Did you know that Beck is a Scientologist but doesn’t hang out with Tom Cruise (I presume)? Did you know you can download his new album here (among multiple other blog sites)? Now you know and knowing is half the battle. So, have at it and have a nice weekend (especially you, Micah). And if [...]

So, maybe it doesn’t prevent cancer but you do live longer:
Those who drank five or more cups of green tea a day had a death rate overall and from heart disease in particular that was 16 percent lower than those who drank less than one cup daily, over the course of 11 years. Over the [...]

Most Germans, at least the ones I know, can sing the chorus, if not the complete lyrics, to John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads. While I’m not exactly sure why that is nor what Germans think about West Virginian mountain mamas, I’ve heard it joyfully sung along to at enough Ecke Kneipen jukeboxes and [...]

Two weeks ago the NYT’s Sunday Magazine published a photo gallery profiling about ten of New York’s New Bohemians. Before it got locked behind the Premium Content wall, I saved a few of the photos and profiles. Then, browsing at bowleserised’s blog recently, I saw her post from last month about never actually seeing anyone [...]

This site has been down for the past 48 hours days due to still-unclear reasons included in the vague ‘Probleme’ mentioned in this reply from my server host:
Guten Tag,
leider gab es in letzer Zeit Probleme mit dem Webserver, auf dem auch Ihre Seiten liegen. Die Techniker arbeiten zur Zeit mit Hochdruck an der Reparatur. Danach [...]

From Doug Lennox’s Now You Know More:

I always thought it was somehow derived from the German word for big, groß. I guess that one came from the Latin, too. Anyway, keep both meanings of the word in mind–as in ‘grossly negligent’ and ‘gross, disgusting’–when you read the New York Review of Books’ rundown on why [...]

The state of the weather is such a spectator sport in Germany. I should make ‘Weather’ one of my tags to label all the posts where I mention the meteorological status of Berlin. Oh, wait, I did already. (I’m still working on getting my ‘BERLIN RIGHT NOW’ sidebar thingy running again.) It is so damn [...]

So, today people are all, “Hey! How was that Roadkill Zombies show last night?” Sorry to tell ya, but I wouldn’t know. Last night I arrived at SO36 at 21:30 and there was no band in sight (you can see the stage from the door). Leathered and tattooed fans were gathering and smoking out front, [...]

As the apocalypse draws ever nearer (hi Dad, can I get a witness?), the undead are getting a lot more respect these days. About damn time, too. I’ve always enjoyed the genre. Zombies are more than just B-movie fodder, though, they perform a very useful role of showing what we, the living, are and are [...]

I waltzed into the orifice just now with something less than a spring in my step after a brutal weekend of putting out fires and doing my other job, attending parties (thanks, Christy, it was killer; thanks Audio Pharmacy @ Yaam, you guys did Jah justice). I hadn’t seen any news yet this morning (too [...]

Yesterday, after I picked up my new passport from the US Consulate, I had an hour to kill before work so I decided to stroll around Wittenburgplatz and see what the hell is up in Charlottenburg these days. A new American Apparel store, that’s what’s up. If you’re, say, around 25-35 years old and, say, [...]

Deborah Sontag at the New York Times has written a sprawling, 24-page narrative detailing why, five years on, there is still a huge crater at the heart of lower Manhattan with nary a construction crew in sight. She has a gift for fleshing out a character in one line. And this story has a score [...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlJORk4OThE
Finally, an anti-PC US comedy that’s not from the South Park guys.
The year’s most offensive masterpiece -Reuters
Official Borat site
Bonus: And then there’s this gem of a video, an executive singing cheerily in parlance about having become a brain-eater synchronized with scenes from classic zombie films.

No, not me. I’m an anarchist, remember? No, I’m talking about William R. Timken, Jr., the new US ambassador to Germany (relatively new, he was appointed exactly one year ago). Mr. Timken is… wait for it… a businessman from Ohio. Now granted, Ohio has lots of Germans, so the Krautmerican angle is OK. But dude [...]

What, then, is the historical meaning of 9/11? Twelve years earlier, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin wall fell. The collapse of communism was perceived as the collapse of political utopias. Today, we live in a post-utopian period of pragmatic administration, since we have learned the hard lesson of how noble political utopias can end [...]

So, we went to Bebelplatz on Saturday afternoon and got to observe a good one-hour of the dropping knowledge happening. Upon arriving at around 13:00, we had time to gawk around, pick up a striking little red book outlining the concept and the participants’ bios, find a front-row seat out of three rows and settle [...]

Dropping Knowledge. What more can I say. Tomorrow. Bebelplatz, Berlin. World’s largest table. One hundred and twelve various luminaries, writers, artists, musicians, actors, directors, intellectuals and public figures including Wim Wenders, Willem Dafoe, the ex-wife of Mick Jagger (whatever), Terry Gilliam, the guy who founded Creative Commons, some dudes from Fantastischer Vier… lots of people [...]

Listening: Prefuse 73 - Security Screenings
A few weeks ago I mentioned something about not drinking coffee until we go to China (October) and Yuhang was all, “Promise?” And I’m all, “Cut that jive, b-”. No, but it’s been about 21 days coffee-free and like they say, the first few are the hardest. Around August 15, [...]

Grapes ‘Big Hit’ At Area Picnic
PORTLAND, OR-Speaking at an impromptu press conference on her back patio, 7th-grade language-arts teacher Wendy Polonski, 31, announced that the seedless green grapes she brought to a small potluck-style picnic with Fernwood Middle School…

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Momus is a Scottish musician / artiste who has been living and blogging out of Berlin for a minute now. Dude has a command of the kind of high-low brow writing style that a whole raging herd of wanna-be bloggers would kill to posses. Literary and tweaked-out, he’s put it down for Wired (check) and [...]