Karma killin'.

You know what's hard? Trying to write a TV script that links Kofi Annan and a high-priced four-door luxury sedan. A link that isn't so nauseatingly advertising that I want to jump out the window. A link that kind of actually makes sense. Maybe a link that's even intelligent and meaningful. In approximately 20 seconds.

But I suppose if intelligent and meaningful were on top of my writer's priority list, I wouldn't spend my days in an ad agency trying to use an important peace maker to hock a car that will be en-vogue for a matter of months among perhaps 2% of the world's population.

No match for ________.

In our bathroom, we have a bunch of matchbooks. It's an impressive and ever-evolving collection. And I'm always impressed with how many different ways there are to contain a bunch of match sticks.

But next time you find yourself in our bathroom, take a look around and notice that there isn't a single candle, pilot light, BBQ, campfire, cartoon bomb, firecracker, spliff, cigarette, crack pipe or trail of gunpowder in sight. Yes, the dearth of flammable material in our bathroom is simply undeniable.

But everyone knows why people really keep matches in the bathroom. And the thing about that is, that's not really what matches were invented for. So my question is: what percentage of these consumable tools for lighting a fire under controlled circumstances on demand are actually just used to cover up the smell of poop?

And if that percentage is as high as i think it is, how come no one has created scented matches? Like a miniature, localized scent bomb (that should probably be kept out of reach of children). If no one's ever seen that, let me know, and let's make our million.

Things I learned this past week:

Sleeping on the balcony on a warm summer night is fucking fantastic. It was fresh air and the quiet of the sleeping city mixed with soft sounds from the harbor all night long, followed by bright sunshine and birds chirping in the morning. It was my favorite kind of camping - outdoors but with a full-on mattress and bathroom easily available. Go ahead an call me a pansy. It was wonderful.

And in other summer news, I bagged up my poofy winter clothes and shoved them under the bed, safely out of sight and mind. Symbolic! Satisfying! Space saving!

There's hardly any heroin in my life. We went to the park for a little pre-theater impromptu picnic in a park in a part of the city with a bit more character. As we were walking along the grass looking for a perfect spot, she (only half jokingly) said Be careful not to step on any used syringes. and I chuckled just as I turned my head to see a guy shooting up under a huge oak tree. He had the strap and the inconspicuous look and everything. I realized that I'd really only seen that sorta thing in a movie, and I'm not sure if that's a good or bad. On one hand, it's not the most pleasant reality in the world. On the other hand, it's real life baby.

Apparently I'm not an Economist reader. This makes me feel stupid. I was suprised to find the latest issue - in English! - in my local grocery store. So excited, that I tossed it in my basekt, genuinely interested in inflation and why it's back but not where I think. So far I think I've read about three pages of the thing. I just can't get excited about the world this week.

The AK-47 assault rifle has only seven moving parts. It's that simplicity combined with devastating firepower that has made it such a well recognized symbol of both revolution and terrorism around the world. I've been reading a very interesting book about the history of the AK. Maybe that's why I haven't been reading The Economist.

Having an office at work with a door I can close makes me happy and more productive. And upgrading from a eMac (single hamster) to an iBook (hamster duo) didn't hurt either. My new favorite position is: feet up on the windowsill, laptop on corner of desk just a few degrees from my center, watching the big maple tree wiggle to the wind ouside our big ol' windows, while thinking thinking thinking and writing writing writing.

I can make my own salsa, and making my own salsa makes me happy. It's delicious! I don't know why I didn't do this sooner. The thing about salsa is, you just can't get it (at least not the fresh, non-jar stuff) anywhere around Hamburg. So I looked up some recipes on the web, and found what I should of realized from the beginning: that it's just a bunch of veggies chopped up in a bowl. Duh. So I got a bunch of veggies, a bowl, and a knife, and made it happen. Here's my silly recipe, which I proudly call Salsa1 (sounds like it comes from the Mexican space program):

4 big tomatoes chopped into little pieces.
1/4 cup white onion chopped into little pieces.
1/2 cup cilantro chopped onto little pieces.
1 clove of garlic chopped into tiny pieces or mashed in garlic press.
Some spicy pepper of some sort... enough so it's spicy but not ridiculous.
Mix everything together.
Eat.

Upon further eating, I've decided that I may need to add another quarter cup of onion and one more clove of garlic. And maybe some more spicy pepper. But damn, son - that shit is good. Fresh salsa rules!

Why I must leave this country immediately.

I brought my baseball glove and baseball to the picnic on Saturday, but for a while we couldn't play catch because Sergio, the only other person in Germany with a baseball glove, had to leave for a bit to go look at an apartment and the glove was in his bag. Though really it wouldn't have mattered if he left it, since he's a left, and this was an otherwise right-handed shindig. We're not prejudiced; it just worked out that way.

