The glory that was 2005

This is it, the legendary first season of C & C Lo's Neighbor of the Month^™:

• December: Dreams of Dissonance


• November: Freeloading in Zambia


• October: Sarah and the Goon Squad


• September: Melanie's Knitting Ramblings


• August: Kindred Spirits


• July: Bible, etc.


• June: forthnights


• May: supersimbo


• April: Snagley Snagley Snagley or (TRI SNAG)


• March: Business Entrepreneurship


• February: Weird Thing of the Day


• January: Fishing in Singapore

Let's go deeper

I'm sure as members of my vast army of faithful readers, you noticed that I haven't posted a Neighbor of the Month^™ in 2006 yet. At first I thought I'd just keep going as I did. Then I thought I'd just quit with that silliness altogether, then I thought I'd change the way I pick neighbors. Well, and then today came. I was gonna post something about our cactus, and on Blogger's front page, there is a little section with "noteworthy blogs" or something like that. And the one that was up simply said "MC Hammer". I was like, "Dude what's this?" Some funnyman trying to be funny or some funny business like that? Well, turns out it's the actual MC Hammer, superstar of my childhood. Or some guy that kinda looks like him and acting like he's him and all. Well, I will go on record and say that I'm buying it and believe this is the real MC Hammer, superstar of my childhood.

But what about this Neighbor of the Month^™ business? Well the rules will be extended. Previously, the only blogs eligible to be chosen were those that came up when I clicked "Next Blog". In addition to this, I will now also accept recommendations from you, my gentle readers, such as this one from Kelly. So keep 'em coming. Further, any blog on blogspot qualifies, no matter how I came across it. The same rigorous standards apply, which is to say that they are virtually nonexistant and completely arbitrary, depending mostly upon how I feel at a particular moment in time.

And finally, what about the old neighbors? As the months progress, each of them will be replaced by a new neighbor. But since I greatly enjoy reading some of them, leaving inane comments every once in a while, and I wanna keep a record of the whole 'hood, I will create a post right after I'm done with this one, that has all of 2005's neighbors on it, and link to that post's permalink from the sidebar.

So check out our new Neighbor of the Month^™ for the month of January, I am a doughnut, and of course, our Neighbor of the Month^™ for the month of February, MC Hammer.

On buying fish.

Yesterday, I bought some fish, Seelachs to be exact. I know, pretty amazing. But it gets better. In what will follow you will not only learn that life is far more bizarre than anything I could make up, but also that I have a special talent for spoiling any story that I'm about to tell by trying to build it up. Anyway, truth is stranger than fiction, but not all that strange I guess. I got the fish at the local Karstadt, which has a supermarket in the basement, with all kinds of fresh seafood. First I went in there, and picked up some lemons, as lemons are prerequisite for making fish. Well, we did have lemon juice, but for the sauce Christina makes, fresh lemon juice makes all the difference. If you don't believe it, try it yourself. We got the recipe off the internet, but I'm not gonna dig it up now. Suckers! Had I known then what I know now, I would have gotten the fish first, then the lemons.

Because when I was getting ready to go over to the fish counter, this group of tourists shows up. At least 20 people, who were being talked to in English by their German hosts or tour guides or whatever. Did I say tourists? Yes I did. They were taking a tour of the dang supermarket, marvelling at this Wunderwerk of capitalism. And it wasn't an official Karstadt tour or anything. No, these "guides" were just showing them the city, and thought it would be interesting to check out this supermarket. On your left you see the Rathaus and the Roland, they have been awarded the status of world cultural heritage by the Unesco. But nevermind them, here's a real gem: A supermarket in a basement. And it sells fish! Mind-boggling. The fish was clearly what they were there for, as they flocked to that counter and made it impossible for me to order anything anymore. Nope, I had to walk around the store for a bit and wait until their excitement had calmed down a little.

Now I'm not that ignorant to not understand why this might be interesting for someone to see, especially since I assume they were from an Asian country (I'm also going to assume it wasn't Japan, cause that would just be too funny, you know, cause as far as I know, fish is very popular in Japan due to it being surrounded by water). So it might actually have been something they had not seen before in that form, but still, couldn't they see I was getting ready to buy fish? They were happily taking pictures of the wares presented behind the counter, and of each other in front of the fridges with food in them. I wish I could be there when they show those pictures at home.

And that's basically my story. A whole big group of people crowded the fish counter, and I had to wait until they left before I could buy anything. For some reason, I don't think those guys asked their guides if they could see one of the famous German fish counters in a supermarket. It's one of those things that the clever guides pick out to provide real experience of German culture. So that they can tell their people at home how crazy those Krauts are. Maybe it's just me, but I found it really funny. And this is not just any old person saying it. I took pictures of dead rabbits for sale in a little French town, and of chickens in the window of a shop in S.F. Chinatown. The difference: I look cool doing it.

Chicken butt.

Fate took us to Amsterdam last weekend. That's Christina and I plus our friends Wattanikha and Dimitar. Our initial plans for the weekend had been cancelled due to illness, so Christina asked Wattanikha and Dimitar if they felt like going anywhere, which they did, so we decided on Amsterdam and Christina booked rooms in a hotel. We left on Saturday morning and it took us about 3 1/2 hours to get there. That's not bad at all, Janelle. After we checked in at the hotel, we started heading into town. The hotel itself is pretty close to the museums quarter, and it wasn't far to walk downtown. On the way there we came by a place that sold, among other things, used records. Hooray. They had some really cool stuff, but I only bought one: Rubber Soul by The Beatles, for just 8 Euros. Anyway, we had lunch and just walked around and shopped here and there. We saw this knife block that is a red plastic figure, about 40cm tall, with the different knives stuck in its head and legs and torso. Unfortunately, it was a little too expensive. I can't find it online, so you will just have to believe me when I say that it was the coolest knife block ever. Oh, you're calling me a liar now? Man, I'm getting sick of your attitude. At night we ate at a Nepalese/Tibetan restaurant, which was really good. I don't think I have ever seen Nepalese or Tibetan food anywhere before.
One of the great things about living in Trier was the proximity to Luxembourg, because unlike movies in Germany, the Benelux countries don't dub their movies. There is some logical problem with that last sentence concerning who is doing the dubbing, but I think it is possible to understand what I'm trying to say, so I will just leave it. We could always see the latest movies in English at the theater in Luxembourg right away. And some of the smaller productions that wouldn't even make it to German cinemas at all. In Bremen, they do show original versions regularly, but usually only on certain days of the week and only the bigger movies, that will draw large enough audiences. Anyway, in Amsterdam, all the movies were originals with subtitles, and we watched Walk the Line. I never read much about Johnny Cash's biography, so it was pretty interesting to see. What am I saying, it was great! Go see it, now, you can read this crap later. Leave! Geez, I can't believe you're still here. Why can't you listen to what I say just once? That's all I'm asking, and I don't think I'm being unreasonable here.
Well, we walked all the way back to our hotel and had a good night's sleep. Like what, 6 hours after having had little sleep the night before as well. I guess 6 hours isn't all that bad really. We checked out right away in the morning, had bagels for breakfast, and went to the Rijksmuseum. We got there at a good time and hardly had to wait in line. When we left people were standing in a long, loooong line outside the entrance. Lucky us. We did some more shopping and eating, and left arond 17:30 I think. Might have been 17:34. Why do you need to know so exactly anyway? Are you trying to reconstruct every step we took in that town? Like some crazy stalker psychofan or something? Get a life! Oh, and in case you were wondering, we did not visit any coffeeshops. We get high on life.