kindergarten

after being out of commission for a good part of this week, i have recently entered back into the world of the living and blogging. yipee.

here is a list of things i learned this past weekend at oktoberfest:

1. there are multiple ways to be propositioned for sexual intercourse without ever speaking.
2. when a man twice your size runs into you and steps on your foot, it hurts very much.
3. when under the influence, people cannot help but create that drunken "i love you man, and it's not just the alcohol talking" heart-to-heart moment.
4. not all of the tents at oktoberfest sell apfelschorle.
5. the hippodrom tent makes the best pretzels ever.
6. when you tell someone that you do not drink for religious reasons, they somehow feel the need to defend their drinking behaviour to you, regardless of its irrelevance to your life.
7. men have only one thing on their mind at all times, and its not beer.
8. there should be an olympic category for car dancing and singing while driving - i would so watch that. actually, i'd compete. and win.
9. lederhosen kick ass.
10. contrary to my previous belief, you do not have to drink to have a great time at oktoberfest.
11. serbians are crazy-ass taxi drivers.
12. you can actually feel like you are getting drunk if you are in a beer tent with 10,000 other people who are drunk, even though you may not have had a drop of alcohol. i'm serious.
13. everyone should visit oktoberfest at least once in their life.

oktoberfest in september?

you probably won't be hearing from me this weekend as i will be taking a trip down to munich to visit the world-famous oktoberfest.

for those of you who know me you may be wondering what i will be doing at what is essentially one big drunken festival. i am also wondering the same thing. however, i have been assured, multiple times, that there are rides and games and soda and lots of fun activities for those weird non-drinkers, like me, who actually make it to oktoberfest.

this weekend will definitely prove interesting if nothing else, so look for an update on sunday/monday with the weekends festivities. if you are actually in munich this weekend, i will be the only sober person over the age of 16 at the fest - you can't miss me!

for something a bit more educational, check out this article from the washington post about US fiscal policy in the wake of some big weather problems, i.e. katrina and rita. an interesting, though very left-of-center, read.

jesus coming soon

raisa took this pic while she was in hawaii at her brother's wedding last month. classic.

flock it to me

remember that song ''all i want for christmas (is my two front teeth)'?

maybe because of all the geek hype about it, or maybe because it will prove to be a brilliant addition to the internet i so often use/abuse...all i want right now is an invite for the new web 2.0 browser flock:

Flock advertises itself as a "social browser," meaning that the application plays nicely with popular web services like Flickr, Technorati and del.icio.us. Flock also features widely compliant WYSIWYG, drag-and-drop blogging tools. The browser even promises to detect and authenticate all those user accounts automatically. It's a clear attempt to be the browser of choice for the Web 2.0 user.

as an avid user and firm believer in firefox i am so excited to jump on-board with the new flock...oh, please please please flock send me an invite :)

rumor has it that the launch will be early october. can i wait that long?

here are some good reviews and buzz articles about the upcoming release of flock:

searchviews
wired news
online marketing
assault and bartery
techcrunch
roland tanglao
and for a not so hyped look at flock, visit diskette roulette

jon stewart is my hero

for further explanation:

see a clip of jon at the emmy's on sunday night.

thanks to open your mind's eye for the link :)

church of the what?

tonight, over a conversation regarding the origins of evolution (schmevolution...), i heard the wonderful tidings about the church of the flying spaghetti monster! this life-changing moment in my life...ok, i guess i'm totally exaggerating for the benefit of a dramatic and fictional plot, but moving on...was where i learned that bobby henderson of oregon has started this church, which believes that:

...the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.

brilliant, i say.

in a response to the kansas board of education's decision to give intelligent design equal time with evolution through natural selection in their science classes, bobby wrote an open letter addressing this issue and formally requesting that the theory of evolution which believes a flying spaghetti monster (FSM) created the universe also be taught in their schools. interestingly and totally unrelated, bobby also explains that "global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s."

for the skeptics out there, and i know there are some of you, this is bobby's ontological argument for FSM :

P1. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a being which has every perfection.
P2. Existence is a perfection.
C. Therefore, the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists.

now you tell me, where is the flaw in that logic?

he also eloquently battles the leagues of religious fanatics who think God will be angry because of this with the following response:

I doubt it. If there's a god, and he's intelligent, then I would guess he has a sense of humor. And how do you know He is NOT a Flying Spaghetti Monster?

i leave you with an image of the FSM Himself. try to control your appetite.

would you rather...

either leave your answers or a link to your webpage with your responses.