But then Sebastian had a brilliant brainstorm: why don't we hop on our bikes and ride down the street to the sporting goods store and buy anther glove? I expressed skepticism. It's hard to find a baseball glove in this country - I know because I've tried. Love for baseball seems to be limited to America, Japan, and a few countries in South America. I've looked around a bit, and never found a good source. Oh come on, said Sebastian. Of course they'll have them.

So we hopped on our bikes, rode through the park, out onto the street and into downtown. Weaving with precision between mere pedestrians, from street to street to the bike rack, we locked our bikes with the clink-clank efficiency of a machine. I began to feel optimisic. My search before had been lazy at best. And we were going to a real sporting goods store. This would be easy. We were unstoppable! We entered the mall and bounded down the escalator into the underground store. All the signs of success were there. Racks of Gore-tex, shelves of shoes, balls of all shapes and sizes. This is going to be brilliant, I thought. In a total of ten minutes, we will have acquired a second glove and a beautiful game of catch will ensue. And in the corner, on the bottom of the rack, I saw the baseball gloves.

Kneeling down towards our prize, I could already deduce that these were not the finest gloves in the world, but that their reasonable price (a mere 17 euros!), decent construction, and lack of baseball experience amongst my compatriots would ensure that one of these gloves would fit the bill nicely. It was perfect. I extended my eager hand. But there was something wrong that caused me to pull it back. Some disturbance in the force. A million voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. This was a left-handed glove. And so was the next one. And the next. They were all left-handed gloves! I was kneeling in front of what could possibly be every single baseball glove in the country, and they were all lefties. How could this be?

For those of you who don't know because you are with the terrorists, the thing about baseball gloves is that you wear them on your non-dominant hand. So if you're right-handed like me and most of the world, you put your oh-so-non-symmetrical baseball glove on your left hand, and you throw with your right. If you're left-handed, you can't just strap on a standard baseball glove; you need a left-handed glove that goes on your right hand. I know, I know, it's confusing daddy. But this is just the way it is and always has been. My right-handed glove goes on my left hand. My brother's left-handed glove would go on his right hand if he were a bad-ass catch-playing motherfucker like myself*. But of course, since like 99.99 percent of the population is right-handed, it's really hard to find a left-handed glove (or a suitable chair/desk combination when it's time to take smeary notes in class). If this had been Larry's Left-Handed Sporting Goods Store, I wouldn't have been so shocked. But it wasn't.

As I uttered expletives, as the shock set in, Sebastian started off to find someone to help us. But of course the store was suddenly devoid of help. He found one tall guy standing next to the information counter and dove in, asking for "baseball handschuhe**" I don't sprechen, so I don't know for sure, but it seems like the conversation went something like this:

Sebastian: Excuse me, do you guys have baseball gloves?

Salesguy: No.

Sebastian: Oh. Well, we found some over there, but they're all for left handers.

Salesguy: Oh. Well, those are all we have then.

Sebastian and I looked at each other. This was a rather unsatisfying bit of dialogue coming from a guy I wasn't sure we could trust. He lacked a certain dedication; his pasty white skin and oddly baggy sweatshirt betrayed any sporting confidence he may have had. He wasn't exactly what I would call athletic. And I'm pretty sure he rolled his eyes when Sebastian said the word 'baseball'. Attitude! In fact, neither of us were sure if homeboy actually worked at the store.

This just can't be, I told Sebastian. Do you know how hard it would be to find FOUR left handed gloves in The States? And this place has ONLY THOSE FOUR! What we needed was some knowledgeable in-store guidance, and pronto. So we hightailed it over to an older woman with bifocal glasses, a price scanning gun, standing behind a cash register. She looked at us and her eyes said BRING IT ON BITCHES! So Sebastian asked about the baseball handschuhe. She tilted her head back slowly, letting the challenge sink in, no doubt considering her options. This was our girl. She grabbed the phone and sprechened the Deutsch, machine gun style to whoever was on the other end of the line. Ten seconds later, she hung up and told us to meet a guy right over there who could save us. She found us a guy. Our guy. I wanted to kiss her on the mouth. I refrained.

Unfortunately, this guy was no better than the first. Short and pudgy, with facial hair that was trying way too hard, he looked like the kind of guy who would tell you all about the latest carbon fiber cycling accessories, but then smoke a cigarette while he rides. I would guess he was about sixteen and has never seen the world outside of the tiny German village he came from, and the utopian embrace of Hamburg. And he most certainly didn't know a damn thing about baseball, or helping customers for that matter. We stepped onto the mound with questions and needs, he saddled up to the plate like an overweight catcher with a hang over and an impending divorce.

