So much time, so little to do...

Since I have a little time before I meet with some people for lunch, I decided to write a little post for your pleasure. Let's go back to the topic of outlawing underwear in Virginia. Can you believe it? It seems like I won't be able to visit Ginger anymore without risking a fine. If the law passes that is. One of the first things that I thought about was how the mini skirt became popular in the sixties. Of course that was a big outrage as well, and I think the low-rise pants and stuff are no different. So now comes the part where I'm tying things together, much quicker than usual, but like I said, only a little break. I dug out some wicked lyrics for you to guess, that talk about the conflict between generations, and it was written by one of the greatest musicians of our time. If you know me you probably know who I'm talking about anyway. Here's the lyrics:

"Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand"

It's one fo my favorite quotes from him anyway. And I think it's because it so well addresses the problem of overly conservative and preservative stances. Every human being is in constant change, at least in my experience, and along with the people, places change and society changes. I think this is human nature, to keep changing. To try and suppress change goes against human nature then. Of course it is also important to criticize developments and wonder about their usefulness, but seeing underwear certainly is not going to ruin society. I also don't agree with dress codes in high schools and such.
Anyway, I have realized that guessing songs with the help of lyrics is not all that exciting. We will finish this great sing-song sing-along contest, but there will be no future installations in the current format. Instead I will try to figure out a way to post song snippets for your listening pleasure, and then you can guess. Way better, ain't it? But right now I'm too busy with other stuff, plus I gotta eat and quit writing boring posts.

Technicalities

Okay, you might have noticed already, but I made some changes to the way our comments work, since Blogger made some changes to the way their comments work. Bloggers comments now show up in a new pop-up window, and you can post with name and e-mail, without being a Blogger member. Thus there is no need to keep the old Haloscan comments. The only thing we're losing is the different messages for different numbers of comments. But I can live with that, or maybe someone knows how to change that. But since it is not possible to transfer the Haloscan comments to the Blogger blog, I have to keep Haloscan activated. So what I did is I simply turned the usual Comment and Trackback (we are not using that anyway) message into a period, but keept the messages for when a comment was left. So you can still easily access old comments, but for new ones you now click on 'Talkers', and NOT the little period at the bottom. I think this is a good compromise until someone comes up with a way to transfer the comments. I already looked around a little but couldn't find anything.
Meanwhile, we are also moved into our new apartment in Bremen. Well moved in is not the right word, but all of our stuff is there and we finally have all the keys. It's just a big mess still with everything in boxes and still plenty of work to do. Well the main work is patching some holes that the previous Mieter did not fill and paint over, putting the quarter-round on for the Fußleiste and putting up hanging cabinets and a new Arbeitsplatte in the kitchen. Then we need more shelves. But I'm suree we'll get it done eventually. Okay, gotta go to class.

Time to talk history...

We have a very serious topic to discuss. That's how I started a blog entry that was going to talk about the bombing of Dresden and the issue of the Neo-Nazis' dealing with it. But I don't know what to say about their incredible ignorance and attempts at revisionism. I really don't. It's beyond me how someone can go out and mourn the death of thousands of lives, while not even mentioning the systematic killing of millions. As if the two are not connected. All that while distinguishing between 'Jewish' and 'German' victims of WWII and the Holocaust. Again, I just don't know what to say. Being German, the Nazi reign and the Holocaust are some of the most important issues that affect my daily life and who I am. And I see how it can be hard to live up to the incredible responsibility you have, as a German, towards the rest of the world. But the one thing I know I should never do, is try to forget about the horrible things that happened or trying to somehow avert the responsibility away from the German people.
See? I don't know how to express what I'm thinking in proper words. It's at the same time incredibly complex, yet simple, both emotionally and intellectually. Trying to say I am sorry for what my country did to the Jewish population of Europe, means nothing in the light of the unimaginable horror that Hitler came up with. So I try to accept my responsibility by acting. Of course, I am not responsible personally for anyhting that happened since I wasn't born yet, but if I don't live up to this heritage (and no, it has nothing to do with burden) I become responsible.
Okay, I will stop here, there is only so far I am able to pursue this, just sitting here without talking to anybody. Like I said, it is not an issue I can deal with separately, my whole life and person is connected to it.

