Chinese Dogs

Harry Potter Cancelled

2007-04-01T11:51:00.000+02:00

Bloomsbury, J.K.Rowling's publisher, announced yesterday that the publication of Ms Rowling's latest, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be postponed to a later date. Details are yet to be unveiled. Rumors about a cancellation of the entire series seem to have been making the rounds at Bloomsbury for quite a while. This new development comes as a total shock.

I cannot believe that this is happening. I just can't! I so hope that the book will be published. I don't care if it is a week later than planned, but cancel the whole thing???

Subvolcanic Sharks Unable to Barf

2006-03-25T16:16:00.000+01:00

It is physically impossible for sharks to vomit while submerged under lava. This astounding new insight into the lives of subvolcanic sharks is the result of intense research and long-running experiments, says S. Hark of the Institute for Volcanic Ichtiology. Sharks of different varieties have been exposed to sub-lava conditions for different periods of time. Even after consuming copious amounts of emetics, no shark has been found to have vomited. S. Hark claims that these new data will revolutionize the way we think about, well, a lot of things.

Rammstein

2005-10-30T10:02:00.000+01:00

I just bought the new album by Rammstein. Like all its predecessors, it consists of eleven songs. Every one of them is worth the money spent! It may not be in typical Rammstein style, but the changes are simply amazing. Rosenrot does not have the in-your-face oomph of, say, Herzeleid. Instead, it takes you in by its deep-rooted underlying sadness that is present in all the songs. From the opening track, Benzin, down to the last song, Ein Lied, every piece on this album almost makes you cry. Rammstein do not rely on Till Lindemann's booming bass voice so much as on his almost expressionist lyrics.

My favorite track so far is easily Spring. Its the story of a man who stands on the edge of a highrise building who came there to watch the skies but who is eventually forced to jump to his death to satisfy the mob that had gathered to watch his supposed suicide attempt.

Saddam Hussein

2005-10-19T14:18:00.000+02:00

What with the trial of Saddam Hussein kicking off today, I engaged in a conversation about "what is the right thing to do" with regards to the trial. In the course of this discussion, someone pointed out the basic dilemma for lookers-on such as myself:

I think these issues are genuinely very difficult. I'm strongly opposed to capital punishment under almost all circumstances, but to what extent are we entitled to tell another country how to run its legal system? Particularly given the US's record on capital punishment. This is a classic liberal dilemma - is liberalism a commitment to a positive set of values or a commitment not to impose values?

Time will tell, right?

A Word To The Wise

2005-07-16T08:29:00.000+02:00

The wise never listen. The wise never talk. The wise never interfere. They don't fuck up, they don't do well, they don't have sex or beer or friends or heart attacks. They don't, simply, exist.

While this may sound overly pessimistic, it is simply my way of trying to get back to this blogging thing which I have not been very active about for some three months or so. Look at the dates and do the maths for yourselves.

A Book In A Small Town

2005-07-16T08:44:00.000+02:00

So, today the new Harry Potter book is out. Phantastizillions of people have been waiting for this day, children have been nagging, fans have been clogging up book stores. At midnight, raving mobs stormed the stores all over the world to get their hands on the latest, the newest, the most exciting or whatever. Did I say all over the world? Not in Waren they didn't. Which is where I am currently spending my days being fed and kept cozy by my parents. In this sleepy little town (not so sleepy, judging by the noise those damn teenagers made last night coming home from the local dance attraction - which apparently closes at 1 a.m.) the owner of the book shop assured me that while she did order the English book (the German translation will be out in, like, a year or so), she does not really expect to sell a single one. Well, she is gonna sell one to me. After a nice and enormous breakfast I will take a nice relaxed walk up to the store, have a chat with the book lady, buy the book and then retire into the safety of my sofa and start reading...

Like the flies...

2005-04-01T16:49:00.000+02:00

Dying they are. Like the flies. If I were not the sensitive and caring person I am, I would be too busy laughing my butt off to be even typing this. Of course, to do this laughing thing I would also have to have a rather morbid and sick sense of humor, but for the sake of an argument, let's just assume that I do. Under this assumption, the following items make perfect sense.