Sebastian: We're looking for baseball gloves.

Pudgy: Yeah, right over here.

The Pudgster waltzed over to the four lefties, and slid one on his right hand.

Sebastian: Yes. But those are all left-handed gloves.

Pudgy (looking at the glove on his right hand, and then at us like we were the idiots): No. Look. Right hand.

Waterboarding is a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. This was torture.

Sebastian: No, look, it says here on the tag that it's a left-handed glove.

Pudgy: That tag must be wrong.

I'm not making this up. If there were guns in Germany, I would have gone on a shooting spree. I tried to explain.

Me: No, see, if you're right-handed like me, you wear the glove on the left hand, and throw with your right.

I mimed the CATCHING and the THROWING. Pudgy looked at me. He looked at the glove. He took the left-handed glove off his right hand and tried, like a monkey with a rubiks cube, to put it on his right. Obviously, it wouldn't work. I wondered if he was going to stand there (slouch, really) and tell the American how a baseball glove works. Fortunately for all of us, he changed his strategy.

Pudgy: We don't have it then.

Yeah, thanks for the update genius.

Salesguy Number One had recommended another store to try, so with our proverbial tails between our actual legs, Sebastian and I walked back out into the world, without a whole lot of optimism. The second store was fancier than the first, but yielded nothing. We looked around ourselves, found nothing, and then asked a sales guy. Before Sebastian got to the second l in baseball, the guy was already shaking his head with a smirk.

I'm sure that when a young Ghandi first stepped (bare) foot onto western soil, at some point there was a moment where he realized that it just wasn't the place where he belonged (what tasteless advertising asshole blogger compares himself to Ghandi, even as a joke? This one, apparently). I dare say I have a decent understanding of how he must have felt in that moment. I have lots and lots of love in my heart for Deutschland, but there's this feeling I get every time I have to explain why I don't like beer. Or what the word 'douchebag' means. Or how a baseball glove works.






* He doesn't play catch, but he has other bad-ass motherfucking qualities, BELIEVE YOU ME.

** That's right the word for 'glove' literally translates into 'hand shoe'

Summer singlespeed update.

tubes
tires
those anti-flat-tire-strip things that go between the tire and tube (I put some on my Bergamont commuter a year ago, and haven't gotten a flat tire since - totally rad!)

Purchased and installed! I bought Continental 26" slicks and a thing of baby powder to make everything slide together and stay dry. In my (limited, wimpy) experience, it really is the secret weapon when it comes to tires and tubes as it is the original "dry lubricant". Only problem is my roommate Birgit is going to think I'm slinging cocaine since I'm tracking fine white powder all over the apartment.

fork
headset
stem

On order. Or at least the fork is, and the nice guy at the bike shop down the street said he had to order the fork and that the stem and headset are always in stock. I got to choose the color - matte black - and it'll be the correct length for a frame built for suspension. It'll have V brake mounts. Yay! It'll be here in two weeks. Boo!

The rest of the list is looking a lot more manageable since Ricardo sent me a link to Singlespeedshop. Holy crap, they've got everything! All I need to do now is learn the German terms for all the bike parts.

Gabeln = forks
Ketten = chains
Kurbel = crank
Innenlager = bottom bracket
Lenker = bar
Naben = hubs
Ritzel = cog
Steuersätze = headset
Vorbauten = stem
Zubehör = accessories

At the moment I'm filling my spare time up by looking for a crank/chain/cog combo. But I'm having trouble figuring out what width bottom bracket axle will create a proper (whereby 'proper' I mean 'straight') chainline. There seem to be hardly any options are a bunch of options - from 100 to 130mm - and I'll have to get the right one the first time since, there isn't any room for adjustment in this setup.

And once I get the bottom bracket, I add the crank, and who knows where it's going to put the chainring in relation to the chainline? I'm skeered!

The bikes of summer.

MikeAndTiff have a garage full of bike parts and lots of love in their hearts, so when they heard me waxing economical about my difficulty in finding a single speed bicycle that is both super cool and reasonably priced, they offered to donate a frame, wheel set, and more to the Dan P Mobility Fund. So as I type this, my new-to-me, well-loved Santa Cruz Chameleon frame and a pile of parts are hanging out behind me, waiting to become a part of something a little more meaningful.

