C & C Lo-mpoon's Christmas Vacation

Wow, it took me a whole 5 seconds to come up with that awesome title for this post. Round of applause for me. First of all, Merry Christmas to everyone. And if you're not Christian or not celebrating Christmas for other reasons, I still hope you enjoyed the days I spent celebrating Baby Jesus' coming into this world. All in all I had a great and relaxing time. The only downer was, that my Grandma was in the hospital and had to have surgery on Monday. It's a whole long story that I'll tell once she's better. But everything went fine and there is no reason to worry. It wasn't THAT serious anyway.
My parents got Christina and I a cordless phone. Yay! I just finished hooking it up the way we wanted it (needed some extra cable) and it works great. Well, I think it does. Give me a call so I can see. Then Christina got me an MP3-Player. It's so awesome. It also works as a USB stick so I have two gadgets in one. Just how I wanted it. Of course it still needs to be used on a regular basis, but the drivers and everything work fine on my computer. I also forked out some extra cash today to get a USB hub so i won't have to crawl around on the floor every time I need to hook up the player or our camera. Oh, the player is a Creative MuVo V200 with 1GB. And, as I already mentioned, you'll need no cables to hook it to a computer, so whenever I need to connect, I have everything I need with me. Unless of course someone, like me, is still using Windows 98SE. So, an awesome gift. She also got me the partitura for Carmen by Georges Bizet and the corresponding CD. I got her a piece of dirt wrapped with a pretty bow.
To counteract the many electronics that we got, I went and bought 4 records over the break as well. I'm listening to Neil Diamond's Hot August Night right now. Do you wanna hear about all the food we ate? Well, sorry, I don't feel like writing all that down. We also went to check out my sister's new (and her first) apartment in Bielefeld. I thought it was really nice and big. I think she likes it too. She lives with two other people but they weren't there. We also went up to Bremen to see what that's like. I think we'll end up moving there after all. Like my family said (at least 50 times while we were there, I'm not kidding): "Bremen ist auch 'ne schöne Stadt". We got the message.
One last thing: Alice gets 3 more points for 'guessing' (how can one person get so lucky) the Tool song right. It as H. off the Aenima album. The other song that nobody guessed was 'Something That Means Something' by The Pharcyde and is on Labcabincalifornia. I will post a complete list of the songs so far soon and also an overview of who has how many points. Considering the far-reaching controvery my last post caused, here's some lyrics to go along with it:

"I'm all for life
Until the bastard's born
After that, he's out on his own
And if he does crime, trying to survive
I'll make damn sure, he gets electrified
...
Save the babies, kill the doctor
...
I kill for you little Baby Jesus"

Speaking of babies, Congratulations to Kelly and Steffen for the birth of their son Collin! He was born on Dec. 24th, at 0.40 at night if I'm not mistaken. We saw some pictures and he is so adorable. Can't wait to meet him. I have never known any babies. At least not as a grown-up. Maybe I need to grow up first. Alright, that's it for now. Guten Rutsch!

Hate nothing at all except hatred.

I'm sure you've all about had enough of the discussion about 'values' after the presidential election in the US, but I read an interesting article over at Impact Press written by Morris Sullivan. In it, he talks about the good and the bad things that might come from the election results. I don't know if any of you are familiar with Impact Press, but as I understand it's a Chicago-based bi-monthly paper, covering news from a different, and I'm sure most would agree, somewhat left-leaning point of view. Despite some things that, in my opinion, they exaggerate, it's still an interesting read that offers some good food for thought. Anyway, he talks about the whole values debate a little, since the Democratic Party thought they lost a lot of votes by not appearing as having the right values. Without further ado, here's the quote that struck me:

Meanwhile, we need to counteract the notion that a person with "moral values" equals an antiabortion, anti-gay-marriage religious nut. The term "moral values" includes concepts like tolerance, equality, and truthfulness...

I do realize that his portrayal of the 'moral' voter is not all that tolerance-oriented either, but that's not what I want to talk about (you think I should ramble irrelevantly some more?). What I found interesting is the way we define someone that is concerned with morals, and how 'liberals' are seen as not having morals.
I think it is not unfair to say that during the election campaigns, 'morals' came to be associated with the things that religious people most care about, i.e. abortion, rights for homosexuals and such. The conservative and traditional views on these things. At least from my point of view (don't even get me started on how I think conservatism is against human nature). While everyone else, especially liberals (some of whom support peace, tolerance and openness), was seen as lacking morals. To me it seems that we don't have people with or without morals, but people with different concepts of moral behavior.
Okay, I had a whole long thing written that I just erased (on purpose) because it was way too long and not even finished. I was trying to convey, that being religious does not equal being a moral person. Just like the quote says. But instead of rambling on and on and trying to take into consideration the 'multiplexities of life' (Thank you, Aaron McGruder) I will try to simplify it for brevity's sake. So here's why I think religious people are not the model for moral behavior. And stuff.
This is how the online dictionary of Merriam-Webster defines moral:

