Wednesday, June 30, 2004
New MP3 from Dude Dude Chick: I'm the Man in the Changing Room (ca. 3.5 MB). [more]
Posted by Daev @ 07:24 PM CST [Link]
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
You've certainly gotten a chain email or two in your life. And admit it: the first time it happened, you sent it on, disregarding any voice of reason from your gut or from anyone a little older or more experienced. Oh how young we were...
Now we are older, more skeptical, more bitter, more vindictive. Whenever I get one of those damn chain-mailings, I do a quick search on a site like Break the Chain and forward the link back to sender, along with a lusty e-toungue-lashing. Those jackbooted fools who murdered my sense of wonder.
Anyhooties, you are all hip to the Microsoft fwd-this-email-we-track-it-and-pay-you-cash BS. In this article here they get to the bottom of it. Skip the banalities of the first page; it gets interesting at the bottom half of page two. Yes, they found the originator of the hoax; more interestingly, they showed that said originator is not up for a sound smiting.
Posted by Daev @ 07:51 PM CST [Link]
Here's That text we used today and yesterday. Wednesday folks, don't look; we might still use it tomorrow.
Posted by Daev @ 05:55 PM CST [Link]
Friday, June 25, 2004
Sweet!
A photoshop contest for Dresden's own Frauenkirche!
[more]
Posted by Daev @ 06:11 PM CST [Link]
I don't know why, but stories like this one make my eyes go bloodshot and endorphines squirt around in my brain.
SALT LAKE CITY June 25, 2004 — For more than 50 years, rancher Waldo Wilcox kept most outsiders off his land and the secret under wraps: a string of ancient Indian settlements so remarkably well-preserved that arrowheads and beads are still lying out in the open.
Archaeologists are calling it one of the most spectacular finds in the West.
Hidden deep inside Utah's nearly inaccessible Book Cliffs region, 130 miles from Salt Lake City, the prehistoric villages run for 12 miles and include hundreds of rock art panels, cliffside granaries, stone houses built halfway underground, rock shelters, and the mummified remains of long-ago inhabitants.
The site was occupied for at least 3,000 years until it abandoned more than 1,000 years ago, when the Fremont people mysteriously vanished.
I get this weird feeling also when I look at pictures of James Hampton's throneroom, or of UNIVAC, or when I listen to Debussy's "Sunken Cathedral", or when I hold my crash cymbal, a 90 year old made-in-Istanbul Zildjian K, on my lap and appreciate its hand-hammering.
On the other hand, my favorite part in This Is Spinal Tap is the Stonehenge scene. I laugh till I cry everytime.
Posted by Daev @ 05:01 PM CST [Link]
I took this online colortest and it turns out I am colorblind as a colorbat. It's not funny. Think you can score any better?
Posted by Daev @ 06:18 AM CST [Link]
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
BBC --The world's most difficult word to translate has been identified as "ilunga" from the Tshiluba language spoken in south-eastern DR Congo.
It came top of a list drawn up in consultation with 1,000 linguists.
Ilunga means "a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time".
That's easy: that's a "kristin" (my fourth of seven wives) nyuk nyuk nyuk....
Seriously, though. Places one and two are hard enough, but they shoulda asked the Saxons about number three.
Nüü?
Posted by Daev @ 05:29 PM CST [Link]
And now for some lowbrow (reads: crude) humor at the expense Cologne's second best-known odor: the Kelly Family. [more]
Posted by Daev @ 02:24 PM CST [Link]
Your input will be a significant one. We should
cherish it with a view to facilitating the proceeding of this
study. -- Ancient Taiwanese Proverb
My mom, who works at a University in Nashville, got this email from a university in Taiwan regarding some kind of study. Nobody could figure out what the hell they wanted, so it was forwarded to me, instead.
Subject: Survey questionnaire for international institutions from
Taiwan Da-Yeh university.