I'd like to state for the record that this is exactly the right way to add a single speed slash fixie bicycle to one's stable. Since this style of bicycle is so incredibly popular right now (man, who could have seen that coming?) it's getting harder and harder to build one out of used parts, and easier and easier to buy a brand new one from a big bike company. And there's certainly nothing wrong with the latter option - I considered it myself. In fact Kona nearly took 600 of my euros to the bank in exchange for a copy of their Paddy Wagon. I went as far as scheduling a test ride and waiting around the bike shop on a busy Friday evening for someone to help me get it out onto the sidewalk. I left my wallet as collateral, and took to the sidewalk. But it just didn't feel right.

It's a very nice package, the Paddy Wagon. It looks good and rides solidly. I'd switch the drops for a set of narrow flat bars, get it fitting right with the right stem and saddle, add some mounts lights, and ride it all summer long. But there was something missing.

And something is character. A bike you buy at a shop is delicious and filling, but it would take months for it to be as satisfying as something I've built up myself from a combination of old parts from my closet, old parts from MikeaAndTiff's garage, and the shiny new ones I'll buy myself. It's the difference between baking from a box and baking from scratch.

Anyways, parts not in that pile that I'll be purchasing in the weeks to come include the following:

fork
headset
stem

tubes
tires
those anti-flat-tire-strip things that go between the tire and tube (I put some on my Bergamont commuter a year ago, and haven't gotten a flat tire since - totally rad!)

saddle
seat post

crank
bottom bracket
chain
cog
pedals

brake pads
cable and housing for front brake

(Man, I didn't realize how many bike parts there are on a bike until I started building one up piece by piece)

Since I'm a girl on a budget, I can't buy everything all at once. So I organized the parts into groups so I can do the purchasing in phases. I figure the first thing I need to do is take the frame to a bike shop so they can figure out what (rigid, inexpensive) fork is best for the geometry, and then I'll just buy the front end stuff, and have them install the headset cups. I'll put stuff together and bring the frame back home. Then it'll just be one group of stuff at a time until I can ride that mofo home.

The thing about building bikes is you need special tools - a press for the headset cups, wrench for the bottom bracket, chain thing for the chain, others that I can't think of because I've never really done this before. I have to figure out which of those tools are worth buying based on how often I plan on building up a bike. Good tools are pretty expensive of course... and once I get the tires and tubes on the wheels, it'll be easy to just roll the thing back and forth between home and the bike shop. So for the moment, I think I'll just wimp out and have the shop do it for me. Then again, self sufficiency is a virtue. Then again, a pile of heavy single purpose tools may conflict with my somewhat nomadic lifestyle.

Anyways, the only time I really get to hang out at bike shops is on Saturdays. If I can tackle one group each Saturday, then it should take about five weeks to put the whole thing together. Then again, my experience with the local bike shops in Hamburg is that they never have what I want, but are happy to order it for me and call me when it arrives in a week or so. So this may take a while. But no matter - I've got a (mostly) working bike to ride around in the meantime, and it'll be fun to watch the little dude grow into an adult bicycle with some pizzaz as the weeks go on. Exciting!

Now that Spring has sprung.

Slept until nine this morning, woke up to blue sky, sunshine, and stillness. Opened up all the windows in the apartment. Made a perfect cup of coffee, made brownies for the picnic that we're having this afternoon. Sergio said bring your baseball glove to the park. You can be sure I will. Listening to music.

Had a solidly good first week at the new job. Starting to think that maybe things really are okay. Maybe I'm the only one with control over my mood, my destiny. And maybe...

just maybe...

I'm

(gasp!)

happy.

(and that sunshine sure does help)

Decisions, decisions...

A few months ago my friend Caroline convinced me that one should always take a day off from work on one's birthday. It didn't take much convincing... in fact all it took was a simple demonstration.

So here I am sitting in my room in my pajamas with my feet up on this, my day of birth. It's Tuesday, and the sun is shining in Hamburg. The sky is blue, there's a cool breeze blowing, and I have the whole day ahead of me. What am I going to do with it?

I'm writing and re-writing a list in my head of possibilities and desires; there are a few things that keep popping up consistently: do a little writing (check!) go outside, and buy something fun for myself. As long as I go shopping in the real world and not online, the outside part will be taken care of, so that leaves me with this question: what should I buy?

Top of the list is a PlayStation 3. Tom came to visit and we drove to the Nürburgring and got a ride around the track, and ever since, the car guy in me has been jumping up and down in my brain trying to get me to play with him. Seated in that black 911 GT3, hugged by six point harnesses and watching german forest fly past me at great speed, I began to form a plan that would enable me to drive the track and feel good about it. The plan goes like this:

1. Buy a PlayStation 3 and Gran Turismo.
2. Pick a weekend several months into the future, book a rental race car and a spot in the BMW Ring Taxi.
3. Drive the virtual Nordschleife over and over again until I have it memorized.
4. Go to Nürburgring and drive the rented race car on it, feel like a god, and fulfill a life-long dream.

