Sheisty things going down at “Der Spiegel”

Newsmagazine Der Spiegel, famed throughout decades for rooting out corruption and the vagaries of errant politicians, admitted Saturday some staff had been working for the government intelligence service.

I know someone who works for a company in the Spiegel family. I know this person quite intimately. I don’t wanna name any names but let’s just say I’ll be sleeping with one eye open until this blows over. Of course, if the NSA is up to snuff, they have a record of every phone call I’ve made in the last 5 years anyway, so it doesn’t matter. Another interesting thing is that every few months or so a server out of Virginia scans all the content from this site using wget. Should I be worried?

You never know what could happen when somebo %%%%%%%%&/7=%264/(56************
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NO CARRIER

Here is a news item reminiscent of the film, “Die Fetten Jahre Sind Vorbei“:

A gang of anarchist Robin Hood-style thieves, who dress as superheroes and steal expensive food from exclusive restaurants and delicatessens to give to the poor, are being hunted by police in the German city of Hamburg.

The gang members seemingly take delight in injecting humour into their raids, which rely on sheer numbers and the confusion caused by their presence. After they plundered Kobe beef fillets, champagne and smoked salmon from a gourmet store on the exclusive Elbastrasse, they presented the cashier with a bouquet of flowers before making their getaway.

The latest robbery is part of a pattern over the past several months, suggesting that the thieves deliberately set out to highlight what they perceive as the inequality inherent in German society.

Do they wear tights?

Not much going on. Lots of nerding about on the computer with Typo3. You’d think the chachis at Microsoft would finally fix Internet Explorer’s world renowned crappy implementation of the CSS box model with its release of IE7 but no. Everything breaks. I know it is beta but that should be at the top of the list.

This brilliant pixel-based reenactment of Game Six of the 1986 World Series reminds me of hanging out for hours in Brian Allers’s basement and playing RBI Baseball on his Nintendo.

Here is a page full of all kinds of musical theory. Good reference for refreshing your memory.

I’m thinking about jumping the ProTools ship and moving to either Logic Pro or Nuendo. I’m frustrated with Digidesign’s hardware requirements and limitations. However, I love the software. I’ve been using it for almost 10 years and I am really comfortable with it. The hardware on the other hand needs to move into the 21st century. The main shortcoming is that you have to have Digidesign hardware attached to the computer just to start the software. That means doing edits on your laptop during a long plane/train ride is out of the question unless you have the M2, which is a piece of crap. That also means if you want to customize your IO interface to suit your needs, you are fucked.

The 002r, which is what I currently have, is okay but if I want to record a session requiring 16 simultaneous XLR inputs, it requires too many workarounds and pieces of external hardware (AD converters and ADAT interface). All I really need is a few of these Focusrites and I’m set. Unfortunately, it is directly incompatible with ProTools so I would have to finagle it together with the ADAT interface and then there are clock issues and more gear and cables to haul around and lots of other bullshit I’m sure. There is no elegant ProTools solution for under $13,000. In other words: fuck that. With Logic and Nuendo however, I can use whatever hardware I want. We’ll have to see what Digi releases this year and how well their Universal binaries work on the new Intel Macs.

Eventually this year I want to get a road case with the 2 Focusrites, a patchbay, channel strip(s), and maybe a nice EQ. Put this together with a new 17-inch MacBookPro, a small mixer and some decent monitors and it’s a mobile recording studio.

Oh, did I bore you with all that? Here…

Ballroom dancing making comback among German youth. I have yet to notice this trend.

What’s up with Germany and their friggin’ beard clubs?

Time for bed. I have a heart check up tomorrow.

Heute bin ich 5 Jahre in Deutschland. I don’t regret moving here but it’s not exactly how I imagined it. Either way it’s time to Tanz in den Mai.

Yesterday was M’s birthday. We got some friends together and went to the Sülzwiesen for the Frühjahrsmarkt where there was lots of rides and games. While trying my best to blend in with the carnies, I played some machine which I have no idea what it is called but I totally cleaned up. For my efforts I got a magnetic dart board. Unfortunately they didn’t have any of those square mirrors with a picture or logo of your favorite 80’s hair band painted on it. I wonder what ever happened to the one I used to have when I was a kid with Mötley Crüe on it.

