"Just doing my part to help out the black community"

I'm going to try to work in that phrase as a response whenever someone thanks me for doing something. "No problem"/"You're welcome"/"No...thank you" are pretty played out and I like keeping people on their toes.

My camera (that I never bring with me when I go out) mysteriously broke...while sitting on my bookshelf not being used. Maybe it was suffering from some sort of depression that technical devices get and put itself out of its misery due to my neglect. I don't know. But what it means is that even if I wanted to take pictures this past month, I haven't been able to and, of course, just when you find yourself with out the means to take pictures, so many different and interesting photo ops miraculously present themselves.

Last Saturday was festival/parade in Hamburg called Schlagermove. Schlagermusik is kind of hard to describe. I was about to compare the Schlagermove festival with the Love Parade, but with shittier music... but I actually think that I can stomach Schlagermusik more than I can techno, house, trance, etc. Schlagermusik is probably most easily compared to the kind of 60s/70s easy-listening/disco type tunes on AM radio stations. If my sister Gillian were German, then she'd love Schlagermusik.



At any rate, this is the kind of music that quite a few Germans -- I read something like 400,000 people were at Schlagermove this year -- love to jam out to...in their adorable German way of course, as you can see in the video above. I'm just kidding, when Germans are really into a song, they express themselves with much more off-beat hand clapping.

Again, kidding...

But then again...am I?


The world needs more soul train lines.

I was not at Schlagermove, but rather an apartment move. The Friday before, our secretarial trainee suggested that it would be a lot more fun to go to Schlagermove than it would be to lift boxes and such. However, while there is no denying the fact that I am impossibly lazy and that schlepping boxes around is not even in the Top 100 of things I'd like to be doing on a Saturday, I'd much rather help friends move than voluntarily subject myself to thousands of Germans in bell bottoms and afro-wigs.

That said, I must say, the moving effort was one of the most organized that I've ever participated in (either in Germany or in Oklahoma).

Etch also came up to Hamburg quite spontaneously for the weekend. I hung out with her, her moms and her two little nieces, the younger of which beat me several times at rock, paper, scissors.

So, I cheated and made up hand signals, because I am better than a three year old.

Etch will be back in August for Christopher Street Day -- which I also plan on attending and will hopefully figure out my camera situation by then.

The rest of this week consists of work, going to the Smithie JYA going away party in Rudolf Laun Haus tomorrow...and movie night with Sarah L.T.'s new giant flat screen TV.