The good news is that Saturn, the Circuit City of Deutschland, sells the PS3 and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue as a package! But there's a bunch of bad news:

* That's the prologue, not the complete game, which won't be out for a few months.
* The prologue doesn't have the Nürburgring. GT5 will have it, but no one seems to know when GT5 will be released
* It's 399 euros. That's a lot!

Still, one look at the videos of GT5P is nearly enough to convince me to shower up and head on down to Saturn RIGHT NOW. Oops, I just watched video that opens the GT5P site, and now I'm thinking of skipping the SHOWER. Could there be a more perfect birthday present for a 32 year old kid to buy himself? Maybe I'll just ride my bike over to Saturn and check it out... maybe I'll bring my big shoulder bag just in case...

A day of firsts.

Today is the first day I've made coffee on my own in quite some time. And the first time in a long time may not TECHNICALLY be a first, but it's been long enough that I'm sitting here thinking damn, I should have done this years ago even though TECHNICALLY it's only been weeks. Sometimes everything is a matter of technicalities, I suppose.

What happened weeks ago that made me make coffee was this: Tom came to visit me, and in doing so became the first person in the friend, non-family-member category to come see me in Deutschland. And we had a great old time. Okay, so maybe he didn't come just to see me, maybe he really just came to pick up his brand new, silver, four-door, BMW 335i (see? technicalities!)... but he drove it to my house and we hung out for four days, which was totally rad. We went to the Nürburgring via the autobahn, which was also totally rad.

Tom gets major points not only for the quality of his purchase (that's a pretty sweet ride), but also for understanding that even though my friend from a hundred years ago was in town and sleeping on my futon (technically, it's my roommate's futon; NOTE TO SELF: buy Birgit flowers), a brother still has to go to work every day. Indeed, if I had asked JvM for a few more days off in what is already major vacation time, no doubt they would have offered a few days + the rest of my career, you slacker lame-ass. So GO TOM for a) understanding and b) entertaining yourself while I was doing the work thing.

The other first (I've already finished the coffee; it was fantastic, and in a very small glass, which is probably for the best) is this: I'm starting work at a new group within JvM today. After a year-and-a-half or so in one unit, it's time for a change of scenery. The new group differs from the old group in many ways, including the following:

1. it's way bigger. Like 80 people instead of 15.

2. It's way more German. As in they sprechen the Deutsch all the time, as opposed to just when arguing during meetings (which I understand... it's way easier to argue in your native tongue). Obviously, this is going to be quite challenging. In fact it may not work at all.

3. It's way more machine like. Meaning they pump out work like some sort of caffeinated, 24-hour advertising factory as opposed to the lazy/crazy/lazy/crazy up-and-down-ness of my old spot. Peek under the hood of this machine, and you'll see lots of internal competition, high revs, and lots of pressure. And the occasional flame-spitting backfire.

So this is why I had a bit of trouble sleeping last night, which is why my little eyeballs popped open around 6am, which is why I had plenty of time to make coffee, and contemplate this day of firsts. So much has been going on with me lately* - trip to Italy, Ritter Sport Challenge, VIP passes to the German Touring Car Championship at Hockenheim, Tom's visit, two weeks in America, Spring finally springing, etc. - that it would be easy for this coffee thing to slip under the radar. But after a few weeks of GO GO GO, it's time to for a little home-made coffee and contemplation. Technically speaking, it's exactly what I need.


* I plan to blog on all of this**.

** Promise***.

*** No, really.

Ritter Sport Review #4

Flavor:

Marc de Champagne (Milk chocolate with champagne filling)

Sweetness: 0 out of 5

Yuck! Gross! Blech! I practically spit this one out the moment I opened the package (dramatic!). I don't really like alcohol flavor in chocolate, and I don't like champagne at all. So I suppose you could say that my relationship with this chocolate bar was doomed from the start. Nevertheless, I popped a square into my talking hole as a conciliatory gesture; an effort to preempt any ill-will between me and this chocolate. What a mistake. I should have tossed it out the window. The aroma is BAD, the flavor is BAD, the aftertaste is BAD. The chocolate is okay, but the filling is awful, and the whole thing is so sharply sweet it was like chewing on tacks. And there must be a lot of alcohol in there because it does that thing that alcohol does - it wafts up into your sinus cavity and stings. Bah! Fuck you Marc de Champagne!