We also rode the ferris wheel, scrambler thingy, virtual crappy space ride and bumper cars, the last of which M and I have to thank today for the slight whiplash.

After that we went out for a few drinks and some more games. Yay!

My friend Kristin posted about her experiences hiring a chimney sweep in America. I thought it proper to discuss chimney sweeps in Germany. The German word for chimney sweep is Schornsteinfeger or some places say Kaminkehrer. Their work is not limited to chimneys, as Kristin’s post explains. They are the guys you might call when you need help cleaning out any kind of shaft, duct or vent. It can be a dangerous job. Risks include respiratory problems, attacks from birds and various rodentia and, holy shit, scrotal cancer (crosses chimney sweep from list of possible careers). It has been listed as one of the worst jobs in Victorian England. I learned after being in Germany for a while, the job does have its perks. One is that they have no problem meeting women. Let me explain.

In Germany and in many other places in Europe, the Schornsteinfeger is considered a bringer of luck. On New Year’s you see little caricatures and figurines of Schornsteinfeger with their black suit and hat and brushes. This has historical reasons. His services would help insure that your chimney was clear of debris that could catch fire causing your house to burn down. Makes sense right? Here is some more information about lucky chimney sweeps.

Now the perk is that if you see one, it is considered good luck to touch him. Thats means everywhere he goes he gets asked, “Darf ich Sie anfassen?” or, “May I touch you?” I have noticed that it is mostly women that ask. Most guys I know aren’t too anxious too ask other dudes if they can touch them. We might circumvent a Brokeback moment by using a manly handshake or something.

So that is not a bad deal. Everywhere you go women ask to touch you because you bring them good luck. If you figure out how to work that angle, there is a lot of potential. Well, as long as you stay clear of that whole scrotal cancer thing.

Allow me to waste 2:31 of your life. I had “Folsom Prison Blues” stuck in my head for like 3 days. I couldn’t shake it. What did I do? I recorded it.

Enjoy(<--2.9MB, .mp3). Done with ProTools/002r and various guitars and pedals in my apartment. I whipped this up in a few hours and tried to get that old Sun Records/Rockabilly sound. Yay Slapback! Don’t sue me.

Like Americans, Germans love to jump on the health/sport fads as well. One thing that has been going on for about two or three years now, and is quite popular, is “Nordic Walking“. I went with M and parents yesterday on a 10k trek through the Lüneburger Heide near Döhle. It was a nice way to spend the Saturday.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again.. Germans will always find an excuse to drink. Keep in mind we were underway with a bunch of health nuts who organized this. Near the end of the hike we stopped at a gazebo on top of a hill that had a great view. They provided bread, cheese, vegetables, sausages and wine. Lots of wine. I emptied my first plastic cup and then went looking for a trash bag. I held the cup in my left hand and was looking for the bag when I noticed the cup get heavier. Oh well. Bottoms up. That happened a few more times. Whoa, how we gonna get down from this mountain? Luckily there were horse-drawn covered wagons to take us all back to the starting point. So we get into the wagons and get underway. Lo and behold a case of beer and lots of schnapps to go around. We didn’t join arms together and start with the drinking songs. It could of happened, had we more time. And beer.

The gig on Friday was depressing. Performance-wise fine. I went through the motions. Afterwards I went to the WunderBAr in Lüneburg and saw Paddy Korn & Band perform. That was amazing. The WunderBAR is turning out to be the best club in Lüneburg to catch a show.

So we took some band pictures (for the current band) inside Sculps this afternoon. Sculps is a barber shop/hair salon here in Lüneburg that has sort of a retro 50’s look to it. The owner/tough guy Mathias was nice enough to let us come in on a Sunday and get in his way while he was doing some renovations. We had some good props like guitars, old refrigerators, barber chairs, mirrors, girly mags and a bottle of Jim Beam. I will post some here once I get them. I repaid the favor with a six-pack of beer and some Muddy Waters CDs.