On July 5th, 2008 in Lüneburg, there was and Oldtimer or Veteran Rally. That’s what Germans call it when a bunch of classic car owners get together and raise hell through the countryside.

I believe they started on Am Sande, drove through the area around Lüneburg and then ended up on the Marktplatz in front of the old Rathaus.

You will see many different kinds of cars here, that you may not typically see at American car shows. There was an old Model T, a Model A, and a sweet Mustang, but I think that was it as far as American cars. Well, there was also a WWII-era Jeep. There were a lot of Mercedes as well as a few models from Renault, Rolls Royce, Porsche, VW, Citroën, BMW, Opel, Aston Martin, MG, Jaguar as well as some I have never heard of before.

We found something interesting in our planter in front of our house. We didn’t plant it there. Honest! This has absolutely nothing to do with our recent trip to Amsterdam.

I saw it a few days ago when it was real small and just thought it was a weed, you know, the bad kind. Then a few days later as I was coming home from work, I noticed it was a bit larger.

Oh. hey…What?….Is that what I think it is?

We have a bench in front of our house right next to this and every so often we find people resting on it, or chilling, or passed out drunk. I assume someone was sitting there smoking bowls and threw there seeds and stems into the planter.

Unfortunately, this is still illegal in Germany. It was right out on the street in front of the world. As much as I would love to dabble in the horticultural sciences, we pulled it up and threw it away. You hear me? It’s gone! Don’t call me up and ask, “Hey dude, you got any stuff, dude?”

Two items of discussion today.

1. Amsterdam. Dude, that Amsterdam shit will knock you on your ass and make your brain stem sizzle. The coffee is good too. I took lots of pictures. I also attended my first MeFi-Meetup. We watched the Dutch football team get beat by the Russians. The facility where we saw it was awesome. It was in a restaurant on the top floor of a building directly on the harbor called Restaurant 11. There was a tremendous view over the city. It is also a nightclub and the game was shown in a huge room with several huge screens along the walls. It was great. Unfortunately the building is being demolished in just a few days so it was one of the last events taking place there.

   If you go to Amsterdam, you may be tempted to go on one of those big fancy canal cruises with the huge canal barge where some boring schmuck drones into a microphone. Resist that temptation and book a ride with the St. Nicholas Boat Club. You will not be sorry. This is the tour for those that want to see the real Amsterdam. It is totally relaxed and you can drink, eat and smoke whatever you want on the boat.

   If you are looking for a place to stay in Amsterdam, you may be tempted to book a room at an expensive hotel or hostel. Resist that temptation and book a room with citymundo.com. You can rent housboats, rooms, houses and more for a reasonable price.

   Amsterdam is famous for, among other things, its red-light district and coffee shops. There is much more though to see. That being said, it is fun to go to the red light district around 5pm, grab a beer at a corner pub and then sit down outside or at the window and just watch people go by. It’s fun to watch families from the Midwest find themselves in there and have their children ask questions like, “Why are those women standing there in their underwear?” Good times.

2. European Football Championship
   In case you have been living in a cave or just in the Western Hemisphere, you may not know that the European Football Championship is going on. The final is on Sunday and it will be between Germany and Spain. Whenever Germany wins, there is a party. Being the exemplary cultural ambassador that I am, I have been doing my part and joining in the festivities.
   The semi-final between Turkey and Germany provided interesting commentary. For some reason there seem to be a lot of German employees calling in sick recently. Almost every bar in town has a big screen tv set up for the games. It has been a boon to the local economy. We’ll shall see who the champions are on Sunday.

Hello Earthlings, Thanks to those that keep stopping by in anticipation of a new message from the cosmos. Alas, this message will be short. Me and the XX meat based sentient unit are escaping for a long weekend to a city you know as Amsterdam. In our absence I leave you with some non meat-based musical entertainment. Enjoy.

How long could you survive in the vacuum of space? Never mind, it turned into spam. Don’t click.

Don’t Smile Too Much, German Shop Assistants Warned

Are you fucking kidding me?

A German psychologist has warned “professional smilers” such as flight attendants and shop assistants that too much forced smiling can cause stress, depression and even heart problems. It’s unlikely to become a major health issue though — German customer service isn’t renowned for its friendliness.

Emphasis added by me. German shop assistants aren’t that bad, but if you had one that acted like a bubbly perky American clerk, you would think something was wrong. There is nothing unusual about a cashier having an attitude that ranges from dour to surly. I was contemplating this the other day at Rossmann as the cashier threw my change and receipt in roughly my general direction after making my purchase.

I think this whole smiling business might be one of those made-up German afflictions, like a Kreislaufstörung, or Anemophobia (fear of drafts). Germans are always opening and closing windows. On one hand they are scared of the draft (Es zieht! Mach das Fenster zu!) and on the other, they are always lüften-ing the room out (Ach, mein Kreislauf! Mach das Fenster auf!). That’s why German windows are so sturdy and kick-ass. They need to be with all that opening and closing.