WTF?

I was reading the news and came across a funny story on Spiegel.de, which they took from the Washington Times:

'Droopy drawers' bill seeks end to overexposure of underwear


By Christina Bellantoni
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

RICHMOND — Virginia lawmakers to the state's youth: Pull up your pants or pay the price.
Delegate Algie T. Howell Jr. doesn't want to see underwear hanging out of the back of your pants, and most lawmakers yesterday agreed with him. The House voted 60-34 for his bill, which would impose a $50 fine on anyone whose boxers, briefs or thongs peek above their pants or skirts.
"It's not an attack on baggy pants," said Mr. Howell, Norfolk Democrat. "To vote for this bill would be a vote for character, to uplift your community and to do something good not only for the state of Virginia, but for this entire country."
It's not clear if the fine would apply to plumbers, carpenters or other laborers who have problems with low-riding pants. The bill states the fine would apply to those who display their below-the-waist underwear in a "lewd or indecent manner."
Several lawmakers and civil rights groups said the legislation — sometimes referred to as the "droopy drawers" bill — is excessive and would encourage racial profiling, arguing that exposed underwear is simply a fashion statement by mostly black youths.
Delegate Lionell Spruill Sr., Chesapeake Democrat, said the bill violates the Constitution.
"This is a foolish bill because it will hurt so many," said Mr. Spruill, who is black. "This will be a bill that will target blacks."
At one point, Mr. Spruill suggested that lawmakers who vote for the bill "should be ashamed" and said Mr. Howell has let his constituents down.
Delegate John S. Reid, Henrico Republican, said Mr. Spruill had "crossed the line" of traditional debate decorum.
"I got your attention, Mr. Reid. I'm glad I did," Mr. Spruill told Mr. Reid after apologizing. "Don't hurt students. Remember, you were once young yourself. Don't do another thing to hurt black people."
Still, the underwear bill generated some lighthearted debate and laughs among the delegates.
Mr. Spruill conducted an informal survey of his colleagues, asking about their youthful fashion fads and faux pas. The responses, he said, ranged from Afros to platform shoes to polyester leisure suits.
"Please, let these kids express themselves," he said. "It will pass on. Don't fine these young kids. You had your time, let them have their time."
Mr. Reid, a former teacher, said the trend of youngsters wearing baggy pants represents "the coarsening of this society."
"We've stood by and watched little things occur," he said. "Surely, there are those of us who look at our pictures when we were 12 years old and laugh at them, but they were not offensive. They were not wearing their underwear out.
"Underwear is called underwear for a reason — because it is normally worn under your clothes," Mr. Reid said.
However, Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, said the bill "clearly targets" black men.
"African-Americans are going to be the ones who are harassed by police under this law," Mr. Willis said yesterday.
"Another concern is that legislators may have started a trend where they are designating themselves the arbiters of taste for Virginia, maybe even the fashion police," the ACLU director said. "This is simply not the kind of detail legislators should be addressing."
In June, Louisiana's Legislature rejected a bill that would have made it illegal to wear sagging pants that exposed a person's underwear. According to published reports, the Louisiana House voted 54-39 to reject the bill, which was later parodied on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show." That bill would have imposed a $175 fine.
Mr. Howell's bill has been sent to the Senate, where its chances were not clear yesterday.

I couldn't believe it, and since it was pretty opinionated (and rightfully so) I looked for it elsewhere and found this and this.

Here is the Spiegel story as well. Nuff said.