of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior

So it's about how you behave. Another definition includes ethics, which again is concerned with good or bad. For me it also has to do with compassion and concern for other people. But let's not ramble again by showing off with out lacking knowledge of psychology and such. And just like Mr. Sullivan said, right behavior should include tolerance, openness, respect for one another. Religion on the other hand requires just the opposite (at least Christianity does): You are supposed to accept the religion's teachings as the only valid truth, and all others will burn in hell. I, however, think that there is a pretty good chance that religion is just made up. Still I'm not an atheist, I'm just trying to be realistic about it.
Alright, I give up. I hope what I wrote made you think about how moral behavior is being defined in the current political debate in the US, and the notion that within that discourse, liberal has been equalled with anmoral.
I have a good example to conclude this with, that will illustrate, in my eyes, the intolerance of some religious people. The issue is abortion. While personally, I would try to do anything to avoid the abortion of a fetus that I helped conceive, I also realize that there ARE situations in which ending this potential human life is not wrong. Rape victims for example. No doubt in my mind. But then there are some that come up and say that they were raped and had the child and couldn't be happier with their decision. I have the deepest admiration for such strength, but not everybody could carry such a heavy burden, because everybody's personal history is different. And to me it seems, that religious arguments do not allow for the infinite amount of difference in people. If one lady can do it, why can't the other? Because they are not the same person. You don't know what the other lady had gone through before, or what the rape was like. If she feels she can't have the child, she shouldn't have to.
Okay, I will stop it here. Don't even think about not leaving a comment. It was hard enough for me to put this down at all.

This is too boring for me to proof-read.

Dangit, I already had half this post written when I messed with the preview and back buttons and then it was gone. So here we go again. Despite my diminishing faith that anyone enjoys or will participate in further song-guessing, here's some hints for the two songs up to be guesseded right now.
The rap song is by a band from California, which used to have 4 members, but now has 3. Their first album, from the early 90s, is considered a hip-hop classic. And rightly so. But the sonh is not from this bizarre album. It's from their second, which even had a minor hit and got some airplay on the known TV music stations. I think I dropped enough smart hints on these guys. I wonder if it means anyhting to you.
Song number two, another rock song, is by one of the greatest bands to ever make music. I'm actually listening to them right now. And I have so many fond memories of listening to them. Especially when I first got into their music. I think they are somewhat of the continuation of progressive rock in the 90s. Considering the ways they approach making and structuring their stuff. This band is largely popular with the 'Hot Topic' crowd. But the popularity is well-deserved. Okay, this didnt't help any did it? Let's see. Their videos are really great and pieces of art for themselves. Unfortunately the DVD box-set that contains a lot of them is out of print. Oh, here's a good one. One of the band members is affiliated with 'A Perfect Circle'. And their first album was sometimes called a 'light' version of the band we're looking for. Also, your dad probably has several instances of the band's name in his shed or box or where ever he keeps his home improvement stuff.
Alright, enough with the hints. But while I'm talking about that second band, and how everybody should like them, I realize that a lot of people are somewhat reluctant to listen to some heavier stuff, with distorted guitars and what-have-you. I feel sorry for them, because I find beauty even in the louder things. It's often perceived as aggressiveness (the loud guitars and vocals), but that's not always true. Take the Smashing Pumpkins or Nirvana for example. A lot of people that are not into heavy music usually, totally dig these bands. And I think it's because they took the time, for whatever reason, to listen to them more closely and understand and appreciate the 'noise'. Oh well, to conclude with the words of Charles Barkley: "I may be wrong ...but I doubt it." I just wouldn't wanna miss out on bands like Monster Magnet, At the Drive-In, Metallica (the early stuff especially), System of a Down or Queens of the Stone Age. Would you?

Do you know the alphabet?

