This just in: Vacation ruined for thousands of american college students, and at least one expat!

The Ultimate Lineup

I play in a band and this weekend we are going into the studio to record at least 2 maybe 3 or 4 songs. I enjoy playing the kind of music we make but I also want to do something different. I need to rock more in the Sonic Youth, Swervedriver, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, John Coltrane, freaking out direction. I’ll try to get something together in the new year. If I could get a band together I would play guitar, maybe sing. There is this girl in Lüneburg, whose name escapes me, that sings for a band called For Hire. I’d have her sing and an former coworker on keys. Our new bassist Katja would also have to be in it cuz she rawks. The best drummer I ever played with is John Gerdes. He will just have to drop everything and move to Germany for the sole purpose of being in a band with me. You gotta give it all for the Rock and Roll. *sigh*

Links Links Links

Expatica.com is your one-stop website for all y’all thinking about moving to Europe.

I can write about life here or I can link to articles giving descriptions themselves…

About customer service in Germany or the lack thereof.

About Halloween German-style.

And other fun stuff.

I need a vacation. I’m not motivated at all. I have a million things to do aber keinen Bock darauf die zu tun. Here is an interesting link from my sister: johntitor.com. If you haven’t heard of John Titor yet here is a brief description:

this guy was allegedly some guy in 2000 who claimed to be a time-traveler from 2036. Apparently he makes all these predictions about 9-11, etc. and claims that there will be a US Civil war in 2005 and a WWIII in like 2015. Seriously, if you believe it, it is spooky shit but truly, I think the guy is nutters!

Cue the music please!

Working on completely redoing the site. Going for a compltely table free layout. I’m trying to get my head around css and all that crazy shit. I understand most of the basics but in order for the site to be completely enclosed in <div> tags so in the future when I want to make any changes to layout or style I can just change the style sheets and all pages will change automatically.

I’m off to the Reeperbahn to go pick up M. and her cousin. Its already almost midnight and I have to work tomorrow. I hope I can get out of bed. I just found out that Black Rebel Motorcycle Club played tonight and I missed it. Now I am angry and want to smash things. Me Grimlock no nice Dino, me bash brains!

Keep it real, represent what?

The mark of the beast: An ATM card under your skin.

Just stayed home this weekend and cleaned up, vacuumed, swept, mopped, played guitar, bass, recorded, surfed, emailed, geputzt, aufgeräumt. M’s cousin from Australia is studying in Germany and she is going to be arriving shortly for a three day visit. Should be interesting.

Here is an interesting article written by Kevin Sites.

Sometimes my brain flips out from thinking in German/English. At work I speak about 50/50 at home more English out with friends is usually mostly German. Studying at the Fachhochschule in Lüneburg was very good practice for my German. However, since graduation I feel that my conversational skills and accent have gone down a bit. I can understand almost everything, but I feel I often lack the words or simple conversational dexterity to speak clearly and properly and make myself understood. Huh? Na Denn, schreibe ich auf Deutsch. Fliegender Wechsel. Koooool. Ich habe eigentlich kein Lust morgen zur Arbeit zu gehen. Ich muss bald irgendwohin ins Urlaub fahren. Wir haben uns überlegt, ob wir nach Stockholm während Sylvester gehen möchten. bin nie gewesen. Wäre bestimmt kalt, oder? Was ist richtig zu sagen in dem soeben geschriebenen Satz? “nach Stockholm während Sylvester fahren” oder “während Sylvester nach Stockholm fahren”. Mit der Wortordnung habe ich immer noch Probleme. Auch mit der Verneinung eines Satz(e?)s. Naturlich fallen mir keine Beispiele gerade ein.

I’ll tell this story in English. When I first got here I studied German for 6 months for about 5 hours a day. It was super tough. One day I had a cold and on the next day the teacher asked me if I was sick. I had been anticipating this question so I could show initiative and practice a little conversational dialog. I had already looked up the phrase for “stuffed up.” I said, “Ich war gestern verstopft.” The teacher raised her eyebrows and nodded slightly. The conversation didn’t go any further. I later looked up verstopft in another book and it said; “constipated.” Bada boom.

Schwoooschhh! Wieder auf Deutsch. Krass oder? Ich habe endlich DSL bekommen. Das einschalten von Telekom hat fast 4 wochen gedauert. Warum? Ist das immer so? Auch in Amerika? Hmmm. Aber egal.

The German word for “Mullet” (hairstyle not fish) is Vokuhila. The is a kind of abbreviation.

Vorne = front

kurz = short

Hinten = back

lang = long

See?

I will someday publish my short essay on German mullets I promise. It is going through some rewrites. I need pictures as well. I’m just too big of a wuss to go taking pictures of mullets. There is no predicting how one might react.

Let them sing it for you. Cool idea for an answering machine.

Went to a flea market and got two English books; Bonfire of The Vanities by Tom Wolfe and Hawaii by James A. Michener. I like Tom Wolfe’s stuff although A Man In Full was a little weak. He is one of my favorite American contemporary authors. I took the Michener book because I’ve always seen my dad reading a few of his books and I’m down with the historical fiction. So I figured I would check it out.

A few weeks ago in Lüneburg the castors came through on trains and there were all kinds of demonstrations and hot cop on protester action. Here are a few links about event and about the overall nuclear power phase out in Germany.

Pictures taken down the street from my apartment: Here

An article about Nuclear power being phased out in Germany: Here

Article from the German Federal Government about the nuclear phase out: Here

Wie Uncool!

Sometimes when you are living in a foreign country you forget about holidays and other events that aren’t celebrated in the country in which you are living. Sometimes you forget the dates but other times you get the dates all wrong. Today, for instance, I called home to wish my family a Happy Thanksgiving. Dummeweise, it is next week. Ha. I always thought Thanksgiving was on the 3rd Thursday of November. Now I’m confused. Is it the 4th? It must be. Damn. You turkeys still got a week left.