Would you rather:
1. lapse into epileptic seizures everytime somebody says the word "squid" OR cluck like a chicken everytime somebody says "chicken"? chicken, purely based on the fact that it is a funnier reaction.
   
2. have no bones, but complete muscular control of every part of your body OR four arms? muscular control, that way you never have to break a bone.
   
3. your nose hair grow down past your chin no matter how much you cut it OR have earlobes twice the normal size? earlobes. i say that because right now i have the world's smallest ears and the grass is always greener.
   
4. have people constantly mistake your sex (man v. woman) OR your sexual preference (straight v. gay)? i'm gonna have to go with preference.

why blog

over dinner tonight (which, on a side note, was delicious) i was asked the question, rather presumptuously, "why do you actually have a blog? you must be bored."

to my questioner, and to all others out there who actually bother reading this (and i send my thanks if you do) i will tell you why - and the answer is not because i am bored but rather the opposite. actually, i decided i will not tell you why, but let someone else tell you why for me. somehow i feel like i'm copping out - but really i happened upon this online and felt that i just couldn't make anything else sound as good.

i couldn't find the original link...but i found this on sandhill trek, in his post about why people blog:

Brian Moffatt says he blogs

... because I believe that there is only the particular and singular in life. It's that voice thing. I don't want to beat that to death, but I had this conversation with a blogger the other night. The first I had met in real life. I mentioned to him - a new blogger - that one of the things I really enjoyed was watching someone new to blogging develop and emerge. Seeing their voice emerge. Like a burlesque. Peeling away the layers of clothing, the self-consciouness rising and dissolving, the tentativeness, the self-loathing, the self-pity and then BOOM - there she is! The naked Blog writer. Preferably a she.

The singular...though the causes of an event are forever and always multiplicitous. I have always been a great reader and writer of letters. Great in the sense of volume. As a reader: the letters of writers, the letters home from soldiers, personal correspondence. That sort of thing. I love eavesdropping on conversations in restaurants. I love speaking with poeple on airplanes. I'm not much at dinner parties or in groups. Listening, because you never know when someone is going to toss off a gem.

As a writer, I love sitting down to blog. When I start a post I have no idea where I'm headed. I love that freedom. I do write otherwise. With outlines and plans. Strategies. But blog writing is like going off for a walk with no predetermined finish time or route, sometimes the walk is through the fields, sometimes along the streets. The typing: different from what I might write with a pen, the pen being much closer to the heart. The typing taps into some place in my brain. I think my best writing comes when I am not thinking. I'm just writing. Or at least that's the way I can look at it when a post is linked to. Which is ulitmately the best part about blog writing. Getting a reaction.

I rarely reread my posts. Hence the tremendous number of typos and grammatical errors. But for me, that's okay. I'm not the most anal person in the world. But it's very much what I look for elsewhere. The flaw. The scar. The fingerprint. The idiosyncratic. The weirded-out turn of phrase. Something close to the hearth where the meat burns in an instant and leaves your face all warm for a bit. I love reading something I've written and thinking 'geez who wrote that?'

And the bestest bestest part about blogging is that I always find someone else who sums it up - whatever it is - better than I ever could and rather than say "Hey I was thinking that" or "Gee I wish I had written that first" I can now say thanks for writing that - saves me the bother.

and as brian himself so eloquently says it, he sums it up better than i could ever say...

no sundae for you.

ok people. i had a groundbreaking experience on friday. sorry it has taken me a few days to post, but here goes. first of all, you will require a bit of background information.

in july of this year i went to mcdonald's to get a mcsundae, as the weather was hot, hot, hot. i asked the woman at the counter if i could have half chocolate, half raspberry on my sundae and she said yes. then, when the woman who was making the sundae asked which flavour and my cashier told her - the woman blurted out that this was in no way possible. she proceeded to inform me that mixing sauces goes against the mcdonald's standard and they are not allowed to mix sauces because it is not allowed - (keep in mind i live in germany) - and that i can only have food they way they show it on the menu, and in no other way. so i asked to speak to someone a bit more superior and he repeated the same thing to me. that "they" don't allow them to do it, at which point another cashier pipes in "i have worked at mcdonald's for 4 years and i have never made a mixed sundae". i was then informed that whoever has mixed a sundae for me in the past was wrong and that i was, in fact, also wrong.
at this point, my reaction was close to being "well, that's not my fault that you worked here for four years" along with a comment such as "no wonder that guy with the moustache made it here" - but i decided to just accept that this type of incident only occurs in germany and walk out of mcdonald's.

this weekend i was in stuttgart and, as time was limited and we did not know where to eat, we decided to go to mcdonald's. after our "meal" i decide to once again attempt to order myself a mixed sundae. to which the cashier replied "kein problem" or "no problem" and instantly made me a half chocolate/half caramel sundae. yay! the germans have partially redeemed themselves! partially....

