Another technological wonder

I noticed that on other people's blogs the title always links to the blog itself. But it didn't in ours. I checked the template and there seemed to be a link, but the page source wasn't showing it. I tried a few things, and now it's working. The problem were some ItemPage tags which I don't have the slightest clue what they are for. But without them, the title won't show up at all. But the anchor tag was weirdly spread over two such tags, so I just moved the anchor in between two ItemPage tags and voilá: It shows up correctly now. Further proof that you don't actually have to know html to be able to fiddle with web pages.
Okay, I know that was boring, but I feel obliged to announce all changes to the blog. I am ripping a song right now for using in the contest. It's a real good one, but I think most people will have to use Google to find out who it is. Did I say most people? No one even listened to the last snippet. I'm so sure. I just think it's so rude to come here and take advantage of the many benefits and the free words and amenities and not even listening to the song and guessing. Yeah, I'm talking to you.
I had something else I wanted to write about, it wasn't my sister giving me an unexpected shoutout over the radio, and it wasn't listening to an interview she did on there either. It was something cool, with lots of special effects, but my head has a hole in it. It also wasn't the computer I got through somebody Christina works with. It's used and not the newest, but way better than what I have now. No comparison. At all.
Alright, so let's just stick to the song. It's a only very short excerpt, but it's a rap song, so it should be enough. It's also one of my favorite lines from a song ever. So just clickety-click, listen and guess. Please.
Anything else? We are going camping this weekend. The weather is supposed to be warm, with slight chances of rain on Sunday. Alice is coming with us. Alright, I'm done for now.

Tekillya

Ok, so it has been a while, but I just have to tell one more story about being at Christoph's parent's house that I am sure he will not tell....because he doesn't remember most of it. :) I know, I know, two posts in one day after not posting in forever. AMAZING, but I just have to write this stuff down before I forget it.

At Tobias' (Christoph's brother) going-away party we had tasty grilled bratwurst and other typical cookout food....grilled meat, salads, bread, etc. And to drink, in the good ol' fashioned German way, we had beer, sparkling water, apfelschorle (sparkling apple juice) and tequila. Ok the tequila isn't typical, but it was very tasty and went well with the grilled food.

About 9 shots of tequila and who knows how many beers later, Christoph was, um, drunk. I also had some tequila and a little wine, but was in no way drunk...tipsy maybe, but not drunk. Anyway, Christoph kept complaining about the music and kept wanting to get out music from the car. We ended up sitting in the car for a while listening to Monster Magnet and then I was a little ready to go to bed. It was about 3 in the morning and let's face it...time to go to bed anyway. Well, before going to bed Christoph had to use the bathroom and after telling "Jimmy"the toilet and the towels goodnight we were on our way upstairs. But he couldn't go to bed without stepping out onto the balcony and dancing around like a fool and then up the stairs we went. Where, Nadine (Tobias' girlfriend) was showing a friend of hers their new closet. Christoph of couse had to check it out as well. And by checking out I mean opening and closing the doors and also talking a lot of crap and dancing around. Finally we make it to the bedroom and sleep falls upon my little drunkard.

The next day was full of excitement as Christoph learned about all the great things he had done the previous night (with a major hangover, of course). According to him, he still hasn't gotten a chance to see his brother's new closet.

Can anyone say crap?

Not this past weekend, but the weekend before, we HAD to go to Christoph's parent's house because his brother was having a going-away party (for those of you who don't know, the lucky duck gets to go to Zhuhai, a city near Hong Kong, for six months for his job). Anyway, I wasn't too happy about going to this party. Since it was a holiday weekend I was looking forward to going somewhere away from everybody for a few days. Oh well...since Christoph and his brother are soooo close (insert sarcastic voice here) and since HE told his parents we would pick them up from the airport on their way back from their vacation to Crete, we were pretty much obliged to attend.

