Month: December 2005

http://www.ep.tc/aa-comics/

http://cuteoverload.com/

http://www.groovetube.tv/site.htm

The hauptbahnhof in Munich looks exactly like the one in Zurich, except it is covered in rabid soccer people. Rabid like sleep-deprived Raiders fans on angel dust who suddenly have access to one of the world’s finest public transportation systems, thus making the consumption of beer hours before the game starts feasible, each with an also sleep-deprived mother wolverine-wraith strapped to their viking helmets.

Let’s see what word’s grammar checking thing has to say about that sentence:

I didn’t know Viking was capitalized. Recommend changing who -> that. That’s it?

As I was saying, that is the only difference between the two train stations.

When a person goes to Munich, they pretty much want one thing: those big-ass 1-litre glasses of beer know to the munchkins as a MASS. Every beer hall only featured one brewery’s beer and I only saw the big 5: Franziskaner, Spaten, Lowenbrau, Paulaner, and Augustiner. I was certain that Munich would unseat Portland as undisputed beer variety overlord, but I uberestimated the bavarians. P still has more variety of tastiness per square meter.

If you’re ever in Munich, be sure not to not realize that kartoffel means potato that that the Kartoffelhaus is a horrible abonination; an insult to potatoes and restaurants world-wide. It may LOOK charming and homey on the outside, but once inside you realize that these people are fucking crazy about potatoes and you are doomed to a dinner in which baked potatoes have infiltrated all dishes. Serves me right for not going to some sort of sausagehaus instead.

BUT I had been burned on that front earlier in the day. At the bierhalle I got lentil soup with sausage, but no one warned me that the sausage would be so authentic that it would have METAL CLIPS ON THE ENDS. HIDDEN IN THE SOUP FOR ME TO BITE ON. WTF Bavaria?!

Munich kicks Zurich’s ass in terms of street musicians. Highlights include:

– an actually good classical string quartet
– those peruvian flute dudes who seem to be everywhere these days, except in full american indian headdresses
– a lone man in a deserted alley at night playing the godfather theme music on a clarinet
– a trio of mongolian throat singers w/crazy mongolian outfits & mongolian instruments and HOT DANG wuz they good! Watched in pure mongolian mezmerization for 25 minutes. Turns out they are Chinggis Khaan from Mongolia. Turns out. Holy crap was that cool.

A picture of an actual door in historic Munich:

http://users.sdsc.edu/~mpackard/wtfsc.jpg

Last night was our department christmas party. It was at this nice restaurant in a big ole house. It was one of the coolest dinners I’ve ever had for this reason: at my table there was an Albanian girl who grew up in Switzerland, a Swiss guy who grew up in Thailand, a Swiss guy from Switzerland, an Italian, two French, another Italian who is fluent in German, English, and French, a half-Thai half-American girl, and me, from fucking Normal Illinois USA. Once the wine started flowing there were always three conversations going on at once in six different languages. A highlight was when Anne taught everyone “jing jing luuuh”, which means something like “very true!” or “WERD!” in Ghortspeak, so in my head I hear 8 different people all saying “WERD!” in their respective accents. Beautiful.

Also, the Europeans are meticulously thorough about cheersing, which takes upwards of 5 minutes with 9 people at the table.

I’m having trouble fitting a joke to this punchline:

20 Italian girls in a Fiat!

I am open to suggestions. This is what I thought of in the last 2 minutes, but I think you, dear reader, can do better:

What has 40 hairy legs but can’t go anywhere?