Don’t you know I was at a karaoke bar Saturday night? Why would I not find myself accidentally on purpose singing a technofied version of Country Roads from a tele-prompter in front of complete strangers–make that completely drunken strangers. Thanks in no small part to a few Schwarzbier, it was fun in that ha-ha [...]

The urban dictionary defines a ‘ripster’ as being part of the ‘counter-culture to hipsters’ as in, quote, ‘Ripsters don’t do what they do because they want to be cool, they just do it to have fun. The result is they look cool, and people try to do it too.’ I first sighted the term and [...]

NYC’s blazing art-noise-dance-punks, Liars, moved to Berlin last year. Such a perfect match and now they turn all Canny & teutonic. It kills me. I missed their first coupla local shows–which is inexcusable since they played in X-berg (se la vi)–but I’m marking the calendar for March 10 when they play @ the übercool White [...]

If you know me, you know I’m a freak about music.
These are the records I got down with last year. Yeah.
If you see something you like, hit me up & I’ll gmail ya’n mp3 or two.
Probably the best music of 2005, listed alphabetically:
———————————————
THE ‘A’ LIST
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50 Cent - Get Rich Or Die Tryin OST
Afu-Ra - State [...]

listening: fsa - new lands
temperature (berlin): -1 °C
temperment: gettin ill / ill @ ease
So maybe I’m behind the curve on this and maybe The Daily Show already spent an entire week reiterating ’shot a 78-year-old man in the face’ as much as humanly possible, but I thought this poll was interesting in that it quantifies [...]

So I was just walking past Oranienplatz last Saturday and I saw this official-looking sign planted near the intersection: Sabotageplatz (Sabotage Square). And I’m thinking WTF, naturally. Is this a joke or government- sanctioned sabotage? If so (the latter), what exactly are you supposed to sabotage? The mind boggles. At any rate, it ties in [...]

(Probably the same title on a lotta blogs lately, but hey…)

This clip from Pitchfork’s review (from last Thursday, the day before he died) of Jay Dee aka J Dilla’s new joint made me crazy to cop it:

The drums, though remarkably fluid, are lighter, domineered by dense, abrasive samples that are sequenced with a sense of [...]

I can’t really be bothered to post up today, so I thought I would rip off this semi-interesting article from last week’s Economist about new chancellor Angela Merkel, international relations and signs of a recovery in Europe’s largest country. Plus, the writer uses the word ‘torpor’, which is nice. Please note: I am a far, [...]

On a slow news day you can always count on Germany’s most famous American, David Haffelblockenstein, to have signed some kind of fast-money contract in some country far enough removed from the country whose freedoms are protected by the likes of Night Rider and Baywatch. This time it’s not Germany, Austria or England… it’s Australia, [...]

Posts per day containing Du Bist Deutschland for the last 30 days.
Still worth assessing even if the fervor has settled down:
the campaign
the photo
response: ad boss dismisses weblogs as “toilet walls of the internet”
response to the response
—
economist: Waiting for a Wunder
DPA: Germany is world export champion for 3rd year
Reuters: Critical documentary on Wal-Mart stirs Berlin fest

Hey jive turkeys. I’m not even offended that kein Schwein1 commented on my last two posts because the stupid WP comment algorithm wasn’t even working. Turns out the Blacklist function just nukes everybody, not just the blacklist terms. So I turned that off and now commenting is back up so I’m expecting an avalanche of [...]

Remember that Pavement song Embassy Row? About that line of embassies in Washington, D.C.? No? Don’t you remember indie-rock? The 90’s? No? Well, the lyrics are below for you to enjoy, anyway. So, yeah, my point in updating my precious, real-life-threatening blog here (and in the interest of equal embassy time–see US Embassy post below) [...]

Normally I relegate this kinda thing to the Tuna da Week (itself in need of an update, I’m still on Week #2), so please excuse my structural inconsistency — geez. No, but I’m so stoked about this new single from Cee-Lo Green I just stumbled across, I thought I’d post it up on my main [...]

In keeping with yesterday’s glorification of the hammer fist and Chuck Norris’s use thereof, here is something I stumbled across about the stiff walking, bearded Texas Ranger kung-fu master:

Top Ten Chuck Norris Facts
1. Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried. Ever.
2. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
3. Chuck Norris is [...]

Not to be all pro-violence or anything, but when I saw this I knew what my post title would be for today instead of ‘Happy February Fool’s Day!’. Especially being Wednesday and all. It’s from the Pressure Points section (#4) in the US Army manual on hand-to-hand combat [pdf, 614k].
“The opponent rushes the defender. The [...]