No, I’m not. But I could. Read on to know why.

Jamie: Surrounded by Stupidity really is my slogan.
Jamie: I came up with it when we were at school during our job training.

Ehle: You should’ve named your website surroundedbystupidity.com

Jamie: Yeah. Well.
Jamie: Now that you say it.

Ehle: Don’t worry about it.
Ehle: I’m building a time machine.

Jamie: But it’s so snarky. My blog is only snarky like half of the time.

Ehle: So in a few years I’ll go back and suggest it.

Jamie: Or less.

Ehle: No, your blog is pretty snarky.
Ehle: just very subtle snark.

Jamie: See, that’s why it’s current title fits just fine.

Ehle: It’s 62.29% snark.

Jamie: You calculated that?
Jamie: That’s awesome.

Ehle: You really should pay more attention in math class.
Ehle: The Theory of Snark states that Snark equals the sum of honesty and cynicism multiplied by the use of the F Bomb times pi squared. Take your Snark total, divide by 7, add 4, find the cube root and square it.
Ehle: That’s your snark percentage.

So I’m not a dancer. Big deal. I do funny dances for my husband and I occasionally dance when I’m in the right mood and/or drunk and/or the right music is playing. But chances are that I am in the right mood and drunk and the right music is playing and I still won’t dance. Because I’m not a dancer.

May the first is a holiday here. It roughly translates to „Day of work“ so naturally nobody has to go to work. I’m not really sure what this is holiday is about, I just know that you’re supposed to dance into it. There are tons of „Tanz in den Mai“ parties going on and unfortunately we were invited to one.

That wouldn’t have been so bad if a) we hadn’t been invited to our neighbor’s birthday party the night before where my husband got really drunk on Ouzo and is now officially ‚vomit-free since 2005‘ (poor guy) and b) we had known anybody at that party apart from the girl who invited us. Even worse, I have issues with that girl. I know that I’m not always fair, but we started off not exactly great and I may not be trying hard enough to let it go. It doesn’t exactly help that every time we meet she’s all over my husband and it’s not like I’m blind or dumb or anything. Whatever.

Now here’s the real deal. I didn’t get that party. I mean it’s called ‚Tanz in den Mai‘ which as I said means something like ‚Dance into May‘ and so you’d expect that there’s dancing involved. And I’m fine with that as long as I’m not forced to dance.
For starters, the party was in a basement. That’s not as bad as it sounds. Especially considering that we drove through a freaking rainstorm getting there it was good that the party took place indoors. But… see, I’m only 25. And I would say and probably be right that I was one of the youngest people there. I would guess that the average age was around 30 or something. Anyway, I kind of had the idea that around the age of like 23 or so you start throwing and going to parties where – although there is music – the music isn’t so damn loud that every conversation is just impossible to even start. There was just no way you could talk to anyone without screaming at them. You just don’t get to know people that way. We came there knowing nobody and we left there having talked to about two people, not including the girl who invited us.

I really like going to parties. I like having one at our place. I do play music then. But I try to keep it at a volume that allows people to talk to each other. Am I too old for these parties? Too boring? Not fun enough? Or do I maybe have a point?

I’m not 16 anymore and neither were all of these people I never got the chance to get to know. At least I don’t think they were. I never got the chance to ask them.

I sometimes like to watch the evening news on that one channel that comes with these sign language ladies. They kind of split the screen and you have the normal news and the little window with the sign language lady translating at the bottom. Or top. They might change the setup from time to time.

Anyway, I love to watch that and try to figure out the few words you can actually recognize from sign language. Only I think you can only recognize them when you’re listening to what they are translating. Otherwise it’s just wild gestures. I love it. Now there’s a language that really fascinates me.

As it turned out, writing about TwoP staff members brings a hell of a lot random visits to a site. Mine at least. Okay, maybe not a hell of a lot, but I’ve had three people coming over here because they typed „Anna Beth Chao“ into the Google search field and hit ‚Enter‘¹.

I’m afraid they might not come back, but it’s nice to know they were here. Thanks, Anna Beth.

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¹ Y’all know that ‚del‘ stands for ‚deliver‘, don’t you?

I am neglecting this blog, I know. I didn’t know how time-absorbing a podcast can be. I’m not a perfectionist, I’m more like a half-perfectionist. It’s like I try to do the best I can, but at the same time I lose patience at one point and just get it done with. Hee.

I think that’s maybe the way a podcast could be. Trying to be perfect, but failing just a little, leaving that bit of imperfect charm that makes a podcast something different than standard radio. At least I like those nearly-perfect podcasts better than those of professionals.

Anyway, this blog is still alive. Don’t worry. I’m just a bit lazy and have to many things to do around me at the moment.

You remember when I said I kind of love Randy Newman. Yeah. I recently re-disocovered sail away and now I like to sing along to ‚Last Night I Had a Dream‘, ‚Political Science‘ and ‚Simon Smith and his Amazing Dancing Bear‘ at top notch. Preferably while I’m washing the dishes.

I just thought about how awesomely amazingly cool it would be if someone on American Idol would actually decide to sing ‚Political Science‘ in one of the shows. Like that episode on Ally McBeal, only way cooler. I would immediately fall in love with that person. At least I imagine I would.

Same goes for ‚Short People‘ by the way. I think Ayla should have sung it. How much fun would that have been?

Did I mention that I kind of love Randy Newman? Oh, I think I did. Like three times now.

I believe that it’s a fact that anyone who has a dog or considers himself to have a dog (like I consider myself to have dog because my parents have one) always thinks that his/her dog is the cutest. There’s just no other way how this could possibly work.

So, when I talk about a dog and enthusiastically say that it was „the cutest dog ever“ you should be aware that this really means „the cutest dog AFTER my dog“.

This may be a given for fellow dog owners, I just thought I’d share this bit of knowledge with the rest of the world.

PS: I guess it’s the same for cat owners. But I’ve never had a cat other than a couple of strays (the cutest cats ever, by the way), so I can’t tell for sure.

I flickr-stalked a couple of TwoP writers today and I now think that Anna Beth Chao is very pretty.

So there. I said it. And I have nothing more important to say. Though I also think that she should update her blog.

How could I not?

By the way, you know that something is wrong when your dog is less interested in taking a walk than you are. Today I put the blame on the weather. Our dog is clever enough to remember that lying on the couch is far more comfortable than walking through wind and rain.

I need to stop refreshing my podcast statistics every damn five seconds. I should know by now that though I apparently have a few listeners (How? How did that happen?) the numbers won’t change that often.

Damnit. Why don’t they?