ShotgunGuide- Official Rules for Calling Shotgun:
“Section III – The Survival Of The Fittest Rules (a.k.a The Bastard Rules)
1) If the driver so wishes, he/she may institute the Survival Of The Fittest Rules on the process of calling Shotgun. In this case all rules, excepting 1.8, are suspended and the passenger seat is occupied by whoever can take it by force.
2) The driver must announce the institution of the Survival Of The Fittest Rules with reasonable warning to all passengers. This clause reduces the amount of blood lost by passengers and the damage done to the vehicle.
3) Please follow the above rules to the best of your ability. If there are any arguments or exceptions not covered in these rules, please refer to rule 1.8.”
All posts by Chillmost
I Like You
Feeling down? Need affirmation? Click here (flash).
I went to the Deutsches Panzer Museum (German Tank Museum) on Sunday. It was interesting. There were lots of a Tanks from the Third Reich and a few American (a Sherman Tank nicknamed “Battling Bitch”. Yeah that’s right) and Russian ones as well. My favorites were 2 Swedish models (Uh-huh huh huh. He said 2 Swedish models. Cool). Somehow the streamlined curves and dark grey body made them look more modern, huge, and menacingly bad-ass than the others. Actually they kind of resembled Humvees that were 4x as big.
The smell in the halls in which the tanks were on display smelled like my grandma’s garage. At various points in time my uncles stored/abandoned perpetually oil-leaking autos in her garage and I instantly remembered the smell of motor oil on concrete when I walked into the exhibit hall.
Also very interesting was an exhibit of German military pistols, revolvers, machine guns. There was also a collection of German military uniforms and medals, including those of various ranks from the Third Reich. This was especially interesting because of the way old Nazi memorabilia is handled in present day Germany. As one can well imagine, anything having to do with Nazi Germany can be a touchy subject. Most remnants of nazism have been destroyed or gotten rid of although I know a few people that still have medals their grandfathers received in the war.
Now, as far as I know, it is not illegal to possess old military/nazi memorabilia. Some people I know said it might be illegal just to own a flag with the swastika on it, but they weren’t sure. It may be illegal to sell it. I’m not sure. I think it depends on who you sell it to. In any case Ebay wants no part of it. Once again I am not a expert in the matter. It is definitely illegal to display a nazi flag in a public place without it being in some sort of historical/educational context. For example do not fly the nazi flag out in front of your house. Obviously illegal. However, displaying the flag in the context of a German military history exhibit is generally okay. Showing Leni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph Des Willens” just for the sake of showing it, is probably not a good idea. Approaching the film from a media/cinematic point of view is probably okay (but sometimes still controversial). Most serious students of media or film has seen it. The cinematography was really quite groundbreaking for the time.
I digress…
So when I walked into the exhibit and saw all of the Nazi uniforms along with a huge Wehrmacht flag with a swastika on it, it was kind of weird and creepy. There were medals and certificates awarded and signed by “Der Führer”. There was also the field uniform of Rommel. It was kind of like the creepy scene in Indiana Jones when he is in Berlin at the book burning with all the nazis around except I wasn’t in uniform myself and I didn’t get der Führer’s autograph.
Then of course the museum experience led to the usual retrospective inner reflection about how in the hell could something like that happen and how can we prevent it from happening again.
Ouch!! A harsh rebuke from the Mirror -not that they are a bastion of objective journalism but I’ve heard similar sentiments over the last few days.
…Sent to me by Wynter
Also..their cover from the other day…
The last two days in Germany there has been a bit of an uproar over the Chancelor’s proposal to permanently move the Tag der deutschen Einheit (or Zweiheit depending on who you ask) to be observed on the first Sunday of October. October 3rd is the currently designated day and it is a national holiday. This year however it fell on a Sunday and went almost completely unnoticed. Well, except by economists who noticed a blip on the financial radar showing that by not having a free day in October GDP and taxes went up like 0.1%. So now the politicians are name calling back and forth over whether or not to implement the change. I’m sort of ambivalent about the whole thing; I would like to have an extra holiday but at the same time I usually don’t notice it when it rolls around. We’ll See.
I’m sorry I insinuated the Kerry was a pussy for conceding. He obviously has access to more info and data than I do. I was angry and had good head start on a bottle of cheap wine.
There is sort of a lull over the office. Nobody can beleive it. Everyone feels like they got kicked in the gut. The questions on everyone’s lips; How could they? What are they thinking? Don’t they know what this means?
Let me break it down for you: Abu Ghraib? Guantánamo? Thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis killed due to a war based on complete and admitted lies? Hatred towards gays and minorities? America just told the world that they are ok with all that and they don’t want to hold their leaders accountable for what they do.
Things are gonna get a lot worse. Is this how if felt like when Nixon won a second term? Hmm. Then again, we know what happened to him.
“The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation
with the average voter.” -Winston Churchill
“A witty saying proves nothing.” -Voltaire
The Blogger.com servers are overwhelmed right now due to the millions of bloggers who think what they have to say is important. Due to this I have to ftp into my server and write directly in the HTML. That is so 1337!!!!!1111 (Update: Back online).
Well I’m disappointed. Kerry conceded before the votes were counted. *cough*pussy*cough* We are so fucked right now. Hey Ben! Here is a web site for you: Enjoy The Draft.
Jens offered to take me out and get me drunk. I can’t say no to that. As they say in German: “Ich gehe kaputt. Kommst Du mit?
I leave you with the appropriate sounds of Ill Ease: Walking Pneumonia