Dear Faculty,staff
First, we thank you for taking time to fill in especially this questionnaire. This is a questionnaire pertaining to an academic study with objective chiefly to understand factors underlying the
development of self-owned education branded commemoratory merchandise by higher educational institute; it is expected to have results that serve as a basis on which institute may in future
develop merchandise as well as references provided to educational institutions in Taiwan that wish to develop their own branded merchandises... [more]
Posted by Daev @ 07:09 AM CST [Link]
Hey, I thought you guys were supposed to be closed. Never fear, they said, we will at the end of this week -- for real this time. Then they're gonna move.
Posted by Daev @ 06:46 AM CST [Link]
Monday, June 21, 2004
It looks like Sven is going to produce the next Pet Shop Boys album, which will be called Panzerkreuzer Potemkin. It's supposed to be a pop album, but apparently also a concept album. I'm not making this up.
I know this because he called me today from London to ask me to translate a music business word needed to negotiate his contract. That's right, kids. David Seezen -- Rock n' Roll English Consultant. I think I'll have that printed on my business cards.
Update: July 3rd
Since I noticed this entry being linked to several fansites, I thought I might elaborate a bit more.
Sven Helbig co-founded the Dresdner Sinfoniker and produced the Torsten Rasch/Rammstein project Mein Herz Brennt last year. He also did some orchestral arrangements on a recent Rammstein album.
I've known Sven several years; he was one of my teachers at the conservatory in Dresden, and since then I have helped him out occasionally with business correspondence-type letters and the like.
Sven is a workaholic as well as a fantastic drummer.
Posted by Daev @ 02:04 PM CST [Link]
Sunday, June 20, 2004
BRN Conclusion
With chronic sprinkles and cool, bleak weather, this BRN was more like DRN: Drab Republik Neustadt.
And what with all of my tentative BRN gigs dissolving at the last minute, I found myself playing more the part of spectator than participant. This was OK, because there was lots to see and hear and buy. Lots of bands playing... up on stage... instead of my band... dammit.
The good news is that, according to the shopkeepers whom I surveyed, there were no riots or mass arrests like two years ago, or even last year. I would attribute this to three factors. First, would be that it was Mother Nature's time of the month (pardon the off-color expression). Secondly, and for the second year, the ban on glass beer bottles. Thirdly, the fuzz made itself even less noticable than before. Oh yeah, they were there; we won't know exactly how many there were until they say so in tomorrow's SZ.
Celebrity sighting: Remember that young guy, Schreiber from the CDU? You know, the one with the gangsta grip thumbs up? I saw him and tried to get a picture of him doing that gesture, but he was busy.
Panama was, as always, an oasis to escape the rush of the mob. I went there yesterday, and greeted those rectangular-eyed goats with my "mne-e-e-e-e", which I had once learned by observing them at great length. The goats suddenly fell deadly silent and looked at me. I tried to walk away unnoticed, but they followed me with their gazes. Then all Hell broke loose as they proceded to butt the crap out of each other. The sheep have been conspicuously abscent for some time, but just next by you can visit the rabbit hutch where Little Wee was born. You can still visit her mom and dad; some siblings and nephews and nieces are also to be seen.
Forty Whacks
If you think you can smile
Before the verdict at your trial
You might make enemies.
Enemies waiting in line
For the payment of your fine
Against their tragedies.
On this day in 1893 Lizzie Borden was aquitted for the dual muder of her father and step-mother. This was the first murder stateside that ever attained national press coverage, as callous as that sounds. While circumstantial evidence stood overwhelmingly in favor of conviction, prosecution was unable to provide a shred of hard, irrefutable evidence of her guilt. Aside from that, she wasn't black.
While most believe that Lizzie got away with the Perfect Crime, I disagree. Even though she beat the rap and moved into a multi-storey mansion, she lived out the rest of her life a reclusive Pariah--prison, occupation: one. And what red-blooded American kid doesn't know the following rhyme (except me, apparently):
Lizzie Borden took an ax
Gave her mother forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one!
