Imbissdeutsch für Fortgeschrittene: Vergessen Sie “der die das”. Es gibt nur “den”.

Advanced Imbiss German: listen and repeat.

Last night M and I went to the laundromat to do what most people do in laundromats and there was this slightly crazy guy Ingo who was entertaining us with his stories of traveling around, being thrown out of places and generally getting in and out of trouble. He was pretty interesting but there were some moments as he was going way out there into interstellar overdrive that M and I gave each other the raised-eyebrow look. When our clothes were dry and we were making our way towards the door he gave us a passport photo of himself as some sort of remembrance. It is now on the fridge.

I don’t think I’ve even mentioned yet that the European Soccer Championship is going on right now in Portugal. Unfortunately, Germany, has already been eliminated. I’m not a big fan but the game between England and Portugal was pretty good. Last night as we were walking home from the laundromat we could tell somebody scored because we suddenly heard cheers and screaming coming out of the different houses all simultaneously. It was pretty cool.

BBC NEWS | Business | German stores run out of change because I have it all. Ever since the Euro has been introduced my pockets are full of coins. I get them back as change all the time but as soon as I get home I put them into my Sparschwein and there they stay.

The New York Times > Technology > AOL Engineer Sold 92 Million Names to Spammer, U.S. Says: I think it is time to bring back being drawn and quartered as a reasonable punishment. But just for spammers.

Ooooh, I hates spammers.

3 things:

AprilMayJune is on hold for now. We have no bass player on account of our previous one losing her shit, to put it mildly. It’s always the bass players that are teetering closest to edge. Hmmm. We had to cancel some big contest in hamburg and some other lucrative gigs because of our situation. The Lamest Ever!!! Oh well, that’s Rock and Roll.

Good news Flash, good news! I will be getting my own radio show here at the local Uni. It will either be a 1 or 2 hour program either once or twice a month starting either at 7pm or 9pm. I can definitely tell you that it will be in English on friday evening when no one is listening. No one that is until they feel my rock and roll machine blasting them through their radio. More definitive plans coming soon. As of now the show has no name. I’m taking suggestions. email me. nate (“a” with the circle around it) chillmost.com. Entries should not directly allude to my nationality or cuddliness. I’m not scared of anti-Americanism, I just think that something like “The American Show” is teh suxx0r. I anxiously await all 1 one your entries.

I’ve started redesigning this site about 6 times. It needs to be done from scratch. I need to go through the archives and sort out some formatting issues that came up when Blogger decided to go messin’ around. I’m getting close to something. I’m going to hire an armed thug to hold a gun to my head so I will be forced to get the shit done.

M and I had quite a crazy weekend. It was Stadtfest here in Lüneburg last weekend and it got a little out of control. I would report specifics but they are kinda patchy. Let’s just say our Friday started alright and involved lots of drinking, pubs, bars, a Schwulenkneipe, 3 last calls, Irish musicians, ex-convicts, Harleys, harmonicas, 19th century firearms, forbidden Nazi daggers and a sliced finger (mine). It all ended at around 5pm on Saturday evening. Whoa.

Think about it like this: This won’t hurt much from Terry Jones of Monty Python fame.

The March 6 memo, prepared for Mr Rumsfeld explained that what may look like torture is not really torture at all. It states that: if someone “knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent even though the defendant did not act in good faith”.

What this means in understandable English is that if a parent, in his anxiety to know where his son goes after choir practice, does something that will cause severe pain to his son, it is only “torture” if the causing of that severe pain is his objective. If his objective is something else – such as finding out where his son goes after choir practice – then it is not torture.

Mr Rumsfeld’s memo goes on: “a defendant” (by which he means a concerned parent) “is guilty of torture only if he acts with the express purpose of inflicting severe pain or suffering on a person within his control”.

Couldn’t be clearer. If your intention is to extract information, you cannot be accused of torture.

Glad this was made clear after I moved out of my parents house. Look out Cari and Ben.

Since when are American citizens not entitled to their basic civil rights? Even Timothy McVeigh and Charles Manson got a fair trail. The concept of rights implies that everybody has them, otherwise they are worthless. Read it then continue on…. Do it!!

Jose Padilla: Convicted without a hearing written by Scott Turow. You know, the lawyer writer guy? Via metafilter.

This just pisses me off. I’ve been laying off the political stuff lately because if I want to write about it, I want to research it and provide links and citations and blah blah blah. When I try to do this I just end up getting pissed off even more and then depressed and say sod it. The whole thing with Abu Ghraib made me real depressed. Most of the guards involved there are kids younger than me. I probably would not have thought twice about hanging out and grabbing a beer with some of them if I were to have met them before this ordeal. Depressing. I had written a bunch more but it just turned into an incoherent rambling diatribe. So I removed it from the entry and saved it to a little AshcroftSucksAss.txt file on my hard drive.

F.A.Z. – English Version: “‘Spreading’ culture”

Peanut butter and Jelly, that’s what I like in my belly

My buddy Lothar (…of the hill people…) has a Garage where he does oil changes and tune-ups and inspections and whatnot. He had my car last week and changed the oil and fluids and did my emissions inspection. When he dropped it off he popped the hood and said he wanted to show me something.

Guck mal den Schlauch da an. Have a look at that hose there.

I looked at the hose going from the radiator to the thing-a-ma-bob.

Yeah what about it?

It’s been chewed on by Madern.

What are Madern?

Do you know what a Weasel is?

Yeah.

It’s kind of like that but different.

Is it like a squirrel? mongoose? ferret? Chipmunk? snipe?

I don’t know what they are called in English. Anyway, they have been chewing on the hose and it could cause you to suddenly run out of coolant. Then your engine could overheat and then you got more problems.

Oh. That sucks.

Yeah but if you get some dog hair and some aluminum foil and then wrap the foil around the hose with the dog hair between the foil and hose, that will take care of it.

Uh-huh.

Well I did some googling and found out that Madern are Martens. This is what they look like:



Pretty cute, huh? Don’t let that fool you. They are vicious hose eaters. Dare I call them hosers?

Apparently they are also quite common in Canada. Coincidence? I think not: