joe's wasting your time

Sep 08

30,09,08
I haven't heard crickets in years, but they seem to be abundant here in the country. Kind of relaxing...
I have a cold...

30,09,08
16:00 - Bonanza is on...Might be the one US show I haven't seen dubbed into German.

28,09,08
I am well taken care of. My nan is doing laundry for me everyday without any input from me. I've had Mexican food twice, gone to several McMenamins, been exposed to 'Are you smarter than a fifth grader' and been annoyed to no end by the americans in my general vicinity...In fact 2,0 told me that when he sets foot in the states he gets a little dizzy...I got a little annoyed, and I'm going to get that dizzy feeling when I arrive home (DE).

27,09,08
all the money here is one color, and one size...how quaint...
they should think about doing the same with the coins as well...

24,09,08 23:44
OK, so I went outside to the normal 'non secure' airport area, and it was in fact a bit busier than the highly secure area I'm in now...what was really great was when I wanted to come back into the secure area the dude asked where I was from, where I was going, and then stamped my passport (which is great cuz you don't normally get stamps inside the euro zone)...So basically I WAS LET INTO THE INNER SECURITY AREA WITHOUT MY BAG BEING CHECKED!!!!
I may have spotted a flaw in this whole airport security system...
I don't make the news I just report it...

I just saw a mouse!!! Schipole is like Konsti except without people...and I'm going to be sleeping here...Did I mention that 14 hour layovers rock!!!
yes I do feel like Tom Hanks in 'the Terminal'...
note: I am not fond of Tom Hanks, the only two movies I ever liked that he was in were 'the Terminal' and 'ladykillers'. The latter was not great because of him no doubt...

OK so I'm sitting in the middle of the airport hallway with my back to a pillar cuz that's the only place I can find a plug...and the dude driving the floor cleaner keeps buzzing me...I guess that means I need to go find an uncomfortable couch to make myself at home on...good times!!! Tonight is gonna be soooo cool!!!

24,09,08
It's 21:26...I'm sitting in the 4th busiest airport in Europe basically ALL BY MYSELF. There's a few janitor types and all the stores and restaurants have closed down. It's so deserted that the panini shop has just turned up the radio as they are cleaning up...GANGSTAs PARADISE!!!

So the highlight of last week was a Russian Colleague saying: 'In germany... everything apple is good!'
Allow me to intepret...'The Germans know how to do tasty apple treats!!!'
me: genau!!!!
Ok not really the highlight, but it needed to be reprinted... :)

Downloaded another Gogolo Bordello album. Love it love it love it!!!
and 'TV on the Radio'...great!!!!
I have no idea what is popular anywhere, so these might be stupid comments that everyone has already said 3 years ago...

20,09,08
Words and phrases my colleagues taught me this week and an important business dinner...
leck mich!
leck dich selbst!
pummelfee...
I'm going to inadvertently get in a fight one of these days... ;)
me randomly yelling kackbratze during an important business dinner is apparently one of the funniest things ever to the Germans!!! :)

There is some sort of rally/parade going on in paulsplatz...It sounds like they're singing 'christmus is east LA...'
yeah, gotta learn Italian one of these days...that's the one that's shaped like a boot right?

Life is hard when you don't get mad you get hurt...

17,09,08
After a year and a half...my heat is working again...Only took 12 hours from when I called the hausmeister (that was all I've needed to do for the past year and a half)...that was easy...It's another thing off my proverbial to-do list.
I'm a doer!!!

also took bottles back for the first time since I've been in DE. 6€ worth. Wow!!! That was too easy as well. My to-do list has never been so small after knocking those two items off...

16,09,08
I just told the story of how David my half brother ordered a coke for breakfast...I was about 6 at the time and I remember thinking that was the weirdest thing I had ever seen...it's odd when you have always done things a certain way (in this case it was ordering milk for breakfast) and someone comes along with something completely unexpectedly...
was this a paradigm shift?

