What you see here is a website getting revamped. And it ain’t all pretty but it’s pretty fun –and frustrating. Like, how do I remove these grey borders on the pictures? And where did all my links and side pages go? I gotta enough items like that yet to be worked out, things shouldn’t be [...]

Dunno, just thought this was a funny photo of a happy, Satanic family I found on flickr.

Günter Grass, Germany’s Nobel prize winner and self-appointed conciousness of the nation (and I don’t mean that in a bad way, somebody’s gotta do it), gave the keynote address at the 49th PEN International Congress that began last Monday and ended today. This year it was held in Berlin, which I found out about today, [...]

Wow. It is raining hard right now.
The Lehrter Main Station opening last night was certainly a crowd pleaser. And what a crowd it was with half a million turning out at 22:30 in a mild drizzle, umbrellas half-cocked to see an über-tech spectacle of lasers and fireworks shot through with a segmented soundtrack of booming [...]

Pop quiz. Who ships out the most, value-wise? It ain’t China and it ain’t the USA. It’s Germany, baby! How you like them Äpfel? The Economist published a Special Report last week (unlocked text here) about Germany’s export champions.

(Well, except for today. Not a lot of exporting. Today is a holiday in Germany. But usually, [...]

I’ve been noticing these tourist attraction navigation signs popping up everywhere — now here @ Moritzplatz, west side — not exactly the most attractive Platz in town, which, you know, is the nice thing about a sign directing you to more fruitful endeavors. It’s almost like Berlin is getting all, “Give us your huddled masses [...]

Folks who don’t live in Europe or who are not intimately familiar with the biographies of ABBA or Celine Dion can be forgiven for not knowing about the Eurovision Song Contest. Well, it’s big over here (maybe you could tell by the name), that’s for sure. The annual competition is something of a pop music [...]

So I was wondering why exactly my blog has been getting hit up like a piñata in the last few days until I followed this link (via boingboing) to a flash sing-along of the (North) Korean Friendship Society. As curiosity hadn’t killed the cat yet, I followed the WFMU blog’s link to the del.icio.us propaganda [...]

It’s a kinda drippy, steamy day in the dickes B. I just ‘noticed’ some things on the ‘internet’ and I though I might just ‘blog’ about them. First off, that “tighter than Dick’s hatband” band Bloc Party is writing a new album. Song titles include ‘Kreuzberg’, ‘Cruel’ and ‘Merge On The Highway’. Says the appropriately, [...]

With the World Cup only two weeks off, Germany is freaking out. Further, it seems there’s a lot of “on your best behaviour” kind of talk to be heard, of the sort you normally get from a Kindergarten teacher. To be honest, though, it is getting hot in herre. The falafel guy had a serious [...]

listening to: Weezer - The Blue Album
Well, it’s that kinda morning when I drink like 900 cups of black coffee and put on a record (or its mp3 equivalent) that I haven’t listened to since college.

Weezer was so crunchy back then (circa 1994) and somehow even cool in a tight suburban pop referential, light-hearted kinda [...]

There is some kind of inevitable tendency among those new to the Berlin-Kreuzberg neighbourhood to play off the cliches the area has acquired among ‘outsiders’ as being dangerous or fraught with crime, requiring a sort of gangster mentality just to survive.

That may have been true pre-2001 when there were still riots going on in the [...]

OK, so it’s balmy and I’ve not got a whole hell of a lot of time, but I just wanted to give a mad shout-out to Jah Fish, who just got himself married in Cape Town, South Africa. Good on ya son! — and the (presumably) happy bride! Wishing y’all the best.
want some groovy icons [...]

Yeah, I had a good weekend. Thanks for asking. We — Yuhang & I — had a lil’ pinic at Görli on Saturday and then, well, we had another one at Viktoriapark on Sunday with Pierre and Nancy. That’s how nice it was. There was to be enjoyed: sun, food, wine, song (well, not so [...]

Have you seen this one yet? Classic arcade-style, full-size poster pixelations of major cities like New York, London, etc. from eboy. I have the Berlin one* on my wall (natch). Thx for the tip Jesse.

It’s a blazing 20°C (70°F) today and I hasten to add that summer has arrived like hell’s bells, suggesting both rock [...]

Hey, Perrys! I just noticed that someone finally submitted a definition for the ‘word’ swarp at urbandictionary.com, albeit not in our traditional usage of ‘a reckless sideways movement combining forward motion with angular inertia’ or a combination of swerve and warp (I’m guessing). But nonetheless compelling:
1. swarp
to forcefully, yet [...]

If you looked at the photo below and said “Hey! That’s not spelled right! It’s kaputt!”, well you’d be right, Einstein. I know because I was wrong. I just lost 10 euros to that effect betting Yuhang that the wall writers who recently tagged our building (Luckauer Str. 4) actually knew how to write the [...]

Ah man, feeling pressurized…. I’ve got a thing or two to attend to asap, as in before Friday, like the German tax system and financing some real estate, among other things…
If you came here via Microsoft Internet Explorer, you might have been greeted by a screen asking to convert to Mozilla Firefox. Yeah, that was [...]

— originally uploaded by bpx
— I’m still a little loaded from the 3-day weekend, strenuous as it was (note from jerky / haphard angular photos, link below).
— This year confirms the trend of the dissolution in the May 1st protest spirit into drunken merry-making, which is fine, especially if you live in the neighbourhood.
— [...]

yeah, baby, yeah