Texture: 4 out of 5

Okay, so despite the fact that this bar is basically disgusting, I can't fault it's texture too much. The milk chocolate is soft, but not too soft. The champagne filling is a little too soft (boo) but at least it's not liquid (yay!). Liquid _whatever_ in chocolate usually bugs the crap out of me. So given all that, I'm bestowing upon this bar four points for texture. It should probably be three, but I'm feeling a little guilty since there are so many zeroes surrounding the four..

Devourability: 0 out of 5

I didn't even finish this one. I think I had two squares. Ew.


Frequency: 0 out of 5

Yeah.

Overall: 4 out of 20, but only because I'm a nice guy.

Ritter Sport Review #3

Flavor:

Pfefferminz (Dark chocolate with peppermint filling)

FULL DISCLOSURE: This is already one of my favorites.

Sweetness: 4 out of 5

Hot damn! The combination of dark chocolate and perfect peppermint delecticality makes for a near-perfect balance of sweetness. If I at too many squares at once, it would probably be too sweet; but one at a time, and it's like little squares of heaven.

Texture: 5 out of 5

The chocolate has exactly the right bite, and the peppermint is smooth as hell. It's minty perfection. It's refreshment times sixteen. I want to fuck this chocolate bar.

Devourability: 4 out of 5

Yep, this one didn't last too long, though like i said above, I can't eat it too fast. But that's really more of a beauty mark than a mole.

Frequency: 5 out of 5

I could eat this every day until the end of time, if only because it makes my pee smell like peppermint. Seriously.

Overall: 18 out of 20

Ritter Sport Review #2

Flavor:

Erdbeer Joghurt (milk chocolate with strawberry yogurt filling)

Sweetness: 3 out of 5

Wow, this mofo is sweet. The chocolate is sweet, the fruity filling is sweet, it's all just a tornado of sweetness stabbing me in the throat. Not as obnoxious as some cheap POS chocolate bar, but too sweet for me.

Texture: 4 out of 5

The chocolate is creamy, the yogurt is creamy, and the crispies are crispy. Crispies? Yes. What I thought were little rice crispies are in fact, according to Ricardo, who always seems to know about these kinds of things, dried strawberries. Clever! And a delightfully contrasty addition. I like. The whole thing feels light and Spring-y... though ironically, it's not part of the Spring collection.

Devourability: 2 out of 5

It's tasty, but a little too sweet for me to want to shove the whole thing in my gullet all at once. This one needs to be enjoyed in small bits over time.

Frequency: 1 out of 5

You know what doesn't belong in chocolate? Fruit. Here, they've done a nice job of putting together two things that don't go together... but still. No.

Overall: 10 out of 20

Yeah, this was a fun little trip into girly chocolate territory. But I'm ready to take off the dress and have a Halbbitter.

Ritter Sport Review #1!

Flavor:

Mandelsplitter Bio (milk chocolate with chopped almonds, organic)

Sweetness: 4 out of 5

I'm really a dark chocolate guy, but I dig Ritter Sport's milk chocolate because it's not too sugary sweet (like Milka) and it tastes like real chocolate, and not like chocolate's plasticky cousin from LA who visits for the weekend to mess up your apartment and do drugs on your coffee table (like Hershey). So I'll give it a good sweetness rating because for milk chocolate, it's the right level of sweetocity.

Texture: 2 out of 5

This bugged me - the almonds are chopped too fine, and there are too many of them. Too many almonds! It was like having a mouth full of ground up wood (I've always found the almond to be the woodiest of nuts). The chocolate texture was perfect, though. Like I said, Ritter Sport does milk good.

Devourability: 3.5 out of 5

Despite the texture issues, once I started I couldn't stop. Maybe it's the mix of salty (the almonds, of course) and sweet (the chocolate, duh) that kept my fingers in a strict back and forth pattern. My half bar only lasted as long as it takes to walk from my office, downstairs, across the street, and up the elevator. About four minutes, I think.

Frequency: 2 out of 5

Yeah, I'm not going to be buying this one too often. Or ever, I think. But if you have one, I'll take a square or two. Thanks in advance!

Overall: 11.5 out of 20

I liked it, but it didn't change my life. It had a one thing going against it from the very beginning - that it's milk chocolate instead of dark. And adding almonds and making the whole thing organic just couldn't overcome that hurdle.

And here's a link to Shelley's review.

The Great Rittersport Challenge of 2008

I'm pleased to announce that both Shelley (fellow former MAS'er, current co-worker, long-time bad-ass) and I have decided to join together and take our love for all things sweet, more specifically our addiction to chocolate (the first step is admitting it to yourself), to the next level. Starting today (Monday), we are embarking upon our very own Ritter Sport Challenge. The goal (if you could really call it a goal) is to eat one Ritter Sport candy bar a day until we've tasted allannals the Ritter Sports that Ritter Sport currently offers. It's an undertaking that we're willing to... er... undertake because we love you, dear reader, and we want you to know what all the flavors are, if only vicariously through us. You're welcome.