If German passengers could open the windows on a Boing 747 mid-flight, they would. I wonder what the other astronauts had to do to keep Hans Schlegel from trying to open the windows in the International Space Station? (Ach komm schon! Nur ein bisschen Luft schnappen!) Well, actually, it looks like he didn’t get his wish. He was sick for one of his scheduled spacewalks.

Schlegel, 56, was diagnosed with an undisclosed illness as the shuttle docked with the space station.

You know what that means. Kreislaufstörung.

Allen High School German students get an eyeful.

“Oh, it was obvious. Naked women, you know, breasts, right out there in your face. … It’s shocking.”

Jeez, get a grip lady. The picture in the video leads me to believe that you are exaggerating just a bit. I often forget that a lot of Americans are prude like this, that nude female breasts are a big scandalous deal. In most of the world, breasts just sorta…happen or something. Someone should give these people a subscription to the Bild Zeitung. Hmm, then again, maybe not. These people can’t afford to be any dumber than they already are.

Last weekend was a 3-dayer in Germany. The reason was Pentecost. For some reason, in Germany, where, according to Spiegel, less than half of the population believes in life after death, the day when the Holy Spirit filled the Apostles with wisdom and cloves of fire danced on their heads, is a holiday. Actually, it is probably the day that the apostles got their hands on some really good shit and decided to have a rave in the desert, but here at Chillmost.com, we don’t question the wisdom or motives of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is our strong faith in the Creator that keeps us on the path of righteousness and helps us resist the wickedness. Heathen concepts such as evolution, the fossil record and carbon dating, have no place here, even though they may be based on insurmountable logic and evidence deduced by the very brains the Good Lord gave us. God put the dinosaur bones under the dirt to test our faith. Amen.

So anyway, like I was saying, It was a 3-day weekend.

Friday night I swung by the Hausbar. I’ve been going there a bit more then usual because it is one of the few bars in Lüneburg with good music – Seriously, where else in Lüneburg are you gonna hear Waylon Jennings, Bonnie Prince Billy and Brian Eno within 10 minutes? While I was there, I met a musician called Jamison Young. He’s Australian, based in Prague and living in Oslo. After having a very long and in-depth discussion about publishing rights and Creative Commons, we walked around Lüneburg a bit more to a few other pubs. He said he needed a place to stay the night. After determining that he wasn’t some psychotic drifter that would stab me in my sleep and steal all my stuff, I let him crash on my couch. I slept upstairs with one eye open. Go to his site and listen to some tunes. You can download them for free.

On Saturday, he bought me breakfast and headed on his way. He had a show that night somewhere in Belgium and had a train to catch. In the afternoon, Jens, Steffi, Meike and I drove out to Bleckede and had a picnic/BBQ under a huge tree right on the bank of the Elbe river. The Grilleimer was in full effect. In the evening we all went to Schröder’s Biergarten for a drink. It was a fine time.

On Sunday, Mother’s Day, we went with Meike’s parents out to the Wiesen Café in Natendorf/Oldendorf II (I guess they can’t decide what village they are in) for Kaffee und Kuchen. If you are unfamiliar with German culture, you may not be familiar with the concept of Kaffee und Kuchen. Every Sunday afternoon in every café in Germany, it is time for Kaffee und Kuchen. Seriously, don’t keep a German from their goddamn Kaffee und Kuchen. If you are vomiting blood in the middle of a German café on a Sunday afternoon and need immediate medical attention, you are shit out of luck, dude. Not until the last Tropf of Kaffee has been geschluckt is anybody going to give a fuck about you and your problem. If you have the misfortune of being with a German on a Sunday afternoon with no café in the vicinity, you may get you arm gnawed off or, at the least, have to deal with a very surly German.

On Monday, I painted over graffiti on the exterior of our house and caulked silicone sealant around my shower. It was exciting. Afterwards my hands and arms were covered in silicone and I spent hours getting it off of me. It was like peeling thousands of stubborn boogers off of my skin.

Then I went to Candy Mountain.

I dunno, it sounds like bullshit. If I was 13, stole my dad’s credit card and was holed up in a hotel room with $3,000 cash and some high class hookers, I’m pretty sure I would have thought of better ways to pass the time other than playing Xbox.

Asked why he ordered two escorts, Ralph said he thought it was the thing to do when you win a “World of Warcraft” tournament. They told the suspicious working girls they were people of restricted growth working with a traveling circus, and as State law does not allow those with disabilities to be discriminated against they had no right to refuse them…

creative, but you still fail, loser.

…Ralph’s ambition is to one day become a politician.

Well, something tells me he’s on the fast track. Maybe a politician can mentor him and show him what hookers are for.

My Lüneburger pal and skate rat, Bastian, hipped me to a new blog, Nothing For Ungood. It is written by an American who basically tells it how it is in Germany from an American point of view. Sort of. For example, did you know that 100% of Germans hate root beer? Or that 100% of Germans hate air conditioning with a passion?

Really, it is everything this blog wishes it could be, but is not.

Oh, the lulz.

Check out my flickr page.