26
Mai 2005

The Deciding Game

aka Decide For Jamie (and be Eventually Overruled) – Because I’m Tired of Being Responsible for my Actions

Today’s question is: Should we get tickets for the Aimee Mann concert on July 4th?
And if yes, how much should we spend on the tickets? (Remember we need two and if possible of the same price. I think I would enjoy sitting next to my husband.)
The options are

  • 47,70 â?¬
  • 42,20 â?¬
  • 36,70 â?¬
  • 29,00 â?¬

I’m not sure if the tickets include public transportation to and fro, but they better do.

Please leave your helpful answer in the comments.


26
Mai 2005

Touch My… Knees

Today my husband touched the back of my knees and told me that it felt strange.
He said it felt like I had muscles there.

I swear if that is true this is about the only place of my body where I actually have muscles.

And while I’m at it. I definitely should force myself to do some kind of sport somewhen really really soon. And I fear that running (oh well, who am I kidding… walking fast) to catch the train every morning does not count.


  1. Heimlich – I can’t even think of something. I’m too stunned that a German word is part of this meme.
  2. Gesture – Polite.
  3. Party – It’s my party and I cry if I want to.
  4. Cuddle – Bed.
  5. Room with a view – Helena Bonham-Carter.
  6. Sebastian – All the Sebastians I know. Which is one. And the one in ‚Cruel Intentions‘.
  7. Ooooh – Aaaaah.
  8. Sigh – All the things I can’t have.
  9. Two fish, three fish – Four fish. Five fish.
  10. Cake or death – Cake. I have no room for death.

Again, you can take part and have a lot of fun… just click here.


Okay, I’m just typing while I’m watching the ESC in a little window in the left upper corner of my really big screen. (Does it show that I love my new computer equipment?)

So, right now we are watching the 11th performer, Israel and that’s really the first performance I actually like. It’s a little bit cheesy, but compared to what I had to suffer before it’s actually a nice performance with a singer who actually can sing. Believe me, that counts for something this year.

Israel’s singer who didn’t completely suck.

What now? Serbia & Montenegro. Let’s see.
Drums. Who’d have thought?
Drums and oriental-style violins. That’s about what I have seen about ten times now. Nobody ever mentioned that drums and oriental-style violins were required this year for being allowed to enter the contest. Because there must be a reason they are used for nearly every damn song I’ve heard so far.
And what’s with the… erm… dancing?
I also think they’re gay. Or they just love each other a lot.

I think it’s called dancing.

The hosts are also strange. Or at least her dress is.
No, I take that back. It’s not just the dress, it’s the whole she-host. And her dress.

Can you see the dress? Or are you already blind?

So we come to Denmark and a perfect Kurt Nilsen clone. Maybe they’re related. The song isn’t even so bad. Okay, it’s Danish reggae, but apart from that you can actually listen to it without your ears starting to bleed. The shoes, though, the shoes are either cool or scary. I haven’t decided yet.
You know, after about two minutes I start to think of the singer as kind of cute. He’s obviously not nuts and he can sing and he doesn’t look too bad. He won’t win, but still.

Look at the shoes! The Shoes!

After Denmark comes what… of course: Sweden. I can’t really compare this singer to anything, but he’s not that bad either. I think he kind of goes for a comparison with Elvis, but really, it doesn’t work. But he is charming. I’m obviously on the scandinavian love train this year. Well, they keep away from big ethnic drums and oriental-style violins, so there’s already a very good reason to like them.

Macedonia starts with.. oh, surprise, drums and oriental-style singing and violins. And girls in very short dresses. I think I’m just gonna talk about the clothes for this performance, because there really isn’t anything else worth writing about. Oh the dancing maybe, because that? Is strange. Apparently standing still and poking with your fingers in the air qualifies as dancing. Good to know.
And about the clothes. I think I’m just gonna make a snapshot and post it here, because jeans, some obviously self-coloured t-shirt and a pink jacket is something you don’t see on the ESC that often. Especially on a man.
The short dresses, yes, that’s common.

Please explain to me this outfit.

I think that’s called dancing, too.

The Ukraine has Hip-Hop. I know that even before the performance starts because I have seen part of the contest last night when checking the quality of the capture (which is great).
They have lots of drums, too, but they don’t bother me so much, because they’re not part of some ethno-wild-dance-performance, so it’s okay. This is supposed to be a very political hip-hop song which is nice, only it’s in Russian or whatever language people in the Ukraine speak, so I don’t understand a single word. The Guy on the guitar scares me, by the way. So do the dancing guys with the hand-cuffs. All in all it isn’t even that bad, only I’m not a hip-hop fan and I have no clue what they sang about.

