If only they wouldn't defecate everywhere

As you learned in our previous post, we have three awesome kittens that are capable of catching mice. Okay, all of these "I'm a Mormon" commercials are really strange. And why are there always two in a row? Anyway, their names are Mustard, Gator and Dr. Paws. Mustard is a girl, the other two are boys. And if you are on the fence about whether cats are totally awesome or insanely awesome, check out this story from Radiolab Christina and I heard while driving to her parents the other day. Pretty amazing. Also, our roosters have started to crow in the morning. And since three are two too many, we are getting very close to having a chicken dinner.

It's like déjà vu all over again

We carved pumpkins for Halloween and gave out candy, and we also watched Scream, which I had actually never seen before. And there is this really hilarious, possibly embarrassing, line by Neve Campbell in the movie, which I used as the title for this post. So remember folks: careful when using those fancy words, unless you're 100% sure what they really mean, especially when you use them in a sentence.

Vroooom!

People need to learn how to drive. I'm serious. Especially the ones with big cars. I had a little free time on my hands and conducted some research. Turns out, the bigger the car you drive, the worse of a driver you are. And it makes sense, too. If you're a bad driver, driving is really scary cause you're always on the verge of bumping into things or getting hit by drivers staying in their lanes. So what do you do to feel more secure? You get a big old vehicle which makes you feel all cozy and protected. And that vehicle is usually one of the sports utility persuasion, but pick-up trucks too. Problem with that is, that if you're already a bad driver, getting a big car only aggravates the calamity. Cause now an already bad driver has way more on their hands than they can possibly handle. But the car makes them feel secure, so they pay even less attention. For the rest of us it means botched parking jobs, or actually botching anything having to do with parking or driving in a parking lot, and generally driving like they have no clue. Anyway, to express it in mathematical terms:

car size / a = amount of bad driving

where "a" is driving ability on a scale from 1 to 10.

Freddie Hubbard

I only learned yesterday that Freddie Hubbard passed away on December 29th. So even though it's a little late, I suggest you break out your Empyrean Isles, or get it from itunes or some place like that if you don't have a copy, and let him take you to a better place.

So last week

I know I'm turning this in the official old news blog, but I came across this article, bookmarked it, but never got around to sharing it with you. And since it's late, I'll let you provide your comments first, before I offer my own other than that I enjoyed reading it.

Learn about a foreign culture day.

So did you all catch the big event last weekend? I knew everyone was gonna be excited that finally the Bundesliga commences after the winter break (even though Stuttgart and Bielefeld both lost), but I was unaware Americans celebrate it by having a Super Bowl. And since I don't really know what else to write about, I will let you know how the German soccer league works. Cause I'm sure there's plenty of people out there who don't care. Now this is gonna be kinda dull, and I can't guarantee it's accurate, so I give you a chance to decide against educating yourself.

[+] I agree to be bored to death.
The German soccer league is called Bundesliga, which roughly translates to 'federal league'. There are 18 teams in it. In the course of a season, all teams will play each other twice, once in the round before the winter break, and once in the round after the winter break. That makes for a total of 34 days of play, half of which are played at home, the other half away, so that you play each team once at home and once away, at the other team's home.

Everybody with me so far? Okay, now let me tell you how to determine the winner, or Meister. For a loss you get 0 points, for a draw you get 1, and for a win it's 3 points. At the end of the season the team with the most points is the champion. If two or more teams have the same amount of points, the team with the better ratio of goals scored over goals received gets the advantage. If that still doesn't break the tie, I think it's whoever scored more goals or direct comparison of the teams. After that I believe it's tossing and interpreting of 10-year-old chicken thigh bones by a fortune teller, a 3-round bareknuckle boxing match between the coaches and finally whoever can tie their shoelaces the prettiest.

Now for the interesting part. The three teams that are at the bottom of the standings at the end of the season, will go down to the '2. Bundesliga', while the three top teams from league Nummer Zwei go up to play in the 1. Bundesliga, which is what you usually refer to when you just say 'Bundesliga' as I did above. The same is true for the bottom-feeders in league two and the top teams from the leagues below it and so on and so on und so weiter. In theory, any team that is part of the DFB could make it all the way up to the 1. Bundesliga.

The top teams of the 1. Bundesliga also get to participate in various European team competitions, like Champions League and the UEFA Cup and the qualifying rounds for it. In Germany, the first two teams go directly into the Champions League, number 3 gets a chance to qualify for it, and numbers 4 and 5 play in the UEFA cup.

The German teams also play in a tournament-style competition called DFB-Pokal. The winner of it also gets to go to UEFA Cup. Alright, I think you're pretty much set to become a full-blown fan of German soccer. Just in case you were wondering, the fancy-shmancy leagues in Italy, Spain, France and England work pretty much the same way as the German league, with slight differences in how many teams qualify for European competitions.


[-] You've done outdid yourself once again, Christoph.

Hold on, I almost forgot, and this is very important, no matter if you read all that junk above or not. If you're wondering which team you should root for, remember one thing: Bayern München sucks!!! Other than that you have nothing to worry about.