Off to Plymouth

Fröhliches Weihnachten - Merry Christmas

Windel-Neujahr - Happy New Year

How to Impress your Lady-Friend

... Anyway I brief her on basic gun safety and how to use my particular model and only point it at things you want to destroy etc etc. I should have noticed that her inability to touch my .45 during the training phase might indicate a psychological barrier to a successful first day of shooting.

So we get in there and I give her a two minute display of my marksmanship prowess, and Tina's basically in the corner drenched in sweat, rocking back and forth, grasping her (fully protected with big stupid sound deadening ear muff thingies) ears and all she can do is choke out "my ears my ears my ears". ...

GPoD Tim, du brauchst hilfe, oder ein Freundin mit die Gleiche Problem. - Tim, you need help, or a girlfriend with the same problem.

Wu-Tang

Tonight I will be heading to the H2O club to hear U-God from the Wu-Tang Clan preform live. I hope all you biznitchs be jealous.


GPoD Wu-Tang Clan ist nicht nix um fink mit.

Christmas with Queen

Having not boarded a jet for nearly 4 weeks, I am going a little stir-crazy in Berlin. This will be solved soon as I will be heading to the queen's land for Christmas. I must say I am looking forward to trip, and I take back every thing bad I ever said about the English wankers. I would also like to take back the previous statement, the English are not wankers. While there I will be making a nice tour of the countryside, London, Plymouth, and York. Of these places I can point to one on the map, having learned that London is not in the North. In 12 days however, I should be a master of Great Britain geography. Still waiting for the invitation for tea and biscuits from Liz.


GPoD: Ich bin noch über die Tee-Steuer grollen. - I'm still mad about the tea tax

By Request: A Day in the Life of Pre-(not so)Capitalist Russia

Russia clams to capitalist democracy, but with Putin at the helm … it looks more like a corrupt state controlled dictatorship. Despite support from many of my friends who are Russian, saying that he is good for Russia. As well as support from my home country's foreign policy. I know better, Putin is a bum and a thief, who only encourages irrepressible corruption. Russia should not be allowed to enter the world trade organization under his reign.
Politics aside:

Will:

So how did you get groceries under communism? Could you just walk in the store and take what you wanted?

Carina:

No, you were only allow so much of any one thing per month.

Will:

Oh, well what if you had guests for a week or had a dinner party.

Carina:

They would have to bring there share of food.

Will:

How would you deal with surpluses? What if for example, the peoples chickens were particularly laborious and produced twice as many eggs that month?

Carina:

Then the people would get vouchers for twice as many eggs!

Will:

Hmm (I imagined the things I would do with twice as many eggs)

Carina:

I remember one time when I was young we got allotted 10kg (about 20 pd) of butter. We really didn’t need 10 kilos of butter.

Will:

Ha (I imagined what I would do with 20pds of butter)

Carina:

Yah, it was a bit silly

Will:

What if you wanted something that you were not allotted or in need of more?

Carina:

Well there was the black market.

Will:

Were exactly would you go to buy black market groceries? I mean did you have a dealer, or what?

Carina:

It depended what you wanted. Salami and cheese you could find pretty much anywhere on the streets. They would be sold by people with long trench coats. They would approach you, flash open there coats and show you what they had to sell.

Will:

Giggling, so they would have salamis hanging on the inside of there coat?

Carina:

Seriously, yes.

Will:

Wow.


GWoD Verrückt - Crazy

PS All blogs by requested come at a fee of 0.53€. Alex this amount will be debited from your account.

The Standoff

It has now been a week since the last load of laundry was done in my WG(German for shared apartment). The reason being that we are out of laundry soap. In our happy home there are certain items that we share, such as soap. As I see it, I replaced not only the dishwashing soap, but the hand soap as well, in one purchase! This exonerates me from purchasing laundry soap. So we wait. My roommates may think they have the advantage by having more clothes, but little do they know just how dirty I can be.


GPoD Sieg werdet mein sind – Victory will be mine.

Oops There Goes a Billion Kilo-Watt Dam

So in Germany they have this thing where instead of putting electric lights in fake trees, they put candles in real trees. While I will admit it gives a better ambience, it also may alarm Smokey the Bear. I of course wanted to join on this time honoured tradition and decorate the tree in my room. To do this I bought a box of mini silver bulbs from the 1€ store, this would be the equivalent of a “Everything’s a buck thirty four and rising store at home”, and a bag of mini candles. I then decorated my tree by hanging the candles from wire, in what seemed to be a safe distance out of the tree. “Will, was ist stinkend,” translates into, “forgot to carry the zero in physic calculations of heat transfer.” Sorry Michael, I melted one (of the two) branches of your rubber tree plant. I’ll make it up to you. I think the rubber tree plant went out in the 50’s any how.

GPoD: Der Baum ist brennen! - The tree is on fire!

Und

The Wichita State University basketball team beat Providence of the Big East on the road last night 90-86.

GWoD: Ünterschätzen - Underrated

Forgot to Mention

The ICE is not a shiny new perfect train. It also includes: dirtiness, funny smells, and discomfort. It just does it all with a little more speed.