Anyway, that day I was a little pissy, needless to say. But from me being pissy a very funny story evolved. Ok, let me set up the stage: At their house they have this old bathroom that they don't use anymore since they remodeled and we usually use it when we come to visit. This bathroom has two doors. One that leads to the hallway and the other to another little bedroom that is now used as an office/ironing room. Well, since we hadn't visited in a while and since no one uses this bathroom it really stinks in there. So I walked in while Christoph was trimming his beard and stated rather loudly, "It smells like f***ing crap in here!!" As soon as I said that I noticed that the door to the little bedroom was a little open and that his dad was sitting at the computer.... I felt really stupid and I am sure I turned red. Christoph and I just laughed and I was totally freaking happy that his dad doesn't know a word of English. :)

Now this is probably one of those stories that is only funny if you are there, but man I still laugh my butt off every time I think about this.

Breaking News

We will go live to our correspondent in Greene County, Indiana.
Thank you Christoph. I am here at the Linton Daily Citizen web site where, after a series of rumors, we finally get confirmation on what might be the biggest story of the last ten years. Numerous sources have verified these claims to be correct, even though no students agreed to go on the air, for fear of being called nerds of the nation. Apparently students at Eastern Greene Elementary have fun learning math.
I'm sorry, did I hear you right Christoph, students are reported to have fun learning math?
Yes, I that is correct Christoph, students are having fun at math.
Wow, that is quite unbelievable.
I think that is a sentiment we all share right now. Officials at the scene have not released much information besides the earlier conformation but as we have learned "[i]t's good for our older kids because they get to take the roll as teacher."
Yum. Well, I think that sums it up. Thanks for these breaking news.

The missing link.

Yeah, it's time to do some serious linking here. Ever since my sister started going to the university in Bielefeld she has been working for the campus radio station. Well not working for pay really, but she is involved with it a lot. Doing interviews with bands and people and stuff. She is part of the music department there. Anyway, last weekend I asked her if they had a stream for the station, and they do! So today I am listening to their program. Of course any of the shows she works on are on at night, but I still get to enjoy their fine selection of music. Apart from an occasional dance song, it's pretty interesting and a good variety. So check it out y'all.
Okay, you are probably wondering, who our next neighbor of the month is going to be, and it's a tough competition. I can tell you that much. But here it is anyway: supersimbo. Alright, I'm hungry now. Listen to the radio. Oh wait, I almost forgot, you can find the songs they recently played by going here.

Do you still bother?