But we're not just going to try each one, we're going to keep track so that each flavor will be properly (ha!) documented and entered into the annuls of human history as is befitting of such a righteous candy bar. Which is a fancy way of saying that I'm going to use this as an excuse to blog, and Shelley's going to sketch stuff with her superfly illustration skillz.

So if we're going to rate each bar, we need some sort of criteria, right? Right! We'll rate each one with the following criteria:


Sweetness. Is it sugary and sweet like someone from San Diego, or is it dark and bitter like a JvM employee?

Texture. What does the chocolate feel like in your mouth? How does it 'bite' and how does it melt? is it gooey or crunchy or both? And more importantly, do you like it that way?

Devourablility. Are you satisfied with a little nip every now and then? Or do you want to cram that motherfucker in your mouth as fast as possible?

Frequency. Is this the kinda thing you're going to eat everyday? Or is this a once-in-a-while, just-because-it's-Tuedsay sorta thing?


So each day, we'll try a flavor, write down what we think rate it with the criteria, and post it. In the end, we'll have something approaching a complete review of the entire Ritter Sport product line, which I think we can all agree has been needed for some time now.

And since this is a web-based endeavor, I've created a FAQ for your viewing pleasure; partly to answer any questions ya'll might have, and partly because I just think it's funny to have a FAQ containing questions that no one has actually asked; I just made them up completely. Irony alert!


FAQ:

So, you're just doing this so you can eat chocolate everyday and not feel bad about it right?

Yes. That and both Shelley and I share a genuine desire to taste all the different flavors RRitter Sport has to offer so that when we're with friends in the grocery store, and they ask if we've tried this flavor or that, we can say "Yeah, sure, I've tried that one" and dismiss it like some super hipster chocolate god.

Are the flavors really that different?

We're gonna find out. Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate, with/out nuts, fruity, alcoholly... there's a lot of flavors. And each package is a different color. Pretty!

Come on Dan, we all know you eat one Ritter Sport per day. Haven't you had all the flavors by now?

It's true, I eat them all the time. But I'm not just a gluttonous pig - I'm also a creature of habit. That means I've really only sampled a few flavors often enough to really form an opinion about them - Marzipan, Halbitter, Edel Bitter, Mousse au Chocolat, Pfefferminz are the ones I eat all the time. The rest are like Ringo Starr songs: I have an idea of what they'll be like, but I'm pretty sure I won't like them.

Well, how many flavors are there?

33! That's a lot!


Okay, we ordered (from Ritter Sports fab website http://Ritter Sport.de/) the Kennenlern-Paket (the "get acquainted package") which comes with the 19 standard flavors...

Voll Erdnuss (milk chocolate with whole peanuts)
Knusperflakes (milk chocolate with cornflakes)
Weisse Voll-Nuss (white chocolate with whole nuts)
Cappucino (milk chocolate with coffee flavor filling)
Voll-Nuss (milk chocolate with hazelnuts)
Knusperkeks (milk chocolate with caramel and a cookie)
Trauben Nuss (not sure what this one is)
Dunkel Voll-Nuss (dark chocolate with hazelnuts)
Halbbitter (bittersweet)
Rum Trauben Nuss (rum chocolate with nuts and raisins)
Marzipan (dark chocolate with marzipan filling)
Erdbeer Joghurt (milk chocolate with strawberry yogurt filling)
Edel-Bitter (dark chocolate - 71%)
Nugat (milk chocolate with nougat filling)
Vollmilch (whole milk milk chocoate)
Aplenmilch (milk chocolate made with milk from the Alps?)
Pfefferminz (dark chocolate with peppermint filling)
Dunkle Vollmilch (dark and milk chocolate)
Ganze Mandel (milk chocolate with almonds)
a la Mousse au Chocolat (dark chocolate with mousse filling)
Cocos (milk chocolate with coconut filling)
Joghurt (milk chocolate with plain yogurt filling)

Plus, there's the Frühlingssorten (the Spring assortment), which we're going to have to buy on our own.

Marc de Champagne Trüffel (champagne truffle)
Eierlikör Trüffel (egg nog truffle)
Ramazzoti Trüffel (Ramazzoti truffle)

And then there's the Diät (diet, of course) flavors, which we'll reluctantly try, and sneer at because if we were into this half-hearted lightweight low impact diet bullshit we probably wouldn't be doing this whole shindig in the first place.

