Archive for August of 2005
August 29, 2005
Feeders
Last night at a nearby Kneipe, some friends of Marcus showed their no-budget film "Berlin Blues", an homage to German 70's-era TV crime shows. It wasn't too bad, kind of a short, amateur German Pulp Fiction with a touch of Fassbinder, except that the sound was so bad that I completely missed some crucial parts of the plot. Anyway, I watched from a table where I sat with Mart & Heike, and after it was over, Mart asked me with eager curiosity whether I had ever heard of "Feeders". He seemed rather let down when I said that I hadn't. Heike cringed (but couldn't suppress a laugh). Apparently, Mart had been going about this for some time, to her increasing discomfort, and to top off the embarassment, now he was talking about it with other people. In public!
¶ - By geoff in General | 8794 Views | 8 comments
August 28, 2005
President Koons in 2008?
I'm all for it. Talk about a war hero, here's a guy who saved a family heirloom by keeping an uncomfortable hunk of metal up his ass in the Hanoi Hilton for two years. John McCain has got nothing on him. Besides, I'd like to see the Republican who can dance through a hotel lobby like that.
¶ - By geoff in Rants | 2158 Views | No comments
August 27, 2005
St. Pauli 3:1
I didn't even know that St. Pauli was playing last night, until the email newsletter arrived and I realized that the game would start in two hours. So I called up Marcus, who was going with his friends Tim & Paddy, we met up in front of the stadium and ended up getting front-row seats near the midfield line. They were playing Rot-Weiss Oberhausen, and since Marcus apparently has relatives there or once lived there or something like that (I didn't quite get the story), he claimed to be suffering from conflicted loyalties.
St. Pauli scored the first goal after two minutes! And the last one was an in-your-face goal in extra time after the other side had a defensive breakdown. 3:1 for the good guys! Marcus seemed to take it all right.
St. Pauli scored the first goal after two minutes! And the last one was an in-your-face goal in extra time after the other side had a defensive breakdown. 3:1 for the good guys! Marcus seemed to take it all right.
¶ - By geoff in FC St. Pauli | 2713 Views | 4 comments
August 26, 2005
Suspects
According to the Spiegel and the Mopo, the police in Hamburg are now questioning three people in connection with the "Heroes of Allah" who set off a large-scale dragnet last night. One of them was arrested, and the other two turned themselves in. All three are Chechnyans, and the Spiegel says it is "highly probable" that they are three guys they've been looking for (but do they speak Arabic in Chechnya? not according to the Wikipedia article). A speaker for the police quoted in the Spiegel says that he assumes there were no "concrete plans of attack"; nevertheless, both headlines refer to "terror suspects".
¶ - By geoff in General | 1875 Views | No comments
August 26, 2005
Heroes of Allah in Hamburg?
It's after midnight and I was getting ready to turn in for the day, but the news of the moment has compelled me to send up a post to the blog. It seems that just a few hours ago, a citizen who speaks the language overheard three guys speaking Arabic at a bus stop here in Hamburg, and one snatch of the conversation he picked up was: "Tomorrow we will be heroes for Allah." Then they got on Bus 3 (which happens to go right past my street) and headed off towards Bahrenfeld, one of them carrying a backpack. For reasons that they do not explain, the police have stated that this witness is credible. This is all they know; they police have emphasized that they have no other indications of some kind of planned attack whatsoever. Oh, and they have pictures of these guys taken by a public monitoring camera at the bus stop and, uh, how shall I put this? They look like A-rabs.
¶ - By geoff in General | 1914 Views | No comments
August 23, 2005
Pastafarianism
This is really funny, and it's all true of course. I'd join this religion in a second, except I don't have a pirate suit. Oh well. I first read about it on Spiegel Online, check out the entries in Wikipedia and Uncyclopeida too.
¶ - By geoff in General | 1678 Views | No comments
August 23, 2005
Worst ... summer ... ever
I put up some pictures on the friends & family site of the "summer vacation" that I took with the kids for a week in July in Büsum, a vacation spot on the North Sea, but frankly there isn't much to see. We could have just as well spent the week at home, sitting around inside reading books and playing games.
¶ - By geoff in General | 1801 Views | No comments
August 22, 2005
Royale With Cheese
About a year from now, on August 1, 2006, I will have lived in Europe for exactly twenty years. And about a year and a half after that, on April 29, 2008, my time over here will have taken up the entire second half of my life. One more day, and I will have lived longer in Europe than I did in the US. I've been thinking that I ought to throw a big party on either or both of those occasions.
¶ - By geoff in Royale With Cheese | 2684 Views | 1 comment
August 20, 2005
I Hate the Word "Blog"
So here I am jumping on the bandwagon, long after the phenomenon of web logging has taken the world by storm. I feel like a bit of a lemming. After all, the word is out that blogging isn't cool any more. And really, how could it be, now that politicians, Hollywood stars and CEOs are blogging? (Including the president of the company I work for, for more than a year already.) Today's true pioneers, whoever they are, are already into something else, whatever that might be.
¶ - By geoff in General | 6015 Views | No comments