Posted by Daev @ 05:12 PM CST [Link]
Friday, June 18, 2004
The Pump Don't Work ('cause the vandals took the handle)
Oh boy oh boy. It's BRN time once again. Too bad I have to work in the morning.
Posted by Daev @ 11:54 AM CST [Link]
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Here is the Fox News review of Moore's new film. Check it out, for you'll surely be either surprised or relieved.
Posted by Daev @ 01:29 PM CST [Link]
Marrakech to Close -- if permanent still uncertain.
The musicbar Marrakech, located on Rothenburger Strasse and across from Capito, will close its doors after tonight's last hurrah. [more]
Posted by Daev @ 01:11 PM CST [Link]
Monday, June 14, 2004
Nickelbag of the same-ole same-ole. Stereo split of two completely different songs that sound awfully similar.
This is almost as amusing as watching the Dark Side of the Moon while listening to the Wizard of Oz.
Posted by Daev @ 02:41 PM CST [Link]
Saturday, June 12, 2004
Oh Lighten Up, Lasagna Breath
The Garfield (tm) generator linked below has been apparently shut down.
Dig: [more]
Posted by Daev @ 06:06 PM CST [Link]
This Sunday in Lisbon -- responding to to the England v. France game-- the fuzz's message to would-be English hooligans:
it's safe to toke up. Drunks, however, may be denied entry to the stadium.
Also:
Rember, guys, how I asked you about the other meaning of the word "compromise"?
"I hate to say this, but I quite frankly felt that these officers had compromised their position. I remember thinking, ‘I cannot believe we are standing underneath a tree and we cannot see if this guy has a weapon pointed at us.’ "
So there. See? I don't always just make stuff up. That was from a story about cops tasering a treed burglary suspect. His accomplice claimed that:
"He inherited the property from his grandfather, the "famous investor, Merrill Lynch."
He said he and [the tasered guy] were there to dig up gold and silver buried by his grandfather.
Detectives noted, however, that Merrill Lynch isn’t a person. Instead, it is an investment firm formed in 1915 by Charles Merrill and Edmund Lynch.
And to think I probably would have fallen for that line...
Posted by Daev @ 05:02 PM CST [Link]
Friday, June 11, 2004
Some more photos online. Not really relevant to this Blog, so I put them here.
Posted by Daev @ 02:42 PM CST [Link]
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Torsten is the frenetic, witty, sometimes juvenile, ex-trumpeter who runs Spät Schicht, a Spätshop on Bischoffsweg, roughly across the street from Cafe Ole.
Therefore, it goes without saying that he mostly greets me with a few banal conversational English tidbits (though he doesn't speak English) before bringing up whatever manure my country has been tramping around in most recently.
A fave theme of his is the (translated) works of a Mr. Moore.
[more]
Posted by Daev @ 08:38 PM CST [Link]
Garfield random panel sequence generator.
It is funny.
Posted by Daev @ 03:25 PM CST [Link]
Wednesday, June 9, 2004
Octogenarian builds ghost town.
"And that's pretty nice in this day of high tech games and short attention spans."
Posted by Daev @ 05:50 PM CST [Link]
It's good have a little scratch again. I went out and got some rechargeable batteries for my digital camera.
Posted by Daev @ 08:08 AM CST [Link]
Tuesday, June 8, 2004
They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.
Who wrote that? Dresden's most notable American former guest. No, not Lord Bishop. This dude.
Posted by Daev @ 06:02 PM CST [Link]
Monday, June 7, 2004
You'd live in a cave--albeit with a modem to read my blog--to not know by now that Ronnie Raygun has gone off to the big Bedtime for Bonzo in the sky.
Aside from all this and that, I must admit I feel sadness. As a wee little child, Reagan was for me the next best thing to Superman. So strong, so charming, so good looking. As a grownup, I later learned other stuff, like this bit from a certain Hitchens.
But this blog is not the place to pass judgement. I do try very hard to keep this area clear of my own opinions. But as you mighta guessed, I am a fan of syncronicity and almanacs and the like. So instead here is what happened this weekend.