Diät Vollmilch (milk chocolate)
Diät Nugat (milk chocolate with nougat)
Diät Joghurt (milk chocolate with plain yogurt)
Diät Halbbiter (dark chocolate)

Last but not least is the Bio selection. This is a recent addition to the Ritter Sport selection. "Bio" is German for organic and fair trade, so these are the Earth-friendly Ritter Sports, I suppose. Curiously, the bars are smaller (65g instead of 100g), and even curiously-er, Shelley seems to think that the Bio bars and the Diät bars are the same. Not so! New group. And here they are:

Mandelsplitter (milk chocolate and almonds)
Vollmilch (whole milk)
Trauben Cashew (still don't know)
Feinherb (dark chocolate)


So that's it for now! I look forward to posting a fresh new Ritter Sport review soon. Delicious!

344 words on why my new-to-me Porsche jacket is awesome.

As part of her never-ending quest to get rid of everything, mom gave me one of dad's old jackets. It's this totally awesome black, lightweight, poofy, wind-proof jacket with a fake fur collar, multi-colored piping, and a Porsche patch. The reasons I love this jacket are as follows:

1. It's actually really vintage, and I know this is true.

You know how you go into the vintage clothing store and you see all these clothes that you love because you think they're from a different era, and have had a life leading up to the day you find them? Well, how do you know this is true? Call me paranoid, but since the vintage crazy began, I've had an image in my head of devious shop owners buying new clothes that have been made to look old, roughing them up, adding a few patches, and jacking up the price. And even if that's not true*, what is true is that you don't know the history or even if there is a history. The elbow patch on that intriguingly worn army-issue jacket may be covering a hole that developed from frequent masturbation to "mature" porn. WELL, there are no such shenanigans here! This here is a genuine 80's-style jacket from the actual 80s. Dad bought it and wore it for twenty years.

2. The fucking fat/phat fake fur collar is both fun and functional.

Looks great, keeps my neck warm, feels oh-so-nice against my soft and girly skin. And no cute n' furry animals died in the making.

3. Porsches are rad cars.

This is indisputable.

I wore it for the first time today; it kept me toasty warm all the way to the Knuth Cafe & Bar where I am currently sitting. I didn't see any other jackets like this one on the walk over... having an un-trendy father is most certainly a blessing.

* or perhaps I should say even though this notion is completely ridiculous

Further proof that any publicity is good publicity.

Attendance up at San Francisco Zoo following fatal tiger attack

What do you want to bet that the whole thing was just a pre-planned (if ironically-named) exercise in guerilla advertising put on by some outside-the-box-thinking newbies at a local ad school? Hey, whatever it takes to tip that point.

The ex-pat conundrum.

Jeez-louise, it's been forever since I've written in this blog. I blame work - the last three months of 2007 were relentless - but I'm back to a more normal way of life now. At least until things at work pick up again.

I was home in California for the last two weeks of December. How was it? It was exactly like you think it was - cold, but way less cold than Germany. Blue skies. Old friends. Family. Christmas presents. Too much eating. It was great, except maybe for one small thing - enough has changed back home that it doesn't quiiiiiiiiite feel like home anymore. And Hamburg is great, but it's never like home home. So I find myself hip-deep in the ex-pat conundrum. A (hopefully temporary) state of inbetweenity.

<patronizing speech written in third-person where when I say "you" of course I really mean "me">
See, when you leave your home town/city/state/country to see the world, you do it with the idea that home will always be there for you to return to when you get sick of expanding your horizons. But what you forget is that home will continue to evolve and change while you're gone. The longer you're gone, the more it changes. It'll never change so much that you can't go back. But it'll change just enough so that you're not 100% sure you belong.

And what you didn't realize is that as you explore, you'll meet new people, do new things, discover new interests, and forge new relationships out there in the world. All this stuff - good and bad - installs itself in your experience, and you change a little bit too. Not enough that you no longer fit into your old home; but enough that it feels a little less like home. Which is an oddly uncomfortable feeling similar to having a small rock in your shoe that you can't seem to isolate no matter how you jiggle your feet or wiggle your toes.

And as you build a new existence in your new place, it starts to feel more and more like home, but it will never feel like home because a) the percentage of your life you've spent there is tiny, and b) you still have one metaphorical foot in your native land.

So you find yourself in between two states of being. And you wonder if it'll always be this way. And that makes you kind of sad.
</patronizing speech written in third-person where when I say "you" of course I really mean "me">

And I know all this is true because I've talked to at least one other person, and she confirmed it. Though she sort of followed up by saying "you can be happy anywhere." Well that may be true. But it doesn't mean anywhere can feel like home.