Scary guy in hand-cuffs.

Scary guy on guitar.

Eek. Germany. Us. The Losers. The Really Big Losers. I don’t think I want to write about that. It’s so humiliating.
But honestly, the singing was either not there or lousy, the outfit was as bad as always and the band was… well, there’s really nothing to say about the band. Maybe we should have gotten some scary guitarists or dancing guys in hand-cuffs. Or better even: A guitarist with hand-cuffs. I would have really liked to see that.
That said the song isn’t even that bad. It’s not great either, but if Gracia had actually managed to sing instead of scream we might have gotten a few points more. Yeah, well, dream on. I don’t even care.

Wolves die lonely? Is that the title of the band or of the song coming from Croatia? And do I really need to know?
By the way, it has drums and oriental-style flutes. For a change. And a guy with strange hair. And a fist. He obviously needs the fist for singing. I don’t know how that works, but it must be so.
It also has three women in really hideous dresses. I haven’t seen all the performances yet, but I can already say that these are the most hideous dresses of the whole evening. It’s like they’re bridesmaids for a really sucky bride.
It also has a guy standing on his hands.
I think they put all that together in such a strange way to pull the attention away from the song and singing. Which, from all that I can say, because I wasn’t paying attention, wasn’t even that bad.

The singing fist.

The Award winners for Most Hideous Dresses of the Evening.

A guy doing a handstand. Because he can.

So I know that Greece won, so I’m not sure if I can judge without prejudices. That said, I actually think that her dress and boobs won the contest. Because the song isn’t that great. It also has drums and oriental-style violins.
All in all we have a pretty average song with a pretty average dancing performance and one pretty singer with a good-enough voice a short dress, long legs and boobs.
And a stick. Don’t ask me what that was for.
So Greece won, huh? Why, again?

The background singers of the Russian performance are both tough and bored. That’s about as much as I can say about this performance. Apart from that the singer has bangs and a very strange outfit that I couldn’t describe if you paid me a lot of money for it.
I also don’t think the lyrics make sense. Well that might be the case for nearly every song on this contest, but I just happened to pay attention to the lyrics and I really don’t think they make sense.

Tough and Bored. Maybe that’s their names as well.

The bangs and the top.

The Bosnian performers are called Feminnem. Huh? And they’re really scary. The one girl’s dress defines a whole new meaning of scary. I just wondered what it reminds me of, now I know. Animes. You know the dresses a lot of girls in animes wear. Yeah, it looks like that. Only it’s a real person wearing it. Not some cartoon girl with no visible nose and eyes as big as Montana. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the song. It was an ABBA clone and it sounded like one, so it was okay.
But I feel it’s important to mention that the shaking of the boobs was involved. And not in a subtle way.

See the dress! Look at the dress!

The shaking of the boobs.

Since I live in Germany I think I should know Vanilla Ninja, but I do admit that I don’t. I just know that they are in the charts sometimes. The front singer is actually really pretty and has a not-too-bad-a-little-husky voice. Then again, the song sucks. Which is a shame really, because if the song didn’t suck so much it wouldn’t be so bad.
It’s also interesting too know that both Gracia and Vanilla Ninja are produced by the same guy. So if had just given Vanilla Ninja Gracia’s song, at least one of them would have had the chance to get a few more points.

Latvia sends two boys with guitars on barstools. And stange white jackets with even strange colourful applications. But they do sing and nicely so. And the song doesn’t suck. But then again, I’m a singer songwriter fan, so it’s obvious that I like the song.
By this time they have left their guitars and barstools and are singing while translating the lyrics into sign language. Yeah, I don’t think that makes any sense.

What does that mean? I think I don’t want to know.

Last performance, France. They always sing in French, because they have this thing with English. They don’t have drums but they do have kind of half hiphop half oriental-style synthesizers. Because you can’t go without.
I really can’t see anything in this song and I’m the francophile here. It’s just the most average of average. With really average ugly chairs standing on the stage for whatever reason. I think we do have sort of the same chairs in the office.
Thank god, it’s over soon.

If it was last night I would have to vote now. At least that’s what they tell me now. I think I would have voted for Israel, because that’s the one performance I actually remember as being good.