Hear me whine

Now that you learned about the beauty of laying floors, here comes all the fun stuff. My bones are aching, not so much anymore today but scooting around on my knees and sawing and lifting and carrying and all that really was strenuous. And there is more to come next weekend. But it never felt so good to lay down at night. Or is it lie down? I can never tell. Looks like I need to learn me some more English. But I will do logic instead. Right after this. So the big drama was, that the guys that used to live in our new apartment don't have their shit together, which we could have handlded. But they didn't give us another set of keys. One of them still has his. So on Saturday morning, their dirty stove was still in the kitchen, the paintjob was partly crap and there were no keys. Later in the day the landlady said they were supposed to pick it up and leave the keys, but all that ever happened was the stove being picked up by the guy who didn't have a key. We tried to call the other one, but no answer. If the keys are not there when Christina gets home tonight, we will have to call the landlady.
I mean, we gave the guy an extra week, and it's okay for him to still have the basement full of stuff and all that, we can live with that, but we NEED that dang key. That way my parents can go there Saturday morning and start working. Like putting quarter-rounds (memories of the good old PAC at ISU come to my mind) around the room to cover the 10mm gap you have to leave with the laminate floor. We actually left 20 in some places, but we're not professional floor people either. And touching up some of the drill-holes and putting new PVC in the kitchen. More than plenty of work. That's why they wanted to get there early on Saturday while we load up the moving truck in Trier and drive up to Bremen. But of course they need to be able to get into the house. And we don't really wanna send our only key by mail, and then it gets lost or something. And I only have the one guy's cell phone (which he doesn't answer) and maybe the landlady can call the other dude. He also said he would call again but never did. It was cool at first, but now I'm starting to get a little pissed at them. Like I said, they can leave their stuff in the basement and pick it up when they can, but we need the key and they can call us to set up a time. Arrghh.
On Monday morning we took the fridge from my parents to our apartment. I'm so proud of Christina for carrying it up to the third (4th in America) floor with me. Then we took down part of the old PVC and went to pick out some for the kitchen. Took forever. But we made it, and took it up, and the rest of the trash down to the car and went to take her work computer to work, so she can work (duh). I went to drop the old floor off at the landfill, but after I finally found it (took 20 minutes), found out it closed at 3. So I decided to head to Trier, and just get rid of it here. I will actually do that tomorrow morning. Thinking I would get there maybe at 9 or 9.30, since it was shortly past 4. WRONG! Big Stau in Bremen, commuter traffic. At one point I was stopped for 15 minutes, with my engine turned off and just waiting. There was supposed to be another 10km one coming up, but it was gone by the time I finally got there. Since it was getting late, the Ruhrgebiet had no Stau at all. And then I get to Mayen/Mendig, where I leave the Autobahn to take a shortcut saving probably 25km. And there was plenty of snow. I would say at least 5cm (2"), and it all fell that afternoon. The roads were alright, but not completely cleared. And it was like 22.10 by that time. And I had what I thought would turn into a slow odyssey ahead of me. Luckily the Autobahn to Trier was mostly completely cleared and I finally got home at 23.15. That's a grand total of 7 hours. Way too long.
So a weekend of nothing but work finally ended on Monday night, almost Tuesday. Bremen better treat us well.