GWoD: Überschätzen - Overrated

Dussel is German for Dumb

Düsseldorf is very exciting if you like, oh I don't know, watching the grass grow, and don't mind that it is the off season! No problem though, good company can make up for quite a bit. If thats not enough add substitute German teacher.
Yes this weekend with the help of Clarissa I was able to master the art of comparing things that are actually the same versus things that are perceived as the same, as well as vocabulary building, and speaking practise. Three days with no English, OK a few words when I got stuck, deserves big pats on the back.

Another note, French women; beautiful. Maybe even enough so to dethrone the Russians and Italians, but I must take the politically safe middle ground and not award such titles so not to burn any bridges.

GPoD: Düsseldorf gibt der GLEICHE Ding zu tun wie auch viel anderen Deutsche Statt, Nix. - Düsseldorf has SAME things to do as so many other cities in Germany, nothing.

Wir haben in Düsseldorf DIESELBE Sprache das ganze Wochenende gesprochen, Deutsch. - We have spoke the SAME language in Düsseldorf the whole weekend, German.

PS The French love celebrity stalking as well. I would however have enjoyed the French celebrity magazines more, as they include interactive games such as match the breasts to the celebrity, except when you turn the page there is a full page pictures of shark attack victims!

Going West for a Change

Having completely exhausted myself on the life and times of the Spice Girls, this weekend I will be associating myself with the people from the other side of the channel. Going to visit Clarissa in Düsseldorf. This will be my first trip on the ICE train, I’m very excited. The ICE (Inner City Express, they like to use English words here) is a fast and modern train. To date I have only used the slow and old trains where you have to fight chain smoking locals for seats only to be turned away because their dog needs the seat. But before I embark I now must go tackle my Finanzierung und Investition class, schwer!


GPoD: Ist dies sitzen platz frei, oder musst sein Hund es benutzen? – Is this seat free, or does your dog need it?

PS I would also let Sophie, my hairy four legged sister, use a seat on the train.

E-Mail from Christine:

“I forgot to yell at you!! I guess you are the nice guy who taught Sofato jump on the kitchen counter. Thanks a lot! On Thanksgiving she ate mycake while I was taking a shower. It took me like 4 hours to bake itdue to the strange American units (cups-what is it?) So, I didn'treally had something to bring with me for the dinner at Tim's house.But this was not the only thing. Two days later she ate my mushroomsoup.”

Way to go Sophie.

Taking the Piss

This weekend the Brits and few French from last semester returned to celebrate Jeremy's and Alex's birthdays. It was a great weekend.

I learned this weekend that taking piss the piss out of someone in the queens language means that you make fun of them. I still think it would be more embarrassing be the one taking someone else's piss. Trying to understand the queens language was best summed up in the movie Snatch: "Blagged? Do me a favor, Tony, speak English. I thought this country spawned the fucking language, and so far nobody seems to speak it."

That said:

I would like to apologise in advance to all my English kin and mates. Alex, Kirst, Ellie, Nina, Kate and Yoko: Sorry but lets have the Mickey.

The English must be the trash of the world. Great fun to hang out with, but man what tastes.

First I would like to address the celebrity stalking. There can't be anyone else in the world that devotes as much grey matter to topics like; how long a celebrity was in the bathroom, who has been caught by the paparazzi with pit stains, who is too fat, who is too skinny, and my favourite: WHAT THE EX-SPICE GIRLS ARE DOING EVERYDAY OF THEIR LIVES!

Secondly I would like to point out the obsession with classic trash pop. To celebrate Alex's b-day we went to the Havana Club. I prefer dental work to the Havana Club, but as it was not my b-day I went under protests. Had I not drained my wallet trying to cover the globe in the last few weeks I could have used alcohol to num the pain. However, the 2€ I had to my name(I still have 1 of those 2) said I had to take the Havana like a man. Back to the point. The reason I dislike the Havana is the high calibre scum that congregates there to listen to horrible music. The English's tast in this sort of music can be best described by the way Ellie's face lit up, with just as much excitement as it did the first, THE SECOND TIME THE GHOSTBUSTERS SONG CAME ON.

Finally I would like to draw your attention to the recent brawl between Pistons and Pacers. What was headline news as a great tragedy to fair sporting in the rest of the world would have been lucky to be a side note on the sports page in England. An English football (soccer) hooligan would proudly start a fight before, during or after a game with fans, players or grandmothers. If his team looses he wants to kick ass because he is pissed and if his team wins he will fight to celebrate, and it is entirely possible that his team did not play that day and HE JUST WANTS TO BEAT AND BE BEATEN.

GP(s)oD

Schön Geburtstag Alex! - Happy birthday Alex!
Schön Geburtstag Jeremy! - Happy birthday Jeremy!

YKK

Everyone of my zippers say 'YKK' on them, regardless of brand of clothing! (Jeremy made me aware of this fact)

GWoD - Monopol - Monopoly

Fielding Questions

Yes, I still attend class as well as travel.

No, I do not parting too much. - “ I think that next time youinvade a continent you should give them a little more warning...although, amazingly, it seems like you have calmed down over theyears. Maybe it's your age.”