The griddle.

Folks, they dry spell is over. We now have our very own high-speed interwebbing connection. The open wireless connections in our neighborhood have stopped working for us a while ago, so it's just in time. The stuff you've missed is Germany being runner-up in the European soccer championship and us acquiring a vehicle. If you all behave real well, there might be some pictures in the near future. We're back on the grid.

Modern myths exposed.

You know how Chicago is called the windy city, and we all think it's cause it's really windy there all the time until some smartypants tells you it's not the wind that's blowing but the windy politicians? Well, next time somebody tells you that, do me a favor and find a newspaper, roll it up and apply it to the back of their head. Cause I was stuck at the Chicago airport for approximately two hours total because the wind in Chicago was blowing so hard that planes couldn't land or take off in what I'm sure historians will call the big Delayathon of 2008. I know, two hours isn't all that bad, but who am I to argue with the experts?

We moved into our apartment without any major problems. The van broke down almost right in front of our door, but that didn't really cause too much trouble. We also found a used sofa, which is big, blue and folds out into a bed in case our guest room fills up. Unfortunately, I couldn't even really settle in yet, because I had to go to my company's headquarters to receive some training. But that's about as much detail as I'm willing to disclose about work. Not only because people get into all kinds of trouble over that, but also because there are much better things to talk about, and work already takes up so much of our lives.

As much as I missed Christina while I was gone, I did have some extra time on my hands to read. When I left I was almost done with reading The Great Gatsby, and finished it on the plane. I figured it was about time I read it, especially since we're moving to New York, and I also read a big part of Drop City by T.C. Boyle, which I can already recommend, even though I'm not done with it. Okay, if this was me reading this, I would lose interest right about now. So let's switch it up and let me tell you about a major brainfart I had. It's not gonna be very funny, but it's all I got right now. So you know how the European Championship is coming up, and I've been wondering how I would be able to watch the games I wanna watch, i.e. as many as possible. I don't see the point of getting cable, when we're already getting like 15 stations over our regular antenna, and I never understood why I should pay to get TV stations that show commercials all the time anyway. Isn't that how they are financed? Anyway, I'm not paying to see commercials. But, cable or satellite TV does have one advantage: ESPN and Spanish language soccer channels. That probably would have covered everything right there, but like I said, not worth it. I wasn't too worried about it anyway, cause the whole time I was thinking "Well I'm not gonna get up in the middle of the night to watch these games, so it doesn't really matter". But of course it will be afternoon in New York when the games are on, and I have no idea why I was thinking they weren't. So really, brainfart doesn't describe, it was more like constipation. I don't know what my ex-lax was, but now I'm psyched I will be able to follow the games after all. Via what fully or halfway legal internet channel I'm not sure yet, but suffice it to say that I will not miss the Euro. And that's how Eskimos glue the tusks on narwhales. The End.

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.

Busting glass.

Thanks for the congratulations everybody. I know I could have just written this in a comment to the last post, but I like writing a separate post, because it gives me a chance to ramble, and I know everyone will read it and you get the extra excitement of a brand-new post. It's starting to look like your lucky day. Anyway, I had a great birthday with yummy cake and everything. For New Year's we played cards, had fried rabbit, lit fireworks and shot a gun.

The job will be a linguistic one, but no computers (what a crazy concept). I will be working for a company that helps other companies develop their products, and I will be in charge of naming new flavors and smells and stuff. Like soaps or shaving foam. So when you see a soap called supersonic lava or peppermint crossbow, it might have been me making that up. Anyway, you get the idea. I won't actually talk about my real job on here.

And let me explain my relationship with American football to you: I will watch it, I will root for whichever team I deem appropriate, I will get excited, I will have a good time, I will even attempt my best to talk about it. But I will never be able to love it, like I love soccer. Let me put it this way: American football to me, is like Alfred Matzerath is to Oskar Matzerath in The Tin Drum by Günter Grass. Soccer, however, is Agnes Matzerath and Jan Bronski, or something like that. Maybe even Maria Truczinski. I'm not sure which character would be soccer, maybe I will by the end of the book, but I know for sure that Alfred is American football. The cooking is good, but he's not the real deal, and he married my mistress and claimed my son as his own. And just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, I go and use Nobel Prize-winning literature to make a statement about my professional sports preferences.

Thanksgiving!

As some of you may or may not know, England is pretty much Germany's archenemy in soccer. Followed right by the Netherlands, and after the last World Cup, Italy ranks high on that list as well. But it's nothing compared to the rivalry we have with the Brits. Anyway, in the spirit of this tasty holiday I would like to thank the pilgrims and Indians for making this happen. I will spare you my detailed analysis, but it's time the world realized that David Beckham just isn't any good. At all. And he does not deserve his fame, nor qualifying for anything. He does, however, deserve his wife.

In a related note, check out the EPA's Green car guide.