If it's not Raven, it's crap...

thanks for making me smile on this cold and drizzly Hamburg day . Love, Raven

I know it's not quite what you were expecting, but don't you feel like you were right there...standing behind Andre, while he fiddled with the sound equipment? 'Cause that's exactly how I felt... The Good News: I managed to actually bring my camera with me AND take it out of my bag on Saturday. The Bad News: I only took three pictures. I swear, I need to hire a person to follow me around and take pictures of the things I do. In return, I will offer this person the awesomeness that is hanging out with me as payment. Any takers? After an afternoon of running some errands, I ended up at Andre's crib where I chilled on his sofa while he ironed his bandanas. I only mention this here because I told him that real G's don't iron their bandanas...to which he responded, "I'm not a G, I'm a German." That boy sure loves to iron. ( Click below for more ) We headed out to help set up for the party (and eat free pizza) around 8pm. Now, pretty much the en

I shouldn't really complain, because it's like the end of January and it's JUST NOW starting to feel like an actual winter -- with the cold and the ice and the snow and such. I don't think I need to remind you that I'm in Germany (or do I?) and that a late January first snow is kinda weird. Anyway, I just wanted to share with you that I'm pretty cold right now and I'd rather be back home in bed. I'm seriously thinking about going and sitting on the heater, because even though it's on the "5" (aka "highest") setting, I'm not feeling any warmer. Also, it smells like onions in here and although I happen to be quite fond of onions, I don't really like when people walk in and look at me as though I were the source of the onion-smell. I'm not. Three hours to go and then bring on the weekend. Danke, tschuess. Note to self: change font this weekend to one that can do proper umlauts instead of (Ü) <= this crap every time.

Back to the Return of the Son of the Rudolf-Laun-Haus Wohnheimfeier. Part Deux. The re-do dorm party at RLH is this Saturday. I'd advertise it here, except most of the people who read this don't even live in Germany, much less Hamburg... *sigh* Anyway, I'll be there and that's pretty much the most important thing (ever in the history of anything). This time I managed to get the primo #2 DJ-slot (since Andre unfortunately has to work on Sunday and can't make it). His dark cloud = my silver lining. At any rate, should you find yourself sans plans Saturday night, I will be behind the wheels of metal, plastic and "lasers" (also known as cd players) from 11pm-1am and slinging the 'tails from 2am-3:40am. Stop by if you want to, or not. It's up to you. Feel free to write your own individual excuse for not being able to make it in the comments section. No pressure, I won't judge you. In fact, I'll (like for really seriously, this time) take pictur

Yeah, that's basically what it was like. By the way, I was Player 2 If there's one thing that happened this weekend that I wish didn't happen, I suppose it would have to be the part where Toby thoroughly whomped my ass at Super Street Fighter II -- 45 times in a row. I got him in a couple of rounds (and when I say "a couple" I literally mean like two...) However, I do have my reasons for my poor performance: 1.) It's been, you know, like about/over 10 years since the last time I played and 2.) I wasn't, like you know, used to playing this particular version of the Street Fighter saga...*ahem, cough* and 3.) The space in my brain where I had been bunkering various video game special move combinations has apparently been cleaned out and replaced with computer/internet passwords, bank PINs, my mother's maiden name and other random answers to verification questions...oh and a sweet-ass margarita recipe. lastly 4.) Toby shows no mercy for any of the abo

Thanks, but no thanks. Sometimes, I'll run into a friend or acquaintance somewhere and they'll say something like, "Hey I saw you walking around the other day. I don't think you saw me, though." More often than not, I didn't see them. Rarely is it because I'm actively avoiding them (though sometimes that is the case). Mostly it's because while I'm walking, I'm really only paying attention to a space roughly 4 feet in front of me, in an attempt to not trip over something in my path, or worse, step in dog poop. This naturally leads to things like running into the occasional (and unexpected) pole, but mostly it works out in my favor. Another unfortunate (but less painful) side effect is that it sometimes takes awhile for me to catch some of the hidden gems in my neighborhood. A few weeks ago, I was on my way to the bus and finally caught a glimpse of the name of the salon 'round the corner. I've walked by this place almost everyday for lor

I've been quite addicted to online streaming TV shows as of late. I just got tired of playing "Let's-walk-around-my-room-with-a-damn- TV-antenna-trying-to-get-optimal-channel-reception". The problem could have probably been solved with a simple drilled hole and a cable, but even if we had a drill...that's just too much work...etc. blah blah. After months of only being able to get NDR, WDR, Bayrischer Rundfunk, and MDR (ok ok and ZDF and KiKa when the weather is good -- which it rarely is in Hamburg), I turned to the internets to get my TV fix. I got to watch shows like Lost and Heroes and 30 Rock and Entourage and Weeds and The Office ...and so on and so forth. All in English and anytime I freakin want to... Amazing, I tell you. Too bad that I'm a TV glutton, because it probably would have been better to watch these series in small doses, rather than in huge chunks at a time. Having gorged myself on streamed TV shows, I moved on to streaming movies. And..

A cinematic masterpiece it is not (by any means), but I thoroughly enjoyed watching the movie Beerfest this evening. It was a much needed distraction from temptation...which ironically involved temptation of the beer sort. Anyway, from now on when random (German) people ask me about what the average American thinks about Germans/Germany, I shall refer them to this movie, as it pretty much sums it up quite nicely. Uncle Joe would have a field day with it, by the way... More Clips from Beerfest

Man up, bitch! There are three ways that I can tell that the deadline for an FHHM issue is approaching. 1.) (and most obvious) I can look at the calendar on my desk 2.) Increased office traffic (proofreader, additional graphics people and freelancers turning in articles all stop by) 3.) The alcohol stock in the breakroom refridgerator increases tenfold. Someone, somewhere in the office must have some kind of magic Beck's hookup, because there are all these bottles of Beck's Level 7 individually packaged in "free sample" boxes. For those unfamiliar, Beck's Level 7 is beer mixed with that energy drink stuff. You know, so you can feel like you're drinking beer and smoking crack at the same time, I suppose. Aside from that reason, I don't really get the point of an energy beer, since regular beer gives me plenty of energy. ( Click below for more ) Granted, most of this is imagined energy. Still, if you catch me around my third beer, that's about the poin

0.00 Two understatements: I'm lazy and have a short attention span, and I'm stubborn. That's three. I guess we can round that off to 4 things, because I also suck at math. Anyway, things get done, just perhaps not in the most "preferred" order. Just this evening, looking into design ideas for my roommate's myspace artist page (my next web-project) I got distracted, started clicking all sort of random links in the comments section of a CSS design blog, which somehow led me to wikipedia where I spent a good hour clicking til I got to a page where I learned that tegestology is the word for the practice of collecting beermats. Also, I found out that beermat is the British word for beercoaster. Prioritizing might just be the key to 2007, I'm not going to go so far as to call it a New Year's Resolution -- but I'll try my best to make sure that the first thing I do every morning is not login to my fake studivz.net account to check to see if T.G. has chang