I didn't really have anything to blog about. Or at least I didn't feel writing about anything. Don't know why. Plus I was busy with my translating job, which I should be working on right now. So this will be short. Anyway, I forgot to mention something about Phish. If it wasn't for MacKenzie and her Phish tape that was laying around while I was working at the Permanent Art Collection, I would have never ever have gotten into Phish. MacKenzie, I am forever grateful. Sorry I haven't written in such a long time. I enjoyed that job in general. Learned lots of new things met some nice and interesting people and drank water.
You know what one of the things that freaks me out the most is? Oh, I already told you? Well nevermind then. Nooooo, I wasn't talking about 3 inch perfectly round potatos, silly. I was talking about people talking to themselves on the street. Just last week I met two of these wonderful specimen. The first one was this guy, let's call him Arndt, I passed on Saturday after buying Brötchen for breakfast. Arndt already looked weird and, as I would soon find out, looked strange running. Anyway, Arndt came out of a side road, still walking, and had some trouble seeing me it seemed. I mean he wasn't going fast and neither was I, but still I had to stop to let Arndt go. Can you believe it? I had to stop, almost. But Arndt was preoccupied. He was mumbling something, and then saw the bus stopping down the road. And Arndt said: "something Bus verpasst something" and started running. And Arndt, what the heck? I mean how long have we known each other now? 10, 15 seconds and then you go and surprise me with running like that. I guess you just nevber really know anyone. First of all, slow as smoke. Not that I'm Mr. Lightspeed here or anything, but he wasn't going anywhere. His body was all stiff, but moving at the same time. I can't even recall it before my all-seeing inner eye.
You know that big ol' eye with all them fiery flames around it from Lord of the Rings? The one that's got the hots for Frodo? And the one that always pops in whenever it gets really intense? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about, the secret Burger King commercial they have throughout that whole thing. Geez, did you think all those fancy costumes paid for themselves? That's what my inner eye looks like. I swear. That Tolkien must have travelled in time, logged into my head and stole that image. There is no other explanation. So I installed a firewall, like that guy in Children of the Damned. Except it's an ocean and a brick wall. But mine is made out of fire. Of course the brick wall works much better when the kids are breaking through. Like when Pink Floyd played their 'Wall' tour and had all those boxes and stuff. So Arndt was 'running' and the bus was still stopped. It must have gotten to the stop a little early. And Arndt was 'running'. The bus still had its signal turned to show it was stopping. And Arndt was 'running'. Now he was alsmost there, the bus still stopped, and just when Arndt thought he made, the bus leaves. And Arndt was 'running'. Now with a face of despair, for the next bus would not be there until another ten minutes later. The universe was at stake.
And Arndt yelled something, and in one of those rare moments in human history, Earth's three suns lined up, bundling their energy and relived that little piece of red that's left inside every busdriver's black and rotten heart. And the bus driver stopped the bus to let Arndt in. That lucky bastard. Now the rest of the story I'm not 100% about, but I think everybody that witnessed this scene had a little tear in the corner of their eyes. I know I did. So overwhelmed to see the forces at play. Inside the bus, Arndt fell to his knees and praised the bus driver, emphasizing the significance of getting on that bus, and his struggle to get there. He thanked everybody else that was on the bus with a hug and a handshake and realized he had to turn his life around. And so he did. A few days later, Arndt has fallen in love with the world again, goes 'running' almost every day and does two good deeds a week (he didn't wanna set a goal he couldn't achieve). Either that or he just found an empty seat and caught his breath.
The second encounter with somebody talking to themselves was in front of our house on the way back from the grocery store. Well actually it was by that lamppost right by the tanning salon. The one where there is almost always a big turd from some nasty dog, that I have actually seen people step into. That stuff bugs me. I know there are plenty of animals doing their #1s and 2s in cities, but only dogs have the nerve to pass out invitations for people to watch and then do it in the middle of the freaking sidewalk. Whatever happened to bushes and trees? The weirdest dog we have here belongs to this dirty guy. He is already pretty different. Long hair, bad 80s hippie clothes and a mean face. Mean like kicking your girlfriend's butt at Tetris with no mercy whatsoever. And his dog is at least 78,5% wolf. It has to be. Either that or werewolf, just the other way around. He turns human at full moon. But this dog is skinny and black and about as high as halfway between my knee and hip. He doesn't look too bad really, except the long and frizzy hair on his back. Some of it is gray, and all of it is longer than the hair on the rest of its body. A total wolf. I have seen the guy digging through the trash at Plus by the way.
So this woman walks towards me, I did not know her name, and she looked a little out of it with her busy colorful shirt and she was mumbling something. When I passed her, all I could make out was that she must have been reading out her grocery list from memory. I mean, she wasn't totally talking under her breath, so I'm pretty sure she was saying the names of some stuff she was gonna buy at Plus. Just make sure you don't forget the eggs. Ah yes, eggs thanks you, now where was I, milk, ham, tomatoes, don't forget the cucumber, oh and noodles, some chicken, butter, now is that it, oh almost forgot the juice, and the eggs of course yes okay that's it thanks you.
People have started to dig through trash over here more anyway. I think it's because of the introduction of the refund system for one-way beverage containers. Lots of people just throw them away anyway, so bums and cheap people fish them out of the trash cans. Well, I guess that wraps it up for now. Told you I didn't have nothing to blog about.

Black rubber baby.

Due to popular demand, here is the solution to the last installment of our little contest:

Phish - Sample In A Jar from the album Hoist

Other than that it's pretty hot today, I fixed Christina's bike (not the light yet) and hope it will work for her and have work to do for my job. Stay tuned for our next song, and don't be such shy guessers. Now that you actually hear the song, everybody should be able to make some sort of guess. Remember that there will be points for creative and pathetically wrong answers.