43 things....

is a pretty cool site where you can actually make a list of things you want to accomplish and places you want to visit and see others who are also trying to do that or get there too. i actually have hogwarts as one of my places i want to visit, tee hee.

you can see my (incomplete) list here or you can start your own list by signing up here.

busy bee

that would be me. sorry for the lack of posts up here, but things are pretty hectic in this corner of the world. who knew being jobless would be so time-consuming?

so, in light of the fact that i haven't had much time to dedicate to my blog (sniff, sniff) i decided to make a short list of opinions/articles on katrina that are worth visiting...in my not so humble opinion:

1. "what didn't go right?" - from salon.com
2. it's not a "blame game" - from the NYT
3. 10 great ways you can help - from alternet

on a completely different topic, season three of the OC is starting tonight...yipee! :)

would you rather...

either leave your answers or a link to your webpage with your responses.

Would you rather:
1. be able to control the weather OR read people's minds? read minds, for sure.
   
2. lose ALL your hair OR all your finger and toe nails? finger and toe nails.
   
3. be allergic to grass OR wheat? wheat.
   
4. be forced to wear a clown nose and rubber boots while singing "i'm a little teapot" at superbowl half-time OR have pictures of you in the shower be shown on prime-time television? clown nose, rubber boots.
   

come up with a caption

yes...what exactly is going on here? i will give you a hint: this took up most of my evening tonight. seriously.

random word association

taken from unconscious mutterings:

1. Julie::me
   
2. Emotional::rollercoaster
   
3. Head of household::woman
   
4. Diva::zappa
   
5. Devastation::katrina
   
6. Business or pleasure::immigration
   
7. Crown::prince
   
8. Eastern::europe
   
9. Buzzed::army
   
10. Officer::smith

how cute is sri lanka!

so cute. they offered the US $25,000 in aid for the relief efforts for hurricane katrina. of all the offers of support from countries around the world, i have to say this one is my favorite.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga, on an official visit to China, offered 25,000 dollars for the victims of the hurricane.

"Having experienced the fury of nature ourselves during the December 26th tsunami, the people of Sri Lanka and I fully empathize with you at this hour of national grief,'' she said.

She recalled with gratitude the spontaneous U.S. response in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

other notable donations include nigeria pledging $1 million, afghanistan $100,000, cuba offered a minute of silence and is donating doctors and medical supplies. and finally the "damn!" donation goes to venezuela's president chavez who is donating $1 million in aid plus logistical support and supplies. take that, pat robertson!

-for a more detailed list of aid offers please visit cnn.com

flower break

flower break
Originally uploaded by cyrenaic.

i happened upon this photo while looking for pics from hurricane katrina on flickr. enjoy.

photo: flower break
caption: here is a look from the street. I took this during a little break. We have lots of plants that flower, which led to nice little streams of color flowing into the gutters.

is there a point to this. question mark.

i was going to write about how today is going to be the last day of summer in germany (not that we really had one to begin with) but i thought that would be too insensitive considering other weather issues seem a bit more pressing.

as i write this i am watching the news with images and commentary on the situation left behind by hurricane katrina. i have just heard on BBC that there are almost 1 million people who are left homeless by this disaster. and i am sitting pretty in my flat, convinced that this could never happen to me. if it did, what would i choose to take with me? what possession would i most likely save above all others? i would say mobile phone and ziploc bag. what about you?


what i find to be the scary part about natural disasters is that you cannot run from them. now, my friend RA, who ironically has the same initals as me, has another opinion. he thinks that people who live in new orleans and who didn't leave, have only themselves to blame. but who is to say that if you run, it won't be faster than you? i take another opinion. i don't think the intensity of this hurricane could have been imagined by the citizens of new orleans or other cities that were also affected. my thoughts and prayers are with the victims of hurricane katrina, and i am truly grateful for the roof above my head tonight.

photo: Rhonda Braden walks through the destruction in her childhood neighborhood, Wednesday Aug. 31, 2005 in Long Beach, Miss. Braden was there checking on her father's house that received major water damage from Hurricane Katrina.
Photo Credit (AP Photo/Rob Carr)