Times Online: Emo kids are under attack

Because I’m not. Even if the friendly Facebizzle news feed says I’ve “imported a note” that is actually Facebook doing the importing automatically from this blog via rss. Passive automatic import, yo. Same goes for my status; that’s imported from my Twitter. So, that’s cleared up.
Speaking of Fizzbake, I can’t hate on it too much: [...]

An old German drinking song goes, “Am dreisigsten Mai ist der Weltuntergang — wir leben nicht mehr lang — am dreißigsten Mai ist der Weltuntergang, wir leben nicht, wir leben nicht mehr lang. Doch keiner weiß in welchem Jahr und das ist wunderbar. Wir sind vielleicht noch lange hier und darauf trinken wir.” Etc. Tom [...]

The saviour of the universe, Barack Obama, whose uncle helped liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp (not Auschwitz), is planning to visit Berlin after the Democratic National Convention, potentially in early September, according to reports in a bunch of German papers and word from demsinberlin.de. What wall he will stand before and what German sentence he [...]

in a German office you hear someone announce there’s a Kalte Hund in the refrigerator if anyone wants a piece. I was taken aback until I learned it’s only a standard German pastry. Man lernt nie aus.

I had the pleasure [sic] of seeing the Eurovision Song Contest (”Confluence of Sound“) last night for the first time. With some wine and some friends you can’t beat this intra-Europe song competition for surreal entertainment. Sure there were plenty of excreable entries (as promised) and Russia won for some unexplained reason (not to mention [...]

I spent a fair amount of precious critical energy last year bashing the new landscaping project at north Oranienplatz, what with it’s attempt at de-bumming the open air boozer’s Platz of choice by cutting out the green middle with a needlessly wide avenue, introducing criss-crossy sidewalks and basically deleting some 30% of the previously wild [...]

Time Out New York says, “not that bad”

“The numbers for Florida and Ohio are good news for Sen. John McCain and should be worrisome for Sen. Barack Obama. That is especially true about Ohio, which decided the 2004 election. Ohio’s economy is worse than the rest of the country and the Republican brand there is in disrepute. McCain’s Buckeye lead may be [...]

Checking out the pulse of the city, as it were, I’ve discovered a few new blogs that have sprouted up in the blighted soil of the Berlin blogosphere, mostly of the music and culture variety. Dig it: Birthday Party Berlin | BRRRLN | berlin.unlike (prolific) | BerlinerStrassen | iheartberlin.de | Native Berlin (nice logo + [...]

5:10 PM Micah: yo
how close are you to the berlin philharmonic?
5:13 PM me: pretty close, it’s at Potsdamer Platz — dunno about 5 min by bus, 25 min by foot
Micah: it’s on fire
me: really cool building
crap

…billions of hairy, reddish-brown “crazy Rasberry ants” (named for a local exterminator) were swarming through the greater Houston area. “They have nowhere to go, just running crazy wild,” said one resident. “You know what it’s like to sit down on the commode with crazy ants running everywhere?”
from the Harper’s Weekly Review

The highly scientific AskMen.com has a highly scientific list of the top ten most sinful Sin Cities in the world. What! Berlin is only 10th? Counting backwards it’s Macau (China), Manama (Bahrain), New Orleans, Moscow, Rio, Vegas, Amsterdam, Tijuana and Pattaya (Thailand).

Everyone does not love in fact love a parade, especially yours truly. But I can say without qualification that this one — the Strassenumzug of the Karnevel der Kulturen on Sunday — is an exception, not the least for the Carnival itself, which starts tonight and goes through the weekend with over 900 musicians of [...]

I am not. And that’s why there will be no thorough review of recent travels in Budapest or the Southwest US. I’ve been beating myself up for not doing it and thinking about what happened and how I should write it and what the best parts were and how I can sum up the granduer [...]

I’ve heard of being raised by wolves, but this is ridiculous. This dream-logic story by a band of Portland area woodfolk might have been replayed more than any other on the recent Southwest road trip. It was found on a 20-year birthday comp CD by Sub Pop I was awarded by the guy at Amoeba [...]

Following a positively received premiere at the Berlinale, this movie hit the public this week. One place you can definitely see it is the Babylon Kino in Kreuzberg, among others. If you thought yesterday was peaceful (which it was, relatively), get a load of the old days.

Author Robert Schlesinger was on the Daily Show Wednesday promoting his new book, White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters, lamenting not a lack of good speeches but a lack of good criticism. Helpfully, Jon Stewart quoted H. L. Mencken, bashing Warren G. Harding in the Baltimore Evening Sun (1921). It is indeed a brilliant [...]

So, Monday (dang, three days gone by already!) I landed in Berlin via NY via Chicago. Funny to think that less than a week ago I was sleeping in the back seat of a rental car in the parking lot of a Nebraska rest area. On the first leg, as on the way back, we [...]