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

After a long and (relatively) productive week, I've started coming down with a cold. It mostly doesn't matter, since I basically spend the majority of my time looking for a job like it's my job. Unemployment is a weird thing. Technically, though, I'm not unemployed-unemployed yet. Apparently in the first six months you're just "looking for work". I like the sound of that. It sounds like work just fell out of my pocket while I was sitting on the couch and now it's somewhere deep in the cushions and if I just look hard enough, I'll find it (plus some loose change and maybe, if I'm really lucky, a tic-tac ). In reality, looking for work is bo-ring. As fück. In the first couple of weeks it's cool...it felt kind of like vacation. I slept in, updated the ol' resume, hit up the job portals, etc. But as time goes on, I spend most days writing cover letters or researching companies trying to find job openings. And really the only variety comes...

Here's an Onion News video that caught my interest today. I was recently talking to Frosty about the insane Oklahoma abortion law that makes me never want to live in Oklahoma ever again. It's sad, because I love my home state and have, on numerous occasions, said that Germany and Oklahoma City (odd pairing, perhaps) are the only two places that I could really imagine myself putting down some roots (I maybe need to become more flexible in that respect). Still, I was so heated when I heard about this...that I just don't know anymore. Suddenly, it was like I was able to sort of understand Frosty's objections about going to the U.S. (very simplistically put, he is anti-capital punishment & not keen on being fingerprinted). Both are reasons that I actually find very reasonable. I just wanted him to go so he could meet my family (in terms of sheer logistics it would just be easier for us to go there). Oklahoma Legislature!! Why are you doing this to me?! I'm not on...

Here's a video that I caught on BoingBoing over the weekend. As you can see from the title, it's about how to brew a good cup of coffee. I love coffee and I know many coffee-philes (there's probably an official word for that, but I don't give a fuck). For instance, if you love good coffee and you're in the Oklahoma City metro area, then I highly recommend that you go visit my brother-in-law Dave . Best coffee in OKC, hands down. In Hamburg, the third best place to get coffee is a secret place that I don't want to divulge because there are already too many a-holes crowding up the place. Suffice it to say, it's in Eppendorf...and it's a mini coffee Mecca. But if you don't want to deal with a bunch of a-holes, then I recommend going to Buche or Schmiddy , for both the companionship and outstanding service ( Schmiddy puts extra chocolate sprinkles in the coffee...delightful!). But I'm not actually here to talk about coffee, people. The video above...

I met up with Ms. X (co-founder of my not-really-a-book-club Book Club) this afternoon. She's been in town over Christmas break (these days, she's mostly in England working on getting her master's). There's really no such thing as a "quick meeting" with Ms. X . She's very...talkative. Almost to the point of "talkative" being an understatement. Luckily for her listeners, she's also quite the gifted storyteller, so it's never boring. But it's also never brief. Plus, we had to catch up on a few months' worth of life stuff. After a lovely 2.5-3 hour lunch in the Schanze (@ Tandur, for the curious), she asked me if I wanted to come with her to pick up some hair extentions in Billstedt. Not having anything else on my schedule, I agreed to go along. We ended up at the Punjab Store (pictured above). It was sort of down this side street and a warehouse-y looking area. Not really a place where you think there would be a shop. It was kind o...

First show, done & done. Sorry that I didn't make a big annoucement. I had a lot of things on my mind and I just wanted to get the first show out of the way. Just to say, "Hey...I did it...it worked". And when I say "I", I mean "We" as in, me and my roomie Zilv . A couple of months ago, this was just a random idea about doing a radio show with U.S. rap presented in German & German rap presented in English. And now we've actually done it... Sound quality-wise, there's no place to go but up. Still some bugs to work out in the mastering/pre-production process. Also saying relevant things in a meaningful way. It's definitely a learning-by-doing effort. Anyway, for those who missed out, you can hear the first (completely unmastered) show here: For future reference (I'll send out reminders from now on) "R.A.P statt E.K.G." can be heard every second Friday of the month from 5pm-7pm on the Hamburg radio station FSK 93,0 (anten...

I'm back in Hamburg. It's a new year, a new decade. I think I'll start it up by telling you about how last year ended. The advantage in ending 2008/starting 2009 in such a spectacularly disasterous fashion was that it set the bar pretty low for New Year's Eve 2009. Sure the story might not be as interesting or multi-parted, but I was just aiming for a celebration that didn't end with anyone crying/yelling/stalking/over-zealously-late-night-bong-hitting/unwantedly pregnant. I don't think that's asking for too much. Luckily for us, 100% of all the things that went wrong in 2008 could be attributed to one person cocking up the fun for everyone else. Removing that crazy mess from the equation reassured me that whatever happened...it would not be as bad as New Year's Eve 2008. Several plans had been floating around since Sept/Oct 2009. Leipzig was an early choice, with Dresden as a back up. Hamburg was also being considered as a party spot, but lost out due t...

Byron Hurt's Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes I've been meaning to watch this documentary for a couple of years ever since I heard about it on Poplicks , way back when. I finally got around to it over Christmas....it's good, real good...and it's on Google Videos... Watch it right now...DO IT