The pope is dying.
Rainier III of Monaco is dying.
German acting and drinking legend Harald Juhnke has just died.
The CEO of Berlin's public transportation service passed fell dead during an examination of his knee yesterday.
Not to mention Terri Schiavo.
It is April Fool's Day.

And no, this is not a joke. This is real life happening in reality. Or rather, real death happening in reality. If I had written a story and these multiple deaths were happening in there, it would be labeled as junk. Justly so, I might hasten to add. This is probably just a case for Life imitating poor Art.

A Random Thought

2005-04-01T10:11:00.000+02:00

I found this quote the other day: "Meat is Murder."

Well, technically speaking, meat is not murder. Meat is a complex organic substance extracted from an animal for the purpose of eating. Eating meat is also not murder. It is just one of a few ways of supplying your metabolism with things to metabolize. Killing the animal the meat is extracted from is the only thing that might be considered murder. I don't subscribe to the activist view and I probably won't stop eating meat for the time being. Which is not to say that I wouldn't ever change. I appear to have surprised myself by preparing vegetarian meals 5 days in a row now. Time for a steak, don't you think?

Dresden Days

2005-03-07T15:59:00.000+01:00

Forever loving Dresden - this is my new motto (quote: "What's a motto?" - "No, whatsamatter with you???"). From leaving Berlin early on Saturday morning all the way down to arriving in back in Berlin on Monday afternoon, everything was a bliss and a blessing. Johann still knows how to celebrate properly, and apparently I still know how to dance... of sorts.

The day proper started with drinking coffee on Johann's balcony, with the sun giving its best to give us the first idea of a tan, and was followed by walking around Dresden, taking photos, being mistaken for Easterns and Westeners (respectively and without respect) and found its first climax in taking part in a tour of the VW works next to Garten park. (Note to self: forever loving Dresden, excepting VW tours.) At least we got a laugh out of the tour guide, who probably hates us forever. But such is life.

Preparing a party is a piece of cake when you only have an hour until the guests start arriving: buy a crate of beer, some wine, some food items, joke with the checkout people, carry the whole shebang home and start cooking while working away on your beer.

Dancing is so much easier when you don't care what you look like because (1) you know you look great, (2) you are too intoxicated not to look great, (3) everybody is as happy as you are and looks as great as you do, and (4) it really is easy. Playing pool is not as easy, but see points (1) through (4) for explanations why we did it anyway.

Taking a walk to give your body a break feels good when it snows, having scrambled eggs for breakfast at some undisclosed location for whatever money you have left feels good, too. Taking a nap from 11 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. was an ugly necessity, but served its function. Going to the sauna for the rest of the days was purely an encore. Forever loving the Pirna sauna, too.

I feel good like I have not in a long time. Meeting girls was a nice thing, having the time of the last few years was a nice thing, having friends is a nice thing.

Run, as fast as you can

2005-02-14T09:22:00.000+01:00

Oh, the dreaded day is once again upon us. The Valentine madness reaches out its long, green slime covered arms to suck us all into the vortex of make-belief love-joy. The flowershop owners throw their roses and tulips and carnations at us, frowning if we choose to remain untouched by their corny, cheesey, annoying, contaminating happiness. Make that white lilies for me. The shops sell heart shapes chocolate products to every oversized sonofabitch and every fat chick who should not be eating any chocolate, at all, and especially not when they are complaining that they are sooo all-alone-in-this-cold-cold-world because they feel unhappy about being fat. The only songs you will get to hear on the radio today are all bound to be taken off every compilation of love songs to have come out in the last 50 years. Say No! to WetWetWet, say No! to Tina Turner, Say No! to Phil Collins. Be strong and remember, it will all be over tomorrow. If you need someone to tell you that everything will be ok until then, check this out.

