prominent symbol here in Konstanz. You see Konstanz was the site of something important papal dealings back in the day (1400s or something), so this statues says something about the power prostitutes (and women in general) had over both the church and crown.

A Picture

I'm not sure why I felt like sharing this today, but here is a picture of my University. This was taken from the roof of my dormitory. The picture is from September, which is why there are leaves on the trees. Maybe I'll post more random photos in the future, maybe.

Vote for me II.

Here it is. The chance for you to vote for me has come. The photos are out of order, but if you hover over each picture it gives you a number. My number is 20. So scroll down below the gallery and you can vote for #20 right there. I know you want to. It is the only entry with any sort of passive or active Zombie safety devices.

Vote for my Scion Hako Concept here.

Beer Book

I was home for a couple of weeks at the beginning on this month, and while I was there I picked up a great book about Beer. I didn’t read all of it, because half of the book is actually a reference guide and doesn’t make for good reading. But the book has become my new travel companion. The author is a guy named Michael Jackson. I was reading about him looking for a link, and it appears that he was one of the most respected figures is Beer literature of all time. He changed the way many people look at beer. Both drinking it and brewing. He liked to look at beer in reference to the culture from which it came. I read a lot, but I think this is the first book I’ve ever mentioned in my blog. If you’re a fan of beer, good beer, not the crap college freshman drink by the case, than check out this book. Now that I know his stature in the beer community I’m going to search out more of his books.

Vote for me.

You can't vote for me yet, but if I make it as a finalist you can. Here's the scoop.

Scion debuted a new concept at the New York auto show called the Hako.
This is what it looks like:
As you can see it is ass ugly. So, the auto bloggers over at Jalopnik have opened a contest to readers looking for the best redesign.
I've drawn out my re-interpretation of the Hako and hope it wins.
Here is my version:

If I make it to the finals I'll give you an URL to vote for me. And if I win I get two hats, which I would gladly post pictures of me wearing.

Think of the tourists!

I saw this shop in Hamburg a few weeks back. I know they're just German surnames, but I think they should have found a third name and thrown it in the middle. Or maybe they could have gone with initials.

*Expletive Deleted*

I really can't convey my dismay about hearing of the demise* of Godspeed You! Black Emperor without a sh!t load of expletives, but I'll do my best.

I saw this band once, it was April 6th, 2003 in Boston, and it was spectacular. I hadn’t actually heard any of the bands music until the day before I went to the concert. I didn’t know anything about them. All I knew was that people on various message boards that I frequented LOVED this band, and praised them like few others. When I saw they were playing in Boston I had to get myself tickets, even though I didn’t know a damn thing about them. The day before the show I wandered into a local record shop and they had a used copy of F#A#∞ which must’ve come in that day or not soon before, because never before and never after that day have I seen any used copies of any GY!BE records in any record shops. They also had a copy of Yanqui U.X.O. on vinyl, which I picked up for the record player that I had purchased only about month prior to this. I went home and was flabbergasted by what I heard. I had never heard anything like this, and I was going to see it live the next night. It was an exciting day.

The next day I was in Boston looking at Suffolk University (I graduated HS in ’03, so I was looking at colleges a lot at this time), with my parents and my girlfriend. We had arranged earlier in the week for my parents to go out for dinner while I went to the concert with my girlfriend. I didn’t realized how long the band would play for at the time. We were the first two people at the venue (we didn’t have much to do that day after the tour of the school had ended), and we waited for a couple of hours. We were so early that we wandered directly into the venue and used the restrooms while the band set up. I used the urinal right next to one of the guitarist from GY!BE, which I didn’t realize at the time. I don’t suppose it would have made a difference if I did, it’s not like I was going to ask to shake his hand while he urinated. This sort of this was a trend for me this particular spring. In June I ended up peeing next to Michael Stipe of REM fame at a Radiohead concert in NYC, after peeing I washed my hands next to Horatio Sans of SNL fame.

I think there were two opening bands, but I can’t be sure. I know one band was called Jackie O Motherfucker, and they were terrible. I was laughing at the band while they performed it was so bad. I was up front against the stage so it is fairly likely they watched me break into hysterics as they performed. It was unbelievably bad, I actually think it is unfair to call them a band they were so bad. They actually had a record player player. He was a guy that just played a record player. He didn’t scratch like a DJ or do anything. But I’m not going to go into how bad this band was. The reason I went for was Godspeed You! Black Emperor.