15,09,08
Off to the states in a week and a half. Looking very forward to this...

of late I've been buying a lot of movies that I've never heard of. I have gotten very lucky with this.I'm able to spot movies that I know I'll like. I suppose it helps that I havn't heard of them and thus have no real expectations. If I did I probably wouldn't like them as much...
In the past few weeks I've bought 'Tideland' which was directed by Terry Gilliam, and yesterday watched a movie with elijah wood called 'Alles ist erleughtet'...I think the english title was 'everything is illuminated'. It is about an american who goes on a quest to the ukraine to track down people in a photo. Starts out being incredibly funny, then turns into a very sweet, heart wrenching story about the war. Recommend them both.
The soundtrack for the latter movie was partially composed of a band called 'Gogol Bordello'. I loved that music. I will be downloading some soon. In doing a bit of research they were billed as Gypsy Punk. Fair enough description in my book. They were great!!!

For some reason I also bought the 1967 best foreign picture oscar winner. A czech movie that was only 3€. Couldn't pass it up. It's black and white so it must be good...haven't seen it yet. I'll let you know...

also a David Lynch movie I havn't heard of...got 3 hours to kill???

Also finally made it to Palmengarten yesterday. Was nice and relaxing. Nice place for a pic-a-nic...
some pics...


and this is Paul and I attempting to do our impersonation of the emperor in Return of the Jedi, but it really just looks like we're doing magic hands or magic fingers or whatever it is...

back to the states in a week and a half...place your orders quickly...
I finally sent my postcards from Italy this week...yeah...procrastinators inc...or should I say...yup that's one more thing off my to-do list...;)

13,09,08
6 and 7....
6) Michael Jackson has never sounded as good as he does when blasting from a 14 year old turkish kids cell phone
7) Knocking over the garbage can out side of the burger king when you're 14 and turkish is probably the coolest thing ever...

12,09,08
gee...it's been a while since I've updated...let's see, I have 3 seminal events that are of interest to you dear reader...and two of them happened in the past 2 hours...
ok 4....
ok 5....

1. I saw someone under 40 at the fish restaurant near my flat....this was one of those surreal moments for me where you basically see something so unusual that your head spins and you realize there is nowhere else in the world that you'd rather be at that moment...cuz it's weird...

2. I watched 'Leon the Profi'. In the states this was a movie with Jean Reno titled 'the professional'. The European version was longer and is better...it's not often that you can watch a movie alone and cry and laugh out loud during the same 106 minutes. I'll have to watch again, but this might make my top 20 list of all time flicks...great movie.

3. A completely countrified version of 'lookin out my back door'. there's some festival below my flat and it seems they are have live musicians playing american country music, but Lookin out my back door takes the cake...

4. I ran out of toilet paper...in retrospect this might not be so important, but since it just happened today it takes on extra relevance...I think I just bought 24 rolls last weekend...I think Matt made a comment once about women eating toilet paper...it's true...

5. I ate joey's pizza...unlike the last entry, this will be one of the important events of my year...

OK I just thought of 6.
6. I had an idea for my novel this week. This happened during work (j: you really don't have a lot to do at work do you?). yes, for those of you in the know there will be a little person character. I'm thinking about you Peter Dinklage...

Paul where did you find a big red candle?
I'm playing air guitar...
2,0 tries to kiss 1,0...

06,09,08
I love the Guardian (british paper). It's very tabloidy, I occasionally distrust their fact-checking, but it's well written and occasionally very funny in the midst of a serious article.
There's a sort of in depth series of stories on Palin. There's a very short story on her views of guns, along with a picture of her holding an assault rifle - right next to a picture of Putin holding an assault rifle. The author made a comment about the two of them facing off with guns on a bering strait ice flow...followed by a comment about Dick Cheney killing them both if he was in the vicinity...It was great.

In a different article they mention abstinence only education and note that Alaska has the highest per capita instance of chlamydia in the US...apparently people ARE having sex in Alaska...ah well life goes on...

04,09,08
I'm glad that I am now on such good terms with my local starbucks that I can go in and ask them for a glass of lactose free cold milk for cooking. They gave me a venti size cup for free. :)
My neighbors....tomorrow I'm going to ask them if I can borrow a cookie..