Complaint

2005-02-12T12:00:00.000+01:00

For April Chess and Fire Shantih sing
The Ancient Captains dead by Water sway
And Paradise is lost like hope in spring
Shall I compare it to an April's Day
Where little Boys and little Girls are lost
November finds the Boy a bitter Man
Complaining nagging pitying the cost
Of knowing not how his Career began
The Albatross was never on his Side
The Tyger's Flames put out but long ago
Yet Satan never in Defeat He cried
If Winston Smith had really loved Big Bro
So Shakespeare Milton Eliot Coleridge Blake
And Everything they stand for is just fake

Attempts at understanding all must fail
The Libraries these days too early close
The Mind of this is shocked becoming frail
And tied in self-made Chains all Reason goes
To Hell or Heaven just as it may please
Thus leaving us to face Reality
With Eyes displaying openly Disease
Insane and crazy mad Divinity
Examination Day too soon arrives
To all that suffer deeply from this Pain
That surely into Madness fast us drives
And any Hope for Help is hoped in vain
For Shakespeare Milton Eliot Coleridge Blake
And Everything they stand for is just fake

Painful Hours

2005-02-02T19:10:00.000+01:00

I have been putting this moment off for years, but now there is no more waiting. Having neglected to record all the courses I attended during all those years at the university, it was bit of a moment of truth trying to remember, or rather trying to reconstruct my schedules of say, spring/summer term of 2001.

So with the deadline being tomorrow, I sat down today to go through all my notes to recapture some 7 or 8 terms worth of studying. And I guess now I am done. All that is left to do is to copy it down into the forms provided by the university.

But what a drag it was. And all this time today I have been wondering why the f#ck did I have to postpone it for this long? Well, I will have to do better in the future. No more excuses!

My Government

2005-01-29T09:33:00.000+01:00

The people who run this country never fail to amaze me. Meaning all well, they pass a federal law that prohibits, once and for all, the introduction of tuition fees for universities - in blatant violation of the Grundgesetz. The decision to rule that law unconstitional must have taken about ten minutes: one minute to come to a conclusion and nine to finish up the coffee.

This ruling must have caused mind-fogging extasy among the opposition parties. How else could you explain that Bavarian secretary of education, Thomas Goppel, saw fit to make the amazing statement that all it took for university students to pay the targeted tuition fees was to simply spend €100 less each month? I beg your miniscule pardon? If I spent about ten Euros less a month, I would not be eating, or paying my rent. The mere fact that the one man who is supposed to know about the situation of students is even able to think in such terms indicates that this country is in trouble.

You are given to wonder which is actually worse: the arrogance that drives the opposition, the incompetence that drives the administration, or the ignorance that drives both.

Chinese Gods?

2005-01-26T18:43:00.000+01:00

Well, not Chinese, exactly, but still. And not gods, either, just god.

Currently my head is just spinning.

Milton's God - the absolute ruler. Makes this prediction that something bad will happen, and of course, once he makes that prediction, it has to happen because if it did not, he would be a liar, and he just can't have that, can he? At the same time he foretells that someone will have to suffer, and of course it is not going to be him. Nonono, he's got his son thingy for that. Mind you, he's meaning well, though.

Blake's godhead - Well, now this is where it gets tricky. There is Los, there is Urizen, there is Luvah, Nobodaddy, Urthona, Rintrah, and whatnot. Of course, they all have their emanations, they all are god and satan and each is their own vortex, don't forget that. They mean well, too. Sometimes. Unless they are too busy crying over one another. One thing this Blakean god thingy is not is any kind of authority.

Pullman's god - a bit of both, except for the meaning well business. And God, aka Authority, who turns out to be just another angel who just claimed to be that allmighty one Milton was wetting his pants over, just goes and dies of old age.

Then, of course, there are the gnostic writings to remember. And the apcryphal writings. And lunch - hey, I forgot about lunch. And about breakfast. Isn't it time this thesis finally got written and handed in?

Chinese Dogs

2005-01-24T22:50:00.000+01:00

In China They Eat Dogs

What a wonderful movie that is. A bank clerk in sunny Denmark has to face the fact that sometimes good intentions can procuce bad results, that sometimes good intention can produce good results that simply happen to be bad for others. So out he goes to rectify some of the bad things he unwittingly caused - only to go from bad to worse. In a somewhat anti-climactic scene he realizes that good and bad, sinner and saint are just empty categories that are given meaning differently by different individuals. After all, in China, they eat dogs.