I won’t write any further. I think I’ve said enough. And you know you really missed a great evening full of wonderful music.
Not.

PS: Can somebody please invent a drinking game for the ESC? Because I can’t see another way of getting through the one next year.


With my cousin here yesterday I wasn’t able to watch the Eurovision Song Contest last night. So I captured it with my brand new computer and am watching it right now.

I just saw four or five performings and right now Norway is on stage, so here’s my question:
Is Norway on crack? (Just checking.)

And stupid Gracia who performed for Germany? Four points? Let me just say this: Tee-hee. No really, tee-hee.


I just found a finnish bookshop that actually offers buying and shipping information in English, so I fear I might do something really really stupid come next month.
Maybe I’ll order Harry Potter in Finnish or one of the Moomin books. Not that I know enough Finnish to be able to understand one whole sentence, but it’s so damn tempting.

At least with a book that I already own in German I could compare the words and make out some of those I don’t know. I’m always for hard confrontation when it comes to learning foreign languages. Just dive into a sea of new words and sounds and something will just stick. But maybe that’s just unrealistic/optimistic me.


It’s 2:45 am and I’m still awake.
Thta’s what you get when you invite your cousin over for a boardgame and DVD night. It also happens that we haven’t even gotten around to watching a DVD. That’s what we’re going to do now. At 2:46 am.

I was overruled at the choice of the movie. I suggested Snatch or Wild at Heart or Mission Impossible II or Very Bad Things because I wanted to avoid some creepy won’t-let-me-sleep movie but somehow I didn’t have a chance against the boys voting all for The Crimson Rivers. So I think that if it gets too scary I’m just going to fall asleep on the couch. I’m tired enough to just decide to do that.


Things I Could Always Buy:

1. Tablecloths
2. Bedclothes


21
Mai 2005

Friday Random 10

Because it’s a meme that fits me (and I have nothing else to write about right now). So here we go:

1. Revolution, Robbie Williams (Ooooh, Robbie. Sorry, but I can’t help it.)
2. Angel Eyes, Mel Torme & Cleo Laine (I really like to play that one on the piano, too.)
3. Fly Me To The Moon, Astrud Gilberto (One of the husband’s favourite jazz songs.)
4. All The Things You Are, Joe Pass (Seems I’m having a jazz streak right now. I swear I’m in shuffle mode.)
5. My Immortal, Evanescence (I only have this one because it was on Smallville once. But it is kind of nice.)
6. Eight Half Letters, Stereoblis (Another one from my Smallville collection. This doesn’t seem random shuffle at all.)
7. All I Want, Leona Naess (If you don’t know her you’re really missing something.)
8. Sunday Morning, Maroon 5 (1. Where did they come from? Suddenly Maroon 5 is everywhere. 2. From my Joan of Arcadia collection.)
9. Sweet Misery, Michelle Branch (I really like this song. Should listen to ‚The Spirit Room‘ again.)
10. What Am I Supposed To Say, Lisa Loeb (Great, great, great! I love the somewhat strange refrain… You’re too late. Great. What am I supposed to say? She delivers the line perfectly. Well, she should, she wrote it.)

See, with the comments it’s nearly like a real blog entry instead of a uncreative filler. Also, just so you know, I installed iTunes, so I can at least pretend I have a Mac.


I love my new baby. I do.

Of course, my new baby is my computer which is one of the wonders of technology the world has to offer. Well, it actually isn’t such a wonder at all, it’s just an ordinary standard computer. But if you knew my old one you might understand why I am so incredibly happy.

The best thing? It has a TV tuner card and today we made it work (yes, it took us that long!) and now I can watch TV on my computer, and (that’s the reason I’m really thrilled) once I find the right software, I can also capture TV shows on my computer. That pretty much makes my video collection obsolete and if you knew how much space all the videos I never ever watch but can’t throw away either take up in our living room shelves you would understand why that is important to me.

I can also now play The Sims 2 on my computer and it looks even better. And I can watch my TV shows from my bed with a remote control in my hand, because I can friggin‘ control my computer with a friggin‘ remote control. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Then I don’t have to worry about what files to delete anymore, because I have 250 GB, which compared to the 40 GB I had before feels like a heaven.

And last but not least did I tell you that burning an average CD takes about one sixth of the time it took before.

These are the reasons (or a few of them) why I love this thing. Passionately.

PS: Yes, you got that one right: Me = Geek.



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