This was almost 5 years ago so some of the details have faded, but I still remember how loud it was. I was up front right by Efrin Menuck’s monitor. He is the unofficial band leader. The band played for almost 3 hours, and if their set list was to be believed they only played 6 songs. Words cannot do justice to the power of their music. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before, and their stage show was like nothing I’d ever seen before. They had 3 guitarists, 2 bassists, 2 drummers, a violinist and a violists, and no vocals. The only vocals (not singing) were pre-recorded and came from an MD player that Efrin controlled. This band did things with guitars I’ve never seen before, and have done my best to emulate, if for no other reason than to waste time. For a band of their size they were tighter than many three pieces I’ve seen. This was a group of musicians that sounded like they were born to play together. When I left that concert my ears rang for about a week. It is where I learned that ear plugs are not for the weak, they are for the smart.

Since then I’ve seen other Post-Rock bands, but none of them come close to the grandeur of GY!BE. They really were a one of a kind band, and with the recent announcement of their permanent split I’ll never again have the chance to seem them live. I hope you were luckily enough to see this band before they split, if not you should do your best to find some recordings of their shows. I have a copy of the show I have described above, however I’m in Germany and it is in my closet in Connecticut.

*I know NME is probably the worst music magazine ever, but they are the only source I could find. Hopefully they are wrong.

No more Polaroid.

I don't know about you but I love Polaroid cameras. I haven't had one in years, and I probably wasn't going to buy one anytime soon, but I just found out they are getting the ax, and this is saddening. Polaroids are fun, and people make real artwork with them. It is a shame for them to be discontinued. If you're a fan go stock up on film now. They'll stop making it relatively soon.

Check out this great story for some classic Polaroid commercials and some more info on the demise of the instant photography.

End of an era.

An era is ending right here before our eyes. The last remnants of the WWI generation are succumbing to old age. Being a fan of WWI history this is of great sadness to me. I’ve never met a WWI vet, and my time is running out. I’ll never meet a German WWI vet, the last one died last month. I’ll probably never meet a French vet, they lost one of two last month, and although it wasn’t during WWI, the last soldier from the flag raising at Iwo Jima has also died recently. Of course it is inevitable that they will all be lost sooner rather than later, it is still sad to see the end of a generation. My grandmother told me about the day she read the last veteran of the Spanish American war died, I imagine I will recall the news of the death of the last American WWI vet to my grandchildren someday. If you know a veteran, or in fact anyone who has lived through a major historical incident, ask them to tell you about their experience. It doesn’t matter if they served in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, or anywhere else. Once they are gone, so are the stories they can share. The best history lessons I’ve ever had have come straight from my Korean War Veteran grandfather.

Mardi Gras German Style

Thursday saw the beginning of Mardi Gras, which is a big holiday in this region of Germany. They call it Faschnact (or Fastnacht, depending upon where you come from), but it has a lot of the same qualities as what you expect from Mardi Gras elsewhere. It has parades, costumes and bands in the streets and bars performing typical Mardi Gras-esque music. The whole thing is a sight to behold. I’ve got some night photos here, I’ll try to get some shots from the day time before it ends on Wednesday. So here are some shots from Faschnacht in Konstanz.

I don't know how to describe this.

A small street band.



A float, although it was stationary.

Embarrasing but funny.

I probably shouldn't be sharing this, but it is so funny I can't help it.

The other day I was at school talking to a friend when I thought that maybe my upset stomach was just a bit of gas. I thought I was just releasing the pressure, but then I thought that no, that was a Shart. So off I ran for the nearest men’s room. I got into the only open stall, relieved that it was not a shart, but was just a normal fart. However, in my haste to get in there I failed to notice a crack in the toilet seat. I was stuck. The broken seat had managed to pinch my left check, and wouldn’t let go. When I tried to stand up the flesh was firmly held in place by the toilet. It was probably the single most painful thing I’ve gone through in the last 12-18 months. I swear to god I thought I was going to have the flesh torn from my ass. After a minute or two (which felt like an hour or two) I was able to free myself from the seat. It was been a few days now and I still have a massive blood blister on my left check. I’ve been sitting crooked ever since then.

New Blog

I've finally gotten around to creating a blog based on my current stay in Germany as an exchange student. I intend for it to have a very different character than this one. It will be much more personal and will likely feature commentary in a much more 'stream of conscience' style than here.

Thoughts on an Exchange