Learn yourself some German here

Man, what a weekend. We went up to Bremen to put new laminate floors into the apartment we will move into next weekend. Christina was in Bremen already and went to my parents' on Thursday. There she looked at a bunch of stuff and bought some and on Friday I went up and we bought some more and got the fridge she decided on the day before. I think it's the best one we could get for the price. We put the fridge in one of my parents' garages (Yes, there's 3 altogether), the one that we refer to as the Werkstatt because it basically is a big room that belongs to the factory but that we use and it also has a garage door. Some of you might know what I mean. We keep our bikes there too, for example. Anyway, we ate some frozen pizza (after having it in the oven though) and then loaded the Laminat into my car and all the other stuff we needed, and then put the mattress on top. I could not see a thing out the back. The next morning we got up at 5.30 to leave at 6 and got on the road at 6.40, mostly cause my mom took forever. We were ready to go at 6.10. But whatever.
We arrive in Bremen probably at 8.40, or at least that's when I picked up the key from the agreed-upon hiding spot. Slick as a secret agent.
I got slightly lost on the way back to the apartment, but made it okay. The hospital is easy to spot. And then the work began. Somewhat. We took most of the stuff upstairs, took out the PVC floor and decided to buy some foam foil to lay underneath the Laminat.So by that time it was probably 10. I don't even remember how it all went and in what order, but it took us forever to get started. Partly because my parents had to talk about the whole thing forever. And of course, the first row of boards takes the longest to lay down. Anyway, at 10 at night we called it a day, having finished the small room that is to become our office/guestroom (yes, you are welcome to visit) and the hallway. That meant we had not really covered a lot in terms of total surface area, but the hallway has seven doors altogther (stairwell, office, kitchen, bathroom, living room, bedroom, Abstellraum), so with virtually every board we laid down, we not only had to cut the length but also use the Stichsäge to cut the boards to fit the doors and heater. Lots of work. We then ate at the Greek place in our building, which was good and fell asleep quickly.
Then Sunday was the day we had to finish it all. We started off with a breakfast, and cut boards to go through the doors to make it into living and bedroom. Once that was done, it was smooth sailing all day. Long rows of boards, juts cutting length. My mom and dad worked the living room, Christina and I got the bedroom. Even though my parents covered more area more quickly we finished our room first, because we had less to consider when doing the heater and balcony door. But it all got done and we headed to my parents' again.
And that's the story of how we put in the floor.

Learning by doing.

I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to the fact that you can now e-mail me by clicking on my name. It took my a while to figure out how to make our names the same color as they were before, but with the help of some helpful sites, it finally works. At first I tried to simply use attributes in HTML, but the hover effect just wouldn't show. And I thunk and thought about it, until I finally decided to create my own class for links and just give them the text color and hover attributes. That worked great. I love learning this whole internets-thing bit by bit. Not too long ago, I didn't know jack. Now I have the basic skills to change the look of our blog and work out the details to some stuff. Now I wanna make the border in that table look better. I will keep you updated.

How blogging turns to bloring.

It's the first of February and due time for our next 'Neigbor of the Month'. In order to avoid confusion and protests of irregularities, I gotta say that I don't just randomly pick the first blog that comes along. I already was looking at some last night, two were political and one was an exhibitionist's, but since I'm at school now and don't have the bookmarks here I just clicked Next Blog again to see what came up. And I liked what I saw. So salute our next 'Neighbor of the Month': Weird Thing of the Day.
I might post yesterday's blogs as well, but be warned. Some of the content was somewhat explicit. And I know our American readers are still suffering from last year's increased exposure to a woman's chest. Gee, what else? I had my last presentation for the semester today and it went well. The usually overly picky professor said I did very good in front of the class. Normally she prefers to point out all the weaknesses. So the very last presentation at school, at least for some time, was a success. Now I only have one more exam (formal logic), finish a programming project and write a paper for DaF, and I can start writing my thesis. Woohoo.
This morning I took Christina to the train station at 5 (!) so she could go to Bremen to work. Now I have to wait all the way until Friday before I see her again. What a bummer, but we have been through worse for sure. Why do I bore you with that stuff anyway?
Last weekend we went to Koblenz with Alice on Saturday and visited Kelly and Steffen and little Collin on Sunday. He was so sweet. I mean I gotta say, I have not known any babies since I was like 10 or something, so I didn't really know how to act, but it's so amazing to see the little feet and hands and everything. Truly amazing. But I also realized that I wouldn't be ready for it right now. And I mean besides the fact that i still need to finish school and get a j-o-b. But then again, I would probably never feel 100% ready. So amazing how such a little person can completely change your life. I can't even express it correctly in words.
Alright, that's it for now. If you have any requests for topics I should cover, feel free to tell me. Anything but paper plates.