[more]
Posted by Daev @ 08:28 PM CST [Link]
Over the weekend, the guys in blue overalls changed the doors. Then they changed the locks. On Monday, we couldn't get in. Possibly, that could happen again Tuesday and Wednesday. UPDATE:
The lovely Miss Scheel informs me that:
lt. Herr Kühne ist das Schloss in DÜR-274 wieder entfernt, sodass der Unterricht
in diesem Raum wieder gewährleistet ist. So there you go. [more]
Posted by Daev @ 07:33 PM CST [Link]
It's great to also have smaller groups like the one on Mondays. They're a bit more advanced, and also have advanced fun. For example, today's lesson. First we got locked out and went on classroom safari. Then we had a nice presentation, then we made matchstick rockets. Then we launched them.
Needless to say, we had a large time.
Oh yeah, there's a written assignment too.
Some rockets just fizzled out while others flew over three meters horizontally.
[more]
Posted by Daev @ 01:38 PM CST [Link]
Sunday, June 6, 2004
Pssst... Wanna buy a catapult?
Posted by Daev @ 03:39 PM CST [Link]
Friday, June 4, 2004
Here's a dandy little keypad game to tighten up your lowly data entry skills. Mom, get back to work.
Posted by Daev @ 08:54 PM CST [Link]
Thursday, June 3, 2004
Say it ain't so, GI Joe. But no.
Posted by Daev @ 10:28 PM CST [Link]
Jazz or Sex or Soup
----Allen Ginsberg
Daev C. Zen Senior Recital
April 18th 1997 In the Rafters
---A flyer I made for my senior recital which, no, was not approved for posting.
Yippy birthday to the late Allen Ginsberg, the anti-Patrick Henry of the beat movement.
Here's one for the Ginsu:
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by mediocrity, still living with their parents,
dragging themselves through the Starbucks' spralls at
dawn looking for an angry dayjob, angelheaded fratboys burning for the
late 70's Electric Company connection to the New Transformers dynamo in the nostalgia of
back when no one--save Big Bird--believed in the existence of Snuffaluffagus . . ."
I must admit, I haven't really read all that much from him; but still, I think the coolest thing he did was this testimony at the Czechago 7 civil suit.
No, really, Czech it out. It's like cliffnotes and a court case in one!
Posted by Daev @ 08:47 PM CST [Link]
I was waiting to get a ride to my gig today at the old Reise Kneipe, and I was not well at ease. This was the second gig where I played the entire evening alone. Besides which, last week's gig a Marakech with the trio was a disaster. The Reise Kneipe is in the Neustadt, not really too far to walk by any means, but I didn't want to have to go the whole way by foot bringing the Fender amp. I'm borrowing that from Ecki.
[more]
Posted by Daev @ 07:28 PM CST [Link]
Story about a twister.My favorite part of the article:
The tornado picked up some of Jim Clark's farm equipment and rolled it into another field half a mile away. The equipment was hard to identify after being mangled by the tornado. It also ripped two round granaries off the foundations and tore them into four pieces.
Posted by Daev @ 12:26 PM CST [Link]
Here's the trailer for that new film that did so well at Cannes.
Posted by Daev @ 12:11 PM CST [Link]
Wednesday, June 2, 2004
It is 1899 and Denzel Washington, the American president, orders Anne Frank and her troops to storm the beaches of Nazi-occupied New Zealand.
Gasp.
The above is the findings of a survey of British children between the ages of 10 and 14. The article was supplied by the Telegraph, which is owned by Australian fascist Rupert Murdoch, who also owns the Fox news network.
My comment: I don't even need to delve into how misinformed I was at that age about that.
Rest assured, yellow journalism is here to stay.
Posted by Daev @ 08:48 PM CST [Link]
Tuesday, June 1, 2004
Hey it's Pentecost break. None of my students are reading this, so for the other fifty or so readers, here's the new Dude Dude Chick Mp3: Somothatime (1.8 Meg)
Posted by Daev @ 08:55 PM CST [Link]