I've been wantin' to write something in German on here, but I never got around to it. Now I don't feel like it. Maybe next week, when I'm on Christmas break from the university. Christina and I were gonna work on her job applications, but now she's talking on the phone. I drank a third of a bottle of Spanish red wine we had left over. It was so so. I'm kinda figuring out which white wines I like, but the red ones are still somewhat of a mistiri. So nobody wants to guess the songs in the contest. I've been commenting on Ginger's blog, begging for her to participate, but I guess this thing is just too lame. Also I was hoping other people who read the comment might get interested, but no. Maybe I need to come up with two or three contestant to spice things up. Nonetheless, I have a new song, well, not yet, but let me look at my CDs and I'll be back in a jiffy. Aha, found a good one, something I've been wanting to put on here some time ago already:

"I am too connected to you to
Slip away, to fade away.
Days away I still feel you
Touching me, changing me"

Alright, I would write more, but now Christina's done and we have to work on some stuff. Sorry.

It's Friday afternoon, and life is good.

People, when I walked out of the university building today, after getting out of class early, the sun was shining bright and lighting up this cold day. It doesn't get much better I thought, and how I should write about it in the blog. And there you have it. But I don't wanna bore you with the details, just letting you know I walked on the sunny side today. Other than that, there is not much to say, except Alice earned herself some points again, but only 2 this time, for forgetting to say what album the song is from, again. Should I worry that I can't really remember what I did this week? I mean anything that stands out? Oh well, maybe next week. Sing along to this:

"You best believe I put in time to conceive
deep concentration from sunrise to eve,
and even in my sleep sometimes rhymes formulate
free form lyrical storm falling from a cloudy brain..."

Yes, we are leaving the realms of rock and dive straight into hip-hop. And I'm taking you all along.

Yummy yummy yummy, I got love in my tummy

I should be ironing clothes, but I played soccer and feel too exhausted. Sorry Christina! Alright, so Alice now has 6 points in our competition, making her the new leader, followed by Ginger with 3, and Henric with 2, who earned himself two points being a runner-up and completing some missing infos. Ah, heck, I'll give him 3. It's my competition after all. As to the album title, I thought it was Rage Against the Machine, they just named it after themselves, or didn't give it a name, but that's basically the same ain't it?
I had started another post on Friday but never got around to finishing it and then it got lost without saving, but now I can tell you about the weekend, which is way more interesting (admit it, for a second you actually thought something interesting was coming up) than what I had in mind then, not that I can remember. On Friday we went to my Chinese friend Lisan's surprise and premature birthday party. Of course she was the one getting surprised. Altogether there were 13 people there I think and I really had a great time, and I think Christina did as well. Han Bing, a friend of Lisan's who also studies DaF (and since we have a class together this semester she was able to get in touch with me easily) did the organizing and most of the cooking (I think). And let me tell you, IT WAS AWESOME!!! Not only was there enough to feed a nation, it tasted great too. There were Frühlingsrollen, sushi (+ wasabi), stuff with stuff in it that was pretty spicy, something called yaotze or something that is traditionally eaten for the spring festivities, a cake, noodle stuff, wine. Just anyhting you can think of. Chicken too and fish. We had already eaten some chili before we went there, not thinking she would make THAT much food, but it was so great, I just completely stuffed myself.
Beside some of Lisan's Chinese friends, there were also about 7 Germans, with Christina and me being the only ones not studying sinology and thus not being able to understand one word of Chinese. But it was cool. We ended up talking a lot of German anyway and the important things were translated. Later we played truth or dare and that was pretty fun too. I had to eat a piece of suhi with LOTS of wasabi, but it was alright, washing it down with ice tea. It started around 6 and we left at 10 or so, but stayed up to 1 at night cause Christina wanted to work on her CV and stuff. I watched Kung Fu movies on TV.
One thing I had planned to talk about was the presentation I did with Lisan on Friday. It was about XPath, the XML Path Language. It's good to be a nerd. We had been working on it steadily all last week (Sorry Christina, for not being able to spend much time with you, I love you) and I think it went pretty well. Both professors told us they thought we did good. I think it was partly because we had come up with our own, linguistically relevant XML document to demonstrate things on. Involving the audience did not work, but that's okay. Oh yeah, before I forget, thanks to Lisan of course, for agreeing to work with me, despite my annoyingness and constant tardiness. I could have never made a halfway decent presentation all by myself.
Alright, I need to learn to write shorter posts, and maybe post more frequently instead, but once I get going, the brain juice just keeps flowing into my fingers, making them type one word after the other. Here's a song for you:

All these accidents that happen,
follow the dot,
coincidence makes sense only with you
you don't have to speak
I feel emotional landscapes

I know not everybody likes the artist, but if you listen to this song, and it gets you in the right mood or you are just able to really hear it and soak it up, it's one of the greatest things you'll ever know. I'm not even exaggerating.